Chapter Text
"I'm sorry!" Morgan laughed, hands up in front of himself and sounding distinctly not sorry.
"You will be.” Reid walked past him into the break room. Before Morgan had even stepped through the doorway, the younger of the two was already at the coffee machine. "I don't care how important you think whatever you have to say is. There is absolutely no excuse for getting in the way of me and coffee today."
He couldn't see his friend behind him, but he could hear the footsteps as he slowly made his way around the room, not having anything to do but wander in circles as he waited for Reid. "What, another long night of reading and Star Trek?"
"Something like that," he sighed.
There was a beat of silence, a moment where Reid knew Morgan was considering how to play it to get the most information out of him without making him feel ambushed. He knew what Morgan was doing but he couldn't be mad, not when the roles were often reversed.
"Well, whatever it is, I can help if you need me to." Ah, he'd chosen slight concern but nothing overbearing that needed directly talking about. Reid would have done the same.
A hand was set onto his shoulder, a light touch but solid enough to not make him uncomfortable - not many people had mastered that pressure yet, but Morgan had. Despite the initial tensing, a warmth that was unique to the man behind him flooded his system at the familiar touch. After years of receiving very limited affection, it didn't take much for that spark of happiness to ignite at any physical friendliness, although he still instinctively flinched away most of the time. That happiness was more intense with Morgan than anybody else, though that was reasonable seeing as this friendship meant the most to him out of all of the ones he had.
"I know." He turned to face him, a small smile across his face that threatened to drop as the hand on his shoulder did. "I'll come to you if I need you. I've just not been sleeping well lately, but I'm not entirely sure why."
"Okay, kid. As long as you're sure." Morgan nodded before stepping back. He grinned as he watched Reid turn back to finish making his drink. "You know, you might be able to sleep better at night if you didn't have all that caffeine and sugar. That's your- what? Third cup today? We've only been here for two hours, man."
"I've been here for three hours, thank you very much," he scoffed, adding an extra spoon of sugar into his already sweet coffee purely to spite Morgan. "And no amount of insomnia is going to stop me from drinking coffee."
"Mhm, and you can't cut back on the sugar even just a little bit?"
Scandalised, Reid turned his whole body to face the man once again, holding his cup firmly in his grasp as if scared that somebody would snatch it from his hands right there and then. "Morgan, if I have to cut back on sugar and drink disgustingly bitter coffee, I'm going to become the next unsub and you're going to be my first victim."
A loud laugh filled the room. "Alright, alright. Keep your coffee flavoured sugar. Now budge over so I can get some real coffee."
Reid did as told, throwing a playfully angry glare Morgan's way before leaving the room and sitting down at his desk. There weren't many files left, just a few consults that he'd been requested to work on that morning. With his lack of sleep lately, he'd been starting his work during the day and completing it in the conference room after hours instead of saving it for the day after. He enjoyed that he was getting through his work quicker but the problem arose when he'd barely have any work to do whilst his coworkers were around. Nobody but Hotch had quite realised. He assumed the others believed he was just speeding through it at work, and he wanted it to stay that way. The only reason his boss knew was that each morning when the unit chief would sit at his desk, a pile of files from Reid would be in front of him that he knew hadn't been there when he'd left the night before.
He had mostly been telling the truth to Morgan about not knowing why sleep was so difficult to come by lately. He knew the cause of his exhaustion, just not the root of it.
Recently his chest had been hurting. It had started off as just a small tingle in his throat and had eventually progressed to frequent coughing, which was steadily increasing in both intensity and pain. He was thankful that there had yet to be a coughing fit at work but at night, as he lay in bed consumed by his own thoughts, there had been a concerning amount and it was making it harder and harder to drift off. At this point, he'd begun to store water bottles on his bedside table in preparation (of course there were some in the fridge, but he found the easy access to be helpful). So far, only distraction seemed to keep the coughs at bay and in his case, the best distraction was paperwork.
