Morgan doesn't know how he found himself in this situation. I mean, he does, he just never saw that deciding to hook up with Melissa would have ended up with him naked on her balcony, three stories up, with her boyfriend thundering his way through the apartment. It seemed unlikely when the front door clicked open that she would shove him onto the balcony, close the door and the blinds behind him, and neglect to send his clothes with him. Yet, here he is and he doubts that he's getting back into the apartment at all seeing as how his knocking has gone just as unheard as his yelling "You have a boyfriend?" into the glass has.

Regretting everything, he finds himself cautiously crossing the foot and a half gap between Melissa's balcony and her neighbour's before wondering if this is a good idea. The blinds are closed to the apartment here too but Morgan can hear music playing from inside and decides to give it a shot. He covers himself with one hand and knocks on the door with the other, more embarrassed than he's ever been in his whole life.

The door slides open and of course the man inside has to be incredibly cute with mussed hair and a thoroughly confused expression. There are a group of girls lounging around the living room behind him, trying not to laugh as they unabashedly stare from the background. Morgan finds himself impossibly more embarrassed and the guy shifts uncomfortably, clearing his throat. "Why are you naked on my balcony?" he seems to settle on which, Morgan agrees, is the first thing he would ask too in his situation.

He glances at Melissa's apartment before telling the man in front of him everything; he was hooking up with the girl next door when a boyfriend he didn't know she had came in and he got shoved, naked, onto the balcony with no where to go. The man steps aside after appraising Morgan for a moment longer and gestures for him to follow.

The girls cheer and the brunette turns to their host, "C'mon, Reid, give the guy some clothes and pour him some wine." The guy, Reid apparently, gives her a look that she just rolls her eyes at. "He climbed onto your balcony naked the guys needs a drink."

The blondes agree with her and Reid tries to keep the smile off his face while he indulges them, leading Morgan into his room and looking for some clothes that would fit. "Thanks." Morgan says, taking the clothes from Reid who turns to face the wall while Morgan puts them on. Luckily the cute host in a sweater vest is a little taller than him, making his clothes big enough to stretch over Morgan's wider frame. He laughs a little while he's pulling on the sweatpants he's borrowing.

"What is it?" Morgan catches the aborted movement of shooting a look over his shoulder.

"When I came here to get into someone's pants this wasn't what I had in mind." Morgan takes the slight shaking of Reid's shoulders to be a win.

They make their way back to the living room where the girls have poured another glass of wine for Morgan and are only partially watching the movie and mostly talking to one another. They rejoin the event and conversation turns to Morgan, Reid watching him as though he's going to start something now that he's clothed.

One of the blondes, JJ, swats Reid's shoulder. "He's not a serial killer, relax."

"We still don't know if he makes a habit of this."

JJ just laughs and puts a hand of Reid's arm. "A serial killer and a streaker? I don't think so." And Morgan is kind of sad that Reid and JJ make quite the couple, but Reid takes his wine glass and drains half of it just to satisfy her and he finds that it's too cute to actually hate. It also stops Reid from staring at Morgan in the way that makes him feel like a child again. Win, win.

Morgan finds himself making friends with the group; Prentiss who acts like his sister and who gets him half arguing half bonding over Vonnegut whenever they speak, and JJ who is pretty and nice and scary whenever she takes charge of the situation, and then there's Garcia who is witty and loud and nothing but herself and Morgan finds them all growing on him to the point where he wants to be friends.

"How's William?" Prentiss eventually asks JJ as they open their third bottle of wine.

"Good, good, he's been thinking of moving here so we can get married." While the conversation continues Morgan's just able to not stare at Reid, but he is relieved that JJ and him aren't a couple; they'd be cute, but Reid's grown on him after another drink or so, and he likes to think that he's grown on Reid as well.

It's four in the morning and JJ is starting to fall asleep on Prentiss' shoulder so Reid get's up and announces it's bedtime. He turns to Morgan specifically and shuffles for a moment before speaking what Morgan believes to be a liquor based decision. "You can stay too."

Morgan does, with lot's of encouragement from Garcia and the knowledge that he'd have to drive home otherwise and he's a police officer, it's not his job to break the law.

The morning after is less awkward than Morgan was expecting, the group all sits around and Garcia makes pancakes and eggs for everyone before Reid comments on how he actually has things to do today other than babysit four grownups. Morgan is ushered out by the girls and he feels as though he missed his chance to properly thank Reid for letting him stay.

