A/N: Well, whew, here we are. Guys, this is the last chapter! I had intended to do two more, but it sort of flowed into one, so I left it that way. The first part is kind of humorous and there is SEX, oh, yes. The last part is pretty angsty, and features a sensitive and mature subject. Plus, there are some mild spoilers for several of the early episodes.
Anyway, I hope you like the ending and I thank you all for staying with me through this story! Big hugs to you all, and I hope you'll take a minute to review. Thanks, wonderful readers!
Seds
Morgan parked in front of Reid's apartment. Reid's eyes were closed and he made no move to get out of the car. Morgan gave him an indulgent look, then clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Come on, kid, let's go. I'm not leaving you out here all night."
"Lemme alone, I'm comfy." Reid turned away, intent on staying put, but Morgan strode around and opened the passenger side door and gave his arm a serious yank. Reid grunted and reluctantly stumbled out of the car. Morgan put an arm firmly around his waist and led him to his front door, then propped the unsteady agent against the wall while he found Reid's keys, unlocked the door, then pulled him inside the apartment. Now awake and a bit more cooperative, Reid gave Morgan a questioning look.
"What are we doin', Morgan?"
"I'm putting you to bed, kiddo. Sleepy time."
"But... I'm not tired, and I'm... I'm not tired, Morgan." He smiled rather triumphantly at getting the sentence out without slurring his words.
"Maybe not, but you are drunk. Now, move it."
"I'm not-I'm not... I'm not drunk, Morgan. Swear it." He raised his hand in a solemn pledge.
Morgan chuckled. "Oh, yes you are. Now, are you going to come along quietly, or do I have to sling you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes?" He pulled a still-protesting Reid (I swear I'm not tired, Morgan... I'm not tired at all...) along with him to the bedroom, then loosened his tie and pulled it from around his neck.
"Now, let's get your clothes off."
Reid suddenly grinned devilishly, then giggled. "Yes, sir!" He started unbuttoning his shirt, but couldn't quite get his fingers to cooperate and began attempting to just tear open the fabric. Morgan rolled his eyes.
"Hey, hey! No need for that. Stop! Let me help you-" Morgan took over the task and Reid wavered a bit as he aimed a drunken kiss at Morgan's cheek-and missed. He frowned in frustration.
"Darn it. Hey, help me out here-kiss me, hot stuff."
Morgan raised an eyebrow and almost laughed out loud. "'Hot stuff?' Oh, man, you are drunk."
"That's what Garcia calls you."
Morgan smirked fondly. "Yeah, Garcia's mistress of the flirt. Didn't expect it from you, though, pretty boy." He paused a moment and looked into Reid's heavy-lidded eyes. "But, I like it. Too bad you're not like this sober." Reid snickered and again went in for a kiss. Morgan tried to resist, but ended up locked in a clumsy, tongue-tangling smooch, with Reid clinging to Morgan as he ground his hips against his. Morgan forced himself to pull back.
"All right, all right, that's enough. Look, Reid, this isn't happening tonight. Just-just take off your shoes and get into bed. I'll go crash on the couch, and-"
"But, Der-rek..." Reid's voice had become a sing-song whine in Morgan's ear. "You have to get under the covers, too. Get naked with me. Wanna make love." Amused to the point of snickering at his own attempt at seduction, Reid waited good-naturedly as Morgan regarded him with a critical look, then firmly shook his head.
"Oh, no. Uh-uh. Make no mistake, you're cute as hell, but you're too drunk. I don't make love to impaired people."
"Awww... come on, Morgan, I'm not that drunk, and I want to..." Much to Morgan's surprise, Reid suddenly moved swiftly and fluidly, and used a judo hold on him that had him land flat on his back on the bed. Reid then proceeded to climb on top of him, going in for another sloppy kiss.
"Reid! What the hell-let go! You little-" Morgan tried to twist free, but Reid was stronger than he looked, and he was determined. They wrestled back and forth until they were laughing and so close to the edge of the bed that they were in danger of falling to the floor. Morgan managed to get them more or less centered on the bed and stared up at him with a combination of delight and bewilderment.
