#hotchwolf

“What exactly are we looking for here?” Emily asked, breaking up the moment. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she did so with glee. “I'm not seeing anything out here but a bunch of tumbleweed...”

“This is a creosote bush,” John indicated, crouching beside one of the shrubs. “Larrea Triduntada. Not tumbleweed.” He considered continuing, but the way she rolled her eyes pleased him enough that he stopped and crushed a few of the leaves between fingers and thumb, breathing deep the scent of the oil it gave off. He extended his hand to Aaron who leaned forward and smelled it, smiling at the medicinal quality it gave off. It reminded him of being young, of having a sick day from school curled up on the couch and choking down spoonfuls of whatever tincture his mother decided would cure his ailment. When offered to Emily, she shook her head no.

“I'll pass,” she muttered, amused at the two of them. John wasn't so different from Reid, his demeanor was a little calmer, a little cooler but he was a fountain of knowledge that overflowed in much the same way. He shrugged and stood, dusting off the knees of his pants.

“We are looking for a dart,” John finally answered her. “Something small.” Aaron pulled out a folded up piece of paper from his pocket, the interior of which held a drawing that had to have been sketched by Reid, there was no way it had been the work of anyone else's hand. She groaned.

“Reid says it would look like this.”

“And we're supposed to find it at night?”

“With the heat index during the day, this is the safest time to be out here,” John pointed out in a dry monotone, taking a step away from them. “There are likely many of them, we need only find one.”

It was Aaron who happened upon the first dart, a bright red flicker beneath his flashlight's beam. At first he'd almost mistaken it for another cactus bloom, but it was suspicious enough that he crouched before it and hollered that he'd found something. The sharp end was lodged inside of a green garden hose at the base of a tree, inside of a mess of shrubs. Creosote bush, he reminded himself. He reached his hand inside, and as his fingers gripped the soft crimson feather he heard the sound of a baby's rattle; fear shivered down his spine and settled in his hips. He pulled his hand back immediately, fear dizzying him in his reaction.

The last time he'd come face to face with a snake he'd been a small boy, terrified...in his mind it was a cobra, a King Cobra looming over him but his mother loved to remind him it was a garter snake slithering through the flower bed. Wisdom told him now that she was right, and that same wisdom told him that this was absolutely not a harmless garter snake. Too late, one venomous fang managed to nick the skin of his palm, raking down the meaty flesh at the base of his thumb. He heard himself gasp but felt detached from it, like the sound belonged to someone else entirely. Cradling his hand against his chest, he stumbled backward with as much grace as he could manage, his feet nearly going out from under him more than once. It wasn't that he was panicked, but with his eyes trained on the spot in case the snake unfurled and lunged at him, he wanted to put as much distance as he could between them. There was no movement, and briefly, before the burning hit, he wondered if he'd just scraped himself on a thorn, if he'd been making it up...but the pain, when it began, was immense and left no room for doubt.

“I found one.” He tried to make his voice carry over the sound of his pounding heart, standing and staring at the spot like the shadow itself might come alive and attack him. He blinked hard, trying to focus his eyes, squinting into the moonlit bush. “Don't...” he gasped, hazarding a glance at his hand. “Don't go after it yet.” He was already lightheaded, maybe from the shock or from the bite itself, he had no way of knowing. The thundering of his heart drowned out all other noise, and loud as it was, and panicked as he felt...it sounded wrong, slow, erratic. His thumb was filled with sparks, a firework show beneath his skin.

“I uh,” he muttered, adam's apple bobbing as he tried to gulp down the worry. “I got bit by something.” He knew what it was, what the something was, and the moment John saw his pale, drawn features and the way he held his hand, he knew as well. Reaching beside the nearby shed, he grabbed for a pitchfork and approached the bush with long, cautious steps. He nudged the dirt with the toe of his boot, disturbed the snake enough to hear its warning rattle and dug the pitchfork into the area so quickly it was surreal. Aaron blinked hard, every move John made was in slow motion, the light creating tracers behind his arms and legs. John twisted the pitchfork and came up with a snake looped around the prongs like a long spaghetti noodle. Aaron thought about teaching Jack how to eat spaghetti, using his fork to twist the noodles into a bite and the thought made him smile. The snake lashed out, twining itself around and around the prongs, into a knot while John got a good hard look at it, taking in every marking before hurling it and the pitchfork like a javelin as far as he could. He wasn't going to kill the snake for defending itself, but he wasn't going to let it attack again either.

