His Worst Kept Secret

Summary: Morgan has tried to keep a secret for ten years, but Reid is not quite as oblivious as Morgan thinks. Reid POV

Companion piece to "My Best Kept Secret" ( s/11563990/1/My-Best-Kept-Secret).

Note: I never intended for My Best Kept Secret to get two chapters, and I enjoy the feeling it gives as a one-shot. That's why I'm writing this as another one-shot, rather than a second chapter. You should not need to read My Best Kept Secret to read this one (I think).

Our latest case made me worry about Morgan. He is driving me home after we finally closed it but he looks weary. I knew the case had dredged up a lot of memories from his youth that he would rather not think about. It had probably dredged up a lot of feelings he'd rather not be thinking about as well.

How do I know? I'm a profiler. I analyze the behavior of other people for a living. So of course I would know that my best friend was hurting. Is hurting. He's hurting because of his past, because of this case, but mainly, he's hurting because of his inability to accept his feelings.

I had seen when Morgan's feelings for me had started to change, though I had not known what it was. It took many years for me to see it, which I blame on the fact that I wasn't quite ready to look for it – because I didn't think to look for it. Many theories had crossed my mind, but only one had fit all the indications his behavior pointed to.

Ten years ago, we had been as close friends as anyone could be. We spent much of our off time together. I had introduced him to Star Trek, and he liked it, though he will deny it even at gunpoint. He had taken me to the gym more than once, and though I did not appreciate the exercise, I always went because I enjoyed the company.

We had spent a lot of time together.

We had been brothers.

The change to his behavior was graduate. He came by my apartment less often, and he stopped calling. If I called, he was busy, or he didn't pick up at all, so I also stopped calling. He often looked at me when we were in the bullpen, and I noticed it because he wasn't the only one looking.

I had looked, and I conjectured at a number of reasons why he'd stopped putting his arm around my shoulders, and why he'd stopped calling me "pretty boy". Why he'd stopped talking to me except for when work dictated it.

He'd been the first one who had befriended me, not because he needed something, but because he'd actually wanted to get to know me. At first, I had doubted his intentions, but he was very persistent and he had quickly broken through my walls. He'd been my first true friend and he had been leaving me, making me feel utterly lost. What had I done to warrant such behavior from him?

His coldness was too much.

I had hurt.

'Reid?' Morgan asks, throwing a glance my way, and I force myself to smile at him.

'How about we go out tonight?' I ask, and he raises an eyebrow. I typically don't ask as I don't like it very much, but I thought Morgan could use it.

'Sure.' He says, and I think that he looks relieved. He wanted to dwell on this case as little as I wanted to let him. I couldn't let him spend the night alone.

It wasn't until after that horrid case with Buford that I stopped looking to myself to find an issue. His past was the keyword. When I had realized that, I took his absence of adult male friends into the equation that I was trying to solve. I did not doubt that he had male acquaintances, but even when we had been hanging out often, I was never introduced to any male friends of his. I had met plenty of his female friends, and had been left at the bar more than once. I had never taken any offense, although I had not known his background at the time. I should have seen the signs back then; inability to commit to a relationship is a quite normal side effect after child abuse. Not merely child abuse. Molestation. Rape!

I swallow tightly. The word rape, even when I think it, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I look at Morgan to ensure he hasn't noticed, but he is looking intently at the road.

When I found out about his tragic past, I wanted to say so much to him. I wanted to be there for him, but he'd been fighting it alone for so many years. I did not think he would let me in.

He was already distancing himself from me, and I thought that anything I could have said would only have made him distance himself further. I had wanted to tell him that he was intimidated by our close friendship, but I knew he wouldn't have accepted that back then.

So I had stayed away, but I stayed away as closely as he would allow. I watched him for signs of wanting to reach back to our friendship. But I saw other things when he looked at me than what I had profiled. I saw confusion, not intimidation. Sometimes I was certain that I saw a look of disgust, and other times the look was softer, and I could not identify it. It was the first time I couldn't figure it out, and I had no one to turn to for help. Normally, I would have gone to Morgan, but… with him being the subject of it, I couldn't very well talk to him.

It was almost another year before the soft looks were far more frequent than the looks of revulsion. Almost another year before he finally reached out again. I was ready. I was starved for the companionship that we had shared, that I had not been able to reproduce with anyone else. Not for a lack of trying.

We went back to a somewhat comfortable coexistence. We were not quite back where we had been. I did not think that we would ever be. But it was enough. It had to be, because it was better than the nothing that we'd had. The gazes he still often threw my way were often filled with a pain that I couldn't understand. He was melancholic about something.

That was when I had understood that he had been reevaluating himself. He'd been fighting against his past. Suddenly, it had all made sense. All the women. The lack of adult males in his personal life. The disgusted looks he had been throwing at me. The soft gazes. And finally, the pain and the hurt that was always shining clear.

He was in love with me.

