[applecidertears]

꒰ঌ kai ⋆ nineteen ⋆ she/they ⋆ side blog

angel grace. 333. supernatural. daydreamer. clueless writer. criminal minds. t(iny)issue club. stargazer. recovering artist.

(a/n: no dni list but I block at my own discretion!)

masterlist ⋆ · . ˚ ⋆ ✶ ⋆ ˚ . · ⋆ req info

[wendichester]

hihi i was wondering if u could write a sam x reader fic where the reader is an angel like cas but is more like joyful and excitable and basically when cas doesn't answer sam's prayers he prays for reader and they like immediately show up?

idk what else to add or explain sorry!!

also luv ur writing xx

⋆｡ ˚ first prayer answered

summary ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ when cas doesn’t answer, sam tries praying to you instead—and you come so quickly it leaves him wondering how long you’ve been waiting to be asked. pairing ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ sam winchester x angel!reader ( gn ) wordcount ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ 790 genre ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ hurt/comfort warnings ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ injured sam, soft romantic tension, mild blood mention

notes ˚˖𓍢ִ໋ ִ❀໋ consider supporting my work .ᐟ

sam doesn’t pray to you.

you try not to take it personally. which isn’t easy, considering you’re sitting on the roof of a closed laundromat three blocks away, swinging your feet over the edge and pretending not to listen while his voice pulls thin and strained through the dark. the prayer has texture when it reaches you. castiel’s name comes wrapped in worry, exhaustion, and pain held between sam’s teeth because he’s too stubborn to let it spill properly.

“cas,” he says again, somewhere below, in the ruined back room of an abandoned house where the wallpaper peels in damp curls. “come on. i need help.”

nothing answers him. not cas. not dean, who’s two towns over chasing the other half of the case. not the ugly thing that slammed sam into a bookcase and vanished through the floorboards before he could salt the room properly. just sam, breathing hard, one hand pressed against the cut high on his ribs. you hear him shift. hear the little sound he tries to bury when pain catches up.

your hands curl against the brick ledge. you could go. you know you could. angels aren’t supposed to need invitations for every act of mercy, and you’ve never been especially good at following the colder rules anyway. heaven has called you undisciplined, impulsive, and sentimental in a tone that made it sound flawed. castiel once said you were joyful as if he didn’t know whether that was a miracle or a curse.

but sam hasn’t called you. not yet.

there’s another long silence, and then his prayer changes. “okay,” he whispers, rough and reluctant. “if you’re listening… i could use you.”

you’re there before the last word finishes leaving him.

the room flares with soft white light, quick as a match strike, and sam jerks back so hard his shoulder hits the wall.

“sorry!” you say immediately. “sorry. too fast?”

he stares at you, hand still pressed to his side, eyes wide and bright with pain. “you came.”

“you asked.”

“i barely asked.”

“i have excellent hearing.”

that earns you the smallest breath of a laugh, which you treasure shamelessly. then his face tightens, and the laughter disappears beneath a wince.

you step closer, all the brightness in you folding into focus. “sam—”

“i’m fine.”

“you are bleeding through your fingers.”

“yeah, well…” his mouth twitches weakly. “not my best argument.”

you kneel in front of him, careful with the broken glass scattered across the floor. he watches you in a way that shows he isn’t sure he deserve tenderness. it makes something in you ache. angels aren’t supposed to ache this much.

“may i?” you ask, reaching toward his hand.

sam hesitates, then lets you move it.

the wound is ugly but not fatal, though pain doesn’t need to be fatal to be real. you press your palm lightly against his side, grace warming beneath your skin, and he inhales sharply as the cut closes under your touch.

his hand catches your wrist before you pull away. “i didn’t know if you’d answer.”

your eyes lift to his. “i always answer you.”

“i usually call cas.”

“i know.” the words come out too honest. a little awkward, sitting between you with the dust and blood and moonlight.

sam’s thumb shifts once against your wrist. “you heard that?”

“i hear more than i should.” you soften your voice, because teasing him right now would be easy, and kindness matters more. “i don’t mind being second, sam. not if you still call.”

his expression changes in a way you can’t read at first. guilt, maybe. surprise. something warmer hiding under both.

“you’re not second,” he says quietly.

your chest goes strangely still. for once, you have no bright little remark to toss into the room so neither of you has to stand too close to what he just gave you.

sam looks down at your hand still near his ribs, then back at your face. “i just didn’t want to bother you.”

you laugh then, soft and helpless. “you are very bad at understanding angels.”

“probably.”

“sam, i was on a roof waiting.”

his brows draw together. “waiting?”

“in case you needed me.”

the confession lands gentler than fear made it seem. sam’s face softens until he looks younger, tired all the way through and somehow still beautiful with it.

“that’s a little ridiculous,” he murmurs.

“yes,” you say. “i’m told that often.”

he keeps holding your wrist while the night stays dangerous. the thing that hurt him is still out there, the case still unfinished, the world still full of prayers that go unanswered. but for this one breath, in this broken room, sam’s alive beneath your hands. and you’re the one he called.

ꔛ. all works ; writing guidelines ; writing schedule.

[burnerformyheart]

I’m the only ghost

platonic the pitt pt 2/2 first part here!

Your trip to the ER was forgotten after the first round of canned beers. The world around you was hazy, and the pain was long forgotten.

You stumble to the parking lot where you knew your banmates would be waiting for you. They called you to be there in five, but all of you knew that it was 15 minutes for you to get there.

It was early, but still, you had to make a last run of the set you planned, it wasn't something big, just a few songs for the start of the festival, but it was something at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, Robby didn't have the time to ponder your ways of coping with whatever drove you to leave all behind. He still had to run an ER.

The first person he talks about this encounter when Abbot leaves is Dana, her hair in the same low ponytail she always uses, glasses on, and even when it's just the start of the shift, she is all around the ER and nurses' station. The calls, unfortunately, never stop coming even when it's shift change.

"You won't believe who i just saw." Robby gets close to her, arms on the counter.

"Well, i hope it wasn't Gloria, she is looking for you."

"Yeah, time for my weekly spanking." He jokes, even when the thought of talking with Gloria this day, where everything seems to be set to go wrong, makes his skin crawl. "But no, Patch was here just a few minutes ago."

"Patch?" Dana takes off her glasses and turns completely towards him, hand on her hip, while the other rests on the counter.

"Yeah? You know, short, always smelling like cheap bars and humid basements."

“Patch?” Dana repeats, eyebrows rising. “As in The Patch? Burnout genius?"

“Yup.” Robby sighs, rubbing his face. “Walked out AMA like she was checking out of a hotel.”

Dana scoffs. “She’s still alive? I thought she moved to L.A. or prison.”

“Apparently neither. Showed up with a busted wrist, possibly concussed, and smelling like a distillery. Asked for extra gauze like it was a souvenir.”

Dana lets out a low whistle, shaking her head. “Classic. What’d Abbott say?”

“That I’m too sentimental,” Robby mutters. “Which is… probably true. But she-Patch-looked worse than usual. I think we've lost her for good.”

There’s a pause, just the buzz of the monitors, the shuffling of nurses. Dana leans on the counter, thoughtful. “You ever think maybe she just can’t stop? Like, she only knows how to crash?”

He gives a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. But at least before, I thought she knew how to survive it.”

A call blares from the trauma bay, “Incoming, MVA, ETA five!”-and Dana’s already moving, pulling up the phone and telling Princess and Perlah instructions for the incoming patient.

“Welcome to the weekend,” she says over her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Robby mutters, pushing off the counter. “Guess I’ll get my spanking later,”

 Dana smirks. “You wish, Dr. Robby.”

He’s half-smiling when he turns, but it fades fast. The automatic doors slide open for the next rush of chaos, and for a second, he swears he can still smell cigarette smoke; cheap, bitter, familiar, like Patch never really left.

With you, things were going as smoothly as they could go. You got into your friend's car, not even 10 am, and now drunk, it was easier that way, for everybody. You stumble across the parking lot, smiling and hugging your bass, humming a song only you knew.

You see them before they see you, two of your bandmates perched on the hood of the car, passing around a joint and arguing about the setlist again. The guitar player’s hoodie has a coffee stain on it, someone’s drumsticks clatter to the ground, and the whole scene feels like home in the wrong kind of way.

“Patch!” one of them shouts when they spot you, waving the can in their hand like a trophy. “Did they patch you up, doc?” 

You grin, wide and stupid. “Always do.”

They laugh, and you throw yourself into the backseat, the bass still clutched against your chest. The world hums around you, half in motion, half stuck in that slow, syrupy haze that follows you everywhere lately. 

The drive to the festival feels longer than it should. The windows are down, wind whipping your hair, and someone’s got an old speaker blasting through static. You try to focus on the sky, the clouds, anything that isn’t the quiet ache still buried under your ribs.

“Y’know,” the drummer says from the passenger seat, “we could’ve canceled. You look like hell.” 

You smirk, staring out the window. “That’s my brand.” And it was true, people knew about you in the underground bars for your personality and perpetual alcohol smell.

They laugh again, and the sound fills the car; easy, careless, alive. For a moment, you let it wash over you. Pretend that you’re just another washed-up musician chasing noise instead of the ghosts you left in a trauma bay. 

Outside, the festival grounds came into view. It was still early, but tents, stages, and food trucks were already in place; in a couple of hours, a sea of people would be waiting for something loud enough to make them forget. 

You open the door, stepping out into the sunlight. The air tastes like smoke and promise. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you think of the hospital lights, the way they buzzed overhead when you walked out.

You shake it off. You’ve got a show to play. 

The festival grounds are already pulsing with life by the time you get there. The air’s sticky, full of cheap beer, sunscreen, and fried food. People are everywhere, sprawled on the grass, weaving through tents, shouting over speakers that haven’t even been tuned yet.

You trail behind your bandmates, trying to ignore the throb in your wrist. You tell yourself it’s fine. You’ve been worse. 

You’ve been worse. 

The side stage looks smaller than you remembered. A handful of techs rush around in neon vests, plugging cables, yelling about sound checks. The banner above the stage still reads PITTFEST, half of the letters crooked from last night’s storm.

“Hey, rockstar!” one of the crew calls when you climb the ramp. “You’re up for sound in five!”

You give him a lazy salute, setting your bass down and stretching your arms like you’re not seconds away from passing out.

The drummer’s already behind his kit, tapping out a rhythm, testing the mics. Someone hands you a bottle of water; it’s warm, but it helps. You look out at the open field spreading beyond the stage. The crowd’s thin now, scattered, but it’ll fill soon. It always does.

You can almost pretend this is normal. That your name’s not whispered in hospital corridors, that you’re just another girl with a hangover and a dream. 

The first notes echo out; fuzzy, too loud, but it works. You smile. The others follow your lead, easing into the groove, shaking off the morning fog.

“Patch!” the drummer yells between songs. “You good?”

You flash him a thumbs-up, forcing your grin wider. “Always am!” And for a second, you almost believe it.

The sun climbs higher, sharp and merciless. People start to move closer to the stage, drawn by the noise, the rhythm, you.

You play until your fingers sting and your vision swims. The song ends, applause rises, and for a breath, everything feels right. 

The laughter, the light, the sound; it’s all too much, too loud, too bright, and you cling to it anyway. Because it’s better than silence. Better than thinking about the ER lights and the way Robby’s voice cracked when he said your name.

You lean back, catching your breath, the buzz in your veins half alcohol, half adrenaline. You can taste copper on your tongue, but you don’t care. You’re alive. And that's enough. 

Later, after the rush had passed and the music stopped, you let out a breath. It was awesome, the energy was addictive, and the place was full of people, literally the biggest crowd you had ever seen. The only downside was that your guitarist stopped you from jumping and tried to crowd surf again. “You already tried that yesterday and ended up in the ER. Let's try and break the record of incidents.”

Party Popper. 

Now it was just you and your band, the sun was still up, but the sky looked orange, it was really beautiful, it made you think, but you didn’t like to go there. Where things got real and your feelings got the best of you, where your skin crawled with anticipation and old knowledge every time you saw someone get hurt. Where your brain couldn't stop talking and seeking validation and praise from those above you.

So you take another beer, gulping it all in one shot. “Whoa, Patch, slow down, we want you conscious until at least 7 pm.” 

You ignore him, you don't want to hear him until your stage starts later in the night.

The can slips from your fingers and lands in the grass with a soft hiss. The field is still alive; laughter, music from other stages, the smell of burnt hot dogs and beer-soaked dirt. Everything feels almost normal.

Or, as normal, it can be when your head feels underwater and the ground tilts side to side.

You plop down beside your amp case, head tipped back, watching the sky bleed orange into violet. For a heartbeat, it looks like the trauma bay ceiling, those same blinding fluorescents, that same ringing in your ears.

You shake it off. Again.

Your phone buzzes somewhere in your pocket, but you don’t look. Probably a text from someone back home, or maybe Abbott, if he still had your number. You picture his frown, the way his eyes used to narrow when he’d say you’re wasting it, like he meant your potential, your future, your whole damn self.

You can’t tell if you miss him or just miss being seen.

“Hey!” the drummer calls out, voice muffled by the noise around you. “We’re hitting the vendor tents. You coming?”

You wave them off lazily. “Nah. Think I’ll stick around. Guard the gear.”

They laugh and wander off, swallowed by the crowd.

Now it’s just you. The grass beneath your hands. The faint tremor in your arm where the bone’s still healing wrong. The music from the main stage fades into something slow, ambient; the kind of song that makes people hold each other.

It feels therapeutic, just you and the music, one or two couples around the camping area.

Then the first pop cracks through the air. Pop. Pop. Pop.

It’s small, sharp. It could be a firework. You don’t look up. Not yet. You've seen the itinerary; the fireworks were for later, when the last band, the one that was scheduled by 10. This wasn't right.

You hear someone from the staff behind you laugh nervously, while someone else shouts, “Yo, who’s got fireworks this early?”

Then another set. And another. And the energy in the crowd shifts, a ripple of confusion, not fear. Not yet.

But you know. You know that sound.

Your body reacts before your mind catches up. Your muscles tighten, heart slamming against your ribs.

You turn toward the noise, and that’s when the screaming starts.

"TAKE COVER" You scream, knowing people can't hear you now.

Your bass case falls to the ground as people begin to run towards the exit.

For a second, the world fractures, sound and light and motion collapsing all at once. The smell of gunpowder and blood floods the air. Someone trips and falls beside you, another shoves past, and you’re just moving.

Not away. Not like everyone else.

Towards it.

The instincts kick back in hard, years of training, all-nighters exploring books and protocols, drills you thought you’d buried. You drop to your knees next to the first person you see go down, a boy in a white shirt, blooming red at the shoulder.

Your hands move on their own, pressing down, checking his airway, shouting for someone to help, and the taste of copper returns, thick and metallic.

The haze is gone. The alcohol is gone. All that’s left is you.

And the doctor you swore you’d never be again.

You run towards the first body you see, a man, elderly, with a graze on his head; it bleeds a lot, but it doesn't seem to be deep.

"Do you take any medication?" You ask the man as you touch the zone and rip a little bit of your shirt to put it in his head, listing the speech he needed to give to the doctors in the pitt in your head.

"Just medical marijuana," He groans, looking at you. "For?" You look at him and put his hand on his head with the shirt to slow the bleeding.

"Everything," And that manages to get a snort from you, making your heart feel lighter, one patient at a time.

"Amen to that." You say under your breath. "Hold pressure, say you have a yellow."

After that, everything becomes a blur of blood and colors. You lost the count after the fourth GSWs, tourniquets with belts, hoodies, anything you had at hand becomes the reason someone might live to see another day.

"HELP"

The word tears your throat raw. It’s useless, lost in the roar of panic, but you yell again anyway. “HEY! I NEED PRESSURE HERE!”

Someone, a kid, barely old enough to drink, drops beside you, eyes wide and shaking. “I-I don’t know what to do!” “Then calm down and hear me out,” you snap, voice sharper than it’s been in years. Backbone and authority are brought back to the surface. You rip your flannel off, shove it into the boy’s hands, and press it against the wound in the stranger’s shoulder. “Hold that tight. Don’t stop. When people come in, tell them you've got a red.”

He nods, trembling, and you’re already moving again. Another body. A girl this time, hair tangled with grass and glitter, blood soaking into her jeans. The world blurs into muscle memory: airway, breathing, circulation. She’s still got a pulse.

There’s a moment, a breath, when you think, maybe I can keep up. But then the gunfire starts again, closer this time. You can feel the percussion rattle in your chest, a rhythm that doesn’t belong to any song.

“Move! MOVE!” someone screams. You duck low, dragging the girl behind a cooler. The smell of gunpowder mixes with beer and sweat and something acrid that burns your nose. You see the blood on her shirt.

Your fingers won’t stop shaking, but they still work. They still remember. "No man's land," You say to yourself, recalling Dr. Abbot's words, as you lift her shirt up just to see the blood coming from just up her navel.

You see a kid just looking at the girl on the floor, his breath coming in and out in fast bursts. "HEY! I NEED YOU WITH ME," And that seems to do the trick as he blinks and suddenly his eyes just harden and he comes to you and kneels on the other side of the girl.

Someone’s crying near the barricade. Someone’s praying. Someone’s recording.

You want to scream at them all to stop.

Your hands are slick with blood. Not yours. Not yet.

Focus. Focus.

"Keep this here, press hard, don't let go, tell the EMTs that you have a red, they'll know." He just nods, and you can finally stand up to try and help others.

When the gunfire finally slows, it’s replaced by a sound somehow worse, the moaning, the begging, the silence between.

You press your forehead to your sleeve, sucking in a breath that tastes like iron and smoke. The sun’s gone down, and the lights from the stage paint everything in this surreal, neon red. It looks like hell and heaven all at once.

You can’t even remember when you started crying.

“Patch!” someone yells. It’s your guitarist, face pale, hands covered in someone else’s blood. “There’s- there’s a medic tent- they’re calling survivors in-” “Then go!” you bark, half standing, half swaying. “Take whoever’s breathing and go!”

He hesitates. “What about you?” You look back at the chaos, at the people in the dirt, at the blood still pulsing between your fingers. “I’ll catch up, don't worry.”

You don’t. You stay until your hands stop shaking, until you can’t tell if the blood is dry or just part of you now.

The next minutes go in a blur, screams as you apply tourniquets. Cries of families as they hug their brothers, friends, and lovers as they bled from the head, asking for help when all of you knew there was no coming back from that.

Your breath becomes unsteady as you have to tell the third person that the people they have in their hands are already dead, her head swims as she keeps walking through the crowd, her body hurts, but you cannot stop to check yourself.

Keep going, push it, don't think about it.

Bury it.

The chaos fades before you do. Sirens blare in the distance, voices blur, and the world starts to slow down like someone turned gravity back on too suddenly. You're still kneeling in the dirt, hands stained red, the pulse under your fingertips gone still.

For a second, you don't move. Not when someone shouts for gauze, not when another pair of hands take over compressions, not even when the crowd parts around her like she’s radioactive.

Then it hits, the sound. The screams, the crying, the clatter of stretchers and oxygen tanks. It’s too much, too familiar. Every noise piles up until it’s not the festival anymore, it’s the trauma bay, and you're back in the pit. You hear Abbott yelling vitals, a nurse asking for a crash cart, she hears herself saying, “Hold pressure-no, higher- don’t stop.”

But you're not there. You're at Pitfest. And there’s nothing left to save. You look around, bodies and blood around, moaning and grunts. You had left medicine for this exact reason; it's too much.

toomuchtoomuchtoomuch

You look at the boy you've tried to save. Too young, his cries still echoing in your head, "Mom, I don't -I'm afraid, I don't want to die."

You press your hands in your ears, as if it could block the noise outside and the screams of a mother who just lost her son. You were too late, too slow. What were you thinking?

You gave him a chance. Kiara's voice resonates in your head from the last time you saw her.

Your hands are shaking. Your body finally remembers how exhausted it is. Your breath catches in your throat, one, two, three, and then nothing. Your knees give.

Someone calls a name, maybe once, maybe twice. You can't bring yourself to care. The ground tilts, the lights smear. "Let's go, push your limits."

But the world’s still spinning and you feel cold and your body trembles, the floor is not moving, but you swear everything is going upside down.

You blink once, and everything tilts, sirens bending in and out like waves, lights streaking across your vision. Someone’s yelling, someone’s crying, someone’s saying your name, but it’s like it’s all happening underwater. "shut up, shut up, shut up"

Your fingers twitch. You want to keep helping, give them a chance, but your hands feel heavy, too heavy. The blood’s dried on your skin, sticky and dark, and when you finally look down, you realize some of it’s yours.

Oh.

That’s new.

The grazed leg you ignored hours ago, the one that burned and throbbed but wasn’t that bad? It was serious, the adrenaline just kept you moving, but now? Your vision blurs around the edges, your chest stings, and your knees start folding in on themselves.

It wasn't just a graze after all.

“Hey- hey! She’s going down!” someone shouts.

You want to tell them not to make a big deal out of it, that you’re fine, some more important people need help, but the words get lost somewhere between your brain and your mouth.

You sway once, twice, then hit the ground hard enough to knock the air out of your lungs. The dirt’s cold. Softer than the hospital tile, softer than the world you tried to leave behind.

You can hear footsteps. Rubber soles, gravel, shouting again. Hands on your shoulders, firm and urgent.

“Hey, stay with me! You’re hit?”

“I- I’m fine,” you slur, because that’s what you always say.

“Yeah? You’re bleeding.”

“Just- just a scratch,” you whisper. “I’ve had worse.”

You try to laugh, but it comes out as a choke.

The medic, young, maybe your age when you first started, presses gauze to your side. “Name?” he asks, voice shaking. “Patch.” He frowns. “Full name?” You blink up at him, the stage lights spinning halos behind his head. “Ha! Nobody uses it anymore.”

The edges of the world are curling now, soft and dark and merciful.

“Patch, stay awake,” the medic says again. “C’mon, you saved, like, half the field, don’t-” You smile, just barely and interrupt him. “Not bad, huh?”

The ground tilts again, and this time you don’t fight it. You let gravity win.

In the ER, things were hectic, screams from doctors asking for materials to help people, the blood that had come from the helicopter was going down fast, people were still coming from the doors in cars and ambulances alike, the triage in the ambulance bay was doing a fantastic job, making things easier for everyone.

" I HAVE A RED," a kid in a pick-up truck screamed his lungs out as he pressed a bloody shirt to the chest of a woman who miraculously was still conscious, the trail of tears left behind on her grim, covered face. “She-she’s still breathing-”

The ambulance bay looked like a war zone. Sirens stacked on top of each other, red lights painting the walls in stuttering bursts. The smell of copper and diesel filled the air.

Shen runs through the ambulance bay, checking the kid and the woman. "You're an MS?" He tries to ask him as he seems to show the beginning of a panic attack.

"I-i what?" The kid stumbles on his words, eyes never leaving the blood on his hands. "No-no, a girl, bass she helped us." His breaths become slower, and just as the woman is put on a gurney, his body begins to fail him, his gaze far away and glazed, the adrenaline begins to go down, letting him feel the pain coming from his shirt.

"okay, NEED A GURNEY HERE," Shen shouts as the boy goes down, and as much as it pains him to let him, he sees an ambulance pull up.

"I HAVE THREE HERE! FEMALE, TWENTIES, UNRESPONSIVE" The EMT screams as he opens the doors of the ambulance, and as Ellis works on the other two Shen sees the girl.

Shen pivoted. The back doors of an ambulance flew open, and his world just stopped.

There she was.

Blood up her leg and side, dirt streaked across her neck, her hair matted, face too still. A medic leaned over her, pressing gauze into a wound near her hip.

"holy shit" Is the first thing Shen says when he sees you, losing his cool for the first time on the last hour. "SHIT" He stumbled forward.

Shen’s eyes locked on your wrist, the torn hospital band still there, half-hidden under dried blood. "RED HERE!"

"Don't you dare die here, Patch. Abbot and Robby are going to kill me if you do." He whispers as he lets the others take you inside. He lets himself feel scared for a moment, just a second before the next car pulls up.

Inside Robby’s voice cuts through the noise like a scalpel. The ER was overflowing, too many bodies, not enough hands. He is just getting another patient in when Frank's shout came from the doorway.

“Move, move -on three!” Robby gives the instructions at the same time he cuts the shirt of a boy to check the damage.

“Robby!”

He didn’t even look up. “Not now!”

“Robby,” Frank said again, voice lower this time, sharper. “I need you to be calm when she comes in.”

That tone did it. The one reserved for when something went sideways, fast.

she?

Robby turned, gloves slick, eyes burning from the sweat stinging them. Frank stood there, pale, trembling, his scrubs streaked red. Behind him, an EMT was wheeling in a stretcher.

Robby saw the hair first; dark, tangled. Then the red wristband.

The room tilted.

“No,” he said, but his body was already moving.

They rolled you under the harsh trauma lights, and all the noise around them seemed to dull.

“Name’s Patch,” the EMT said, breathless. “Found her at the scene, she was triaging victims before we got there. She’s got a through-and-through in the thigh, possible internal-”

“Start two large-bore IVs,” Robby snapped. His voice was steady; his hands weren’t. “Get blood to the bedside. Type and cross one unit first. We need to stabilize her before getting her into the OR.”

Abbot appeared beside him, silent, eyes already scanning you.

“God,” He lets out with a breath. “She was just here.”

“Clamp that line,” Robby said, not looking at him. He leaned over you, pressing a hand against the wound. “Come on, kid. Don’t do this to me.”

Your skin was cool. Too cool.

They worked for ten minutes. More than what they could afford in a moment like that.

By the end, the floor was slick, their gloves were ruined, and everyone had the same hollow look- somewhere between hope and surrender, and they can finally get you upstairs.

“Pressure’s rising,” Abbot said, exhaling shakily. “Ninety over sixty.”

“Good,” Robby muttered. “Let’s keep it that way.”

He leaned close, close enough to smell the faint trace of smoke in her hair, the metallic tang of blood and beer and something else he doesn't want to think about now.

“You couldn’t just stay gone, huh?” he whispered to himself as the others got you into the elevator.

Hours later, you wake to light. Not soft morning light, not the kind that kisses your eyelids through blinds. This light cuts; it hums and burns your skin, fluorescent and surgical. The air around you smells like antiseptic and coffee and somebody else’s adrenaline.

fuck, again?

Your throat feels raw, every breath catches on something sharp inside you. You try to move, but pain flares around your leg, a jagged warning to not move.

Then a voice says your name.

“Patch.”

You know that voice. Even half-drowned in drugs and static, you’d know it anywhere. You turn your head, slow, too slow, and there he is.

Robby.

He looks like hell. The circles under his eyes could be bruises. His scrubs are still flecked with someone else’s blood, maybe yours. His hair sticks up like he’s been dragging his hands through it for hours. There’s a paper cup in his hand, still cold and untouched.

“Hey,” he says, and it breaks in the middle, that word. Like it’s been waiting behind his teeth all night.

You try to answer, but your throat doesn’t cooperate. What comes out sounds like gravel being poured through a sieve. Robby’s already there, tilting the water towards you. His hands don’t shake, but his jaw does.

“Slow,” he murmurs. “You’re safe. You’re in The Pitt.”

That gets a laugh out of you. Small, broken, half pain, half memory. “Should’ve guessed,” you rasp. “Could smell the panic.”

He huffs, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Still a smartass. Guess some things don’t die.”

You try to shrug, but your shoulder disagrees. “How bad?”

“Gunshot through your thigh,” he says, the doctor voice slipping back in automatically. “Lost a lot of blood. You’re lucky. No major arteries.”

“Guess I’m still hard to kill.”

He looks at you for a long time. “Yeah. You always were.”

The machines talk for a while instead of either of you. A monitor ticks steady. Someone coughs in the hallway. The air smells too clean, like it’s trying to erase what happened.

When he finally speaks again, his voice has an edge. “EMT's said you were out there before the medics even showed. You were triaging people. Using belts. Flannel.”

“Whatever worked,” you mumble.

He shakes his head, disbelief breaking into anger. “You could’ve died.”

“Almost did,” you say, smiling with cracked lips. “Seems on brand.”

“Don’t joke about that.” His voice gets a strange edge to it, like he can decide if he wants to cry or scream at you.

“Then don’t act like it surprises you.”

His silence lands heavy. He looks away first.

You close your eyes for a second, just to steady the spin of the ceiling lights. When you open them again, he’s watching you like you’re something between a miracle and a warning.

“I left medicine,” you say quietly, “so I wouldn’t die doing it. Guess I’m not built for quitting.”

He exhales, something halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “You shouldn’t have walked out this morning.”

“I wasn’t in a staying kind of mood.”

“You looked like hell.”

You grin weakly. “Still do, probably.”

He almost smiles back, but then it fades. “You saved people, Patch. A lot of people. EMTs said if you hadn’t-”

“Stop.” You cut him off with a look. “Don’t make it sound noble. I didn’t do it for that. I did it because it’s all I know how to do. I can’t fix me. I can stop bleeding. That’s it.”

His eyes soften, but his voice doesn’t. “That’s not nothing.”

“It’s not enough either.”

You swallow hard. The words taste like rust.

He hesitates, then reaches out, careful, resting it just above the IV taped to your arm. His skin is warm, steady.

“You did good,” he says. “You came back.”

“Didn’t plan to.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

You blink against the sting in your eyes. “You still give those speeches?”

“Only to people worth it.”

You laugh once, soft, tired. “Guess I’m back on that list, huh?”

“Guess you are.” He says more to himself than to you, looking down for a moment.

The quiet stretches again. The world has the nerve to go calm. Outside, someone pushes a cart down the hall; inside, your heart monitor keeps time.

Then, barely above a whisper, you say, “When I was out there… I thought I heard Abbot. Calling vitals, shouting for help. I thought, if I can just make it to that voice…”

He looks down, smiling faintly. “He is that kind of doctor."

“Yeah,” you breathe, eyelids heavy. “That’s what I missed.”

You don’t remember drifting off, only that his hand doesn’t move until you do.

When you wake again, it’s quieter. The sirens are gone. The air feels thinner, lighter. Through the glass wall, the city glows like nothing happened.

Robby’s still there. He hasn’t left.

You want to say something, but you don’t. You just watch him through the haze of half-sleep and let yourself dream about what could have happened if you'd stayed.

Maybe you’d still be down there, under the humming fluorescents, making bets with the nurses about silly things like possible hook-ups between attendings and interns. Maybe you’d be teaching the new med students, trying not to laugh when they froze as they gained their yellow wings. Maybe you’d have a locker with your name on it instead of a setlist stained with beer and your bad decisions.

You smile at the thought. Yeah, that could’ve been great.

But the stage was addictive, the screams and that different kind of adrenaline was hard to leave behind, the late nights singing and dancing around, screaming at your bandmates, drinking the thoughts away.

that was a problem for the future you.

For now, you focus on the monitors keeping their steady rhythm beside you, a lullaby you used to live by. You wonder how many nights you spent listening to that same heartbeat from the other side of the bedrail. It’s funny, you used to tell patients they were lucky when they landed in The Pitt. That meant they’d made it far enough to be saved. You never thought you’d be one of them.

Your eyes drift toward the door. Robby’s still sitting there, chin resting in his hand, exhaustion carved into every line of him. There’s something about the way he’s watching the hallway, alert even now, that makes your chest ache. He hasn’t changed; still the anchor in the chaos, still the one who stays when everyone else burns out.

You close your eyes again and let the room fade. For the first time in a long while, the dark feels gentle, not empty.

You think about the lives you didn’t live, the versions of you that stayed, that didn’t run, that didn’t drown their pulse in noise and neon. They’re still out there somewhere, walking the halls, calling out vitals, laughing with the nurses. You almost hear them when the monitors beep.

Maybe tomorrow, you’ll talk to him. Maybe tomorrow, you’ll ask if there’s still a place for you in this world you abandoned.

But not tonight.

Tonight, you let yourself drift. You let the hum of The Pitt swallow you whole. That low, endless heartbeat of the place you tried to leave behind.

And for once, you don’t fight it.

divider by cafekitsune, taglist ୨ৎ @generation-zero @homeless-clown @vane-camarillo

and it's done!! i'm so happy, now i have to finish my criminal minds platonic fic and i can publish the other fics i've been working on!! sorry for disappearing, but school's been kicking my ass, only one month more and I'm free. Pray for my sanity and sleep schedule.

[burnerformyheart]

The sun goes down and I feel the light betray me

platonic!criminal minds x reader.

TW: child abuse, grooming, manipulation, trauma, cult-like dynamics, implied sa

You didn't remember anything before his arms. You were young when your mother brought you in, her face now blurry in all of your memories, the only leftover of her presence in you being her words telling you he would be with you forever.

He has always been there, holding you. Rocking you. Anchoring you like a tether around a drifting balloon.

He called it love.

You believed him because the other option, the one where the truth was wrapped in splinters and screams, would have pushed you over the edge of sanity. And at sixteen, sanity was a thin string stretched between your teeth.

His arms smelled like iron and salt and the damp underside of an old church. They were warm when they needed to be. They were hard when they needed to be. They were always there. Even when it hurts. Even when you felt your chest tighten like a bird flapping against a cage.

"You're my special one," he would whisper, voice low and sweet as rotten fruit.

"You're different."

"You're strong."

"You'll thank me one day."

The words had grooves in them, like a song he'd sung so many times he didn't need to remember the lyrics anymore. And you listened because if you stopped, if you thought too long about what it meant, you might hear the sound of bones breaking under those same arms.

You might hear your own.

Worse, maybe you would hear the others.

So you stayed still. You memorized the rhythm of his breathing. You learned how to tilt your head so your hair fell over your eyes, so he couldn't see the tiny flames of rebellion flickering there.

You told yourself: This is love. This is what love is. This is how it feels to be chosen.

Because the other option, where you were being shaped, twisted, remade into something you hadn't agreed to be, it was too big to fit inside your skull. Too heavy to lift out and look at. Too loud to hear without going deaf.

And somewhere, beneath the weight of those arms, you began to dream of running.

Of the breaking.

Of slipping out of the story before it swallowed you whole.

In the meantime, you stayed.

You let him hold you.

You let him call it love.

Because if you didn't, you weren't sure you'd survive the fall.

But now it was October, the air began to pick up, and your broken clothes weren't enough anymore for survival.

Ha, just like your soul.

The leaves scratched across the cracked pavement like brittle insects. The sky smelled like rain and iron. You could feel it in your bones; the story was changing. For weeks, you had followed the signs, the quiet rituals of his next lesson, and you had known it would end here, in this empty house, with another body cooling on the floor beside you.

You didn't know how you escaped him, your memory full of screams and pain. Your body was proof of how hard you fought; your ribs ached like old doors. Your wrists were ringed in violet. Your lip split. Your shoulder wrong.

Maybe this was being human, full of pain and fighting in a weird combination where you could only curl into yourself and wait for all of the world to disappear.

So you did.

You curled on the dusty floor of the abandoned house, pressed against the wall like a broken toy. The boy was a few feet away, blood dried in a halo around his head. He didn't look angry anymore. Just empty. Like he'd been let go of.

You'd tried to close his eyes. But they kept slipping open.

So you just watched him. Keep watch.

Maybe to protect him.

Maybe to protect yourself.

Was it your fault? If maybe you hadn't angered him, if you had agreed to his wishes, to his rituals, and love that hurt. Maybe this boy would still be alive, maybe he had someone waiting for him, someone with love that felt like sunshine instead of thorns and acid in their lungs.

Was it really love? The others had different opinions; it was never the same thing, and sometimes they would say you could just feel it, like it was some sort of instinctual thing humans knew.

It sounded stupid.

At some point, your breathing stopped being frantic. It just... was. You just stayed there listening to the air and trees singing together, were they mourning the boy? Maybe nature mourned all of them, too small to escape, too young to become worms and have their lives taken and used as a compost for other trees.

Kids shouldn't become part of the ground so soon. But, well, he didn't care about that.

Until-

A crunch.

Footsteps on broken glass. A shadow cut across the light leaking through the broken doorway.

You flinched. Pulling your knees tighter to your chest.

"FBI!"

Too loud. Too bright. Too real.

Too much.

You felt like screaming, but what could you say, confess the crime of loving him? of being too weak to fight for the boy in your feet?

Boots. Voices. Guns. Man.

The kind of entrance you were taught to run from. The one where your heart felt like running away by itself from your body, the pain filled your body as a phantom memory, his hands his words teaching -what you should do when someone found you or the others.

It was your duty as his wife, right?

But you didn't run. Couldn't. Because guilt didn't let you move away from the boy, too small, too pale, the red from his blood made everything feel real, it was still warm, sticky. Beautiful.

His voice ran in your head, if you love me, you'll die before letting them take you away.

But you just sat there, motionless, eyes wide and raw, like a deer bleeding in the road.

It felt like you were one, your legs didn't have the force to escape even if you wanted.

The boots stopped. A silhouette filled the doorway. A gun stayed pointed down but ready.

"She's covered in blood," a voice murmured. "Could be the unsub."

Another, softer voice: "Or she's in shock."