“Emily,” he shouted, waving her over. “Call 911, we have a snakebite – a western diamondback rattlesnake, they'll need to come with...” he took hold of Aaron's rapidly swelling hand and frowned. “At least two vials of antivenin in order to get to the hospital from here.” He had enough experience with snake bites, especially with hikers much further out, to have a fairly good understanding of just how long it took to get to a hospital to receive care. She wasted no time getting on the line, and he noted with some surprise that she sounded calm as she rattled off the information he'd given her and the address to their location.

“Come with me.” John's voice was soft, assured, not a trace of fear and Aaron clung to it. Without any trepidation, John placed his hand atop Aaron's wrist and pressed his injured palm flat against his abdomen. He held Aaron's hand in place with gentle pressure, keeping the injury still and low. Aaron wondered if everyone got this treatment or if he was special, if John wanted to be closer to him. The thought occupied his mind for one blissful moment before the pain rocked him with another wave. John whispered something against his cheek, it was soothing even if Aaron couldn't hear it over the rush of blood in his ears, and he could feel the tears sticky on his cheeks even if he hadn't realized he was crying. Everything felt surreal, he wasn't in control of anything his body seemed to be doing. Slowly, John wrapped his other arm around Aaron and began walking him around the house toward the driveway...the road was a fair distance away, and they would make it well before the ambulance, but he wanted to keep Aaron calm. “We will meet the ambulance at the road,” he whispered, and Aaron nodded, noting that swallowing was becoming more challenging. It took two good, solid tries for him to manage to swallow the thick feeling in his mouth. He felt sick and focused on keeping that in check.

“Ten minutes,” Emily said breathless, catching up to them. “Will he make it?”

“Of course he will,” was John's very confident reply. He really didn't know, of course, but the last thing he needed was to panic either of them. “I need you to go back and get the dart. Grab something to poke into the bush with first, make sure nothing else is in there. That snake will be long gone but it may have had a partner nearby. If we don't get that dart, this has all been for nothing.”

Aaron let out a wet sounding cough and John knew what happened next, though he'd hoped they might make it further before it happened. He stopped, let him bend over and be sick on the side of the dirt driveway. He wasn't able to get out of the way before it happened and his boot took the brunt of the first wave. With his free hand splayed now against Aaron's upper back, he patted and rubbed, ran it along the length of his spine reassuringly. Aaron was sweating, quiet, panting between the violence of the heaves. It was mostly water and bile, Aaron didn't eat much and for that they were both very thankful. “It's okay. Don't fight it, you can't win this battle with pride.”

Aaron stumbled as he walked, every jerking motion causing him to bite into his lip to keep from crying out in pain. The pressure of John's hand on his rapidly swelling appendage was almost too much to bear but there was something oddly comforting about it and he couldn't fathom asking him to alter his grip or let go. It hurt all the way up his arm, his elbow and shoulder frozen and locked in place; every single movement felt like shattering glass inside of his joints. As they walked, achingly slow, John spoke to him in a voice hardly audible over the blood rushing in his ears – one of his lectures, he recognized; it was one of the long boring ones Aaron knew he'd fallen asleep to by phone plenty of nights when he was too wired, too stressed out to consider closing his eyes. John, with the patience of a saint, would launch into something Aaron had little to no interest in, rehearsing an upcoming lecture in a voice that became like a sleep tincture. It was working now, too, keeping him calm to the point that his feet drug against the dirt more than once, his eyelids heavy. This is a dangerous game you're playing, Johnny boy, he told himself...there was something to be said for keeping a victim calm, but quite another for going overboard, it was a balancing act to keep his blood pressure from tipping too far in either direction.

