Title: Synesis
By: carolinecrane
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: NC17
Series: 1) Foundations, 2) House Rules
Summary: The morning after the night before.
A/N: It has not been a terrific day. I take refuge in romantic smut. Part three of the Laying Foundations series.

***

There's a strange snuffling sound coming from somewhere near his ear. Spencer thinks about opening his eyes to investigate the source, but it's warm under the covers and the bed is a lot softer than his own and moving just seems like too much effort.

Then the snuffling stops and Spencer burrows a little further into his pillow, deciding that the source of the noise wasn't really important after all. Until something cold and wet presses against his face.

The sound he makes doesn't exist in any language he's aware of, but if he was pressed to spell it the closest he could get is 'urgh'. A low, rich laugh sounds from the other side of the bed as he tugs the covers over his head, and a second later he feels the mattress dip. "All right, all right," Derek says, and Spencer listens to canine toenails clicking against the hardwood, followed by the muffled sound of Derek's footsteps.

A door opens somewhere in the distance, then closes again, leaving the house in silence. Spencer sighs into the warmth of his cocoon of blankets and expensive-feeling sheets and lets his thoughts drift, floating on the sensation of complete and utter comfort until he falls asleep again. He doesn't hear the door open, doesn't hear dog bowls being filled or Derek's soft affection as he talks his way through the morning ritual of feeding Clooney. He doesn't hear footsteps headed back to the bedroom, or the rustle of clothes being dropped back on the floor where they came from before Derek climbs back into bed.

The next thing Spencer is aware of is a strong hand sliding across his back, just this side of chilly. Spencer shivers a little and shifts into the touch, eyes finally blinking open when Derek pulls the covers off his head. "Morning, Pretty Boy," Derek murmurs, and Spencer wakes enough to register a familiar smile.

The night before floods back to him all at once, pale skin flushing pink with the memory of Derek's hands and Derek's mouth and oh God, the things he said. He's not surprised that Morgan's a talker; he sort of expected that, really, or he would have if he'd ever thought about it before. But the way he said those things makes Spencer think that Derek's been imagining this for a long time -- longer than Reid has, anyway -- and the thought of being wanted like that by someone like Derek just never occurred to him.

And he knows Morgan would laugh if Spencer said that out loud. He'd laugh and then he'd remind Spencer that he's the one who started all this, that he's the one who kissed Derek and then refused to take it back while he still had the chance. He still doesn't want to take it back, but he's starting to understand what Derek meant about how complicated this is going to be. Because they still have to work together, and every time Spencer hears Derek's voice he's going to remember it whispering in his ear in the dark. He's going to remember and he's going to blush, and then everyone on the team is going to know.

"Hey," Derek says, and when Spencer shifts onto his back to look up at him he realizes that Derek's not smiling anymore. It's a shame, he thinks distantly, because Derek has a great smile. He has great hands, too, and when one of them lands on Spencer's chest to splay across his skin Spencer feels fresh warmth spread out from the center of the contact. "Everything okay in there?"

It's a strange question, but Spencer understands what he's asking. He's expecting Spencer to have second thoughts, expecting him to curl in on himself the way he does sometimes when a case gets to be too much. And Spencer can't really blame him, because he's not exactly an expert at relationships, and this is all new territory for him. He's never slept with a coworker before, anyway, and he's spent so much time trying not to complicate his life that throwing himself at Derek must seem fairly uncharacteristic.

"Fine," Spencer answers, blushing all over again when he hears his voice crack a little. His fingers twitch at his side with the urge to reach up and cover Derek's hand with his own, but he's not sure if that's what he's supposed to do. Then again, he suspects there's no actual rule book for this sort of thing. "Though I could have lived without the dog slobber."

Derek's lying on his side, propped up on an elbow and looking down at him. When Spencer answers his smile returns, accompanied by a rueful laugh that Spencer feels against his cheek. Derek's free hand comes up to rest against the top of his head, fingers pushing through his hair and smoothing it back from his forehead. It makes him feel young, just like when Derek calls him 'kid'.

