"The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open." - Chuck Palahniuk

Reid knew Garcia was going to corner him as soon as she got the chance. In an unusual turn, their Monday was not as busy as it usual was, and she got her chance after lunch. Kevin was in her office, they'd obviously had lunch together, but she gave him a pointed look he clearly understood, and he left quickly. Garcia pushed Reid down into the vacated chair, and offered her candy bowl to him. Reid took a sherbet lemon a little hesitantly, watching her eyeing him as she sat down.

"So." she said.

"So..." he echoed. He wasn't sure pretending he didn't know what was coming was going to make it easier, but that's what he did, sucking the sweet into his mouth and sitting back in his chair.

"How did you meet the Spanish man-dish, then?"

"On my lunch break in the LGBT section of a book store on Thursday."

"Well I suppose that gives everyone a higher chance of the cute person that catches their eye actually playing for the appropriate team." She nodded. "And?"

"I was looking at several anthologies of gay male experience, and he pointed one out and said that it had problematic elements of erasure and positioning bisexuality as a purely transitory period or a defence mechanism rather than declaring 'full' homosexuality."

"Right," she said, "so he told you a book wasn't worth buying. Then?"

"Well I had seven books, and said I looked like I was going to be busy, and because words ten to come out before I can decide if they're a good idea or not I was explaining about being able to read twenty thousand words a minute, and then he asked me if I wanted to go for coffee with him."

"Just like that?" she looked surprised.

"Yeah."

"And you said yes?"

"Actually no, because I didn't have time, so he suggested going for a drink that evening, and then I said yes. He seemed interested in what I had to say." Reid felt himself blushing.

"And why wouldn't he be, angel?" she said kindly. "I bet he thought you were way cute, too."

He could feel the blush increasing; he wasn't entirely comfortable in his body, and the idea that someone was aesthetically attracted to him seemed alien. Even when Morgan called him 'pretty' he wasn't entirely convinced it was sincere, more likely simply drawing on the fact he wasn't overtly masculine.

"So, did you go back to his place for coffee?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes."

"What it good coffee?"

"If you're asking if we had sex-"

"I am." She shrugged.

"Then that depends what sexual interaction you deem to be 'sex'."

"Ooh!" she squee'd, "boy wonder got some! Good for you, mister brain. Are you seeing him again?"

"Actually I said I'd give him a call, since my schedule changes so much and he said he has a flexible availability."

"What are you waiting for?" Garcia grinned. "Call him! You're gonna get off at a reasonable time today."

"Isn't it too soon?" he asked, before he could consider how pathetic it made him feel to be seeking dating advice as a grown man.

"No way." she waved her hand dismissively. "Besides, sounds like you already put out on the first date." She grinned, but it faltered at his uncomfortable shifting in his seat. "That's not a bad thing, sugarplum." She added quickly. "I just meant it's not too soon just because it's been a few days. If you want a second date tonight, call him. You want to see him again, right?"

"Yeah."

"Call him. Go on, call him now. Meet up after work." She encouraged, smiling widely at him. He still felt embarrassed as he fished his phone of out his pocket, focusing on it even though he could feel Garcia's eager gaze on him.

"I don't even know his surname..." he murmured as he found the man's number and hit dial.

"Hola, Spencer." Alejandro's voice on the line made feeling curl in Reid's chest.

"Hi. Uhh, hi, Alejandro." He faltered, meeting Garcia's eyes. She smiled and nodded her encouragement. "I was, er, wondering if you're free this evening? My day's actually been more structured than I imagined it would be, I should finish work at a normal time-" Garcia was giving him a look, clearly telling him to stop babbling.

"Would you like to go to dinner?" Alejandro asked, his voice tinkling with amusement apparently at Reid's awkwardness.

"Dinner?" he repeated. Garcia grinned and clapped quietly.

"Si."

"Yeah. I'd like that."

"Where would you like to go?"

"Oh, I-" he could list hundreds of places locally to dine out, but listing his preference might not account for what the other man liked. "Maybe.. Thai?" he said, not wanting to keep hesitating because he was becoming increasingly embarrassed by his lack of finesse.

"Have you been to the Blue Elephant?" Alejandro asked. "It's new, I think."

