Hello! Thank you for your patience; my exams went very well and I am very much enjoying the holidays.
Oh ho ho just remembered I have a happy announcement to make! ;D That's right, our boys are FINALLY going to get it on! *throws celebratory confetti* Prepare yourself for a ridiculous amount of fluff and comedy, especially for such an angsty story xD
"They're letting him go!?" Morgan echoed Hotch's words with horror. "Why the hell would they do that!?"
Hotch closed his eyes and shook his head, "It seems his attorney managed to convince the jury that Tom coerced him into the murders after years of psychological abuse."
"What!? That's ridiculous!"
"Yes, but unfortunately he never appeared in front of the camera in any of the video evidence, and he has his brother well trained. Tom's agreed to plead guilty, and his story matched Eric's version of events exactly. Not only that but Eric's psychological assessment revealed him to be severely mentally retarded and completely brainwashed by Tom. The only other evidence is circumstantial, since you and Reid didn't testify against him."
Morgan sat back on the couch in Hotch's office, letting it sink in. A surge of cold fear washed over him. He took a deep breath, fighting to keep himself stoic.
"Does Reid know?" He asked.
Hotch shook his head. "Garcia's working on tracking him down. We should have a phone number for him pretty soon."
"You can't tell him something like that over the phone." Morgan shook his head and sat forwards again with his head in his hands. "I need to be with…we need to find him! We can't leave him out there on his own with that freaking maniac on the loose!"
Hotch put a hand on his shoulder.
"Of course not. We'll do whatever we can to make him safe, you know that. There are things we can do to protect you both."
Morgan wanted to believe him. "But for how long? Eric's a free man. You can't give us any real kind of witness protection when there's apparently been no crime. The best we can get officially is a restraining order."
"Probably. But I'll find a way." Hotch said grimly. "There has to be something."
He continued. "But you know our best shot at getting him convicted is if we submit the video Garcia extracted from the camera, along with both your testimonies, right?"
"Yeah I know." Morgan looked down. "I guess that'll depend on Reid."
"It doesn't have to." Hotch said. "Your testimony and the video would probably be sufficient. You have a right to justice and to safety, no matter what Reid wants. Eventually he'd come to see that you were doing what was best for him as well."
"No." Morgan said firmly. "I made him a promise that I wouldn't tell anybody without his consent. I'm probably just about the only person he still trusts right now. If I break that promise I lose him forever. Either he agrees or we find another way."
"Well we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Hotch replied, sensing that arguing further would be pointless. "And at this stage there's no need to assume Eric would still be interested in you anyway. We know it's only a matter of time before he kills again, but there are much lower risk victims he could choose. Going after previous victims when he barely escaped conviction would be shooting himself in the foot, as he'd be the obvious suspect."
"So we have to hope he goes after somebody else instead?" Morgan grimaced. "That doesn't feel right."
"Well the minute he does, the BAU will get him locked up for good."
"Yeah…" Morgan said, unconvinced. "But my instincts tell me he ain't done with us yet. I mean when are we ever that lucky?"
Before Hotch could answer that Garcia rushed in with a phone number and address on the screen of a tablet computer, which she handed to Hotch.
"I found him!" She said breathlessly.
…
They discussed the situation further and came to the decision that it was best for Morgan to go and inform Reid by himself. They didn't know what state of mind they'd find Reid in and the whole team turning up on his doorstep could prove overwhelming. Aside from that Hotch would have no way of explaining to Strauss why they had all taken a day off without going into the details.
So Morgan went home, packed a few things and drove up to Philadelphia. The address Garcia gave him was right in the city centre, on Walnut Street. It took him about three and a half hours to get there and his brain had passed the journey time by presenting him with every possible scenario where Reid slammed the door in his face, or yelled at him for violating his privacy and refused to consider coming back to the BAU. Or worse, Eric having got to him first. But that was impossible.
Then again, he hadn't thought it was possible for Eric to wriggle out of going to jail, and he had.