"Sorry about that," Derek says, still just watching him and Spencer should be used to it, but this is different than the way Derek watches him when they're working together. "Clooney's pretty pushy about his breakfast."

"Dogs are creatures of habit," Spencer says. "They're a lot like humans in that respect. Once they have a schedule it gives them comfort to stick to it."

"Hmmm," is all Derek says, and Spencer can tell he's not really listening. He's watching the progress of his fingers through Spencer's hair now, and Spencer's not exactly sure why that's so interesting, but he doesn't ask. Because he has a feeling Derek would tell him, and he's still blushing just from the memory of last night. Instead he gives in to the urge to cover Morgan's other hand with his own, watching as Derek's hand shifts until their fingers are threaded together. His fingers still against Spencer's forehead, and when Spencer feels the air above him shift he turns his face up to meet Derek.

The kiss is slow, languid in a way that makes Spencer think of warm honey. It's a bizarre comparison that doesn't make any sense, but Spencer can't devote the necessary effort to tracking down the source of the image in his subconscious, because he's too busy kissing Derek back. Kissing Derek doesn't require much thought, but cataloging the experience does. He has to focus to memorize the way Derek's hands feel on him, the way their mouths fit together and the sound of Derek's voice whispering his name. It takes concentration to remember the way Derek sighs when Spencer runs a hand down his back, across his hip to trace his thumb across Derek's hip bone. And he wants to remember all of that, wants to be able to close his eyes and recall it as clearly as he can recall Tristan and Isolde or The Grapes of Wrath.

Derek's hand lands on his hip, gripping just hard enough to drag him closer, and suddenly there's a new sensation to commit to memory. The flutter in the center of Spencer's chest when Derek looks at him is new, and Spencer stores it carefully in his memory as Derek slides a leg over his hips to pin him down. And that's not new; he spent a lot of time pinned under Derek just last night, but he thinks it's one of his favorite new sensations so far. Spencer thrusts up just to see what will happen, and when Derek laughs Spencer smiles and leans up to kiss him again.

He wasn't really expecting to find himself here when he kissed Derek the first time. It wasn't that he didn't think it through; he'd weighed the odds of what would happen if it turned out he'd misinterpreted Derek's signals, but he knew Derek wouldn't hit him or anything, and that was really all that mattered. The part where Derek knew how he felt but didn't feel the same way...well, he'd hoped that wouldn't happen, but he'd thought at the time that he could live with it. But he hadn't thought past Derek's reaction to that first kiss, hadn't considered that they might go back to tiling the kitchen floor with this new thing between them, a charge in the air just waiting for the next spark to ignite it.

He hadn't considered at the time that they could have just had sex right there on the new tile, but now that he has considered it, he isn't sure why he didn't think of it at the time. It wouldn't have been comfortable, though, and he knows Derek well enough to guess that he's got rules about that sort of thing. He's the kind of guy who likes to do things right, which Spencer imagines is why they stopped for dinner before they came back to Derek's place. Spencer's apartment is closer to the house they're working on right now, but Derek's got Clooney to think of and anyway, now that Spencer's been in his house he's glad they came back here instead of trying to make things work at the construction site.

There's Derek's bed, for one thing, Spencer reminds himself as he arches against the mattress. He likes Derek's bed -- he's not sure how he's going to sleep in his own bed again after this -- and he likes Derek's expensive sheets and more than anything, he likes what Derek's doing with his hands. They're resting on his hips, holding him against the mattress as Derek takes his time mouthing his way across Spencer's skin. His thumbs are moving in tantalizing little circles right at the base of Spencer's stomach, sending shivers up Spencer's spine as Derek's mouth maps a wet trail down his rib cage.