"Actually it used to be called the Diamond Jasmine but the business moved on to new premises, and the new business that moved into the building just happened to be another Thai-cuisine restaurant."

"Would you like to go?" the other man asked, seemingly unfazed by Reid's ramble of information.

"Yes."

"Say, eight o'clock?"

"Okay."

"Bien. I look forward to seeing you, Spencer."

Garcia was grinning at him in a way that unsettled him, and he kept the phone at his ear even after they'd said their goodbyes. Once he took it away, Garcia flapped excitedly.

"My little genius has a date!" she said happily. "Wine him, dine him, then bonk his brains out."

"Bonk?" Reid spluttered, almost dropping his phone.

"Uh-huh. Don't tell me you call it 'copulating' or 'sexual intercourse', even when you're doing it."

"Actually I just call it sex." He said, while clearly remembering the first time he'd been with Morgan some months ago, when he'd told the man he wanted him to fuck him.

"So what did you do with him last time?" she teased. "Or am I going to have to use my imagination?"

"I'd rather you didn't-" he smiled awkwardly, taking another sherbet lemon when she offered it to him.

"C'mon kitten, you know you don't have to tell me." she patted his knee. "But if you do want to talk, about anything, you know I'm here."

"Yeah." He smiled sincerely at her. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to talk about his sex life with her, but knowing she was there as he started experiencing the realm of romantic relationships was reassuring. Garcia and JJ were the only team members in long-term relationships, and he wasn't sure he could talk 'dating' with JJ in the same way he could with Garcia. "Thanks."

"No problem, junior G."

Spencer pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose as Alejandro poured wine into their glasses. He'd purposely worn them, along with what Garcia called his "ugliest damn button-down sweater". Ever since the night following their first date, when in his kitchen Alejandro had told Reid he was attracted to him, he'd wanted to subtly test to see if it was true. It wasn't that Spencer was particularly self-conscious about his appearance, but he wasn't confident in the same way Morgan was. But he'd realised when he woke up Ale's bed that he'd had no issue getting naked with him, as he hadn't with Morgan. He had been pondering why nudity seemed to come easier to him with men than women, but theorised it might not be indicative of a higher attraction to males necessarily, but because his encounters with men had been in more comfortable settings. His sexual encounters with women had all been fleeting and awkward.

He was brought out of his thoughts as Alejandro set the bottle down.

"I'm glad you agreed to a second date with me." he said sincerely. "I was worried maybe things had gone too fast last time, you left so early."

"I'm sorry about that." Reid said, taking his glass of wine and sipping thoughtfully. "I'm a thinker."

"I can tell."

"And so I was thinking about what happened."

"And?" Ale asked, gesturing with his own glass.

"Well," he decided to be honest; knowing the man was leaving eventually made it seem easier to talk to him, "I thought maybe things had gone too fast too. I've never dated before, I'm not sure if there's a specific amount of romantic social interaction that are meant to take place before cooperative sexual behaviour."

Alejandro merely nodded, listening with interest to him talking. The most refreshing thing about the man's attentiveness was that he looked like he understood what Reid was saying, that he wasn't merely keeping up, but actually processing the information Reid shared.

"Then I considered that I'm actually not interested in fulfilling conventions about dating. What we did was safe, consensual and enjoyable, and those are the things I consider my priorities, rather than fulfilling social norms."

"That's refreshing, Spencer." Alejandro said. "If more people had those motivations..." he laughed off the comment, it was obvious where it was going. "If a restaurant is too conventional, we can go somewhere else."

"No, no," Reid assured, "this is nice."

They looked at the menus – or more accurately, Reid scanned his menu in under twenty seconds, while Alejandro took considerably longer.

"You told me when we met about your very fast reading. How many books do you read a week?" Ale asked, leaning his elbows on the table and folding his hands, resting his chin on them.

"Well that depends on their length and the amount of time I have, my job isn't conducive to repetitive hours," he glanced at the other man, and found no indication that he wanted Reid to get to the point and couldn't help smiling a little, "but fifteen is a low number for a week."

"You can't buy that many books a week, surely?" Alejandro said, obviously referencing their first meeting in a book shop.

