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“Hey, Reid.”
Penelope’s voice is soft, hedging.
Spencer decides to go for the light-hearted response, “’Reid,’ wow, no… uh. No witty Garcia greeting for me?”
Even somber, Spencer can hear the start of a smile, weak and watery but still there, in her voice at the back and forth, an attempt at normalcy. “I can’t be my sparkly self when you are where you are.”
“Garcia, do you think you can do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“I know I can’t call my mom without, uh…” he clears his throat, “without alerting everyone at her hospital.”
“What do you need?”
“I need you to record a message for her in case anything happens to me.”
“Oh.” Penelope takes a deep breath, and Spencer knows she really means it when she says, “Nothing’s gonna happen to you. You’re gonna brilliantly find out who did this, and we’re going to treat this strain.”
“I hope you’re right, but if you’re not, I just- I really want to make sure that she hears my voice.”
“Okay. Just give me a second.”
“You ready?”
“Ready.”
“Hi, Mom, this is Spencer. I just really want you to know that I love you. And I- I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son.” He trails off, tears welling in his eyes and throat closing off.
“…Reid?”
“There’s one more thing. It’s… sensitive. The same as with my mom, I know… I know he can’t be contacted. I can’t call him. But I need him to know. Another recording, please Garcia.”
“Of course, Spencer. I… Of course.”
“His name is Ethan. He lives in New Orleans, but he grew up in Vegas. He’s a jazz musician. He loves playing any instrument he can get his hands on, being the only person who can consistently beat me at chess, photography and street food and me. He loves me. And I love him, and I- I need you to tell him that I love him. I love him, and I’m sorry, and I wish, God, I wish I could tell him I’ll be there this weekend but I don’t know.” Reid cuts himself off with a wry chuckle. It rattles a little in his chest, and he coughs before continuing, “It’s our anniversary on Sunday, you know. Three years. Or eight, depending on when you start counting.”
“I get you, boy genius.”
Reid smiles at that.
The nickname.
In school, it had been a signal of mocking. A name that the older kids called him to remind him that he would never fit in with them. When he’d met Ethan, it morphed into something more. Teasing, still, sure. But not malicious, not when Ethan said it.
It was fond. Said around a smile, eyes soft and just on the right side of looking too deep. Ethan had a habit of that; of seeing right through to the core.
But then Ethan had left, dropped out and gone without even leaving a note, and with him he’d taken the fondness of the nickname. He didn’t hear it for a while after that.
When he’d joined the BAU, the nickname cycle had started again. Never malicious, but not quite as fond as when Ethan had said it, either. For a while, at least.
“I’m… I’m ready. Go ahead.”
“Hey, Eth. I really hope you never have to hear this. I love you. That’s really the important part. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I love you. I really want to come home to you. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, darling.”
Spencer didn’t often use pet names — that was always more Ethan’s purview — this time, it falls from his lips almost without permission. A stress response, a subconscious, desperate cry for Ethan to know, to see just how scared he was.
“Dr. Reid,” Dr. Kimura is suited up, voice just on this side of robotic coming through the various filters of the mask.
He’s out of time.
It’s frantic when he speaks to Garcia again, “Promise me. Promise you’ll send it, if anything— if I run out of time. Please, Penelope”
“Yeah, Spence. I’ll send it.”
Later, when the antidote has been found and he’s adequately hosed off, soaking wet and dripping onto the bed in the ambulance, he’ll lift a weak hand to the paramedic.
“Ethan,” he’ll say, and it will be the only thing clear through garbled aphasic speech.
And then he’s out.
Spencer wakes up slowly.
He’s in a hospital bed, this much is immediately obvious.
His mind feels clearer, less coursing panic. His lungs aren’t rattling with every breath, his limbs don’t feel quite as heavy as before.
He’s cold, that’s the next thing he notices. Spencer has always run cold. He’d learned from a young age to always bring a sweater, even in the middle of the Nevada summer, even when visiting Ethan in the sticky, humid heat that was New Orleans. He always, always had layers on. In the hospital bed, sheets so thin they may as well be paper, the only warm part on him is his hand.
