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It never fails to amaze Spencer just how cold the United States can be sometimes. Intellectually, of course, he’s aware that a typical Michigan winter drops down to single digits in the Upper Peninsula, but experiencing such a fact is always shockingly different to reading it. He can’t help but be bitter they weren’t called to Arizona or New Mexico so late in November; growing up in Nevada did not prepare him well for the city of Marquette.
Their proximity to Lake Superior doesn’t help either, as he explains to Emily as she loudy laments the snowfall. “It shouldn’t be so damn hard to walk 300 metres, is all I’m saying, Reid,” she groans, dragging her legs. He doesn’t exactly think his explanation for the snow helped all that much, but at least their hotel is finally in sight. “I can run a six minute mile, okay, I should not be finding walking this hard.”
“You should’ve worn your snow boots,” he says lightly and politely doesn’t mention that he’s slowing his pace to match hers -- he doesn’t have a death wish.
His comment still makes Emily pause and look down at his feet. “Wait, you keep those in your go bag?” she asks incredulously.
“Of course,” he says, a little obliviously. Doesn’t everyone? “It’s winter, I don’t want to be caught out. Like you.”
Emily finally regains her composure and keeps walking, chuckling lightly to herself. “I swear, Reid, your preparedness is mildly grating sometimes.”
“I’ve been told,” he smiles, pushing open the door to the lobby, much to Emily’s relief.
They’d been on their way back from the Police Department; Hotch had asked them to tie up the loose ends and pick up the reports since they were the last ones there and he had a call to answer that didn’t look pleasing to him in the slightest, and unfortunately the trek back had been a foul one. As soon as they step into the hotel lobby though, they’re met with a miserable sight. The whole team is either sat on the uncomfortable lobby furniture looking dejected or restlessly pacing while Hotch remains on the phone, talking agitatedly with the person on the other end of the line.
“What’s going on?” Emily asks as they approach the group, ripping off their hats and gloves as the heated lobby begins to warm them up nicely.
“All flights out of Michigan are grounded,” Derek answers, walking over to meet them as he looks both of them over carefully, eyes concerned. “You two alright? You look frozen to the bone.”
“Department was working with bare bones staff so there was no-one free to drive us back and not a cab in sight. We walked through 9 inches of snow while it was still coming down heavy,” Emily answered for both of them, Spencer content to tuck his hands in his pockets and observe as always. “But the flights are grounded? How are we getting home, then?”
“That’s precisely the problem, I think,” Derek answers grimly. “Technically we could still fly home as a government agency, but the jet pilot doesn’t think it’s safe and the brass are advising us to wait a bit. The snow’s predicted to lessen a little over the next few days, apparently, but we’re waiting to hear if Hotch has any more news.”
Everyone else looks thoroughly miserable at the news, but then Spencer supposes that most people have plans and family to get home for. To him, this is a few days with a virtual guarantee of no case surrounded by beautiful scenery. Plus, he gets to be around his favourite people for a little while longer.
“Right,” Emily says, looking a little disappointed at the idea of waiting longer than necessary to get home. “I’m gonna go and check on JJ.” She smiles at Reid, clapping him gently on the shoulder before wandering over to the sofa JJ’s sat on.
“You alright, pretty boy?” Derek asks. “You’re still looking a little on the chilly side.”
“Well, we did trek down the entire street in almost a foot of snow so I’m not sure you can blame me,” he smiles wryly, fiddling his fingers inside his pockets, nervous in the way he so often gets around Derek.
“No, I don’t suppose I can.” He casts a glance Hotch’s way, who doesn’t look any closer to a resolution. “How about we head back up to the room? Garcia rebooked them for tonight anyway and I don’t see much point in waiting around for nothing. Let’s go get you a hot chocolate and warm you back up.”
“I can’t have coffee?” Spencer smiles hopefully, knowing Derek hates how restless he gets after a nighttime espresso.
“Not when you’re sharing a room with me, kid, you know that,” Derek grins, as they make their way to the elevators.
★
They all go out for brunch the next morning, squeezing into the largest booth at the local diner and enjoying some rare, stress-free time together, and by the time they all pour out onto the street it's early afternoon.
“Right, shall we head back to the hotel for a bit, then?” Rossi asks as they pause on the pavement.
“Emily and I were going to head to the highstreet for a bit, actually,” JJ replies, shooting a smile Emily’s way. Spencer only feels sorry for JJ, knowing how much complaining she’s going to hear. He loves Emily to pieces but the woman has a lot to say about a lot of things.
