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Tags: eventual kiss, slow burn, shared hotel trope, no smut
Word count: 5k?.. idk itโs long man
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In the two years you had spent alongside Hotch as his inferior, you never crossed any line. Even when your stomach started doing silly flips and dances when he brought you coffee, or put his hand on your back, or your gazes held for a second longer than they needed to, you remained strictly professional.
So there was a uniquely humorous irony in the fact that you two were now sharing a hotel room in New York
As soon as he opened the door to find the singular bed, he insisted you sleep on it, and he would sleep on the floor. You were slightly appalled, but still so in shock about the entire situation that you just followed him silently. Now, as you were lying in an overly large bed, after hours of working and being exhausted, you suddenly found yourself unable to sleep. You didnโt know if Hotch was asleep; the room was tense and silent, but eventually your guilt got the best of you.
โUm, Sir. You really donโt have to sleep on the floor; the bed is quite large.โ As soon as you say it out loud, youโre filled with regret. Did you just ask your boss to sleep with you? Well crap. Youโre actively praying he is dead asleep, when your prayers are not answered.
โAgent, you can call me Hotch.โ So heโs awake.
You sigh. โHotch.โ You emphasize. โPlease do not feel obligated to sleep on the floor. I would feel horrible if you woke up and your back hurts for the entire day.โ
โAre you implying that because Iโm old I have back problems?โ You can almost hear the smile in his voice.
โWhat, no!โ You prop yourself up onto your arms and relax when you hear him chuckling from where heโs lying down at the foot of the bed. The sound is melodic and rare. โLook, I already feel bad because I made you stay behind, and now youโre sleeping on the floor.โ Again itโs silent.
โYou did not make me do anything, Agent.โ You were not expecting that answer. You donโt know how to reply, so you just stay silent. The small admission is possibly the most vulnerable thing youโve ever heard him say to you. In the years you had now spent at the BAU, you had grown close to the profilers you worked alongside on an almost daily basis, but Hotch was a different story. His strength as a leader was evident in every action he took to defend the team from the bureaucratic chaos of the bureau, and in the small moments he spent with the team after particularly hard cases, but his personal life was almost as mysterious as Emilyโs. At that, you stop to wonder if he's dating someone and youโre just his inferior Agent who asked him to sleep in the same bed as him; if he was, you doubt he would have announced it to the team.
Your eyes are starting to droop and close, and you think he must have fallen asleep because heโs been silent for so long, when you feel the bed dip next to you.
Even though you basically begged him to sleep in a bed with you, the absurdity of the situation seems to have paralyzed you. The man you have recently deduced you have feelings for is lying in a bed next to you, as you are actively in your PJs.
The stiffness of your limbs doesnโt seem to lessen as time goes on, and you once again have a sleepless night due to a particularly infuriating man. Although at least this time you come out of it with all your hair.
-
Your eyes snap open unceremoniously, and you immediately want to close them again. You feel like you both slept too little and too much. When you sit up to see the peaceful face of a man, you are stopped in your tracks. Agent Aaron Hotchner was a hard man to find without some sort of grimace on his face. The only times you had seen him genuinely relaxed, without any wrinkle in his forehead, were when his son Jack came to visit him in the office. It was sweet to see him completely relax into being a father. Plus, it was always hard to be serious when Jack was around; he was a ray of sunshine.
But now, sitting in a bed next to him, it felt intimate. Maybe too intimate than you would like. Still, you canโt tear your eyes away from his expression. He looks peaceful and beautiful. As soon as the thought crosses your mind, however, you shake yourself out of it and, as gently as you possibly can, get out of bed and tiptoe to the bathroom. The hot water brings a little more life to your body that you desperately need. When you walk out of the bathroom with your hair in a towel, you almost expect to find Hotch gone. Maybe he woke up and realized that he had been coerced into bed by one of his profilers, and he was off to report her to the director to get her fired.
But instead, you were faced with the sight of him putting his tie on. When he hears you walk in, he offers you a good morning, which you return quietly and with slight hesitation. He excuses himself as he walks around you to the bathroom and closes the door after him, leaving you still somewhat shell-shocked. Once youโre ready, you donโt wait for him and instead bolt downstairs to the lobby where you find JJ and Reid chatting. You sit with them and take a moment to accept that you slept in the same bed as your boss.
For the sake of the case, you refuse to let this affect your work, so you try to distract yourself with JJโs animated story about Henryโs latest adventures. Thankfully, the distraction works, and you only slightly feel nauseous when Hotch walks in and meets the rest of the team.
โ
Another day, another coffee. Once again handed to you by Hotch, you accept it without meeting his eyes and then quickly beeline to anywhere where he is not.
Youโre talking to Reid about the geoprofile when the phone rings and Morgan picks it up.
โTalk to me, Babygirl.โ
โI like the new nickname.โ Replies a gruff voice that is definitely not Penelope Garcia.
โ...Rossi?โ
A laugh comes from the other side of the phone before descending into coughs.
โYouโre supposed to be on sick leave,โ Hotch mutters, but his voice is devoid of any type of surprise.
From the other side of the line, you can hear him scoff, and you can almost picture him waving Hotchโs reprimand away.
โI had Garcia send over some of the files to look over,โ he pauses before adding, โfrom the comfort of my bed. And I was thinking that with this level of sophistication in his kills, he must have had some practice.โ
โWe looked into that and couldnโt find any victims that matched such a specific MO,โ Emily responds.
โWell, I have a lot of time on my hands. So I had Garcia look into murders dating back 20 years that involved women in our age range and in the geoprofile that had been beaten brutally and had their hair taken, and she found 3 more potential victims. Prostitutes." It makes sense theyโre higher-risk victims.
โTwenty years.โ You mull it over to yourself.
โIโve had Garcia send over the files, and Iโll keep working from here.โ He descends into a series of coughs once again, and Hotch sighs, hanging up the call.
Morgan and JJ check the new files Garcia sent over, and youโre about to look over them on your own tablet when a local officer walks in.
โUh, sir, we have someone here claiming to be a medium, who says they have information that could help find the missing women.โ You expect Hotch to ask you to come with him; youโre standing next to him and only just pulled the files up, and Spencer is fully consumed by compiling the new confirmed victims into his geoprofile. Yet, Hotch calls for him to come instead, and he reluctantly follows along.
As they walk away, you canโt help but think of how easily he interrupted Reidโs focus.
โ
โHeโs eating them.โ
You, JJ, and Morgan are standing over the latest crime scene; there's no body, only a leg. A rejection. He left it in an alley off a crowded street, right in the middle of his comfort zone.
โWhen I was looking over Pearl Whites medical history yesterday, I saw that she has recently been diagnosed with stage four leukemia.โ
JJ nods, realization painting itself across her features as she turns to you with a knowing look.
โOut of the victims that Rossi sent over, only one of them showed any signs of a possible amputation, but it looked like halfway through sawing the leg, he stopped. That victim also had cancer.โ
โSo heโs rejecting the victims who lack โpure meat.โโ
โIt's time to deliver the profile.โ
The team is delivering the profile when they hear some yelling coming from behind the officers gathered around the bullpen. You see a woman push her way past the officers, yelling until she holds her arms up, proving she comes unarmed. She makes her way to stand in front of the team; she looks rattled and stressed, and you honestly canโt blame her.
โWhat are you FBI people doing to find my mother? Standing around in a circle talking is not helping anyone!โ
Youโre the closest to her, so you meet her eyes and try to assure her that the profile the team has compiled will help everyone find the unsub faster, but she cuts you off with the sound of a crisp slap as she takes a swing at your face.
โOh my-โ You step back as the police immediately move in to hold he back, and you hold your cheek in slight disbelief. So far, you were definitely not Buffalo, New Yorkโs biggest fan.
โJamie The Divine Seer told me that my mother is in a place of immense pain and suffering and all of you are doing nothing to find her!โ She screams as she's pulled away by the local police, and eventually her yelling quiets down.
Your cheek still stinging, you turn to Reid. โโJamie The Divine Seer?โโ
Hotch purses his lips, and Reid nods as Emily fills you in. โThe medium telling our victimโs families that their family members are in โdark cold bakery.โโ
โBakery?โ JJ eyes them skeptically before turning to you, smiling. โI think itโs our turn to visit our local โDivine Seer.โโ
โ
You had never been to see a medium personally, but you didnโt expect them to be located in a strip mall next to a Subway.
The inside of her shop is dark and smells so strongly of incense that you and JJ make eye contact and wince. When she finally emerges from the back room, you both show her your badges, and she offers to sit down with you both.
Which is how you find yourself sitting on the floor of a dark room with a crystal ball in front of you and a woman named Jamie The Divine Seer oddly eyeing both you and JJ as you ask her questions.
โI can sense a deep pain within you, Agent.โ She turns to you, cutting JJ off just as she was asking her something; youโre sure your annoyance is evident on your face. The bruise from being slapped is also becoming more evident, which you assume helped her come to her conclusion.
โWeโre here about what you have been telling the family members of the recent murder victims. Not me.โ
โYou have a deep love within you that youโre scared to admit to yourself.โ
At that, you are left at a bit of a loss for words.
โA kind of love that makes it hard to sleep at night.โ Okay, that's enough.
You stand up, and JJ walks out after you, eyeing you smirking, but you wave her off.
When you both arrive back at the station, Morgan asks if she revealed anything else or showed any signs of possibly being connected to the unsub. You say no, but JJ just smiles at you.
โ
You contemplate putting off going back to the hotel just so you don't have to face Hotch, but doing so probably ensures that he will stay behind and wait for you again. So you suck it up, like the adult that you are, and instead beeline to drive back in a car he is not in.
You contemplate asking Emily or JJ to sleep in their rooms, but you know from experience being in a motel in a tiny town that Prentiss tends to fight in her sleep. And in asking JJ, you would also have to admit to her that you slept in a room with the unit Chief of the BAU, which would surely let on that he is the one that the psychic was talking about.
In what feels like an eternally long car ride, you even consider asking Spencer and offering to sleep on the floor, but you know he likes to listen to physical chemistry lectures while he sleeps, and you are not in the mood to relive your college years in place of sleeping.
When the car parks and the team walks in as an exhausted mass into the hotel and towards the elevators, you attempt to break off and walk towards the reception. Youโre stopped, however, by a hand grasping your arm. When you turn, you find Hotch looking down at you. You freeze and meet his eyes reluctantly.
You had successfully avoided him for the greater portion of the day, but now there was no escaping. Literally, he was strong.
As soon as you relax and lose your look of a deer in headlights, he lets go of your arms and eyes you with a guilty look, his eyes focused on your cheek. He had insisted that you go to the hospital earlier, but you had adamantly refused.
โNoโฆno, it's okay really.โ His brows furrow like he doesnโt believe you, and you sigh gently, patting his arm in what you hope comes off as a reassuring gesture. He doesnโt seem to believe you, so you smile and begin to walk towards the elevators, leaving for him to follow you, which he does, thankfully. Once in the elevator, you realize that you donโt even have the key card for the room, so youโre extra grateful that he followed you. He scans the card and chooses the right floor when you hear some voices shouting to hold the doors, so he moves to block them with his arm.
Which is annoyingly attractive, but you push that thought away. Youโre rooming with your boss; you need to act like a professional.
A cute young couple stumbles into the elevator and adamantly thanks Hotch for holding the doors as the man pushes the button for their floor and the doors shut. As soon as the metal box begins moving up, they make conversation and chatter away happily about Buffalo, New York, and how they're visiting for their honeymoon. Not a place you would want to go for that, but okay.
You and Hotch have made it 3 floors with just smiling and nodding before the woman turns to him.
โSo are you guys also here on a couples vacation?โ
You canโt help but laugh, and quickly try to hide it behind a cough. Hotch just looks like heโs at a loss for words. A few seconds later, he still hasnโt moved, so you answer them.
โIโฆno, weโre notโฆweโre actually here for work, and heโs my boss.โ They โahhโ and nod before the elevator makes it to their floor and they say goodbye.
As soon as the doors close, you canโt help the laugh that escapes your lips. And once your amusement fades away, you turn to see Hotchโs eyes on you and on his face a rare smile. When you guys make it to the right floor, he holds the elevator door for you, and you guys walk to your shared hotel room. To your surprise, the air seems significantly less tense. Even more to your surprise, heโs the one who breaks the silence.
โHow was your visit with Jamie The Divine Seer?โ He opens the door and again holds it for you.
โShe wasโฆunique.โ He smiles again, and you feel spoiled. โShe read my fortune, I think.โ You set your work bag down and take your bun out of your hair. Walking to the bathroom. As soon as you see your reflection in the mirror, you flinch; you really underestimated the force of her slap because a big purple bruise is now prominent across your cheekbone.
โShe read mine too.โ You donโt give any indication of sharing what she told you, and neither does he; you canโt help but wonder what she saw in his eyes.
While youโre in the bathroom, you attempt to take your makeup off but wince as the wipe stings where your bruise is now on your face. As if sensing your indication of pain, Hotch is at the doorway in an instant. He seems deeply concerned about the singular bruise on your face and once again insists that you go to the hospital. You wave him off, promising that youโll survive a bruise. He doesnโt look like he believes you.
He bullies you into letting him put a Band-Aid on your face, which he applies with the gentle precision of a father who has put many band aids on a little boy who likes to adventure. The proximity makes it easy for you to fully take in his features. The few greys mixed into his otherwise dark hair, the indents around his eyes from smiling with his son. It only makes you more attracted to him, and you remind yourself of all the reasons why you should not give in to your desire. The silence is filled by the quiet tap of his fingers against his knee.