"Here," Garcia hands Morgan a card with her name and a couple of numbers on it. "my number." She claps him on his shoulder and smiles widely as though they didn't meet last night while he was naked. "You should join us again sometime, handsome."

Prentiss quickly agrees and then they're all getting into their separate cars and Morgan realizes that he's probably never going to see them again. Resigned, he too goes home and goes to shower. It's not until he's stripping off his clothes that he realizes that they're still Reid's.

Morgan showers and dresses and is infinitely thankful that he left his phone in his car yesterday, because now he can text Garcia for Reid's number. She responds with fanfare, but doesn't ask why – to which Morgan is eternally grateful – and then he proceeds to text Melissa.

They decide to get together a couple of days from now so Morgan can gather his clothes, then he texts Reid and makes a similar arrangement for the same day so that he can give the man his clothes back. Two birds with one stone and then he never has to see that apartment building ever again. Satisfied, Morgan goes to bed.

Two days later Morgan walks back into the apartment building that hosted the most embarrassing moment of his adult life and finds his way back to Melissa's door. He's five minutes early and knocks on the door, hoping that they can both move past last time's event easily.

Only the door opens and Melissa's not there smiling at him, instead it's a very male chest where she should be, and before he knows it, Morgan is on the ground, his face warming where he had been punched. For a mountain, the guy moves impressively fast and is on top of Morgan before he can manage to fully react to the situation.

He hears Melissa stomp her way to the door and start screaming, Morgan's head is already pounding, he'd just be grateful if she stopped. She doesn't and Morgan is trying to fight the land mass on top of him and he's just kind of reacting which is the worst thing he can be doing, but then there's the slamming of a door just down the hallway and a voice that he vaguely recognizes shouting "Hey!"

The man turns to snarl and Morgan kicks the guy off of him, glancing to see Reid storming up to them dressed to look like – what Morgan would describe as – a teacher's assistant. Melissa's boyfriend shrugs off Reid's advancements, seeing Morgan as more of a threat, and now that Morgan is on his feet he feels more in control, but before they can start their fight again Reid is twisting the man's arm behind his back and maneuvering him into the wall like it's nothing.

"You'll let him get his stuff in peace and if you try anything I won't be this nice." Morgan watches for a moment as Reid applies more pressure to the guy's wrist before standing up and racing through Melissa's apartment, scooping up his stuff and running back out to the hallway.

Reid is standing there, the guy glaring at him from the other side of the hallway and Reid nods at Morgan before they both walk back to Reid's apartment with no further incident. It's more than surreal.

"Thanks." Morgan says when they get into Reid's apartment. He's sitting on the toilet seat while Reid fusses about, getting first aid supplies for the cuts on Morgan's face. He's bleeding and dizzy and can feel the bruises forming on his face so when Reid presents him with a glass of water and two pills he takes them without protest. "Self-defense classes?"

Reid shushes him, working a cloth along Morgan's face but answers anyway. He's not a very physically strong person so he learned self-defense moves that allowed him to fight smart. He leaves out the reason that he got those classes in the first place were because of a man named Tobius Hankle and finishes cleaning up Morgan.

A few minutes later there's a knock on the door and Prentiss and Garcia are letting themselves in. Reid brings them into the bathroom where they had stayed, talking, and Prentiss explains that she's a trained paramedic as part of her professional bodyguard training. Morgan thinks it suits her.

Prentiss patches him up efficiently while Garcia paces out in the hallway, gesturing to the wall connecting their apartments and threatening to ruin their lives digitally. Morgan smiles, he's really taken a liking to this quirky group. His head is still swimming but he's deemed able to leave the bathroom shortly after. They sit in the living room for a while talking and explaining what happened until Prentiss says she has to go and Garcia gets up to leave with her.

"You shouldn't be by yourself tonight." She gestures to where Morgan's head connected with the ground earlier. "Possible concussion."

They both nod and Morgan watches as Reid locks his front door before turning back to him and saying. "What do you want for dinner?"

That's how Morgan ends up staying the night again. They talk until ridiculously early hours in the morning and Reid has given him a full recount of the time he and Prentiss went to go see Solaris in original Russian. Morgan had never even heard of it before, but the way Reid gesticulated and the way he spoke faster the more excited about it he became, the more Morgan loved to hear him speak about it.