"No. I usually buy books recommended to me or ones I'd like access too, otherwise I use the library. I also have a subscription to a book rental service online, and there are also some books, and especially academic papers only available as e-books, so I brought myself an e-book reader a few months ago, combined they all mean I can read as many books as I have time for."

"Si. I have the reader also." He said. "Do you prefer it, or books? You know, paper, pages."

"Well a combined use of them is practical, but I prefer books."

"New book smell, the first crack of the spine..."

"Yeah." Reid nodded, smiling. Suddenly he wished they were having dinner in a library.

"My grandfather owns an antique book shop in Barcelona." Ale said. "When I was ten I took the girl I liked there, thinking she would be impressed. She wasn't."

Spencer smiled, despite the pang of disappointment in his chest; his childhood contained very few similar anecdotes about budding romance. In fact the only story of note involved Alex Lisbon, a goalpost and a football team, and only Morgan knew about that.

"Do you have a favourite book?" Spencer asked.

"Well my favourite book is not my favourite work." Alejandro said, and Reid didn't miss the way his face lit up at being asked about an obvious passion, his face creasing with a smile. "My favourite book is a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I do like the story, it was my favourite as a child. It was a plain, not illustrated copy originally, and a past lover, he drew on every page, a scene or a character, or a thing from what was happening in the story on that page. I treasure it always."

"That sounds wonderful." Spencer said, because it did. The effort that must have gone into a feat like that was impressive; the original version of the story was twenty-seven thousand, two-hundred and seventeen words in length, and at an average of three-hundred words per page for standard print books (though of course that could vary), meant at least ninety-one pages. For all of those to be illustrated personally as a gift for a lover was a thought that registered beyond impressive to Reid; it was entirely romantic. "And you said it wasn't the same as your favourite work; what is that?"

"Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahnuik." Alejandro nodded and drank from his glass, studying the other man's face, as if waiting for his reaction.

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known." Reid quoted. Alejandro smiled over his glass.

"You know it."

"Yes." He said simply, drinking from his own glass before he could tell the other man he had read Palahnuik's work collectively twenty-four times. His first instinct, in their light conversation, was to ask why it was the man's favourite. But the book had dark themed, and he didn't want to risk the man feeling he had to divulge its emotional significance to him at dinner. Luckily at that moment a waiter came over to take their order.

Their conversation remained on fiction books right through the meal, which Spencer determined was why it took them so long to eat. Many diners came and went in the time they spent together, and they were well into a second bottle of red wine by the time their dessert came.

"Kanom chun is usually served at auspicious occasions, as the nine layers symbolise moving upwards in relation to work." Reid said, with a piece of said green layered desert on his fork halfway to his mouth, gesturing with it instead of talking. Alejandro was engaged; not once had he seemed to lose focus on Spencer. "This is the first time I've had it." he said, popping the cube into his mouth.

"I've had it when I was in Thailand."

"You've been to Thailand?"

"A few years ago." The man nodded.

"Do you travel a lot?" Reid asked.

"Si." He nodded. "I have not been home to Spain in, ah, four years?" he gave a little laugh and a shrug. "It was Japan, then India, South Africa, Bali, Ireland, then here to America."

"For work, or...?"

"Not so much. Actually," he gave another little laugh, "I won the lottery."

"Oh." Spencer couldn't help grinning, the odds of meeting a lottery winner running through his head immediately.

"I finally had enough money to be impulsive and transient like I always wanted." He put down his fork beside his empty plate, and gave a small wave of his hand. "I think I only succeeded in being – how do Americans say – a douchebag, who went to exotic places to 'find himself'."

"Did you? Find yourself, I mean?" Reid asked, smiling in what he hoped was a humoured way.

"I'm a work in progress." Alejandro said, sliding his arm across the table and brushing Reid's fingertips with his own. Reid slowed, putting his own fork down and stealing a glance at their hands before he decided it was nice and turned his hand over below the other man's, letting their fingers interlace loosely.

When the waiter came over to clear their plates and ask them if they wanted coffee, Alejandro smiled sultrily and Reid blushed; they both knew they weren't having coffee there.