โ
The next day starts normal (enough), considering youโre sleeping with your boss.
You wake up feeling significantly more rested than you have in the past three days, which is a relief. Hotch seems to have slightly relaxed after the incident in the elevator, and you donโt even run out of the room, instead waiting for him and walking down together. You both fill the elevator ride down with chatter about the case. In fact, when you were struggling to put your necklace on, he even offered to clasp it for you. Outside of the intense feeling you felt in your core as his finger brushed against your neck, it was a kind gesture.
Once you got to the station, the team settled into their normal rhythm. Garcia called with a list of potential suspects that fit the profile, and the team began brainstorming ways to shorten the list.
Standing around the commotion of the station is Pearl White; one of her legs seems to have been amputated at her mid-thigh, and in its place thereโs a bloody pant leg tied off. She doesnโt seem fully conscious; she's leaning on an officer for support while the rest of them call for an ambulance.
The team speeds to the hospital after her, trying to figure out why he let her go.
โThe security cams picked up a dark blue SUV dropping her off a few blocks away from the station before a civilian spotted her,โ Penelope informs the team over the phone. โThe plates were missing, but I can narrow down the list of suspects.โ
โIs this his endgame?โ You ask, turning to the closest person to you, which happens to be Hotch.
He purses his lips, looking just as puzzled as you feel.
โWe didnโt profile an endgame.โ JJ answers from where sheโs sitting in the front of the car.
When the team arrives at the hospital, Morgan and Hotch rush to ask the paramedics if you can speak to Pearl before she goes into surgery, but they inform them that her condition is too severe and theyโll have to wait until she's out. So the team settles into the waiting area, anxious and tense.
An hour goes by, and then another, and then another. With the help of marvelous Penelope, the team narrows down the list of possible suspects to one man. He recently traded in his old sedan for a blue SUV, and according to records, he lost his mother to cancer a year ago, and the anniversary of her death was a month ago, around when the first of the bodies was discovered. According to police reports, CPS was also called multiple times to their house when he was a little boy.
โOh no, guys.โ Penelopeโs on the phone with you, JJ, and Morgan, while Hotch is speaking with the local police and Reid is speaking to the doctors. โI think I figured out how he found each of the victims.โ
She tells the team that while looking through his bank records, she found that he visited the grocery store where the first victim worked, rode the bus that the second victim drove, and finally visited the diner where Pearl White was serving him.
โSo itโs the anniversary of his mother dying; he sees women that resemble her age range and decides to stalk and eat them,โ JJ voices what the rest of the team is thinking.
โYou got an address, Penelope?โ
โNo, Iโm sorry, my loves, he has no work or home address listed.โ
โWhat about any abandoned building nearby where he can hold them?โ You ask.
โLet's seeโฆwe have anโฆabandoned bread factory right in the middle of his comfort zone!โ
You canโt help but laugh as Emily groans.
โThanks, Penelope.โ
Seconds after you hang up the call, Reid comes rushing in with the news that Pearl White is awake.
โ
โDo you believe in the psychic power?โ Emily asks the team on the jet, she seems skeptical but also annoyed after the Seer correctly โsawโ the โbakery.โ
โSome,โ Morgan responds as Reid starts to list the most famous cases of mediums being correct.
Prentiss shoots him a surprised look, and JJ says that she does while smiling at you. To which you roll your eyes.
โTheyโre just profilers with cooler names,โ Reid concludes, and everyone laughs. The only one missing from the conversation is Hotch, who sits in his usual seat reviewing some paperwork. Youโre not necessarily tired but decide to get up to grab a cup of coffee anyway.
โYou know you werenโt the worst roommate.โ You donโt what gives you the confidence to say that to him.
โYou werenโt too bad yourself.โ He replies, taking the coffee you were holding out to him. โEven if you refuse to go to the hospital.โ You canโt help but smile, watching as he takes a sip of the coffee, pausing for a moment as he realizes it has a dash of cinnamon. He wasnโt the only one who could learn someone's coffee order.
When he meets your eyes in a quiet thank you, you canโt help the surge of pride that swells in your chest.
โ
Hotch had ordered everyone to go home as soon as they landed, citing that their reports could wait until the next day. To that, no one complained, all rushing home to their loved ones.
That night, as you lay in a bed that was finally yours and yours alone, you couldnโt bat away the feeling in your gut that something was missing. You would rather die than admit that what was missing was a certain man lying next to you.
The next day, you painfully worked your way through your reports, chatting with Reid as you both recorded the events of the case in excruciating detail. Unfortunately for you, however, everyone finished before you and headed out. Apparently being punched in the face and then deciding not to go to the hospital had consequences, and they were paperwork. You promised the rest of the team you would meet them later at JJโs house for dinner, if you ever finished.
And when you finally do, you almost jump with joy as you walk to Hotchโs office to hand them in.
When you knock, the person opening the door is a surprise.
โRossi?โ You eye him skeptically as he smiles widely; he does not look like what one would classify as healthy, but he's still in a trademark David Rossi suit. โArenโt you supposed to be on sick leave?โ
โIโve never been one for vacations.โ He tells you as he opens the door and lets you in to the office.
โItโs not really a vacation if youโre sick.โ You tell him, and he shakes it off, smiling.
โI heard from a little birdie that you took quite the wallop to the cheek.โ He counters. โAnd then refused to go see a doctor.โ He smiles at you with a smug look on his face that almost makes you laugh.
Your eyes narrow at Hotch from where heโs sitting behind his desk as you drop off your paperwork, and he avoids your eyes. You swear you see a slight blush blossom across his cheekbones, and he flips through the pages before signing at the end. You turn to Rossi.
โYou donโt say?โ
โNo one in this team is good at admitting they need help,โ Hotch mutters before grabbing his bag and coat and moving to leave. You canโt help the smile that comes to your face as you and Dave follow after him. You say your goodbyes as he starts towards the elevators, and Rossi turns to eye you with a particular look, scanning your face.
โI like the haircut.โ You had forgotten that even happened, you grimace.
Your reaction only further reinforces the self-satisfied look in Rossiโs eyes as you both walk towards your desk, where you start to pack up your bag.
โThanks.โ
โYโknow,โ He starts, and your stomach drops. โI know of another agent who is fond of cutting her hair when she feels particularly stressed.โ
โAre you implying you think Iโm stressed?โ You turn to meet his eyes, crossing your arms. โI feel like thatโs in the nature of our job.โ
โMaybeโฆbut Iโve only ever seen you do it twice.โ You narrow your eyes at him once again, pondering in your mind if he somehow was able to deduce why you cut your hair by profiling you from miles away. Thankfully, he changes the topic.
โHave you noticed anything odd about Hotch lately?โ Never mind, youโre not thankful; this is not a good change of topic. Itโs not even really a change, not that Rossi would know. Though your confidence in that is waning by the second.
You turn to him with an exasperated look on your face.
โWith all due respect, why are you asking me? Youโve been working with him much longer than I have.โ He must know.
โI have. But he doesnโt like to open up to me.โ He says it offhandedly, but you still feel suspicious.
โAnd he would to me?โ You turn away to stuff your computer into your bag.
โYou guys have spent more time together recently than I have with him.โ He knows. โLook, you want to know how I can tell when something is weighing on his mind?โ
You donโt really, but you have a feeling heโs going to tell you anyway.
โHe taps his fingers on any surface he can find.โ At that, your hands freeze.
โHe what?โ You look up to see a twinkle in the manโs eyes.
โHayley told me a long time ago that when he was first building up the courage to ask her out in high school, he would do it all the time.โ
The conference room. The coffee. The steering wheel. His leg.
You severely underestimated him. Not that you should have; he was one of the best profilers you had ever met; you just never thought you would be the one being profiled.
โI cut my hair because I wanted a change.โ Even you donโt believe yourself as you hear the words come out of your mouth.
โWhatever helps you sleep at night, kiddo.โ He pats you on the back, and you feel like you might explode.
โMaybe Jack is having a hard time at school?โ You offer weakly and mostly to yourself.
โHe's doing good.โ David offers very helpfully.
As you walk to the elevator together, you find yourself in a bit of a trance as you try to make sense of all the information he just unloaded onto you. While waiting for the elevator, you turn to him in disbelief.
โWhy are you telling me this?โ
โAfter 3 marriages, I know a thing or two about wasted time.โ He strugs. โAnd seeing you two tiptoe around your own thoughts this past month has been excruciating.โ
To which you respond with wide eyes and a jaw on the floor.
โWeekday traffic can be a bitch.โ Rossi comments, turning to you, smiling.
You eye him for a second, meeting his eyes with a questioning gaze, wondering if you understood him correctly. He must feel the need to spell it out for you because he nods toward the stairs behind you, and you sigh before running down the stairs.
โ
Why would you ever run?
You hadnโt run so fast since JJ invited you to one of her morning runs and left you in her dust. After that, you swore it off.
When you finally get to the parking garage level and sprint out to see the cars lined up and trying to exit, your eyes scan for one specific car.
This is insane. You think to yourself. You are not a character in a romcom.
Still, you keep running.
When you spot a flash of green in the distance, just making a turn around the corner onto the first level of the parking garage, you sigh before sprinting once again.
When you finally make it, youโre out of breath, and you do not think you look at all glamorous after running down 5 flights of stairs and through a parking garage in heels.
Nevertheless, you make it to Hotchโs car and knock on his window. Take that, JJ.
He seems slightly startled at the sound, and when he turns and sees it's you, his eyes widen in shock (and maybe horror?) before rolling down his window.
โAgentโฆ?โ
You then realize that you have no plan for what you were going to say if you actually managed to pull this off.
โSir.โ It comes more as a breath than a cohesive word because youโre still trying to catch your breath.
โ...Are you beingโฆchased?โ His voice sounds worried and somehow still serious. You shake your head before mustering up the courage to look him in the eyes.
โSir,โ Oh god, this is worse than when you asked him to sleep with you. โIโฆI-โ
HONK
You both turn to see the head of a man hanging out of the car behind him.
โHotcher! Now is not the time to be having a team meeting!โ Itโs Max from Homeland Security.
โGet in the car.โ He turns to you, unlocking the doors, but you hesitate. Youโre about to admit your feelings to your boss, and in the highly probable event that he refuses your advances, you do not want to be stuck in a car.
โNo.โ
What?โ
โJust drive.โ He eyes you as more cars honk from behind. โPlease.โ You watch him sigh before slowly moving up to where the line of cars is stopped, and you run after the car.
โLook, sir-โ
โHotch.โ
โHotch.โ You concede. You take a singular deep breath before taking the leap. โTell me why have you been tapping your fingers.โ
His eyes widen in shock, and he seems like heโs at a loss for words. But you power through and keep talking.
โRossi told me that when you are stressed, you tap them, and I-โ
โHe told you what?โ
Another honk; he must have gotten distracted. โLook, please get in.โ He practically begs, but you refuse.
โPlease just tell me.โ Now his eyes remain trained on the road, not meeting yours as your stomach basically explodes in nerves. โPlease, Hotch.โ He sighs, running his hand through his hair and turning to you with a desperate look.
โGet in, please?โ
โFine.โ
You donโt really feel any fight left in you, so you get into your unit chief's car with the full intention of telling him your feelings, even if he does end up throwing you out of the car. As soon as you open the door and sit down, your heart flutters. The whole car smells like him, and the feeling you get in your chest is almost overwhelming.
Once youโre buckled in, you turn to look at him. The car is dark, hence being underground in a parking garage. But you can see clear as day the grimace plastered across his face as he keeps his gaze ahead. He seems to be mulling over his own thoughts because for a few seconds the car is devoid of any noise except for the sound of the new radio station he was listening to before you interrupted his commute.
โHotch?โ You gently prod. โNow, will you answer my question?โ
He glances at you and holds your gaze for a long, drawn-out moment before looking away and sighing. You have no idea what's going on in his mind, and you refuse to let yourself speculate.
It takes the entirety of the drive to JJโs house for him to speak. By the time you guys park in front of her house alongside the rest of the team's cars, youโre almost fully convinced that heโs just not going to speak to you ever again. But the part of you that knows Hotch knows that he likes to take his time thinking out what he wants to say. Finally, he breaks the silence.
He shifts the car to park and then turns to where you sit frozen in his passenger seat, eyeing him trepidatiously and holding your breath.
โDo you remember that case we worked a few months ago with the little boy that was kidnapped?โ
You nod, eyebrows furrowing slightly in confusion as to why heโs bringing this old case up. You actually more than just remember that case; it's often source material for your nightmares. It was the kind of case that stuck with everyone and put the whole team on edge, especially Hotch. When you found him, he was alive; that's what you try to hold on to. Later, the team discovered the bodies of 3 other boys buried in the unsub's backyard. Youโre unsure what it has to do with anything at the moment.
โWhen we IDโd the past victims and called their parents in, one of the fathers collapsed crying and screaming, and you talked him down.โ You remember vividly. โIโฆI felt frozen. I had been in his shoes.โ He hesitates, and you reach over and grab his hand, and he lets you. โWhat you said to that man is what I wish someone said to me when I lost Hayley when Jack was kidnappedโฆโ His voice is so quiet it's barely above a whisper, and his words are like a hand reaching into your chest and gripping your heart.
โAaronโฆโ Youโve never called him by his first name before. He squeezes your hand.
โAfter that case, I found myself tapping on everything; I forgot I even did thatโฆโ Finally, he turns to look up at you, and your stomach does a trademark tumble. โI tried to ignore it, I tried to push it away, but it was so hard when I see you All. The. Time.โ His eyes look painted with a rare shade of quiet desperation as he seems almost as if heโs pleading with himself.
