whumptober #1 "Please don't cry" with gelphie, because for good is coming closer every day...!
I'm trying to do 31 days of traditional art because I've been so focused on digital, so it'll be great practice!! I can not count how many times I tried to tap undo already [cries]
collection: whumptober 2024, day 1: race against the clock/search party/panic attack.
“Drop the weapon!” Morgan yelled. Hotch looked at Morgan, and then to where Morgan was looking. The rest of the police force did the same, and suddenly, twenty guns were all drawn on him- the man who had you.
He had a gun, too, but he wasn’t aiming it. He held it in his left hand, which Hotch- and you- had known was his dominant one, by the characteristics of the stab wounds that he had left on his victims.
Stab wounds that he might’ve- Hotch’s breath hitches- left on you.
“Where is she?” Hotch yells. Another agent had been talking, maybe Morgan, but he didn’t give a shit right now. “What have you done with her?”
Aaron Hotchner knows how to keep his cool. Probably better than anyone on the team. In fact, he was the one to remind everyone to do just that before they breached the doors on this unsub’s decrepit cabin.
The woods were dark and eerie, as they always are on these types of days. It was some hour past midnight, Hotch couldn’t recall- all the numbers had started to blur together. The only time he had in his head was twelve hours, twelve hours since you’d gone missing. Taken right out of the parking lot of the precinct.
At least there hadn’t been much question about who had taken you. Finding the unsub’s cabin had been easy once Garcia had been given a name. Hotch only hoped recovering you would be that easy, and that you’d be unharmed.
“FBI! Open the door!” a man fully decked out in black SWAT gear and significantly more firepower than Hotch yelled, pounding on the front door.
The slats of the porch creaked under their feet, the paint flaking off the railings and the door-frame. The light shining through the smudged windows was the only clue this place was even inhabited.
There wasn’t even a car in the driveway.
The battering ram took the rotting door clear off of its hinges. The SWAT team fans out inside, searching room after room. Hotch hears them yelling “clear” as they proceed through the house. He waited with baited breath. If it were up to him he’d have been inside with them, but they knew this guy had lots of firepower at his disposal, so it was SWAT’s job to clear the house. Which, they had. Finding no one inside. Not even you.
Hotch felt the small balloon of hope inside him pop; the wind had been knocked out of him without so much as a physical punch. The SWAT team filed back out of the house. There was no unsub, and there was no sign of you.
A loud bang pierced the quiet night air.
The entire assembly of police and FBI agents all whirled around, guns drawn without a second thought. No one knew where to point them, though. The dark forest pressed in on all four sides of the cabin, the dirt road driveway even consumed by darkness after a few hundred feet.
“Drop the weapon!” Morgan yelled. Hotch looked at Morgan, and then to where Morgan was looking. The rest of the police force did the same, and suddenly, twenty guns were all drawn on him- the man who had you. He was half-hidden by the shadows cast by the tall pine trees, the moonlight unable to illuminate anything this far down from the forest canopy.
He had a gun, too, but he wasn’t aiming it. He held it in his left hand, which Hotch- and you- had known was his dominant one, by the characteristics of the stab wounds that he had left on his victims.
Stab wounds that he might’ve- Hotch’s breath hitches- left on you.
“Where is she?” Hotch yells. Another agent had been talking, maybe Morgan, but he didn’t give a shit right then. “What have you done with her?”
The unsub smirked, his grubby little brows furrowing, beady eyes narrowing, as he stared at Hotch.
“Answer me!” Hotch screamed. His voice broke on the last word.
“Take it easy, man,” Morgan said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Let the others talk to him. Take a breath.”
Taking a breath seemed like an objectively good idea, but Hotch found, he could not. His chest felt tight, like a rope was being pulled taut around him. His vision had begun to swim, the only thing he was focused in on was that disgusting, abhorrent man who had- who had-.
“Hotch,” Morgan repeated. He holstered his gun and took Hotch’s from him. “Come here. Don’t let him see you like this. That’s what he wants.”
