youfeelluckypunk | (no subject)

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hild

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Reid supposed he could have chosen a place just slightly farther away from Graymark Books than Petros Park but in all fairness, it's a very nice day outside and it'd seemed like a neutral enough meeting site when he'd suggested it to Hild via text this morning.

If it means it'd given him the chance to stop by to see Luke and take his friend a cup of coffee, so be it. Whether he'd needed to bring along the sandwich from a particular deli Reid had gone out of his way to visit isn't a necessary topic of discussion and anyway, only the customers in the shop who'd seen him and said hello upon recognizing him know that so he doesn't know what he's getting so internally worked up about as he wanders toward Hild at the particular bench near the fountain he'd mentioned with rapidly flushing cheeks.

"Hi," he greets, holding out another coffee cup to her that he plucks from the tray in his other hand--because he's not so completely blinded by the feelings he's not talking about that he hadn't thought to get a beverage for Hild, too, just in case. "It's black coffee, I don't know if you like that. I like tons of sugar in mine, so I brought extra just in case. Have you had coffee yet? I definitely came straight from the cafe and stopped nowhere else."

He frowns at himself, narrowing his eyes before nodding toward the bench and falling into Latin. "I am going to... just sit. And while I do, you should tell me how you are."

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Hild had been delighted by Spencer's text invitation -- and the fact that she could understand it -- and had come by the park a little earlier than agreed in anticipation. It was a simple thing, but she liked the small formality of an arranged meeting and the peaceful greenery of the park.

She smiled in greeting as Spencer approached, but her eyes widened as he began to ramble. It was not unlike him to speak so rapidly, when he was not thinking of Hild's need to parse every word, but there was a tinge of nervousness here that Hild could taste. She accepted the coffee and balanced it on the small span of bench between them as she added packets of sugar to it. Her eyes left him only when he fell silent, and then it was to check the direction from which he had come.

"I am well," she said, hiding her amusement. "Thank you for the coffee. I only had it once at home. It is very rare and precious there. But I have come to like it very much."

Reid stares wide-eyed and embarrassed down at the lid of his coffee cup until Hild speaks, at which point he manages to release some of the tension that's somehow built in his shoulders between approaching the bench and now, and he finally looks to her with a pleased smile.

"Sometimes I feel very close to out of my element when I walk into a shop," he admits, sheepishly shrugging a shoulder as he tips his cup just slightly toward her. "Too many choices. I like to keep things simple."

He blows on his drink before taking a careful sip, reveling in the taste of the coffee as it hits his tongue. Darrow may be a strange place full of the kinds of revelations Reid would never have expected but at least the coffee is still good. He'd threatened to quit the BAU if the office was ever rid of its coffee machine once, and he'd only been half joking.

"Has anything of note happened since we last saw each other? Luke told me he met you, I had already told him a place in the bookstore might be something you enjoy." He wrinkles his nose at his presumption. "I'm sorry. I hope I did not overstep my bounds."

"I like it," Hild admitted, thinking of the bustling hubbub of the coffee shops she had visited in Darrow. She loved to be alone, to think and to observe, but here there was too much loneliness. No one to share her bed at night, to sit with in companionable silence during meals, to listen to as they lived. In a coffee shop, Hild could surround herself with people and still be alone.

"Many choices mean many new things. And I miss sound of people." During the day and evening, with her windows open, the sounds of the city overwhelmed the sounds of the people, which frustrated her and made it more difficult to sleep.

She did indeed have much to share with Spencer; she wanted to see his reaction to fight club, to the magical dog Kizuname, to get his thoughts on movies, France, and pot marijuana. But he had given her an opportunity with the mention of Luke that she could not ignore. She had liked both Spencer and Luke instantly and, though they were happy as they were, she knew they would be much happier together.

"Not at all," Hild assured him with a fond smile. "I am grateful. I am not sure how much of a help I would be to him yet, but I do a task to set my hands to. I like books and I very much like Luke."

She paused to blow on her coffee, test its heat and sweetness, let her comment sit for a moment.

"Man of the sword and man of books. With much strength inside him. I would have been happy to be married to someone like him, back home."