โAnd then we shared a bed.โ At that, you canโt help but smile ironically.
โTalk about divine intervention.โ You whisper, sitting back into your seat as your mind struggles to process what you just heard out loud.
He shakes his head, laughing.
โShe said this would happen.โ You turn to him, confused. โThe Divine Seer.โ He answers your unspoken question, and your jaw drops in shock. โโShe said when the time is right, it will come at a fast speed, and when I least expect it, I will be forced to come to head with my emotion.โโ
You smile before quoting her own words to you. โโA kind of love that makes it hard to sleep at night.โโ You whisper, recalling her words. The car is silent for a second, and you turn to see Hotchโs eyes on your face, the same odd look you had seen countless times before once again in his eyes. You replay your own words in your mind, and your eyes widen when you realize what you just said to him.
โI-โ You feel panic consume your body as you search for any words to make the situation better, but before you can formulate any solution, your face is grasped by two powerful hands, and Hotch pulls you in and presses his lips to yours.
You feel like every single thought, every single anxious voice in your head is silenced in that moment. The weeks of stress and anxiety seem to fade away, and you let yourself melt into his kiss and into the sensation of his lips against yours. Slowly, his touch becomes more urgent as if making up for the lost time, and he kisses you with urgency and passion, which you return with total surrender to his touch. Your fingers find their way into his hair, and you hold him close as he invades your mouth and sucks on your lower lip, strong enough to make you groan.
When you both pull away for air, you feel your entire body buzzing with happiness. You feel the bliss of the moment in every part of your body, and when you look to see his eyes on your lips with a soft look in his face, your heart melts.
โDid she also say that would happen?โ He smiles down at you and feel invincible.
The moment is ruined, however, by Rossi knocking on the window and making both of you jump.
Through the glass, you can hear him speak.
โWe thought you got into a car accident! Quick, making out and get inside!โ
Youโre walking up the driveway, trying to make it look like you werenโt just kissing your boss in his car, when Hotch reaches over and pulls you close to him.
โBy the way, I love your haircut.โ He whispers to the place behind your ear, and you just smile.
A/N: this is like my first fully finished fic and Iโm lowkey in love with it!! I think itโs just so cute and I think I characterized hotch pretty well.
I lowkey need to get better at tagging tho ๐ญ๐
summary - The game is simple. Two players. One gun. One bullet. One winner. When an investigation into a sadistic serial killer takes a devastating turn, both you and BAU Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner find yourselves trapped in a subterranean nightmare, chained by your ankles to the floor of an abandoned swimming pool. As the killer broadcasts your capture live to a horrified Quantico bullpen, days of freezing cold, psychological degradation, and impossible choices force the professional barriers youโve maintained for years to completely shatter. Stripped of rank, authority, and any hope of easy rescue, you must navigate a sadistic game of survival where refusing to pull the trigger means risking everything, and where surviving the darkness requires finally facing the feelings youโve kept buried for far too long. The choice is yours, Agents. Kill. Or be killed.
word count - 9.2k
content warnings -bau!reader, kidnapped reader and Aaron, forced nudity, humiliation, descriptions of injury and blood, s3 characters, physical violence. I always write Hotch with an age gap in mind but I don't think it actually makes a difference.
The first sensation was sensory violence, the sharp, metallic tang of dried blood in your mouth, the excruciating ache of a bruised ribcage, and the smell of ancient water, stagnant, laced with pulverised lime and dry rot. Your eyelids felt clamped shut by dried sweat and filth. When you dragged them open, the world was a smear of dark grey and sulfurous yellow. You were lying flat on your stomach against grit strewn concrete, your right cheek pressed into cold tile that smelled faintly of dead algae. A brutal, rhythmic throbbing hammered against the inside of your skull, matching the ragged cadence of your pulse. You pushed yourself up with a weak groan, your hands scraping against slick, granular concrete. Your vision swam, blue spots dancing across the shadows of a massive, cavernous space.
Tiled walls, discolored by decades of black mold and mineral streaks, stretched upward into a high ceiling of skeletal steel trusses. High overhead, narrow windows held broken panes of glass, letting in faint, sickly shafts of moonlight that sliced through clouds of suspended dust motes. You were in the deep end of an abandoned indoor swimming pool. The steep incline of the floor rose up behind you, leading toward a shallow end that was completely swallowed by shadow.
A sharp, heavy metallic clank echoed through the basin, the sound ringing off the hard walls like a gunshot. "Don't move too fast. You have a concussion." The voice was rough, gravelly, and stripped raw, but the underlying cadence, even in a rasping whisper, belonged to Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner.
"Hotch?" You whipped your head around, a sudden spike of motion that sent a nausea-inducing ripple through your brain.
Aaron sat roughly fourteen feet away, his back pressed against the sloped wall of the poolโs deep end. The sight of him was unnerving. His dark hair, usually parted and immaculately styled, fell across his forehead in damp, dark clumps. His suit jacket was gone, his crisp white dress shirt was ripped at the collar and heavily stained with oil, dirt, and a thick smudge of dried blood along the left shoulder. Yet despite the physical devastation, his dark eyes were focused, and moving over you with relentless, mechanical precision. "Check your limbs," he instructed softly, his baritone vibrating through the damp air. "Are you bleeding anywhere else? Any major fractures?"
"I... I don't think so," you breathed, your throat feeling as though it had been scrubbed with raw wire. "My head. My ribs."
You instinctually scrambled to cross the floor toward him, but a violent, unyielding jolt ripped through your right leg, snapping your heel back and slamming your body hard onto the tile. A sharp, lightning-hot spike of agony shot up your shin. You gasped, clutching your lower leg as a heavy, sickening rattle echoed off the tile floor. Wrapped firmly around your right ankle was a thick, industrial iron shackle. The metal was cold, biting directly into your skin. Attached to the collar was a dense, heavy-gauge steel chain, its links welded together and anchored directly into an iron eye-bolt sunk six inches into the pool wall behind you.
"Don't pull," Hotch ordered. His voice dropped into its familiar, stern register, the voice he used when de-escalating barricaded suspects, grounding subjects in shock, or commanding an operating room. "The edges are sharp. If you yank against the anchor, itโll tear through your Achilles." He flexed his own right leg, pulling back the hem of his dark trousers to reveal not only that he had also been stripped of his shoes, but a matching iron cuff clamped around his ankle, its heavy chain stretching back to a secondary anchor bolt in the wall. โAsk me how I know.โ
"Where are we?" you whispered, your fingers tracing the biting edge of the iron ring around your skin. "How long?"
"I woke up twenty minutes ago," Hotch said, his eyes scanning the steep, featureless tiling above your heads. "Based on the drying state of the blood on my shoulder, we've been unconscious for at least six hours. We were taken from the staging area outside the warehouse in Maryland."
Panic flared, a hot, suffocating burn in your throat. You dragged yourself to your feet, the chain clinking loudly, dragging through the dirt like a lead weight behind you. You rushed to the absolute limit of its slack. The heavy iron links went taut with a sharp ping, pulling your ankle back. The smooth, tiled pool walls rose at least twelve feet directly above your head, slicked over with a wet sheen of moss and mineral crust. The stainless-steel rungs of the ladder had been sawed off near the lip, leaving only rusted stubs embedded in the concrete above.
"There's no grip," you gasped, your nails scraping uselessly against the glazed tile. "It's completely smooth."
"Look at the floor angle," Hotch said smoothly, standing up. Even filthy and restrained, his posture was rigid, commanding space through sheer force of will. "The chain length gives each of us roughly an eight-foot radius. Our reach overlaps by about three feet in the center near the drainage grate."
"Hotch, look up there," you breathed, pointing toward the high rim above his side of the wall. "If I can get onto your shoulders, I might be able to reach the top of the pool floor, pull myself up, and find something to anchor a rope to."
Hotch didn't waste breath debating. He immediately dragged himself to the threshold of his chain's reach, stretching every link until the metal creaked and bit viciously into his skin. "Step on my knee first," he gritted out, bracing his palms flat against the cold tile wall, flexing his frame. "Then my shoulder. Drive your heel up, don't lean back."
You crossed the small circle of space where your two chained territories intersected. The moment your skin brushed his, your hands steadying against the solid, warm mass of his back, a surreal, sharp shock cut through the cold terror. For months at Quantico, between late-night case reviews, coffee runs, and shared silences over file folders, there had been an unspoken tension, a rigid line neither of you crossed due to protocol, rank, and fear of what lay beyond it. Now, stripped of rank and trapped in dark concrete, the physical proximity felt explosive.
You placed your bare foot on his thigh, then shifted your weight up onto his shoulder. Hotch exhaled sharply through his teeth, his shoulder muscles locking beneath your weight as he pushed upward, hoisting you higher into the gloom. "Can you reach?" he rasped. Warm breath fanned against your leg through the tear in your pants.
You stretched your arms until your shoulder sockets burned, your fingertips desperately scraping at the curved concrete lip of the pool deck. An inch. Just two inches more. You strained upward, your foot slipping slightly against his damp shirt. "I can't get a grip!" you gasped, your fingers slipping over smooth, algae-slicked tile. "It's slipping, there's no edge. I can't hold on!"
"Push!" Hotch commanded, his voice strained as his legs trembled under the uneven weight. "One more inch!"
You pushed onto your toes, the balls of your feet digging into Aaronโs shoulders as you desperately reached towards safety. Your fingers slid completely off the slick lip. Your center of gravity failed, and you slid down his back, falling heavily onto the concrete floor. Hotch turned instantly, catching you by the waist to break your impact, taking the brunt of your fall as you both crashed into the grit.
For three ragged heartbeats, you were pinned against his chest. His arms wrapped firmly around your waist, his heart hammering like a trapped bird against his ribs, his breath hot against your neck. His fingers tightened into your shirt, not like an officer holding a subordinate, but like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.
Then, the cold reality of the room crashed back down. Hotch slowly let his hands fall away, his jaw clenching as he pulled back, instantly rebuilding the invisible wall between you.
You were trapped. Completely, utterly, and structurally trapped.
Before the terror could fully settle into your bones, a deafening, high-pitched screech tore through the cavernous space.
It was feedback, a violent, high-decibel audio crackling through a hidden horn speaker high up in the rafters. You both winced, slamming your hands over your ears as the sound ricocheted off the hard tiles, rattling through your teeth. Then came a voice. It was electronically altered, shifted down into a heavy, gravelly rasp that sounded synthesised and metallic, yet underlined by an unmistakably mocking, sing-song cadence.
"Oh, look at you two," the voice purred from above, dripping with cruel amusement. "The great FBI profilers. The intellectual elite from Quantico. You spent three weeks reading my crime scenes. Analysing my pathology. Writing little notes on your glass whiteboards about my insecurities. And now... look at you. Scrambling in the dirt like rats in a bucket."
Hotch stood up instantly, putting himself half an inch in front of you, his body instinctively forming a barrier, his eyes searching the dark rafters for the lens of a camera.
"You like games, don't you, Aaron?" the speaker crackled, followed by the wet, clicking sound of someone chewing tongue-in-cheek. "You study human behavior. You think you know what people do when they're pushed to the edge. So let's test your little theories. Let's see how noble the BAU really is when the light goes out."
A harsh, mechanical clunk echoed near the center of the pool, followed by the metallic skittering of something heavy sliding across the concrete incline.
Your eyes snapped down to the drain at the lowest point of the floor, right in the center of your overlapping reach. Resting squarely over the rusted iron grate was a sleek, matte-black Glock 19 pistol. Next to it, glinting dull yellow in the pale shafts of moonlight, lay a single brass 9mm cartridge.
"The rules are so very simple," the unsubโs voice crooned, mocking and light, as if explaining a children's board game. "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe... catch a profiler by the toe. One gun. One bullet. One door that unlocks when the scale is balanced. One of you leaves alive. The other stays behind to rot. Who lives and who goes? I'll let you two draw up the profile on that." The speaker cut out with a sharp, static pop.
Silence rushed back in, heavy, cold, and suffocating.
The profile screamed through both of your minds simultaneously. This was the unsub's exact MO from the regional cases you had been tracking, forced psychological cannibalism. He didn't execute his victims himself, he captured pairs, partners, siblings, lovers, and forced them into a zero-sum nightmare where survival required murder, leaving the survivor destroyed by guilt.
Hotchโs dark eyes locked onto the black metal weapon on the floor.
"Don't move," Hotch said softly. The tone was no longer that of a trapped victim. It was Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner, cold, absolute, terrifyingly composed. "Stay where you are."
"Hotch-"
"That is an order," he said, turning his head slightly, his gaze sharp enough to cut glass. "You do not touch that weapon."
"We aren't in a briefing room!" you yelled, the fear and adrenaline finally boiling over, your voice echoing off the damp tiles. "You don't get to pull rank down here! Look at us! We are chained in a hole!"
"Which is precisely why you need to listen to me!" Hotch snapped back, his stoic veneer cracking, his voice dropping into a harsh, desperate whisper. "You take the gun. You load it. You shoot me."
A cold, nauseating shock hit your stomach. "What?"
"You heard me," he said, stepping as far toward the drain as his chain allowed, his eyes burning into yours with a terrifyingly clear resolve. "You pick up the round, you load the magazine, and you put a bullet through my heart. You walk out of here."
"Are you insane?!" you whispered, your voice cracking. "I am not shooting you!"
"Listen to the math!" Hotch demanded, his jaw clenching so hard the muscle twitched wildly beneath his pale skin. "It is a cold, tactical reality! Jack needs a father, yes, but more than that, I cannot allow youโฆ a member of my team to die on my watch while I stand here and survive it! I won't do it!"
