The ambulance came and took Prentiss and Young to hospital while the team followed in the cars. Morgan heard later from Prentiss that once Young had been shot up with painkillers he'd spent most of the journey cheerfully serenading them all with a soulful rendition of Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On. The poor paramedics couldn't shut him up long enough to listen to his lungs and eventually one of them threatened to take his temperature the hard way if he didn't give it a rest. So it seemed he'd survived the ordeal pretty well.

Morgan had to be checked over too since he'd also been in the water, but he and Prentiss didn't have to be kept overnight. His shoes and socks were full of water so he took them off, and his jeans were getting everything wet so he had to wring them out over a sink and carry them around with him (thankfully a nurse found him some spare scrubs to borrow while he was in the hospital).

Once the doctor had done his thing with the stethoscope and the pressure monitor and the ear thermometer he told him he could be discharged, so he went and found the waiting room where Rossi, Hotch, Reid and JJ were hanging out waiting for Prentiss, who was waiting for some kind of blood test.

She was sitting by Young's bed with one knee hugged to her chest, her wet hair tied back in a ponytail. She was wearing Reid's waterproof jacket he'd lent her to keep her warm, over the party dress which was looking a little the worse for wear. She had scratches and bruises all over her face and legs and hands. And Young was looking at her like she was his brave heroine and his beautiful princess and the love of his life all rolled up into one. The pain meds might have contributed to that but it was plainly obvious to Morgan that he adored her more than ever.

"Hey Morgan." Young said when he walked in to say hi (and to put his wet pants on the radiator to dry). "Have you met my wife? She's kind of a badass."

"Yeah?" Morgan laughed.

"And she's hot." Young continued.

Prentiss gave him a warning look.

"And I totally respect her as a woman and as a person and not just an incredibly sexy object." He finished with an innocent smile.

"My God you are so high right now." Prentiss dismissed the compliments, though her blush told a different story. "I should film this to taunt you with later." She stood up. "I'm just going to the bathroom. I'll say goodbye now in case you're asleep when I leave."

"Kay. Goodbye, light of my life." Young said with dramatic swooping hand gestures which nearly knocked a small vase of flowers off the bedside table.

"Bye asshole." She returned.

"Oh my, she's giving me pet names now." Young chuckled. "My dear chap, would you mind passing me one of the cardboard basins conveniently placed behind me to your left? As soon as possible, there's a good fellow." Morgan quickly passed him one just in time for him to flamboyantly throw up in it. Though there was nothing really left in his stomach apart from acid, so he just kept retching until he finally collapsed with a sigh and wiped his mouth on a tissue, looking extremely sorry for himself.

"Were you actually holding that back until she left?" Morgan asked, trying not to look.

"Nope." Young shook his head. "Though I'm grateful for the timing. Would you mind…?" he held out the bowl.

"Yes. Can't a nurse do it?" Morgan backed away slightly.

"Yes, but trying to pin one down in these places is like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands." Young said wearily.

Morgan sighed and holding the basin between finger and thumb he carried it to the bin and threw it away. He then took about a litre of hand sanitiser from the pump on the wall.

"Jesus it's just puke. It's not radioactive." Young mumbled.

"Sorry." He said, and sat down where Prentiss had been. "Do the doctors know you're still vomiting?"

"Yeah." Young said. "I'm waiting to have a CT scan." He sounded pretty low considering he'd been as high as a kite five minutes ago talking to Prentiss.

"How are you really about it all? You don't have to pretend. We've all been in situations like this before so we know what it's like." Morgan said.

Young laughed. "I thought I was meant to be the psychologist." He said. "I don't know. I'm okay. I mean I was unconscious for most of it. It must have been way worse for Emily." He shook his head. "No…she's Agent Prentiss now I guess."

Oh…right. Morgan suddenly realised what was up.

"She likes you." He said.

"What?"

"She likes you. A lot. I can tell. She just has a hard time trusting people. I know her pretty well, and I'd say if you asked her out she'd say yes."

