itinere | Open | Well, isn't this just fine and dandy.

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{criminal minds: derek morgan

Open | Well, isn't this just fine and dandy.

Suffice to say that this new locale that Venus is forced to call home has not been entirely kind to her. Firstly, she was taken from her lover and from Charming and unceremoniously dropped in this place. Then she met a most stunningly handsome man who turned out to be just a little nuts short of a full toolbox, very nearly overwhelming her with his ardor only to entirely vanish as if nothing had ever occurred.

It's enough to make a girl's head spin.

Then add insult to the injury of the whole drama that is her current position, she has the most hellacious headcold, making everything seem muzzy and fuddled.

Really, as she sneezes for the fiftieth time into her handkerchief, she falls to sit on a bench because a girl just needs a break. After all, it's hard to give oral pleasure when one can't breathe through one's nose.

So, there is a very striking brunette in a very short skirt sitting on a bench, sneezing and blowing her nose to beat the band. Oh, the trauma.

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"Look. I know you'll eventually be fine. But let me do somethin' to help you feel better now." Derek says, stopping on the sidewalk with a hand at her elbow to let her know he had stopped walking so that he could talk to her.

"I know where you live. You go home, get comfortable, lay down. I'll be there in twenty minutes or so with a care package. Easy." He lays out the plan for her. He isn't so insistent that he sounds like he's giving her an order, he's just giving her an alternative plan.

"You realize that's what stranger-danger denizens say," Venus teases, clearly meaning no harm by it, tired, though and worn down. "'I know where you live.'"

She sneezes again - a blast of four in a row and it's clear that she cannot argue with his point that she needs to lie down. "... all right." Squeezing Derek's arm, she says, "thank you, Derek." And she starts the slow walk toward her home.

He smirks at her teasing. And he's glad that it's clear that she's teasing him because that was too close to what he had been the last few weeks. Stranger danger. When she finally concedes after another bout of sneezing, he's relieved. She really should be lying down. He nods and watches her walk off with some of that sway and swag he had mentioned earlier.

Finally, he goes off to get a few things. It takes just a little bit longer than the twenty minutes he said it would. It's just over half an hour later when he knocks on her door and then twists the knob to let himself inside.

"Hey it's me, gorgeous." He calls out to let her know she didn't have a stranger in her apartment. Then he locks the door. "Don't get up. I'll find my way around." He goes straight to the kitchen with his bags.

Venus has stripped off her heels (such blessed relief) and her dress, replacing it with a robe. She's pulled her hair up off her neck and has made a nest for herself on her sofa. She still feels quite terrible actually and is too fatigued and sick to object to being called gorgeous, because she is far from in this moment in time.

Her little apartment is nothing special, but it doesn't need to be. "In here," she says of her living room, her voice sounding stifled and sniffly.

In the kitchen, Derek finds a mug and puts it, filled with water, into the microwave. While that's heating, he finds a bowl and empties a can of chicken noodle soup into the bowl. "They were out of chicken noodles so I went with chicken and stars. Pretty much the same thing anyway. Tastes the same."

The microwave beeped and he swapped out the mug for the bowl. With the mug out, he drops a tea bag of chamomile tea in it. His mom had always found that one soothing, at least. "Got some OJ in the fridge for you. Vitamin C."

And then he finally appears in the living room with a steaming mug he sets on the coffee table, a box of kleenex with aloe in it for her nose which he also sets on the coffee table, a box of sinus medicine and THIS stuffed lion. He holds the doll out with a grin and wiggles it back and forth. "For you. Too good to pass up."

"Oh, look at that thing," Venus all but coos, making grabby hands for the lion. And he's soft, too! She turns on her side on the couch, snuggling the stuffed animal close. "Thank you."

Just as another sneeze comes, she snatches up one of those soft tissues and covers her mouth.

The aloe really does make the sneeze a much more pleasant experience, all things considered. She slumps back into the couch. "I haven't had chicken and stars for ages." She can't smell it, but she has a sense-memory of the soup.

Lions. Derek didn't necessarily collect them, but he identified with them. Hence, the lion tattoo on one of his shoulders. And he had no problem buying their paraphernalia for other people. Maybe when she saw it she would think of him. And maybe it would be a good thought when and if she did.

He gets to his knees by the couch and starts to peel open the box of medicine. They always make these things so hard to get into. But he also wanted her to see him opening it, having to rip through the box and peel the paper away from the plastic side. That way, there would be no question that he was doing anything unwanted to her. "Decongestant... stuff. It should help."

