#Hank Garcia

[letterboxd-loggd]

Fun with Dick and Jane (1977) Ted Kotcheff

February 4th 2024

[natti-ice]

in another universe, your favorite characters are reading fanfic about you. Feel special.

[apocalypse-shuffle]

PENELOPE GARCIA (criminal minds | ᴄʀɪᴍɪɴᴀʟ ᴍɪɴᴅs: ᴇᴠᴏʟᴜᴛɪᴏɴ)

— — —

“As Always” (Penelope Garcia x Fem!Reader)

| You reassure Penelope about her choice in outfit for y’all’s group night out (that’s really a double date) after she gets a little too in her own head about her appearance. As far as you’re concerned though she looks fine…very fine.

| SFW, getting ready, established relationship, the reader-insert is absolutely taken with Penelope (the feelings are mutual)

| Source: Criminal Minds & Criminal Minds: Evolution

| 700+ words

“Are you sure this’s okay? I really don’t want to be one of those women that shows up overdressed to an event on someone else’s big day,” she snaps her fingers, eyes widening behind her wide-rimmed cat-eye glasses, before her hands go back to smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from the skirt of her dress. “Like wearing white to someone else’s wedding— oh my god! Is there too much white on this dress? Do I look like some hack attending a wedding who’s wearing white out of pettiness?”

At the rush of her words you don’t even bat an eye, raising a single brow at the other woman.

“Penelope, Sweet Girl, it’s just the club.”

“Yes, but it’s also Derek and Savannah’s first night away from baby Hank. I don’t want to make it weird by showing up dressed too sexily.”

Penelope wasn’t wrong per say. Savannah had bounced back crazy good after giving birth, only retaining baby fat in ‘all the right places’ according to Derek’s forward ass, but she’d still undeniably transitioned to dressing more like a “mother” than she used to.

Only slim fitting pencil skirts and the occasional maxi length dress for y’all’s girl now.

Where you’re sitting on the edge of the bed in Penelope’s room, and watching her check herself out in the mirror, you don’t stop yourself from running your eyes up and down her body in response to what she’s said.

She’s staring at you when your eyes travel back upwards and her reflection meets your gaze in the mirror.

You grin, throwing her a wink.

“Mm, that’ll be impossible to help. You always look sexy.”

In real time you watch the tips of her ears shift from their usual pale to blush pink to the most poignant of reds.

Penelope laughs and waves you off with a little snort and a, “Stop it.”

“No thank you,” you respond cheekily, pushing yourself to your feet so you can walk over to her.

Once you’re standing directly behind her and you’re able to run your hands down her arms you rest your chin over her shoulder.

Lashes fluttering, she gives you this tender little smile and leans into your hold. You squeeze her wrists then rub your hands up and down her forearms.

In her kitten heels, bright colored corset, and short skater dress and matching jewelry she looks to die for.

You press a kiss to her cheek. You’d happily give a hundred peoples lives to keep that smile on her face. Not that you’d ever tell her that, obviously.

“Now stop worrying. You’ll get nothing but compliments about how cute you are right now from our friends, and you know it.”

She huffs, blonde curls bouncing with her movement and briefly obscuring your sight. You chuckle through the curtain of golden strands before delicately brushing her hair back over her shoulder and pressing yourself even more securely to her back.

“But—”

“Uh uh,” you click your tongue, “Unless you have a legitimate concern then there are no ‘buts’ here, Penny Poo.”

She pouts.

“You suck when you’re right.”

Nodding, you let go of her arms to circle your arms around her waist with a brief squeeze.

“Oh, I know,” you coo and blow a raspberry into her shoulder. “It’s a curse.”

“It’s hot is what it is.”

For a second you're helpless but to choke on your spit, you’ve sucked in such a sharp breath.

“Jesus, fuck, Penelope,” you cough, eyes watering, and back away from her so you can hack into your fist.

Her evil laughter meets your ears just as you’ve cleared your throat and then her soft hands are on you.

She rubs at your back until you're good and meets your eyes the moment you’ve straightened.

“Oh ho no, My Lovely Stunning Woman, you are not getting out of this now. Let me make you swoon like you make me everyday.”

Though it doesn’t show against your darker skin, you flush. “Right?”

