Disclaimer: I have no affiliation to Criminal Minds or its characters. This is fiction pure and simple.

AN: For everyone that is waiting for new chapters for Virgin!, Unbreakable and The Lost and the Broken, I am sorry. I got mugged on Saturday night. The a**holes took my laptop and both my flash drives, all that work just gone in a blink. I know I should be thankful to be alive but I'm mostly just furious. I will rewrite the chapters of course.

Falling from Pedestals

Chapter 1

All it took was one look. A glimpse of curly brown hair, the subtle curve of cheek, the glint of sun on thick-rimmed frames…just one look out of the corner of his eye for his world to start. Breath-quickening, heart-hammering Morgan spun around scanning the busy street. One by one he discarded the idling spectators, too short, too fat, just not right. Compared to him Goldilocks had had it easy. There he was. Even with his back to him, scurrying away, Morgan would know him anywhere.

"Reid" He yelled. The fearful gaze thrown over the slim shoulder startled him. More so when at the sight of him he sped up into a brisk walk. "What the hell?" Morgan muttered to himself watching the tall man disappear down the street. They hadn't ended on the best note but then again he wasn't the one who slunk off in the middle of the night never to be heard from since.

Feeling his rage build Morgan gave chase. He'd been prepared to be civil but not anymore. Dammit he deserved some answers. Seeing him coming, Reid picked up speed, tearing down the sidewalk before cutting right. He was no match for Morgan who caught up with him in the shadowy alley behind a popular Mexican restaurant. At a dead end he could see Reid scrambling for an escape route only turning back round when there was none to be found.

The sudden flinch, arms raised like he expected to be hit stopped Morgan cold. Approaching him slowly like he was wounded animal he tried again. All the words he wanted to say were too bold, too forward, scary or hurtful. Not the kind of thing you say to someone you haven't seen in ten years. Arms across his chest, body language screaming 'back off' Reid examined him. They stood in pressing silence, words thought but unspoken.

Morgan caved first. "Why were you running?"

"You were chasing me."

Hurt, Morgan stepped further back at the belligerent tone. He made to speak but there was nothing to say. Years had gone by, they were different now; the man he'd known and desired was long gone behind this forbidding façade.

"I'm sorry I bothered you." He apologized insincerely before walking back the way he'd come. Hotch leaned on the black hood waiting for him.

"Who was that?" He asked.

"Just an old…" Morgan hesitated. There was no word powerful enough to describe what Spencer Reid had meant to him. Ten years of waiting and wondering, dreaming of their reconciliation and one anticlimactic moment in a filthy alley had blown that all to bits. He looked up to find Hotch focused on him, still waiting on an answer. "Friend" He croaked before nervously clearing his throat and saying it again. "He was just an old friend."

Ducking past his boss he hurried around the parked Suburban getting in the passenger seat. On the ride back to the BAU headquarters he was uncharacteristically quiet. He caught Hotch watching him with a puzzled frown several times, could sense him trying to decipher the odd state of affairs. Using the excuse that he needed to adjust his seatbelt he turned away and leaned his head against the cool window for the remainder of their journey, anything to avoid those knowing eyes.

Late that night Morgan tossed and turned. The bed sheets tangling around his naked body as he once again flipped onto his back. Memories assaulted him from every corner. He remembered the first time they met. He'd dropped by his mama's hoping for a home cooked meal before going back out on patrol. The kitchen was strewn with textbooks, the slender white boy leaning over his sister's head pointing out a passage.

Desiree had barely looked up as she'd introduced them. "Spencer Reid, my idiot brother Derek."

Morgan had heard plenty about him, the nineteen-year-old prodigy that was tutoring his baby sister.

"Hello genius" He couldn't resist messing up the long silky hair.

Cripplingly shy Reid had blushed a violent red and stammered something that Morgan didn't catch.

It was the beginning of them.

Morgan came home every second he could after that. Engaging Reid in conversation, drawing smiles and finally laughs out of him while Desiree rolled her eyes in the background. It was a courtship at its purest form. Eight years older than Reid, Morgan felt like a pervert around him. Every inevitable erection was punished by long brutally cold showers. Much as he burned to, he never touched him inappropriately. He was determined to wait until Reid was twenty-one. In the meantime he stored away every moment they shared pulling it out later to savor it when he was alone.

The night before Reid's birthday, a relieved Morgan waited patiently for the tutoring session to end. Cornering the genius on the front porch he took his hand and asked him out for a birthday dinner slash their first official date. Reid stuttered his consent but his head had nodded so enthusiastically it might have broken off.

Morgan remembered that day like it was yesterday. Remembered waiting in his beat up car the evening sun bouncing through the freshly washed windscreen because despite stalling for as long as he could he'd still gotten there far too early. Remembered straightening and re-straightening his tie with clammy hands as he walked up the walkway to Reid's off campus housing. Not wanting to embarrass him he'd left the flowers in the car. Everything had to be perfect because his pretty boy was perfect and deserved nothing but the very best. Except Reid had not been there, that night or the long lonely nights that followed after that. Interrogating Desiree had proven fruitless, all she knew was he'd been called home too Las Vegas nothing else.