No longer clumsy, Reid deftly popped open the buttons on Morgan's shirt and, starting with the area just below his belly button, inched his way upward, planting kisses on Morgan's exposed skin until he got to his mouth. He lay on top of him and pressed his lips against Morgan's, taking him in a deep, passionate kiss.
Morgan smiled against his lover's unusually eager mouth. This was a side of Reid he had never seen before. In fact, kissing was something that normally didn't seem to appeal to Reid. But, now... This was delicious. Still, it was hard to believe the kid had sobered up so quickly. Reluctantly, Morgan pulled away.
"Reid, stop it. Look at me." In spite of some resistance, Morgan firmly pushed Reid off of him and they both sat up, leaning against the headboard, panting. "Now, what the hell has gotten into you?"
Reid gave him a disgusted huff. "Nothing yet, unfortunately. Are you going to put out, or what?"
"Reid!"
"Come on, Derek, I'm experiencing serious sexual arousal! Look at this!" he said, gesturing at the swollen bulge in the front of his pants. "Let's have intercourse, or, um, 'fuck,' as you so elegantly put it."
"I'd love to, but-you are not thinking straight, boy."
Reid burst into laughter. "No, I certainly am not! Good one... Now, come on-" He looked back at Morgan and put a hand to his face in a caress. "Honest, it's ok. I swear I'm not that drunk."
Morgan put an arm over his shoulders and looked into his eyes. "Oh, really? You could barely walk back at the bar."
"Yeah, well-I was... kind of exaggerating the level of my inebriation, for you guys' benefit." His grin took a sly turn and he shrugged. "Didn't want to disappoint Garcia. Plus, I was curious to see how you would react."
Morgan frowned. "Wait a minute-were you flirting with that girl just to see what I would do?"
"Yup."
"You little bastard!"
More giggles. "You let Garcia sneak booze into my glass-you deserved it."
"Aw, man, you knew? Listen, I just thought you needed a little mental blow-out after all the stress you've been under. I was right there, keeping an eye on you. I wouldn't have let anything happen to you."
"I know. Still-it was... kind of fun. Seeing your eyes pop out like that." Reid snickered a little more, then they were both quiet.
Morgan mulled over the possibility that Spencer Reid was actually interested in whether or not he could get a rise of jealousy out of him, and, if so, what that could possibly mean. But before he could formulate a sentence, Reid unzipped his pants, wriggled out of them, and, naked and erect as hell, turned to him and kissed him. Then, with his lips no more than a millimeter from Morgan's, he said, "Clothes off-now," with an almost Hotch-like tone of authority.
Morgan smirked and raised his hands helplessly. "Yes, sir," he said softly. He pulled off his trousers and lay back. Reid quickly brought his member to full attention with his mouth. Pleased with the results, he reached into his nightstand drawer and handed the needed supplies to Morgan.
When they were ready, Reid straddled him. He took Morgan's hardness in his hand and eased the tip inside himself, then slowly lowered himself onto the straining shaft. He winced a bit, and Morgan spoke in a warm, creamy voice, "Easy, tiger. Don't hurt yourself. We got all night."
"I'm fine. I'm okay. You're just so damn big-" He stopped, feeling his body give to accommodate the thick length, then settled lower and lower, pausing when it became too much, until he was fully seated on his lover's hips. He took a moment to savor the pleasure of having Morgan completely inside him, studiously noting the depth and pressure afforded by the unfamiliar position.
Morgan couldn't stop looking at his face-the appearance of boyish innocence debauched by sultry lust-and he gently pulled the young man toward him for a kiss. Reid responded eagerly, then raised himself again and began easing himself forward and back, making soft moans as the good feelings began to surge through him. He shifted to circular motions, and observed the effect that had on Morgan's expression-his eyes were now closed, and his lips were slightly parted as his breath came a little faster. "Oh, baby... that feels so right. Keep going, Spence-I love that..."