“Hell yeah.” She grins then moves her hands so she can cup your face between them both, light hands ever gentle against the dewy brown of your skin. You shiver, blinking at her through your lashes in wonder. “You gonna let me kiss you, Honey?”

“I’d be crazy not to.”

“Yes,” she laughs, “yes you would be.” Then her lips are on yours and every ounce of the world around you that’s not solely narrowed in on your partner falls away.

NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!!

I figured I’d add to the Pen x Reader cache on here because, why not, I love Penelope’s character. We’ll see how much traction this gets because I can’t even guess.

[wedgeantill]

…trying to stay alive desperately and very badly.

Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011) dir. Paul Johansson

[sweetdreamsjeff]

The poetry that inspired Jeff Buckley

Aimee Ferrier

Sun 1 October 2023 21:15, UK

Voices as incredible as the one belonging to Jeff Buckley don’t come around too often. Unfortunately, after releasing one record, Grace, Buckley, with all his potential, was taken away too soon. At the age of 30, the singer went for a swim from which he never returned, drowning in the Mississippi River.

Yet, his legacy lives on as one of the most influential artists to emerge from the 1990s, and his music is widely celebrated today for its emotional and lyrical complexity. Not only did Buckley possess an otherworldly voice, but he was also an extremely gifted guitar player and writer, with all his talents combining to create a masterful body of work.

Even when Buckley was covering other artists’ songs, such as ‘Lilac Wine’, ‘The Other Woman’ and ‘Hallelujah’, he imbued the pieces with his own distinctive style. Yet, his penchant for covers wasn’t a reflection of an aversion to writing. Buckley knew how to pen a stunningly poetic track, with songs like ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ and ‘Morning Theft’ suggesting that even if Buckley didn’t have the vocal pipes he was gifted with, he’d get by just fine as a writer.

Buckley took inspiration from many different writers and musicians when writing his own songs. Musically, Buckley looked back to folk artists like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and, of course, his own father, Tim Buckley, from whom he was estranged. Elsewhere, he loved the work of Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the rich tones of Nina Simone, and Led Zeppelin, calling Robert Plant “my man”.

However, when it came to his literary inspirations, Buckley had an extensive book collection, which he no doubt looked to for ideas when writing his lyrics. He owned a lot of poetry, with Rainer Maria Rilke proving to be a particular favourite. Not only did Buckley own Dunio Elegies, Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations Poems from the Book of Hours, but he also owned his epistolary collection Letters to a Young Poet.

Buckley was also a fan of the classic American poet Walt Whitman, owning Leaves of Grass and From the Soil. Of course, no poetry collection is complete without copies of Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell and Illuminations, alongside some Charles Baudelaire – Buckley-owned Paris Spleen. The singer also owned the Selected Poems of confessional poet Anne Sexton and modernist writer T.S Eliot.

Check out Buckley’s complete poetry collection below.

The poetry that inspired Jeff Buckley:

Dunio Elegies – Rainer Maria Rilke

Poems from the Book of Hours – Rilke

Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations – Rilke

Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman

From This Soil – Whitman

The Odyssey – Homer

Early Work, 1970-1979 – Patti Smith

You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense – Charles Bukowski

Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

The Complete Lyrics – Hank Williams

A Haiku Journey: Basho’s Narrow Road to a Far Province – Matsuo Basho

Paris Spleen – Charles Baudelaire

The Captain’s Verses – Pablo Neruda

Selected Poems – T.S. Eliot

A Season in Hell and Illuminations – Arthur Rimbaud

Writing and Drawings – Bob Dylan

Ode to Walt Whitman – Federico Garcia Lorca

New Poems: 1962 – Robert Graves

Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems – Jim Carroll

Selected Poems of Anne Sexton – Anne Sexton

Selected Poems – John Shaw Neilson

Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge – Demore Schwartz

The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara – Frank O’Hara

Poems – Pier Paolo Pasolini

Space: And Other Poems – Eliot Katz

Tim Buckley Lyrics

[nirbanox]

A Man Called Otto (2023)

Directed by Marc Forster

[juststubborn]

Just finished watching A Man Called Otto and fuck but I'm crying so much

Not because it was a sad movie but simply because it was touching. Many scenes where tbh.