'Reid, you good?' Morgan asks as we arrive at his favored pub and get out of the car.

'I'm fine. Why do you ask?'

'You've been silent the entire car ride.'

'I've been thinking.' I say, and he makes a small noise.

'Well, think louder. You unnerve me when you're too silent.' He says as he opens the door to the pub and we go inside. 'I'll buy us a drink, pretty boy.'

Pretty boy. I don't think even he knew that he had meant it as more than jest the first time he'd called me that.

I had not known how to handle his being in love with me. I had never loved a man before. Actually, I had never loved a woman before either. Morgan often tells me to get out of my head, but it's impossible; you can't get out of your own head. I'm very theoretical, and want all the facts behind something before I start doing any speculations. So when I don't know the answer to something, I do research. I had analyzed it carefully, and read every single book I could find on love. My research had even brought me to romance novels, which had later become a guilty pleasure of mine.

Then I'd met Meave. Actually, met was exaggerating it. I had fallen head over heels in love with a voice, with a mind that shone as brightly as the sun. She had taught me what love was, what it could be. I had been given a first-hand experience in what I had been trying to research for a year.

I feel my chest constrict as I think about her. I will forever be in love with her, with her memory.

'So,' Morgan says from my side as he sits down and slides one beer in front of me, 'what really made you want to go out?'

'I'm not allowed to?' I ask him teasingly, and I see his eyebrows furrow as he tries to decide whether I'm serious or not. 'I thought it would be a nice change.'

'Yeah, sure kid.' Morgan says in disbelief and I can only shrug. He's right, I don't think it's a nice change, but he does.

'I always seem to forget the music is so loud.' I say as an excuse.

'Like you'd forget it.' He says with a small quirk of his lips. 'You don't have to tell me, pretty boy. I'm glad though.'

'Excuse us?' a woman says from the side and she indicates towards the two empty chairs at our table. 'May we join you?'

I see Morgan about to refuse, but I ask them to join and they sit down. One immediately starts speaking with Morgan and the other makes a few polite attempts to indulge me in conversation, but I'm already back to thinking about Maeve.

It had taken me a long time after her death to open myself up for that type of pain again. Morgan was always around, always trying to be close, though still staying far away, judging my need for closeness. That was the very thought that had drawn me back to myself. He was doing for me what I had been doing for him for precisely the same reason.

I had been distancing myself.

Once I had realized this, and worked through my grief, I went back to thinking about the revelation I had had before I met Maeve.

He loves me.

And I realized that what I had felt for Maeve, I had already felt for one person before her. When I evaluated it piece by piece, I grasped that I had loved Morgan for a very long time.

I had not seen it sooner, because I had not known the difference between friendship and love. There is such a vague line between the two, that I am still not entirely sure that there is a difference. I think I recognized it first in Maeve because I fell for her quickly. Towards Morgan I had been distrustful due to all my previous experiences with bullies, and our relationship had grown slowly.

But I know now that I love Morgan.

I also know that he is not ready for me to tell him.

Morgan laughs at something one of the women says, and he looks at her with a wide smile.

He smiles a lot. Actually, smile is the wrong word for it. He grins a lot. It's his defensive mechanism, his way of getting close to people, without getting too close.

He looks up at me, and our eyes meet. Instead of turning away, I let him notice that I've been watching, and a small wrinkle appears between his brows. But then he smiles.

A real smile. One that wipes away the wrinkle between his brows and creates new wrinkles at the edges of his eyes. It is a smile I've only ever seen him give to me, and I cherish each and every one. Because it's my smile.

The woman asks Morgan if he will dance with her, and he throws me a guilty look. I try my best to make my smile as encouraging as possible, but I'm not sure I succeed because he only looks guiltier. But then he smiles widely again, and I know he's trying to push his feelings away.

'Don't wait for me, pretty boy.' He says, and I mourn the loss of his smile as he goes to the dance floor.

I vaguely notice the other girl leave me as well, but I don't care as I watch Morgan dance. It's only a prelude of what is to come, and I am not surprised when I see Morgan lean down to whisper something in her ear. She nods and takes his hand.

Morgan lifts his head to meet my gaze, and again I see that flash of guilt pass over his face before it is gone and replaced by a satisfied smirk and a wink.

I said it hadn't hurt when he left me alone at the pub. At that time it hadn't, but now it feels as though a piece of my heart is taken away every time it happens.

I take a sip of my, until then untouched, beer before I get up to walk home. This had been my intention with the evening; I couldn't let him spend the night alone after such a case. If he hadn't found a woman, I would have joined him at his home and stayed as he drank the night away. He knew it, but he wasn't ready for it.

Despite all his soft gazes, and his pained looks, he does not love me fully yet, because he still does not love himself. I will do what I can to help him get there and I can only hope my heart will not be in a thousand pieces by then.

I have waited this long.

I can continue waiting until he has found himself.

Because he only smiles for me.

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle – Sam Levenson

-yaruna