“I need…” Hotch gasped. His hands were tingling, his fingers cramping. He tried to make fists with his hands as he followed Morgan back and around the back of an SUV, hidden from the unsub’s line of sight, but his hands weren’t cooperating. “I need to get her back, Morgan.”
What was happening to him? He had never felt like this before. He wouldn’t even be able to fire a gun like this, not with his hands cramping. How was he supposed to do anything?
“Is- are they talking to him?” Hotch peeked around the side of the SUV. He saw Spencer, his hands out placatingly, trying to talk to the unsub. He trusted Spencer, he trusted all of his team, but he needed to be out there. What if the unsub said something that they all missed. That only Hotch could put together. What if he said that he had killed you? Stabbed you, like all the others, or worse? “I need to- Morgan, give me my gun.”
“Hotch, relax,” Morgan tapped his shoulders again, trying to draw his attention back. “Focus on me. Breathe, slowly. You’re hyperventilating. You’re panicking, man. You’re no help to her like this.”
“Morgan, she’s not just- fuck- she’s not just an agent, she’s- we’re-,” Hotch stammered.
“I know, Hotch. We all know. And we’re going to find her.”
Hotch felt his hands relaxing, his chest loosening, his composure returning, like clouds parting after a storm. Leaving a clear sky. He needed to focus on finding you, and he couldn’t do that if he was panicking. He held his breath and counted to seven and then exhaled and did it again, until his hands were steady and his vision was clear.
“I told you,” Hotch heard the unsub groan to Spencer, “I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to Hotch. To Aaron.”
Morgan handed him his gun back and they left the shelter of the SUV. The unsub was still talking with Spencer, but had clearly noticed Hotch’s absence. The unsub’s gaze had flicked to track Hotch as he strode to the front of the crescent of officers. He kept his gun at his side- enough officers had their guns trained on the unsub anyways- in an attempt to be non-threatening.
“I’m Aaron,” Hotch said. He stepped forward, closer to the unsub. Hotch scanned his clothes, hands, arms, boots, everything, for any trace of blood, or dirt, or any clue as to where you were hidden. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I think you know what I want to talk about,” the unsub huffed a laugh. “You were all she wanted to talk about.”
Wanted? In the past tense?
Hotch felt the panic rising again. He took a deep breath. He could do this, he could stay focused for you. He had to, if he ever wanted to see you- alive, or otherwise, again. He had to pretend this was no different than any other case, that you were just another victim. That was the only way for him to avoid panicking- something he had never known he needed to avoid doing, before. Before you. Before he cared about someone as much as he cared about you, before you were put in danger.
“What else did you talk about?” Hotch asked. He needed information, any small hint at where the man had hidden you.
“Plenty.” The unsub shifted his weight from foot to foot, his left hand flexed around the hilt of his handgun. “We talked about how I couldn’t wait to shoot you. How that would be more painful to her than any physical would I could inflict. She begged me not to. Have you ever heard her beg before?”
The unsub began to raise his left arm up, gun in hand, but before it passed his waistline, a hail of bullets rained down on him. His body hit the ground before Hotch could even blink.
“NO!” Hotch shouted. He holstered his own gun, and kicked the unsub’s gun away from his side. He sank to his knees, suit pants sinking into the damp mud and pine needles. Hotch knotted his fists in the man’s shirt, and shook him, hard. “Where is she?”
“Hotch,” Emily murmured, somehow kneeling beside him now.
“Hotch, he’s gone.”
“Tell me where she is, you bastard!” Hotch’s voice had begun to go raw from screaming. He shook him one more time. Then he noticed: the dark, round hole in the center of his forehead.
Hotch released his grip on the unsub’s body and stumbled to his feet.
His knees were wet from the mud, and maybe from the blood that had undoubtedly already pooled out around the body from the various gunshot wounds.
Now we have nothing, he thought, pushing past the crowd of officers. He glanced at the empty driveway. Not even a car.
Not even a car.
Hotch whipped around.