The microwave beeps and he settles the pills on the table by the tea before getting back up to go into the kitchen. "Anything else you can think of that you might need?" He calls over his shoulder.

Taking up the pills to look at dosage information and the like, Venus says, "I don't suppose you were found a new nose or something of the like," she replies. "Mine seems to have fallen out of warranty and stopped working."

She does, though, take two pills and washes them down with tea. When Derek comes back with the soup, she gives a small, crooked smile. "You're being very kind."

Derek carefully carries the bowl of soup and a spoon back into the living room. "Hey, it's nice to be taken care of sometimes, I know that." And as if it were an afterthought to the original statement once he realizes that it could be taken as an entirely different thing in regard to himself, he adds. "Especially when you're sick."

He has the bowl on a folded dish towel when he hands it to her so she doesn't burn herself. Then he kneels next to the couch again so she can take up all the room she needs to on the couch. "I grew up with all women so... I've got an idea of what's good for takin' care of them when they're sick." Or, all the time.

"I'm glad you aren't scared of me." He says, the words slipping out. She had let him into her space, after all. He was thankful for that.

"Well, now I have a bowl of hot soup I can throw at you if you try anything untoward," she tells him. Suddenly the couch is indeed quite full: herself, her lion, soup and tissues as well as her quilt.

"All women, mmm?" settling back, Venus starts to eat her soup, watching him. "Tell me about your family, Derek. About you being a little boy among women."

He gives her a small grin at her comment about the possibility of his being untoward. He has to take that as teasing and not as if she thinks he actually might. As it was, he had been waiting to see if he needed to leave now that he'd gotten her all settled, whether through his own decision, as he was thinking through it, or hers, if she wanted him to go. But when she asks him to tell her something about himself, he figures he gets to stay for a bit. His legs shift to the side and he settles on the floor by the couch, one elbow up on the couch with her.

"Grew up in Chicago... on the wrong side of the tracks. Lower income housing. Gangs and violence. Lots of crime. I was the baby of three kids. Two older sisters, Sarah and Desi." He misses them so much. "My mama was a seamstress. Dad was a cop. But he was killed when I was just barely ten." He pauses, shaking his head. "Ironically, he was off duty. At a seven-eleven where I was with him. Begging him for candy we couldn't afford but he took me in to buy anyway. Guy came in to rob the place. My dad ended up dead."

For a moment, he seems to get lost in that memory, the darkness of it, seeing his dad, superman himself, in a pool of his own blood. Then he snaps out of it. "So I was the man of the house after that. With two older sisters and my mom. It could've been worse. They're amazing women. Strong. My mom picked up two more jobs so she could take care of us. My sisters and me were home alone a lot. But there was a lot of love." Sounds like a good enough life. But there was a lot that was not right for Derek.

"I would," Venus hazards, "imagine that your mother and your sisters is so very proud of you now, Derek." She smiles, her cheek resting on the lion's head; she's listened to every word, despite her fatigue and stuffed head. "I'm so sorry about your father. That must have been horrible." After all, the loss of a parent, no matter the circumstances, has lingering effects on one's psyche.

It was hard. Sometimes Derek had nightmares about his father's death. Sometimes he obsessed over it, trying to think of what he could have done as his father laid there bleeding out to save his life. 'Hide Derek. Go over there and hide.' His father had said. And Derek had stayed hidden, even when the man had opened fire in the store, even when his dad had fallen to the floor full of bullets. And Derek, at ten years old, felt so responsible for that and for his mom and sisters.

"They are. I don't get to see 'em as often as I like." Derek did not like going home to Chicago for any number of reasons. And some very specific reasons. His mom said she understood, she would sometimes come to see him. But not often enough. It was a hurdle he couldn't get over.

"When I was home, we used to play together. My GI-Joe's and their Barbies. Somehow my GI-Joe's would end up their boyfriends..." Because his sisters had him wrapped around their little finger and he couldn't tell them no. GI-Joe's don't have time to date, they're too busy saving the world. He couldn't say that. So instead, they dated all the Barbies.

"Until I got mixed up in one of the gang's on the street." He says. "You know how it is... kid without his dad, lookin' for... someone to fill that hole. I messed up for awhile."

The smile Venus gives him then is knowing and nonjudgmental between sips of soup and tea. "Some of my very best friends are members of one of the most notorious and violent motorcycle gangs in all of California. I can say with great certainty that not all members of gangs are bad men. But tell me," she adds, setting aside the bowl for the moment, "you don't still play with GI Joes, do you?"

