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Phone calls in the middle of the night are never fun.
Spencer isn’t actually asleep yet - he’s been reading up about quantum physics since before the sun set, with a steady stream of coffee in his mug. The light of his living room is soft from the warm side table lamps, but the glare of his phone in the subdued atmosphere of the night is harsh and unwelcome.
The caller ID displays the picture of him and his godson wearing suits to Rossi’s fourth wedding to his second wife. That a few years ago now, but Henry was nearly as tall as he was. The stark white of the name Henry stands out against the picture.
Late night calls like this are not - uncommon. Sometimes Henry can’t sleep, so he calls Reid and asks him to just talk until he drifts off. Reid used to do it when Henry was small enough to be settled in arms without tiring, just talk about everything and nothing because Henry just loved his voice.
But Reid can already tell that isn’t what’s going on right now - the speaker fills his ear with a cacophony of sound; loud laughter, thundering bass and the shouting of a party
“Henry?”
The voice he recognises as his godson’s is far away in the wall of noise, but Reid picks out Henry’s voice saying excuse me and sorry . The sound fades, replaced by the distant thrum of the base, and the wind. “Uncle Spencer?” he asks, his voice quiet against the new backdrop. “Could you come pick me up?”
“Sure,” Spencer tells him without hesitation. “Where are you?”
As Henry rattles off the address, Spencer grabs his coat from the rack where he left it earlier in the evening. His mind is already mapping his route to the neighborhood; wealthy, but still in the same tax bracket as JJ and Will, very prim and reputation orientated. They probably have large, well-trimmed front lawns and arches above the front porch.
Spencer spots Henry on the sidewalk at the end of the street, which does have arches and well-maintained hedges on the homes either side. As he approaches, he can hear the sound of the beat from the house. He’d say, nice neighborhood like this, somewhat rigid status quo - nine noise complaints so far?
Henry is in the car in seconds, buckling up fast as lightning like he always has; they used to make a game of it, when Henry was a kid - who could get their belt on first. Some habits die hard.
He doesn’t say anything as Spencer drives to the end of the cul-de-sac to turn around, doesn’t make a sound until they’ve left the suburb behind, the only thing remaining of the street the porch lights in the rear view mirror. The occupants could save as much as $11 if they were more responsible about their energy usage and turned the lights off.
Henry lets out a breath when the lights too fade from view, and he melts into the seat, looking exhausted. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“I wasn’t asleep yet,” Spencer tells him simply.
Henry makes a little oh sound under his breath, and then asks, “What were you reading about?”
“Quantum physics.”
Reid pauses, unsure of whether distraction is the right tactic in this moment, or if he should be direct and ask Henry about what’s really going on here.
Spencer knows something's wrong - they all do. They’re profilers. Henry’s been acting out, staying out late, fighting with his parents. He won’t listen to JJ or Will, and he’s slept at Garcia’s five times in the last month. He hasn’t stayed at Spencer’s at all.
He remembers overhearing Prentiss and Rossi, talking, theorising; “It’s not teenage rebellion,” Emily had said. “There's something more. If it were teenage rebellion, he’d be doing more things to hurt Will and JJ - it seems like he just doesn't want them to be involved with his life.”
Rossi hummed in agreement. “There's no signs of drugs or pregnancy - do you think he's being bullied?”
Reid disagrees; many of his friends have expressed concern, and while that in itself doesn’t completely void that avenue, something in Reid’s gut - something that he knows, as a profiler, he doesn’t have anything adjacent to proof to support - he doesn’t think its that. Intuition is a dangerous tool to rely on in his line of work, so it’s not something he should be practicing in his personal life.
“Explain it to me,” his nephew asks of him, in the voice that reminds Spencer so forcefully of a young child with the same words in his mouth. So he does.
The drive is long enough that he explains the basics of quantum physics before they arrive back at the apartment. The clock on the dash ticks over to three minutes past two, and the night is silent around them, pitch dark but for the street lamps that make the pavement a wash of light every ten feet.
They’re quiet on the stairs so as to not disturb Reid’s neighbors - although they might be used to the genius’ unusual hours by now, when the work calls or the jet lands late. But out of manners, they tiptoe up the stairs, hushed and careful.
The first thing he does when he steps into the apartment is reach into his cupboard - which is nearly bare, when did that happen? - and remove the cocoa powder, and the milk from the fridge, and the saucepan. The space quickly fills with the smell of warm milk - Spencer might not be much of a cook, but he can definitely make a mean cup of cocoa.
Spencer watches Henry take down his own battered copy of The Hobbit, dog-eared and very loved, as they wait for the tell-tale bubbling to rise in pitch. He brings it with him to the small dining table Reid has shoved in the corner of the kitchen.
As he stirs, Reid remembers Henry’s squeal of Do the voices, uncle Spencer! over the phone, the third, fourth time through that he read the story to Henry at bedtime. How Smaug had a deep, gravelly voice, and Gollum hissed his words into Henry’s bedroom from the phone receiver, Will or JJ’s subtle laughs next to the exaggerated delight of the five year old.
The soft curl of lips on Henry’s mouth now is sad - and private, in a way. Spencer’s just not sure if he’s apart of that privacy, or he’s excluded from it.
