#{avenue queue}

like imagine young derek having crushes on boys and girls in his neighborhood and maybe not fully understanding his feelings (because it's definitely NOT something that people talked about) but still being relatively ok with it.

and then buford happens.

and all those feelings get repressed immediately. because jesus christ, how can he even entertain the thought after what he went through? he's not homophobic, he swears it. but that doesn't mean he can control the thoughts of self loathing when he gets that familiar tingling in his stomach whenever he gets a crush on a boy. dirty, disgusting. it doesn't matter how much he wants to kiss his face, or hold his hand because he just can't.

now i see this going one of two ways. the first is that he learns to deal with it before joining the bau. maybe he goes to college, meets some really good friends, starts seeing a therapist. really works through his trauma and with some time, learns accepts himself. and by the time he meets spencer he's (mostly) well adjusted and secure in his sexuality. the second option (and most likely, i think) is that derek continues to repress his queerness into adulthood. he doesn't think about it, talk about, and certainly not act on it for years. and then spencer joins the bau and just completely unearths all that hard work. years of convincing everyone, including himself sometimes, that he's completely straight, is put in jeopardy by a skinny, twenty something year-old know-it-all. and it doesn't help that derek can't stop flirting with the kid. he doesn't mean to, not really. it's just so easy to get a rise out of spencer. plus, even though he won't ever admit it, he likes to see him blush.