The words blurred. Guns. Men. Orders. Hands. The same script, different actors. Maybe their lives would feel softer, you could be good for them, the same way you were with him.

Still, you couldn't tell if you were being saved, or caged again.

If it doesn't hurt, then it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

The men move into the room like shadows with guns. You know what comes next because he taught you: stay still, stay quiet, stay small.

A voice, closer now: "Hands where we can see them."

Another: "Hotch, she's just a kid-"

Their boots crunch on the glass, closing in. They see the blood. They see you. They see the body.

And in their eyes you can see it, too: they think you did this.

-Four Days Earlier-

The conference room was too bright for the hour. The fluorescents hummed above the hum of the jet engines warming on the tarmac outside. A new case file sat in the middle of the table, the cover photo paper-clipped to a stack of reports and morgue shots.

They were never ending.

Hotch stood at the head of the table, posture rigid. "We've got three victims across two states. All young males, late teens to early twenties. Abducted, kept alive for a period of days, then killed and left in abandoned structures."

JJ flipped a page, her brows furrowing. "All posed the same way. On their backs, arms crossed, eyes open."

"Ritualistic," Reid said, his tone quiet but certain. He tapped one of the photos with his pen. "See the salt rings? Symbolic cleansing, maybe remorse or penance.?"

Rossi leaned back in his chair, the file open in his hands. "And no sign of sexual assault or robbery. Whoever's doing this, the motive isn't pleasure or profit. It's doctrine."

Garcia's voice crackled through the speakerphone. "I ran background on the locations, every single one used to be a church property. The unsub's got a theme, sugar. Redemption through rot, maybe?"

Morgan frowned. "Or someone trying to wash the sin outta something they did."

Hotch nodded. "That's what we're going to find out. Wheels up in twenty."

Two days later they found another one, small and young, 16 at most.

The smell hit them first; rust, dust, and the faint trace of old wood smoke. The house was a skeleton, eaten by time. Same way the kid would be.

Morgan swept left, Rossi right, while Reid crouched near the wall where a candle had melted into a puddle of wax and ash.

"Same setup," he murmured, gloved fingers tracing the pattern. "Salt, candles, rope fibers. But there's something different here-"

JJ interrupted, kneeling beside a cracked mirror. "A strand of hair. It is long. Doesn't match the victim, or the ones we have found in other scenes"

Rossi frowned. "Female?"

"Could be," JJ said. "Or another victim."

Hotch glanced around. "If the unsub's working with a partner, this could explain the inconsistencies. The differences between the bindings."

Morgan pointed to a corner. "Or maybe the unsub's raising them- teaching someone else the ritual. Someone young. Someone who's learning."

Prentiss continues, looking around the scene. "There isn't a sign of another person here apart from the hair. You think they found the unsub first?"

Reid's expression darkened. "That would explain the progression. The hesitation patterns in the stab wounds. He's not killing alone anymore."

Hotch straightened. "Run the DNA. Let's see if our 'student' has a name."

Garcia's voice came through the comm line, bright but brittle. "About that, boss man, uh, we've got nothing. I ran the DNA. It's not in CODIS, not in any hospital birth record, not even in missing persons. Whoever this person is, they do not officially exist."

Morgan muttered, "So what, they're a ghost?"

Reid shook his head, staring at the carved phrase above the doorframe. YOU'RE MY SPECIAL ONE.

"No," he said softly. "A prisoner."

Now, back into the house where you fought and let yourself feel anything more than the so-called love and admiration.

Morgan was first through the door, gun up, light slicing through the gloom. The air was thick, stale dust, iron, and decay. Familiar. It clung to the back of his throat.

"Clear left," he murmured.

Rossi's flashlight swept across the floor and stopped. "Hotch."

Hotch followed his gaze. For a moment, no one spoke.

A boy, maybe sixteen, lay sprawled against the wall, a halo of dried blood beneath his head. His chest was still.

Then, a shape just beside him. You.

Small. Curled. Breathing.

"FBI!" Morgan barked automatically, gun raised. "Hands where we can see them!"

The shape didn't move; just a soft flinch, a twitch like an echo of the sound.

"Hotch," JJ whispered. "She's just-"

"Stay back," Hotch warned, scanning the room. "We don't know if she's armed."

Reid stepped forward, always the one with a bleeding heart; he was careful, voice steady. "It's okay. We're not going to hurt you."

You didn't answer. Didn't look up. Your hands were sticky with red, your skin pale beneath the grime, as if you hadn't seen the sun in years. Dried blood streaked your neck, hair matted to your face. Your eyes, when they finally flickered open, were glassy, fever-bright, distant.

"Hotch," Spencer said slowly. "There's no weapon."

Hotch moved closer, still cautious. "We need medics."

"Copy that," Morgan said into his radio.

JJ crouched next to Reid, hands trembling slightly. She'd seen victims before; hundreds of them, but this was different. You looked... wrong in a way that didn't fit the scene. Too still. Too silent. Like she was waiting for permission to breathe.

"Hey," JJ said softly, "what's your name?"

No response. Just a blink; slow, mechanical.

Reid knelt beside JJ, studying the bruises along the girl's wrists. The marks were old and new at once, layered like rings on a tree. "Restraints," he murmured. "Prolonged. Possibly years."

Morgan frowned. "Then what's she doing here? Why's she covered in blood?"

"Maybe she fought back," Rossi said.

Reid's gaze flicked toward the boy. "Or maybe she watched someone else die."

JJ tried again, even gentler now. "You're safe. He's gone."

For you, the boots come closer. Orders hit your ears like thunder. Hands reach for you, black gloves, bright badges, gunmetal glint. You flinch but don't move. You're still holding yourself tight, as if you could fold small enough to disappear.

Someone crouches low, voice calmer than the others. A man with dark skin, eyes sharp but not cruel. He smells like sweat and metal and paper.

You lift your hands slowly. Your wrists ache. The dried blood cracks. They look at you like you're a puzzle they're afraid to touch.

"She's just a kid," a woman's voice says behind him. "Sixteen, maybe."

She is pretty, just the type for him, blonde with kind eyes, would she be rough? soft, or full of empty promises of no pain and salvation.

Would all of his words be true?

"She's covered in blood," the man answers.

And you see it in their eyes: not rescue. Suspicion. The story you're caught in has flipped. You're not the girl who got away. You're the girl who killed him.

But still, they help you stand up, and your skin gets goosebumps at the unfamiliar touch; it doesn't hurt or feel like his love, but it feels better than him, not touching more than what they needed to do, just helping.

The next hours felt like a blur, the sting of disinfectant, female hands cleaning your face, and touching your hair. The warmth of a blanket.

You're in a room now. Cold. Not iron-cold like his touch, but cleaner, institutional. The kind of cold that doesn't pretend to be love. The type of air that smelled of the suits of people who used to talk to him, professional, tense.

They gave you water. You didn't drink it. You don't trust things you didn't bleed for. Maybe they would tell you to get on your knees and confess your sins. His love hurt, but you always knew what to expect. What would they do to you?

They left a blanket on the table. Soft. Untouched. You're still curled in the chair, arms locked around your knees, eyes fixed on the two-way glass.

He used to tell you they could see through mirrors like that. That they were always watching, waiting for a reason to drag you away. You wonder if he was right.

You've been here for an hour. Maybe more. No screaming. No bindings. Just a heavy silence that settles in your skin like mold.

Then the door opens. Two women enter, but one stands out to you.

She was beautiful, the kind of woman you'd see on the things he showed you late at night, the ones you weren't supposed to see, where they sang too loud and said the wrong things. The ones used as tutorials for the way he would make you sing, the way he wanted you to be or not be.

"They're hollow," he would say, one hand on your shoulder, the other curled around the remote like a weapon. "Not like you."

After the screen went dark, he would keep talking, as if the room were still full of their voices. He'd tell you what they did wrong, what you should never let happen, what he would never let happen to you. You nodded, even when you didn't understand. He said understanding wasn't the point; listening was.

The house would stay quiet for a long time after that, the kind of quiet that felt like being watched. You learned to hum under your breath so the silence wouldn't notice you. He said that was good, that good girls kept the right kind of noise, even when his hugs hurt your ribs and left a bad taste in your mouth, even when he made you say things you didn't understand, only that they made him smile, and that meant everything would end faster.

But this woman, the one stepping into the room now, was different. Not hollow. Not bright. Just soft. Real. And something about how she held herself, careful yet not afraid, made something inside you crack, like glass too cold meeting sudden heat. Her smile, barely there, sparked something you didn't want to remember. It looked like someone else's smile, warm, sharp, and made of teeth.

Your mother's.

The memory hit like a bruise blooming under skin: rain on pavement, too-big boots, her hand around yours. And suddenly the walls of the room fall away, and you're walking beside her again, small and full of a hope you didn't know was already being sold.

Your mother was beautiful. Long black hair that shone even in the dim streetlights, tall, soft features. When she smiled, it looked like the sun was coming out, warm, full of teeth. Not for you, though. Never for you. Always for someone else.

You walked beside her, small hands clutching the edge of her coat. The city smelled faintly of rain and asphalt, and your boots clicked on the sidewalk in a rhythm that made your chest feel tight with anticipation.

"You'll meet someone special tonight," she said, her voice lilting, sweet like honey that left a bitter taste in your mouth. "Someone who will love you forever."

You glanced up at her. "Really?"

"Of course," she said, tilting her head, hair falling across her shoulder like a veil. "He'll be your prince, just like the stories. You'll see. He's... your fated one."

The words were magic and chains at once. Magic because they promised warmth, light, something to belong to. Chains because you didn't know it yet, but everything you would ever know about love, about safety, would come from him, and it would hurt.

You didn't understand yet. You were small, barely tall enough to reach the curb. But you smiled anyway, because her smile was contagious. For a fleeting moment, you believed it. You believed that love would look like hers; bright, laughing, untouchable.

That night, you would meet him. And he would tell you the same words your mother had spoken. Only, unlike her, he meant them differently.

You remember the way the streetlight pooled onto the cracked sidewalk. It was warm, yellow, ordinary; the kind of light that made shadows look soft, not sharp.

He was waiting at the end of the block. Tall. Calm. Smiling, just enough, like he'd been expecting you. You didn't know it yet, but he had been waiting for a long time.

"Hello," he said. His voice was low and smooth, like honey dripping over broken glass. "You must be the one your mother told me about."

Your small chest tightened. Something in him made the words feel heavy, like they weren't just words, they were promises, or warnings. Maybe both.

"He'll love you forever," your mother said again, squeezing your hand. You didn't notice how her grip trembled, just how warm it felt against your own.

He knelt down to meet your eyes. "Your mother's right," he said softly. "You're special. Different. Strong."

The words wrapped around you, curling like smoke. Warm, soft, inviting. You wanted to believe him. You wanted to trust the man smiling at you in the lamplight.

And then he took your hand. Just your small hand. You didn't pull away. You didn't know yet that from this moment forward, every choice would bend toward him.

"Come with me," he whispered. "I'll always keep you safe."

Your mother's eyes flicked to his, and for a fraction of a second, you saw something; fear, maybe regret, maybe relief. Then she let go of your hand.

You didn't scream. You didn't cry. You walked with him because that was what the stories had promised. Because he said he would keep you safe.

And as you walked beside him, the streetlight behind you flickered once, and you took your first step out of the world you'd known.

The apartment he took you to was small, dim, smelling of wax and damp. Shadows clung to the corners like cobwebs, soft but unyielding. He knelt and made you sit across from him at a tiny wooden table.

"You're special," he said again, voice low and warm. "Do you understand?"

You nodded, barely. The words felt like music and chains again.

"You will learn," he continued. "Rules. Songs. You'll sing for me. I'll teach you how to keep us safe. If you follow them, I will protect you. If you don't..." He didn't finish the sentence. You didn't need him to.

And so it began.

The songs were short at first, they hurted, it wasn't like the one you knew, the nursery rhymes, the melodies that danced in your head long after you stopped singing.

This one made your heart ache and body weak, you had to scream and say the lines he told you the way he wanted to.

He told you when to eat, when to sleep, and how to speak. Mistakes weren't allowed. If you forgot a line, if your hands trembled too much, if your eyes lingered where they shouldn't, he would correct you.

"Strong," he called you. "Different. My special one."

The words were a drumbeat, and your body learned to follow it.

Nights were the hardest. When he left the apartment, or when he disappeared for hours, you curled into yourself, waiting for his return. You didn't know the world outside. You didn't know other people. You only knew him, and the way he claimed that every lesson, every scar, every fear was love.

By morning, the small girl who had walked beside her mother's hand was gone. What remained was someone who obeyed, who listened, who survived. And survival, he said, was proof of your love.

Sometimes, when you sang the songs just right, he would smile. Not the smile you'd seen under the streetlight, but something smaller, secret, meant only for you. That was the closest thing to sunlight you had.

You began to learn the shape of his moods the way other children learned letters and numbers. The creak of his boots at the door, the way he breathed before he spoke. You tried to anticipate every flicker of his face, every twitch of his hands. If you were perfect, if you made no mistakes, maybe he would smile again. Maybe that meant you were safe. Maybe that meant you were loved.

Maybe he would cradle you against his chest and rock you side to side.

"Good girl," he’d murmur sometimes, after a lesson, after a song, after you’d eaten without flinching at the taste. The words wrapped around you like a blanket, but the warmth always burned. You didn’t know yet that this was a different kind of hunger, not for food, but for approval. For belonging. For the echo of a promise you couldn’t name anymore.

And every time you got it right, you thought: this must be what love feels like.

So, how could they, how could they distort your soulmate, his words, his hands, cause if it wasn't love then how could you try and justify the hurt and hands that marked you since you were young.

JJ leaned forward, voice calm but firm. "What he did… it wasn’t right. You don’t have to stay afraid of it anymore. None of it was your fault."

Your head snapped up, eyes blazing. "Not right?!" Your voice cracked and pitched higher, trembling with anger. "You got it all wrong, he loves me, why are you lying!?"

Prentiss shifted in her chair, slow and deliberate, knowing that one wrong move might set you off. "Nobody’s lying to you."

"Yes, you are!" Your fists hit the table with a dull thud. "You don’t know him! You don’t know what he gave up for me. You don’t know what he taught me. He kept me safe. He made me strong. He…" Your breath caught, chest heaving. "…he was the only one who stayed."

JJ's voice was low, steady, like a hand outstretched across a chasm. "We’re not saying he didn’t stay. We’re saying what he did to you wasn’t love."

Your eyes flashed. "If it wasn’t love, then what was it?" The question tore out of you like an animal, raw and wounded. "Why did I stay? Why did I survive? If it wasn’t love then it was nothing, and I can’t-" Your voice broke. "…I can’t believe that."

JJ’s tone softened further. "It wasn’t nothing."

You blinked at her, lost.

"It was survival," she said quietly. "You survived something no one should. That doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t make you guilty. And it doesn’t mean you’re unlovable."

You stared at her, shaking. The room seemed too bright, too sharp, like you were staring at the world for the first time.

Prentiss spoke again, voice careful. "How long were you with him? Since when?"

The question caught you off guard. You blinked hard, as if dragging words up from water. "Since…" Your throat closed. "Since before I can remember. Since my mother…" You swallowed, the word tasting foreign. "…she gave me to him."

The air in the room shifted. JJ’s eyes flicked to the glass where she knew the rest of the team was watching, but she said nothing.

"I don’t remember her face," you murmured. "Only his. Only his arms. His songs. His rules. Everything I am is because of him. And now you’re telling me it wasn’t real. That it was wrong." Your hands trembled. "If it’s wrong, then what am I?" You whimper, your anger forgotten only leaving you like the kid you pretended to not be.

For a moment, the room is only the sound of your sobbing. Harsh, tearing noises, like your chest breaking open and spilling everything you’ve tried to hold in for years. The light above hums faintly. The mirror at your back feels like a weight.

Prentiss hasn't reached for you yet. She knows better. She just shifts her chair an inch closer, enough to soften her posture but not enough to crowd you. JJ keeps her hands flat on the table, palms open, fingers loose, the universal sign of no threat.

"You’re not wrong," JJ says softly. "You’re not broken."

You shake your head, hiccuping, your voice shredded. "You’re lying. You’re all lying. You didn’t see him. You didn’t-" Your hands curl into fists on the table. "He held me when I was sick. He never left me on the street. He taught me to sing. He taught me how to survive. If that’s not love then…" Your throat closes, words splintering. "…then I don’t know what it is."

Prentiss’s voice slides in, low and even, like a thread in the dark. "It was control. It was abuse. It was someone taking a child and teaching them to survive him, not the world."

You flinch at the word abuse. It hits like a slap. Your eyes dart between them, wild. "No. No, he didn’t- he-he loved me. He said I was special. He said I was his." The last word comes out as a whisper. And you rock in your seat, soothing yourself. Convincing yourself.

JJ’s expression cracks for just a second, but she holds your gaze. "And you were a child," she says. "Children believe what they’re told, because they have to. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human."

Your sobbing slows, but your breath still comes in stuttering bursts. You press your forehead to your hands, elbows on the table, trying to make yourself small. The room feels too big, too empty without him in it, without the rhythm you learned to live by.

Prentiss leans forward now, just a little closer, her voice a low steady pulse. "When you were small… you didn’t have a choice. But you do now. That’s what we’re offering you. A choice."

You lift your head, your cheeks streaked, eyes raw. "I don’t know how," you whisper. "I don’t know who I am without him."

JJ slides a box of tissues across the table, not pushing, just placing it within reach. "That’s okay," she murmurs. "We can help you figure it out. You don’t have to know right now."

For the first time, you don’t spit back anger. You just stare at the tissue box, trembling. "He said nobody would ever love me but him," you breathe.

Prentiss’s reply is almost a whisper. Even when the urge to scream builds on her throat "He was wrong."

The words hang there, soft and heavy, like a door cracked open to a room you didn’t know existed.

Behind the glass, the rest of the team watches in silence, the tension almost tactile.

Morgan’s jaw tightens, fists clenched at his sides. His eyes burn with something raw: rage, frustration, protective instinct all mingling into a single, tight knot in his chest. He steps forward, then stops, shaking his head. "Damn it," he mutters under his breath. "That’s… that’s a kid. That’s a damn kid!"

Hotch stands still, arms crossed, expression unreadable. His voice carries calm authority through the room. "She’s safe here now."

Morgan’s teeth grit. He paces a few steps, then stops again, eyes fixed on your figure behind the glass. And all he can see is himself, younger, grieving in the hands of a monster who called himself a mentor. "Safe? You call this safe? That monster… he’s been-" He swallows, clenches his fists tighter. "Nobody should ever touch a kid like that. Nobody. She didn’t deserve any of it."

Rossi rubs his temple, voice low, measured. "Morgan, I get it. Believe me, I get it. But right now, we need to keep our heads on straight. She needs calm, not-"

"She doesn’t need calm!" Morgan snaps, turning sharply toward Rossi. His face and muscles tense. "She needs him to pay. She needs him out of the world. And every second we wait, he’s still out there, maybe doing it again!"

Morgan’s voice broke the hush of the room, low and tight. "We’re wasting time," he said, eyes locked on the mirror. "You all saw her. She’s not some manipulator, not the unsub. She’s a victim. A kid. A broken one, yeah, but he made it that way."

Hotch didn’t flinch. "We’re not debating that."

"Then why aren’t we out there hunting him?" Morgan turned on him now, the fury that lived just under his skin finally cracking through. "She said he’s still alive. We don’t need to sit here dissecting her trauma like it’s a damn case study. We need to move."

Rossi stepped in, voice calm, but firm. "We can’t move until we know where to move. Until she talks. And she won’t, not while she still believes he loved her."

Morgan exhaled hard, dragging a hand down his face. "You’re all too calm about this."

Hotch spoke up softly. "She’s not the first we’ve seen, Derek. But maybe she’s the first we can actually pull back from the edge."

Inside the interview room, the girl; you, were silent again. The rage had burned out, leaving only the hollow aftershock of grief. Your fingers twisted in the hem of the blanket draped over your lap. You stared at your knees like they might tell you who you were.

JJ watched you carefully, reading the tremble in your shoulders, the way your body sat tilted just slightly, like someone who was used to balancing in fear.

"Can I tell you something?" she asked gently. You didn’t look up. But you didn’t say no either.

JJ continued. "When I was little, I lost someone close to me. It wasn’t the same as what happened to you… not even close. But the thing about grief, real grief-is that it doesn’t care how it shows up. It stays. It sinks into your bones. And when you’re young, you don’t always know how to carry it."

You swallowed. Your voice, when it came, was quiet. "Does it go away?"

"No," JJ said softly. "But you learn to carry it better. You learn you’re not alone."

That word again. Alone.

It was one of the first things he taught you; he engraved it in your brain. You couldn’t be loved, cared for, not in the same way he could. "Nobody will ever love like I do, you know that, right?" "Just like those tales, I’m your destined one; no one else is set to be with you." If he is not in your life, then you would be left all alone, full of scars and touched by his hands and love. No one could ever love someone who has a fated one.

You blinked up at her. "He said I would be. That no one else would ever understand me. That the world would hate me. Lock me away."

JJ leaned forward. "He was wrong."

"But I let him kill that boy," you said, voice cracking. "I didn’t stop him."

"You were surviving," Prentiss said. "Not choosing. There’s a difference."

Your breathing hitched. "What if I never feel normal?"

Prentiss's gaze softened, though her voice stayed steady. "Normal isn’t a finish line," she said. "It’s not something you arrive at. It’s something you build. Brick by brick. Day by day. And you don’t have to build it alone."

The room seemed to shrink around you. The hum of the fluorescent light above, the faint echo of footsteps somewhere beyond the two-way mirror, it all pressed in like a heartbeat you couldn’t escape. You dug your nails into your legs. "He said… he said nobody wants something broken," you whispered. "He said if I left, I’d turn to dust. That I’d stop existing."

JJ's voice was a thread, quiet but sure. "That’s not love. That’s control. He lied to you so you’d stay."

Your throat felt raw, like every word you spoke scraped something open inside you. "Then why do I still feel like I’m his?"

Prentiss' voice joined in now, softer than you’d expected, like someone speaking to a frightened animal. "Because trauma rewires your brain. It teaches you to see danger as safety. You survived by believing him. That doesn’t make you his. It makes you human."

For a moment, no one spoke. You stared at your knees again, at the small tremor running through your fingers. Outside the glass, you could feel the weight of the agents watching, Morgan pacing like a storm barely contained, Hotch unreadable but steady.

"I don’t know who I am without him," you whispered.

JJ leaned closer, her palms open on the table, not reaching but there. "Then let us help you find out. You don’t have to do it today. You just have to sit here, breathe, and let us keep you safe for now."

The words slipped into the cracks he’d left in you, not a promise, just a possibility. And though you didn’t believe them yet, you didn’t look away either.

The next hours became a blur of voices and questions, ones that you didn't know how to answer without feeling like a traitor, a failure under everything he had ever taught you.

So when the opportunity presented you took it.

JJ and Prentiss had left the room after you became quiet for more than ten minutes, thinking you were done talking to them.

For a long time, the only sound was the hum of the light and the soft thud of your heartbeat trying to remember its rhythm. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and paper. Clean, sharp, wrong.

You head couldn't leave you alone, he wouldn't let you even in your thoughts. His voice, the one who would whisper how you were being such a good girl for him, was filled with venom now. "They’ll tell you I’m a monster. But love, real love, can’t be unlearned. If they take you away, you know what to do."

So you waited.

That’s what he had taught you to do. Wait. Listen. Let the silence tell you what comes next. You could almost hear him now, that calm, measured voice, like warm honey poured over something rotting.

"Patience, little one. The world rushes toward its own ruin. We survive by waiting."

Your fingers twitched against your legs, the room felt smaller, and the air became tight. There was nowhere to hide if he found you first, no shadows, no closets. You were at the open like a prey. The hum in your head grew louder, a sharp sting of panic that tasted like iron on your tongue. You could feel them on the other side of the glass, their eyes, maybe cameras. All of them were filled with the judgment of people who didn’t understand.

You wanted to run.

No, you needed to.

Your body moved before your mind caught up. You stood, too fast, the chair legs screeching against the floor. The sound sliced through the silence like a scream.

You froze.

No one came in. No footsteps. No shouts. No them. No him.

The door. You turned toward it. The handle gleamed under the harsh light, silver, simple. Just a twist away.

For a moment, the two voices collided: his, low and commanding, on the other side was JJ, gentle and steady. So you stayed. Even when your body tingled with the phantom of the punishment you would receive from him when he found you.

Later, they moved you, the room becoming too cold for your body, and you weren't a threat. So you stayed by their side, they expected you to talk; even a minimal detail could help them save another life.

The police station didn’t look or feel like safety, not really. It was too bright, too loud, too full of people who knew how to look at you and see everything you wanted to hide.

You sat curled on the couch in the break room, a cup of cocoa cooling untouched between your hands. Morgan had insisted on making it himself, something about “the real kind,” not the powdered stuff. The smell was sweet, strange, almost like the candles he used to burn, but without the smoke that clung to your throat.

You didn’t drink it. You just held it for the warmth.

Across the room, the team pretended not to watch you. They were bad at pretending.

JJ sat near the window, speaking in low tones with Hotch, her voice a whisper you couldn’t quite catch. Rossi leaned against the counter, pretending to read a file but really keeping an eye on you. Prentiss was pacing, her phone pressed to her ear, voice clipped, businesslike.

And Reid, he sat on the chair across from you, long fingers wrapped around a mug, posture stiff and unsure, like he wasn’t sure how close was too close.

You watched him for a long time before speaking. "You don’t talk much."

He blinked, startled by the sound of your voice. "Oh. Uh… I—talk a lot, actually," he said, his tone awkward in a way that wasn’t unkind. "Just not always at the right time."

The corner of your mouth twitched before you caught it. Almost a smile.

Reid seemed to take that as a victory. He set his mug down carefully. "Do you like to read?"

You shrugged, fingers tightening on your cup. "He likes to read to me. The Bible, mostly."

Reid’s expression softened, trying to disimulate the flicker of anger that crossed his face, his voice lowered, gentle. "Then maybe it’s time for something new."

He reached into his bag and pulled out a worn paperback. The cover was frayed at the corners, the title faded. To Kill a Mockingbird.

He slid it across the table, careful not to touch you. "It’s one of the first books that taught me the difference between good people and kind people," he said. "Sometimes they’re not the same."

You looked down at the book. The paper smelled old and dry, like the library you used to sneak into when he was gone. You traced the corner of the cover with your thumb. "Can I… keep it?"

“Of course,” he said. “It’s yours.”

Something tight in your chest loosened, just a little.

Across the room, Morgan glanced up and caught Reid’s eye. A small, approving nod.

Later, when the others filtered out, Prentiss to call the victim’s family, Rossi to update the sheriff, JJ to take another statement, you found yourself alone with Morgan.

He sat across from you, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He had the kind of presence that filled a room, but his voice was soft when he spoke. "You’re safe here, okay?"

You didn’t answer. You didn’t know what safe meant anymore.

Morgan ran a hand over his jaw, studying you. "You know," he said slowly, "when I was a kid, there was someone who hurt me too. Someone who said they were looking out for me."

Your head lifted, eyes wary, and you swallowed before speaking, your voice quiet. "Does that feeling ever go away?"

"No," he said. "But it stops running the show after a while."

For a long moment, you both sat in silence. Then he smiled, a real one, soft and crooked. "Reid’s got a million books if you like that one. And JJ’s going to try to feed you until you explode. Rossi will probably lecture you about food, and Hotch…" He chuckled. "He’ll pretend not to care, but he will fight anyone who tries to hurt you again."

You frowned, uncertain if he was joking. "Why would they care?"

Morgan’s eyes met yours. "Because that’s what we do," he said. "We take care of our own."

Something in you flinched at the word own. But it didn’t feel like a cage this time. It felt like an invitation.

You stared down at your cocoa. The surface had gone cold, a thin skin forming on top. Slowly, you lifted it to your lips. The sweetness was cloying, too thick, but it didn’t taste like blood or iron. It just tasted like chocolate.

For the first time in a long time, it didn’t hurt to swallow.

Morgan grinned when he saw. "There you go."

JJ came back in then, her hair loose, her smile tired but real. She saw the empty mug in your hands and her eyes softened. "You okay?"

You nodded, the motion small but certain. "I think so."

And when she sat beside you, close but not too close, you didn’t pull away.

__________________________________

and there it goes my longest fic i think? 7113 words according to my google docs lmao.

sorry if the end feels a bit rushed, but I have entered a little writer's block, and this draft has been sitting on my docs for a month or so. Now, if you have any ideas on how I could continue this, lmk!!

[burnerformyheart]

The very worst part of you is me (snippet)

Platonic criminal minds x idolyoungfem! reader (2.9k words)

TW: Usual Criminal Minds content, stalking, implied torture, body horror, implied/referenced sexual assault, and emotional abuse/manipulation

The first thing he noticed as he logged in into your socials was the new lights, he didn’t like them, it wasn’t gradual in the way that other celebrities would do it so their fanbase would not make noise about it. Yesterday it wasn’t there, today it was.

The blur was not there, the softness on the edges giving you an almost dreamlike look, the combination that gave the feeling of a childhood memory, it all disappeared, now it was replaced by shadows, low lights and a heavy contrast that tried to erase your youth.

He couldn’t bear to look at what they were trying to do, why change things if they were going so well? The numbers were high, satisfaction was up. He closed the tab and looked at his PC wallpaper, and there you were, the real you, the one he fell in love with.

Younger, softer, real.

It was a candid he took before one of your shows, you were looking at your manager with a smile so bright he swears it could replace the sun. You were wearing minimal makeup, just enough to give the illusion that you were outside for some time playing around. You were waving at your manager, practicing the way you would say hi before the performance, the photo was freezing the moment you jumped a little, your hair floated around.

You looked small.

He liked that, even if people around him turned and said he was being weird for his obsession love he had for you. It wasn’t because of the weakness you radiated, it was never like that, even if some part of his brain -the part that even he admitted could be sick and twisted- fantasied about it.

Above everything, you were innocent, untouched by the filth of the world, by the way words punched into open wounds, by fake smiles and even more fake people. You appeared in his life just at the right time.

In a world where everyone was trying to pick him apart, there were you, and god, how could he forget the first time he saw you.

The way you looked at him as you showed him trinkets you collected on your travels, how you confided in him about your sadness and struggles. He understood you, you were a light in his darkness, making him smile for the first time in what felt like forever.

He changed tabs, looking at your old videos, it always made him feel better, it was his safe place, heaven built around zeros and ones, heaven filled with you, stages, broadcasts and interviews around the years.

Your smile greeted him as he clicked play into one of them, always sincere, always there, always happy, just you and him. And if he closed his eyes, he could almost see you above him as a beacon of light and salvation.

He stayed there for several minutes before forcing himself to click the teaser of your upcoming single, the difference hits him like a train, your makeup was bolder, scandalous, your movements were smoother, you controlled your body in a way that he had never seen before. You now knew how to angle your face, how long to hold eye contact with the camera. The smile was still there, but not as how he liked it, it was practiced, not showing much, it was almost a smirk.

They had taught you that. Right?

He leans back into his chair, fingers laced tightly together, head thrown back as he bites back a scream that would undoability bring another complaint from his neighbors.

"They're rushing you," he whines, kicking his legs, the chair rocking back and forth until the movement knocks a frame off his desk. "You don't even know what they're doing to you."

He pulls up photos he had taken over the years, all of them separated by years and single, debut, tour, hotel, late nights, practice.

He looked at them side by side, the way parents flip through old family photos -watching a kid grow into their features, grow confident, bigger, smarter, older- feeling nostalgic, proud of the person their child became. For him it felt like the end of the world.

His heart was breaking into a million pieces, and he was sure he was going to throw up all his dinner as he looked and found out in real time how much you had been giving signals to him that you were ready, how much you began to grow, how much they were pushing you, so fast it was making him feel whiplash.

Pastels gave way to bolder colors, the soft doll like dresses changed into sharper cuts. The skirts sat differently on your hips now; the shirt hugged you in a way that made him feel repulsed, makeup that once blurred your features now defined them, it all was looking to sharpen you into something, someone older.

Too old.

His jaw tightened, his body betrayed him, and he began to cry as one hand went down as the other covered his eyes.

“She doesn’t need that,” he said softly, almost whining. “She was fine before.” He runs his hand over his face, as if he could break the reality that he now existed in, one where his body reacted to your smile, to your winks, to your dance, it felt wrong, it felt disgusting.

He opens another video, one of the older ones, where you were collaborating with other girls, but still… in his eyes you shined the brightest. The audience screams when you smile, when you wink. He always hated it.

They didn’t deserve you. They didn’t know you. They didn't understand you the way he did, they saw the polished version you gave them, they never saw you inside your room, filling the silence with cries about mean people, never saw the way you practiced until bruises filled your legs. They haven’t earned you the way he did.

“You don’t belong to them,” he whispered. “You never did.” he gets closer to the screen, fogging it as his breath became erratic, and if he focused enough, he could pretend that it was your skin instead of the screen the one that he was feeling up.

His eyes flicked to his right, where he set his photographs up, all of them perfectly aligned, not leaving a space behind. All of them representing the phases where you looked your best in his eyes. His pride, his joy.

His girls

The ones who looked right, now forever young, preserved, soft skin, ribbons tied up just right. Makeup carefully blended in the way it used to flatter you, the same way he has seen you do I for him so many times across a screen. He always treated them gently, the same way he hoped he could treat you one day. Always soft hands, pouring all of his love inside them, in the outfits, the hair and poses.

They were made to look like you, to preserve you, to clean his mind of impurities that plagued it after that teaser. He was correcting it, hoping to send a message, he liked you the way you were before them.

“They changed you,” he said, voice shaking now, anger threading through the tenderness. “But don't worry, I’ll keep you safe,” he promised. “Even if you don’t understand yet.”

Quantico, Virginia.

The conference room hummed with the sound of the lights above them; the place was filled with energy as everyone knew that when Hotch was the one to bring the case to them, usually it was something time sensitive, so urgent that they could afford to skip the line of files on JJ's desk.

Hotch stood at the front, a folder tucked under his arm, the control of the tv in his hand, his expression grimmer and more serious than what they were used to. He waited as everyone took their places on the round table. JJ was sitting with the folder already open, her being the first to be called in by Hotch due to the nature of the news coverage regarding the case, Prentiss was coming in with Reid and Morgan close behind, and not to far back Hotch could hear the sound of Penelope’s high heels coming closer. And at the very last came Rossi, his face already grim, and Hotchner wouldn’t be surprised if he could already see the pattern as he looked at the photos scattered on the table.

“Three victims in the last month”, he began, skipping the pleasantries as he presses the control, the first image being displayed in the monitor; a young woman, she was posed on the edge of a park bench, limbs arranged delicately, her expression eerily peaceful. Looking as if she was asleep. Her clothes were reminiscent of a stage outfit for young celebrities, the type none of them except maybe Garcia had any interaction with.

“This is Lindsey Miller, she was an aspiring model settled in Los Angeles” Hotch presses the control to show the image of a girl, at most nineteen with a big smile as she posed with her parents, she was completely different, her hair was lighter, her frame bigger and with a darker look on her.

 “She was reported her missing seven months, but the case was dropped after three when they declared her dead after they found her clothes outside of a hotel” Hotch finishes and takes a breath “She is the last one the police have found, the other two girls were gone missing around the same time” He presses the button again, now showing all of the victims side by side.

“Each of them was left in different places around Los Angeles, usually parks with no cameras that could leave a trail” He takes a breath and looks around the room. “The autopsy shows malnutrition and dehydration combined with signs of torture dating back up to five months prior to their murders”

“It says there was sexual assault, but no DNA was found in the scene, even if he washes them…” Reid starts going on. “If postmortem sexual assault happened, trace evidence should still exist despite the cleaning. The absence of DNA suggests either exceptional forensic awareness... or prior experience.”

Silence washes over the conference room, nobody liked it when the reported victims and evidence didn’t coincide. It spoke volumes about the type of police force they were going to be dealing with after they began to question if there were other victims they could have missed. But the loudest question going around in all their heads was.

Why was he keeping them so long?

“They all look alike after he is done with them” Prentiss speaks up as she passes the pages of the file. “Maybe he is recreating someone, modeling them to look like his fixation”

“That’s what we are trying to decipher, assuming he's recreating someone, they don’t have much time left, every girl he is leaving behind shows more trails of violence” Hotch’s gaze swept the room, then returned to the images. “Something happened and we don’t know if he has more girls with him”

Morgan rubbed his jaw. “Which means we don’t know if he could leave another body or if he is going to go directly into the original”

Hotch’s gaze hardened. “Wheels up in thirty. We don’t have time to lose.”

In the plane they let themselves have a few minutes to try and organize their ideas and think of what the motivation of the unsub is. All of them kept looking at the file and at how different the victims were before he took them, all varying in hair color and height.