"Really? No…it's not like that. I mean…I think she's cool and she obviously thinks I'm kind of an idiot, and I'm okay with that. We're just friends."

"You're kidding right? You two haven't stopped flirting since you first met."

"That wasn't flirting." Young protested.

"What was it then?"

"Amiable bickering?"

"Bullshit." Morgan laughed.

"Well okay I was flirting. But she was just rebuffing my advances in a witty and creative manner. It's how we communicate."

"Oh man you have so much to learn about women." Morgan chuckled.

"Oh yeah? Tell me, how many women have you seen naked again?" Young blurted out and then looked embarrassed. "Oh…"

There was an awkward silence. Morgan glanced the door to make sure no one was around.

"You know? How do you…?" Morgan asked in a low voice.

"Oh come on, I'm no profiler but I have eyes. I noticed you had kind of a thing for young Dr Reid when you went all adorably mother hen on him after his little episode Saturday night. Sorry for saying it like that without discussing it with you first though. Blame the head injury. And it goes without saying I would never out you or anything."

"Yeah I know." Morgan nodded. "And don't worry, it's not a big deal or anything. It's just easier this way."

"You're not ashamed about your sexuality?"

"Can't you wait until our next appointment before you start on the heavy stuff?" Morgan asked with a sigh.

"Fair enough." Young chuckled. "So…you didn't answer my question?"

"Like in a sexual situation? Uh…three."

"Are you bisexual then?"

"Not really…but when you're this good looking it can be hard to fight people off." Morgan joked.

"Yeah I hear you man. Total drag." Young laughed. "You tell them no but they just don't listen."

Another awkward silence.

"So my inappropriateness filter seems to have been obliterated." Young winced.

Morgan chuckled. "Don't worry. You're just about cute enough to pull it off."

At this point Reid walked in with a crappy hospital coffee for Morgan.

"Oh thanks kid." Morgan smiled and took a sip. It was cooler than he expected considering the coffee machine was less than a minute away, but since hospital coffees were always scalding hot to begin with he didn't mind.

"It's nothing. I was getting them for everyone." Reid mumbled, avoiding his eyes by inspecting Young's IV drip.

"Oh." Morgan said awkwardly. He was being slightly weird.

He caught Young's eye and shot him a quizzical frown. It looked like he was trying not to smile. Grow up he mouthed at Young, realising that now he knew he liked Reid he'd probably be finding subtext in everything they said to each other.

"So you really think she likes me?" Young said doubtfully, breaking the awkward silence.

"Dude I know she likes you." Morgan said, exasperated, feeling like he was back in high school.

"Oh dear."

"Oh dear? What's oh dear? You like her, she likes you, she saved your life…so far it's like a gender confused fairy tale from where I'm standing." Morgan narrowed his eyes. "Oh my God. You're married!?"

"I'm not married!" Young said indignantly.

"So what?"

"Nothing. I just didn't realise. I mean are you sure? She finds a way to insult me in every conversation we have."

"She probably doesn't know how to handle her feelings for you." Morgan said. "So she fights with you as a defence mechanism."

Young flopped his head back into the pillow. "Oh God."

"Oh God? What the hell is 'oh God'? I thought you'd be pleased." Morgan said, suddenly worried.

"I am. I'm incredibly surprised and flattered. That's all. That and oh yeah I nearly drowned an hour ago and my brain is quite possibly bleeding into my skull." He said with uncharacteristic sharpness.

"Okay okay. Sorry man. I'll leave you now. But for the record I still think you should ask her out. Hey Reid what do you think?"

Reid raised his eyebrows. "Uh…yeah. I think…that…if you have feelings for somebody, and you think they have the feelings too…well I think that you should tell them the truth. So you can talk about it like adults." He looked at Morgan while he spoke. "Without anybody interfering."

Morgan was about to protest against this grossly unfair accusation, when Prentiss came back and said that her test results had come back clean and she'd been discharged.

"Thank God." Morgan yawned. "I'm so tired. And my pants are still soaking wet." He grimaced, picking them up off the radiator.