“I’ll head back with you, Dave,” Hotch says unsurprisingly. Spencer expects he’s making a beeline for the phone to ring home and speak to Jack.
“What about you, kid?” Derek asks, turning to look at him with a questioning gaze as the others begin to peel off in the direction of their destinations.
“I don’t know, I’m feeling kind of restless, I’m not sure I want to go back and sit uselessly in the hotel room for hours on end,” he replies, cocking his head and looking back at his friend as his eyes squint against the wintry sun. “I only bought eight books with me.”
“Well Presque Isle Park is a ten minute from here, how about we take a midday walk up there?” Derek suggests, chuckling a little at Spencer’s comment.
“Really?” Spencer asks, a little shocked. “You want to go on an hours long walk through the snow in a random city’s park with me?”
“Course I do, pretty boy,” Derek reassures him. “Plus, the snow’s melted a little and the paths in the park will probably be cleared anyway. Let me call a taxi while you text the others so they know where we’re headed.”
Driving through the beautiful streets of Marquette, Spencer can see the tangible relief the city is experiencing now that the case is wrapped up and there’s no longer a freaky woman hater stalking the citizens. It’s nice hanging around a little after the case and getting to see with his own eyes the effects of their hard work, the good that they can instill in the world as they counterbalance the bad.
“What’s going on in that big head of yours, Spencer?” Derek asks, cutting through his dreamy thoughts.
“Nothing, it’s just,” he paused for a moment trying to explain. “It’s a beautiful town and it’s nice to see that we could preserve it that way, that we didn’t let evil corrupt it.” He lifts his gaze to Derek’s just in time to see his eyes soften, fondness and something else he couldn’t quite discern filling his expression.
Instead of saying anything though, he just shoots him a wistful smile and looks back out the window.
They arrive at the park fairly quickly and Derek pays the driver while Spencer hops out and is immediately captivated by the beauty surrounding him. He nearly jumps when Derek follows closely behind and places a large hand on his shoulder, steering him towards the path. “It’s breathtaking out here, isn’t it?” he asks him, but Spencer’s eyes catch on the vapour that the words produce and, consequently, Derek’s lips. Shaking himself out of it, he nods and quickly agrees before his eyes catch a wooden sign and he rushes over to it.
“It says that there’s a walk that goes around the perimeter of the peninsula the park rests on, we could start walking it and turn around if we need to?” Spencer suggests, calling behind him to where Derek still stood in the middle of the path, fiddling with his gloves.
“Sounds good, pretty boy,” he calls back, finally getting them settled and jogging forward to catch up with him.
They walk in silence for a little while, both taking in the breathtaking sights of the trees and the lake, snow and ice making everything appear even more beautiful. The first people they pass are a young family with two little children who cheerily greet them as they rush past them in a heated game of tag. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be raised somewhere as idyllic as this,” Spencer comments a little nostalgically, breaking the silence in a quiet voice 18 minutes and 45 seconds into their leisurely stroll.
“Vegas didn’t give you quite the same views?” Derek smiles sarcastically.
“Somehow, no,” Spencer chuckles back. “But I can’t imagine the South Side of Chicago was much better.”
“It wasn’t too bad,” Derek muses. “Granted we lived on a rundown street in a rundown neighbourhood, but the local park was surprisingly unscathed by any of the nasty business that might have plagued the area, at least to our naive eyes. We weren’t too far from the River, either, which was beautiful through all the seasons.”
“That’s nice,” Spencer says, shooting Derek a genuine smile. “I’m glad you had something like that growing up, you deserved it.”
“So did you, though,” Derek says, a little sadly. “I wish more than anything I could have been there when you were younger.”
Spencer smiles at the ground, trying to hide his blush, not knowing how to say, ‘I wish the same about you’ without feeling awkward. “You’re here now, though,” he settles on, and looks up into Derek’s wide, welcome eyes and tries to convey his gratitude.
“That I am.”
“You know, you guys are the first people who I’ve ever been able to fully be myself around,” Spencer confesses, feeling safe in the cool, clean air with only his best friend close by. “I was thinking about it yesterday; everyone else was excited to get home to their families, and I was just glad I had an extra day or two with mine.”
