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Standing with his hands braced on the counter, Spencer tried to calm himself by controlling his breathing. He counted backwards from ten. He tried anything. None of it was working. Nothing was bringing the calm he sought. But the anger and pain were tapered down just enough that he hoped he might be able to control it. All that control was shot when he heard Derek stumble his way into the kitchen. “God, pretty boy. Tell me you’ve got some damn aspirin here. And how the hell did I end up here?”
Anger like he had never known was boiling inside of Spencer. His hands gripped the counter tighter. There was the proof he needed that Derek didn’t remember anything of the night. He didn’t even remember how he got to the apartment. But that didn’t even take the edge off his anger. If anything, it made it worse. After the things he had done, he had the absolute nerve to not even remember it?
“Reid?” Derek’s voice sounded concerned now. His footsteps stopped about a foot away from Spencer. “Are you ok? You’re shaking, man.”
“Am I ok?” The words snapped out before he could stop them. All control seemed to drain from him. Furious, he spun, pinning Derek with a single glare. He watched the shock travel over Derek’s face, replaced by anger. Anger? What right did he have to anger? “You have the fucking nerve to ask if I’m ok?” Spencer hissed.
The anger vanished underneath more shock. Everyone knew that Spencer didn’t swear. He had only done it around Derek twice in the years they’d known one another. Only twice. But he couldn’t control it now.
Derek’s red-rimmed eyes seemed locked on Spencer, barely even blinking. “What happened to you?” He croaked out.
A raspy, pain filled laugh left Spencer. “What happened? You want to know what happened to me?” His rage brought him forward. With jerky movements he reached down and grabbed Derek’s hand, balling the fingers up and bringing it up to his black eye, just barely touching the fist to his bruised skin. “Does this seem familiar to you?” He demanded. “Or maybe this.” He moved Derek’s hand, pressing it against his throat where he knew there was a bruise in an almost perfect imprint of Derek’s hand.
His best friend—the hell if they were best friends anymore!—looked even more shocked than before. He jerked his hand back from Spencer’s grip. “What? Kid, Reid…”
“Don’t you fucking ‘kid’ me, Derek Morgan!”
Furious, Spencer spun and marched away from him, moving toward the living room. He heard Derek’s footsteps behind him but he didn’t turn around. If he looked at him right now, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop himself from planting a fist in Derek’s face.
“Reid, tell me what happened. Jesus, I can’t believe…I mean I would never…”
“Never what, Morgan? Never punch your best friend in the face? Never grab him by the neck and pin him to the wall?” Spencer shot back. He clenched his hands into fists, tipping his head down and squeezing his eyes shut. “Never throw your friend into the wall? Never drink so much that you can’t even tell who’s around you?”
“Oh my God, Reid, I…”
That had his head snapping up. He knew what Derek was going to say and he didn’t want to hear it. He cut him off before the apology could slip past his lips. “Don’t you dare say it, Morgan. Don’t you dare fucking say you’re sorry to me and don’t you fucking pull religion into this.” He hissed. His entire body was trembling with suppressed emotion. “If you do, so help me, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself from laying you out flat.”
When Derek stayed silent, just staring at him with so much pain in his eyes, Spencer tried to swallow down as much anger as he could. “There are only two things that are keeping me from kicking your ass and throwing you out of my house. One is my absolute certainty that you would never have done what you did if you hadn’t been so inebriated that you couldn’t even recognize that I wasn’t this John fellow. Two is the fact that, no matter what you’ve done to me, you’re my best friend. If I kicked you out after something obviously went down yesterday and then something happened to you out there, I’d never forgive myself.”
His anger carried him toward Derek, breaking down the usual reserves he held around himself. He got right up into the older man’s face, not even caring about the wide-eyed look Derek wore. “But you will talk to me. You’re going to tell me just who the hell John is and why you’re so furious with him. I deserve to know what some asshole did that caused you to beat the ever loving hell out of me. If you can’t do that, then walk right the hell out that front door and don’t you ever dare to come back here again.” He took a step back, still staring into Derek’s eyes, something he was rarely able to do with anyone. Anger gave him courage. “This is your one shot to fix this friendship, Morgan. Blow it and there’s no coming back from it.”