Summary: After a long, hard day, Penelope invites Hotch to stay for veggie omelets and surprises him with tequila (and maybe a hangover the following morning). Keeping secrets is a lot harder when tequila is involved. (Coda to 11x09 - Internal Affairs)
Warnings: alcohol (lots of it) & food, mention of blood/death (canon - based on episode) and Mayhem explosion/PTSD
Pairings: Hotch/Morgan
Words: 3.5k
Read On AO3: To Hell With the Salt
Notes: This is for Hotch Appreciation Week Day 1 - Alternate Scene or Episode Ending, also coinciding with Comfortember Day 1 - Discovery. Inspired by an idea loaned to me by @kirstenseas AGES ago and I've finally managed to produce something viable with it.
Find the rest here: Hotch Appreciation Week, Comfortember 2021
Tag List: @84hotpockets, @crimefiqhters, @bau-gremlin, @genevievedarcygranger, @mayasreadingnook, @arsonhotchner, @scuttling, @hotchappreciationweek
**
Jalapeños.
Nothing wild, nothing out there. Just a simple offer of omelets with jalapeño in the middle of the night. She looked so hopeful, his weary heart couldn't turn her down. The day had been so long and so exhausting, maybe they both needed a win.
Tequila was where it went off the rails.
"Derek has a bottle hidden in his office somewhere..."
"You really shouldn't tell me things like that," he scolded, but it was gentle and laced with a smile, the kind that said he was being serious but he wasn't upset - they really needed to share less with him when it came to breaking rules, and maybe that was his fault, blurring those lines in more ways than most of them knew. Tonight wasn't going to help if tequila was involved. She just nodded her understanding and he still accepted her offer of a night cap. Already one glass of scotch in after his day spent rubbing elbows with people he'd rather not associate with regularly, at least not outside of professional settings, so really why not continue? At least he liked Penelope, it was already a drastic improvement.
Before he could change his mind (and she could see it in his eyes, he was already getting there the more he sobered up from his previous endeavor) Penelope scampered down the hall to Derek's office, hardly having waited for the entire answer to leave his lips. Once he began, once she knew where his answer was going, she was gone.
No time to lose. She kicked off her heels halfway there so she could go faster and in comfort, shuffling barefoot down the hallway like a child. She returned promptly, heels back on, with a full bottle of tequila sloshing around in her arms and a triumphant grin on her face, a welcome sight after the tears that still glistened on her cheeks. He glanced at his watch, eyeing the time and fired off a reluctant text to Jessica - he was going to commit, no backing out now. She was far too gracious, quickly telling him to stay out as late as he wanted and that she wouldn't wait up. She almost seemed eager as she followed it up with something sweet before he could type out a response. You deserve to have fun, Aaron, like she knew he was already second guessing his decision and trying to find an excuse to head home. She wasn't far off.
"The team are on their way," she hummed as she busied herself with the foil on the unopened bottle. "They should be back in a couple of hours." A pang of guilt settled in his belly when he realized what that meant - mountains of paperwork and days of explanations to everyone who had questions, the take down had been messy and Agents were in danger. He would have a lot of talking to do. That was the job, and it was only the start. Worse than any of that, he had to worry over whether Derek was hurt, what he'd seen, what new nightmares might keep them up at night. Endless concerns, and then there would be the questions from Derek about his day, many he wouldn't be able to answer. Arguments and hurt feelings.
Not tonight.
Penelope hummed as she cooked, using the jalapeño he'd chopped with care, sure not to let a single mince go to waste. Spice hung in the air, ravaged his sinuses and he rubbed his tired eyes.
“Here you go, sir,” she said, surprising him as he worried over the conversation he was going to need to have, the ramifications of this day, each time he sorted and filed one piece another took its place. A coffee mug appeared before him, hand outstretched and he accepted it with a soft thanks. “It's not exactly a margarita, but it's all I have. Sprite with a splash of lime juice and tequila...I don't think it'll age well, we should probably drink them fast. Are you okay, sir?” Staring into the mug, he was more than a little uneasy and trying to figure out when he'd last had tequila. There was a brief flash, sand and waves crashing warm against his ankles, a stack of shot glasses and a gallon of Cuervo on a breakfast bar beside lime wedges and hot sauces...a sunburn and Derek. Mexico, that was the last time he'd had tequila. He lifted his mug and nodded, ignoring her question unintentionally and offering her a cheers in its place.
