At 4PM in any given work-day at the office- with about five hours more work to do and only two hours before OT clocks in to do it- there is one scenario that Reid always dreads. Today he pulled the spade, trudging back in from the gym with a growing shiner and a smart-assed snarky smile on his bastard of a best friend who put it there.

"Aw c'mon kid, don't get mad…"

"…Get even?" Reid offers darkly.

"Even? That was a fair hit, you could've deflected it if you just had more upper arm strength." Morgan shoulders Reid's bag for a second, "You think with all the books you lug around you'd have a LITTLE more push-back in your swing."

Reid's neck cranes to turn and give him a fully derisory look before snatch his bag back and putting his warm palm back into his swelling cheek. Beyond the looks he was getting from coworkers, he knew Aaron would have a shit-fit when he saw the full-grown shiner tonight via bed-lamp. He could already envision the blood-lakes of blue and eventually green.

"Maybe you should work out a little more, toss in some ten pounders into your bag or those wrist weights that all the… you know what, never mind." Morgan seals his mouth as the heat in Reid's gaze hits flash-point.

"All the what, Morgan? All the girls at the gym wear, all the female cadets go on and on about? I'm a guy."

"Yeah, but they have 'em in purple, and it's not like you don't like that color…" Morgan goads, giving a little smirk. Reid, shaking his head and trying to keep from committing the office taboo of bludgeoning a fellow profiler to death with a stapler, sits down at his desk, glares at Morgan's office door suggestively and convinces him to walk off. It never works, his glare is about as ferocious as a new-born deer.

Morgan continues to smile, putting his arm around Reid's shoulder and giving it a friendly squeeze. "Oh come off it, I tell you what! We have reassessments in another month, you and me, we'll hit the weights in the morning, an hour before we're due in. You'll pass no problem with it, and besides, it's not like you'll really miss that extra hour of sleep. You would miss it if it was end of the day, am I right?"

Reid glowers, he knows he would miss that hour of sleep ever Monday through Friday for a month, but missing play-time and homework time with Jack after school, talking time with Aaron, movie time and adult time in general with his lover… he'd miss the sleep less. He rolls his eyes, "Fine, but you owe me a drink for this. I'm the one who has to explain this to Hotch."

Morgan blanches momentarily then cracks a scoffing laugh and toothy smile, "That's true, but I already told you I don't want to know and I don't need to know the details of your two's inner-workings. Besides, after you tell him, you know he's going to march over to me and chew me out for hitting you in the head… I mean, he probably has that insured."

"Are you insinuating he insures my head for my looks or my intellect or my likelihood of developing schizophrenic? I'm pretty offended by all three suggestions, but I'm slightly less offended by option two." Reid deadpans.

"Yeah, that one." Morgan says, ruffling Reid's hair and blowing off any real clarifications. "Tonight I'll buy you a drink, and then we can hit the gym in the morning, don't forget your sweats."

Reid leaned forward at his desk the rest of the day as he poured into case files, shadows helping to mask the red puffiness of his shiner, the additional benefit was helping him focus on the words in the file with his one contact knocked out and destroyed.

Two weeks later, an exhausted and snippy Reid was able to get a small amount of justice when he saw Morgan with a fazed look and developing lake-hues under his deep skin tone.

"You know, you really should work out…"

"…Now you're one with the jokes, huh?" Morgan said dismissively, laughing a little at the turn of events, still stunned as hell that he wasn't the biggest and fastest man out there but glad Rossi was still a damn good shot.

No way in hell he'd own up to that about Rossi, or about Reid actually being pretty funny, but he was glad he'd get to call it a night after the day he just had.

As if reading his mind, for a moment Morgan cursed profilers for being so uncannily good at that, Reid let out a, "I'll see you in the morning, an hour early- you won't miss that one hour of sleep anyway."

He forgot how catty his best friend could get without enough sleep, or cuddle time with his prickly boss… or coffee. Maybe he'd make the effort and bring in some coffee, at least he could help him out with that.

Fin.