"So you think your life automatically means less than mine?!" you countered, tears of rage burning behind your eyelids as you stepped right up to the limit of your chain, mere inches from his chest. "You think you're just some noble sacrifice? 'The Unit Chief dies so the subordinate lives', is that the script you wrote in your head?!"
"It isn't a script, it's my responsibility!" Hotch shouted back, the sheer volume of his voice shocking you into silence. His chest was heaving, his breathing jagged. "My responsibility is to keep you safe! If one person walks out of this pool, it has to be you!"
"I am not letting you commit suicide by cop through me, Hotch!" you sobbed, the tears finally spilling over, cutting clean tracks through the grime on your face. "You have a son! You have Jack! He lost his mother! Do you have any idea what it would do to him to lose you too?! Do you think I could ever look that little boy in the eye, knowing I pulled the trigger on his father just so I could keep breathing?!"
"You wouldn't have to look him in the eye," Hotch whispered, his voice fracturing, a raw, bleeding edge of agony showing through his brown eyes. "You would live.โ
"I am replaceable! The Bureau can assign another profiler to your unit by next Monday. Morgan is your muscle, Reid is your brains, Garcia is your tech. I-...The team can find another generic agent! But Jack cannot get another father! You have a life waiting for you out there! I am not trading your life for mine!"
Hotch stared down at you, his breathing shallow, his face inches from yours. Something deeply buried in his eyes broke, a floodgate of emotion he had kept locked behind steel doors for years.
Without another word, Hotch suddenly lunged downward toward the drain.
"NO!" you shrieked, diving forward, but your chain snapped taut, jerking your leg backward and slamming your knees into the harsh tile.
Hotch snatched the Glock off the concrete. With terrifying, practiced muscle memory, his hands worked in a blur, he slammed the single 9mm cartridge into the magazine, slapped the baseplate into the magwell, and racked the slide back with a sharp, heavy clack.
He didn't point the weapon at you.
He reversed his grip, turned the muzzle inward, and pressed the heavy steel barrel directly against the skin underneath his chin. His thumb rested firmly over the frame, slipping off the safety.
"NO! Stop! Please, Aaron, stop!" you screamed, dragging yourself through the dirt, reaching out your arms, but you were three agonising feet short of reaching his hands.
"Tell Jack I loved him," Hotch whispered softly, his fingers tightening against the trigger, his dark eyes fixed on yours with a cold, devastating peace. "Tell him Iโm sorry."
"AARON, NO-!"
A high-pitched, mocking buzzer blasted through the horn speaker, cutting through the cavernous pool like a knife.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk... oh, Aaron. How predictably melodramatic," the unsub's electronic voice purred, practically dripping with sarcastic disappointment.
Hotch froze, the steel barrel still pressed hard against his jaw, his breath catching in his throat.
"Did you really think I didn't profile you?" the voice mocked, laughing softly, a cold, wet sound. "I knew youโd try the hero routine. martyr complex. 'I'll just shoot myself and save the girl.' How noble. How utterly boring."
A pause stretched over the tannoy, heavy and malicious.
"Let me clarify the rules for the hero," the voice continued, dropping into a low, vicious whisper. "If you pull that trigger and blow your own brains out, the game doesn't end. The door stays locked. And your precious little agent will sit down there in the dark, chained with your decaying corpse, listening to the flies, until she dies of dehydration over the next five days."
The speaker let out a final, taunting chuckle. "Choose wisely, profiler. Your death doesn't save her. It just guarantees she suffers longer."
Click. The tannoy went completely dead.
The silence that followed was suffocating, heavy enough to crush bone.
Hotch stood motionless in the center of the floor. The weapon trembled slightly in his hand. The horrifying, mathematical reality of the unsub's trap settled over him like a shroud, self-sacrifice stripped away. Suicide was not a rescue, it was a slow, tortured execution of the person he was trying to protect. Slowly, his fingers shaking, Hotch eased his finger off the trigger. He engaged the safety, pulled the slide back to catch the unfired cartridge as it ejected, and let the empty pistol and single brass bullet fall back onto the iron grate between you with a dull clatter.
He sank to his knees in the dirt. Moving slowly, as if carrying the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, Hotch dragged himself across the concrete until he reached the absolute limit of his chain, mere inches from where you sat curled with your knees against your chest, weeping on the floor.
Reaching out a trembling, dirt-stained hand, Hotch gently cupped the side of your face. His skin was cold, but his thumb was unbelievably soft as it swept across your cheekbone, wiping away a streak of tears and grime. "I'm sorry," he breathed, his voice breaking into a quiet, fractured whisper. He leaned forward until his forehead rested lightly against yours, his dark eyes searching yours with an unbearable, heartbreaking vulnerability. "I'm so sorry... you're not replaceable. Not to the team. Not to me."
Your fingers curled into the ripped sleeves of his shirt, pulling the fabric taught around his arms. Your breath hitched in your throat, a sob that echoed off the vast tiles. As Hotchโs fingers curled around the back of your head, a single red LED light began to blink slowly high up in the dark.
โ
The atmosphere inside the BAU bullpen was suffocating.
Twelve hours.ย
Twelve harrowing hours had passed since you and Aaron had missed your mandatory morning check-in while following up on a local lead in rural Maryland. Twelve hours of silent cell phones, dead GPS trackers, and a cold case file sitting open on the glass round table in the conference room.
Penelope Garcia sat at her primary console, her usual bright, eccentric clothing replaced by an oversized black cardigan. Her eyes were bloodshot, mascara smudged down her cheeks, her fingers flying across her glowing keyboards in an absolute, frantic blur of desperation. Derek Morgan paced the perimeter of the bullpen like a caged predator, his leather jacket discarded, his sleeves rolled up, his hands clenched so tightly into fists that his knuckles were stark white.
Spencer Reid stood near the central glass board, staring blankly at the tactical map of your last known cell tower ping, holding his notebook so tightly the covers ripped.
JJ stood near the glass wall of the briefing room, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her phone glued to her ear, listening to an automated voicemail for the hundredth time.
"Give me something, Garcia," Morgan growled, his voice dangerously low, stripped of all its usual humor. "Anything. A traffic camera, an ATM sweep, a credit card hit, give me a direction."
"I'm trying!" Garcia choked out, her voice cracking as a fresh tear spilled down her face. "I'm scrubbing every closed-circuit feed within a sixty-mile radius of the dump site! They vanished off the grid! Their state vehicles were wiped clean! Thereโs no-"
A sharp, piercing digital tone chimed through the bullpen's main audio array. The entire room froze. The click of keyboards stopped instantly.
"What was that?" Spencer asked, taking three long strides toward Garciaโs desk.
"An incoming high-priority network packet..." Garcia whispered, her hands trembling so violently she could barely hit the spacebar. "It bypassed the FBI gateway security... itโs an auto-executing socket connection routed through a darknet proxy."
"Trace it," Morgan snapped, instantly leaning over her shoulder, his jaw set like iron. "Isolate the node before you execute-"
"I can't block it!" Garcia cried out, burying her face in her hands for a brief second before pulling back. "Itโs an auto-launch video stream! It's forcing itself onto the main bullpen display!"
The massive glass screen mounted on the wall of the bullpen flickered. A line of corrupted red code scrolled across the top, followed by a harsh burst of static. Then, the picture resolved. It was a high-definition, crisp video feed. There was no audio, the stream had been intentionally muted at the source, but the visual clarity was nightmare inducing. A dimly lit, abandoned indoor swimming pool. The steep concrete floor of the deep end, covered in dirt and dried water stains. Two figures sitting in the center of the frame, heavy iron shackles wrapped tight around their ankles, chains anchored into the solid wall.
And lying directly between them, resting on a rusted iron drain grate, sat a black Glock pistol and a single, brass bullet.
"Oh, God..." JJ gasped, slamming her hand over her mouth, stumbling back against the glass wall.
Morgan stepped back as if he had been physically hit in the chest, his eyes wide, his chest heaving. "Hotch..."
On the wall display, the team watched in agonising, silent terror as the drama unfolded in real time.
They saw Hotch on his knees, reaching out to gently, desperately cup the side of your face. They saw the raw, unshielded tenderness in his body language, a soft, disturbing vulnerability that none of them had ever seen on their stoic, unyielding Unit Chief in all the years they had worked beside him. They watched you weeping, reaching for him, your foreheads pressed together in the dark hole, locked in a silent, desperate exchange of words the team couldn't hear.
"He didn't just take them," Spencer whispered, his voice dropping,ย his dark eyes locked onto the black gun on the screen. "He's making them play his game."
"And he's forcing us to watch," Morgan gritted out, his knuckles popping as his hands balled into fists.
Garcia looked up at the screen, her heart breaking into a thousand pieces as she watched her boss, the man who held the entire team together, hold your face in his hands like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
"Find them, Garcia," Morgan demanded, his voice cracking with lethal intent. "Find them right now."
โ
The metallic echo of the unsubโs voice slowly dissolved into the vast, cavernous silence of the abandoned pool. The air remained dead and heavy, thick with the stench of stagnant dampness, pulverised mortar, and the lingering, sulfurous bite of industrial chemicals. In the dim light, the matte-black glock lay undisturbed atop the iron drain. It was no longer just a weapon, it was a physical monument to your helplessness, a cruel centerpiece around which your captivity revolved.
Hotch remained kneeling in the grit, his breathing slow and measured, though the muscles along his jaw were locked so tight they twitched. His eyes hadn't left yours. The thumb that had wiped away your tear lingered against your skin for a second longer than protocol ever allowed before his hand slowly, reluctantly dropped back to his side.
"We need to preserve our energy," Hotch said softly, his voice returning to that low, steady baritone, though the raw strain beneath it was unmistakable. "Dehydration will set in within twenty-four hours. Shock and blood loss will accelerate it. Every unnecessary movement, every rise in heart rate, consumes resources we can't afford to waste."
You nodded numbly, the reality of your predicament settling like lead in your chest. You looked up into the dark rafters, your eyes scanning the heavy iron trusses and ruined skylights. The cavernous ceiling was swallow-whole by shadow, completely obscured by decades of soot and dust. There was no visible glass, no glint of metal, nothing to indicate where the speaker had been placed, or that a hidden lens was tucked deep within the dark scaffolding above, silently capturing every breath, every flinch, every involuntary touch, and transmitting it directly to the horror-struck bullpen in Quantico.
To you and Hotch, you were completely alone in the dark.
"Come here," Hotch murmured, gesturing to the narrow strip of concrete floor where your two chains overlapped. Moving with a weak slowness to spare your throbbing head and bruised ribs, you dragged yourself across the gritty floor. The iron shackle scraped loudly against the concrete, a dull, harsh clank that made you wince. Hotch shifted his weight, backing up until his broad spine pressed flush against the damp, mold-stained tile wall of the deep end. You settled beside him, pulling your knees up toward your chest to trap what little body heat remained in your shivering frame. The concrete beneath you was mercilessly cold, seeping through your clothes and settling deep into your bones. Hotch didn't hesitate, he shifted closer, closing the small gap between you until his shoulder pressed firmly against yours, providing a solid, unyielding anchor of warmth in the freezing dark.
For a long time, neither of you spoke. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant, rhythmic dripping of water somewhere in the upper pipes and the synchronised cadence of your breathing.
"How is your head?" Hotch asked softly, breaking the silence without looking over. His eyes remained fixed on the far wall, vigilant, constantly calculating.
"It throbs," you admitted, your voice small, swallowed by the vastness of the room. "Feels like someoneโs squeezing my temples. But I can focus. I don't think my skull is fractured."
"Good," he murmured. "And the concussion?"
"Manageable. I'm not nauseous anymore." You turned your head slightly, looking at the dark profile of his face, the sharp line of his jaw, the dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes, the grime smeared across his cheekbone. "What about you? Your shoulder..."
"Soft tissue damage from the impact when they took us," he replied dismissively, classic Hotchner, brushing aside his own pain as if it were a minor inconvenience. "Nothing broken. I'll survive it."
You let out a faint, dry breath that was almost a laugh, though there was no humor in it. "You always say that. I'll survive it. Like it's just an administrative task on your desk."
A faint, almost imperceptible tilt appeared at the corner of his lips, a shadow of a smile that vanished as quickly as it came. "It's a necessity."
"We're off the clock, Hotch," you whispered, leaning back against the cold tiles, your eyes tracking the pale moonlight drifting through the broken skylight above. "You don't have to put on the armor down here."
The silence returned, heavier this time, carrying all the unsaid things that had piled up between you over months of late-night file reviews, shared flights on the jet, and longing glances across crowded rooms.
Hotch exhaled, a long, shuddering breath that rattled faintly in his chest. "I should have seen the counter-surveillance," he said quietly, his tone dropping into a rare, painful register of self-reproach. "When we went to verify the secondary warehouse address in Maryland. The vehicle parked two blocks back... I logged it, but I didn't push for local backup before we breached the perimeter. I broke protocol."
"Stop," you said firmly, turning your face toward his. "He ambushed us with a localised flash-bang and CS gas in a closed hallway. You didn't break protocol. He set a trap, and we walked into it together. Profilers aren't psychic."
"It's my job to foresee the variables," he insisted, his voice laced with guilt. "My job is to bring every single member of my team home alive at the end of a case. And right now... I have put you in a position where survival depends on a monster's whim."
"You didn't put me anywhere," you said softly, reaching out to catch his arm. Your fingers gripped the rough, torn cotton of his sleeve, feeling the rigid, tense muscle beneath. "I'm here because I chose this job. Because I chose this team. Because I chose to follow you into that building."
