There are eleven pens in the top right drawer of Reid’s desk. Not ten, not twelve—but eleven. There’s always eleven, and never more. Five black, four blue, one red, and one purple for when he marks through the books he reads. He’s found, over time, that purple marks in books look more visually appealing. The eleven pens are in a nice, neat row—black, blue, red and purple from left to right.

Reid’s had a mix of eleven pens since his first day in the BAU, so you can imagine the shock when he gets to work one morning and finds seven pens; two black and two blue missing.

“Morgan?” he asks, turning to towards the desk behind him. “Have you borrowed any of my pens?”

“Huh?” Morgan says, looking up from the book he seemed to be into. “Oh, pens. Yeah, yeah, I took a couple this morning. I got you for ‘em next week.”

Reid isn’t mad. He knows Morgan will buy him new ones. Plus it’s Friday, so he’ll really only have to deal eight hours without them. Not to mention, it’s just pens. But it’s the principle. They’re his pens.

Reid isn’t quite sure what to say—it’s not like he’s going to go and confront Morgan about his pen stealing ways—so he glances towards Morgan’s book. He sees it’s the new John Douglas paperback and quirks an eyebrow.

“You’re reading a profiling book?” He questions and he’s slightly aware of how pretentious his shock sounds.

“Yeah. I’ve noticed how much you read these things… and you practically have profiling super powers. So I thought, why not?”

Reid knows Morgan. He knows his tones, his mannerisms, his oddities, his smiles, and his looks. He knows that right now, Morgan isn’t joking or teasing—he’s being honest. Reid watches as Morgan makes little notes in the margins of his book. He’s using one of Reid’s black pens.

“Here, use this,” Reid says while walking over to hand Morgan his purple pen. “It’s my special pen.” Morgan raises an eyebrow. “It’ll give you my super powers.” Morgan has twelve different ties. Reid notices things about people, things most people would never even pick up. Like how many ties someone has. It’s the way his brain works though, mostly numerical and reasonable.

It’s odd when Morgan stops wearing the ties, opting instead for dress shirts rolled up to the elbow, the first couple of buttons laying open. Reid doesn’t know what to count on Morgan anymore, and it’s a little disconcerting.

When Morgan completely loses the dress shirts, with the exception of special occasions—and by “special occasions,” Reid meant dates that he figured must begin immediately after work ends—Morgan’s new outfit consists mostly of t-shirts.

Tight t-shirts. Really, really tight t-shirts.

They’re distracting. They’re incredibly and frustratingly distracting. So much so that one day, while Reid is attempting make coffee and Morgan walks by wearing one of those shirts, he manages to overfill his cup by approximately 7 ounces, resulting in coffee going everywhere.

“Whoa, simmer down now,” Morgan says once Spencer emits a slightly shocked scream. “Here, here,” Morgan adds, throwing napkins over his hand and towards the counter where the offending coffee was moving even farther.

“I got it, Morgan, I- No, I got it. Stop- Will you- I got it!” Reid stammers out, but Morgan doesn’t listen. He just stands there, trying to sop up sugary coffee from every inch of surface on the counter. He cleans it, just letting his tight muscles and tiny shirt distract Reid even further.

“Take some help when people are offering it, kid,” Morgan says as he throws the wad of wet napkins towards the trash. Reid’s offended by Morgan’s off-putting attitude. “And uh, maybe be a little more careful? Get a spill proof cup?” And then Morgan’s laughing and stretching his ridiculously huge arm to wrap around Reid’s neck. Reid immediately ducks under the grab and swats Morgan’s hands away.

“Well- Well... Get a bigger shirt!”

Worst. Comeback. Ever.
Reid’s won thirteen games of rummy—in a row.

“I told you, I’m just that good,” he says to Morgan, who throws his cards against the plane’s table.

“And I told you, you’re a cheater.” Reid just smiles, ‘cause it’s true—sometimes. He managed to sneak a peek at Morgan’s hand a couple of times, but the rest he won on his own merits. “Gimme those cards,” Morgan demands after Reid’s shuffled them a couple times. He scoffs and passes them over. As if shuffling made him a cheater. “New game,” Morgan says and deals the deck between them.

“What game?” Reid asks, categorically going through every card game in his mind.

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

“Bullshit, Reid. B.S. The game... it’s called B.S.”

“Oh.”

Reid’s heard of that game but never played. It seems silly, a game based on no skill other than lying. The game starts off simply enough. No one calls B.S. except for Prentiss, which had her taking ten cards.

They’ve made it around three times, without anyone calling B.S. on Reid and he’s pleased. He never thought he could be a good liar.