"Thank you." Prentiss said to him seriously, and gave him a hug, though his T-shirt was wet too.

"No problem." He smiled.

"You too Reid." She smiled and gave his shoulder a brief pat, knowing his aversion to being hugged. He smiled back and mumbled that he'd not really done anything and that he was just glad they were okay.

"You did more than my no-good husband over there." She smiled fondly at Young, who had started to doze off. He obviously meant to voice his objections, but he was too lazy to form a sentence and just made a mildly outraged 'nyaaaargh' noise.

...

They drove back to the resort, listening to the weather report on the radio. They all groaned as it said that planes were still unable to fly.

"How long is this storm gonna last?" JJ lamented, missing Henry and Will.

"They don't know yet. It could be tomorrow, it could be a week." Reid said. "But the good news is that the manager is allowing us to stay as VIP guests for free for a week if we need it."

"That's nice of him." Morgan said. He was driving, Reid was next to him, JJ behind.

"Yeah. I think he wants to show how friendly he is with the FBI to make sure everyone knows he had nothing to do with the murders." Reid said.

"Understandable I guess." JJ said.

"Oh Morgan, I forgot to tell you. That cop who was guarding Prentiss, he survived!" Reid told him. "The doctors managed to save him."

For a second Morgan couldn't say anything. The news overwhelmed him for some reason. It had been such a horrible case that hearing that somebody had survived, against all odds, got him quite choked up.

"And so did Viktor. Misha didn't kill him, just knocked him out. I guess because he needed to kill him in the same way as his other victims." Reid continued.

"That's great news." Morgan smiled at Reid. "Thanks for telling me."

"No problem." Reid smiled back and turned away to look out the window.

...

Back at the cabin they all said goodnight (though it was five in the morning) and trudged upstairs. Prentiss shared with JJ.

Morgan brushed his teeth, showered and changed into clean, dry tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. When he came out of the bathroom it looked like Reid had taken his pills and literally just conked out onto the bed, lying on his stomach, still in his bulletproof FBI vest, one arm dangling off the side of the bed.

I love you. He thought with a smile. He wanted to take a picture but he knew that was creepy.

He unstuck the straps of Reid's vest and tried to tug it out from underneath him. Reid half woke up and made a soft grunting noise of disapproval.

"Come on pretty boy, you can't sleep like that." Morgan smiled. Reid grudgingly lifted himself up slightly so he could pull the vest out. "Do you want your shirt on or off?" Morgan asked.

Reid thought for a moment. "Off." He muttered, turning onto his back so he could reach the buttons.

Oh. Wow. He'd expected Reid to want it on. This innocent situation now felt vaguely sexual.

Hotch is right. I am incapable of keeping my hands off him. He thought guiltily.

"Honestly kid, you need to lay off the temazepam until you're actually in bed if it makes you this sleepy." He said sternly, trying not to sound nervous. Reid just grunted again and went back to sleep, unaware of the emotional turmoil his adorable laziness was causing.

Morgan knelt on the bed next to him (straddling him would not end well) and untied Reid's dark red tie and unbuttoned his grey shirt from collar to hem as unsexily as he could manage. After he'd got to the fifth button he lifted the shirt carefully over his friend's head, Reid lifted his arms and sat up slightly to help Morgan get it off but he didn't open his eyes. He was wearing a black Batman T-shirt underneath his work shirt, probably due to the cold, but it had ridden up slightly when Morgan took his shirt off, and now Morgan could see his stomach which was so flat and sexy and kissable that it was giving him…thoughts, and Reid wasn't giving any indication of being awake enough to pull it down so Morgan was considering whether or not there was any way he could justify carrying out the task with his teeth. But then Reid's eyes opened slightly, watching him.

"Thanks." He said with a self-conscious smile, and for a moment Morgan couldn't look away because he was imagining that this was what Reid would look like after they'd just had sex, satiated and stretched out lazily to bathe in the afterglow, looking up at Morgan through half-closed eyes, about to tell him to stop staring already and help him out of his pants for round 2.

