#may 2022 whump spencer reid challenge

[eldrai]

Patterns [Reid]

For the 2022 May Whump Spencer Reid challenge... just a little bit overdue. But here's 2.5k words of Spencer indeed being whumped, with the prompt "bullying"

Thanks to @tobias-hankel for organizing it!

AO3 here

There had to be something about him he couldn’t mask well enough, because people saw through it like he hadn’t had a lifetime of practice and studied profiling to boot. Something innate that just made a certain subset of people take issue with him – even when they’d never met him before.

They were never that interested in him as a person – his worth lay in how much of a target they saw in him, how much reward they’d get for the risk, so it wasn’t a case of them disliking specifically him but Spencer truly didn’t understand why their reaction to someone they claimed to hate was to try and spend more time around them.

It always started the same way. Always had and always would.

---

The first incident was miniscule. The kind he’d brush off and forget about until the next time, until he looked back to establish a pattern. Spencer was always too slow to pick up on the beginning – for all his intellect, socializing hadn’t come any easier.

He knew every word in the English language and no small amount of others, but ask him to explain why he could feel people watching him and Spencer couldn’t. It wasn’t emotional. Just a stone cold feeling sliding through his ribcage to wrap itself tight around his heart. Of course, he couldn’t guarantee that the group of colleagues – another department on the same floor – were laughing at him, were talking about him, had even noticed his existence at all.

But he couldn’t guarantee otherwise.

(And in his experience, if he thought people were mocking him, they probably were.)

He tried to doubt its maliciousness but he was aware of their eyes on him as he moved through communal areas, careful to navigate them as normally as possible, double guessing everything about his posture and demeanour, an old background commentary which never truly went away. Spencer supposed that quality was what allowed him to focus on things other than his outward presence, to focus like he did on cases.

So he focused on his cases and if the same people formed the same groups and their conversation drew to a stop whenever he walked by, well. That was hardly important.

---

The interactions tended to slip through his fingers before he got a firm grasp on them and he’d only be able to see them clearly in hindsight. When it was too late, the person gone and the issue nothing more than a couple of words.

“That’s an interesting sweater,” said a woman he vaguely recognised.

Spencer looked up. “Thank you.”

Being unsure what ‘interesting’ had implied, his tone had said enough that she’d noticed. She shot him a smile.

“No, I really like it,” she said. “Most men don’t wear stuff like that, I like your confidence.”

He turned it over in his head. She seemed genuine but he was better at working with unsubs, because they didn’t try and have friendly conversations. They were far removed from the mundane office chatting he hated. Spencer didn’t want to outright accuse her of – well, he’d be taking issue with her for having said something he perceived to be an insult. It was ridiculous when he really thought about it.

“Thank you,” Spencer said again.

Her lips quirked upwards at the corners before she walked off. As soon as she got back to her group of friends, a hushed laughter burst through all of them and his cheeks grew hot.

Standing by himself, he had the sudden fear that everyone was watching him and he felt sick with nerves. His coffee no longer appealing, he rinsed out his mug and went back to his desk.

---

Someone had already mistaken him for someone too young to be here just the day before. Twice could be co-incidence. It could also, considering the gun he was carrying at that very moment, not be co-incidence.

“So you’re here on, what?” the man said. “Some kind of work experience, internship thing?”

Spencer resisted the urge to roll his eyes and shifted his weight just enough to let them see his holster. “I work here. With the BAU.”

“I’ve heard of you!” someone chimed in. “You’re the genius, right?”

He opened his mouth but cut off his rambling before he could start. That tended to bore people sometimes in conversations, gave them the impression he was trying to dominate the conversation. Make it all about him. “I don’t think intelligence is quantified well, but… yeah.”

“Sorry,” the man said. “I just thought – well, you’ve gotta pass a physical to be a real agent, and you’re not… you know.”

“I was exempt,” Spencer blurted out. If he didn’t need to defend himself against the man, why had his comments gotten under his skin so much?

“Must’ve been your lucky day,” the man said, and elbowed him gently. Like they were friends.

He tried not to think too hard about the germs. The group had found it amusing so he supposed the man had meant it as a joke – and even if it was at his expense, surely Spencer ought to be able to take one. Perhaps he hadn’t meant it in a negative sense and it was his fault for overthinking it. He forced a smile and sighed internally when the conversation moved on from him.

“I didn’t think they’d just start letting anyone in,” someone said, hushed slightly as if they didn’t want him to hear but weren’t putting in much effort to actually keep quiet. Spencer pretended he hadn’t. With that phrasing, it was possible it was a complement or an insult; he wasn’t going to call them up on it.

It left a sour taste in his mouth, and he excused himself when the anxiety in his chest amounted to too much, reminded himself why he preferred the BAU.

---

Spencer had thought about telling someone. Even just asking someone if that was normal – if they knew any of the people he’d spoken to, what they were like with others. Maybe he’d had a streak of bad luck and happened to bump into the more snide people. But that’d mean admitting that he hardly knew anyone.

Everyone else on the team had people outside of it who they’d talk to – Morgan knew just about everybody and even Hotch had a few people he’d have brief conversations with if they bumped into each other. So it was him who was the odd one out here. And his hostility was probably putting them off from talking to him more – no wonder, if he was so bad at concealing his suspicion.

It wouldn’t be the same after this. They’d know that he had thought of that first. Despite never really craving their approval, the realisation sat like a stone in his stomach: it was his fault he’d never get it.

(And they weren’t actually hurting them. He’d thought this juvenile teasing was reminiscent of high school but he lacked the bruises and cuts and sprains for that to be true. A whole lot of good he was as a federal agent if he couldn’t take some possibly mean words that his high-school self would’ve found pathetic.)

---

“Reid,” Hotch said.

Relieved to have an excuse to step away, Spencer went. They only ended up a few feet away from the group, near enough that the low murmur of conversation still registered. Near enough it made his skin prickle because what if they were talking about him? It shouldn’t even bother him. He shouldn’t care. It didn’t matter.

He sat on the desk. Hotch was leaning against the one opposite, though he was looking past Spencer to the people behind them, his eyes cold.

“Who are they?”

Spencer shrugged. “Just people.”

“I heard what they’ve been saying,” Hotch said.

His stomach sank. What had he caught? Freak, or psycho, or worse, because whatever they hissed at him just within earshot had to be miles more flattering than what they said when he wasn’t around.

“They aren’t bothering you?”

Spencer shook his head. Those things they said, there was never a way to prove the maliciousness of it – they were harmless statements removed from context, even compliments. Even assuming they were willing to listen to them, people wouldn’t understand what that felt like.

“It’s nothing.”

Did it sound paranoid? He thought about any of the others telling him they thought people were being rude to them, and had no reason to disbelieve them in the same situation. But they weren’t him. They didn’t get paranoia about being paranoid; they didn’t have to worry every time they swore they saw something out of the corner of their eye that it was a hallucination. And they probably wouldn’t jump to conclusions like he did.

Yet he was tempted, just for a moment, to let it all spill out. How there’d never be a part of him which wouldn’t feel like someone was watching, constantly, observing him like a specimen under a microscope. Scrutinizing him for the smallest flaws. His defects. And how he’d managed to live with the feeling. It was just when people got involved that it broke free of its carefully constructed box and began to take over.

His head ached. He dismissed the thought.

“Believe it or not, I can have conversations with other people,” Spencer joked, though it fell short of the deadpan it had been in his head and he kicked himself mentally. He forced a quick smile to be clear it was indeed a joke.

And for a minute, Spencer thought he saw the faintest recognition in his face, thought Hotch might say something – feared it. Hoped it. But he simply nodded and walked off, and Spencer was left with the ruins of another conversation he’d spoiled.

---

It came to a head one Monday morning, and the worst part was, Spencer wasn’t sure if he hated himself for letting it come to this or hated that the others assumed him so incompetent – because either way, he’d been relieved just the same.

All he had done was reach across one of the men for the sugar in his coffee. That was it. He hadn’t taken it from him. He hadn’t gotten too close. He hadn’t done anything.

As he straightened up, someone slammed into his back and Spencer jerked, spilling half the contents of his mug over the countertop and narrowly avoiding his own hand. The half-hearted apology muttered into his ear was for show and he knew it.

Plausible deniability, he thought, fumbling through his thoughts for something to bite back with. He knew it and they knew it and they were so immature it was driving him half mad—

“That’s enough,” Morgan said, level but firm. “Go on, get outta here.”

Spencer pulled out a fistful of paper towels and began to soak up the coffee. They left in a blur of movement in his peripheral vision and then it was him, and Morgan, and the awkwardness in the air between them.

“You didn’t have to yell,” he remarked, letting his irritation coalesce into something he could use: words.

“I wasn’t yelling,” Morgan said.

“They’re not going to come up here if that’s what they get.”

“Oh, you want them to?” Morgan said. He ignored him. “I saw them push you.”

Spencer resolutely fixed his gaze on the wad of damp paper towels accumulating on the countertop and continued to mop up the mess. “That was an accident.”

Morgan’s huff told him all he needed to know about that excuse.

“And I don’t need a babysitter,” Spencer murmured, “since you’ve all seemed to have forgotten.”

“All right,” Morgan said, holding up his hands in defence. “Didn’t know that sticking up for a friend counts as babysitting, but I’ll remember it for next time.”

“Great,” Spencer said. The guilt followed a second behind, and it was no better than the anger it replaced.

---

Really, he was expecting it when Hotch asked to see him before they left for the night. That didn’t mean he was any more prepared for it than if it had come completely out of the blue. He picked up his bag and took the offered seat in his office.

“Morgan said something, didn’t he?” Spencer said.

“He did,” Hotch said. “And I should have spoken to you sooner.”

“About what?”

“How they treat you,” Hotch said.

He did roll his eyes, then. “Hotch. It’s fine. They’re joking.”

“You don’t seem to find it funny,” Hotch said flatly. “And they don’t make those ‘jokes’ with other people.”

“So why didn’t you say anything?” Spencer asked. “You had the chance and you just walked away.” He was struggling to parse the different emotions it sparked in him – relief that Hotch had noticed, anger that they’d noticed, and an odd sense of doubt because nobody immediately talking to him seemed to imply that it wasn’t really that big of a deal. Maybe he was overreacting to it over all.

“I thought it was a conversation you’d be more comfortable with having if you were the one to start it,” Hotch said. “It wasn’t my intention to not deal with it.”

Spencer twisted his bag strap around his fingers.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like this wasn’t something you could come to me about,” Hotch said, and though there was genuine remorse in his eyes, it wasn’t enough. They wouldn’t stop no matter who did what.

“You know what?” Spencer said. “Just leave it. I’m used to it.”

“Reid—”

“It won’t make them stop,” he said. “Nothing does, because if you ignore them they keep going and if you react they keep going. And if they find out I told you, I’ll be a snitch as well as a freak.”

