fic: speak of the indescribable
Title: speak of the indescribable.
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Words: ~5k
Warnings: for a fair bit of schmoop. Inspired by Reid's expression in Restoration when Morgan was talking about his past, like it was physically hurting him to hear about Morgan's pain. (yeah, just go me with me on this one). Set somewhere vaguely between S3 and S4.
Summary: Reid uses words, words that are lyrical, descriptive, and full of beauty and paints a world of hope using a few short, sharp strokes of his lips. Spencer uses all of the words in all the languages he knows, and says nothing at all. Or, snapshots of communication between Morgan and Reid.
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, “It might have been,”
More sad are these we daily see:
“It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”
- Bret Harte
*
The first time Morgan notices it, it is so insignificant that it almost escapes his attention.
“You know, too much reading might kill you,” Morgan says, stopping by Reid’s desk on the way back from the break room. Reid has a fat tome open on his lap, fingers running through a page of what is decidedly not English.
“Is that so?” He looks up. His lips twitch just the slightest bit upwards, and Morgan smiles automatically.
“Yeah,” he says. “I have scientific proof and everything.”
Reid’s lips twitch further upwards, and his cheekbones become more pronounced as he tries to not to smile outright. “I’m sure you do,” he says, and goes back to deciphering his tome.
Morgan glances at his watch and decides that he has at least five more minutes before his break would be decidedly over. He leans forward. “Why are you reading that anyway?” he asks.
Reid shrugs. “I’m waiting for a call from UCLA. They are doing a series of talks on profiling and criminal behavior and they are discussing some of my papers. I’m doing a few consults to help them out.”
Morgan raises his eyebrows. Tries to crush that feeling inside his chest that feels a lot like pride. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or any of us?” he asks.
Reid shrugs again and runs his fingers through the bindings of his book. “It’s happened before,” he says, and dismisses himself with a flick of his fingers, “It isn’t a big deal.”
Morgan stares. “Reid,” he says, gripping the handle of his mug tighter than usual. “This is incredible. Why-“
The phone on Reid’s desk starts ringing and he takes a step backwards, watching Reid fold the tip of the page he was reading before closing the book.
“Dr. Reid,” he answers, and his tone is just the slightest bit authoritative, just enough for Morgan to ponder upon the rarity that is Reid using that voice. He raises his hand, intending to clap Reid’s shoulder but Reid swivels in his chair, holding the phone closer. “Yes, I was hoping you would pick up on that connection,” he says into the phone, lost to the world moving around him, and his eyes are alive with a ferocity that Morgan hasn't seen in a while.
He lets his hand drop and crosses the bullpen to settle at his own desk. He glances at Reid one last time, but he is looking down, smiling slightly and making copious notes on a legal pad in front of him.
Morgan sets down his coffee and goes back to work.
*
It’s already six in the evening before he gets the chance to speak to Reid again.
Reid is still at his desk, typing with his left hand while he leafs through a bound journal with his right.
“Hey, Reid,” he greets, “are you heading out anytime soon?”
“Give me two minutes,” he murmurs into his book. Morgan settles down at the corner of his desk, watches him type with his left hand into a consult form with his eyes still firmly fixed on the journal he’s reading through, this time thankfully in a language he can understand.
“Consults getting too easy for you?” he wants to know.
“I needed to add a source in the consult form,” Reid replies, hitting the space bar one last time before switching off his monitor.
“Do you want to grab some food?” he asks, picking up the messenger-bag and handing it to Reid.
“You know, it’s funny you mention food,” he exclaims in lieu of an answer. “I just came across a fascinating article about adult-onset food neophobia. The paper postulated that this type of manifestation of neophobia actually has a genetic basis rather than an environmental one, which is quite fascinating. I mean, did you know that heritability has more than a 55% association with this form of neophobia. I would have never thought that the statistical significance would be--”
He stops to take a breath and push the button for the elevator and Morgan jumps at the chance. “Come on, Reid,” he says softly, and resists the odd urge to put an arm around his shoulder, “leave the cases behind and let’s go for a refreshing curry.”
Reid squints down at him. “As opposed to an having an exhausting curry?”
Morgan starts to smile, but Reid seems to be genuinely pondering the emotional implications of curry, and he resorts to shaking his head.
The elevator reaches their floor with a ping.
It is only much later, when he’s pulling into his parking lot after curry and a round of drinks- did you know top-fermented beers tend to be sourer, Morgan? - with Reid, that it hits him: Reid had never really said that he wanted to go out for food in the first place.
*
Ironically, the next time he thinks about it is a couple of weeks later, and Reid is standing in front of their unsub, hands held up in surrender and no firearm on his person.
“What is he doing?” Hotch hisses in his ear. If he didn't know better, he would say that Hotch sounds scared because there is nothing between Reid and the rifle big enough to be a goddamn machine gun. He holds his gun tight, switches off the safety and points it helplessly at Reid’s back. There’s a low ache settling in his stomach and his head starts hurting as the realization that there’s nothing he can do but wait settles in. Vaguely, he wonders what it would be like to punch Hotch in the stomach really hard, just to do something that he has control over.
And then it’s over.
The next thing he sees is Hotch and Rossi lowering their weapons, and Reid is walking towards the police station with a firm grip on Savage’s shoulder. A fine sheen of sweat has broken out on Reid’s face, and the combination of stress and heat has caused his hair to curl further around his face. But then he looks up and sees straight ahead, and all Morgan can see are his eyes, alive with a furious desperation and glittering against the scorching sun. He looks straight at Morgan, and he looks down, suddenly unable to meet Reid's gaze as it burns all over his skin.
“I saved him,” Reid says, and his pitch is high but the words tumble out easily.
Morgan finds he cannot disagree.
*
He shows up at Reid’s place that night with takeout Chinese and a bottle of vodka.
“What are you doing here?” Reid asks, opening the door just enough for it to be polite. Morgan finds himself without an answer, and says as much. Reid opens the door a fraction more and lets him in.
