Reid's car won't start.
The one day he decides to drive to work instead of taking the Metro; the one day he thinks maybe he'll get to Quantico early and have time to revisit some old case files; the one day he knows he will get the fresh coffee and not the lukewarm crap which coalesces at the bottom of the machine; the one day he thinks will be better than the rest, his good-for-nothing Volvo Amazon won't start.
And, of course, by now he's missed his train, which means that he'll be even later than usual, and will most likely not receive any coffee at all.
"Fuck," Reid sums up, before fishing his phone from his messenger bag and dialing a familiar number. "Morgan? Hey, it's Reid. Look, I need a favour…"
Morgan pulls up outside of Reid's apartment block a little under twenty minutes later. Reid jumps to his feet, trying not to look too eager, and slides into the passenger seat with a sigh of relief. "I owe you," he tells his coworker, clipping in his seatbelt and settling back against the leather of the seat.
"We'll discuss the terms of our contract later," Morgan jokes, pulling away from the kerb and slipping into the slowly-moving traffic. "What happened, anyway? Slept in, missed the train?"
"I don't sleep in," Reid begins huffily, but pauses when he realises that Morgan's teasing him. "Very funny. I was going to drive myself, but the car's old and it wouldn't start, and by then the train had come and gone."
Morgan gives an understanding nod as he makes a right-hand turn onto the highway. "That's too bad. Do you know what's wrong with it?" Reid gives him a confused look. "The car," Morgan clarifies.
"Oh. No, no I don't. I'm afraid I don't know much about cars at all, actually."
"What?" Morgan feigns a shocked expression and clutches his left hand to his chest. "Dr. Spencer Reid, the man with three PhDs and two BAs—"
"Three BAs," Reid interrupts, and Morgan just gives him a look.
"—three BAs, sorry…the certified genius of the FBI doesn't know much about cars? What's the world coming to, pretty boy?"
"Shut up," Reid says, clutching his bag close to his chest. "Not like I had the time for auto shop classes while I was studying at MIT." Derek just gives him an amused glance, before fixing his gaze back on the road. "Besides," Reid continues, "It's one thing to read about fixing cars, and it's another thing entirely to actually fix them. Even if, theoretically, I knew how to do it, I still doubt I'd be able to. My hand-eye coordination is, at best, passable, and the skill required to manually dismantle an engine is actually quite phenomenal. Did you know that the first car engine was invented by—"
"Okay, okay, TMI Reid, thanks." Morgan reaches out his left hand and gently presses it against Reid's thigh, halting his spiel. Though the hand is removed almost an instant later, returning to its place on the steering wheel, Reid feels as though he's been branded; the skin beneath his trousers throbs with heat, and it's not entirely unpleasant.
Of course, it's not entirely unfamiliar, either. He's been observing these reactions within himself for some time, now, and the conclusion he's reached, while not discomfiting, is very much wishful thinking on his behalf.
He thinks he's in love with Morgan.
No, he knows he's in love with Morgan. Reid may not always be able to express how he's feeling—he knows that's the reason many people who meet him secretly think he's Asperger's—but he knows his own heart just as well as he knows Chaucer; that is, inside-out and backwards.
He just doesn't think Morgan feels the same way, and that knowledge makes his heart weigh heavily in his chest.
"Reid?" Morgan asks, cutting through his musings. "You okay?"
Reid comes back to the conversation with a jolt, and nods jerkily. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, I was—distracted."
"As long as you're okay," Morgan begins slowly, and looks as if he's about to say something else, but changes his mind at the last minute. "We're here." He pulls up in the parking lot beneath HQ and unclips his seatbelt. Reid does the same, and hopes Morgan doesn't notice how sweaty his palms are, or the way his hands are shaking.
"Thanks for the ride," Reid says, trying to distract himself from doing something really stupid—like attacking Morgan's mouth, for instance. It's looking very appealing at the moment, as the two of them sit inches apart in the dim light, alone except for each other. Reid's gaze flickers down from Morgan's eyes to his lips and back up again, feeling himself flush all the way from his forehead to his collarbone. "Derek," he says, almost involuntarily, his teeth and tongue and lips moving of their own accord. "Derek, I—"
Warmth. Breath. A soft pressure against his lips. Reid squeaks in surprise, but then lets his eyes flutter closed and leans into the kiss, bringing his clammy hands up to clutch at Derek's henley, Derek's shoulders, his waist and his neck and his everywhere. Reid feels frighteningly whole in this single moment, as if he's been missing a piece of himself that he didn't even realise was gone, but which has now slotted back into place and is making Reid's heart sing.
Morgan—Derek—pulls away with a soft sigh, resting his forehead against Reid's. They breathe the same air for a few long moments, Reid's hair swinging forward like a curtain hiding them from the rest of the world. Derek thumbs at Reid's eyelashes, then, and Reid slowly opens his eyes to meet Derek's warm, heady gaze.
"I've been wanting to do that for years," Derek whispers, and Reid's heart skips a beat. "I had no idea you felt the same."
Reid lets out a small, quiet laugh. "Some profiler you are," he says, with a smile that doesn't leave his face for the rest of the day.
Reid misses out on getting his coffee that morning. He doesn't care in the slightest.