Author's note: Thanks once again to Pembie and Dextolan for the continued support. I'm glad you're still enjoying it! To anyone else who's reading, I'd really appreciate if you could let me know what you think. I'm a bit nervous about this chapter, cos I'm not sure I'm getting the characters right at all, so again, any feedback (good or bad) would be very much appreciated! Anything at all! Don't be shy!
So... here's the next chapter :-)
Chapter 5
i.
Morgan lay back with his eyes closed and willed himself to go to sleep. He'd been trying for hours now, but he just couldn't seem to nod off. He'd tried concentrating on his breathing, he'd tried counting, he'd tried a relaxation technique taught to him by the bureau's psychologist, but none of it seemed to be working. He just couldn't make his body relax. He knew that it was partly because the bed was too small and he would probably fall out if he let himself fall asleep completely, but the other reason was much more obvious.
He was lying in bed with the man of his dreams.
The man of his dreams…
He couldn't quite get his head around it.
Up until very recently, he hadn't allowed himself to think about men in that way. He'd definitely never entertained the idea of having a homosexual relationship. Or any relationship really, if he was honest with himself.
He'd sometimes wondered if he had any true sexual feelings for anyone. Of course, he'd had sex. He'd done what had to be done. He'd gone through the motions, literally, and he was pretty good at it, but he'd never really enjoyed it. He'd slept with a good number of women over the years, although nowhere near as many as he liked to pretend. He often left the bar with some drunken woman, making sure to be seen by the team, only to take her back to her own place and make sure that she got home safely. Ever the gentleman. He just didn't want people to know that. He knew what they all expected of him. He was supposed to be a ladies' man, a real Casanova. People had been making that assumption since his days on the high school football team. 'Derek Morgan, the player'. He had a reputation to uphold.
High School...
His mind floated back for a moment to his senior year. He tried not to think about it too much anymore, but lying here with a man in his arms, it was hard not to. It still hurt. Scott had been his name. The boy that had stolen his heart and then trampled all over it, humiliating him in the process. All he'd wanted was to feel something with someone that wasn't Carl Buford. To know what was good about sex. To know that it didn't have to hurt, and it didn't have to make him feel dirty... But Scott had obviously seen a vulnerability in him. Maybe there'd been something about him that had screamed 'victim'? Looking back on it now, he couldn't understand how he could have been so stupid. To let someone make a fool of him like that. To let someone hurt him again, just like his abuser had. He'd been so messed up at the time, of course. His head a whirl of confusion and hurt. The only consolation was that it hadn't gone too far. They hadn't actually had sex.
He opened his eyes for a moment and gazed at Reid's sleeping face. He knew that he would never hurt him like that. Reid didn't have a cruel bone in his body. That was probably what had attracted him so much in the first place; the inherent 'goodness' of the man. The fact that he cared so much more about others than he did about himself. It was hard not to love a person like that. Not to want them in your life. He smiled a little as he looked at him there, snuggled in against his chest. He couldn't help thinking that he looked like an angel, so sweet and vulnerable lying there. His cute little nose, and his soft kissable lips. He told himself that if Reid wanted him to, he'd look after him forever...
'Woah, woah, woah!' he suddenly scolded himself, 'You're really losing it man! ...You know that Reid doesn't want you that way...'
He closed his eyes again and tried to think when it was that he'd started to feel this way about Reid. About sweet little geeky Reid... a man who talked a mile a minute, and spouted impossibly detailed facts, as though he'd swallowed a whole library? A man so socially awkward that, despite being very good looking, he was probably a virgin at the age of 26, and wouldn't know what to do with himself if someone made a move on him. How had this even happened?! How had Derek Morgan fallen so deeply in love with a certain Dr Spencer Reid?!
It hadn't happened overnight, that was for sure! It had sort of crept up on him and taken him by surprise. For a long time he'd told himself it was just brotherly love, or a need to protect someone weaker than himself. Then he'd tried to convince himself that it was nothing but a workplace crush, born out of spending so much time together... but over time it had become so much more. So much more that he couldn't deny it anymore.
And this time in the hospital had made him realise just how much the man meant to him. How much he cared.
He knew what he wanted now... He just wasn't sure what to do about that.