Damn you Pretty Boy. You're killing me here.

"You're welcome lazybones. But you can do the pants yourself." Morgan said gruffly.

"Oh yeah...obviously." Reid said quickly, with a short laugh and pulled his T-shirt down.

They both got under the covers and Reid wriggled out of his socks and pants.

Morgan lay on his back, feeling very hot even though the room was cold. He let out a long, careful breath.

He supposed it was nice that Reid was comfortable enough being with Morgan to allow him to undress him. It meant he trusted him, even though Morgan didn't feel very trustworthy at the moment.

I really need to start keeping my distance from now on, or someday he's going to realise I've been lying to him.

...

Meanwhile Reid had turned onto his side, feeling ashamed. Normally he would never let someone undress him like that (unless he was sick or something, obviously.) but when faced with the opportunity he'd wanted Morgan to touch him. He knew that was pathetic and bordering on deceitful, but the feeling of Morgan undressing him made his bare skin feel tingly, and his body physically ache for more. The urge was so strong. He'd never felt anything like it, it almost rivalled the Dilaudid cravings.

For the first time in a long, long while he felt himself getting the beginnings of an erection. He bent his knees slightly and put his hands between them to hide it, feeling self-conscious even though he was facing away from Morgan and covered by a sheet and a blanket.

He wondered what Morgan would think if he knew his friend was getting hard thinking about him, lying less than a metre away from him. Would he be angry? Disgusted? He didn't think so. Morgan was a good guy, fiercely protective of his friends. Even if it freaked him out he wouldn't say that to Reid's face. But he still worried. When he imagined Morgan laughing at him, calling him a pervert, it made him want to die of shame.

But what if Morgan was feeling the same way?

"Can't you wait until our next appointment before you start on the heavy stuff?"

"Fair enough. So…you didn't answer my question?"

"Like in a sexual situation? Uh…three."

"Are you bisexual then?"

"Not really…but when you're this good looking it can be hard to fight people off."

That was all he'd caught of their conversation, but it was enough to send Reid's imagination into overdrive. He'd been methodically running every possible scenario leading to this exchange through his mind ever since. (He was experiencing for the first time how amazingly effective the desire to get laid was in getting the male brain to focus on a single task.)

The main questions he had were a.) what was the question Young had asked? and b.) was Morgan telling the truth when he denied being bisexual?

The conclusion he had immediately come to upon hearing the conversation was that they were discussing the number of male sexual partners Morgan had been with. Three.

Three.

Did that include him? Was he referring to that time when he spoke about not being able to fight people off? That didn't make sense though, because Reid had been the one trying to fight. It had sounded like he was joking anyway, and that wasn't the type of thing you joke about.

The more he thought about it the more he was burning with curiosity, and the more he was convinced that Morgan was in denial about his bisexuality. It made sense, the soft looks and smiles and frequent touching he was starting to notice since he'd become aware of his own sexuality (that he even had a sexuality). As much as Reid tried to tell himself that this was probably just wishful thinking, he couldn't help getting excited.

What if he really does like me too?

The idea seemed so ridiculous at first, but the more he thought about it, the more that seemed to be the only explanation which made sense with what he'd heard and observed recently.

It explained why Morgan had seemed to know what he was doing that time they were together. He'd looked devastated to have to rape his friend, but he'd performed each act with reasonable confidence, and he'd been able to sustain an erection and ejaculate under immense pressure and scrutiny. Reid hadn't really thought about that at the time, but now he felt like an idiot for missing it. He wondered who the other men were who'd slept with Morgan.

Oh God. He thought as he realised who it was. Carl Buford.

The reason Morgan knew what to do, the reason they were both still alive, was because Morgan had been molested as a child. That was unbelievably fucked up.

But there was that third man to consider. Surely that had been consensual?

I hope he took care of you. Reid thought.

He turned over to look at Morgan, who was on his side facing Reid, eyes closed, one arm bent underneath his pillow.

