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“Yeah, I don’t understand why you brought me here, Hotch.”
The art wasn’t bad, per se, it’s just never been Derek’s ‘thing.’ He understood it - God knows how much teasing he’d have been dealt if not, especially with a sister like Sarah being an Art major.
“I didn’t bring you here, you came willingly after I told you Gideon was dragging me along.” Hotch sounds half-exasperated and half tired out from their last case.
Pasadena, California was busy; they were too close to LA for peace and quiet during a high profile case like the one they had just finished.
“Spencer!” Gideon called from across the front room of the gallery. They were stood by a giant painting similar to the soup can Sarah never stopped raving about.
“Gideon, hey!” There’s a boy - perhaps nineteen, possibly younger - that crosses the room and eagerly swings on his heels as he comes to a stop in front of Jason. “It’s been awhile, how are you?”
His smile is brighter than the (stupidly painful) luminescent series of art hanging on the back wall through the hallway into the next room.
Gideon grins and reaches out to squeeze the boy’s shoulder enthusiastically.
“It has been, hasn’t it? I’m doing well, we just finished a case here. How’ve you been finding things? Still thinking of a transfer for your next degree?”
Derek stands placidly by Hotch’s side, watching the interaction with interest as he observes the boy excitedly chatting away with his typically closed-off superior.
He has classic ‘boy-band’ hair, swept messily out of his eyes but several strands fall in front of his forehead and end just above his brows. His lips are bitten-red and he licks them nervously as he glances behind Gideon waiting patiently for a polite introduction.
“Spencer, these are two of the members of my team. Agent Hotchner, Unit Chief.”
“Hi,” Hotch says, extending a hand to shake.
“Hiya,” Spencer pauses before shaking delicately, his nose twitching.
“And Supervisory Special Agent Morgan,” Gideon finishes. “Hotch, Morgan, this is Doctor Spencer Reid. He attends Caltech, just finished his third PhD and lectures with me on occasion.”
“Third PhD?” He asks incredulously as the two of them shake. His hand is as delicate as previously thought, and warm too.
“Graduated early,” the boy - Spencer - answers.
“Yes, he’s quite the young talent among the academics,” Gideon says, clearly pleased.
“How early do you have to graduate to have three PhD’s before you hit twenty?” Hotch asks curiously, exchanging a glance with Gideon as Derek gives the boy a poorly concealed once-over.
“I turned twenty about a month ago, I graduated when I was twelve,” Spencer answers.
Derek makes an impressed noise in the back of his throat and Spencer turns on his heels to face him nervously. “I - I um, you don’t have to… call me doctor.”
“Alright,” Derek laughs, “Spencer it is, then.” The kid smiles, and Derek allows himself to indulge slightly more in his features as he grins, now that he’s certain there’s less than four years difference between them.
“Um… Miste - Doctor Reid?” Someone asks quietly from behind the four of them. When they turn there’s an even younger looking boy - couldn’t be older than a college freshman.
“Hello, could I - uh - can I help you?”
“I just had some questions about two of your thesis’, if it’s possible to talk…?”
Gideon bites back a sigh, which Derek doesn’t miss, as Spencer allows the boy to bolster himself into a heated discussion on things he can barely remember from schooling.
The three of them hang around for another few long minutes before the boy is eagerly thanking Spencer and hurrying off with a notepad and pen stuck under his chin.
“Sorry about that,” Spencer says sheepishly. “I don’t really ever turn people away if they have questions.”
“What’ve I told you,” Gideon murmurs. “They’ll just flock for information they can use on their papers.”
“This happens often?” Hotch asks, picking up on Gideon’s mild concern.
“Maybe a couple time a wee -”
“Almost every day I see him .”
The two of them answer in harmony. Spencer frowns at Gideon’s response, his brows crumpling up with his nose endearingly - at least in Derek’s mind.
“Doesn’t that worry you?” Hotch asks. Derek can’t tell whether it was directed at Gideon or Spencer, but the older man answers all the same.
“Absolutely. I’ve told him how dangerous… ‘unstable’ academics can be if your paper disproves one of theirs or becomes popular enough to earn you a name for yourself.” In response, Spencer rolls his eyes slightly, and Derek is struck by the realisation that this kid wasn’t really a kid. He might’ve looked like one at first glance, but the roll of his eyes is far from that of a teenager.