“Are you gonna suck the venom out like in the movies?” Emily huffed, coming up beside them with the dart held triumphantly ahead of her. She had, more or less, saved their asses...at least they would have something to analyze, something to make their charge of their suspect stick. Aaron's peril wasn't for naught. John was now sitting on the ground with Aaron lying back against his chest, his head rested against John's shoulder and face turned to the expanse of starry sky above them. He was lost somewhere out there, traveling light-years away, tripping through the universe on a constant wave of pain and nausea while John watched over him. He had, in the last few minutes, exhausted himself entirely and begun shivering uncontrollably, but they were still winning John figured, he was still breathing, he was still alive. John glanced up at her, tried to read her features when she asked again. “You know, some Crocodile Dundee shit?” Joking, he noted; clearly, she was someone who wasn't comfortable with serious situations. He offered her a smile and stroked Aaron's hair mindlessly.

“While it does carry a certain allure, that is not recommended,” he replied softly, indicating for her to have a seat beside them. “It has been found to be ineffective, and worse, leads to infection. We need him to remain calm and keep the bite below his heart so that the venom doesn't spread too fast. He will be okay, Agent Prentiss.”

“I'm not worried,” she muttered, clearly worried. She paced back and forth staring at the dart, the bright red feathers weatherworn and rough; she couldn't fathom sitting down or even stopping, she was bubbling over with nervous energy. “Who says I'm worried?” He smiled at her knowingly and hummed, an earthy, deep baritone resonating in his throat. Aaron coughed and leaned forward, sick again but this time it was blood that came up and John hummed louder, a calming sound quickly interrupted by the faraway scream of sirens.

The ICU was packed. It was small, only four beds, each separated by a thick blue curtain. It didn't lend much more than the illusion of privacy, but for once Aaron really didn't mind. He didn't have much experience being in the hospital alone, as it turned out, and he didn't care for it. The elderly woman beside him had coded twice since he'd been there, fitfully in and out of an oddly dreamless sleep. Each time he pried open his eyes, he found himself turning his head to see if she made it through, smiling to himself at the sight of her there. He thought he'd like to know her name, hoped she might wake up to let him know. His arm rested at his side, cradled in soft pillows and covered in a mapwork of intricate black sharpie circles and lines, nearly illegible scrawls with timestamps tracking the travels of the venom along his veins like rivers. The swelling in his hand was almost cartoonish, fingers purple and sausage like. He couldn't move them, his arm was weighted, too heavy to lift. The morphine was strong enough that he didn't notice much of the pain unless he really focused there, and found himself mostly wondering how much his skin could take before it burst open. The IV and all of its various tubes protruded from the other hand, thick layers of tape holding everything in place. He didn't move much, didn't dare. There was a bright red line coursing alongside the black marker, he could see it even in the dark, noting the way the infection trickled slowly like salmon upstream.

“You know,” John said from above him as his eyes fluttered open, “you didn't need to get bit by a snake to get me to hold your hand. You could have just asked.” He watched the clock on the wall tick the seconds by much too quickly toward the hour he'd be told to leave, come back in the morning. He was already pushing his luck, he still had work to do, they still had a killer to catch. Any minute now he would get a call with the results of the lab tests run on the dart and it would be back to work. But he'd allowed himself this reprieve, brief as it may be. As much as he prided himself on his singular mind, his ability to focus, he found that in this instance...the life of someone very important to him hanging in the balance took some precedence over the job. Aaron, barely awake, felt the flush that burned from his collarbone to his jaw and he smiled. It was soft, loopy, his eyes squinty and nearly closed. If not for the machines pumping and beeping and sighing around him, he almost looked sweet.

“What can I say? I like to make an impression.” The words were slurred and lazy, his voice impossibly deep. John wouldn't mind hearing him sound like this more often, there was something charming and very southern in his Virginia drawl that he worked so hard to keep hidden.