“This is harassment,” Hotch said. “There are going to be consequences, this isn’t high school. They’d get more than a slap on the wrist.”

“Really?” Spencer said. “Have you done it before?”

“I haven’t had cause to but—”

“So you don’t know if there actually would be consequences.”

“I can’t guarantee exactly what would happen but they would receive some form of disciplinary.”

Yeah, right. When it came down to it, it was his word against theirs and Spencer knew which side administration – any administration – was liable to take: it wasn’t his. “You think it’s going to make things better but it won’t. And I’m glad you’ve never had to find that out the hard way but it only makes them more persistent. It won’t – it doesn’t stop anyone.”

“If you change your mind—”

Spencer doubted he would. “I’ll think about it,” he lied, slipping the strap over his shoulder and standing. “Thanks.”

---

The adrenaline had subsided in the few minutes it had taken him to get outside, and instead of the anger Spencer was left with a familiar bone deep exhaustion. It still stung, after all these years:

It wasn’t ever going to stop.

[ssa-atlas-alvez]

Stop talking (Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner)

I thought I had posted this ages ago (it’s been on ao3 since may) but turns out I didn’t

Part of @tobias-hankel ‘s 2022 whump spencer reid challenge

Warnings: bullying, homophobia, transphobia, physical assault, hurt spencer

Word count: 891

Spencer wasn’t quite sure what was happening. Or what had happened, rather. The local officers had disliked him from the get-go, Derek and Hotch had given them all a warning glare, and that seemed to have shut them up - at least for a day or so. Spencer could not wait to leave, to jump on to the next case. He knew it was selfish but couldn’t bring himself to care, not really.

The comments started whenever Spencer was on his own, calling him a freak here and there. Nothing Spencer hadn't heard before. It then escalated to them bumping into him wherever and whenever possible. Again, nothing Spencer hadn't become accustomed to. What got to him was not the pushes, the glares, the laughs, jeers, comments, none of these bothered him, no. It was, in fact, nothing to do with him that riled him up so much. It was their mocking. Not of him, though, no he could deal with that. It was the mocking of the victims. Of course, the most homophobic, bigoted officers had been put on his case, a case where LGBT individuals were being murdered. It was just their luck.

The team had tried to make sure that one of them was with Spencer, or near him at least, when the others had caught on the officers’ dislike of him. But that wasn’t always possible, and Spencer found himself dreading those moments - that seemed to be when the officers’ pounced.

The most recent victim was a transwoman, she seemed to be a lovely woman, kind hearted, thoughtful, Spencer had immense respect for her

“We all know he was really a he,” The deputy laughed, “Why should we listen and play along with their delusions? They’re crazy.”

“Funnily enough, recent studies have found that-” Spencer began.

“Don’t!” The deputy groaned, “Just stop. Stop talking.”

The other officers laughed loudly as Spencer’s cheek flushed. “He’s so cute when he blushed,” One of them mocked, causing the others to laugh even harder.

“You’re being extremely childish and prejudiced about this case,” Spencer said, “You know, quite a few people who are homophobic actually turn out homosexual, internalised homophobia is very real and some people might then outwardly say these beliefs,”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying that statistically speaking-”

The first punch caught Spencer off guard, unprepared, he fell to the floor, head smacking against the floor as he fell. He blinked, before he could register what had happened, another fist flew, hitting him yet again in the face. The others, jeering, joined in, adding a variety of kicks to his torso. Spencer curled into himself in an attempt to reduce the pain. He suspected that most of these officers play football. Spencer wasn’t sure exactly how long this had gone on before it was interrupted by a very angry Hotch and a furious Morgan (who had managed to get a punch in on the Deputy). Spencer stumbled up when the hits had stopped, Derek immediately rushing to his side, assessing his state. Hotch stayed back, glaring harshly at the officers, who did not dare to move under his gaze.

“Morgan, is Reid okay?”

“I’m fine,” Spencer mumbled, drawing his arm around his ribs.

“Morgan, go get the others,” Morgan nodded, not wanting to leave Spencer, but knowing full well that one of them had to get the rest of the team.

Spencer glued his eyes to the ground when Morgan came back with the others, embarrassed. Morgan stood next to him once again, and Spencer felt a little more relaxed at the small gesture.

Hotch turned to Spencer and Derek, “We need to report this to the Sheriff,” He stated, Morgan nodded eager to report the bastards that had hurt Spencer. Spencer, however, was reluctant but nodded slowly nonetheless.

“We need to report an assault,” The Sheriff’s head snapped up, seeing Hotch, Morgan, and Reid, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Who was involved in the assault?”

“Four of your officers and Doctor Reid,”

“What happened?” The Sheriff asked, folding his arms, looking at Spencer - who still held his arms close to his ribs in an attempt to reduce the pain.

“Your officers,” Hotch answered.

The sheriff scoffed, “And where is the evidence for your claim?”

“Are you serious?!” Morgan found himself exclaiming.

“Morgan,”

“Hotch, look at him!” Morgan motioned to Spencer, his cheek bruising, lip bleeding, blood smudged under his nose. “And he’s asking where the evidence is,”

“Morgan, I will ask you to leave the room if you don’t calm down,” Hotch said, his voice stern. Morgan sighed, but did as told. “Now, there are two options here, either you fire the four officers involved or I will arrest them for assaulting an FBI agent.”

“We should do both,” Morgan muttered quietly, Hotch sent him a look, causing him to sigh, “Come on Reid, let’s go get some coffee,”

Spencer nodded, following him out. “You okay?”

“‘M fine,” Derek rolled his eyes at the younger.

“Kid-”

“What?” Spencer sighed, looking at Derek, “I’m fine, yes this hurts, yes I’m in pain, but there’s nothing either of us can do about it now, so can we both just get on with it so it can be done with as soon as possible?”

Derek put his hands up in surrender, “Okay,” There was a small pause, “Wanna go get some ice cream?”

“Definitely,”

[masterwords]

running toward nothing

Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him.

Warnings: explosion, injuries, headache

Words: 3.6k

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan established

Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel' s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal, and if you know that going in... well I'm sorry. I am truly hoping this is just two parts, but let's just say we'll play it by ear. We have a long way to go before Spencer is truly whumped, huh?

Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing

****

Spencer felt the first twinge behind his eye the minute Dave stepped out of his office and onto the catwalk. Opening his mouth as he leaned over the railing to announce that Hotch's plane had landed, the twinge turned into a sharp stabbing pain, there and gone in an instant. Shrugging it off, Spencer nodded and got up with the intention of letting Derek know.

The twinge in his eye became a dull throb in his forehead at the sight of Derek's closed door, lights off. For three months, two weeks and four days (hours give or take) Spencer had been the focus of Derek's attention. They'd been having dinner together almost nightly, carpooling, Spencer had a key to Derek's front door. That he would leave without saying a word seemed almost impossible...but there it was. Hotch was back, and if what Dave said was to be believed, in bad shape.

(x)

Penelope had intercepted the information. She hadn't meant to, but since the little hacking incident when Kevin was considering a highly confidential job in Karachi, she'd managed to keep that on the radar in case it popped up again. Like a nervous tick for a while, and then it settled into the back of her mind, completely forgotten until she saw the word Karachi on her screen. Just a blip, a flight coming in direct to Quantico. That didn't seem right, it didn't just happen and some nagging feeling in her gut told her that it was not just a coincidence that she saw it when she did. Not sure what to do with the information, or if it really was anything at all, she kept it quiet. If it really was something, they'd all know soon. And if it wasn't, well she wasn't supposed to know anything about anything and she'd rather not get in trouble again.

The way Rossi kept glancing at her while they ate lunch in the round table room told her what she feared wasn't silly. They'd all been eating in there as of late, as often as they could, the smaller the team had gotten the more they tried to band together. Now it was nearly full again, and Rossi was looking for a break in conversation...a moment that he could make an announcement that was killing him. He'd been eating Tums, not his sandwich, and that told her what he was about to say was bad and it all screamed Karachi at her. He looked pale; this wasn't just bad it was bad bad. She wished she had a Tums too.

When everyone's mouths went full and quiet, he spotted his opening.

“There isn't any good way to share this kind of news, so I hope you'll forgive me for being blunt.” He paused anyway, made sure he had everyone's attention and Penelope nodded at him, letting him know that she was at least somewhat aware...she'd seen. He figured as much. “Hotch was injured in an explosion overseas,” he was careful not to say Karachi but Penelope felt it in her bones. He lost himself in the dead silence and found it hard to continue around the lump in his throat. “It's bad. Happened about a month ago. The job, as you know, is confidential so there was no alert...it never happened...” That last part came out with characteristic Rossi sarcasm and frustration. He sighed. “It's been touch and go, but he was stable enough to make the flight home. It arrives here at the Quantico airstrip tonight at 4pm. He'll be taken to Georgetown immediately...I don't know more than that right now.” So please don't ask, that's what he meant to say but didn't have the heart.

Of course, they all had questions but none of them dared to go there, they maybe didn't want whatever answers Rossi could provide and just kept quiet. All except Emily, whose eyes had gone wide and bright. “Is he going to be okay?” She knew that was the most childish way she could have said it but “is he going to make it?” sounded too damn awful. She thought of the way he protected her, that this was how he kept her secret and kept her safe and she wanted to put her fist through the table. Or his face.

“You'll know when I know.” That felt like a damn lie, she figured, but his vault when it came to Hotch was sealed airtight.

(x)

The dull throb started pounding without mercy when Spencer's phone buzzed against his thigh. Staring into Derek's office, the plants glistening in the dark, he felt something surge through him. Hot like anger but more than that. He couldn't think of the right word, his mind had gone white hot. The buzzing at his thigh a second time startled him from the pain. The first had only been an email from Dave that he didn't want to read, it probably had to do with Hotch and he didn't want to know anything, not yet. The second was a text from Derek asking him to please stop by his house after work to let Clooney out into the backyard for a bit. There was subtext there, he was at the hospital, he was with Hotch. He didn't need to say it, and it certainly shouldn't have surprised him.

Grab yourself some takeout and sit with him for a few, yeah? Feel free to snag a beer and sleep over if you want...I'll give you some cash tomorrow. Thanks buddy.

Buddy. Buddy. He pressed the heel of his palm into his eye socket and saw stars. Buddy.

(x)

The hospital was quiet, or at least everything that went on outside of Hotch's quiet room seemed to fade into a sort of background noise that Derek didn't register. He stared at Hotch in the bed, roughly a month out from an explosion that took his mobility and his eyesight. Temporarily, they kept assuring him. Just a few weeks out from a crude hip surgery, nothing like he would have gotten at home but given that his station was highly confidential, and he'd been living out of a tent for months, it was holding. The surgeons were top notch and the hospitals were good but they weren't there for comfort and they had to push him through quickly. They had options in the future. Opening him back up felt like a wallop to the gut, a step backward, and his hip being crushed was really the least of his concerns. His eyesight, that would be a matter of time, simply waiting. Derek was, justifiably, most concerned with the way Hotch looked at him and didn't seem to really know who he was.