"He's spending too much time with them." Morgan says breaking the silence. “It’s a lot of time to keep someone alive, and look at this, Lindsey was 132 lb when she was taken, after they found her, she was 97 lb”

“Maybe he was starving them” JJ speaks up. “Maintaining 3 or more girls alive must be expensive”

“That’s what I would think, but check this out, second victim was about 86 when she went missing, when they found her, she was 95” Morgan continues, his eyebrows raised up, looking at everyone to see if they could give an explanation to the polar opposites type of care the unsub gave to the victims.

“He wants them looking a certain way.” Rossi speaks up. “If he can’t get to his original fixation, he loves them as if they were them, but why the sudden escalation?”

Morgan cuts him up, looking as he had tasted something sour “What love, there's nothing loving about this, if anything it looks like he's punishing them.”

“Those aren't mutually exclusive.” JJ speaks up from her seat in the back, already on her phone texting the local news asking them not to publish anything else related to the case.

Rossi ignores her as he looks at Morgan “You’re assuming the murders are the goal.”

“Then what is? Hotch interrupts the conversation, looking at them. And just in time Garcia’s face shows up in the laptop.

“What you got for us Babygirl” Morgan looks at the screen just before rubbing his face with his hands, trying to calm himself.

“I hate being the bearer of bad news...” She starts, wincing as she pulls up the report that got onto her computer. “Another body has been discovered, Camila Smith was found two hours ago in a park two miles away from the last dump site” She then shows the pictures in the screen, her face was covered in bruises the unsub hadn’t bothered to cover up this time, she was wearing a white dress that didn’t have a single stain in it, one with ruffles along the hem, and a diadem that seemed to be sewn into her head. And as always, a single tooth sitting in her hands.

“Well, he definitely has a type” Prentiss says as she squints her eyes trying to find something that can give her a clue. Everything on the scene looks like the other ones, a girl sitting on a bench, looking like she belonged in a fairytale. “She looks younger than the others” She murmurs

“Why the tooth?” Morgan questions. “I get it’s a wisdom tooth, but they're too young for them to erupt naturally.”

“Wisdom teeth have been associated with maturity in several cultures. In some traditions they're called 'teeth of judgment.” Reid speaks up for the first time in the plane. His voice silencing them “If that's the symbolism he's drawing from, it's possible the unsub believes the victims failed some kind of moral test.” And with that the movement seems to stop, the severity of his claim setting a heavy weight in the place.

Prentiss seems to understand his train of thought. "If he's punishing them, maybe the makeover happens first. He recreates them... and when they fail to live up to whoever he's projecting onto them, he kills them." She finishes for Reid.

“Reid and Rossi go to the morgue with the last bod, see if the local ME missed anything” Hotch begins to give orders, separating them to cover the greatest amount of ground. “Prentiss and Morgan go to the scene and look around for some type of mistake the unsub could have missed, JJ and I will see you in the commissary” Everyone looks at him a nod, the plan not sounding too far off from the other cases they’ve had.

“García, can you look up if the victims could have interacted before they went missing?”

And with that everyone kept bouncing ideas until they reached their destination, not knowing the unsub was sitting in his room, the news pulled up in his computer, a reportage from the local news sitting in the background, the voice of the anchor filling the silence.

His leg was bouncing up and down as he kept selecting which parts of his browser history to delete, thinking that even if the police could come close to his place a normal looking browser history would look less suspicious than an empty one. He looks up at the mention of his name being said in the news, well, the one they’ve given him.

“Dollmaker, fucking stupid” He snickers, the absurdity of their claims almost making laugh out loud. He covers his mouth, as if it could hide the smile that he couldn’t control "Dollmaker," he repeated, snorting. "They really don't understand” He glances behind him, where the rest of them are resting on the floor.

He looks back at his wallpaper, still you, still young, still his. “I know you understand” he comes closer to the screen, hand touching your smile. “I just know you don’t want this, don’t worry. I’ll fix it”

Somewhere far away, you practiced choreography under white lights in a bathroom of a hotel, you were counting under your breath, eyes fixed on the mirror. Just focusing in fixing mistakes, growing into a version of yourself you were proud of, someone who could be better.

You didn’t feel the moment his fantasy cracked. How could you? Being stalked wasn't scandalous in the industry, not the way it used to be. The euphoria and magnetism around public figures were real -sometimes encouraged- occupational hazards.

Parasocial relationships were cultivated: fan meetings, reality segments, cameras that followed you to rehearsal, the little midnight vlogs where you cooked and complained into a lens. And at first, you liked it, the cute routines, easy laughs, the way it made you feel accompanied.

Then the letters started.

[hoe4hotchner]

okay, never did a request before BUT this idea has been sitting in my brain for too long.

so, I suffer from BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) and lately I've been struggling a lot bc of it and I've been spending my day thinking that Aaron Hotchner would never let me go through this alone and would be the most supportive person ever (we love us a supportive king) and I wanted to ask you if you could write something with BPD!Reader?

I was thinking maybe reader has started taking a new med and it's not working as it should and they feel really down and a bit hopeless bc of it and they start feeling like they don't deserve to be with Aaron bc his job is very demanding and in the moment they feel like their emotions and feelings just add onto Aaron's plate but he's like "you could never be a burden to me"? but BPD isn't much represented in general and even less in ff, so you're free to write whatever scenario you'd like, I'm going to read it anyway bc I'd read anything coming from you, I'd just like

very angsty mentally/psychologically speaking with some comfort at the end?

tysm if you're going to write it and I love you and your work so so much 🫶🏼, also I'm so proud and happy that you reached 5k, you totally deserve it ✨️💕

Burden | [A.H]

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x BPD!fem!reader

WC: 3k

Warnings: Angst, BPD, Medication not working as intended, Dysregulation, fear of abandoment, reader is really hard on herself, crying, therapy mentioned

Summary: Your therapist has put you on a new type of medication to manage your BPD and it leaves you drowning in numbness and your spiralling thoughts.

A/N: I've had this waiting in my inbox for so so long, and I honestly wish I had gotten around to do the research for it earlier, because this was such a nice break to write.

The apartment was suffocating in that way; it only got when the rain pelted heavily against the windows and the city lights blurred into streaks of gold and red hues, smearing across the glass like bloody droplets.

You sat on the end of the bed, knees drawn up to your chest, arms wrapped around your shins, staring at the orange prescription bottle on the dresser like it might answer for itself if you looked at it long enough.

Your psychiatrist had called the new medication "promising," with that careful optimism doctors use when they don't want to overpromise but need you to keep showing up for your appointments.

It was supposed to smooth out the jagged edges of your BPD, make the waves less tidal, the voids less bottomless. You'd let yourself hope, a little, let yourself hope that this one was the one, even though hope always felt like handing someone a knife and trusting them not to stab you in the stomach with it.

It had been three weeks. Three weeks of waiting for the fog to lift, for the emotional storms to lose their fury. Instead, everything felt flatter, duller, but not in the good way that meant the medication was starting to work its magic. No, just… muted despair. Like your brain had traded sharp knives for a dull, persistent ache that pressed behind your eyes and settled low in your sternum, a weight with no name and no edges, nothing to push against, nothing to fight.

At least the knives had been honest.

At least the storms had been something you could name.

Hopelessness curled in your gut like smoke: thick, acrid smoke, impossible to fan away no matter how many times you tried to breathe through it the way your therapist had taught you. Name it. Don't fuse with it. You are not the thought; you are the one noticing the thought. The words felt like instructions to be used on a body that wasn't yours to control anymore.

Hotch would be home soon, you told yourself.

Or maybe not.

His job didn't promise "soon." It promised late nights, red-eye flights on the jet, and the kind of exhaustion that etched deeper and deeper lines around his eyes every time he came back home from a case.

Hotch spent his days steeped in the worst things people did to each other, and yet somehow he still came home and asked how your day was first.

How could you possibly fit into that without tipping the scales?

How could anyone carry monsters all day and then come home to more weight?

And there it was, the thought arriving fully formed, the way it always did, with the force of a truth being revealed rather than the uncertainty of a spiral skewing your view of reality.

Not, I wonder if I'm a burden, but I am a burden.

Not today is hard, but I am hard to be around, all the way down, in every direction, permanently.

The good days, the ones where Hotch laughed against your hair and said you made the job bearable, the ones where you believed him, those days didn't seem to exist right now. Sure, they still happened, but to you, they'd been wiped from every record you kept stored away in your head.

There was no in-between, no "today is just difficult." There was only the absolute: you take, and he gives, and that is the whole shape of what you are to him.

You pressed the heels of your hands into your eyes until the kaleidoscopic burst of white swirls appeared behind your lids, trying to find something to focus on besides the thoughts looping themselves tighter.

You're doing it again.

The thought was clinical, almost detached, observational in the way your therapist had spent two years teaching you to be: notice the pattern, name the distortion, you don't have to believe everything you think, but the noticing didn't stop the spiral, it just meant you got to watch yourself fall with your eyes open, instead of being blissfully unaware of what would happen next.

That was its own kind of cruelty. Knowing the mechanism and still being unable to stop the gears from turning, keeping you trapped in the machinery, even when you could see the emergency stop button.

It is right there!!

Your brain loved to weaponize love. It took the good things, the soft things, the things that should have felt like safety, and twisted them slowly, methodically, into proof of your unworthiness. Unworthiness of getting a happy ending. Unworthiness of being loved.

Hotch loved you.

You knew that on your better days, knew it the way you knew your own name. But today wasn't a better day, and on days like this, the knowing didn't transfer into the logic department; it stayed locked somewhere you couldn't reach, the key thrown away, stayed locked behind glass, visible and useless.

Today, the new medication had you convinced, with total and humorless conviction, that you were his warden and loving you was a death sentence for him.

You are a sentence.

Another burden on a man who already carried the world on his shoulders, who didn't need one more weight added by the person who was supposed to be his rest, be his home.

There was no gray in it. There rarely was, not when it got like this. Either you were good for him, or you were ruining him. Either this relationship was the safest thing you'd ever had, or it was the cruelest thing you were doing to someone who deserved better. The thought didn't ask permission to be absolute. It just was. And it had ruined more than one relationship for you in the past.

The key turned in the lock of the front door.

You didn't move.

"Hey," his voice carried down the hall.

Footsteps, then the soft clink of his keys on the table by the door, the small domestic sound that on any other night would have made something in your chest unclench, waiting for the kiss and his open arms when he saw you.

Tonight, it just registered as data.

He's home. He'll see you like this.

He appeared in the doorway, tie loosened, suit jacket already shed and probably left on a dining chair, like he always did.

The white of his shirt was slightly rumpled, perhaps from the nap he had most likely taken on the jet. His eyes found yours immediately as he entered the bedroom. That profiler gaze, trained on decades of reading people before they even spoke a single word.

That gaze softened the instant it landed on your hunched form. "Rough day?"

You tried to smile. It felt like thin ice cracking beneath your feet as you ventured out on a lake that barely had started to freeze over, like your face had forgotten the shape of the expression and was forcing it through brittle material that might splinter at the wrong angle. "New med's... not great,” you managed.

Hotch crossed the room and sat beside you on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours. His hand found your back, carefully rubbing slow circles across your lower back.

The touch didn't ask anything of you, didn't require you to perform okay-ness in return. And yet, perform was what you were fighting your body to do. He didn't push. He never did. That was one of the things that made it worse sometimes, in the warped logic of a bad night, his patience felt too good to be true, like a well that never ran dry, no matter how many times you came to it.

And you felt like a black hole waiting to swallow it whole. Like the very fact that he never ran out of patience was proof of how much you were taking.

"Talk to me," he murmured, the words pressed gently into the quiet between you.

You shook your head, but the words came anyway, spilling out in a rush that bordered on frantic, like a dam that had been holding for three weeks finally giving way all at once. And he let you speak, because truth be told, he had noticed you getting worse, hoping that you would come to him before it got even worse.

"I feel like I'm disappearing, Aaron. Not in a dramatic way. Just… I don’t know, fading? The meds were supposed to help with the intensity, but now everything's this heavy gray sludge that’s keeping me from breaching through the surface. Like I'm watching my own life through water." Your voice cracked, and you hated how small you sounded, hated that the woman who could usually hold a thought together, on a good day, was reduced to fragments. "And I keep thinking…" You took a deep and shaky breath. "I keep thinking about how unfair this is to you. Your job is nonstop. The cases, the travel, the things you see that no one should have to see. And then you come home to this. To me, swinging between too much and not enough. Clinging one day, pushing away the next. What if I'm just… adding to it? What if loving me is exhausting you in ways you won't even let yourself admit, because you're too good a person to say it out loud?"

The fear of abandonment was always there, it always had been, a live wire under your skin, humming at a frequency that never fully went silent even on good days.

But tonight it mixed with genuine guilt, the kind that whispered you should leave before he realized he deserved so much better than you could give me, before your episodes became the thing that finally broke the unbreakable Aaron Hotchner.

The thought arrived with its usual absoluteness: there was no version of this where you were simply having a hard time.

There was only the binary: either you were good for him, or you were quietly, slowly ruining the one stable thing in your life. Tonight, lying in the suffocating gray sludge the medication had left you in, you were certain it was the second one.

Not worried.

Certain.

He was quiet for a moment, but not distant. You'd learned the difference years ago, the specific texture of Hotch’s silences, how some of them were walls and most of them were him choosing his words the way he chose everything, with care.

His hand never stopped its gentle rhythm on your back. When he spoke, his voice was filled with the kind of love that had survived hell and chosen, again and again, to stay.

"You could never be a burden to me."

The words landed softly, but they hit like a lifeline thrown into churning water. You wanted to believe them. God, you did. Some small, quiet part of you, the part that remembered the good days, reached for them like a drowning hand reaches for the ring of life. But the voice that amplified every insecurity into catastrophe, that took a sentence of comfort and immediately began dismantling it for hidden flaws, screamed louder, drowning out the reach before it could close around anything.

"You say that now," you whispered, pulling your knees tighter against your chest, trying to make yourself smaller, like if you took up less space physically, you'd cost him less mentally.

Tears burned hot trails down your cheeks, and you didn't bother wiping them, too tired to fight that particular performance of composure you’d tried to uphold. "But what about when I have another meltdown at 2 a.m. because my brain decides you're going to leave? Or when the emptiness hits, and I can't get out of bed, and you're coming off a three-day case with no sleep? I'm supposed to be your partner, not another case file you have to manage. I see the way you look after the bad ones, Aaron. The weight you carry home with you, even when you don't say anything. I don't want to be part of that weight. I don't want to be one more thing you have to be strong for."

Your breathing quickened, the familiar sense of panic clawing up your throat, tightening around your windpipe like a hand squeezing the last breaths of life out of you.

Emotional dysregulation, your therapist would call what you were experiencing right now. One of the hallmarks, the textbook term sitting cold and clinical next to the very unclinical feeling of your chest caving in. You knew the terms. You'd read the books, sat through the DBT sessions, taking careful notes on opposite action and radical acceptance, swallowed the old meds and now the new ones, done everything you were supposed to do.

But knowledge didn't stop the flood.

And underneath all of it, quieter than the panic but somehow louder than anything else, the thought that had been circling since you sat down on the edge of this bed three hours ago: if you really loved him, you'd make this easier for him. You'd let him go before he had to ask.

Hotch shifted, turning fully toward you, the movement deliberate, unhurried, like he had nowhere else in the world to be. He cupped your face with both hands, thumbs brushing away the tears with a tenderness that felt almost sacred, like you were something worth that much care even now, even like this. His eyes held yours. No judgment. No exhaustion.

Just Aaron.

Steady as bedrock in a landslide.

"Look at me," he said softly. When you tried to glance away, old reflex, the shame reached up to pull your gaze down before he could see too much. He waited patiently until your gaze returned on its own, until you gave it to him instead of having it taken. "I see you. All of you. The days when the world feels too bright and the nights when it feels too dark. The way your mind races ahead to every possible way this could end badly, because it's trying to protect you, not because it's broken. I know what your diagnosis means for you: the intensity, the fear, the way emotions hit like freight trains with no warning before the platform. I know it isn't a character flaw, and it isn't a choice. And I choose this. All of it. Every single day. You are not your diagnosis. You are you."

You let out a shaky sob, leaning into his touch despite yourself, despite the part of your brain still insisting this was temporary, conditional, a kindness with an expiration date. "But why? I'm a mess. The new med isn't working right, and I feel so… so hopeless. I'll never get stable enough to be what you need. Like you're loving some future version of me that might not exist yet, and stuck with this one in the meantime."

"Because you're not a mess to me," he replied. "You're the person who makes this apartment feel like home after I've spent weeks chasing shadows that don't sleep and don't stop. You're the one who remembers how I take my coffee on the bad days and who laughs at my terrible jokes even when the world is burning around both of us. Your emotions don't 'add to my plate', they're part of what makes you you. And I love every part. The loyalty. The empathy. The way you fight so hard, every day, even when your own brain is lying to you about whether the fight is worth it."

Hotch pulled you into his chest then, arms wrapping around you. You clung to his shirt, fistfuls of fabric clutched tightly in your hands, inhaling the faint scent of his cologne and old coffee, a smell that had become shorthand in your body for safe.

The tears came harder. They were ugly and raw, the kind you usually tried to hide even from him, but he held you through it. No shushing. No fixing. No urgency to make it stop, like he understood that some storms just needed to finish passing through on their own accord.

"I know the meds aren't perfect right now," he continued, lips brushing over the top of your hair, voice rumbling. "We'll call the therapist tomorrow. Adjust the dose, schedule a new appointment, or try something else. There's no rule that says you have to white-knuckle through a medication that's making things worse. You're not stuck here. You're my partner. My love. And I will make damn sure that you know that, every single day, no matter how bad you’re spiralling, even if I have to literally spell it out on the fridge in magnets before I go to the office. I love you."

Time stretched. The rain continued its pelting against the window. A sound that had felt so suffocating only an hour ago was now just… weather. Ordinary. Bad. Weather.

You pulled back enough to look at him. Hotch’s eyes were tired; you could see the case in them, the days he hadn't fully slept, but they were warm, oh so warm. Always warm when it came to you, even when there was nothing left over for anyone else.

"I'm scared," you admitted, smaller now, the splitting finally loosening its grip enough to let something more honest through the barrier.

Not I am unlovable, but I am afraid.

Which was a different, more survivable thing to say out loud. "Scared that one day the fear wins and I push you away for real. That I'll do it on purpose, just to prove the fear right."

Hotch pressed his forehead to yours, close enough that his next words were almost a shared breath. "Then we'll fight it together. Like we always do. You've survived every storm so far. Your track record is one hundred percent, as far as I’m aware. Even the nights you were sure you wouldn't, you made it through. And I've got you through all of them. That's not going to change because of bad medication or bad nights."

Later, as you lay tangled together under the sheets, his hand tracing slow, soothing patterns on your thigh, the hopelessness ebbed into something more manageable. Tomorrow you'd call the therapist. Tomorrow you'd try again, the way you always tried again, because trying again, getting back on the horse, whatever, was really the only thing you could do to continue living.

Tonight, you let yourself believe his words as he once again reminded you. "You’ll never be a burden to me.”

[applecidertears]

just started uni and apparently all it took was 6h of class to finally convince me to come onto tumblr after 4 months!

I do my best work when I'm procrastinating on assignments tho so hopefully this means more fics are coming 🙈

[applecidertears]

ᨳ a cushy landing

dean winchester x hunter!reader (gn)

tags: early season dean. mutual crush. reader wears chapstick.

wordcount: 1.4k

a/n: I kinda don't like the execution of this one so I might delete it...but I'll just post it as a filler for now, enjoyy! (i'm so sorry for the changing tenses omg, a girl was struggling TT)

Normal people come home after work, sit down with their family and have a nice dinner. Normal people are washed up and tucked into in bed before 11pm. Normal people certainly don't break into people's houses in the dead of the night to play Ghostbusters.

But, unfortunately for you, who had long resigned all sense of normalcy when you signed up to hunt with the Winchester brothers, you were currently standing next to the shards of broken glass that were once a window. Right in the middle of some poor bastard's living room, as the brothers made a mess of the whole place, looking for…you don't even know what they were looking for. All you knew was that you wanted just one night off, but instead you were dragged out of bed at 3am because the boys needed "backup" for whatever reasons.

"You know, why can't we just have a normal night for once where we're all tucked in and ready for bed by 11pm?" You asked to no one in particular as the guys continued redecorating the place to their liking.

"Well, that's 'cause we're hunters. We're basically nocturnal," Dean grunted, lifting one of the extra-large bags of salt he hauled from the car and plopping it down in front of you.

"Alright, c'mon. We gotta make this ring before 4am, or good ol' Casper will have our asses. Hey Sammy, you good to cover upstairs?"

"Yea," the younger one replied, "You guys go ahead. I have something I wanna check out." his voice already faded out as he disappeared around the corner and up the stairs.

Sighing, you slipped a hand into your jeans pocket and pulled out the blade Dean had gifted you for your birthday. It was the first birthday you had spent on the road as a full-time hunter with the boys. So in honour of your partnership, Dean had engraved your initials and a quote from a movie you both bonded over when you first met. It was sweet, and came in extremely handy on the job, like right now. You dig the blade into the bag, making a small enough incision for a decent amount of salt to flow through.

Dean had already started lining the floor with salt when you started adding on, the ring would've been done in no time.

Had Dean and Sam not done a little rearranging of their own to the place.

It all happened so fast. One moment you were focused on making sure your end of the salt ring could meet Dean's end nicely, and the next, all you could feel was your foot snagging an oddly placed lamp, then the extra-large bag of salt was pulling you towards the floor for a musky kiss.

There was a brief string of startled curses and a flurry of motion, before you shut your eyes and the world went dark.

The air in your lungs was knocked harshly out of you as you went down with a loud thud on the floor that was just as hard as it looked on your back.

You blinked once. Then twice. Attempting to recover from the disorientation as you waited for the world to right itself.

You couldn't really figure out what part of the room your eyes were trying to focus on, but then eyelids lifted, and all you could see was a familiar shade of green staring right back at you.

Suddenly, you were all too aware of the way your body was currently pressed flush against Dean's.

Your hands were gripping onto his shirt, dangerously close to his chest, where his heart was beating like crazy in tandem with yours.

Legs so tangled up that honestly, neither of you could tell which pair belonged to who.

And most pressingly, the weight of his lips against yours, giving him a personal taste test of the freshly applied chapstick you put on back in his impala.

For a second, none of you dared to move.

Laying there on top of one another, barely processing the situation you both had landed in.

Dean makes the first move and breaks his lips from yours. Straightening his arms to lift his crushing weight off you, but he still stayed hovering barely an inch away from you, lips parted. His cheeks slightly flushed, and his eyes were wide with shock, flickering between your eyes and lips. The amulet he wore as a charm silently swayed side to side like a pendulum as his mind tried to comprehend what had just happened.

"Uhm…Dean?" He flicks his gaze back up to meet you.

"Could you, uh…maybe get off?" you spoke softly, breaking the silence hanging over the room.

Dean blinks at your request. Then, seemingly snaps out of his trance.

"What?"

"I kind of need you to get off so I can get up."

"Oh—shit, sorry. Right, I'll uh get off of—" he stuttered out, flustered as he scrambled to his feet. "Uhm, here," he offered you a hand, looking anywhere at the floor but you.

As you lace your hand in his and hauled yourself upright, Dean couldn't help the way his eyes flickered down to your lips again—where his had been just moments ago—before he seemed to realise that he was staring, and consciously dragged his gaze back up to meet yours. You paused, searching his eyes for a moment, before retracting your lingering hand from his.

Dean is suddenly self-conscious, clearing his throat and muttering something like an apology while he scratches the back of his neck.

"It's fine, I mean, it was my fault for being so unaware of my surroundings anyway. Thanks for the effort though, really." You gave him a small, reassuring smile, hoping he wouldn't see the heat creeping up the back of your neck and ears.

"Uhm, next time though, maybe try not to go down with me. I think that just really defeats the purpose of your heroic act," you jokingly teased, hoping to ease up the mood.

He plays along, rolling his eyes and scoffing slightly, "Or you could just try not to trip over literally everything."

"Hey! You were the one who put that damn lamp there!"

"Well, I'm not the one who walks like a newborn fawn now, am I?" he throws his hands up and raises his brows at you. "And now our salt ring is everywhere. Okay, go grab your salt bag. We gotta redo this—"

"Hey, guys! I found a journal in the upstairs study and—" Sam chimes in as he reappeared around the corner. "Uh…why is there salt everywhere?"

"Oh, uh…" you and Dean both looked at each other.

"Don't worry 'bout that, we were uh—we'll fix it." Dean mumbled out, hands rubbing the back of his neck again as he did.

"Yea, sorry, I just got my legs into a bit of a tangle and…well you know how clumsy I can be sometimes…" you added on, trailing off and giving an awkward chuckle.

"Right…well, glad you're fine? Be more careful next time," Sam replies, looking between you and Dean like he knew there was something more to that but didn't press.

As he continued rambling about some ink pot a journal told him about, you and Dean locked eyes again.

The tension was palpable and you could feel all the things left unsaid. But neither of you would let yourselves go there. You couldn't, not with the fate of the world still resting on all your shoulders.

So you both did what you do best, filing these moments between you two away in the back of your minds somewhere, and letting it go unspoken for.

────── ⋆₊˚꒰ঌ ໒꒱⋆₊˚ ──────

take two on attempting to post this fic w/o being silenced (flagged) by tumblr

hope y'all enjoyed this!! tsym for reading once again and I'd love to hear any constructive feedback/suggestions from y'all ^^

[applecidertears]

so funny story...this fic has been haunting me since I posted it like 2 months ago bc of how cringe it is so I tried fixing it.

hopefully I can sleep in peace now 😞

[geminiwritten]

── profiled ; aaron hotchner

summary: you've spent years convincing the bau that your love life is chaotic, casual, and completely detached—while quietly dying every time aaron hotchner looks at you. but when your dating profile attracts the wrong kind of attention and your unit chief is forced to look a little closer, it turns out there are very few things more dangerous than being profiled by the man you're hopelessly in love with.

notes: i've been a little conflicted about posting lately, but... it's my birthday, and i want aaron hotchner—so here you go! i've been working on this for a while and had a very very smart friend help me with the "profiling" parts (especially reid) so i hope y'all enjoy! i also really wanted to actually write the smut, but this fic hit the block limit so hard and fast it actually hurt. as always, please please let me know what you think!

warnings: swearing / cursing, blushing, italics, reader wears a skirt (and heels), reader has a cat, implied age gap, best friend!reid, some pretentious ranting, horny thoughts, likely incorrect behavioural and psychoanalytical information, likely incorrect technical information (sorry garcia), canon-typical themes (homicide, etc. referred to off page), stalker / stalking behaviour, ambiguous use of "online dating" (because i tried to keep it vaguely around s6/s7 era), kind of rushed ending? and... fade to black / implied sex (i’m so sorry) 18+ only still, mdni.

word count: 19001

MONDAY 9:25AM

Working for the FBI means having secrets is difficult. Working with the BAU makes it downright impossible.

Not because your colleagues are nosy—no, they’re just… perceptive. Which means if you want to keep something to yourself, you need to know how to manipulate their perception. Even if it doesn’t work on all of them—you glance at Reid, already seated at the round table with his nose buried in a book—at least it works on most of them.

At least, it works on Aaron Hotchner.

Your boss. Your unit chief. The man who absolutely cannot find out about your big, fat, massively inconvenient, deeply inappropriate crush on him.

Reid glances up from his book as you drop into the seat beside him. “You’re wearing a skirt.”

You cross your legs and lean back. “Excellent observation, Reid.”

“It’s impractical,” he says simply. “Especially with heels. Your centre of gravity shifts forward by almost fifteen degrees, which shortens your stride length and reduces balance recovery time. You’re significantly more likely to trip while running.”

You roll your eyes. “Good thing I’m not planning on fleeing the scene of a crime today.”

“Ignore boy genius, baby girl,” Morgan says as he steps into the room, heading straight for the espresso machine. “You look good.”

You flash him a grin. “See? Somebody appreciates me.”

Reid hums as he glances back down at his book. “Interesting how your clothing choices become statistically less practical in direct correlation to Hotch’s proximity.”

Your stomach flips. “Spence.”

He lifts one shoulder. “What? He’s not listening.”

You glance back at Morgan, whose eyes are glued to his phone, brow furrowed just slightly as he waits for the whirring coffee machine to fill his cup.

“That’s not the point, Spencer,” you mutter, turning back to him. “You need to—”

The conference room door swings open again and Hotch walks in—files tucked under one arm, the rest of the team trailing behind him.

“Morning,” he says, dropping the files on the table. “Hope everyone had a good weekend.”

Morgan snorts. “What weekend?”

“Yeah,” Prentiss mutters, dropping into the seat beside Reid. “I was here until five on Saturday finishing geographical profiles.”

“That’s because you alphabetise your paperwork,” you point out.

She gives you a look. “I enjoy being proficient.”

“Well,” you say lightly, leaning back in your chair “some of us managed to finish our paperwork on Friday and still have a very enjoyable weekend.”

Garcia gasps dramatically as she falls into the last empty chair, coffee in hand. “Ooh, look at you. Was there a man involved?”

You shrug one shoulder, biting back a smile. “I’m choosing to plead the fifth.”

Morgan points across the table. “That means yes.”

“Or,” Reid says without looking up from his book, “it means she enjoys making people speculate.”

“Aw, Spence,” you tease. “Don’t sound so bitter.”

He finally looks up from his book and fixes you with a look so flat it borders on threatening—because he knows what you’re doing. It’s what you always do. It’s how you manipulate their perception. How you keep your secret.

You perform.

You scroll through dating profiles, talk about men, brag about your weekends without ever being too specific. You flirt with almost everyone on the team—Reid more than the rest, because he’s your scapegoat... and your best friend.

He’s the only one who can see through the charade. Not because he’s emotionally perceptive, but because he did the math. He noticed the pattern. He realised very quickly that every time Hotch walks into a room or says your name, you react in a way that can only mean one thing:

Hotch is the secret you’re trying so hard to hide.

Because if you give a team of profilers an easy explanation—harmless flirting with a messy dating life and a weakness for attention—they won’t notice the way your entire body betrays you whenever your infuriatingly gorgeous boss gets too close.

Hotch clears his throat. “Well, lucky for all of you, it’s a quiet week.”

Reid shuts his book and sets it on the table.

“No active cases as of this morning,” Hotch continues. “Which means we’ll be catching up on consults, court reports, and the mountain of paperwork everyone’s apparently been neglecting.”

His eyes meet yours for the briefest second, and your pulse skitters.

“I’m bored already,” Morgan sighs, leaning back in his chair.

Hotch ignores him. “We’ve got two local consult requests from Fairfax County and a follow-up review from the Richardson case. Dave, I’ll need your notes finalised by this afternoon.”

Rossi nods once. “You’ll have them.”

“Garcia,” Hotch continues, “the Milwaukee office wants that digital forensic review by Wednesday.”

Garcia gasps softly, pressing a hand to her chest. “But I already colour-coded my entire week. That review wasn’t supposed to be due for another fortnight.”

Morgan blinks. “You colour-code your schedule?”

“Obviously,” Garcia says. “How else would I maintain my sparkling personality under crushing institutional pressure?”

Reid straightens. “Technically, organising information activates the same reward pathways as—”

“Don’t,” Prentiss says immediately.

Reid frowns slightly. “I was just going to say gambling.”

You snort softly before you can stop yourself, covering it quickly with your hand. Reid shoots you a look. Prentiss just shakes her head. And when your eyes finally flick back to the front of the room, Hotch is already watching you.

Not the team. You.

Your stomach twists.

That signature Hotchner scowl should not be as hot as it is. It shouldn’t make you cross your legs a little tighter or make your heart race the way it does. You should be used to that scowl by now. You’re on the receiving end of it often enough—whenever you crack a poorly timed joke or flirt a little too hard with Morgan.

Yet somehow, you still feel like you can’t breathe until his gaze finally shifts.

“Moving on,” he says evenly, “JJ will forward the consult details after the meeting.”

He spends the next thirty minutes briefing the team on consults and court appearances while you do your best to stay focused—but it’s hard. It’s hard because every time you look at him, your gaze drops to his mouth and your mind fills with all sorts of filthy ideas. Then he starts moving his hands as he explains something and you can’t help but wonder what they might feel like wrapped around your waist, your thighs, your throat.

His voice is a low rumble at the back of your mind, warm and firm, but you have no idea what he’s actually saying. All you can do is think about how that voice might sound, wrecked and rough, telling you how pretty you look when you—

“The briefing ended three minutes ago,” Reid says.

You blink hard. “What?”

He closes his notebook with a sigh. “The meeting’s over. You can stop internally monologuing now.”

You frown. “I’m not—”

He gives you a look.

“Ugh,” you groan. “You’re so annoying.”

You push up from your chair and walk out of the conference room without waiting for him, but you’re not surprised that he’s right behind you by the time you reach the bullpen. You drop down at your desk with another indignant huff, watching Reid do the same from the corner of your eye.

Everyone else is already settled at their desks—keyboards clicking, pens scribbling—and there’s a fresh stack of files next to your computer with a sticky note on top that reads: Fairfax files. Prioritize pages 12–18. – Hotch.

You want to laugh at the little sign-off, as if anyone else would have put these files on your desk. Your fingers trace over the note once before you peel it off and stick it to the bottom corner of your computer screen.

Reid snorts. “You know most people throw those away, right?”

You glance sideways at him. “I don’t want to forget the page numbers.”

He hums. “Sure.”

“You know,” you say, turning your chair to properly face him, “you’re being particularly judgemental today. What’s your problem?”

He stares at you for a moment, then glances back at the sticky note still attached to your monitor.

“I’m experiencing prolonged second-hand embarrassment,” he says plainly. “And repeated exposure tends to increase irritability.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well—you’re increasing my irritability.”

He nods. “Good.”

You frown.

“I’m attempting corrective behavioural conditioning.”

Your eyes narrow. “By being annoying?”

“Exactly,” he says, already turning back to his computer.

You glare at the side of his head for a long moment, searching for a comeback—but your mind is completely blank. So with another irritated sigh, you turn back to your own screen, scoot your chair into the desk a little harder than necessary, and settle in for what’s shaping up to be a very boring Monday.

The next two hours pass by in a blur of interview transcripts, witness statements, and crime scene photos. The Fairfax County PD files detail the death of a woman in her late thirties who accidentally overdosed in her Reston home early last week. No prior history of substance abuse, financial instability, or high-risk behaviour—until forty-eight hours before her death.

In just two days, she withdrew a large amount of money, missed work without explanation, visited several bars she’d never been to before, and bought herself thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive jewellery and lingerie.

To anyone else, it might look like some sort of breakdown—an impulsive spiral that led to the kind of recklessness you can’t come back from. But to you, the behaviour feels too... artificial. As if someone is trying to construct the narrative of a troubled woman—checking all the right boxes to give investigators an easy explanation for a tragic overdose.

Only there isn’t enough concrete evidence to support your instinct. No stalker. No ex. No clear unsub who could have orchestrated this kind of ruse to cover what might actually be homicide.

You sigh. “Reid.”

“Hm?”

“Tell me if I’m overthinking this.”

Reid pushes back from his desk and scoots across the narrow stretch of carpet between your workstations. He doesn’t stop until his chair bumps the side of your desk, causing your pen cup to topple over and spill across the files you’ve got carefully laid out.

“Oops,” he says absently, pushing the pens aside.

You roll your eyes and start gathering them while he scans the files.

“The behavioural shift feels manufactured,” you say, dropping the pens back into their cup. “But there’s enough legitimate stressors here that I can’t tell if I’m forcing a pattern because it’s too clean.”

Reid examines the highlighted timeline for another few seconds.

“You’re focusing too much on the existence of the stressors,” he says. “Stress explains escalation. It doesn’t explain inconsistency.”

You frown slightly.

“She suddenly becomes impulsive socially, financially, and sexually, but her organisational habits never change.” He taps the timeline. “She still pays bills early. Still meal preps. Still attends a dentist appointment two days before her death. Real behavioural deterioration isn’t usually selective.”

Your brows lift. “So, I’m right?”

Reid nods, leaning back in his chair. “You’re right.”

“What’s she right about?”

You nearly jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice—low and even, a little rough around the edges in that way that always makes your stomach tighten.

“She thinks the behavioural shift is staged,” Reid says. “And I agree.”

He scoots back slightly as Hotch leans in, one hand braced on the back of your chair while the other pulls the file closer so he can read it properly. His tie falls forward, brushing lightly against your thigh—and suddenly, you can’t breathe.

He’s close. Way too close. You can feel the heat of his breath on your skin. Smell the bitterness of coffee beneath his cologne. Hear the quiet creak of leather from his belt as he leans in further.

“It’s too compartmentalised,” Reid says, his voice more distant than it was just a second ago. “Real behavioural spirals usually bleed into every aspect of a person’s routine. Sleep disruption, missed payments, changes in grooming habits, social withdrawal—something.”

Hotch lifts his hand off the desk and presses his thumb to the tip of his tongue—then flips the page.

Your pulse jumps so hard it almost hurts. Heat crawls up the back of your neck. Your whole body feels too hot, your clothes suddenly too tight, the bullpen too small—but you can’t move. Not with Hotch’s hand still on the back of your chair.