He places the bag of food on Reid’s counter and watches Reid go through the package to dig out the fortune cookies and the carton with the dumplings.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he finally asks, watching Reid’s fingers as they work on breaking upon the second cookie.
Reid stares at him with a mouthful of cookie, and looks lost.
“You could have been killed,” he says again, and tries to resist the urge to shake him by the shoulders. “Do you know what that means?”
Reid scoffs. It’s not a pretty sound, coming from him. “Of course I know what that means. It means that I weighed my options, and used my experience to make an informed decision. With the information I had in hand, I felt that I would be-”
“Oh, cut the crap,” Morgan interrupts, and his voice is raised enough for it to be a yell. Reid doesn’t look away, but the slightest amount of tension leaves his shoulders and he goes back to chewing his cookie.
“I saved him,” he repeats softly.
Morgan runs a hand through his face and tries to find something to do with his hands. “You could have died, Spencer,” he repeats. When he looks up, Reid is staring at him with an intense and unreadable expression, squinting his eyes like he’s trying to figure something out.
“Nothing is worth that,” he says.
“Morgan-” Reid starts, suddenly it occurs to him that he knows exactly what he wants to do with his hands. He moves so swiftly that Reid stops speaking, and places both his hands in Reid’s hair. He feels Reid tense under him, but he doesn’t let go, spends a few moments just trying to detangle the knots in his hair. Then he looks at his face and Reid is looking at him with an expression that’s half confusion and half want, and his lips are parted and his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are dilated just enough to -
In a moment of intense clarity and pounding adrenaline, he reaches forward, cups Reid’s face in his hand and kisses him.
*
It’s all kinds of awkward, the kiss.
Their positions are highly uncomfortable, to say the least. As the moment wears off into the next, Morgan realizes that the edge of the counter is digging painfully at his side. Reid is still half-leaning on the counter with bits of cookie in his mouth and crumbs on his lips. He also realizes, almost simultaneously, that there are too many tangles in Reid’s curls for it to be a romantic endeavor.
Reid clears his throat and swallows the cookie. “What you are experiencing in an endorphin rush,” he states, and he would sound perfectly clinical if not for the slightest tremble in his voice. “When the endorphins wear off, your sense of euphoria will recede and you will be able to feel the complete consequences of any action you take during said rush. It’s a reality check, if you will.”
“Reid,” he says again, and shakes his shoulders a little for good measure. “That’s not what this was about.”
Reid chews on his lip and looks at him. Runs his fingers through his own hair and winces at the tangles. Eats half a dumpling.
“Morgan, this-” he starts again, but this time Morgan is waiting, he is ready and Reid is a fraction of a second too slow.
“I’m not going to wait around at the sidelines for the next time you decide to play the hero,” Morgan says firmly. Reid doesn’t reply and he wonders if he’s gone too far when -
This time, Reid is the one leaning forward and kissing him, and he smiles into Reid’s mouth as he feels his thin arms encircle his body and anchor him slightly away from the edge of the kitchen counter.
It’s much nicer, this time round. Reid’s lips are soft and sweet and sour at the same time, and he smells of coffee and cheap junk food, but his hands are steady against Morgan’s body and when his nose touches Morgan’s, Morgan feels rather than sees Reid’s face curve into a smile.
*
The phone call comes when they are back on the jet from one of their relatively “lighter” cases. Reid is staring out of the window when his phone vibrates in his pocket. He flips his phone open, and Morgan sees him look around in a futile search for privacy. He can almost see everyone snap to attention in an example of conditioned synchronicity at the sound of a phone ringing. He starts to move to the side, in case Reid wants to leave his seat for a semblance of privacy, but he stays put.
“It’s Bennington,” he murmurs loud enough for everyone to hear, and answers the call.
The next few minutes are tense, quiet, and everyone looks determined to pretend that they’re busy doing something. In another situation, Morgan thinks he would've been amused.
Reid disconnects the call a few minutes later, and goes back to staring out the window. His fingers lie on his lap, eerily still and pressed tight in the fabric of his trousers.
He doesn’t have to look around to know that everyone is trying to be discrete while stealing glances at him, even when none of them will speak up to ask. So he does the only thing he can under the circumstances, slides his foot closer to Reid until their feet are touching. He keeps his feet still, exerting enough pressure for Reid to feel his presence without stamping on his toes. Reid doesn’t look around or acknowledge the added weight in any way, but forty-five minutes into the flight, he relaxes his fingers and starts moving them around.
Morgan keeps his gaze firmly on Reid’s fingers, watching them map out contours and boundaries and write out complex logical equations and draw masterpieces in the air in front of him. He falls asleep with a sense of satisfaction and a smile on his face.
*
Surprised would be an understatement for what he feels when Reid shows up at his doorstep that night.
“I have chocolate chip cookies,” he offers through the intercom as Morgan buzzes him in.
They watch half a Lifetime movie about a woman’s recovery from domestic abuses before Reid abruptly reaches for the remote and presses pause.
“I’m not technically a caregiver,” he says suddenly. Morgan frowns.
“There has been a lot of research, a lot of papers published from both sociological and psychological angles that talk about the effects of a long-term illness on the caregiver. But I haven’t been a caregiver for all my adult life, and sometimes I’m reluctant to infer from the statistics about adult caregivers because I don’t feel-”
“Reid,” Morgan interrupts him softly. “how is she?”
Reid exhales loudly. Twitches with the buttons on the remote.
“She’s fine,” he says finally. “She was just asking for me a lot today.”
He turns and smiles hollowly at Morgan, and Morgan suddenly finds it a little harder to breathe. “Listen to me,” he leans forward and enunciates each word, because it’s important, so important that Reid gets it. “You are the kind of son we all - I, in fact, will always strive to be. Don’t ever think any less of yourself, because you are the better than the best son you could’ve ever been.”
