Everything's soft and hazy, like he's underwater, which is just silly, since he's nowhere near enough liquid to submerge himself. Every caress and kiss and touch feels like it's coming from far away, almost surreal. Every delicious movement is tortuously slow and gentle. Like they're taking their time. Like there's no rush, no frantic need to touch, take, consume, because they both know that even though this is the first, it won't be the last time.

Spencer shivers as hard, calloused hands run down his sides and sighs at the rough drag. He winds a leg around a muscular thigh and lets out a high keen when surprisingly soft lips tease at a nipple. One of those rough gentle hands slides down over the curve of his ass, the length of his thigh to hook under his knee and lift, shifting them so that when Spencer rocks his hips, there's nothing but the slow, slick friction of skin on skin.

"Derek," Spencer moans, curving his body around the other man's. He can't keep his hands from wandering, tracing over hard muscles that jump and shudder under his touch. "Derek, please..."

The plea turns into a helpless moan as Derek sucks a mark on his ribcage. Derek chuckles against his skin, and the combination of hot, moist breath and the low, husky sound has Spencer arching up into him again, his entire body tight and trembling. Derek's sliding further down his body, teasing him with barely there licks and glancing nips and feather light lips until Spencer thinks he might go out of his mind.

Derek brushes his lips along one sharp hipbone, presses a chaste kiss to the soft dip of flesh between, and repeats the action on the other. Noses at Spencer's side, rubs teasing circles into the back of his knee, licks into his navel, kisses and bites his way lower and lower and

and Spencer falls off the couch with a jerk. Spencer looks around, baffled, and blinks the sleep out of his eyes. His head feels fuzzy, but it doesn't hurt. He frowns, trying to separate the jumbled mess of his memories into something halfway coherent. When he manages to untangle what little he remembers, he gulps and pats himself down, even though he can feel the clothes hanging from his lanky frame. They're creased and a little disheveled, but they're all there, and there's no one else in his apartment.

He latches onto the last lingering fragments of the dream-and damn it but thinking about that isn't exactly helping his physical situation-telling himself that it was the only interesting thing that happened the night before. There's no way he would have actually tried to instigate sexual intercourse with Morgan. There's just...no way. He'd never be that stupid. He's just confused. It was all just part of the dream. Right?

Spencer stumbles to his kitchen to put on a pot of coffee and keeps repeating to himself 'it was just a dream, it was just a dream, it was just a dream' until he almost believes it.

Derek doesn't say anything about the night of the party the next time he sees Reid. He watches nervously out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the genius to say or do anything that would indicate he remembers what happened. Days pass, then weeks, and the tightness in his chest slowly starts to ease and the churning in his stomach almost completely disappears. The kid doesn't remember. It's both a relief and a disappointment.

It isn't a matter of his not caring about the kid. No, things would be so much easier if it was as simple as that. He cares-can't say 'love'. Can't force it out even if he more than a little suspects that that might be what's really lurking there between them-but he just can't. Nameless, faceless women are easy. It's so simple to pick up a new one each night. He can take what he wants, they get what they want, nobody's hurt, everybody's happy. It's hollow and empty, but it doesn't hurt.

But Reid, no, Spencer...Spencer would hurt. Spencer could rip him to shreds. All it would take is one little word or action or look and Derek would be destroyed in ways and places that no one else has even been able to dent him. And the kid doesn't even realize it.

It's better this way. It's lonely, aching, cold pain, but it's better than the devastation.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.
~ Paulo Coelho

Okay, so I seriously need to stop writing open ended one shots, because the instant someone asks what's going to happen next, I end up plotting another part in my head, which is so totally never the plan. *headdesk*

Yes, this really is the end. I know it's not the ending most of you were hoping for, but I'm in the mood for angst and I've been itching to write something with an unhappy ending since I wrote the beginning of Hardly Ever. Sorry if you're disappointed. I'll write something fluffy soon!