“To friendship,” he whispered, eyes twinkling in the low light, the bright tears catching the lamp's glow. His suit felt a little tight already, too warm, and there was a heavy feeling in his chest. The tears, he could feel the way they burned and he forced himself not to blink, not to let them fall. The chirp of his car lock had shuddered through him in a way it hadn't in years, the memories clear as day while he stood back and considered not getting into the vehicle at all. He could have just walked, called a cab, not touched the handle. Paralyzed by long buried fear. The scotch, begrudgingly accepted more out of a sense of obligation than anything else, had smoothed frayed nerves, helped him forget the sound of the explosion, the lick of the flames but they were there now in the caustic smell of the tequila and the burn of the peppers wafting through the air. He couldn't escape it. At best he hoped to quiet the anxious feeling, stop his fingers worrying against one another. The tequila, he hoped, might make it go dormant again, help him at least forget the way his heart jumped into his throat as flesh touched metal.
“And hope,” he added with a final nod. “We'll get you out of here soon.”
“Hear, hear!” she squeaked through tears, more tears. He hadn't intended to make her cry again, yet there they were holding mugs of effervescent future misery side by side, both brimming with tears. She cried over him calling her a friend, as silly as it was, but him...why was he crying?
"Sir?" She eyed him suspiciously. "You never look particularly cheerful but you look...are you alright?"
He took a gulp and winced at the burn, the way the bubbles burst up into his nose and cleared his throat. "Hard day."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not particularly," he replied softly and she nodded. "Thank you though."
"Of course, Aaron...anytime."
He was drunk fast, too fast, too easy. The world was softer, slower by the time he tried to focus enough to manage the fine motor skills of using a fork, pulling it to his mouth. She was right on his heels. The omelets provided a nice landing place for the tequila they were going through a little too quickly, and as a buffer she pulled out some tortilla chips and salsa. They laughed loud, probably too loud but who was there to complain?
"Wanna play a game?" she asked, watching the way his face seemed to fall after a few moments of silence. She couldn't allow it, and if he couldn't tell her what was wrong, she'd do her best to help him avoid it. He nodded and grinned, sloshing the liquid that was now more tequila than Sprite around in his mug - her pours had gotten considerably heavier as the night wore on. The curse of tequila. She dug an old Scrabble game out of a dusty drawer and by the time the team showed up, the board was a mess. Some real high score words, some terribly close but not quite, some just random letters thrown down because they looked funny side by side. They'd long since given up on playing the game by any real rules, now they were just making them up on a whim. She talked, he listened, they played. During one game, if you could pronounce the sounds of the letters and make the other person laugh hard enough, you could have the points. She was certain she had that one in the bag, but her skills were no match for his.
"Lawyer," he offered with a shrug as he peered at his tiles, tried to clear the double vision and pick some winners. She nodded, as if she followed his winding train of thought. It was a lie, she couldn't figure it out, so she offered an alternative that made sense to her.
"Dad," she said and he nodded, smiling.
"Yes. That, too."
In another version, he'd attempted to convince her of at least three words that Shakespeare had invented that you'd never find in a dictionary, proclaiming uselessly that they had definitions and rattling them off. There was no convincing her to budge on this one, she'd lost too many games to him already...even if he could produce the name of the play, the act and the line from which the word was pulled - she just laughed in his face and pushed the tiles back into his lap.
"I don't care where infamonize is in Love's Labor's Lost, it isn't in my dictionary so it isn't a word. You can't sway me with your pretty monologues, sir."
"Hey! Blondie!"
They both heard the shout from down the hall and froze. He was already curled up on the couch, his tired eyes having finally given up the ghost. The tiles had blurred into one wooden mess before him and there was not a thing he could do to change it - he'd tried, dumping his contacts and pulling out his glasses as a last resort. Not really sleeping, just laying curled up in a blanket with his glasses low on his nose listening to the sounds of David Bowie warbling ohhhh you pretty things...while Penelope told him a story, her words flying far too fast for him to keep up. He flinched at the sound of Derek's bellow, realized he was going to be in deep trouble, but it wasn't enough to make him sit upright or even open his eyes.
