hello to anyone who sees this! let me keep it short. i am a teenager in high school trying to learn vietnamese and i would really like someone to talk to to improve my conversational skills. i am still a beginner but i know this is the best way to practice haha. if you are around teen age and are either native vietnamese or even learning vietnamese just like me, PLS DM ME :) i would love to find someone online to talk to and learn how to speak vietnamese better
How to Have a Love Life (from someone who actually has one)
Step 1. Set Your Standards
Because if you don’t, the universe will send you men who text “wanna hang?” at 11:52 p.m.
Know what you want, even if it’s irrational. Tall, plays piano, Catholic guilt, looks good in black. Whatever. You’re allowed.
No chemistry? No deal. A good résumé means nothing if you feel nothing. You're trying to find love, you should feel something. A spark, a shiver, or a silly smile when he texts.
He should be a bit obsessed. Not restraining order obsessed, but “sent you a poem at midnight” obsessed.
“Busy” is a myth. If he wants to, he will. If he doesn’t, he won’t. There’s no mystery.
Step 2. Prepare Yourself
Not in a “fix yourself” way. In a “become so hot and self-possessed he can’t think straight” way.
Update your social media. Post hot pics, read pretentious books, quote Sappho. Let them suffer.
Romanticise your routines. The skincare, the gym, the getting ready playlist, it’s part of the charm.
Don’t try to be chill. Be passionate, a little dramatic, slightly impossible to forget. (we hate nonchalant here.)
Have a life. Not to impress him. To survive him. Join a class, go dancing, make art. Text your friends more than you text him. You need something to come home to if it falls apart.
Step 3. How to Actually Meet Guys
Yes, unfortunately, you do have to leave the house (or at least open your DMs).
Be online strategically. The story with the books, the wine glass, the dangerous neckline? Essential.
Go places alone. Cafés, galleries, vintage bookstores. Hot people live in those.
Talk first. Say something weird. Say something dry. Say anything at all. Most guys are just relieved. He won't think you're weird, and if he does, that's useful data. You don't want someone who's scared of a girl with opinions and a personality.
Mutual friends? Ask. Being set up is underrated. Just make sure it’s not someone who still says “epic.”
Step 4. Surviving the Talking Stage
Also known as: limbo, hell, emotional roulette.
Keep texting fun. You’re not here to conduct an interview.
Match his energy, then go slightly colder. Mystery keeps the plot alive.
Don’t over-invest. He’s cute, not a life plan. Don't build an entire narrative off a playlist and three emojis.
Pull back if needed. You’re not being “too much.” You’re being someone who doesn’t beg.
Step 5. Dating 101
Congratulations. You’ve made it to the main event. Don’t panic now.
Look stunning, obviously. Even if you’re just getting coffee. Especially then.
Ask good questions. The goal is connection and psychological evaluation.
Stay unpredictable. Be kind, funny, engaging, but also allow for some silent moments. It shouldn't feel awkward.
Know when to walk away. If it’s not fun, not flirty, and not fulfilling, you can go.
Step 6. Debrief & Detox
Even CIA operatives get to talk to someone after a mission.
Tell your friends everything. Especially the ridiculous parts. Especially the unhinged texts. Your group chat is sacred.
Let them reality-check you. They love you. They see the red flags when you’re busy romanticising the beige.
Don’t skip the closure. Even if the ending was awkward or slow-fade. Name it, process it, laugh about it. Then leave it.
Step 7. If It Works Out
Not every story ends in disaster. Sometimes it actually gets good.
Stay a little delusional. You still get to romanticise it all. That’s half the fun.
Keep your identity. Don’t fold into each other like laundry. Stay weird. Keep your rituals. Be your own person with someone.
Let yourself be happy. Not suspicious. Not waiting for it to crash. Just happy. Let it feel real. You don't have to apologise for being loved. You don't have to brace for impact. allow yourself to enjoy.
Still debrief with your friends. Even in love. Especially in love. They were there before, and they’ll be there after—if it ever comes to that.
And if none of this works? Post a blurry photo in your favourite outfit, listen to Norman Fucking Rockwell, and disappear for 48 hours.
lots of love (literally) to all of you and if anyone has a question or request feel free to submit it here -> <3
You're not sure you're ready to come back. Hotch has total faith in you. Or, your transition back into the team after your abduction doesn't go as smoothly as you'd hoped.
6k words, fem!reader, bau!reader, some mutual pining, reader is suffering from effects of ptsd, allusions to kidnapping + torture, hurt/comfort, hotch has a soft spot for you (as do most of the team)
༺༻
Reid was abducted, once.
You can remember the anxiety of it like a hand around your throat. It feels cruel to say that his abduction and torture had effected you more than if it had been a stranger, but you meet so many people, so many victims of cruelty, that the fear starts to blunt.