Reid increased the pace, and he heard Morgan groan happily. Then, suddenly, Morgan gripped his waist and in a smooth move of sexual choreography, easily flipped Reid onto his back without losing contact. "God, Derek," Reid sighed as he looked up at him from his new vantage point. "You're amazing. Fuck me." Morgan had never heard him say those two words so starkly put together, but...
He proceeded to obey the order without question.
Afterwards, they lay in each other's arms, completely sated. Reid lifted his eyes to Morgan's and kissed him again, softly this time, controlled, all traces of drunken foolishness gone, replaced by a sweet, tender sort of longing that made Morgan's chest ache.
When it ended, Morgan stroked his face and said, "Damn. Almost feels like you love me when you kiss me like that."
Reid's smile came slow, sad. He shook his head slightly. "Come on, Morgan, don't say that. Don't... use that word."
Morgan laughed slightly. "All right. But, would it be so terrible for you to admit that you have some feelings for me?"
"I do have feelings for you. I like being with you. I feel happy when I'm with you. It's like everything else goes away." Reid raised his eyes. "When I'm with you, I feel... normal." He laughed a little, too. "That's a huge compliment, by the way."
"Spencer-damn it, kid, you are normal, you're fine-"
"No. I've always been different. For a long time, I thought it was my IQ, and being younger than everybody else, but that's not what this is. It goes too deep-and, I can't change it. 'What's bred in the bone,' and all that-"
"Wait-I don't understand. What are you talking about?"
Reid held Morgan's demanding stare but didn't speak for a long moment. Finally, he said, "All right. You know what Hankel did to me, physically. But... what happened went beyond that."
"Yeah, he injected you with drugs against your will. That's beyond anything I can imagine."
"Well-I'm not talking about that either, although it's part of it. What Hankel-or, rather, his other personality, Raphael-did was to force me to look at myself, at the things I've done. He talked about my 'sins,' and about how I was a liar." Reid paused and took a deep breath while Morgan's frown deepened. "Regardless of my rejection of any sort of religious belief system, I can't disregard the fact that-he was right."
"Aw, Reid, come on, man. He was delusional, insane-"
"That doesn't matter. Think about it, Morgan-what I did to my mom, putting her away and never coming to visit her. How could I do that? And, this job. Going to work every day, looking forward to it... I killed a man! And, I've seen death in... so many forms. It never meant anything to me, not really. It never touched me. But, after Hankel, everything came into sharp focus. I saw myself, finally. What I am... what I've done. These things that I don't feel-it's not normal. How could you love someone like that?" He gave Morgan a bewildered shrug. "You couldn't. Once you figured it out, you couldn't." Reid dropped his eyes and stared at his hands.
Morgan's voice was gruff. "Reid, look at me. We've got to stop playing." Reid reluctantly raised his eyes to Morgan's and saw the intensity within them. "You know as well as I do that you had no choice about your mom. Or, the man you killed. He would have killed you, and Hotch, too. You did nothing wrong."
Reid laughed, and the sound chilled Morgan. "Right or wrong isn't the issue-it's how you feel about it afterward. I have no regrets about killing Dowd. Intellectually, I understand that it was the right thing to do. But, don't you see? To do something to another person-to take a life, whether literally or metaphorically, should be... devastating." Reid sought Morgan's gaze and the energy required to hold back his emotions made his eyes glitter. "But-I just walked away. Went on to the next thing. Even after I did something terrible."
Morgan spoke more gently. "Those things were not... terrible."
"No-it's something else."
"So, tell me."
Reid shook his head and rubbed his face as if to scrub it clean. "I can't. It's too hard. I can't say these things to you."
"Spencer, there's nothing you could say to me that would make me think less of you. You know that."
"I know you think that."
"I know that."
Reid gestured impatiently. "You have this image of me, but it's wrong-" His voice began to break. Morgan put his arm around him.
"Reid-"
"It's these kids, Morgan! These kids dying. Every time I see it, I just think-what kind of a world is this? How did we get to this point? That there are people-monsters-that would subject the most helpless, innocent little children to such... Then, I think of what I've done in my life and I wonder-am I really any better?" His expression had turned to something Morgan couldn't read.