Derek would either find him, or leave him be to slowly die of dehydration. There was a bottle of water somewhere in his lap, fallen beneath the blankets but he couldn't muster the energy to search it out. The room spun in circles around him, slow and methodical rocking like he was adrift at sea. It didn't exactly make him dizzy but forced him to slow down, close his eyes, relax into it. Outside he heard the chirp of car locks, one two three and he hugged the pillow tighter to the ache in his chest, wondered how much tequila it would actually take to forget the way he'd felt just a few hours before, the way he hadn't felt in years and now it was fresh, like it never went away. Blood and shattered glass all he could see.
“Next time you're gonna steal my booze,” Derek continued, breezing into the room without stopping to consider what he would be interrupting. His go bag still hung over his shoulder, eyes narrowed to slits in the dark, he didn't see Aaron at first. He'd done a fine job of blending in, curling himself up tight beneath the blankets, Penelope's blankets. "Could you not destroy my office in the process?”
“You're back!” she stumbled out of her chair and flung her arms around his neck, pushing up onto the tips of her toes. She'd given up on the formality of her heels when Aaron slid out of his jacket, it seemed a fair trade. "My love, my light, I'm so glad you're all back safe and sound and OHHHH...you're in trouble you know that? Biiiiiiiig trouble. You and Dr. Lewis didn't take back-up...bad bad..."
"Woah," he said, scrunching up his nose at the smell of the booze on her breath. "Slow your roll. We didn't know that guy was the unsub, you know that, I was talking to you...wait, what's going on here?"
"Well," she started, still hanging around his neck. "Okay. I don't know, really, it's a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit fuzzy. See, it started with omelets. Or, back up...I was hungry, it was late but I didn't get a chance to have dinner and then Hotch came to talk to me and I was, I just...didn't want to be alone, and he had such a hard day here on his own and I thought...maybe he'd want to eat with me? So I asked him to eat with me and he said Jack was already in bed so why not and then I remembered the tequila in your office..." She was rambling, he was trying to keep up but his exhaustion was catching up to him faster than she could talk, a rough combination. "Now we're listening to David Bowie and talking...well I'm talking, he might be sleeping I don't know but did you know he's really really smart? He cheats at Scrabble though, I'm pretty sure..."
“Hotch...” Derek groaned and peeked around the fluff of her hair, shifted her to the side to get a better look at the man half alive on the couch. His lip twitched, a tiny smirk appearing right at the corner, just enough to be noticeable. Awake, but just barely. “You good?”
“Never better,” he lied as the smile spread to his entire face. His eyes remained closed, but he looked to be in very good spirits. “Sprite and tequila...not as bad as you would think...”
“Yeah. Right. Mama,” Derek warned, still holding her shoulders while he glared at her. She swayed like a leaf on a gentle breeze in his grasp, not enough to worry him but he struggled to keep her focus. He couldn't take another long story. Every few moments she opened her mouth like she wanted to say something and he furrowed his brow, quieting her instantly. “Here's what's happening. I'm gonna drive this man home and then I'm coming back...we need to have a talk.” Without giving her the chance for rebuttal, he helped the nearly sleeping man to his feet, steadied him there for a moment while Aaron forced his eyes open and tried to get his bearings. The floor rolled beneath him, he felt it up into his knees and he leaned hard against Derek, throwing one arm around his waist like it belonged there, quickly followed by the other. He held on like a baby koala, pressed his cheek against Derek's shoulder and finally he realized that this was how he forgot that awful feeling, the fear. This was his answer. Not scotch or tequila, he knew better, those only made things worse in the end. It had been Derek there before, with him in the street and at the hospital and driving him home, and it was Derek there now. It didn't fix the problem, but it did remind him that he was okay.
She had questions. Derek shushed her each time she opened her mouth to ask.