It's a bad habit, Morgan thinks, staying at Reid's but he can't seem to stop it. After the incident at Melissa's Morgan finds himself hanging out with Reid more frequently than he ever would have imagined. At first they see each other at a café close to the station and they start to get coffee together in the mornings before Morgan's shift starts. Then Reid calls him one day to ask about a recipe Morgan had been detailing to him earlier. Morgan decides it's easier to simply go shopping with Reid than to try and explain the packaging. Before either of them really notice, it becomes routine; once a week they pick up groceries in the evening and three times in the morning they get coffee together. It's nice, but it then leads to Morgan helping put the groceries away and staying for an episode of Star Trek.

One episode turns into seven and at four in the morning, when Reid lives closer to the station than him, it's not his fault if he stays the night. Sometimes they simply cook dinner together and talk until Morgan has had a few too many drinks and it's more logical that he stay the night in that instance too.

It's fine, really, until it's not just sleepovers anymore. He and Reid spend all their time together; Morgan will make coffee and make special runs to the store when he notices that the sugar jar is almost out and he doesn't even take sugar. Morgan finds himself with a second key to Reid's apartment and will let himself in to feed the cat that Prentiss convinced Reid to keep for her when she had to move apartments. He even drives Reid to the airport when he goes away to visit Gideon and then continues to feed Sergio while he's away.

Really, it all just makes sense, but then when Morgan is making up the spare bed in Reid's apartment that he's started to think of as his he realizes that he hasn't slept in his own bed at home for a week now. As Morgan dresses for work he realizes that he has most of his wardrobe shoved into the closet here and that he's brought everything of immediate significance into Reid's space and that they've just been making space for Morgan in Reid's life.

It doesn't mean anything; it just makes sense for them is all.

Christmas comes sooner than Morgan is ready for it. Still, he loves the cold and the festive air that the holiday brings and he can't even begin to hate it, not even when Garcia asks Morgan to go to their group's annual Christmas party. Garcia hosts it and there's more food than they all could eat and there is garland and lights strung up around the house.

"Mistletoe again Garcia?" he hears Prentiss ask as he enters the kitchen for another glass of Kevin's homemade eggnog.

"It's festive, besides, now I can make people pay the mistle-toll."

Rolling his eyes, Morgan makes his way over to the two women and wraps an arm around Garcia. "Nice party, baby girl."

"Thanks, handsome, are you my present?" she looks Morgan over obviously and they both laugh warmly.

When Morgan goes to continue the conversation Hotch takes half a step into the kitchen and tells everyone that it's time for the gift exchange. It might be the spiked eggnog but the serious way that he says it makes Morgan want to laugh.

He's met Hotch a few times, Gideon, and Rossi too, and he can't help but think that their whole group acts like their own family. Morgan longs to belong in it. He mentions that he left his gift in the coatroom (Garcia's spare bedroom) and Emily gently punches him in the shoulder telling him to hurry or she'll open his present instead. Maybe Morgan is starting to earn himself a place in their family after all.

The hallway that leads to the spare bedroom is where he runs into Reid, right under where Garcia hung the mistletoe. Reid smiles in the easy way he does after he's had a drink. The mistletoe isn't a problem, Garcia is in the other room and the only one concerned with the mistle-toll but Morgan finds himself drawn to Reid, leaning up into the geniuses space and kissing him, touching his neck softly.

Head spinning, Morgan pulls back and Reid is grinning like everything is still so easy for him. Morgan hopes it's the alcohol that's making him feel this way because if it's the man in front of him then it's too much power for one person to have over him. Instantly, even while more on the drunk side of awareness he knows that things have changed between them. Reid leans back in and gives him a peck on the corner of Morgan's mouth and sidles past him towards the living room as if he's oblivious to the whole change.

They leave a few hours later and the cab ride home is silent; they're both exhausted but Morgan spends the entire car ride riled and thinking. The air is thick when the cab arrives at Reid's apartment and Reid get's out, paying the driver before he realizes that Morgan is still inside the vehicle.

"Are you coming?" Reid asks, smiling slightly as if Morgan has simply forgotten how to leave a car.

Shaking his head Morgan says, "No. I'm going back home, to my own place tonight."

He watches as Reid's face falls, his voice sobering as he nods and says, "Get home safe." Reid closes the cab door and Morgan catches the look of worry, bordering on hurt, in his eyes. It's obvious now, as the cab driver pulls away from the curb, that Reid feels the shift in their relationship too. It's not the same anymore.