Reid laughs again, self-deprecating and empty. “That doesn’t matter to her, Morgan,” he sighs, and for all the youth in his features, looks tragically aged. He presses play once again on the remote and looks away from Morgan.
Reid’s hands twitch on his lap, and Morgan reaches forward to his own hand on top of his. He tries to swallow down the feeling of hurt when Reid instinctively pulls away his own hand and buries it in his sweater.
*
“Tell me something about yourself,” Morgan murmurs, etching contours of random words into Reid’s back.
Reid looks up from his face was burrowed in Morgan’s lap. “Why?” he asks.
Morgan shrugs. “Just because.”
“You already know everything about myself. It’s all in my FBI file.”
Morgan smiles, removes his hand from Reid’s back and allows him to sit up. “No, I mean something about you that’s personal. Something that not many people know.”
Reid frowns. “Why would you want to know that?”
His smile falters. “Because I want to know more about you. I tell you things about me all the time; you know my favorite color, my favorite band, I even told you about my first crush in middle school. All you do is respond with the symbolism behind yellow.”
Reid squints his eyes like he’s laying out the variables of a complex algorithm. “I don’t see what purpose any of this would serve. If I tell you that my favorite color is purple, what would that achieve?”
“Is your favorite color purple?” Morgan wants to know.
Reid halts abruptly, as if side-tracked by the question. “Not really,” he says finally, “I don’t think I’ve ever showed any inclination towards a particular part of the color wheel.”
Morgan shakes his head, tries to clear the aura of constant uncertainty that accompanies a conversation with someone infinitely smarter. “Come on Reid, give me something to work with here.”
Reid stares off in space for a few moments before turning back to look at Morgan like he has figured something out. “I really, really like eating cherry tomatoes,” is what he says.
Morgan leans back on the sofa and tries to ride out the small surge of accomplishment coursing through his veins. “See?” he says finally,
“that’s something I never knew.”
*
“I know what you’re going through, Harold,” Reid’s voice is perfectly calm and controlled, and Morgan wants to rip out his earpiece and break into the building, hostages be damned.
Their most recent unsub is a middle-aged male who has been killing children of terminal patients living in a local hospice. Garcia has further revealed that Harold’s stressor had been the death of his own terminally ill mother two months prior. He had quit his job and given up his savings to take care of his mother, and when she had finally succumbed to her illness, he had set out on a mission of vengeance, primarily targeting people who had admitted their ailing parents in hospices.
“My mother is very ill, too,” Reid says, when Harold doesn’t seem inclined to reply. That makes him look up, and his gun wavers a fraction of an inch from the temple of one of his hostages.
“My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic,” Reid speaks again, encouraged by the reaction from Harold. Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan can see the SWAT team positioned all around the building, and Hotch is beside him, digging his earpiece further in like it would help him hear better.
“He’s good at this,” Morgan feels the need to offer, because Hotch is frowning far too much for it to be from the sun.
“That’s the problem,” Hotch all but growls in a low voice. “He’s very good at doing this.” Morgan opens his mouth to reply when they hear Harold speaking up on the other side.
“Do you take care of her?” Harold’s voice breaks over the wire, and there’s the tiniest of pauses for a fraction of a second before Reid replies.
“I’ve taken care of her my whole life,” Reid’s voice is steady and earnest and makes Morgan’s heart beat a little faster because of the sheer conviction in it.
Harold lets out a sob. “Will you take care of her forever?”
“I will take care of her forever, Harold,” Reid replies softly, and the break in his voice is so slight that no one else picks up on it. Whatever he sees on Reid’s face must comfort him, because the next thing he hears is a thud of a gun being dropped and Reid’s voice over the wire telling them to come in.
He feels a sense of sick déjà vu when Reid finally emerges with a firm grip on Harold’s shoulder, keeping him in place. He shrugs off the acknowledging nod from Hotch and doesn’t stop until he delivers Harold to the LEO. When he looks back, his face is etched with barely controlled anger and his eyes are empty. When he turns to see Morgan looking at him, he stares until Morgan looks away.
*
“You have to start talking sometime,” Morgan says in the car on their way back from the jet. It’s been hours and Reid has yet to do anything but coldly brush off anyone trying to start a conversation with him.
“Morgan-” Reid begins wearily, but he’s cut off. “You have to feel something, Reid,” Morgan’s voice is equal parts earnest and exasperated. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“What do you want me to say, Morgan?” Reid bursts out. “Do you want me to say that this case affected me? That I identified with the unsub yet again because clearly I’m extremely incapable of keeping my personal life separate from the job? What is it that you want me to say that you haven’t profiled out already?”
“I want you to say what you want to say, Reid,” Morgan slams his hand over the steering wheel, and chooses to brake by the road to avoid any temptation to crash into a tree. “Why don’t you, just for once, say what’s on your mind?”
“I don’t understand what you want from me, Morgan,” Reid’s voice is frustrated, and he rubs his eyes over and over again in an effort to calm himself. “Why is me saying anything so important to you?”
“Is it so hard to believe that I want to know what you’re feeling, how you’re doing?” He yells back. “Is it so hard for you to believe that you mean something, that you mean everything -“
Reid cuts him off a huff of shrill, hollow laughter. “Don’t go confusing your pity for me for something else, Morgan. Telling you what I feel, what I think about every second of every day isn’t worth it, don’t you see that?”
Morgan stills for a second, listens to Reid breathing heavily next to him. “What isn’t worth it, Reid?” he finally asks. “Am I not worthy of hearing about your life?”
Reid slumps down in his seat. “Morgan, don’t start,” he says wearily.
Morgan closes his eyes. There’s a crushing feeling on his chest, like a wall has crumbled near him somehow and he’s been hit with the heaviest brick. It’s hard to breathe, like he’s been punched to the gut, like he needs someone to hook him to a nasal cannula just to get more oxygen. He feels an itch starting at the back of his throat.
“Why am I not worthy of your life, Reid?” he asks in a low voice, when he feels like he can speak again and takes no pleasure in seeing Reid flinch.