She's right, of course, and Reid has to smile at that because he admires her eagerness for the unfamiliar, though it's hardly a surprise considering how endlessly curious she'd been within the context of her own written narrative. Sometimes it makes him uncomfortable to remember that he knows so much about her that she hasn't told him, though he thinks he'd done a fair job the first time they'd met of keeping a poker face intact. He's not sure whether it makes him a liar or not, to keep from her that he knows her story, but Hild has become more than just a literary figure that he'd known and appreciated; she's become a friend and because of that, there's so much more to learn about her than what he could gain from reading her novel again.

So he'll gladly leave it at that and resist the mild urge he's had to give the book another read. Sitting here with her and sharing news about their lives, this is something he doesn't do with many people, not even back home. He's grown to like it, even if he thinks he'll still prefer to keep his circle of closer friends relatively small.

"I am glad you do not seem too overwhelmed and as far as being a help goes, I have no doubt that you would be a good match once you are more accustomed to regularly speaking more modern English." He pauses, letting out a guilty laugh at the realization that continuing to speak in Latin is probably doing Hild no favors. "I'll try to speak more plainly, if that kind of immersion is more helpful for you."

Biting down on his lip, Reid's eyes flicker over his shoulder and in the direction of the store before they return to meet Hild's gaze. "Luke's a good man. I like him very much, too." His eyes widen a bit at the mention of marriage, if only because he'd momentarily lost himself in just how much he really likes look that it catches him off-guard before he's laughing again. "If you ever tell him that, please wait until I'm there. I'd love to see the look on his face when you do."

His reminder to speak in English, though to himself more than to her, was well taken and accepted with a small nod. It was nice to speak plainly and to be plainly understood, but she had to take advantage of Spencer for that very reason. If she faltered with an English word, she could explain exactly what she meant and learn the proper word, not a guess of someone else. Besides, she had accumulated a good knowledge of English so far. She could converse with people on limited subjects with little problem. It wasn't as if she couldn't speak to Spencer in English.

She laughed softly with him, knowing how uncomfortable such a comment would probably make Luke. In her own time, men looked at her askance, called her witch, freemartin, questioned whether she was woman at all. She carried a seax and walked with bare arms like a man, yes, but it was also a matter of her not being married yet, an old crone at eighteen. She should have been married just after her first bleeding, like Hereswith, years ago. It was different here, and Hild could see that. Bianca, Elsa, Ellie, all sorts of young women walking through the city without men at their sides, rings on their fingers. This concept of the city's that fifteen was "too young" to drink alcohol. It baffled her still but she accepted what it meant, in this world. Hild should not be married, according to most in the city, and probably not to one as old as Luke.

Ignoring all that, of course, Luke would be uncomfortable with even joking interest directed toward him because he was in love with Spencer.

Hild grinned behind her cup of coffee. "Maybe I do this," she said. "I wish to see his face when he look at you, also."

"When he looks at me," he gently corrects, though he's already fighting back a smile at what it's like to steal a glance at Luke, only to find that his friend is already looking back at him. A look doesn't have to mean anything, he's told himself this so many times by now that it's practically become a mantra, but if he does one day discover that it's turned out he's the only one to feel like there's something more that exists between them... Well, he'll be both utterly humiliated and very distressed by how horribly wrong he'd assessed the entire situation.

Catching Hild's smile is what startles him back to the present, and he blinks dumbly at her for a moment before letting out an embarrassed laugh. "Right, when he 'looks' at me. If the subject is singular and in the third person, like 'he' or 'she,' and the verb is in the present tense, the verb will have an s-ending. 'He looks' and 'she looks,' 'Hild looks' and 'Spencer looks.' Does that make sense?"

There are exceptions to the rule that Reid thinks would only perplex someone still in the fairly early stages of learning, but he hopes it's simple and straight-forward enough for the time being. He wonders whether it would be wise to gift Hild with a Latin-to-English dictionary, which he's already sure he could find at Luke's, or if it would be more useful for her to continue using her real-time experiences to help her learn. He'll have to sit on that because she's already improved since the last time he'd seen her, which pleases him even though he'd had nothing to do with it.

"Anyway," he continues, pausing to take a sip of his coffee, "if you told him that, you'd only see him look at me for help until he realizes you're only doing it to get a rise out of him. It would be worth the smile we'd get out of him, though."