That wasn't entirely the truth, though. Hotch did know, but sometimes his thoughts were crystal clear and sometimes they were scattered and washed out. Everything was there but none of it fit together. His mind was a beach after a great storm, memories scattered in the sand and surf, partially buried. It was a treasure hunt. In those moments of confusion his eye (the other was taped under thick gauze) went faraway and Derek longed to know what was going on in there. Sometimes he was there in the hospital, and he knew about the Humvee that had blown to bits one hundred yards away. Just a football field between he and molten metal. He remembered the way the air stilled and then pressed hot against him, forced him in the opposite direction. He remembered his feet pounding the hard sand as he tried to find safety, listening to the screams of people who hadn't been so fortunately far away. He remembered hearing the wheel screaming through the air before it slammed into him, throwing him sideways and knocking him out. He didn't remember anything between that and waking up in the medical tent with pain he couldn't account for.

“Where is here?” Hotch asked, blinking himself awake for the second or third time that hour. He couldn't seem to keep from falling asleep. The drugs in this hospital were stronger than he'd been used to, and though they couldn't seem to touch the throbbing in his hip or the wailing pain in his head, they did make him sleep through it. Derek was beside him, ever dutiful, and sometimes he understood that it was because there was something there...love, he recognized it, but that felt far away, like it belonged to someone else.

“Georgetown,” Derek replied for the second or third time that hour. Each time it was met with a scowl and each time he smiled at that, because that was Hotch. He was still in there. “They're gonna let me break you outta here in a few days I bet.” Wishful thinking or lies, he didn't really dare to break it down.

(x)

Spencer's head hadn't stopped pounding since Hotch's plane touched down. He didn't mean to associate his pain with Hotch's return, but they were tied together inexplicably. He didn't know why and it was probably a fluke, but with the lights off and an ice pack resting on his forehead, he couldn't help but wish that Hotch was still in Karachi. Of course he didn't want him hurt, nothing like that...just there. It should have been longer. He knew that was just as wrong, whether he was hurt or not, but he couldn't seem to move past it.

Three months. In that time, he and Derek had spent a lot of time together. He'd begun teaching, asking for reassignment from the BAU to somewhere that he could try to heal from the loss of Emily rather than just burying it in piles of work that only served to remind him of what he'd lost. Hotch deciding to take a post overseas had affirmed his decision...they all needed to figure some things out and her empty desk didn't help. Derek started leading the team, small as it was, and they had to make more of an effort to see each other when they didn't work in the same department.

Three months of dinners, of getting a key to Derek's house to care for Clooney when the now very small team had to leave town. Three months of the guest bedroom in Derek's house mostly belonging to him.

So, if his headache started the minute Hotch was back on US soil, and his headache continued while Derek pulled away from him...well how could he associate it with anyone or anything else? Derek wasn't pulling away, he supposed, not yet, but he hadn't heard from him outside of that one text message in a couple of days. Normally Derek would send him silly memes or ask him questions, invite him over to watch a movie...radio silence was deafening.

A knock at his door barely roused him from the darkness of the pit he'd been falling into. He glanced at his watch, squinted until it came into focus and almost thought he was dreaming. Who came to his place at 1am? Who came to his place at all? He'd passed out on the couch with his record player going, now just crackling and popping to let him know the album needed flipping...every light in the place was on, but that was nothing new. He slept that way.

“Hey kid,” Derek said, slouching in his doorway. Spencer moved out of the way to let him in, but Derek came only a little of the way inside. “I can't stay, I was just driving home and saw that your light was on...thought I'd say hi. It's been a rough few days.” Spencer smiled wearily and jammed his thumb against the throb in his temple.

“Fell asleep on the couch I guess. It's good to see you though.”

“You want to come over for dinner tomorrow night? I probably won't cook but I'll spring for take-out. Your pick.”

“I'd love to.” It was as simple as that. Derek never came any further in, and there was no ceremony over him turning and walking out the door. The lights stayed on the but the record was put back into it's sleeve and he went back to sleep on the couch. His headache didn't keep him awake.

(x)

Spencer's feet were kicked up on the coffee table, a sign of familiarity that he didn't often affect in another person's home. But he could here, he had a key, he practically lived here. More than that, he was in socks, toes wiggling in the warm dry air where the fire hissed and popped to keep them comfortable. The first frosts of winter were just settling in, the emerald blades of grass would be glittering and stiff in the washed-out gray of dawn. Derek sat on the same couch, though his feet were curled beneath his thighs while Clooney snored his dog dreams beneath him. His paws twitched and Spencer wondered if he was dreaming of the squirrel he'd chased into a tree earlier that night. Hours he'd spent, and he couldn't seem to make himself leave...this felt like home. The room was quiet, dizzying and sweet, and Spencer couldn't help but lose himself staring at the way Derek basked in the glow of the embers. It was late, he was sure he should leave but it was so nice there with Derek, so easy that instead of making the announcement that he'd be heading out, he drew nearer.

Derek didn't shy away, he let Spencer lean toward him happy and warm. “You wanna stay tonight?” Derek asked, his voice thick like honey dripping over Spencer's washed-out muted senses. He was two glasses of wine deep, which is more than a lot for him, it was basically unheard of. The orange chicken and rice sat like lead in his belly, holding him firm where he sat.

“Yeah, I probably should.” He was planning to take a cab, that was easy, but this was better.

He was already leaning toward Derek, thinking this is the moment, he's just been invited to stay the night and he was richly inundated with velvety red wine...it was now or never. (He didn't give even one thought to Hotch being in the hospital. He'd feel bad for that later, but it didn't cross his mind now.)

Now or never. That was all he could think. Like a skipping record, he felt it in his chest.

“Derek?” It was a familiar voice, rasping and raw from the darkened hallway. The sound of Clooney's tail thumping the floor broke Spencer from his reverie and a moment later Hotch came limping into the room all messy hair and squinty eyes. His hair really was everywhere, his features grim and drawn beneath shards of matted black. He was leaning hard on a crutch, barely putting weight on his right leg, hopping a little as he came to a stop. Derek jumped up from his perch on the couch and went to him. Just went right to him, drawn like a moth to a flame, he didn't even hesitate. His arms flew immediately to Hotch's sides, as if the crutch wasn't enough, and maybe it wasn't but still. He just left Spencer sitting there swimming in the moment that never was. He blinked stupidly, wondering if he really would have kissed Derek or if he would have chickened out.

“What are you doing up?”

Hotch blinked slowly at him, and Spencer could see that he was trying to sort out the situation. He saw Spencer on the couch, two glasses of wine, a fire and he could see it clear on Hotch's face...he thought this was a date. Date night. He used to have those but that was all fuzzy and gray. The room was fuzzy too, he really couldn't see well, everything was a mess of color and shape framed by blurry black nothing. Out of focus camera lenses.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered sadly. “You have company...I've interrogated you.” He frowned, that wasn't the word he was looking for. Spencer's stomach twisted in a knot, he hated seeing Hotch like this, but he was hardly paying attention. It was Derek he was watching. The way he was gently holding Hotch upright, waiting as he searched for the right word. “Interrupted, I mean.”

Derek let out a soft laugh and shook his head. “It's just Spencer...from work?” He added that last part with a nervous edge, wondering if he was crossing a line, making too strong an assumption. Sometimes Hotch was crystal clear, and sometimes it just took a little longer, a little slide sideways through the murk, before he could catch the recognition he needed. Muddled and shaken up, not gone.

Hotch squinted with the one eye not covered in gauze and nodded slowly. “Right. Spencer...hi Spencer. Good to see you.” Spencer forced a thin-lipped smile and waved; it was an awkward gesture that made him feel slimy after what he'd just been thinking about doing. Derek turned his attention fully back to Hotch and Spencer was able to let out the breath he'd been holding.

“Did you need something?”

“I...” he began, licking his dry lips with his dry tongue. “I was thirsty.” A look of complete bewilderment crossed his features, as if what came out of his mouth might not have been true. He knew it was though, he just didn't trust himself.

“I left a glass of water on your nightstand; did you see it?”

Spencer watched the interaction with some vague interest. It wasn't what they said that he cared about, but Derek's body language, the way he gently surrounded Hotch there, made sure he stayed steady on his feet. His voice was so quiet that Spencer almost couldn't make it out, filling him with an oddly itchy feeling. Like being a kid and spying on your parents in some adult moment, arguing in hushed voices or kissing in the hallway, nothing big but just not for your eyes. He pressed the heel of his hand into his right eye and breathed through the low throb that had appeared again. It had been quiet all night.

Hotch shifted and looked down at his feet, stared hard at his black and gray wool socks like the answer was there. His voice dropped to barely audible and almost sad. “I knocked it over.”

Derek nodded in that sagely way he had and didn't press further, and Spencer was thankful as they left the room. Back down the hallway, Hotch limping badly against the crutch with Derek's arm slung around his waist in a way that made Spencer's stomach twist. Hotch's hip was screaming at him for being upright, but it sort of just screamed and throbbed all the time no matter what he did. Sometimes he forgot why it hurt and those were the worst times. Right now, he remembered that much. The tire flying through the air, turning to run and the feeling of it slamming into him, knocking him to the ground as flame and shrapnel swirled around him. Each step reminded him with a sort of bright white clarity, but Derek's hand on the small of his back felt disconnected from anything here. That moment, that feeling was different and pleasant...they'd been at a beach somewhere in Florida with Jack, Derek's hands rubbing sunscreen all over his pale skin, dragging sand from the small of his back upward. He glanced over to take in the sight of Derek beside him, desperate to hold onto this clear moment, this piece of memory that Derek held firm against him with warm fingertips. The clarity was beautiful, but it brought with it the knowledge that it would fade into the gray fog again. He hoped it wouldn't stay away as long this time.

Back in bed, it was all Derek doing the work. Maneuvering his limbs, propping pillows in all the right places. He could do so very little for himself right now except get angry at his limitations and it took every ounce of energy he possessed not to take that anger out on Derek. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

“No,” he replied, closing his eyes. He felt his lashes drag against the inside of the gauze, damp with tears. He could take the gauze off, but the look Derek gave him when he saw his eye, that he couldn't bear. It burned under light, and he saw the world through a haze of red, easier to keep it shut away. “Goodnight.” He almost tried to say Derek's name but second guessed himself, worrying he'd get it wrong. He'd done it before and the look in Derek's eyes when he'd said the wrong name made his stomach hurt. Instead, he just settled with his eyes closed and willed the hours from now until his next dose of medication to pass without incident.

Derek collapsed into his place on the couch a different man than the one who had left. Spencer didn't think much of it, he too was a different man than he'd been before when the wine warmed his belly and made him think of kissing Derek. The sensation now was something else, something ugly. And his head hurt worse.

