Sorry it's taken a while to get to this! I totally blanked on any situation for this one, but then I watched minimal loss the other night and inspiration finally struck! Also, sorry it's slightly more hotch's pov than reid's!
29 - Group hug
The explosion behind them takes everyone a little by surprise and were it not for the fact that Rossi had already made it back outside with the last of the women and children, Hotch would have been inside the burning building.
“Aaron! Aaron, you can’t go in there!” the older man exclaims, hands on Hotch’s chest as he tries to hold the other back, to keep him from running head on towards the flames that are already licking their way towards where the survivors and troops are gathered outside.
“I can’t just leave them in there, Dave,” Hotch yells, pushing desperately at the hands that are holding him in place despite the fact that he knows running into a burning building won’t help anyone at this point. If Reid and Morgan were within the range of the blast when the detonation happened, him running into the flames will only serve to give those that have to search the wreckage another body to retrieve.
Reid and Morgan.
As if agents is all they are to him.
As if they’re not the men he goes home with every single evening, and the men he wakes up next to every morning, or every time a case pulls them out of bed in the middle of the night.
As if they won’t always be Spencer and Derek to Aaron.
“I know, but you have to,” Rossi says, clearly putting on his best soothing victims voice, and Hotch wants to hate him for it, but he can’t, because even he knows he needs it right now.
Slowly, Rossi lowers his hands from the other man’s chest, stepping back only when he’s certain that Hotch isn’t going to do something stupid, and then all he can do is stand and watch as the smoke and flames continue to engulf the building in front of them.
But then, from the smoke that’s still swirling around the front of the compound, two figures slowly emerge; hunched over and staggering, but Aaron would recognise those two figures anywhere, in any condition and with however limited visibility available.
It takes everything Aaron has to remain acting as Unit Chief, to not cross the distance between the three of them and assure himself that the men he loves are, in fact, safe and whole.
Watching his partners stagger towards him; their steps agonisingly slow, pausing every few steps to cough as the smoke no doubt burns their lungs, feels like a lifetime, and when Prentiss steps up and hugs Spencer, he can’t stop the stab of jealousy that surges through him despite it being perfectly reasonable, after everything her and him have been through, for her to want the same assurance that he's okay as Aaron himself does.
He sees Derek hanging back, watching their partner hug Emily, and only when she releases him, and he sees that Spencer looks relatively unharmed does Aaron feel his chest beginning to loosen.
He won’t be fully satisfied until he’s had the paramedics check them both over and rule out anything serious, but he’s seen no obvious injuries on Derek when he gave his partner a once over after he’d stopped coughing, and despite being held in the compound for longer than Aaron wants to remember right now, Spencer seems to be okay as well.
As soon as the others have departed, Rossi and Emily leading Jessica’s grieving mother away from the site, his feet are carrying him towards the other two men and it’s hard to tell who reaches who first, but the next thing he knows he’s wrapping his arms around both of them, holding them as tightly as he can with all his strength.
“We’re okay, Aaron,” Spencer chokes, burying his face in one side of the oldest man’s neck as Derek does the same to Aaron’s opposite shoulder.
And, although they all know that Aaron won’t believe him, not properly, until he’s been able to confirm with his own hands and eyes later, when they’re safely in a hotel room for the night, it’s a start that he’s got his partners back in his arms again.
✧ AARON HOTCHNER :: “ this is special agent derek morgan , our expert on obsessional crimes , special agent reid - […] doctor reid , our expert on , well , everything ”
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