“They’re just interested in my work, nobody’s ever been off putting,” Spencer argues. Gideon raises his hands in defeat, shaking his head slowly to show his disagreement. “I would tell you if things got out of hand,” he promises.
Hotch nods, looking about half as concerned as Gideon.
The four of them hang in silence for a long moment until Hotch prompts Gideon to show him around the exhibit, and he gladly takes the brief exit.
“So, you like art then?” Derek asks stupidly.
“Ha, um, not really? I never really ‘got’ it like Gideon does.” Spencer folds one of his arms into the crook of his opposite elbow nervously, like a mindless comfort technique.
----
“My sister always used to tell me art is supposed to make you ‘feel’ something.” Derek explains. He’s on his second glass of wine and grateful Hotch was driving them back to their hotel for the night. “Whatever that means.”
Spencer said no to his offered glass by the gallery’s employees. Although Derek leaned in and whispered close enough for his breath to fan across the shell of his ear to say, “have at ‘em,” considering he was only eleven months off the legal drinking age in the majority of America.
“I’ve never understood,” he admits, his posture less stiff and anxious now that they had wandered throughout most of the exhibit together, laughing and commenting on pieces.
“Do you?” Derek asks.
“Do I what?”
“Feel anything?” Derek explains, amused.
Spencer shrugs, turning back to the piece they’ve been staring at for the past six minutes.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Derek laughs now, loud and infectious. Spencer pushes hair back from his face and mimics the man’s smile. “I can’t tell you how to feel.”
Spencer rocks back on the balls of his feet again while he gnaws at his lower lip, something Derek assumes is a nervous habit.
“Well right now I feel… p - pretty - pretty good,” he manages to stutter. His cheeks have flushed a bright pink, almost as red as his bitten lip.
“Alright, cool it pretty boy,” Derek grins. The moniker jolted through to the tips of Spencer’s fingers. They stand in companionable quiet for a second before Derek adds, “you’re not the only one.”
If it was possible, Spencer’s whole face darkens a few shades of scarlet and hasn’t lessened by the time they join back up with Gideon and an exhausted looking Hotch.
“I’m booked for another night at the hotel, but I’ve got a meeting with one of your old professors tomorrow morning and then a quick lecture I think you’d love to tag along for,” Gideon says earnestly.
Spencer nods eagerly, looking pleased with the invitation before he turns back to face Derek.
“Um, it was really nice to meet you,” he says quickly, honestly.
Hotch looks Gideon’s way, checking he’s picked up on the ‘exchange’ going on between their two subordinates.
He would’ve seriously considered inviting the man back to his hotel room, but it was a blatant enough overstep that there was no way he’d go through with it.
“You too, kid,” Derek says casually, hyper aware of the two overbearing men on either side of them paying close attention to their interaction.
----
“Today, we thought we’d focus on what is probably the most important component of profiling, or for that matter, any investigative technique: Victimology.” Gideon turns across the professor's desk to gesture for Spencer to step in and take over for his spout of facts.
“The word victim stems from the latin word ‘victima’ which means ‘sacrifice.’” He adds on quite happily.
“Now, victims of violent crimes are brutalised by a subject who takes it upon him or herself to decide life or death of a fellow human being.”
“There are around thirteen point three-one million people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area,” Spencer adds in seamlessly.
“Every time a person is killed, robbed, beaten or...”
“They pair well, don’t they?” Hotch whispers over Gideon’s section of the lecture.
“They really do, surprisingly,” Morgan responds at the same low volume.
The pair go on to discuss various techniques of victimology based profiling, how the assumptions made and conclusions drawn helped support the case and the proceeding trial. They were both collected and calm up there, clearly used to holding the attention of a lecture hall filled with hundreds of students.
Afterwards, Spencer has a line of students and professors who sit in with questions, and he answers them all pleasantly, allowing Gideon time to add in any missing information until the room has emptied almost quarter of an hour after the end time of the lecture.
“That was some lecture, kid,” Derek praises, relishing in the pinkening of the boy’s nose when he smiles towards the floor in response.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. Gideon looks between the two of them before glancing Hotch’s way, who lifts his shoulders as if to say who knows.
