So Many Fandoms, So Little Time.

Reid coming over to Emily’s apartment and he’s mid-conversation when he realizes someone’s standing on her balcony. 

“That’s just Hotch,” she brushes it off. “Jack’s in the guest room if you’d like to say hi.” 

And Reid’s too confused to even process that. “What?”

“He can process his emotions better when the outside reflects the inside.” 

The team is on a case (+garcia because I say so) and it snows really bad so theyre all stuck at least another night and the only hotel around has only 1 family room available. So all 7 of them are sharing one family room and its all very family fluff. Maybe some gay with hotch/rossi, morgan/garcia, a little jemily.... its all I need in life

Not my usual stuff but I did a lot of school work today and I’m sitting here eating Frozen-themed graham cracker snacks and drinking water so I figured “eh, what the hell?” here we are:

The news had hit Hotch and JJ the hardest. Stuck here, in the snow, for another miserable night when they could be heading home to their kids. It’s not hard to imagine how they’d be upset and nothing is managing to stifle that disappointment. 

“I don’t want to stay another night,” JJ mumbles, going where she’s pulled. She caves into Emily, sighing, and trying to do her best to suppress the sob that wants to tear through her mouth. Henry’s sick and they’ve just worked seventy-two hours solving the case of little boys left naked in the woods. She’s seen awful things and she just needs to hold her baby. To remind herself of humanity… the good parts. 

Hotch remains passively silent where he stands looking out the sliding glass door. He doesn’t even turn around when the boy’s coming barging in. 

The sudden intrusion causes a shiver of the cold wind from outside gushing in. It’s well-worth the goodies they come baring. 

“I was starting to get worried,” Garcia says, uncurling her legs from underneath her. She stands and greets Morgan with a hug. 

Who, in turn, wraps his unzipped coat around her, pulling her between the fabric and his warm chest. “You worry too much,” he mumbles kissing the top of her head. “We just got a little caught up. Dave needed to make an extra stop.”

Dave raises his head when he hears the mention of his name but shrugs it off. The second stop was mandatory. He’s seen Hotch slowly wilting throughout this case and giving the temperature outside and the coffee they’ve consumed… He figured it would help to soothe some nerves to stop for some ABC store bourbon and tea. The bourbon is for the restless night they have ahead and the tea is to stave off the colds they’ll likely end up with. 

“JJ,” Dave calls, smiling sympathetically when he turns and Emily’s brushing tears away from JJ’s face. “I’m sorry we’re stuck here,” he starts, wrapping her up in his arms. “I really am.” He holds her for a good moment before pressing a kiss to her hair. “Do either of you have a heating pad?”

Emily nods first, placing why he’d want it before JJ. “Yeah, I can get it warmed up.” She takes JJ by the hand and directs her to one of the two beds they have to work with tonight. How seven adults are going to make that work is yet to be discovered but… they’ll figure it out. They always do.

“Pretty boy,” Morgan calls, motioning the younger man to him. “Chicken nuggets for the baby,” he jokes, handing Reid his chicken nuggets. 

Reid fails to hide the crimson creeping up his cheeks at the taunt but he’s starving so he lets it go.

“Aaron--”

Hotch cringes and pulls away from Dave’s hand brushing lightly across his knuckles. He pulls it to his chest like it stings, “I-I’m not hungry.” He raises his eyes to Dave’s and any fight he might have conjured up melts. “Please,” he whispers, eyes tracking the others in the room.

Dave steadies him with a hand cupped to his cheek, shushing him. “Forget them,” Dave says, with a shake of his head. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Hotch clears his throat, swallowing thickly around the trepidation building solidly there. “I…” he ducks his head. “My ear is… I’m just not very hungry and--” Hotch frowns as Dave nods, handing him a mug. It smells like peppermint. Tea, he figures out a moment later. Dave’s made him tea.

Dave affectionately brushes a thumb across his cheek. “Drink the tea,” he says softly. “Warm up a little and when you’re ready Emily’s got the heating pad for that ear. Okay?”

Hotch nods. He nervously shifts a little, eyes darting back to the team who could be watching. “Will you…”

There’s a fearful glaze of vulnerability in his eyes that breaks Dave’s heart. It makes it impossible for him to say no. Dave reaches down and squeezes his hand, “of course.”

The beds ended up not being that big of a deal. It’s the TV that nearly causes Hell to crack open from the cheap, stained carpet and swallow them whole. 

Reid lays tangled along the bottom of Hotch and Rossi’s bed. He’s a bit of a blanket hog but he curls his long body into a ball and is out within minutes. He’s awake enough to side with Hotch and JJ when they vote for Alien over Cowboys and Aliens. 

Dave’s drinking bourbon from the bottle too distracted to really care. And why would he? He’s got Hotch laying curled into one of his sides. A heating pad pressed to his chest where Hotch is laying with it pressed to his ear and he’s watching as Hotch slowly succumbs to his tea and the relief from the pain in his ear. 

On the other side of the bed, Garcia’s talking Morgan through the heavy plot points of Alien (because Garcia had sided with Hotch and Reid). Her head is on his chest and Morgan’s rubbing a hand up and down her back. His eyes are closed and his head tilted back but he’s hanging on. Just hardly. 