“My stomach is upset...” Aaron whispered, lost in his drunk fog that tasted an awful lot like regret but hoping Penelope wouldn't hear and feel guilty. Derek just nodded, he knew, and kissed him on the temple, walked him out the door without another word. He didn't fuss or argue, was pliant in Derek's arms.
Home was simple, Aaron slept the entire way, not a word shared between them. A pitcher of water and a glass, a bottle of ibuprofen, a handful of extra strength Tums and a trash can tucked right up beside the bed. Just in case. Jessica got a good laugh out of it when Derek told her, because even if she'd said she wouldn't wait up she always did, it was a force of habit far too old to break. She promised she'd listen for trouble while Derek was out, said it was her fault, she'd told him to have a good time.
"Never again," Derek said with a wink. "Not with that woman. Penelope can't be trusted."
It didn't take long for him to get back, the roads were empty enough that he could go a little too fast. It had just been enough time that she could clean up the mess, chug about a gallon of water and prepare her bed that now smelled just like whatever product Aaron used in his hair.
“I don't know what you were thinkin...” he announced, leaning in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest. It was a little accusatory but mostly good-natured.
“I just...we just...”
“Oh, you just you just...” he was mocking her now, shaking his head. She didn't mind it, at least it told her he wasn't really mad. She hadn't done any real damage. The entire time they'd been gone she was worried she'd done something horribly wrong, maybe Aaron wasn't supposed to drink, maybe that tequila was special, a lot of maybes flew through her head as she forced herself to sober up and apologize.
“Is he okay?"
"He's sleepin' it off. Jessica's staying the night, he'll be okay. Might wanna take it easy around here tomorrow, huh? Seriously, Penelope, what were you thinking? He doesn't drink like that..."
"Hey. Okay, I made a mistake, it was a really hard day and I just thought...he looked like he needed...hey. Wait. Yeah I messed up but...but...you. You. YOU. What was...THAT?” And then there was this, it rose in her belly, beat at her chest, the indignity of feeling betrayed, lied to. Yeah, maybe she didn't need to get her boss drunk, that was stupid, and it would probably have consequences felt for days. She had a bed to crash on mere feet away but she hadn't considered where he'd be sleeping, how he would be getting home. Would he have been sleeping at his desk? And Derek was right, he didn't drink like that, he was doing it for her, to make her feel better and she felt awful, but then there was the arm and the kiss and she had QUESTIONS.
“No idea what you're talkin' about...” he feigned innocence, loved watching the way it got her all riled up. She was vibrating with anticipation and he ate it up. Pointedly, she played with the tea bag in her mug and stared at him, waiting for him to open up. A silent challenge. When it was clear to her that he had no intention of doing so, she set the mug down on the table and smacked him on the arm. “Keep your hands off of me, crazy lady.”
She eyed him warily while he gathered the dishes to wash, the last of the remnants from their wild two person party. “How long have you been lying to me?”
“Hey now,” he said softly, more than a little offended. He may not have told her everything, but he hadn't ever lied. "I don't like your tone."
“Don't you even, Derek Morgan...all those stories of girls you've been seeing...the...the...the roses and the weekend trip in New York and the...omigod...” Clarity was setting in but her mouth couldn't seem to keep up with the realizations.
“Okay wait a minute, I never said girls, first of all, you just assumed I meant girls...”
“So those were all...about...” Her breath hitched in her throat, she let out a soft little cough.
He grinned, waited for her to run through all of the stories she could remember, stories shared over late night glasses of wine ending in near misses, slips, an endless parade of nameless faceless girls replaced with her scowling but very handsome, well tailored boss. Moments he'd almost said too much, barely caught himself before saying a name, mentioning Jack but managed to keep it under wraps. She blushed, fell into the chair beside her with a dramatic thud.
“You are a monster. You...you two...for...how long?”
“Nevermind that, you little busybody. Now that you know what you know, your big, sexy mouth has to stay shut you understand me?”
She smirked and he shook his head, this was going to prove to be a challenge. Penelope, henceforth, was going to be insufferable. He wasn't looking forward to letting Aaron know that they'd been discovered, let the cat out of the bag with their affectionate shenanigans - Aaron had no idea what he'd done and Derek simply couldn't help it, it was already hard enough to keep his hands to himself on a normal day, this was too much. No more tequila for him.
