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It was ass o’clock in the morning when Derek’s phone started going off and he let out an audible groan.
“It a case?” was slurred out from the person sleeping beside him and Derek couldn’t resist glancing over to see Spencer Reid slowly rousing, rubbing at his eyes, his hair all over the place.
Derek should’ve been rewarded for the amount of restraint he employed with Spencer on a day to day, because it was almost distracting, but then he was fumbling for his phone.
Sarah’s name lit up and he frowned. “Sarah?” he asked as he flipped it open to answer it and his older sister let out a grainy albeit annoyed laugh on the other end.
“Oh, thank god,” she said, “Derek, tell me you’re still in Quantico.”
“Yeah?” Derek said, baffled as he sat up and flipped on the light at the beside table, groaning as he sat up once he caught sight of the clock. “Sarah, it’s like four in the morning—”
“Yeah, and I’m supposed to be put up in a hotel for the night before flying out to New York tomorrow, but would you believe it, my hotel is actually having a plumbing issue—”
“Is it Hotch?” Spencer asked, fumbling for his own phone, clearly not awake enough to register what Derek had been saying to know it was his sister.
“No, it’s not Hotch, it’s my sister, she needs to be put up for the night,” Derek told him and Spencer froze, blinking at him.
Sure, they were official, had fraternization paperwork filed with the FBI and all that, but neither had told their respective families, let alone the rest of the BAU outside of Hotch. It was simpler for Spencer, since his only family was his mother who was a paranoid schizophrenic, with Derek it was different. He didn’t think his sisters or his mama even knew that men even factored into his preferences.
Well.
Sarah was about to, now.
“…wait, are you with someone?” Sarah asked, utterly gleeful. “Derek!”
“Sarah, you’re at DCA, right?” Derek opted to ignore her question.
“No,” she disagreed, “I’m at the Ronald Reagan Wash—”
“That’s DCA, give me a half hour.”
“I am grilling you so hard when you show up,” she giggled before he hung up on her.
“Do you want me to—?” Spencer asked awkwardly as Derek rolled out of the bed to pull on his pants and search for a shirt.
“No, you should go back to sleep,” he assured him, standing to lean over Spencer, kissing him lightly before pulling away just as quickly. “I’ll be back soon.”
Clearly Spencer was not awake enough to follow any of that, because he gave a sleepy hum, falling back asleep so swiftly that Derek couldn’t help but marvel.
At least his partner was cute.
Derek quietly padded out of the room after flipping the light back off, phone in hand, trying not to think about how many questions his sister was going to have for him.
Her number one comment was going to be on the age difference, which Derek wouldn’t lie, it did bother him. Spencer was eight years his junior and part of Derek wondered if all that Buford had done to him had made him more like him, like a predator.
It made his stomach go sour.
If Spencer knew the truth, he would’ve had a lot counters to that, statistics about how victims didn’t become victimizers to combat the ones that did, but primarily he would point out that he might’ve been twenty-four and certainly looked young, but he wasn’t a child.
Even the Spencer in Derek’s head was perfectly rational, which only served to amuse him.
Sarah was impossibly annoyed about the whole situation. She was up to her eyeballs in loans and medical school was no walk in the park. Most of her other classmates that were invited (which was a loose term because they were all essentially told to show up or face a steep deduction in their current grade and Sarah needed every bit of credit she could manage to scrape together, especially since graduation was right around the corner) had the money to spend on a nicer hotel than the cheapest of the cheap that Sarah had gone with.
She was so pissed that she was almost in tears about it and then a dark SVU pulled up, giving a small honk as it parked in the taxi lane and her little brother hopped out of the driver’s seat.
“I will never say anything mean about you ever again!” she declared, throwing her arms around him and laughing when he pulled her right off her feet.
“I’m not falling for that,” he snorted, settling her back on the ground before taking her bag and putting it in the back as she slid into the passenger seat with an audible groan. “You look terrible.”
She scowled. “Don’t you know to never tell a woman that?”
“You’re not a woman, though,” Derek smirked as he pulled out back to enter the circle drive, heading smoothly towards the airport exit. “You’re my sister.”
“I hate you.”
“See, there’s the proof.”
She rolled her eyes as Derek turned onto the highway. “So…”
“So?” he arched an eyebrow without looking up from the windshield.
“So, what her name?” Sarah grinned widely. “Must be pretty good if you’re keeping her to yourself because you know Mama would want to know everything about her immediately—”
“Sarah.”
There was something about the way he said her name that made her go still. “What?” she asked.
“His name is Dr. Spencer Reid,” he said.
That gave Sarah pause, her surprise plain. “Oh,” she said, vaguely stunned but she recalibrated. “Is he hot?”
