#katyswriting

((unbeta'd snippet from Chapter 03 that probably has some incorrect information in regards to the Upside Down/history of the show but I haven't gone back to fact check just yet. Also remember Eddie does not have some information that the others do so there are missing pieces there as well: for instance, he is calling the Demogorgon a Nazgûl (because we are doing lots of LotR references, and he never actually saw a Demogorgon in the show). He is currently hiding at the Byer's old house, and ends up falling asleep there while the creatures ourside are hunting. This is the first chapter where Eddie doesn't dreamwalk with Steve -- but with someone else. And therefore learns that he can walk into anyone's dreams. Also sets the tone for the rest of Eddie's story. There's 15 chapters total, if that helps paint the picture of how much more there is untold. Another stupidly long snippet, but it will probably be my last one for Eddie for a while. I'm wishy-washy on when the fic will be posted, and the logistics of formatting dreams vs. reality, but more info will come when the time nears. For the purpose of this snippet, the dream is in italics and reality is in regular))

—

Eddie dreams, and almost immediately he knows it’s not his own.

After finding himself walking through Steve Harrington’s dreams, Eddie discovers they feel very distinctly different from experiencing his own. It’s less confusing, for one thing, and he’s more sure of himself and his body as he moves around within the dreamscape. But he’s only dreamed with Steve twice, both when sleeping in his bed in his home, and there’s something very not Steve about this dream.

For one thing, he’s back in the woods. Not the Upside Down version of the woods, either, because the trees are intact and the air smells less foul, and there’s a different hue to the darkness here. Almost like it’s lighter, more familiar, nostalgic to his rattled senses.

He spins around, hands in his jacket pockets, once again wearing his battle vest (he misses it a lot, maybe Harrington kept it for him) and his Hellfire shirt. His armor. His go-to outfit. If he was to be drawn like a cartoon character in Scooby-Doo or some shit, wearing the same thing every frame, this is what he’d have on. And when he looks out into the darkness, he finds himself alone. Very much alone.

But this isn’t his dream.

How does he know this? Don’t fucking ask him. Eddie can just… feel it. Like when you step outside and can tell it’s about to rain. The atmosphere is just different.

He can also tell this isn’t Steve’s. Steve’s dreams feel like wearing a warm sweatshirt, they are crisp and confined and comforting even when they are facing something scary. But this… this feels more brittle. More watery. Smaller.

Then, Eddie sees him.

A little boy, standing in the woods. The towering trees seem to press in on him from either side, the forest floor is a shag carpet of leaves, roots and dips in the ground that could swallow that kid whole. He looks so small, and lost. Eddie had been lost in the woods before, when he didn’t know that if you just keep walking in one direction you’ll eventually hit a road. So he makes his way towards the boy, and only pauses when his vision fails him.

Well, it must have, anyway. Because Eddie could have sworn it was a little boy, about nine years old, and then like a movie-frame shutter the boy ages a few years. And then the click shutter happens again. It’s very ghost-story-esque and Eddie isn’t sure he wants to get much closer after that. The boy shutters between ages: maybe 10 years old, then 12 years old, 15 years old, and back to 10. If he had to guess.

But his presence doesn’t go unnoticed, the kid turns to him and looks at him with wide eyes. He’s got a rather unfortunate bowl-cut and big watery eyes and is looking at Eddie like he’s one of the Nazgûl come to eat him alive. So Eddie raises his hands in the universal gesture of ‘I come in peace’ and – it takes him a moment to realize he’d done something similar to Chrissy all those months ago. Trying to make himself not look so scary for a moment, when he spends most of his time otherwise doing his very best to have ‘Fuck Off’ stamped on his forehead.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he tells the kid, who about trips over his own feet to back away. “I’m not gonna hurt you. What’s your name?”

The boy licks his lips in nervousness, shutters between 10 and 12 again, a courage in his eyes as he finds his voice. 

“Will Byers.”

…Oh, shit. 

Eddie’s eyes are a little wider, now, and he lets out a deep breath as he tries to gain his bearings. He’d fallen asleep in mini-Byer’s room, and now he was in his dream.

So that’s how it works.

“Will Byers,” he murmurs, still a little shell-shocked. “Your friends with Wheeler and Henderson.”

He blinks and the kid is 15, almost as tall as he is, looking at him with more curiosity now. But then he’s 10 again, fingers clenched at his sides, suspicious and untrusting.

“Who are you?” he asks, his little voice doing its best not to shake.

“My name is Eddie.” He’s usually good with little kids, and he’d get down to the other’s level if he didn’t have a tendency to switch between four feet and six. But the spark of recognition is worth the softer tones, because the kid immediately connects a bunch of information Eddie isn’t privy to. But he gets the same look in his eyes that Henderson does when he figures something out.

“Eddie who died?” Will Byers asks, confused, hopeful.

“Yeah, Eddie who died,” he says back, and wow that feels like a kick to the chest. He puts his hands back in his pockets and leans on one hip heavily. At least they still talk about him, topside.

“Why are you here?” Will asks. Eddie just shrugs in response.

“I don’t know, man. It’s your dream.”

There’s a noise off in the distance, a dark guttural growl and heavy footsteps – both Eddie and Will look to it, snapping to attention and not moving an inch. ((This is a dream.)) Eddie reminds himself, like he has to do every single time. But the Nazgûl and Vecna could probably penetrate dreams as well as minds, so who’s to say that the thing in the distance wouldn’t be able to hurt them, here.

Will’s back to a small child, the same face and wide eyes that had been on missing posters three years ago. And he’s looking up at Eddie, whispering so as not to be overheard by the monster in the forest. “Do you know somewhere safe to hide?”

It takes him a moment to consider it. In fact, Eddie almost retorts with the same line as before. It’s your dream, kid. But then again, Eddie did have more control of himself so maybe… maybe he did know a safe place. Max had hidden from Vecna in happy memories, right? Dreams were just a compilation of memories and imagination. Eddie knows how to weave a tale, so yeah – why not?

He nods, steps closer, and offers his hand to the kid.

“This way.”

The woods are dark and dense and kind of lovely in their own way. The two can hear the Nazgûl in the background, although Eddie really wants to ask what the kids called it instead, and as he walks through the woods he just… focuses on the areas of the forest he knew well. In particular, the place he set up shop almost every day of the week.

And like magic, it appears.