His hand?
He cracks an eye open to look at the source of the warmth. Slumped in the plastic chair, hair messy and clothing rumpled, is the sleeping form of his boyfriend. His neck is bent at an awkward angle, cheek supported by his free hand curled into a fist.
As he shifts in the bed, Ethan starts to wake. He’s always been a light sleeper. He looks at Reid blearily, not quite aware of his surroundings as he blinks the last of the sleep out of his eyes.
“You look like shit,” Reid mumbles. His voice is raspy from the sleep and stress of the day. “You’re supposed to be in New Orleans.”
Ethan’s hand squeezes his, “Yeah. When your boyfriend gets dosed with anthrax, you try staying a thousand miles away from him.”
Reid concedes the point. “How are you even here?”
“I got a phone call from a very indignant Technical Analyst. Hopped the next flight outta Louisiana, and here I am. Your team wants to see you.”
“You met them.”
Spencer’s heartbeat ticks up at the idea of his family finally meeting Ethan.
It’s not that he’s ashamed of Ethan, not in any way, nor is it the fact that he’s in a relationship with a man. It’s just… Ethan is a part of Reid that he likes to keep close to his chest. Something just for him, a comfort and a love so all consuming that he’d been scared to let it get mixed with the part of him that he has to be at work. His job shows him the darkest parts of humanity, it forces him to pick apart people as statistics and likelihoods, makes him look at the depth of human cruelty and deduce where that cruelty will fall next.
Ethan is everything but. He’s the antithesis of everything Reid does for work. He’s kind, to his core. Ethan is a lot of things; funny, charming, creative, but most of all he’s kind. He’s also the one person, aside from his mother, that Spencer has known the longest, even counting the years they’d lost contact.
It’s not that his team aren’t kind, either. But Ethan is separate, something bright and good and all for Spencer that he’d tried to keep it all for himself for as long as he could. He’s greedy, selfish in that regard.
“Not really,” Ethan says. “Figured you would want to make the introductions. I spoke to Penelope on the phone for a few minutes. It’s all been a bit hectic, Spence.”
Reid sighs, head rolling to the side so that he can look at Ethan properly. Hectic is one word for it. Completely fucking terrifying is another.
“Hi,” he says. He’s not sure why, conversation already considerably underway.
Ethan smiles like he gets it anyway. “Hi, baby. I love you.”
Spencer smiles, the corners of his lips quirking up as exhaustion settles into his bones. “Love you. I’m glad you’re here.”
“I know.”
Spencer squeezes Ethan’s hand, a quick pattern of three, and lets his eyes slip closed again
The next time Spencer wakes up, he feels significantly less like he’s dying.
Anthrax poisoning is no joke.
Ethan is still in the same chair, awake this time and a little bit more put together — Spencer has clearly been asleep long enough that he’d been able to go back to Spencer’s apartment, shower and change his clothes. He looks up from the book he’d been reading as Spencer shifts in the bed.
“Morning, sleeping beauty. Docs are going to let you out of here in the next few hours if you pass all their tests.”
Spencer nodded. Honestly, he felt like the worst of it had passed, the hosing down and the antidote working in combination. He’d probably have been fine to leave hours ago if he wasn’t so tired.
“Are the team…”
“They’re waiting for you to say the word so that they can come and see you. I told Penelope on the phone that you’d probably want to go home and shower properly first. But we can see them whenever you want. I would like to meet them, I’m excited to.”
What Ethan doesn’t say is that he knows how much it meant to Spencer that he got the chance to meet Gideon before he left. He knows that for as much as he likes to greedily keep Ethan to himself, Spencer has a great need for his team to approve of Ethan. To meet him, to know him, to like him.
Spencer’s not worried about that part, Ethan always had a knack for people. They can’t help but like him, he’s just so damn charming. It’d been a great help during college, Ethan taking over the social interaction for Spencer — turns out, being a child prodigy on campus got a hell of a lot easier when people didn’t also think you were a loser know-it-all.