“Agent Hotchner,” John began, his face serious in the shadows. “You may safely assume that you have made an impression. Long before your brush with death.” With a quick glance hazarded around the small curtained off area, ensuring that no prying eyes might have occasion to see, he leaned down until his lips hovered just barely above Aaron's. There was a certain amount of pride he took in the way the heart monitor sped up, beats skipping joyfully. “Your machines betray you.”

Quickly, under cover of the shadows, he dared to make the first move, pressing a soft kiss to Aaron's waiting lips. Just beyond the curtain he heard the squeak of nurse's shoes, low voices, but they remained outside of their small refuge. This kiss, he realized with some satisfaction, had been too long in the making...long distance relationships were built on a mountain of longing, waiting eagerly, and their jobs hadn't provided any leeway. As their lips met, Aaron's kiss weak but eager and tasting vaguely medicinal, he could feel his own pulse quicken and thought it best not to press his luck with Aaron's heart. With him safely tucked into an ICU bed and being pumped with antivenom, they had bought themselves time. There would be more kisses.

With his arms folded over his chest, hands neatly tucked in at his sides, he wore holes in his sleeves where he tugged them over the raw skin that covered his pulse. The zipties had been fine, but the cuffs in the interrogation room were tight enough that it impeded his movement...they'd been afraid of him and the weight of the metal where it cut into his skin was now a constant reminder. The way his thumb danced at the small, frayed edge of the hole and played with the scabs beneath was like being twelve again, wearing a baggy sweater in the dead of summer to hide the way his father had knocked him around the night before. Nothing new then, nothing new now. There had been a brief spell that he'd walked around with real confidence, sometime in the good years...between his father's last breath and Haley's breaking point. The feeling of being in handcuffs weighed on every breath he took, made his heart quicken and he closed his eyes. In the fuzzy darkness of his mind he saw the writing in Elle's blood on her wall, Jason's cold form beneath a sheet, Foyet on top of him. He wore those failures every day etched in the lines of his face.

John's appearance in the doorway, his dark form illuminated by the too bright interior of the house, was timed almost perfectly. It was a reminder that there were still good times in spite of all the bad. Lifting one arm, he waved John over and couldn't help the easy way his frown melted into a shadow kissed smile.

“You came,” he whispered as John approached with his hands clasped behind his back. His formality was beautiful and strange in contrast with Spencer's magic tricks and Penelope's kaleidoscope dress. The way Will and JJ kicked a soccer ball around out in the grass without any kids, laughing and darting around one another while Tara and Hayden spoke in French about Rossi and his cars. He was right there beside them trying to pick out a word or two he recognized to make sure their talk hadn't strayed into dangerous territory for him. The way they laughed made him more than a little nervous.

“Did I have a choice?”

“No,” Aaron replied softly, smirking. “I suppose not.”

It was as easy as that. John let Aaron introduce him to his team, there were so few left that he remembered but he felt he knew them all intimately anyway. Years of stories, that was all they had with so many miles between them. Phone calls, emails, handwritten letters. A life built on one sided stories. The shocked glances when they realized what he was saying, what he was doing, was almost sweet John thought. He pulled Aaron aside and cocked his head to the side. A silent question, a shrug for an answer. No, they didn't know, and no it wasn't exactly a secret...it just never came up. Aaron didn't broadcast his personal life at work, and often avoided gatherings. He hadn't been to one since Derek left the team, he realized...that had been the thread still connecting him to the bullpen even if it had been years since Derek himself had been there too. Their desks butted up against one another, shared snack drawers and nicknames and inside jokes. Now it really was just him up there, and the expanse between his office and the bullpen was almost crushing. Time was a thief.

“Earth to Aaron...” John whispered, nudging his elbow. “Are you in there?”

Aaron blinked and shook his head a little, forcing a weak smile to compensate. “Yeah, sorry. Just tired.”

