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Neal walked into the chemistry lab building like he knew where he was going. He and Mozzie had gone over the layout of the building and the rooms that would have the chemicals he needed to steal.
He went up to the third floor in the hopes that the more secluded labs would be less likely to have some student staying late. They had timed it so that the lights were still on in the building as there was a few late labs going but the majority of the building was empty. Neal double checked that there were no students in the hallway and that there were no cameras pointed at the room before swiftly pulling his picks out of his pocket and picking the lock to the closest lab.
He quietly closed the door behind him and slipped his backpack off his shoulders, setting it on a lab bench. He pulled on a pair of lab gloves snatched from the box at the side of the room; it couldn't hurt to not leave any prints even if it was highly unlikely anyone would check.
There were two different cabinets that could contain the needed chemicals. Neal kneeled down to pick the lock on the one closest to him. It was almost too easy, he thought as the metal handle turned and the cabinet door squeaked open. Finding the right chemicals would be hard since there were many. He had to hope that the ones he needed came in small bottle since he only had so much room in the backpack he had brought.
Potassium iodide, acetic acid, sodium bicarbonate, methanol—Neal glanced over the chemical labels. There didn't seem to be any organization to the bottles and it made it harder to find what he needed. He threw the sodium bicarbonate in the bag even though it wasn't on his list because Mozzie complained about not having enough of it often. Neal tossed two other bottles into the bag and kept searching, digging to the back to look.
Neal froze as he heard the door open. He slowly pulled himself out of the metal cabinet to see who had caught him.
Standing at the door was a young man, likely an undergrad that had forgotten something in class.
"What are you doing in here?" The man asked suspiciously.
Time to bluff. "Getting the chemicals needed for the labs tomorrow."
The guy shut the door and slowly leaned back against it. Neal could feel his stomach drop at the unimpressed look the man gave him. "I'm the lab coordinator for this entire floor, the chemicals are already set aside and split for every lab for the rest of the semester."
Shit. Neal chose to keep his mouth shut. The man narrowed his eyes and studied Neal for a moment.
"You're here to steal chemicals." It wasn't a question. "What for?" He asked.
Neal contemplated lying, but he couldn't come up with something that wasn't worse than what he and Moz were actually planning.
Neal licked his lips. "Recreating an old painting." No admittance to anything illegal save for the obvious.
"Recreating." He said lightly, clearly knowing exactly what Neal was not saying.
Neal forced himself not to fidget. He was still under scrutiny and he was reluctantly realizing how cute the guy was, though he suspected that it wasn't the right moment to try and flirt with him.
"You know what you're doing and won't end up harming yourself or someone else with the chemicals?"
The question caught Neal off guard. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he answered, "Yes."
The man seemed to come to a decision and asked, "What are you looking for?"
Neal paused, not believing what he was hearing. He slowly stood up and brushed the non-existent dust off of his pant legs. "I couldn't find phenolphthalein." He admitted.
The man hummed. "That would be because it's in that cabinet." He jerked a thumb to the cabinet on the other side of the room.
Neal nodded and hesitantly walked over to the cabinet. The man trailed after him and held out a key to Neal.
Neal took it, surprised and felt a shock as his fingers brushed the man's hand. Now was really not the time to be falling in lust.
He carefully used the key to open the cabinet and handed it back, letting his fingers drag out of habit to let any possible fingerprints smudge despite the thin lab gloves he was still wearing.
"Top shelf." The man told him. Neal's eyes scanned the shelf until he saw the correct label.
"Why are you helping me?" Neal asked, reaching for the last chemical he needed. He wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he also couldn't stand not knowing.
"Because you're not the only one stealing from the labs."
Neal raised his eyebrows at him, the guy didn't strike him as a thief.
The man smirked. "Not me. My dissertation advisor is also the head of this department and he steals chemicals and then doctors the paperwork so it looks like there's nothing wrong."
"And how does that relate to me taking chemicals?"
"Taking." The man snorted at the evasive wording. "If you take more than what he catalogs as not being here, then maybe the director will finally take notice that he's scamming the department."
Neal hummed. "Wouldn't that be hard if he's your dissertation advisor? Are you working on a doctorate?" Though obviously a college student, he seemed too young to be going for a doctorate yet.
"A PhD in chemistry and yes it would change some things but he's an awful advisor and if he got fired, it'd probably make my life significantly easier."
Neal smiled. They stood there, watching each other for a moment. He slipped off one of the gloves and held out his hand. "I'm Neal." He knew it was stupid to give the man his real name but he couldn't help himself.
"Spencer Reid. I don't shake hands. The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to kiss."
Neal blinked, he wasn't sure that the man was flirting with him but he wasn't about to give up the chance to kiss him, not after all of the other stupid choices he had made in the last fifteen minutes.
"Well if you insist." The conman smoothly stepped forward until he was withing inches of the other man. The other man, whose name Neal still did not know, took in a sharp breath.
Neal's eyes flicked to the man's lips and then back up to meet his eyes. "Can I?" Neal breathed.
"Yeah." The man said quietly.