[abirdie]

Gael Garcia Bernal: The Dear Heart Of 'Diaries'

Article from the Washington Post, 25 September 2004 (x)

By Hank Stuever

Gael Garcia Bernal: the Mexican actor, who is so very right now and here in town for, you know, just a day -- the whole thing with the big hotel suite and the half-eaten plate of fruit and dos publicistas tappa-tapping en los BlackBerrys over there. (Mujeres! Silencio!) He's promoting his new Che Guevara movie, The Motorcycle Diaries, and everyone who has seen it is going on and on about how saintly his portrayal of young Ernesto Guevara de la Serna is and how sumptuously the movie's 8,000-mile trek across South America unfurls onscreen and oh, btw, critics agree: Bernal's got Che's iconic, serious stare down pretty good.

Green eyes, we write in the notebook. (Big duh.)

Also can testify that Bernal is about 5 feet 7, though it long ago ceased to be news that the hotties of film are pocket-size. More notes: He turns 26 in November. He has a proud, long nose that sometimes blushes red when he laughs. He's wearing one of those Salvation Army-seeming plaid western-cut shirts that often turn out to be designer-label, a pair of deep blue vintagesque jeans and some scuffed lace-up boots the color of old asphalt. His hair is cut bubblegum-mishap short.

Awright, already, he's de-lish. Did we need to bring that dogeared copy of 501 Spanish Verbs with us? Of course not: Dude went to drama school for a while in London when he was a teenager; not long after he starred for six months in a Mexican soap opera called El Abuelo y Yo (Grandfather and Me), and this particular fact has dogged him in every interview. ("People think I did all these soap operas," he shrugs. "I did only that one. And it taught me a lot — it taught me I never wanted to do another soap opera.") When it comes to Spanish, he can bend it to his will, the way Nicole Kidman can do in English, with whatever accent directors like Walter Salles and Pedro Almodovar need him to speak in — Mexican, Argentine, Castilian.

During our interview, he spends an hour dissecting, in English, the current state of Pan-American politics, extolling his sensible, leftist-tinged childhood, and at one point he quotes from foreign-policy magazines.

We hold up our end of the conversation with such questions as:

"So, um, like, what do you do when you're not working?"

"When I'm not doing this?" Bernal asks, motioning around at the movie-star-with-movie-to-sell air particles of feature story nonsense. "I like to do all the things I cannot do as much. My common days are very different now. I would, if I could, I would be home" — Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City — "and I would sleep until whatever time. Swim, play futbol. Read and go to lunches and the lunches become dinners. Visit family, organize a party for that night."

Halfway through the image of Bernal swaddled in high-thread-count sheets until whatever time, a half-theory privately knocks around in our pea brain:

Gael Garcia Bernal, or someone very much like him, is exactly why so many of us faithful, independent-minded filmgoers still cram ourselves into the creaky seats of dumpy art house cinemas, even as the years tick by and things like Netflix, the Sundance Channel and the nicer stadium-seating art houses came along to replace them. No, you want to see Bernal's movie surrounded by drabness, because you get a better transport to the happy, imaginative place that way. The stale popcorn, the Fandango.com ads, the bathroom with only two toilets. (Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle 5, we mean you.)

We do it because we're always waiting for that next small-time heartthrob — male, female, or sometimes just the foreign scenery itself. It's the subtitles and the eyes. It's whatever we can't get from those American goofballs who do those blech movies that tend to be about guys who go on canoe trips where a horny bear in the woods tries to hump them. Or whatever.

Bernal would never do that to us.

Hollywood beckons and he rolls his eyes because it offers him roles like, uh, okay, here's the pitch: He's an undocumented leaf-blower yardman caught up in a caper that only Jackie Chan can make right, if only they could understand each other's Engrish, ha ha.

"I'm open," he says. "I am, I am. But so far in the U.S. what they have offered doesn't even get close to the kind of things that excite me. Nothing is quite right, so I think I'll just stick with what I'm doing. I have to stay … hmmm … congruent to myself."

And so that's why certain filmgoers are inclined to sneak off to his "small little movies" (as he calls them) in the middle of the afternoon, get the large Diet Coke and consider the combustion in contemporary Spanish-language cinema that the rare actor like Bernal can harness. You feel like you've just gone somewhere, talked fast, smoked cigarettes. They call him the Marcello Mastroianni of Latino film when they're not busy calling him the Marlon Brando of it.