Morgan shook his head, bewildered. "What the hell are you talking about? Are you seriously comparing yourself to an unsub? That's crazy."
Reid shrugged and bit his lip. Then, his voice dropped to a raw whisper. "You don't know what I did."
"Then, tell me. Tell me what you did."
"I've never told anyone."
Morgan felt a tightness in his chest as he ran through the possibilities. He was beginning to regret pushing Reid into confession, but there was no turning back now. "Go ahead, Spencer. Tell me."
Reid wouldn't look at him. He stared at the wall, then took a deep breath. His voice was tight. "It happened when was in graduate school, right after... they came for my mom. I was eighteen. There was this girl in my analytical chemistry class-her name was Claire. She was older than I was, of course. Beautiful. Long dark hair, blue eyes. I... had a huge crush on her." Reid smiled slightly at the memory. Morgan, now thoroughly puzzled, put his hand on Reid's and nodded.
"I was so pathetic. Awkward, immature, no self-confidence. I knew there was no way she'd ever look at me twice, but I kept finding excuses to talk to her. I finally got up my courage and asked her to have coffee with me. I couldn't believe it when she said yes. After that, we started meeting to play chess in the student lounge every afternoon, and one day, she invited me to her place for dinner. I was so happy-I felt like I'd won the lottery or something.
"That night, I... lost my virginity to her. We started this affair-it was insane, I'd never imagined sex could be like that. I kind of... lost my mind, I was so in love with her. Jesus, Morgan-I wanted to marry her! But, when I told her how I felt... she just laughed."
"Damn."
"Yeah. She... told me she had a boyfriend in the service, that he'd be returning to the States in a year and that they were going to get married. I was crushed. I felt so used and stupid. I just... I don't know, I sort of closed down for a while. But, then, a few weeks after we broke up, Claire came to see me. She told me she was pregnant-and that it was my kid."
Morgan blinked. "Whoa, whoa, whoa-you got a girl pregnant? Damn, boy."
Reid suddenly looked annoyed. "Why is that so hard to believe?"
"I don't know-I guess I always think of you as just barely past being a kid yourself."
"I'm a grown man! Look, never mind-"
"Oh, no, you don't. You're not leaving me hanging. Keep going."
Reid ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Okay. Anyway-I didn't even know what to say to her. It just didn't seem possible, it didn't seem-real. I'd never so much as been around a baby in my whole life. I was an only child. Children were just... creatures that caused a ruckus in restaurants or drove me crazy on airplanes.
"At first, I didn't even believe it was mine, but she swore that it was. She told me... she told me she wanted to have it. She said-"
Morgan pulled back and looked at him in consternation. "Wait a minute-are you saying you have a kid somewhere?"
"I'm not finished! Will you let me finish?"
"Okay, okay, sorry. Go ahead."
"She said she couldn't tell her parents, or her boyfriend. But, she wanted to have the baby. She planned to put it up for adoption, but she was afraid of going through it alone. Asked me if I would be there for her, to help her face giving it away. I... refused. I told her I didn't want anything to do with her, or the child. I told her I'd give her some money for expenses, but that that was the extent of any involvement I was willing to offer. I remember looking at her-this girl I had been so in love with-and feeling nothing. It was like I'd flipped a switch in my brain. There was no response, almost no recognition. Simply put? She meant nothing to me anymore."
Morgan pursed his lips, trying to frame his thoughts. "That's just a defense mechanism. It's uncommon, but you tend to compartmentalize-you just-"
Reid's voice dropped so low that Morgan had to strain to hear. "I'm still not finished. She said, well, then-she'd have an abortion. I said good, do it. I told her I'd pay for it. She sat there while I made a couple of phone calls and set up an appointment for her. I wrote a check to cover the costs of the procedure.
"She asked me to go with her to the clinic, but I wouldn't even do that. I said that I'd washed my hands of the whole situation at that point, and for her to have a nice life with her soldier boyfriend and not to ever contact me again.