He forgets, sometimes, that Henry is old enough to drive, and will be going to college next year, and that the baby he held in his arms, after seeing his own father for the first time in as many years has passed since the day in question, has grown up.
Putting the mugs down breaks the spell and brings Henry back from where he just went inside his head. He takes it in his hands, considers the surface for a few moments as he thinks. His shoulders are hunched over, with the rest of his body closed off. Pursed lips, but his jaw is working like he’s chewing words -
“You’re profiling me,” Henry tells his mug. Spencer acknowledges to himself that they haven’t made eye contact at all in the time they’ve been together. “Mom does it too.”
“Sorry - we can’t help it. It’s our -”
“- Yeah, it’s your job,” Henry cuts across him, almost bitter, before his expression twists with regret, moving his hands over his face with a gust of exhalation and fingers pushing up under the frames of his glasses. “Sorry, sorry, I don’t mean it like that.”
Spencer watches as he places his glasses next to his mug and rubs his knuckles into his eye sockets. He takes two deep breaths before removing his hands from his face and meeting his uncle's eyes.
“Everyone's worried about you, Henry,” Spencer says softly. He reaches forward to put a hand on Henry's wrist, his thumb moving back and forth on the skin under the incline of his knuckles for a second before he retracts it again. “You know that we all love you, and that we want to help -”
“Do you ever feel like you're not a guy?” Henry blurts across him, like his mouth couldn't keep the words locked back anymore. His eyes are wide and as big as saucers, before he looks down again and runs a hand through his blonde hair.
Spencer purses his lips for a second, a million books running cover to cover through his head, articles and research papers on the social roles of gender.
Gender, a word with a Latin origin in the word genus, is typically defined as the state of being male or female, commonly used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. Non-binary, genderqueer and even transgender can be used to describe a partial or full dissociation from the identity assigned at birth and the roles assigned to a person within a social setting. Intersexuality also has some overlap in the cultural understanding of gender, although they are two separate topics.
“Gender can be fluid for many people,” Spencer says carefully. Henry is still looking at the table, where his hands, artist’s hands, strong but graceful and sure around brushes, they fidget on the mug. “But,” he adds, “I’ve never experienced it, the fluidity, I’ve always had more of an absence of relation to social notions of gender and filled the roles that were assigned to me.”
Henry is slowly looking up with a crease in his brow. “So you’re - not a guy?”
“I suppose not,” Spencer confirms, considering. “I’ve always presented in a somewhat masculine fashion because - it was what was expected of me.”
“Except for your hair,” Henry laughs, looking down at his mug again, but this time he isn’t as fixed or fueled by fear and shame to avoid. Henry already seems lighter, like something has lifted off his shoulders.
They chuckle as the manual clock on Spencer’s wall turns closer to three, and when the silence that falls after their mirth is absolute, he starts again.
“Why did you call me tonight? Why not Garcia?”
He watches as Henry’s face grows hard again for seconds before it slips into an honest face of exhaustion. Henry looks down at his mug again. “I've already stayed at hers so much, I didn't want to -” he scrambles for words for seconds, before sighing. “And I haven't seen you in a long time because I knew this would happen.”
“Do you feel better?”
“I feel tired.” That's not an answer but Henry does look dead on his feet.
“Let's go to bed.”
When he can hear Henry snoring through the wall, having forced him to take the bed, he finally calls JJ.
“Hello?” she answers. She doesn’t sound like she’s been asleep at all, and Spencer bets if he were to check Henry’s cell, there would be many missed calls and unanswered texts.
“Henry’s in my apartment.”
“Oh thank god,” he hears her say, then away from the phone but still audible, "Will, he’s safe, he’s at Spencer’s.”
When she starts speaking again, there is an echo of the kitchen - speaker phone. “What happened?”
“He was at a party and he called me to pick him up,” Spencer tells them. “He’s sleeping now.”
“Did you talk to him?” Will’s voice is to the left of the phone whereas JJ is to the right.
Spencer looks back at his bedroom door, ajar, and listens to the soft snoring just reaching his ears. “Yeah -”
Spencer knows that the idea of “outing” someone is considered socially unacceptable and he doesn't want to be the person to commit such an act. He knows that Henry very much wants to be his own person, claim a mile of independence when his parents give him an inch. He respects Henry enough to let him come out in his own time.
“ - He'll talk about what's going on when he's ready, but he's okay.”
The silence on the line is tangible following his absolute tone.
“Okay ,” JJ says with a sigh, and Reid can imagine her sinking into her husband's side under the arm he has wrapped around her waist.
“I'll drive him home tomorrow. You should both go to bed. He's safe.”
“Spence,” JJ says, voice is tinged with tiredness. “Thank you.”
“You're a good man,” Will tells him and he distantly feels the niggle that's always been there in the back of his head at the implication of manhood, but he lets it pass like always.
“I'll see you both in the morning,” he promises, knowing that they understand he’d rather not accept their gratefulness for something so personal to him too. Henry's his godchild; he's just following his duties.
The line clicks shut, taking with it the sound of static air. He sighs, rubs his eyes tiredly, and gets up to make coffee.
He has a long night of research to do. For Henry.