Though it doesn't blur. You find it impossible to forget the people that you've failed, and failing a team mate? That had been excruciating.
Only when you'd been taken yourself had you realised it wasn't a failure at all.
You wish the others would understand that.
"Are you feeling okay?" Prentiss asks as you sit down.
You suppose you had gone down a bit hard. "Mm?" you hum in question, pulling a copy of the initial case file toward you.
"You looked a little wobbly."
"Long night?" Morgan asks.
There's both sympathy and mirth in his voice. If you did have a long night, it wouldn’t be from anything fun. He knows that. Everybody knows that. That's why they're treating you like glass.
"I actually slept really well," you say softly, returning his smile with one that's entirely genuine.
"That's good, considering," he says, bracing his forearm against the conference table.
He's been your number one supporter since you came back. Probably because he feels very guilty about what happened. You'd been paired up at the time.
"Actually, it's common for people who've been abducted to sleep incredibly well for a long period afterward. It's similar to the leisure sickness phenomena- Your body would have been in defence mode, and-"
"Reid," Hotch says firmly, stepping into the room with his usual lowbrow.
"Sorry."
And the spiel begins. JJ lays out the details of the case she's triaged and the team gives their first input. The barest beginnings of a working theory. You try to contribute and find your tongue a leaden weight in your mouth. Ever since you got back, you've been useless.
You can't do your job, but thank god you can sleep at night, right?
You miss the start of his sentence, your focus latching onto Hotch's conclusive, "Wheels up in thirty."
Your team are standing in seconds, trained in the art of quick departures. You used to be good at this part. You're a good agent, even when you're a mediocre profiler.
"L/N?"
You blink. "Mm?" you hum, meeting your unit chief's concerned look with a perfected blasé.
You've come to a stand in front of the table, and everyone else has left. It's you and Hotch alone.
"If you're not ready to go back into the field, that's okay."
If you were Reid, or Prentiss, or especially Morgan, you'd get defensive here, and you would lie well, but you’re a bad liar and Hotch is a great detector for them, so you tell the truth.
"I'm not sure that I'm ready, but I'd like to go. I won't be a burden. I can work effectively."
"I know you won't be a burden."
You tilt your head to one side and feel your hair shift over your thick sweater. You haven't felt like showing much skin, lately. Everybody has noticed, because they notice everything, and nobody has made you feel bad about it. In fact, your fellow agents have made numerous comments about the chilly weather. It's July.
Hotch's eyes fall to your long sleeves for a split-second.
"Do you think he's alive?" you ask.
"Sorry?"
You nod your head toward the board, where the portrait of your kidnapping victim hangs in full colour. "Do you think he's alive?"
"Unless there's evidence that would suggest otherwise, we shouldn't assume. You know that."
"I know that that's the answer you're used to giving."
His voice goes too soft, like he's talking to somebody in grief. "I think he is."
You honestly can't stand it when he talks to you like this. You tilt your head a little further and see him the way he'd been that morning, his tenderness, his fear. He'd opened the door and suddenly you'd known you were safe.
He hasn't looked at you right since he found you.
"I have all my best clothes in my go-bag," you offer.
"Well, go get it. This might be a long one."
—
The jet is a really nice jet.
It's hard not to feel impressed by it. It's a vehicle that can take you from one crime scene to another, and it's a necessary expense, but it feels lavish. The clean smells, the comfort, the kitchenette. It has a full-sized toilet.
"Missed this?" Morgan asks knowingly.
You wheedle your way into one of the four seats surrounding the main table and smile when he drops down next to you. "Missed using you as my personal pillow, maybe," you tease.
"Table hogs," Prentiss complains, sitting on the armrest of the couch in defeat.
You laugh under your breath. Morgan pulls out his laptop and turns the screen so everyone can see Garcia, and as soon as the jet's taken off the second round of speculation begins.
You regret sitting where you had quickly. You can feel Hotch's analysing gaze where he sits opposite. He doesn't believe you're ready to come back.
You lick your lips.
"Why would she cut him open just to kill him straight afterward?" JJ asks. "I mean, if she didn't assault him?"
"It's unlikely that she's a sadist," Reid infers.
"Disembowelment is a pretty painful, horrific way to die. Maybe she realised that and killed him," Morgan suggests.
"Remorse?" you murmur. "Could mean she's… younger. And revenge killers don't always see it through."
"Why take another one if you can't commit to the first?" Prentiss asks.
"Maybe that's why she took him. She wants time to work herself up," you mutter.
You hide your hands under the table. It's hard to ignore the similarities with the current case and the one you're investigating. The unsub who'd taken you had been narcissistic and self-righteous, punishing the BAU for stopping her second murder — you'd predicted her next victim and moved him before she could take him.