“Go home, Derek Morgan. I want to go to bed and he needs you more than I do. See you...both...in the morning.”
Pairings: Hotch/Morgan (although it is BARELY shippy, it's not about that)
Words: 3.4k
Notes: This is for Comfortember 2021 Day 8 - Relived Trauma. It's been a while since I've really indulged writing Sean and I have missed it so here you go!
Find the rest here: Comfortember 2021
**
A sea of bricks reaches up into the sky, sways before his eyes. The mortar oozes over deep maroon and brown and he blinks himself awake. Really awake. Enough that everything fluid stops, stiffens, becomes solid. He depresses the buzzer with one finger, doesn't even look at the number, just knows it. He's been here before, doesn't come here often but it still feels like home.
“What?” comes a gruff voice, slurred over the tiny speaker and he doesn't recognize it. There is a moment he considers turning around, hailing a cab and calling the night a failure but he takes a chance.
“It's Aaron Hotchner,” he says, because his name means something. All over, it means something. Here, he's just hoping it does. He leans forward and waits until the sound nearly deafens him, a horrible buzzing that ricochets through his skull and nearly brings him to his knees. He reaches for the door handle before the lock clicks again, pulls it open and stumbles toward the stairs, unable to find his composure. He shouldn't be concerned about that, but he is and he tries to straighten up, look like half the man he is. It's four flights up, and he's not about to get into an elevator, not tonight, not in this building. His left leg can barely handle the weight of each step, the further he goes the worse it gets and by the time he's nearing the floor he wants he's almost pulling himself up using only his arms. He could just settle in the stair well and be fine. Hearing goes in and out, sometimes he hears the click of his footsteps on the cement, the rest is silence and as scary as that sudden drop is, he prefers it to the pain of sound. Worse than a headache, it's like an ice-pick in his eyebrow and it doesn't let up no matter what he does, it just has to run its course.
Sean's apartment is loud, no one hears him knock. The neighbors don't seem to be concerned by the noise, no one is complaining, it just pounds on and on from behind the door. They know he's coming, they buzzed him up, but he's hammering on the door with his fist and it takes almost five minutes before someone...a face he doesn't recognize...opens it up.
“You a cop?” asks the man who cracks the door open and Aaron squints, considers his answer carefully. He's not in the mood for this shit, not tonight, he just wants to sleep somewhere that isn't a hotel room anywhere near his team who are going to be pacing the hallway worried about him all night. He took a cab for a half hour, a cab that smelled like garlic and cigarettes, listened to a man ramble about something to do with the Yankees as if he cared. He wasn't even convinced that the driver cared, just doing something he thought a tourist expected to hear. He only wants Sean, he couldn't explain it if he tried - he was in Manhattan and he'd just been in an explosion, nearly lost his life, lost a friend, barely evaded an entire city block being leveled. All of that is weighing on him, and the one thing that can make it go quiet, just for one night, is the comfort of his brother. The warmth that Sean wraps him in, even if he has to force it. But he arrives and finds what looks like a scuzzbag party and through just the slit of the open door he can see Sean sucking gulps straight out of a bottle of some rotgut whiskey he bought on the bottom shelf of the liquor store down the street. There is a part of him, this deep seeded part that is often robbed of its voice, that tells him to take the bottle and pound it himself and god what he wouldn't give to be free enough to listen to that voice once or twice.
“I'm Sean's brother,” he says, and the man grunts and throws the door open.
“Hotchner!” he bellows. “Your cop brother's here...”
“He's not a cop!” Sean shouts, and he doesn't even look at Aaron. In fact, his eyes are closed even though he's standing, and the whiskey bottle is raised high above his head, ready to be poured into a woman's mouth who stands beside him waiting. “He's worse,” and he says it like he doesn't realize Aaron is standing there. The other man lets out a few hoots of laughter and Aaron closes the door behind him softly, steadying himself there. He should feel like he's made a mistake, he doesn't belong here, but it's still better than his hotel room. Still better than Dave and Emily forcing their way into his room, or Derek's worried eyes...no, he could handle a trashy house party. He could ignore it. “Put away the needles, boys, we're about to be BUSTED.”