Derek's mouth is working its way across his chest, stopping to tease a nipple and Spencer had no idea they were that sensitive, but it's just another new experience to commit to memory. He gasps and pushes up against Derek's hands, legs splayed and panting and he knew this would feel good, but he had no idea how good. Not that Morgan's the first person he's ever been with, but it's close, and he's definitely the most thorough. No one else has ever taken their time with Spencer this way, pressing kisses to strange places like his bicep and his stomach and the back of his knee. No one's ever mapped him before, and Spencer blushes just to think of it, but he likes it too. He likes being the center of Derek's focus, as though Spencer's another mystery for Morgan to unravel, and he doesn't plan to stop until he discovers everything there is to know.

Warm air hits his cock, making it twitch and Spencer moans and bucks up again. Morgan laughs at that and slides his hands a little lower, one hand leaving Spencer's hipbone to close around his cock. His hand moves in slow, measured strokes, as though he's doing a little cataloging of his own. And somehow that makes Spencer feel a little better, like maybe he's not so strange for trying to memorize every second of this. Then Morgan dips his head and closes his mouth around Spencer's cock, tongue sliding across the head and Spencer makes a choked sound in the back of his throat that can only be described as a whimper. Derek laughs again, mouth still working Spencer's cock and the vibration makes his whole body shudder. And that's a sensation he really, really wants to remember.

His last coherent thought is that he needs to figure out more ways to make Derek laugh like that, then Derek's mouth starts moving faster and he stops thinking at all. Familiar pressure builds in the pit of his stomach, and Spencer struggles to grasp a thought, anything to help him hold on just a little longer. He tries reciting sonnets, the periodic table, one of the drier chapters from Rossi's latest book, but there's nothing even in his superior mind to rival Morgan's talented tongue, and long before he's ready he's arching up one last time and coming.

And it doesn't seem fair that he's searched all his life for a way to stop himself from thinking so hard, and Morgan had the answer all along. If he'd known...well, if he'd known he would have kissed Morgan a long time ago. He has a feeling Derek wouldn't even have minded, because the way he's looking at Spencer right now is the way he's always looked at Spencer. There's concern and affection and maybe a little amusement, but under all that is something else, something Spencer should have noticed before. So maybe he's not such a genius after all, because his skills at reading Derek Morgan have been letting him down.

Spencer summons the last of his strength and reaches up to pull Morgan close, pressing their lips together as he slides his free hand between them to wrap his fingers around Derek's erection. Derek hisses against his mouth and thrusts forward, arms braced on either side of Spencer as he moves with Spencer's strokes. He breaks the kiss to bury his face against Spencer's neck, panting against his skin and Spencer can tell he's not going to last long. And he likes that too, likes that he has that effect on Morgan. Another detail he never would have predicted, even after he gathered enough evidence to safely assume that Derek had feelings for him. If he'd thought about it at the time he would have seen that it was a logical conclusion, but this one time he's sort of glad to have missed the clue.

"Spencer," Morgan says, breath warming Spencer's ear and he can't tell if it's a warning or something more reverent. He adjusts his grip anyway, speeding up a little and pushing a knee between Derek's thighs to rock up in time to his thrusts. Derek moans and presses back against him, back arched and muscles taut under Spencer's fingers, and there's another new sensation for him to file away in his memory. Wet heat coats his fingers as Derek tenses in his grip, head still buried in the crook of Spencer's neck and his breath hot against Spencer's skin. Spencer strokes a few more times, waiting for Derek to relax before he pulls his hand away. He lifts fingers without thinking and presses them to his mouth, not even hesitating before his tongue darts out to taste Derek on his skin.

And it seems like a natural thing to do, but when he looks up again Derek's watching him, eyes impossibly darker and his chest still heaving with the effort to catch his breath. He's watching Spencer lick his own fingers, expression intense and Spencer feels the blood rush back to the surface of his skin.

"The things you do to me," Derek murmurs, then he leans in and fuses their mouths together in a hard kiss.

He said that last night too, and Spencer's still not entirely sure what it means. The past twenty-four hours aside, he still doesn't have that much experience with this sort of thing. But he's collected enough evidence to be confident that whatever he does to Derek, he wants to keep doing it for a very long time.

***

Next story in series - The Golden Rule.