So he was a little tense to say the least by the time he found the right apartment building. It took him several seconds to make himself press the intercom button, struck with a sudden paralysing fear of Reid not being there after all. And the almost equally terrifying prospect of him being there.
There was no answer.
Maybe he's out?
Morgan wandered back onto the high street.
Now what? He wondered, sitting down on a bench facing a line of shops. He dialled Garcia's number and she answered before it had finished ringing even once.
"Have you found him?" she burst out nervously.
"Calm down babygirl. No, I went to his address but he's not there. Did you find out who's been putting money into his account?"
"Uh, no not yet, I only just managed to get hold of his new account details, hold on a sec." there were some rapid clicking sounds of frantic fingers on keys. "He is working at…oh. Starbucks." She laughed. "Figures. He's probably in his element right now, surrounded by so much coffee."
"Starbucks? " Morgan echoed in surprise. "Are you sure? He must be the most over-qualified barista they've ever hired."
"Positive. He's been there nearly five weeks now. Unless…I guess this could be a false trail he's laid for me, but I don't think so."
"Great. So I'm looking for one particular Starbucks in a city centre. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack." Morgan sighed. Or a pile of needles, as the man himself once said.
There was a hollow sort of feeling in his gut. An apartment. A job. Granted it didn't seem likely that Reid planned on a permanent career change to barista, but still. It seemed like he was putting down roots. He didn't know how he felt about that.
"Yup, there are around 9 in your immediate vicinity. Happy genius-hunting."
"Thanks babygirl." He said, and hung up.
He looked around and within eyesight he could already see two Starbucks signs. He got to his feet and crossed the road. His heart started thumping crazy loud as he got to the door and pushed it open. He looked around but there was no sign of Reid. He showed a photo to a guy with ginger hair who was serving coffee and asked whether Reid worked there but he shook his head. Same story in the next two, but in the fourth one Morgan found him.
The place was pretty busy, buzzing with conversations and a queue right back to the door, so he couldn't see if Reid was behind the till until he was about four customers back in the line.
There he was.
Dressed in a T-shirt and a green apron with a name tag which read SPENCER, he was smiling politely at a customer as he handed her some change. He'd had his hair cut shorter than Morgan had ever seen it, shortest at the sides and curly on top. It was unusually stylish for Reid. He didn't really look like himself, he looked like he could be any twenty-something boy-next-door serving coffee to pay his way through school. That was probably the point, he guessed. It let him blend in, feel safe and anonymous. Morgan wasn't sure he liked it better this way than when it was longer, but he definitely liked it.
If it's long enough for me to easily be able to imagine running my fingers through it, then I approve. He thought with a rueful smile.
He stayed out of sight behind the customer in front, right up until the last minute. This was it. Reid was looking down at the till, frowning and pressing some buttons as he said;
"Next order please?"
Morgan took a moment just to appreciate the sound of his voice. That hadn't changed. He stepped forward.
"Hey there pretty boy." He said softly.
Reid's head snapped up, eyes wide. He froze.
Morgan waited.
Reid folded his arms and stared at him, an unimpressed look on his face.
"I can't believe it took you three months to find me." He said, his face deadpan.
"I can't believe they're letting you near their coffee unsupervised." Morgan said, equally sternly.
Reid broke out into a grin and Morgan couldn't help but do the same, and Reid all but jumped up onto the counter, threw his arms around Morgan's neck and gave him a hug which squeezed out all the air in his lungs, along with the pain and loneliness which had congealed around his bones, replacing it with warmth and fresh love that was more intense than ever.
They let go reluctantly.
"I have to um…" Reid gestured to the line of people who had been watching the embrace with varying degrees of irritation and curiosity.
"Oh, sure." Morgan nodded, stepping back. "I'll come over when you're less busy."
Reid nodded. "Okay." He said, a happy smile still playing on his lips. His eyes lingered on Morgan for a couple seconds like he couldn't quite believe he was real, before somebody in the cue cleared their throat for his attention.
