A/N: Here's the next chapter guys! Unfortunately there isn't much romance/smut in this chapter, but there is a very sweet moment between Reid and Garcia that I loved writing! So on with the chapter!
Oh, and if any of you like Reid/JJ pairings, check out my new fic Please Don't Leave Me, the sequel to And I Always Will- which I recommend you read first.
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or any of its characters.
Luckily when Reid and Morgan arrived downstairs, Rossi had not yet shown up so they weren't actually late. JJ shot them a look though, and the meaning behind it was clear: they had been very loud the night before, and Prentiss had heard them.
Sure enough, Prentiss spoke up. "Hey, did you guys hear the noises last night? Boy, were they loud this time!"
Reid nodded, not trusting himself to speak. "We heard them," Morgan said. "We definitely heard them."
"Yeah, it sounded like they were doing more than making out," Prentiss continued. "It sounded like they were actually, well, having sex."
Reid and Morgan were saved from answering Prentiss by Rossi's arrival. All of the team turned around as he walked up to them, and Reid winced in pain. The team looked at him, concerned.
"You alright, Reid?" Rossi asked as he joined them.
"Yeah, I'm okay," he assured them. "My entire body hurts, but I'll be fine."
"And why would that be?" JJ asked. "Did Morgan force you to sleep on the couch?"
"Yes, he did," Reid replied quickly, latching on to the excuse so he didn't have to try and come up with his own.
Prentiss, however, had noticed how quickly Reid had agreed with JJ, and knew that something didn't add up. "But why would you be this sore after sleeping on the couch this time? Surely you've slept on the couch more than once since you've been here."
Actually, neither of us has gone anywhere near that couch since we've been here, Morgan thought to himself. To Prentiss, he said, "That is true, but before he'd slept on the couch so few times the pain wasn't really noticeable. Now it's all built up, and he's in pain. Plus, I think he might have fallen off, too," he added for good measure.
"Can we stop talking about me please, and go solve this case?" Reid said. "I'm fine, really. And I kind of want to get out of this hotel room. It's cramped."
"Compared to your place?" Prentiss said as the team headed out of the hotel. "It's not that much smaller."
"It is when you're sharing with Morgan," Reid complained. "There's no privacy, too."
"And when you can hear the sound of two people having sex, that sounds suspiciously like it's coming from your room, Reid," Prentiss added.
"I told you about that the first time, Prentiss," Reid said, almost exasperatedly. "It's most likely the people in the room above you and JJ. Sound waves travel best through solid objects, the disrupted atoms strike each other, like a vibration and send it through the material. I'm going to assume, that since you heard the sound so clearly you were sat near a wall. Once the sound leaves the propagated medium, which I believe in this case to be the wall, it is then transferred to the air. Air is not a good conductor of sound, the gaps between the atoms making the vibrations spread out quickly, so the sound is less concentrated, and therefore lower in volume. This leads me to believe that the walls in this hotel are built of a material which contains very densely packed atoms; this would allow the sound to quickly travel from the ceiling down to your room, where some of the vibration disrupts the air. It is this air disruption that causes you to hear the sounds. The air that is disrupted enters your ear and vibrates the eardrum."
"I had to set him off, didn't I?" Prentiss sighed.
"The rooms in this hotel are all laid out roughly the same," Reid continued, "with the bed on the left and the bathroom et cetera on the right. The couple would have been using the bed, which is located near the left hand wall, and since the only places to sit in the room are the chairs or the bed, both of which are located on the left of the room, you were sat there. This means all the sound waves would have rippled down this wall, directly to where you were sat. This would create the illusion that the sound was coming from our floor, and the room next to yours. Which considering that is mine and Morgan's room, is not only improbable, but also vaguely laughable."
"I think Reid just proved it, Prentiss," Morgan said, laughing. "It was the couple upstairs making all those noises, not Reid and me."
As the team stood around in the lobby talking, a young couple came downstairs. No one on the team paid them any attention, until they reached the front desk and the young man began talking.
"Could we have a new kettle for room 313?" the man asked. "Oh, and could we have some more towels, too?"
"Hey, Prentiss, JJ," Rossi said. "Aren't you guys in room 213?"
"Yeah," JJ replied, not catching on. "So?"
"So, that couple over there," Rossi continued, keeping his voice down so the couple wouldn't hear, "are in room 313. The room right above yours."
The team's eyes grew wide and they looked over at the couple, while Reid, Morgan and JJ exchanged panicked looks. Luckily the rest of the team didn't notice- they were too busy looking awkwardly at the couple.
When the man and the woman had received their kettle and their towels, waving down the clerk's offer of assistance to carry them, they walked past the group of agents. When they saw Morgan and Reid, they gave them a strange look before quickening their pace and bending their heads together, whispering.
The team stared after the couple for a moment, before all eyes shifted to Morgan and Reid. "What was that about?" Hotch asked.
"I have no idea," Morgan replied, shooting a look at Reid and JJ before the team walked out of the hotel and to their SUVs.
Once again, Reid, Morgan and JJ climbed into the SUV- Morgan driving, with Reid riding shotgun and JJ in the back. "Seriously, why were that couple looking at us like that?" Morgan asked. "You don't think they heard us too, do you?"
"Even if they did, though, how could they know for sure it was us, Derek?" Reid said. "Even if they knew for certain that the sounds were coming from our room, how would they know that we were the ones in that room?"
"Because they saw you going in," JJ spoke up suddenly. "I didn't think of it before, but I think I saw them walking past one night, when you guys went into your room and starting making out against the door. I'm pretty sure they know it was you."
"Oh, god…" Reid put a hand on his forehead. "You don't think they'll tell Hotch, do you?"