Morgan had had sex with seventeen women since the night Reid had given him oral sex. Seventeen times he'd heard feminine moans and wanted several octaves lower. Seventeen times he'd closed his eyes and let his mind replace those women with one man. Seventeen times he'd brought his sexual partner to orgasm and wished they cried out his name. Seventeen times he had refused to think about what that meant. He could have gone out again tonight, but the last one had been too close a call. Her name had been 'Rhiannon', and he'd realised too late that as he fucked her his internal mantra had been 'Reid Reid Reid Reid'.

Instead he was wandering around his house in his sweats eating Thai noodles straight from the container, being trailed by Clooney. There was a music channel on the TV and he was wondering if he should do something stimulatory like reading; he browsed his living room bookshelf, peering at the crinkled spines of books by Vonnegut, Heller, Eggers, Palahniuk. 'Invisible Monsters' was upside down, so he pulled it out just to set it right, because he didn't much feel like reading about a woman blowing her own jaw off at present. He could draw, he had a tattoo design he was working on, but that would mean having to concentrate, and he wasn't sure he had the capacity or that right then.

Boredom was not a good state for him to be in, because if it persisted it always ended in masturbation. Which was great in itself, but Morgan was finding it increasingly difficult to justify what he thought about when he touched himself as simple fantasy. When he'd first discovered masturbation the images he'd conjured up had been simple; inspired by television, men and women he vaguely recognised, bikinis or swim trunks as raunchy as it got. Once Buford had started molesting him, things had changed; he stopped thinking about girls at all, even though he still liked girls. Instead his fantasies became more personal, they'd feature himself and a man, any faceless man who wasn't Buford, who would do the same to him as Buford did, only in his masturbatory fantasy it didn't hurt. it had evolved; the mystery other person had got younger until he was imagining being with someone like him, and by the time the abuse had been happening for three years he was imagining himself as the one taking the lead, doing what Buford did, but with the mystery person in his fantasy smiling and enjoying it. It was only after he had escaped to college that he'd actively tried to stop thinking about those things when he was alone, packing them away as a coping mechanism, and trying to think about women again. It usually worked; he had always been completely sure he was straight, despite occasionally thinking of being with men like that, because he was only attracted to women, only had sex with women, and the thought of actually being with a man beyond his fantasy made him more than a little uncomfortable.

Reid was an exception. That man always seemed to be an exception. The only kind of uncomfortable the thought of having sex with Reid caused Morgan was the tightness in the front of his pants. With nothing better to do he didn't ignore it, palming himself through the thick materials of his sweats and shifting on the sofa, getting comfortable. He closed his eyes, recalling the memory of Reid's white flesh in the lamplight as he slipped his hand into his pants, moving again enough to push them down below his balls. It was so easy to imagine Reid's hand wrapped around him rather than his own, to remember how breathless and eager he had looked the first time. He licked his palm and returned it to his cock, stroking as he remembered the warm wetness of Reid's mouth, his pink lips stretched around him, the unmistakeable enjoyment. He'd been with women who enjoyed giving head, but not in the same way Reid had, not in a way that wasn't just for Morgan's benefit, but a mutual satisfaction. He twisted his fist and stroked a little faster, remembering Reid in his lap, how much he had controlled their fucking, nothing like the reserved, awkward, passive partner Morgan had imagined he would be. He didn't want passive, but his cock jumped in approval at the thought of pinning Reid below him and fucking him, of feeling the man's legs wrapped around him as he pounded into him, of seeing that unbridled want in his eyes. Morgan came with a grunt, spilling out over his hand as he imagined emptying himself into Reid, imagined the man gripping at him desperately and crying out his name.

He opened his eyes to the sight of Clooney sat by the sofa, looking at him innocently.

"Damn!" he jumped up, stuffing himself back into his pants and bustling through to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. "Just because you've got no problem licking your balls in front of me, doesn't mean I'm okay with doing the same." He chided, and the dog gave an agreeable bark.

He braced his hands on the counter, his pulse still throbbing in his groin in the climb down from his orgasm. He wondered if it was safe or foolish to be imaging Reid so intimately, now the man had made it clear that it wouldn't happen again. Reid wanted more than Morgan could give, and now Reid was dating, anyway. He noted the stab of jealousy at the thought of Reid with Alejandro, of imaging him pushing inside Reid's body instead of him, wondered if Alejandro had discovered how sensitive Reid's protruding hip bones were. He didn't even know the man, but he didn't like him. He wondered if Alejandro stayed afterwards, like Reid had wanted Morgan to. He wondered if Alejandro gave Reid everything he would never be ready to give.