‘Except that you’re lying about the dilaudid,’ a voice in his head says, and Reid can’t help but twitch at the thought. He tries not to think about what he’s been to himself, to the team, but it’s hard not too.

He zones out through his next five turns and Prentiss has to nudge against him to get him to go. Neither she nor Morgan call him out, even though he was obviously lying about his last two turns.

He sees the way Morgan’s looking at him now—he’s profiling him—watching his movements, his expressions. Reid knows that Morgan knows about the drugs. He’s known since the night he got away from Hankel. Reid doesn’t know how he knows, nor does he want to, but he knows. Morgan’s just waiting for Reid to come clean—to come to him first.

It’s Reid’s turn again, Prentiss just laid down a Jack, so it’s Reid’s turn to drop a Queen. He checks his cards—3, 5,9, Queen and Ace. He sees the way Morgan is looking at him and it makes him want to pick up the 3 and drop it down. Just to see if Morgan will actually do something; if he’ll stand up to Reid and actually call him a liar. Tell him he knows. Tell Reid that he can’t run from this anymore.

“One Queen.”

Morgan stops and stares at Reid. It can’t be for too long, because Emily doesn’t even look up from her hand, but it’s long enough to tug at Reid’s insides.

“B.S,” Morgan finally says, and Reid reaches over to flip the top card. “Queen of Hearts,” Morgan whispers quietly. Relief floods through Reid’s body, coursing through his veins. He wants to latch onto Morgan and thank him for not running away from him like everyone else has.

When Reid looks up and into Morgan’s eyes, he can see that Morgan knew that the card was a Queen. Morgan shows no shock when he scoops up the cards and adds them to his pile.

That makes the track marks in Reid’s arm burn and itch, and before he realizes it, he’s gripping them; holding on tightly, as if Morgan could see through his shirt and sweater to see exactly how messed up he is right now.

“I don’t need to B.S.,” Spencer responds with a shaky voice and Morgan finally breaks his eye contact. He stares out of the plane window, and Reid loosens the grip on own arm.

“I know, Reid,” Morgan says. “I know.”

Reid has fourteen pictures up in his home. There are five in his living room, seven on the walls from his entryway towards his room, and two in his bedroom.

There are a few from his numerous graduations, lots of him as a child, a couple of the team. The two in his bedroom are the most important ones to Spencer, though. One is a picture of his mother when she was young; she looks youthful, beautiful and completely at peace—something she doesn’t get enough of now.

And the second is of him and Morgan. Garcia snapped it not too long ago when she bought a new digital camera. It was black and white and zoomed close to frame just their upper bodies and faces. Both of them had huge, toothy grins on their faces. It was a beautiful picture, and usually the last thing Reid saw before he went to bed.

It’s Morgan’s third time over to Reid’s house, and their ninth date. When Morgan asks to use the bathroom, Reid doesn’t hesitate to tell him to use the one in his bedroom. The guest bathroom hadn’t worked in months, and he certainly didn’t have time to fix it. When he hears Morgan’s laughter echoing out of his room, he remembers the picture. The picture of him and Morgan that is currently sitting on the nightstand right next to his bed.

When he bolts into the room, Morgan is sitting on the edge of his unmade bed with the frame in his hands. Reid has to take a deep breath to calm himself, because he honestly can’t believe Morgan’s sitting on his bed.

“That’s totally creepy, isn’t it?”

Morgan starts cracking up; the kind of laughter that takes your breath away.

“Don’t laugh at me.” Morgan kept laughing. “It’s not funny.” And Reid’s pouting. Full-on, arms-crossed-over-chest, lip-sticking-out pouting.

“I’m not laughing at you, Spencer,” Morgan finally says when he gets enough air in to actually breathe. “I have the same picture it my room.” Reid stops his pouting.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Garcia,” they both say at the same time, which relieves Reid. Morgan doesn’t seem to think he’s a stalker.

“I think it’s cute, Reid,” Morgan says, standing up to wrap his arms around Reid. “That I’m the last thing you see before you go to sleep.” And then Morgan is kissing him, really kissing him, and all this is so new that it still seems surreal. “Though, I’m a little curious. What’s up with the lotion next to the frame?”

There are fifteen excuses that Reid has memorized for tonight.

‘I’m really tired.’

‘We really should wait.’

‘I think I’m coming down with a cold.’

‘I value the pace that we’ve already set.’

‘I don’t want to push you.’

‘Hey, I’m a virgin. You’re an experienced player. So… yeah!’

So his excuses start to diminish after the fifth one. Really, they do. His fifteenth excuse has the words ‘pain’ and ‘permanent’ in it. And yeah, it isn’t totally true, but Reid knows to keep it in his excuse list anyway. Knowing Morgan, he’d push him to excuse four hundred and twenty two and still not be satisfied with them.