"When he looks at you," Hild said, repeating his words, following the lesson. The technical terms were much more than she had ever had to know. She mimicked others, let the words wash over her, but knowing the timing of English was difficult. Just when she thought she understood how to speak of the past well enough to try, someone said something that upended her understanding. It was a confusing mess of a language, more so than any she had learned before. But moments like this reassured her that she would learn it, eventually.

This moment, however, also made her question Spencer's intellect. She had heard in no time at all the affection that Luke held for him. Was Spencer playing dumb or had he truly not noticed? Did he not want the attention or was he scared of it? In this place and time, people needed parades to reassert that loving one another was acceptable. Though Hild was unfamiliar with any reasoning that would prevent Luke and Spencer from coupling, surely some had to exist, or else why would the parade exist?

"When he looks at you," Hild continued, "it is different from when he looks at me."

Pausing, she brought the coffee up to her mouth, but let the plastic lid sit there against her lips.

"Spencer... forgive me if this is not something that we should speak about... what is.. love like for you? In my home, there is marriage. This is not always love. There is - what do they call it? - fucking. But this also is not always love. In this place, what do you do?"

Words escape him after Hild's series of questions because Reid isn't even sure where to begin. He isn't a prude, it's not her use of the word "fucking" that has him so wide-eyed, though it's not likely something that would ever come out of his own mouth; but he's stunned into silence because for weeks and weeks now, he's been wondering whether it's possible that Luke could feel even a fraction of the way Reid has and now there's Hild, someone who would be a perfectly neutral observer, implying what Reid's been hoping.

He clears his throat, setting his coffee cup between them before picking it right back up again because not having something to hold will only give him more reason to fidget. "What do you see?" he asks, glancing at her with curiosity. "When he looks at me, I mean. What do you see that's different?"

There's no sense in lying to her, and Reid wouldn't want to because he considers her a friend; but his feelings for Luke aren't something he's discussed with anyone, and he hadn't even confirmed anything about Maeve to anyone on the team but Alex because he hadn't wanted to spoil a good thing before it could even really begin. He regrets that now because he'd had so many wonderful things to say about her, but he'd waited too long and then she was gone, taken from him so cruelly and leaving him only with dreams of holding her in his arms the way he'd wanted.

Maybe it would be good to admit what he's been thinking to someone now, to talk it out and better understand his feelings with a friend who knows Luke, too.

"There's nothing to forgive," he says with a slight shake of his head. "It's different for everyone. In my world, the same was true. There could be love without marriage or marriage without love. People could choose to have sex without being in a relationship, or they might be together but decide they don't want to have sex. There are so many different choices people make that are valid if it works for them but not everybody agrees on a certain way of doing things. For me..."

He hesitates for a moment before steeling himself and continuing, "For me, when I love someone, it is with all my heart. I have been in a loveless relationship in which sex kept us together until it was not enough, I have been attracted to people without intention to pursue, and I have been so deeply in love that the loss of it threatened to undo me. The people in Darrow are from so many different places, that I cannot imagine we have all experienced the same ways of loving so I am afraid I cannot provide you with a definitive answer." He gives her a small, crooked smile. "I can only say that what I've been feeling now is not something I ever expected to feel again."

She hid her smile until Spencer finished explaining. With everything so different in this world, as compared to her home, Hild worried that there was something she could not see complicating matters. The last thing she wanted was to misstep: embarrass or upset Spencer, or shame Luke. Men and women were complicated creatures and their motivations, while obvious most of the time, were varied. And she wanted to know. She was young, by the standards of most of the people in the city, but that did not mean she wished to be innocent. Not about any subject, sex and love included. In most subjects, she watched and absorbed or tried and practiced. She could watch men and women flirt with each other at cafes, hold hands as they walked down the streets, kiss in public, but that was only one side of the coin. But to act without having some idea of the expectations would doubtless mean hurting someone.

Better to ask. Thankfully she had Spencer to ask and who would answer frankly.