“Sean...” Aaron says, paying the idiots that surround him no mind as he approaches his brother, tries to pull his attention to one point. He's holding a wad of tissue to his ear, he's bleeding and he knows he looks pitiful but for just a moment he walks tall and with purpose. He just wants to talk to his brother, and he thinks he's said it aloud but his hearing is gone again. Bliss, considering the way the apartment thumps around him and he can feel the pounding of the stereo system up into his aching knees. “May I speak with you alone please?”
His bedroom is empty and almost quiet, he can't feel the noise inside. Sean has always had a thing about that – he'll throw ragers, parties that end up with nearly everyone incapable of leaving until the next day, but his bedroom remains off limits. People sleep in heaps on the floor, finding comfort and warmth in his rugs and couch cushions but his bedroom is private. The bed is made neatly, there are no clothes on the floor, it doesn't smell like the rest of the place. It isn't exactly pristine, but considering the rest of the apartment, it might as well be. Sean is swaying as he stands in place, he's at least drunk but Aaron suspects it's more than that and he's completely uninterested in arguing over any of that right now. He feels just as out of it and he's having a lot less fun.
“May I stay here tonight?” he asks, and Sean laughs at the propriety of it all. Sounds about right, though. Aaron never could figure out how to just talk like a regular person. "I just need a place to sleep."
“You? What...your five star hotel isn't...” and he pauses, narrows his eyes and really tries to focus on the grim features, the blood, the look in his eyes. He doesn't finish his sentence. Some part of him wishes he was sober enough to ask his brother if he was okay, if he could help somehow - but there is an odd familiarity in the blood on his face and he doesn't consider it more than a second. “Yeah. Of course...you can sleep in my bed...I need to make a trip to the laundromat but you can borrow anything you want...” It takes him awhile to say all of it, his speech is slurred but it's genuine, he's trying and Aaron nods. He understands what he can hear, it comes and goes, it's not like he was going to wait for permission to raid his brother's drawers for something comfortable to sleep in anyway. Sean loses interest quickly, as soon as he notices the blood the thought is gone...he forgets to ask his brother why he's in town, why he looks like he belongs in a morgue, maybe doesn't care...Aaron just rifles through the drawers until he finds a t-shirt that doesn't look like it's covered in kitchen grease or vomit and snags a pair of sweatpants that he's less picky about. It's his brother, he's dealt with worse and at least they aren't clothes that have seen the inside of a hospital on what is, thus far, the worst night of his life. The clothes he sheds, he throws in the trash bin beside the bathroom sink. Sean can fish them out, maybe sell them to a consignment shop if he needs the cash bad enough, but he doesn't want to look at them, smell them, ever again.
The bed feels clean enough, his toes find a dirty sock crumpled and discarded at the bottom when he slides in but he doesn't reach for it, can't bend his back like that. Pressing the bad ear against the pillow he sighs at the instant relief from the flood of noise that pounds through the closed bedroom door. He's not even sure what the song is that they're listening to, it's just so loud. The silence washes over him, lulls him to sleep with the familiar smell of his brother surrounding him. Still uses the same soap he always has, and yes there's the smell of his unwashed hair and the kitchen he works in mingling, but that soap smells like home and he can relax. It's exactly what he was looking for.
In the morning he wakes to find Sean sprawled out on the bed beside him, arms and legs stretched wide like a starfish. He's naked and Aaron groans, tries not to think about what his brother did to end up that way and what he'll find when he leaves the room. A pile of people, most likely, all passed out, clothing optional. He throws a blanket over him, tries to wash the image from his mind as he pulls himself out of bed slowly, tests out his sore leg before standing on it. Hurts worse, shocks of electrical pain bounce from his knee to his toes along invisible wires but it doesn't give out, he can walk...it's slow, his hips protest in their sockets, everything has locked up. His spine is almost immovable. He uses the walls to steady himself as the floor bucks and rocks beneath his feet, vertigo. They'd warned him about this, he barely listened. To his surprise, the apartment is empty - there are messes everywhere, remnants of the party on every surface, but not a person in sight. Some tiny voice tells him Sean did that for him, knowing he'd be awake first. He makes it to the kitchen sink before he's sick, gripping the edge of the counter until his knuckles are white and he thinks about how damn painful the sound of his gagging is rushing up into his too sensitive ears. Nothing of any substance comes up, but that part doesn't really matter, it's the feeling, the pain burning its way up his torso that's the problem. He can't make that stop.