He looked tired, John thought. That part wasn't a lie. In fact, John wouldn't be surprised to find that Aaron hadn't slept in the last few days, at least not well. It wasn't new but he'd been doing better recently. Before he had a chance to inquire further, Jack rushed them both screaming John's name with delight and begging him to come and see Spencer's magic tricks. “THEY'RE SO GOOD!” John was less enthusiastic, but he obliged and thought up a few tricks of his own to share on the way.

“I'm honored that you invited him,” Rossi said quietly, sliding into the open place vacated by John moments before. Without giving Aaron a chance to say a word, he continued. “And I'm glad you came. After what happened...I wasn't sure. I know they accused you of...”

“It's okay,” Aaron's voice was quick and breathy but there was an air of finality in it, his features steely and pinched. "Really. It's okay." From across the yard John saw the change, the shadow that crept over him and for the rest of the evening he managed to piece together what that meant through various conversations. Never enough to get the full story but it didn't matter, he had a good idea by the time they left. His joy at finally being together was clouded and a storm was brewing in its place.

“What happened?”

It wasn't a surprise that John started in on him the moment the hotel room door was closed. The look in his eye told Aaron the painful truth...he couldn't lie his way out of this one with his fake smile and his scripted I'm fine. John clearly already knew what happened, he was just being gracious enough to get it from Aaron's lips, giving him an opportunity to tell him something he didn't understand that might change how he felt about it. Benefit of the doubt. Right now, he only felt the burn of anger, both at the people responsible and at Aaron for allowing it. For condoning it. He'd made the call, asked Jessica to stay over with Jack so they could talk uninhibited...she'd tried to play it cool, make some inappropriate insinuations about a night alone in a hotel room, but the ominous quiet in John's voice told her that there wasn't likely to be much fun had. She couldn't blame him; she still hadn't quite figured out how to talk to Aaron or Jack about it either.

“You were arrested by people you trust. By an entity you have devoted your life to protecting.”

“It was a misunderstanding.”

The bed didn't feel welcoming, so they stood. It was as simple and as difficult as that.

“No,” John replied, his voice soft but stern. Like a parent gently letting their child know they were testing a boundary. “A misunderstanding is showing up to a restaurant at different times for dinner reservations. Being arrested and interrogated by your government, by your employer, is altogether different. Aaron, you have given these people your undying loyalty for the majority of your adult life. You have lost precious time and people to this job, and I found a way to understand it still when you asked, but this? I am finding it very difficult to...”

Aaron had no defense, that was the worst part. He stood and he listened intently, had let the same words bounce around in his own skull since they'd un-cuffed him. His shoulders slumped beneath the weight of words laced with the sickly sour taste of doubt and anger and unbridled hurt. He was sick to his stomach. He'd done his best to ignore it, to move on but the fact was that they believed what Lewis said, they believed it and they threw every painful thing they could at him to try and break him. Leveraged his failures against his word. Trying to set his features was pointless, he could feel the burn of tears anyway. Until now, he'd suppressed the urge to let it out...seemed like he wasn't going to have the choice much longer.

“You can't possibly have faith in them anymore, not after this. They trusted a serial killer's testimony over your history and loyalty. You can't possibly...”

“We only have tonight,” Aaron pleaded, his voice shaky and uncertain. He stepped forward, letting his sleeves loose and exposing the raw skin at his wrists, a peace offering. He didn't want to talk but he wasn't hiding anymore. Timidly, he slipped himself around John, pleading silently for the interrogation to cease. He couldn't take it anymore. John was pulling up every ugly thing he'd thought and felt in the few days since he sat in that room, face to face with a man who believed every lie out of Peter Lewis' mouth. And now Lewis was out there again...for how long? How long before he came back, tried to get to Aaron again? Lewis didn't kill with his bare hands like Foyet did but he stood to lose just as much nonetheless. The worst part of all of it was simply that while John's anger hurt him, he agreed with every word. It was just not that simple.