"I got the canceled check back from the clinic, so I knew she went through with it. I was glad, Derek. Relieved. The last thing I wanted was to deal with a... a kid. After that, I never gave it a second thought. In my mind, it was over and done with. Over and... done.
"I never let myself think about it again. But, when that boy died right in front of me-I tried to save him, but I couldn't. I watched his life ebb away, and I thought-I thought about my child. What I'd let happen to him-I wasn't even there! I couldn't even be bothered to be there when some... butcher put an end to his life in a cheap abortion clinic."
Tears had welled up in Reid's eyes and Morgan squeezed his shoulder.
"Come on, man. It wasn't like that. They don't-"
Reid continued as if he hadn't heard him. "The other day, JJ made me put my hand on her belly so I could feel the baby moving around. It freaked me out, but-it was amazing. A little life going on, right there inside her. A little boy. And I thought about what I'd done-to my own child. My own... baby." He turned to look at Morgan, and his face was strained from holding back the torrent of emotion that had welled up inside him. "I... keep wondering if it was a boy or a girl. I feel like it was a boy, I don't know why... I think about how old he'd be by now. He'd be in school. I bet he'd be smart. I bet he'd be tall for his age..."
By now, tears were running down his cheeks and he hastily wiped them away. "I killed him, Derek. He never had a chance, and it's my fault. Claire wanted to have him, to give him to people who would love him and give him a good life, but I-I just turned her away because... I didn't feel anything, and-"
Morgan pulled him into his chest. "Hey, hey. Listen. You were young and scared and you didn't know what to do. Anyway, she made the final choice, not you."
Morgan felt Reid shiver. He looked into his eyes. Reid was shaking his head, trembling.
"But, Derek, don't you see? Don't you understand? I didn't feel anything. Nothing, I didn't care! You want me to love you, but what if I can't? Think about it. If I can't even care about a little baby, my own little baby, how-how can I love someone else, really love someone, ever? How can I-"
"Spencer, stop. Just stop, calm down. Shhh." Morgan held him closer and stroked his hair. "There's nothing wrong with you, babe. I promise. You were just a kid. You'd already been through a lot, and you didn't understand. It's okay, it's okay."
He spoke soothingly to him, holding and rocking him until he felt the tremors fade and Reid's breathing slowed. Reid had collapsed against him as if his muscles could no longer support him. Finally, he seemed to come back to himself and he sat back. He took a ragged breath before speaking.
"I just... keep thinking about it. Over and over and over again. I don't know what to do."
"You have to let this go, babe. You're not a bad person because you let your ex terminate the pregnancy. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it wasn't-but you're not... like an unsub. It's time to let this go. Let it go. Hey-look at me."
Morgan gently turned his face to him and cupped his chin in his hand. "Claire did what was right for her at the time. Now, you need to forgive yourself, and to forgive her. It's time to-to get yourself back." He soothingly rubbed Reid's neck and kissed him. "I know what it's like to have regrets, to think-you should have done something differently. But, you can't let this control your life. We're here, now-we have a chance. A chance to have something special. Don't you want that?" He tilted Reid's face upward, and Reid looked at him a moment before nodding.
"Okay, then. We just have to figure out how to get there. Together."
"You're really willing to take a chance on me, knowing all this? Knowing I might be... crazy?"
"You're not. You just need some help. We'll get it for you. And, I'll be there. Every step of the way."
A broken smile worked through Reid's tears. He nodded again and lay back against Morgan's chest. He felt exhausted, yet, somehow, cleansed. He shook his head in disbelief. He'd spoken the words. He'd said them aloud to Morgan, and he was still here with him, holding him, promising to help him as he worked through his pain and guilt and regret. As he worked to reclaim himself from the despair Tobias Hankel had forced him to face. It felt good, but it was almost overwhelming. He listened to Morgan's heart, his even breathing, and was thankful when he felt the calm of sleep begin to overcome him.
For the first time in a long time, he slept without dreams.
-The End-