“So what’s happened?” Gideon deadpans.
“Double homicide on California Boulevard,” Hotch explains. “The local PD wants us to check it out before we fly back.”
Spencer’s cell phone rings and he excuses himself politely as the three continue exchanging what little information they had on the case. When he comes back, Derek notes the firm-pressed lips and taught expression. He gives the kid a concerned once-over and watches his fingers clasp and unclasp repetitively.
“Everything alright?” He asks cautiously after a moment of observation.
“Uh, um, yeah - yeah. I’ll be fine,” Spencer says unconvincingly. “Sorry, did you say you had a double homicide on the campus’ road?”
“Yes.”
“I just got a call. Um, my first professor and his teaching assistant died this morning… it - it’s ah - just odd timing, is all.” His whole posture screams nerves and Derek briefly wishes to tug him into the side of his chest for comfort but squanders the impulse as quickly as it came.
“Stay off campus for today, get some errands done instead. I’ll call you later on, alright?” Gideon says, his rare protective nature making a slight appearance.
“Okay - okay, I can do that...”
----
“Spencer,” Gideon says, his voice staticky through his dorm’s landline.
“Hey, so what, um, what’s the story?” He asks.
“I need you to stay away from campus for now, can you do that?”
“Uh, I'll have to cancel some lectures but I should be able to manage. Why?” He picks at his cuticles anxiously, waiting for the ball to drop.
“Come on down to the station, we’ll talk there.” Gideon sounds sterner than usual, which only serves to put Spencer further on edge.
By the time he arrives he’s composed of various bundles of nerves, and while he’s ushered into an interrogation room he only grows more wildly nervous, like a skittish deer.
“Gideon,” he says unsurely as he takes a seat. “Am I being… accused of something?”
“No, never. Of course not, Spencer,” he promises, immediately settling the kid. “I need to ask you a few questions and then I can explain what exactly is going on, alright?”
Spencer nods, shuffling in his chair and looking behind Gideon to the one-way mirror.
“Now, how close were you to your professor and his assistant?”
“He hasn’t - hadn’t - taught me in six years and I’ve never met his assistant in my life. He occasionally proofed my papers but that’s about it, and it’s always over email.”
“And what about Doctor Lewis and Miss Mccallion?”
The boy scrunches his face in thought before answering.
“Uh, I believe Lewis posed an alternate theory for one of my engineering degrees and Mccallion gave me my first B+ which, I don’t hold resentment over, by the way.” Spencer again starts squirming in his seat, looking uncomfortable. “Are they suspects?”
Gideon sighs, turning slightly to look into the one-way glass.
“No, we suspect they were the first victims.”
Spencer’s eyes widen comically and he bites a hangnail on his right thumb.
“They - they’re dead?” He asks quietly, stunned.
“In the past few months, yes,” Gideon admits. “All four were shot execution style with a twenty-two caliber handgun.”
Spencer rubs his hands over his temples, placing his elbows on the desk as Gideon dishes out evidence verbally.
“Was there at least forensic evidence?” He whispers.
“None,” Gideon answers. “And both the dump site as well as your professor’s office have been combed through for anything substantial.”
Spencer squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again, looking hardened.
“A twenty-two is efficient, it’s actually the preferred weapon of people working inside the mafia, and with no forensic evidence…”
“It’s someone skilled, someone driven,” Gideon finishes.
From behind the one-way mirror, Hotch informs Derek of the situation they have on their hands, ordering a call out for the rest of the team.
“We’re absolutely going to need JJ for this one, the media is crawling all over this kid,” he explains. “May as well bring Elle and Emily in for this one too, especially now that our unsub has effectively placed a target on every Caltech student.”
“All the victims were killed during an aspect of their daily routine,” Gideon says, both to Spencer but loud enough for Hotch and Morgan to pick up on.
“Maybe he’s a stalker, he must follow them for a while if he knows their routine,” Spencer suggests.
“He’s meticulous and hasn’t got any witnesses to his name, he can clearly blend in.”
“A student? Another staff member? Someone with a vendetta against these other professors.”
Gideon waves Hotch into the room, receiving his agreement of the theory.