It was all very well knowing who you wanted, but what if that person didn't return your feelings? Or even worse, what if they weren't in a position to make any kind of decision at all? What if they'd been hit in the head so hard that they didn't know who they were anymore, or which way was up? What then?
He gave an exasperated huff and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. All this thinking wasn't going to have him drifting to the land of nod anytime soon! But he was so tired though. He needed to sleep!
'Maybe if I try to stay awake it'll have the opposite effect?' he thought to himself, 'Just concentrate on keeping your eyes open...' He was pretty sure that Reid had told him that? He could remember him saying something about that... Of course, most of what he knew about anything had come from Reid. He wondered if he'd ever learnt anything in school!
After a while, his eyes began to close and before he knew it, he'd slipped off to sleep…
He jumped out of the SUV, hardly waiting for it to come to a full stop. What he saw in front of him made his heart skip a beat. The place looked like a war zone!
He took a few faltering steps towards it, wondering where to start, and frantically scanning the ground for signs of life. A terrible thought ran through his head. 'Surely, there can't be any survivors?!'
This was an explosion at a warehouse in an industrial area down by the docks. The building had clearly been blown to pieces! There was rubble, twisted metal rods, mangled sheets of corrugated iron, and burning wreckage everywhere! What was left of the building was ablaze, and there were electrical wires creating a dazzling display of what almost looked like fireworks.
He knew that JJ and Reid had come down here to check it out. They were meant to come straight back to the station but they'd called to say that they were coming here to do a quick check first. They hadn't really expected to find anything. It was just a 'tick-box exercise' so they could rule it out. How wrong they'd been?!
"Morgan?!" came a frantic scream from among the rubble, "Morgan, help?!"
He took off running in the direction of the voice, and dropped to his knees when he found JJ trapped under a lump of concrete. Her arm was pinned.
"I c-can't lift it!" she whined miserably, clawing with her free arm at the heavy concrete slab that pinned her down, "It's too h-heavy!"
Rossi appeared beside them and dropped to his knees as well.
"Have you called it in?" asked Morgan, giving Rossi a concerned look because he could see that JJ was burned as well as trapped.
"They're on their way" nodded Rossi, "Medics... Fire too... They're five minutes out..."
"And Hotch?"
"He knows..."
"Okay" said Morgan, turning his attention back to JJ, "We're gonna try and lift this... so... Hold still"
"I… d-don't …th-think I have a ch-choice…" she stammered. Her teeth were chattering from the shock but she was laughing too. Or at least, trying to.
Morgan smirked a little. At least she was still making jokes! He nodded at Rossi, and then they both tried to lift the block off her, straining and sweating, but it wouldn't move. It was just too large.
"Okay, JJ… Listen to me" panted Morgan, "Help is on the way… they'll get the hydraulics and they'll lift this thing off you… and it's gonna be okay…"
"I'm scared" said JJ, starting to cry, "I'm c-cold."
"Hey, look at me" said Rossi, taking his jacket off and draping it around her as best he could, "We're gonna stay with you… and we're gonna get you out!"
Morgan began to look around, suddenly realising that Reid wasn't around. He looked down at JJ. She seemed to be losing consciousness.
"Hey, JJ?!" he asked, shaking her to make her open her eyes again, "Where's Reid?!"
At that she started to cry, her whole face screwing up in pain. "I… I tried…" she sobbed, "I… told him not to go in-inside… I t-told him to wait… but he s-saw the children and… and he…"
"He's in there?!" gasped Morgan, not waiting for her to answer before he set off running towards what was left of the warehouse. His heart felt like it was literally being ripped from his chest. Spencer was in there?! He had to get him out!
Just then there was another explosion that blasted him backwards and knocked him off his feet. "Noooo!" he screamed, as he watched the building once more engulfed in flames...
He woke up with a frightened gasp and then lay there panting for a while. He hated these flashbacks! It seemed like they came every time he tried to fall asleep, suddenly replaying like something out of his worst nightmare. He didn't understand why he kept having them. It wasn't like he'd been hurt in that explosion, was it?! He wasn't the one lying in this bed with a busted up head! He wasn't the one with burns all over his arm. He had no right to be traumatised by it. Not when his friends needed him so badly. What the hell was wrong with him?!