Neal moved forward slowly to press his lips to the soft lips of the doctoral candidate. Time seemed to stop as Neal let his hand not still holding the phenolphthalein and spare glove reach up to hold the back of the man's head.
They kept it chaste, but they both let the kiss linger as they were reluctant to pull away, their heads kept close for a few moments. Neal didn't want to leave it awkwardly so he asked, "Would it help if I planted some of the empty chemical containers in your dissertation advisor's office?"
The man stepped back, breaking the moment as he laughed.
Neal smiled at the sound. "Seriously, I'd do it."
Spencer considered for a moment. "If you think you can do it without getting caught, then yes, I do think it'd help."
"I won't get caught." Neal said confidently.
Spencer glanced at him with disbelief. "What do you call this?" He gestured between them with a hand.
"This doesn't count since you're not planning on turning me in, right?" Neal asked leadingly.
"No, I'm not planning on turning you in." Spencer promised. "But it does still count."
"Mmhmm." Neal hummed. "Whatever you say, Doc."
Spencer had given Neal the information on his advisor's office, the building plans, and the man's regular schedule. It was too simple to drop off some of the empty chemical containers in the office, barely hidden and easily found by the campus security doing a search based off an anonymous tip.
Neal met Spencer at the library after everything was done.
"I hope the rest of your degree goes smoothly." It was a shame Neal wouldn't be seeing Spencer again but he couldn't resist seeing the intriguing man once more so he had set up this meeting in the empty sections of the library.
"I hope so too, I'm planning on a few more." Spencer told him.
Neal leaned forward, crowding Spencer up against a bookshelf and bringing their faces close together again.
This time, Spencer closed the gap to bring their lips together, moving slowly. Neal let Spencer deepen the kiss.
Eventually, they broke apart, breathing deeply to stay quiet in the silent library.
"Stay safe, Neal." Spencer whispered.
Neal swallowed, knowing he wouldn't see Spencer again and feeling the sharp pang of disappointment. "I'll try."
Peter and Neal walked into the Quantico FBI building to meet with the BAU team. They had the chance to consult with SSA Aaron Hotchner's team about a case that turned to murder.
Hotchner and another man met them as they walked into the BAU bullpen.
Peter held out his hand to SSA Hotchner while Neal did the same to the other man.
"I don't shake hands. The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's—" Spencer started. Neal immediately connected the dots to the man he had met all those years ago.
"It's actually safer to kiss." Neal finished with a slightly flirtatious edge.
Spencer widened his eyes and then grinned, recognizing Neal and stepped forward to get closer to him. "Well if you insist." Neal said. The two leaned into each other and shared a chaste but lingering kiss, leaving both smiling widely as they parted, just as they had many years before.
"Reid." Hotch said, his surprise well hidden behind a blank mask of calm.
"Neal!" Peter said at the same time, a bit sharper.
"Long time no see, Doc. It is Doc now right?" Neal asked, staying in Spencer's personal space.
"Three times over. Never thought I'd see you in an FBI building." Spencer addressed Neal, ignoring their superiors.
"Well I certainly didn't take the same route you did." The conman shrugged.
"Neal!" Peter said again, sharply.
Neal stepped a half step back from Spencer so that he was still very close to the man but could address his handler. "What, Peter? The literal doctor said it was safer to kiss. What was I supposed to do? Not kiss the attractive man? I'm only human."
Peter's eyes bored onto Neal, frustration etched into his face.
"You know they're PhDs, I'm not a medical doctor." Spencer commented.
"You're not helping." Neal snarked back to Spencer.
"How exactly do you two know each other?" Hotch interrupted the back and forth.
Reid shot a sideways glance at Neal before answering. "Neal got my dissertation advisor fired while I was working on my first doctorate." Reid informed them.
"Don't say it like it was a bad thing; you hated him." Neal added petulantly.
"Do I even want to know?" Peter sighed, releasing the tension he was holding at Neal's lack of professionalism.
Neal grinned. "Technically I helped bring a thief to justice, you should be proud Peter."
Reid snorted with laughter.
"And how much did you steal in the resulting chaos?" Hotch asked.
Neal's grin widened. "Nothing."
Reid huffed out another laugh. "Technically you stole before the chaos and I caught the thief, or two, rather."
"Mmhmm." Neal hummed. "Doesn't count."
"Just because I didn't stop you from stealing chemicals doesn't mean I didn't catch you." Spencer argued.
"Please tell me you're not admitting to aiding and abetting?" Peter closed his eyes in exasperation.
"Statute of limitations is up." The two younger men said simultaneously.
Hotch sighed. "Reid, stop admitting to crimes, whether or not you can be charged for them, and let's head to the conference room." The unit chief nodded at Agent Burke and turned to walk away, trusting that the other agents and CI would follow.
"It still counts." Spencer said under his breath to Neal.
"It can't count. Peter takes pride in being the only agent to ever have caught me, you can't take that away from him, his ego can't stand that."
"He can hear you, you know." Peter said over his shoulder. "And my ego is fine."
Neal looked at Spencer, widened his eyes, and shook his head as if to reiterate that Peter's ego was fragile.
"Technically I wasn't an FBI agent then so his title is still intact." Spencer said, smiling.