“Really?” Derek asked, baffled. “That’s the top question you’ve got?”
“Well? Is he?” she probed.
“…he’s cute,” Derek allowed.
She sniggered. “Just cute?”
“Well, he’s also twenty-four—”
“TWENTY-FOUR?!” she burst out. “You cradle-robbing whore, Derek Morgan!”
“Hey, now, I can turn this car around!” Derek sputtered out.
She mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key.
It didn’t last, because it was Sarah.
“A doctor at twenty-four? Must be pretty smart.”
“He is pretty brilliant,” Derek agreed, his tone fond. “He’d got three PhDs and two BAs and is working on the third.”
“Wow, that’s insane,” Sarah was aghast.
“He’s a genius, literally, like graduated high school at twelve kind of genius with an eidetic memory.” Derek could gush about Spencer because at work he never needed to; everyone knew how brilliant Spencer was, even Spencer, and it was small mercies that knowing how high his IQ was hadn’t given him an ego the size of a planet.
“So, how’d you meet?”
“We work together in the FBI—”
“And they’re okay with that?” she asked dubiously. “Seems like fraternization is something they would crack down on.”
Derek made a ‘so-so’ gesture with his hand. “They do, so you have to prove your can work together professionally without crossing the personal boundary. We had to file paperwork and had to do even more paperwork and had someone with Internal Affairs following us on a few assignments to prove we were being above board.”
No one had been aware of the reason for it, assuming it was related to Gideon’s extended break from the BAU. JJ and Elle weren’t quite hostile but it was a near thing, and Penelope had purposefully not held a door open for the frazzled man. It was petty but Derek couldn’t really blame them for it.
Obviously, Hotch was aware and being minded clearly annoyed him as much as it did them, but he’d been the one to say “You sure you want to bring this complication into your lives?”
But Spencer and Derek had taken a lot of time with letting their relationship bloom naturally. Spencer might’ve been a novice when it came to relationships but Derek wasn’t, and he knew that this was going to morph into something lasting.
Maybe he was being idealistic and romantic, but that was how he felt.
Derek’s phone began to ring where it was secured in a cup holder.
Think of the devil and he appears.
“Don’t answer the phone while you’re driving!” Sarah complained but Derek grinned, flipping it open one-handed.
“Hey, Hotch, we got a case?” he guessed.
“Yeah, how quick can you and Reid get to Quantico?”
“Well, I’m driving my sister back to my place after her flight. Reid was still asleep so you might need to call him—”
“Alright, I’ll see you both when you get in, it's going to take another hour before Elle makes it in,” he said and then hung up just as swiftly.
“You call your boyfriend by his last name to your boss?” Sarah arched an eyebrow. “Cute.”
“I call my boyfriend Reid at work because that’s professional.”
“Sureeeee.”
He rolled his eyes.
Sarah was running on fumes by the time Derek opened the door into his apartment and she didn’t really get the chance to take it in before Derek was saying “Baby, remember to take some coffee with that sugar.”
“Ha-ha,” said who could only be Dr. Spencer Reid and Sarah’s eyes took him in. He looked young, lanky, brown hair hanging around his face and glasses that didn’t hide his exhaustion. “Very funny.”
“You ready to go?”
“Just need my coffee and my gun,” Spencer said and he did not look nearly old enough to have a gun. He looked up only to squint at her past Derek. “Sarah, I’m guessing?”
“That’s me,” she said brightly. “And you’re the one my little brother is cradle-robbing, huh?”
Perturbed, Spencer’s brow wrinkled.
“He’s an only child, you’re just confusing him,” Derek admonished before steering her off towards the guest bedroom.
“Nice to meet you!” she called over her shoulder and he gave a small wave, still clearly thrown off. “He’s cute, I like him.”
“You don’t know him,” Derek said, tone sour, “maybe wait until you’ve had an actual conversation with him before making the judgment.”
She laughed. “What, you got a problem with me liking your boy?”
“I’m not going to give that a response,” he decided. “You can have any of our leftovers and when you leave, make sure to lock the door after you.”
“I love you, even if you’re an anal freak,” she said, still grinning as she flopped down onto the bed and Derek gave her a wave of his own.
She was out before Derek even made it to the front door with Spencer.
Elle was rushing up on Morgan and Reid as they ambled towards the front doors, bickering as they so often did.
“Why is it that you two always carpool to work?” she asked, startling them out of their conversation, something to do with Morgan’s sister, it sounded like.
“Because Reid can’t drive—”
“I can drive!” Reid burst out, annoyed. “I crashed the car one time into an unsub’s to stop him from getting away!”