They step into a small clearing in the woods, and there’s the picnic table he had last sat at with Chrissy Cunningham. Making a fool of himself to get her to laugh so she wouldn’t look so scared of him. Now he knows she wasn’t really scared of him at all, but the hallucinations Vecna had plagued her with. He swallows thickly, not wanting to think about Chrissy now – not when his very thoughts are driving where they walk – and then they are rounding the bleachers of the high school football field. Crossing the parking lots, and ducking through the East Entrance doors. Will had changed again, he’s older now, maybe 12 or 13, and looking around in curiosity.

Interesting.

“Have you ever been here before?” Eddie asks, because he needs to know. If Will had never been to Hawkins High, then he wouldn’t be able to dream it at all. That would mean that Eddie could create things out of thin air in a head that wasn’t his own. Both a very cool and very scary thought.

“Only a few times for school stuff. The others knew it better than I did. When I was lost they had El do her mind-walking here, so she could search for me. They made a sensory deprivation tank in the gym.”

Mind-walking. Eddie is even more interested now, and he wants to pry every little bit of information out of mini-Byers head if he can. “That’s the girl with superpowers?”

“Yeah, she’s like my sister.”

“And she can walk through minds?”

“Kind of,” and woah the kid’s voice dropped. He was older now, and taller again – probably the actual age of Henderson and Wheeler and Sinclair. “She walks through dimensions, but she can also walk through memories.”

“What about dreams?”

He almost doesn’t ask, but he also doesn’t get an answer – because then they make it to his hideout.

Eddie opens the door to the Drama room, where (low and behold) the Vecna Lives! Campaign is still set up from the night of the basketball game. The night Chrissy died, and Eddie’s entire life with her. The stage lights are set low, he’d created the perfect ambiance, and the table is still full of the havoc of their campaign. Those little shits won by the skin of their teeth, all thanks to Erika Sinclair. He’d never expected that. But it had been such a wonderful, delightful surprise. It’s a good memory, and Eddie holds onto it, lets it warm his chest and ease a smile onto his face.

“Woah!” Will’s face is pure awe, and there’s a handsome little smile on his face as well as he looks over the entire board. “Is this… you did all this?”

“It’s the night before I became a fugitive. My last and greatest campaign,” Eddie laments, shutting and blocking the door (just in case the Nazgûl decides to take up tracking) and then circles round to his Dungeon Master throne. Flops down in it with his legs hanging over the arm, and relishes in the familiarity of it. It’s the throne the props people built for a few plays over the years, and Eddie had to beg the Drama teacher to let him keep it for Hellfire. It was perfect. Set the tone immediately. All the other players got little folding card chairs, but Eddie was in charge and this was his domain. The throne never let them forget it.

Will looks around the board with skilled eyes, taking in each part of the story, and then his gaze lands on Henderson’s seat, where the character sheets and books are still set up. He must recognize the name, or the handwriting, because suddenly he’s frowning. The seat next to Henderson is Wheeler, and the frown deepens.

“Those shitheads,” he mumbles. “I begged them for months to play D&D with me last year, and as soon as I’m gone they join a club for it with a kick ass DM.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment” Eddie tells him with a wave of his hand, like the royalty he’s trying to be. “But yes, that was rather shitty of them. They told me all the time about how you’d wreck the campaign. Your presence was missed, Will the Wise.”

And it was true. Henderson had often shouted to the D&D heavens when Eddie’s hidden monsters would destroy half their party and demand to know where ‘Will the Wise’ was when they needed him.

“So,” he draws out the question, wanting to get back to the mind-walking girl, but he can see there is something still bothering the little Byers. “Did Henderson take over the campaigns? Or did you fill my empty throne upon your return?”

The smile falls from his face like a cinder block, and Will sits down in Wheeler’s seat heavily, gaze still roaming the complex board on the table.

“No, there’s been no games since everything happened.” He sounds sad about it, but Eddie gets the feeling it doesn’t actually have to do with D&D at all. 

“How come?”

“Well, it’s kind of a… sore spot,” Will admits, and then he glances guiltily at Eddie. Who doesn’t get it for a minute.

Oh.

Oh, crap.

It must show on his face that he knows it’s because of him. He was the ringleader of Hellfire, after all.

“Dustin doesn’t even really like talking about it,” Will confides in him. “But he doesn't really talk to anyone about anything, we don’t see him that often. Mostly just at mom’s family dinners when Steve drags him there.”

“I heard about those,” Eddie murmurs, picking at the flaking black polish on his nails to mask the guilt clawing at his chest. “Good ole Steve.” 

“He’s trying so hard to take care of everyone, but I know he spends a lot of time with Dustin. And Max. I really should visit Max more,” he murmurs now, his gaze going further away, and Eddie isn’t sure if he’s waking up from his dream or if Eddie is actually losing him in all this maudlin talk.

“She’s in the hospital, yeah?”

“The doctors aren’t sure if she’ll wake up,” Will tells him. “She’s just… in a coma. El is worried she’s stuck somewhere between the realms, but everyone else is worried she’s just… gone.”

Okay, they needed a topic change.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Eddie says, nearly flipping out of the throne in a manner that might have been a little over the top, but it shook the sadness from Will’s eyes and that’s what Eddie was going for. Court Jester, extraordinaire. It worked on Chrissy, it’ll work on little Will Byers. (Although not so little anymore.)

“Sure?”

He fumbles upright, and sits down in Henderson’s chair so he can finally level with the kid.

“You were stuck in the Upside Down when you went missing, right?” He knows he’s right, Henderson had gone into great detail about how it all started, but that's not the point of asking the question. Will nods, confused but intrigued. Super. “Okay, so – how did you hide and like… stay sane? You were just a little munchkin and all but you were in there for days.”

“Time moves differently there,” Will points out, but then shrugs and thinks about it. Looking up at the stage lights in thought. “I hid in this old fort of mine in the forest, it was something I had built myself and it didn’t make me feel so alone.”

Castle Byers, Eddie had seen it. He nods and motions for Will to continue with an exaggerated hand flourish that makes the kid smile. 

“So, here's my theory – after talking with El and some of the others about it, and about how Max hid from Vecna – I think maybe because it held such good and safe memories for me, it protected me like no other house could. I think that’s how I wasn’t caught again.”

Now that, that gives Eddie pause… because his safe spot right now was Harrington’s house. But he had never slept in Steve’s bed before in his life. (Dreamed about it? Of course, but Eddie had only ever stepped foot in his kitchen to do business during house parties. There was no connection to the property itself.) So why was it safe now? Was it Steve’s memory that made it so? A combination with the fact there were no vines inside? It was a lot to mull over, and Will was taking his silence as a go-ahead to continue on.