“I didn't realize he was out of the hospital yet,” he muttered with more than a little salt in his tone. Derek hadn't told him, kept that a secret. Maybe he wouldn't have said a word if Hotch hadn't come in looking for water. “Is he...”

“It's complicated.” Derek ravaged his face with his hands, dragging them up and down again like he was trying to rearrange his features. “Everything is right now.” He was trying to hold it together, but all at once his face seemed to crumble, fall and his eyes shone bright with what Spencer thought were probably tears.

“What can I do?”

If Spencer's hand fell into place on Derek's thigh as he asked, neither of them paid it much attention.

Next Chapter ->

[spencermyangel]

Contrast

“I never wanted anyone to know,” Spencer whispered, and Morgan studied him carefully. Spencer took a deep breath and started rocking back and forth.

Spencer tells Morgan a secret he thought he would never share with anyone.

Written for the May 2022 Whump Spencer Reid Challenge

New Story, Read it here

[tobias-hankel]

May 2022 Whump Spencer Reid Challenge ❤️🖤

To join, just click the questionnaire linked below and select five options from the "Bad Thing" (the whump topic) category that you would like to write, three from the "Bad Person" (the person that caused or is/was involved with the bad thing) category, and an optional "One Line Prompt". I will then assign you a full prompt based on what you selected by May 1st, 2022.

✨ https://forms.gle/V66tzTQiPh7dNBwr7 ✨

🖤 Rules! 🖤

1. You must be 18+ to join as the fics can be rated G to E and I will be DMing the prompts.

2. All ships, including no ship/gen fics are allowed as long as the fic is Spencer whump.

3. You must have an AO3 account to join the collection.

4. Fics can be as short or as long as you like.

5. Fics must be submitted by May 30th, 2022 (Pacific Time Zone). Chaptered fics don't have to be finished by this date, just chapter one submitted. Late entries and questionnaires are allowed.

Further details are in the questionnaire.

Tagging some people that might be interested under the cut, no pressure as always.

@ssa-atlas-alvez @hothotchner @oliverbrnch @sponsoredbytonystark @dr-charlie-eppes @reidstyleshotch @reidology @reidacted @jet-plane @writer-in-theory @physics-magic @kuolonsyoja @samuel-de-champagne-problems @spencermyangel @mitchmatch24 @highwayfiftyeight @spencerreidlove @kateyee @spencessmile @thatsanswitch @casparwrites @appalachianapologies okay I went to make this list and forgot everyone’s names but here are some 🖤

[masterwords]

running toward nothing (part six)

Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him. (Set around 07x01 - It Takes a Village but canon divergent by a lot.)

Warnings: drug use, infidelity (almost), kind of non-consensual touching, panic, pain...kinda nsfw so do with that what you will...Derek is about to have a lot of regrets.

Words: 2.1k

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan established

Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel’ s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal…ooooooogh. This one is rough. I had a hard time writing it, not gonna lie. I threw a few temper tantrums. But we press on, right? Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do to get the outcome we're after...

CHAPTER LIST

Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing

**

Lights out everywhere. The whole town was pitch black in a swirl of snow. A surprise late season storm, and the only perk Derek could see as he watched a flame flicker to life in his zippo was that at least the unsub would be held up as much by the storm as they were. Hard to hunt when no one was leaving their homes and so far, he didn't have another victim that they knew of. Time was suddenly suspended in the mountains.

“Generators should kick on shortly, but it's so damn cold who knows. Y'all should go back to the lodge and get some shut eye while ya can. Bound to be a long cold night.”

“They got power?” Derek asked, smirking in the dark. The sheriff laughed.

“Not likely. They got generators too but in this kinda freeze...well everything up here's old, see. Might take a bit. Few extra blankets and a night cap might not be a bad idea.”

The lodge, perched in a small clearing of trees, was dark. Shockingly dark, though the hum of a generator could be heard rumbling from where they parked their tired SUV. The snow was piling up rapidly, by morning it might be buried. “Well, something has power...” Rossi muttered, following the team through the deep snow. He could feel it forming clumps against his socks, bunching up against his ankles. Rossi really, really hated the snow. (Now, snow falling outside a warm cabin with a crackling fire and a glass of Sangiovese...that was different. This was not the same.)

“Not us,” was all Emily said, she and JJ breaking off from the pack to make for their room. Derek regarded Spencer with a strange look, wondering if he was still upset. It didn't seem like it but he'd learned over the years that if there was anyone he was absolute dog shit at reading, it was Spencer Reid. The kid had more nooks and crannies than an antique shop. The first thing Derek thought when they entered their room was simply that he wished he'd thought to leave their heater on, at least it would be warm in there now. Hotch wouldn't have forgotten that, he would have turned it up to full blast, the room would be stifling but no. It was almost as cold as outside.

“I say we pile all of the blankets onto one bed and huddle for warmth,” Derek announced and Spencer nearly choked on his tongue. “It's the smartest option. Better to do it now while we're not too cold than in the middle of the night when we're both shivering.”

Spencer had no argument. It was smart, sure, but also exactly what he wanted. While he went into the bathroom to change into his pajamas, Derek decided he'd do it right out in the open while he called Hotch. He just wanted to say goodnight, they hadn't talked since the argument about the damn pills, and he still had plenty of battery charge if he made it quick. “Hey baby, how are you doing?”

Hotch was quiet. It was a bad pain night, one for the books. He was trying to bide his time and make the pills he liked stretch until the new prescriptions could be filled but it was unpleasant, and he was having a very bad time with it. “I'm okay.” That's what he said, but what he meant was that he wished Derek was there and it was understood. Derek could hear the strain in his voice.

“I'm sorry baby," he said quietly. "I'll be home soon. We just got hit with a bastard of a storm...it'll be a few more days.” He spoke with a softness in his voice that he hadn't been able to find in the time he'd been away. He still felt terrible for snapping the night before, was just glad that Hotch was willing to talk with him after that. “I miss you.”

Hotch hummed in response, somewhere deep in the belly of his pain with nothing more than a handful of aspirin to take the edge off. It wasn't cutting it. Jess was rubbing his lower back, kneading in circles to try and take some of the pressure off but it was barely helping. He told her it was good because it made her feel like she was doing something while Sean slept. They were ships in the night these days. One on duty while the other slept or kept Jack occupied. Sean was better at helping him manage his pain, he could take him for walks (mostly up and down the driveway, maybe to the corner) because he was strong enough to help if anything happened. Jess couldn't do that, so she sat with him and rubbed his back.

(x)

It didn't take long before Spencer was shivering. Derek's internal thermostat seemed to be firing on all cylinders, he was still plenty warm, so he pushed right up next to the kid and whispered something cheeky about snuggling in the dark that made Spencer laugh. He'd taken one more of Hotch's Vicodin while he was changing, the fear of the dark too great. He thought it might take the edge off of everything being so black, no light in the room save for the pool of silver trying to drip through the blinds from the winter moon.

Spencer couldn't find a way to shut his mind off, even with the swirling feeling the pill was giving him. He was floating inside of the blankets, relaxed and almost separate from the intensity of the cold. Is this what it feels like in a chrysalis? His mind was fluttering on furry moth wings, warm and sticky and god he just wanted to talk. Like a child afraid of the dark, talking would help. Maybe he could tell Derek about moths.

“Derek?” His voice was small and came from deep in the mound of blankets, floating through the curves and crevices. It didn't sound like his own as it moved further from him. Derek's response was simply a hum, deep and gravely and thick with sleep. Derek slid closer on instinct alone, wrapped him in his arms and buried his face in Spencer's neck. His deep breathing had all the quality of a big cat purring and Spencer lost his moth dream and was thinking about tigers now. There was a part of him, buried deep, that knew without a doubt that Derek was sure he was holding Hotch, and he was right. Hotch, forever cold, shivering in the blankets and putting his cold feet between Derek's legs to steal whatever warmth he possessed...that was where Derek's mind was. Deep in a dream of being home, in better times, when Hotch wanted to be touched and, hell, could be touched. And maybe he was being silly about that, maybe he should have asked Hotch if he wanted it, if he was waiting too but he just didn't...it didn't matter. He was dreaming about it now and it was so good.

Spencer slipped around inside of the embrace until they were face to face, and in the dark he couldn't tell if Derek's eyes were open or closed but he pressed his lips to Derek's quickly and waited. Bold, maybe, but he had felt Derek's erection against his back and he wondered just enough if it weren't for him, at least on some level. Maybe he was thinking about Hotch, sure, but if he found out it was Spencer would it really be that bad? Derek kissed him back hungrily, holding him tight, and Spencer found himself no longer second guessing any of it. His entire world was the swell in Derek's pants and his sweet cherry chapstick.

It was all he'd ever wanted. The kiss was sleep laced and languid, full of a weird slow-building intensity. Every move carried rainbow shock tracers in the dark, and Spencer almost seemed to watch himself grow bolder by the minute, cold hands slipping up beneath Derek's sweatshirt, fingertips against abs he'd been dreaming about for years. Every move with less and less inhibition, and when he wasn't pushed away, when he was welcomed...he couldn't stop himself, he lost all control of his impulses. One hand first, no sense of timidity left, slipped lower and lower until he was grazing Derek's hip bone. Just a little further and he'd have it all, he knew it, and he felt bold. An out of body experience, he felt Derek hard against his thigh and he let his hands move further without waiting for any further invitations, Derek's lips on his and his roaming hands were all the permission he needed. Beneath the waistband of Derek's sweats he paused and smiled into the kiss, not surprised to find that Derek wasn't wearing anything underneath.

Pressed up close, Spencer's pulse quickened and Derek's breath was so damn hot against his neck. The chill of the room couldn't touch him there. He let his hand slip further, dangerously close and trembling with anticipation, would have made it too if he wasn't stopped by a sudden sharp intake of breath from Derek. Not quite a gasp and definitely not a noise of pleasure, Spencer drew back instantly, pulled his hand back to safety. The space between them grew until it felt like a canyon and he listened to the quick, shallow breathing from Derek in the dark. He couldn't see a thing, and for the first time that night he was grateful because for another blissful second he could pretend that it hadn't been a mistake and that Derek wasn't going to be upset with him. Spencer stared wide eyed straight ahead as Derek blinked himself fully awake, came to his senses, his breathing now almost panicky.

“Spencer?” he gasped, almost falling out of the bed in his desperation to put more distance between them. There was no amount that felt like enough. His hands were shaking, but his body...god his body still wanted that touch. It had been so long, almost 4 months now, he'd been dreaming about touching Hotch again...he dreamed it almost every night now and woke up in a cold sweat but he hadn't thought it would happen now, in a bed with Spencer and god...what has he done? Spencer was almost cowering for a moment, trying to wrap his mind around the situation. He thought Derek was awake, or at least partially awake...into it...