Hotch slowly turned his head. In the dim moonlight, his dark eyes met yours. The stoic, unyielding chief of the Behavioral Analysis Unit was gone, replaced entirely by a man stripped raw, exhausted, and utterly terrified, not for himself, but for you.
"I can't lose you," he whispered. The words were so quiet, so devoid of his usual authority, that they sounded almost fragile. "I've lost... I have lost too much. If I lose you like this..." He swallowed hard, his throat working as he cut himself off, unable to voice the end of the thought. Your chest ached with a physical, crushing tightness. Without thinking, without care for protocols or boundaries or the professional distance you had maintained for so long, you let your head drop sideways, resting it firmly against the crook of his shoulder.
Hotch stiffened for a single heartbeat, his breath catching in his throat at the sudden, intimate contact. Then, with a long, trembling exhale, the tension bled out of his frame. He let his head tilt slightly, his cheek coming to rest lightly against the crown of your hair.
Slowly, deliberately, Hotch brought his hand down. His large, calloused fingers brushed against your wrist, tracing the sensitive skin before his palm encompassed yours. His fingers laced through yours, his grip firm, steady, and unyielding, a human anchor tethering both of you to reality in the middle of a nightmare.
"I won't let him break you," Hotch murmured into your hair, his voice fierce, low, and absolute. "I promise you. Whatever comes next... I won't let him break you."
You squeezed his hand in response, burying your face deeper into the solid warmth of his shoulder, letting the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest steady your own frantic heart. โI know.โ You murmured gently.
High above you, hidden deep within the black lattice of the ceiling trusses, the tiny red lens of the concealed camera continued to blink silently in the dark. And miles away in Quantico, projected in sickening, high-definition clarity across the main monitor of the bullpen, the entire team stood frozen in total, breathless silence, watching their boss hold your hand in the dark, tethered to a cold concrete floor, waiting out the night together.
โ
Your eyes flickered open to a heavy, suffocating darkness, broken only by the faint, icy shaft of moonlight filtering down through the broken skylight above. Your body was rigid with cold, every muscle aching from the relentless chill of the concrete floor. But you weren't lying flat against the grit. Your head was resting in the soft fold of warm, coarse fabric. A heavy, comforting weight on the crown of your head as Aaronโs palm cradled you, his fingers lightly curled around the strands of your hair. You shifted slightly, wincing as a dull spike of pain throbbed behind your eyes. Above you, the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of a chest vibrated against your temple. You looked up into the gloom.
Aaron was leaning back against the cold, mold-stained tiles of the pool wall. His chin was resting against his collarbone, his dark eyes closed, his breathing long and deliberate. His face was a mask of pale exhaustion, deep dark circles bruised under his eyes, grime and dried blood smudging his cheek. Yet his jaw was tight, his body tense, a man locked in a state of hyper-vigilance even while motionless. He hadn't slept. He couldn't.
Your movement caused his eyes to snap open instantly, dark and piercingly sharp in the gloom, instantly assessing your surroundings before dropping down to lock onto yours. "Don't move too fast," Aaron whispered. His voice was raw, a rough rasp stripped down by hours of cold air and zero water.
You didn't move away. The warmth radiating from him was the only thing keeping the shivering in your limbs manageable. "How long was I out?"
"Roughly four hours," Aaron murmured, moving his hand to rest on the concrete inches from your head, his fingers twitching slightly before he pulled them back, keeping a rigid handle on himself. "It's close to four in the morning."
You let out a soft, dry breath, your throat feeling like it was lined with glass. "You didn't sleep at all."
"Someone needed to stay awake," he replied simply. His voice carried that familiar, immovable weight, standing guard even when chained by the ankle to a floor. "The temperature dropped significantly around midnight. If I let you slide onto the bare concrete, hypothermia would set in faster."
You slowly pushed yourself up, sitting beside him against the tiled wall. The heavy iron shackle around your right ankle clinked softly, a cold reminder of the iron ring binding you to the concrete floor. You pulled your knees to your chest, shivering violently as the damp chill seeped back into your clothes.
"Any sign of him?" you asked softly, your eyes scanning the dark, cavernous rafters overhead.
"No," Aaron said, his gaze fixed on the matte-black Glock sitting in the middle of the floor atop the rusted drain, its solitary brass round gleaming dully in the dim light. "Heโs watching. But he hasn't moved. He's letting the environment do his work for him. Hunger, dehydration, isolation, sleep deprivation. He wants our cognitive functions to degrade until impulse overrides judgment."
"He doesn't know us very well then," you murmured, resting your side against his broad shoulder for warmth.
An almost imperceptible exhalation escaped Aaron, a phantom of a laugh. "No. He doesn't.โ He paused, his lips setting into a straight line again, his eyes trained on the gun, unmoving and deep in thought. โIf it comes to that-โ
โNo.โ You cut him off, sensing the direction of his conversation. โNo.โ You repeated, watching as his eyes moved to you, registering the clarity in them, the unmoving stubbornness that he admired so much. His throat worked as he swallowed, and he bowed his head in a single nod before leaning it back against the tile again.
Silence settled between you again, heavy and thick, but no longer suffocating. In the dark, stripped of Quantico's glass walls, case files, and tactical vests, the silence felt remarkably soft.
"What were you thinking about?" you asked softly, watching the faint rise and fall of his breath. "While I was asleep."
Aaron was quiet for a long moment. His eyes remained fixed on the shadow-draped incline leading up to the shallow end. "My first year at the Bureau," he murmured, his baritone dipping into a lower, introspective register you rarely heard. "I spent six months convincing myself I was entirely prepared for the weight of the job. I thought logic, procedure, and emotional detachment were absolute shields."
"And were they?"
"No," he said gently, turning his head to look at you in the dim light. "They're just tools to keep you moving forward. But the weight never leaves. You learn to carry it, or it crushes you." He paused, his dark eyes searching your face with unbreakable intensity. "I was thinking about how much of that weight I've watched you take on since you joined the unit. You carry it well. Too well, sometimes."
Your chest tightened, a strange, bittersweet ache blooming behind your ribs. "I learned from the best."
"Don't copy my mistakes," Aaron murmured, his voice dropping an octave, laced with an undeniable sincerity. "I spent years building these walls because I thought it protected the people around me. It didn't. It just left me alone."
You reached out, your fingers finding his arm, lightly resting against the torn, filthy sleeve of his dress shirt. "You're not alone down here, Aaron."
Aaron looked down at your hand on his arm, his expression shifting, a subtle, vulnerable crack in his iron composure. He didn't pull away. He turned his palm upward, his large, calloused fingers gently wrapping around yours, squeezing with a grounding strength.
"No," he whispered, his eyes meeting yours in the dark. "I'm not."
โ
The BAU bullpen was bathed in the harsh, sterile glow of overhead fluorescent lights and computer monitors. Nobody had slept. Coffee cups, cold and abandoned, littered the desks alongside maps, property deeds, and tactical schematics. On the massive glass monitor at the front of the room, the silent feed continued to stream.
On the screen, Aaron and you sat side-by-side against the dark wall of the pool. To anyone else, it was a picture of two hostages freezing in the dark. But to the team who knew Aaron Hotchner better than anyone, the way his body was angled toward you, shielding you from the cold draft of the room, holding your hand in the dark, was a silent, heart-wrenching revelation.
Morgan stood in front of the board, his eyes red-rimmed, staring at a map of Maryland with a marker gripped so tightly in his hand that his knuckles were white.
"He took them from a secondary site in suburban Baltimore," Morgan gritted out, his voice hoarse from hours of shouting and endless phone calls. "We found their abandoned SUV three miles out. Tires slashed, comms jammed. He had a two-hour window before we even flagged them missing."
"Look at the masonry in the background of the feed," Spencer said, walking up to Garciaโs desk, pointing a laser pointer at the top left corner of the live stream. "Garcia, zoom in on those structural beams above the pool deck."
Garciaโs fingers flew over her keyboard, her face pale, her eyes rimmed red with dried tears. The image enlarged, grainy but readable. "Okay, zooming in. What am I looking at, Reid?"
"Those aren't standard residential trusses," Spencer observed, his voice cold and analytical. "They're reinforced steel beams with rivets used in late 1920s civic construction. This isn't a private mansion or a gym. It's a municipal pool built during the public works administration era."
"Public works... public works..." Garcia muttered, her fingers becoming a blur across her glowing light-board. "Filtering closed municipal facilities, high schools, and recreational centers built between 1930 and 1940 within a fifty-mile radius of the snatch site..."
"Cross-reference with properties foreclosed or abandoned after the county water treatment in the 1980s," JJ added, leaning over Garciaโs chair, her voice tight with suppressed fear. "The unsub needs an isolated facility with industrial drainage,somewhere he could set up heavy chains and a closed-circuit stream without drawing power grid spikes."
"I've got seventy-four potential sites," Garcia gasped, her screen lighting up with a dizzying list of addresses.
"Filter it further!" Morgan snapped, slamming his hand onto the edge of the desk, his eyes darting back to the live monitor where Aaron was gently adjusting his position to cover your shoulder with his frame. "Look at him down there! They've been in that hole for over twelve hours without food or water! We don't have time to knock on seventy-four doors, Garcia!"
"I'm working as fast as I can!" Garcia cried, tears spilling over her lashes. "He's running the feed through seven bouncing proxies in Eastern Europe! I can't reverse-trace the IP without triggering an auto-kill switch on the stream! If I mess up, the feed goes black and we lose line of sight entirely!"
Rossi placed a firm, steadying hand on Garcia's shoulder. "Breathe, Penelope. Look at the feed. Look at Hotch. Heโs keeping her alive. Heโs keeping her focused. They are buying us time. Now let's do our job and buy them theirs."
โ
Down in the deep end, the stillness was broken by a sudden, harsh, high-pitched squelch of electronic static.
The sound exploded out of the darkness like a physical blow. You both flinched violently, Aaron instantly shifting his body in front of yours, his arm extending to push you back against the wall as his eyes snapped up toward the hidden speakers in the dark ceiling.
The static smoothed out into the wet, sickeningly cheerful rasp of the unsubโs electronically pitched voice. "Good morning, my dear profilers," the speaker crackled, dripping with cruel, sing-song mockery. "Did we sleep well? Oh, wait... of course you didn't. The concrete is so very cold, isn't it? And look at you two, curled up together like stray dogs in an alley. How sweet. How thoroughly touching."
Aaron didn't say a word. His face hardened into a mask of pure stone, his dark eyes cold, calculating, searching the shadows of the ceiling for any glint of hardware or movement.
"You know," the voice continued, chuckling softly, a wet, clicking sound that echoed off the tiles, "Iโve been watching your little team back at Quantico. They are running around like ants in a flooded nest! Oh, if you could see them, Aaron! Agent Morgan is practically vibrating with rage. And the blonde one... poor girl looks like sheโs about to throw up."
Your heart hammered against your ribs.ย
"They can see you, you know," the unsub purred, his tone shifting into a malicious, delighted whisper. "Right now. High definition. Muted audio, of course, I like to keep some secrets, but they can see every pathetic, desperate little detail. They saw you holding her hand, Aaron. They saw her resting her head on your chest in the dark. So very romantic for a Unit Chief and his subordinate."
Your breath hitched. A sickening spike of heat flushed through your skin despite the freezing cold. The thought of the entire bullpen watching you trapped down here, watching the vulnerable moments you had shared.ย
"So," the unsub snapped his fingers, the sharp sound popping loudly through the speaker, "let's give your audience a real show. Let's see how much dignity the BAU has left when forced to strip away the uniform."
"Whatever you're planning, it ends with you in a cell," Aaron said, his deep baritone cutting through the cavernous room, loud, firm, and entirely devoid of fear. "You want a psychological reaction. You won't get it."
"Oh, I think I will, Aaron," the voice sneered. "Because right now, you two still look like federal agents. You still think you have control. You still hold yourselves like you're above the mud. Let's fix that."
A heavy mechanical latch clicked somewhere near the top of the pool incline.
"In that little hole in the wallโฆ you see it Aaron, donโt you? there is a silver tin and a full bottle of fresh water," the unsub crooned. "Inside the tin is a single ration of thick, medical-grade antibiotic salve and fresh gauze. Your poor agent's ankle shackle is already chafing, isn't it? By nightfall, without treatment, the open sores against that rusted iron will turn septic. And without water... Well, neither of you will last another twenty-four hours."
You looked down near the drain. Sitting inside a hole in the wall, behind a locked grate, was a small silver tin and a clear plastic bottle filled with pristine, clean water.
"To get the water and the medicine, there is a small price," the voice whispered, dropping into a dark, intimate purr. "Aaron... I want you to strip her of her upper clothing."
Your stomach dropped.
"What?" you breathed, your voice barely a rasp.
"You heard me," the unsub laughed, the sound twisted and distorted through the speaker. "The shirt, the undershirtโฆ. The bra. All of it. I want you, Aaron, to undo every button, pull the fabric off her skin, and toss it up over the pool lip where neither of you can reach it again. Leave her exposed to the freezing cold, sitting in nothing but her trousers in front of that camera."
"No," Aaron said immediately, his voice dropping into a register so dark and lethal it vibrated through the concrete floor. "I will not."
"Think carefully, Aaron," the unsub taunted. "If you refuse, I leave the water where it is and turn off the air circulation. She dehydrates, her wound rots, and she suffers while you watch. But if you comply... if you violate protocol, if you strip down your subordinate in front of her colleagues, in front of the entire FBI hierarchy watching this stream... you both drink. She gets the medicine. She survives the day."
The speaker let out a wet, mocking chuckle.
