Chapter Text
Spencer rolled over in his bed, alone, like he did most mornings. Remy had been visiting for the weekend, but left the night before to go back to his job at the mansion. It never got easier, being so far away from him. Like a part of himself had gone and left him cold.
It had been a long night, full of tossing and turning and images of his worst days at his job. The feeling of the gun as he pulled the trigger, the empty feeling that always plagued him when he was around to witness somebody’s death, to feel the life drain from them. The hours somehow ticked by at a snail's pace and seemed to jump ahead at random intervals.
Gideon had been great after that case, getting Spencer out of there as soon as he could. He made sure to get him away from the death, the destruction, the devastation. He took Spencer outside immediately, where there were automatically fewer people, and never took his hands off him, trying to send good emotions towards him to crowd out the leftover panic, then took out Spencer’s phone and dialed Remy’s number for him.
He was the only person in the FBI that knew about his mutant status. Spencer had attended a talk he was hosting at Caltech when he was seventeen, and had all but dragged Remy into the building to go with him. They sat in the back, Remy not wanting to attract any unneeded attention, especially not from a fed.
It hadn’t worked. Jason Gideon seemed to pick up on his enthusiasm for the subject right away, something different from the usual interest the subject garnered. He was used to people coming to his talks because they thought being an agent was cool or had a general bloodlust as a form of anger management. He asked good questions and seemed genuinely interested in the result. As much as Remy was itching to leave the second the talk was over, he stayed because Spencer asked him to.
In all honesty, there was absolutely no way that Remy would allow Spencer, or really any young mutant without the means to defend themselves, alone in a room with an FBI agent.
Still, Jason told him that he would be a good fit for the BAU, that he could help hide his mutant status, and how much they could use a brain like his on the team. Spencer wasn’t sure what had attracted him to that line of work, something about being able to help people going through the worst moments of their lives, being able to use his brain to really help people.
It took a lot of convincing to get Remy to accept his decision. He hadn’t liked that Spencer would be putting himself in danger, that he would be working for the government. He saw it as a betrayal, to hide himself away and work for the people who wanted to get rid of them. But Gideon had never looked into Remy or his past, and hadn't seemed interested as long as he wasn’t hurting anyone. He had always been more than understanding of his protection over Spencer and slight animosity towards law enforcement.
In the end, they compromised by having Remy teach Spencer self defense and getting him to be able to go a few rounds in the danger room at the mansion. Logan wasn’t too happy with his decision either, but had far more experience dealing with a Spencer that had his mind set on something, and just made him promise to be careful and have at least one person able to reach out to them.
Gideon had been that person. He coached him on how to hide his mutant status and made sure he would reach out as soon as he was done with his schooling to get him set up with the academy. By that point Spencer had trained enough with both Remy and Logan that he hadn’t needed the remediation to pass the physical stuff, but agreed that it would be more believable than a scrawny bookworm that is somehow cross trained in multiple martial arts, that it would make people less likely to look into his past.
With all the help that Gideon had provided him to get him into a place where he really loved his job, he didn’t want to seem ungrateful by dumping his nightmares on the man too. He attempted to deal with them on his own, the only refuge being the occasional nights where Remy was able to come to DC or he was able to get a day off and go to the mansion. His nights had always been more peaceful with his partner beside him.
Still, it took a while for him to drag himself out of bed. Dark, heavy bags clung to the underside of his eyes. His eyes were the most telling, the embers that usually glowed and danced as if floating through the wind were now dim and sluggish. He could see the exhaustion almost as much as he could feel it, but had no idea how to fix it.
So he pushed it aside. He put in his contacts and kept moving. He made his coffee at home, which was always disappointing right after Remy had left and took his heavenly Cajun methods with him, then ran out to catch the bus.
He made it to work early, and set up at his desk. So far, it was shaping up to be mostly a paperwork day, which Spencer looked forward to more than anybody else on the team. It was the kind of work he could immerse himself in, while surrounded with generally positive or neutral emotions that would help reinforce his shields. He could work on a sort of autopilot, while being able to joke with Morgan and JJ, two people who were quickly becoming some of the best friends he’d ever had.