What would you do if I kissed you right now? He wondered, staring at Morgan's mouth. The horny, turned-on feeling came back as he thought about Morgan kissing him, touching him, making love to him.

Well. Fucking him. He knew the difference, and he suspected their hypothetical sexual relationship wouldn't involve very much of the first. From what he'd observed it seemed that Morgan was not very emotionally invested in the women he had intercourse with. Indeed, he never seemed to return to the same woman's bed more than once, and he was alarmingly good at picking up beautiful women, Reid remembered from the night he and Morgan went to a bar together on a case. Maybe Reid would just be one in a long line of one night stands. The thought alone made his throat go tight and painful, though he was trying to be mature and realistic with his expectations.

He thought probably a friends-with-benefits kind of deal would be the best he could hope for. Was that enough for him? He wasn't sure. On the one hand he trusted Morgan completely and he was very eager to explore these feelings he was having about him. On the other hand maybe Morgan would hate himself for sleeping with a man, maybe he would be angry and rough and unsympathetic every time they were together. It was hard to imagine that when he was usually so gentle and sweet to him.

But he wasn't gentle and sweet at all when he was holding me down and fucking me.

Reid turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, the warm, tingly aroused feeling gone, replaced with anger, betrayal, humiliation. He hated his eidetic memory so much sometimes. It wouldn't let him forget what it felt like. Every time he allowed himself to think about that night, it was like he was physically back there again.

He'd had his eyes closed for most of it, tried to separate himself from what was happening. But he couldn't shut off his other senses. He remembered every second, every detail as it passed him. The deafening sound of the music and the bedsprings and Morgan trying not to cry and trying not to moan, the Faraday brothers' laughter. The smell of Morgan's two-days-in-captivity sweat mixed up in his own. The taste of Morgan's tongue, demanding and strange, the taste of his penis even stranger.

Feeling the hand, unceremoniously forcing his head down between Morgan's legs. Wondering why do people do such horrible degrading things to each other? Trying to ignore the camera shoved in his face, constantly reminding him that he had no privacy, no rights, no identity. He was just a body, a mouth, an anus to be used and controlled and ridiculed. It felt like nobody cared that this was tearing him up inside, that he would rather die than have Morgan see him do something so disgusting. It seemed to go on forever before the hand was taken away and he was allowed to stop. He felt pathetically grateful when they let him stop. Part of him knew that was fucked up but he already felt so worthless and ugly and broken.

And he remembered hearing himself ask for Morgan to fuck him like a dirty whore. Not content with just taking away his physical freedom, Eric Faraday had to take his psychological freedom as well, his freedom of speech. He remembered Morgan's expression, willing him to cooperate. If Morgan hadn't been there maybe Reid would have refused and just let them kill him. He went along with their game for Morgan, because Morgan would think he was an idiot for throwing his life away over something as petty as sex. And he'd probably be right. But he didn't understand that it was more complicated than that for Reid. How could he? What cause did Derek Morgan have to feel shy or embarrassed about his body? And he clearly had no problem having sex with strangers.

So Morgan had taken his emotional freedom, the freedom to die away from him too. He knew he should be grateful for that since it had meant that he'd survived, he'd lived long enough to listen to Coldplay in Morgan's car, long enough for Rossi to tell him he was strong, long enough to start having weird secret sex feelings for somebody. But when he felt really bad, sometimes he didn't feel like he really had survived. Like part of him was still dying, and it was only a matter of time before it went septic and killed him. He hadn't consented to sex and he hadn't consented to living. Both of those felt like a kind of rape.

So he was angry with Morgan, scared of being hurt by him again. But he also liked him and trusted him, respected him and loved him as a friend, and was zigzagging blindly along the border of loving him as something more. It all depended on whether he was feeling rational about how much he could really blame Morgan for, which was nothing, or whether he was feeling honest about what he blamed him for, which was a lot. Both feelings were equally true, they were just…separate.

He looked at Morgan again.

His feelings were so confused and complicated but he got the feeling that if right then Morgan were to wake up and pull Reid into his arms and say he was sorry for everything, he would've probably forgiven him completely and be back to feeling horny in about ten seconds.