All that smoldering, the aching of youth! One, please, for the 2:50 showing of Y Tu Mama, Tambien. (That hormonal breakout hit, a coming-of-age road trip from 2001 starring Bernal and his childhood friend Diego Luna — people mix them up, still.) Or the 4:45 showing of Amores Perros (from 2000, translating as wordplay for "Love Is a Bitch," a chronologically scattered tale of how one car wreck in Mexico City changes three lives). Or the 3:10 showing of El Crimen del Padre Amaro, from 2002, about the sinful lapse of a young priest (Bernal, natch) caught up in a small-town mess of church corruption. Its release in Mexico naturally put hard-line Catholics there in a state of non compos mentis, which both baffled and delighted Bernal.

Some of his key appearances have been as himself. Fresh from Y Tu Mama, he and Luna graced the Oscar ceremony last year, cleaned up in their tuxes, to present a small award, and Hollywood swooned. He was seen dancing all night at parties at Cannes. For a while he dated Natalie Portman (well, that's what the tabs reported) and you almost can't stand the fleeting idea of how gorgeous their children would have been. (Cancel that. They broke up.)

His movies are always in exotic, crumbly locations, and we are there, because Bernal is there: the back roads of the Mexican interior, or ascending to Machu Picchu as a soul-searching Guevara or click-clacking around the cobblestone streets of Spanish villas in transvestite stilettos seeking revenge against priestly pedophilia at a boarding school, as he does expertly in Pedro Almodovar's next surrealistic offering, Bad Education, which will open this year in New York. (It's scheduled to open in Washington in January. Sorry, kids. Delayed for possible Oscar-sensitive reasons of timeliness, and to not get in the way of Diaries. He's one of those stars: Two big projects colliding in the art houses of the world.)

If Salles' Motorcycle Diaries, which opens Friday, doesn't make you feel like an earnest college sophomore with a crush on the Marxist professor who teaches your Latin American history class, then we don't know what will. Predating the muss and fuss of the Cuban revolution, the film is an epic, richly hued journey into the formative years of Che, back in 1952 when he was Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, an Argentinean med student in his early twenties.

Ernesto takes a year off school to travel on a 1939 Norton 500 motorcycle with his best pal, Alberto Granado (played by Rodrigo de la Serna), across and up the South American continent.

Guevara, a devoted diarist as a young man, took notes about the people and places he saw, and the gulf between rich and poor (it helps to open his eyes when his rich girlfriend dumps him). The further Guevara and Granado go, the more Che becomes Che, seeing native people and their lives transcending the bourgeois notions of government and ownership and greed. By the time Che's working with lepers in the Amazon, Salles' movie (and Bernal) have reached a subtly beatific realm. In case you're not quite feeling it, Salles ups the noble-people quotient with black-and-white still portraits of the working-class people the young men encounter along the way.

"We prepared for four months," Bernal says of the research phase, and the crew shot the film more or less chronologically, following Guevara and Granado's original itinerary. "I read 1,001 books about the land and biographies [of Guevara]. We traveled. We practiced on the motorcycle three times a week. We asked permission from the gods, and also the local political and cultural centers…. When finally we started shooting, I wondered if we were prepared enough for this daunting task. We got on the bike and the road started to appear and things started to happen the right way, without you even noticing."

Bernal was born in Guadalajara and raised in Mexico City. Both his parents are stage actors. He has been thinking about Che Guevara for half his life — and even played the revolutionary in a two-part miniseries on Showtime about Fidel Castro, which he would appreciate it if everyone forgot. It goes back, for him, like most kids, to middle-school social studies class.

"It happens when you are about 12 or 13," he says. "When you grow up in Mexico you have a very strong connection to Cuba. As a kid you listen to this story, it's incredibly, incredibly exciting to hear. [The revolutionaries] changed Latin America forever and they changed the world. So you start early, identifying with where [Guevara] comes from, and identifying with his ideas in a way, and identifying with the struggle, and therefore you're able to agree with it or criticize it. Leftist ideas redefine themselves constantly. I think my generation is much more critical of what works in Latin American socialist movements and what didn't. There used to be a stigma that any leftist revolution had to come with violence. I don't think we believe that anymore," he says, mentioning Zapatistas in jungles who carry wood carvings of rifles instead of actual guns, just for the symbolism.