Today, though, he was having a lot of trouble keeping his eyes open. He felt and heard everybody else filing in and setting up at their own desks. He heard the sweet sound of somebody starting up the coffee pot, then it beeping a few minutes later.
He sighed, grabbing the coffee mug with his name labeled on the side of it, courtesy of Morgan, and left to fill up his cup.
He put his normal amount of sugar, using the wooden stick to stir the mixture in a way that reminded him of his early chemistry labs, before adding a truly unhinged amount of sugar that he hoped would be able to keep him awake through the day.
Spencer was still stirring the added sugar when Morgan came up behind him and teased him about his coffee.
“I’m hoping it’ll actually do something to keep me awake today.”
“Long night?”
“Very.” Spencer was frowning as he said it, the images of his night terrors swimming on the edges of his vision.
Morgan was facing the other direction, though, pouring his own coffee. He turned with a wide smile and clapped him on the shoulder. “My man.”
That made Spencer smile genuinely, memories of Remy’s visit chasing away the horror. He could feel himself blushing and ducked his head down a bit in the hopes his hair would cover it, even though it was definitely too short at the moment to really hide anything. Morgan didn’t seem to see it, though, too busy pulling creamer from the fridge.
“Not that kind of night.” That last comment got a couple more jeers and playful taps from Morgan, but Spencer quickly turned serious. Derek was shaping up to be one of the best friends he’d ever had, he should be able to open up about this. “Hey,” Derek turned from where he’d been walking back to his desk, “do you ever get nightmares?”
“Is that what’s keeping you up?”
He nodded. “They’re becoming more common recently. It used to be only once in a while but it’s almost every night now.”
“What are they about?”
Spencer gestured around them. “All this.”
He could feel the discomfort forming in Morgan and immediately regretted asking. The hesitation from his answer just solidified that. He felt like he had read the situation completely wrong, that he was way out of line. Spencer went through the conversation, wanting to double and triple check to see if he’d said something out of line or inappropriate.
“I’m probably not the person to ask about that, kid. You’d probably want to talk to Gideon.” He clapped his hand on his shoulder once more, unwittingly sending a burst of concern and shame to Spencer, which only confused him more.
“I’d prefer not to, but thank you anyway.”
Spencer followed him to the bullpen and sat down at his desk. He drank the whole cup in a couple of big gulps and set in to be exhausted until he could get home. Then JJ called them into the conference room.
The case seemed simple enough, nothing too harrowing at least. There were a few deaths of some hikers and joggers on the side of a trail and a girl who was taken. It wasn’t happy news by any stretch of the word, but it was far from the worst case they’d ever been on, and even further than the worst things Spencer had ever seen.
He liked to use the plane rides to strengthen his shields for whatever they might encounter. He was glad that his general awkward demeanor kept Hotch from sending him to interview the grieving families, he was still getting used to feeling so many intense things in rapid succession. After his first couple of cases he’d needed Remy waiting at home to rebuild, fill the cracks and fortify the crumbling structure.
They landed and went immediately to the crime scene, where most of the McAllister Sheriff's department already was.
Spencer felt unsafe the moment he was surrounded by the other officers. The emotional signatures they projected were so similar to the ones he’d felt through high school and the early days of college that he paused mid-step. These were the same kinds of people who were so quick to turn on people who made any step outside of their normal comfort zone. Mutants, gays, even just the people who liked alternative music, all of them were to be shunned and blamed for everything wrong with society.
It hadn’t bothered him in so long. He had grown so much since he was twelve and left high school. Even before meeting Remy, he had worked so hard to be able to advocate for himself, prove that he belonged in the college courses, and had earned his right to be there. He tried to push down the discomfort, blaming it on the lack of sleep.
He kept moving forward, moving towards the tree where the skeleton and message had been found. Sheriff Bridges came forward to introduce himself, and Spencer would be forever grateful for how Gideon stepped in front of him and put him right out of handshake reach. He gave the wave he usually did and looked further into the skeleton and symbols.
