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Spencer had always known he would eventually succumb to addiction. He had watched his neighbors smoke corner store cigarettes on the porch and craved the haze of the fumes in still moments between ravenously consuming yellowed library books.
Given the nature of his profession, however, an addiction to self harm seemed like more of a depraved, horrific joke than anything else.
Scientifically speaking, a brain deprived of enough dopamine will be driven to desperate measures to acquire it. In that starvation, the brain can convince anybody to seek out a hit, regardless of how illogical or dangerous. Spending a childhood isolated, deserted by an unsympathetic father and unsupported by a schizophrenic mother leaves nothing but an unbalanced adult desperate enough for dopamine that even bodily harm becomes inconsequential.
His memory of the first time he thought of the razor has been played over in his mind enough to leave deep grooves in the record, the bite of recollection worn smooth by time. A hallway taunt he first brushed off until it consumed his waking days. Between the pages of academic magazines, he saw flashes of metal. When he pulled his sleeves over bruises to hide his shameful social inadequacy from apathetic teachers, his mind was filled with fantasies of intentional injury to cancel out the unwanted ones.
Despite a thorough academic understanding of the phenomena of self harm, and an infinite list of memorized quotes explaining countless reasons why the psychology behind it was fallible, one perfectly normal night Spencer succumbed, and from then on lived by the rise and fall of injury, healing, and scarring.
Of all the reasons to self harm, from self-flagellation to sensory grounding to a need for control, having pure and simple masochism as his only motivation was unexpected. Even with the benefit of crystal clear hindsight, the only explanation Spencer ever found for the desperate need to rip himself open was that his skin felt right when bloodstained, that the sting left him euphoric and stitched to his skin. An intimate knowledge of the anatomy of his own body only heightened the effect, and at times he found himself consumed by curiosity, examining the layers of his own wounds. As a child uncared for, his sticky copper addiction remained unfettered.
The events of the football field haunted him. The sight of his naked skin in the mirror every morning as he dressed left him bare to his own intrusive thoughts and battered by technicolor flashbacks. He showered clothed. At times he wore the same outfit for days, with multiple shirts layered on top of each other, to prevent himself from being forced to see his own body. When reading, when in class, when he closed his eyes to sleep, the memories of that horrific night pried their way up from his subconscious and invaded his attention and focus. Only his old, sharp friend seemed to leave him stable enough for reprieve.
Meeting Jason Gideon gave him a need to keep his battered body functional. To be a behavioral analyst and work in the field, he would need a body where the seams didn't pop with the smallest movement. To pass a physical fitness exam, removing additional barriers would prove beneficial, and self harm would undeniably impede him. With a goal in mind, the singing of the blade faded to a hum. The dream he was making with his ink-stained hands provided an outlet for his desperation. And yet, his eidetic memory meant he would always know the heady, tacky pleasure intimately.
Obsessive and farsighted paranoia meant his scars were easily hidden, and the cravings subsided as he became busy and intellectually occupied. Supported by his teammates, he no longer had any need for that carnal base impulse. The BAU felt like the relief, acceptance, and comradery he had craved as a child.
After Tobias Hankel, he fell back on his addictive habits, trading a razor for a needle. His team willfully ignored his rapidly decreasing mental state, and when he even briefly entertained the thought of broaching the topic with them, his brain helpfully replayed that night at the football field and all its sibling memories. The taste of copper between his teeth again became a welcome friend.
He had successfully hidden both horrible secrets until one otherwise routine case. He'd been bashed into a wall by an angered and cornered unsub, and regardless of how many times he protested he was fine, Morgan had strong-armed him into getting his bruised hip checked out by paramedics and insisted on making sure he sat it through. With one hand on his upper arm, Morgan walked them both between the red and blue lights, and Spencer felt invisible anticipation build in the humid night air.
The issue was that of all the places on the body exposed to the world, the hip is most uncommon, statistically speaking. Below the waistband of standard professional slacks and above the bottom of the average pair of boxers was the focus of a younger Spencer's obsession, and this repetition had left the pale skin obviously and gruesomely mottled. Any paramedic or forensically-trained law enforcement would immediately recognize the marks, and just his luck, he was being forced to strip in front of both.
Many lies go undiscovered for decades, and yet this could never be one of them. Eventually, a medical professional would need access to the area, considering how often he was injured, or a hypothetical lover would strip him only to stall and gawk. Spencer had always been aware that the truth would come out. He just assumed, at the time, that nobody present would care enough about his wellbeing, too engrossed in treating him as one of thousands of patients or using him as warm and willing.
They stopped in front of an unoccupied paramedic and Morgan explained the circumstances of the injury. Resolute, he pulled down his own waistband, and demonstrated to the paramedic that his bruise was, in fact, just a particularly bad bruise. To her credit, she was able to almost completely mask her momentary hesitation before letting him cover the area again and insisting he ice it that night.
His gaze and attention swung to Morgan, emotion suspended on a tripwire between them for a silent moment. Aware he was seeking approval and allowing it anyway, he met Morgan's eyes with an unspoken question. Morgan, visibly recollecting himself, dragged his gaze back up to Spencer, searched for something unknown there, then gathered himself to speak.
"I'm always here if you need me, pretty boy. You know that, right?"
"I do."
And that was the end of it.