“Follow the tire tracks!” he ordered, breaking into a run. “He has to have used the car to move her. Wherever it is, she is.”
He pulled out his flashlight and shone it on the dirt driveway. The earth was wet and covered in pine needles, making it difficult to analyze what he found. Two divots on each side of the path denoted the place the tires must’ve usually rested when the car was parked. They extended down the path through the forest, down a few miles to the main road. There wasn’t much room between the trees for the car to have pulled off, but he must’ve found somewhere, because if he had taken you to the main road, the officers at the roadblocks there would have seen him.
Hotch broke into a run, shining his flashlight ahead of him, looking for the slightest disturbance in the forest floor. He heard footsteps and clamor behind him as the rest of the cops and his agents spread out into a search party. He knew they could get scent dogs out in a few hours, but your scent would be hard to track, if not impossible, especially if he was right and the unsub had moved you using a car.
Searching on foot was Hotch’s only hope to find you soon.
He had said that they had talked about shooting him- how it would be more painful for you than anything he could possibly have done to her.
Implying that you had to have been alive when the unsub shot Hotch- or had tried to.
The relief and hope that flooded Hotch at that realization almost distracted him enough to miss what he had finally found- a tire track, veering off between two trees that the car had probably barely fit between. Hotch shone the beam of the flashlight on the trunks and noticed the bark had been scraped off, and chips of white paint were left in the gouges. You had to be somewhere close, if the unsub had walked on foot from where he had hidden you.
Hotch began yelling your name, and then, all the other officers started, too. They moved forward like in a grid search, looking behind every tree, kicking through the leaf cover for anything left behind.
“I found the car!” Morgan yelled. Then, the words that Hotch had been waiting to hear for the last twelve- now more like thirteen- hours: “I got her! She’s alive!”
Hotch ran towards the sound. The officers had already clustered around a small wooden structure, a hunting blind. A few meters behind it was the unsub’s parked car. The area quickly became illuminated in bright white lights as all the cops present shone their flashlights on you.
Hotch watched as Morgan began to help you up. Your hands were zip-tied tightly behind your back; Hotch could see dried blood around your wrists where they had cut into your skin. A pair of zip ties hung off of your ankles- Morgan must have just cut them off. He used his pocket knife to slash the ones holding your wrists together, too. Your hair was disheveled and full of leaves and debris, like you had been dragged along the floor, and a huge gash and bump to your right temple, like you’d been pistol whipped, glowed in the bright light of the flashlights.
“Where is he?” you sobbed, clinging onto Morgan’s arms as he helped you out of the blind. “Is he dead?”
“He’s dead, sweetheart,” Morgan tried to soothe you and pull you in for a hug, but you pushed him away, more strongly than you should’ve been able to after being tied up for so long.
“No!” you wailed. “How could you let this happen?”
Confusion flashed on Morgan’s face, and through Hotch’s mind.
Then, he realized. The unsub had known that he would die when he faced the police, but he knew that his final act would be to psychologically torture you, leaving you to wonder if one of the gunshots you had heard had been him shooting Hotch, like he had promised you he’d do as his final act.
Morgan had misunderstood your question. He had just told you that Hotch was dead.
Hotch finally closed the distance between the two of you. He grabbed your shoulders and spun you around to face him. A broken sob wrenched its way out of your throat, tear tracks already cutting through the layer of dirt and dried blood on your face.
“Aaron,” you croaked. “Oh, thank God.”
“I’m here,” Aaron murmured beside your ear, so softly no one else could hear. It was just you and him now, in your own world. The secrecy of your relationship be damned, he would deal with the consequences later. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
You broke down sobbing into his arms, all the fight flooding out of you as soon as you realized that Hotch was alive. The dehydration, the hunger, the fear, and the pain in your head all rushed back in. Hotch’s arms tightened around you, the only thing holding you up anymore. His face was smushed into your dirty hair, the blood on your wrists was staining his shirt and tie, but neither of you noticed, nor would you have cared if you had.