These excuses were vital for tonight. Morgan had sort of implied that tonight, they’d go all the way.

“Did you really just call it ‘all the way?’ Reid! This is sex with Derek Morgan!”

Reid brought his list by Garcia’s office to check for any obvious holes that Morgan might see through.

“No, this is possible sex with Derek Morgan. Possible, Garcia, as in not set in stone. Which is why you need to look over this list.”

“Ugh, my darling dove, you know I adore you but I cannot understand why you need a list of excuses to not sleep with that burning hot hunk of chocolaty goodness who probably knows how to do things like lick-“

“GARCIA!”

“Sorry, baby. I’m living vicariously through you. And we,” Garcia motioned between the two of them, “need action. Not excuses. You hear me? Action. Not excuses.” Reid rolled a chair over to Garcia’s desk before banging his head on it.

“Garcia, you know Morgan, okay? Probably better than I do like that, and you know once he gets, you know—in the moment—he won’t be able to say no.” Garcia stared at him for much too long, signaling she didn’t get it. “I just-,“ Reid doesn’t really know how to explain this, because it’s not so much a list of excuses as a list of… safety nets.

“Spill it, Reid. I know you two care about each other. You both know you care about each other. Isn’t this the natural progression of you two little love birds?” Garcia lets her hand caress the side of his face, and the action takes Reid back to the times when his mother used to do the same thing.

“I want to make sure he’s okay, Garcia. You know-,“ Reid feels bad even mentioning this around Garcia. Like he’s breaking some level of confidence with Morgan, but Garcia knows about this and loves him more than anything. “What he’s been through. And the thought of me somehow…“ Reid smiles, a small smile that doesn’t represent anything happy. “I can’t hurt him, Garcia. And as strong as Morgan is, sometimes he doesn’t even realize that he’s not invincible. That’s what this list is, not so much excuses. It’s protection.”

Garcia doesn’t even try to hide the tears that stream down her face.

“You are a good man, Spencer Reid. Better than you know. Now gimme that damn list and hand me a tissue.”

Reid knows that this is the right thing to do. It’s what he and Morgan have always done-- pick each other up.

“What the- Reid! Permanent damage?!” Garcia amends excuse fifteen. And twelve. And seven. And nine.

When the time comes, though, and Reid gets ready to start his list… it’s not necessary. Because it’s Reid and it’s Morgan and it’s kisses, promises, declarations, trust and love.

With no permanent damage.

Reid’s been a fan of Star Trek for over sixteen years. He can clearly remember the first episodes he saw and how happy they made him feel. It probably sounds ridiculous to other people, but the first time Reid saw Star Trek, he felt at home. It was like there was an entire world out there that he could fit into without being the genius freak.

As he grew up, and grew out of the freaky feeling, his love for Star Trek didn’t diminish. In fact, it grew. It used to be an escape from his reality of teasing and torture, but now it was an escape from the realities of death and human destruction at the BAU.

Well, it had been. Now Reid’s escape from all of that was Morgan—which, clearly, was the most amazing thing ever. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss just relaxing and talking about the show with other fans, or even just watching old episodes.

When he gets an email from an old friend telling him about brand new Trek viewing parties taking place at an old theatre downtown, he’s honestly ecstatic. Star Trek is a little piece of his childhood that brings him tons of happiness, and he’s looking forward to getting back into it.

The viewings take place weekly, on Wednesday nights at 8. Reid contemplates inviting Morgan-- they usually spend Wednesdays together at Morgan’s house—but he knows Morgan would have no interest in something like that. He means to give Morgan some forewarning about his plans to go, but it slips his mind till Wednesday evening.

“I’ll be back later,” Reid squeaks out in between kisses Wednesday night. He knows Morgan won’t be mad, but this is the first time he’s actually done anything like this.

Reid knows that that makes them sound like they have some weird, codependent relationship, but it’s not that. It’s just that they barely have any free time in their personal lives, and any time they do get is usually spent with their mutual friends—which basically consisted of the team.

“Mmm what?” Morgan mumbles.

“I just have this thing…” And Reid doesn’t know why he feels so weird about talking to Morgan about this, but it kind of leaves him feeling a bit ashamed. “It’s this Star Trek viewing party thing. It’s, you know...” He flails his hands in front of himself in the most Reid-like way possible. “It’s a me thing.” And Reid hopes it doesn’t sound bad, because he certainly didn’t mean it like that. But it was a Reid thing. Something no one else on the team would get and everyone would laugh at.

