Title: Leap of Faith
Author: wildwordwomyn
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Morgan/Reid
Word Count: 1,017
Rating: light R for adult angst and mild language
Disclaimers/Warnings: Spoilers for everything up to and including "JJ". Talk of Morgan as an incest survivor and Reid as a bullying survivor and a child of a mental illness sufferer.
Author’s Notes: Don't know where this came from? I apologize in advance:-/
Summary: Morgan and Reid come to an understanding.

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The day after JJ leaves is a bad one. For everyone. There's just as many cases calling our attention but she's gone. And it sucks. All day my belly has this burn in it and my head isn't in the work at all. Which is why what happens next doesn't come as a complete shock. Not that I mean for it to happen. I really don't. But it does anyway. One moment I'm all here, present, aware of the chilled water running out of the faucets in the Men's Room over my hands. Then next thing I know his voice is whispering to me...

'Boy? Don't you hear me calling you?' Advancing, his large brown hands spread and heading toward me. The closer he gets the smaller I feel. I'm only 15. Almost as big as he is, and yet I can't fight back. No one ever told me there'd be times when it would feel good...'Derek? Come back to bed now. You're tired. You need your rest.'

I'm naked though, making it pretty obvious rest is the last thing on his mind. I cough.

'See? Told ya. Listen to me when I tell you something, boy. Getting a cold from running around practicing all the time in the rain like you do.' His smile seems gentle. Until I lick my lips nervously and his dark eyes glitter as they track the movement...

"Morgan?" Reid calls worriedly, staring at my reflection in the mirror with furrowed eyebrows. How long has he been standing there watching me? "Are you alright?"

"...I..." I blink slowly, forcing the episode of dissociation to fade away. I clear my throat. "I'm fine."

For a second he opens his mouth. I can see a useless fact waiting in the wings. I don't want to hear it, don't want to hear about PTSD or adult survivors of abuse or whatever else he has in mind. He must sense that because his face suddenly becomes vulnerable.

"When kids would pick on me in school I would retreat inside my head. I'd recite whole passages from Shakespeare's sonnets or go through my favorite books. I'd see them in my mind, open the front cover and read. It didn't hurt as much when I did that. And the times when I couldn't retreat..."

I swallow hard. He doesn't get it. What he went through was close but still not the same. I will never be able to look at men the way I did before Carl. After my dad was killed they fascinated me. The way they moved, the sound of their voices, their bodies. Carl had reminded me of Dad. In the beginning when it was innocent and I'd felt loved and understood. Even after, when I knew it was wrong, when that first touch started breaking me apart, I kept going back. Now I know why, I know the scientific terms for it, but it doesn't erase the fact that it didn't always hurt or that I didn't always say no.

"Sometimes it felt like a relief." I barely keep a gasp from escaping. "The pain. After weeks of my mother not being able to stand looking at me, touching me, I would welcome it. At least someone knew I was alive. Someone wanted me."

His mouth quirks in that embarrassed half-smile of his. That smile that causes my insides to heat up unexpectedly. Why would he reveal such a secret? To test me? Or to make me reveal one of my own?

"Intellectually it didn't make any sense but half the time I would still walk right into a bully's trap knowingly. How's that for genius?" His eyes are so large, so haunted, my immediate response is to protect him. To go after those people that made him bleed over the years and exact revenge for doing the awful things they did to him. "I think," he continues, "that if I had the chance I'd tear Carl Buford apart limb from limb with my bare hands."

My eyes fill with tears. I don't let them fall but I also can't hide them from him. Somehow I believe him. His words fill me up with something so sweet it makes my chest ache.

"You're not the only one, Morgan. We all have our demons." I nod shakily, thinking, 'Yeah, we do...'

I don't realize how stiff I am, how tight my back is while I lean against the counter, until he lays light fingertips in the dip of the small of my back. Fight or flight. But his fingers are warm and they take their time making full contact, as if giving me a chance to back away. I watch him watch me, wondering why it has to be him. Why does it have to be this man who puts me back together when I've dated so many women who could've easily done it twice over?

"I trust you." He sounds so firm, so convinced. "Can you trust me?"

This time the tears fall before I can catch them. "I don't know, Kid." His hand falls away as I stand. My back cracks from all the tension and it's so loud it sounds like a gunshot. For some reason neither one of us flinches. I turn to look into his eyes. I shouldn't, I really shouldn't but my body has a mind of its own. It decides to reach out for him, to take that first step toward him, entirely without my permission. "But I'm willing to give it a try," I say, surprising us both.

When his hand finds mine a shiver runs through me. I'm so damned scared I want to run, but Reid grins like he's proud. Of himself? Of me? Proud, and happy, and at that moment grinning back is all I'm capable of. My knees get weak a few seconds later when we kiss for the first time and I have to lean back against the counter for some much-needed support. He's gracious enough not to mention it. Honestly, though, when it comes to Reid I don’t expect anything less.

The End

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