“Morgan,” Reid’s voice is pleading, desperate. “I can’t deal with this anymore.”
He stares straight ahead without blinking, and doesn’t speak until his eyes are so dry and burning that he’s reasonably sure they don’t contain any moisture. “Can’t or won’t?” The question seems important.
“No,” Reid’s voice is aching with truth, and Morgan thinks that that’s the worst part of it all, that he’s weighed Reid so far down that neither of them can escape the terrible verity of their own words. “You have to understand, Morgan,” he says. “I can’t.”
He doesn't move until he hears the car door slam behind Reid. The silence that follows is the most horrible sound he’s ever heard.
*
The next day, Reid’s eyes are slightly red-rimmed but his face is set in a soft line and he smiles at everyone who greets him. He doesn't speak to Morgan at all beyond a perfunctory greeting and a few questions about past cases. Having no other discernible option, Morgan takes to watching him, instead, watches him during recruitment seminars and case briefing, watches him gesticulate and create a world in the web of his fingers, watches him with a mixture of adoration and wonderment and looks down at his feet every time he catches Reid watching him back.
Reid uses words, words that are lyrical, descriptive, and full of beauty and paints a world of hope using a few short, sharp strokes of his lips. Spencer uses all of the words in all the languages he knows, and says nothing at all.
And he replies to the silence in kind too, sits back on the jet and clenches his hands so that he doesn’t feel the urge to lean in and tuck Reid’s hair behind his ears. He spends his evenings eating insane amounts of cherry tomatoes and watching crappy movies, and fights the urge to dial any number on his speed dial. He sits at the sidelines, unnoticed in the chaos surrounding Spencer. He watches Reid’s eyes fall at the end of tough cases, watches him come alive in rare moments of bliss.
He pops more cherry tomatoes, drinks sweetened coffee, loves Spencer and remains silent.
*
“Rick, just put down the gun and we’ll work something out,” Morgan announces carefully, pointing his own gun straight at the unsub. The warehouse they are in echoes under their feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Hotch, Rossi and Reid with their guns carefully directed at Rick, waiting for any kind of a reaction. They all know the profile; Rick has been devolving for a while and it’s likely that he thinks his best option is suicide by cop.
“Rick, put the gun down,” Morgan repeats again. Rick’s eyes are frantic as he glances from Morgan to Hotch and back again. Morgan looks directly at him, stands straighter and silently commands him to listen.
It works. Rick lowers his gun substantially, and he can feel Rossi start to relax next to him but something’s off. Rick’s eyes don’t show any disappointment, hold no signs of surrender, and it is only when he looks directly at Morgan that he sees the full extent of desperation in his features. And, suddenly, he understands.
Before he has the chance to shout out a warning, he sees Rick aim his gun straight at him and fire, taking advantage of the split second delay in everyone’s reflexes.
He sees the bullet whiz towards him like he’s in dreadful climax of a motion picture and the last thing he thinks is that Reid would be able to precisely calculate the speed at which the bullet will enter his body. He tries to move out of the way, but his feet seem to have developed a life of their own, and he closes his eyes just so that Rick’s desperation wouldn’t be the last thing he sees. He closes his eyes and -
He feels like someone’s knocked off all the air in his body and then there’s an incredibly loud blast from somewhere behind his head. He cringes and anticipates the onset of a blinding pain but nothing’s forthcoming. He opens his eyes and that’s not right, he isn’t bleeding or dying or in any pain at all, and the only pain he can feel is from the dead weight crushing on him and there is something inside his throat causing him to choke. He blinks and tries to take in his surroundings again, and all he can is hair splayed all over his face, entering his nose and his eyes and causing him to itch at the back of his throat. He brings up a pain-free hand to remove the hair from his face, and his hand gets caught in a tangle of curls as he tries to free his finger. He tries to push past the hair but it’s everywhere, all over him, curling all around the edges and frizzy with sweat and knotting around his fingers as he tries to free them and he thinks: oh, oh, but this is familiar.
Panic sets in and he tries to push himself forward, and finally, finally, finds himself with an armful of Reid. His elbow is bleeding and he seems to be having trouble untangling his feet from Morgan’s, but he is oh so alive and he is smiling and burying his head in the crook of Morgan’s shoulder and shoving even more of his hair into his mouth.
Morgan doesn't mind at all.
*
“I feel like I’m repeating myself,” Morgan half-whispers, in the jet on the way back, “but you could have been killed.”
Reid’s lips twitch. “It’s just a graze wound,” he says.
There’s a moment of silence before Reid clears his throat, and strokes his hand with one of his fingers and Morgan can’t breathe. The jet is quiet; it’s one of those rare, lucky moments when the lights are dimmed and everyone is too exhausted to stay awake.
“Will I ever be worthy of you?” he murmurs to Reid’s hand, and his heart twists at the way Reid’s breath hitches. “I just,” he continues hastily, “want to be a part of you. That’s all I ask. I want to know about the big things and the small things that happen to you, about the good days and the bad days and every day in between. And it’s not because I pity you or some shit like that, but because it would make me genuinely happy and I would be honored to be able to know who you are. That’s all I want to be worth.”
Reid’s breath hitches again, and his eyes are too bright for it to be just the reflection of the light. He reaches out and cups Morgan’s face with both his hands, and his face is so close that Morgan can count every freckle, and see the beginning of wetness on his lower lashes.
“You are worthy of so much more, Morgan,” Reid whispers fiercely and doesn’t let him go, “you’re worthy of so much more than me.”
He leans in too, leans in to hold Reid’s hand and guides them back to his face. “You can’t decide that for me, Reid,” he whispers, and grazes Reid’s lips with his own. “I have already made my choice. All by myself, too,” he says.
He feels Reid relax against his skin, feels his mouth curve up in a smile against his own, feels his hands tighten against his face.
“Derek,” Spencer says, and in one word, he conveys a lifetime’s worth.