So her victimology had changed, and she'd stolen you.
She couldn't commit to her first session of torture: hesitant cuts, loose ligatures. By your turn she'd improved, but her tentative resolve had remained and she'd run after three days. It's the worst thing she could've done, buying herself less than a week on the run and leaving you with no outside communication.
You'd almost died of dehydration.
"She's choosing from a specific group," Reid says. He holds up a photograph of the first victim. He'd been murdered in his bedroom, and the walls are plastered in playboy. Kill all men has been written across his forehead in red lipstick. "Our abductee, he was wearing a t-shirt featuring popular bikini model Miss Olympia. In a state of undress."
“Is that specific?” Prentiss asks wryly.
"She's angry," you say.
Hotch leans forward and clicks Garcia's call button. "Garcia?"
"Sir."
"Are there any prolific feminist groups in the area? Radicals?"
They fall into conversation, a pulling and pushing of information. Something about online forums, flame wars, political arguments.
It's not the strongest theory in the world but they can make it work. You should be making it work with them.
The flight is an early morning longhaul to Idaho and you work the case the entire time you're in the air. There's an abundance of coffee that you reject because you're worried it'll rehash your on-again off-again migraine, and while your teammates are offering theories, intertwining details with bright eyes and bushy tails, you struggle to keep up.
There's a lull before landing where everybody parts ways. JJ moves to sit with Prentiss where they talk in hushed but conspicuous giggles. You hear the words Will and dishes and back rub and decide to stop listening for your own sake.
Morgan laughs, having heard what you just heard and liking it a far deal more, and stands. "Coffee?" he asks as you yawn.
You shake your head sluggishly. "Be quick, we'll be landing soon."
"I know, sweetheart, I heard the same announcement as you." He takes your empty water glass with a supportive squint. "Let me get you another."
"Thanks."
You'd regretted your seat as soon as you'd taken it, the feeling of being boxed in having grown and grown over the course of the journey, and Morgan’s brief departure gives you some much needed space.
You squeeze your hands together until your knuckles ache.
"L/N?"
Hotch is looking at you. You know exactly what he sees. Someone who isn't ready to be back in the field. Someone who isn't being effective, as you'd promised.
"You okay?"
"Just warm,” you lie, pushing your hair away from your neck.
You're a bad liar. He gets up to turn on the air conditioning anyway.
You slouch down in your chair and pretend to nap for the rest of the flight.
—
Crime scenes where people died smell bad. It's a fact. They smell like pee, the sharp stick of ammonia, and the metallic aftertaste of blood. You're trying hard not to fall into your own memories of the two.
You need to move past what happened. The only way you're gonna be able to do that is to re-desensitise yourself, and that includes volunteering for the nasty stuff when Hotch tries to relegate you to questioning witnesses.
"I'm not good at interviews," you'd said plainly.
And he'd taken it for what it was and let you do what you usually do: you look for clues. If anybody could hear you think that you'd be ridiculed, but they can't. You enjoy yourself.
Let's Scooby Doo this bitch.
"Careful," Hotch says, holding a hand near your hip. You'd almost stepped into the largest puddle of blood still wet in the very middle.
Right. He'd let you take the gross job but now you're being babysat.
What did she do in this room? Why did she kill him here but abduct the second man?
"If it weren't for the photos, I'd never link this victimology," you confess.
The photos. The unsub had sent pictures of her abductee with Kill all men written across his forehead. In lipstick.
What changed the MO? Why kill the first at home and steal the second?
The political theory feels more plausible.
"I think you would've." Hotch casts his gaze over the desk. "This is a messy one. Opportunistic but personal. Our unsub, she…" His voice turns to a mutter, as it tends to do when he hits a roadblock. "She wants attention, because the first murder didn't do what she'd hoped."
"What is she hoping for?"
He picks up a piece of coloured paper and holds it up to his chest so you can see it. It's a flyer for speed dating at a Café Martini, every Friday at 6PM.
"Where was Paul last seen?" you ask.
"Good question."
He takes his phone from his pocket to call Garcia.
You listen to their conversation for a while, his serious questions and her flirtatious answers.
You look back to the floor and push the white toe of your tennis shoe into the rug until the rubber's red with blood. It's not good practice. You're now a walking biohazard. Why is the blood still wet? It should've sunk into the carpeting hours ago. How much did he bleed?
When you'd been abducted your unsub hadn't been keen on torture. She'd made small, quick cuts over your upper arms, more to punish you than because she truly enjoyed it, and she'd hit something important by accident.