"Christ, Morgan!" he grunted, "Man up, will you?!" He instinctively pulled the sleeping body beside him a little closer, almost like a security blanket.
"Love you" mumbled Reid in response, a contented little smile playing on his lips, "Mm... jocol'te… cupcake…"
He couldn't help smiling. The man couldn't be any cuter if he tried! "Love you too, Pretty Boy" he whispered in his ear, "Love you too."
ii.
Morgan woke with a start to the sound of someone loudly clearing their throat, and he looked up to see Rossi standing in the doorway smiling at him. He felt his face flush with heat, as the embarrassment took hold, and he looked down to see Reid's hand resting on his inner thigh. He reached for it, and gently moved it away, before easing out of the bed, and brushing his clothes down. He didn't know where to look. He certainly couldn't meet Rossi's eyes.
"Um…" he said, glancing at Reid as he continued to sleep. "Uh… Can we not tell anyone that you saw this? Please?!" he said, glancing up at Rossi's grinning face momentarily, before looking away.
The awkwardness of this whole situation was really starting to get to him. The looks on the nurses' faces in the middle of the night had been bad enough, without Rossi seeing this too!
"Hey!" said Rossi, holding his hands up in front of him in a mocking kind of way. He gave a little nod to the other man's crotch. "What you two get up to in the privacy of your own hospital room is your own business!"
Morgan looked down and felt himself blush even more. In his haste to get out of the bed, he hadn't even noticed the pretty glaring case of 'morning wood' that he wa sporting. He made a desperate grab for the hoodie he'd tossed on the chair last night and held it in front of himself.
Rossi coughed a little, and then pursed his lips together to show that he was fighting the urge to laugh.
Morgan glared at him. "What are you even doing here?!" he demanded.
"Just checking in with our resident genius" replied Rossi, "Sorry if I interrupted…"
"C'mon, man?!" he groaned, "Don't you think this is hard enough for me, without you messing with me?!"
Rossi smirked at the other man's discomfort. For an FBI agent, who'd dealt with some of the most disturbing and twisted individuals on the planet, it was funny how easy it was to ruffle his feathers. He nodded at Reid in the bed, taking in the smudged makeup on his face and the sky blue floral-patterned jammies. He looked pretty cute, all mussed up like that.
"JJ did a good job, didn't she?!" smirked Rossi. He couldn't help it.
"Seriously?!" growled Morgan, clearly getting angry now, "…If you've just come here to wind me up then you can turn around and go home… This is tough enough as it is!"
He grabbed Rossi by the elbow and led him out into the hallway. Running his hand over his own shaven head, he dropped his voice to an angry whisper.
"He's seriously mixed up… He has no idea who he is… and he's scared… and I've been dragged into the weirdest most messed up situation of my entire life! Do you have any idea…? …I mean… I just spent the night in my friend's bed, snuggled up like we're lovers! He thinks I'm his boyfriend! …This is such a mess! …If he ever comes to his senses and remembers any of this… I don't know how I'm ever gonna look at him again…"
He rubbed his face in both hands and let out an exasperated groan.
"Rossi, how are we meant to work together again?! After this?! …What the hell am I doing?!"
"It is quite the predicament!" agreed Rossi, with a raise of his eyebrow. He knew that he was being childish but there was just something so amusing about the bigger man's embarrassment. You'd have thought that he was 13 years old.
"Rossi, this isn't funny!" growled Morgan. He glanced in an embarrassed way at one of the nurses from last night as she walked past. They all knew that he was an agent with the FBI, and that Reid was his work colleague, so finding them cuddled together like a couple of newlyweds, had been a source of great amusement. He knew that he was quickly becoming a laughing stock.
"Reid's going to be mortified" he said, "…when he comes out of this… If he comes out of this… That's if I don't die of embarrassment in the meantime!"
"Okay, okay…" said Rossi, giving him an apologetic look and a pat on the shoulder. "No more poking fun… I'll behave myself… I'm nothing if not known for my discretion."
They walked back together to the door of Reid's room and looked across at the body lying in the bed. "He really thinks he's Garcia" sighed Rossi, "No-one could have predicted this!"
