"There's so much love and tenderness and also so much violence and resentment and toxicity and difficulty, that it could culminate in a kiss that was at once intimate and romantic and lustful and the death blow." (x)
Can you please do one where Hotch and Reader are in a fight and it gets heated and he maybe raises his hand just because he’s shouting and she flinches?
He would be prepared to FIGHT whoever made his honey feel that way 🗣️🗣️
💘
for you my sweetheart. fem, 1k
cw implied past domestic violence
“It was right,” you're saying, on the defensive, your voice molten, “it was the thing to do!”
“It wasn't.” Hotch closes the door. “It wasn't the right thing to do, it wasn't even close.”
You realise, under everything, that he's right, but you couldn't help yourself, you had to try and save the day, had to swerve the SUV. Plus, he's done it himself, and you both know that. “If Monikie got out of that exit we never would've seen her again.”
“There were roadblocks on the I–46, and I don't think I have to tell you that you could've gotten a lot of people seriously hurt–”
“You've done worse,” you deny.
His expression, broadly furious, narrows into something sharper, “And that is my decision to make, but you report to me.”
“You can't seriously want to act like a boss now,” you say.
The room isn't overly large, and so you stand close to one another with no need for shouting, but your voices begin to overlap. Hotch is so angry. It isn't like him to yell at you, his voice strained.
“You can't truly think that the decision you made today was the right one. You need to calm down, and you need to listen to me when I tell you that this was the wrong move. We'll talk about it more tomorrow.”
“You're shrugging me off?” You could laugh. “You can't be serious. Every member of this team has done the same, or worse–”
“But they're not you!” His voice peeks, his hand jolting out in front of his chest, flat-palmed in incredulity.
You're really quite close to each other.
It's not his fault.
You step back, desperate to be away from the movement, the hand, because it doesn't register as his hand, only there's a chair behind you and a table behind that and you bump into the plastic with a creak and screech. You're righting yourself as quickly as you're tripping but Hotch is already moving away. Three steps that feel like a gorge.
Your heartbeat soars.
“Are you okay?” he asks quietly.
“Of course.” You breathe out funny. It's not his fault, but there's something wired in your brain now, and it knows that the first strike isn't the last. Your hand shakes as you brush at an inch under your eyes.
“I'm not mad,” he says.
“You sounded pretty mad."
“I've changed my mind.” He gives you a long hard look, and then he moves to the office door to open it before returning to his initial position. He's given you an exit route. “I'm not going to hurt you,” he says.
You put your hands on your hips and bend at the waist, breathing out hard. “Fuck, I know that."
“You thought I might.”
“So profile me,” you say, panicking still, face hot and itchy all over. “Tell me why.”
“Someone's hit you before. Enough to anticipate the second blow.”
“But you knew that already, didn't you?”
Your ears get cloudy like there's water in them and you can't stand the feeling of Hotch's gaze on the back of your head. You force yourself into a standing position and try to ignore what happened.
“You're unfairly angry with me,” you say.
Hotch just shakes his head at you.
“It's… It's not a big deal,” you say, quieter. He already knew because of course he did, every member of the team gets checked. You have records, and he's in a position of power unlike most, he could've read them like the morning paper.
“Why would you say that?”
“I can still do my job.”
“I wasn't going to suggest you couldn't.”
Then why… why is he looking at you like that? You're humiliated enough, and his gaze is so… so soft. So sorry. Tears gather warm behind your eyes and your chest aches like you've been holding your breath. You frown, eyebrows lifting at the starts, not knowing if you should beg him to forget the whole thing or finally give in.
“Come here,” he says gently. Completely optional, his fingertips twitching but stationery at his side.
You stare resolutely at your shoes.
“I'm sorry I scared you, it wasn't my intention. I can imagine how it feels. I'm not mad, honey,” he says. His voice drops to a murmur, “Come here,” he pleads.
You take a clumsy handful of steps and he meets you in the middle, arms going carefully over your head. You'd feel condescended by it if it weren't shockingly nice to be considered in such a way, or if the solid mass of his arms around you didn't soothe. You feel protected rather than boxed in, held, and not restrained.
His hand slides open down the length of your back.
“I'm sorry I scared you,” he repeats, for your ears alone.
“It's not like it was really you that scared me.”
The memory scared you. The flinch was instinctive, less to do with Hotch and more to do with the connection between a moving hand and stinging pain.
He hangs his head by your ear until his nose touches your shoulder, and for a few seconds, it's just you and him together, no fighting, and no fast-approaching hands.
“You didn't scare me,” you mumble, hiding your face in his shoulder instead, forcing him to stand tall.
Incoming footsteps cut your embrace short, but he doesn't pull away too swiftly. His hands grave the lengths of your arms, and he gives you a long, loaded look. Before you can calibrate the action to the man, he's chucking you under the chin, a stroke of his index knuckle, a promise of more to say.
He catches Morgan before he can enter the room and directs him back out. “Take a minute,” he advises you.
You sit in a chair and do as he's offered. Memory is a tricky thing.
MY FAVORITE TWILIGHT SAGA SCENES
III. chief's daughter (or better yet: the reason I am here today, in 2023, making twilight gifs on my silly little twilight sideblog)
titsay
vaporwave
romaincrisis
izzy806