*
`
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Words: ~5k
Warnings: for a fair bit of schmoop. Inspired by Reid's expression in Restoration when Morgan was talking about his past, like it was physically hurting him to hear about Morgan's pain. (yeah, just go me with me on this one). Set somewhere vaguely between S3 and S4.
Summary: Reid uses words, words that are lyrical, descriptive, and full of beauty and paints a world of hope using a few short, sharp strokes of his lips. Spencer uses all of the words in all the languages he knows, and says nothing at all. Or, snapshots of communication between Morgan and Reid.
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, “It might have been,”
More sad are these we daily see:
“It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”
- Bret Harte
*
The first time Morgan notices it, it is so insignificant that it almost escapes his attention.
“You know, too much reading might kill you,” Morgan says, stopping by Reid’s desk on the way back from the break room. Reid has a fat tome open on his lap, fingers running through a page of what is decidedly not English.
“Is that so?” He looks up. His lips twitch just the slightest bit upwards, and Morgan smiles automatically.
“Yeah,” he says. “I have scientific proof and everything.”
Reid’s lips twitch further upwards, and his cheekbones become more pronounced as he tries to not to smile outright. “I’m sure you do,” he says, and goes back to deciphering his tome.
Morgan glances at his watch and decides that he has at least five more minutes before his break would be decidedly over. He leans forward. “Why are you reading that anyway?” he asks.
Reid shrugs. “I’m waiting for a call from UCLA. They are doing a series of talks on profiling and criminal behavior and they are discussing some of my papers. I’m doing a few consults to help them out.”
Morgan raises his eyebrows. Tries to crush that feeling inside his chest that feels a lot like pride. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or any of us?” he asks.
Reid shrugs again and runs his fingers through the bindings of his book. “It’s happened before,” he says, and dismisses himself with a flick of his fingers, “It isn’t a big deal.”
Morgan stares. “Reid,” he says, gripping the handle of his mug tighter than usual. “This is incredible. Why-“
The phone on Reid’s desk starts ringing and he takes a step backwards, watching Reid fold the tip of the page he was reading before closing the book.
“Dr. Reid,” he answers, and his tone is just the slightest bit authoritative, just enough for Morgan to ponder upon the rarity that is Reid using that voice. He raises his hand, intending to clap Reid’s shoulder but Reid swivels in his chair, holding the phone closer. “Yes, I was hoping you would pick up on that connection,” he says into the phone, lost to the world moving around him, and his eyes are alive with a ferocity that Morgan hasn't seen in a while.
He lets his hand drop and crosses the bullpen to settle at his own desk. He glances at Reid one last time, but he is looking down, smiling slightly and making copious notes on a legal pad in front of him.
Morgan sets down his coffee and goes back to work.
*
It’s already six in the evening before he gets the chance to speak to Reid again.
Reid is still at his desk, typing with his left hand while he leafs through a bound journal with his right.
“Hey, Reid,” he greets, “are you heading out anytime soon?”
“Give me two minutes,” he murmurs into his book. Morgan settles down at the corner of his desk, watches him type with his left hand into a consult form with his eyes still firmly fixed on the journal he’s reading through, this time thankfully in a language he can understand.
“Consults getting too easy for you?” he wants to know.
“I needed to add a source in the consult form,” Reid replies, hitting the space bar one last time before switching off his monitor.
“Do you want to grab some food?” he asks, picking up the messenger-bag and handing it to Reid.
“You know, it’s funny you mention food,” he exclaims in lieu of an answer. “I just came across a fascinating article about adult-onset food neophobia. The paper postulated that this type of manifestation of neophobia actually has a genetic basis rather than an environmental one, which is quite fascinating. I mean, did you know that heritability has more than a 55% association with this form of neophobia. I would have never thought that the statistical significance would be--”
He stops to take a breath and push the button for the elevator and Morgan jumps at the chance. “Come on, Reid,” he says softly, and resists the odd urge to put an arm around his shoulder, “leave the cases behind and let’s go for a refreshing curry.”
Reid squints down at him. “As opposed to an having an exhausting curry?”
Morgan starts to smile, but Reid seems to be genuinely pondering the emotional implications of curry, and he resorts to shaking his head.
The elevator reaches their floor with a ping.
It is only much later, when he’s pulling into his parking lot after curry and a round of drinks- did you know top-fermented beers tend to be sourer, Morgan? - with Reid, that it hits him: Reid had never really said that he wanted to go out for food in the first place.
*
Ironically, the next time he thinks about it is a couple of weeks later, and Reid is standing in front of their unsub, hands held up in surrender and no firearm on his person.
“What is he doing?” Hotch hisses in his ear. If he didn't know better, he would say that Hotch sounds scared because there is nothing between Reid and the rifle big enough to be a goddamn machine gun. He holds his gun tight, switches off the safety and points it helplessly at Reid’s back. There’s a low ache settling in his stomach and his head starts hurting as the realization that there’s nothing he can do but wait settles in. Vaguely, he wonders what it would be like to punch Hotch in the stomach really hard, just to do something that he has control over.
And then it’s over.
The next thing he sees is Hotch and Rossi lowering their weapons, and Reid is walking towards the police station with a firm grip on Savage’s shoulder. A fine sheen of sweat has broken out on Reid’s face, and the combination of stress and heat has caused his hair to curl further around his face. But then he looks up and sees straight ahead, and all Morgan can see are his eyes, alive with a furious desperation and glittering against the scorching sun. He looks straight at Morgan, and he looks down, suddenly unable to meet Reid's gaze as it burns all over his skin.
“I saved him,” Reid says, and his pitch is high but the words tumble out easily.
Morgan finds he cannot disagree.
*
He shows up at Reid’s place that night with takeout Chinese and a bottle of vodka.
“What are you doing here?” Reid asks, opening the door just enough for it to be polite. Morgan finds himself without an answer, and says as much. Reid opens the door a fraction more and lets him in.