“But this is curated,” Reid goes on, tapping the timeline with the end of his pen. “The impulsive behaviour escalates while the foundational routines stay completely intact, which suggests intentional narrative construction.”

Hotch turns his head just slightly, dark eyes finding yours. “You caught that?”

You clear your throat. “I just... thought the escalation pattern felt off.”

“Her behavioural analysis is spot on, actually,” Reid says. “I can’t find a flaw in it.”

Hotch hums quietly as his eyes move back over the file.

“Good girl,” he says absently.

Your entire nervous system short-circuits.

“Keep it up,” he adds, smoothing his tie as he straightens.

You don’t say anything as he turns and walks away. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.

Reid just sits there, hands folded in his lap as he watches Hotch disappear into his office before slowly turning back toward you.

“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “the age-gap preference is actually more interesting than the authority fixation.”

You finally blink. “What?”

“Because the authority thing makes perfect sense. High-pressure careers tend to reinforce attraction to competence, decisiveness, emotional restraint—especially in workplace environments where leadership qualities become psychologically linked with safety and stability over long periods of exposure.”

You frown. “What are you—”

“But the older man preference is statistically more complicated because you don’t actually display the attachment markers usually associated with paternal absence or instability.”

Your eyes go wide. “Spencer—”

“You have a healthy relationship with your father, no documented authority issues, and relatively secure interpersonal attachment patterns, which suggests the preference is less psychologically compensatory and more rooted in behavioural reinforcement.”

“Reid.”

“For example,” he goes on, ignoring you completely, “you spent your formative professional years surrounded almost exclusively by older men in positions of intellectual and behavioural authority. Gideon, Rossi, Hotch—which likely created a reinforcement pattern where emotional competence became unconsciously associated with attraction, arousal, and sexual interest.”

You freeze. “Reid, I swear to—”

“You don’t react this strongly to older men generally,” he continues. “You react strongly to Hotch because he’s emotionally controlled, professionally authoritative, intellectually intimidating, and—”

He pauses, tilting his head.

“Very obviously your type.”

You glance frantically around the bullpen, scanning the desks for the rest of your team.

Morgan has his headphones on, completely focused on whatever report he’s typing. JJ’s desk is empty, as usual—she’s probably with Garcia. And Prentiss is only halfway back from the kitchen, still stirring her fresh cup of coffee.

Your gaze cuts back to Reid. “You are so lucky no one heard that, Spencer.”

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t matter if they did.”

Your brows pull together. “What’s that mean?”

“You’re good at redirecting attention,” he says, slowly pushing his chair back toward his desk. “You’re less good at hiding physiological responses.”

Your hand flies up to your cheek, palm pressing flat against the burning skin.

“Whatever,” you mutter. “It’s warm in here.”

Reid glances around the bullpen. “It’s sixty-eight degrees.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

You shoot him one last glare before turning back toward your computer, aggressively waking up the monitor with your mouse.

You stay chained to your desk for the next few hours, finishing up the victimology report for the Fairfax files before taking them to Rossi for final review. Then you head out with JJ to grab a late lunch from the deli down the street, and when you get back, there’s a brand-new stack of files on your desk—only this time, with a tall takeaway cup of coffee set on top.

“Hotch got dragged into some last-minute Section Chief meeting across town,” Morgan says, pushing his headphones down. “Said he needs those cross-referenced before tomorrow morning.”

“Great,” you mutter, dropping into your chair.

Morgan chuckles softly as he pulls his headphones back up, turning back to his own pile of reports.

You grab the coffee from the top of the files and find a sticky note stuck beneath it—written quickly but still in his unmistakable handwriting: I owe you one. – Hotch.

Your stomach flips.

God. That’s pathetic.

You peel the note off and drop it into the top drawer of your desk, not wanting another psychoanalytic lecture from Reid if he were to spot that note stuck to your monitor.

The rest of the day passes the way every other caseless Monday afternoon does. JJ’s the first to head out—not long after five—taking advantage of the slow week to spend a little extra time with Henry. Rossi leaves about an hour later, announcing to the bullpen that he’s got a date with a bottle of wine and reruns of his favourite medical drama. Morgan manages to clear the files on his desk before seven, finally putting his headphones away before bidding the rest of the team farewell.

Prentiss and Reid linger until nearly nine, and only when the motion sensor lights blink out does Prentiss finally glance up, realising how late it is. She gathers her things and nudges Reid, who’s been firmly stuck in hyperfocus mode despite the rest of the world quietly slowing down around him.

“You coming?” he asks, adjusting the strap of his satchel.

You look up slowly, your brain buffering as it untangles itself from the files spread across your desk.

“Not yet,” you reply, blinking tiredly. “Hotch needs these by morning.”

Reid tilts his head. “Want me to wait?”

You wave a hand. “Nah, go ahead. I’ll get security to walk me to my car.”

“Alright,” he says, already turning away. “Just remember that positive reinforcement loses effectiveness when the subject becomes emotionally dependent on it.”

You glare at his back. “I’m reporting you to HR.”

“You’d have to explain the context,” he calls over his shoulder.

You roll your eyes as you turn back to the last file on your desk, taking a deep breath and flipping it open.

With the bullpen almost completely silent and the promise of sleep so close you can taste it, you manage to get through it in record time. You even give it a quick second pass to make sure you didn’t miss anything glaringly obvious in your tired state—but you’re used to working through sleep deprivation, and by ten p.m., you finally start packing up.

You organise the files back into a neat pile, then open the top drawer of your desk for Hotch’s note. You stick it to the top file and grab a pen, scribbling just below the words he wrote: Dangerous thing to promise me.

And, just as he did, you sign off with your name.

Then you gather the whole stack in your arms and cross the bullpen toward his office. Unlocked, as usual. You nudge the door open with your foot, warm lamplight casting an orange glow over the quiet space. It smells faintly like coffee and his cologne—enough to make your heart start racing the second you step inside.

You set the files neatly on his desk, trying not to linger on the quiet traces of him scattered throughout the room.

There’s still half a mug of cold coffee abandoned beside some paperwork, and the cashmere sweater he’d been wearing beneath his jacket this morning is draped haphazardly over the back of his chair. Quiet evidence of just how suddenly he’d been called away.

It makes you feel a little better knowing you really have helped him out.

You adjust the files until they’re perfectly straight, then take the sweater from the back of his chair and fold it neatly before setting it on the chest of drawers beside his desk. You hesitate for just a second before grabbing the mug of cold coffee and heading out of his office, straight for the break room. You empty it, wash it, dry it, then return to his office, placing it back on his desk exactly where you found it. Then you switch the lamp off on your way out, pulling the door most of the way shut behind you—the way it’d been before you stepped inside.

It doesn’t take long for you to gather your things, head down to security, and badge out. One of the guards escorts you to the parking garage, waiting until you’re safely inside your car with the engine running before he takes the elevator back up.

Once home, you quickly feed the yowling Leia—your cat, who’s very unimpressed by your late arrival—take a quick shower, change into your comfiest, threadbare sleep shirt, then crawl into bed with your laptop balanced on your knees. You know you should just try to get some sleep, but you’ve been ignoring a few personal messages and emails for a couple days now, and you know that if you don’t get to them soon, you’ll start to feel guilty.

You open your emails, reply to a couple, then pull up a new browser tab and type in the login address for the dating site Garcia set you up for. Not that you couldn’t have set up your own profile if you’d really wanted to.

No—this profile is just the unintentional byproduct of your ongoing attempt to redirect attention.

One slow Thursday evening in the bullpen, while you’d been loudly complaining about how impossible it was to meet men with a job like yours, Morgan had the brilliant idea of making you a dating profile. Garcia immediately lit up at the idea, pulling the site up on her computer while Reid launched into a rambling statistical analysis about the probability of finding genuine compatibility online.

Hotch hadn’t contributed to the conversation, but you’d known he was listening.

That had been the whole point. You always perform a little harder when Hotch can hear.

The site finally loads and you type in your credentials, waiting a few seconds for your profile to pop up.

Twelve notifications.

You click on the ‘messages’ tab and start scrolling. There are a few old conversations that fizzled out and you’ve long since decided not to reply to. There are a couple of messages from people you never intend on starting a conversation with. Then there are two new messages—ones you’d seen pop up on your phone but couldn’t be bothered to engage with over the weekend.

After all, you’re not actually looking to date anyone.

But one of the messages catches your eye.

DCRunner00: You seem like the kind of person who’s either very funny or very mean. I’m willing to risk it.

You snort, then type out a reply.

You: Unfortunately for you, those traits aren’t mutually exclusive.

Just as you hit enter, Leia leaps up onto the bed.

“Hey, sassy girl,” you coo, moving your laptop to reach for her.

Your fingers graze her soft coat, and she gives you an incredibly disapproving look.

You roll your eyes. “Alright. Sorry for loving you.”

You settle back against the pillows as she makes her way to the other side of the bed, curling up as far as she can possibly get from you.

Ping! Ping! Two more messages pop up.

DCRunner00: That’s probably the best possible answer you could’ve given. DCRunner00: So what’s your worst personality trait? I feel like that’s more interesting than hobbies.

That answer comes a little too easily.

You: Workaholic. You? DCRunner00: I get bored easily. DCRunner00: Which usually means I either start running or annoying people for entertainment. You: Sounds like a public safety issue. DCRunner00: Depends who you ask. DCRunner00: You should probably get some sleep, Workaholic. It’s late.

You glance over at Leia as she rolls onto her side, stretching her front legs, and only then do you realise you were actually smiling at your screen.

You shake your head, typing quickly.

You: Yeah, I should. You: Night, Running Man.

Then you shut your laptop before he can send another message.

TUESDAY 9:50AM

“Morgan, you’re with me at district court this afternoon,” Hotch says, closing the file in front of him. “The defence attorney’s pushing back on the Richardson testimony, so we’ll need to review our timeline before the hearing.”

He’s wearing a grey suit today.

You can never think straight when he’s wearing a grey suit.

Morgan sighs dramatically. “Nothing says excitement like four hours in a courthouse basement.”

Hotch ignores him completely.

“JJ, I want the media requests filtered through Strauss’s office before lunch. Reid, finish the geographic overlays from the Fairfax case and send them to Rossi when you’re done.”

He glances once around the table.

“If anything urgent comes in, you’ll be notified. Otherwise, continue using this downtime to catch up on reports.”

Then he gathers the files into a neat stack and stands, turning toward the door.

The rest of the room starts moving slowly. Morgan mutters something to JJ about the court hearing, Prentiss turns to Reid, asking something about a case you don’t quite catch, and Garcia is already explaining something on her laptop to Rossi, who’s watching the screen with quiet concentration.

Which leaves you to shamelessly stare at your boss’ ass as he walks out of the room.

“You should probably blink.”

Your head snaps toward Reid, frown already forming. “I’ll blink when I want to blink.”

He presses his lips together to keep from laughing, and you know he’s fighting the urge to launch into some deeply unwanted psychoanalysis of your behaviour—but thankfully, the rest of the team is still too close for him to risk it.

Eventually, everyone starts filing out of the conference room and back into the bullpen. You end up being the last to leave, behind Reid and Garcia who are chatting animatedly about some new phone app they’re both obsessed with.

You’re just about to pass Hotch’s office door when—you hear your name.

You turn your head, and he gestures for you to come in.

Reid glances briefly over his shoulder, an irritatingly knowing look on his face as you turn and step into Hotch’s office.

You clear your throat, stopping a few feet from the desk. “Sir?”

“How late were you here last night?” he asks.

You lift a shoulder. “About ten.”

His jaw shifts as he leans back in his chair. “That’s late.”

“Morgan said you needed them done by the morning.”

“I didn’t mean first thing,” he says, smoothing the end of his tie. “You could’ve finished the rest before lunch.”

You blink. “Oh.”

His gaze holds yours for a second too long.

“You don’t need to stay late to impress me.”

Your eyes widen slightly before you force out a small, awkward laugh. “Oh—uh—good to know.”

He glances briefly at the navy-blue cashmere sweater still folded neatly on the chest of drawers.

“Still,” he says, lower this time. “I appreciated it. The files, and… everything else.”

Your breath catches softly in your throat.

“Anytime, sir,” you manage.

He nods once, then drops his gaze back to the paperwork on his desk.

You don’t need any more of a dismissal than that, so you turn quickly and step out, pulling the door shut behind you. He prefers it closed, even if he won’t admit it because he doesn’t want the team to think he’s shutting them out. He’s just more comfortable in private—it helps him focus.

By the time you get back to your desk, everyone else is already settled and working quietly. Not even Reid glances up or offers a teasing remark.

You drop into your chair and wriggle your mouse, grabbing your phone while you wait for the screen to wake up.

Two new messages from DCRunner00.

DCRunner00: Running Man? DCRunner00: Great book. Slightly concerning nickname, though.

You can’t help yourself, so you type out a quick reply.

You: Better than ‘Workaholic’. You: You read Stephen King?

“Hey, you busy?”

You glance over at Reid. “Aren’t we all?”

He tilts his head. “You’re on your phone.”

“I could be working.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Good,” he says, shuffling the files on his desk. “Hotch wants us to prep the full geographic and timeline package for the Fairfax files in case it turns into an active investigation.”

You sigh, already pushing back from your desk. “And by ‘us’ you mean...?”

“I could use your help.”

“Fine,” you mutter, setting your phone down.

He scoots over as you roll your chair toward his desk, settling in beside him. The files are all laid out, including your victimology report with Rossi’s few annotations. There are crime scene reports, autopsy summaries, witness statements, geographic overlays, and maps—everything needed to justify escalating the case into a full BAU investigation.

“Where do you want to start?”

“I’m trying to rebuild the geographic timeline digitally,” he says, “but half the field reports were logged out of sequence and now the movement patterns don’t align.”

You nod. “Okay, walk me through where it stops making sense.”

Three hours later, you feel like your eyeballs are bleeding. You’ve read the same witness statement at least twenty times now, but with every pass it only makes less sense. How could Annabelle Hutton possibly be placed in two different counties less than forty minutes apart?

“It’s physically impossible,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes.

Reid hums quietly beside you. “Not necessarily.”

You stare at him. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well, depending on traffic conditions, inaccurate timestamp reporting, and the reliability of eyewitness memory retention, there are at least four scenarios where the timeline could still technically work.”

You sigh, leaning back in your chair and staring up at the ceiling. “If you know so much, then why can’t you figure this out?”

He still doesn’t turn away from his screen. “I will. Eventually.”

You groan softly, dragging both hands down your face just as a familiar voice cuts through the quiet bullpen.

“No, listen to me carefully.”

Both you and Reid glance up automatically.

Hotch is walking slowly past the desks with his phone pressed to his ear, expression calm but impossibly stern in a way that immediately makes heat crawl beneath your skin.

“You don’t need to explain the problem again,” he says evenly. “You need to tell me how you’re fixing it.”

He pauses briefly beside Reid’s desk, listening.

“Then prioritise the transfer first,” he says. “If the paperwork isn’t filed before opposing counsel reviews discovery, the timeline becomes vulnerable and the entire testimony gets picked apart.”

He rests a hand on the partition between the desks, gaze fixed somewhere distant as he listens to the person on the other end.

“No,” he says after a moment, voice lower now. “I’m not asking you to stay late. I’m telling you this needs to be finished tonight.”

Your stomach flips.

This absolutely should not be as hot as it is.

“Good,” he says calmly into the phone, straightening again. “Call me when it’s done.”

Then he keeps walking, cutting through the bullpen before turning sharply toward his office.

You stare after him, the thought slipping out before you can stop it. “Do you think he talks you through it?”

“Probably,” Reid says, turning back to his screen. “High-control personalities usually prefer maintaining verbal direction in intimate situations because it reinforces predictability and compliance dynamics.”

You go still. You hadn’t actually expected an answer.

“Someone like Hotch would probably place a pretty high psychological value on responsiveness,” Reid continues. “The immediate compliance aspect reinforces authority, which means verbal direction would likely become part of the overall intimacy dynamic rather than just communication.”

Your face heats.

“Especially because he’s not impulsive enough to rely on unpredictability. He’d want constant awareness of how the other person is responding emotionally and physically, so talking them through things would help maintain control of the situation while also reinforcing trust.”

Oh my God.

“And honestly,” Reid goes on, “people with highly structured leadership personalities usually develop pretty strong positive associations with obedience because it confirms stability, attentiveness, emotional investment—” He pauses briefly. “Which means he’d probably find it disproportionately attractive when someone follows instructions immediately or responds well to praise because it validates both the authority dynamic and the emotional trust beneath it, so statistically speaking he’d—”

He stops.

Then slowly turns toward you.

“...I crossed a social boundary somewhere in there, didn’t I?”

You nod slowly, your voice coming out unnaturally high. “Just a couple.”

He sighs, dropping his chin slightly as he turns back to his screen.

You huff out a breathless laugh and lean back in your chair again. You need a minute to recover from that, because now you’re hot all over and the only thing you can think about is your boss hovering over you, praising you in that low, steady voice while his hand settles around your throat—

Fortunately, it doesn’t take Reid long to start rambling about geographic overlays again. You do your best to focus on what he’s saying, but after another hour of scrutinising the timeline inconsistencies, you decide you need an actual break.

You grab your phone and your jacket and head out of the office, sending a quick text to the team chat asking if anyone else would like a coffee from the cafe down the road. It’s a thousand times better than break room coffee.

When you step out of the elevator on the ground floor, you bring up your messages with DCRunner00. You’re not sure why, because normally you only check your profile when you feel like you need to keep up the act, but something about this guy keeps making you want to reply.

DCRunner00: I’ve read a few. DCRunner00: What does a workaholic do for fun?

You type your reply as you step out of the building.

You: Work, mostly. You: And sleep.

By the time you return to the office with a tray of four coffees, you have two new messages—but you can’t reply to them until you set the tray down at your desk.

“Thanks, pretty girl,” Morgan says as he takes one, flashing you a grin.

You smile back. “Anything for you, gorgeous.”

Then you pull your phone out of your pocket and bring up the message thread.

DCRunner00: What’s your schedule even like? DCRunner00: You strike me as an “answers emails at midnight” type of person. You: Nah. That’s my boss. You: My schedule is chaos, though.

“Thanks,” Reid says as he takes his coffee, leaving only two.

You set your phone down and take the last two coffees out of the tray, leaving one at your desk before taking the other to Hotch’s office. You can see through the window that he’s not on the phone—for once—so you knock twice on the slightly ajar door before stepping inside.

He glances up, his brows pulling together slightly. “I didn’t ask for coffee.”

“I know,” you say quickly. “But it’s almost three, and you always need another coffee around three, and I figured you probably didn’t answer the team message because you still feel bad about me staying so late last night, which you shouldn’t, by the way.”

He straightens, brows drawing tighter.

“And I know you’ve got court with Morgan this afternoon, and you’re going to try to leave early, but someone’s definitely going to call at the last second and derail that plan, so you’ll only have enough time to get to the courthouse—not enough time to stop for coffee.”

You set the cup down in front of him.

“So,” you tilt your head, “coffee.”

He leans back in his chair, studying you for a second.

“That’s some pretty solid profiling, Agent.”

Your face heats instantly.

“Well,” you say, backing slowly toward the door, “maybe now you owe me two.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly, but it’s enough for the butterflies in your stomach to explode. You can’t help but grin as you turn away, slipping quickly out the door before your lungs forget how to work entirely.

You spend the rest of the day at Reid’s desk, finishing the case package for the Fairfax files and complaining about unreliable witnesses. Hotch and Morgan head off to court just after three, announcing to the rest of the team that they won’t be back. JJ is the first to head home again around five, followed by Prentiss, then Rossi—then you and Reid finally decide to call it a day just after six.

Which is also when you finally check your messages again.

DCRunner00: Chaos how?

You type a quick reply while you wait for your car’s AC to warm up.

You: Long hours. You: Weird hours. You: And a deeply unhealthy relationship with caffeine.

Then you tuck your phone away and head out of the parking garage.

Leia is already yowling by the time you step through your apartment door. She’s always hungry, even though she has an automatic feeder for dry food—but apparently that isn’t good enough. She prefers the wet stuff.

You quickly peel open a packet of fishy-smelling chicken jelly sludge and drop it into her bowl before washing your hands and moving into your bedroom. You flip the ensuite light on and start the shower, pulling your phone out of your pocket while you wait for the water to warm.

DCRunner00: Ah. So you’re one of those people. You: Rude.

He replies almost immediately.

DCRunner00: Accurate, though? You: Unfortunately.

You drop your phone on the bed and start undressing.

Ping!

DCRunner00: What do you actually do?

You hesitate. It’s not like you can just say you’re in the FBI. Contrary to what some people might think, real FBI agents can’t just go around bragging about their highly classified work status. It’s dangerous.

You: Mostly admin. You: Governmental stuff.

You toss your phone back onto the bed and turn into the steamy ensuite. You shower quickly, dry off, run product through your damp hair, then pull on a shirt and a pair of sweatpants before heading back out into the kitchen.

You’re not in the mood to cook tonight, so you grab a protein bar out of the cupboard and start boiling the kettle while you check your phone for what feels like the hundredth time.

DCRunner00: Sounds boring. DCRunner00: Do you get days off, though?

You drop a teabag into your mug before typing out a reply.

You: Sort of. You: But if my boss calls, I answer.

He replies instantly again.

DCRunner00: I’m starting to think you secretly enjoy being overworked. You: I think I’d get bored otherwise.

You pour the boiling water into your mug and watch his next reply pop up.

DCRunner00: That sounds suspiciously unhealthy. You: Probably. What about you? What do you do?

You tuck your phone into your pocket, then grab your tea and protein bar and head to the couch. There’s nothing you’re really interested in watching—since you don’t usually have the time to keep up with any shows—so you turn on the nightly news before grabbing your laptop and pulling up a new browser.

He’s already replied by the time you log in.

DCRunner00: Run. DCRunner00: Read. DCRunner00: Annoy people professionally. You: That sounds made up.

You open your protein bar.

DCRunner00: It mostly is. DCRunner00: So your boss actually calls you outside work hours?

You hesitate at the sudden redirection. Most men on dating apps prefer talking about themselves. Their jobs, hobbies, gym routines, childhood dogs—whatever makes them seem interesting—but this guy seems far more interested in observing than being observed.

You type out a vague response.

You: Sometimes. You: Occupational hazard, I guess. DCRunner00: And you always answer? You: Pretty much. You: He’d only call if it mattered.

His next reply takes almost two minutes to come through.

DCRunner00: Hm. DCRunner00: I’m starting to think your boss gets more attention than I do.

You almost choke on your tea.

That’s... weird.

Maybe you have mentioned your boss a little more than strictly necessary, but he’s the one asking all the questions about your job. It’s a little hard not to mention your boss when your life practically revolves around him—in more ways than you care to admit.

You: Jealous already, Running Man? DCRunner00: Should I be?

You sit up straighter, suddenly a little nauseous.

You: I think you’re spending too much time talking to strangers online. DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: You still replied, though.

“Okay,” you say, startling Leia who was half-asleep on the other end of the couch. “That’s enough.”

You: I’m going to sleep. You: Try not to spiral while I’m gone.

His last message pops up just before you shut your laptop.

DCRunner00: No promises.

WEDNESDAY 8:10AM

“Come on,” you mutter, mashing the elevator button for the doors to close.

You’re a whole thirty minutes earlier than usual this morning. You didn’t even make a coffee in your travel mug before running out the door. You just woke up, brushed your teeth, checked your messages—and decided you needed to talk to Garcia immediately.

“Hey—woah.” Reid steps out of your way as you rush into the bullpen. “You’re early.”

You drop your bag on your desk and quickly shrug off your jacket.

“Is Garcia in yet?”

He frowns slightly. “I think so. Why?”

You pull your laptop out of your bag.

“I just—I need her.”

You’re already walking away before he can press any further, moving back through the bullpen with your laptop hugged against your chest. You’re just about to round the corner toward the elevators when—

“Hey—” Hotch stops short just as you nearly run into him. “Slow down. You alright?”

His hand is hovering near your waist—not quite touching, but close enough for you to feel its warmth.

You blink up at him. “Sorry. Yeah. Uh—totally fine. Just going to see Garcia about... a case.”

His brows pull together slightly.

“Alright, well, Garcia’s not going anywhere,” he says evenly. “Take a breath.”

You nod slowly, already stepping around him.

“Right,” you mutter. “Breathing. Got it. Sorry, sir.”

You can almost swear you see the corner of his mouth lift—but then the elevator dings behind you, and you have to hurry to slip through the doors before they slide shut.

It feels like an eternity before they finally open again, but once they do you practically sprint down the hall to Garcia’s lair and burst through the door without warning.

She startles so hard she nearly drops her coffee. “Sweet mother of encryption, knock first!”

“Sorry,” you say, breathless. “I need you.”

“Well, obviously,” she mutters, checking her shirt for any spills. “I’m the backbone of this entire operation.”

You drop down into the spare chair and open your laptop, setting it on her desk.

“You cannot judge me for what I’m about to show you.”

She glances up, brows lifting. “Oh. So this is serious?”

You grimace. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Slightly less reassuring than I was hoping for. Tell me what’s happened.”

You take a deep breath, then let it out in a rush.

“You remember the dating profile you set up for me?”

She nods.

“Alright, so, I won’t lie, I haven’t really met anyone on there yet, but I check the messages occasionally. When I’ve got time, you know? And I don’t have a whole lot of ongoing conversations, but this one guy sent me something that was kind of funny, so I responded, and the conversation was pretty normal for the most part. I couldn’t reply all that quickly, but he didn’t seem to mind.”

You shift awkwardly, scooting your chair closer to her desk.

“Nothing really felt out of place until—well, he wouldn’t talk about himself much, which is strange because most people on dating apps are usually more interested in presenting themselves than gathering information. He kept asking questions about my job, actually. Not that my job is on my profile, but he was really curious about my schedule, or—I guess—lack of schedule.”

You wince.

“So now that I think about it, that was probably the second sign something might be off. Or maybe he just wanted to meet up, I don’t know.”

You hesitate.

“But then he sent me this message at like... two a.m.”

She squints at the screen.

DCRunner00: Bet you answer your boss faster than you answer anyone else.

“Mmm. Nope. Don’t love that,” she says, shaking her head. “That is not a normal amount of emotional investment for a stranger.”

You sink back in your chair. “That’s what I thought.”

She starts scrolling back through the messages.

“Have you told Hotch?”

“Nope.”

She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “You answered way too fast for that to be a normal response.”

“Because the answer is no,” you say firmly, leaning forward again.

“Mm-hm.” She keeps scrolling. “Okay, well... technically this could still be nothing. He could just be some lonely basement cryptid with Wi-Fi and poor social skills.”

You groan, dragging both hands over your face.

“You do mention Hotch kind of a lot.”

Your head snaps up. “He’s my boss.”

Garcia gives you a long look.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Sure.”

“Garcia.”

“I’m just saying, if a man talked about a woman this much online, we’d all be making faces.”

You point at the screen. “Focus.”

“Right. Yes. Creepy internet man. Sorry.”

Her expression settles into something more focused as she turns back toward her array of monitors.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Don’t block him yet.”

You sigh. “I don’t love that idea.”

“Neither do I, babycakes, but if he’s routing through the website normally, I might be able to pull connection data if we keep him talking long enough.”

You frown. “In English?”

She gives you another look. “Timestamps, login patterns, regional pings, possible VPN usage, device signatures if he slips up—basic digital stalking fun.”

“Oh, of course,” you say sarcastically. “Normal stuff.”

“For me, it is normal.” She points toward the laptop. “Now reply to him. Something casual. I want to see if he responds immediately again.”

Your fingers hover over the keys for a second before you type out your reply.

You: I thought I told you not to spiral.

He replies so fast that even Garcia flinches.

DCRunner00: Relax. It was a joke. DCRunner00: Mostly.

She stares at the screen. “Okay, I officially don’t like him.”

You lean back in your chair again, nausea twisting low in your gut. “I feel sick.”

Garcia’s expression softens slightly. “Maybe you should tell—”

“No.”

She sighs quietly. “Okay. Fine. Can you keep replying from your phone?”

You nod.

“Good. Don’t overdo it, just enough to keep him engaged.” Her fingers start flying across the keyboard. “I’ll work my magic down here and call you if I find anything.”

You push yourself out of the chair, clutching your phone a little tighter.

“You’re the best, Pen.”

“I know.” She waves a hand without looking away from her screens. “Now go pretend to be emotionally stable upstairs.”

By the time you get back to your desk, almost everyone is already in the conference room ready for the morning briefing. You drop your phone beside your keyboard—too anxious to have it with you during the meeting—then quickly unpack your things and grab a notebook before making your way up.

Reid nods at you from his usual seat, gesturing to the empty one beside him.

“Hey,” you mutter as you drop down next to him.

His brows pull together. “Everything alright?”

You nod. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll explain later.”

Hotch keeps the morning briefing quick. He goes over yesterday’s court hearing, outlines the Fairfax briefing package in case it escalates into an active investigation, then gets JJ to run through the highest priority consultation requests.

You spend most of it toying with a loose thread on the cuff of your blouse. You’re pretty sure it’s the first briefing in years where you haven’t spent at least part of it staring at Hotch instead of your notes—and when the room finally relaxes and everyone starts to filter out, Reid turns to you.

“Okay, now I’m concerned,” he says.

You glance at him. “Why?”

“You didn’t look at Hotch once during that entire meeting.”

You roll your eyes. “Spence—”

“Something must be seriously wrong.”

You let out a long exhale, glancing briefly around the almost empty room. Only Morgan and Rossi are left, halfway to the door, deep in discussion about something that happened at the court hearing yesterday afternoon.

“Okay,” you say quietly, turning back to Reid. “I’m having some... trouble, I guess, with a guy.”

His brows shoot up. “A guy—”

“Online,” you add quickly.

He tilts his head. “I’m confused again.”

You sigh. “Remember that dating profile Garcia set up for me?”

“You mean the profile you allowed Garcia to create as part of your increasingly unsustainable performative dating strategy?”

You glare at him. “Yes. That one.”

“Then yes, I remember it very clearly.”

“Well,” you mutter, pinching the bridge of your nose, “I had this guy message me a couple days ago. It was normal at first but now it’s gotten... weird. So, I’m getting Garcia to look into it.”

His forehead creases. “Have you told—”

“No.”

“Maybe you should—”

“I said no.”

“Alright.” He raises both hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m dropping it. It’s just…”

You narrow your eyes at him.

“Well, statistically speaking, the majority of uncomfortable online interactions don’t escalate into actual stalking behaviour. Most people displaying premature emotional fixation online are socially isolated rather than violent.”

You lift a brow, waiting for the punchline.

“However,” he adds, “cyberstalking offenders also tend to develop parasocial attachments disproportionately quickly because the perceived emotional intimacy bypasses a lot of normal social barriers, which means escalation patterns can become highly personalised in a very short period of time.”

You stare at him.

“In cases where the fixation becomes grievance-oriented, the offender is usually highly organised rather than impulsive, so the behaviour tends to be significantly more deliberate and psychologically targeted.”

He pauses, frowning faintly.

“That was supposed to be reassuring.”

“…Thanks, Reid,” you mutter, turning away from him slowly. “Now I feel so much better.”

When you get back to your desk, you decide it’s time to reply again. You grab your phone and bring up the messages, taking a minute to think about what to type—knowing Garcia will be seeing the conversation too.

You type out the only mildly casual response you can think of.

You: You’re weird.

He replies just as fast as usual.

DCRunner00: You disappear a lot. You: Workaholic, remember. You: I told you my schedule was chaos.

You’re about to turn your phone over on your desk when a different notification pops up—from Garcia.

Garcia: If this is your version of flirting, baby girl, I think I just figured out why you’re still single.

You snort softly, typing out a quick reply.

You: Trust me, that’s not the reason. Garcia: So there IS a reason? You: Shh. I’m working. Garcia: Boo!

You huff another quiet laugh as you turn your phone over, nudging it toward the edge of your desk in the hopes that you might be able to focus on work rather than creepy internet man for at least a few hours.

It doesn’t work.

Barely half an hour later, you lift your phone to check for another notification—but there’s nothing there. You pull up the message thread again and scroll up, checking the timestamps to see if he’s ever gone quiet on you before—but he hasn’t. Not really. So you type another message.

You: You went quiet. Should I be concerned?

It’s a calculated move. If he’s paying attention to response patterns—and at this point you’re pretty sure he is—then following up first helps maintain the illusion that nothing has changed. No sudden distance. No obvious discomfort. No reason for him to think you’re pulling away.

If he is dangerous, the last thing you want is for him to feel rejected.

An hour later, Rossi drops a legal pad onto your desk, asking you to take another look at a witness timeline that doesn’t feel right—which keeps you occupied for a good forty-five minutes. Then Morgan leans over the partition between your desks, asking if you can translate Reid into English. That takes up another hour of your day, and by the time you grab your first afternoon coffee, you’ve got three notifications.

One is a missed call from Garcia. The other two are from creepy internet man.

DCRunner00: Depends. Are you worried about me? DCRunner00: Blue looks good on you, by the way.

Your stomach drops. “Oh my God.”

You immediately call Garcia back.

She answers on half a ring. “Are you wearing blue?”

“You saw me this morning.”

“I can’t remember,” she says. “Are you?”

You drag a hand through your hair. “Yes.”

“Holy shit,” she whispers. “You’ve got to tell—”

“No.”

“Are you insane?”

“Maybe, but—” You squeeze your eyes shut for a second. “Okay, just—hear me out. Blue is a statistically safe guess. It’s a neutral professional colour with high frequency in workplace attire, especially in government buildings.”

Garcia goes quiet for a second.

“And does this unsub know you work in a government building?”

“Don’t call him that,” you snap. “And—well, kind of. I didn’t tell him exactly, but I said... government adjacent.”

“I swear to God,” she mutters, “if I have to identify your body next week, I’m going to kill you.”

You press your free hand against your forehead.

“You won’t,” you say firmly. “Alright? We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

Garcia scoffs loudly.

“Seriously,” you insist. “It could still be nothing. A weird coincidence, maybe an awkward guy with boundary issues and too much free time. We deal with actual predators every day. I can handle a few creepy messages.”

The line goes quiet again—then she sighs.

“Why are you so against telling Hotch?”

“Because I don’t want to bother him,” you say quickly. “We’ve got a quiet week, he finally seems slightly less stressed, and I don’t want to cause a whole fuss over something that might turn out to be nothing.”

She sighs again, louder this time. “Fine. I won’t go to Hotch.”

Your shoulders sag. “Thank you.”

“On one condition,” she adds. “I’m sleeping over tonight.”

You nearly choke. “What?”

“Non-negotiable.”

“Penelope, that’s insane.”

“No,” Garcia says firmly, “what’s insane is you trying to casually explain away potential stalking behaviour while actively refusing to inform your unit chief.”

“He is not stalking me,” you protest, keeping your voice low.

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“And yet,” Garcia says, “if you die, I become morally complicit because I knew about creepy internet man and failed to intervene.”

You frown. “…Morally complicit?”

“Accessory to murder-adjacent,” she corrects. “And my guilty conscience requires eight hours of sleep minimum, so congratulations. We’re having a slumber party.”

You let out a long sigh. “Okay. Fine.”

She hums, satisfied.

“I need to reply to him again.”

“Well, don’t ask me,” she mutters. “You’re the one who’s apparently fluent in creepy internet freak.”

You laugh despite yourself. “Thanks, Pen.”

“Mm-hm. And just so we’re clear, tonight we are watching wholesome romantic comedies and eating enough sugar to kill a Victorian child.”

“I was actually thinking psychological thriller marathon.”

“Absolutely not.”

You smile faintly, leaning back in your chair. “Fine. Romantic comedies it is.”

“Good,” Garcia says firmly. “Now hang up before I change my mind and march upstairs to Hotch’s office myself.”

You roll your eyes as you hang up, then open the message thread again. You don’t have to think too hard about what to type. You don’t want to escalate or accuse him, but you need him to stay engaged. You want him to explain himself to see how he reframes the behaviour.

You: Lucky guess.

The next few hours slip by in a strange blur of routine tasks and fragmented conversations.

At about three o’clock, Prentiss drops a file on your desk and asks if you can double-check a victim timeline while she’s stuck on the phone with Chicago. Then Rossi calls you into his office to sanity-check a profile theory he’s working through out loud—which means fifteen minutes of listening to him argue with himself while you sit there trying not to focus on Hotch’s voice through the wall.

When you finally get back to your desk, Reid spends twenty minutes walking you through a probability model nobody asked for but everyone somehow ends up listening to anyway. He only stops when Hotch appears, carrying a stack of files from the Richardson case he wants Morgan to look over before he signs them off—and for the first time in God knows how long, you don’t stare shamelessly at his ass as he walks out of the bullpen.

By six p.m., JJ and Rossi are gone, Prentiss is helping Morgan with the Richardson files, and Reid is building a tiny tower out of paperclips while he reads over a file Rossi dropped on his desk before he left.

At exactly six-fifteen, your desk phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Pack your things, baby girl. Your government-issued sleepover is about to begin.”