"I want to see the unshakeable Aaron Hotchner unbuttoning his subordinate's clothes like a petty predator. I want your team at Quantico to watch their boss reduce you to bare skin in a concrete hole. I want you to look each other in the eye afterward and pretend you're still professional colleagues. You have two minutes."
Click.
The tannoy went dead.
The silence that returned was thick, suffocating, and vile. You sat frozen against the wall, your skin crawling, tears of pure humiliation burning hot behind your eyelids. It wasn't about physical pain, it was about psychological violation. It was designed to strip away every layer of professional boundaries, to force Aaron into performing an act of forced vulnerability upon you, and to broadcast that humiliation to everyone who respected you both back home.
Aaron stood rooted to the spot. His face had drained of all color, turning a ghostly, deathly pale. His hands were clenched into tight, violent fists at his sides, trembling with an uncontrollable, silent fury.
"No..." Aaron whispered, his voice cracking, raw as scraped iron. "No. I won't. I won't touch you."
"Aaron..." your voice trembled, dry as ash in your throat.
"I won't do it!" Aaron suddenly roared at the dark ceiling, his baritone tearing out of his chest, echoing violently off the tiles like a wounded animal. "DO YOU HEAR ME?! I WILL NOT TOUCH HER!"
"Aaron, stop! Look at me!" you demanded, dragging yourself forward as far as your chain allowed, ignoring the torturous bite of the iron against your swollen ankle. "Aaron, look at me!"
He turned his head slowly, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. The unshakeable Unit Chief of the BAU looked completely destroyed. His dark eyes were wide, filled with a suffocating, unbearable horror.
"We need that water," you whispered, your hands trembling violently as you reached for him, grabbing his wrists. His skin was burning hot against your freezing fingers. "Look at my leg, Aaron. It's already infected. If we don't get that water and that salve, we won't last long enough for them to find us."
"I can't," Aaron breathed, a single tear slipping past his lashes, cutting a clean track through the grime on his cheek. "I can't do that to you. I won't strip you down... I won't violate you like this. Not in front of them. Not in front of anyone."
"It's not a violation if I'm asking you to do it." you argued, your voice as calm as you could muster as you pulled his hands toward your chest. "It's just fabric, Aaron. It's just clothes, he wants to break your spirit, he wants to make you feel dirty so you give up, don't let him win."
"No-โ
"Do it, Aaron." you said, pressing his trembling hands flat against the top buttons of your shirt. "Please. I need you to do it. We need that water, Jack needs you to come homeโฆ Please."
Aaron stared down at your hands holding his against your chest. His jaw twitched, his teeth grinding together so hard a muscle flared violently in his cheek. He looked into your eyes, seeing the terrifying blend of humiliation, terror, and despite everythingโฆ trust shining through your tears.
"I'm sorry," he choked out, his voice a broken, agonising whisper. "I'm so sorry..."
His hands, usually so steady and precise, trembled fiercely as his fingers fumbled with the top button of your shirt. He kept his eyes locked firmly onto yours, refusing to look down, refusing to give the hidden lens overhead the satisfaction of seeing him treat you as anything less than sacred.
One by one, the buttons slipped free under his calloused fingers. The cold air hit your bare skin like a physical slap, making you gasp and shiver uncontrollably. Aaronโs hands were gentle, heartbreakingly so, as he peeled the ruined fabric off your shoulders, his fingertips barely brushing your skin, careful not to touch you any more than necessary.
With a ragged breath, he pulled your shirt and undershirt away, before gently placing his hands on your shoulders to turn you. With your back to him, his fingers lowered to the hooks on the clasp of your bra. The fabric fell from your chest, your nipples peaking in the cold. His jaw pulled taught as he let out another breath that fanned across the bare skin of your back before turning and hurling the fabric high up onto the pool deck out of reach. You stood exposed in the freezing dark, clutching your arms around your ribs, shivering violently from both the cold and the sheer, crushing humiliation of the moment. The grate that the water and tin were hidden behind lifted with a metallic clunk as the lock disengaged.
Without a word, Aaron lunged toward the drain. He snatched the silver tin and the water bottle, scrambling back to you in a frenzy. He uncapped the bottle with shaking hands and held it to your lips, steadying your chin with one warm hand while you drank greedily, the cool water rushing down your parched throat.
"Save half," you gasped out, pushing the bottle back toward his chest. "You need to drink, Aaron. Take it."
Aaron didn't argue. He threw his head back and swallowed the remaining water, his throat working as he emptied the plastic bottle. He immediately cracked open the silver tin, scooping out the thick antibiotic salve with his fingers. He knelt at your feet, his hands trembling as he tenderly applied the cold paste over the raw, bleeding skin around your chained ankle, wrapping it swiftly in the clean gauze.
When he finished, Aaron didn't move away. He immediately pulled off his own torn dress shirt, leaving himself in his undershirt, and wrapped the warm fabric around your bare shoulders. He pulled you hard against his chest, wrapping his broad arms entirely around your frame, burying his face into the crook of your neck to shield your exposed skin from the camera's view.
"I'm sorry," Aaron breathed into your skin, his body trembling with a mixture of rage, exhaustion, and fierce protection as his arms locked around you like iron bands. "I've got you..."
You buried your face into his shoulder, sobbing quietly as the warmth of his body seeped back into yours, the taste of clean water still on your tongue.
The silence that followed the ordeal was hollow, heavy, and thick with the scent of stale water and raw humiliation.
You sat pressed firmly against Aaron's chest, wrapped in his dress shirt. His broad arms remained locked around you like iron bars, his chin resting against the crown of your head, shielding your shivering frame from the cold air and the invisible eye of the camera overhead. His heart hammered in a hard, erratic rhythm against your ear, a wild contrast to the steady, unyielding mask he presented to the world.
For a long time, neither of you spoke. The water was gone, the empty plastic bottle crushed beneath Aaron's heel near the drain, and the cold paste on your ankle throbbed with a dull, manageable ache.
High above you, hidden deep within the dark rafters, the tiny red lens of the camera continued to blink silently in the dark. And miles away in Quantico, standing in front of the silent, high-definition display screen, Derek Morgan covered his mouth with a trembling hand, Rossi turned his face away in sickened, helpless fury, Spencer kept his eyes firmly locked on the floor, his jaw so tight his teeth could crack, JJโs fingers dug into Emilyโs arm and Garcia sobbed into her hands, watching their unshakeable leader hold you against his chest in the dirt, wrapped around you like a shield.
โ
Time in the pool lost its meaning, measured not by hours or minutes, but by the slow, struggling decline of your bodies. The chill of the concrete floor had settled deep into your bones, a constant, dull ache that made every breath feel heavy. Your skin was cold, covered by Aaronโs ruined dress shirt. Aaron himself sat in his pale undershirt, his posture rigid despite his obvious exhaustion, his arm locked around you to share what little body heat he had left. His knuckles were still red from where heโd balled his hands into fists during the ordeal, his jaw set in a line of grim, unyielding determination.
The silver tin and the empty water bottle lay discarded near the drain. The water had taken the sharpest edge off your thirst, but it was a temporary mercy. Dehydration and shock were steady, silent enemies, wearing down your resolve bit by bit.
Then, the silence of the deep end was shattered.
A loud, ear-splitting screech of static ripped through the dark, bouncing violently off the damp, mold-stained tiles. You both flinched, Aaron instantly shifting his weight to pull you tighter against his chest, his body instinctively positioning itself as a barrier between you and whatever was coming.
High above, deep within the black lattice of the roof trusses, the speaker crackled to life once more.
"You've been very resilient," the unsubโs voice rasped, the electronic distortion giving it a flat, mechanical tone that made the words even colder. "You've survived the cold. You've survived the indignity. You've held onto each other like children in a storm. But patience is a luxury I am no longer inclined to extend."
A heavy, mechanical thunk echoed from the shadows above the pool deck, followed by a dull, rhythmic clicking sound.
On the tiled wall opposite your position, high above the reach of either chain, a bright red LED display flickered to life. Crimson numbers glowed in the darkness, sharp and unforgiving:ย
06:00:00.
With a soft, electrical hum, the numbers shifted. 05:59:59.
"Six hours," the speaker crooned, the unsubโs tone dripping with dark, theatrical satisfaction. "Six hours to make your choice. The gun is still where you left it. One bullet. One trigger pull. If one of you is dead when that clock reaches zero, the survivor walks out. I will unlock the heavy steel doors at the top of the incline, and you may return to your lives."
The red light from the digital timer cast a long, bloody glare across the dark concrete floor, reflecting off the matte-black finish of the Glock resting on the rusted drain grate.
"And if the clock reaches zero while both of you are still breathing?" the unsub continued, his voice dropping into a sinister, low purr. "Then I will come down into that pit myself. And I will execute you both. The decision is yours."
A final, sharp click signaled the end of the broadcast, leaving only the relentless hum of the digital clock as it ticked down the seconds.
needy/clingy spencer reid!!! my god heโs just soooo so down bad. a lil pathetic but itโs all sweet be just wants to love u. gf reader who loves when heโs clingy!! just smth super sweet them cuddling n kissing n shit and making out/a lil spicy (if thatโs how u feel i will NEVER turn it down i need him #sobad)
u donโt have to if u donโt want to but i hope this gives u some inspo!! xx
Oh. My. Gosh.
I LOVE your writing, getting an ask from you is amazing!! I tried really hard to make it as close to your ask as possible! (But Iโm still trying to get my footing for writing something like this lol)
Just stepping out of a shower, you turn on the bathroom fan and step out into your shared bedroom with Spencer.
Spencerโs mouth went dry. "You look beautiful," Spencer complimented you once he found his voice again.
"Iโm soaking wet, I look ridiculous." You said with a small laugh
He stepped closer to you and lifted his hand to let his fingertips ghost over the seam of your lips. It was as if he was a honeybee drawn to the sweet nectar of a flower in full bloom.
โNo.. you always look beautiful..โ he whispered, his hands wrapping around your waist.
When he pushed his body against yours to capture your mouth in a tender kiss, you noticed another, more exciting reaction to your looks. A familiar hardness pressed into your hips as he kissed you.
You leaned back to chuckle, "Naughty boy."
"I'm sorry. I can't help it," he apologized half sincerely.
There was no resistance from him when you placed your hands on his shoulders to walk him back to the couch. With a firm push against his body he sat down on the cushions, welcoming you as you sat on his lap to straddle him. Your lips were on his before he had a chance to take a breath, making him sigh into your mouth.
โDo you like that?โ You purred as you kept moving your hips against his.
The gold of his irises was almost completely swallowed by his pupils when he locked eyes with you. His hands grabbed your waist, his fingertips burying into your supple skin almost painfully.
โyes!โ He said breathlessly, looking at you with pleading eyes
The glimmer in his eyes was proof of how excited he was getting.
Kissing him was like a dream. His soft lips, his needy hands desperately holding your face.
You carefully pulled away, listening to his desperate whimpers.
โAw Spence..โ you said almost too sweetly it sounded fake. โI love when you get all whiny..โ
His hands snaked up and down your back as heโd looked up at you through his lashes, it would be almost pathetic if you didnโt love him so much.
โPlease?..โ he whispered, you gave a small smile. How could you ever say no to your sweet boy.
You went back to kissing him, your hands holding his soft cheeks as you maneuvered your body on top of his.
You kissed up and down his jaw and neck as he fumbled with your bra strap.
You stopped his motions to trace a finger along his jaw, cooing, โIf you behave, I will reward you.โ
Without even knowing what you had in mind for him, he promised, โIโll be so good for you.โ
There was no need to doubt him, so you leaned down until your lips brushed over his ear.
"Not like this," you let him know.
โTell me how," he muttered. "Please."
Without a warning you began grinding against his length once more, moaning at the friction that motion created between your thighs. With more force than necessary, you grabbed a handful of hair on the back of his head to yank it back.
Spencer's hands got ahold of your hips, moving with you to intensify the contact. As your mouth explored Spencer's neck, you were relentlessly rocking against him. When you looked at his face once more, his eyes were half-lidded and focussed on your lips. He sighed when you opened them to let the sounds of your excitement escape.
Even though the sensation of you grinding along his length must have been tortuous for him, he was keen on keeping his promise. His fingertips pushed into the fabric covering your hips as if he was trying to burn right through it and you wondered if it was possible. Your panties were completely soaked at this point and you knew you wouldn't last much longer. Spencer, however, obviously had trouble to not let himself get lost in the pleasure as well.
It wouldnโt be the first time heโd finish before you got a chance to take care of him. Seeing you fall apart in his lap brought him more pleasure than you thought possible and you had no intention to punish him for that. However, it would make rewarding him the way you had in mind a little more difficult, so you really hoped he wouldnโt break his promise.
"You're doing so good," you praised him. "Can you hold on a little bit longer?"
Between heavy breaths he sighed, "Iโm trying."
"Good boy."
You felt him twitching against your center at the sound of his favorite nickname, the feeling igniting a flame inside you that begged to be tamed. Your whole body felt like it was on fire as you chased your climax, well aware that Spencer felt just the same. When you ground over his erection particularly slowly and forcefully, he groaned and started to tremble.
โFeels too good,โ he muttered and you started to pity the poor boy.
With a few more purposeful movements, you let yourself fall over the edge, your body shaking as relief washed over you. Spencer made sure to keep you in place with the firm grip of his hands, bucking his hips to grind against you until you told him to stop.
After taking a second to catch your breath, you cooed, "You did amazing, my sweet boy.."
"So pretty," you whispered.
โAre you okay?" You wanted to make you sure once he leaned back to look at you.
His eyes were filled with wonder and adoration when he sincerely answered, "Yes. I really enjoyed that."