He places the bag of food on Reid’s counter and watches Reid go through the package to dig out the fortune cookies and the carton with the dumplings.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he finally asks, watching Reid’s fingers as they work on breaking upon the second cookie.
Reid stares at him with a mouthful of cookie, and looks lost.
“You could have been killed,” he says again, and tries to resist the urge to shake him by the shoulders. “Do you know what that means?”
Reid scoffs. It’s not a pretty sound, coming from him. “Of course I know what that means. It means that I weighed my options, and used my experience to make an informed decision. With the information I had in hand, I felt that I would be-”
“Oh, cut the crap,” Morgan interrupts, and his voice is raised enough for it to be a yell. Reid doesn’t look away, but the slightest amount of tension leaves his shoulders and he goes back to chewing his cookie.
“I saved him,” he repeats softly.
Morgan runs a hand through his face and tries to find something to do with his hands. “You could have died, Spencer,” he repeats. When he looks up, Reid is staring at him with an intense and unreadable expression, squinting his eyes like he’s trying to figure something out.
“Nothing is worth that,” he says.
“Morgan-” Reid starts, suddenly it occurs to him that he knows exactly what he wants to do with his hands. He moves so swiftly that Reid stops speaking, and places both his hands in Reid’s hair. He feels Reid tense under him, but he doesn’t let go, spends a few moments just trying to detangle the knots in his hair. Then he looks at his face and Reid is looking at him with an expression that’s half confusion and half want, and his lips are parted and his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are dilated just enough to -
In a moment of intense clarity and pounding adrenaline, he reaches forward, cups Reid’s face in his hand and kisses him.
*
It’s all kinds of awkward, the kiss.
Their positions are highly uncomfortable, to say the least. As the moment wears off into the next, Morgan realizes that the edge of the counter is digging painfully at his side. Reid is still half-leaning on the counter with bits of cookie in his mouth and crumbs on his lips. He also realizes, almost simultaneously, that there are too many tangles in Reid’s curls for it to be a romantic endeavor.
Reid clears his throat and swallows the cookie. “What you are experiencing in an endorphin rush,” he states, and he would sound perfectly clinical if not for the slightest tremble in his voice. “When the endorphins wear off, your sense of euphoria will recede and you will be able to feel the complete consequences of any action you take during said rush. It’s a reality check, if you will.”
“Reid,” he says again, and shakes his shoulders a little for good measure. “That’s not what this was about.”
Reid chews on his lip and looks at him. Runs his fingers through his own hair and winces at the tangles. Eats half a dumpling.
“Morgan, this-” he starts again, but this time Morgan is waiting, he is ready and Reid is a fraction of a second too slow.
“I’m not going to wait around at the sidelines for the next time you decide to play the hero,” Morgan says firmly. Reid doesn’t reply and he wonders if he’s gone too far when -
This time, Reid is the one leaning forward and kissing him, and he smiles into Reid’s mouth as he feels his thin arms encircle his body and anchor him slightly away from the edge of the kitchen counter.
It’s much nicer, this time round. Reid’s lips are soft and sweet and sour at the same time, and he smells of coffee and cheap junk food, but his hands are steady against Morgan’s body and when his nose touches Morgan’s, Morgan feels rather than sees Reid’s face curve into a smile.
*
The phone call comes when they are back on the jet from one of their relatively “lighter” cases. Reid is staring out of the window when his phone vibrates in his pocket. He flips his phone open, and Morgan sees him look around in a futile search for privacy. He can almost see everyone snap to attention in an example of conditioned synchronicity at the sound of a phone ringing. He starts to move to the side, in case Reid wants to leave his seat for a semblance of privacy, but he stays put.
“It’s Bennington,” he murmurs loud enough for everyone to hear, and answers the call.
The next few minutes are tense, quiet, and everyone looks determined to pretend that they’re busy doing something. In another situation, Morgan thinks he would've been amused.
Reid disconnects the call a few minutes later, and goes back to staring out the window. His fingers lie on his lap, eerily still and pressed tight in the fabric of his trousers.
He doesn’t have to look around to know that everyone is trying to be discrete while stealing glances at him, even when none of them will speak up to ask. So he does the only thing he can under the circumstances, slides his foot closer to Reid until their feet are touching. He keeps his feet still, exerting enough pressure for Reid to feel his presence without stamping on his toes. Reid doesn’t look around or acknowledge the added weight in any way, but forty-five minutes into the flight, he relaxes his fingers and starts moving them around.
Morgan keeps his gaze firmly on Reid’s fingers, watching them map out contours and boundaries and write out complex logical equations and draw masterpieces in the air in front of him. He falls asleep with a sense of satisfaction and a smile on his face.
*
Surprised would be an understatement for what he feels when Reid shows up at his doorstep that night.
“I have chocolate chip cookies,” he offers through the intercom as Morgan buzzes him in.
They watch half a Lifetime movie about a woman’s recovery from domestic abuses before Reid abruptly reaches for the remote and presses pause.
“I’m not technically a caregiver,” he says suddenly. Morgan frowns.
“There has been a lot of research, a lot of papers published from both sociological and psychological angles that talk about the effects of a long-term illness on the caregiver. But I haven’t been a caregiver for all my adult life, and sometimes I’m reluctant to infer from the statistics about adult caregivers because I don’t feel-”
“Reid,” Morgan interrupts him softly. “how is she?”
Reid exhales loudly. Twitches with the buttons on the remote.
“She’s fine,” he says finally. “She was just asking for me a lot today.”
He turns and smiles hollowly at Morgan, and Morgan suddenly finds it a little harder to breathe. “Listen to me,” he leans forward and enunciates each word, because it’s important, so important that Reid gets it. “You are the kind of son we all - I, in fact, will always strive to be. Don’t ever think any less of yourself, because you are the better than the best son you could’ve ever been.”