“I'm...I'm sorry. I thought...” Spencer stammered, blinking wildly in the dark. Derek stood in the puddle of silver moonlight rubbing his face, trying to get a grip on what was happening, what his body was still driving him toward. For one blissful moment he lighted on the possibility that he was still stuck in his dream, that he was actually still sleeping. But somehow he knew that wasn't true. This was real. A cold shower sounded stupid under the circumstances but he needed it. So desperately, even if he froze to death. “Derek?”

“No, it's my fault,” Derek mumbled, still in shock. “I guess my mind...” Four months, he thought bitterly. Four months and now look at him. The worst part was that there was maybe no end in sight. And god now he was going to have to tell Hotch...he couldn't even look at Spencer, he felt so awful. “I must have been dreaming. Kid, I'm so sorry. I really fucked up.”

“It's okay...” Spencer said it in a way that Derek thought sounded heartbreaking and hopeful, like he wanted it. Suddenly things were falling into some kind of painfully clear and bright order and Derek felt his stomach twist. He was going to be sick. “Derek, it's okay if you wanted to...I know it's been a long time...”

The dark wrapped him up tight, and Derek thought for a moment that he might pass out. What had he done? What the hell had he done? Forcing his breathing to slow, he counted, tried all of his tricks to calm himself and think rationally. He didn't do anything he couldn't explain to Hotch, it was innocent...stupid, incredibly fucking stupid, but innocent. As long as he took a shower and killed the last of the fire on his skin (and in his pants), it would remain innocent.

“No,” he replied softly, finally finding his voice. “No, Spencer, that's...I'm sorry if I lead you on, made you feel like something was here that isn't...”

He was already walking toward the shower, now in a sort of daze. “I never meant to. I'm so sorry.” The bathroom door closed and locked behind him, and yeah, he knew the power was off and he'd be freezing in a pitch-black ice-cold shower but that was fine. He sat himself down beneath the spray and cried the tears he'd been holding in since Hotch got home. Maybe longer. Maybe since the moment Emily came back and smiled at him with a watery apology floating in the depths of deceit. He didn't know anymore, but his tears were hot and the water was cold and his body went numb sitting there.

[masterwords]

running toward nothing (part eight)

Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him. (Set around 07x01 - It Takes a Village but canon divergent by a lot.)

Warnings: drug use/addiction, violence, food, lies, a lot of sex talk (sfw so far)

Words: 3k

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan established

Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel’ s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal. We're coming up to it now, guys. And yeah, we're talking about s-e-x here a lot, and in the next chapter we will be getting pretty frisky again...I think at this point that's not very surprising right? But we're nearly there.

CHAPTER LIST

Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing

**

They don't fight. They just don't.

That was the funny thing about them. Funny because if anyone watched them at work for any length of time, they'd think there were bound to be some knock down drag out brawls. In fact, at one point, Emily expressed her disappointment in how very little they did of any interest at all. “You're both so...boring...” she'd said, rolling her eyes. She'd expected that out of Hotch, sure, but not Derek too.

Sure, there were little bouts of bickering and some days it was almost constant, but that's par for the course. They simply don't have any reason to fight. On most things they see eye to eye or have built up enough patience (or tolerance) to let go of what might otherwise spark a fight.

Except now. Right now, Derek was pretty sure a fight was warranted. Maybe even necessary. Words weren't going to cut it this time. And when Hotch refused, left him hanging somewhere in fucking limbo...forgiven but still unbearably sad...he had to leave. Hotch may not want to fight but something was boiling just under Derek's skin and if it wasn't let out soon he might cause irreparable damage.

The problem was, when he got like this, he could usually just hook his hands behind Hotch's thighs and toss him onto the bed and they'd solve all of the world's problems with their pants off. And that was explicitly off the table, which is why he was in this whole mess in the first place wasn't it?

So he walked. And then he ran. Down the empty roads and flashing traffic lights pounding out miles and miles beneath his worn old tennis shoes. Normally running helped, it gave him just enough, but this situation was spiraling out of control and his fists were balled so tight at his sides he thought they might never unclench. Running wasn't going to cut it. (He knew why that was...)

The gym down the street from Quantico was open. Or, rather, its lights were on. The overnighters. Derek knew who he'd find there and he figured he could get through a few hours of meaningless conversation for the relief that the punching bags might afford him. Or better, if any of them were particularly squirrelly. Doctors, tweakers, police officers...the night crew, they called themselves. The guys who needed to let off steam and didn't exactly subscribe to that 9 to 5 life. Like Fight Club but with slightly less blood.

The stink of the gym washed over him and it was almost instant, he could feel the electricity crackling over his skin. This was where he needed to be, if he couldn't be in their bed anyway. He would rather Hotch bend him over, dig his hands into his hips so hard he left imprints and bruises...

“Yo, Morgan!” It was Denny, probably a tweaker but Derek didn't mind him much. Good guy, kept to himself mostly but tough as nails. “Wanna piece of me?”

“Nah,” Derek replied with a grin, approaching the other man with his hand extended in a warm greeting. First a shake, then a fist bump. “I want the whole damn thing.” He didn't feel like smiling, but it was a fake it til you make it sort of night. What he really wanted to do was hit something until his knuckles bled, or be hit until he saw stars. Either way, he had a lot of aggression to work out and Denny was clearly looking for the same high.

They never set out to hurt eachother, but a little blood on the floor was par for the course with the night crew, and the owners didn't mind it as long as they kept their cool and cleaned up their messes. Derek mopped up his own blood, his broken lip still dripping bright red eagerly down his chin. His shirt was a mess, but he felt great. His lip would probably do better if he could wipe the damn smile off of his face. He still wanted to hit the sack with Hotch as bad as ever, but he didn't need it as badly now. It'd just be nice. Really, really nice.

Over to Quantico and up to Hotch's office was his next move, not ready to head home just yet. It wasn't that he couldn't be there now, he was just beat. Bone tired.

He knew a couch that was free, and it was late enough he thought maybe he could get in a few hours before being discovered and having to field any number of questions he didn't want to answer. The weight of the key in his hand, unlocking an office that had been shut for so long and wasn't apt to be opened again for months...walking by this door used to give him a tightness in his chest, now it just felt dead. It smelled so familiar, but not at all like Hotch anymore. There was no guarantee it ever would again. If Hotch couldn't pass fitness for duty tests...well they'd cross that bridge later, it was too distant to really bother thinking about. He could barely walk; they weren't considering anything more than day to day mobility. (He felt sad for a moment, just a pang, until he reminded himself that his home smelled like Hotch now and the sheets and pillows in his bed and that helped.)

Derek rifled around in the desk drawers for a snack, a pouch of saltines or a fun size candy bar leftover from Halloween. Hotch always bought too much candy for trick-or-treaters and stored the excess here so they could all help themselves to an afternoon pick me up if they needed. They knew which ones to take and which to leave. Hotch liked the simple chocolate bars, no gimmicks. Hated the Milky Ways and all of the caramel gooey stuff, didn't like anything that stuck to his teeth. He was funny about that, and though he'd never complain if anyone took the ones he liked, they all left them. At this time of year, it was down to just the bars he liked and the stuff no one wanted...smarties and licorice, mostly.

He hated licorice, but he took out a pouch and ate it anyway, careful of his painful lip. Barely tasted it, really. He just needed something to stop his hands from shaking...a few hours getting the shit beat out of him had done a number on his blood sugar, so he ate two more tiny fun size packages of Twizzlers before deciding that was enough. It reminded him of buying pouches of off-brand licorice at the corner store with his sisters and sucking down apple juice through them like they were straws. Childish delights.

The couch accepted his plea for sleep eagerly, curling up on its thin fabric and searching out his favorite spot. Right between the springs that dug into your hips. If you tried to sleep without searching out those springs you'd definitely regret it when you tried to sit up and couldn't bend your spine.

He woke to the sound of his phone ringing. More than one missed call, but this one broke through. Dawn was barely creeping and spreading through the sky, seeping in through the windows. He'd intended to be home by now, dammit.

“Where are you?”

Derek knew that was what Hotch said, but it sounded more like one fuzzy thick sound. No formalities, those probably died in the empty hours between missed calls. Now it was just something akin to hushed panic swirled with immense relief.

“Needed to clear my head. I told Sean I was leaving.”

Hotch hummed and Derek could hear the worry pricking his breath. “He didn't know where...I was worried...” He actually said it. Carefully chosen words that shattered Derek's barely awake calm. He closed his eyes and pictured Hotch sleepy-eyed on his cane hobbling through the house looking for him with pillow creases on his cheeks and sleep matted hair. It made his chest ache.

“I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean to...I'll be home soon.” Baby felt wrong, sounded wrong. He wished he could take it back. It hung there between them long after the call was disconnected, and somehow he found a store of energy so deep he was able to run home. Slow, perhaps, but sucking that chilly morning air into his lungs woke him up.

Hotch knew it would sound silly to just about anyone, but he could smell his office on Derek. There was something distinct about the dusty couch and the smell of his books and his paper. He practically lived there, it was familiar and it was a smell he missed deeply. Derek wrapped him in a hug, buried his face in Hotch's neck, and let out a long shaky sigh.

“I'm so sorry, Aaron,” he whispered. “I didn't mean to worry you.”

His shirt was covered in dried blood and his lip was split down the middle. Hotch didn't need to ask him where he'd been or what he'd been doing, and he certainly didn't need to ask why.

Spencer appearing at the door to pick Jack up for school was ill-timed, at least for him. The first time he'd seen Derek since they got off of the jet and he walked in to see them hugging in the kitchen. Fucking great, he thought bitterly. There had been just enough time over the last few hours to think maybe Derek would tell Hotch everything that happened and then Derek would be his. Because how could Hotch forgive that? It was silly, childish even, but he really couldn't fathom Hotch just being okay with it. So, seeing the hug, maybe Derek hadn't said anything, except Hotch didn't even look at him. No, maybe it's that he wouldn't look at him. So, he knows.

“Mornin'!” he chirped, because they were all going to play this fun game of nothing is wrong and nothing happened as everything stacked up to insurmountable heights. They all but invited him into the game with their complicit little hug, ignoring his presence entirely. Come join in the pretend parade.

The empty Vicodin bottle pressed against his thigh as he waved his way through the house toward Jack's room, making a brief stop at the bathroom on the way. He had to return it; he'd promised Emily. She didn't need to know the story he'd concocted, or how he did it, and hopefully she would never even bring it up but just in case...he wouldn't be lying this time.

Locking the door behind him, he stared at his face in the mirror and wondered if anyone had even noticed the dark circles under his eyes. He didn't fool himself into thinking it was the drugs, not yet. He'd only taken 3 of the damn pills but man he wanted more, he'd forgotten the way they not only killed the pain but made him simply stop caring so much. About everything. Except he wasn't sleeping, that pill bottle screamed at him like something right out of a Poe story. It might not have been throbbing beneath the floorboards but close enough.