The first thing Spencer noticed was how fresh the paint looked. It wasn’t new, but the body in front of them had been decomposing for at least a year, the rotting leaves and clothing surrounding it showed that clearly, but the paint was still a bright red. The letters ‘LOD’ looked like they were carved out of the tree with a chisel.
Spencer absentmindedly answered a question about whether the victim was male or female as he looked closer at the ground where the body met the tree. Wedged in between the bones and the bark, were pieces of wood. The chips were not nearly as weathered as the rest of the surroundings.
“I’m not sure a satanic cult is the one who killed this victim.”
That made the people around them pause.
“What did you find, Reid?” Gideon asked.
“Woodchips, just about the same size as the pieces that had to be carved out of the tree. The part of the tree is painted red, so you can’t see how old it is, but the woodchips show it’s pretty new. I think the cult, if it exists, might be more of a decoy than anything else.”
“What about LOD? That mean anything to you?”
That was something that Spencer had been trying to figure out since before they left Quantico. He shook his head, and bagged the wood chips to be handed off to forensics.
Hotch called them all over to discuss the plan. JJ would try to get the sheriff to put together a search party of locals to look for the missing girl, hoping their unsub might insert themselves into the case and give themselves away. Reid would go back to the station and get on the phone with Garcia, between the two of them they might be able to find some connection to LOD. The rest of them were to work with the locals to break up the woods into grid squares and search those squares once the volunteers got there.
The ride to the station was uneventful. Once there, JJ left Spencer to talk with Bridges in his office, and Spencer started setting up at a desk with a phone. He was so tired his eyes were having a hard time focusing on the trophies in front of him when a kid came up to him, a teen with a letterman jacket on. He was holding a book by Neitzsche, and asked him what they were doing here.
He learned that it was the sheriff’s son, Cory, and was much more interested in his studies than football. That wasn’t terribly abnormal, people followed hobbies to make their parents happy all the time. What was strange was the emotions swirling around the kid. He was nervous, to a strange extent. More than the general anxiety some people got when speaking to law enforcement.
Mixed in there was a strange amount of confidence too. It was such a juxtaposition of emotions that Spencer disregarded it at first.
He would blame the exhaustion, later, when he was regretting not looking further into the strange emotions of the people around him. He would complain to Remy, and he would be reminded that people’s feelings often made little to no sense. They floated around and ran into each other like a corral of bumper cars. Being suspicious of everybody with conflicting feelings would only drive him crazy with the lack of answers.
So they continued the investigation. The search of the woods brought forth a note hidden in a tree, stating the virgin must be sacrificed at the next full moon.
The layout of the station meant they spread out into groups to focus on different parts of the profile, often moving between groups to share information or evidence. At the moment, Spencer was standing next to Hotch, analyzing the note for the hundredth time, when he yawned.
Aaron looked over with a sympathetic gaze, and asked if he had been getting enough sleep. He gave a noncommittal answer, more focused on the task in front of him, but looked up when Aaron continued.
“You know, we all get them.”
A cold feeling started in Spencer’s stomach, “I’m not sure I follow.”
“Nightmares.” His whole body went rigid. “It’s okay, I’m not going to press you for your private information. I just wanted to let you know that all of us understand what you’re going through, and we are here to talk if you need it.”
“I’m fine. Just want to finish this case.”
Something in his body language or tone must have given away how upset he was, because Hotch dropped it right then and there.
Soon enough, they had a profile put together and were giving it to the sheriff’s department. After giving the general explanation for who they might be looking for, Cory spoke up and gave them a name and location for someone who fit the bill. He was acting like he was ashamed of having the information, to the point his own father was comforting him and thanking him for the information, but Spencer couldn’t sense any of the accompanying feeling he should have.
No sense of shame, none of the previous nervousness; just this strange sort of satisfaction and confidence that curled in his chest.