"You're making it very hard to concentrate right now," John said, a sour look on his otherwise stony features, but he found his arms wrapped around Aaron's shoulders anyway. He wanted to keep talking, he had too much to say. He was on the verge of ending things if Aaron couldn't see this clearly...how could he be with someone so blind? But Aaron squirmed against him desperately, burying his face in John's neck and breathing in the scent of him deep. With his forehead buried there, he spoke with lips dusting against John's throbbing pulse. Aaron could taste his anger.

"Good, pay attention to me."

It was sweet, John had to admit, but it wasn't good enough. There was a long contemplative silence, words danced on his lips but when he finally broke the spell, he'd opted to be gentle. He might not make it out unscathed, but Aaron's heart was already broken, he wasn't going to win this battle with harsh words.

“I want you to leave this place. This job. Come to New Mexico, live with me. You hate the cold and the woods and the skyscrapers, you would love living in the desert. And we would never...” his voice trailed off when he felt Aaron's tears hot against his neck. Utterly defeated, even gentle hadn't been enough. He let out a soft sigh and tightened his hold on Aaron's trembling shoulders. “Tell me you'll at least give it some thought and I'll let it drop for tonight.”

“Your years of service and what you've given to the Bureau do not go unrecognized. You're technically a few years shy of age, but full retirement is on the table again,” Cruz had said over the phone, his voice almost hesitant. Reading from a script. He didn't want Hotch to take over the BAU again, Emily was doing a fine job of it and of course she would give him back his office and his ratty old couch in a heartbeat if he said he wanted it, but that was just it.

He didn't. “I'd like to accept it this time.”

WELCOME TO NEW MEXICO, the sign read, but what it really said was GOODBYE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW. He'd gone through WITSEC on the hope that he could go back and everything would be as it was. He could step right back in like no time had passed, his team would still be his team, they would still be his family. But the moment they called and told him it was over, Scratch was dead, he realized that that life was too. Those people may have been his family at one time but they'd all moved on, and so must he. He could be Aaron Hotchner again, but he could never go back.

So what then?

Jack wanted to be in Virginia, and Jessica had cried at the sound of Aaron's voice. He couldn't say he hadn't done the same. But they both knew he wasn't ready to be in Virginia again, not yet. “Jack can stay with my dad and I,” she'd said around the thick strain of tears. “You'll come see me soon? I need to put my arms around you...”

“Soon,” was all he said, and she didn't believe him.

WELCOME TO NEW MEXICO. It wasn't even a real thought that drove him here, just an intuition. An old friend who might have been more if not for circumstances he deemed out of his control at the time but was wise enough now to see how very wrong he was. How much might have been different if he'd only listened? Call me if you ever come to your senses, John had said, no longer able to reconcile his morals with Aaron's job. It's just a job, Aaron had pleaded, but it was no use, and he really should have taken his own advice. It's just a job. Well...no longer. He understands what it meant now.

John's door is lit by one flickering yellow lamp, a swarm of moths smacking each other and beating their fluffy wings against the heat. He pulls up in a cloud of dust and listens as his boots crunch in the gravel and sand. John's home looks exactly the way he remembers it, and he thinks for the first time since leaving Virginia that he feels at home.

BLACKWOLF, the sign on the door reads, and at his feet sat a dusty old rug that reads WELCOME. When the door opens, John stands in graceful silhouette, the golden haze framing him against its warm glow. His house smells like home. He's taken back to another time. They are older now, with laugh lines and heartache, but his eyes are the same obsidian that Aaron can't tear himself away from. John is enchanting in his calm.

“G-man,” John says quietly, easily, the recognition instant. Like no time was lost. Aaron shakes his head.

“Not anymore.”

John cocks one eyebrow and his face spreads into a smile. “What are you doing here, former G-man?”

Aaron pauses, sucking in the biggest, most nervous breath of his life. He should have called first, but then...John hadn't ever bothered to stand on propriety and Hotch thought maybe he could use a little spontaneity in this new life. “I didn't know where else to go.”

And that was the simple truth.