“Regardless of whether they’re a student or a teacher, they’re beginning to profile like a type four assassin,” he contributes.
“Suffers from a major mental disorder, likely delusional,” Spencer mutters to himself.
“If we can work out the delusion, we can narrow a lot of things down,” Hotch explains.
“Now, Spencer, while you’re here,” Gideon says seriously. “I need you to tell me if you or anyone you know has received anything threatening or admiring, a note, a gift, something along those lines.”
“I… nothing jumps out,” he answers. He pauses, looking to the ceiling as he thinks. “Well, we did have an unexpected delivery of roses last month.”
Gideon and Hotch both frown, and Morgan enters the room carefully, eyes on Spencer. “I mean, I assumed it was the whole dorm building… I guess nobody ever really mentioned it happening.”
“Call the campus, check on that,” Gideon says quickly. “Reid,” he presses, “I need you to think very hard on this one. Is there anyone who’s ever expressed a large amount of admiration or glorified respect for you in the past few months?”
“Gideon… everyone who approaches me at events or after lectures does, you know that. I get hundreds of emails and questions about my work every month.” His breathing picks up rapidly, his hands tightening as it does. “Oh my God - Gideon, do I - am I being stalked?!”
Derek hangs back in the room as he sees Spencer’s panic rising rapidly, putting-off the call to campus in case the kid had an anxiety attack like it looked like he was building towards.
Gideon stays completely calm, his tone rational and even.
“Well, you tell me. What does a red rose typically mean?”
“A red rose is one of the most universal symbols,” Spencer says rapidly, pushing the words out. “They say ‘I love you’ and they typically mean passion, romance, and other facets of love.” He takes a deep breath, squeezing his knuckles until they’re white. “In the US alone, twenty-seven percent of male stalking victims are left unwanted gifts or strange items and forty-eight percent of male stalkers show up in their victims' daily lives.”
“Good, what else?” Gideon goads.
“Seventy percent of male victims are threatened with physical harm, whereas female victims have only sixty-eight percent.” Spencer’s evened back out, and it’s surprising for Derek that statistics can calm him so eloquently, especially when focused on the topic of what he had been panicking over.
“Now, more questions?” Gideon asks now that the room wasn’t filled with Spencer’s airy inhales and exhales.
The boy nods.
“Have you ever felt the sense that someone was following you, watching you?”
“Everyday on campus I have other students, teachers that want me to lecture with them, at award ceremonies, I have proof-readers I meet with, my own professors, administration filing my scholarships, other college recruiters trying to groom me - I just - there are always so many people. Sometimes they take photos, Gideon!”
“Who takes photos?” Derek steps in, interrupting whatever Gideon would’ve replied with.
Spencer looks up at him with shining eyes and it hurts deep in his chest that this poor boy is not only being stalked, but having his life infiltrated every day, since who-knows-when.
“I don’t know, other students, sometimes people who’ve read all my thesis’, it’s confusing and I shouldn’t even be ‘famous’ but people are treating me like…I don’t know… Aristotle or someone.”
“Anything on a regular basis?” Gideon asks.
“I used to get these letters, always addressed the same, same typed font, same everything. They started off as anonymous compliments about my work, my papers… and they just slowly devolved into being about me. They asked about my health, told me to stop drinking coffee so much, asked me how I was, told me they cared about me.”
“How was it addressed?”
“To Boy Wonder,” Spencer admits. “Then they started saying to my Boy Wonder.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me this?” Gideon asked, sounding distressed.
“I thought it was a prank!” Spencer says loudly. “There are plenty of other students on campus who hate how much attention I get, who’re personally offended when I get grants or scholarships with other colleges.”
Gideon sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose and waving Morgan away to check with the college about the roses.
“Spencer, this is serious.”
“I know, trust me. I get that now.” Spencer presses his palms into his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I mean, two professors who discredited me, one that took up my attention for several years… Gideon, these people are dying because of me.”
“You’re not the one pulling the trigger,” Gideon points out. “We don’t know why the teacher’s assistant was targeted.
“They were with the professor at the time of death, and this is their picture.” Hotch opens a file sitting in front of Gideon and pulls out a student ID of another boy.
