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Spencer really wishes he hadn’t agreed to this blind date.
Not because he doesn’t trust Penelope — he does, he trusts her implicitly and entirely — but because it's a blisteringly hot day in late July and the heat compounded by his shaking nerves is making for a rather unpleasant sweating situation.
A bumblebee buzzes quietly around the table he’s sat at, briefly interested in the iced coffee he’s got his hands wrapped around, and Spencer watches it with a gentle sort of intrigue, able to briefly take his mind off the impending date. He knows that Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan is physically attractive, Penelope had made that more than clear with both her copious photos of him and the way she’s sung his praises since she started working at the FBI, but if anything, that just makes him more nervous. If Derek wasn’t his type, then he wouldn’t have as much to lose.
He runs a nervous hand through his hair as he heaves a small sigh. Worst case scenario, he can run home to his apartment, order Indian food, bury himself in the early edition of War and Peace he just won in an auction and forget that this date ever happened.
“Spencer? Spencer Reid?”
A surprisingly deep and sexy voice has him looking up from the watch face he’s been staring at perhaps a little too intensely, and he’s instantly taken aback by the Greek God standing in front of him. He’d known Derek was attractive, he'd seen pictures of him, but no camera could ever hope to do someone so beautiful any semblance of justice.
“Uh, y-yes, um, yeah. That’s me.” He shakes his head to try and recover his awkward word stumbling before discreetly wiping his sweaty palm on his trousers and standing up to shake Derek’s hand. “You’re Derek?”
“The one and only,” Derek says cheekily, shooting Spencer a grin that already has his stomach churning with a mix of excitement and crippling nerves. “Penelope told me you were gorgeous, but let me tell you, she really undersold it, pretty boy.”
His cheeks instantly flush red as he fights to maintain eye contact, blinking owlishly at the other man. Did he really just say that?
“I was going to say the same thing.”
Derek’s grin only widens. “Well, it looks like Penelope matched us well, then.”
This time Spencer allows himself to briefly duck his head as a baffling mix of pleasure and mortification swim around his chest. He puts it down to inexperience. Any other explanation will only compound his embarrassment.
“She did,” he agrees, smiling over at Derek and hoping desperately that he’s managing to stay cooler on the outside than he is on the inside. “Do you want something to drink?”
Derek nods. “I’ll go and order a beer at the bar. Do you want anything or are you okay with that coffee?”
“Oh no, I’m fine, thank you,” Spencer says, and mentally he praises himself for finally getting out a coherent sentence that doesn’t sound hopelessly mangled and flustered.
He watches Derek as he strides into the pub, looking as cool and confident as his looks and personality allow, and he realises that he really does just have a way about him. The bar is relatively crowded due to the blinding heat on a Saturday afternoon, but the bartender serves him instantly, all the girls eyeing him interestedly and the guys knocking his shoulder and joking about with him as though they’re all easy, long-time friends.
It’s nice, Spencer thinks, to be the focus of someone like that’s attention. Derek could have his pick of most people drinking here, but he only has eyes for Spencer as he comes back out, holding a tall pint and wearing a happy, focused expression as he sits back down.
“Do you not drink?” Derek asks curiously and without judgement, gesturing to his coffee.
“I go out with my friends sometimes,” Spencer says, blushing again, “but I’m a bit of a lightweight, and that’s not the best state of mind to be in on any first date, let alone a blind one.”
Derek chuckles warmly at that, and the sound is a pleasant rumble reminiscent of a distant thunderstorm. Spencer wants to melt into it.
“I think I’d like to see you all messy on a night out, pretty boy,” Derek says wryly, still grinning shamelessly, and Spencer gets the distinct impression that this ‘pretty boy’ business is going to be a Thing between them.
Spencer cocks his head and takes a sip of his coffee through the long metal straw. “Maybe you’ll have to join us some time.”
“Does that mean we’re going on another date?” Derek asks, but before Spencer can panic that he’s said the wrong thing, he’s smoothly continuing. “Because I’m more than down for that.”
“You are?”
“Pretty boy, you ever looked in the mirror?” Derek demands playfully. “Add that to this cute little nerdy bashful doctor thing you got going on and you’re the whole package. Of course I want another date with you, and we’ve barely even started this one.”
Spencer flushes bright pink at that, and decides to move the conversation on before he melts into a literal puddle in the middle of this beer garden. “So you know Penelope through work?”
Derek gets the hint. “I was part of the group that arrested her, actually,” he chuckles, “and I thought she was gonna be a nightmare to work with when we gave her the option of working for the FBI instead of going to prison. But then she showed up on her first day decked out from head to toe in pink and yellow, her hair dyed back to her natural blonde, and the way she smiled when I called her baby girl… well, it was smooth sailing from then on. Did you know her back in her Black Queen days?”