Frankly Morgan expects the solitude of his apartment to be welcome and comforting, like coming home after a long trip, except the apartment feels cold and dead. When he takes a shower the body wash smells wrong and he realizes that his razor is at Reid's and that he can't shave. The place is cold and he has to dress in clothes he doesn't really like because all the good stuff is at Reid's. The sheets, when he crawls into bed to pass out, are scratchy and it takes him almost five minutes to turn on the TV because he forgets which remote does what in his own place. It's awful and Morgan doesn't sleep well.

Reid texts him the next day, something innocuous and altogether too nonchalant and Morgan finds he can't work up the nerve to respond. He doesn't respond the day after or the day after that. Morgan finds that every day before Christmas he can't seem to contact Reid again, and he justifies it by telling himself that he's too busy with the lead up to the holidays, but he's just sitting alone in a place that altogether has stopped feeling like a home. His family is out of town and everyone on the police force has family that they're spending their down time with.

Morgan goes out to clubs and bars a few nights, dancing with women and tries to fill the void in his life with drink and flirting. He doesn't go home with any of them and the one time he was close he ended up just wishing her a good night and a Happy New Year and paying for her cab ride home. They'd just be warmth in a bed that's no longer his and he doesn't think he can deal with that. Besides, they deserve better.

It's been almost a month and Morgan is feeling nearly soulless when he gets a text from JJ saying - What happened? Do you want to talk about it?

And then from Prentiss deadpanning – You know he's into you, right?

And finally a third an hour later from Garcia when he doesn't answer them- THE ONLY REASON YOU'RE DIGITAL LIFE IS NOT YET HELL IS HE INSISTED I DON'T RUIN YOU, LOVER

Morgan still doesn't respond and knows that whatever niche he carved out for himself in their family has left a mark on all of them and that it's not fair.

It's been weeks and Morganis bored, tired of sitting in his empty place and pretending that it's a home. So he gets in his car and drives, eventually ending up at Reid's, the place he never thought would have such an impact on his life when he walked in their all those months ago, and it's been half an hour and he's now fully equipped with Reid's usual order of Chinese food from his favourite restaurant across the city– sans chopsticks so they don't have to forage for food with number two pencils -, apology jell-o, and a bottle of wine that he's seen Reid stare at before when they've gone to the liquor store.

Morgan knocks, ready for whatever Reid can throw at him except when he does open the door and Reid is in sweats looking ruffled and breathing a little heavily with a skinny blonde girl Morgan doesn't recognize trying to peer over his shoulder he's not ready at all. There's sweat on her forehead and she's wearing less than Reid is and all Morgan can manage is "Oh…" and then, in a stroke of genius, "Sorry-"

He leaves, striding quickly towards the elevators because apparently it was all one-sided anyway and he should have known. Reid catches him when he's almost at the doors with a "Seiver, stay there." Thrown quickly back into his apartment.

Though Morgan is very pointedly ignoring Reid's very existence right now it doesn't stop the man from physically wedging himself in front of the elevator and making Morgan actually look at him. It's not easy.

Reid shifts for a moment, looking apologetic when he says, "It's not what it looks like." As if he doesn't know it's a cliché. "That's Seiver, She's my self defense trainer."

As much as Morgan would love to believe him that's just too flimsy of an excuse. It's not even his business, besides, it would do the man good to explore himself and learn but he was just hoping that they could sort themselves out first. It's not even like they're a couple, they just spent too much time together. They shared one kiss and Morgan got confused, it's hard when you know someone so well and then you feel more than friendship but you don't realize it's impossibly deeper than you ever expected it to be. It's honestly none of his business who's in Reid's apartment or what they were doing together and that's just factually the bottom line of it.

Morgan is thinking this while Reid still blocks the elevator and uncomfortably stuffy silence fills the rest of the hallway and, after another beat, Morgan finds himself saying it all out loud, all of it, even though Reid's eyes are widening.

When the monologue finishes they're just staring at each other and Reid is smiling, and then – and then – Reid leans in and does it again, he reaches for Morgan and kisses him without the aid of alcohol. Morgan is stunned and wanting but not allowing himself anything until he knows for sure. Reid pulls back, nervous and seemingly at a loss.

"Was that okay?"

Morgan looks at him for a moment, registers the way Reid is looking at him like he's amazing and wonders how he missed something so obvious for so long before shaking his head no. The Chinese food and wine and jell-o get set on the floor before Morgan continues, trying to keep a smile off of his face as he says "You're going to have to try again, pretty boy."

They still have lots of talking to do and lots of figuring out to finish but for now, Reid is more than happy to oblige.

A/N: Someone needs to take my computer away from me. And convince me to read things over before I post them. That's what happens when I leave it up to Future Me

-Reiver