She wanted to laugh for joy when Spencer admitted his feelings so plainly. But she hid this amusement as well, muffled that giddiness of knowing how things would turn out. Her mother's advice, instruction, echoed in her mind: Show them the pattern. Give them permission to do what they wanted all along. It would suffice, she knew, to simply say that Luke held some affection for Spencer, but that did not mean Spencer would believe it truly. It would be something that Hild said, not something that might be true. He was not looking for love, did not expect a relationship, had been hurt before, had lost himself before. There were reasons, plenty of reasons, for him to fabricate excuses for what Hild might say, to lessen the truth of it, to hide the obvious. He needed the freedom to act more than the knowledge of love.

"When he looks at you..." Hild shook her head. "You see how a flower will turn toward the sun and follow it through the sky? You see how it opens and - pretty before - it is beautiful then?"

Edwin would need more. He was never savvy to Hild's metaphors, did not understand what she was trying to say unless she said it outright. But surely Spencer could see: a flower was a delicate thing. It needed the sun. It needed to be cared for. Luke himself was far from delicate. He had withstood many hardships in his life. But stronger men then Luke, or Spencer, had been crippled by their hearts.

"You are like reflections of each other in this," she said with a wry smile.

The metaphor is lovely, though it keeps Reid quietly in thought for a moment. Sometimes he thinks that the lingering gazes they've shared might indicate feelings deeper than friendship, but Reid has never been an expert in friendship and so he's convinced himself it's all platonic because in his rational mind, it's far easier to hold Luke at arm's length than invite his friend so wholly into his life. It's a little too late for that, he reminds himself, when he spends more time with Luke than anyone else in this city.

Evenings spent dangerously close to each other on Luke's couch while watching Darrow soaps like Space Hospital, talking about everything and nothing all at once, they've become a welcome and desirable part of Reid's life in Darrow. If he were back home, most of his free time would have been spent alone at home with a book and a cup of tea or coffee, depending on the time of day, or fiddling with the keyboard he'd bought for himself a few years ago or even sending pleading texts to Garcia on his days off to tell him there's a case that needs his expertise.

In Darrow, he has company to turn to regularly, and he hadn't realized just how nice that could truly be. Sitting here with Hild, listening to her say the kinds of things he wouldn't have been able to notice on his own, is unusual for him but not uncomfortable, and he can't help but to smile shyly back at her.

"I would not have said so myself," he tells her, which she certainly already knows, "but I cannot deny that it pleases me to hear it." Reid hesitates, if only because he isn't used to speaking so freely about his personal life. "He makes me happy. I'm just afraid that if his feelings aren't as strong as mine are, telling him the truth will only ruin what we already have."

It made her smile to hear Spencer admit his feelings so. He was her friend and she valued her friends’ happiness greatly. So often, at home, though she happily walked on her own path, it seemed a normal life was not for her. She could not be a girl, or even simply a princess. She carried her mantle of uncanniness, of strangeness, and others viewed her as separate. So when some strapping farmer caught Begu’s eye, or when Cian went into battle and came back bathed in glory, Hild thrilled to listen and rejoice with them. On the path she walked, her own feelings were neutral; theirs were important.

Hearing the hesitation and uncertainty in Spencer’s voice, Hild forged ahead, believing it all the more important that he act. Questioning oneself was normal. Hild had seen every man and woman do it. But, on the battlefield as well as life, timing was important. Waiting too long to act could ruin one’s chances just as much as not waiting long enough. You had to wait until the moment was ripe and grasp at it confidently. Hild did not know the time frame for Spencer and Luke. Perhaps they had many months before unrequited feelings would be tempered, before someone else forced one or the other’s eye. But she did not think there was enough reason to wait.

“Spencer,” she began, “if someone gives you many books, as a gift, but you only want one, is the gift ruined? If I were to tell you right now that I am in love with you, would it ruin our friendship?” She did not wait for a response. “No. You would still want me as a friend, would you not? The reasons we are friends, they have not changed. I am still the same person. My feelings would be feelings I had before I expressed them to you. They existed even if you did not know about them. Even if he did not care for you in the same way - which I know is not the case - he is your friend and cares for you enough that he would not lose you for this.”

At first, Reid is ready to point out that he thinks it might be just the slightest bit awkward if Hild were to tell him she's in love with him now, but he thinks better of challenging her in a hypothetical situation that she's using only to help him gain the confidence he knows he so desperately needs. It's just that he's never been the one to initiate anything on his own, it's always been someone else making this all too clear to him that the attraction he thinks exists isn't as one-sided as he always tends to believe.