“I was her one phone call,” Spencer answers, his face splitting into an easy grin as they discuss his favourite person on planet earth. “I was terrified she was going to jail and I’d lose her forever, so I was over the moon when you guys offered her that deal. We went to get our hair done together the very next day.”
“Oh yeah? And what did Pretty Boy have done to his hair, hm?”
Spencer blushes. “Let’s just say she wasn’t the only one who had a rebellious phase?”
“Now that I have got to know more about.”
“Save it for date number two, SSA Morgan,” Spencer shoots back, relaxing into the easy banter between them.
“Alright, alright, baby, I can do that,” he says, winking again. Thankfully, Spencer manages not to do an embarrassing impression of a traffic light this time. “How did you and Penelope meet?”
“Back in college actually,” Spencer nods. “She was sort of going off the rails after her parents’ death, but I think finding a scared 12 year old in her Geography elective helped her rein it in a bit. We’ve been glued at the hip pretty much since we met. Even when I went to MIT for a bit to complete my Engineering PhD, she came with me. Since her job back then was mostly hacking and some supplemental side jobs, it didn’t really matter where she was based, she was just hellbent on protecting me like she has ever since that first Geography class.”
“Wow,” Derek says, looking genuinely shocked as he leans back a little bit, eyeing Spencer with curious eyes. “You went to college when you were twelve? I’m glad you had Penelope because that could’ve been a disaster.”
“It kind of was,” Spencer nods, laughing a little. “But it meant that I had five degrees including three doctorates by the time I was twenty-one so I wasn’t too mad about it.”
Derek stares at him consideringly, the soft smile on his face making Spencer’s stomach fill with butterflies. “You’re quite the genius aren’t you?”
“Well, I don't believe that intelligence can be accurately quantified, but I do have an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, and can read 20,000 words per minute.”
Derek just stares at him.
“So, yeah, I guess I’m a genius?” he says bashfully.
Derek laughs, shaking his head. “Definitely a genius. I mean, Penelope told me you were clever, but this is like… insane. Are you sure you’re okay to go out with a mere mortal like me or should I see myself out?”
“Yeah actually, Derek, sorry, it’s not going to work out,” Spencer says, feigning seriousness. “I can’t be with anybody who’s not within twenty IQ points of me or doesn’t have at least two PhDs.”
“A good actor, too? What don’t you have going for you, pretty boy?” He laughs in that wild and free kind of way Spencer always wishes he could, and he wonders whether Derek could teach him how.
Derek watches him like there’s something special about Spencer as the sound of their laughter mingles, looks at him like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be but right here, right now, and the warm intensity of it has a buzz going in Spencer’s chest, a pleasant feeling he can’t imagine anything dousing, and he never wants Derek to take his eyes off him again. Not if this is how it’s always going to make him feel.
The hours of the afternoon fly by and all of a sudden the sun is setting and they’re feeling distinctly hungry.
“How do you feel about getting some street food and taking a wander down to the beach?” Derek suggests hopefully, and Spencer can’t help the wide grin that splits his cheeks at the idea.
“Let’s do it.”
The beach is slightly cooler than the garden now the sun is setting and a soft, salty breeze is floating in from the ocean, so they sit close together in the sand, sharing their servings of nachos and fries between them.
“What’s your family like?” Spencer asks, a little daringly after a couple of minutes of comfortable silence.
Derek smiles. “They’re amazing. It’s been just me, my mom, and my two sisters since I was ten years old, but I think losing my dad only brought us closer together, y’know? We had to learn from a young age how to rely on each other, and we were also taught the very valuable lesson of just how important family is and how nothing in life is guaranteed, so we’ve made every effort to be as close to one another as possible.”
Spencer watches with quiet admiration as Derek gushes about his family, and takes another bite of their nachos. “Do they live locally?”
“No, they’re all still back in Chicago,” Derek says. “It’s sad sometimes, being so far away from them, but they would have killed me if I’d stuck around back home just for them and hadn’t chased my dream of climbing the ladder of the FBI.”
Spencer nods, chuckling along with Derek as they stare out at the quiet, tumbling waves of the ocean.
“What about you?” Derek asks. “Are you close with your family?”
Shit. He hadn’t exactly considered that asking Derek about his family would lead to reverse questioning about his own. I mean, call him a genius all you want, but social interaction is not his area of expertise.
“Uh, it’s just me and my mom. She lives back in Vegas,” he explains, clearing his throat awkwardly as he hopes that’s enough to appease his date.