“Oh, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow then, Pretty Boy.” And Morgan kisses back, full of feeling and desire, so Reid assumes everything’s okay.

He has fun at the party, so much so that he returns the next three weeks in a row. Morgan kisses him soundly every time he leaves, and every time he gets back. He wants to thank Morgan for being so amazing; for asking if he had fun, and listening to Reid babble about the semantics of each episode.

Reid’s not so good with words though, so usually at some point after he runs out of breath and stares into Morgan’s completely interested face, he just jumps on him and kisses him till Morgan’s out of breath too.

There’s another party tonight, and they’re viewing one of his favorite episodes. He actually wants to go a little early to make sure he gets a good seat, but he’s already promised Morgan that he’d come to his game of FBI vs BAU basketball game.

He doesn’t mind being late, though. He loves watching Morgan—seeing his muscles work, his eyes shift along the court, the grace in his shifting movements. He’s really had no interest in basketball his whole life, but just knowing that it’s something Morgan loves is enough to make it the most interesting thing in the world.

That sets off the proverbial light bulb in his head, and he can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt in his chest. Morgan has spent the last three weeks showing interest in Reid’s hobby, and he’s been completely supportive. Reid on the other hand, has been excluding him. Once the game is over—BAU wins of course—an extremely sweaty and happy Morgan makes his way over to Reid.

“Hey-hey, Pretty Boy!” Morgan yells while grabbing Reid for a huge, sweaty hug. Reid tries to squirm away but Morgan only holds him tighter. “Did you see your man’s jump-shot? Did you? You see the swoosh in those shots?” And Reid can’t help but smile and feel happy over Morgan’s infectious mood. He wonders if this is what Morgan feels when he comes home from his parties.

“Morgan?” Reid asks when Morgan finally loosens his grip. “Um.. I uh.. I was wondering if you’d like to come to a viewing party with me? This week’s episode is arguably one of the best ever. It’s from season one of Deep Space Nine, entitled Duet, and it’s really a rather inspiring criticism about-“ When Morgan’s lips collide with his, he can feel the smile across the other man’s lips, and he knows he got this right. And that thought makes his heart jump wildly in his chest.

“I’d love to,” Morgan replies, and Reid’s shocked that he didn’t get a sly comment from Morgan.

“Great.” He decides that he can be a little sly himself. “So, do you want to wear a Cardassian or Bajoran costume? Because both involve lots of makeup, lots of prep time and an extreme use of accents. You’re good with accents, right?”

Seventeen of the past 32 letters Reid’s received from his mother has asked him when he’s coming to visit. That’s odd for her—she really never asks about things like that. He tries to figure out the sudden shift in her behaviors, and the only thing he can think of is, well, him.

He knows she can sense the general happy tones of his letters. It was six letters after he and Morgan had started dating that she finally wrote—

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong

Reid knows how his mother works; sometimes her brain won’t let her say what she really wants to say. So through Bob Dylan song lyrics, book passages and different quotes, she communicates the best she can. The ‘Forever Young’ lyrics that ended her letter brought tears to Reid’s eyes.

His mom was wishing him luck. She didn’t even know what was happening, but she wanted him to know she was there, as best as she could.

He doesn’t know what to write back; he wasn’t quite sure how she’d react to any of it. So he writes back in more lyrics. On the back of his latest letter he writes a small verse:

They show me to the door,
They say don't come back no more
'Cause I don't be like they'd like me to,
And I walk out on my own
A thousand miles from home
But I don't feel alone
'Cause I believe in you

He spends the next week stressing about what she’ll say, how she’ll react, if she’ll even understand that he’s in a relationship—in love—now. He evens calls the hospital a couple of times to make sure she hasn’t had a breakdown. But she hasn’t.

And when he receives the next letter, his heart drops and swells all the same.


And it doesn’t surprise him that she knows it’s one of the team members. And it surprises her less that it’s Morgan.


And that makes him blush all the same.

They go on like that, and he tells his mother a lot of the generalities between him and Morgan. She’s supportive in most of the letters, a couple of times she chooses not to acknowledge it, but for the most part, she’s the most supportive she’s been in years.

When she starts asking when he’s planning to come to visit, though, Reid can’t help but feel uneasy. He’s afraid that she wants him to come so she can tell him that his relationship with Morgan is a bad idea, or that Morgan is a bad idea—and it might sound stupid, but Reid doesn’t know if he can handle that.

He swiftly dismisses the question in a handful of letters before she finally sends him a letter with the following:


Morgan finds Reid sitting on his dining room table, letter in hand.

“Everything okay?” he asks Reid.