"Me, too."
He curled up into your arms, he never minded being the little spoon after moments like this. His face buried into your neck as he slowly began to doze off.
You smiled to yourself, your hands holding him a bit tighter as you listened to the sounds of his gentle breathing.
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Tags: One bed trope, romantic feelings, older man/younger woman, postHaley!Hotchner, no smut.
Word count: like 1-2k?
A/N: this took way too long guys Iโm sorryyyy Iโm also not posting this on AO3 BECAUSE IVE EXPERIENCED THE CURSE IM SO FR !!! So yeah โค๏ธโ๐ฉน
Edit: go vote in my poll so I can decide if this turns smutty or not ๐๐๐
One of the first things you and Emily bonded over was your shared love for cutting bangs when stressed. After one particularly hard case that had left you with a bitter feeling throughout your body, you went home and immediately chopped your hair off. When you came into work the next day to find that Prentiss had done the same, you knew that you had found your soul sister.
So when you were faced with the jarring realization that you were developing feelings for the worst possible person in your life, you had no choice but to cut your hair off. In fact, you were so shaken up you even considered dying it, which you had not done since your last breakup years ago.
Logically, you knew deep down that your feelings had been snowballing over a longer period of time. A series of smaller instances that had left you with a similar warm feeling in your belly, perhaps the entirety of the two years you had now been at the BAU as a profiler. But there was one moment that you could pinpoint as the exact moment that you knew you were screwed.
It was just a few weeks before, when the team was called out to New Orleans for a case involving what the team deduced to be a female unsub. Men in the area were being mysteriously poisoned and then positioned in public places. When the team finally apprehended the unsub, who was revealed to be a woman who was raped by a group of drunk men at a bar when she was 16, she was cagey and ready to shoot.
You watched tensely as Hotch talked her down and showed her a kindness she had probably never experienced before from an older male figure. In that moment, seeing him treat her with such kindness, your heart swelled with a uniquely familiar warm type of admiration that put everything into perspective. A feeling that you did not have to be a profiler to identify as a crush. It feels stupid and childish, but for lack of a better term, it is how you feel toward the man who is also your unit chief.
Once you had been made aware of what you had subconsciously known was present, you couldnโt help but feel hyperaware of every second you spent near the man. Your mind was constantly buzzing with anxious thoughts from every possible angle.
Working as a profiler at the BAU was your dream. You have been hooked since you were a teenager and read your first novel by David Rossi. Only more so when you attended a lecture by Dr. Spencer Reid while in the later years of your bachelor's degree. You were almost certain that collapsing into a blubbering confessional mess in front of your boss would end your entire career at the FBI that you had worked so hard to secure. You were the second-youngest member to join the BAU, and even then it was only by a tiny margin. You were only a few months older than Reid was when he joined.
Needless to say, at the revelation, you panicked. Panicked enough to make the big chop.
The first person who noticed that you cut your hair was Reid. Of course.
The second that you walked into the BAUโs office, biting your nails anxiously, exhausted from not sleeping well, and cutting your hair at the ripe hour of 2:36 AM in your bathroom, Reid clocked you. You walked to your desk, and as soon as you put your bag down, he spoke.
โYouโre biting your nails again.โ You turn and give him a sidelong look. โAnd you cut your hair.โ
You simply nod. You are not in the mood to discuss your emotions, nor do you have any intention of letting on what triggered the sudden midnight haircut. So instead, you pray to the gods of Penelope Garcia, and they answer your prayers. She calls everyone up to the conference room. Spencer must sense that you donโt want to talk about it because he drops the subject and goes on to chatter about some recent biological discovery that he read about. You let yourself focus on him until you guys make it to the table and Penelope begins presenting the case. When you sit down and make eye contact with Emily, she just smiles a knowing smile, and you canโt help but grimace back.
Your attention is suddenly pulled towards the sound of Hotch and JJ walking in. JJ smiles and compliments the haircut. Your eyes meet Hotchโs for a mere second before you both look away. But before you do, you swear you see an odd look in his eyes. You notice that Rossi isnโt with them, and youโre about to ask Morgan where he is before Hotch answers, telling the team that he is under the weather and will be on sick leave for the next few days.
โAlright, my lovelies, it looks like you are off to Buffalo, New York, where there has been a series of not-so-nice discoveries in the past few daysโฆโ
As you tune into the information Garcia is presenting, you try your best to ignore the burning feeling that Hotch sitting mere feet away from you ignited in your core. The butterflies that invade your stomach seem girlish and juvenile, but you canโt seem to usher them away. The only thing that drags your attention away from your bodyโs reaction to the mere presence of the man you are very attracted to is the details of the case. Youโre almost thankful to be pulled into the horror and let your mind fully fixate on it. Slowly, the butterflies dissipate, and the anxiousness in your stomach is now replaced with the pressure to catch the killer.
The victims are all women aged 47-58, possible surrogates, Morgan ponders out loud. All of them were found in numerous places around the city with no particular care for how they were left. Based on the crime scene photos, you can tell that some of their limbs were taken.
โWhatโs the COD?โ You ask, looking up from the case file in your hand to meet Penelopeโs gaze. She informs the team that itโs hard to determine because the woman underwent such intense torture. You turn as you hear Morgan speak, but your eyes catch on the stern expression molded onto Hotchโs features as he listens to Derek speak. Despite his stern outward appearance, you can tell by the clench of his jaw and his finger tapping in front of him that he is similarly consumed by the pressure to catch the unsub. You donโt even realize that you were staring until you look up to meet his eyes. Your cheeks burn with embarrassment, and you look away.
โWheels up in twenty.โ
โ
On the plane, you start to regret having cut your hair in place of sleeping.
Youโre on your 3rd cup of coffee, and you still feel your eye bags becoming increasingly more apparent despite the makeup you vigorously patted over them just a few hours prior. Youโre jolted awake by something that you read as you make a double-take just to make sure you actually read the correct thing.
โAm I reading this correctly? The latest victim was found with chunks of her hair missing?โ Garcia is on the jetโs small screen, and she solemnly assures you that you are correct.
โHe could be keeping them as trophies.โ JJ speculates, and you turn to nod in agreement from where youโre sitting next to her. The team is all clustered near the screen where Penelopeโs image is being projected. Even through the haze of the case, you are hyperaware of the fact that Hotch is standing above you; now and then he leans down to the table in front of you and JJ to grab a case file, and your heart stammers in your chest.
Every time it happens, you try to bully yourself into composure.
You hear a chirp come from Garciaโs end of the call and your stomach sinks differently as you recognise the sound of either a body being discovered or some other sort of horrible news. That sound is never good news.
โOh! This just came in; there has been a woman reported missing. Her name is Pearl White,โ there's some clicking from her end, โand she fits the victimology almost perfectly. Sheโs 48, and she works as a waiter at a local diner.โ
โGarcia, look into how she could be connected to the other victims, and let the Buffalo PD know that we are 30 minutes out.โ
She nods before animatedly saying goodbye. As soon as her image disappears from the screen, Hotch begins barking out the team's orders for when they arrive on scene. JJ and Reid to interview Pearl White's coworkers, Morgan to the coroner, and you, him, and Emily to the station to interview family. You all nod, and he walks away to where he usually sits with Dave in the back corner of the plane. You can barely contain your yawn as you try to keep yourself awake.
Derek catches your yawn from where he's sitting across the aisle with Reid, and shoots you a look.
โSomeone have a long night?โ He raises his eyebrows, smirking, and you narrow your eyes back in response, smiling pleasantly.
โI donโt know, ask your mother.โ You smile back. Low blow, but in your defence, youโre not at your full brain capacity.
Morgan simply laughs in response, and Reid perks up, taking the moment to explain in great detail the long history of โYo Mamaโ Jokes.
You, JJ, and Prentiss all groan before sitting and listening intently for 30 minutes to Dr. Reid's lecture.
โ
The 3 cups of caffeine must have kicked in because you couldnโt be more awake as you piece together the victims on the board that the local PD set up for the team.
That or the interview you just had with the daughter of the latest victim was jarring enough to sober you up.
Youโre taping the last victim's picture to the board when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You canโt help but jump; you have never been an avid enjoyer of surprises, much less in a police station, but with the added factor of being exhausted, youโre extra jumpy. What you turn to see is even more harrowing. Aaron Hotcher, smiling softly down at you and holding two cups of coffee.
โSorry, I didnโt mean to scare you.โ You swear you can sense a whisper of amusement in his voice. You wave him off, assuring him you're just jumpy, and when you take the coffee from his hands, your fingers briefly brush, and your traitorous heart does another Cirque du Soleil-worthy flip.
โThank you, sir.โ Is all you say, smiling back gratefully.
โDid your interview with the other victimsโ families reveal anything new?โ You purse your lips, disappointed. Next to you, you catch him tapping his fingers against his coffee.
โNo, they were all upstanding citizens, and I donโt see where they could have crossed paths with the unsub.โ You take a sip of the coffee he handed you, and your eyes slightly widen in shock. He got your coffee order exactly right, hence why the small gestures of kindness were so easily snowballed, and why you were basically forced to cut your hair.
When you turn to look at him, heโs watching you with a searching look in his eyes, which you assume is attributed to the mysteriousness of the case. You return it with your own as you try to think where the women could have been taken from. Your gaze is torn away when you hear a voice at the doorway. Itโs Emily.
โWeโve got a problem.โ You and Hotch exchange one last sidelong look before listening to what Prentiss has to say.
โ
โSo we have a medium telling our victimsโ families that their loved ones arenโt gone?โ JJ repeats in disbelief.
โโArenโt gone from the spiritual planeโโ Morgan corrects, quoting the family member that Emily had just interviewed.
It had been a few hours since Emilyโs interview with the victim's family, and the team was now gathered in the station. Morgan returned bearing the news that the official cause of death for the victims was blunt force trauma that came from a series of blows to the arms, neck, and head of the victims, and even slight blood loss from the limbs being sawed off ante-mortem.
โItโs actually not that unbelievable that this case would have some spiritual ties.โ Reid begins. โBuffalo, New York is close to Lily Dale, which is famously the spiritual and psychic hub of the East Coastโฆโ he starts to ramble about the history of the city and its spiritual origins, but is cut off by a phone ringing.
โTalk to me, baby girl.โ
โI come bearing bad newsโฆI was unable to find any link between our victims; they didnโt run in any of the same crowds or frequented any of the same establishments, or even hospitals. Iโm sorry.โ Morgan hangs up the phone after rattling off his usual affectionate remarks.
โSo we have a sexual sadist who is kidnapping older women and severely torturing them.โ You think out loud.
โWith this much pent-up rage and such a specific victimology, these women must be surrogates for some form of a mother figure.โ JJ continues your train of thought.
โSo how much time does Pearl White have before the unsubโs rage overcomes him?โ
โ
You truly feel like a Victorian child burning the midnight oil as you comb through the files Garcia sent over on each of the victims' lives. Youโve been in this conference room for so long you feel like the smell of the room will forever be ingrained into your clothes.
Youโre so locked into the unique kind of tunnel vision that you get when working on a case that you donโt realize the rest of the team is gone until you hear a voice coming from next to you. You look up to find Hotch holding a pair of keys and telling you itโs time to go. You check your phone and see that itโs 9:37 PM. The daytime officers are long gone from the station, replaced by the night shift. You grab your bag and follow Hotch to the car. You stop in your tracks when you look around and see that no one else is with you guys. Once youโre in the passenger seat, you turn to him, confused
.โWhere is everyone?โ You study his face and stop when you see him slightly flush.
โThey all left an hour ago.โ At that, your eyebrows raise in slight shock, but his eyes remain trained on the road, his hands tapping on the steering wheel as he drives.
โWhyโd you stay?โ Maybe not the best question to ask your boss you also have feelings for. Oh well.
He stays silent for a second, and you start to deeply regret your life choices and your inability to have any awareness of your surroundings when youโre consumed by a case.
Finally, he breaks the silence. โYou just seemed soโฆfocused.โ His words are delicate and poised like everything he does. โI couldnโt bring myself to interrupt you.โ At that, he actually turns to look at you, and your eyes soften.
โThatโsโฆvery considerate of you, sirโ
โItโs Hotch.โ
โRight, sorry.โ Two years and you canโt bring yourself to call him Hotch, especially during work hours.
โWell, I fear that your gesture was ultimately pointless because I didnโt find anything.โ You sigh, rubbing your temples as you feel an incoming headache.
โWeโll find him.โ He assures you. His tone is stern and determined like he always is when the team is working.
You just nod. You donโt have any doubt, but with the unsub having a woman in custody, it doesnโt feel like youโre doing enough.
When you guys arrive at the hotel, he tells you to wait by the elevators while he gets the keys, and you nod. Youโre so exhausted you can barely move your legs, so youโre grateful for the respite from human interaction.
If you werenโt so out of it, maybe you would have the brain capacity to identify the feeling in your chest. A feeling that feels eerily like the one that led you to cut your hair in the first place.
Youโre snapped out of your thoughts when you see Hotch turn and walk back towards you with an odd expression on his face. An expression that in your two years of working together you had never seen before.
โSir?โ You look to see him holding one of the small card holders they give you for the room. His eyes on yours are guilty and slightly hesitant.
โSo it looks like when Penelope called ahead to cancel Daveโs room, the hotel staff accidentally cancelled two rooms.โ
Your heart drops.
โAnd the hotel is booked because a convention is being hosted this week.โ
You must be delirious. You blink, trying to ensure this is reality and you don't fall asleep. Unfortunately, it is reality.
Neither one of you seems to want to admit out loud the implication of this and simply walk to the elevators together. He holds his hand out, offering to carry your bag, and to your surprise, you let him.