He’s slim, has overgrown, sandy brown hair with the typical burnt-out college student bags under his eyes. He fit’s Spencer’s description to the ‘T’ and it only serves to worry all three of them.
“So, I have a delusion assassin killing anyone who takes up my attention or detriments my status as an academic.” Spencer groans into his hands, murmuring to himself. “Probably started as an admirer, began to display erotomanic stalking habits, which has a heavy psychopathology of evolution.”
He hums to himself unhappily, muttering “oh God,” before looking up to both Gideon and Hotch. “There’s only two outcomes…”
“Killing himself or the object of his affection,” Gideon says.
“I think to stay on the safe side, you should be with someone at all times,” Hotch suggests. “We’ve done this with plenty of stalking victims before, we’ll work in shifts.”
Spencer nods unenthusiastically, and while he doesn’t argue like some prior victims had, he doesn’t look overjoyed either.
“Gideon?”
“First shift,” he says immediately. Hotch nods and makes him promise to keep him updated.
Hotch barely makes it half an hour before he’s getting the call.
“Boy Wonder,
I’m being so good to you.
Why would you go to the police?”
Gideon reads aloud to Hotch and Morgan who’re still working from the precinct. He talks with them privately as Spencer packs his bags and goes through his nightly routine.
They discuss the wording, the way their unsub has written ‘I’m being’ instead of ‘I’ve been,’ indicating there isn’t a formerly established relationship, likely only an acquaintanceship.
“Maybe it’s time to get him off the streets. Away from his dorm where our unsub clearly has easy access to,” Derek suggests.
“It’d have to be an undisclosed location,” Hotch points out.
Gideon agrees, and a safehouse is booked within the same hour.
----
It seems a good idea when rotation was switched to Hotch, but again, within almost two hours there’s another issue.
“He was what?!”
“Shot, just through the shoulder, flesh wound. He got out of the way fast enough. He’s going to be fine, just aggravated for the next couple of days,” Hotch explains. “We should’ve taken into account that Gideon is too close to you, and he was the one that brought you to the police.”
“This is my fault, this is all my fault -” Spencer moans. His hair is a mess being constantly shoved aside and tugged at throughout the ordeal. Now that he’s still confined to the safehouse and Hotch is needed at the hospital with Gideon, he would probably be subject to a lot more cruelty.
“When the stalker feels as if they’ve been betrayed in some way by their love object, it often leads to violence against their target.” Hotch says clearly. “This in no way is your fault, got it? But we still can’t let you leave the safehouse, Morgan will be here with you the entire time and you know how Gideon would feel if I let you into a space where you could be in danger.”
“There’s no way you’re going out there while we’re no closer to catching our unsub who happens to be far more likely to hurt you now than ever, is what Hotch is trying to say,” Derek interjects.
“Yes,” Hotch says, sounding disgruntled that the rug was pulled from beneath his feet. “I’m heading off to talk with Gideon, call me if anything comes up,” he orders pointedly at Derek.
The house they’re staying in is large, much like if the entire ground floor of a hotel was one home. There’s a pool out back surrounded by gating on one side and hedges on the other. The living room is cosy with a fireplace going and artwork hanging about.
“You should really get a guard dog,” Derek says once Hotch has departed. “Good protection,” he explains.
“Dogs scare me and I doubt campus dorm security would allow it,” Spencer shoots back before softening. “Although that’s not to say it wasn’t a good idea - it’s just… impractical.”
“I have one at home,” Derek says casually, unphased. “Earl grey or chamomile,” he shouts from the next room.
“What?”
“Tea, do you want a cup?” Derek asks, his head tilted to the side in question.
“Uh, I’ll make myself a coffee,” Spencer answers instead.
Derek laughs, shaking his head fondly already.
“Didn’t our unsub tell you to stop drinking that stuff?” He asks.
“Maybe,” Spencer huffs, stalking into the kitchen and making the beginnings of a coffee for himself. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to listen to him though.”
They make their drinks and sit quietly at the lounge set by the fire, Spencer tucked halfway under a throw blanket. He’s watching reruns of Doctor Who quite happily when Hotch calls.
Derek steps out of the room to answer.
“Morgan, it’s Hotch. Listen to me, you’re going to have to watch your backs over there,” he says seriously.
“Why more than usual?”