They were still going to raid the house, though Gideon decided at the last moment that he was going to hang back. Spencer was the last one in the car, which gave him just enough time to ask Gideon to keep an eye on the Cory kid, that he had a strange feeling that he was involved, though he didn’t have any evidence for it.
They had been working together long enough that he took Spencer’s hunches seriously, without any need for explanation. He would need evidence before any action was taken, but keeping an extra eye out and making sure he stayed at the station shouldn’t be an issue.
The ride to the house was full of nervous energy. All of them were unsure about what they would find in the house, hoping it wouldn’t turn into a shootout. It was clear these were troubled kids, but if all they were really doing was following their own religion and listening to some music, they didn’t deserve to get raided. At the same time, if they were blitzing people out hiking and sacrificing them for their god, something needed to be done.
His inner turmoil was inconsequential, because they were going to the abandoned building and raiding it anyway.
As soon as the cars pulled up, people were fleeing, and a sinking feeling formed in Spencer’s stomach. Everyone he saw was a mutant. He never figured out what it was, but he could always tell, even when they didn’t exhibit any physical mutations. Nobody else seemed to notice, at least, they weren’t acting any different as they broke into and moved through the house.
He was moving on autopilot, mimicking the movements of those around him without really hearing the orders around him. There was no way they wouldn’t be able to tell at least some of these kids were mutants, the physical mutations peeking out from the crowds would tell them more than anything else.
A couple of the older kids were shielding the younger ones against the walls, forming a nice clear path towards Zizzo. Spencer could feel something pressing against his shields, insistent, almost desperate. He let it in, and suddenly he couldn’t see anything other than a few normal-looking kids nervous that the police were here.
He made eye contact with one of the girls shielding the rest of them, and she seemed to see that Spencer was one of them. Panic filled him before she nodded, turning back to comfort the kids behind her and glare at the other officers. He let out a small breath, putting his revolver away.
Zizzo was found standing on top of a platform, a sort of showman-like quality to him that tasted fake. He drew all the attention towards himself and allowed himself to be escorted away.
The other officers started guiding the other kids out of there, and Spencer could see the sweat forming on the girl’s brow as everybody started moving. They searched the house for the missing girl, Cherish, but ultimately came up with nothing. The kids scrambled once they were outside, running into the woods before they could be questioned by the police.
They didn’t go very far, though. Just far enough for it to not be worth running into the woods at night to chase after them. Spencer could sense the mass of bodies moving around only a few hundred feet away.
After Hotch and Elle took Zizzo away, Spencer volunteered himself and Morgan to stay behind and keep an eye on the house just in case the kids tried to come back. Derek wasn’t too happy about that, but he agreed easily enough.
The last officer to leave offered to bring them back coffee, which made Morgan tease him about the sugar he’d put into his coffee that morning. The remark reminded Spencer of the betrayal he’d discovered just a couple hours earlier and he found himself unable to let it go for longer.
“Why did you tell Hotch about my nightmares?”
“Really, are we doing this here?”
“It wasn’t your information to tell.”
“They need to know that kind of stuff.”
“They?”
“Hotch and Gideon.”
“You told Gideon too!? I confided in you, what if they think I can’t do my job?”
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know that! You can’t just tell people things because you think they deserve to know it. That’s my information, my personal information, it’s not for you to decide who gets to know. I thought I could trust you, man. I thought I could tell you something important to me, something I can’t talk to people about.”
He had his hands up in front of him, “I have a feeling this isn’t just about nightmares anymore.”
Spencer was about to respond, but a car pulled up behind him. It stopped haphazardly, and Cory got out. He was looking around frantically, calling for Cherish, but his emotions once again didn’t match his actions.
Spencer already didn’t like him, though he didn’t have any evidence that he actually did anything, and everything he did and said only reinforced that opinion.
He led them to a smaller building behind the main house. It hadn’t been being used by the kids partying, and looked structurally unsafe. But Cory said that Cherish might be there, so Morgan told Spencer to stay with the kid and went on his own to check out the shed.