Morgan thought for a moment before speaking. "I don't think so," he finally said. "For all they know, the rest of the team already know about us. And it's not the kind of thing you go and tell strangers, anyway."
"Morgan's right," JJ agreed. "Don't worry about it. Even if Hotch found out, I highly doubt that he'll react badly to this."
"No, I know that," Reid said. "But I want to be able to tell Hotch, and Rossi and Prentiss, on my own terms, when me and Derek are both ready. Not on somebody else's."
"Hey, pretty boy," said Morgan. "We will get to do that. Don't worry, please. I hate seeing you upset like this."
JJ smiled at the couple from the back seat. She still had no idea how it had taken them so long to see that they were perfect for each other. The attraction was obvious, and the way their personalities complimented each other was a sure sign of a long relationship to come. She knew that both could be dense when it came to love, but the time it took them was beyond ridiculous, it was even reaching obscene.
"Anyway, Spence," JJ said. "I think you have something else to worry about: how to explain exactly why you're in so much pain right now. I mean, I know you used the 'I had to sleep on the couch again' excuse, but all three of us could tell that at least Prentiss didn't really buy it."
Reid looked down at his hands again, knowing that JJ was right. Of course she was- Prentiss, like the rest of them was a profiler. While she hadn't quite put two and two together yet, she was beginning to see that something was up. What were they going to do?
"You don't think we should… tell the rest of the team about us, do you?" Morgan asked Reid tentatively.
Reid took a moment to think before replying. "No. Not yet. It's not that I don't want to tell them eventually, I do, but-"
"I get it, Spencer, it's okay," Morgan said quickly. "Like you said before, you're just not ready. To be honest, neither am I. But one day, we will tell them, okay?"
"Okay," Reid agreed, smiling, as they pulled up outside the Milwaukee police precinct. The SUV containing Hotch, Rossi and Prentiss has already pulled up, and the three agents were already inside the building. JJ and Morgan climbed out of the SUV quickly, but Reid took considerably longer. Morgan made a move as if to help him, but seemed to think better of it and let Reid climb out by himself.
They walked inside the precinct, where their fellow agents were gathered around the evidence board. They looked around as the others walked in, and Reid made a conscious effort to walk properly.
"We got anything new?" Morgan asked as he approached the others.
"Garcia's on the phone," Hotch replied. "There's been another victim. Dumped just like the last one. Something was different this time, though."
"The clothes were in complete disrepair," Rossi finished. "That is nothing like the previous victims. Something changed with this victim."
"Then we need to go out and see why this victim, this crime, was different," Hotch decided. "Prentiss and Morgan, you go talk to the victim's family. JJ, come with me to the victim's workplace. Rossi and Reid, you guys head out to the crime scene and have a look around."
"Shouldn't I stay here and work victimology or something, Hotch?" Reid asked. "I don't think I'd be very… useful out in the field right now."
Hotch looked at Reid, confused. He couldn't remember Reid ever refusing an order like this one before. "What's wrong with you, Reid?"
Reid was saved from answering by Garcia's voice issuing from the phone. "I could really use Reid's help, boss man," she said. "I've got a lot to go through, and I'm going to need a profiler's eye."
Hotch nodded. "Alright then, Garcia," he said. "JJ, you go with Prentiss then. Morgan, you go to the latest crime scene with Rossi, and I'll go to the victim's workplace by myself. Reid, you stay here and work victimology with Garcia."
As the agents headed off for their separate assignments, Reid took the phone off speaker and held it up to his ear. "Thanks, Garcia," he whispered gratefully. "I was hoping I wouldn't need to explain anything more."
"No problem, boy genius," Garcia replied. "I thought you could use the help- and I actually could use a profiler's eye to help me out here."
Reid smiled. "I know you do Garcia. You wouldn't intentionally hinder our investigation, even if it was to help Derek and I keep our relationship a secret."
For a moment, all Reid could hear was the sound of Garcia typing, looking up something about the latest victim. "You know, your voice changes when you talk about Morgan," she spoke up eventually."
"I- what- what're you talking about?" Reid stammered.
"Literally as soon as you said his name, your voice got all warm and happy and stuff," Garcia explained. "I don't know if it's possible for you to do, but you might wanna try and keep that in check."
"You're right on both counts, Garcia," Reid sighed. "I do need to try and keep my voice level when I talk about Derek, and that might not even be possible." Garcia's only reply was to laugh. "I did it again, didn't I?"
"Yes you did, boy wonder," Garcia said, managing to stop laughing. "You really love him, don't you?" she added in a much softer voice.
"I- yes, I do," Reid answered. "More than I ever thought possible."
"I'm sorry that I have to ask you this, but you do want to tell the others about you and Derek, don't you?" Garcia asked.
"Yes," Reid replied, surprising even himself with the conviction in his voice. "I do want to tell them, eventually. I just- like I said to Derek and JJ, I'm not ready yet. And I want to be able to do it on our terms, not on anyone else's. I would also prefer to wait until we've been back at Quantico for a while."
Garcia laughed. "Your voice just changed again, Reid," she said, earning some muttering under his breath from the genius. "Now let's try and solve this case."
A/N: Aw, Reid can be so undeniably and unknowingly cute and sweet sometimes, can't he? And the scene when the couple above Prentiss and JJ show up in the lobby... as soon as Diamond Cobra and I thought of that I just HAD to put it in! Oh, and a massive thanks to Diamond Cobra for looking up all the technical jargon for Reid to spout, hence the title of this chapter.
Oh, and she also says that she wishes that Morgan could leave her sore all over, which is fine by me because then I can have Reid! Okay, maybe I should stop now... he he he...