“Aaron?” Sean stumbles out of the bedroom to the noise, steps over the mess that covers most of the floor and laughs when he sees his brother. “You know I got a toilet that works a lot better for that...” But Aaron doesn't move, doesn't pay him any mind. “Aaron?” he calls again, and he approaches, presses his hand against his brother's shoulder and he can feel the muscles tense, it startles him. “Did you hear me?”
Aaron turns and looks at him, furrows his brow and everything sounds muffled. No, more than that, he can't hear Sean's voice at all. Just the noise of rushing water; he remembers being a child and putting a conch shell to his ear and it's just like that...nothing but a strange rushing noise but it isn't really sound. Sean's lips are moving but there's no voice and all he wants is to hear Sean's voice. He gestures to his ear, the one he can feel bleeding, wet pooling beneath the cotton shoved inside to try and stop the flow. There is crusted red all the way down to his jaw and somehow he knows it's on the pillow too - he hadn't stopped to look. It's smeared over his cheek, dry and flaking in places and Sean flinches. It looks like something out of a slasher flick he used to sneak into long before he was old enough.
“Jesus, Aaron,” he groans. “What the fuck?” His hands grapple for the paper towels beside the sink and he drenches a wad of them in ice cold water, reaching out to wipe at his brother's face. Aaron doesn't flinch away, he lets Sean's hands grab his jaw tight like a petulant toddler and rub at the dried blood. He's not gentle, he's almost scrubbing in places and his fingertips dig into Aaron's jaw. "What the hell did you do? Do I have to hide a body or something? I mean fuck..." It takes a minute to trace the blood to Aaron's ear, to realize it's his brother's and that he's hurt, really hurt.
It's a flash, there is a chirping of car locks outside on the street and Aaron goes pale. He doesn't even realize it's happening, the way he's back there beside Kate, he presses the button so casually and then a sound so big it fills his head with pressure that bursts when he hits the ground. His back smacks against the pavement, he feels his hips grind along the asphalt and smells the melting rubber, tastes the blood. It comes from nowhere, and when he tries to blink it away, when he tries to bring himself back to Sean's apartment and the safety that exists in his brother's proximity, everything goes fuzzy.
He tries to speak, say something, but what comes out is a jumble. No words, barely any sound.
When Aaron drops to the ground like a sack of potatoes, Sean feels sick. He watches the way all of the color goes from Aaron's cheeks, color he barely even had but missed when it was gone, and then his knees give out and he's on the ground. Sean's reflexes are too slow, he can't catch him in time. It's among the scariest things Sean has ever witnessed in his life, and he's seen some shit. He parties in Manhattan and works in a downtown kitchen...he's no stranger to scary, but this is something that chills him to the bone. Aaron's eyes roll back in his head and Sean drops to his knees beside his brother, tries to rouse him.
“Aaron?” he asks, pressing his ear to his brother's mouth to listen for breathing. His hand is splayed over his brother's chest, he can feel the rise and fall, feel the thundering of his heart and there is some small relief in that. Fingers fly to his pulse, a double check, it's strong. “Fuck Aaron...” He lets out a string of curse words that would make a sailor blush as he rushes to his bedroom, digs through Aaron's clothes in the trash can for his phone. Fucking threw his phone away with everything else - he must have had a bad night. Sean isn't the only one who would rather forget everything from the day before. He knows his brother's pass codes, of course he does, it isn't hard to figure them out and he searches the phone for contacts - so many names he doesn't recognize, and then he lights on one that he knows, finally. One that has five missed calls since the night before and a barrage of unread emails and texts. He doesn't want to use his own phone and he's sure not calling 911, not when his apartment is littered with paraphernalia that would have him arrested on the spot but this...it's the next best thing.