Spencer could feel it the moment he found Cherish. He grew more cautious and put more space between himself and Cory, only barely stopping himself from putting a hand on his gun. Morgan walked back up to him with a suspicious look on his face, and Spencer was glad that they were on the same page about one thing.
“I found Cherish.”
“Oh my god. Is she dead?”
He nodded. “From my guess she’s been gone for a while, maybe even before we got here.” Cory moved forward, pushing to go into the shed himself. Morgan stopped him with a hand to his chest, and he retreated towards his car. “Reid, why don’t you try to find some cell service and call it in?
He didn’t want to leave, but the hard stare Morgan gave him told him he wouldn’t let it go, and he stepped away. He pretended to leave, pulling his phone out to check for service anyway, but stayed within hearing distance.
“What’s going to happen to Zizzo?”
Spencer hadn’t been paying attention to the blobs of emotions of the mutant kids. He knew they would stick around, waiting until it was safe to move. He also knew they wouldn’t be found unless they wanted to be, so he hadn’t tried to keep track of them. He nearly dropped his phone when a young boy appeared out of the shadows in front of him, whispering so low he almost couldn’t hear him from a couple feet away.
“What do you mean?”
“Zizzo, is he in trouble? Are we in trouble?” His face was tinted purple, some markings painting the sides of his face and deepening the contours, perfect for blending into the shadows.
“No.”
“Jamie said we could trust you.” That must have been the girl from inside, the one that made everyone look normal. Spencer nodded.
“You can.”
“Is Zizzo going to be okay?”
“He didn’t have anything to do with this, my team will make sure he makes it home for you.” Spencer looked around the abandoned building, regret curling in his gut. “You might have to find a new home, though.”
The kid nodded, unfazed. “There’s a few places we move between.” He paused, listening in to the conversation between Derek and Cory. “You should go back out there. There’s no cell service out here, I can take your phone and get somewhere I can call your team.” Reid handed over the phone without hesitation, telling him to call Gideon. “And don’t worry, we won’t let him do anything.”
Spencer ran out into the scene, right as Derek was laying into Cory. He was about to tell him to stop, they needed to defuse things, the panic welling up in Cory was too quick, he was going to do something drastic.
He attempted to break the tension, trying to bring their attention to him, but he was grabbed with a pistol shoved in his face. He and Derek were going back and forth. He felt the familiar panic he felt when his life was on the line, but he wrestled it down. Panicking would only get him shot faster.
It helped that could sense the mutant kids around him. They said they had his back. He had to trust them.
“You were mad that you couldn’t get with the cheerleader. You took out the jock and killed her when she wouldn’t get with you!”
Derek was wrong. It was never about being an outcast. Cory wasn’t the quarterback, but the whole football team were held up as gods in high school. He wasn’t suffering from lack of attention, he wasn’t killing for his own gain. He was killing to take down others.
“No.” Spencer argued. The gun was pressed further into his cheek. “That’s what you wanted us to think. You planted all the seeds so that, if you did get caught, you would be just an intellectual too smart for his dumb little town.
“But this was never about you, was it?” Spencer could sense the other mutants surrounding him. He trusted Jamie, he trusted the boy he met. They wouldn’t let anything happen to him. “No it was never about you, or what you wanted, not really. It was about the people you thought were beneath you. The people who you and your friends and your town bullied out of school and away from the public. You wanted to make them feel ashamed for what they are and you were furious when it didn’t work.”
“Reid, what are you talking about?”
“You found out about their hideout, and it disgusted you. The little freaks must have been the one to kill that body you guys found in the forest, it made so much sense. It was only a matter of time before they killed again. You wanted to speed up the process and get them caught, or at least make a name for yourself if nothing else.”
“Shut up!” Cory shouted.
“Killing the guy that had everything you wanted was just a bonus, wasn’t it? Blame it on the misfits, nobody will question that.”