You snort softly. “Alright. I’ll see you soon.”

You hang up the phone and start clearing your desk, organising paperwork into piles and packing away stationery while you wait for your computer to shut down.

“See who soon?” Reid asks.

You glance at him. “Garcia.”

He tilts his head.

“She’s staying over tonight.”

His brows lift. “Because of your stalk—”

“Girl’s night,” you interrupt, eyes widening. “That’s all.”

His gaze narrows. “Should I be worried?”

You scoff. “About me? Never.”

You slide your arms into your jacket then finally pick up your phone, finding two new notifications from creepy internet man waiting for you.

“Really?” Reid asks, turning his chair to face you. “Because you’ve spent most of the day staring at your phone like it’s a bomb, you spent most of Rossi’s profile discussion peeling the label off your water bottle instead of contributing, and you reorganised the same stack of paperwork three separate times.”

You pause mid-motion.

“Also,” he continues, “you usually correct Morgan when he misquotes case statistics and today you let him do it twice, which honestly might be the most concerning—”

“Okay!” you cut in quickly, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Good talk. Love the observational skills. Bye.”

He doesn’t say anything else as you walk away, murmuring goodbyes to Morgan and Prentiss as you pass, but you can still feel him watching you. You’re just about to press the button for the elevator when—

“Agent.”

You stop automatically, turning to find Hotch with a file tucked under one arm and that signature frown etched between his brows. Only this time it isn’t frustrated or disapproving—it’s curious.

You force a small smile. “Sir.”

His eyes move over your face briefly. “You alright?”

You nod once. “Of course.”

He takes a step forward, his voice dropping lower. “You sure?”

Your breath catches.

He’s close now. Too close. You have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. You can smell his cologne, feel his warmth, count the beauty marks dotted across his cheek.

“You’ve seemed distracted today,” he says.

You swallow hard. “Uh—no. No. Sorry, I just—I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

His brows draw a little tighter, and he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else—press harder, maybe—but then seems to think better of it.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “Get some rest tonight.”

Then he nods once and steps back, his jaw tightening for just a second before he turns away.

You don’t move immediately. You can’t. Your mind is reeling, your pulse is still hammering, and your breath is caught somewhere between your ribs while your lungs try to remember how to work.

“Hello?” Garcia calls from behind you. “I cannot hold these doors forever, babycakes.”

You shake your head. “Shit. Sorry.”

You turn and hurry into the elevator, slipping in beside her just before the doors slide shut.

For a moment, neither of you says anything.

Then—

“So, that thing you said earlier about there being a reason you’re still single…”

You shut your eyes. “Penelope.”

“I’m just saying,” she continues lightly, “unless I hallucinated whatever just happened in that hallway, I’m starting to develop theories.”

You ignore her, watching the numbers on the elevator slowly descend like counting down the days you have before the entire team figures out your secret. Because if this guy really is a creep, if you do have to tell Hotch, then it’s only a matter of time before the BAU are dissecting your dating life and realising what a ruse it really is.

And you know better than anyone that once these profilers start looking too closely at something, they rarely stop until they’ve pulled it apart completely.

The second you step through the door to your apartment, Garcia rushes past you to sweep the place. Leia startles almost immediately, running from the couch to your bedroom while Garcia complains about the fact that Leia is the only cat she’s ever met that doesn’t like her.

“Leia hates everyone,” you tell her, kicking your shoes off by the door. “Even me.”

Garcia just rolls her eyes, continuing from room to room to check the window locks and balcony doors.

Once she’s satisfied that everything is secure, she sets her laptop up on your kitchen counter and starts running a program that looks like hieroglyphics to you.

“Have you seen his latest messages?” she asks.

You shake your head, setting your phone on the counter. “No.”

She opens your laptop and logs into the dating site—because apparently she knows your password now.

DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: Or maybe you’re just easier to read than you think.

You type out the first response you can think of, not wanting to seem like you’re overanalysing this.

You: Or maybe I’m just not trying so hard to be mysterious.

Garcia then spends the next ten minutes trying to explain her process to you in terms that almost make sense. So far she’s managed to narrow him down to a general region through login patterns and routing behaviour, but she still can’t lock onto a direct IP address. Not because she can’t—apparently that part would actually be pretty easy—but because doing it properly would mean running requests through systems that leave a trail. And right now, this definitely isn’t an official investigation.

“The second I start pulling the fun federal strings,” Garcia says, typing furiously, “there’s paperwork, access logs, oversight, and approximately twelve thousand ways for this to become a whole thing.”

You lean against the counter. “We don’t want that.”

“Not yet.” Her expression sharpens slightly. “Also, if creepy internet man is more sophisticated than he seems, there’s always a chance he’s monitoring for targeted tracing attempts. If he realises someone’s looking too closely at him before we know who he is, he could disappear completely.”

Your stomach twists. “Or escalate.”

You spend the next couple of hours keeping creepy internet man engaged while Garcia rambles tech jargon that makes less sense the longer the night wears on. At some point, you order pizza, then you migrate to the couch, and eventually you both end up sitting through the credits of Two Weeks Notice while waiting for one last reply in the hopes that he might finally answer something about himself.

DCRunner00: Refreshing DCRunner00: Most people hide too much. You: Depends what they’re trying to hide. DCRunner00: What are you trying to hide? You: Besides the fact that I’m exhausted? Nothing. DCRunner00: You seem distracted tonight. You: Long day. DCRunner00: I noticed. You: How was yours?

You wait until almost midnight before finally deciding to call it a night.

Garcia checks all the windows and doors again while you brush your teeth and change into pyjamas. When you step back out of your bedroom to say goodnight, Garcia is trying her hardest to lure Leia onto the couch with her, but Leia is very stubbornly curled up beneath the TV unit.

“Night, Pen,” you murmur, rubbing your eyes. “Thanks again... for everything.”

“Night, gorgeous,” she calls, peering over the back of the couch. “Wake me up if you hear literally anything suspicious. Or if Leia finally decides it’s my time.”

You laugh softly, blinking slowly as you turn back into your room and fall face first into bed.

THURSDAY 6:45AM

You’re not sure whether to be relieved or concerned when you wake up to no new messages from creepy internet man. He hasn’t gone quiet for this long before—but if he is just a normal, slightly awkward guy with boundary issues and an internet connection, well... it’s not that hard to believe he might just be sleeping.

Garcia is already up making coffee by the time you step out of your room, trying to bribe Leia out from under the couch with a tube of tuna paste.

The second she sees you, she jumps up and launches into another long-winded explanation about login activity and movement patterns across different access points. Apparently, creepy internet man logged in from three different geographical locations over the course of a few hours last night—which is normal, right? That means he was out doing normal human things, not just lurking in his mother’s basement, stalking women online.

Garcia isn’t entirely convinced that him moving locations is enough to get him off the hook as the BAU’s next unsub, but it at least shuts her up until you’re both back at the office.

“Hey,” Reid says as soon as you walk into the bullpen. “You haven’t been murdered.”

You frown slightly. “Good morning to you too, Spence.”

Morgan glances up from the file on his desk. “Uh—why are we getting murdered?”

Reid gestures vaguely in your direction. “Because she’s potentially being cyberstalked by a—”

“Oh, wow, look at the time,” you interrupt, glaring at Reid. “Wouldn’t it be such a shame if we all started minding our own business right about now.”

Prentiss turns in her chair, brows raised. “Cyberstalked?”

“Nobody is cyberstalking anybody,” you say as you drop into your chair. “And nobody’s getting murdered—but great start to the morning, everyone. Love the energy. Now leave me alone.”

Morgan chuckles quietly. “Damn. Thought you said you got laid last weekend.”

Your hands slip off the desk as you try to pull yourself closer.

“Technically,” Reid says, “she only implied it by refusing to answer Garcia’s question during Monday morning’s briefing.”

“Ah.” Morgan leans back in his chair. “I knew this was a drought issue.”

You scowl at him. “A drought issue?”

“Statistically speaking,” Reid adds, “people experiencing prolonged romantic or sexual dissatisfaction often display lower frustration tolerance and increased agitation in familiar social environments.”

Morgan looks at him. “Man, just say she needs to get laid.”

“Oh my God,” you snap. “I do not need to get laid. I am having a completely normal amount of sex already, thank you very much—and frankly I think it’s deeply inappropriate that you’re all this invested in whether or not I’m orgasming regularly.”

Reid tilts his head. “You’re having sex?”

Morgan’s brows shoot up, Prentiss chokes on her coffee, and you open your mouth to fire back at him when—

Someone clears their throat behind you.

Heat crawls violently up your neck—but you don’t turn around. You can’t.

“Briefing room. Five minutes,” Hotch says, his voice dangerously even. “JJ’s got an update on the custodial interview with Wallace.”

Morgan presses a fist against his mouth, trying—and failing—to smother the strangled sound of laughter.

Very slowly, you turn in your chair.

Hotch is standing at the edge of the bullpen with a coffee in one hand and a file in the other. His expression is almost perfectly composed, but there’s something dangerous lurking beneath it—something suspiciously close to amusement in the tightness of his mouth.

“Be right there, sir,” you blurt, lifting two fingers to your forehead in the most ill-timed attempt at a salute the FBI has ever seen.

Hotch just looks at you, the muscle in his jaw jumping once before he turns away.

You want to die.

The second his office door clicks shut behind him, Morgan drops his fist and smacks his palm flat against the desk with a choked laugh.

“Oh, you are never recovering from that,” Prentiss mutters, smirking behind her coffee cup.

Morgan leans back in his chair, grinning. “Baby girl, that was painful to watch.”

You drop your head into your hands.

“You somehow escalated the situation at every possible opportunity,” Reid says thoughtfully.

“I hate you all,” you mumble into your palms.

You spend the next half hour with your nose buried in your notebook, avoiding eye contact with the entire team while JJ explains the month-long back-and-forth that it took to finally get approval for the Wallace interview.

Apparently, the prison is limiting the interview to a single hour and reserving the right to terminate it early if the inmate becomes uncooperative—which Rossi thinks is less about policy and more about Wallace trying to dictate the terms of the interaction.

It’s not ideal, especially considering you were the one who convinced Hotch to push for the interview before Wallace is transferred to death row. His case was one of the first you ever studied during the BAU training programme, and there isn’t much you wouldn’t give to pick the sociopath’s brains. One hour with him feels dangerously short—that is, assuming Hotch actually picks you to be in the interview with him.

“We don’t have enough time to waste managing personalities in the room,” Hotch says, gathering the files in front of him. “I’ll decide on a second agent and send out the interview schedule later today.”

Chairs start scraping back almost immediately, files and notebooks snapping shut as everyone gathers their things and starts filtering out of the room—but you don’t move. You stay firmly planted in your seat, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of your cheek while you debate whether to follow Hotch into his office and ask to be part of the interview. You don’t even have to be asking the questions, you just want to be there. You were the one pushing for it in the first place.

But then your brain very helpfully reminds you that Aaron Hotchner heard you say the word orgasming less than an hour ago and suddenly, being on death row yourself feels infinitely preferable to making eye contact with your unit chief.

“You alright?” Reid asks, lingering beside you.

You sigh heavily, finally closing your notebook. “Yep. Just thinking about how I’ll probably have to fake my own death and change my name after this morning.”

He shrugs. “Hotch probably isn’t even thinking about it anymore.”

You glance up at him hopefully.

“Morgan definitely is, though.”

You roll your eyes, letting out another resigned sigh as you stand up and follow him out of the briefing room.

The rest of the morning manages to pass without incident. You stay chained to your desk, reviewing reports and processing any files that come your way while very deliberately not glancing up any time Hotch steps out of his office. At around eleven, Morgan and JJ head out to the cafe down the street and come back with coffees for the whole team. Then there’s a printer jam that gives the rest of the office a rare glimpse at just how angry Emily Prentiss can get when frustrated.

It isn’t until just before midday that you finally get up to go to the bathroom, and when you return to your desk, there’s one new notification in your inbox.

From: Aaron Hotchner Subject: Wallace Interview You’re with me next Thursday. We leave at 0700.

Your stomach flips.

“Wow,” Reid says, suddenly standing right beside your desk. “He picked you pretty quickly.”

You shoot him a warning look. “Spence.”

“I’m just saying, he usually deliberates longer.”

You glance back at the screen, rereading the first five words that make your pulse skip a little faster.

“You and Hotch do work unusually well together in confined conversational environments,” Reid adds.

You turn back to him, frowning.

He tilts his head. “That sounded more suggestive than I intended.”

You open your mouth to tell him how deeply unhelpful he’s being when your phone buzzes twice against your desk—like it does several times a day, but something about it feels different this time. Wrong.

You reach for it slowly, your stomach twisting tighter as you turn it over.

Two new notifications from creepy internet man. The first since last night.

You open the message thread—and your stomach drops.

DCRunner00: [Image attachment] DCRunner00: Did you and your friend have fun last night?

The image is of your apartment building. It’s grainy, slightly crooked, clearly taken from somewhere across the street—but your living room windows are unmistakable. Warm light glowing through the glass. The blurred silhouette of someone inside.

Ice floods your bloodstream.

You stop breathing.

“Is that... your apartment?” Reid asks, leaning over your shoulder.

You don’t answer him. You can’t.

The bullpen dissolves into white noise around you.

Until—

“I’m done!” Garcia’s voice cuts through the static. “I can’t do this anymore!”

She’s marching right toward you, your laptop—that she’d still been monitoring—tucked under one arm.

Reid gasps. “Wait. Is that—”

Morgan straightens in his chair. “What’s happening?”

“Hotch’s office,” Garcia says, her expression dangerously stern as she stops beside your desk. “Now.”

You nod slowly, your shoes almost slipping against the carpet as you push your chair back. Reid steps aside just enough to let you stand, but before he can get too far, you reach out and wrap your fingers around his wrist, silently dragging him with you as you follow Garcia back through the bullpen.

Hotch glances up the second Garcia pushes open his office door.

“What’s going on?”

His tone is calm, automatic, already slipping into that low, calculated cadence he uses when he’s trying to talk someone down from the ledge. His gaze moves from her to you—and something in his expression shifts. Hardens. That muscle in his jaw ticking just once before he turns back to Garcia.

“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.

Garcia crosses the room quickly, opening your laptop and sitting it on his desk while you hover uselessly in the doorway with Reid still caught in your grip.

Hotch glances at the screen, his eyes flicking through the messages.

Then he looks back up—right at you—and something unreadable settles across his face. Something dangerous.

“Who sent this?”

Garcia spends the next five minutes explaining the entire situation at hyper speed while you just... stand there, leaning slightly against Reid like the whole world has tilted on its axis.

It’s funny how you can spend years building a career around finding bad people. Thinking like them. Predicting them. Profiling them. But the moment something happens to you—something real—that’s when all the theory suddenly stops feeling theoretical. And maybe it’s because you know exactly what people like this are capable of, or how quickly situations like this can escalate once someone decides they’re emotionally invested in you.

Or maybe it’s just the horrifying realisation that some part of you knew where this was heading all along. And you still didn’t do anything about it until now. Not until you put yourself—and your friend—in danger.

“Get everyone in the briefing room,” Hotch says the second Garcia finishes. “Now.”

Garcia nods once before slipping back out the door, and only then do you finally let go of Reid’s wrist—making a mental note to apologise later for the excessive physical contact.

Hotch’s eyes drop down briefly, following the movement almost automatically. Something tightens in his expression for half a second before his attention snaps back to the laptop still open in front of him.

“Reid,” he says. “Print the entire message history and document everything. Full timeline, screenshots, attachments—all of it. I want copies ready for the team in ten.”

You swallow hard. “The—the entire message history?”

“Yes,” Hotch says simply. “Every message.”

Could this day get any worse?

Fifteen minutes later, you’re back in the briefing room with the entire team flipping through printed copies of your dating profile and messages. It almost feels like an out-of-body experience. Like one of those mortifying dreams where you watch everything unfold from above without any real ability to stop it.

“Okay,” Prentiss says. “Where do we start?”

“Victimology,” Morgan answers immediately—then he glances at you. “Sorry, baby girl.”

You wave him off. “Reid’s been profiling me all week. Go for it.”

There’s a quiet ripple of laughter around the table, but Hotch barely blinks. He’s sitting on the opposite side, between Prentiss and JJ, with his arms folded tightly across his chest and gaze fixed on the copies spread out in front of him like he’s trying very hard not to look directly at you.

“We need to be careful building a victimology this early,” he says evenly. “Especially considering how well we know the victim. Personal familiarity creates bias.”

Reid tilts his head. “Normally, yes. But stalking crimes are often highly individualised.” He starts flipping through the printed messages as he talks. “Statistically speaking, stalking victims are usually targeted for a very specific reason. The motivation is generally rooted in either resentment, fixation, revenge, or romantic obsession.”

You grimace. “Fantastic.”

“Most victims also know their stalkers,” Reid continues. “Approximately seventy-five percent of stalking cases involve some form of prior relationship or perceived emotional connection.”

“Okay,” JJ says carefully, looking toward you. “Is there anyone you can think of who might hold a grudge against you? Someone you arrested, rejected, testified against—anything like that?”

You snort quietly. “Does every criminal I’ve ever interviewed count?”

The room goes still for half a second.

“Wait,” Prentiss says, sitting forward slightly. “Actually, that makes sense.”

Hotch’s eyes flick up as Prentiss pushes one of the printouts into the middle of the table, tapping the page.

“This escalation happened fast. Less than a week. That’s not somebody slowly building emotional trust from scratch—that’s somebody who already came into this interaction emotionally invested.”

“Or angry,” Morgan adds.

“Exactly,” Prentiss says. “He doesn’t lash out until she has Garcia over. That’s jealousy. Possessiveness.”

You sink lower in your chair.

“And he starts reacting every time she brings up her boss,” Rossi says, flipping through the printouts. “That’s territorial behaviour. He’s fixating on a prominent male figure in her life.”

“Not the only one fixating on him,” Reid murmurs beside you.

You elbow him immediately.

“Ow.”

Hotch glances up sharply. “Something to add, Reid?”

Reid straightens. “Uh—no. No, I think Rossi covered it.”

Hotch’s eyes narrow slightly, like he knows there’s something he’s missing, but he lets it go.

“Garcia,” he says instead, “tell me you found something useful.”

“Oh, I found things,” Garcia says immediately, the rapid clacking of her keyboard echoing loudly through the conference room speaker. “Deeply unsettling things. Our creepy little internet goblin has been very busy.”

Prentiss frowns slightly, mouthing ‘internet goblin’ across the table to JJ.

“Okay, so—profile was created nine days ago using a burner email and a VPN bouncing between three different states, which normally would make me want to set my computer on fire, but our boy got sloppy.”

Hotch leans forward slightly. “How sloppy?”

“Sloppy enough that one login pinged off a public Wi-Fi network less than six blocks from her apartment last night,” she says. “And before anybody asks, yes, I’m already pulling traffic cams.”

Hotch nods once, already shifting into command mode.

“Morgan, Prentiss—start canvassing within a ten-block radius of her apartment. Garcia will feed you anything useful from the traffic cams. JJ, coordinate with local PD and see if there’ve been any complaints of suspicious activity in the area. Peeping, prowlers, stalking complaints—anything that fits this escalation pattern. Rossi, start pulling names from old cases. Anybody with a history of fixation, stalking behaviour, or inappropriate attachment to investigators. Garcia, keep digging and keep me posted.”

Everyone starts moving immediately, papers shuffling and chairs scraping back as the room shifts into motion.

“I want to help,” you say suddenly. “This is my mess, let me fix it.”

“You can help,” he says evenly, “by going home, locking your doors, and staying there until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

You open your mouth to argue.

“I mean it,” he adds, voice low.

“I’ll take her,” Reid offers immediately.

“No,” Hotch says, gathering the printouts into one neat pile. “You go with Morgan and Prentiss.”

Then his eyes flick up, meeting yours.

“I’m taking her home.”

The next hour is one of the strangest of your life.

Hotch tells you to take your laptop back down to Garcia, who’s already in full FBI investigation mode—her screens covered in maps, metadata, CCTV stills, and enlarged screenshots of your own dating profile staring back at you in horrifying definition. When you finally make it back to your desk, Rossi spends twenty straight minutes walking you through every violent offender you’ve interviewed in the last three years, forcing you to revisit dozens of interactions you’d long since filed away as routine.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Morgan drops a schematic of your apartment building onto your desk and starts questioning you about entrances, exits, blind spots, and security cameras while Reid quietly replaces the coffee you forgot existed an hour ago. It isn’t until Morgan leaves and JJ immediately takes his place beside you that you realise nobody has let you out of their sight for more than a few minutes at a time.

Then, finally, Hotch steps out of his office—files in one hand and his go-bag in the other, like he fully intends on staying the night if necessary.

“Ready?” he asks, stopping beside your desk.

You stare at the go-bag for one long, deeply horrified second.

“Yep,” you manage, voice tight as you slowly push out of your chair.

Hotch drives. You don’t even try to argue. You just sit in the passenger seat with your knees pressed together and your heart beating out of your chest. It’s not like you haven’t been in the car with him before. You have, plenty of times. This just feels... different.

Neither of you speak until he cuts the engine in the parking garage of your building, and you have to try very hard not to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t asked for directions the whole way here.

“Wait,” he mutters before climbing out of the car.

He grabs his bag from the back, then moves around the car and opens your door.

It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to unbuckle your seatbelt—your hands are shaking and your pulse is still pounding hard enough to make you dizzy—but once you finally do, you slip out of the car and lead him toward the fire stairs.

He never leaves more than a foot of distance between you. Never checks his phone. Never glances down. He stays glued to your side like a real protection detail. And thanks to your avid and wildly inappropriate imagination, you’ve already mentally written an entire bodyguard romance plot starring Aaron Hotchner and yours truly by the time you finally reach your apartment door.

“I—uh—wasn’t really expecting company,” you say as you push the door open. “Sorry.”

The second you step inside, Leia leaps off the couch with a loud, rumbling trill—probably wondering why you’re home before dark for the first time in years.

Hotch pauses, his brow furrowing slightly. “You have a cat.”

You glance back at him as you kick your shoes off and nudge them out of the way. “Is that really the most surprising thing you’ve learned about me today?”

He watches Leia for another second before glancing back at you. “It’s unexpected.”

You roll your eyes, trying to ignore the way your heart skips when he quietly toes off his shoes beside the door without even asking. Like he already expects to stay awhile.

Leia chirrups again as she pads through the living room toward you, no doubt about to demand an early dinner—until she catches sight of Hotch and abruptly stops short. Her ears flicker, her tail waving from side to side as she assesses the new man in her apartment.

Hotch crouches slightly, holding one hand out toward her.

“Oh, she doesn’t really like people,” you say quickly. “So don’t take it personally if she—”

Leia immediately walks straight up to him. She sniffs his hand once before pressing directly into his palm with a loud purr rumbling through her entire body.

Your eyes go wide.

Traitor.

Hotch’s mouth twitches faintly as Leia leans harder into his hand.

Oh my God. Are you jealous of your cat right now?

He gives Leia one final scratch behind the ears before straightening, the softness in his expression fading almost immediately as he slips back into work mode. He scans the apartment briefly before setting the files down on your tiny dining table and shrugging his jacket off, draping it over the back of a chair.

You stand there for a second longer than you probably should, watching him move through your apartment with the same calm focus he brings to crime scenes and briefing rooms and interrogation tables. He checks the windows, the balcony doors, glances briefly—thank God—into your bedroom, then double-checks the locks on the front door.

The whole thing feels weirdly surreal. You’ve imagined Aaron Hotchner inside your apartment a thousand times in a thousand different ways—just not like this. And nothing you imagined could have possibly prepared you for the reality of it. The way everything feels so much smaller. Warmer. More exposed.

Every object in every room suddenly feels mortifyingly personal.

If he lingers long enough in your kitchen, he’s going to notice the unusually empty trash can and realise you survive almost entirely on caffeine and convenience. If he looks too closely at your bookshelf, he’s going to find an unhealthy collection of romance novels with more trigger warnings than plot points. And if he looks into your bedroom again and turns his head just a little more to the right, he’s going to see your vibrator sitting on the nightstand—and then you’ll actually have to fake your own death.

Because you’ve spent years carefully curating a version of yourself that keeps people from looking too closely. Flirty. Casual. Detached enough to joke about bad dates and hookups and sex without anybody ever realising that none of it means anything. It’s easier that way. Easier to let everyone assume your attention is scattered in every direction instead of fixed very specifically on the one person you absolutely cannot have.

But this?

This feels dangerously close to being found out.

The next couple of hours pass in strange, uneven waves of normalcy and low-grade psychological torture.

Hotch sits at your tiny dining table without complaint, dwarfing it as he hunches over files and asks careful questions about your routines, your neighbours, and whether anyone in the building has seemed overly interested in you recently. His phone rings a lot, which isn’t unusual, and every time he answers it you spend almost the entire conversation staring unashamed at the way his shirt pulls tight across his back when he reaches for another printout.

Which is wildly inappropriate considering the circumstances, but you can’t really help it. You’re strung out, on edge, and, as Morgan so helpfully pointed out this morning, severely under-fucked.

And Leia, unfortunately—but not unsurprisingly—remains no help whatsoever.

By seven o’clock she’s fully abandoned you in favour of draping herself across Hotch’s lap while he reviews new data from Garcia, completely oblivious to the fact that you haven’t been able to breathe normally since he walked through the door.

“Are you hungry?” you ask eventually, moving back into the kitchen as if you have anything in there to offer.

Hotch glances up from his laptop, one hand resting absently against Leia’s back while she purrs in his lap.

“I’m fine.”

You lean a hip against the kitchen counter, folding your arms tightly across your chest. “Any updates?”

He glances back down at his screen. “Garcia narrowed the traffic footage down to three vehicles that stayed in the area longer than they should have—Morgan and Prentiss are running the plates now. And Rossi’s pulling relatives connected to your previous cases. Family members who attended trials, sentencing hearings, interviews. Anyone who might’ve had access to your name outside the official reports.”

You nod slowly, silence settling again for a moment before you exhale sharply.

“Are you sure sitting here doing absolutely nothing is really the best use of me right now?”

His eyes flick back up, that signature Hotchner scowl set between his brows.

“You think this is nothing?”

His voice stays calm, but there’s something firmer underneath it now.

“You’ve spent the last four days being threatened, surveilled, and followed by someone we still haven’t identified,” he says. “Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid are out chasing leads because somebody targeted you. Rossi’s pulling case files because somebody targeted you. Garcia’s been at her desk for six straight hours because somebody targeted you.”

His jaw tightens slightly.

“My job right now is making sure nothing happens to you,” he says quietly. “Let me do that.”

Your breath catches, something warm and uncomfortably familiar twisting in your chest as Aaron Hotchner just sits there watching you like he hasn’t said anything unusual at all.

Which, to him, maybe he hasn’t.

He’s just doing his job. Looking out for his team. He’s not here because he wants to be. He’s here because someone threatened one of his agents.

That’s all.

You clear your throat, pushing away from the counter before the silence stretches too long. “I’m—uh—I’m just going to shower quickly. If that’s alright.”

He nods once. “Want me to clear the—”

“No,” you say immediately. “God, no. No. It’s fine. Totally fine.”

His brows pull together slightly, confusion flickering briefly across his face before you turn and hurry into your bedroom, shutting the door a little harder than necessary behind you.

Then you take the longest shower known to mankind. You stand beneath the scalding spray for at least ten minutes before even touching anything. Then you scrub, exfoliate, shave, condition, rinse twice, and stand there for just a little longer before finally gathering the courage to step out. All the while trying desperately not to think about the fact that your unit chief is only two thin walls away while you’re dripping wet and completely naked.

You rummage through your dresser until you find an oversized sweater that isn’t totally threadbare and a clean pair of pyjama shorts. Technically, they’re just striped flannel pants you cut into shorts, but at least they’re not as short as the rest of your pyjama collection that definitely needs replacing.

If only you actually had time for things like shopping... and emotional stability.

“No, wait for Morgan before you approach,” Hotch says as you step quietly back into the living room, phone pressed against his ear while he paces slowly beside the dining table. “If the registration’s fake, I don’t want you making contact until we know exactly who’s inside.”

He pauses, expression sharpening slightly.

“Alright. Keep me updated.”

He lowers the phone slowly before looking over at you for the first time since you re-emerged—and for half a second, he visibly loses his train of thought. It’s only tiny. Barely there. Just a brief pause before his expression shutters back into place.

“Garcia tracked one of the vehicles from the traffic footage to a motel outside Arlington,” he says, glancing back down at the files scattered across the table. “The driver’s been masking his activity through multiple VPNs, so she couldn’t pull a clean trace from the motel Wi-Fi, but only one room in the motel was actively using the network.”

Your stomach tightens.

“The name on the reservation was fake,” he continues, “but the room was paid for using a credit card belonging to Daniel Mercer.”

The name hits you immediately.

“Ethan Mercer’s brother,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods. “Rossi confirmed it about twenty minutes ago. Morgan and Prentiss are waiting for local PD before they move in.”

You nod slowly, your pulse fluttering anxiously in your throat as you move toward the kitchen. Not because you actually need anything in there, but because standing still feels almost impossible right now.

“Ethan barely spoke during the trial,” you murmur, folding your arms as you lean back against the counter. “I don’t think I ever even met his brother.”

“You wouldn’t need to,” Hotch says, already gathering the files into a neat pile. “People build attachments to investigators without ever interacting directly. Especially when they’re looking for someone to blame.”

Your skin prickles. “You really think it’s him?”

“It fits,” Hotch replies evenly. “Established emotional investment, personal motive, no prior record. Which explains the inconsistency. The escalation without follow-through. The long gaps between contact attempts. He knows enough to be cautious, but not enough to stay controlled.”

He straightens, turning back toward you—and for the briefest second, his eyes drop to your bare legs before snapping back up to your face almost immediately.

He clears his throat. “This probably isn’t something he’s done before. But his brother has.”

The apartment falls quiet again after that. Hotch returns to collecting files while you stare absently toward the dark balcony doors, your pulse still refusing to settle beneath your skin.

“Well,” you mutter eventually, gripping the edge of the counter to hoist yourself up. “On the bright side, I still think I’ve dated worse.”

The joke leaves your lips lightly enough, the same way they always do—easy, detached, halfway between genuine and ironic so nobody ever pauses long enough to look too closely.

Except this time Hotch does pause.

“Why do you do that?”

You frown. “Do what?”

“Deflect.” He straightens again, one hand still holding a stack of printouts. “Every time something gets too serious, you make a joke. Or you flirt. Or you say something just inappropriate enough to throw people off balance.”

You lift a shoulder. “Maybe I’m just charming.”

“No.” His eyes narrow slightly, brows pulling together. “No, because it changes depending on the situation.”

Your pulse stutters.

“With Morgan it’s competitive,” he continues, setting the papers back on the table. “You tease him because he pushes back and it keeps conversations superficial. Garcia gets exaggerated stories because she responds emotionally instead of analytically. Half the things you say to Reid are specifically designed to make him flustered enough to stop examining what you actually mean.”

“Wow,” you murmur, shifting your weight against the countertop. “Starting to feel a little attacked here.”

But Hotch doesn’t seem to hear you.

“The dating profile doesn’t fit,” he says, almost to himself. “Neither does the apartment.”

Your stomach twists as his gaze moves briefly across the room. The bookshelves. The carefully organised clutter. Leia now curled up asleep on the couch.

“You project someone impulsive. Social. Sexually confident. But nothing in here supports that.” His eyes flick back toward you again. “You live like someone who protects their space carefully. Even the cat.”

“Leave Leia out of this.”

“She doesn’t like strangers.”

“She likes you.”

The words slip out too quickly, and something in his expression shifts.

“You keep people at a distance,” he continues slowly, close enough now that you can hear the quiet rasp beneath his voice. “Even the team. You let people think they know you because it keeps them from looking closer.” He hesitates, brow furrowing. “Except Reid.”

Your fingers tighten instinctively around the edge of the counter.

“You trust him,” Hotch says. “Not just socially. Behaviourally. You anchor yourself to him when you’re stressed. Physical proximity. Eye contact. Redirecting conversations through him.” He pauses, watching you carefully now. “And earlier you said he’d been profiling you all week.”

Oh God.

“Which means Reid already noticed the pattern.”

He goes quiet for a moment, his expression tightening almost imperceptibly as he looks back over the last few months—years—in real time. You can practically see it happening behind his eyes. Every interaction. Every joke. Every look you thought you’d hidden quickly enough.

“You track me.”

The words come quieter now. Less certain. Like he’s still realising them.

“You know my routines,” he continues slowly. “You anticipate questions before I ask them. You look up when you hear my office door open even when you can’t see me.” He steps closer again. “You know when I need coffee before I do. You watch my reactions before anyone else in the room.”

Your breath stutters.

And Hotch notices immediately.

His expression shifts slightly as his eyes flick across your face, your posture, your hands still locked around the edge of the counter hard enough that your knuckles have gone pale beneath the kitchen lights.

“Your breathing changes when I get too close to you,” he says quietly.

He takes another slow step forward, close enough now that you have to tilt your head back slightly to keep looking at him.

“You stop fidgeting,” he continues. “You go completely still.” His gaze drops briefly to your hands before lifting again. “Like you’re afraid movement alone is going to give you away.”

Your heart is beating so hard now you’re half-convinced he can hear it.

“You lose verbal fluency,” he says, voice lower now. “You trip over words you normally wouldn’t. Your pupils dilate. Your heart rate increases. And every single time I get close to noticing it—”

His eyes lock onto yours.

“You redirect.”

You can barely breathe now.

He’s standing right in front of you, close enough that the heat rolling off him sinks straight into your skin, close enough that one more step would put him between your knees where you’re perched on the counter.

And somehow the worst part is that he still sounds calm. Thoughtful. Like Aaron Hotchner is profiling you with the same careful focus he’d bring to an unsub—except this time the thing he’s slowly uncovering is the fact that you’ve been hopelessly in love with him this entire time.

You swallow hard, your gaze catching just briefly on his mouth before you drag it back up to his eyes, pulse hammering so hard you can barely think straight.

“Figured it out yet, Agent Hotchner?” you ask softly.

He goes still for half a second, something unreadable flickering across his face as his eyes drop to your mouth before lifting back to your eyes again.

The apartment suddenly feels oppressively quiet.

His throat shifts slightly.

And then—

His phone rings.

He steps back immediately, his expression shuttering back into something careful and unreadable.

“Hotchner,” he says, pressing his phone against his ear.

You don’t hear much after that. Not really. You recognise Morgan’s muffled voice, but you can’t quite hear what he’s saying. Not while Hotch slowly paces your living room. You catch fragments of the conversation. Questions. Short answers. The low, steady cadence of his voice slipping effortlessly back into work mode while your own nervous system continues actively collapsing in on itself.

Because holy fuck.

Holy fuck.

What the hell just happened?

“They got him.”

Your head snaps up. “They what?”

Hotch moves back to the dining table and starts gathering his things.

“It was him. Daniel Mercer,” he says. “Morgan and Prentiss found him in the motel room with multiple burner phones, printed screenshots from the dating profile, and enough surveillance material to establish intent.”

“Oh.”

“Local PD recovered notebooks too,” he continues. “Names, schedules, work addresses. Everyone connected to Ethan Mercer’s conviction. Judges, prosecutors, witnesses. You were first because you were the arresting agent.”

A cold shiver slips down your spine.

“Garcia also confirmed the motel Wi-Fi matched the same VPN chain used to access the dating profile,” Hotch adds. “Once Mercer realised the Bureau was involved, the direct contact stopped. After that he shifted to surveillance. Morgan said the room was covered in trial material. Photos. Notes. Newspaper clippings. He’d been building the grievance for months.”

He pauses, then looks at you.

“But they got him.”

“Good,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods once before turning back to the dining table, slipping his laptop into his bag with careful efficiency before gathering every file and printout into one neat pile.

“Local PD will hold Mercer overnight until federal transport clears,” he says, sliding the papers into his bag. “Garcia’s already started coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You’ll need to give an additional statement tomorrow regarding the dating profile.”

You nod. “Okay.”

Hotch reaches for his jacket, draping it over one arm.

“There’ll still be additional officers patrolling the area tonight,” he says. “And if you don’t want to be alone, I can have Reid or Garcia stay here.”

“I’ll be fine,” you mutter, glancing down at the kitchen tiles. “You can stop babysitting me now.”

Hotch stills.

Then slowly, deliberately, sets his jacket on the table.

“Babysitting?” he repeats.

“You know what I mean.”

He steps toward you, brows drawn. “I don’t think I do.”

“You solved the case,” you mutter, heat crawling up the back of your neck. “You profiled me. Thoroughly. So congratulations, I guess. You figured out the whole sad little secret, the weird avoidance issues, the entire personality disorder cocktail—” You let out a short, humourless laugh. “You can go back to pretending none of this ever happened now.”

He closes the distance between you before you even fully realise he’s moving, stopping directly in front of the counter again. Exactly where he’d been when you asked him if he’d figured it out. Close enough that you can feel his warmth. Close enough that you can see the day-old shadow of stubble lining his jaw.