Morgan sat down on a soft leather couch where he could watch him work, not wanting to let him out of his sight again for a second in case somebody took him away again. Once the line had gone down (and he'd managed to shift the lump in his throat) he went back over.
"I feel I have to tell you." He said solemnly, resting his elbows on the counter. "That your hair…is the gayest thing I have ever seen since…since Justin Bieber existed."
Reid pretended to be dismayed, reaching up to touch his hair.
Morgan grinned. "I love it." He said, pulling Reid's head down so he could kiss the top of it, then patting him twice on the cheek. "Now what does a brother have to do to get a cup o' Joe in this joint? I'd hate to have to tell your boss you were neglecting your duties."
Reid rolled his eyes but smiled and went to pour him one without needing to ask what he wanted.
"Go sit down and I'll bring it over in a second. I'm due a break around now anyway."
He came over a couple of minutes later and sat down in the chair facing Morgan, putting two blueberry muffins on the table.
"Oh now you're spoiling me." Morgan smiled.
"That's okay. My manager gives them to me for free now and then. Says I need feeding up." He smiled awkwardly. "Apparently she does it to a lot of the uh…younger male employees, tries to seduce them with baked goods or something."
"Wow look at you, you little player." Morgan laughed. "It's not so easy being gorgeous is it? Now you know what I have to struggle with."
"Oh trust me, Garcia is a pussy cat compared to this lady." Reid said with an anxious glance over at the counter. A middle aged woman with very bright lipstick gave him a wink. Morgan chuckled. He got a feeling from the mischievous glint in her eye that she got more of a kick out of making handsome boys uncomfortable than actually wanting to get them into bed.
Morgan nudged Reid's foot with his own.
"It's good to see you again." He said warmly.
Reid looked down and smiled. "You too." he said it softly like he was confessing a secret. He couldn't keep the smile off his face.
They both started to say something and then laughed.
"Sorry, you go." Morgan smiled.
Reid furrowed his eyebrows in a slight frown. "I just wanted to say that I…uh…I'm really sorry. About how I left. Not even telling you face to face…that was…it was just that…I mean I never understood how Gideon could do that to us, you know? But then…I just couldn't. I couldn't talk to you. Cause I knew you'd make me want to stay. And I needed to leave. I really, really needed to leave."
Morgan nodded slowly, picking a small lump of blueberry out of his muffin. "I know." he said after a while. "It was difficult to accept, but I understood why you did it."
Reid nodded, looking uneasy. Morgan knew his forgiveness wouldn't stop Reid beating himself up.
"So out of curiosity why did it take Garcia so long to track me down? I figured ever since I opened that account you'd be knocking on my door any day."
"She wasn't looking. Hotch put his foot down and said if you were ever gonna come back we needed to show that we could give you your privacy." Morgan said, putting the blueberry in his mouth.
Reid nodded again. "Right…so why now?"
Morgan looked down at his muffin, the smile falling from his face. He really, really wished he didn't have to taint the happiness of their reunion by telling Reid this awful thing. He sighed, closed his eyes for a second and stopped picking at his muffin.
He opened his eyes and looked up. "There's something you need to know." He began.
"That sounds ominous." Reid raised his eyebrows and gave a wry half-smile, not really taking it seriously until Morgan didn't return his smile.
"Eric's out of jail."
At first Reid didn't react, as if he'd repressed the trauma so far that he barely remembered that name's relevance to him. Then he just looked utterly perplexed.
"What do you mean out? Like…he escaped?"
"He didn't escape. They let him walk. He gets out next week."
"What!?" Reid's voice went up an octave. "How!? How could they possibly justify letting a man like that go free?"
Morgan clenched his jaw and went through the horrible story with him.
"Oh God." he said hoarsely. His eyes filled with tears and he clasped his hands over his face.