Cory pulled the trigger. Spencer’s life flashed before his eyes. He saw his mom, fighting her hardest to stay coherent for him at his college graduation, clinging to Logan in the chaos of the crowds, the pride he’d felt from her had kept her going through all of his hardest cases. He saw Logan, every Christmas card that meant so much to him, the safety he’d always felt in his presence, the way that he had never stopped coming for Spencer, how he had never once hesitated to drop everything he was doing whenever Spencer needed help. He saw Remy, the way he lit up every time Spencer went on his tangents, the way he pushed Spencer again and again to teach him how to defend himself, the love and intelligence that was so carefully hidden away behind his beautiful red and black eyes. The way all three of them loved him, all in different ways, but always unwaveringly and irrevocably. He only regretted not saying goodbye to them.
The gun clicked.
“I think you’ll find it doesn’t work.” One of the mutant girls from the house came out from the bushes. She was short and blonde, anger swirling in her gut, fists clenching at her side.
“What did you do, you little slut!?” He took the gun off of Reid to point it at her. His arm loosened its hold on Spencer’s upper body and he elbowed Cory in the chin, attempting to dodge out of the way of Morgan’s tackle but couldn’t quite escape it.
Morgan had him off the ground and cuffed before Spencer could even roll over. When he did, the blonde girl was holding her hand out. He took it and let her pull him from the ground, brushing the pine needles and twigs off.
“Thank you.” He said to her.
“No, thank you. Without you guys, none of the other officers would have thought twice about putting us in jail when they thought we were just rowdy teens. If they’d seen what we are, there’s no telling where we would end up.”
Spencer could just barely make Jamie out at the edge of the forest. She was leaning against a taller boy, one of the other ones he’d seen protecting the younger kids in the house. The shadowy boy from earlier showed up next to him, handing back his phone.
“Gideon is on his way. Should be here soon.”
He took the phone and put it in his pocket, pulling out his wallet in the process. “If you guys ever need any help, give this number a call.” He handed over his own business card, which he turned over and wrote a different number and address on the back. “It’s a long way to go, but there’s a place in New York for people like,” Spencer hesitated, unsure if he should give himself away, unsure about who was listening, but decided it was important the kids hear him say it, “people like us. They’ll take care of you. If anyone says anything, just tell the big hairy guy that Spencer sent you.”
They nodded and retreated back into the forest. Jamie and the taller boy stayed at the edge, though covered by the darkness.
Spencer moved to where Morgan was holding Cory against a tree until the other officers showed up. He was hauled into the back of a cruiser and taken away from the scene shortly after. Zizzo was driven up in Hotch’s car, and for as nonchalant as he tried to look on the outside, Spencer wouldn’t have needed to be an empath to see how much he was itching to check on the kids he so clearly cared a great deal for.
Sheriff Bridges apologized to them, then made a vague threat about partying too hard and made a last ditch effort to convert them to Christianity, before they were off. Soon enough, it was only the BAU and the Lords of Destruction.
As soon as the lights turned the corner and disappeared, Zizzo was running towards the tree line. Not that he even made it halfway there before his kids were rushing forward to check on him. Spencer couldn’t make out what was said, but all the happy emotions put a smile on his face and pushed the exhaustion just a little further down.
The rest of his team piled into the two SUVs they brought. Spencer pretended not to notice they had moved and hung back a little bit, wanting to bask in the relief and happiness for just a little while longer.
“Spencer!” The sharp tone Gideon used made him smile, it always reminded him of Logan when he was getting impatient.. He pushed off the tree he was leaning against and started to turn around.
Zizzo turned to look at him at the same time and they made eye contact. He could see the understanding in the gaze, could feel the gratitude he was projecting. They nodded towards each other, then went their separate ways.
The car ride home was far more relaxed than the one before the raid. This time, it was just him and Gideon, the others riding into the other SUV right in front of them. Spencer knew that night would be a lot to process, but he would do it later. He would call Remy when he was in the safety of his apartment, tell him about his day, and hope to hear some good stories coming from the kids at the mansion.
“You know,” Gideon started, and Reid internally sighed. He had been on the receiving end of many lectures and heart-to-hearts since meeting him at college. While they almost always made him feel better in the end, they often required a level of energy and compassion that Spencer just didn’t have at the moment. “It never gets easier. It’s nights like these I anticipate being disturbed by my own shadows in the night. Especially after cases like this, where one of our own put in the line of fire.”