He's been left too many times, he thinks, which may be a poor reason to avoid moving forward with someone he cares about so deeply already, but Reid doesn't know how else to explain it. He's watched his father leave his mother; he's been left with a letter and a badge, mere souvenirs that don't do justice to the memory of two people who'd meant so much to him; he's had his nightmares of losing Maeve over and over to a gunshot that should have been reserved for him because he'd loved her so much that he would have died for her if only Diane Turner had let him; and now, he can't help but to wonder in what cruel way Luke will be taken from him, too.

It could be the vampires or maybe someone who doesn't like that there are werewolves in Darrow or it could even be that the city decides to let Reid wake up to a world without the man he wants to be with on any given day. Life is such an unpredictable thing, Reid has watched so many people learn that the hard way, and he knows that the possibility of limited time should only mean that he work faster to tell Luke the truth about how he feels but the problem is that Reid doesn't know that he could face the rejection and continue on seeing Luke as often as he does now.

"I understand the concept of what you are telling me," Reid says, "but it is not Luke who is the problem, it is me. You seem so sure that he feels the same way, but I still am not. I want to believe it, I do, but I do not think I could walk into that store every day if I were to tell him and have to listen to him gently turn me down." Because it would be gentle, Luke would never be cruel to him; but somehow, knowing that makes it all seem a little more daunting. "It may not change things for him, but I think it would change a great deal for me. There is already something that tightens here when I see him."

He points at his chest, glancing down at his hand before looking over his shoulder toward the direction of the store. "One day, I will find the courage to do it. One day, when I convince myself that our friendship will not suffer for it if the feelings are not mutual." Reid looks back at Hild with a wry smile and a slight shake of his head. "But I am afraid that day is not today. I doubt it will be tomorrow or even the next day."

"But perhaps the day after that," Hild said. It was plainly a tease, her smile curved and gaze playful, and a fond, understanding tease at that. She understood what he was trying to say too, his lack of confidence even in the face of what was a sure thing. Even Edwin, for all his strength and influence, hesitated to follow Hild's visions at times, wanted reassurance from her even after he'd given the order. This did not make him a weak man in Hild's eyes, only one fully aware of consequences. Wise, to a degree.

She ducked her head somewhat to catch his gaze and hold it. Men always feared her gaze, thought it uncanny and unnerving, because the maid that she had been and the woman that she was should never hold a man's gaze so unflinchingly, so surely, so inscrutably. Her eyes held unknown depths, and men feared what those could be. Spencer had no reason to fear; he did not know her to be a seer, a witch, a demon. But her gaze had power, all the same.

"When you do find the strength, you shall be rewarded," Hild told him. When, not if. And such reward it would be.

"And you shall find me and tell me that I was right." A smile broke her solemn features, bright and cocky and laughing.

There's no way to avoid laughing out loud at that, and Reid feels a flush creeping up the back of his neck as he ducks his head and nods. "Yes, maybe the day after that," he agrees, trying and failing to suppress the grin that seems to keep growing. "I've thought about it already, what it might be like to tell him. What I hope it would be like, anyway."

A mind like Reid's leaves no stone unturned when it comes to imagining all the different possible outcomes to admitting his feelings. Sometimes, he does out of the blue while they're sitting close to each other on Luke's couch one evening, talking over another Space Hospital marathon and replacing the melodrama on the screen with a version of his own. Other times, they've already built up to it, almost like they had the night they'd celebrated Luke's birthday, and Reid occasionally thinks he can still feel the warmth of Luke's hand on his chin when he'd walked through the door with cuts and bruises on his face that he'd earned from a victim's grieving husband earlier in the day.

There's nobody else he would let touch like that, or at all, and even then, Luke had snatched his hand away fairly quickly. Reid had known he was in exceptionally deep trouble in that moment he'd thought that Luke could keep his hand there for the rest of the night and there would be no problem.

All the positive scenarios he's come up with, though, are alike in that they end in just one way: with a kiss that can't be misinterpreted, regardless of whether one or both of them ends up at a loss for words. Right now, all Reid can do his bite down on his bottom lip and stare at his shoes, trying to put thoughts of Luke's beard grazing over his skin and their lips crashing together with a kind of passion Reid has never known before.