"Hey. It's okay kid. We'll get through this. We've dealt with bigger and badder unsubs than Eric Faraday before." Morgan said.
"Yeah but that's the point, he's not even an unsub! We can't arrest him! Even if we find him before he finds us there's nothing we can do!" he said, his voice slightly strangled. He closed his eyes for a second and rubbed his hand across his mouth. He seemed to calm down, or at least get his self-control back.
"It feels like I'm being punished." He admitted, one fist gripping the hair on the back of his head while the other clenched and relaxed on the table.
"For what?" Morgan asked.
"For being a coward. For making you lie for me." Morgan started to argue but Reid wouldn't listen. "No! No, I did. I let him get away with it. I've put God knows how many other people in danger. I've put you in danger. I'm so sorry." his voice cracked and he looked down to hide his tears, resting his forehead on the heel of his hand and sliding his fingers into his hairline.
Morgan shook his head. It was impossibly sad, how Reid could always seem to find a way to put the responsibility for things on his own shoulders, even when they had nothing to do with him. He reached out and put his hand on Reid's wrist, which rested on the table between them. "Hey…" he said, softly clucking his tongue in sympathy and exasperation. "Don't you dare do that to yourself. You are literally the bravest person I have ever known." He said, squeezing his wrist gently. "And yeah, you lied. So what? You did what you had to do to survive something nobody should ever, ever have to go through. Something very few people could begin to understand. And just you being here, being sort of okay, even finding things to smile about sometimes, that is the bravest thing I have ever seen you do. I am not going to let you blame yourself for this."
Reid forced a small smile.
"And by the way, you didn't make me lie." Morgan continued. "You asked me to, but in the end it was my choice. And I was glad to do it because it was easier for me to handle too if no one found out. I used you as an excuse, but you are not responsible for what I did."
Reid nodded. His eyes were red and he still couldn't look Morgan in the eye.
"But it's not too late to appeal and change our statements now we have the copy of the videotape Garcia restored as evidence." Morgan said carefully.
Reid shifted in his chair uncomfortably, avoiding his eyes. "We might get charged with perverting the course of justice."
"We'd just been through a major emotional trauma when we made that decision. They'd understand that. They wouldn't punish us for it, surely?" Morgan frowned.
"Maybe. But even if they let us off…our careers will almost certainly be affected. How can we be the police when we lied to the police? And who's going to have confidence in me as an agent knowing what I let them do to me?"
Morgan couldn't work out how to respond to that. It upset him on so many levels he couldn't figure out where to even begin to try and express what he felt. Reid seemed so much better, he was calmer now and he looked a lot healthier, happy even. But when he said stuff like 'what I let them do to me' it was clear that he was still undeniably broken.
Morgan wished he knew how to untangle the mess Reid's feelings were in. After a long time overthinking what to say he shook his head.
"This isn't high school Reid. Stuff like this happens to people in our line of work. We spend every day trawling through and taking down the world's most twisted and fucked up human minds. Anybody who doesn't think this could happen to them is a damned fool."
"And the FBI is just as full of damned fools as any other institution." Reid said weakly.
"It'll be fine. Worst case scenario…it gets out to the whole office and people give us grief about it. We report them or we ignore them. Hotch will look out for us. Even if the higher-ups decide we're some weak little nancy-boys who can't be taken seriously, he won't let anyone get rid of us while we're on his team."
"Even if he can do that, are you really going to be content with knowing you have to do this job forever?" Reid asked dubiously. "I mean aside from the fact that people who do this job for too long usually end up alone with severe emotional problems, you used to always talk about what training you were gonna do…where you wanted to work next, whose position you were going to take over. And you sure as hell deserve a promotion. You could do pretty much anything and you'd be brilliant at it."
Morgan thought for a moment. He hadn't really thought about that. Reid had a point, when the team was first put together he'd been completely driven and focussed on building his reputation. He'd been ambitious bordering on ruthless, confident that he was going to climb all the way up to the top. He'd grown up a lot under Gideon and Hotch, realised how much he needed to mature before he was ready to do that job. And then as the years passed all of a sudden he realised he honestly no longer wanted to do it. He loved his job, however awful it could be, and he loved his work family even more. And it meant he got to be with Reid every day. He was happy.
That had never factored into his plans before. Mainly because he wasn't. Not really. He'd always enjoyed the buzz of being good at something, he'd never just enjoyed a job for its own sake. He couldn't say he was thrilled by the prospect of not having another option, but since he wanted to remain in the team for the moment anyway it didn't really worry him that much.
"It might bother me one day. But if I get sick of this job and nobody else wants to take me on I can always work somewhere else. There's a whole wide world outside the FBI y'know." he smiled.
"Maybe for you." Reid gave a wry smile. "This job is pretty much the only comfortable niche for my particular skillset. Just the thought of having to go to an interview sort of makes me wanna hurl. Gideon got me the job here cause he's an old friend of the manager Hilda. And I never had to do a formal interview for the BAU, I was always just recommended by my teachers." He admitted. "The first time I met Gideon he had to come to my apartment because I was getting really awful panic attacks and I couldn't leave my house. I was so embarrassed. I thought I was going to have to turn the job down, I mean I assumed they wouldn't want me anyway after that. But he wouldn't let me quit."
Morgan raised his eyebrows. "I never knew that. Wow. What did Gideon say to you?"
"Just that it was nice to meet me. And that if what my professors and everybody else told him about my abilities was right then he would be willing to accommodate my working from home, but that I could be of much more use to him in the field and it would be much less of a headache for him if I could work at the office. And then he asked me if I played chess."
Morgan chuckled. "So that's how that started."
"Yeah. We had a couple of games. It probably won't surprise you to know that he beat me." Reid laughed. "Anyway, once I realised he really wanted me on the team I was determined not to let him down, so I went with him to the office to be introduced to the rest of you. I was shaking the whole time…you probably noticed." He looked down with a self-conscious smile.
It was at this point Morgan and Reid both became aware that they were still touching. Morgan took his hand away casually and pretended to itch the back of his head.
"I didn't actually." Morgan said with surprise. "I had no idea you were going through something like that back then. See? You can do it kid, I know you can. I've watched you do things other people wouldn't believe. I mean compare a job interview with singlehandedly taking down a mass murderer with a gunshot to the forehead, right? Or shutting yourself in a lab with a broken test tube full of anthrax to stop everybody else getting infected?"
Or walking out without a vest to confront a teenage unsub who had a gun and nothing to lose, and talking that teenage boy into giving himself up. Or getting on a train with a paranoid, gun wielding schizophrenic who was in the middle of a violent psychotic break, armed with nothing but a magic trick. Or the time he…wow actually this job is really unsafe. Maybe I should be talking him into staying at Starbucks instead. Morgan thought uncomfortably as he realised just how many occasions there were to choose from.
Reid smiled awkwardly. "Yeah I guess…when you put it like that it does seem stupid to get so nervous."
"So…will you think about telling the police?" Morgan asked.
Reid looked away uncomfortably. After a long silence he said; "I can't promise…"
"I know." Morgan assured him. "And it's fine if you can't go through with it. It's up to you."
Reid looked unhappy. "It shouldn't be though. You'll be in danger too."
"Well we'll look after each other while we figure out how to handle this. And we don't have to decide anything tonight. It'll be a long time before Eric's ready to make his move."
Reid nodded, rubbing his fingers through his hair in a way that was so distracting Morgan forgot what he'd been about to say. He looked round at the counter and frowned.
"Oh I should probably get back to work. I'm sorry, I would ask for a day off, it's just I haven't been at this job all that long and I sort of wanted to make a good impression y'know?" Reid said apologetically. "You could hang out at my apartment if you want? It probably won't be all that fun sitting around here waiting for me until 5."
Morgan shook his head. "I'm fine here pretty boy. You go do your thing." He smiled.
"Okay." Reid smiled back. Then he stood up and went to go back behind the counter but was stopped by the manager-lady, Hilda.
"Oh sweetheart you look awful! Have you been crying? What did your boyfriend say to you to make you so upset? Did he call things off? Is he sleeping around?" she fired off the concerned questions at such speed that by the time Reid had stuttered out an 'uh…yeah, I…' in response to the first question she had already asked the third question and Reid felt too confused and awkward to correct himself. It didn't help that she was stage-whispering so loudly most of the people nearby could probably hear her. He turned bright red.
"Oh no honey I'm so sorry!" she pulled him into a hug, mistaking him cringing with embarrassment for him being on the verge of tears. "That's what we get for always falling for the bad boy types huh? Oh Sugar I've been there and back twice with my first two husbands. They always break your heart." She rubbed and patted his back.
Reid was completely lost. "He's not uh…"
She chuckled, "Nice try Spence but come on, I wasn't born yesterday. You damn near choked the life outta that boy when he walked in," she tapped him on the head with one finger. "and don't think I missed that smooch he gave you right there on that noggin o' yours either! And that intense conversation you were having? You could cut the sexual tension between you two with a knife!" she said with a delighted shiver. Suddenly her eyes widened with mistaken understanding. "Oh! I'm sorry, are you not 'out' yet?" she said sympathetically. (It was almost impressive how skilfully she managed to read between the lines when there were no lines in the first place.) "Or is it him? Oh my God does he have a girl on the scene? Is that it? He's telling everyone he's with her and then he's messing you around? That closeted jerk!"
"Hilda please! Will you stop speculating!" Reid spluttered, wishing he could put duct tape over her mouth. "You've been watching way too many soap operas."
She laughed. "Okay, okay. Sorry. But can you blame me? Spencer you're the most secretive guy I've ever met! You never tell us anything about your personal life! It's not my fault my imagination has to work overtime to fill in the gaps! So come on, spill! What's he done?"
Reid was floundering even more desperately in a sea of half-truths and confusion when he felt a hand on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked round and his heart leapt. It was Morgan, there to dig him out by correcting her false assumptions in a non-awkward way! Thank the lord! Reid smiled at him gratefully.
Morgan gave Hilda a charming smile. "Ma'am, I think what my boyfriend is trying to say, is that he and I need some…alone time to figure things out, y'know what I'm sayin'? Is there any way you would be able to cover the rest of his shift? He'd be very, very grateful." Morgan winked at her suggestively and said, "We both would."
Reid gaped at him in mortification. That was not how he had expected that to go.
Hilda visibly melted.
"Oh darling why didn't you just come out and ask? Honestly! Of course I'll cover your shift. On the condition you tell me every single detail afterwards of course." She pinched Reid's cheek.
"I think that's fair." Morgan grinned, putting his arm around Reid's shoulders. "C'mon then pretty boy. I think it's time you showed me your apartment."
Reid stared at him speechlessly. "I'll get my jacket." He said finally, giving up. There was no way of digging himself out of this hole now.
Besides…it wasn't like he really minded Hilda thinking Morgan was his boyfriend…
He would have liked some say in how he came out to his new co-workers though. Or at least the opportunity to come out. From the way Hilda had leapt so swiftly to that conclusion it seemed that there was already a general consensus among the rest of the staff that he was gay.
"Have fun boys." Hilda waggled her fingers in a wave.
Does she…? Yep. She thinks we're going off to have sex. Reid realised.
He made a helpless noise which was a weak approximation of the word 'thanks.'
"Why did you do that!?" he moaned once they got outside. "She is going to tell everyone. And they are all going to interrogate me for details tomorrow."
Morgan laughed and shrugged. "I didn't want to wait."
Reid shook his head in disbelief.
"Aww come on Mr Grumpy-pants, it got you the afternoon off didn't it? A whole afternoon with me, what more could you ask for?" Morgan grinned.
Reid couldn't help smiling.
"This way." He said, ignoring the question.
"Isn't your apartment the other way?" Morgan asked.
"Yeah." Reid said simply, with a grin.
Morgan followed him, intrigued. Reid led him to a parking lot nearby and stopped next to a line of motorcycles. He pointed to an orange V7 Classic.
"Meet Audrey, my new favourite toy." He said smugly. "Isn't she pretty?"
"No way." A grin spread across Morgan's face. "Holy shit Reid this is awesome!" he laughed, stepping forward to inspect the body of the bike despite not having any idea what any of it did.
"Yep." Reid agreed, stroking the leather saddle affectionately.
"When did you get it?" Morgan asked.
"It was a…kind of Christmas present from myself I guess. I never know what to spend money on so it all just sits in my account, but I remembered how much I liked it before on that case so I thought, 'why not?'" Reid smiled. After a few seconds he said, "You don't think it's weird do you?"
Morgan looked quizzical. "No. What do you mean weird?"
"Well. I'm not exactly…the biker type, am I?" Reid did a kind of sheepish shoulder-wriggle-shrug.
Morgan chuckled. "I don't know what you mean." he replied with a grin. He picked up the helmet and plonked it down over Reid's head. "Let's see you on it then. I'll tell you if you look silly."
Reid swung his leg over the bike and curled his fingers around the handles. Morgan stepped back and looked at him.
Oh man. Oh man. Reid and motorcycles. Two things which definitely should not work together, but somehow...they really really do.
He couldn't keep the smirk off his face.
"What?" Reid asked suspiciously.
"Nothing." Morgan replied innocently, choking on his words a little.
"I look like an idiot don't I?" Reid took his hands off and folded his arms.
"No! You actually look…surprisingly cool. Oh my, I think we've found your inner bad boy Dr Reid." He said with a grin.
...
Reid lived on the second floor in a small apartment with décor that was minimalist bordering on half-furnished, but on the whole much tidier than his old apartment. Apart from the small oak dining table which was piled high with textbooks and paper, a couple of empty cereal bowls balanced at different heights on the book mountain.
The framed photos on the bookshelf helped fill in some blanks about why Reid had ended up in this apartment; there was one of Gideon on a boat with his arm around a young man who looked like the boy in the photo Gideon used to keep on his desk. Close by there was another of the same boy at a restaurant for his 18th birthday with a woman Morgan assumed was his mother.
"This is Gideon's son's place?" Morgan asked.
"Used to be. Stephen studied at the university of Pennsylvania. Gideon bought this place for him I think with the intention of letting it out to other students when he was ready to move out, but I guess he never got around to clearing out the stuff Stephen left behind. Lucky for me. Gideon was here as well actually. Until about a week ago."
"Yeah? How'd you get a hold of him after all this time?" Morgan asked, thankful that he had. He was happier knowing Reid hadn't been alone. And maybe Gideon, Reid's father figure and mentor, knew how to help him better than Morgan did.
"Through his son. I told him I had nowhere to go and asked him to give a message to his father." Reid hung up his jacket, walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. "Gideon called me pretty soon after that and told me to meet him here. He knew straight away that I was in kind of a mess when he saw me. Uh…sorry, I'm not sure I have much to drink. There are some beers in here but I'm not sure I'd trust them since I think they belonged to the previous owner."
"That's okay. I don't want anything just now anyway." Morgan said, and leant back against a counter. Reid poured himself a glass of water.
"It helped a lot having Gideon around." He continued. "He was really there for me when I needed him. It took about three or four days before I could even tell him why I was there, but he didn't push me at all."
"Where is he now?"
"He and Stephen had a father-son vacation booked to New Zealand. He offered to cancel it but I was feeling better by then so I told him it was okay."
"Ah." Morgan said, slightly disappointed at missing the chance to see their old mentor again.
There was a short pause and Reid looked at the clock.
"It's nearly time for dinner. You hungry yet?" he asked thoughtfully. "I haven't got much food either I'm afraid, just the one microwave meal I was going to have. Chinese takeout okay for you?"
Morgan nodded. "Sure."
Reid phoned up the nearest Chinese food place and they sat down on the rust-coloured couch to catch up on each other's lives. He found out that Gideon had looked after Reid and helped him get back on his feet. He'd been the one to suggest that Reid get a more sociable type of job outside his comfort zone, to stop him feeling isolated and out of place in social situations. Other than that, Reid had been working in his free time for his philosophy master's degree to stop him going mad from lack of mental stimulation, occasionally meeting up with his Starbucks co-workers, eating far more jello than was healthy for a grown man and watching A Game of Thrones, the medieval fantasy TV show he was currently nerding over.
Morgan asked nonstop questions about everything, even got him talking about the different characters, plot, and historical references of the different cultures and houses in A Game of Thrones, until he knew more about it than he would if he'd actually watched the damn thing. He just had a strong feeling it would be a good idea to steer the conversation away from what he'd been up to while Reid was away.
He was happy to listen anyway. It had been so long since he'd heard one of Reid's long-winded, overly detailed explanations. Then the food arrived and the table was too cluttered for them to use so they ate it standing up, leaning their elbows on the island counter which separated the kitchen area from the lounge.
Morgan watched across the counter with a poorly hidden grin as Reid snapped his chopsticks apart with a grim expression, glaring at his noodles as if trying to intimidate them into submitting to his will.
Morgan laughed and leaned across the table. "Here." He said, pinching a mouthful of Reid's noodles between his chopsticks and dangling them temptingly above Reid's head. Reid gave him an unimpressed sort of look and Morgan felt a guilty tickle of enjoyment, knowing how much it wound the kid up to be patronised or treated like a child in any way.
Reid looked at the noodles, then at Morgan, then stared Morgan down as he tilted his head back, opened his mouth and let his tongue curl slowly round the chopsticks, neatly taking the mouthful from them in the most suggestive way possible. He considered closing his eyes and saying 'mmmm' but thought that this was probably a little too obvious. He wanted Morgan's mind to go there without him realising Reid had intended it to.
It worked a little too well. Morgan's teasing grin was replaced, first with a look of surprise at Reid's performance, then with an embarrassed smile as he stared down into his own takeaway carton.
It didn't look like he was going to feed him again. This was a little disappointing for Reid as not only had it been surprisingly fun and erotic for him being fed that way, but also it had served the practical purpose of getting noodle to mouth without fiddling with the accursed sticks. What had he done wrong? Was he not subtle enough? Had Morgan picked up on his intentions and now felt awkward because he didn't welcome the flirtation?
Meanwhile Morgan was sitting in stunned silence, vehemently cursing his dirty mind for turning a perfectly innocent interaction with his friend into something sexual. But the way he took it into his mouth with his tongue like that all sweet and obedient…any red-blooded male would have had the same thoughts, superimposing the image into…another situation.
Reid stood up and got a fork from the drawer. Both men finished their food in contemplative silence. Conversation gradually resumed and the awkwardness ceased, but it was tentative and polite, the easy playfulness had gone. By now Reid was convinced that Morgan had gone off him, if he was ever even on him. But he had to know for sure, however nervous it made him to ask.
...
lol just wanted to share with you that I wrote chapters 34 & 35 all in one, and I've just remembered that I called the word document 'noodle sex' xD No wonder I couldn't find it for ages when I tried to upload it.
Writing it made me simultaneously feel really horny and really hungry for noodles. I imagine they'd be quite a good food to use in sex actually, not too messy, plenty of potential for sexily eating it off each other. Though I guess if you used too many at once you'd end up looking like some kind of Cthulhu spaghetti sex monster. Not cool.
Thoughts? Anyone tried that or something similar?
*tackling the big questions right here*