Morgan made air quotes, which didn’t help Reid’s mood but did make Elle snort. “You can drive, you just can’t drive well.”
Reid glowered at him.
“Elle, would you trust Reid to drive your car?” Morgan asked instead and Elle responded immediately.
“Absolutely not.”
Reid made a sound in the back of his throat. “I’m leaving both of you behind,” he decided, speeding away from them as the pair laughed.
“Desiree, I have major news for you,” Sarah said as soon as her younger sister picked up the phone close to noon after Sarah had woken up once more.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane right now?” her sister asked instead, vaguely amused.
“Not until like six,” Sarah waved her off, continuing to peruse Derek’s apartment with interest.
None of them had ever been to Derek’s apartment; Mama didn’t leave Chicago and neither had Sarah and Desiree all that much, though soon that would have to change for Sarah.
Her brother was smart, he had to be to graduate with honors from Northwestern University, but he never gave off the impression that he was a particularly learned person, but there were books upon books on varying subjects scattered throughout the apartment that she could only assume belonged to the genius that he was dating.
It certainly didn’t look like it belonged to a bachelor.
“Derek is letting me stay the night at his place until my flight out and he’s apparently dating someone!” Sarah told her, positively gleeful.
“…what?!” Desiree nearly shrieked.
Derek had texted her earlier to tell him that he knew she was going to call Desiree and that it was fine to tell her about Spencer.
We’re private, he’d said, but I think we’re settled enough to tell you all about us.
“For how long?” Desiree demanded.
“No idea, I’m snooping to find Spencer’s number so I can question him—”
“Whoa, whoa, him? Derek’s with a guy?”
“I know, surprising, right?” Sarah asked, switching to the speaker phone as she went looking for a phone book. “He’s cute but Derek is such a cradle-robber, oh my God, he’s twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four? Damn!”
“I know! Ah! Found it!” Sarah said, pulling out the phone-address book from the bedside table. “Oh my God, this is so funny. So there’s an entry for Dr. Spencer Reid and there’s another one for ‘Baby Boy’ with literally the same information, what a freakin’ sap.”
Desiree sniggered across the line. “Call me back with the deets, I’ll be waiting.”
“Byeee!”
Spencer was uncommonly skilled at geographical profiling, as such he was the one so often delegated to that aspect of their job. He carefully marked the sites of the body dumps with a marker before his phone rang.
“Hello,” he said immediately, not glancing at the number, assuming it was Garcia with the information he had requested, only to stall in surprise.
“Did you know that Derek has your info saved under Baby Boy?”
He blinked, pulling the phone back to look at the unfamiliar number before returning it to his ear. “Sarah?” he presumed.
“Hello,” she said brightly, “so tell me, how long have you and Derek been a thing?”
“Um…” Spencer looked around but Derek and Elle were out at one of the murder sites and Hotch and Gideon were at the second one while JJ was setting up for a press conference. “I’m kind of working right now.”
“You can’t multitask, doctor?”
Spencer could definitely do that, unfortunately. He opted for some honesty. “Six months.”
“Kept you under wraps for six months? I’m impressed,” she hummed. “Usually we know immediately when Derek’s got someone because he won’t shut up about them. But we know that Derek’s a bit of a whore, except Mama, it's best that she lives without knowing that about him.”
Derek was definitely known for sleeping around, enough that it was wild to consider he’d found a relationship to stick with for six months, especially without telling anyone.
And Spencer wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.
“This place is pretty clean and Derek isn’t known for being clean, so I’m guessing it's for your benefit.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m, ah, a bit of a germaphobe.”
It hadn’t really been intended to be a flirtation when he’d said to Derek: “The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to kiss.” But then he’d planted one on him and Spencer had gotten immediately overwhelmed.
“Well, as someone in med school, I can relate to that,” Sarah said. “But you’re in the middle of a case. How would you feel about me calling you another day to interrogate you about my baby brother?”
“I mean…that depends on how comfortable he is about that—”
“Ugh! You are no fun!”
“Garcia got anything?”
Spencer jumped, turning around to be faced with his partner and Elle. “No,” he told him, “your sister found my number.”
Derek groaned out loud, extending a hand and Spencer held out his phone as Elle sniggered.
“Stop snooping through my stuff,” he said into the phone, “shouldn’t you be going to the airport soon?”
“I am!” Sarah promised and Spencer could just barely hear her voice. “I’m just gathering information since you’re keeping such a lid on—”
“You’re such a busybody, and I don’t like you.”
Sarah’s laughter was cut off as he shut the phone and held it back out to Spencer.
“You can block her if you like, she’s too interested in my business.”
“I’m so glad I was an only child,” Elle decided and Spencer could only nod sagely in agreement.