Losing Control [ spencer reid x reader ] ✔

7. Two Broken People

!!TW!!: mentions of death, drug addiction, self-harm, light descriptions of scars

As soon as the words escape Spencer's mouth, your pulse escalates, your mouth runs dry.

Shaking your head, you look at his face, concern flashing through your eyes. "Please don't feel pressured into telling me something you don't actually want to tell me."

Spencer's head tilts and he holds your gaze, his hand finding yours. "I trust you."

"Penelope...she said you had been through a lot, Spence." You sigh, biting the skin at the inside of your lip. "I...I just want to make sure you're ready before you tell me. That you're sure you trust me as much as you think you do."

Saying nothing, he loosens his grip on your hand before gesturing down to his half covered arms. Lifting up the sleeves a little, he exposes the flesh just below the inside of his elbow. Lining the small space on his arm were little white scars, maybe ¼ of an inch in width. Your mind flashes to every time you'd seen Spencer—he'd always been wearing long sleeves, or sleeves long enough to cover most of his arms.

He was hiding his scars, you realize.

"I was twenty-four years old when a man named Tobias Hankel kidnapped me," Spencer speaks matter-of-factly. "He had dissociative identity disorder—three distinct personalities, actually. Himself, his abusive father, and someone named Raphael."

You look up at Spencer, his face thoughtful. He doesn't look up at you. Your fingers clamp around his wrist and he drags his hazel eyes to you, the look in them unrecognizable.

"He tortured me for two days. Part of the torture was...to inject me with hydromorphone, or Dilaudid." Spencer bites his lip, shaking his head. "It's funny, because Tobias wasn't evil. He actually saved my life—his other two personalities were the evil ones. I had to shoot him. I had to kill him."

"Jesus, Spence." Your voice is a whisper.

"After that, I was addicted to Dilaudid for a while. I'm still addicted—just not actively using. Sometimes, I still crave it. Sometimes, I think about how easy it would be to just...use it. Slip away from reality for a while and forget." His eyes look far away. "After Tobias, I became very empathetic with some people we profiled—I saw it as a weakness. I still see Tobias everywhere I look. Another case we worked a year or so after Tobias' was about another boy with split personality disorder...and I couldn't save him either."

"Spencer, that's not your fault," you assure him, using your fingers to lightly grab his chin, turning it toward you. "You can't save everybody, Spence. You can't blame yourself."

Spencer chuckles, though there is no humor in it. You look down at his scars and lightly bring your fingers to them, running them over the pale spots. He flinches and you pull away, but he stops you. He brings your fingers back to his scars, letting your fingers run over the cold skin. He shivers, like he's unused to the touch.