The blood had pooled in the crook of your elbow. It had stayed wet for a long time. You remember trying to clean yourself up with your t-shirt, too drugged up to move right, and eventually the drugs had worn off and it had really, really hurt.
This boy had been cut from hip to hip.
"Maybe you should go sit in the car," Hotch says.
"Why?"
"I've been talking to you."
"I've been listening."
"Don't lie." Hotch takes a step forward, black shoe close to your white. "Look at me."
You look up, eyebrows raised as you try to blink yourself awake. His eye contact is something you've always struggled to hold, knowing he's learning a lot more from your expression than you are from his. You press the backs of your hands to your cheeks and find them hot with embarrassment.
"I'm really sorry," you apologise, eyes aching. Not burning, just aching. Like a bruise.
Hotch nods, expression impassive. "It's okay. Go sit in the car."
He outranks you as an SSA, he's your boss for every intent and purpose. He's your friend, sometimes, and you've yet to see him make a bad call. You listen and go back out and down to the car. You've already broken your promise not to be a burden.
Best to play along and play well. You don't want a desk job. You don't want to lose the team.
In the car, things feel better. It smells like new and you take some time to breathe it in with slow, deep breaths. The pine tree air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror is still soft and wet to touch. You rub it between two fingers, pensive, until Hotch appears from the house. He looks severe and solemn as usual when he opens the car door and climbs inside.
"Tell me if you can't do this," he says. He never beats around the bush. You wish that he would.
"I don't know."
"I need a yes or no."
You're screaming at yourself to say yes. Hotch stalls with his hand poised at the ignition, waiting for your answer before he turns the key. If you say no, I can't do this, he'll take you back to the room. You know he won't hold it against you because he'd tried to persuade you to take more time off, as much as you needed.
Being alone reminds you too much of your abduction. You hate how you can't stop thinking about it. At work, at home. What if this is it? This is the only thing you're going to think of for the rest of your life.
Unless you can get some new memories.
"I can do this."
"I know that. Do you know that?" he asks firmly.
You lean your head back against the headrest and turn your face to look at him fully. You hadn't been expecting any praise, any softness. You're fucking up on a time-sensitive case — he should be reprimanding you. He should send you packing to Virginia.
"I'm sorry," you say softly.
"For what?" he asks. His eyebrows pinch up at the starts, his lips curve into a frown.
It's startling to see so much emotion on his face on the job; Aaron Hotchner has a switch. He comes to work and he turns off everything that doesn't help the case. Only on rare occasions do you get to see him as a friend — his laughter over group dinner dates, his gentle smiles when he'd kept you company in the hospital.
"For being- For being disorganised," you explain choppily. It is not the right word.
He turns the key and reverses out of the parking space before speaking. "You are an asset to this team. If you can't be an asset right now, that's fine. If you need to go home-"
"I don't need to go home."
He doesn't seem offended at being interrupted. "Your wellbeing is more important than your effectiveness as a profiler. But you can't get in the way."
"I won't."
"I know you won't. Just…" He pulls his phone out of his pocket, dials a number. He's not looking at you when he finishes, "Calm down. Stay present. We need you with us."
You turn your face to the window so he can't see your smile. He hasn't been this nice to you since your birthday.
—
The thirty six hour mark comes to pass quickly and you find yourselves no closer to a positive ID on the unsub or their location. Any leads you follow dry up, witnesses won't cooperate, nobody has slept properly (besides yourself), and the boy's parents are hysterical. Hysterical and an irritant.
You can hear them arguing with Hotch and the police chief in the other room.
"You look amazing," JJ says tiredly. You can't tell if her annoyance is genuine or not.
"Did you sleep?" you ask.
JJ looks amazing herself despite what she might say, all perfect skin and lovely blonde hair like a moving sheet of silver-gold. You revere her pretty thin sweater with poorly hidden envy as she yawns and stretches against her straight-backed chair.
"I slept. Bed was about as comfy as this chair," she says ruefully.
"Ninety percent of all abduction victims are killed within the first thirty-six hours," Hotch says as he enters the room, in what Morgan would call his drill sergeant's drawl. "Every hour past that point, the percentage increases."
Everybody in the room knows that statistic. His passive aggressive reminder serves to electrify a dozing Reid and a slumped Prentiss, both of which sit up in their chairs and pretend to be busier than they are as he makes his way into the room.
"Actually," Reid whispers to you, voice rough with fatigue, "the math isn't that simple."
"Do you want to explain it to me?" you whisper back.
You can't admit to really truly listening to Reid's explanation. You want him to feel heard even when you don't have the capacity for it, so you nod and hum as he explains, heads bent together as the rest of the team trade new theories. He talks surprisingly quickly for all his fatigue, and before you've realised it he's talking about something new.
"Reid," you intrerupt gently, "can I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead."