Emily and JJ are out cold. Getting the blonde to finally settle down was no small act but she’s a sucker for having her hair played with. So after about five minutes of softly brushing her hands through JJ’s hair, she was out like a light. Now, her lidded eyes are fighting to stay open. She scowls over at Hotch. She still feels betrayed that he sided with Reid and not her. Dick. 

Forced To Beg | Hallucinations | Shoot The Hostage

–

God, Aaron hated his job sometimes. He loved it a lot of the time. He loved that he was able to help people, to help save them, to help get them out of danger, to help get the bad people away from them. But other times, other times he really, really hated it.

Like now. Now was one of those times that he really, truly did despise that his job had gotten him into the situation that he was in now. When he got stuck in a place where it looked like it was no way out. When someone had to get hurt. When there was uncertainty of who might come out on the other side.

They were back to back, on the floor, hands tied behind their backs. All the doors were locked. They’d been stripped of their weapons. There was nothing they could do.

A door opened. A man walked in. He looked… smug.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting so long.” He reached behind himself and pulled a gun out of the waistband of his pants, cocked it, and pointed it at Spencer’s head.

No.

“Don’t.” Aaron croaked out. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Hotch-”

“You sticking up for you buddy? How sweet.” He stuck the barrel of the gun against his forehead. “You know what? Fine. Today I’m feeling generous. I won’t hurt him.”

Aaron had a very bad feeling about this.

“You can do the honors.”

Aaron felt his heart sink. “Wait, wait-”

“It would be very rude of you to disregard my kindness.”

“Aaron. Aaron, it’s okay.”

“Spencer-”

“No, it’s alright. You’ve got… you’ve got more to go for than I do anyways.”

Aaron felt as though his world was sort of crumbling around him. His mouth went dry.

“It’s okay, Aaron. It’s okay. It’s…”

He awoke with a start. They were on the jet. Spencer had been shaking him.

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay.”

“I, um… sorry, I..”

Spencer waved a dismissive hand. “It’s alright. It happens to us all.” He glanced around them. “They’re all asleep.”

His tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip. “Yeah.” No watchful eyes.

“Scoot.”

Aaron moved to the side slightly, enough for Spencer to be able to worm his way under his arm.

He was alright. Aaron hadn’t been about to do anything. And he never would.

“Goodnight, bear.”

Rossi: It isn’t smirking at anyone, they’re all just imagining it.

Penelope: Three of us saw it, Rossi. How do you explain that?

Rossi: *Points at Spencer* Sleep deprivation.

Rossi: *Points at Emily* Paranoia.

Hotch uncomfortable— unable to explain why bc he really doesn’t know. His scars are agitated, chest stiff, and back tight.

“It’s just the aches,” Dave says because he’s convinced himself that’s the truth. “You’re getting old, Aaron.”

But it doesn’t set right with Morgan.

Reid anxiously shifting, “he’s—he’s not that old.”

He’s old enough for aches. Even the unexplained ones. They’re just protective and worried.

JJ almost stopping to say something to him the night before the incident. He’s been acting strange. Tired and chilled. He’s scaring Reid.

She doesn’t.

So sorry for the wait on this one (this was actually my oldest ask!). It’s finally done!

Branding | Heat Exhaustion | Fire

–

The first thing that Aaron noticed was the stuffed giraffe that had been shoved into his face. The next was the beeping of what he presumed was a smoke detector, coming from the kitchen.

Spencer had his face pressed into the pillow beside him, so he reached over to shake his shoulder. “Spence.”

He made a soft sort of grumbling noise and shuffled away from him. Normally, Aaron might have thought that that was cute. Right now, as Spencer’s apartment was about to burn down, he didn’t think that it was quite as cute.

“Spencer. Get up. There’s a fire.”

Well, now, he sure as hell as up and at ‘em. He rolled over and just about fell off of the bed, but Aaron was quick enough to grab him by the back of the shirt and pull him back.

“C’mon, we have to go.” Rather unceremoniously, they rolled out of bed. The clock on the table read 2:38. It was early. There was fire. There was no time for grace. Spencer grabbed his phone, and, of course, his prized stuffed giraffe as it was already clutched in his hands, and he and Aaron were on their way.

Until, of course, Spencer peeked into the kitchen. “Aaron.” He grabbed him by the hand and stood stock still.

“Spencer, can’t you-”

“Look.”

He glanced into the kitchen. There was no fire. There was no smoke. There was no nothing.

“It’s just… it just needs new batteries.” He dropped his hand from Aaron’s and gave him a little shove as he walked into the kitchen, presumably to change the batteries.

Oops.

“While I appreciate the effort,” Spencer called to him as he dragged out the step stool, “next time, don’t you think you could check for smoke or something?”

His cheeks flushed. He probably should have done that.

Me:

“Uhm,” the nurse glances at Morgan. 

Morgan frowns when the nurse looks at him questioning what she’s supposed to do. “You’re not gonna take my man’s blankie from him are you?”

The nurse looks at the pair and nods, “he can keep the-the blanket.”

Morgan nods. He reaches down and rustles Hotch hair. Out of ear shot of the nurse he mumbles, “I wouldn’t have let her take your blanket, Hotch.”

Happy Birthday Emily Prentiss! → Emily with Birthday Palette

October 12, 1970