Truthfully, it probably would have been, but Derek doesn’t say anything immediately, and the silence feels like it’s choking him into admitting the truth, however much it makes his chest tighten and his stomach flip with anxiety. What if this is it? What if Derek doesn’t want to start something with someone who has a family history as fucked up as his? What if he reads between the lines and sees that Spencer could be just like his mom in the future, and thinks that starting a relationship is just too risky?
“She has paranoid schizophrenia,” he blurts out, the words rolling off his tongue without his express permission, and instead of shutting up, they just keep coming. “When my dad left when I was ten, I had to be her sole carer until I left for college at twelve, but even then she refused professional help and medication, so I was taking the train from Pasadena to Las Vegas every weekend to try and help her out, and it got messy a lot of the time. It was only when I turned eighteen that things got a little bit easier, and that was only because I betrayed her trust and had her sectioned into a Sanitorium.
“They’re amazing, they take really good care of her and I did my research obviously, but I think a part of her still resents me for doing that.”
He stares out at the ocean for a couple of seconds before he suddenly realises where he is and what he’s just done.
“Oh my god,” he says as horror and dread fill him from the bottom up, “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have just dumped all that on you, I’m sorry, just—”
“Hey, pretty boy,” Derek says gently, placing a reassuring hand on his back to get his attention. “It’s okay, don’t worry. I’m just happy you felt comfortable enough to tell me all of that, and besides, I asked the question, and I meant it. I wanted to know the answer.”
Spencer feels some of the panic recede a little, and he looks up at Derek to try and gauge whether he’s telling the truth. “Really?”
Derek’s expression only softens further. “Really.”
He relaxes a little further and leans into Derek’s side, smiling to himself when Derek wraps his arm fully around his waist, resting his head on top of Spencer’s.
“I feel like I’ve known you way longer than just four hours and fifty six minutes,” Spencer says eventually.
Derek chuckles, and this time Spencer can feel the low rumble against his cheek as well as hear it. “It might be the biggest cliche in the book, but I feel exactly the same, baby.”
“I think sharing street food on the beach while staring out at a sunset as romantic and beautiful as that one has cemented the cliches in this date enough already,” Spencer points out, laughing a little.
“That is very true,” Derek agrees, squeezing his hand against Spencer’s waist. “We could round all the cliches off with a kiss, if you’d like.”
Spencer sits upright, blushing again as he eyes Derek’s flirtatious but serious expression. “I’d like that a lot.”
Derek wastes no time in taking Spencer’s jaw in his hand and leaning in slowly to place a long, sensuous kiss to his lips. Spencer kisses back with as much control as is possible when your experience is next to none and you have one of the most beautiful men in the world turning your stomach inside out with his attention, but it seems to be enough for Derek because as soon as they pull away, he’s grinning widely.
“You’re quite the kisser, pretty boy.”
Spencer fights the blush but it comes anyway. “I like that.”
Derek’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “The kiss?”
“No, the pet names.”
Derek’s expression smooths out and he smiles again, a little more tenderly than his usual cheeky grin. “Well, that’s good, because I have plenty more up my sleeve, sweetheart.”
Spencer flushes with pleasure this time and settles back against Derek’s side, observing the blue sea as they settle into silence once more.
“I’m not very used to all of this, by the way,” he says after a while, the sky slowly darkening.
“Used to what?”
“This. Kissing. Dating. Pet names.”
Derek looks down at Spencer to try and get a better look at his face. “Really? You could’ve fooled me.”
“I’ve only ever had one boyfriend before, and this is only the second date I’ve ever been on.”
“Any girlfriends?”
“Not really my area.”
“And this other date, was that with boyfriend number one?”
Spencer shakes his head against Derek’s shoulder. “No, I never went on a date with him. I met him in college and we were friends first, so we never really dated, just fell into a relationship.”
“Ah.” A brief silence settles over them again, but Derek doesn’t let it hang long. “You know I’m not bothered by any of that, right? You could have never dated anyone ever before or have screwed your way round half of California and DC and it wouldn’t matter a single bit. Not if you were here with me, right now.”
He laughs softly as Derek lightens the mood, and something in Spencer’s chest feels like it falls into place at that, like his last anxious reservation has been washed away and he can really move forward, forge onward with this scarily exciting endeavour.
“You’re a good man, Derek Morgan. You know that, right?”
Derek kisses the top of his head. “I do,” he says, “but I’m not sure it’s ever sounded quite as special falling from anyone else’s lips as it does falling from yours.”
Further down the beach, another wave crashes against the shore, and the colours of the sunset fade away slowly. People pack up their picnic baskets and head home, and seagulls attack their leftovers, but none of that matters, because right now, Spencer’s world is Derek Morgan.
Penelope Garcia deserves a medal.