You think this sounds a little pinko coming from the mouth of a movie star? Well, you try embodying Che Guevara and see what you feel like talking about when it's over. When Bernal speaks of politics and the world, it's not with fire. He leans back. He almost whispers. It's seductive, in a way.

Early in the shooting, Alberto Granado, now 82, was visiting the set, Bernal says. And he offered this advice to the actor: "He told me, don't try to copy Ernesto's voice, or his mannerisms. He said, 'Use your own voice. All Ernesto was was a 23-year-old Latin American like you. Traveling around. Seeing things.' And I realized that what the movie needs is that universal experience. Granado was right. I have a right as does any person to tell the story of Che."

When it was over, months later, having lost weight to play the asthmatic Guevara as the trip takes its toll, Bernal found himself still wanting to travel.

When the film was finished, "I felt serenely confused, like in a serene state of almost understanding something bigger, and then not quite understanding it. All the time I felt like that," he says. "It redefined my priorities. I have moments where I understand what has happened to me, and then moments where I don't. I wanted to just get back on the road and travel to anywhere." (He sort of does that now, subletting apartments in New York and London, spending four months in Spain working with Almodovar on Bad Education, spending a little time back home in Mexico. He recently spent a month in Austin, shooting an independent film called The King in which he plays a character named Elvis — "the bastard child of an evangelist preacher," he says.)

He says he can't believe how hamstrung American actors arewhen it comes to saying anything political. He wonders if the United States has forgotten how to hold a real election, with real debates. He shows up in gossip columns lamenting the lumbering, impervious quality of American imperialism.

"The U.S. is a great nation that's becoming a war machine. But it is a great people, which can save it," he says. "Some of us fall into traps where we can't say what we think. But it shouldn't be this way. Actors are free. That's the nature of being an actor, to do anything you want to do, to say anything. It's why we're here. And if I were an American, I could be pigeonholed for what I just said."

He'd go on, but our lecture has to end here, for it is time to throw us out and escort in another reporter. It happens to be a student journalist from American University, and she seems excited to meet the Mexican Marcello Mastroianni, but trying to keep it all in check, remain cool.

She shakes his hand, ready and willing for her revolutionary inculcation in the hotel suite of Gael Garcia Bernal. She's exactly the age where a young woman's thoughts turn to putting that Che poster on the wall, and we envy her.

[ficfatale8]

𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕀 𝕨𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕣

I am taking suggestions so put them in my Fic Request box and I'll consider writing for that character!

Marvel:

Loki

Mobius (Only with Lokius)

Criminal Minds:

Emily Prentiss

Alex Blake

Aaron Hotchner

Luke Alvez

Penelope Garcia

SVU:

Olivia Benson

Chicago PD:

Jay Halstead

Other:

Original characters (M/F/N) in different scenarios

Jonathan Pine

Hank Williams

Will Ransome

[moviehealthcommunity]

A Man Called Otto (2022)

This is a Movie Health Community evaluation. It is intended to inform people of potential health hazards in movies and does not reflect the quality of the film itself. The information presented here has not been reviewed by any medical professionals.

A Man Called Otto has no cause for concern with flashing lights or strobe effects.

While some of the camera work is handheld, it is all very smooth throughout the film. Some scenes take place in moving vehicles.

Flashing Lights: 0/10. Motion Sickness: 1/10.

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicidal ideation is depicted in this film, including extensive preparations for a total of four attempts depicted on screen. An LGBT+ character talks about their parent rejecting them for who they are.

Image ID: A promotional poster for A Man Called Otto

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Dexter: The Sixth Season 2011

[letterboxd-loggd]

City Lights (1931) Charlie Chaplin

December 9th 2023

[natti-ice]

18+ mdni

me after reading the craziest smut ever written

[masterwords]

no better place (ch 3)

Summary: “I knew a new puppy was a bad idea.”

or

The time Hotch broke his foot stepping over a brand new puppy and spent the entire holiday season laid up.