Spencer tilted his head, confused. “You get nightmares too?”
“How can I not? Given the job we’ve chosen.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet, tossing it to Spencer. “If you open that, you’ll see four kids sitting together with their arms around each other. The one in blue, her name is Deborah. When I first started out, she was one of the first people I was able to save after being kidnapped. Her parents sent me that picture for their first Christmas together after the incident, and every night I look at it before bed. I find it helps keep the nightmares away.”
“I don’t know how much that’s going to help, Gideon.”
“The things you’ve been through, kid, I’d be more surprised if you got regular nights of rest. And that’s with knowing that you keep a majority of it to yourself. I know you have your support system back home, but you might want to start leaning on the rest of your team.”
“I just don’t know who I can trust with, well, you know. I mean, I tried to confide in Morgan today and look at us now! Not even twenty-four hours later and both you and Hotch know about it. I asked him not to say anything too.”
“He’s just trying to look out for you.”
“Yeah? And what if he’s just trying to look out for the rest of the team by letting them know there’s a dangerous mutant in their midst? What if he reports me to your bosses and then I have agents knocking down my door to see what makes me tick?”
He could feel himself panicking and pushing his emotions out of himself. He tried to reign himself in, and sent a thank you to whoever taught Gideon to make his shields so high. The last thing they needed was for him to have a panic attack that inadvertently made them crash the car.
“And how was he with those mutant kids today?”
He hadn’t breathed a word of it. When the blonde girl popped up, he was surprised and apprehensive, but calmed once he realized she was helping them. After that, he had kept his eye on Cory, and more so getting the gun out of his hand.
Then, once Cory was on his way back to the station, he’d allowed Spencer to handle it. He dealt with their unsub and took him away from the house, from the other kids, and allowed Spencer to deal with it. That meant he trusted him, to some degree. That meant he understood what was happening and let him deal with it.
“He wasn’t outwardly hostile, just- I don’t know. There’s too many unknowns.”
Gideon nodded. “You don’t have to do anything right now. You don’t have to do anything at all. You could die with this secret if you really wanted to. But I’m telling you now, because I don’t think that’s what you want, that none of the team is going to care that you’re a mutant. I vetted every single person on this team. Me, I did that. I’ve profiled the daylights out of them, and none of them have shown any prejudice against mutants before.
“Plus, we both know that if somebody did rat on you, you’ve got some people in your corner that wouldn’t let you stay gone for long.”
That made him smile. He knew Gideon was thinking of just Remy, and had some vague idea of a figure like Logan in his life, though the two had never met. Spencer wondered what he would do if he knew how many people were in his corner, or how powerful they were.
“I’ll think about it.”
They got to the jet and were off quickly after that. Some of the others went to lay down, but Spencer was holding off. The case hadn’t ended how anybody wanted it to, but they had all been doing it too long to not acknowledge that there had been nothing they could’ve done. Cherish was dead either before they got there or very soon after, her killer would face justice either way.
He thought about Gideon’s words, but decided he would have to talk about it with Logan and Remy before he actually said anything to Morgan. He knew, intellectually, that he wouldn’t have a problem with mutants. He’d seen him interact with enough of them, even before that case, that he knew in his head that everything would be fine.
At the same time, his anxieties ate away at him every time he thought about telling someone. He’d had no choice in high school, but for the past twelve years he’d been hiding his deeper identity. For twelve years he woke up and put his contacts in and kept himself locked down so hard that nobody would suspect anything at all.
The thought of letting anybody else, especially someone from within the system that posed such a threat to him, sent a chill throughout his body. The last time he’d trusted somebody with that kind of information he’d landed in a cell with a foul-mouthed Cajun. Gideon had figured it out on his own, somehow, and even then Spencer had a plan set in place to flee if he ever betrayed him.
He would have to discuss it with Remy and Logan. He would need to have a talk with Morgan. There was too much at risk to do anything without a plan.