He was aware that telling somebody should be a priority, but the thought of how they would treat him - how they would coddle him - was almost worse than the thought of there being something genuinely wrong.
A few hours had passed and his work was completed, leaving him with only his thoughts and no more distractions. Hotch had given him the option of leaving early but Reid had quickly declined, knowing that he'd only be bored at home. Here, at least, he could talk to his friends. His gaze wandered around the bullpen, trying to find them and see if there was anything he could do, though he knew he wasn't allowed to do any of their work for them. Hotch had placed a momentary ban on Reid helping out upon discovering the amount of paperwork he had been doing that wasn't his own.
Prentiss had gone to Garcia's office a few minutes prior in search of assistance (as well as just an excuse to move around, he guessed), meaning her desk was empty. JJ was in her own office talking on the phone - a very frustrating conversation it seemed, judging by the aggressive gesticulating and fast pacing. Probably a good idea to not disturb her, Reid decided.
That left Morgan as the only other member of his team in the bullpen. A closer look revealed that Morgan also wasn't really doing much work, though whether that was due to being done or being bored, Reid didn't know. Regardless, he was wondering whether it was worth trying to ask for more files. It was easy to forge handwriting (he'd become very skilled at it when he was a child and had to fake his mother's signature on several occasions), so Hotch would never have to know.
"Hey, pretty boy," Morgan's voice broke him out of his thoughts. "You look a little zoned out over there. What's up?"
"Nothing really," Reid replied, leaning back in his chair. "I ran out of files. Got any spare?"
"Absolutely not. You are not getting me in trouble with the boss." At Reid's puppy dog eyes (that he would deny ever doing if asked), he continued. "Seriously, if Hotch catches me handing off my work to you then I'll be the one to get done for it."
"Come on." Reid leaned forward in his seat. "You know I can tell him that I stole some from you and you'll be fine."
Their eyes locked in a staring match for several moments before Morgan sighed in exasperation and Reid grinned, knowing that he'd gotten his way. "It's those damn puppy dog eyes. They're too cute."
That warm feeling from earlier resurfaced, this time all the way up into his face and leaving his cheeks stained a soft red.
A sudden cough made its way out of Reid's throat. Then another. And then another. And then suddenly he was hunched over in his chair, one arm across his stomach with his fingers gripping his side, the other across his face so that he could cough into the crook of his elbow. Being preoccupied with the unanticipated struggle to breathe, he didn't notice that Morgan had appeared next to him until there was a hand placed gently on his knee and a voice saying, "Shit, Reid. Uh, okay, let me go get you some water. I'll be right back."
The attack slightly let up as he hurried off, only for the feeling of a lump in his throat to become much more prominent. Mere seconds later, his hand shot up to cover his mouth as the lump rose higher and higher until it fell out into his palm.
In his hand sat two light purple flower petals.
He stared at the flowers in bewilderment, only realising that Morgan was on his way back over when he was just a few steps away. A split-second decision had him shoving them hastily into the pocket of his cardigan, opting to not make anybody freak out as much as he was at that moment.
"Here you go," his friend said as he passed the water bottle over. "Drink it slowly."
Several sarcastic remarks floated through his mind but his brain was so focused on what was hidden in his pocket that he didn't say any of them, instead doing as he had been told. Some sips later, he was putting the water bottle down onto the table and tilting his head back, facing the ceiling and attempting to catch his breath, the panic he felt threatening to overwhelm him only serving to make it a herculean task.
At some point during this, Morgan had sat on the edge of Reid's desk, watching for any signs of another coughing fit. "Are you good now?"
"Yeah." He cleared his throat, testing to see if it was over. "Yeah, I think so. Sorry about that." He raised his eyes to find a face already staring back at him with undisguised worry. "Really, I'm fine."
The worry remained fixed into his features as he slowly nodded and said, "You look tired. How about you go home and get some sleep?" He put a stop to Reid's immediate shake of the head by holding up his hand. "That wasn't a request, kid. You're exhausted. You have no work left. You probably feel awful after that whole thing. Pack up your stuff while I go tell Hotch and you'll be home in no time."