You look up. Everyone seems too busy to be listening to you. You take what semblance of privacy you can and push your chair an inch closer.
"Do you think I've been an efficient agent these last two days?"
He juts his head forward. "You've been distracted. Tired, unfocused. But your insight on the unsub's age and what you said about her propensity for regret are both incomparable parts of the profile."
"Not necessarily." He smiles at you, a mirthful quirk. "Psychologically, the effect that working a case so close to your own trauma," — you bite your tongue in surprise — "would render the average person prone with memory. It also gives you a thought pattern that not everybody else would have."
"You have it."
"Let's focus on the behaviour pattern," Hotch says.
You'd agreed to run point today. Or rather, Hotch had said, "L/N, you'll run point," and you hadn't argued. After all, yesterday had been telling on how much you can handle. Crime scenes are a no go.
Not that there's any crime scene left to analyse. Your team have spent hours and hours trying to draw blood from stone. The case hadn't felt so impossible on the jet, and now…
"I'm benched," you murmur.
"You're not benched," Morgan says, which is irksome because you'd been talking to Reid. "If you were benched you'd be back in Virginia typing up my paperwork."
"She doesn't care about the crime scene, she doesn't care about the crime itself. There's nothing in it for her besides making a statement. So why take a hostage with no ransom, no instruction? Why tell us you have a hostage and cut communication?"
You rub your eyes at Reid's questions and find you have no theories to offer. You have nothing.
"Work the problem," you mumble to yourself. "Work the problem. Where would she go?"
She cut that boy from hip to hip. She killed him quickly after rather than leave him in pain, but she disembowelled him for the statement it would make. For the… mess?
You feel off-kilter enough to stand. You weave through people and hesitate in front of Hotch where he's reading over the timeline, waiting for his face to turn before you talk.
"Hotch," you say tentatively, "what if she's like… an arsonist? Disemboweling is messy. The blood was still wet when we got here two days later, and it ruined the floor."
He thinks for a second. "Her escalation from a private mess to a public one would make sense."
"We thought the pathway from murder to taking a hostage was a step backwards, but what if it's not about the murder at all, it's about the blood?"
"It's common for arsonists to suffer paternal violence," Reid chimes in. "Could explain the unsub targeting men with outward misogynistic attitudes."
You turn to find the whole team looking at you, a familiar drive on each of their faces.
They rebuild the profile. Reid fiddles with what you've said, they specify, they redirect.
Your moment of clarity dissolves quickly but you try to help as they move on to possible locations. If the unsub wants to make a scene, light a metaphorical fire, there are plenty of places she can do it this weekend.
Surprise surprise, Garcia confirms a 'men's rights' rally happening in around two hours, and suddenly everybody's in motion. Hotch lists instructions and the team disperses. You've done it all a hundred times before, Hotch quadruple that, Rossi octuple.
"L/N," Hotch says.
You lift your face to his.
He's really quite close.
"Do you want to stay here?"
You take note of his wording. Do you want to stay here?
His phone is already in his hand. You don't wanna waste anymore of his time. You're pretty useless during movements anyways.
"Is that okay?" you ask.
He doesn't say yes or no, his head doesn't give the slightest nod or shake. His eyebrows remain in their usual pushed down position. "Expand the profile. Make sure we haven't missed anything." In case the unsub isn't where you think.
And then he leaves.
You take your seat at a now hastily vacated table and spend an hour on the laptop with Garcia. She's mostly at the beck and call of the rest of the team, but it's nice to listen to her clicking away.
She hangs up when the team are about to storm the rally venue and things get difficult.
You'd passed all your psych evaluations to return. You can be an effective agent. You can work.
You know all of this.
It won't stick.
You don't have a clue how long you spend staring at the table when your phone starts to ring. "Morgan?" you ask, pressing the screen to your cheek.
"Hey, sweetheart, we got her. And Paul, safe and sound. You ready to go home?"
"Uh," you say, trying to understand what he's said. "I'm not sure." Your migraine is coming back.
When a person gets dehydrated your head starts to pound. It's like a heartbeat, a pulsing ache at the base of your skull and your temples.
You know that it's all in your head, but ever since you got back you've been victim to what feels like a hundred headaches.
Your head hurts, and you look at the floor and suddenly the floor isn't the dull blue carpeting of the police station, but the plywood of your unsub's warehouse.
"Are you there?"
"Morgan, I don't feel well," you say. Your mouth is full of cotton.
"What?"
You cast your gaze around the room.
You leave your phone on the table, unsure if you've hung up, and make your way out of the conference room they've delegated to the BAU. You're in two minds. You know where you are, and who you are, but you feel like you're back there. The walls look like the police station walls but the floor looks like the base plywood of the warehouse.