“You’re being deliberately provocative now because you’re embarrassed,” he says. “But embarrassment isn’t actually your primary response here.”

His gaze drops to your mouth again, and your pulse stumbles.

“If it was,” he adds quietly, “you wouldn’t still be looking at me like that.”

Your breath catches in your throat.

You want to say something. Anything. Another joke. Another deflection. Something sharp enough to cut through the tension in the air and stop him looking at you like this. Exposing you like this.

But you can’t.

All you can do is stare at him. At the steady intensity in his eyes. At the way his tie has loosened slightly over the course of the night. At the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the white shirt you’ve spent an embarrassing number of years picturing on your bedroom floor.

You swallow hard, and he notices. Of course he does.

Something shifts in his expression then. Something softer. Less guarded.

His hand comes up beneath your jaw, his thumb pressing gently into your chin as he pulls you closer. You fall forward without hesitation, and he leans in, dark eyes still searching yours as if he isn’t entirely sure he has permission yet.

Then he kisses you.

It’s not rushed. Not messy. If anything, the first press of his mouth against yours feels almost unbearably controlled, like he’s still holding himself back even now.

But the restraint doesn’t last long.

Your hand catches his tie, tugging him closer, and something rough slips from the back of his throat as he steps in, his hips slotting between your thighs. His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers tightening just enough to tilt your head back exactly as far as he wants it.

Your lips part against his with a broken sound, and he deepens it slowly, his tongue moving against yours like he has all the time in the world. Tasting you. Learning you. Mapping every small sound and ragged exhale with the same focused intensity he brings to everything—and somehow that’s what undoes you the most. Not urgency. Attention.

His breath mingles with yours, hot and uneven, and when his teeth catch your bottom lip it’s deliberate, measured—a sharp little spark shooting straight through your spine. Your hips roll toward him without permission, and his answering groan rumbles through his chest, vibrating beneath your palm and making you ache everywhere you’ve been starving for him.

Then he pulls back just enough to look at you properly again. His hand still tangled in your hair. Thumb dragging once across your jaw. His eyes move over your face with the same intensity he uses in every debrief, every case, every crisis, except right now you are the thing he’s making sure of.

Like he needs to be absolutely certain this is real.

“Aaron—”

“Bedroom,” he says immediately, voice low and rough enough to send heat crashing straight through you. “Now.”

FRIDAY 6:15AM

Your alarm blares somewhere beside the bed, startling you awake hard enough that your heart immediately starts pounding. You reach for it blindly, determined to silence it before it wakes—

Oh God.

The second your hand hits the snooze button, you freeze.

Your heart is beating faster now, your pulse thrumming in your throat as you turn slowly—so slowly—toward the other side of the bed, where Aaron fucking Hotchner stirs sleepily.

Your stomach swoops.

You slept with your boss last night.

With a shallow, shaky breath, you carefully start to move. His arm is heavy at your waist, but you manage to slip out from underneath it without fully waking him. You shove the covers off and shiver at the sudden exposure, leaning over the side of the bed to find your discarded sweater. You pull it over your head before quietly padding toward the ensuite, refusing to glance back at your very hot, very naked unit chief still tangled in your sheets.

You only just make it around the other side of the bed before something tugs at the back of your sweater. You stop, glancing back to find Hotch half-awake, eyes half-lidded with one hand caught at the hem of your sweater.

“Do you really get up this early?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Most days.”

His brows pull together slightly. “Why?”

You let out a small, breathless laugh. “Because my boss is kind of a hard ass about punctuality.”

Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face.

“Sounds like a terrible boss,” he murmurs.

Then he tugs on your sweater again—hard enough this time that you let out a startled laugh as you stumble backward onto the mattress and into him. He catches you easily, one arm wrapping around your waist before you can even fully recover, pulling you back against the warmth of his chest.

“Yeah,” you murmur, laughing softly as his mouth brushes beneath your ear. “He’s awful. Very demanding.”

He hums, breath warm against your skin.

“He’s really hot, though,” you add, smiling despite yourself. “So I like having time to put in a little effort, you know? Hope he notices.”

“Oh, he notices.”

Your stomach flips. “Really?”

“Mhm.”

His arm tightens around your waist. “He notices the skirts.”

Heat floods your face. “Aaron—”

“He notices the tights.” His mouth brushes against the nape of your neck. “The ones with the seam up the back.”

“Oh my God.”

You try to turn your face into the pillow, but he just holds you tighter, pressing his lips firm against your neck.

“And the red bra,” he murmurs.

Your breath catches.

“Noticed that so much I had to wait until everyone left the conference room before I could get up.”

You let out a strangled sound, squirming in his arms, but it’s no use. His chest vibrates against your back, something suspiciously close to laughter.

“My washing machine broke that week,” you whine. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mm, sure.”

You twist around immediately. “I’m not lying.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, like he doesn’t quite believe you, but before you can protest again—he kisses you. Warm, slow, sleep-soft. His mouth moves against yours almost lazily, his hand tightening slightly at your waist when a pathetic little whimper slips out before you can stop it.

“Careful,” you murmur, breathless against his mouth. “Don’t want to be late.”

You feel his lips curve.

“Good thing I’m the boss.”

10:35AM

You made it to work well on time. Even after three orgasms, a shower, and an awkward attempt at a ‘What Now?’ conversation—that ended in the aforementioned third orgasm. Because fortunately for your rapidly fraying nervous system, Hotch hadn’t even hesitated when you’d finally asked what happens next. In fact, he’d answered a little too quickly.

The first thing he’d asked was whether you’d be comfortable keeping things quiet for a while. Not because he’s worried about the team finding out—he trusts them. Trusts you. The concern is Strauss, and the Bureau, and keeping you in the BAU while he figures out exactly how much trouble the two of you have just created for yourselves. At some point he’d even started muttering about reporting structures and supervisory chains, half-thinking out loud while pulling on his tie. Something about possibly moving your reporting line over to Rossi. Something else about needing to review the Bureau’s fraternisation policies before making any moves.

That was when you kissed him—effectively, and very quickly, kicking off round three.

Because he’d clearly been thinking about this for a while, which means Aaron Hotchner has been noticing a lot more than just short skirts and inappropriately coloured underwear. It means that the second he decided to kiss you in your apartment last night, he’d already known exactly what he was getting himself into.

“Alright, gorgeous,” Morgan says, startling you as he raps a knuckle against your desk. “They’ll be ready for you downstairs in ten.”

You glance up at him, brows drawn—and it takes an embarrassingly long second for you to figure out what he’s talking about.

“Oh.” You blink. “Right. Yeah, I’ll head down soon. Thanks.”

Prentiss looks over from her desk. “You gonna be okay?”

You lift a shoulder. “Sure. What’s another case report?”

Morgan frowns, dropping into his chair. “It’s not exactly every day you’re the victim, baby girl.”

“Yeah, but nothing really happened.”

Morgan and Prentiss both stare at you.

“Because of the team,” you add quickly. “You guys caught him before he actually did anything. So... you know, nothing bad happened.” You plaster on a smile that feels reasonably convincing. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

Prentiss narrows her eyes, but before she can say anything else, Reid appears.

“You’re in a remarkably good mood for someone who was being actively cyberstalked twelve hours ago,” he says, stirring his second coffee of the day.

You turn back to your screen, trying to ignore the heat creeping into your cheeks. “Maybe I just have a newfound appreciation for life.”

Reid studies you for a moment, clearly unconvinced—but he doesn’t push. He just moves slowly back toward his desk, setting his coffee down with unnecessary care while the rest of the team turn away, finally deciding to mind their own business.

You force your attention back to the report in front of you, determined to at least look productive for the next ten minutes—when a familiar voice cuts through your concentration.

“Rossi’s taking Wallace with you next week,” Hotch says, setting the file down on your desk.

You blink up at him. “I thought you were leading the interview.”

“I was.”

Something in his expression tightens briefly before he lowers his voice.

“Wallace has a long history of using sex, intimidation, and emotional targeting to destabilise people during interviews,” he says. “Especially women.”

You frown. “Hotch, I—”

“And if he says something to you in that room,” he continues evenly, “or looks at you the wrong way, I need to know the agent sitting beside you is still capable of thinking objectively.”

Your stomach flips as his eyes meet yours—steady, intense, devastatingly honest.

“Right now,” he says quietly, “I’m not sure that’s me.”

Then he’s gone. Moving through the bullpen back toward his office like he hasn’t just set your pulse racing and your head spinning. You watch after him for a moment before shaking your head, glancing back at your computer screen as if you’d been focused on it at all in the first place.

“…Huh.”

You turn toward the sound and find Reid staring at you again. Not rudely. Just watching with the same focused curiosity he’d been wearing since your suspiciously cheerful comment about cyberstalking.

He tilts his head.

Then—

“Oh my God.”

You close your eyes. “Spencer… don’t.”

© 2026 geminiwritten

[mcybank]

The Space We Stop

part one part two

pairings — jack abbott x fem!reader

summary — Jack has already decided what he can survive losing. You didn’t realize you weren’t on the list until you weren’t. 

content warnings — 4.3k words. hurt/no comfort (in this part), discussions of pregnancy, fertility, the decision to have children, mention of vasectomy, mention of menstruation, breakup-esque conversation, age gap, jack’s a doctor and reader’s a nurse, references to patient death, grief, lots of anticipatory grief

author’s note — first pitt fic!!!! not sure if i should do a part 2 super open to suggestions

The invitation was tucked between an electricity bill and a postcard from your dentist’s assistant reminding you it had been six months, which it hadn’t (it had been eight), and you felt briefly seen by whoever was controlling your fate, called out by a piece of glossy cardstock with a cartoon molar on it. You dropped the bill on the counter; you stuck the dentist postcard to the fridge under the magnet shaped like a tomato that Jack had brought back from a conference three Septembers ago. He’d given it to you with a straight face and said it made him think of you and it made you laugh so hard you cried, because it was the ugliest object you'd ever seen. 

You saved the invitation for last. It was a heavy, cream cardstock. It had gold foiling along the edge that caught the late afternoon light coming through the window over the sink. Margaret and David are expecting, it read in a font either Margaret or David had paid a little extra for. Please join us in celebrating baby Carter. You stood at the counter and read it twice. You were the kind of person who read things twice. Jack teased you for it. Slow learner, he'd say, into your hair, when he caught you rereading the back of a cereal box.

You heard the front door open followed by the soft thunks of his bag hitting the bench in the entryway. 

“Hey, you,” he said before you saw him. His voice was sanded down at the edges, lower than it sat before he’d left for his shift. You understood why the nurses gossiped about the rasp of his voice in the breakroom, given you’d been one of those nurses once (and still are). 

His hands came to your hips first, the heels of his palms slotting in the bones there, and then his forehead lowered to the crown of your head. He stood there for a second, breathing you in like he always did when a shift had been difficult. He smelled like the hospital — that ghost of antiseptic that never quite came out of his collar — and underneath it, him. The cedar of whatever soap he kept buying. The faint salt of skin.

“Long one?” you asked.

“Mhm.” His mouth found the side of your neck, just under your ear, and stayed there. The warmth of his breath ghosted over your skin as he said, “Tell me something good.”

He'd come home wrecked and ask you for something good, and you'd give him the smallest thing you could find — the lady at the bodega had a new cat, the tomatoes were finally ripe, you'd seen a kid on the train wearing a tiny tuxedo for no apparent reason — and he'd close his eyes and let you wash whatever it was off him. You were good at it. You'd gotten good at it. Three years of practice.

“Marge is pregnant,” you said.

You felt him smile against your throat before you heard it. “Haven’t heard her name since her going-away party. That one?”

“The same.” You smiled as you let your hand rest over his. 

“Woah.” He laughed, and you felt it move through your back where his chest was pressed against you, tired and fond. “Good for her. I think. Is it good for her?”

“I’m sure it is.” 

His thumb had found the strip of skin where your shirt had ridden up, and he was tracing absent circles into your hip. “When’s the shower?” He peeked over your shoulder to look at the invitation. 

“Three weeks. On Saturday.”

“You going?”

“I have to.”

“Mm.” He hummed against your skin. “Want me to come?”

“You have a shift.”

“I can switch.” 

“It’s alright.” You leaned back into him without meaning to, as though your body had been built with a notch for his sternum. “I’ll bring you cake.”

“My hero.” He pressed a kiss to the hinge of your jaw, slow, and then another, lower, and your hand came up automatically to the back of his neck, your fingers finding the short hair at his nape, and you felt him exhale. 

He looked back down at the invitation. “God, can you imagine?”

You opened your mouth.

You didn't know, in that exact second, what you were going to say. You could’ve laughed. Maybe you were going to say something else. Something that had been sitting low in your chest, unnamed, for longer than you'd realized.

You didn't get the chance to find out.

Because he was already shaking his head, already moving on, already pulling you back into him by the small of your back like the thought had been so passing it didn't even need a landing. He pressed his mouth to your temple. You could feel him smiling against your hairline.

"No," he said, into your hair. "Thank god."

--

Jack had the night off, and you woke up at 4:11 in the morning. He was asleep on his stomach, face mashed into the pillow, one arm flung across your waist, the other folded up under his chest like he was bracing for something. The sheet had ridden down to the small of his back, and there was a constellation of tiny scars across his shoulder blade you’d mapped. 

Sometimes, you’d lie in the dark and let your half-asleep mind look at him and feel like you’d gotten away with something. 

His hand was warm against your hip. You’d noticed he always ran a degree hotter than you. In the winter you used him like a furnace and he complained about it lovingly and let you. 

‘Cold-blooded little thing,’ he’d mutter into the back of your neck. ‘Got me out here heating the whole bed.’ 

You stared at the ceiling and, without meaning to, you started thinking about everything you had missed. 

It had been the second Christmas with Jack. His brother’s kid, on FaceTime, a four-year-old obsessed with a stuffed giraffe she kept showing to the camera. You'd been on the couch with him, your feet in his lap, and he'd been good with her. 

He was patient, asking her the giraffe's name, asking what the giraffe ate for breakfast. 

After the call, Jack had set the phone face-down on the coffee table and exhaled and said, “God, she's cute for about eleven minutes and then I am tapped.” 

He'd said it with warmth. He was laughing as he squeezed your ankle. You had laughed too because it was funny, because four-year-olds were exhausting, because you were twenty-five and not thinking about it, because you were in love with a man who said funny, tired things about his niece and that was a personality, that was a bit, that was Jack.

You never believed that memory would ever resurface, at least not as anything that held so much fucking weight.

Then there was the vasectomy consultation. You’d been dating six months.

You'd been sitting on his kitchen counter in his apartment, before you'd moved in,and he'd been making you eggs, and he'd said, casually, his back to you, “Oh, I had a consultation last week.” 

You'd said, “For what?” 

He'd said, “Vasectomy.”

He'd said it so simply, as though he were a man ordering a sandwich. He'd said, “Just exploring options. You know how it is,” and flipped the eggs. 

You had been twenty-five and six months in love and you had said, “Yeah, totally,” because you didn't want to be the woman who made it weird at six months.

The wedding last summer, his cousin's, where his aunt had cornered you by the bar and said, “Honey, don't wait too long, you know what they say. The clock.”

And Jack had appeared at your elbow with a glass of wine for you and steered you away with his hand at the small of your back, and on the dance floor, swaying, his mouth at your ear, he'd said, “Sorry, she's a menace,” and then, “Don't listen to her, by the way,”

You’d said, “what do you mean?”

“The clock thing. don't let anybody put that on you. you've got time.”

Not we. You.

--

You waited eleven days from the afternoon you received the invitation. 

On day four you got your period and stood in the bathroom and cried. You weren’t trying, you weren’t even sure you were ready. But the first thing you felt, looking down, was relief. And you didn't know when relief had become the shape of your body's answer to that question. You didn't know who'd taught you that. You had a guess.

You washed your hands. You went back to bed. Jack was asleep on his stomach and you got in next to him and he made the small sound he made in his sleep when you came back and put his hand on your hip without waking up, and you cried about that too, quietly, into the pillow, because his hand was so warm and because you understood, dimly, that this was the kind of thing you were going to miss.

Eleven dinners you didn’t bring it up at; eleven walks home you didn’t bring it up at; of one Sunday morning where you’d opened your mouth and he’d put a piece of bacon in it instead, laughing, and you’d let him, and you hated yourself for the laugh that came around the bacon. 

He steered you towards the dining table and told you to eat the stew, his voice bossy and tender all at once. You’d eaten, and the stew had been good. He’d told you a story about the upstairs neighbour, and now it was nine-thirty and the dishes were done. He was leaning against the counter drinking the last of his wine, probably before he switched to beer, and 

He'd been off all day. He'd done the things he did when he was off. He'd gone for a run, he'd read on the couch, he'd made a stew that filled the apartment with the smell of bay leaves and red wine. You'd come in from your shift at seven and he'd kissed you at the door and handed you a glass of something and told you to eat in a voice that was bossy and tender at once, and you had eaten, and the stew had been good, and you had laughed at something he'd said about the upstairs neighbor, and now it was nine-thirty and the dishes were done and he was leaning against the counter drinking the last of his wine and you were standing at the other end of the kitchen island with your hands flat on the marble. 

You could feel his gaze plastered onto you, it had been for the last few minutes. He’d been watching you, you realized, for the better part of the evening. He’d been stealing glances for the last hour or so, as if he believed something was off and he wanted to find out what. You’d never been good at being discreet; you were surprised you’d managed to be for the last eleven days. 

“What?” he said, finally, breaking the unintentional silence. 

“Nothing,” you lied. 

“Mm?” His hum picked up at the end, a corner of his lip twitching down as he tried to read your thoughts right out of your brain. 

Because he never pushed you, he took another sip of his wine and set the glass down.

You stared at the marble. You’d picked it together, though it had been more than you. You’d gone to the stone yard in Long Island on a Saturday and walked through aisles of slabs and he’d asked you to pick. You picked this one. You weren’t even sure what it was called, this white marble with gray veins that looked like rivers on a map. Three months later, it’d been installed in the kitchen in the apartment you’d moved into because he’d asked you to. 

You’d thought—when he asked—the marble meant something. You were realizing you thought a lot of things meant something. 

“Do you ever—” You cleared your throat, because something had lodged inside it making your voice thick. “Do you ever think about the future?” 

You continued staring at the marble.

“What do you mean?” he asked after a minute of silence. His voice was unnervingly careful. 

“I mean,” you said. The words were coming out on their own. You had not, after eleven days of rehearsal, prepared this version “Do you think about where we go?”

“Where we go?” You could practically hear his head tilt to the side, like a puppy when it heard a new sound. 

Except Jack was not a puppy, and a part of you knew that this wasn’t new, had likely crossed his mind at least once.

“Yes.”

“I think we’re going pretty good,” he said. “Are you not—”

“I don’t mean—I’m not saying—Jack…”

You turned to face him now. He was looking at you with his arms folded and his face so neutral you were almost insulted. Except for his neck, for there was a tendon standing out on the side of it. You watched it and realized he knew what you were about to ask, and he was only figuring out how to answer now. 

Your chest went cold, like someone had put a coin right under your sternum.

“I mean, do you think about—kids.” The word slipped out of your mouth like a snap of a rubberband. 

“Baby,” he said.

You felt the rest of the sentence assemble itself in the air between you before he said it. You knew the shape of it. You'd nursed long enough to know the cadence of a doctor about to tell a family something they didn't want to hear; there was a soft entry word, a pause, a lowering of the chin half an inch.

You'd watched him do it. You'd watched him do it to mothers, to husbands, to the daughter of the man in 4B who'd come in with chest pain and not gone home. You'd stood at the foot of the bed and handed people tissues afterward and thought that he is so kind, that he is so good.

You understood, now, that you were the family.

“Don’t—please don’t do that. Just answer.”

He looked at you for what felt like a very long time. The refrigerator hummed behind the two of you. 

“No.”

The same word he'd said into your hair three weeks ago in this same kitchen, with his mouth at your temple, no, thank god. Except now there was no thank god. Now there was just the no, naked, with no padding around it, and you understood—you understood in your spine, in the soles of your feet, in the place behind your eyes where you kept the things you couldn't afford to know—that he had taken the padding off on purpose. He had taken it off because he had decided, in the silence between your question and his answer, that this was a conversation that needed the padding off.

“Ever?” you said, and hated how it came out choked.

“Ever.”

“You’ve never—”

“Not once.” When you stayed silent, he added, “I’m sorry.”

“Jack,” you said, and your voice was almost pleading.

“I’m not going to do that to you,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend I have to think about it. You asked me a real question, and I want to give you a real answer.”

“So you’ve—” Your throat clamped up. Again. “You’ve thought about it?” 

“Of course, I’ve thought about it,” he said, voice going lower. “I’ve thought about it the whole time.”

The kitchen, you noticed, had developed an echo. Or maybe your ears had. There was a small ringing somewhere behind your jaw. You put your hand on the marble. The marble was cold. You concentrated on the cold.

“So when—” You had to stop  to find your voice. You found it lower than you'd put it down. “Since when?”

“Since always.”

“With me.”

He looked down at the same marble you were staring at, then looked back up at you. “The second date.”

You laughed. It came out wrong, a small dry laugh, like something breaking inside a wall. You hadn't been prepared for the second date. You remembered the second date. It had been a Thai place on 9th. He had ordered for both of you because you'd let him. He'd walked you home in the rain under his coat held over both your heads and you'd thought, ‘this one. this is the one.’

He had been deciding something else. 

“You told me about your sister’s kid and—yeah,” he said.

“I told you about Joey and you went home and decided—?”

“I didn’t decide anything that night,” he said. “I already knew. You told me about Joey and I—I watched your face and I thought oh. That's all. I thought you were going to want that. And I thought I should tell you, and I didn't.”

There was a small high ringing somewhere behind your jaw. You got those when you stood up too fast. “And the vasectomy consult—”

He paused, eyebrows pushing in together. He hadn’t expected that one.

“I didn’t do it.” He pushed off the counter finally. He came around the island, slow, the way he moved toward a patient he didn't want to spook. He stopped a foot away from you. He didn't touch you. Three years of him not being able to walk past you in a kitchen without putting a hand on your hip, and he stopped a foot away and held his hands at his sides like a man at a wake.

“I didn't do it because I met you and I thought—I thought I should talk to you first, and then I didn't, because I didn't want to scare you, and then time went by and it seemed—cruel.”

You laughed. It came out of you like a cough. You didn't know your face had done anything until you saw his face change in response to yours.

“Don’t do that.” He shook his head, tongue running over the inside of his mouth. 

“You thought it was cruel?”

“To bring it up out of nowhere. Six months in. Eight months in. Whenever. There was never a—never a moment. There was—what was I going to do? Sit you down at a restaurant and tell you my reproductive plans? At a year? Two? When?”

“Any of those times, Jack. Any of them.” 

“What would you have done if I had sat you down at fourteen months and said, hey, just so you know, never? What would you have done?

The answer was that at fourteen months you were so in love with him you would have eaten glass for him. The answer was that at fourteen months you would have said that's okay and meant it, or thought you meant it, which was the same thing. The answer was that he was right, which was, you understood now, the thing about him that was going to end you. He was right about you. He had always been right about you. He had clocked you, somewhere in the first year, as the kind of woman who would talk herself into it, and he had been correct, and he had let you, and now you were in your kitchen at thirty years old with your hand on the cold marble and he was telling you, gently that he had known.

“You should have told me,” you said, and it came out a whisper. 

“Yeah,” he said, nodding slowly. “Maybe.”

Your mouth opened, but no words came out.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I should’ve done. I’m not—” He ran a hand down his face. He looked tired. He looked, for the first time in the conversation, like himself. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m not good at this. I’m sorry—I am sorry.”

“Jack.”

“I am.”

“You’re saying never. That there’s—there’s no version of this where—”

“No.”

“Where you and I—”

“No, sweetheart.”

“Jack.”

“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I'm not going to do that. I love you. I'm not going to lie to you. I love—”

And the worst part — the part you would not, later, be able to forgive yourself for—was that your chest did the thing. The small lift. The half-second of Jack is here, the way a dog's head comes up when it hears its name. Three years of him saying it and your body learning to lean toward the sound. Your hand, you noticed, had twitched a quarter-inch toward him on the marble. You had not told it to.

You hated it. You hated your hand. You hated the dog of you. You hated that some part of you was going to want him tomorrow, and next month, and probably — the thought arrived whole, terrible—for the rest of your life, because three years was a long time to teach a body something and you did not know how to make a body unlearn.

“That’s not enough, Jack.” 

You were crying. You hadn't noticed. Your hand was still on the marble and your face was wet and he was a foot away from you and not touching you, which was the part you would remember later, which was the part that would, in the small hours, be the thing you couldn't get past — that he had not, in this moment, reached for you. That he had read the room and known better.

"I would be a bad father," he said.

"Don't."

"I would. I — "

"Don't do that. Don't make this a — don't make it about you being noble. Don't."

He stopped.

He looked at you. He looked at you for a long second and you watched something you had not, in three years, seen happen in his face, a small private collapsing, a giving up of a position he had been holding for so long he had forgotten he was holding it.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay."

“Okay. Then — yeah. I don't want them. I have never wanted them. I'm fifty-four years old and I have been a doctor for almost thirty of those years and I have watched what happens to people who have kids in this job and I have made my peace with not having that life. I made my peace with it before I met you. I should have told you. I didn't tell you because I — “

He stopped.

“Why?” 

He looked at you. “Because—you—” He shook his head, like the words were physically painful to say.

“Because I wanted you,” he said. “And I knew if I said it you'd go. I thought if I was good enough at the rest of it you wouldn't notice the shape of the thing that wasn't there. And then a year went by and I thought you haven’t asked, maybe you don’t—" He stopped. He didn't let himself finish that one. "I knew you did. I knew you did the whole time. I watched you with—I watched you with the kids that came in and I knew. I just—I wanted one more month. And then I wanted one more. That's all it ever was. One more month.”

The kitchen was very quiet.

You stood there with your hand on the marble and your face wet and your chest doing a thing that wasn't crying anymore, that had moved past crying into some other room, and you looked at him across the foot of air between you and you understood, finally, that he had done this on purpose.

Not the cruelty. He hadn't been cruel on purpose. He'd been cruel by accident, the way honest men are cruel.

But the choice. The choice to let you stay. The choice, three years ago, to look at a twenty-seven-year-old woman who wanted things and to decide that he wanted her more than he wanted to be the kind of man who told her the truth on time. That he had done on purpose. That he had known about. That he had been carrying, all this time, in the part of himself he didn't show you, and he had carried it well, he had carried it so well you had not, in three years, suspected the weight.

You said, "Wow."

It came out small. It came out almost amused. He flinched, finally, at that one. You watched it move through him. You filed it away. You thought, in some cool clean part of your mind, you would need to hear that flinch in your mind a hundred times over so you could forget how you felt right now. 

"Don't," he said.

"Don't what."

"Don't — wow me."

"Jack."

“I love you. I'm not — I'm not going to defend it. I'm not going to — yeah. I wanted you around. I knew what I was doing. I knew — yes.”

You took your hand off the marble. You looked at your hand. Your hand was shaking, which surprised you. Your hand had not, until this moment, been a hand that shook.

You said, “I have to—”

You didn't finish the sentence, because you’d already started walking out of the kitchen.

You walked out of the kitchen.

He didn't follow you.

That was the other part you would remember. Not that he had let you walk away—men let women walk away all the time—but that he had known, in the heat of the moment, that the kindest thing he could do for you was to not make you ask him to stay back. He had clocked it. He had given it to you. It was the last gift he would ever give you and he gave it correctly and you hated him, briefly, with a clean white hatred, for being good at it even now.

[softseasun]

What The Living Owe Each Other

GIF by Ho-ii

Jack Abbot x Reader

Synopsis: After a quiet, late-night argument in the kitchen, you retreated to bed before anything is resolved. Jack won't let the night close over something unfinished between you. He never does, not since he learned at the worst possible price what it costs to leave the true thing unsaid.

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief, Trauma, Intimacy, PTSD, Slight angst, Mostly fluff, No use of 'Y/N'.

Nobody told you that the worst arguments were the quiet ones.

Not the kind with raised voices and slammed doors—those are almost easier, almost honest in their violence. No, the worst kind are the ones that happen in bright kitchens at nearly midnight, where everything is too fluorescent and too still, and the words come out measured and controlled and precise, which is somehow more cutting than cruelty. That is how it happens with Jack. He does not shout. He withdraws, pulling inward like a tide, and you are left standing on the shore wondering if you merely imagined the ocean.

It was a weekend. You had said something careless. He had said something careful. And the careful thing had done more damage.

After a while, the counter stretched between you like a verdict, and you were too tired—five in the morning until that moment, the whole long corridor of a shift behind you—to keep your footing in this.

“I’m not doing this tonight,” you finally told him, and your own voice sounded foreign to you, flattened by exhaustion. “I need to sleep, Jack.”

He looked at you. His jaw was held in that particular way of his—not rigid, not cruel, but contained, a man making a choice about what he lets reach his face. The kitchen light was unkind to everyone at that hour but him. Somehow, it only found the silver threaded through his curls, the faint constellations of freckles across his face, the dark on his left hand resting against the counter. He was still in the James Perse he wore that afternoon. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.

“Go to sleep, then,”

You do. Or you try.

You laid in the dark with your eyes open. The ceiling above you stared back like a blank page, and you listened to the house breathe—the ac, occasional cars outside, the particular silence of a space where someone else refuses to be still. You knew he was still awake without having to check. You have learned most true things about Jack Abbot the same patient way: not through confession, but through accumulation. Eight months of small data points that, gathered together, form something resembling the full outline of a person.

He does not sleep when things are unresolved between you. He has never said so. He didn’t need to.

Thirty minutes dissolved into the dark, and then, the bedroom door (which you had not fully closed) opened without a sound.

He didn’t reach for the light. There was enough amber bleeding in from the street to find him in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame, as he looked at you with an expression he probably believed was unreadable. It wasn’t. It stopped being unreadable to you sometime around month three, when you started learning the difference between the face he showed the ED and the face he had when he thought no one was watching.

“You’re not asleep,” he said.

“You’re very observant,” you said to the ceiling. “They teach you that in the medical school or the Army?”

A pause, brief and weighted. “Army. Medical school only taught me to document it.”

You almost smiled. You didn’t mean to and you did it anyway, small and private, belonging to no one.

He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed—your side—and the mattress conceded under him, and the warmth of him reached you even across the distance of a foot of sheets. He rested his elbows on his knees. His hands hung loose between them, and the black ring caught the amber glow from the window and held it like something it was given to keep.

“I’m not good at this,” he muttered.

You turned your head to look at him. “At what, specifically?”

“At—” he stopped. There is a version of Jack Abbot who would have deflected there, reached for a quip, and let the humor do what the words couldn’t. That dawn, he didn't. “At leaving things open.”

You knew, without him elaborating, exactly what he meant. You have known for a long time, pieced together from the parts of himself he has handed you one at a time, slowly, the way you’d offer something fragile to someone you weren’t yet sure could hold it.

His wife died twenty-six months before he kissed you for the first time. An aneurysm—no warning, no preamble, just ordinary life and then the end of it. He had been forty minutes away at a SWAT callout when it happened, and by the time he got to the hospital, there was only her hand in his and the hallway and whatever a man carries home from that and never fully sets down. He told you once, at eight in the morning with the honesty that surfaces when exhaustion dismantles every careful boundary. He had told you plainly, and then went quiet and looked at his ring for a long time, and you did not push because you understood that some silences are not absence but foundation.

You have understood since then that he does not leave arguments unresolved because he is stubborn, though he is. He does it because he learned, at a level beneath reasoning, that tomorrow does not honor anyone’s assumptions, and if the world reached in and took something from him again—if it decided, with its characteristic indifference, to collect—he could not bear for the last thing between you to have been silence.

Four months ago, you were in an accident on the Parkway East. Black ice, a truck that did not stop, and then you woke up looking at the other perspective of PTMC hospital rooms and your whole body a dull, massive ache. Jack was in the chair beside you. He was still in scrubs from his shift, his prosthetic leg an extension of the stillness of him, both hands wrapped around yours on the blanket. He did not say much when you opened your eyes. He didn’t have to. His face had already said everything his vocabulary was not constructed to carry—scraped raw and exhausted and grateful in a way that looked almost painful to feel.

He has been worse about unresolved things ever since.

“I know why you do it,” you told him, back in the bedroom at dawn, in the amber-laced dark.

He was quiet for a moment. “Do you?”

“Yes.” You sat up and drew your knees to your chest. “And I’m not saying it’s wrong, Jack. I understand it. I just need you to know that sometimes, I need sleep more than I need resolution, and neither of us is failing by admitting that.”

He looked at a stripe of streetlight crossing the floor. His profile in that low light is something a painter would have opinions about—the scruff, the weathered handsomeness, the way exhaustion sat on him differently than it sat on most people, like something he’s simply incorporated.

“I know that,” he said. “Intellectually.”

“And non-intellectually?”

He exhaled through his nose, not quite a laugh and not quite a sigh, but the sound he made when something he cannot argue with arrived.

“Non-intellectually,” he said, “I spent forty minutes in the kitchen not reading the same four pages of the new novel I bought.”

The honesty of it undid you a little. That was what no one in the ED would believe about Jack Abbot (except Robby)—that beneath the composure and the dark humor and the controlled authority of a man who has managed casualty events without raising his voice, there was this: a tenderness so plainly delivered it sounded almost accidental. Like he reached in for armor and found something else and decided to hand it over anyway.

“Jack.” Your voice landed softer than you intended.

“I’m aware it’s a problem,” he said, and then, quieter, with the particular self-deprecation of a man who has made peace with being a project: “My therapist has made that point. Several times. With visual aids, I think, at one point.”

“Visual aids?”

“A chart. Don’t ask.”

Despite the residue of the argument that was still faintly present in the room, you felt something in your chest release—a tension you’d been holding so long you’d stopped noticing its weight.

“Come here,” you said.

He casted a sidelong glance. “I’m already here.”

“You’re sitting on the edge of our bed like you’re checking a jacuzzi’s temperature. Come here.”

Something in his expression crossed a threshold you recognized—the moment he decided to stop managing the distance—and then he was lying beside you, not quite touching, both of you addressed to the ceiling with its shifting amber and its dark. His breathing was even in the effortful way of someone making it so.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” you told the ceiling. “About you not letting people in. That was unfair.”

“It was accurate.”

“Being accurate and being fair aren’t the same thing.”

“No.” A pause. “They’re not.”

“And you shouldn’t have gone quiet like that. You know what it does.”

“I know.” Another pause, and then, plain as anything: “I’m sorry.”

He said it like how he said all important things—stripped, unadorned, with nothing decorative attached. No qualifiers trailing behind it. Two words delivered as though he meant every syllable in both, which he did. You spent months learning the difference between an apology that sought to close the conversation, and an apology that opened something. His opened things.

“I’m sorry too.”

A cloud shifted somewhere over Pittsburgh, and the light in the room dimmed and resettled. Jack lifted his arm—slow, deliberate, a question posed without language—and you moved into the space he made. Your head found his shoulder. His hand found your hair and rested there.

“You need to sleep,” he said, low.

“So do you.”

“That’s different.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it keeps being true.”

“That,” you said into the dark of his shoulder, “is genuinely not the compelling argument you think it is.”

He made that sound again—an almost-laugh—and his chest rose and fell beneath your cheek. Outside, a car moved through the wet street, the ac hummed its low, tuneless, note, and the city went on existing with complete disregard for the two of you, which was somehow exactly right.

“Sleep,” he murmured. Not a command. The word he uses when what he meant is please.

You closed your eyes.

His hand in your hair does not move.

This is what loving Jack Abbot asked of you, had always asked: to hold two things at once. The man who would not let a night close over something unresolved between you because he understood, catastrophically and permanently, what it cost to leave the true thing unsaid. And the man who, have learned that at the worst possible price, showed up anyway—in a hospital chair with no memory of sitting down, in a kitchen at midnight with a book he could not read, on the edge of a mattress with one honest thing cupped in both hands like an offering.

He was not healed. You had never wanted healed. Not really. What you had was this: someone who carried his losses in plain sight so you could always see them, who was trying, who would sit with forty minutes of silence and a book he wasn’t reading rather than let the darkness swallow something unfinished between you.

You thought, as you drifted, that there were worse things than being loved by someone who was afraid of losing you.

There were worse things than being the reason he was still awake.

You were nearly asleep—that warm, unmapped border between waking and not—when his voice came, so low it seemed addressed to the room rather than you.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

You did not answer with words. You pressed your hand, once and open-palmed, against his chest—above the steady, faithful percussion of his heart—and left it there, and let that be everything.

His hand tightened in your hair. Fractionally. Carefully.