“Derek...” his voice is rapid-fire into the phone, rushing back out to the kitchen to find Aaron scrambling to sit upright, to save face. He's lucid again, blinking hard against the strange light filtering into Sean's apartment. “It's Sean...something's wrong with Aaron....”
The rest is a blur, between trying to keep his brother awake and throwing up only into the sauce pan he's been provided and cleaning up the apartment enough that Derek won't have a fit the minute he walks in. Aaron may have been in bad enough shape to turn a blind eye but there was no way he'd get so lucky twice. Needles and bottles and tiny zip-lock baggies are cleaned up, disposed of, and he's kicking things under the sofa when he hears the buzzer. None of it was his, but that wouldn't make any difference if it was found in his home, he knew that.
“What's going on?” Derek asks, hardly waiting for Sean to open the door all the way before forcing his way in. He and the rest of the team had been looking for Aaron all night to no avail, and he couldn't believe none of them thought to look here. On some level maybe he figured if Aaron was desperate enough to show up here, maybe they needed to just leave him be but that was something to be unpacked later. He scans the apartment, eyes settling on Aaron leaning heavy against the cabinets in the kitchen. He barely skims the rest of the place. He's well aware of the life Sean leads, he's not concerned with it now even if Sean looks terrified. He'll let him squirm a minute just for fun.
“Listen, he just showed up here last night all fucked up, I don't know...I didn't do this...”
“All fucked up?” Derek spits, shaking his head. “Man, he was in an explosion last night at work but I guess watching the news is beneath you huh?”
“Woah...” Sean whispers, staring at Aaron now. “No, I saw that...it was everywhere....all the news stations...I didn't know...” and now he thinks he's going to be sick. Derek just rolls his eyes. He has no idea why Aaron even bothers with his brother sometimes, no idea how the idiot finds comfort here in this strung out loser who shares nothing but genetic threads with him. Just as he's ready to lay into him, write Sean off entirely, he watches as Sean crouches beside Aaron and gets close, almost nose to nose. He doesn't say anything, the hum of the refrigerator is the only noise in the entire place but Sean pulls Aaron into a hug and buries his face in his brother's neck. His arms circle Aaron's head, fingers clutching at his hair, he's holding his brother with a desperation that Derek hasn't seen out of Sean before and Aaron lets it happen, doesn't pull away. He's sure he hears Aaron whisper that he's okay, he's fine, and Sean just laughs, says he knows because that's how it is. But Sean is holding Aaron so tight. Derek looks away when Aaron drops the sauce pan to the floor and wraps his arms around Sean, clutching at his shirt, wrapping his fists in the loose fabric. He supposes he won't write Sean off yet. He's incredibly selfish, that much is a given, but he does love his brother.
And for some reason, Aaron really loves him too.
“Does he need a hospital?” Sean asks, the innocence in the question is almost staggering and Derek can see the tears in his eyes. He's coming down from whatever high still coursed through his veins, reality is coming into focus and he hates all of it.
“No,” Derek says, his voice kinder now. “He's already been. I just need to take him home, okay?” It's as simple as that. The team are already heading to the airport now that they know Aaron's been located...Derek will handle the rest.
He's on his knees beside Aaron now, Sean stands over them a little protectively and Aaron doesn't tense up. He doesn't talk, somehow he knows it won't do any good...it's not like he can see that Aaron can't hear, but there is something that's so relaxed about the way he sits that tells him he's lost somewhere else. “Hotch?” he asks, afraid to call him Aaron, afraid of that kind of intimacy in front of Sean. They're not there yet, he thinks, so he's just Morgan, he's just co-worker who is coming to take him home. He plays that role without sadness, but Aaron's hand finds his arm, warm skin against skin and he smiles, eyes focusing on something for the first time in hours. Derek's eyes.
“Derek...” he whispers, lips moving slowly around the letters and his eyes flutter open and closed as the trance clears, he's brought back to reality, where he sits, who he's with. He doesn't smile, but Derek can see the relief in his features. “I want to go home.”
