why am i here

“At least it's a king,” Rossi shrugged, throwing his things onto the bed. A seasoned vet, he'd had worse accommodations and while he preferred a higher thread count, he certainly wasn't picky. He began unzipping and unpacking his things, settling in while Hotch considered all of his options from the doorway. There was a fair going on, a huge county fair and people flocked for miles - there were no other rooms available in the entire region. Gideon and Max got the last cot available, so that option was out of the question. “C'mon kid, I don't bite. Unless you're into that.”

Hotch rolled his eyes. Rossi always came with the jokes. “I'll get a few extra blankets from downstairs and sleep on the floor, it's fine,” he said, and he sounded so sure of himself that Rossi just shrugged and returned to unpacking. He didn't care much either way – he'd shared rooms and beds with Max and Gideon over the years, smaller rooms and beds than this and it hadn't ever been a problem but if the kid felt uncomfortable he wasn't going to force it. The room was tiny and the carpet had seen better days, he wouldn't have chosen it over sharing a bed, not for the life of him. An odor saturated the room when the heat kicked on, dust and decay, sweet and sour burned his nose. Hotch returned a few minutes later with an arm full of blankets and pillows that he carefully spread out on the floor, creating what looked to Rossi like a nest of some sort.

“I think something died in our heater,” Hotch muttered, wrinkling his nose. Rossi nodded. They worried over it for a moment until Hotch finally unplugged the unit from the wall - they might freeze to death but at least the room wouldn't stink.

“I'd rather not know what, if it's alright by you.”

The first night was terrible. There was an odor in the carpet that Hotch couldn't place, something that burned his nose like carpet shampoo and pesticide, and more than once he thought he felt something crawling up his pant leg. It was nothing compared to the shooting pain in his lower back when he tried to sit up – it knocked the wind out of him, twisted his insides into a knot. He was glad Rossi was a deep sleeper and liked to push his alarm to the very last minute, it gave Hotch time to pull himself to his feet and hobble to his bag for the first indiscriminate handful of ibuprofen. It could have been 3 or 6, he wasn't sure, his back hurt too bad to focus on anything as trivial as counting. It was the first of many such dips into the pill bottle for the day.

“You slept on the floor?” Haley hissed, shaking her head. He could see it through the phone while he paced the bathroom, trying to get some circulation through his stiff hips. Joints locked, popping angrily with each step and he felt like the Tin Man without his oil can. He was far too young to feel so old. “You know better than that with your back.”

“I'm fine,” he assured her, using his free hand to rub in deep circles over his tailbone, fingertips digging hard into malleable flesh. It didn't help. “No one ever died from being sore.” She let out a mirthless laugh.

“Should I make you an appointment to see Dr. Peterson now? By the time this case is done you'll be lucky if you're still able to walk.”

“Haley, please,” he pleaded and she stopped, she knew. He was just trying to find his place on this team, trying to impress them and hold his own. This was only his third case on the road with them and it was, she knew, probably a nightmare scenario for someone as intensely private as he was. It was childish and stupid, they would never have wanted him to hurt himself to prove he belonged there and it did nothing to prove he could do the job itself. In his mind, he was so far doing the bare minimum to make sure he had worth to them. It was a vicious cycle and one he'd never break, there would never be a point he felt like he belonged, that he'd earned his position – there was always more to do.

“Go buy a heating pad, Aaron,” she said finally, softening her tone. “It'll help.”

His lunch hour was spent perusing the local PD's files for unsolved crimes with a heating pad tucked into the back of his shirt. It wasn't a perfect solution but it helped, loosened shocked and stiff muscles. Slipping in and out of the hotel, the police station, sitting in the back seat of the car he was feeling better and only Gideon noticed he seemed to be moving a little slower than usual.

“Dave says you slept on the floor,” he said, pulling Hotch aside. The grass was tall and dry, crinkled under foot, there was no way to keep silent in this field. “You don't have to do that, you know.”

“I know. We just don't know each other that well yet,” Hotch reasoned, shrugging. Gideon left it there, not one to pry. He could understand the desire to maintain some semblance of privacy in a group like this. If Hotch didn't feel comfortable he wasn't about to make him even if it was for his own good.

The second night was worse, somehow. He thought he was managing it, that the heating pad and popping ibuprofen like candy was going to leave him in a better place but the clock glared neon green in the dark, showcasing how wrong he was. 3:24am, he was wide awake and every time he moved he was sure he felt his vertebrae grinding against a nerve. He felt his stomach lurch when he shifted, a deep pain coursing through his hips and down the back of his legs like electrical pulses. It reminded him of being tased, something he and all of the new recruits had to subject themselves to in training. His feet felt like television static, and it was all he could manage to crawl into the bathroom on all fours, one knee pulling slowly forward and dragging the other behind uselessly. Chewing his bottom lip, turning on the shower until it was steaming hot, he waited until the water turned from murky copper to clear before touching it, flinching at the heat. The muscles in his back spasmed with every movement and he held his breath, slipping out of his pajamas and into the bath tub. Unable to stand up, pathetic was the only word that came to mind as he lay there letting the hot spray from the shower pound against his back, willed it to release him from the blinding pain.

“You okay in there, kid?” Rossi called from the doorway, alarmed by the sounds of distress coming from the steam filled bathroom. He heard a muffled reply, something that vaguely sounded like yes and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you sound fine.”

“Rossi,” Hotch whined, begging wordlessly for him to back off. Rossi entered the bathroom and leaned against the sink, nestling his hips against the counter.

“My name is Dave,” he began, folding his arms over his chest. “And you're being a damned fool you know that?”

Silence. Hotch pressed his cheek against the cold tub, hot water pooling below his jaw and trickling slowly toward the drain around the curves and mounds of his body. “Just need a minute,” he whispered, lips sputtering in the water as he spoke. “Please.” Rossi nodded, leaving the bathroom as quickly as he'd entered and without another word. This kid was going to be the death of him, he could already see it. When he came shuffling out of the bathroom a half hour later searching for a shirt to go with his pajamas, Rossi's eyes snagged on a scar that ran angry and deep along Hotch's tailbone. It was thick and silvery, pale and glittering with renegade water droplets.

“That scar have anything to do with what's going on?” he asked, never one to pussyfoot around an issue. He saw what he saw and he wasn't going to let whatever this was rest. Hotch groaned, sliding a t-shirt over his head and tugging it low over his hips. He considered his options gravely – he could lie and forever lose the trust of his colleague but preserve what was left of his dignity, or he could tell the truth and deal with the consequences of being known.

“My mother and I were in a car accident when I was eight,” he said softly. “I was pinned.” It was vague, but he paused there, hoping the inquisition could be laid to rest along with his weary body.

“That why sleeping on the floor is giving you a hard time?”

“Something like that.” It was an easy answer, anyway. Maybe not the whole truth, there was always more to it. Things that went unsaid. Multiple surgeries, summers lost, regrets, blame. His mother had lost a child in the accident and it was widely accepted to have been his fault, he'd been pestering her to take him to the toy store, birthday money burning a hole in his pocket. She lost control of the vehicle and slammed into a tree, they'd both nearly died and his father never forgave him for what they lost. Somehow he'd managed to convince Hotch it was his fault, he'd done something wrong, distracted his mother, caused her to over correct on the ice – he couldn't remember enough about what happened to disagree, it sounded right and who was he to argue with his father's authority? “I'm fine, really. Not a big deal.”

“I'm no expert but that sounded pretty bad for not a big deal," Rossi said, patting the bed. "You're sleeping here tonight,” he said it sternly, indicating the spot he'd made up for the other man. Heating pad plugged in and sitting there waiting, a wall of pillows and blankets set in between where they would be sleeping, a peace offering. “I won't sleep on the floor and you're done doing it. Don't make me pull rank.”

“I won't,” Hotch muttered in defeat. In his effort to prove his worth he'd caused more problems, made a mess of things. They would both be tired, and after all of that he'd be sharing the bed anyway. What a waste. “This is ridiculous, though,” he muttered, pulling down the wall of blankets and pillows. He spread the blankets over the bed to make up for them not using their heater, refusing to make their room smell like whatever was inside of it. With the heating pad on his back and a pillow beneath his knees, he settled into the bed and it wasn't so bad, a king size bed was more like two beds than he'd imagined. There was enough room to fit two more full grown adults between them.

“I've been told I get a little clingy at night,” Rossi said, clicking the lamp off. "Max tells me I snuggle him regularly, fair warning."

Hotch smiled and shook his head. He could think of worse things. "It's fine. I have cold feet and I have a tendency to steal all of the blankets."