“Hey, Spencer,” Derek says, tugging gently at his arm to get him to slow to a stop and levelling him with a gaze that sort of punched a whole through his stomach with its power. “You can always be yourself around me, I hope you know that. You’re just as much my family as I am yours, alright?”
Spencer’s certain he’s beet red, but he tries his hardest not to look away. “Thanks Derek,” he says earnestly, finally ducking his head in embarrassment. They start walking again and Spencer can’t resist the urge to dissipate some of the intensity in the air, so he feigns a heavy sigh in jest. “Don’t worry, though. I’m fully aware I’m stuck with you for good.”
Derek fakes a gasp. “Alright, pretty boy, I’d watch your mouth if I was you.” He shoves him sideways gently, and Spencer stumbles a little. Derek barely budges, though, when Spencer shoves him back.
“You’re a great big oaf, you know that right?” Spencer giggles, trying his hardest to get to Derek to stumble the way he did, finally giving up. “Why won’t you move?” he whines.
“Well, pretty boy, it goes a little like this…” Derek catches him off guard and with another push, sends Spencer tumbling into the soft snow bank at the side of the path, freezing in shock as he realises what he just did.
“You are going to regret that, Derek Morgan,” Spencer laughs loudly as he picks himself up, trying to dust a little of the snow off his coat. He watches the relief melt into his best friend’s eyes as he realises he didn’t hurt him but, naturally, he knows he has to take advantage of his momentary weakness so he crouches down and gathers a hastily rolled snowball and chucks it directly at Derek’s chest.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Derek laughs, inching forwards slowly.
“You see how it is?” Spencer teases in retaliation.
“I do, I do see how it is.” Derek grins wickedly. “I see that Spencer Reid is unleashing his inner child and is rather desperate to have a snowball fight.”
“Is that so?” Spencer giggles, amused by Derek’s antics.
Before he can register what’s happening, Derek’s throwing his own hastily thrown snowball his way, hitting him square on his shoulder. He shrieks with glee, running away through the snow, trying to dodge Derek’s snowball assault, eventually managing to take shelter behind a tree. He starts compiling his own fortress of snowballs, but before he can make his third, Derek’s suddenly in front of him, armed with another. Catching him off guard, he stumbles backwards again, this time grabbing onto the sleeve of Derek’s coat for purchase and tugging him down with him into the snow.
Giggling like school children, they lay in the snow for a little while, ignoring the cold seeping through their jackets and into their bones. Eventually, though, Spencer sits up, trying to brush some of the snow away. He’s grumbling quietly about how drenched he is when he’s interrupted by eight words that make every muscle in his body still completely.
“You look even more beautiful covered in snow.”
He is completely frozen. Derek calls him pretty all the time, so surely this shouldn’t be any different, right? He’s definitely overreacting. But there’s a difference between teasing nicknames and directly calling him beautiful, he knows there is. It’s just sort of breaking his heart that it’s everything he’s wanted to hear from Derek for years and he can’t even enjoy it; he can’t trust it.
He knows he’s blushing deeply, and Derek also looks frozen, in shock at the words that just let his mouth, and it’s awkward. It hasn’t ever been awkward between them, tension was a mystery in their relationship -- they’d clicked immediately, getting along like a house on fire -- so why could they no longer meet one another’s eyes?
Quietly, they both get up and come to a silent consensus to turn back the other way. Slowly, the awkwardness eases between them and the silence becomes a little more bearable. The static in Spencer’s mind fades with it and he no longer feels as though his brain is short-circuiting, but that he can think about it clearly. Derek said it for a reason, he’s sure it meant something and he can’t go on without hearing it for certain.
“Did you mean it?” Spencer asks earnestly, voice still a little muted. He’s too shy and uncertain to make eye contact, but he’s proud of himself for being brave enough to ask the question; he deserves to know and he owes himself that.
He manages to hold back the surprised flinch that ripples through his body as he feels Derek’s fingers clasp his upper arm gently, pulling him to a stop. He gently nudges his fingers under Spencer’s chin, lifting his face to look at his own, making sure he registers his deep, genuine gaze. “I did.”
Immediately, Spencer pulls away and looks down at the snowy path beneath his boots. Truthfully he’s struggling to process what’s going on at the moment: surely the man he’s been in love with for the last three years isn’t telling him what he thinks he is?
Derek lifts his chin again, concerned eyes meeting his own. “Hey, you okay, beautiful boy?”