With a resigned sigh, he conceded and began packing his bag. True to his word, it was only minutes later that they were getting settled into Morgan's car.
Not long into the drive, Spencer spoke without turning away from looking out of the window ahead of him. "Thank you," he started, "for getting me water and taking me home. You're right, I'm exhausted and I can't wait to get some sleep."
Derek chuckled. "I know I'm right, but it's always nice to hear you admit it, genius." The smaller man slapped the other's arm, barely hard enough for him to even feel it. "Hey! I'm driving here."
"If you crash, Garcia will bring us muffins."
"You make a strong point."
The remainder of the drive was filled with non-work related talk and it wasn't long before they were pulling up outside of Spencer's apartment complex. As he left the car and they said their goodbyes, he had to stamp down the urge to ask him to stay. He enjoyed spending time with his friends, especially his best friend, and it was always disappointing when that time had to end, though the introvert in him was happy to get some time alone after socialising so much.
As soon as his apartment door closed behind him, he walked directly to the wardrobe in his bedroom. He had every intention of getting changed into something more comfortable but as he began removing his cardigan his attention was drawn to the feeling of something in the pocket.
The petals.
He must have been so caught up in finally being relaxed that he'd completely forgotten about what had caused him to panic so much less than an hour ago. Now, though, there was nothing to distract him from the anxiety suddenly coursing through his veins. Despite all of the knowledge he'd accumulated over the past years, he couldn't come up with a single explanation as to why he would cough up flower petals. He wasn't used to that; to not knowing something. He didn't like it.
His planned outfit change being entirely disregarded, he strode over to the laptop that was sat on his coffee table and fired it up. The next forty minutes were spent searching for any variant of his situation, but the only result he was getting was something called 'hanahaki disease'.
"A sickness which occurs when the patient is experiencing unrequited love for somebody else, resulting in flowers growing in the lungs."
It certainly wasn't that, he was sure. If he was currently in love with somebody, he'd know about it. Identifying his emotions had never quite been his strongest skill but surely something so intense was too hard to miss. Out of pure curiosity - absolutely not because there was a small voice in the back of his head whispering 'what if' - he looked closer at the flowers, wondering what kind they were.
Holding them under the lamp by his side, he quickly recognised the petals as lilacs. Classic lilacs, seeing as how the colour of them matched their name. Typically known to mean first love.
That was appropriate, at least, seeing as how Spencer had never been in love before. Sure, he'd dated a few people here and there but not once had he ever truly fallen in love. He'd heard and read a lot about it though, mostly courtesy of his mother and her love of romance. A lot of his favourite memories of her involved reading love stories where the boy gets the girl and they lived happily ever after. His mother was in love with the idea of love and she'd almost passed it onto him. Almost.
Diana Reid painted an incredible picture of love, making it sound almost magical. She would frequently tell him, "Love is a world of its own that lives in the heart, not the head." Love wasn't a logical thing, it wasn't something his brain could ever truly grasp beyond the chemical components factoring into it. It was something that took a hold of you and didn't let go, not caring about the logic. His mother had that kind of love for him, but sometimes he found that too easy to forget. He used to think that his father did too, but that belief decreased year after year until it was completely diminished when he was only ten years old reading the words 'Dear Spencer'.
He didn't doubt that it was possible for him to fall in love with someone. He fell in love in so many ways every single day - with the way the sun shines and the way the rain falls and the way his friends smile and the way they make him laugh. No, Spencer didn't doubt his own ability to fall in love, but he was terrified that he, himself, was unlovable.
That fear is what caused him to turn his laptop off and get ready for bed, hiding the petals in the bottom drawer next to his bed which was so rarely opened.
If he was in love with somebody who didn't love him back, he'd rather remain blissfully ignorant than painfully aware.
He didn't get much sleep that night.