Outside, Pittsburgh breathed on. Jack Abbot exhaled for the first time in hours—long and slow and quiet—and was, in whatever way a man like him can be, at rest.

divider by cursed-carmine

[inkydelusions]

something med school didn't cover

part 2 wc: 8.9k (oof) pairing: jack abbot x wife!reader summary: when the doors of the pitt swing open to reveal you on the gurney, dr. jack abbot’s world shatters, forcing him to fight for two lives he didn't know were at stake. c.warning: angst with happy ending; established relationship (married); major medical trauma; graphic depictions of injury; mentions and discussions of abortions in the past; mentions of pregnancy/pregnancy loss scare; jack abbot crashing out; mentions of car accident; near-death experience; never mind the medical accuracy or lack thereof (i tried my best but i’m still not a doctor) a/n: this got out of control. it was supposed to be a usual 3k one-shot but then i kept writing and well here we are now. also shout out to my friend paula that helped me do all the medical research for this one so i didn’t embarrass myself with all the inaccurate doctor talk. love u girl <3

masterlist | requests

the fluorescent lights of the hospital always seem to hum a little louder when the er is quiet. it’s a sterile, buzzing vibration that grates on jack’s nerves more than the usual cacophony of sirens and shouting.

he leans against the nurse’s station, a lukewarm cup of bitter black coffee forgotten in his hand. he checks his watch. 2:14 pm. the numbers blurring slightly from sheer exhaustion. his shift was supposed to have ended hours ago, but the universe had other plans.

first, a multi-car pileup at dawn bled into a series of critical post-ops. then, every time he had tired to reach for his coat, another “one last thing” tethered him back to the floor. now, nearly ten hours into a forced double, the walls feel like they’re closing in. all he wants right now is to be through his front door, to shed the smell of antiseptic and the weight of the hospital, and to finally disappear into the quiet comfort of his home, where you were probably already waiting for him.

“it’s too quiet,” dana mutters as she organizes a stack of charts.

jack offers a ghost of a tired smile. “don’t say the ‘q’ word. you’ll jinx us.”

his mind drifts, as it often does during these rare lulls, back to you. he thinks about the way you looked when he left. half-asleep, tangled in the duvet in your hared bed, grumbling about the warmth leaving you as jack got out of the bed. he’d kissed your forehead, whispered that he’d be home by eight, in time to share breakfast with you, and headed into the belly of the beast. as he walked into the hospital, he felt a rare pang of guilt; he’d been working so many double shifts lately that your shared home felt more like a hotel.

i’ll make it up to her, he thinks. maybe he can take you out to that new sushi bar you showed him on your phone the other day. no, you’ll probably prefer thai. you’ve always loved-

the thought is cut short by the sharp, rhythmic chirp of the trauma radio. the sound like a physical blow to the silence.

“dispatch to mercy trauma, we have a level 1 activation. multiple vehicle collision, pileup on the i-579. initial reports suggest a jackknifed semi and at least six passenger vehicles. multiple red-tags. first eta is four minutes. lead bus is carrying a female, blunt force chest trauma, unstable vitals, gcs of 6.”

the er transforms in a heartbeat. the “slump” dies instantly, replaced by the practiced, frantic choreography of a trauma team who’s been through this million times.

robby, that was contrasting the lab results from one of his patients jumps into action.

“abbot, i need you in trauma. we need to get bays 1 and 2 ready. i want respiratory on standby. grab the o-neg. if this is a pileup, we’re going to be drowning in ten minutes.”

“let’s go!” jack barks, his voice dropping into that authoritative, calm register that defined him as he signals some of the residents to follow him,

the coffee is now discarded and forgotten on dana’s desk as jack pulls on a pair of gloves, the snap of latex echoing against the white, bright walls of room. here, in the chaos of trauma 1, he’s in his element. he’s dr. abbot, the man who’s used to holding the line between life and death. he feels the familiar rush of adrenaline, the narrowing of his world until only the patients matter.

“eta one minute!” someone shouts.

robby stands at the ambulance bay doors, peering through the glass. a faint rain has started. a cold, miserable drizzle that blurs the red and blue lights of the approaching sirens.

the first ambulance screeches to a halt and the back doors swing open. immediately, a paramedic jumps out, already pumping a manual respirator. “female, trapped in the driver’s side for twenty minutes. we had to use the jaws. bp is 80 over 40 and dropping. she’s trending toward traumatic arrest!”

robby’s breath catches for a fraction of a second. his eyes scan the familiar face, noticing all the blood, the cuts and bruises.

no, he thinks. please, let it not be true.

“get her to bay 1!” he orders, returning to reality as he steps forward to catch the side of the gurney as it flies past.

as robby pushes the gurney, he refuses to look at the patient’s face. but when he walks past dana’s desk, he looks devastated, and she notices. rounding her desk, she walks next to him, matching his quick step.

“i need abbot out of that room,” he says. “now.”

frowning, dana walks next to him.

“what? why?”

robby just shakes his head. “i need you to take him to trauma 2. anywhere, really. just… away from…”

but it’s already too late.

jack’s eyes are locked on the gurney, tracking the way the patient’s body jolts with every bump of the wheels, noticing the blood-soaked bandages on her chest.

“on three! one, two, three!”

the paramedics help slide the patient onto the trauma table. and it’s only then, as one of the them pulls away the oxygen mask to swap it for the hospital’s ventilator, that the world truly stops spinning.

the air leaves jack’s lungs as if he’d been punched.

“jack…” robby tries, but he doesn’t look at him. he can’t react at all.

the female with blunt force chest trauma and unstable vitals isn’t a stranger.

it’s you.

your face is ghostly pale under the smears of blood and road grime. your hair, which he’d smoothed back just hours ago in the quiet of your bedroom, is matted with glass shards. you lay limp, your chest barely moving, a hollow shell of the person he loves.

“jack?” dana’s voice comes from a distance, sharp and concerned. “jack, what are you doing? we need to intubate!”

jack abbot, the man who never flinches, who doesn’t shake under stress, no matter how hard or critical the case, now stands frozen. his hands, usually as steady as stone, are shaking so violently they seem to rattle against the metal railing of the bed.

robby glances at dana over his friend’s shoulder, shaking his head.

“no,” jack whispers, the word catching in his throat. “no, no, no…”

“okay, “robby mutters to himself. “abbot, i need you to get out. now.”

but jack still can’t react, he doesn’t even flinch when dana closes her hand around his forearm, trying to pull him out of the room.

robby pushes past him. “she’s crashing! i need a central line now! jack, get out of the way!”

robby grabs a scalpel, his movements clinical and fast. he doesn’t stop to consider who is on the table. to him, right now you are just a ‘red tag.’ he can’t allow himself to think of anything else.

right now, you can’t be the woman who has quickly become one of his closest friends, one of the main supports on his hardest days. the woman he proudly considers family, the same one he shared secrets and past anecdotes with when he came by to yours and jack’s house for dinner every month.

dana is still trying to get jack out of the room, threatening to call security on him when the attending’s weak whisper makes her stop in her tracks.

“stop,” jack rasps, his voice cracking. he lunges forward, shaking dana’s hand off, too desperate. “stop. that’s… that’s my wife.”

the room goes dead silent for a heartbeat, save for the screaming of the heart monitor. robby looks up, nothing but pity for his friend boring in them.

“jack… you can’t be in here, brother. you know the protocol.”

“i am not leaving her!” jack roars, his voice echoing off the trauma bay walls, raw and heartbroken. “my wife is dying. i am not leaving her!”

“you’re making it worse!” robby hisses back. “you’re compromised! you’re going to kill her if you don’t let us work!”

jack looks down at you. he sees the blood. he sees the way your heart rate is flickering on the screen like a dying candle. a cold, terrifying clarity suddenly washes over him. the panic doesn’t disappear, of course it doesn’t, but he forces it down into a small, dark box in the back of his mind.

he steps back slightly, chest heaving. but his hands stop shaking, the roaring in his ears slows to low hum, enough for him to hear his own thoughts again.

“fuck the protocol. i’m staying,” jack said, his voice now terrifyingly low and steady. “robby, get the chest tube. and i need 10 of epi. now!”

he doesn’t look at his colleagues as he works. he looks only at you.

“stay with me,” he whispers, so low only you could have heard it if you were awake. “don’t you dare leave me, do you hear me? stay with me.”

and so the chaos begins in the trauma bay. robby and jack, along with a couple of residents and some extra hands work together, in synchronicity.

“i need a fast exam, now!” jack’s voice cuts through the noise, steady but edged with desperation, focused on the monitors, on the jagged green lines of your heart rate, the terrifyingly low oxygen saturation. he tries not to look at you, knowing that if he did he’d see your eyes, closed and bruised, and he would shatter.

“jack, i’ve got the ultrasound,” rabby says, his voice softer now, cautious.

he moves the probe over your abdomen, eyes flicking between the small screen and your still form.

you’re so still. the woman who loves dancing in the kitchen to grainy jazz records is now buried under layers of medical plastic and blood-stained gauze.

“we’ve got internal bleeding,” robby mutters, his brow furrowing. “she’s bleeding out into her peritoneum. jack, we need to get her to or immediately.”

“wait,” jack says, eyes falling to the darkening bruise on your lower belly. “check the pelvis. i want a full sweep. if there’s a pelvic fracture we didn’t see—”

“i’m on it,” robby replies. he moves the probe lower, his movements clinical.

the room seems to go silent, though the machines are still screaming. jack watches the ultrasound screen, his mind already three steps ahead, calculating surgical approaches, estimating blood loss, praying to a god he hasn’t spoken to in years.

then, the image shifts.

robby freezes. the probe stops moving.

on the grainy, black-and-white screen, nestled deep within the shadows of your body, is a small, unmistakable flicker. a pulsing light.

jack’s breath hitched. his world, already tilted on its axis, began to spin violently.

“jack…” robby’s voice was barely a whisper. “is that…?”

“no,” jack breathes, the word a plea. “no, it can’t be.”

he grabs the probe from robby’s hand, his fingers slick with ultrasound gel. he presses it down again, his eyes wide and frantic as he searches the screen. and there it is. a gestational sac. maybe ten weeks. perhaps older. a tiny, fragile life tucked away inside the chaos of your broken body.

a life he didn’t know about. a life you hadn’t told him about.

“she’s pregnant,” robby breathes from the bedside, his hand flying to his mouth.

the realization hits jack like a physical blow to the chest. this isn’t about just you anymore. it’s about both of you. every choice he makes in the next ten minutes will not just decide the fate of his wife; it would decide the fate of their child, too.

“we can’t use the standard protocol, jack,” robby says, his voice rising in panic. “the meds we were going to use for the induction, the ct scan, the radiation…”

“i know!” jack roars, the sound raw and guttural. he drops the probe and it hits the floor with a dull thud.

the “doctor mode” he has spent years perfecting, the emotional armor he wears like a second skin, cracks wide open. the image of that tiny, flickering heartbeat burned into his retinas. he sees you then; not as a patient, not as a ‘red tag,’ but as the mother of his child, dying on a cold metal table because of a patch of ice and a moment of bad luck.

the room begins to tilt. the bright fluorescent lights turned into blinding white spots. the sound of the ventilator—hiss-click, hiss-click—is like a ticking time bomb.

“jack, look at me,” robby says, stepping into his line of sight, grabbing jack’s shoulders. “jack, you’re hyperventilating. you need to step back.”

“i… i didn’t know,” jack stammers, his legs suddenly turning to lead. “she didn’t… we couldn’t…”

he looks back at you. your face is a mask of trauma, but in his mind, he sees you the way you were hours ago when he left you cold on your shared bed. the way you smiled at him. did you know then? maybe you were waiting for dinner to tell him.

the grief and the shock collide in his chest, stealing the air from his lungs. jack’s knees buckle.

“he’s going down!” robby cries, catching him under his arms before he hits the floor.

jack doesn’t fight him. he can’t. his strength is gone, evaporated. he slumps against the wall, his head in his hands, the bloodied plastic of his blue gown crinkling as he collapses.

“get him out of here,” robby orders, his voice firm as he takes over the lead position at the bed. “now! someone, please, get him to the breakroom. i’ll take her up. i promise you, jack, i will do everything. just go!”

jack feels hands on him, a strong grip pulling him up, guiding him away from the bed. he tries to resist, tries to reach out for you, but his body simply won’t obey.

as he’s led through the swinging doors, the last thing he sees is the team swarming around you, the red light of the blood bags hanging over your head, and the ultrasound screen, displaying that tiny, flickering heart once more.

the doors click shut, leaving him in the hallway, the rapid beat of his heart a deafening roar in his ears.

he’s a doctor. he’s a husband. and now, he’s a father.

and he might lose everything before the sun went down.

jesse lets go of his arm when they arrive at the breakroom, and with a quiet “i’m sorry” and a gentle nod he leaves jack behind and returns to the room where the rest of the team is still fighting to save you.

you and the baby.

god, the mere thought raises tears to jack’s eyes.

a baby.

his baby.

biting the inside of his cheek, jack thinks of the previous times when he heard these news. of the sound of your excited, cheerful voice the first time you came up to him with a positive test.

unfortunately he also remembers your heartbroken wails as he hold you tight to his chest, both of you sitting on the bathroom floor at home. he remembers how he bit his lips, forcing himself to stay strong for you but wanting nothing more but to crumble into pieces right there.

you had stopped trying after the second miscarriage. a decision none of you wanted to made but that you needed in order to protect your own hearts and your sanity.

and now… now you’re laying on a cold, metal exam table, closer to death than you’ve ever been and jack has everything to lose.

the breakroom smells of stale coffee and industrial-strength floor cleaner. it’s a room designed for brief reprieves, for five-minute naps and hurried meals, but right now, for jack, it feel like a cage.

he seats on the edge of a vinyl chair, his elbows on his knees, staring at his hands, at dark, shiny band on his left hand.

you are pregnant. the thought keeps looping in his mind, a frantic, broken record. how could he miss it? he’s a doctor, for god’s sake. he is trained to notice the smallest shifts in physiology, the subtle cues of the human body.

he thinks back to the last few weeks; your sudden preference for tea over coffee, the way you’d been falling asleep on the couch before the 11 o’clock news. he’d chalked it up to stress, to the gray pittsburgh winter, to his own grueling schedule and the fact that he didn’t seem to have time to spare, time for you.

he closes his eyes and sees you in the kitchen three days ago, laughing at the ridiculous apron he usually wears when he cooks. you looked so vibrant, so incredibly alive. now, you have been reduced to a series of vitals on a monitor, a problem to be solved by people who don’t know the sound of your laugh or your favorite movie from your childhood.

“god, please,” he whispers into the empty room. now, jack abbot is hardly a religious man, but the silence of the hospital is demanding a sacrifice. “take me. just… don’t take them. please.”

the door creaks open and jack bolts upright, his heart hammering against his ribs. dr. robby, his best friend, his brother, stands there. he’s stripped off his bloody gown, but his scrubs are darkened with sweat. somehow, he looks older than he did twenty minutes ago.

“jack,” robby says, his voice level, cautious.

“tell me,” jack demands, his voice cracking. “please, tell me. is she… are they-”

“she’s still on the table,” robby says, stepping into the room and letting the door swing shut behind him. “we’ve stabilized the splenic bleed, and the chest tube is draining well. but jack…” robby let’s out a long, heavy sigh. “ the situation is complicated. you know the physiology as well as i do.”

jack slumps back into the chair, the “doctor” part of his brain forcing its way through the grief. he does know.

in a trauma patient, pregnancy changes everything. the blood volume increases by 50%, which means a woman can lose a massive amount of blood before her blood pressure even begins to drop. by the time you see the “crash,” it’s often too late.

“her vitals are brittle,” robby continues, leaning his back against the vending machine. “because of the pregnancy, her heart is already working overtime. and we’re struggling to keep her map high enough to perfuse the placenta without blowing out the repairs we just made.”

“and the baby?” jack asks, the word feeling foreign and heavy on his tongue.

“the fetus is roughly twelve weeks,” robby says. “at this stage, there’s no ‘saving’ the baby independently. the only way to save the pregnancy is to save the mother. but the vasopressors we’re using to keep her pressure up… they cause vasoconstriction in the uterus. we’re effectively starving the baby of oxygen to keep her brain and heart alive.”

it’s the ultimate medical catch-22. to save you, they had to risk the baby. to save the baby, they might lose you.

“the ultrasound showed some subchorionic hemorrhaging,” robby adds softly. “with the impact of the steering wheel, the placenta might be starting to detach. if that happens, she’ll bleed out from the inside faster than we can pump blood into her.”

jack buries his face in his hands. he knows the statistics. he knows that in maternal trauma, fetal demise is as high as 40-50% depending on the severity of the crash.

“i should have been there,” jack groans. “i should have driven her. she told me the brakes felt ‘soft’ last week and i told her i’d look at them on my day off. i didn’t… i didn’t look at them, robby.”

“jack, stop,” robby says firmly, walking the few steps separating him from his friend and crouching in front of him. “the police report said a semi hydroplaned across the median. it wouldn’t have mattered if she was driving a tank. don’t do this to yourself.”

jack looks up, his eyes bloodshot and raw. “how can i not?i’m the one who’s supposed to fix people. i spend twelve hours a day stitching strangers back together, and the one person who matters,” his voice breaks. “i didn’t even know she was carrying our child.”

robby sighs, his expression softening. “she’s a fighter, jack. we both know that. she’s held on this long. but i need you to stay here. if you go back in there…. i can’t worry about you too. i need to focus on them.”

“i can’t just sit here, man,” jack says, his voice rising. “i’m going crazy in this room.”

“then go to the chapel. go for a walk. or go home. but do not come back to that room,” robby warns. “i’ll send dana or jesse out when we have another update.”

as robby turns to leave, jack calls out, “wait.”

robby pauses at the door.

“the heartbeat,” jack whispers. “was it… was it still there when you left?”

robby hesitates for a fraction of a second, a beat that feels like an eternity to jack.

“it was,” robby says. “faint. but it was still there.”

and with that, the door clicks shut, leaving jack alone again.

the breakroom remains too quiet for far too long. jack paces the narrow strip of linoleum between the coffee machine and the round table, his mind a minefield of memories. he keeps seeing you in the passenger seat of his car, laughing at some stupid joke he told, the sun reflecting the stars in your eyes. he keeps thinking about the baby, whose existence had already rewritten the map of his future, even if they haven’t met yet.

then, the overhead speaker crackles. it’s a sound jack hears a dozen times a shift, a sound he usually meets with professional focus.

“code blue, trauma 1. code blue, trauma 1.”

the world doesn’t just tilt; it shatters.

trauma 1. your room.

jack is moving before his brain can even process the command. he throws open the breakroom door, the heavy wood slamming against the wall with a bang that echoes down the corridor. he doesn’t care about protocol. he doesn’t care about robby’s orders. he doesn’t care about his own career.

he runs.

the hallway feels miles long, the floor slick under his clogs. he passes a group of residents who scramble out of his way, eyes wide as they see night shift attending sprinting with a look of pure, unadulterated terror on his face.

he bursts through the double doors of the trauma bay, his lungs burning.

“jack, wait!” a nurse shouts, trying to grab his arm as he reaches the scrub sinks.

he doesn’t even look at her. he pushes the doors open with his shoulder, crashing into the room like a storm.

the scene inside is a nightmare rendered in high-definition. the rhythmic, mechanical hiss-click of the ventilator has been replaced by the frantic, high-pitched scream of the heart monitor. a flat, unwavering ekg line that slices through the air like a blade.

robby’s standing on a step-stool over your body, his hands locked, his weight throwing everything into the rhythmic compressions of your chest. crunch. crunch. the sound of ribs giving way under the pressure—a sound jack has heard a thousand times—feels like it’s his own bones that are snapping.

“jack, get out!” robby yells, not breaking his rhythm. his face is drenched in sweat, his eyes fixed on the monitor.

“what happened?” jack screams, stumbling toward the foot of the bed. “what the fuck happened?!”

“she went into v-fib, then pea,” dr. santos shouts over the noise. she was at your side, her hands pressed firmly against the left side of your abdomen, pushing your pregnant belly toward the left.

jack’s medical brain registered it instantly. in a pregnant woman in cardiac arrest, the heavy uterus compresses the inferior vena cava, blocking blood from returning to the heart. if they don’t push the baby aside, the compression robby is doing will be useless. there’s no blood to pump.

“charging to 200!” the tech shouts. “clear!”

robby jumps back. your body jolts off the table as the electricity surges through you. jack watches your hands, the same hands he loved to hold while you both were cuddling on the couch on a slow saturday, flop lifelessly back onto the sterile drape.

the line stays flat.

“again!” jack roars, stepping up to the bed, his voice raw. “increase to 300! charge it again!”

“jack, she’s lost too much blood,” robby pants, resuming compressions. “the acid-base balance is gone. her heart is too tired.”

“don’t you say that! don’t you dare say that!” jack lunges forward, grabbing the paddles from the tech’s hands. his eyes are wild, his breathing ragged. “move, robby! move!”

robby hesitates for a second, then steps aside, hands raised in surrender, letting jack take over.

jack looks down at you. this close, he can see the gray tint creeping into your skin. he can see the way the light in the room seems to be fading out of you.

“you do not leave me,” he hisses, the words a jagged prayer. “you hear me? you stay. you stay for me, and you stay for this baby. do not do this to us.”

“charged!”

“clear!” jack slams the paddles against your chest.

thump. your body arches. the monitors wail.

silence.

one second. two. three.

then, a tiny, erratic blip on the screen. then another.

“i have a rhythm!” dr. santos cries, her fingers pressed to your carotid artery. “i have a pulse! it’s weak, but it’s there!”

the room seems to exhale all at once, but the tension doesn’t break. it just shifts.

“we need to get the bleeding under control now,” robby says, his voice shaking. “jack… she can’t take another arrest. if she codes again, we won’t get her back. the fetal heart rate is in the 60s.”

robby doesn’t finish the sentence, but jack hears is loud and clear.

you’re both dying.

jack stands there, the paddles still in his hands, staring at the flickering green line of your heart. he’s covered in your blood, his gown torn, his soul laid bare in front of his entire team.

he looks at robby, and for the first time in his career, michael sees the “great jack abbot” looking utterly broken.

“save them,” jack whispers, his voice barely audible over the hum of the machines. “whatever it takes, i don’t care. just… don’t let them… save them. please.”

robby nods slowly. “we’re going to try a high-risk embolization to stop the deep pelvic bleed. it’s the only way to avoid more surgery, but the radiation… it’s dangerous for the pregnancy.”

jack looks at your stomach, then back at your face. the choice is impossible.

life or life.

“do it,” jack says, his voice hardening into a cold, desperate resolve. “save her. save my wife. we’ll deal with the rest when she wakes up.”

as they begin to prep the specialized equipment, jack doesn’t leave. he backs into the corner of the room, his back against the cold tile. he watches them work, his eyes never leaving the monitor, counting every single beat of your heart as if he could keep it moving through sheer force of will.

the icu is a different kind of purgatory than the er. in the er, death is a screaming, bloody predator you could fight with a scalpel and a shout, something loud and violent. in the icu, death is a shadow. something silent, patient, and impossible to pin down.

it’s 11:45 p.m. hours have passed since you were moved up from the er.

now you lie in the center of a web of plastic tubing and wires, the steady, rhythmic hiss-click of the ventilator the only thing keeping the room from falling into a grave-like silence. a cooling blanket draped over your legs to keep your temperature regulated, and a specialized fetal monitor strapped across your bruised abdomen, its screen showing a jagged, persistent little line

142 bpm.

jack is sitting in the hard plastic chair pulled flush against your bedside. he hasn’t changed out of his scrub bottoms, though someone forced him to put on a clean gray hoodie to cover the bloodstains on his undershirt. he looks older, tired. devastated. the harsh overhead led lights catch the new lines of exhaustion etched around his eyes.

he’s holding your hand, the only part of you that isn’t covered in bandages or sensors. your skin feels paper-thin and cold.

“i’m here,” he whispers, his voice a dry rasp. “i’m not going anywhere.”

he checks the fetal monitor. that sound, the rapid thump-thump, thump-thump of the baby’s heart, is the most beautiful and terrifying thing he has ever heard. it’s a ticking clock. every beat a miracle, but also a reminder of how much he stands to lose.

“why didn’t you tell me?” he asks softly, his thumb tracing the line of your knuckles, the stone crowning you ring finger cold and harsh against his skin.

were you scared? were you waiting for the ‘right’ moment? god, he would have given anything for that moment to have been over dinner, or in bed, or literally anywhere but on a trauma table.

he leans his forehead against the metal railing of the bed, his eyes closing.

“i went through our messages while i was waiting for you to come out of the or,” he admits, a ghost of a self-deprecating laugh escaping him. “i looked for clues. i looked for a hint. and all i found were grocery lists and you telling me to come home early because you missed me. but i didn’t come home, did i? i stayed for that extra shift. i stayed to fix people i didn’t even know while you were… you were growing a life.”

his guilt is a physical weight, a cold stone in his stomach. he’s dr. jack abbot. he’s supposed to be the one with all the answers, the one who sees the things no one else notices. but he has been blind to the most important thing in his own world.

a nurse slips into the room, her movements practiced and quiet. she checks the bags hanging from the iv pole, her eyes lingering on jack with a mixture of pity and professional concern.

“the baby’s heart rate is holding steady, dr. abbot,” she says softly, nodding toward the fetal monitor. “and her map is at 70. she’s stable for now.”

“for now,” jack repeats, the words feeling like ash. “stable is just another word for ‘waiting for the next crisis’ in this building, and you know it, claire.”

“from what i’ve heard, she’s a fighter, jack,” the nurse replies, mirroring robby’s words from earlier. “and so is the little one. i’ve seen people come back from worse.”

“not many,” jack mutters, but he squeezes your hand a little tighter.

when the nurse leaves, the silence rushes back in. jack stands up, his joints popping, and leans over you. he carefully places his hand on your stomach, right over the sensor. closing his eyes, he tries to feel through the layers of skin and muscle, trying to connect with the tiny being inside you that he had only just met through a grainy ultrasound screen.

“hey,” he whispers to your belly. “i’m your dad. i’m… i’m a bit of a mess right now, but i’m here. and i need you to do me a favor. i need you to keep fighting. i need you to give your mom a reason to wake up. because i don’t think i can do this without her. i know i can’t do this without her.”

before he can realize what’s happening, a tear escapes, tracing a hot path down his cheek and landing on the sterile white sheet.

“i’ll be better,” he promises, his voice cracking. “i’ll be home. i’ll fix the brakes. i’ll learn how to be whatever you both need me to be. just… don’t let go. please, don’t let go.”

outside, the rain continues, now heavier, fiercer. but inside the room, time remains frozen. jack abbot, the man who usually held the city’s lives in his hands, now seats back down and waits for the only life that truly matters to come back to him.

from time to time, doctors filter into the room, checking vitals, checking on jack. robby comes up from the er a couple of times to share a sympathetic smile with him, to promise that everything will be fine.

jack sighs, “i’m a doctor too, robby. you can’t lie to me.”

“and i’m your friend and i know that a bit of hope is what you need right now.”

he stays for a while, keeping jack company until his pager calls him back to action.

“shouldn’t you be home already?” jack asks. “your shift was over hours ago.”

robby only shrugs. “people need me around here.”

at that, jack’s eyes regain that teary shine. nodding, he promises robby to call him if anything changes and waves his fiend goodbye before leaning back again on the chair, his eyes fixed on the slow rise and fall of your chest.

the world doesn’t come back all at once. it returns in fragments. first, the rhythmic hiss of a machine, the smell of antiseptic, and a heavy, weighted warmth on your left hand. your eyelids feel like they had been leaded shut, but the persistent, low hum of the icu finally pulls you toward the surface of consciousness.

you groan, the sound catching in the back of your throat, dry and scratchy from the tube that has only recently been removed.

then there’s the faint scratch of a chair scraping against the floor.

“hey… hey, look at me. open your eyes, sweetheart.”

that voice. you know that voice better than your own heartbeat. it’s the same voice that whispers sweet nothings into your ear at night, the same one that you hear in your warmest dreams. except now it sounds rough, exhausted, and trembling with a hope so fragile it feels like it might shatter any moment.

you force your eyes open. the light blinding at first, a sterile white haze, but then it focuses. jack. he looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. his hair is a mess and his eyes, usually so sharp and clinical, are now swimming with tears.

“jack?” you rasp, your voice coming out as barely a breath.

“i’m here. i’m right here.” he leans over, his hand cupping your cheek with a tenderness that makes your chest ache. he kisses your forehead, his lips lingering there for a long moment as he takes a shuddering breath. “you scared the hell out of me, love.”

you try to move, but a sharp pang in your abdomen makes you wince. memories start to bleed back in. the rain, the blinding headlights, the screech of metal. you instinctively try to reach for your stomach, but your arm feels like lead.

“the… the accident… jack, i…”

“it’s over,” he whispers, his thumb stroking your temple. “you’re safe. i’ve got you.”

a few minutes pass by until the door pushes open quietly. robby walks in, followed by an ob-gyn specialist you didn’t recognize. robby looks at you, a genuine, relieved smile breaking through his professional mask.

“welcome back,” robby says, checking the monitors. “you’ve had a hell of a day, but your vitals are finally starting to behave.”

the ob-gyn, a woman with kind eyes that introduces herself as dr. pauline , steps forward. “we need to talk about why you’re feeling so much pressure in your abdomen, besides the surgical repairs.”

jack’s grip on your hand tightens. he looks at you, his expression a complicated map of wonder and fear.

“you’re pregnant, dear,” dr. pauline says softly. “about twelve weeks. the accident was severe, and the trauma to your body was significant. we had to perform some emergency procedures that were high-risk for the pregnancy, but as of twenty minutes ago, the fetal heartbeat is steady.”

the world stops right there and then.

you look from the doctor to jack, your mouth falling open. “pregnant? are you sure?”

dr. pauline nods and you have to bite your lip to keep it from trembling. jack’s grip on your hand tightens.

“it’s going to be a long road,” dr. pauline continues, her tone turning serious but encouraging. “you have a lot of healing to do. your ribs and the internal repairs, plus the blood loss. and for the baby, we’re going to have to monitor you both every hour. there’s some bruising near the placenta, so it’s going to take hard work, absolute bed rest, and a lot of time before we can say we’re completely out of the woods. but right now? right now, you’re both winning.”

“thank you, doctor,” you whisper, voice so small it makes jack’s chest squeeze. “and thank you, michael. jack told me you were the one who took care of me when i arrived.”

robby gifts you with a small, soft smile. grabbing your free hand, he gives it a squeeze.

“i’m glad i could help. but i don’t think i could’ve done it without my team. or without dr. abbot’s aid.”

that has you snapping your attention back to jack.

“you were there?” he simply nods, eyes glued to your hand, to the ring on your finger. “i thought you guys had protocols for that kind of thing.”

“we do,” says robby, nodding.

“fuck the protocol,” barks jack at the exact same time. “my wife was dying. what was i supposed to do? go home? i did what i had to.”

when your eyes finally connect with his again you see it, the utter exhaustion, but behind that there’s something more. something raw and vivid.

“i’m so sorry,” you whisper. “i’m sorry you had to see that, jack. i can’t even imagine…”

“shh…” leaning forward, jack offers you the safe space of his shoulder to cry. “what matters is that you’re alive, love. you both are.”

after the doctors finish their checks and leave the room, a heavy, comfortable silence settles over the two of you. jack doesn’t let go of your hand. he seats on the edge of the bed, staring at you as if you were a ghost that might vanish if he blinked.

“jack,” you whispered, your voice a little stronger now. but you still feel the pressure of your tears threatening to spill at any given moment.

the thought of jack having to bring you back to life, your blood covering his gloved hands… knowing that he had to find out about something you had been suspecting for a couple of weeks through a scan in a trauma room in the er…

“twelve weeks,” he says, his voice thick with his own tears. “and you didn’t… you didn’t tell me.”

there’s no accusation in his voice, only a profound, echoing confusion.

you look down at your hands, the plastic hospital bracelet stark against your skin. “i didn’t know, jack. not for sure.”

jack doesn’t speak, he holds on tight to your hand, dropping a feather like kiss on your knuckles.

“i was suspicious,” you admit, a small, tired smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. “but i told myself i was just imagining it. that my brain was playing some twisted tricks on me. but then i started feeling so tired. then there was the coffee. god, the smell of it started making me nauseous about two weeks ago. i’ve been drinking tea ever since.”

jack lets out a short, wet laugh, rubbing his face with his free hand. “i’m a doctor, i should have seen it. i should have known.”

“how could you?” you reach out, brushing a stray hair from his forehead. “we stopped looking for the signs a long time ago, jack.”

the air in the room shifts. the “last two times”, two years of hope, two positive tests that ended in heartbreak before the first trimester was even over. they were the shadows that had lived in the corners of your apartment, the reason you both had stopped talking about possible names or color palettes for the nursery. you had both quietly agreed to stop trying, to protect what was left of your hearts.

“i didn’t want to say anything until i was certain,” you whisper, tears pricking your eyes. “i couldn’t handle seeing that look on your face again if it didn’t stay. i was going to buy a test this weekend, i promise. i just… i wanted to be sure before i gave you hope again.”

jack leans down, pressing his forehead against yours. his breath hitches. “hope is all i’ve had for the last few hours, watching you on those monitors. i don’t care about the timing. i’ve got you two now. and that’s all i need.”

he moves his hand, sliding it under the hospital blanket to rest flat against your stomach. his palm is warm, steady, and large enough to cover nearly the entire area where the new life rests tucked away.

“we’re going to do the work,” he vows, his voice low. “whatever the doctors say. whatever it takes. i’m not losing either of you. we’ve fought too hard to get here.”

for the first time since the sirens started screaming hours ago, the tension in jack’s shoulders finally breaks.

you rest your head on his shoulder, the steady thump-thump of his heart syncing with yours. it isn’t the perfect, easy ending. there are months of recovery ahead and a thousand medical hurdles to jump but for now, in the quiet of the icu, the three of you are together.

“i love you,” he whispers into your hair.

“i love you too,” you breath, finally letting your eyes drift shut. “both of us.”

the transition from the icu to the step-down unit was supposed to be a victory. it has been ten days since the crash. your chest tube is out, your color is returning, and jack has finally stopped vibrating with the manic energy of a man haunted by ghosts.

but the “pitt” never let anyone relax for long.

jack is sitting in the armchair, his laptop open as he tries to catch up on charts while staying by your side. you are propped up on pillows, picking at a bowl of fruit, when a sharp, searing cramp radiates across your lower abdomen.

it isn’t like the dull ache of your healing surgical incisions. this is different. cold. deep.

“jack,” you gasp, the plastic fork clattering onto the tray.

he’s at your side before the fork hit the floor. “what is it? where’s the pain?”

“cramping. hard.” you grip his forearm, your knuckles turning white. “it feels… it feels like the last times, jack.”

the color drains from his face, but the doctor in him takes the lead before he can panic. he throws back the blankets. and there it is. a small, terrifying smear of crimson on the white sheets.

“pauline! anyone! i need a fetal doppler in here now!” jack shouts toward the hallway, his voice cracking the quiet of the ward.

minutes felt like hours. dr. pauline rushes in, her face set in a grim mask of professional focus. jack stands in the corner, his hands pressed against his mouth. unfortunately, he knows too much. he knows all the signs, just like he knows that post-traumatic subchorionic bleeds could trigger labor or a final, fatal abruption.

the room is filled with the static sound of the doppler searching.

whoosh. whoosh.

the sound of your own pulse, too fast, too frantic.

then, a silence that feels like a death sentence.

“come on,” pauline whispers, moving the probe. “come on, little one.”

thump-thump-thump-thump.

the sound burst into the room. fast, rhythmic, and stubborn.

“heart rate is 150,” pauline exhales, a visible wave of relief washing over her. “the cervix is closed. it’s a ‘threatened’ event, likely just the hematoma from the accident draining. but we are increasing your progesterone and you are on strict, absolute bed rest. no sitting up, no laptop, nothing but breathing.”

jack doesn’t move for a long time after she leaves. he just leans his head against the wall, his chest heaving. the setback lasted only ten minutes, but it had aged him a decade.

“jack,” you call his name softly, patting the free space next to you on the bed.

he walks over and sat on the edge, taking both of your hands in his. “we almost lost the light,” he whisper. “i can’t… i don’t know that i could take it if it happened again, sweetheart.”

“we didn’t lose it,” you said, pulling his hand to your cheek. “they’re still here. we’re still here.”

jack sighs with relief, nodding. he leas down to press a soft, careful kiss to your lips.

three weeks later, the air in pittsburgh finally shifts from the bitter bite of winter to the hesitant warmth of early spring.

you’re not wearing a hospital gown anymore. instead, you wear one of jack’s oversized soft hoodies and a pair of leggings, sitting in a wheelchair by the large windows of the garden pavilion. you are still weak, and your gait is a slow, painful shuffle, but today is the day the doctors, your husband included, have circled in red on the calendar.

week 14. the beginning of the second trimester. the safe zone.

jack walks into the pavilion carrying two cups of herbal tea and a small, rectangular envelope. he looks different today. he’s actually shaved, and for the first time since the night of the pileup, the haunted look in his eyes has been replaced by a quiet, steady glow.

“happy second trimester,” he says, leaning down to kiss the top of your head.

“we made it,” you breathe, looking out at the budding trees. “i honestly didn’t think we would.”