I'm just thirsty, you think. When you'd been kidnapped you'd become dehydrated somewhere between the fourth and fifth day, and that had come with some minor auditory and visual hallucinations. Dark spots in your peripherals shaped mildly like people, murmurings that could've been the cicadas. Right now, there's a low pitched ringing in your ears. I'm dehydrated. I'm fine. I need a drink, and I'll be okay.
You don't have the facilities to smile at the people you pass, easing your way through officers and into an empty break room. There's nobody here.
You round the table in the middle of the room and move to the cabinets and the sink basin. You take a mug into shaking hands and turn the faucet on.
The water is frigid and soon your fingers are like ice. You part them in the stream, watching the water worm down your palms and wet the cuffs of your sleeves.
"Agent L/N, is everything okay?"
You turn with a smile, ready to assuage any fears, but it's her.
It's obviously not her. It's not her, but she looks like her. Same face, same hair. You turn back to sink and fill your mug.
"Agent L/N?"
"Please," you say quietly.
"Agent L/N?"
"Detective, would you excuse us?"
His voice. Your shoulders relax just enough to ease the ache in your neck. You hear the woman depart, but you're disorientated enough to ask, "Is she still here?"
"She's not here."
“She looked-“ like her. You press your wet hands to the bottom of the sink. It's silver and covered in scratches, a thousand scratches that glow white with the fluorescents. "I don't think I should be here," you mumble.
"I think you're overwhelmed."
"I am." You cringe at the numbness spreading up your arms. "I don't know how to make it go away."
Hotch isn't just your boss. He's a father. He was a husband. He knows how to comfort somebody and he's proven that to you already, but you're still surprised when he pulls your hands out of the sink. He holds both in one palm while he turns off the faucet, and then he tears off a wad of paper towels and starts to dry your fingers.
"You're not in any danger here," he says, turning your hands palm up. "There are a wall of people out there who would stand in front of you. Nothing is going to happen to you."
Despite his careful reassurances you're curling in on yourself, trying to hide. You don't want to be here. You're not sure where you want to be. You have the self-awareness to know you're being awful, that this is embarrassing, and you've put Hotch in a position he likely doesn't want to be in, too.
You blink at his chest. "Where's your suit jacket?" you ask. Your voice sounds far away in one ear and too loud in the other.
"I left it in the car," he says lightly. "We just got back from the rally. You were waiting for us here."
"I didn't go."
"No. You haven't been at your best."
"I'm trying."
"I know," he says softly, thumbs rubbing over your warming fingers. "I know you are. You're doing really well. Why don't we sit down?"
You let him lead you backward into a hard-backed chair. He doesn't sit with you, but he doesn't let go of your hands. They're limp in his and smaller, colder.
You think he might be the only thing keeping you here.
"I've never been that scared before. I've had a… gun to my head and… it wasn't even her-" You choke on it. "Her. She hurt me and it wasn't even the worst part."
He frowns down at you. "What was the worst part?"
You let your fingers unfurl across his open palm. He pulls your hands to his chest, sandwiches them between his own hands and his crisp white shirt. His tie feels silky soft.
"I didn't want to be alone. I," — you close your eyes and press your chin to your chest, hiding, always hiding — "knew I wasn't going to last long by myself. I could see that bottle of water on the table and I couldn't reach it and I just kept waiting for somebody to open the door and pass it to me, and I was so scared that nobody was ever going to do that.
"I close my eyes and- and I see it. I see the wood flooring, and I see the table. I can't remember anything that she said to me anymore, but I remember thinking you weren't ever coming to get me."
You can see the way the light from a crack in the corrugated roof had lit the water bottle up like a lamp. You barely have to think about it and the image of it is there. Your mouth had ached.
You can see him if you try a little harder. The door flying open. Hotch in his vest with his hair falling onto his forehead, a gun in one hand and a flashlight held high in the other. His broad, quick sweep, and then the way he'd leapt for you. His voice, shouting, screaming instructions. You can feel his hand behind your head, his fingers pushed roughly into your hair.
"You're okay," he'd said.
You trust him with your life. You've never had cause to doubt him. But you hadn't believed him then, and you're not sure you do now.
His expression changes slowly. He moves both of your hands into one of his own and squeezes them reassuringly as he cups your cheek. It's a quick touch, a half-second of contact.
"You made a mistake, in that case," he says, hand moving from your cheek to the hill of your shoulder.
You tamp down a wince. "Yeah." He's being generous. You'd made hundreds of mistakes. Every opportunity to save yourself wasted.
"Your mistake," he says, holding your eye, his voice gritty with severity, "was thinking I wouldn't find you.”