Searching, he found a small drawer and slipped the empty bottle inside next to a few of Jack's things and some washcloths. Bath crayons and Vicodin secrets. Perfect. Hiding in plain sight. It could easily have been overlooked, and if it was empty? Well, Hotch had memory problems now right? He was hiding it well, but Spencer could see that he was doing a lot more hiding and masking than healing in that regard. He just talked less and made less eye contact, which was sort of a miracle because he already did them so rarely. But that bloody eye was fascinating to look at, still not fully healed, and Spencer found himself searching it out. But with Hotch's memory problems and Sean being...well, he'd always been sketchy, he had plenty of opportunity to cover his tracks.

Years ago he never would have considered that this might be where he'd wind up, but since the whole Emily situation he held lying in a slightly different regard. Lying to Derek hurt him a little, but Hotch had no regard for his feelings when it came to lies told and he was just...returning the favor, right?

He stared at the medicine cabinet and slowly clicked it open, just to see the inventory for himself. He'd thought about it many times since Jack so innocently handed him that bottle of sweet relief...and, it had helped, he hadn't had more than a dull throb since Jack put that bottle in his hands, really. Here and there, but knowing this existed was just about enough to keep it at bay. That top shelf was...well it screamed at him. He picked a bottle of hydros from the corner, looked at how full it was and the date the prescription was filled and smiled to himself...Hotch wasn't using these.(Or the oxy beside them, but he didn't touch them...not yet.) It was clear. There were others beside it, also full, but he didn't need to get greedy now...just two. Right onto his tongue, right down the hatch.

And then two more, because he thought maybe two weren't enough to walk back out by that kitchen again. Watching Derek wrapped around Hotch made him sick enough that he took two more for his pocket, for later. Pain and suffering, he named them. His fingers twitched eagerly.

He looked light as he walked Jack out the door a few minutes later, laughing and conspiring with the kid after saying their goodbyes. Like nothing had even happened. Like he wasn't feeling the warmth of his slow creeping high already spreading through him. It certainly made seeing Derek and Hotch together a lot easier to swallow.

And speaking of swallow, he knew pain and suffering were sitting in his pocket waiting for him. Later.

Derek glanced at the clock and decided he had plenty of time before he needed to leave for work, and he was starving. A full breakfast was on the agenda. And maybe an entire pot of coffee, he was dragging.

Hotch only picked at his plate (and didn't go for any coffee, he wasn't drinking much of it lately), between the pain and the pills his appetite was almost non-existent. He'd lost a lot of weight and it was still melting off. It smelled good though. It wasn't that he didn't want to eat, and he did try because Derek's breakfasts were second to none. He couldn't cook dinner for shit, but breakfast was his love language. They sat with their plates in silence, not exactly awkward silence but a volatile one. Derek could feel the crackle of a fight...it could go there this time. The way Spencer had just walked through, smiled, grabbed Hotch's kid without even so much as an apology or acknowledgment of what happened might be enough to set him off.

“Why?” Hotch asked quietly, breaking the silence. Derek sighed deep and long when he realized that it wasn't a fight Hotch was after, just a reason. Because he was searching for an answer that aimed directly at him. Derek could point his finger for something he did, and Hotch would apologize. He could take the low road to an easy win here. Taking advantage of Hotch's massive guilt complex was always on the table, but he wouldn't stoop so low even if he could rationalize a way that it did come back to Hotch at least sharing the blame.

“I was dreaming about you because I miss you...it's been months, Aaron. But that's not...it isn't why. There is no why. It was just a mistake.”

There were tears falling into Hotch's mostly untouched scrambled eggs and Derek knew he couldn't mitigate this damage. Making Hotch cry was about the lowest thing he could do. He didn't need to blame him, just gut him with the truth.

“I know. I...” Hotch had already found a way to blame himself, that much was clear, and Derek only served to confirm it for him. He'd played right into the trap laid. There were a number of reasons he'd put off even bringing up their scorched sex life, from being afraid of it being painful to being worried about what Derek would think about the new wreckage he kept sealed beneath sweatshirts. What a silly notion, though, Derek never had worried about the scarred landscape of Hotch's skin. All that worry, he knew now, had led Derek right into someone else's arms.

“We could...” he looked at Derek, eyes filled with tears and widened hopefully. Derek didn't mind the blood, he barely noticed it in his eye anymore, it was just Hotch and he looked so sweet leaning forward like he had a secret he wanted to tell. He cleared the emotion from his throat. “Try. We could try. If you want.”

Derek stopped chewing his bite of egg, his cheek still puffy and frozen in place. He couldn't believe his ears. “Really?” His mouth was full, and it made Hotch chuckle a little. He looked like a chipmunk, all wide eyes and puffy cheeked surprise. Derek was astonished...that was maybe the first time he'd heard Hotch laugh in weeks.

This breakfast was turning out to be interesting.

“Yeah.” Hotch was acutely aware that his proposal wasn't exactly sexy. It was clinical, but effective. Probably not much of a turn on, him sitting there with a spoonful of egg hovering just above his plate, primed and ready for a bite, and offering something he hadn't even mentioned in months. Right now, Spencer was still between them, the last person Derek had touched like that, and until he was moved out of the way Hotch couldn't put more of himself out there so this offer was about as much as he could muster but at least it was genuine. “I miss you too.”

[masterwords]

running toward nothing

Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him. (Set around 07x01 - It Takes a Village but canon divergent by a lot.)

Warnings: bombing, fire, surgery, pain medication, a lot of angst, head injury, hospitals, doctor's appts, medical trauma, mention of drug use (past and present), swearing...(will update as I go...it's bound to get worse)

Words: 44k (COMPLETE)

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan established

Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel' s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal

Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing

**

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

PART SEVEN

PART EIGHT

PART NINE

PART TEN

PART ELEVEN

PART TWELVE

PART THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

[masterwords]

running toward nothing (part nine)

Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him. (Set around 07x01 - It Takes a Village but canon divergent by a lot.)

Warnings: a lot of sex with a big ol' cliffhanger at the end...briefly explicit

Words: 2.5k

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan established

Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel’ s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal. Anyone want a brief reprieve from the shit show? How about Hotch & Morgan remember how much they love eachother? If you would rather skip the sex, find your way to the end and ignore the rest. I know that isn't everyone's jam. We're almost there! We have one, MAYBE two left depending on how badly I can fuck it up with that cliffhanger huh!

CHAPTER LIST

Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing

**

Their breakfast table became no more than a memory. A time capsule. Derek swallowed his bite and dropped his fork, confused and unwilling to take even a moment to contemplate what his answer should be. He helped Hotch to his feet eagerly, trying not to pull him too fast or too hard in his excitement. They did leave his cane behind accidentally, leaning right there against his chair. A first. By the time they realized it, Hotch was gripping Derek’s arm with a reassuring look that said they were just fine. Derek was all the support he needed. The entire house was empty, Jessica was at work and Sean was out doing some much-needed grocery shopping. With Jack at school...they had no worries, the place to themselves, nothing but time. Like frisky teenagers, they hurried toward the bedroom as fast as Hotch’s bum leg would carry him.

It took every ounce of self control that Derek possessed not to hook his thumb into Hotch’s waistband to yank him close. It was going to take a lot of restraint to remember that he had to be gentle and that didn’t come naturally, not here. His hands hovered dangerously, reverently over the curve of Hotch's hips, his favorite place to hold and tug and dig in; instead he slid them up over ribs and chest until they found purchase on his shoulders. More awkward than  a middle school formal dance, his back ramrod straight and waiting. Hotch groaned. He was standing more or less on one leg, but that didn't mean Derek couldn't touch his damn hips, so he grabbed those timid hands and shoved them back down to where they belonged, settling them against his hips. 

“It doesn't hurt...not like that...” Hotch whispered reassuringly. And even if it did, you better believe he wasn't going to say one single fucking word about it. He was going to bite into his lip and suck it up and deal with it later. Derek couldn’t do anything that some sleep and his trusty heating pad couldn’t fix. For now, before Derek could protest or ask questions, he kissed him and reminded him why they were there. It took Derek a minute to catch up. Moving at a snail’s pace was throwing him for a loop. 

But Hotch kissed him hard, maybe harder than he'd intended, and Derek winced as his split lip opened back up. They both tasted the metallic tang of blood. Hotch let up, just a little, and when Derek stopped to press his knuckles to his lip to try and stop the blood he took that as his opportunity to ask the question that had been plaguing him since they were at the table. 

Since he reluctantly swallowed his bite of eggs without somehow choking.

“So…how do we...” he started, but couldn't find the words to finish before Hotch's face broke out in a smile. A real one. The kind that took his frown and erased all the worry into something light and airy, more than a little mischievous. This was where he really showed off how full of surprises he could be, by letting Derek know he'd been thinking about it too. Not just at the table, but longer...it went further back than Spencer and his damn roving hands. 

“Well, I have a very fancy printout.” He slipped out of Derek's embrace and limped to the nightstand, well it started as a limp but ended up as more of an awkward hop as he closed the distance. Probably enough of a hop to give Derek some pause and make him wonder if they really should be doing this.  He hoped not. It was really nothing, just faster if he didn't have to try and focus on real steps. He could do that in physical therapy every day, right now he had more pressing things at hand. He rifled around in the top drawer until he found a little color pamphlet and held it up almost triumphantly. Derek's surprised laughter was bright and easy.

“You talked to your doctor? You're so fucking lame...” But he took the pamphlet greedily and Hotch watched with sparks in his eyes while the contents were being scanned. He’d be lucky if Derek still wanted it after this. 

“Pick one. Or two.”

The room was silent while Derek studied the positions and read the instructions a little too carefully, because unlike Reid he had to actually work to commit things to memory. It was like being transported back to sex-ed in highschool. Up next, how to use a condom, does everyone have their banana? Except this was not a highschool classroom and he had to look at these adorable little diagrams with their stitched up cartoon hips and choose one to attempt with a man he wanted to throw against the wall and...

“Which one?” Hotch asked impatiently. 

“That's a surprise.”

“Derek...” Hotch whined, shifting until all of his weight rested on his good leg. He wasn't having a bad day, the pain was there but it wasn't screaming and he was hopeful. This would be good, it would work. It had to. There was an air of desperation in the way he gripped Derek’s biceps, held him close...he'd lost Haley, he couldn't lose Derek too. His heart simply couldn't take another loss because he'd failed to do what was needed of him as a partner.

“I'll be gentle,” Derek promised, as if anyone had asked, before slipping Hotch's shirt up over his head. “Do you trust me?”

Hotch nodded. Everything in Derek screamed out in agony at that, every ounce of guilt boiling back to the surface. The turn of events was shocking, and the outcome more shocking yet. He kept waiting for the floor to open and swallow him up.

Except it didn't.

Hotch shivered when Derek slid a hand through his messy hair, too long and all silver sparkled cowlicks since he'd been back on US soil. In bad need of a trim, but then he also needed a shave. He hadn’t heard any complaints, and grooming was low on his list of things he deemed worthy of his few minutes a day where he felt good or had the energy. Today, that energy was going to be spent here. His voice, husky and thick with something deeper than desire, barely broke through Hotch's anticipation. “Are you sure? We can wait…you don’t have to do this because of…”

“Please shut up,” Hotch whined before nodding. “Yes I’m sure.”