Derek chuckles, a deep and rumbling sound and shakes his head. "Nah, Princess. I am the GI-Joe." He only partly teases. Because in truth, he does save lives like he had thought of his GI-Joe's when he was a kid, like his father was superman to him, now Derek tried to be to others. Strong. Dependable. Saving people one at a time.

"Ah, I see." Shifting a bit more comfortably, Venus says, "well, I fear that if you are looking for a Barbie doll, I am going to disappoint, though there is something of the gravity defying curvature in me." Namely in her still quite impressive breasts.

"I don't need a barbie doll." Derek says, looking over to her. "You just be you, Princess." And he meant that. He would never try to make anyone into someone they weren't.

But he did have a few questions of his own. "So you make friends with gangsters, huh?" He can start there. Her admission about one of the most violent gangs hadn't slipped past him. "You a member?"

"Oh, no, honey. SAMCRO doesn't have women members. No, there is a term for women who are partners to the men of SAMCRO." And it is quite the derogatory term, too, so she won't repeat it.

"But they are ... good friends to me. They are good men, despite what they may do, despite what they appear to be. Appearances, as you may well know, are not as they seem." Not with her, not with SAMCRO.

"They ... helped me. In a very delicate, very ... personal situation."

"People've got a lot of layers to them. All walks of life." And Derek had seen both the inside and the outside of gang members. Now, in his world, he made a living of dissecting those layers, analyzing and studying and guessing at where they might lead. Nothing, Derek knew all too well, was so easy as good or bad. So he didn't doubt the truth of Venus's words.

He wasn't sure if he would be pushing too far to ask her about that personal situation. From what he can read off of how she had described it, he thinks it would be too much for her for now. S instead he tries to ask about something he thinks she'll have no problem talking about.

"What about you? Where'd you live? Your family... growin' up?" He asks.

If she wants to scare him off, she thinks, telling Derek about his childhood would be a good way to do it.

Her smile is sad, but she will tel him the truth, of course.

"I ... grew up near Charming, California," she starts. "My father was ... not involved in my upbringing." Venus blinks slowly, willing herself not to get too emotional, though she is already feeling so very tired and downtrodden, switching her gaze to the far wall. "She was - " and it is a was - "a whore first, and then a very prominent pornographer. That ... that new entrepreneurial opportunity presented itself to her when she found out that her son, Vincent - yours truly - was ... sexually confused and compromised."

Derek assumes that the 'she' in question was Venus's mother. And something about the tone of Venus's voice, that obvious weariness she felt, had him resting a hand gently on her forearm, nothing more than a comforting touch. It sounded like her parents wouldn't be winning any awards anytime soon... or ever.

"How did your truth get you mom into pornography?" He somehow couldn't make himself connect the dots there, even if he had a sick feeling that deep down he did know. He'd seen it often enough, or some version of it, almost every day. Derek lived in darkness more than he let on.

Yes, the "she" was Venus's mother. A sneeze and a wiping of her nose, and she went on.

"I wasn't straight, of course. So ... " Venus's eyes close. It's history, of course, and buried, yet there is so much of her very being tied up in what she is. "When she couldn't straighten me out herself, why ... she used me. And other children. So ... that is my childhood, Derek. In that proverbial cracked nutshell."

Oh damn. It's exactly what Derek had feared. And something was twisting and turning inside of him, a sickness in his stomach, a shroud of darkness in his mind and am aching vice grip on his heart. He's quiet for a bit, just working to keep whatever bile might come up down. Deep breaths, slow and measured. His eyes full of too much emotion. Derek had a tendency to wear his emotions on his sleeve though.

It takes him a bit, but finally he moves up to sit on the tiny space on the edge of the couch and he pulls Venus up. "Come here..." He hugs her, glad for the act that would hide his face from her.

"I didn't tell you that for you to pity me," Venus protests just vaguely. But Derek's warm and strong and much like she had with SAMCRO, she lets herself feel safe in this moment. "In case you thought I was .... "

Because, really ... well, Venus isn't big on being thought of as anything less than remarkable, really. (Or so she tells herself in her tired and weak moments.)

Her words are like the ultimate slap in the face. Derek pulls back, eyes narrowed and shakes his head. "You think this is pity?" He would never. Because he never wanted pity either. But he's gotten it, nonetheless. And he knows how shitty it feels. What he has is understanding. What he has is...

He shakes his head and pulls away to stand up. He steps away, his arms crossing over his chest. Where the hell are his sunglasses. In the neck of his tee at his back. Not far. "I should let you rest." He forces a small grin. "Drink your tea. Eat your soup. Drugs'll kick in... you'll feel better."

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