Yes. And no. But mostly yes. Reid knows that bringing Morgan to see his Mom could be horrible. She was having a good day when she wrote the letter, but she could be having a bad day when they got there. There is no reward without the risk, right?

“Are you interested in possibly touring Las Vegas with a genius who can win thousands of dollars in every casino?” Morgan furrows his brows. “And maybe, possibly meeting my mom? As my boyfriend, I mean?”

No reward without risk.

Reid’s counted eighteen scars on Morgan’s body in the last fifteen minutes.

“How does someone even acquire this many scars?” Morgan pushes Reid off gently with a nudge.

“You complaining?”

“You evading?”

“You don’t like them?”

“You don’t like answering questions?”

“You are a fool!” And that makes both of them laugh, because it’s really the truth.

“Seriously though, you have an absurd amount of scars. Look at this.” Reid flips over Morgan’s hand and lets his fingers skirt across the top. There has to be at least 10 small scars littering Morgan’s knuckles and fingers. Reid’s making a joke about it, but he doesn’t really think it’s all that funny. When he sees all those scars, it makes his stomach churn in ways he doesn’t particularly enjoy.

Morgan flinches when Reid’s hands ghost over a particular jagged, ugly scar, and Reid can’t say he’s surprised when Morgan quickly pulls his hand back.

“Enough, Reid.”

And it’s funny how it hits him—strong, quick, shocking—because he’s always known about this. He’s always known Morgan would risk anything to do what he thought was right. That was something Reid always respected about him. Now though, lying in bed on a Sunday morning, categorizing every scar on Morgan’s body—now it was terrifying to think that he did that.

“I’m sorry,” Reid whispers, slightly amazed at how quickly the feel of the room changed. He’s not angry, and he doesn’t mean to make Morgan angry. He’s not sure what he is.

“Don’t be. They come with the territory. You know that, Reid.”

And Reid does know it. He always has known it. It was a simple, logical fact. That didn’t stop the physical pain from blooming out of his chest, though.

Morgan grabbed Reid’s leg and pulled it out from under the covers. He lets his hands ghost over the gunshot scar on Reid’s knee, and further down to the scars on his foot that came from the hands of Tobias Hankel.

“I get it.”

And the pain that was suffocating him let up, and he let himself fall into Morgan’s chest.

At least they were in this together.

When Morgan and Reid move in together, Reid only brings nineteen boxes. That seems like a reasonable number, but Morgan doesn’t think so.

“Where did you get all this junk?”

“It’s not junk! It’s all valuable, collectable pieces.” Morgan scoffs. “It’s only nineteen boxes!”

“Nineteen boxes of stuff! That doesn’t even include your clothes, your dishes or your damn books!”

Well, that was true.

“I’m a collector, Morgan.” And that makes Morgan raise his eyebrows. Reid’s not really a collector; not a serious one, at least. He’s more of a fan of buying random things he finds interesting. Which somehow translates to nineteen medium-sized boxes worth of random stuff.

“What in the hell is this?” Morgan asks, holding up a mini teacup.

“A mini teacup.” Morgan waits for some sort of detail. None comes.

“What’s the significance…?”

“Um.” Reid bought it because it was tiny. Extremely tiny. It looked like a teacup made for a squirrel. That’s really why he bought it, not that he’d ever tell Morgan that. “Did you know the teacup was invented sometime around 1750?” Morgan let out an annoyed huff.

“And what about this?” Morgan picks up a large magnifying glass.

“Um…”

“Or this?” Morgan picked up a large figurine of… Marie Curie? Even Reid had to admit that one was odd.

“Yeah, I don’t even have any excuse for those.”

Morgan laughs and walks over to hug him.

“No offense, but all this stuff is going in your office.” The townhouse had four bedrooms, which consisted of their bedroom, a guest bedroom, a workout room for Morgan, and an office for Reid.

“Wait, so you don’t want the woman who discovered radium on your nightstand every night?” Morgan took one look at the creepy doll.

“You know I love you, but hell no.” And that makes Reid’s heart swell, and his face light up.

“Yes, I do. Figurines, tea cups, collectible magnifying glasses and all.”

Reid has twenty secret journals that he’s never shown another soul.

He’s not even sure why he started keeping them. He would guess it was something to do keeping memories. He knew if he wrote them down, he’d remember them better. He had started them when he was eight, and each journal had 365 pages—one for each day.

These journals were a literal summary of everything that had ever happened in Spencer Reid’s life. There was good, bad, ugly and horrifying gracing those 7,300 pages. He’s never shown anyone, never wanted to show anyone.

Reading these journals would be like cutting him open and laying everything about him out on display.

“Hey, Morgan?”

“Yeah, Baby Boy?”

“Can you come here a second? I want to show you something.“