There’s a light knock at the door and a nurse pops her head into the room. She’s got long, grey hair pulled up into a twist, and ducks on her scrubs. “Can I come in?”
Ethan nods at her, “D’you need me to duck out?”
“You’re all good, sweetheart,” when she smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkle. In a way, she reminds Spencer of the grandmother he’s only got a few wispy memories of, “I just need to check over Mr. Reid here.”
“Doctor,” Ethan says. Reid rolls his eyes, biting back a fond smile. He wasn’t going to say anything.
(For once.)
The nurse quirks an eyebrow.
“It’s Dr. Reid,” Ethan explains, “he’s got like 3 PhDs.”
The nurse smiles, “Well, aren’t you a regular smart cookie, then? Okay, let’s get you checked over and then I’ll send the doctor — the medical kind — in to get you ready for discharge.”
Spencer agrees and lets the nurse do her job without complaint. When she deems him acceptable, she smiles and smoothes the hospital sheets around him as she tells him that the doctor will be in within a half hour.
It goes quickly after that; the doctor visit, discharge, getting back to his apartment.
It’s only when the front door clicks closed behind them that Ethan finally gathers him up into his arms.
“Don’t you ever do that again, okay, baby? You can’t ever do that to me again,” Ethan says into his neck. His voice is shaky, and Spencer can feel the dampness of Ethan’s eyelashes on his skin as he blinks the tears away. “I was so scared, Spencer.”
“Can’t get rid of me that easily, Eth,” Spencer says softly, a hand running up and down his back.
Ethan pulls his head back to look at Spencer. “Better not.”
When they kiss, it’s not some big thing. It’s simple, sweet. A homecoming that Spencer didn’t know he was missing until he got to have it again.
Everything clicked into place with the touch of mouth to mouth. Spencer was safe.
Finally, he was safe.
He showers quickly, turns the water as hot as he can stand it. Pretends he doesn’t remember how cold the chemical shower was, pretends he doesn’t still feel the panic.
He stands under the spray for a long few moments. The bathroom door eases open. Spencer hears Ethan rustling around on the other side of the curtain, hears the telltale clinking of a belt being undone and jeans hitting the floor. The sound of Ethan’s sweater follows, and then the curtain is being pulled back. Ethan climbs into the tub without asking, manhandles Spencer until they’re both comfortably under the spray. Comfortable is a stretch, Spencer’s shower not really designed to hold two grown men, but Ethan’s arms slide around Spencer’s waist and comfortable becomes the right word.
Spencer had never loved anyone in the way he loves Ethan.
As a child, having a love like theirs was not modelled very well — the tumultuous relationship between parents felt like a prophecy for the future that Spencer was in no hurry to fulfill. As he grew up, he was too advanced in school to ever have a crush that went anywhere; everyone in his grade was already two, three, four years older. But Ethan, beautiful Ethan, just as advanced as him, the only two minors on the college campus. They were assigned each other as roommates, and it was like a blessing from a God Spencer didn’t even believe in.
Like the clouds had parted on his life, and a ray of light had manifested into the physical form of his roommate.
Spencer had never had a love like Ethan before, but more than that, before Ethan he’d never had a friend.
Sometimes, when Spencer was at his most sentimental, he would pretend that they had never lost contact. That they had never broken up, that the years between five and three weren’t subtracted, but added instead. In the privacy of his shower, his boyfriend’s arms locked around his waist, he lets himself pretend that they’ve been together over a decade instead.
Finding Ethan again, forcing himself to get over his mild distaste of technology just to be able to stay connected to him, it was the best thing to ever happen to him. But sometimes Spencer lets himself have that small joy of loving Ethan for longer.
If he could have him forever, he would. The water cascades over them and Spencer’s heart aches with the dream of a silver ring around his finger.
“Tomorrow, I meet your team, yeah?” Ethan asks quietly. He presses his lips to the space between Spencer’s shoulder blades.
Spencer agrees.
Tomorrow.
They have the time. All of it, forever.
bonus.