“Basically, if I had to give any advice,” Will draws out, trying to see what Eddie was angling for. Yes, advice would be greatly appreciated. “The Upside Down is a direct mirror of Hawkins, so go and find the bits of yourself that still exist out there. Things that make you feel more like yourself, and less like you’re living in hell. Clothes or pictures or books. Something that’s not dangerous to carry around, but reminds you of home.”

That makes a lot more sense than Eddie had expected it to. 

He looks back to Will, and gives the kid a grin that is equal parts impressed and appreciative.

“Thanks, kid. I think I’ll just have to do that.”

Will beams at him, a little hero-worship shining in his eyes that Eddie has witnessed before from his little hellion sheep. But then a spark of something like recognition crosses those wide eyes and Will’s gaze narrows at him in suspicion.

“Wait, why would you want to know that?” he questions, and Eddie doesn’t answer. Stays kind of tight-lipped about it because… he could just tell mini-Byers that he’s alive in there and that he should get Good Ole Steve-O and Nancy Wheeler and superhero girl to come rescue his ass. But would he believe him? Or remember?

And he recalls how fast the Nazgûl attacked once he fucked with the lights. The gate was closed, opening it could open up a whole can of worms or whatever that no one was ready to deal with.

Maybe… maybe he should just sit tight, for now, and see if he can help them all out somehow?

((Where was all this self-righteous bullshit coming from?))

Analysis time would also be a problem for Future Eddie.

“Let’s just say, it’ll come in handy for me,” Eddie relents. A little hint. Knowing those shits they’ll figure it all out anyway.

Instead of elaborating, he extends his hand, and waits for Will to clasp it like all good boys had been taught to do.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Will the Wise.”

He’s slow to smile again, but it’s a genuine thing and Eddie takes it for the little speck of Gold it is. “I’m glad I finally got to meet you, Eddie the Banished.”

And Eddie knows he has Henderson to thank for that nickname, but he would wear it proudly for the rest of his days if he ever manages to make it out topside again. 

Although Byers might give Henderson a run for his money on ‘favorite child’, at this rate.

—

When the blood red morning dawn creeps in through Will Byer’s windows, and Eddie crawls out from underneath his bed, there’s a lot of thoughts tumbling around his head as he gathers his things.

In particular, the thought that trying to contact the other side might not be the best idea at the moment. 

For his health? Yeah, possibly. He can’t actually live on moldy food the rest of his days, however short that may be, but he has to think of the bigger picture here. Everyone was having a rough time topside, in a completely different manner to Eddie’s own, but that old saying really rang true to him – shit was tough all over. They were all trying to heal, and knew there was a fight on the horizon. Eddie knew that eventually, everyone else would make it back to the Upside Down to finish this fight. He just had to live long enough to see that day.

So… why didn’t he just use his placement as an advantage?

Why doesn’t he do what he imagined himself doing, and really commit to the bit of espionage? Eddie could commit to the bit so hard he got himself in trouble most of the time. No use switching that up now.

So he gathers his things, tip-toes through the house, and runs right back into the woods. He has quite a few stops to make, but there’s one he needs to do first and foremost.

It takes the better part of the day, but he finally comes to the trailer park. The chasm splitting open the Earth glows and pulses with an intense heat, and there’s things prowling all around, but Eddie stays pressed to the backs of the trailers and dips and ducks around as best he can. Avoiding bats and rats and dogs and what might be a cat-like creature but he’s not entirely sure. Margaret’s trailer is much further down the road, where he’d biked when the bats chased him, so her bunker of Doomsday materials would have to wait.

Will said to find the things that reminded Eddie of himself, so that’s what he was going to do.

Uncle Wayne’s trailer is split in two, but Eddie’s room had been at the back end so it survived – to a degree. He crawls through the wreckage, picking through stuff that’s burnt and probably leaking radiation or some shit (seriously how has he not dropped dead at this rate?) and finally finds the tiny space that used to be his closet. It’s full of shirts and clothes he hasn’t seen in a couple years, but at the bottom is an old metal tool box that he’d stashed a bunch of sewing shit inside of. Patches. Bits of old band T-shirts, and sure enough – he lifts the lid, and finds the very origins of his battle vest. It’s still a jean jacket, at the moment, with sleeves covered in patches and safety pins – he ripped them off the summer between his second and third senior year – but on the back is the freshly hand-stitched Dio logo taking up the entire back panel. It’s gorgeous, and he immediately slips it on under Steve’s leather jacket. He’s lost enough weight the past few weeks it still fits, but he has a feeling he might be ripping off the sleeves sooner rather than later. Because he has some work to do, and some weapons to practice with.

But not before he goes and retrieves the final missing piece of himself.

His sweetheart is lying on the ground, covered in ash, some of the strings rusted. He whispers apologies to her as he picks her up out of the rubble. She’s a beautiful blood red Warlock NJ Series electric guitar that he spent two years saving up for, and as soon as he clips on a strap and slings her across his back, he feels more at peace than he had in a long time. Will the Wise had been right, he feels like he could take on the world with these bits of himself restored.

Harrington’s house was twenty miles away, and sundown was in only a few hours. He had errands to run, a distance to cross, and a realm of monsters in between them.

But he also now has a bike (discarded in a pile from Spring Break just waiting for him to pillage), and his guitar, and his battle jacket. 

Fuck Vecna and his minions. This was Eddie’s world now.

Time to get to work.

—

tbc

—

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5)

(unbeta'd snippet from Chapter 01. Steve has taken it upon himself to keep track of all of the members of their group as they recover in the aftermath of Vecna, but Dustin is the one that really needs him. He's taking it the hardest out of all of them, and trying to hide it in a way that isn't quite working. After Eddie's death he can usually only be found at his house, in his basement, which at least means Steve always knows where to find him. But it's getting to the point that there needs to be an intervention.)

--

Two months and nine days after they tried and failed to kill Vecna, Steve Harrington found himself waving marrily to Ms. Henderson as he dragged her son out of their house by his ear. There was lots of loud complaining from the high school sophomore (or soon to be, after this summer. Ask Steve again how old he feels?) so they didn’t get to exchange words of parting. Dustin had that covered in spades.

“Steve! SteveSteve sonofabitch that hurts STEVE! Let me go!” He only obliges after he’s opened the car door and deposited the surly teenager in the passenger seat of his BMW. 