Reid opened his eyes and turned to look at the two men standing in the doorway.
"Hey!" he said, giving Rossi a big smile, "You're back?!"
He managed to lift his hand and pick up the bed control, pushing the button to bring the bed into a sitting position.
"M-morning… my Chocolate Muffin!" he called, tilting his head and smiling in a flirtatious way, "Don't I get a g-good morning kiss?!"
Morgan widened his eyes at Rossi, looking even more uncomfortable. It was one thing to kiss him when they were on their own, or even in front of Garcia, but this man was one of the best psychological profilers in the business. A pioneer of the science. How would he not see what was right in front of his eyes? How would he not see that he was deeply and madly in love with the man in that bed?! The thought of being found out made him feel a little queasy.
"Yeah, Morgan!" said Rossi, as he pushed him towards Reid's bed. "What's wrong with you? Give your girlfriend a kiss!"
Morgan glared at Rossi, ready to strangle him as soon as they got out of there, and then turned around to look at Reid with a forced smile. The younger man was looking up at him with those sweet puppy-dog eyes of his, and the most adorable little pout. How could he say no?
'Screw it!' he thought to himself, and leaned in, tenderly kissing him on the lips. 'That's it! Rossi's going to make my life a living hell after this!' he thought to himself, 'I'm never going to hear the end of it! ...What am I doing?!'
Rossi turned to look out the doorway as though he was just giving them some privacy but his whole body was shuddering and shaking with the effort to keep from laughing. This was absurd!
Reid looked up at Morgan as their lips parted, and gave him the sweetest softest smile.
"I love you!" he said, "Hot stuff."
With great effort, he managed to grip the front of Morgan's shirt, and pull him down to kiss him again. This time with more passion, a frantic mashing of lips, and then… tongue.
Morgan felt his stomach give a flutter when he realised that he was French-kissing his friend. He was French-kissing his best friend, in front of one of their work colleagues, and there was nothing chaste about this kiss! This was rough, and passionate… and sexy! His body gave in to it, and he found that he couldn't pull away. He didn't want it to stop… but his mind was whirring all the same… He knew this was wrong!
'Oh, God!' he thought to himself, 'What am I getting myself into?! What am I supposed to do now?!'
iii.
Garcia walked out through the lift doors when they opened and was surprised to see Morgan sitting in the waiting area on one of the chairs along the wall. He looked completely dazed and was staring blankly at the floor.
"How's my hunk of Chocolate love?!" she called, as she walked over to him, but he didn't respond. She gave him a worried look and sat down beside him. "Derek?" she said again, tilting her head to look him in the eye.
He continued to stare into space, as though he hadn't heard a word that she'd said, and hadn't registered that she was even there. He was beginning to scare her now. She reached out, and touched his knee, giving it a gentle little shake.
"Derek?! …Are you okay?!" she asked, looking at him with concern. When he didn't answer her, she began to panic. "Derek!? What's wrong?!" she cried, shaking his knee more violently and reaching for his hand. "Derek?! Look at me! What's wrong?!"
He continued to gaze at the floor, looking dazed and confused.
"I just kissed Reid" he said eventually, in a quiet and distant voice. "He just put his tongue in my mouth… and I let him."
She gasped and covered her mouth, involuntarily starting to laugh, and tilting her head at him apologetically. "Oh, my god!" she laughed, "Sorry, Morgan… It's just…"
"I let him do it…" he said again, shaking his head slowly and staring at a water stain on the floor. "You asked me to… so I let him… I let him kiss me… and Rossi watched."
"Sweetcheeks, it was just a kiss!" she said, reaching out and taking his hand.
She couldn't understand why he was making such a big fuss. Sure, it was embarrassing, but it was only a kiss at the end of the day. Actors did it all the time. No-one would think that he really wanted to!
"It's no big deal!" she said, smiling at him and fighting the urge to start laughing again. "You're just playing a part, sweetie! …It's not like you enjoyed it!"
He turned to look at her and wondered what she'd say if he told her the truth. That he had enjoyed it? That he wanted to do it again? And that he never wanted to stop doing it?! Would it change things? Would she think it was just like 'playing a part' then? Or would she think that he was some kind of sick sexual predator, taking advantage of her 'sweet little baby cakes'?!