He turns to a blur the longer you stare at him, panicked tears welling up with nowhere to go. You tip your head forward so he can't see them, and he steps closer in turn, ushering your face into his abdomen.
His hand falls to your trembling back.
"That was your only error. You did everything else right."
Your tears come thick and fast. Hotch doesn't baulk.
—
You agree to take some more time off.
Realistically, you can't be an effective agent or a reliable member of the team whilst smothered in memories as you are. You don't take it personally when Hotch insists, as he takes great care to explain to you what's happening.
This isn't a punishment. You need more time.
You're a safety risk. Not that your consultation isn't valuable, it is, you're still a good profiler — an amazing profiler, if your team are to be believed — but you're in the aftershocks of a traumatic event.
A wound can't heal if it's being picked at.
"He said that?" you ask quietly, bed sheets upto your chin.
Hotch's voice rings scratchy with tiredness down the line, "He said you can have all of the blue ones."
"He's generous. He gets that from his dad."
"He's much kinder than I am." You hear a small voice on the other end, and then a muffled, "Yeah, g-man, I'll tell her. I'll tell her right now. Okay. Y/N?"
"Yeah, still here."
"Jack says," he recounts, parent tone in play that tells you his son is nearby, "that you can have all the blue and all of the green band-aids, if you need them."
You stare up at the white plaster ceiling of your apartment, a tiny smile playing on your lips.
"Tell him I said thank you. I'm sure they'll make me all better in no time."
He tells Jack what you've said. You hear his lovely voice saying something too quiet. "What was that?" Hotch asks him.
"I said," Jack says, voice close to the receiver, "she just needs a kiss because they always make me feel better."
"I've been getting lots of kisses!" you promise him, turning to look at your nightstand.
Propped up proudly is a picture of you and your team in that restaurant in Las Vegas, where Reid hadn't been able to use his chopsticks, and where Hotch had laughed so loudly you'd felt your heart skip twice. It's surrounded by a sea of 'Get Well Soon' cards, and backdropped by a small bouquet of sweetpeas.
Tell me when they wilt, Reid had said. And I'll get you another bunch. It's been proven that flowers have a long term positive effect on moods. People who received flowers regularly reported less agitation, less depression, and an overall sense of satisfaction.
Beside the sweetpeas, in pride of place, is a handmade card from none other than Jack himself, though the message inside was penned by an older hand.
"I'm well looked after," you say, smiling softly.
"You're well loved," Hotch adds.
That, too.
༺༻
again, im not that used to writing hotch so despite my character study he may feel a little ooc that's my bad, hard to show him pining bc he's such a professional at work. thanks so much for reading!! if you enjoyed, please consider reblogging i promise it means so much to me ♡
i feel like everyone on their long hair journey once had long hair, cut it off, and wants it back again. (i’m everyone) but has anyone ever actually finished this journey? shit is never ending 😢it’ll never grow back to og length
high school teacher: alright class settle down, it is time for chemistry!
the students moan
random student #1: please mr roberts can we just use this period to do homework
mr roberts: no, chemistry is important, you see-
mr roberts starts choking
random student #2: oh my god! someone get him some water!
mr roberts stops choking
mr roberts: sorry about that folks, moving on-
mr roberts falls to the ground, unconscious
***
house and wilson are walking together
house: wilson, my guy, you are wearing a nice tie. you must be cheating on your wife
wilson: you’re just trying to find a way to compliment my tie without seeming nice. so, thank you. anyway, i have this case. high school chemistry teacher keeps randomly choking on nothing.
house: so? he has anderson’s choking disease
wilson: no, it doesn’t only occur when he’s sleeping. not anderson’s.
there is a brief moment of homoerotically staring and grinning at each other
house: ok, i’ll take it.
he grabs the file
***
house: ok people, new case. man can’t stop choking!
cameron: hmmm… can’t be andersons…
foreman: could it be cancer in his throat?
house: that only shows up for a minute or two every few days?
chase: longmedicalnameadocis!
house: good thinking, test for that, in the mean time start him on fancydrugname.
***
in the clinic
house sighs, pops a few vicodin, and enters a clinic room
clinic patient: my knees hurt.
house takes a good hard look at the patient. he’s ancient. every inch of him is wrinkled. his head has only a few surviving white hairs. next to him is who house assumes is his daughter.
house (sarcastically): hhhmmm… now this is a hard one.
daughter: please take him seriously! just a week ago it seemed like he was way younger! he had barely any wrinkles, he was running 4 miles a day- he was healthy and fit! something’s up!
the patient coughs and begins to struggle to breathe. he takes out an inhaler.
daughter: a week ago he didn’t need an inhaler. now he’s using it multiple times a day!
house (not sarcastically this time): interesting… i want to run a few tests.