Derek gave Hotch's hair a careful tug, humming and tipping his head back just far enough to kiss him. No more talking.

Four months, Derek thought hungrily, his mouth already on course to devour his prey. Four months and what he'd really like to do...well he couldn't do it that way, not for a while yet. They would have to move slowly.

Derek hated slow.

But slow is where they are, so slow is what he does. Hotch's body was achy and tired, not surprising given the circumstances, but it took him a minute to get really warmed up. He felt better than he had in days really so he let Derek shift him and position him while he did his best to follow along and remember how this dance went. His head was still a quicksand filled minefield of missing memories. It was improving, or at least he could hide his confusion better now. Derek's hands were gentle, but as Hotch's skin lit up in tiny flames beneath Derek’s palms, he no longer wanted gentle...memories were filling in those gaps, memories of anything but gentle and he really probably wasn't ready for what those memories were whispering (and then yelling) but he needed it.

Those tiny flames were becoming a bonfire. 

“Dammit Derek,” he gasped, pulling Derek into his lap and kissing him hard. Too hard, again, forgetting entirely about Derek's lip. He wasn't sure how he lived without this for so long, how he thought he could go without it for even longer. “I'm not going to break.”

“You might,” Derek warned, but he was grinning into the blistering kiss. Grinning like a maniac because this was his Hotch. It had taken months of watching him wander confused and in pain to get here, but they were here now.

“Then break me,” was all Hotch had to say before he was a trembling mess of wounded animal sounds under Derek's rough touch. And no, maybe he didn’t exactly mean that, but he almost did. If Derek smiled and roughed him up a little, if he ended up in pain at the end, he wouldn’t have any regrets. By the time Derek was on top of him, shifting and carefully placing a pillow between his knees (an act that, as sweet as it was, he was trying intensely to forget because god it made him feel fragile…) Hotch was more than ready. He was practically vibrating.

At first it was only kisses, and Derek thought that was really enough, his body was so ready to explode over the ease with which Hotch's mouth opened for him. He fell in so deep and so fast there was no hope for return. Biting into his lip, he trailed his finger down Hotch's jaw, to his adams apple, to his exposed collar bone. He hadn't really looked at the new scars, singed skin both puckered and slick, hadn't looked at what the explosion had done to Foyet's tangle of marks and as he blazed a trail of kisses he realized he didn’t care. Hotch was Hotch, he was covered in scars Derek might never know or understand, and they could shapeshift and never really change. He was a magician's canvas, destined to display paintings by various artists for his entire life. Derek just wished he could have gotten there first, really. He would have left it untouched.

“Are you sure?” he asked, stopping and derailing them again because he simply wasn't sure this was okay. No matter how badly he wanted it. It was almost unsettling how vulnerable Hotch was right now, and Derek's fingers trembled while he maneuvered a body he knew so well and suddenly hardly at all. If Hotch was only doing this because of Spencer, he didn’t think he could ever forgive himself. 

“Dammit Derek…” Hotch groaned, lost somewhere deep in violent swirls and dizzying lights. He was happy, he knew that. He wasn't pretending, and what little apprehension he had was quelled by the warm tendrils of the Percocet he'd taken with breakfast. Derek sighed and nodded, sliding slowly on top of Hotch, slicked with sweat and excited goosebumps, their bodies exposed and pressed together. He slid his hand around Hotch's hip to his front, stroked him, held tight and felt his erection grow thick and hard in his hand. He kissed the back of Hotch's neck, up and down, from his ear to his shoulder, lips dancing over electric skin and he whispered sweet and silky words of adoration. He kept stalling, Hotch could tell and it was frustrating in good and bad ways but he was about at his limit, nearly ready to do something very stupid. 

“Derek,” Hotch moaned into the pillow, pressing his face there. His skin was flushed, hot, and he was floating. “I'm okay....you can...” but he didn't get the chance to finish the sentence before Derek was letting his hand move again, he wouldn't finish Hotch off first. The bastard left him hanging and smiled against the sweaty skin on his neck and moved on.

“Slow your roll, cowboy,” Derek whispered back, his voice husky and deep. He was teasing and Hotch hated being teased. “No fuckin’ way we’re rushing this. If I’ve gotta be gentle, then I’m gonna enjoy every minute. We go slow.”

Hotch couldn't blame him there as badly as he wanted to. As much as every nerve ending sparked against that logic and told him to just fucking move. He relaxed under Derek's touch and when Derek was inside of him and his hips were moving, doing this little press and scoop that drove him crazy, Hotch finally found his way to letting the world go.

When they finished, Derek finally gripped Hotch's hip now out of sheer stubborn will...he wouldn't let him thrust or twist or move, he was holding him firmly in place. (The pamphlet was pretty clear about that one, he remembered. He’d probably broken a few rules here and there but that one stuck.) Hotch felt the pulse of Derek inside of him, quick, throbbing and warm. He closed his eyes and let himself fall into the bed breathing heavily. He hadn’t done much, in the grand scheme of things, but he was completely spent. He could sleep for a week with muscles made of honey and bones of lead. 

“I love you so damn much,” Derek whispered into Hotch’s ear and was met with a low hum of approval. 

Beneath the sheets, they tangled together all sweaty limbs and slowing hearts and deep deep breaths. Some slow and creeping pettiness was tickling Hotch's tongue and he longed to say something about Spencer, something scathing that would for sure ruin the moment so he bit it back and swallowed the sour taste of it. He couldn’t promise he wouldn’t ever say it, he had a way of holding onto things, but for now…he was content to let it slip away. 

(x)

“Aaron!”

It was Jessica, her voice frantic and loud, carrying through the house. Derek froze when he saw her enter their bedroom, one hand flying to shield her eyes from the sight of them tangled and mostly asleep in a nest of crumpled sheets. “God, cover yourselves up...” 

“This is our room, lady,” Derek mumbled, sleepy and tugging the blankets up over them anyway. He blinked slowly, forcing his eyes to focus while Hotch still slept against his chest. The drugs kept him warm in their embrace, stopping him from waking quickly. Derek hadn’t ever completely fallen asleep, at least he didn’t think so, but now he was wondering. 

“What is it Jess?” Hotch’s voice was raspy and lazy, syllables sliding one into the other, slurring through lips that didn’t really want to work. The confusion was always worse when he woke, but he didn’t feel too foggy, just exhausted. Good exhausted, really. 

It was only good because he couldn’t see the panic in her eyes. 

“AUGH! Fucking…dammit you guys. The school's been trying to reach you idiots for an hour, they finally called me and I had to leave work...Jack never showed up.”

That woke Hotch up. Quickly. He sat himself upright, must too fast, and winced at the sudden bolt of pain that rocketed from his hip down to his knee. One hand flew to his thigh, massaged the cramping muscle while he tried to sort out what she’d said again…the words weren’t making sense, but he wasn’t sure if that was his quicksand brain or not. 

“He what?” His voice was stretched thin over the bulge of the pain, but he pieced together what he could of what she’d said and it still didn’t really make any sense. “Spencer picked him up, they left...”

“Fuck.”  It was Derek’s turn to join in while he listened intently to a voicemail left by the admitting desk at St. Sebastian Hospital. “Fuck.”

[masterwords]

running toward nothing (part four)

Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him. (Set around 07x01 - It Takes a Village but canon divergent by a lot.)

Warnings: drug use, hospital, infection/emergency, drug theft

Words: 3.1k

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan established

Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel' s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal...we finally have some solid betrayal going on here! And some very very bad choices being made by a few people. I will be out of town for Little League tournaments all weekend so the next update will be Monday, most likely.

CHAPTER LIST

Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing

**

“Sean...”

Hotch's voice wavered, confusion made it sound watery and insubstantial. He didn't trust his eye, not in the low light and red haze. The shadows had been playing tricks on his sleepy mind. Still, it was more than his eyes, he could smell his brother's cologne, something musky and almost floral to mask the cigarette smoke in the fibers of his clothes. Sean was standing there or he'd reached a new level of hallucination. One seemed more likely than the other, especially with the vertigo he'd experienced on his way to the bathroom earlier that morning. Out of nowhere, legs made of jelly and a strange heat that surged from his hip to his knee. Over in a flash, not concerning enough to mention, he took his medication, relieved himself and hobbled back to bed without incident. Now his brother was staring at him, not just standing but looming, really, backpack slung over his shoulder like he was just leaving instead of just arriving. “What are you doing here?”

Sean smirked, as if to challenge Hotch's mental acuity. Even with the long shadows cast over his features Hotch could tell he wasn't going to take it easy. He never had. “Guess.”

“Jack told mom what happened,” Hotch started, flickering through a line of thought that was almost solid enough to grasp. “Mom called you. Probably bought you a bus ticket...how long are you staying?” He spoke slowly, carefully choosing each word, proud that he had managed to get through it without stumbling.

“Boss gave me a week.”.

With some great effort, Hotch talked Sean into helping him out of bed. He'd taken his pills on an empty stomach and it was starting to hurt. The dizzy feeling swelled in him, pounded from his eyebrows to his chest and he clutched Sean's arm tight. He hadn't intended to but it was just no use pretending he could do it on his own. The vertigo would pass. Blame the eye, he figured, he'd left it uncovered the last few days and it was messing with his equilibrium. Hell, it was messing with everything. Seeing the world through the red glare was like watching some old movie representation of Hell, minus the horns and pitchforks. “You good?”

Hotch nodded, he couldn't focus on walking and talking at the same time but he could nod. The walk to the kitchen was slow, and he was dragging his leg more than stepping but the joint had slowly become a ball of flame and all he could think about was sitting down.

“Where's Derek?”

“Work.” More of a grunt than a word as he sat, eased himself down into the chair leaning heavily on his good side. The ball of flame in his hip shattered and became shards of glass. “He's going to a movie with Spencer later.” Sean didn't seem to pay much attention to the way his face scrunched up in pain as he sat down, maybe he thought it was normal.

“Cool.” A break, Sean studying the cabinets one by one, inspecting their food selections and organization. He was a kitchen guy, it was what he did. “Alright, time to get you some lunch Skeletor.”

While he fumbled around for the items he wanted, the front door opened and slammed shut, followed by cheerfully loud voices. Jack and Spencer breezed through quickly, Jack stopping only to wave hello to his dad and paying no mind to his uncle at the toaster. Spencer said nothing, just walked right through to Jack's bedroom and they heard the door slam shut behind the two friends. On the door was a handwritten sign with a hand drawn flag of Jack's own invention and words that didn't quite make sense, the spelling was just creative enough to be nonsense, but the basic idea was that Jack's room was off limits to anyone that wasn't he or Spencer.

“Not even a hello?”