“Gideon got a name, Joseph Martinez’s, before he was shot, we went to the address and found a bunch of close-up photos of you at his studio. He’s looking like our unsub, he had hundreds of photos of Reid as well as his college timetable.”
“Shit, alright. You on your way?” He asks, wandering back to the living room, which is now empty.
“Yeah, I need you extra vigilante until I am though.”
“Yeah, sure thing,” he mutters, hanging up soon after. “Reid! Reid, where the hell - kid?”
The french doors are open and for a moment Derek swears he’s going to find something horrible, but the kid is sat beside the pool.
His shoes and socks are off, both feet dipped in the water and a textbook sat in his lap.
“Spencer,” he sighs. “Don’t pull that stuff with me, God.”
The kid in question raises his head innocently, looking oblivious to the immediate panic he’d caused.
“Sorry, it’s nice out here,” he shrugs.
“Yeah, it’s probably just as nice a spot for a sniper. Get back inside by the fire,” he says, half playful and half deadly serious.
Spencer groans again and stands, putting his textbook on the floor as he reaches for his shoes. He’s stood on the top step of the pool, and Derek feels safe enough to head indoors to coax him into following along behind.
“You’re being followed by a psychotic and delusional killer who shoots people in the head! If you don’t get your scrawny ass back inside in a minute I’m gonna -”
There’s a bang followed by the sound of skin hitting water and Derek’s heart lurches into his throat.
“Shit,” he hisses, already dragging his gun from his belt and not bothering with anything else as he throws himself into the pool after the kid.
He just knows that bang was a gunshot, what else could it be?
He opens his eyes enough to grip the boy by his white dress shirt and yanks it hard enough to pull him above the surface with a choked gasp.
“Ah! Ah, jeez, ow.”
“Where’re you hit?” He asks, breathless. He’s got one hand on the small of Spencer’s back, the other around his chest, pinning them front to back while he pulls them to the edge of the pool.
“Hit? What?” The kid manages, using one arm to keep himself afloat.
“I heard a shot,” Derek forces out, keeping them low by the edge, looking around them for an assailant.
“Oh, yeah - no. That was uh -” Spencer coughs again, letting Derek keep him back from the deep end of the pool where he could touch the ground. “That was me, slipping and hitting the fibreglass steps with my knee.”
Derek turns back from the surrounding landscape to give the boy another once-over, blinking the chlorine rapidly out of his eyes as he did so.
“You’re fine?” He asks.
“Bruised my knee pretty nicely, as well as my pride, but i’ll be fine.”
“Then why the hell are we - get inside,” he grumbles, putting two hands on either side of the kid’s waist to hoist him up and out of the pool.
It wasn’t as cold as he expected, so the water must be heated.
Spencer puts his feet against the wall of the pool and pushes himself back into the centre where he floats playfully, halfway horizontal.
“Live a little! I’ve never had a pool at my disposal,” Spencer laughs.
“Live a little? I’ve known you for forty-eight hours and I feel like I’ve aged five years.” The dress shirt Spencer is wearing is entirely soaked through and now incredibly revealing. The thought makes his brain drift for a moment before he snaps back to reality and realises if Spencer’s stalker was anywhere near here, he’d be getting off on this view too.
“‘Living a little’ is the exact opposite of what you’ll be doing if you keep messing ‘round out here in plain view,” he argues.
The boy pouts - actually pouts - and swims over Derek’s way.
“I can’t be that bad,” he complains. His voice has taken on the breathy quality of someone keeping themself afloat, and the sound of it is worryingly tantalising for Derek.
“Yeah, well... believe it, kid,” he sighs. “You’re lucky my gun’s not wet.”
Spencer covers his mouth with one dripping hand and laughs - giggles, really - at the inadvertent innuendo.
He sways closer and laughs as he does, the splitting grin a wonderment for his delicate features. “Shut it,” he says with a smile.
“Well,” the kid hums, something glinting in his often removed, nervous eyes that contrasts to his personality prior to this. It’s like a flip has been switched. “Only if you can manage to make me.”
And then he’s cupping either side of Derek’s neck and pressing their lips together.
----
It’s soft and wet and everything Derek could’ve managed to conjure in the backrooms of his imagination.