But of course, he didn't.

...

Reviews~

Marcallie- I actually tried it out with my boyfriend prior to writing this scene and I managed it. Eventually. After like half an hour of falling over and giggling. I am double jointed though. I see what you mean about the part where I said "she lifted her head off the floor and tried to use her arms to sit up, but found that her wrists were tied behind her back" I actually meant she went to use her arms and realised they were tied up, I didn't mean she couldn't sit up. You can pretty much do that with only your stomach muscles. That was my fault for making it ambiguous, sorry.

Becca – I'm perfectly happy to accept constructive criticism about my writing and to listen to advice about where the story is heading, that is kind of the point in sharing it online. But when you're complaining about a plot which has already been published, what exactly is that going to achieve? All it really did was discourage me.

Also you made it sound like you feel that I've deliberately tricked you in some way, luring you in with Morgan/Reid and then God forbid dedicating a whole chapter to an OC. Yes I presented this story as being about the trauma they went through and how they recover from it, but I didn't think I needed to point out to people that they're still FBI agents and they still get cases. I could quite happily have found a way to get around writing actual cases for them, but I felt like that was being lazy and would cut out a whole chunk of their lives. Instead I decided to take a longer route, which I felt gave a more accurate portrayal of their recovery as being something which happens gradually, something they have to do in between saving lives. It just so happened that the case did not revolve solely around them and in hindsight perhaps that was the wrong thing to do, but heck I enjoyed the detour and I did my best to make sure it was from Morgan and Reid's POV for every chapter except the last one, for which I posted a warning at the top of the page!

Please bear in mind that authors work pretty hard to update regularly and to produce chapters of consistent quality. 'I've lost interest at this point, sorry.' Is a downright shitty and rude thing to say to somebody who has worked hard on something. Especially when you never bothered to tell me you liked the story at the point when you were interested.

Epiccakex3- there is a special place in hell for people who post comments under the name 'ur mom'. xD you nearly gave me a heart attack you naughty reviewer! I probably should have noticed you used mom and not mum and we're English. But I didn't. I am so gullible. You said something about how they're expressing Reid's sexuality more in season 8? That's only just come out on DVD over here so I haven't had the chance to watch it yet, are you saying it's actually canon that Reid is gay? I didn't know that! Wow…I suppose it makes sense as he keeps turning down sexy blonde girls. Dammit I thought he was just sensitive xD oh man. I'm a little disappointed For some reason half the fun of fanfiction is turning straight characters gay.. Also that's kind of stereotyping I feel, just because he isn't all HUURR MANLY. Hmm. Mixed feelings.

I'm glad you feel that everyone is more in character now. I wasn't sure what you meant with Morgan, did you mean I wasn't making him forceful enough or confident enough in the first few chapters? I guess I thought he'd probably be too distraught to do anything except go along with what Reid wanted him to do. And I agree Reid is a very emotionally strong and resilient and downright badass character, but I kind of always felt like sex is his Achilles heel because he grew up so much faster than his body, like his sexual development never really happened because he would have been having the sexy feelings earlier than is socially acceptable, so they would have been shameful to him and he would have repressed them because he wanted to be perfect so that his mother and his teachers would approve of him. That was my explanation for why he didn't really pursue his feelings for women he found attractive. I prefer that to him being gay, I think that oversimplifies him. (I know I'm totally contradicting myself by writing a story in which he is gay xD)

I will bear in mind your wish for them to have sexy times in Rossi's mansion (I didn't even know Rossi HAD a mansion. Wow.) it sounds like something I would definitely enjoy writing xD Andt no I assure you that my mother has never once used the phrase 'get it on' xD

also I'm glad you like Prentiss/Young.

also thank you for your reviews, they're very entertaining to read!

Medeia456- thanks for saying I could write movie plots! I think that would be my dream job. Or to have my own TV series. It would be so hard to resist putting in a ton of homoerotic subtext into EVERYTHING though... xD