“You can scowl at me all you want, but family dinner means family dinner so you’re going,” he reprimands, pointing at him through the window before rounding the vehicle and sliding back behind the wheel. “Next time it would have been Hop coming to drag your ass out of your basement, not me.” And no one wanted that. 

Joyce Byers was hosting frequent dinners where all the kids could be in one place, and the newer adults, as well as themselves. All the people who understand what’s really going on in town. It was just as much to keep tabs on the situation as well as making sure everyone in their inner circle still has their head above water. Vecna/Henry/One is not dead. Steve has wrapped his head around this fact, despite the elaborate backstory of how Vecna came to be. He got his four sacrifices, even though Max lived through the ordeal, and the portal was open. The Upside Down was spilling into their own world. But other than that, there have been no moves made. No creatures hunting Hawkins townspeople in the dead of night. (Yet.) But they were not going to be caught unaware, not this time. 

However, wrangling a bunch of teenagers who are possibly presenting signs of early onset PTSD was a whole other ballgame that needed addressing. The group as a whole was a mess at the best of times, but they were able to band together and felt stronger when all in the same location. So if Steve’s sole job today was to get Dustin within shouting distance of his friends, albeit against his will, then by God he was going to do it. 

The mere fact he had to drag Dustin to the Byer’s place was in and of itself a red flag. It wasn’t like him in the slightest. 

He’d left Robin with Joyce to help get things set up, for this very reason. Steve and Dustin needed to talk. They’ve done a lot of talking over the past two months, but this was starting to reach a worrying level of solitude. 

“Dude, you have to talk to me,” Steve tells him, after five minutes of straight silence. Not even the radio on in the background. “You can’t keep doing this. Trust me.” He puts emphasis in his tone and in the solid hand on his shoulder that he can relate, that he’s been here before, through slightly different circumstances. “If you keep ignoring your friends, eventually… they stop calling.” For him, it had been on purpose. Leaving Tommy and Carol and ‘King Steve’ in the dusty halls of Hawkins High where they belonged. But Dustin was doing it out of grief, and he needed those other knuckleheads. They needed each other. 

“They wouldn’t do that,” Dustin mumbles, but his threat had gotten the kid’s attention. 

Steve sighs. “No, they wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t let them. But hiding in your room listening to metal and not talking to your friends is not how you’re going to get through this.” 

“That’s not all I’m doing,” he defends. 

“Oh really?” Steve challenges. Drawing Dustin out of his shell with baited words like it was his day job, it worked every time. “What, pray tell, is there to do in that basement besides ruin your eardrums and make illegal spy radios?” 

“Hey, we’re going to need those radio frequencies! Someone has to get them set up and ready before –” 

The car goes quiet, and Steve finds it suddenly hard to swallow. And Dustin, never one to leave the unspoken alone, finishes his sentence with a dead-like tone that breaks Steve’s heart to fucking pieces. 

“ – before next time.” 

Because of course there will be a next time, this isn’t over. They all know it. 

God damn it all. These kids shouldn’t be living their lives with the next battle constantly hanging over their heads. It isn’t fair. Steve leans his elbow against the open car window and rubs at the blossoming headache behind his eyes. They are kids… just fucking kids. They shouldn’t be mourning dead friends and preparing for war. It isn’t right.

“Steve?” Dustin breaks the quiet, because even when he is trying to be the adult Steve still can’t get his shit together. “I’m trying. I am.”

“I know you are, buddy,” he says quietly, and the sentiment reflects in his own voice. They’re all trying.

“I just can’t pretend that we aren’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. Vecna is still out there, the portal is still open.” He’s looking down at his knees instead of out the window. From pretty much anywhere in Hawkins they could see the eerie glow of downtown, hear the helicopters in the distance, taste the stale air as the dark particles drift further and further on the wind with each passing day. “And… I still miss him.” 

Eddie.

Dustin had watched Eddie die. A friend and person he looked up to, a hero in his eyes before he ever became one in that field, and he’d died right there next to him. Even without the threat of the next big one coming at them – that isn’t an easy thing to forget. It’s not something he can just shake off. 

And Steve wouldn’t ask it of him, no one had any right to.

“I do, too.” It’s the first time he’s even admitted it to himself, and this time when he reaches over and puts a hand on Dustin’s shoulder the quiet isn’t so tense or full of resentment. “I really do.” 

Not in the same way; they had all built different friendships, and seen different sides of each other, during the days they fought Vecna’s curse. But those few days felt the length of a lifetime, and Steve mourns the loss of the people that should be there with them every time Joyce hosts dinner. As if he'd actually known them all his life.

Maybe that’s why Dustin doesn’t want to go. 

“We aren’t the only ones,” Steve tells him, assures and holds tight to the fact it’s true. It should be true. He and Dustin aren’t the only ones that miss Eddie. Sure, it’s hard with Max in a coma and the pure relief at seeing Hopper alive after having a fucking funeral for him the year prior. It’s a tangled web of feelings that Steve isn’t the best at navigating, but he’s good at being there. He’s good at standing in one place and holding anyone up that can’t seem to find their footing. Like now. “Talk to them tonight. You’ll see.” 

“Will hadn’t even met Eddie before,” Dustin reminds him, sadly.

“Will would have loved Eddie.” Steve gives him a look when it’s safe to do so, a long stretch of road that’s a mere block from the Byer’s house. “I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to listen.” And that gets a small smile out of the kid beside him, thinking about all the stories that would catch Will’s attention and remind the others of the good times. That’s what they should be remembering about Eddie, their dumb Dungeons and Dragons games. Not the demobats. Not the wanted posters. All the trash people say to this day. That wasn’t the Eddie Munson they knew.

His memory deserves better than that.

--

tbc

--

(un-beta’d snippet of Chapter 2; Eddie made it to the Harrington’s house in one piece last chapter, and hasn’t tried to step outside of it ever since. It’s safe, he has room and food and endless supplies (make-shift or otherwise), and he’s still pretty injured and needs to rest. But idle hands and all that, plus adjusting to living in the Upside Down isn’t exactly a walk in the park.)

--

It takes over a week before Eddie leaves Steve’s house.

To be fair, he sleeps a lot of it. (Still healing, and all that; blood loss is no fucking joke.) He doesn’t dream of Steve, or with Steve, in that time. In fact, he’s not dreaming much at all, thank Jesus, because when he does… it always ends with the bats. 