"I can't do this, Garcia!" he said, "…I can't!" He shook his head and frowned as he looked at the floor, "I just kissed Reid …on the mouth …with tongues! …I didn't even know if he knew how to do that."
"He's not that innocent!" she chuckled.
"Isn't he?" he replied.
"Morgan!" she said, starting to laugh again. "You didn't sleep with him! ...It was just a kiss!"
'Just a kiss'? he thought... Was it though? Was it 'just' a kiss?!
No. It had meant everything to him.
But that just made it so much worse!
He was pretty sure that the real Reid wouldn't have wanted to do anything like that, certainly not with him, so he couldn't help feeling guilty about it. Particularly because he'd enjoyed it so much himself. It was almost like he'd got him drunk at a party and then taken advantage of him. There was something very 'wrong' about this whole thing, and he worried that Reid would think so too. Would he blame him for letting him do it? For not pushing him away? Would he hate him forever when he found out?
"I've never kissed a man before!" he snapped at her, although he knew that that wasn't true. He'd never kissed a man consensually, but he didn't want to think about that right now. "This is wrong…" he said, "and… I …I just…"
"No, Derek" she said, gently stroking his cheek. "You might not think you're doing the right thing… but this is what he needs right now… He needs to feel safe, and if that means you need to kiss him every now and then… and hold his hand… Then I'm sorry, Sweetness, but you're gonna have to man up and do that!"
He stared at her for a moment, wondering whether to just come clean. Maybe that would be the best solution? At least then, they could figure out what to do... maybe come up with a solution together?
"But I…" he began to say.
"No 'buts'" she warned him.
"No, Baby Girl… I…" he tried again.
"Ah ah!" she scolded, "I don't want to hear any excuses… You have to do this… doctor's orders, remember?"
He stared for a moment more before slowly nodding and returning his gaze to the floor.
"You're doing this for Reid" she said, "Remember that."
"What if he wakes up tomorrow" he sighed, "…and he realises what's been happening?! What if he remembers that I kissed him?! …He'll be so embarrassed, Garcia! How am I meant to look him in the eye?! …How are we meant to work together?!"
"He'll know that you're a good man…" said Garcia, taking his hand and giving him a little kiss on the cheek. "He'll know that you're the kind of man who'll do whatever it takes to help his friends… The best friend that anyone could have..."
What she didn't say, was that him doing this for Reid was making her fall in love with him just that little bit more. How could someone be this good looking AND such a good person?! So selfless? What she wouldn't give to just lean in and kiss him right now!
"He made me sleep in the bed with him" he said, shaking his head incredulously. "This is getting too weird, Garcia! …Where is this going to end up?! …I can't pretend to be his boyfriend forever, so what do we do then?! …I'll be the asshole that walked out on him when he really needed me… How hurt do you think he'll be then?! This isn't right! …It's cruel! …I don't think I can do this!"
"Yes, you can!" she insisted, nodding her head at him emphatically. "You can! …You have to! …You can't just run out on him now!"
"But… in the long run…" he said, shaking his head at her. "What if he never comes out of this?! …I mean… I can't sleep with him!" (However much he wished that he could).
"You think I want you to have sex with my little junior G-Man?!" she exclaimed, putting her hands on either side of his face, "We would never ask you to do something like that! What are you even thinking?!"
'That I want to rip his clothes off' he thought to himself guiltily, '...and explore every inch of that beautiful body of his... That I want him to be mine'. He didn't say it though.
"It's bad enough as it is!" he said instead, trying to push those thoughts away. "Mama, I love you!" he sighed, "…but this is beyond weird! …You're asking too much!"
But he couldn't get his mind off what had just happened. He'd fantasised for such a long time about kissing that man, and holding him close, and now that it had finally happened, all he wanted was to do it again. He'd lain awake for hours last night just watching him sleep, breathing in his scent, and watching the rise and fall of his chest. There was nowhere else that he wanted to be, and the thought of going home to his own bed, alone, made him want to curl up into a ball and cry. Why had it had to happen like this?!
"Just a little while longer?" she pleaded. "The doctors think he'll come out of this soon, so maybe it's only for another couple of days… Please?! Please, Morgan?!"