"You will be the first I tell," Reid promises after clearing his throat, shifting awkwardly on the bench as he finally meets her eyes again. "I only wish I could be as certain as you are about what will happen." He tilts his head at her then, his tone taking on a curious edge. "In any case, we have spent far too much time talking about my own romantic shortcomings. Is there nobody here who has caught your eye?"

"Yes, I will," Hild said with certainty. Like all her prophecies, this statement was made not by magic but by observation. Spencer was straightforward and earnest in his ways, honest to his core. It was not as if he had sworn an oath to her just now, but he would treat it as such to an appropriate, natural degree. What's more, she was the only one he had spoken these thoughts aloud to. Though others might suspect his feelings, she was the only one he knew would not be surprised but solely pleased at his news.

Hild laughed at his question and did not avert her gaze in a coy way. She merely shrugged, unperturbed and turned her coffee cup where it sat on the bench before her.

"Caught my eye? Yes. Taken any other part of me? No. As I said, things are different here than they are back home. I'm sure I could take someone to bed, if I really wanted to, but those that I do admire more than most..." Hild pursed her lips in annoyance, not at them exactly, but at herself for being unable to deduce what they wanted. "I do not feel they are interested in me."

"Have you asked?"

Reid is very well aware that's rich, especially coming from him and even more especially in light of the conversation they've just had, but Hild isn't like him. She's so much more vibrant, and she's bold, bold in a way that makes her likable as opposed to the way it can make Reid alienating, and he admires her for that.

It's still strange to think of her as the lead of a narrative he's read, though he tries not to think of her in that way because the Hild he knows is the only Hild he wants to know, a vastly intelligent, kind, and courageous young woman who observes her surroundings to collect more knowledge of a world she's meant to light; and she is a light, as her mother had told her in the novel. She's proven to be a good friend to him, an even more excellent confidante, and Reid would rather think of her in those terms than on those of the author who'd created her.

"When you find the strength, you shall be rewarded," he tells her with a teasing smile, "though admittedly, you will find that while the search for someone to be with might be similar to what you know, the rules are a bit different. In terms of the city and the people in it, you would be seen as a bit too young for those who I would imagine are more likely to interest you."

She laughed when he turned her words around against her. It was not the same and Hild would have argued it if she did not understand his meaning and if it were not advice she would take. Spencer had strong feelings for Luke and vice versa; they knew each other well, even if this obvious fact was lost on both of them. They knew what to expect from each other, could forgive each other's flaws and missteps. They walked an unfamiliar path, but side by side, though they did not know yet that the other was there to reach out and touch. Hild was almost entirely in the dark.

However, she knew how to dispel that darkness and had no fear of it. It might slow her, but it would never stop her full out. She could ask, try, be bold if she truly felt the desire. For now, she did not. She wished often for another warm body to share her bed. Loneliness loved to catch her at night in this way. But that was fear of being alone, and she refused to let fear control her.

"Mm, yes," she said, her smile slight and amused. The city's preoccupation with arbitrary age had not escaped her. "If I find someone who believes I am too young, I will just have to convince them otherwise," Hild decided. "I am known by some to be very persuasive."

"That comes as no surprise to me," Reid tells her, for more than just one reason, and he ducks his head to laugh softly to himself. Hild is unlike most of the young people he's come across in Darrow so far (thought admittedly, that number isn't especially high), but he finds her to be so much easier to talk to than he might have expected. With all that he's known she's done and seen, Reid so appreciates her matter-of-fact view of the world because it's one he generally shares himself; except, obviously, when it comes to matters of the heart. His own, in particular.

Just as he doesn't think it's right for people to treat, for example, a person with schizophrenia as a potential future convict, Reid wouldn't want to treat Hild like she knows nothing of the world just because of her age. It would be clear to anyone within just a few moments that the opposite is true, and he admires her greatly for that. He'd be proud to be able to call her a friend no matter what her age.

"It is a social construct," he says. "Very different from where you're from, I'm sure. But somehow, I don't think you'll have much trouble finding ways to bend the rules."

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