Spencer wasn't sure he'd call sex with Alejandro better than with Morgan, and certainly not worse, but it was different. It was intense in a different way, a slower burn, but gloriously fulfilling. After their dinner they'd returned to Reid's, and they'd quickly ended up in the bedroom, their clothes had come away and Alejandro had rectified what he saw as a problem when Reid had revealed he'd given oral sex, but never received it. Alejandro was attentive but largely non-verbal, and seemed to read consent by how much Reid enjoyed it. And he had enjoyed it a lot, feeling another person's mouth on him, giving him sensation he didn't think he'd ever be able to replicate alone. Alejandro had asked Reid whether he wanted to top or bottom, and he'd understood it not as a question of position, but of deciding who was to penetrate. He'd gotten a surge of feeling at the question, that the man hadn't assumed their roles, even though he requested Alejandro to penetrate him. He certainly liked to idea of trying the other way, and had said as much, but doubted his ability to do the task justice with the amount of wine he had in him. Alejandro had proceeded to fuck him gently, thoroughly, a completely attentive lover who made sure to bring him to a blinding orgasm. In the aftermath they lay as damp hot spoons, the Spanish man mouthing playfully at Reid's bare shoulder.

"That was better than coffee." He said.

"I'd have to agree..." Reid smiled.

"You're okay with how fast it got here?" Alejandro asked.

"Yeah." He smiled. "After our first – well, date – you said you could be an experience."

"Si..."

"Do you have a lot of short term relationships?" Reid asked, turning a little so he was lying on his back in Ale's hold.

"Are you doing that profiling thing, like you do at work?" the man teased, brushing his fingers over Reid's stomach. "I do have relationships that are wonderful, but yes, most often they have a short life. Luckily, they usually end on good terms. Mutually beneficial, enjoyable."

"Has it always been that way?"

"For a long time, yes." Alejandro said. Reid could tell there was more to say, but Alejandro didn't want to elaborate.

"Do you ever..." he paused, swallowing and trying to form the words before he spoke. "Have you ever had a short-term relationship where you develop serious feelings for the other person, and they don't reciprocate?"

Alejandro shifted, raising himself up on an elbow to consider Spencer.

"Or, more accurately..." he went on, prompted by the other's soft but intense gaze, "already had serious feelings for them, and ended up in a sexual relationship, only to then realise how you feel and also that they... don't."

"Do they know how you feel?" Alejandro asked knowingly. He blinked a few times, surprised that Alejandro had picked up on the fact he was talking about himself, not appreciating his own lack of subtlety.

"They know I wanted it to be more than sex," Spencer said, careful to keep the pronouns he used neutral, "but they don't want more than that. And we're friends, and I think I was foolish to head into it thinking I could be okay adding a sexual level to our friendship without anything else." He couldn't elaborate on Morgan's resistance to challenges to his heterosexuality without revealing the 'they' he was talking about was male, and even though Ale didn't know his friends and team mates, it still felt like too much of an admission.

"I would say... if you go with them just to get the little you can from them," Alejandro said, "it will end up hurting so much worse than never having what you want. Because you will be hoping all that time they will change. It is not a good feeling, to know someone does not feel the same." He empathised.

Reid smiled sadly; he had never held to hope that Morgan might feel like he did, but since they had become intimate the 'what if's and 'if only's had inevitably happened.

"I'm sorry." Spencer murmured.

"Don't be." Alejandro rested his head on the pillow again. "I do not mind you talking about this. If I can help you, even just listening, I will try."

"It's not weird, talking about someone else when we're..."

"Maybe." He gave a little laugh. "But I would rather be happy than not-weird."

Spencer smiled, sated enough by the other man's words and assurance. His brain was still too fuzzy from orgasm to let it linger on Morgan; he'd have plenty of time for that. Right at that moment someone intriguing and wonderful was wrapped around him, pulling the covers around them in preparation for sleep.

"But hurry, let's entwine ourselves as one, our mouth broken, our soul bitten by love, so time discovers us safely destroyed." - Federico García Lorca