“Spencer is teaching him how to play Risk. They've got a card table in there covered with it.”

“He's a little young for world domination...”

“He's good at it.” Not just good, great. He'd listened to Spencer over dinner the night before rattle on and on with information he could barely keep up with, but it all amounted to praise for Jack's awareness and ruthlessness.

The conversation was halted by the dropping of a piece of toast slathered with orange marmalade and a glass of sweet tea in front of Hotch. Sean's specialty. He was southern through and through. Hotch couldn't help but smile. Sean's after school snack, day after day. It was memories on a plate. There was a twinge in his hip and he shifted, pressing his thumb a little nervously into the joint.

In Jack's room, they'd already set themselves down at the table and Jack was studying the board to make sure he remembered where everything was, what he'd wanted to do. He was little but he wasn't stupid, he'd figured the game out now he just had to remember all of the mechanics. What his plans had been when their timer went off. Spencer was just glad Jack was trustworthy, everything was in exactly the same place as they'd left it though he was sure Jack had been faced with temptation more than once...just to make a little move, just one little thing. See if Spencer would notice, but he knew that he couldn't fool Spencer. He'd win without cheating. Spencer rubbed at the ache in his temples and squeezed his eyes shut while Jack concentrated on the game, double checking that he remembered the rules.

“Your head hurts again?” Jack asked, huge brown eyes studying Spencer carefully. Spencer nodded, a little embarrassed that the kid had seen his discomfort.

“Yeah, it's fine, kiddo. Not so bad today.” Jack ignored him, already on his feet and moving toward the door with a plan. He'd been thinking about it for the last few days, once his mind was set on something it was set. He'd talked to his dad and Derek already, really. If your friend has a hurt should you help them? A seemingly simple question with a very simple answer. If you can, yes. Even Jessica had elaborated enough to say that you should always try to help people, even when it's hard. Even when they aren't your friends. Well, that had settled it...he knew he could help Spencer.

Perched on the sink, his feet dangling over the edge, he rifled through the medicine cabinet. Top shelf, the daddy pills. Everything else was Band-Aids and tummy stuff, but Derek kept those yellow bottles that made daddy feel better up high. He didn't know what any of the words on them meant but he'd figured out they all really did the same thing, daddy only had pills to make the hurt go away. He twisted and twisted at the little white caps but to no avail, they wouldn't budge, they would just spin and spin. He could figure them out, he knew he could, but something told him just to take a bottle to Spencer and let him do it.

He hoped he wasn't doing anything too wrong...his dad had so many and it seemed like Derek was always getting new bottles, he could spare just a little to help Spencer play the game with him. “Here you go! My dad takes these...they make his leg not hurt so bad...”

Spencer held in his hand a poisonous tube of sweet relief. He almost salivated, and still he wanted to push them back. Like it burned. Hadn't he just been thinking the other day that he'd like to get his hands on something? Anything? Closing his eyes he saw the orchids, still fresh and beautiful and blood red on Derek's desk. Blood red just like Hotch's damned eye that wouldn't seem to heal. It was creepy. He wore sunglasses, even in the house, just to hide it but Spencer saw the blood in there and imagined it sloshing around. “No, Jack I...these are your dad's.”

“He has five bottles...I counted.” It was so innocent. Five bottles meant enough to share with a friend, Jack couldn't see any reason not to. He got the impression from the look on Spencer's face that maybe was doing something wrong and thought he might want to apologize. Spencer looked scared. He considered giving the bottle back, telling Jack to take it to the bathroom but what if he was caught? He didn't want the kid to get in trouble, but he certainly couldn't take it back...if he was caught with it, even as innocently as this, Hotch would think he was relapsing. As if he'd even cared the first time, really. Who was he kidding? Hotch was so blitzed out on a cocktail of these things right now that he probably wouldn't notice. He shook the bottle, only a few left in there anyway, the prescription was probably ready to be refilled. Maybe they wouldn't even notice.

“Five bottles?” Spencer asked, quietly. His voice raised an octave and that was hard to control. He was talking more to himself, but Jack nodded. “Thanks Jack.” He wasn't confirming he'd take any of them, but he had decided that the kid was only trying to help. Slowly, reverently, he dropped them into the pocket of his vest when Jack looked back down at the board and decided he'd find a way to put them back in the bathroom before he left. No way he'd keep them. He couldn't keep them.

He'd worked so hard to stay away. He'd survived being shot in the knee and healed just find without them...what was some annoying headache in comparison with that?

Except he was so excited about the movie he was going to with Derek later that he forgot all about them in his pocket. He and Jack played an hour of intense Risk and he all but ran out of the house and to the movie theater without considering that he'd now taken a disastrous and dangerous step toward relapse. By the time he realized they were there he was parking in the garage, the flashing lights of the theater inviting him in. He'd put the pills back tomorrow, he figured. Hotch had five bottles...four now...of whatever it was he was taking. Probably a hefty mix, all things considered. Besides, there were only three left in this one, he'd counted the little shadows. Three wouldn't be missed for a while.

One day wouldn't hurt.

(x)

Hotch started acting funny about halfway through his toast, after swallowing his sweet tea and Percocet. He'd been planning to ask Sean to pass him a cookie, one of the oatmeal raisin ones Penelope made for him in secret. Watching Sean pick his way through the Tupperware full on the counter was making his stomach grumble, but he couldn't manage to slop the words together. His ears were ringing, his tinnitus back with a vengeance. Inside his skull was the entire percussion section of a 2nd grade band, complete with out of time triangles and tambourines. It wasn't that he couldn't think around it, more just that he couldn't do anything but drown in the cacophony.

“Sean?” His voice was ragged and soft by the time he found it. “My hip feels...” Like fire? Like shards of glass on fire? Not for the first time that day, but certainly the worst and for the last fifteen minutes it hadn't let up, it only seemed to increase. Afraid to touch it, to explore, he squirmed and felt the last remaining sutures pull. Where there had been so many, his entire side stitched up this way and that, only small places still remained and those places were the source of the flames. Breathing was getting hard. The heat was terrible, creeping like a forest fire over the surface of his skin. Sean came quickly and helped him stand, he was sure it was just the sitting down that was doing it but standing only served to make it worse.

“...lie down...” he mumbled almost incoherently as the vertigo came back with a vengeance and he faltered, slumping heavily into Sean's side before the world went gray and he went headfirst into the fog.

On the couch, Sean put an ice pack on Hotch's burning hip and called Derek who spared no time rushing home. He'd started running while he was on the phone, not bothering to shut his office down...he'd ask Penelope if she could later, it seemed unimportant now. By the time he rushed through the door, Hotch was awake but barely. Groggy and blinking slow, sweating beneath ice packs with Sean pacing behind him nervously.

“Sean,” Derek called, breaking his trance. “I'm sure you didn't do anything. Help me please.” With Sean's help, they shifted Hotch enough on the couch that Derek could see the incision, the site that now looked red and infected. The sutures, only four of them left, pulled taught around glistening pink skin. It was hot to the touch and Hotch flinched away from even the remotest sensation. Even the warmth of Derek's cinnamon gum breath was too much. “Looks like an infection,” he said softly, pulling out his phone to call Jess and let her know.

Derek would take Hotch to the hospital while Sean stayed with Jack. It wasn't exactly something Sean was comfortable with, he'd never been on his own around a kid before, especially not this kid who was so different from other kids. Jack who looked right into you, who spoke in words most six year olds wouldn't use, Jack who knew too much about life.

Lifting Hotch into his arms, Derek grunted and struggled to secure him in place. Long legs, head lolling to the side and back exposing his throat until Sean tipped him forward, dropping his chin to his chest. It was Sean who guided him, held doors open, made sure he got to where he was going without slamming Hotch into walls and doorways in his hurry. Holding him was no problem, even at his heaviest he wouldn't have given Derek any trouble, but those long legs...they seemed to go on forever and there was no good way to fold him up.

Derek was pacing the exam room while they poked Hotch's already bruised and scarred arms with needles, placed IV tubing and dimmed the lights. They were going to admit him, already planned to without the results of the blood tests, they could see the signs of infection already in his growing fever and redness. It was just a waiting game now...can you guess his counts? How bad is the infection? How long had it been festering unnoticed? Derek couldn't help it, he thought of Osmosis Jones, a movie he and Jack had watched more times than he could count. You ever try to blow dry your hair with a fart?It made him smile and would make for an easy way to help relay what was happening to Jack. Or maybe it would just keep his own spirits up.

Jessica sat with him. Paced with him. Conspired and whispered with him. They lost all track of time while doctors and nurses floated around them, in and out, adding and changing IV bags, checking vitals, poking at him.

At Derek's house, Sean was doing everything he could think of to entertain Jack who seemed oddly okay with what was going on. A little worried look would flash over his features but it was so quick that Sean nearly missed it. He guessed it made sense, Hotch hadn't been home long, he'd been away overseas, it was almost just like he hadn't come back at all. “Wanna watch a movie?”

Jack always wanted to watch a movie. By the look of uncle Sean, he'd pick a good one...something his dad wouldn't approve of, and he wouldn't even ask if it was okay. He got in his pajamas without complaint, helped Sean clean up the house and make some snacks, anything he could do to ensure that they got to watch a good, good movie. Not a baby movie. Jack fell asleep with a chocolate milk mustache on Sean's chest in a mess of popcorn to the dulcet sounds of Ripley blasting her way through aliens.

(x)

Spencer waited and paced the movie theater lobby, watching the clock tick away the time. He checked it against his own watch, and then his phone, to make sure. First Derek was just late but that could be traffic easily, he was working and sometimes things got jammed up pretty good this time of day. They had plenty of time until the movie started. And then Derek was even later, so he bought them their popcorn and sodas and found the best possible seats. No sense waiting in the lobby, Derek knew how to get into the auditorium. He left the ticket for Derek at the box office and settled in. When the movie started, the room went black, he was still alone. Sodas in the cup holders surrounding the seats he'd chosen, sitting on the outside so maybe Derek might use their shared arm rest and be closer to him...it had been planned out perfectly, except the seat remained empty. He set his popcorn there and fought back the tears. No text, no call, nothing from Derek except silence. Halfway through the intro credits, the music already agitating his now immense headache, he felt the bottle of pills in his pocket. Vicodin.

Just three. Still three. He could take one now, and put the bottle back with the last two when he brought Jack home from school the next day. He doubted they were inventorying them, that wouldn't make any sense. They weren't worried someone was eyeing the stash. Popping one into his mouth quickly, he slurped it down with a gulp of Pepsi and a handful of popcorn. His headache vanished quickly, but a lead ball settled in his belly. Guilt. A deeply upsetting feeling of stepping back in time...he knew damn well, the way his head swirled pleasantly with the soundtrack, that he wasn't going to return the other two pills either. He'd already named them dinner and dessert. The thought amused him as he slipped further into the memory of this light feeling.

Hello old friend.

<- Previous Chapter | Next Chapter ->