He might’ve slept with a few guys in college while half-drunk and very much in denial, but this? This - slow built, romantic, intimate exchange - it wasn’t what he was used to in the slightest.
It was quiet and chaste, in a Victorian way. It was primal and wild in a way that animals that get one shot at their future want each other.
And stupidly enough, considering the mere forty-eight hours that have passed, Derek thinks he might just be falling in love. With those long, pale fingers running along his jaw, grazing across his cheek. With the way his innermost religious, dark thoughts blur together and turn to skitter away at the light he brings.
So, he sins.
And sins,
And sins.
The love comes slowly.
His fingers tangle in long, hazel hair and bright olive chestnut eyes blink owlishly up at him from where he’s titled the boy’s head backwards and left it far more bitten-red than when they’d first met and the teeth were his own, gnawing with nerves.
He pulls back, arms raised like there’s a gun to his head telling him to step away from the kid.
“This is… completely inappropriate.”
But there are still spindly fingers pressed to the sides of his neck, lips smoothing across the surface of his cheek.
“And what is this?” Spencer asks tenderly.
“It’s - this isn’t -”
He kisses back properly this time, and he can’t seem to fathom feelings of self-distaste because of it.
He digs blunt fingernails through wet hair and tilts his head forward, standing on his feet while Spencer trusts him to keep them both afloat while his own toes don’t touch the floor, they link around Derek’s.
He tastes of determination and destruction all at once.
And when he pulls away gasping for air like he was pulled from the bottom of the pool, he grins like the night sky and speaks to him in the expressive, excitable way that’s become natural to hear.
“There’s this thing called transference, when you redirect to a substitute.”
Derek quirks his brows, sliding one arm around Spencer’s waist like they’ve been doing this for years.
“In this case one would assume fear to safety -”
“You’re scared?” Derek asks softly.
“No, but you are safe. I like you, with or without the conditional transference.”
“I’m a federal agent,” he says gruffly, grip loosening slightly on the younger man’s hips.
“You still have a heart and a mind that can like someone back,” Spencer murmurs.
“I’m supposed to protect you, and I’m just a bit worried about th -”
“Keep me close then?” Spencer whispers. Derek opens his mouth to respond, and it’s taken as an invitation - which he isn’t exactly unhappy about. “Just you and me.”
Spencer’s breath ghosting against the side of his mouth really feels like an invitation.
And if he’s being invited, he’s going to show up.
----
By the time they hear the sound of a car distantly churning up the side of the hill, their fingers are pruny and wrinkled.
“That’ll be Hotch,” Derek hums against his lips.
“You should go shower, so he doesn’t see both of us sopping wet like this,” he grins, bright lips contrasting against his pale skin.
“Okay.”
“‘Kay,” Spencer agrees, swimming to the edge and letting Derek pull him up to a final kiss. “I’ll go change,” he says, waving Derek towards the bathroom.
The heat from the shower is far warmer than the water of the pool, which Derek is grateful for considering the introspective internal monologue he needs right now.
He was an Agent, on duty nonetheless, but was it really so bad? He could do what he wanted as long as he could keep Spencer safe, which he had. He’d blown through at least half an hour of safety and privacy while perfectly entertaining them both.
He can hear the front door slam closed and he sighs, turning the dial downward and stepping out of the shower, watching the collection of steam follow him out where Spencer’s left a towel and change of clothes for him.
It’s a spare, oversized dress shirt which, thankfully, won’t stand out as odd to Hotch considering it’d be a perfect fit for his bulkier frame. His gun is laid beneath the pants and the shirt, which he is incredibly thankful for considering explaining to Hotch why he walked out of the bathroom with no gun, wearing somebody else’s clothing would be difficult to talk his way out of.
He swipes the towel over his head and walks out into the kitchen where Spencer sits at the counter, feet swinging above the floor on his stool beside… another student?
At first he assumes Hotch has brought a witness or a potential victim with connections to Spencer that their unsub might go after. That is, until he sees the gun.
It’s laid on the counter, facing Spencer’s chest dead-on his heart. The other boy’s hand lays gently across the trigger, ready for any sudden movements. Derek lets his hand shift towards his own weapon, slowly.