“I knew you- I knew you’d find me,” you gasped, fisting his shirt in your trembling fingers. You stared up at him, into his beautiful glossy brown eyes, committing every inch of his face to memory. You had thought you’d never see him again, never hear his voice again, never feel his touch again. “When I heard the shots, I thought- oh, my God- I thought you were-.”
“Shh,” Aaron soothed. He wrapped a hand around the back of your head, near the base of your skull, and guided your face into the crook of his neck. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat, a wet, raw sound. “I know.”
“I thought he…” you mumbled into his neck, the words dying on your parched lips, or before that, in your sore throat. “Aaron.”
“I’ve got you, honey,” he murmured back, cradling your head so softly in his big hands. “You’re safe now.”
whumptober '25, day 1: beg for forgiveness/"please don't cry"
fandom: all for the game | characters: andrew minyard, neil josten | ship: andrew minyard/neil josten | trigger warnings: none | content: set when neil and andrew are at the FBI during TKM | word count: 600
A/N: HAPPY WHUMPTOBER EVERYONE! it's looking like it's gonna be an aftg whumptober for me this year :) enjoy
For hours Neil spoke, Andrew prowling silently around the room behind him, unable to keep still. Browning and Kurt grilled Neil until his voice was cracked and hoarse; two or three times Neil heard Andrew hiss between his teeth and get closer to Neil. He could feel the warmth radiating from Andrew’s body, close enough to his back to touch, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn. Whatever Andrew was refraining from doing, he managed to do so.
That night, Stetson came in to set up cots for them to sleep on.
“We will continue this,” Browning flicked a finger between himself and Neil as he gathered his things from the desk, “tomorrow. I’ve still got more questions.”
“Right,” Neil said.
“You two will sleep in here tonight. You are not permitted to leave, or attempt to leave the room. You must sleep separately. Someone will be watching-,” he jabbed a finger at the camera in the corner of the room, “at all times. Are we clear?”
Neil nodded. He had spoken until his wounds throbbed. All he wanted was to be left alone with Andrew.
“Clear?” Browning turned to Andrew, who still stood silent vigil behind Neil’s chair. He must have given Browning an icy glare, because Browning rolled his eyes and left without another word.
It was only once the door had clicked shut behind the agents that Neil stood up and turned to face Andrew for the first time in hours. His whole body was screaming with pain, and he stumbled slightly, overcome with a sudden bout of dizziness. Andrew reached out and took Neil by the upper arm without hesitation. He dragged Neil over one of the lumpy mattresses, and Neil allowed himself to be led, reveling in the feeling of not having to make his own decision for the first time in days.
Even once they were sat beside one another, Andrew didn’t release his grip on Neil’s arm. His eyes searched Neil’s, and Neil was too exhausted to do anything but stare back and hope that this was real, that he wasn’t dreaming.
He could tell from the grip on his arm that Andrew was fighting simultaneous rage and relief that Neil was alive and sitting beside him. That he was yet to be forgiven for his lies, for leaving Andrew without saying goodbye.
“I’m sor-,” he started before he could stop himself, but Andrew squeezed him harder.
“Don’t,” he spat, eyes full of ice. “You know I hate it when you say that.”
Neil swallowed against his raw throat. “I don’t know what else to say. I’ve never cared enough to ask for forgiveness before.”
Andrew clenched Neil’s bicep harder, and a heavy weight came down on the back of Neil’s neck in the form of Andrew’s fingers.
“You do not need to ask,” Andrew said, his voice so low it was practically a buzz. “It will come.”
Perhaps it was the stress of the last few days getting to him, or maybe it was just the confirmation he needed. A lump appeared in Neil’s throat so suddenly he choked around it, a burning sensation pressing up behind his eyelids.
He shut his eyes and felt Andrew’s fingers dig into his skin, felt the forgiveness in the unforgiving grip seep through his scars and into his bones and come to rest. The pain that had filled every inch of him since the second he’d left the locker rooms in Baltimore was yet to leave, but it had dimmed, just a little.
