All Of The Wrong Reasons

Chapter Five: A Pet Project

After Susan had wrangled a promise out of Derek to visit again soon, Spencer and Derek departed the coffee shop and got into Derek's car. "Those ladies are crazy," Derek said with a fond smile.

"Yeah, they're something else," Spencer agreed. "Take a bit of getting used to, though I think the BAU girls have us pretty acclimated to crazy."

"Ain't that the truth." Derek laughed and Spencer couldn't help but smile; he liked being able to make the other man laugh. "They seem to like you," Derek commented once he stopped laughing.

"Aimee likes everyone and Susan thinks I need to be mothered."

"Well, I like them; they take care of you."

Spencer smiled softly. "Maybe, one day, they'll like me enough to give me my coffee for free."

"Not likely, Pretty Boy, you'd put them out of business."

Spencer just rolled his eyes and took a sip of the coffee Derek had bought for him in addition to the coffee for the rest of the team.

"So, I wasn't lying when I mentioned my ulterior motives for going there today; there's something I want to talk to you about."

"Oh?" Spencer asked, wondering if he should be worried. After Aimee and Susan's interrogation, it would be just his luck that Derek wanted to have a deep discussion about their relationship.

"I was thinking about that last case. It had me wondering about a few things, thinking that something needs to change."

Spencer frowned. "Something like what?"

"What was it like for you growing up?" Derek asked instead of answering him.

Spencer's frowned deepened. "What do you mean?"

"As an omega, what was it like for you. With your mother, and your father, and graduating high school at age twelve, things couldn't have exactly been easy. But, being an omega on top of that, how did that affect things?"

Spencer pursed his lips thoughtfully. This wasn't something he'd talked about before. No one had ever actually asked him and he had never volunteered the information, but now Derek was asking and Spencer suddenly wanted to tell him.

"It wasn't easy," he agreed with Derek's assessment. "I had my first Heat when I was eight and a half. I had known I was an omega prior to that, but it was something I tucked into the back of my mind expecting it not to matter until I was much older. As far as I was concerned, it was just one more thing that made me different. I'll admit, I wasn't as eager to research the topic like I've been with other things. I only gave it a cursory glance over. As I said, I didn't expect to have to deal with it until I was much older. So, when the time of my Heat came, I had no idea what was going on. Thankfully, my dad was still around then and he'd been looking for the signs and made some arrangements. He had a friend of his claim me. Jared Clay, his name was. He was a firefighter. Nice man. He was good to me. And even after dad left us, Jared stayed around. He was kind of a second dad to me for a while. Until he left, too.

"My mother... she had her good days and her bad. I'd thought—well actually it was more of hoped—the kids at school would stop bullying me; that maybe an alpha would take me under his protection there simply because they didn't want to see an omega hurt. A futile hope. After my first Heat, I stopped avoiding the topic and researched it fervently. I needed to know everything about it, every little detail, every single study, every personal testimony, everything. I gathered all the information I could find, because I needed to know it all. I needed to know everything so I could understand myself and people like me. I think, mostly, it was the need to know that there were people like me out here somewhere so that maybe...maybe I wouldn't feel so alone."