Words: 3.2k

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan

Warnings: broken foot and associated pain

**

Dinner was filled with conversation Hotch didn’t want to have. It started out simple enough – pleasantries, questions about everyone’s days, each of them pretending that they’d had a normal day for just a few seconds. Most of the talk revolved around Hank’s school day and the cute things the new puppy did, easy light topics that made everyone smile. After that was exhausted, Jess was the first time breach the more pressing topics – things like plans for household work that needed done, meals, Thanksgiving, the rest of the holidays. It devolved quickly into Derek and Jess bickering over things Hotch couldn’t care less about while he made silly faces at Hank who returned them twice as good.

“You don’t have any opinions?” Derek asked, noticing Hotch’s general lack of interest. He’d seen him making faces at Hank.

“You two seem to have everything covered, what do you need me for?”

He didn’t dare to look across the table at Jessica’s scowl, Derek’s was bad enough. “Thanks.”

“What? You two have been sitting here talking about me for twenty minutes without asking for my input.”

“We’re asking now.”

“Derek…” Hotch started, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He had insisted on sitting at the table with his foot up on a chair, not exactly as good as being on the couch with it up higher but he wanted to sit with his family – he already felt so separate from everyone, he needed this. They didn’t argue even if they had both wanted to. “I think everyone is overreacting. If you want my real opinion.”

“How so?” Jess chimed in, quickly followed by that irritated little puffing noise she made that told Hotch he was skating on thin ice. He kept skating.

“It’s a broken foot. It’ll heal. I can still do things.”

“Yeah? Like what? Have you ever tried cooking on crutches? Or taking a dog for a walk? Or loading the dishwasher?”

He obviously didn’t have an answer to that, and his silence seemed to make her feel like he was admitting defeat already. He simply poked around at his plate for a moment before turning his eyes back to her and shaking his head.

“Just stop being so stubborn. I know you’ve had to be independent since you were practically in diapers, but everyone around you wants to help. And if you don’t have to do it all yourself…”

“I don’t want to sit around and do nothing. Today has been bad enough.”

Derek waved Hank away from the table quickly, breaking in to softly tell him to get ready for grandma to pick him up. She’d be there soon.

“Today has been overwhelming,” Derek said, sighing. “I know. But you can’t deny that things are going to be different for a while and we’ve gotta get through it. If we can make plans now, we’ll be better for it. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course.”

“Then just work with us. Let’s come up with a plan we can all live with, huh?”

Hotch nodded and went back to his food. He wasn’t the least bit hungry but the medications were starting to hurt his stomach, he had to put something else in there. A piece of toast and some soup wouldn’t hurt. It didn’t take him long to finish find himself fighting the instinct to stand up to clear his place at the table, take his dishes to the kitchen. Having Jessica reach over him to grab his bowl and his glass surprised him and he put his head down, thanking her quietly.

“I can stay the night,” Jess said from where she stood washing the dishes while Derek helped Hotch get situated and comfortable on the couch again. He was ready for bed, but he didn’t want to go until everyone else was ready too. He was starting to get that cabin fever feeling already and it was still only the first day.

“Go home,” Derek said, shaking his head. “We’re gonna need more help after the surgery. I got this now. Hank’s going over to ma’s, and I kinda just…”

“Want it to be the two of you. Okay. I understand.”

“I could use some help in the morning, if you’re available. I have to go pick Penelope up from the airport and I don’t want to leave him alone if I can help it. “

“Oh, yeah, I’ll be here bright and early.”

She finished up with the dishes and putting everything away while Hank packed his overnight bag to go stay with Fran, and by the time Fran arrived, everyone was ready to leave. The house emptied after a few steady minutes of hugs and kisses and I love yous and call if you need anythings. The silence they were left with was almost troubling, the house had been so noisy all day. Their furniture was all shifted and it barely looked like their home anymore but when Derek sank heavily into the couch and leaned against Hotch...he didn’t care. Paige was sleeping beside the glowing embers in the wood stove, the last of their fire, and both of them sat in a long amiable silence just staring at her, at the smoldering gold and red behind her.

“I can’t believe we’re alone,” Derek said, breaking the silence. His voice felt too loud. “Every day can’t be like this.”

“I’m sorry Derek.”

“I know. You keep saying that. It’s okay, baby. I’m taking Paige out to do her business and then we are going to bed. I’ve had enough of today.”

Hotch had his doubts about sleeping, his foot was already bothering him more than it had earlier. Nights were always bad in his experience and he wasn’t expecting anything different now. He could nap all day on the couch like it was nothing, but sleeping at night in his own bed? