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"We're looking for a white, homosexual male, in his mid to late twenties." Hotch stated, looking around to make sure he had the officers' undivided attention.

He continued. "He most likely keeps his victims where he lives, which isn’t far away from his hunting zone."

"The reason for such behavior is that he feels a personal connection to his victims." Reid prompted. "He sees himself in them, hence abducts them nearby pubs and bars he himself probably used to frequent in the earlier stages of his own sexual discovery."

Rossi tailed the young genius' intervention. "His killings aren't motivated by a need for attention. They are an accomplishment of a mission he has the duty of bringing to an end, and judging by the remorse shown in how and where he dumps the bodies, this duty is supposedly imposed by some sort of deity or higher authority."

"This is why he won't inject himself into the investigat-"

"Agent Hotchner," an officer stormed into the room with her phone in hand and a pale tint to her face, interrupting Morgan.

Everyone in the room turned heads toward the woman.

"A victim has escaped. He- he’s at the hospital now, luckily he appears to be unharmed."

- an hour later

"This poor kid..." Prentiss mumbled as she, Morgan and Reid watched JJ try to get the boy to speak in the other room.

"He's lucky he doesn't have a single scratch, though, considering the level of torture the previous victims suffered..." Reid added carelessly, immediately feeling his boyfriend stiffening beside him in his half-sitting position on the desk.

He shot him a concerned glance, but the man was looking blankly somewhere ahead of him.

"You got that one right." Emily sighed deeply, before shifting her gaze from the scene they had been helplessly staring at for the past 20 minutes.

"Alright, I'm gonna get coffee." she said in a lighter tone, turning toward the two men with an inquisitive look.

"...Reid? Coffee?"

"Uh- no, I'm- I'm fine thanks I just had one."

Emily arched a brow, an amused smile playing at one corner of her lips. "Spencer Reid refusing coffee??"

Spencer gave her a certain look, one that basically said "I don’t wanna be rude but please go away for a minute thank you?".

She hesitated a second more, gaping and shifting her eyes back and forth between her two colleagues, picking up on the weird look on the older's face.

"Ookay then." she drawled, nodding slowly before finally turning on her heels.

"...Der?" Spencer nudged the man's elbow, once he was sure Prentiss had got far enough that she couldn't hear the nickname.

Derek was like startled awake.

"Mh?" he mumbled.

"Are you ok?"

The other man's brows furrowed slightly. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know, you tell me. You've been frozen for 18 minutes straight."

Morgan gave his boyfriend an eye-roll and a casual smirk that, if it was Reid's to say, wasn't quite as genuine as usual.

"Don't profile me, pretty boy." he tilted his head.

The second Spencer opened his mouth to retort, Hotch approached the two agents steadily, JJ and Rossi right behind him. Reid immediately straightened his posture.

"Reid,"

"....yes?"

The man sighed. "I want you to talk to him."

Spencer didn’t have the time to reply.

"Why do you think he'll talk to him when he doesn't even wanna talk to JJ?" Emily's confused voice resonated louder and louder while she strolled toward them, coming back from her trip to the vending machines with a cup of so-called coffee in her hand.

Reid swallowed in wait for an answer, hoping it weren't going to be the one his mind had formulated.

"Reid is closer to his age. Plus, the boy probably feels more comfortable talking to a male agent." Rossi explained shrugging, slipping his hands in his pants pockets non-chalantly.

Spencer mentally thanked him - though he couldn’t quite figure if David effectively knew that there was another reason way more crucial than a simple matter of age and gender; the true reason why Hotch had decided he was better suited to speak with the kid.

"Right...didn't think of that." Prentiss agreed a few seconds after.

JJ shook her head sheepishly. "We should've figured sooner. I'm afraid he's even more closed off than before, now that I talked to him..."

Jennifer was right about that, indeed.

When Reid entered the room, the kid was hunched on himself, hugging his knees on the couch.

The boy winced slightly and turned his head to see who had interrupted his peace and quiet.

"Hi, Tyler" Spencer greeted gently. "My name is Spencer. I work with, uh, Jennifer, the lady that was here earlier." he continued, slowly making his way to stand across from him.

The boy snorted. "Ah, great. They played the cute agent card."

Spencer felt himself ever-so-slightly smiling. "Unfortunately, I have to debunk your hypothesis. Not that it isn't a strategy we use. Just, not in this case." he explained, sitting down.

He took a better look at the brunet in front of him. He claimed to be 19 years old, but Spencer reckoned he couldn't have been more than 17 - the boy was probably trying to trick them into believing he's over eighteen so that they wouldn't call his parents. He looked pale and exhausted, but his eyes were a bright blue color that somewhat lessened that effect. He was definitely too skinny for his height, but considering the other victims' similar build and the fact that Tyler wasn't held captive long enough to have lost a visible amount of weight due to malnutrition; Spencer was pretty sure he was that thin even before his abduction.

Tyler's brows shot up. "Then what 'case' is this?"

Reid sighed, his gaze softened. "The case where they sent in the agent who can relate to you best."

The kid's expression morphed into some sort of frown, followed by a heavy gulp: Spencer understood he'd managed to breach into his unyielding steel armour.

After some seconds of pensive silence, Tyler shifted his look outside of the room and changed position so that his feet were on the floor again; though his arms were still tight around his torso defensively.

"Sending in another f*ggot like me isn't enough to make me spill it." he snarled.

Reid's eyebrows furrowed at the word. He stayed silent, trying to analyze what it was best for him to say in that moment.

"Is that what you think you are?" he then asked, calmly.

Tyler brought his eyes back to him, as though he was surprised by the question.

"Am I not?"

Spencer shrugged. "You're gay. Homosexual if you will. Those are valid terms."

The boy tried to contain a smug grin. "Whatever helps you sleep at night. You're not the one who's been kidnapped because of it."

Reid simply stared at him. It was clear to him now, though, that the reason why Tyler had managed to escape was exactly his self-rejection and incapability to accept and come to terms with his sexuality. If it had come down to it, he would’ve been willing to deny it to save himself. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Garcia's digging on the former victims' lives had revealed that they were seemingly proud and open about their sexual orientation: Tyler wasn't the unsub’s type in that sense. This was Reid's conclusion.

Even having supposed all this, Spencer still had to ask him for confirmation. But most of all, if he'd walked out having understood only that without bothering the kid further, the team wouldn't have been any closer in finding the unsub. He needed Tyler to "spill it", indeed.

“He let you escape, didn’t he?” It wasn’t a question.

Tyler looked confused, but didn’t feign not knowing what Reid was talking about. He nodded briefly.

The boy dropped his gaze to stare intently at an undefined spot on the floor, as if lost in his own head, recalling what had happened.

Spencer sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with it, Tyler.” he had refrained from stating the obvious so far, but the kid looked like he needed to hear just that.

“I know.” the other replied with an unexpected promptness. “Problem is, I don’t think my parents would agree on that.” he added dry-wittingly.

“And that’s why you don’t want to tell us what happened?” Spencer asked warily. “why you don’t want to help us find the other kids?” he tried to push.

The glare the boy shot him was exactly what he’d expected. He knew if he’d provoked him, Tyler couldn’t have resisted defending himself, hence inevitably talking further.

“It’s not like I want them to die!” he spat, a hint of outrage in his voice.

“That’s not what I said.”

“It sounded like you did, though” he snorted.

“Then, help us.” Spencer remained calm and non-judgemental.

Tyler squeezed his eyes shut, like he was trying to close the words out.

“I can’t.” he sighed to regain composure. “and it’s not like what I remember would be of much help, anyway.”

“Anything helps. Down to the smallest detail.” that much Reid was sure.

“It still wouldn’t be worth my parents finding out.” Tyler murmured his confession, shame seeping through his voice.

Even being the most unreasonable statement ever, Spencer couldn’t bring himself to blame the boy for thinking in such way. God knows what he would’ve done as a kid to try and hide his true self from mocking eyes, if there hadn’t been his mother pushing him to never be ashamed and always be authentic. Not everyone had that privilege, though - certainly not Tyler.

Reid leaned forward a little. “They’ll find out anyway, Tyler. From the news. Do you think they’ll care more about whether you like boys or girls than about being able to finally hold you in their arms and bring you home?”

Tyler’s gaze fluttered around the room, trying to distract himself from the truth, from the guilt and the burden of knowing how to help them find the other kids but all the same unable to talk; as if speaking was the most difficult activity he could think of engaging in in that moment, as if words were daggers that once freed from his mouth would double back to him in no time.

A solid 20 seconds passed by without a hint of an answer. He swallowed the lump in his throat and, instead, chose to give up his pride altogether to ask a question, blatantly deflecting Spencer’s.

“How do you know?” his voice came out smaller than he'd planned.

Reid squinted at him. By then, the two had dipped their toes in multiple topics - Tyler could've been referring to anything. He didn’t wanna make assumptions.

“What do you mean?”

“That there’s nothing wrong with it- with me. How do you know for sure?”

Ah. So he wasn’t as certain as he’d sounded before.

He tilted his head. “How can it be wrong if it feels right?”

Tyler scoffed. It was good-hearted this time, though.

“The hell does that mean??”

Spencer smiled a little, nodding his head as if he’d just acknowledged how confusing that statement had been. Instead, he'd remained vague on purpose: he wanted Tyler to really think about that. He could bet that the kid had already picked up on the meaning of such words before asking what they meant.

“What I mean, is” he leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs. “How can it be wrong to be with a boy if it makes you feel right?”

Tyler gave him a narrow-eyed look, revealing his attempts to both find sense in Spencer’s reasoning and to fetch an appropriate answer to it in his head.

“You sound like you talk from experience.” he claimed after a moment of silence.

Spencer arched his brows. “I do, in fact.”

The brunet cocked his head slightly, though that look on his face didn’t waver.

“But you’re bisexual, right?”

With that, the look of surprise on Spencer's face didn't waver either. He quickly tried to recall when he’d specified being bi and not gay, coming up empty. Damn, the kid was smart.

“I am.”

A smirk pulled at one corner of Tyler’s lips. “So my bi-dar does work.”

Reid tried to contain a chuckle. Considering Penelope’s frequent use of the - apparently - popular term 'gay-dar' and her subsequent explanation when she’d first said it, Spencer effortlessly picked up on the mild change in significance - quite frankly without being fazed in the slightest by Tyler's self-allowance to change it, nor by the choice to use such term in the first place.

“Guess so.” he merely replied.

The room filled with the umpteenth silence, and Tyler’s attitude seemed to be softening by the minute.

“And...” he started, prompting that he wanted to talk but not quite sure how to phrase the question, or if phrasing it at all.

“...and right now, you’re with a guy or a girl?”

Oh. Reid was too startled by the fact that Tyler had immediately assumed that he was with someone - based on what, exactly? - to notice that this time the kid didn’t have the answer to his own question already. So, in one way or another, he felt like he was being outsmarted by a 17 year-old boy still. Not that he minded - on the contrary, he was happy to see that Tyler was shrewd and sly. Spencer also couldn’t help but wonder if the question had come so unexpected because his thoughts had already started to drift toward a certain Derek Morgan a concerning amount of seconds before...

“I’m with a guy.” he finally answered.

Tyler eyed down to concentrate on picking at his cuticles; forearms digging in his bony knees, glued together and peeking out from the skinny, dark-wash jeans so ripped they barely cladded his legs.

He nodded slowly. “Tssk. Could’ve guessed that, too.”

How? Spencer wanted to ask once again. He slightly frowned, instead. Boy was just as good a profiler in guessing all that stuff about Reid as Reid was in noticing how his posture had opened up a little, unwinding in their back-and-forth conversation.

“Does ‘guy’ have a name?” Tyler glimpsed at him with a timid smile.

Spencer returned the smile, shuffling a little in his seat to lean an elbow on the armrest, while his hands crossed together to avoid fiddling with the hem of his sweater vest or the upholstery of the couch or the side seam of his pants - which was what he somehow always ended up doing when he had to talk about his boyfriend.

“Yes, he does. His name is Derek.” just at the mention of his name, Spencer felt his eyes dropping and his thumbs instinctively breaking his self-imposed stillness to start twiddling subtly. Well, he'd tried...

“...how long?” Tyler pried further, albeit in a less demanding and more genuinely interested tone.

“Well, we are co-workers so we’ve known each other for over 4 years, but we’ve only been together...6 months and 11 days.”

The boy arched an eyebrow.

“Oh, it’s not like you’re keeping count or anything.” he joked.

Not exactly, Tyler - I have an eidetic memory so it simply comes natural to me, I can read 20,000 words per minute and I also have an IQ of 187, plus three PhDs as well as two BAs-

“Yeah. Something like that.” the genius settled to play his game. He couldn’t risk coming off as a bragger just now that the kid had managed to loosen up - even if it was him interviewing Spencer instead of the other way around.

“But- wait, you work together? Aren’t there, like...rules or stuff?

“Actually, no.” Reid shrugged and shook his head briefly, before clearing his voice. “Contrary to popular belief, there isn’t a policy against fraternization among federal employees, so long as one of the parties isn’t the other’s superior. Plus, with a team of seven agents and a job like this...it would be impossible not to engage in some sort of relationship, be it romantic or not.”

Tyler attempted badly at containing the sudden widening of his eyes.

"Oh- so you're on the same team? Like- like he's here, too?"

Reid shifted his look away from those bright, blue eyes to seek outside for the man object of their digression.

He catched a glimpse of him through the blinds, while he was talking on the phone - bet 100 dollars it was with Garcia.

Derek returned the glance right in that moment - like he'd felt Spencer's eyes on him, akin to a butterfly laying on his skin; and his own eyes were inevitably drawn to lace with his. He grinned a little and waved at him, seemingly distracting himself from the call and most likely unbeknownst of what that heart-eyed look was about.

Reid merely pursed his lips in some sort of awkward half-smile, having to contain himself from grinning ear-to-ear and wave back eagerly, considering that Tyler didn't seem to have noticed. Or, he was good at hiding it - which sounded like something he surely could do.

"Yes, he's here too." he answered finally, struggling to bring his attention back to the boy sitting only 3 ft across from him.

Tyler shook his head, but had a silly smile printed on his face. Like he couldn't believe what Spencer had just said.

When he'd digested the whole concept of "gay couple in the FBI" - which Spencer only hoped could be somewhat inspiring for him - he seemed once again like he was pushing himself to ask something else.

"And...how- like, how is it?" he shook his head again immediately after speaking, vigorously this time, figuring the question was a bit vague put like that.

"I- I mean, to have...a boyfriend? I- I'm not sure what I'm asking honestly, just...tell me about it a little ? Maybe?" Tyler stuttered nervously. Reid took it as a good sign, though; a sign that he was trying to understand himself and organize his thoughts, letting his walls down brick by brick. He'd be happy to take on the role of helping him out in that.

"But, is there something...specific you want to know or ?" Reid asked, for the sole reason that if the kid wasn't precise in his questions he would end up rambling for minutes like he always did - let alone if it concerned Derek Morgan.

Tyler bit his bottom lip, a hint of embarrassment on his face - though it was hard for Spencer to believe the boy could ever feel utterly embarrassed, seeing how blunt he'd been until then. Again: good sign.

"Uhm, like...how is he with you? Derek, I mean- and, if it was hard to...come to terms with, like, wanting a relationship, I guess? I don't know- I'm down to hear anything, really." the boy's features were like petrified for a second after speaking.

"If- if you want! Of course- sorry." he quickly added, rubbing his eyes as if trying to clear his mind.

"You don't have to apologize." the man reassured. Tyler simply kept his sky-hued eyes glued on Spencer's hazel ones in response.

Reid cleared his voice, looking down at his hands clasped together to divert his attention from his heart thrumming inside his chest.

“So, uh, for starters: it wasn’t easy coming to terms with the fact that being in a relationship with a man is just as appealing to me as being in a relationship with a woman.” he raised his gaze: the words didn’t seem to be enough to spring some sort of reaction in Tyler’s face. Yet.

“That was, until I met Derek.” now, the boy’s lips quirked to mimic that lopsided grin pasted on the genius’ face. “Of- of course not immediately. At first I thought he was the millionth big guy who was going to mock me and label me as the weird kid.”

“You kind of are, though”

Reid chuckled, nodding. “Yes, I guess I am. But, see, that’s apparently what he liked about me. My former partners- which, by the way, aren’t many- they, they either stayed with me because they were...staggered by my intelligence and knowledge, or they stayed with me trying to ignore my ‘weird’ side and in the end I was the only one compromising out of the two.”

“So...” Tyler started, and Spencer knew the gears in his brain were starting to work by how his eyebrows were drawn together. “so it’s like, they had an idea of you that they wanted to be real but...but that’s just not how you were, right?”

“Exactly.” Spencer was once again pleasantly puzzled by the kid’s sharpness. “But it wasn’t like that with Derek. Maybe because before becoming a couple we worked together for several years and we were best friends before anything else, so he got ‘used’ to who I actually am, sort of.”

“Naah.” the brunet shook his head. “doesn’t make sense. You can’t just ‘get used’ to something you don’t like.” he air-quoted, shrugging. “He must have liked all your weirdness in the first place.”

The genius couldn’t contain a smile, undecided whether it had born from the thought of Morgan liking him even when he was a 22 year-old, socially awkward and touch-starved kid - he’d told him he did have an inexplicable fondness for him even back then, but Reid was disbelieving to say the least - or from how quickly Tyler was processing the message Spencer was trying to sow into his mind.

“Alright so, you’re the skinny geek and this Derek guy is the hunk? That’s SO cliché it almost sounds like a joke.” Tyler mocked, snapping Reid out of his thoughts.

The man nodded. “You’re certainly not the first one pointing that out.” he paused, lowering his voice. “But he’s not just that...not to me, at least.”

“Don’t tell me he’s also smart and kind, please” Tyler shot him a teasing glance.

“He is, actually” Spencer’s smile didn’t but widen. “Though I wouldn’t use those exact words.” he added in a lower tone, as if thinking out loud.

Tyler’s question hung in the air between the two for a second.

“...then what words would you use?”

Was it fair for Reid to catch himself unable to gather up said words to the forefront of his mind, considering he’d been the one basically asking for Tyler to demand them? He’d dug his own grave, hadn’t he? Doctor Spencer Reid, who could recite by heart every encyclopedia and dictionary on Earth, couldn’t seem to come up with terms more accurate than pretty, kind, smart.

After a few seconds more of pensive - and uneasy - silence, spent in pointlessly trying to collect fitting adjectives from every corner of his big brain; the faint twinge of panic in the genius’ stomach was washed away by the flashing memory of one of those precious advices his boyfriend always thoughtfully dispensed to him. “Go with your gut, kid. Just feel it.”

Alright, then.

“You remember,” Spencer cleared his voice, adjusting more comfortably on the couch. “do you remember how I told you that before Derek, the thought of wanting to be with a guy scared me?”

The blue-eyed kid nodded shortly.

“So, what I mean by that, is that I didn’t even expect myself to want to end up with someone like him. Because as I told you, he looked exactly like every other bully that had ever made fun of me in school.” he paused. “but Derek patiently showed me that he wasn’t like that, and that in the end I was judging him by his appearance just like all those bullies had done with me. Right?”

“Right.” Tyler agreed.

Reid continued. “So really it was him that managed to... to thin down my walls to let himself closer.” he swallowed, shaking his head. “No one had ever bothered to do anything like that for me. And it came so...natural, if you will, that I couldn’t find in me a reason to be nervous about wanting to be with him in that sense.” a hint of smile curved his lips, as his irises remained stuck somewhere around Tyler’s feet. 

“If anything...I just became more eager. To feel like that- like he made me feel and- and still does. And I wanted to make him feel like that too, even if I’m sure I don’t quite have it in me.” he slightly snorted. “To be that...sympathetic and, and raw, in a way.”

Tyler was discerning enough a kid to know that silence wasn’t a symptom of having finished talking - at least not when it came to the agent in front of him. So he let the silence flow.

“I’ve never met anyone like that.” Spencer stated, raising his gaze to meet the boy’s. “if- if you just look at Derek Morgan, he’s confident and tough and cocky- and- and there’s nothing wrong with that of course but, anyone who knows him well enough can’t help but be...baffled, by how he manages to be like that despite everything he’s been through in his life. I’d pay to have a crumb of that thing he has."

He shook his head once again. "I- I sound jealous and petty but what I actually am is...proud. I try to tell him sometimes. I don't think he believes me."

"Must've rubbed off on you though." Tyler mumbled.

Spencer frowned and tilted his head. "What?"

"That- that thing that Derek has. You've known each other for so long, you must have got some of that, too."

“Oh,” Reid smiled timidly. "Yeah. I think it has...‘rubbed off’." he nodded after a bit. "he's taught me more than I'd ever think was possible. All my team honestly, they taught me so much and believe me when I say there are few things I don't know in this world and- and it's scary sometimes, honestly? It's scary to think that things can't surprise you anymore. But they- Derek, Derek more than anyone he...he's taught me so many things I couldn't count them if I wanted..." he trailed off. I could count them if I wanted to, though, couldn't I?

“I hope I taught him something too. Besides...statistics, that is.” Spencer concluded on a lighter note, drawing a giggle from the kid.

"...so, hunk, kind and smart. And funny. Right?"

Spencer chuckled, tucking a curl behind his ear he hadn't even noticed was hanging on his forehead.

"Right." he confirmed, bringing a grin to the kid's lips.

Tyler shook his head in disbelief. "Oh man you're totally in love with this guy, aren't you?"

Oh. Well, uhm...

Reid swallowed and narrowed his eyes, as though a 17 year-old boy's face could actually throw the answer at him, expecting to find it written on his forehead with a Sharpie or something.

He could see how Tyler's smile faltered a little, but on the other hand how he also didn't rush to apologize. He'd probably picked up on how unexpected that question had come. Hoping not to have crossed a line, the kid opted to wait with wide eyes and gaping mouth.

Thing is, Tyler could've waited for days for that matter - Spencer would’ve remained forever withdrawn in his head in search for answers unless forcibly woken up. Once again the man who had a label, a notion, a definition for everything was now struggling to give one to that feeling. It started with a crush, that bit was unarguable. "Crush" was 100% the right term. But then? Then Spencer had got lost in that feeling, without even putting effort in thinking about what was the word for it; like when you're having so much fun that you fail to pinpoint what time it is, or when you're so absorbed in something that you forget your own name, when it feels so good that you can't quite place it in a designated box in your brain because there isn't a box for such a feeling - not yet.

There was now, though. A box to put all the things that concerned the dark-skinned man who had gently grabbed the 22 year-old genius' life and transformed it into something the genius didn't even think he was allowed to experience, didn't think he deserved and was capable of nurturing. Tyler had accidentally just handed that box to him.

"...you've never thought about it?" the boy's timid voice wedged into the cogs of Spencer's brain.

The man raised his look, failing to have noticed when it had dropped in the first place.

"I haven't." Spencer simply replied. "not until right now."

He then nodded slowly - most likely blushing, he supposed. "I am, though. I'm in love with Derek."

Tyler was the one dropping his gaze now, twisting around his index one of the countless loose threads of those utterly torn jeans.

“I hope I find someone like that.” He eyed the doctor again, with a shy smirk. “I hope I find me a Derek Morgan.”

Spencer laughed. “You will! I’m sure you will. I’m sure there isn’t just one.”

Tyler crossed his fingers playfully in response.

The man cleared his voice, getting a bit more serious. “Even if you don’t, though...you have to understand that it’s ok. You’re valid nonetheless. You don’t have to be with someone romantically to feel ‘complete’.”

“You do, though.”

Spencer scrunched his nose. “Mmh, that would be a valid point if it weren’t for the fact that there’s no Derek Morgan that could make me feel...whole ?”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “Now, that’s a bit dramatic.”

“Believe it or not, I was trying to avoid that, but I- I didn’t mean it in that sense, what I mean is that surely Derek has...filled some gaps, but I don’t believe that a person can make you feel whole.” he shrugged. “I don’t believe anything can make you feel whole, frankly, though that’s nothing but a good thing. From where I’m standing, at least.”

The boy sitting across from him squinted his eyes, like he’d understood the concept but wasn’t willing to ask further, having probably gathered - by that point - that each given answer turned out to be a 5 minutes monologue.

The air in the room imbued with yet another thick silence.

“Can I, uhm...” Tyler gulped, keeping his eyes glued on one of the stripe-like portions of lobby that could be seen through the blinds, on the other side of the glass. “can I ask you something else?”

Reid nodded. “Sure.”

“How- how did you deal with...bullies?” the other said in a small voice; discomfort and shame building in the form of a glassy layer before those big, blue irises.

Spencer didn’t quite have an answer for that. It was one of those few things on the planet he didn’t know.

He gave him an apologetic look. “I didn’t.”

Tyler leaned back on the couch with a heavy exhale, staring down at his lap. “Should’ve guessed that.”

Reid folded his arms, licking at the corner of his lips as he sought an answer somewhere in his head, amongst the vast array of things he did know and the even vaster one of things people had told him on the topic at hand.

“I wasn’t bullied for my sexual orientation because I...because I discovered that part of me later, but I guess the advice to surround yourself with people like you and try not to get too affected by others’ judgement is universal.”

The kid snorted. “Easier said than done.”

Spencer smiled sheepishly. “You tell me.”

He cleared his voice and decided to give him the one true piece of advice he was convinced of.

“Listen, Tyler, I- I know this feels like a lot and it feels like the worst thing that’s happened to you, but...but it’s actually a privilege that you’ve managed to find and understand yourself at such a young age.”

His tone was gentle, but Tyler retrieved a small part of that defensiveness from earlier. “How is it a privilege? You found out when you were an adult, out of school, living on your own...”

“Exactly.” the scowl on the kid’s face didn’t but deepen. “I found out late, and during one of the most vulnerable periods of my life, where I didn’t have anyone and I didn’t even have time to explore the idea, with my job and everything. You, instead, have the possibility to get comfortable with it while you’re still growing, and the possibility to find new people and to explain it to the ones that are already part of your life... like- like your family and your friends.”

Tyler’s features softened. “B- but how do I do that? Explain it to them, I mean.” he asked, barely audible.

“Like I did to you.” Spencer countered.

The kid slowly lifted his eyes from the gap in between his bony thighs and gave the genius a sincere look, nodding with complicity.

The moment was interrupted by a buzz coming from Reid’s direction.

“ ‘xcuse me-” he mumbled, sliding his phone out of his pants pocket.

“Everything alright in there, kiddo? Is the boy talking?” Spencer mentally read the text with Rossi’s fatherly but all the same impatient tone.

“You gotta get back, huh?” Tyler asked, though it wasn’t a question.

Spencer put his phone back where it was and raised his gaze to meet the other’s, giving him just a hint of that puppy-eye-look he hoped would work on teenagers, too.

The boy sighed and scratched his chin nervously.

“Alright, screw my bigot parents. Guess after having forced you to admit your heart-bursting love for your colleague, least I can do is help you catch the bastard...”

So: puppy-eyes did work on everyone, didn’t they?

23 minutes later, Reid stepped out of the room, Tyler right behind - the kid was taller than he’d expected. Two or three desks away stood Hotch, JJ and Morgan, talking.

Right before parting ways - Tyler was planning on a trip to the vending machine - they both stopped in their tracks to bid goodbyes and such.

“So...chocolate or vanilla?”

Spencer was thrown off by the question. Knowing it wasn't a simple matter of ice-cream flavor but at the same time failing to get the innuendo, he gave the kid a confused, frowning look.

“...what?”

Tyler arched a brow, jutting his chin in the three agents' direction.

Spencer followed the trajectory and his eyes landed between Derek and Aaron. Oh. Chocolate and vanilla. Dear God, was he really playing that game?

“Oh, uhm,” he swallowed and flushed up to the tips of his ears. 

“...chocolate.” he mumbled, taking in the broad figure of his boyfriend.

“Huh,” Tyler scoffed, smirking at the taller man. “Knew it. Should’ve bet 20 bucks or something.” he said. Of course he’d already guessed it, duh.

Before poor Reid could regain composure, JJ had spotted the two and was pointing at them from afar, drawing the men’s attention.

Spencer’s teammates made their way toward him and Tyler, each one with a different look on their face: JJ baffled and slightly confused, Hotch - ever the stoic - unfazed but with a hint of glimmering pride in his eyes, and Morgan...well, Reid couldn’t quite gauge, surely enough that look of his was making his insides flutter.

Once the six had gathered, the genius knew all eyes were on him - besides JJ's, glancing sympathetically at Tyler. Spencer only cared about returning Derek's look, though, who didn't blink once and seemed unable to contain a certain gleam in his eyes at the other man's endearingly silly expression.

The young brunet tapping on his shoulder diverted Reid's attention from his boyfriend, much to both men's dismay.

"Thank you, by the way." he murmured, a look devoid of that initial taunting and full of sincerity in those big eyes.

"Of course." Reid nodded as they all watched the kid walk away.

"How?" JJ's incredulous tone resonated in Spencer's ears.

He turned his head to find an equally incredulous expression crinkling her soft features.

"'How' what?" he frowned.

"How did you get him to talk?"

"Well, uh, I just-"

"Reid, what did he tell you?" Aaron's impatient voice cut him off before he could try to give an explanation to their oblivious colleague. A savior as always.

"Uhm- assuming you're talking about what concerns the case, he told me that he couldn't see the unsub’s face because he always wore some sort of scarf tied behind his neck. Which makes sense considering he let him escape, he- he wouldn't have done something so reckless if Tyler had ended up being able to describe him to a sketch artis-"

"He let him escape?" Morgan asked.

"Yes, he told me so, but frankly I'd already figured out. Tyler isn't out yet, he doesn't fit the unsub's criteria that way."

"Ok but was he able to, I don't know, at least describe the place he was held captive? Or how he got ther-"

"Guys, wait." Hotch interrupted JJ's questioning, putting a halt to their speculation. "We need to wait for the others, and more importantly call Garcia as well to give her all this information."

The following, brief silence confirmed the others' agreeing.

Aaron shot a slightly teasing look at Spencer - as teasing as a look shot by Aaron Hotchner could get.

"Don't forget any of it." he warned jokingly.

Reid snorted, but before he could give an answer of his own, Morgan placed a hand on his shoulder.

"No worries about that, boss." he said with that 300 Watts smile that Spencer couldn't but stare at - even if the man pulled off one of those at least 20 times a day. Not that Spencer was keeping count or anything. Especially not of the ones that were specifically directed toward him.

- that night on the jet (10 pm ca.)

Morgan was sitting on the corner of the couch - the one usually Reid was entitled to for his naps - on the verge of drifting off, despite the volume of the music pounding from his earphones.

He was gently pulled out of his dozing state by a hand placed on his shoulder, and the feeling of the cushion beside him sinking slightly under the weight of someone else's body.

He took off his earphones as his eyes fluttered open to see just the face he was wishing to see.

"Hey, kid" he murmured with a hazy smile, letting his head fall back on the headrest of his seat.

"Hi" the other replied, folding a leg to lean his knee on the back cushion of the couch, so that he was turned toward the man.

The two stared at each other for a while, before Derek couldn't contain a yawn anymore.

Spencer smiled a little. "Are you uhm...feeling better now?" he asked cautiously.

"After my smart boyfriend cracked a case in one day, you mean?" the other man beamed. "Seriously, though. I was just a bit shaken by the whole case. That's all." he added carelessly.

Reid nodded shortly before dropping his gaze and smiling shyly, toying with the elastic band of his pink and black stripey sock.

"...you cracked the case, though." he mumbled.

Morgan frowned slightly, trying to recall for a second how exactly he'd contributed in making Tyler spill what he had to spill.

"You lost me there."

Spencer raised his look again; a glimmer in his eyes.

"May I...rest my head on your lap?" he asked, instead of answering.

Derek's frown deepened.

"Y- yeah kid, sure but- I thought you didn't want the others to kn-" he had to cut himself off mid-phrase, to take in the image of his boyfriend carefully laying onto his side to rest his head on Derek's thigh, facing his stomach; a sigh of contentment as he let his eyes close.

Derek smiled yet once again, while his hand was like instinctively drawn to comb its fingers through the tangled, chestnut curls sprawled upon his black cargo pants. He was too distracted by Spencer's face and the almost inaudible humming escaping him to check if any of their teammates were watching.

"What's all this about? You've been acting all cute the second you stepped out of the room with the kid." he paused, seeing how the man seemed to be purposely ignoring him.

Morgan brushed his knuckles on the sleepy man's cheekbone. "Been givin' me a hell of a hard time trying not to drag you out and kiss that face of yours."

That, Spencer couldn't fake not having heard. He giggled and turned his head slightly, reopening his eyes to look up at Derek.

"It's just..." he shrugged. "Tyler asked me some things that left me thinking."

Derek arched a brow. "Thinking? When are you not thinking?"

"Y- yeah, ok, good point, but-" Spencer licked his lips. "I mean thinking about us. About you specifically..."

Derek's heartbeat started to pick up speed. "Yeah?"

His boyfriend nodded. "He asked me basically everything about you."

Morgan brought a hand to Reid's chin, brushing the pad of his thumb in the small dimple there.

"And what did you tell him?"

The other raised his eyebrows. "That's confidential information." he teased.

"Oh! I see" Morgan burst out chuckling.

Once he'd resumed composure, Derek's pupils roamed his surroundings, hoping not to have woken up anyone. JJ and Emily looked like not even a bucket of ice could've snatched them out of their sleep - though Prentiss was good at deceiving, so her eyes being closed proved little to nothing. Hotch and Rossi, however, were chatting quietly with their glasses of Scotch in hand, sat at the opposite end of the jet.

His attention was brought back to the exhausted man resting his head on his lap, who shuffled a little to turn on his side again.

Derek bent downward to reach his ear.

"I would kiss you but that's probably a bit too much." he whispered, placing a small peck on his earlobe right after.

Spencer giggled quietly. "I wouldn’t mind." he said carelessly, without bothering to face him nor open his eyes.

The other man sucked his teeth playfully. "Shouldn't have said that." he warned, before snaking a hand behind the genius' neck to prop his head upward a few inches, guiding him to meet his lips.

Spencer gladly complied the motion and wrapped an arm around Derek's neck to secure himself; smile against smile until their mouths finally laced together.

The position supplied an unusual and not quite comfortable angle, considering neither of the two were making any effort to tilt their heads in order to align their lips and faces properly - though they couldn't bring themselves to do such when a few seconds into the kiss revealed how such angle guaranteed their tongues to reach probably deeper than they'd ever done; freed from noses and chins usually bumping into one another.

Derek ate up a faint whimper accidentally delivered from his boyfriend's mouth, feeling the arm draped over his neck slightly loosening the grip.

He funneled all his physical effort to try and part from Spencer's intoxicating taste, pulling up to let the man breathe.

"D- Derek," he muttered; half-lidded eyes and chest rising and sinking fast, warring against the lying position to catch air.

"H-he, uhm," Spencer continued after some seconds of oxygen-fetching, swallowing and blinking a few times. "Tyler, he, he asked me one thing in particular"

Derek gently let Spencer's head down to rest on his thigh again, sliding his hand away from underneath it to move some of the man's curls off of his forehead.

"What's that?" he asked, masking a slight apprehension.

"He, uh..." Spencer looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands - if he were sitting he'd be picking his slacks with his nails - so Derek came to his aid, taking one in his to intertwine their fingers, as the other one kept running through the shock of messy hair.

"...he asked me if I'm in love with you."

Well, Tyler, what the hell. Months of making sure to never pressure his boyfriend to say it back - even having said it a couple times already on his part - vanished like that.

Not that he didn't want to hear the words, it was rather that it didn't quite matter to him: Derek was notoriously a man of action as much as one who certainly had his way around words and comforting speeches, though he much preferred when Spencer showed him - when he acted.

Whether that be by asking with annoyingly adorable insistence "are you ok?" an average of 5 times per day; or by exchanging a glance full of worry and a disarming amount of trust before they broke in some psychopath's home; or by grabbing his wrist in a gentle but eager squeeze when Derek was about to waste energy in something pointless like snapping at some incompetent officer, draining his mind and body of that intention with his soft touch; or by trying to impress him with every fact and magic trick could possibly pop into his head, oblivious to how Derek would be willing to swoon at the genius' feet even when he was busy in some activity as simple and routine as mentally calculating a certain distance on a map pinned to the whiteboard; or when he was putting on his mismatched socks in the morning - rigorously before any other piece of clothing aside from his briefs - too sleepy and grumpy to even purposefully choose which ones to wear; or when he was bent over a desk and shot his head up in a second at the sound of his teammates' voices, inevitably flipping his hair in such a charming way Derek didn't even know how he did that.

He must've been captured in his own thinking for a hot minute, Derek gauged, because all of a sudden his boyfriend had sat up and was staring at him with big eyes, full of something unreadable that he couldn't put his finger on, despite Spencer having the most expressive eyes he'd ever seen.

"And what did you answer?" he couldn't refrain from asking nonetheless.

Spencer released a silly tight-lipped smile he seemed to have been holding for some minutes. He leaned in and laid a small peck on the other man's Cupid's bow.

"I said yes." he whispered and kissed him again. "that I'm in love with you."

Derek cupped his face in both hands and pulled him away a few inches.

"You really are?" he asked, knowing the answer already but afraid to give in to that idea.

"A hundred percent."

Morgan couldn't help but chuckle. "You're 100% in love with me? 'S that even a thing?"

Reid returned the giggle and considered it for a second. "It is now, I guess ?"

The other man's already blinding smile reached both his ears. "'Kay then, I'm 100% in love with you too, pretty boy." He inched closer to resume the cascade of kisses.

Derek's motion was interrupted by not one, but two phones buzzing.

He let his forehead bump against Spencer's, sighing exasperatedly.

"What the hell" he grunted hoarsely in complaint.

They both slid their phones out of their pockets and checked the group chat of their team:

"@penelope check out these two idiots." the text said, sent by Emily - of course, she was doing anything BUT sleeping - along with a freshly taken, blurry picture of "these two idiots" smooching. Great.

"Well that was quicker than I thought..." Spencer murmured a bit sheepishly but amused nonetheless, unable to bring himself to look at their teammates.

Derek did that in his place, though. He lifted his eyes from the screen and saw a proudly chuckling Prentiss, a tired JJ not-so-subtly aww-ing at her phone, and both the dads of the team glancing at the couple with mirroring smirks.

He led his gaze back toward his very much embarrassed and a tiny bit annoyed boyfriend staring at his lap.

"What do you say..." he prompted, cupping Spencer's jaw in one hand to bring his eyes back to him, ignoring the blush staining the apples of his cheeks.

"...if we give them more material just for fun?" Derek concluded his question, arching a brow.

Spencer frowned, unsurprisingly having a hard time picking up on that kind of teasing.

"Wha-"

That single word was cut off a fraction of second later by Derek's lips colliding into his.

"Mmh- oh," he quietly exclaimed, breaking the kiss for a single instant.

"O- okay yeah, I'm in."

Morgan smiled - for the...what, 700th time?

"A hundred percent in?"

Spencer smiled back and laced their lips together, cradling his boyfriend's mouth in one slow, gentle kiss.

"A hundred percent, indeed."