-
A/N: SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG IM SUCHHH A SLOW WRITER HOLY MOLYYY
A/n: Iโm sorry this is so shorttt!! I really want to make this fic last a bit because I have no other ideas (though Iโm sure I can figure it out)
You can also read here!: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88519696/chapters/234815536#workskin
โIโm thinking too much into things.โ You told yourself as you stared into your bathroom mirror, brushing your teeth. โI just need to.. not worry so much.โ You spit your toothpaste out and rinsed your mouth out with some water. โEverything will be fine.โ You reminded yourself, smiling in the mirror to check your teeth.
Arriving at work was exhausting, between the morning traffic, the security, the busy hallways, by the time you got to your desk you already wanted to get home. Until Spencer walks in.
The way he.. brightens your day is.. unfair. You hate how much of an impact he has on your day!
โSpencer!โ You smiled, a little nervous, as he walked by your desk.
โOh hi.โ He gave an awkward little smile.
You looked for something to say, but your mind and voice failed you at the same time.
โYour.. hair. It looks nice. Styled differentlyโ did you know most women in the office donโt actually care about how they look unless they find a coworker attractive?โโ Spencer started, before noticing your embarrassed and nervous look.
โIโm sorry.โ He said looking back down as he gripped his messenger bag.
Spencer realized just how weird he sounded, and quickly made his way through the bullpen He disappeared into his office so fast you almost wondered if you'd imagined the whole interaction.
You paused.
What in the world is a good response for that?
"Uh... thank you." You nodded slowly.
Spencer realized just how weird he sounded, and quickly made his way through the bullpen.
You watched him disappear into his office.
"...What?"
You stared down at your desk for a moment before looking back at your already dark computer screen
You didn't even remember sitting there long enough for that to happen.
"I'm thinking too much into things."
You pressed the space bar to wake the screen.
"He was probably just sharing a fact."
That was normal. Well... Normal for Spencer.
You logged in, determined to focus on literally anything else. Your inbox loaded and you read your first of many emails of the day,.
All of a sudden "Morning."
You looked up to see Morgan, coffee in hand.
You two werenโt really friends, but you certainly knew of each other, but now especially, Morgan was very interested in whatโs going on between you and Spencer.
"Morning." You responded, a small nod.
"You know..โ he started, a small grin on his face as he leaned on your desk. โOnly when heโs around someone he likes does he go on like that.."
Had he been listening in?! Oh god this was so embarrassing.
โSpencer?โ oh i donโt think thatโs exactly true!โ I think he just enjoys telling people facts and such...โ your voice got quieter as you realized how ridiculous you sounded.
โSure.โ Derek smiled and moseyed his way to his desk next to Spencer.
When Derek sat down, Spencer tried to seem all nonchalant, but was quick to ask what the two were talking about.
โSo uh.. what were you guys talking about?โ Spencer didnโt look away from his computer.
Derek smirked and looked over at Spencer.
โNothing to worry about pretty boy.โ He turned back to his computer.
You had wandered into the break room around the same time as Spencer, where he was making his already too sweet coffee even sweeter.
โYouโll rot your teeth with all that cream and sugar.โ You smiled, trying to make light conversation with a small joke.
Spencer looked at you with a surprised face. โOh uh.. i donโt actually drink this enough to raise the probability of cavities.. itโs like drinking any other soda or eating candy.โ
You looked at him with a slight head tilt. โRight..โ you agreed as a smile slowly formed on your lips.
Spencer gave his regular awkward smile before handing you the cream. โWould you like any?โ
You nodded and smiled. โYes, thank you.โ
As you took the creamer from him your hand accidentally touched his causing both of your faces grow pink as you quickly use the cream as he finally walks away.
Thank you again guys for all the likes!! It really keeps me going knowing that people are actually reading this lol. <3
A/N: I think Iโve just given up on doing spacing how I like so Iโm pretty much keeping it how tumblr puts it down when I move this from AO3 to here
You can also read here on AO3. https://archiveofourown.org/works/88519696/chapters/234815536
When you arrived to the bureau the next morning (much to your dismay) Spencer was no where to be found. Odd, sure. But you had expected him to be out on a case somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
When Spencer came through the elevator with two coffeeโs in hand, you paid no mind.
โUh.. here.โ He said in a shaky voice. You looked up at him, carefully taking the coffee.
โWhatโs this for?โ You asked him, looking down at the coffee.
โYou stayed here late last night.โ He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. โAnd the probability of you being tired just like I am is very high.โ
You smiled. โI guess you were right then.โ You laughed, taking the coffee to warm your hands.
Spencer gave his usual nervous smile, then nodded and walked off.
You had wanted to say something else, talk a little more about the recent book he gave you, but something about him was screaming he didnโt want to. And that hurt a little bit.
Spencer went into the briefing room where the rest of his team had been waiting for him.
โYou're late,โ Hotch stated simply, though there wasn't much bite behind it.
โSorry.โ Spencer adjusted the strap of his satchel before slipping into his usual seat. โThe line at the coffee cart downstairs was... considerably longer than average.โ
Derek looked up from the file in front of him with a knowing grin. โFunny. Didn't know they sold two coffees to one guy.โ
Spencer froze for only a fraction of a second. โStatistically speaking, purchasing two beverages at once isn't uncommon.โ
โMm-hm.โ Derek nodded slowly.
Emily looked between the two of them before raising an eyebrow. โWho was the second coffee for?โ
โA coworker,โ Spencer answered. โA coworker,โ Emily repeated, trying very hard not to smile.
โShe stayed late finishing reports,โ Spencer clarified quickly. โSleep deprivation negatively impacts cognitive performance by nearly thirty percent, and caffeine temporarily counteracts some of those effects. It seemed... practical.โ
โPractical,โ Derek echoed.
โExactly.โ
Hotch cleared his throat. โIf everyone's finished.โ
The room immediately settled as Garcia's face appeared on the screen. โGood morning, my little crime-fighting ducklings.โ
The briefing wrapped up quicker than anyone expected.
The case in Virginia hadn't escalated enough to require the full team, so Hotch sent Rossi and JJ to consult with local law enforcement while everyone else remained at Quantico. It wasn't unusual. Cases stalled, leads dried up, and sometimes the BAU spent entire days catching up on paperwork while waiting for the next call.
You almost wished there was a case.
Paperwork was beginning to blur together after the third hour.
By early afternoon, the bullpen had settled into its familiar rhythm. Phones rang intermittently, and keyboards clicked.
Spencer had wandered his way over to your desk absentmindedly. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clutching a hardcover book against his chest. You recognized it immediately.
"You finished it?" you asked.
He nodded. "Last night."
"Already?" You asked surprised, that had taken you two weeks to finish.
"It wasn't particularly long."
"Spencer, it was almost four hundred pages." You laughed, sipping your coffee
"Three hundred and eighty-six."
You raised an eyebrow.
"So?" you prompted. "Tell me what you thought."
His eyes lit up in that way they always seemed to when someone invited him to talk about something he'd enjoyed
"The characterization was impressive. Most authors struggle to write intelligent protagonists because they rely on exposition rather than behavior, but this author allowed the reader to infer intelligence through dialogue and decision-making."
You rested your chin in your hand, listening. You enjoyed listening to him ramble and ramble on about the book, though you more enjoyed the fact he felt comfortable enough to do that.. it was almost.. cute?
โWhat? Is thereโ did I do something wrong?โ Spencer paused, looking at you worriedly.
โIโm sorry Iโm talking to much.โ He said full of embarrassment. He set the book down and looked away.
โNo Spencerโ youโre fine! Itโs alright.โ You said quickly, not wanting to offend him. โI enjoy listening to you talk.โ You had realized how weird that sounded โnot in a creepy way of course! I just think youโre very intellectual!โ Your cheeks burned with embarrassment now and poor Spencer was just confused.
โOkay..โ he nodded, unable to wrap his head around the fact that someone actually enjoyed talking to him.
The conversation had ended there. You were too nervous to say anything else and Spencer just ran out of words (for once).
A/N: Ahhh Iโm sorry this is so short but I think thereโs a reason I never did good in creative writing classes. This was hardddd! But over all I think this will be a really cute story (if I stop adding stupid misunderstandings and reader figures out her emotions.). Btw, requests are open!! Pleasee give me ideas on what I should do!
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Summary: You and Spencer have been working together for about a year, but nothing has really happened. You two clearly have chemistry, and almost everyone sees it!
Tags: slow burn, no use of Y/N, office romance, idiots in love, coworkers to friends to lovers, no smut!! (Yet?)
You can also read on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/88519696
Spencer was smart, like super freaky smart in that way youโre kinda jealous of. But when it came to social interactions with a pretty girl? His IQ was cut in half.
You had joined the BAU not too long after Spencer had, only a few months after since they needed a replacement for some desk agent that was a little too open about those confidential case files online.
Even though you werenโt out in the field, you still really enjoyed your job. The people were great, the atmosphere was great (for a federal government job), but most of all? That one kinda weird guy who was just the right amount odd.
Your interactions were minimal at first, maybe a small smile here or there, but as months went on, your separate yet very similar jobs had you interacting more and more.
Spencer didnโt mind interacting with you. He thought you were a very lovely person! He just didnโt really know how to talk to you.
โGood morning Spencer.โ You would say as you passed by him in the morning. He would give a small smile and raise his hand in a nervous wave. By lunchtime, he wouldโve found a reason to talk to you.โDid you know that most serial killers agree that the reason they kill is because of environmental factors rather than neurological?โ You would turn to look at him, a small smile on your face. โI didnโt, no.โ โMost researchers donโt actually take their opinions seriously oddly enough, I think itโs becauseโโ He would pause, realizing heโs interrupting your work.โItโs an intriguing topic.โ He would add out of embarrassment.
You never minded his sweet little rants, always thought they were a nice distraction from the cruel case readings you were forced to endure. โDo you have any books about it?โ Youโd ask, trying your best to show intrest. Spencer would light up, nodding quickly. โShould I bring it for you tomorrow?โ He would ask hopefully, and you would smile and nod.
Spencer had also missed you when he was halfway across the country. While missed was a strong word for all of his complex emotions, it was the best to sum them up.Every night, when he would lay in a hotel, he would contemplate dialing your number. But what would he say? โHey! I missed you even though weโre just colleagues so I decided to call you!โ Yeah no that was really stupid. So instead he would just fall asleep, thinking he was weird for missing you.
When the team came back, the bullpen always felt louder for a few hours.You were halfway through filing the latest reports when a familiar voice quietly spoke beside your desk. โI brought it.โ Spencer smiled You looked up and there Spencer stood there with a thick hardcover book held against his chest. โYou remembered?โ You asked, kinda surprised since you had forgotten all about it. โI have an eidetic memory.โ He answered automatically. You raised an eyebrow. He blinked. โThat wasn't supposed toโ that came off sounding arrogant.โ A laugh escaped you before you could stop it. โI appreciate you bringing this..โ you smiled and took it from his hands, setting on your desk. โAnd I canโt wait to read it.โOk that was a partial lie. You werenโt the biggest reader, but seeing his smile made your heart flutter.
Some of the tension immediately left his shoulders. You looked down, realizing here were dozens of tiny sticky notes poking from between chapters. โYou... annotated it?โ you asked, surprised. โNot for you.โ He had answered quickly, too quickly You stared at him. โI meanโI annotated it years ago!โ He explained quickly, now nervous of offending you.
โThank you.โ You repeated. He nodded once. โPage seventy-two is probably the most interesting.โ He had added, trying to keep the conversation alive. โOnly page seventy-two?โ You teased, a smile crossing your lips. โโฆNo?โ He asked, unable to tell you were joking. But you smiled. โI'll make sure to read all of it then.โ You laugh. He looked strangely relieved by that.
Three days later, the book was sitting back on Spencer's desk before he'd even arrived that morning.
There was a sticky note attached to the front. โPage 72 was interesting. But Page 143 was better.โ A little smiley face attached on the bottom of the sticky note
Spencer stared at it for several seconds. Then he smiled.
Morgan noticed immediately. He lifted his head from his desk and spoke. โPretty Boy.โ Spencer looked up. โWhat's got you smiling?โ That made Derek himself smile. โNothing.โ Morgan looked at the book, then at the sticky note then back at Spencer. โโฆRight.โ Derek nodded, faking his belief. Spencer instinctively covered the note with his hand.
Morgan laughed to himself, clearly placing things together.
From then on, books quietly became a routine. Spencer would leave one on your desk before his briefing, or before he would leave for a case. You'd return it a week or two later. Sometimes there'd be a sticky note youโd leave on the cover. But sometimes he'd discover tiny question marks in the margins. Those were his favorite. It meant you'd been thinking while you read. He'd answer every single one.
One evening, everyone had left except the two of you, he was working on putting some pieces together for some killer, while you were trying to file some forms. The fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead while rain tapped against the windows. You rubbed your eyes after staring at reports for nearly six hours. โYou should stop doing that.โ Spencer said without even looking up. You looked over. โDoing what?โ โRubbing your eyes.โ He responded, looking up with his eyebrows raised. โโฆWhy?โ You asked, kind of hesitant, but prepared for a 10 minute rant. โIt can damage the cornea over time.โ He stopped typing. โOh.โ You said simply. He nodded once. โโฆGood.โ
You smiled to yourself, you appreciated his concern, it was almost sweet that he thought of that.. Though it may have just been your overthinking.
The office fell quiet again, a kind comfortably quiet. The kind of silence that would've been awkward months ago. Now it simply existed. Neither of you seemed interested in breaking it.
