Work Text:
It starts with an offhanded comment and a chance meeting.
The chance meeting occurs in a cafe, on Saturday, and it's less of a meeting, per se, and more of Emily spying Derek at a table with a woman before grinning to herself and walking out.
The comment comes on Monday, in the briefing room, during a tangentially-related-to-the-case discussion the team has gotten into on their dating lives. Emily elbows Derek and says "Well, he's dating someone. We're not all single."
And Derek does that thing with his eyebrows and says, "Depends how you define dating."
"To go on regular dates with a person, where date is defined as an engagement to go out socially with another person, often out of romantic interest."
"...Thank you, Reid, that was rhetorical. And 'romantic interest' is a vague term."
JJ's eyes sparkle. "Oh, you're not getting out of this that easily, Derek Morgan. Does she smile at you? Does she make you laugh? Does she dress up for you? How long has this been going on?"
Derek glares at her half-heartedly. "A few weeks."
Emily makes happy noises and says something else, but Dave's mind isn't on the conversation at hand. He's thinking of yesterday, of sitting on a couch with Aaron and Jack watching Cat in the Hat. Of a comment murmured in Aaron's ear, and the way his face lit up with the kind of grin Dave treasures. The kind of grin, come to think of it, he rarely sees outside of their 'social engagements'.
He drifts back in to the conversation. "...hobbies and interests," Spencer is saying. "And you may be a profiler, but Oliver Sachs is not your normal reading material."
"I borrowed it!" Derek protests. "It looked interesting!"
Across the table, Aaron is realizing that Dave's music collection has broadened considerably since they're started spending time together. He's even acquired a taste for jazz, which might be partly Spencer's influence, but...
"Does she move her schedule around for you?" JJ asks. "Better, do you move your schedule around for her? Because I seem to remember--"
"Okay!" Derek says, throwing up his hands. "Okay, I admit it! I'm seeing someone!"
Aaron makes a quiet sort of 'hm' noise, while the rest of the team is busy congratulating Derek. Dave, who isn't focused on Derek, looks over and meets his eyes. They're profilers, not mind-readers, but it's plain enough on Aaron's face that they need to have a talk.
Only when they're finally alone that night, after they've both washed off the grime of the case and Dave's found his way to Aaron's hotel room, they don't so much talk as stare at each other.
"Aaron--" Dave starts.
"Dave," he says quietly, "I think we might be dating."
Dave closes his mouth, and then opens it again. "Uh." David Rossi, you are a writer. You can think of something to say that's actual words, and not a syllable. "Do you want to be dating? Because we don't have to be, if..."
"I think I might," Aaron says. And if they're grinning stupidly at each other, well, no one else is there to see.