Spencer’s in an old Caltech sweatshirt and loose cotton pants that dangle around his lower ankles. But his eyes are red-rimmed and fingers shaky where they grip the edge of his shirt.
“That’s far enough, put down the gun,” the boy orders.
“Nathan, please don’t do this. We don’t have t -”
“STOP!” The boy snapped.
He was a few inches shorter than Spencer, with curlier hair and similar bags beneath his eyes.
“Why did you have to bring them here,” he asked, sounding betrayed.
“Nathan,” Derek tries, taking a note from Spencer’s book with the kid’s name.
It backfires, because Nathan picks up the gun and holds it properly, standing closer to Spencer and throwing an arm around the front of his chest with enough force to pull the kid to his knees onto the harsh linoleum.
“Don’t call me by my name. You don’t know me,” he demands. “You don’t know us.”
The way he says it is possessive in a way that terrifies Derek, and clearly Spencer too, based on the way he squeezes his eyes shut before blinking them open. Tears string his lashes together and the sight of it makes something tighten in Derek’s chest.
“Come on, Spence. Let’s go,” Nathan guides. Spencer shakes his head, still looking directly across the counter into Derek’s eyes. “W - we really gotta go, baby. Come on.”
“Don’t hurt him, you don’t need to hurt him,” Derek promises, taking a step forward and hoping to placate both of the boys, one in tears and the other holding a gun unsteadily.
“You don’t know anything,” Nathan hisses. “You don’t understand,” he says, quieter now. He lifts his spare hand to touch the side of Spencer’s face, to brush a free curl back behind his ear. “I would never… never do anything to hurt you, boy wonder.”
Spencer tenses up, sucking in a shaky breath through his nose.
“I know that now,” Derek cautions, moving to the edge of the bench, slow enough to prevent Nathan from startling.
“I protected you,” Nathan mumbles, running the edge of the gun along Spencer’s hairline, his fingers digging into the boy’s shoulder.
“No - no, you didn’t,” Spencer argues. “No, you just - you scared me, Nathan.”
Something in the other boy changes, his brows lower and disgust crosses his face.
“God, you stupid, ungrateful - God - fuck.”
Spencer is shaking now, it’s almost imperceivable, but he shakes all the same. He knows he’s crossed an unseen line in his stalker’s mind. He knows he’s set him off.
“Nathan,” Derek cuts in. “Spencer loves you, he wants to thank you. He’s just scared right now.” Derek levels both his hand and his voice, easing Nathan into a sense of suggestibility. “You need to put the gun down, because you’re scaring him, okay?”
Derek nods in Spencer’s direction, giving him the silent right of way to speak.
“N - Nathan, please,” he manages. “You’re scaring me.”
The gun lowers, and part of Derek feels like weight has lifted from his chest as it does.
He watches Nathan helping Spencer back onto his feet, gently manhandling him into an embrace which he reluctantly receives, tears shining in his eyes.
By the time Derek has slipped the firearm from Nathan’s loose grip, Hotch has arrived with reinforcements, all of which point towards the delusional teen until Spencer has managed to release himself and back away into Derek’s side.
Nathan is led to the patrol cars out front, begging to be shot as he is marched away from the object of all his affections.
----
“I wish, um - I wish things had been… more normal, when we met,” Spencer admits.
“Kid, believe me when I say, in my line of work, normal isn’t even every other day.”
“Well… after my last degree, if I’m ever in Virginia and I were to give you a call, um, would - would that be okay?”
“Always,” Derek promises.
——
Two weeks later, Spencer sends a package addressed to him. Inside is a thick magazine, branded with the Caltech logo with pictures of the campus as the cover.
When he opens it, there’s a summary and one of the stories listed under ‘campus news’ is titled “famed academic Doctor Spencer Reid gives a presentation on erotomanic stalkers.”
When he flips to the story the opening title is highlighted with a photo, one he hates seeing in a magazine but loves to have either way.
It’s him and Spencer in the pool, seconds away from what must’ve been their third kiss. Spencer’s lips are dark red against the baby blue of the pool lighting.
But beneath the photo is listed, “photo taken by claimed stalker and fellow student, Nathan Harris.”
His stomach drops but even further beneath the title and the photo is a message in permanent marker.
“We look cute together xxx.”