When the sun crept up over the horizon, Morgan was already dressed and on the way to the BAU.

"Baby girl" Morgan grabbed the tech analyst hand practically dragging her into her lair and plopping her into her leather seat.

Garcia stared at his tapping foot. Five cups of coffee had made him jittery. "What are you doing?"

"I need a favor."

"Where's my bribe, handsome?"

"Will you settle for a kiss?"

Morgan couldn't help but laugh when she squealed after he planted one on her cheek. Garcia was incorrigible and at times like now when he needed it, he was beyond grateful for that. He pulled up a chair next to her facing the wall of monitors.

"I need you to find someone for me."

"Name?"

"Spencer Reid" He imparted like one revealing a big secret. A few other pertinent details helped her track down the right one.

"Well…" Garcia started. "Looks like he bounced around a lot. Vegas, Chicago, Atlantic City, New Orleans, Miami, back to Vegas, LA then he fell off the grid for a couple of years." She typed furiously squinting at the large screen. "Nothing at all. No credit card activity. No hits on his social security number. It's like he became a ghost only resurfacing two years ago in Virginia."

"Do you have an address?"

"Hold on." Garcia stood up shielding the screen. "What is this about?"

"I will tell you everything. I promise. But right now I gotta go." Morgan snatched up the piece of pink paper on which she scribbled the address.

"It's 8 o'clock in the morning. You can't just show up without calling first. That's like Unannounced Visitor Etiquette 101. Okay maybe 103 but nothing lower than that." Garcia sprung up when he walked out. She hounded him out of her office down the hall to the elevator. Rationalizations vied with curiosity for first billing. "Wait a minute we have a case. What do I tell Hotch?"

Morgan spun round in the carpeted metallic and faux wood compartment. His mind was made up. He had to see Reid right fucking now. "Cover for me." He pleaded stabbing the Lobby button.

Close to an hour later he checked the slip of paper surprised to find that he was in the bad part of town. The neighborhood got progressively worse the further he got. Spray painted 'art', torched trashcans and daytime hookers populated the area. Hard faced men crouched on their stoops like vultures waiting on fresh carcasses. What was Spencer Reid doing here? This was a long way from home for the upper middle class teenager he'd met in his mother's kitchen.

He pulled to the curb outside a decrepit building. Darkened with age it squatted on a dilapidated lot. Right outside two cantankerous old women fought over the contents of a paper bag barely acknowledging him as he exited his vehicle. He consulted the paper again. He was definitely in the right place. Now to ask the right questions; how had his genius ended up here?

Without a second thought for his car or his safety he entered the dank hall and climbed up the rickety stairs in search of 4C. Four floors up, he finally made it to the right door, as much as he could guess anyway most of the doors had no numbers. Some were faded with age others simply ripped off. It was probably a ploy to slow down the police giving the tenant enough time to escape down the fire escape. The ganja haze on floor two and the sticky substance under his shoe from floor three had severely battered his mood.

Hammering with his fist he waited impatiently outside the doorway. Reid certainly took his time answering. By the time he yanked open the door it was a toss-up as to which one of them was madder.

"How did you find me?" The younger man barked. Okay, Reid was madder but only because Morgan was so distracted by his gaunt frame.

Reid must have been wearing so many layers when they'd last met; the dark shadows had providing more than adequate cover. Now in the morning light, in a worn t-shirt and tattered jeans, pinched features making him look twice his age, everything finally made sense. Almost felled by his disappointment Morgan leaned against the peeling doorjamb. He knew that look; it was spotted by supermodels and criminals alike. Drug thin. Vastly different from anorexic thin and twice as deadly.

Vibrating with rage Reid glared back at him. "Don't you dare pity me." He snarled.

Tearing away from Reid's incensed brown eyes, Morgan followed a shocking gurgle of laughter to his feet. Duplicate brown eyes stared back at him curiously, as the toddler's pudgy little hands reached for him and missed. She toppled back and landed on her butt, face screwing up as she debated whether or not she felt any pain. Reid scooped her up tucking her against his side with ease. Deciding she was happy after all, she popped a thumb in her mouth and began to suckle content.

"I'm trying to break her of that." Reid mumbled.

The little tyke tucked her curly mop in her father's neck, eyes back on him. Morgan shuffled from foot to foot, a bead of sweat trickling down his back. Identical expressions rooted him to the spot. God, the resemblance between them was uncanny. Of all the scenarios he'd worked through when he met Reid again, the kid having a kid hadn't even made top 100.

I have made some changes in the backgrounds and ages of both Morgan and Reid. Please roll with it. And in this fic, Morgan never met Carl Buford. Please review.