Spencer has never been more confident of the difference between pretty boy and beautiful boy, so he leans in and presses a quick, shy kiss against Derek’s lips before he can stop himself. Suddenly unsure of himself again, though, he moves to pull away but Derek reaches a large palm to his cheek and leans back in, sliding his lips over Spencer’s softly, and Spencer can’t help but part his lips slightly, completely drawn into and consumed by Derek’s kiss.
Eventually, reluctantly, they part with another, soft kiss, leaning their foreheads together. “I’m not sure I can think of a more beautiful place to share a first kiss,” Spencer grins, unable to help himself.
Derek laughs heartily, leaning away from his face and grabbing his hand gently instead. “I think you’re right about that, pretty boy.”
“Hey, I thought I was beautiful boy, now,” Spencer pouts, and Derek leans in, unable to resist kissing away his faux grumpy expression.
“That you are,” he says gently. “My beautiful boy.”
★
When they finally make it back to the hotel, Spencer’s freezing cold and soaked to the skin.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to be warm again,” he grumbles, forcing Derek to wrestle him into a warm bath and bury him under the covers, swathed in one of Derek’s own sweaters. “God, I could get used to seeing you in my clothes,” he groaned as soon as Spencer was warm and tucked in. To be fair, the jumper was big on Derek so it definitely hung off and accentuated Spencer’s smaller frame, which was exactly what he needed at that moment.
“You’re such a typical alpha male,” Spencer giggles. “So possessive. Go and have a shower, silly, then you can come and join me.” He waggles his eyebrows jokingly, and Derek smiles fondly before obeying his orders and warming himself up.
Not long after they’ve climbed into bed, relaxing into each other’s arms in a non-platonic way for the first time ever, Emily knocks on their door inviting them out for a group dinner. Derek kindly turns down the invitation though, explaining how exhausted they are from their earlier trek, and she leaves them be, the rest of the team traipsing back into town. Spencer definitely thinks they have the winning idea when instead they sneakily order from the local Chinese and climb back into bed, spreading the cartons across the sheets in an inviting feast.
Derek props up his tablet up on top of a cushion on his lap and Spencer shows him how to download episodes of the original Doctor Who, and they eat quietly in a haven of domestic bliss, a momentary escape from the stress of their jobs, the pressure of their friends, the responsibilities of life. Derek, in turn, tries to teach Spencer how to properly use chopsticks, an endeavour that he’s failed in far too many times to keep trying.
“I know how to use them in theory,” Spencer protests.
“Well that eidetic memory doesn’t come much in handy here, does it?” Derek teases. “Even your 187 IQ doesn’t stand a chance at teaching you coordination.”
“You’re being mean,” he pouts.
“Aww, I’m sorry, baby,” he smiles, pressing a quick kiss to his lips before finally letting him have the plastic fork he’d been hiding, purposefully ignoring the indicting glare being shot his way.
When their cartons are empty, they lean back even further into the well-cushioned bed. “I’ve been in love with you for three years, you know,” Spencer confesses softly, drawing lines on Derek’s chest which is currently acting as his pillow, despite the abundance behind him.
“Really?” Derek asks, clearly surprised.
“You didn’t know?”
“Of course not,” he replies incredulously. “If I’d known I’d have made a move years ago.”
“We are certifiable idiots.”
“Yes we are.”
“I never said anything because…” Spencer gives himself a moment, trying to find the right words and not humiliate himself. “I never thought you could love anyone like me. I mean despite the obvious, being very much male, I’m a lanky nerd, not like the pretty girls you pick up in bars when we go out.”
“Oh, baby,” Derek sighs, carding a hand through Spencer’s hair before pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head. “There’s a reason I’ve called you pretty boy all these years. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met and I’ve been infatuated pretty much since I met you. You are far prettier than any of those girls I’ve met in bars. Far more special. Far more precious. You’re seriously important to me, okay?”
“Okay,” Spencer says, and he can’t hide the pleased note in his voice. He’s blushing, of course he is, but it’s out of pleasure this time, not embarrassment. He feels honoured to be of such importance to Derek, and he can’t help but feel like the luckiest person in the world right now, wrapped up in his strong, gentle arms. A sudden drowsiness seeps into his veins and he feels his limbs getting heavy.
Derek clearly recognises it, and presses another gentle kiss to the top of his head. “Sleep, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up,” he promises. “We have so much to look forward to.”
Spencer finally falls asleep, believing that’s true for the first time in a long time.