Reid laughs again, self-deprecating and empty. “That doesn’t matter to her, Morgan,” he sighs, and for all the youth in his features, looks tragically aged. He presses play once again on the remote and looks away from Morgan.
Reid’s hands twitch on his lap, and Morgan reaches forward to his own hand on top of his. He tries to swallow down the feeling of hurt when Reid instinctively pulls away his own hand and buries it in his sweater.
*
“Tell me something about yourself,” Morgan murmurs, etching contours of random words into Reid’s back.
Reid looks up from his face was burrowed in Morgan’s lap. “Why?” he asks.
Morgan shrugs. “Just because.”
“You already know everything about myself. It’s all in my FBI file.”
Morgan smiles, removes his hand from Reid’s back and allows him to sit up. “No, I mean something about you that’s personal. Something that not many people know.”
Reid frowns. “Why would you want to know that?”
His smile falters. “Because I want to know more about you. I tell you things about me all the time; you know my favorite color, my favorite band, I even told you about my first crush in middle school. All you do is respond with the symbolism behind yellow.”
Reid squints his eyes like he’s laying out the variables of a complex algorithm. “I don’t see what purpose any of this would serve. If I tell you that my favorite color is purple, what would that achieve?”
“Is your favorite color purple?” Morgan wants to know.
Reid halts abruptly, as if side-tracked by the question. “Not really,” he says finally, “I don’t think I’ve ever showed any inclination towards a particular part of the color wheel.”
Morgan shakes his head, tries to clear the aura of constant uncertainty that accompanies a conversation with someone infinitely smarter. “Come on Reid, give me something to work with here.”
Reid stares off in space for a few moments before turning back to look at Morgan like he has figured something out. “I really, really like eating cherry tomatoes,” is what he says.
Morgan leans back on the sofa and tries to ride out the small surge of accomplishment coursing through his veins. “See?” he says finally,
“that’s something I never knew.”
*
“I know what you’re going through, Harold,” Reid’s voice is perfectly calm and controlled, and Morgan wants to rip out his earpiece and break into the building, hostages be damned.
Their most recent unsub is a middle-aged male who has been killing children of terminal patients living in a local hospice. Garcia has further revealed that Harold’s stressor had been the death of his own terminally ill mother two months prior. He had quit his job and given up his savings to take care of his mother, and when she had finally succumbed to her illness, he had set out on a mission of vengeance, primarily targeting people who had admitted their ailing parents in hospices.
“My mother is very ill, too,” Reid says, when Harold doesn’t seem inclined to reply. That makes him look up, and his gun wavers a fraction of an inch from the temple of one of his hostages.
“My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic,” Reid speaks again, encouraged by the reaction from Harold. Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan can see the SWAT team positioned all around the building, and Hotch is beside him, digging his earpiece further in like it would help him hear better.
“He’s good at this,” Morgan feels the need to offer, because Hotch is frowning far too much for it to be from the sun.
“That’s the problem,” Hotch all but growls in a low voice. “He’s very good at doing this.” Morgan opens his mouth to reply when they hear Harold speaking up on the other side.
“Do you take care of her?” Harold’s voice breaks over the wire, and there’s the tiniest of pauses for a fraction of a second before Reid replies.
“I’ve taken care of her my whole life,” Reid’s voice is steady and earnest and makes Morgan’s heart beat a little faster because of the sheer conviction in it.
Harold lets out a sob. “Will you take care of her forever?”
“I will take care of her forever, Harold,” Reid replies softly, and the break in his voice is so slight that no one else picks up on it. Whatever he sees on Reid’s face must comfort him, because the next thing he hears is a thud of a gun being dropped and Reid’s voice over the wire telling them to come in.
He feels a sense of sick déjà vu when Reid finally emerges with a firm grip on Harold’s shoulder, keeping him in place. He shrugs off the acknowledging nod from Hotch and doesn’t stop until he delivers Harold to the LEO. When he looks back, his face is etched with barely controlled anger and his eyes are empty. When he turns to see Morgan looking at him, he stares until Morgan looks away.
*
“You have to start talking sometime,” Morgan says in the car on their way back from the jet. It’s been hours and Reid has yet to do anything but coldly brush off anyone trying to start a conversation with him.
“Morgan-” Reid begins wearily, but he’s cut off. “You have to feel something, Reid,” Morgan’s voice is equal parts earnest and exasperated. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“What do you want me to say, Morgan?” Reid bursts out. “Do you want me to say that this case affected me? That I identified with the unsub yet again because clearly I’m extremely incapable of keeping my personal life separate from the job? What is it that you want me to say that you haven’t profiled out already?”
“I want you to say what you want to say, Reid,” Morgan slams his hand over the steering wheel, and chooses to brake by the road to avoid any temptation to crash into a tree. “Why don’t you, just for once, say what’s on your mind?”
“I don’t understand what you want from me, Morgan,” Reid’s voice is frustrated, and he rubs his eyes over and over again in an effort to calm himself. “Why is me saying anything so important to you?”
“Is it so hard to believe that I want to know what you’re feeling, how you’re doing?” He yells back. “Is it so hard for you to believe that you mean something, that you mean everything -“
Reid cuts him off a huff of shrill, hollow laughter. “Don’t go confusing your pity for me for something else, Morgan. Telling you what I feel, what I think about every second of every day isn’t worth it, don’t you see that?”
Morgan stills for a second, listens to Reid breathing heavily next to him. “What isn’t worth it, Reid?” he finally asks. “Am I not worthy of hearing about your life?”
Reid slumps down in his seat. “Morgan, don’t start,” he says wearily.
Morgan closes his eyes. There’s a crushing feeling on his chest, like a wall has crumbled near him somehow and he’s been hit with the heaviest brick. It’s hard to breathe, like he’s been punched to the gut, like he needs someone to hook him to a nasal cannula just to get more oxygen. He feels an itch starting at the back of his throat.
“Why am I not worthy of your life, Reid?” he asks in a low voice, when he feels like he can speak again and takes no pleasure in seeing Reid flinch.