Gnawing, swarming, rows and rows of teeth digging into his sides, going for vital organs. A tail around his neck, more pulling at each limb, like he’s being drawn and quartered. Screaming as teeth sunk into him over and over again. Being disemboweled alive – sounds metal as fuck. Actually sucks balls. 

He wakes up far too many times to a double tap of paralyzing fear. First shot – being eaten alive in his dreams, not knowing if it’s real or if it’ll stop. Second shot – not knowing if he’d screamed when he woke up, and what might have heard him if he did. It’s enough to make anyone curl up in the fetal position and shake.

But then Eddie focuses on trying to contact Steve. After a few days of rest, his head no longer swimming, and his wounds in the gross, early stages of healing and scarring, Eddie realizes he needs out. No one was going to come looking for him here, at Harrington Manor (now Casa de Munson), so if he wants the rescue party to locate him he’d have to send up some flares. Discreetly. 

He tries the lights. He tries the doors. He tries the TV (à la Poltergeist), and the stereo system in Steve’s room. The walkie-talkie radio that is obviously Henderson’s handiwork. He even tries Harrington’s fucking hair dryer. God knows he’d noticed that thing on the fritz. He lets his hand pass through the drifting bits of tickling light whenever Steve actually deigns to be home and turn something on, but half the lights are too high for him to reach (damn rich people’s homes and their fucking vaulted ceilings) and the rest don’t seem to have any kind of impact on the guy.  

Eddie calls Steve many unflattering names this particular morning, specifically after the hair dryer incident. He messed with it until the damn thing blew a fuse, and it yielded results he never in a million years would have predicted. It seems Steve did in fact notice this, and then? Then Eddie could hear Steve, loud and clear. Just like they had with Henderson when they were stuck over spring break, as if he was trapped in the walls. Steve yells right back at him, or to God or whoever, some choice words very similar to Eddie's own a moment ago. And it was so dramatic and so… good to hear a voice again in the pulsating nothingness of the Upside Down that Eddie laughs until he cries. 

Sometimes in the mornings (when he can’t bother to pull himself out of bed) he could hear Steve and Buckley talking in the kitchen, but he hasn’t heard Steve’s parents and most of the time Steve doesn’t talk at all when he’s home. It gets to the point where Eddie starts to worry he might have to make the trip to Henderson or Sinclair's house. If any of those little brats has the intelligence to count on in a dire situation like this, it’s Sinclair’s 11-year-old sister. (Heaven help him.)

The biggest problem with that plan is… there are things out there. The bats swarm daily; when they pass over the house it sounds like a tornado is about to take off the roof. There’s creatures that stalk about between the trees, taller than a normal man, and scavenging creatures of all sizes. Dog-sized, rat-sized, more he can’t even make out. The vines creep and move, try to wiggle under the doors of the house sometimes but can’t make it past the weather seals. And there’s something huge, vaguely Jabba The Hut shaped, that slithers about and Eddie is fucking terrified it might move faster than it looks.

There’s more, too, he knows this. He hears the cries and shrieks in the night of the creatures hunting each other. If that’s not a terrifying enough scenario for you, imagine how Eddie felt the moment he realized they eat each other and are still a hive mind. They are starving. No wonder they are so hostile and ravenous for human flesh. It’s food that doesn’t hurt to eat. 

It’s about this time that Eddie starts to take notes. A day or two before he makes his first venture outside the house. His mind is a maddening buzz of information and fears and observations and questions. He can’t think, he can’t put anything in order, it makes him want to knock himself out just for a moment of peace. But the risk of nightmares starts to deter that. So he finally does the one thing he swore he would never do; he takes the long suffering advice of his old middle school guidance counselor. The one he was too full of anger to hear properly, at the time.

He writes it all down.

It starts as stream of consciousness, dumping all the chatter and words in his head onto paper just to put it somewhere. To save his dwindling sanity. And soon his brain, trained and honed like a broadsword blade by his DM campaigns, begins to group information on instinct. Ideas. Categories. Plans.

Ten hours and a hell of a cramp in his hand later, he actually has a plan. He might have… started to lose it a little by then, too, because the layout sounds a bit like the intro monologue to one of his campaigns:

Eddie the Banished has been left behind; not out of hate or convenience, but out of circumstance. He doesn’t blame his party for doing so. They are at war with a fearful, deadly foe. They thought he’d been vanquished. Defeated. 

Alas, he endured.

He survived.

Eddie the Banished was now in hiding, behind enemy lines.

He found himself in quite an advantageous position — and if this were a D&D campaign, he knew just what he would do. He’d do reconnaissance. He’d make maps and creature dossiers, stash weapons and provisions, he'd be the best ‘presumed dead’ spy a campaign had ever asked for. He could do so much good, getting everything ready.

So what was stopping him doing the same, here?

Easy:

Fear.

The very real reality that he could be eaten by a monster.

The fact he’s a storyteller, not a fighter.

The pros and cons list literally began to write itself, filling pages in Steve’s (very worryingly unused) high school notebooks that Eddie had commandeered. But the pros are a lot longer than the cons.

In summary: 

Pros = prepare everyone for what comes next. (If his brief glimpse of downtown was anything to go by. They still had a boss battle to fight.)

Cons = he’s a coward at heart, who knows how to keep himself alive first and foremost.

… It takes him rereading his own notes until the wee hours of the morning to realize… that may be a skill, and not a flaw. The ability to keep himself alive. At least here, it was. In the Upside Down. And wasn’t that the coolest adaptive mindset ever, enough that it propelled him into preparatory action. All the way to the following morning, where he stood just inside the interior door of the Harrington’s garage, working up the nerve to step outside.

—

tbc

—

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

Snippet Previews

Part 01 (Found Family vibes)

Chapters Links!

Chapter 01, 

FANART/ Additional Moodboards

((coming soon))

(Unbeta'd, first draft (kind of), season 8-9ish)

(Takes place about two months after Spencer moved to D.C. to be with Hotch, and the team is out at a restaurant doing some much needed R&R/'team-building-if-Strauss-asks' for dinner. Except they are missing a certain Unit Chief, leaving Spencer to fend for himself with the team while they wait. Unbeta'd, first draft, season 8ish)

.

“Well, I’m not the greatest with bourgeois small talk.”

“You and Hotch had two years worth of nothing but small talk.” Emily raises an eyebrow at him over her own drink and then a mischievous glint catches in the dark depths of her eyes. “What did you two even talk about all that time?”

“Our unruly subordinates, mostly,” Spencer smirks, ducking to the side to escape another mischievous reach of admonishment from Morgan.

“But no, really?” Emily encourages, and her question gives him pause.

“Everything,” Spencer says with a smile. Near wistful in his remembrance. He ducks his head to hide the expression from his audience of seasoned profilers. “Too much to list.”

“That’s saying something for you,” JJ teases him.

“Yeah.”

The memories take him then. Of late nights, an abandoned online chess game and thousands of lines of text on a screen that go on for hours and hours. Talking about everything, and nothing, and filled with joy and companionship in between. Of calls that would go on so long they would fall asleep and still be connected long after, ticking away the seconds into the morning. Of emails and video calls, longing glances and whispered promises, aching dreams of someday and soon until finally they were… here. In the same place, for the very first time; in the same time zone, the same state and town and then living in the same house. Sleeping in the same bed. Where the nothing-yet-everything talks continued in that intimately small space between them as they lay side by side; still longing glances, still whispered promises, but no more soon. No more someday. Only now. Tomorrow. In the morning. After work. On the weekend. Promises kept and fulfilled and built upon. New memories made outside the text box on a computer screen. Spoken into existence and echoing in their ears, reminders of the oceans of time and distance they both have crossed to be…

Here.

“Yeah,” Spencer sighs, again – unknowingly repeating himself, and the whole table reacts in a wave of fond eye rolling and quiet not-so-tipsy laughter.

“You two are gross,” Emily concludes.

“Sweet,” Penelope corrects her.

“Disgustingly sweet,” Emily insists, then gestures to the group at large.” – and Hotch isn’t even here!”

Spencer was only too aware of that fact, but before he could feel his wistfulness darken and drag his mood down to sit heavily in his chest, a deep voice spoke from behind him.

.

“Yes, I am.”

.

Warm arms encircle his chest and shoulders, the familiar presence so welcoming and sudden the mere touch burns hot, and when Spencer turns to make sure his vivid memory recall isn’t playing tricks on his senses – he’s met with a kiss, warm and firm and so solidly there it takes his breath away. Still sends his heart racing. Because Aaron is there, sliding into the seat next to him, dark eyes only on him when he speaks. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

“Don’t worry, we entertained ourselves just fine,” Emily responds, earning a half-hearted glare from her boss.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Rude,” she scoffs, boldly. “We kept Spencer entertained, too!”

“I could hear you interrogating him from the parking lot,” Aaron scolds her...

.

(tbc...)

--

[]12/8, 7:19[] Although I doubt I’d be able to keep it to just pillow talk.

[]12/8, 7:21[] Problems keeping your hands to yourself? 

[]12/8, 7:22[] Always.

[]12/8, 7:23[] But it’s 6am.

[]12/8, 7:24[] What, you’ve never had morning sex before?

[]12/8, 7:25[] Heard of it. Although I doubt its existence, or even enjoyment when it’s so early. 

[]12/8, 7:27[] I guess we’ll have to fix that very wrong assumption one day.

[]12/8, 7:29[] Promise?

[]12/8, 7:29[] Cross my heart.

 .

–

Mid-March 2012

–

.

The sun rises slow and hazy behind grey clouds on the third morning since Spencer walked through the doors of the BAU. Since he had run straight into Aaron’s arms and refused to let go for the longest stretch of time. 

In a sense, he still hasn’t let go – every chance they get they are somehow touching. Fingertips grazing, standing close enough to feel the heat of the other’s body, always glancing over to make sure that this is real. That they are really in the same room, and somehow they always find a way to gravitate towards each other once more. No matter where they are, as if they can’t help it in the slightest.

And at night, when they are alone, they never stop touching. 

In bed, in the shower, even helping each other get dressed and undressed they are… always touching. Not just in a sexual sense, sometimes just sitting together – shoulder to shoulder, knees knocking, Spencer leaning against Aaron’s arm as they look through files or books. Including the one moment they got to video chat with Jack for three minutes flat while he and Jessica were on the way to Aaron’s father-in-law’s house in rural Virginia. Spence sat in Aaron’s lap for that, leaning back against his chest so they were both in the frame. As close as close can get. 

That’s not to say that they don’t engage in anything sexual. Because they do. 

Oh – do they ever. 

 .

That first night it never stops, one after the other, hours on hours, until the sun rises and they are exhausted and sated and covered in marks from every pleasure-soaked moment. 

The second night they are worn out from work, and Spencer is very… sore from the night before. So they get lost in other things: their hands, their bodies, heavy petting and a very long shower where Spencer takes a turn on his knees and pleasures Aaron there against the tiled wall. Water cascading down beside him and Aaron’s legs nearly give out when he comes hard, the picture of those eyes looking up at him and that hair slicked back with his fingers woven through – now forever burned in his mind. 

They got out and curled up together in bed, swathed in actual sleep clothes, and Aaron knows now he never wants to fall asleep in a bed without Spencer there beside him. Curled into his side, wrapped up in his arms, head on his chest and breath on his skin and a smile there on his lips every time he leans in to kiss him. 

He sleeps like a baby all night, and wakes on a bleary, grey Sunday morning – looking over to Spencer’s sleeping face and finds his heart suddenly too big for his chest. Threatening to burst out with every thumping beat. His gaze traces every line, every slow breath that moves Spencer’s chest ever so subtly. Soft mouth and expression at peace, curls a mess against the pillows, and Aaron stares for far longer than he plans. Thinking about… everything that has led them there. Every text, every phone call, every milestone. Every conversation that precluded to this, to this moment where Spencer is within reach – and he punctuates it by gently moving an auburn curl out of Spencer’s face. So he can see him more, memorize every inch of his face in the morning grey.

It’s still very early, the hotel room silent and hazy, but Aaron knows that there are multiple agents that are within shouting distance of the room. He and Spencer are due back at the BAU headquarters in a couple hours, as well – no days off when a terrorist cell has your number – but being the Unit Chief has many perks. One being that Aaron gets to say they have a late start on a random Sunday morning. (With absolutely no objections whatsoever from any of his team, save for a few smirks and knowing looks that had Aaron second-guessing his decision.)

And yet, Aaron still wakes before the sun. 

Usually he would go for a run, which isn’t allowed either with their current security risk, but… he’s not sure he would have moved from that bed even if he tried.

Not with Spencer there beside him, face calm and slack and lost in a dream, and he is so… perfect. So beautiful first thing in the morning. 

With careful movements, Aaron maneuvers the two of them. Turns Spencer the smallest amount so he rolls to his side and Aaron can press in behind him. Arms around his waist, chest to back, legs tangled and hips flush and embrace him fully. Breathe him in– 

His pulse begins to thump a little harder in his veins. His intentions had been totally innocent to begin with, wanting to hold Spencer and feel his heartbeat beneath his hands, feel how he fit against Aaron and how he perfectly molded to him even without waking. Only to find he fit a little too perfectly. The way Spencer instinctually presses himself back into his body, from head to toe, has warmth bursting in his chest and pooling low, waking Aaron up in an entirely new fashion. Slow, growing arousal sparking in his blood and spreading in tendrils. He hums low, happily, blissful and… a little turned on in the most strangely content way. Spencer is still asleep, but his instinctive reactions to curl back and arch against Aaron’s hard body is nearly intoxicating. 

Aaron holds him as the sun finally starts to rise, streaking golden around the hotel curtains, and he presses feather-light kiss after kiss along those shoulders and the graceful lines of his neck. Fingertips grazing the sleep-soft skin of his stomach beneath his shirt. Less pawing at him, as they had all night before, and more mapping out the shapes of his body. The dips and planes and curves and warmest stretches. Spencer hums softly, too, waking slow and stubborn; but one soft kiss low on his neck has his breath wavering and Aaron knows the man he loves has finally joined him.

“Good morning,” he rumbles low, the bass of his own voice tumbling through him and into where he and Spencer meet. 

“Morning,” Spencer mumbles back with drowsy, heavy words, stretching within Aaron’s arms. Taller than the bed is long, but without breaking from their embrace. Priorities. Such as Aaron’s fingertips still grazing where his shirt rides up. Eyes remaining closed as his body begins to wake inch by inch, touch by touch. “It’s dark. What are you doing up?”

“Thinking,” Aaron answers. Spencer hums lowly to encourage elaboration. “Reminiscing.” Aaron places another gentle kiss to his neck that draws delicious tones from somewhere low in Spencer’s chest. “Recalling a promise I made to you a long, long time ago.” His words dip to whispers as the trail of kisses grow heavier, hotter and sticking to his bare skin as he traces up Spencer’s neck. Until his mouth is against the younger man’s ear when he speaks. “About the ‘merits of morning sex’, and proving you wrong about their worth?” 

Those two words are like an electric shock to their systems, the memory fading in of a time where they longed for a moment such as this. Thousands of miles away, in separate beds, messaging like teenagers under the covers and wishing this day would come.

It gets Spencer to open his eyes, his breath lost to him, speechless in the wake of the statement. His body grows impossibly warm beneath the sheets, beneath Aaron’s wandering hands, and he licks his lips – still facing away, Aaron pressed all along his back – becoming acutely aware of how his body is reacting. And their proximity. How if he gives into the instinct to curl back, a subtle arch in his spine, his backside would line up with Aaron’s pelvis and… if he pushed into him there… The charged feeling intensifies. 

God, they had touched each other everywhere, in every way possible, over the past two days – and still Spencer feels his face grow as hot as the rest of him. 

“I remember that conversation,” he finally murmurs, giving in. Just the smallest bit. The temptation too staggering. He sinks back further into Aaron’s arms, strong and anchored from their long night’s sleep, the most comforting sensation. And when paired with how the movement puts the older man’s growing erection pressed up against him, the effect is dizzying. “Verbatim.” 

Spencer feels Aaron smile against his flushed skin, tugging the collar of his sleep shirt lower to tease the sensitive nerve endings along the base of his neck where it meets his collar bones. Spencer does his best to not sound as breathless as he actually is. “You really can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

“Do you want me to?” Aaron asks, those strong fingers and wide palms nearly encompassing the whole of his waist in his caresses, and Spencer’s heart skips despite it beating double time against his ribs. How Aaron still asks, even though they spoke of it before. Had done everything and more only the night before. No expectations. Just coexistence, melding, fluctuating heat and touch and everything in between.

“No,” he begs, softly, “Don’t stop.” His hands now cover Aaron’s own, “Show me –” and he wants to simultaneously lead Aaron’s hands where every blood cell in his body is rushing towards, but he also wants to turn around and kiss the man senseless. 

But – 

His mind fully wakes, adrenaline coursing through him, and his thoughts whirl out of control. Oscillating between one and the next faster than he can quantify. All the reasons this could go the way of disaster, he can’t even think of what he wants to say and the first brilliant point that comes out of his mouth is – 

“My breath is terrible.” 

Five doctorates, and that’s his first deduction. Morning breath.

And Aaron laughs at him. 

But he doesn’t let go, doesn’t cease his exploration of Spencer’s body by mapping it with his hands, and the sound doesn’t hurt because it is so familiar to Spencer. So full of love and understanding. He can feel the way it vibrates through his chest, pressed to Spencer’s back, and the pure resonance of that sensation keeps the panic at bay. So much so… that when the man collects himself a moment later, and Spencer is bracing himself for mortification, Aaron kisses the back of his neck once more. And whispers low enough to echo through his bones –

“I’ll just have to kiss you everywhere else, then.”

.

And he does.

Along his neck, at the junction of his shoulder as his hands pull Spencer back against him. Tightly. Purposefully. One palm going up his chest beneath his shirt, hiking it up as he went, to where Spencer’s heart is a runaway thing in his chest; and the other one going down. All the way down. Teasing the trail of hair that leads to his waistline, fingers dipping beneath the fabric smallest amount. Torturous. Spencer nods enthusiastically, shifting from where they still lay on that hotel bed to give more access. The places where they were pressed into the mattress all night long like warm cushioned molds that keep him in place, daring to suck him back under the veil of sleep when his eyes slip closed in bliss – and Aaron takes him in hand. Warm and heavy. Spencer gasps at the leisurely, firm touches; his head tilted back and his body arching more against the pillows and sheets. Becoming more mussed and disheveled with every stroke, each ministration soft and loving and slow as molasses. Aaron curls around him more to breathe him in, lips grazing the side of his throat as Spencer arches and intertwines them further. Feels the reverberation of every gasp and moan tremble through the skin. 

God, Aaron could never get enough of him.

He kisses at Spencer’s shoulders, his collarbones when he can reach, pets every bit of skin and slides his boxers down his hips boldly. Kisses along his sides as he moves down his body bit by bit, caressing every exposed inch as he undresses him beneath the covers, and marvels at the sensation of his sleep-soft skin. Still littered with blooming watercolor marks of their love-making the night before last – including small, circular colorations that match his fingerprints. He’d never done that before. Gotten so lost in pleasure he hadn’t realized what he’d left behind.

Behind him, in the nightstand on his side of the bed (God, when was the last time he’d had a side of the bed? That alone sends a giddy warmth pulsing through him) is the bottle that has been well-used the past two days. Aaron reaches back without halting his preoccupied hand, wanting to make this so good Spencer never – ever – forgets it. No matter what happens after this case. With slicked up fingers he presses and probes gently into the younger man, spreading him in preparation that is just as slow and dragging as his hand around his cock. It takes barely a breath for Spencer to turn to a molten mess in his arms. Gasps, whines, tremors and the most wonderful little sounds that Aaron wants to hear ringing in his ears forever. He goes back to kissing whatever he can reach of him – neck, shoulders, spine, hair – just to hear Spencer make more. 

His long dexterous fingers card through Aaron’s dark locks. Scholar’s hands, now scratching at his scalp and holding on so he doesn’t topple into oblivion too soon. Aaron’s name lost on a breath, shaky, hoarse from his deep slumber only moments ago. And when he manages to speak, high and breathless as he tries to inhale – “Aaron, please,” he begs the man to skip the next half dozen steps and get them to the part he’s already hurtling towards.

“Not yet,” Aaron soothes him. “Just a little more.”  The younger man’s impatience both alluring and incredibly intoxicating… just how much Spencer wants this, wants him, so much it makes his head swim and Aaron has to force steady breaths to keep his own head on straight. It doesn’t help that Spencer seems to be feeling no discomfort whatsoever, no matter if it’s two fingers or three, or even as Aaron hikes the man’s leg up and back slightly in an angle that shouldn’t be as easy as Spencer’s long limbs make it. He’s so flexible this early in the morning, every inch of him slow and lazy from sleep and so easily maneuvered –

“Fuck,” Aaron exhales the word, his head very much spinning now, and then Spencer gasps sharp enough it stalls his hands entirely. The shaky breath Spencer gives is traced with relief.

“I was close,” he murmurs.

“Guess I better catch up,” Aaron concludes, kicking off his boxers and grabbing the condom off the nightstand. Keeping strong arms still locked around Spencer to hold him in place. 

“Like this?” Spencer questions, looking over his shoulder as he realizes that Aaron hasn’t made him even sit up in the slightest. They are still laying on their sides, spooning if not for his spread legs and Aaron wrapped around him. “Can you even reach like this?” With Spencer’s leg draped up over his arm. Which is strong and flexed as he holds the younger man just right – and slides right into him. So deep Spencer’s breath hitches and he can’t catch it again, his lungs seized up and a moan catches in his throat. 

“Are you alright?” Aaron asks, and Spencer nods with a plea to move that he isn’t entirely sure was said in English. But his lover complies, easy as breathing.

Aaron moves slow, languid, drawing out his pleasure thread by thread. Spencer exclaiming and praising in languages Aaron doesn’t know. Proof his brain is practically melting out his ears. But he understands well enough as the younger man’s legs quiver and shake in his grasp. His body pliant and lost to the pleasure.

Eventually they roll to the bed, until Aaron is over him with Spencer’s belly to the mattress, not breaking even breaking his stride. His weight is warm and heavy and still thrusting slow, undulating maneuvers. Spencer moves with him, his body reduced to instinctual, wave-like motions that bring him up, and down, and up again, his spine curves like a wave caught in a bottle to crash into Aaron’s trusts. Not hard, not fast, but deep and deliberate and devastating. 

Spencer didn’t even know he could do that. And it chases the breath out of him each and every time.

Aaron kisses his shoulders, his cheeks when he turns his head, the back of his neck and the curve of his ears beneath the damp curls. Loves every part of him until Spencer’s body can’t take any more. 

He comes hard, muffled cries into the mattress so they don’t alert their stationed guards. But Aaron feels it, and it sends him chasing his own release – thick, strong arms wrapping around Spencer and thrusting faster. The confines of his embrace the safest, most exhilarating place Spencer has ever experienced in his life. Like being within the bellows of a raging storm. 

And when Aaron comes, Spencer is the one breathing out his name.

.

With his last bit of strength, Aaron rolls them to his side of the bed, shifted just to the right of the mess on the sheets. And they lay there, spent, soaked in oblivion with twin hearts racing in euphoria. 

“Am I allowed to go back to sleep?” Spencer asks, long moments later. Still breathless.

“Once you admit morning sex has its merits,” Aaron replies. 

Spencer smiles, eyes closed in bliss and limbs like jelly. Or lead. Could there be a lead-based gelatin? He bet there could, he’d break down the chemical compounds and equations later. Much later. Like noon.. “I still insist it would have been just as good at 8:00 or 9:00 A.M. instead of – “ 

Curiosity gets the better of him. Damn his brain. Spencer deigns to open his eyes to glance at the clock on the bedside table over Aaron’s shoulder and immediately groans. “ – Good Christ, 6:30 in the morning.”

He collapses back from the half crunch he’d been in and curls into Aaron’s chest with his eyes stubbornly squeezed shut. He can feel Aaron laugh, though the man tries to smother it.

“No,” Aaron denies his statement. “It's best just as the sun is rising.”

“Prove it.” 

Aaron smiles down at him, running his fingertips along Spencer’s shoulders and arms soothingly. Adoringly. “I guess I will. We can test your theory if you wish.” Spencer buries his face in Aaron’s embrace to block out the morning creeping into their room, but he can feel the way the other’s mouth curves into a smothered smile. “Sleep. I’ll wake you.” 

“Promise?” comes the muffled request.

“Cross my heart.”

He kisses the top of Spencer’s head, the auburn curls soaking up the morning in an afterglow as soft and golden as the sunlight caught in the strands beneath his affection. 

And Aaron Hotchner once again wonders how in the world he had ever waited so long to know a moment this perfect? How could he ever let it go, when the time came?

… maybe, he wouldn’t have to.

A thought, not for the first time, crosses his mind and stays there as Aaron watches Spencer slip back into slumber. Wondering, weighing, pondering, and coming to the same conclusion time and time again as the world woke up beyond their hotel room window. Another day awaiting them, and possibly (hopefully, maybe) many more to come… just the same as this.

Together.

–

The End

–