In-Depth Headcanon Prompts.
☎: Three (or more) people they would call out for during an emergency.
1. Hotch.2. Morgan.3. Gideon.
✗: Explain how they portray feelings of hostility or dislike.
Disliking someone, for Reid, can be as subtle as avoiding speaking to them, avoiding eye contact or going (inconspicuously) out of the way to avoid being alone with them; essentially avoidance is the keyword there. There are a great many people Reid has the capability to dislike, either for their attitude or their limited view, or their behavior toward himself or others, but because he’s not apt to making these things personal, he just takes measures to put a measure of distance (literal or metaphorical) between himself and the person he doesn’t necessarily like. Outwardly, this might appear to be standoffish-ness, or an unusual degree of reticence.
When Reid is hostile, however — that’s a different thing entirely. Spencer is hard to anger (to really anger); he gets irritable and snappish like anyone else, but the sort of anger that one could call hostile is rare in him, and usually stems from indignation at a great injustice, or betrayal.
Real hostility in Reid is outwardly visible as a sort of tension; a banked, tightly coiled sort of energy; he holds himself more stiffly, stands apart from friends or colleagues (particularly if they’re the ones he’s upset with), and he tends to face down the source of his aggression with his head up, his eyes forward. Reid is, by nature, a blinker; he doesn’t do aggressive displays of dominance or anger, but irritability and temper (and impassioned indignation) lend him a sort of tunnel vision that lets him overcome his normal disposition. When he speaks (in hostility) it can either be passing, cutting remarks — said easily, faultlessly; unhesitating and barbed — or it can be more, far more. Pushed too far when he’s upset (or when he’s finally had enough) Reid’s hostility comes in a quick swell and breaks like a tidal wave; he speaks more quickly, more breathlessly, because his heart is pounding; he chooses his words less kindly but more directly, bluntly — to emphasize and to cute down. He is more than capable of maintaining eye contact in the heat of the moment and will, often, because he’s making a point. Moreover, where Reid’s dislike of someone may not be something he makes personal, the sort of hurt and disbelief and anger it takes to make him hostile most certainly is personal. And in that mindset, Reid doesn’t resort to fists, or yelling; he chooses the weapons with which he works best and can do the most damage: his intellect, his words, and his heart.
♡: Is there a certain scent that brings about nostalgia? If so, describe a memory this scent brings back.
Scent is the sense most strongly tied to memory (in most people), and maybe because of that, it’s natural that there are several scents that remind Spencer of certain time periods, places or events — some stronger than others.
The wax used on laminate floors (particularly in schools and office buildings) reminds him being shoved into janitor’s closets that reeked of it; the musty scent of a gym sometimes brings back flashback horrors of being locked in a linebacker’s locker for two whole class periods until the coach stumbled upon him by mistake.
Wood polish and carpet refresher forever remind him of the parlor the CalTech chess club met in every Tuesday; the light but undeniable essence of chalk dust co-mingled with the faint but lingering smell of gasoline reminds him of weekends spent in Charlie’s garage, bouncing complicated mathematical mysteries off one another. The tangy, metallic scent of coins held too long in a warm hand reminds him of the casinos; reminds him of a weekend on the Strip where he won enough to pay his tuition three times over (or to get his mother into the highest rated assisted aid facility in the state).
Chlorine burning in his nose reminds him of Lila Archer and a kiss he was too stupefied (and confused) by to really enjoy. Fresh turned earth reminds him (almost invariably) of graves, of digging his own grave; of kneeling in the dirt while Tobias Hankel died at his side. Wood smoke and kerosene remind him of Gideon, of the two times he he’d been invited to the man’s cabin to spend time with him, and the one time Spencer nearly took off a leg trying to split firewood.
That inexplicable scent that sunshine gives to a warm room in the afternoon, the way it emphasizes the perfume of old glue in dated books reminds him of his mother, and of weekend trips to the library, and long hours spent curled up at her side, listening to her read.
Slightly burnt coffee and drying printer ink on warm paper remind him of the office; the dizzying scent of hand-sanitizer and lemon-scented desk wipes remind him of the bullpen during Flu season.
Morgan’s cologne, JJ’s perfume, Garcia’s cookies, Hotch’s aftershave, Prentiss’ fabric softener, Rossi’s lasagna — these are all things that remind Reid of family, a feeling of warmth and of belonging, if not necessarily a specific memory.
