Quiet as a Mouse || Abused Spencer Reid

Chapter Twelve - Autonomy

   The first thing Spencer noticed when he woke up was that he was exhausted. That bone-deep, inevitable exhaustion he usually got after a particularly bad meltdown. But he was in a hospital. He knew from the sickeningly sterile smell and the soft murmurs of multiple people beside him. Upon opening his eyes, it was his team. All of them, sat in those little plastic chairs. 

   He blinked himself awake and tried to sit up, at which JJ quickly ushered him back into a lying position. 

   "Take it easy, Spence. You just woke up." 

   "I'm fine." He cleared his throat, not knowing what to say. How to start this conversation that was inevitably bound to happen, no matter how much he just wanted to crawl back into his little dark cave of secrets and concealed injuries. 

   "We're gonna have to talk about it, Reid." Rossi said carefully, noticing his silence. 

   "I know. Just... I didn't want this to happen." 

   "The abuse, or us finding out about it?" 

   Reid cringed at the word used. "It sounds so bad when you say that word with it." 

   JJ raised her eyebrows. "Because it is. Spence, Carter is a criminal now. He's been found by the police, and they took him into custody." The young doctor sat up at that information. 

   "He was what? No, no no no.. that's not right. That's not.. He wasn't abusing me, he was- he was helping me get better!" Spencer felt suddenly incredibly angry, tears leaping to his eyes. He was aware that he probably looked hysterical, but it didn't matter. Not right now. 

   (They already knew he was a whiny child.) 

   "He beat you and manipulated you. How could that possibly be making you better?" Hotch countered. Reid flinched at that. 

   "He told me what was wrong with me and I tried to make it up to him. I tried to make it better, Hotch, I tried! I shut up and I stayed out of the way but I couldn't even do that properly." 

   "There is nothing wrong with you, Reid. He saw an opportunity to manipulate you because of your autism, and he used that to his advantage. Listen to me, Spencer. That is not your fault. You are more than just a vessel for insecure men's abuse." 

   Spencer rubbed furiously at his teary eyes, the words trying to weasel their way into his mind against his will. He didn't want to believe them. He didn't want it to be true, because that would mean that Jackson had been lying to him and he'd been stupid enough to take the bait. 

   He wanted to believe he was sick and disgusting and annoying and horrible so he could say his boyfriend was patient and kind. Jackson wanted to help him. He'd beaten it into him so many times that he could no longer bring himself to formulate any other vision of the man, partly because he desperately didn't want to. 

   "I need him." 

   "So let me get this straight," Rossi began slowly. "You think you need to be abused for you to be likeable? Spencer, you didn't deserve that." All it took was that simple acknowledgement of his years of pain to break the dam, and, no longer able to stave off the burning at the back of his throat, Spencer started sobbing. He clung to Hotch, who happened to be the closest to his side. Hotch's arms enveloped his thin, quivering frame so tightly it felt he would be crushed right then and there.

   He felt so utterly and despicably small, wrapped up safely against Hotch's chest that felt like the most true fatherly love he'd ever felt. It was as if he was a frightened little squirrel seeking refuge in a hollow tree to keep him from burning up in that fire that had burned his tail off, and had almost taken every other part of him with it.