“i have something for you,” he says, sitting on the bench beside your chair. he hands you the envelope with a bright smile.

you open it with trembling fingers. inside isn’t a medical chart or a bill. it is a high-resolution 3d ultrasound from that morning’s check-up.

the image is vividly clear. you can see the curve of a tiny nose, the miniature perfection of ten fingers tucked near a chin, and the long legs that robby joked would make the kid a track star.

“look at that nose,” jack whispers, his finger tracing the print. “that’s your nose.”

“yeah. that’s your chin, though,” you laugh softly, a tear of pure, uncomplicated joy sliding down your face. “the abbot stubbornness is already visible.”

while you are still contemplating the small piece of warmth and joy that was still growing inside of you, jack reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, velvet box. you look at him, confused.

“jack? we’re already married.”

“i know,” he says, opening the box to reveal a delicate band with a tiny, shimmering stone on top. the birthstone for the month the baby was due. “but the night of the crash, i realized i’d spent so much time being a doctor and a provider that i forgot to be a good husband. i forgot to celebrate the life we were building.”

he takes your hand, sliding the ring onto your finger next to your wedding band.

“this is a promise,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “no more double shifts when i don’t have to. no more missed dinners. from here on out, it’s the three of us.”

you lean your head back against the headrest of the wheelchair, looking from the ring to the ultrasound, and then to the man who quite literally pulled you back from the edge of the grave.

the trauma is still there, the scars on your body and the stiffness in your limbs would be reminders for a long time, but as the sun warms your skin, the angst of the past month finally begins to dissolve.

“jack?”

“yeah?”

“i think i want thai food tonight.”

jack laughs. and it’s a real, booming abbot laugh that echoes through the garden. “you heard the boss,” he whispers to your stomach. “thai it is.”

bonus

the spare bedroom at the end of the hall had spent years as a storage space for jack’s medical journals and your half-finished art projects. it had been a room of “maybe someday,” a door you both tended to keep closed, preferring to keep the bad memories on the other side.

now, six months after the rain-slicked pavement nearly took everything, the door stands wide open and the scent of paint lingers in the air. a soft, muted sage green that jack spent three weekends perfecting because he refused to let anyone else touch the walls.

you seat in the newly assembled rocking chair, your hand resting atop the prominent, solid curve of your stomach. the baby is active today, a rhythmic tapping against your ribs that feels like a secret code. you are thirty-four weeks along, a milestone that, for a long time, felt like a destination on a map you weren’t allowed to reach.

“i think the crib is slightly crooked,” jack mutters, kneeling on the floor.

he was wearing an old pittsburgh steelers t-shirt, his hair disheveled, looking less like the formidable dr. abbot of the er and more like… like you husband, who was utterly determined to defeat a piece of furniture.

“jack, it’s perfect,” you laugh softly. “the level said it’s straight. you’ve checked it four times.”

“five,” he corrects, standing up and wiping his hands on his jeans. he walks over to the crib, shaking the railing with enough force to test a bridge. “i just… i need it to be steady. everything has to be steady.”

you reach out, taking his hand and pulling him towards you. immediately, he sinks onto the ottoman at your feet, resting his head against your knees. the fierce, protective energy he carries is a byproduct of the trauma; a lingering shadow of the man who collapsed back in that trauma room. but it was softening, replaced by a deep, quiet anticipation.

“oh. i just remembered. we haven’t opened michael’s gift yet,” you say, pointing to the changing table.

sitting atop a stack of colorful onesies is a beautifully wrapped box with a heavy silver bow. next to it is a card embossed with the university of pittsburgh medical center logo.

according to jack, robby dropped it off at the nurse’s station for him to bring home.

“he said if he had to hear me talk about ‘fetal heart rate variability’ during a trauma shift one more time, he was going to quit, so he bought this to shut me up,” he said as he lay the box on the changing table the other night.

you open the card first. in robby’s cramped, hurried physician’s handwriting, it read:

to my dear friends (and my future favorite abbot),

i’ve known you two for a long time and i truly can’t think of anyone better to take care of each other. i also know that kid will be so lucky to get to call you two mom and dad. i can’t wait to meet the little one.

congratulations on the final stretch!

— robby

inside the box is a high-tech, medical-grade infant vitals monitor, the kind that synced to a smartphone. it’s exactly the kind of gift dr. robby would give: a way to keep watch even when the lights were out. underneath the monitor was a tiny, hand-knitted sweater with a small stethoscope embroidered on the pocket.

“he’s a softie,” you whisper, running your hand over the wool.

“don’t tell him i said so, but he’s the reason we’re sitting in this room,” jack said, his voice drops into that low, honest tone he saved only for you. he looks up at you, his eyes reflecting the soft nursery light. “when i saw you on that table… i forgot how to be a doctor. i forgot how to breathe. he held the line until i could find my way back.”

jack stands up and leans over you, pressing a long, lingering kiss to your forehead before moving down to press his ear against your belly. he waits, silent and still, until the baby delivers a sharp kick right against his cheek.

“hey there,” jack whispers to the bump, a grin breaking across his face. “i hear you. we’re ready for you. everything is ready.”

he stands back, surveying the room; the crib, the sage-green walls, the gift from his brother, the man who helped save your lives, and the woman who was his entire world. the angst of the pitt, the screams of the monitors, and the cold terror of the icu feel like a lifetime ago. they are just scars now. like faded, silver lines that proved they survived the storm.

“do you think the baby will like the room?” you ask.

jack wraps his arms around you from behind, his chin resting on your shoulder as you both look out at the quiet pittsburgh street below.

“she’ll love it,” jack promises.

the sun begins to set outside the window, casting a warm, golden glow over the nursery, turning the sage walls into the color of a new spring. you’re a survivor, jack is a father, and in just a few short weeks, the pitt would be nothing more than a place where jack went to work, while his real life, his whole life, waited for him right here, at home.

[crowdedimagines]

Close Range

Aaron Hotch x reader

Summary: set around the season four episode two titled ‘The Angel Maker’. Hotch can't fly home with his ear after a close range shot, but you would never let him drive back to Quantico all by himself. He may finally have to lean on you.

Word Count: 4.2K

-

It was surprisingly humid in Ohio, you guys have been here for a few days following the murders that imitate a serial killer called the Angel Maker. It all kicked off with the one year anniversary of his execution. 

Emily had figured out that the particular locations of the stab wounds were based on constellations, the Angel Maker killed the first six victims and she was trying to complete his work. It was all based on The Heavenly Waters, it was clear the unsub was in love with the serial killer and acting out of vengeance.

Cortland Bryce Ryan. 

Reading over their letters to each other, even coded, you guys were able to figure out she had lost the child she was planning to bring into the world to keep him alive. When this child died, that was her stressor.

Garcia was able to narrow down a list of when who had children the right timespan that left the father off the birth certificate of their child. There happened to be one repeat name, Chloe Kelcher who was also on the jury for Cortland’s trial. 

You guys turned Chloe’s apartment upside down, but it paid off when you got the clue you needed. Rossi found an appointment book with the victims names on specific days inside. Today had a woman named Faye Landreaux listed with her address. Everyone took off for her house, not bothering for a seatbelt as Hotch sped. 

“Car’s still warm.” Morgan says walking up to you guys, “We have to be right behind her.” 

Hotch looks over the house, “The windows are closed. That’s a good sign.”

Part of the ritual had been opening all of the windows in the house to ‘release their soul’ so you guys weren’t too late yet. 

“Well, my team is ready.” The sheriff draws his weapon, “Let’s get in there.”

“Sherriff,” Hotch starts, “We didn’t recover a gun at Chloe’s apartment. We have to assume she’s armed.”

“Well, so are we.” He argues. 

You roll your eyes, “If you storm in now, she’ll shoot. Chances are she’ll start with Faye.”

Morgan looks between everyone, “So, what should we do?”

“I think we should look for an open window.” His focus remains on the house, “Sheriff, I need you to bring all of your vehicles around to the front with lights and I need a megaphone.” 

Hotch nods and the Sheriff takes off to get his men to move the cars. You start to scope out the house, trying to find the best point of entry that Chloe wouldn’t see coming from a mile away. 

“I-” You start. 

“Morgan, go.” Hotch instructs, “The last thing we need is to give her access to another woman.” 

Derek takes off, a low quick stride toward the back of the house. You remain at Aaron’s side, choosing to bite your tongue. Recently he’s become protective of you, you don’t get sent in first anywhere. Definitely not alone. He makes sure to always put himself in front of danger for you, and that was no different with Morgan now. 

“Hotch,” Emily steps up, “I’m not sure you’re the right person to get through to her.” 

“Can anyone get through to her?” You ask out loud. 

“Probably not.” Hotch admits, “But you'll have a better chance than I will.” 

He passes the megaphone off to you.

“The profile is clear, you can’t talk this woman down.” Reid interjects. 

“No, but I can occupy her.” You say, knowing exactly what Aaron is thinking. You may be able to buy the time for Morgan to get Faye out of the house. 

“Chloe Kelcher,” you call out, “this is the FBI.”

You pause.

“We know you’re in there, and we know what you’re trying to do.”

You wait, holding out for any sign of activity in the dark house. 

“I know you think that finishing what Cortland started will bring you closer to him, but you should know who he really was. I know you thought what you had with him was special, but the truth is he used the same lines in all the letters he wrote.”

Spencer writes quickly on his notepad and holds out the exact phrases for you to say. Using the direct verbiage will no doubt unravel her even further. You can hear the destruction she’s creating inside as you read it off.

“He wasn’t who you thought he was,” you continue, “He was a narcissist. He wasn’t capable of loving anyone but himself. He wrote to dozens of women.” 

Morgan is quickly dashing along the side of the house, Faye protectively at his side until they make it safely behind the police line. 

“It’s over, Chloe.” You call out again, “We have Faye.” 

You can hear her reaction from out here, things being destroyed and her repeatedly yelling out ‘no’ over and over. She has nowhere to go. 

“Well, maybe she’ll put herself down.” The sheriff mutters. 

“No.” Hotch shakes his head, “She isn’t finished.” 

A minute later the screen door on the front of the house slowly creaks open, everyone draws their gun seeing the weapon in her hand. 

“Chloe, drop the gun.” Hotch demands. She continues off the steps, not even hesitating in her steps. Her face looks emotionless, she looks done. 

“Chloe.” He repeats as she continues to advance, “Drop the weapon.”

“Dammit lady, drop it!” The sheriff yells. 

She looks up to the sky, “I’m coming to you, baby.” 

“Wait-” You shout. 

Chloe lifts her arm, but she barely raises her arm before the sheriff has fired off a shot directly into her chest. The gunshot shattered everything, it was loud and violent and right next to Hotch. He flinched hard, his entire body seizing as his hands flew up to his ear. 

“Hotch-”

He staggers, bracing himself against the cruiser. He ducks his head and squeezes his eyes shut like it was still stuck ringing in his head. You know ever since the explosion in New York he’s been having problems that he’s been trying hard to hide. 

“Aaron.” You are at his side, one hand on his arm, “Talk to me.”

“I..” He presses harder against his ear, his chest rising a little faster as he winces again. 

You can see EMTs rushing around you guys, moving toward Chloe but you know it’s useless. The sheriff was precise with his aim. You step directly in front of him, forcing his focus. 

“Aaron, look at me.” You say it softly and as clearly as possible, “Just breathe, okay? Slow.” 

His jaw remains tight with pain, “It’s ringing…”

“I know.” You nod, “That shot was way too close. You probably shouldn’t be in the field like this yet.” 

He raises his brows, reminding you he’s the boss and you so badly want to comment about how that he was able to hear crystal clear. 

"Try to relax." You sigh, "Breathe."

He focuses on you and takes a few deep breathes. Rossi watches you both from a few feet away, he holds off Reid from approaching with a quiet ‘give them a second’ causing everyone to back off and give him some space. After a few minutes, he starts to seem closer to his normal self. He slowly releases the tight hold over his ears, letting his arms drop. 

“You with me?” You ask softly. 

He manages a small nod, “Yeah.” 

“Okay good,” you exhale, “You scared me for a second.” 

That got a faint reaction, more than what he’ll typically allow. The corners of his mouth tick upward for a few seconds. 

“I’m fine.” 

You tilt your head immediately to show that you absolutely did not believe him, but you wouldn’t push it. At least not right now. The sheriff approaches to discuss the case with Aaron. You look over your shoulder once before leaving his side to head over to where Morgan and Emily stand despite their smirks and stares.

“Did she make herself the final victim?” You ask, nodding to Chloe’s body. 

Emily nods, “Yeah, how’d you know?” 

“She loved him, she was going to finish his work one way or another.”

-

The next morning came fast, it was a late night processing the scene. The small town motel had stale air and thin walls, but it was a short few hours of rest before the jet would be fueled up. Everyone met down in the parking lot by the SUVs to pack up. Aaron is off to the side with his phone in hand. 

“Morning.” You call, falling into step beside him. 

Morning.” He puts his phone in his pocket and looks up, his gaze softening. 

“How’s your ear?” 

He hesitates. 

“It’s manageable.”

You squint, “That bad, huh?”

He doesn’t answer, which is an answer. 

Everyone has loaded up so you follow Hotch to one of the SUVs and he gets in to drive, and you get in the passenger seat. You notice two cups of coffee sitting in the cupholders and look at him. 

“I know how you’ll be without caffeine.” He explains, raising a brow but avoiding eye contact. He’s saved from your response when Rossi and Reid get in the backseat and then it’s a quiet ride to the small airport. He pulls up to the jet and everyone wordlessly gets out, Morgan, Emily, and JJ get out of the other SUV. 

Bags are unloaded in a quick familiar rhythm that only comes with a team that does this so frequently. Until Hotch clears his throat and stops everyone in their tracks. 

“I’ll be driving back.” He holds the car key in his hand. 

Rossi steps back toward him, “Aaron… that’s an eight-hour drive.” 

“I’m aware.” 

“You shouldn’t be flying with your ear, right?” You comment, realizing why he won’t be joining the team. 

He nods once, “The pressure change could make it worse.” 

Reid nods, “He’s right, actually. If there’s already trauma to the auditory system, cabin pressurization could exacerbate it.” 

“That’s a long drive alone.” Emily adds. 

Hotch nods and steps back toward the SUV like the conversation was already over. 

“I’ll be fine.” 

The team exchanged looks. 

“Have a safe flight.” 

He walks back toward the SUV and the team still hasn’t moved, aside from Rossi who steps directly in front of you. 

“Kid.” He starts, “You’re not gonna make him do it alone, are you?”

He raises his brows and you can feel the attention of everyone on you. Emily lets out a snicker and you shoot her a glare before looking back at Rossi. He’s right, you would never make him do that drive alone. 

You shake your head and yell over your shoulder, “Hotch, wait up!” 

You turn to take a couple of quick steps over to where he’s getting in the SUV. Your duffle bounces on your shoulder and you toss it in the backseat.

“Y/n-” He starts as you haul yourself into the passenger seat. 

“Nope.” You buckle in. 

“You should go with the team.” He insists with a firm tone, “It’s a short flight, you’ll be back in Quantico in an hour. You can rest-”

“And you can’t.” You interrupt, finally looking over at him but mainly so you can grab your coffee and take a sip. 

“You just took a gunshot to your hearing yesterday, do you really think I’m letting you drive for eight hours by yourself?”

“I’ll manage.” 

“Probably, but that’s not the point.” 

He exhales slowly, “Y/n-”

All you have to do this time is raise your brows, ready to go back and forth all day and he can see it. 

The car ride started quiet, both of you settling into the car and honestly being so intimately just the two of them. The road stretched far ahead of you, you have one leg tucked under the other to get comfortable. Hotch glances over briefly.

“You planning on staying like that the entire drive?”

“Maybe.” You shrug, “You planning on letting me drive at all today?”

His glare tells you that’s a no.

Hotch had no plans to make any stops other than the necessary gas and bathroom breaks. But somewhere along the stretch of highway you had grown fidgety, “If we don’t stop soon, I’m going to start critiquing your driving out of boredom.” 

He doesn’t look over, “You’ve already been doing that.” 

“Yeah, but now it’ll get personal.” 

He looks over at your serious expression before eventually throwing on a blinker. The gas station was nothing special, but it was the first stop since the two of you had left the tarmac. A couple of pumps and a convenience store, heat rising off the pavement in visible waves. You step out of the car and stretch right away, ditching your jacket in the car leaving you in a tank top. 

Hotch rounds the back of the car, “I’ll get the gas.” 

You nod, “I’ll grab snacks.” 

By the time you come back out, Hotch is leaning against the car waiting. His posture is relaxed in a way that only happens when he thinks no one is watching. You slowed a little as you got closer. He looks a lot less like a unit chief like this, he's just a man waiting for you to return.

“Miss me?” You grab his attention, his eyes drop briefly to where the fabric of your shirt clings to you. He can see a sliver of skin exposed where it’s riding up slightly. You catch him, and raise a brow to show it. 

“...Something you want to say?” You step closer, your voice is teasing. 

He clears his throat and pushes off the car, “It’s warm out.” 

“Oh, is that what it is?” 

“Yes.”

“Not you staring at me like you forgot how your eyes work?” You chuckle, enjoying every single second of this. 

“I was not-”

“You were,” You grin wider, “I thought you were having hearing problems, not vision-”

“Get in the car, Y/n.”

You laugh harder, sliding into the passenger seat. “That’s what I thought.”

The car felt different after that. It was still quiet but it wasn’t comfortable like it had been earlier, it was buzzing. The radio played lowly which he didn’t have on before. You stare out the window, but you aren’t really paying attention to the scenery. Aaron’s focus is locked on the road, his grip a little too tight on the wheel. 

Minutes pass, then it hits sharp and sudden. Hotch sucks in a breath, flinching as his hand shoots up to his ear. 

“Dammit.” 

“Aaron?” You turn instantly, “What-what is it?” 

“Just-” He winces again and presses his palm harder against his ear, “It’s sharp.”

“Okay, pull over.” You say immediately. 

“I’m fine-” He tries. 

“Hotch.” Your voice firm, “Pull over.” 

Another sharp pain rings out in his ear and he eases onto the shoulder, putting the car in park a little harder than necessary. The second the car is stopped you unbuckle and turn fully toward him. 

“Hey hey!" Your voice is soft but pleading, "Look at me, talk to me. Is it still ringing?”

“Yeah, it’s worse,” He admits, “It’s pressure.” 

“Okay,” You nod, “take your hand off for a second.” 

You reach for his wrist to pull his hand away, he slowly lets go and lowers it. You shift closer and your hand hovers over his ear before adjusting the angle of his head. 

“Tilt a little.” Your voice is softer than Aaron has ever heard it. 

He follows your lead, but his jaw is still tight. 

“Breathe,” You add quietly, “You’re tensing up, it’s going to make it worse.” 

“I am not.” 

“You are,” You hold his head there, “It’s okay, just breathe.”

Slowly his breathing returns to normal, coming out softer. His shoulders loosen a fraction when your hands curl around his head. His eyes are closed and he finally looks relaxed for a few minutes. The pain didn’t disappear, but it did help dull the ache. 

You pull back slightly while studying his face, “Better?”

He opens his eyes, “A little.” 

“Okay, good.” You sit fully back in your seat again, “Switch.”

He blinks, “What?”

“I’m driving.” 

“No.” 

“Yes.” 

“No.” He repeats more firmly this time, “I’m fine.” 

“Aaron-”

“I said I’m fine.” 

You stare at him, really stare, “You aren’t and that’s okay. When was the last time you let someone take care of you?”

His expression didn’t change right away, but his gaze did drop to his hands briefly. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. This is probably the first time you’ve seen him speechless. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” You say gently.

A long stretch passes between you two before he eventually unbuckles his seatbelt. A few minutes later and they were back on the road, only now Hotch sat in the passenger seat. He has one hand resting loosely near his ear and the other is bracing the door. Somehow he looks bigger in the seat you typically occupy. 

“Try to relax,” You glance over briefly, “You’re allowed to, you know.” 

He exhales what you think might be a laugh, “I don’t think I remember how.” 

You smile and let your gaze flick over to him, his eyes already on you. 

“Well, you’ve got at least another five hours to figure it out.” 

You look back to the road, but can tell he’s still looking at you. He says your name so softly you weren’t sure you actually heard it, but look back. 

“Thank you.” He nods. 

“Anytime.”

Somehow that meant more to him than anything else you could’ve said. 

The road continued to stretch on for miles, it was the kind of drive that blurred time a little. You kept things smooth and glance over at him once and notice he’s fallen asleep at some point. His head was tilted toward the window, his posture loosened. You blink a few times, darting back and forth between him and the road. Aaron did not fall asleep in moving vehicles, he didn’t relax enough. But now?

His breathing was even, his face softer than you’d ever seen it. He had no lines between his brows, and the tightness in his jaw had evaporated. He looks so peaceful you’re half tempted to run a hand back through his hair. You don’t, instead you turn the music down another notch and keep driving. 

Time passed. A lot of it. 

The sun was starting a slow descent in the late afternoon, casting the whole car in a soft gold glow. He gradually stirred, a shift in his breathing before he blinked his eyes a couple times. You can see the disorientation and then he straightens almost immediately. 

“How long?” He looks over at you. 

You smile, “Long enough.” 

He exhales, running a hand over the back of his neck, “I didn’t mean to-”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have had to drive the whole time.” 

You finally glance at him, “I didn’t have to, I wanted to.”

“That’s not the point.” He argues. 

“Isn’t it?” 

He frowns, “Y/n-”

“You needed sleep!” You shrug, “You got it, that’s a win.”

The guilt is written on his face. 

“I should’ve stayed awake.” 

You let out a huff of disbelief, “You cannot help yourself, can you?”

“I’m serious.” 

“So am I.” Your tone coming off far less teasing, “You were exhausted, Aaron. And in pain and you still weren’t going to stop.” 

He doesn’t argue with that, because he can’t. 

“You don’t have to do that all the time,” You look back at him again, “Carry everything by yourself.” 

He looks at you for a long moment, taking in everything you said and how honest and genuine it all was. Your hands are steady on the wheel, focused and calm. Your face is unguarded, revealing that this wasn’t some burden to you. He wasn't a burden.

“I’m not used to it.” He finally admits. 

“Yeah, I figured.” You smile, “When was the last time you slept like that?”

He thought about it, he actually thought about it and he was stumped. 

“I don’t remember.” 

Your chest tightens at his admission. 

“You don’t have to earn rest, Aaron.” You add after a moment, “It’s not something you should ever have to justify.” 

Hotch let out a slow breath, leaning his head back against the headrest. 

“I know that.” 

“But you don’t do it.” You call out.

“No.”

You smile slightly, “Good thing I’m here then.” 

That gets the corners of his mouth to flick up, you catch it. 

“I suppose it is.” 

His words were quiet, but they hang over the car. The man sitting next to you is so far from your typical unit chief. As much as you’ve felt something between the two of you, it’s never been something either of you have vocalized. 

“Ear any better?” 

“A little.” He nods. 

“Good.” 

There’s a comfortable pause before he clears his throat.

“Y/n?” You look over and you can see him hesitate for a second while deciding his words, “Thank you. Thank you for staying.”

He finally looks unguarded to you, genuine and honestly a little unsure of himself. It softens you completely knowing he’s showing you a new side of himself. 

“I was never going to leave you.” You say simply, “Besides, you talk in your sleep so that kept things interesting.” 

He blinks, “I do not.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“How would you know?” You turn and smirk, catching him rolling his eyes. 

After a couple more hours of highway, the roads started to become familiar. You pulled into the parking garage, the tires echoing softly against the concrete. You turn off the car and neither of you move to get out right away. 

“Well,” You exhale, “we made it.” 

He doesn’t answer immediately, he’s already looking at you. Not the quick glances from earlier, this was steady and intentional. You could feel it in your bones. 

Your breath catches slightly, “What?”

“It was nice.” 

You blink. 

“The drive?”

He softly shakes his head, “No.” 

He pauses. 

“...This.” 

You shift in your seat, turning to face him a little more. He exhales, his gaze dropping to the steering wheel before coming back to you. 

“I meant what I said earlier about not being used to being taken care of.” He continues and you don’t interrupt or make a joke this time, “It’s not something I’ve ever relied on or even allowed.”

Your chest tightens slightly.

“But with you-” He carries on, “It didn’t feel like something I had to resist.” 

“Aaron.” You say softly. 

He shakes his head like he needed to get it out before he lost the nerve. 

“It felt right”

Your eyes hold his. 

“You’re the only person I would want it from.” 

That did it.

Whatever line they’d been dancing for months, especially while on this drive, was gone. You let out a small breath of disbelief. 

“Well,” A small smile tugging at your lips, “good. I’m not exactly offering that kind of treatment to just anyone.” 

His own smile begins to appear.

“Glad to hear it.” 

“Can you hear it?” You tease and he rolls his eyes, but the smile doesn’t waver. 

“So, what does that make us?” You ask, reaching out your hand for his. He takes it and his hands are warm and callused. 

“Something we should’ve acknowledged sooner.” He jokes. 

“That sounds dangerously close to a real answer.” You smirk. 

His hand reaches up to cup your face, his thumb passing over your cheekbone. 

“I’d like to give a relationship a chance, if that’s something you want.” 

You search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt. All you see is Aaron. 

“I would like that.” 

The words leave your lips and he chases them. You have to fight a smile to kiss him back, relishing in the warmth of his lips. You reach out to pull him closer by the collar of his shirt and his hand reaches back into your hair. You sigh and he swallows it. 

“We should probably go upstairs.” He pants after a moment. 

You look around the mostly empty garage and nod. The bullpen was mostly empty by the time the elevator dropped the two of you off. It was late enough that the team had gone home. 

Except for one. 

Garcia was walking back to the lair, realizing she left her keys behind but she stops in her tracks when she hears an unfamiliar laugh. She turns and looks back to see you and Aaron walking side by side, in sync. Hotch has a wide smile on his face, looking down at you and Garcia’s jaw nearly hits the floor. 

Hotch holds the glass door open for you and the two of you disappear from Garcia’s view but she can’t move a muscle. Did she really just see that? She starts digging for her phone in her purse, the click of her loud heels following her back to the lair. 

“Derek Morgan you will never believe what I just saw.”

an// awe this was kinda fun! i was rewatching and love the idea of continuing on where the episode left off! plz lmk your thoughts!

[applecidertears]

ᨳ a cushy landing

dean winchester x hunter!reader (gn)

tags: early season dean. mutual crush. reader wears chapstick.

wordcount: 1.4k

a/n: I kinda don't like the execution of this one so I might delete it...but I'll just post it as a filler for now, enjoyy! (i'm so sorry for the changing tenses omg, a girl was struggling TT)

Normal people come home after work, sit down with their family and have a nice dinner. Normal people are washed up and tucked into in bed before 11pm. Normal people certainly don't break into people's houses in the dead of the night to play Ghostbusters.

But, unfortunately for you, who had long resigned all sense of normalcy when you signed up to hunt with the Winchester brothers, you were currently standing next to the shards of broken glass that were once a window. Right in the middle of some poor bastard's living room, as the brothers made a mess of the whole place, looking for…you don't even know what they were looking for. All you knew was that you wanted just one night off, but instead you were dragged out of bed at 3am because the boys needed "backup" for whatever reasons.

"You know, why can't we just have a normal night for once where we're all tucked in and ready for bed by 11pm?" You asked to no one in particular as the guys continued redecorating the place to their liking.

"Well, that's 'cause we're hunters. We're basically nocturnal," Dean grunted, lifting one of the extra-large bags of salt he hauled from the car and plopping it down in front of you.

"Alright, c'mon. We gotta make this ring before 4am, or good ol' Casper will have our asses. Hey Sammy, you good to cover upstairs?"

"Yea," the younger one replied, "You guys go ahead. I have something I wanna check out." his voice already faded out as he disappeared around the corner and up the stairs.

Sighing, you slipped a hand into your jeans pocket and pulled out the blade Dean had gifted you for your birthday. It was the first birthday you had spent on the road as a full-time hunter with the boys. So in honour of your partnership, Dean had engraved your initials and a quote from a movie you both bonded over when you first met. It was sweet, and came in extremely handy on the job, like right now. You dig the blade into the bag, making a small enough incision for a decent amount of salt to flow through.

Dean had already started lining the floor with salt when you started adding on, the ring would've been done in no time.

Had Dean and Sam not done a little rearranging of their own to the place.

It all happened so fast. One moment you were focused on making sure your end of the salt ring could meet Dean's end nicely, and the next, all you could feel was your foot snagging an oddly placed lamp, then the extra-large bag of salt was pulling you towards the floor for a musky kiss.

There was a brief string of startled curses and a flurry of motion, before you shut your eyes and the world went dark.

The air in your lungs was knocked harshly out of you as you went down with a loud thud on the floor that was just as hard as it looked on your back.

You blinked once. Then twice. Attempting to recover from the disorientation as you waited for the world to right itself.

You couldn't really figure out what part of the room your eyes were trying to focus on, but then eyelids lifted, and all you could see was a familiar shade of green staring right back at you.

Suddenly, you were all too aware of the way your body was currently pressed flush against Dean's.

Your hands were gripping onto his shirt, dangerously close to his chest, where his heart was beating like crazy in tandem with yours.

Legs so tangled up that honestly, neither of you could tell which pair belonged to who.

And most pressingly, the weight of his lips against yours, giving him a personal taste test of the freshly applied chapstick you put on back in his impala.

For a second, none of you dared to move.

Laying there on top of one another, barely processing the situation you both had landed in.

Dean makes the first move and breaks his lips from yours. Straightening his arms to lift his crushing weight off you, but he still stayed hovering barely an inch away from you, lips parted. His cheeks slightly flushed, and his eyes were wide with shock, flickering between your eyes and lips. The amulet he wore as a charm silently swayed side to side like a pendulum as his mind tried to comprehend what had just happened.

"Uhm…Dean?" He flicks his gaze back up to meet you.

"Could you, uh…maybe get off?" you spoke softly, breaking the silence hanging over the room.

Dean blinks at your request. Then, seemingly snaps out of his trance.

"What?"

"I kind of need you to get off so I can get up."

"Oh—shit, sorry. Right, I'll uh get off of—" he stuttered out, flustered as he scrambled to his feet. "Uhm, here," he offered you a hand, looking anywhere at the floor but you.

As you lace your hand in his and hauled yourself upright, Dean couldn't help the way his eyes flickered down to your lips again—where his had been just moments ago—before he seemed to realise that he was staring, and consciously dragged his gaze back up to meet yours. You paused, searching his eyes for a moment, before retracting your lingering hand from his.

Dean is suddenly self-conscious, clearing his throat and muttering something like an apology while he scratches the back of his neck.

"It's fine, I mean, it was my fault for being so unaware of my surroundings anyway. Thanks for the effort though, really." You gave him a small, reassuring smile, hoping he wouldn't see the heat creeping up the back of your neck and ears.

"Uhm, next time though, maybe try not to go down with me. I think that just really defeats the purpose of your heroic act," you jokingly teased, hoping to ease up the mood.

He plays along, rolling his eyes and scoffing slightly, "Or you could just try not to trip over literally everything."

"Hey! You were the one who put that damn lamp there!"

"Well, I'm not the one who walks like a newborn fawn now, am I?" he throws his hands up and raises his brows at you. "And now our salt ring is everywhere. Okay, go grab your salt bag. We gotta redo this—"

"Hey, guys! I found a journal in the upstairs study and—" Sam chimes in as he reappeared around the corner. "Uh…why is there salt everywhere?"

"Oh, uh…" you and Dean both looked at each other.

"Don't worry 'bout that, we were uh—we'll fix it." Dean mumbled out, hands rubbing the back of his neck again as he did.

"Yea, sorry, I just got my legs into a bit of a tangle and…well you know how clumsy I can be sometimes…" you added on, trailing off and giving an awkward chuckle.

"Right…well, glad you're fine? Be more careful next time," Sam replies, looking between you and Dean like he knew there was something more to that but didn't press.

As he continued rambling about some ink pot a journal told him about, you and Dean locked eyes again.

The tension was palpable and you could feel all the things left unsaid. But neither of you would let yourselves go there. You couldn't, not with the fate of the world still resting on all your shoulders.

So you both did what you do best, filing these moments between you two away in the back of your minds somewhere, and letting it go unspoken for.

────── ⋆₊˚꒰ঌ ໒꒱⋆₊˚ ──────

take two on attempting to post this fic w/o being silenced (flagged) by tumblr

hope y'all enjoyed this!! tsym for reading once again and I'd love to hear any constructive feedback/suggestions from y'all ^^

[applecidertears]

writing my fics and formatting my posts could be rlly fun rn but unfortunately I have this thing where I keep procrastinating on the stuff I rlly rlly want to do

[applecidertears]

I finished formatting and tried posting but tumblr silenced me by flagging it as explicit </3

edit: appeal went through but when I tried editing the post to add a cut they hid it for good wtf,, ig this was not meant to be

edit x2: uhm woke up to see the post up and running,, idk what happened but yay!!

[applecidertears]

writing my fics and formatting my posts could be rlly fun rn but unfortunately I have this thing where I keep procrastinating on the stuff I rlly rlly want to do

[hopelessbrain]

SHARED HABITAT

...i'm hoping to make couple chapters out of this so let me know if you like it!!

wordcount: 766

summary: you were always the “quirky” one back home, a small– careful– deer; Sam was always the “freak”, too tall for his own body– moose.

warnings: fem!reader, reader described as short, living my truth as big eyed girl, slight angst (social outcasts), fluff, pinning idiots, mutual feelings, bestfriend!sam, somewhat young au (late teens), eventually kissing!

Lawrence, Kansas wasn’t exactly the best place to be anything but loud, confident and traditional; much less a high school. High School's always brutal. Bunch of teenagers crammed into classrooms, teachers who couldn’t care less, the awkwardness of growing into yourself…

Growing.

Jesus that guy took it to heart– you think to yourself as you spot a tall, lanky kid standing by the lockers. Despite his towering height, he seemed to be trying his best to take up the least space humanly possible.

Huh, weird.

Usually it’s the other way around, especially for a guy his size. Still focused on your inner dialogue, you’re too busy to spot the group of people planted firmly in the middle of the hallway– great, just what you needed– you think to yourself, notebooks falling from your hands as the group turn to throw you a nasty glare. You ignore their dirty looks, fairly used to them by now; but as your knees hit the ground to grab the notebook, the grating voice of an entitled little– not the point– the voice of one of them, pointed down at you.

“Eager for a fresh start, Bambi?” His voice asks with mockful pity. God, you’d hoped that stupid nickname had disappeared during the summer— guess your luck isn’t that good.

“Sorry, got distracted.” You answer, not really focused on giving them their much desired attention as you get back up.

As you scurry to leave them behind as fast as possible, you can’t help but notice the soft, awkward but weirdly kind smile the giant guy offers you.

Huh, double weird.

The first couple days were no different than the hundreds of ‘back to school’ days you’d had along your life but hey, at least this one would be your last year in this stupid high school.

Annoying high schoolers in your town had one benefit– absolutely none of them were spending their ‘precious’ time in the library, this gave you a safe enough space to h̶i̶d̶e̶  read during breaks. You push open the wooden doors, shoulders tensing in anticipation when seeing you're not alone.

The messy brown haired head perks up when hearing the door, your wide eyes only softening upon realizing it was huge guy from the hallway.

“Hey”, he greets quietly. His voice is soft– you like soft.

People around here don’t ‘do soft’, until now at least. “Hi”, your reply is quiet– still guarded despite the warmth his dimpled smile offered you.

Once more you see him shrink into himself, pulling his stuff closer to him on the table and straightening up in his seat as much as his long limbs allowed him to.

“You do that a lot”, you point out, probably sounding weird given the few interactions you’d had with him.

“Hm?” He looks up, a confused head tilt that is two floppy ears away from making him a puppy. “Curl into yourself”, you explain in a voice not as judging as genuinely curious.

“Oh– yeah,” he chuckles awkwardly, “m’ kinda big so I try not to take up too much space.” His reasoning seems so simple and genuine that it almost makes you feel bad for even calling him out on that. “You can take up space– I don’t need much”, you shrug your shoulders as you offer him a small peace treaty.

It was true, what he had in towering height– you lacked, clearly.

It became a quiet, comfortable ritual for you two, the library serving as a safe haven for two dorky outsiders. School life became somewhat tolerable with Sam by your side– that’s his name, Sam, you had to stop calling him ‘tall hallway guy’ at some point. Turns out he wasn’t just an awkward teenager with a random growth spurt– but he was also sweet, smart and nice in a refreshing way that made you instantly warm up to him.

People weren’t exactly kind to him either, only difference was that Sam didn’t let them cut too deep– he simply offered them a polite smile, a small nod and walked off. It also probably helped that he was a sasquatch…

The Bambi jokes didn’t stop– that name was practically a second skin by now– though the rest of students were quick to jump on the opportunity to crown Sam as Moose. He always saw the positive side of it– he always tried to do so, especially when he saw the stubborn tick of your jaw– saying that it was somewhat poetic they thought you were a deer and him a moose. For now– things were easier, better– sharing a habitat.