“Morgan,” Reid’s voice is pleading, desperate. “I can’t deal with this anymore.”
He stares straight ahead without blinking, and doesn’t speak until his eyes are so dry and burning that he’s reasonably sure they don’t contain any moisture. “Can’t or won’t?” The question seems important.
“No,” Reid’s voice is aching with truth, and Morgan thinks that that’s the worst part of it all, that he’s weighed Reid so far down that neither of them can escape the terrible verity of their own words. “You have to understand, Morgan,” he says. “I can’t.”
He doesn't move until he hears the car door slam behind Reid. The silence that follows is the most horrible sound he’s ever heard.
*
The next day, Reid’s eyes are slightly red-rimmed but his face is set in a soft line and he smiles at everyone who greets him. He doesn't speak to Morgan at all beyond a perfunctory greeting and a few questions about past cases. Having no other discernible option, Morgan takes to watching him, instead, watches him during recruitment seminars and case briefing, watches him gesticulate and create a world in the web of his fingers, watches him with a mixture of adoration and wonderment and looks down at his feet every time he catches Reid watching him back.
Reid uses words, words that are lyrical, descriptive, and full of beauty and paints a world of hope using a few short, sharp strokes of his lips. Spencer uses all of the words in all the languages he knows, and says nothing at all.
And he replies to the silence in kind too, sits back on the jet and clenches his hands so that he doesn’t feel the urge to lean in and tuck Reid’s hair behind his ears. He spends his evenings eating insane amounts of cherry tomatoes and watching crappy movies, and fights the urge to dial any number on his speed dial. He sits at the sidelines, unnoticed in the chaos surrounding Spencer. He watches Reid’s eyes fall at the end of tough cases, watches him come alive in rare moments of bliss.
He pops more cherry tomatoes, drinks sweetened coffee, loves Spencer and remains silent.
*
“Rick, just put down the gun and we’ll work something out,” Morgan announces carefully, pointing his own gun straight at the unsub. The warehouse they are in echoes under their feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Hotch, Rossi and Reid with their guns carefully directed at Rick, waiting for any kind of a reaction. They all know the profile; Rick has been devolving for a while and it’s likely that he thinks his best option is suicide by cop.
“Rick, put the gun down,” Morgan repeats again. Rick’s eyes are frantic as he glances from Morgan to Hotch and back again. Morgan looks directly at him, stands straighter and silently commands him to listen.
It works. Rick lowers his gun substantially, and he can feel Rossi start to relax next to him but something’s off. Rick’s eyes don’t show any disappointment, hold no signs of surrender, and it is only when he looks directly at Morgan that he sees the full extent of desperation in his features. And, suddenly, he understands.
Before he has the chance to shout out a warning, he sees Rick aim his gun straight at him and fire, taking advantage of the split second delay in everyone’s reflexes.
He sees the bullet whiz towards him like he’s in dreadful climax of a motion picture and the last thing he thinks is that Reid would be able to precisely calculate the speed at which the bullet will enter his body. He tries to move out of the way, but his feet seem to have developed a life of their own, and he closes his eyes just so that Rick’s desperation wouldn’t be the last thing he sees. He closes his eyes and -
He feels like someone’s knocked off all the air in his body and then there’s an incredibly loud blast from somewhere behind his head. He cringes and anticipates the onset of a blinding pain but nothing’s forthcoming. He opens his eyes and that’s not right, he isn’t bleeding or dying or in any pain at all, and the only pain he can feel is from the dead weight crushing on him and there is something inside his throat causing him to choke. He blinks and tries to take in his surroundings again, and all he can is hair splayed all over his face, entering his nose and his eyes and causing him to itch at the back of his throat. He brings up a pain-free hand to remove the hair from his face, and his hand gets caught in a tangle of curls as he tries to free his finger. He tries to push past the hair but it’s everywhere, all over him, curling all around the edges and frizzy with sweat and knotting around his fingers as he tries to free them and he thinks: oh, oh, but this is familiar.
Panic sets in and he tries to push himself forward, and finally, finally, finds himself with an armful of Reid. His elbow is bleeding and he seems to be having trouble untangling his feet from Morgan’s, but he is oh so alive and he is smiling and burying his head in the crook of Morgan’s shoulder and shoving even more of his hair into his mouth.
Morgan doesn't mind at all.
*
“I feel like I’m repeating myself,” Morgan half-whispers, in the jet on the way back, “but you could have been killed.”
Reid’s lips twitch. “It’s just a graze wound,” he says.
There’s a moment of silence before Reid clears his throat, and strokes his hand with one of his fingers and Morgan can’t breathe. The jet is quiet; it’s one of those rare, lucky moments when the lights are dimmed and everyone is too exhausted to stay awake.
“Will I ever be worthy of you?” he murmurs to Reid’s hand, and his heart twists at the way Reid’s breath hitches. “I just,” he continues hastily, “want to be a part of you. That’s all I ask. I want to know about the big things and the small things that happen to you, about the good days and the bad days and every day in between. And it’s not because I pity you or some shit like that, but because it would make me genuinely happy and I would be honored to be able to know who you are. That’s all I want to be worth.”
Reid’s breath hitches again, and his eyes are too bright for it to be just the reflection of the light. He reaches out and cups Morgan’s face with both his hands, and his face is so close that Morgan can count every freckle, and see the beginning of wetness on his lower lashes.
“You are worthy of so much more, Morgan,” Reid whispers fiercely and doesn’t let him go, “you’re worthy of so much more than me.”
He leans in too, leans in to hold Reid’s hand and guides them back to his face. “You can’t decide that for me, Reid,” he whispers, and grazes Reid’s lips with his own. “I have already made my choice. All by myself, too,” he says.
He feels Reid relax against his skin, feels his mouth curve up in a smile against his own, feels his hands tighten against his face.
“Derek,” Spencer says, and in one word, he conveys a lifetime’s worth.
*
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