***
in the office
foreman: fancydrugname made him worse.
house: chase you idiot you were way wrong.
chase: 😣😣🥺🥺
house writes the new symptoms on the board
foreman: i think it’s neurological.
house: okay, what neurological disorder could cause this?
foreman thinks in contemplation
cameron: insertanotherlongmedicalnamehere?
chase: there’s no treatment for that.
house: wrong. we can do surgery
foreman: surgery?
house: take out part of his brain
***
cuddy’s office
cuddy (angry): NO! you cannot cut into this man’s brain with no proof! it’s a rare condition, most people with it die and this treatment has never been used for the condition before!
house: i have proof.
cuddy: oh really?
house: yes. i think it will work and i’m always right.
cuddy shakes her head
cuddy: no.
***
in the clinic, same patient as before
daughter: please tell me you know what’s wrong with him.
the patient has a bag of almonds in his hand. he is shoveling handfuls of them into his mouth
house: jeez, that’s a lot of almonds- **epiphany moment**
house: i have to go!!
daughter: what? what about my dad!!!
house (from out the clinic room): get him to stop eating all those damn almonds!!
***
mr roberts’ room
house: have you been exposed to large amounts of almonds recently?
mr roberts: yes, my son just started working at an almond factory.
house: aha! my proof!
house leaves, leaving mr roberts confused and in distress
***
mr roberts gets the surgery and is cured
once again, wilson and house are walking together. wilson is eating almonds
I wrote myself this prompt list for hurt/comfort fic, since I had a desire to do prompt fic even though I don’t generally open my askbox to fic prompts (I worry too much about being given a prompt for something I absolutely, categorically do not want to write, and saying that I reserve the right to refuse prompts feels like it defeats the purpose of soliciting prompts in the first place). I do plan to do all of these prompts eventually, though it will likely take several years. I just wanted to make a fic series for myself that I could go to when I need to feel warm and fuzzy inside. If any of you want to use this prompt list, feel free; I wouldn’t publish it if I was averse to the idea of others using it.
1. Fainting
2. Insomnia
3. Nightmares
4. Failure
5. Food poisoning
6. Burns (sunburns or otherwise)
7. Crying
8. Magical curses
9. Broken arm/leg/wrist/ankle
10. Stitches
11. Bruises
12. Black eye
13. Broken ribs
14. Fever
15. Broken glass
16. Hiding an injury
17. Bad trip
18. Amnesia
19. Migraines
20. Loneliness
21. Poison/Venom
22. Hurts to breathe
23. House burns down
24. Near-drowning
25. Hypothermia
26. Electrocution
27. Kidnapping
28. Heartburn
29. Warm blankets
30. Whooping cough
31. Soft bed
32. Scars
33. Panic attacks
34. Altitude sickness
35. Bed rest
36. Infected wound
37. Working into exhaustion
38. Trembling
39. Social anxiety
40. Aftercare
41. Transformations
42. Too cold
43. Presumed dead
44. Hot drink
45. Holding hands
46. Tattoos
47. Chronic pain
48. Stranger in a strange land
49. Betrayal
50. Intense cold
51. Intense heat
52. Self-sacrifice
53. Death of a child
54. Death of a parent
55. Death of a sibling
56. Castaways
57. Ghosts
58. Gifts
59. Trapped in a labyrinth
60. Amatonormativity
61. Language barriers
62. Touch-starved
63. Touch-averse
64. Starved for affection
65. Isolation
66. Saying goodbye
67. Dysphoria
68. Sensory overload
69. Shyness
70. Identity crisis
71. Existential crisis
72. Impostor syndrome
73. Culture shock
74. Comfort food
75. Bad day at work
76. Bad day at school
77. Exile
78. Pet injury/death
79. Arguments
80. Starting over
81. Redemption
82. Atonement
83. End of a relationship
84. End of an era
85. Music
86. Perfume
87. Gardening
88. Seasonal affective disorder
89. Hearing voices
90. Quarantine
91. Letter-writing
92. Prayer
93. Menstrual cramps
94. Sympathy for an enemy
95. Stabbing
96. Losing an eye
97. Broken wing
98. Assassination attempt
99. Sleeping on the couch
100. Acupuncture
101. Massages
102. Aromatherapy
103. A merry, crackling fire
104. Cuddling
105. Claustrophobia
106. Reconciliation
107. Rituals
108. Intrusive thoughts
109. Phone calls
110. Tenderness
got the dr martens jadon boot piercing and they only had a size smaller than i usually wear. i try it on and it actually fits perfect since docs run big i guess. then i get home and im like oh shit. i think they’re too small. then i lace them up differently and they fit. AND THEYRE GETTING DISCONTINUED. all i have to say is:
