🦄

To set the scene, this would be an AU (alternate universe) where littles are known !!

🧸 Dave has a ratty old Teddy bear that Gideon got him at an airport in long Island after a rough case. It was a gag gift but dave has taken it on every case since then.

🧸Spencer helps dave regulate after he has an OCD related panic attack. Spencer holds him and sways while telling him statistics that contradict his fears.

🧸Spencer takes dave to interactive story hour at their local library every Saturday. Dave is always nervous about joining in so Spencer sits with him and encourages him.

🧸Whenever Dave is little and he finds out Derek is doing renovations he insists on helping. He grabs his tool box and refuses to do anything else until Spencer takes him over to go 'help'

🧸The only other little on the team around dave's headspace age is Aaron (dave being 12-18 months and Aaron 2-3 years) so they frequently have playdates. Both are sensory seekers so Spencer and Penelope (Aaron's caregiver) take the boys to soft play. Penelope uses soft play as a chance to help Aaron unmask and stim more openly; Dave doesn't really understand why Penelope and Aaron are moving around so much so he tries to copy them which inadvertently makes Aaron happy stim even more.

Under pressure

The tension in the plane was palpable. Each pair of accusatory eyes darted from one person to the next, desperately searching for some inkling that the other knew something more than the group at large. But the truth was, none of them knew, how could they? No group of people where more equipped on how to hide their true selves, than profilers.

Even with this knowledge they all continued, stewing in the ineffable silence that had filled the airbone compact metal can that encompassed them. They all knew this case would be testing, it always was when the victims were vulnerable people. But none of them expected to witness what they saw in the following days.

----------------3 days earlier-----------------

An extremist group had been butting heads with Texan authorities for the past 6 months following a blanket decree on all states, setting a new standard of privacy for all classifications in the workplace. This group held the belief that certain classifications where not as capable due to their biological realities. This claim, as most made by fringe political groups, had been disproven in multiple verified studies in the past 10 years.

Up until this point, this group, known as the “All American Unredacted” had only ever threatened rebellion against those who opposed them. That was until last week when an undocumented laboratory blew up underneath a suburban cul-de-sac in buffalo. The following chemical fallout had sent 26 people to the hospital and had left hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property damage in its wake.

After further investigation, the FBI forensics team on site had declared that the chemical used was a very potent version of lab grade halmnyphyded. A highly restricted, prescription only chemical used to get littles to drop into headspace.

The AAU had proudly claimed responsibility for the terroristic act and had boastfully promised more to follow. The domestic terrorist unit had been on scene for 4 days but had so far come up empty, and, with the looming threat of more acts to come, the FBI top brass had given in and allowed the BAU to intervene.

When JJ had presented the case, it had seemed relatively simple . The BCPD already had a few known members of the AAU in custody, so they wouldn't have to spend time running around like headless chickens trying to track down those ass clowns. Aaron had confidently accessed that it wouldn’t take long, a "one and done case" that would "have them all home in time to enjoy the weekend". But even with that reassurance, Dave still felt unsettled, as if an all consuming eerie fog of unease had taken hold and filled the spaces in and around his mind.

The thought of possibly being around halmnyphyded had his overactive brain in a tailspin. He knew he had more to risk with this case than anyone else on this team.

He logically knew it wouldn't be the end of the world if he dropped. Little weren't rare, even on this team. He'd seen Aaron and Derek running haphazardly around the bullpen enough times to know they were both very comfortable in their headspaces. He had watched as JJ side eyed the rambunctious pair as she messily scribbled in her colouring book, placidly waiting for her mama to finish braiding her hair.

He watched with, what he knew to be unfounded jealousy. He knew any team member would be happy take him on as their little; He had heard more than enough recounted stories  about excited young couples in the FBI looking for their first little, and yet, he still couldn't let anyone see him that way. To be at the mercy of whomever got their hands on him as he would lay their, belly up, subject to whatever they commanded his malleable form to preform for them.

--------------- ooh time skip ----------------

The flight had been short but grueling, turbulence had flung them around like a boat at sea. It was nauseating, Dave could already feel the dull ache building behind his eyes and deep in the pit of his stomach. He pinched his brow in frustration, but the ache was still stubbornly present, a new, consistent fixture in this miserable reality. He desperately tried to ignore it as he struggled to buckle himself into the SUV.

They arrived at the bustling police station. Tumbling out of the vehicle, and turing toward the imposing building of justice.

Even at the bay of the parking lot, dave could already feel the wet heat of too many people in too little of a space creeping out of the doors and winding towards the already exhausted team of profilers.

The bullpen was loud. It was deafening, it was thunderous, it was a shrill earsplitting, headache inducing cacophony of loud. Dave could feel tears ghosting his clouded eyes, threating to make a pitiful scene.

It took everything in him to snap out of his overwhelm induced paralysis, and follow the blurry figure of Aaron through the sea of blue into the reprieve of the conference room.

Alas, the tears of a clown has no place in the office. The conference room was more of a glorified shoe box. The walls were a sickly dull green with Cork boards nailed into the walls on every side. Dave walked over to the solitary window on the far wall, only to find it wad locked. At that moment, all he wanted to do was crawl and the desk and scream. But, there was work to do, people to save. He could soilder on.

--------------- time skip oooo ----------------

David was absorbed in his mountain  of paperwork. Dead to the world around him, transcend it the the plains of uniformly pencil lined A4 paper. When suddenly, there was an eruption of sound. Unintelligible noises of booming shouts and deafing clicks of what David could only dicern as guns cocking, readying to take the shot.

David crept over to the door, gun drawn, mind spinning but body instinctively readying for the potential of life threatening action. He had barely cracked the door open when

BANG

A shrill ringing, smoke, bile, tears and fear. His world was now filled with smoke, small flakes of plaster debris floated around him like some nightmareish snowglobe. The air heavy in his mouth and tasted sickeningly sweet in a way that had him feeling more nauseated than he'd ever been in his entire life.

Once the ringing in his ears had subsided and his feet felt more firmly on the ground, the screams of pain, terror and confusion reached him. "MOVE" his mind urged him "MOVE MOVE GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT" the voice roared, getting louder and louder as his body lurched forward, setting a panic inducing pace.

As he surged down the hallway, the vitiligo he had initially dismissed started to shift into something horribly familiar.

He was dropping. He was dropping fast, in an active bomb threat, with no-one around to save him.

Even as these thought started to sink their claws in, his body continued to fight. Moving through the ashen bullpen, pushing through the black smoke and the blue uniforms and the red sticky blood toward the glorious warm white light.

He stopped once he had reached the bottom steps of the desecrated building. No longer caring about the sea of voices, or the pain in his lungs. He simply stood, bathing in the warmth of freedom. Letting the wind gently brush the smoke from his greying hair.

When, a cold pair of gloved hands abruptly pulled him away from the sun's loving warmth; dragging him into the unforgiving cold sterile gurney of the ambulance.

Voices called to him, trying to penetrate his inattentive mind. But, to the EMTS dismay, the poir boy was too far gone. His cries of discomfort and his wails of fear left little room for conversation. If the poor little thing had a caregiver, they would know where to find him. And, with that, they slammed the ambulance doors shut, and began their journey to St George's memorial hospital.

------------‐-----------------------------------

Time skip / perspective change idk

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The next few days were a blur of colourful hospital room, nurses flitting about, the sharp scratches of needles, unappetising food that went uneaten (REGARDLESS of how many choo-choo trains and aeroplanes came his way) and LPS workers asking questions he hadn't the energy to answer. He felt so alone. He had no idea where his friends where or if they had even made it out if the infernos chaos. He was alone, scared, and very very little.

After days of this dissociative vortex, a kind looking nurse told him he was leaving soon. Where to? She hadn't mentioned, but Rossi hoped it was his freinds making their long awaited return. Mental images of them bursting through the door and swooping him away filled his mind and hi heart.