Chapter Text
He'd never really been religious.
Of course, Spencer Reid knew all about religion. He knew about Christianity and Islam and Buddhism and just about everything about religion. He knew why people turned to it. But he wasn't religious. He figured he was too critical for religion, too analytical and logical and hyper-aware of everything. It made it hard to believe in a God when he knew the ins and outs of everything.
His mom didn't mind. She herself was atheistic, having been raised by a strict catholic mother with strict catholic ways that turned her children hate-filled and rebellious. He found it ironic that she'd only managed to nurture his mother's disdain for religion, for the establishment, every prayer was a log in the fire.
When things went wrong, his mom had simply told him that things happen, for good or for bad, and that was just how the universe was. She told him it had no bias - how could it? Why would it? What would the universe have to gain from punishing people, if there was no reward for the good-doers.
Sometimes Spencer can't help but disagree. He can't help but feel a little cursed, like the universe is pelting a punishment down on him constantly, every hour of every day. Was his father's abandonment a punishment for his sins? His mother's illness? Tobias Hankel? He wonders some days if his genius is a punishment.
His dad did not share the same sentiment as his mom. William Reid was a proud man with a reputation to uphold and a fierce devotion to the church. On rough days, Spencer pondered how his father could love something so intangible, so hard to justify. He decided that was exactly why - it was so easy to conjure up an idea of what God was, what God stood for, everything was so up in the air. His own son was not, he was very real and unabashed in his miracle work. He could not be dictated, interpreted, debated, his words could not be moulded by William Reid to fit a narrative.
He went to catholic school. They were brutal - places like that always are, to strange boys and quiet boys and boys who cared a little too much about academia and too little for boyish things. They were brutal to different boys and feminine boys and boys refused to just stay quiet and stay out of trouble.
He remembers the way the bible felt beneath his fingers, flimsy pages and torn up covers because young boys had no respect for objects, let alone respect for the passages and prayers they were spoon-fed. He wondered how this book, so tiny and beat up with pages ripped out from its bindings, could hold everything he needed to know about his life, how to live it, he wondered how this book alone could distinguish right from wrong.
Even after he graduated, he went to church every Sunday.
Churches are strange places, he thinks. They're so cold, so quiet, even when the pews are filled with a congregation of devotees singing, they're still so.. empty. He hates how everything is so sacred. He hates how there's a man who stands at the altar and he preaches about family and friendship and love and treating people right and he hates it because he knows that William Reid hears this, he feels it echo through his rib cage, pounded in by song and prayer, and elects to ignore it.
Even God's word is not strong enough to make William love his son.
When his father leaves, he keeps going. Every sunday morning, he walks to the church. The church that smells like candle smoke and dust and promises stuck between flimsy little pages. And he prays, and he prays, and he prays until he can't think about anything other than a constant prayer for repentance, a constant apology for everything he's done wrong in his life because maybe he should have tried not to be a strange boy, a quiet boy, a boy who cared a little too much for academia and clearly not enough for boyish things. Maybe that would bring him back.
When Spencer is 17, now with a doctorate, he repents. It's the first week of summer, the sun blazes overheads and the concrete pavement burns his feet even through shoes. School's out, and it feels so wrong to walk past groups of teenagers - people his age! - but be so alone.
The church is cold, it always is, despite sunlight streaming through the stained glass. It paints his skin a kaleidoscope of colours, blues and reds dancing across his bare hand. It feels unwelcoming.
The confession booth is even more unyeilding, a small room with white walls and stone floors and an uncomfortable wooden bench beside the panel. He can feel the presence of the priest on the other side, waiting, waiting to hear what sick sins have been committed.
So Spencer talks, and he begs to be forgiven, hoping that maybe this tiny room makes him loud enough for God, if he's even there, to hear. He confesses, and the priest tells him to pray ten Our Fathers and six Hail Marys.
He prays. He prays, he prays, he prays and it finally feels like he's been forgiven.