Ethan and Spencer walk up to Rossi’s front door hand in hand. They don’t often risk the small act of romance out of the house, but though Rossi’s driveway is as long as a street, it isn’t nearly as public.
When they reach the door, Ethan knocks his fingers against the wood in some semblance of a rhythm. Spencer is sure that it’s a section of the percussion floating around in his brain to accompany his latest piano piece.
Rossi opens the door, and his eyes sparkle when they catch on Ethan.
“You’ve brought a plus one! This will be fun.”
“It’s good to meet you, I’m Ethan,” his boyfriend says, holding a hand out for Rossi to shake.
Rossi introduces himself, returning the handshake, and invites them inside.
Spencer unloops his purple scarf from around his neck while Ethan takes his jacket off. As he shrugs his own jacket from his shoulders, Ethan takes it from him.
“Coats can go in that room there, everyone else is through here into the dining room.”
They deposit their jackets and follow the older man down the hall.
“Who is this, Reid?” Prentiss grins as they cross the threshold into the room, “you’ve been holding out on us?”
Ethan smiles at her, rakish and handsome, as he offers a hand to shake. “Ethan. I’m Spencer’s…”
He trails off, looking at Spencer as though he was suddenly aware that they had never discussed what exactly they would be telling Spencer’s team.
“Boyfriend,” Spencer supplies. He aims to sound nonchalant, but he knows that the flare of red on the tips of his ears is giving him away, even with his long hair covering the majority of it.
Ethan’s grin widens. “Boyfriend,” he finishes.
“Well, that’s a surprise,” Derek says, but he’s smiling too so Spencer doesn’t worry about it. “And here I was thinking that pretty boy had never dated anyone before.”
“We’ve been together eight years and he is my first and also fifth relationship, so. Sort of right, I guess,” Spencer says, not looking up from where he’s twirling the pasta onto his fork.
There’s a beat of silence. Spencer looks up, glancing around the table as he shrugs. “What?”
“You’ve been in a relationship… the entire time I’ve known you?” JJ asks, and there is hurt colouring her face.
Ah. Spencer has misstepped. Of course.
“Not the entire time,” he’s quick to reassure her, “Just… three years. Ethan and I…” Spencer doesn’t really know how to explain the complicated nature of his relationship.
“What Spence is trying to say is that yes, we have been together eight years, but that’s eight years total. This go around we’ve only been together for three, and it’s mostly long distance. We’ve known each other since childhood. Dated for five years through college, lost contact, found each other again. It was during your case in New Orleans?”
“Sarah Danlin, the Ripper copycat,” Spencer confirms.
“Anyway, we kept in contact this time around, and the rest is history as they say.”
“Right, well. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ethan,” Hotch shakes his hand.
“I wish I could say I’ve heard a lot about you,” Emily laughs.
Ethan charms his team, as he always does. After dinner, over a bottle of red, he also hustles all of them at poker. Even Emily.
“What was that I heard about Sin to Win?” Ethan teases her, and she whacks playfully at his shoulder in turn.
Spencer can’t stop the small smile on his face as he watches his favourite person on earth fall in so easily with his favourite group on earth.
The couch cushions sink slightly as someone joins him. He knows it’s Penelope from the smell of her orange perfume before he turns his head. He glances at her and finds her smiling back at him.
She turns to lay her head on Spencer’s shoulder. He wraps his arm around her.
“I’m really, really glad you’re okay, Spence,” she says quietly. “And I’m so glad that you’ve shared this part of yourself with us. I love you, you know that right?”
“I know. I love you too, Garcia. And I never got to thank you for taking those messages for me. I know it couldn’t have been easy to hear me… saying goodbye like that.”
“I’d do anything for you, boy genius.”
Spencer squeezes her closer to his side.
He knows. And he would do the same in equal measure.
Ethan glances over at the from the new hand that he’d been dealt. When their eyes meet, Ethan grins and winks at him.
Spencer’s heart beats just that little bit faster, still alive.
Still, blissfully, alive.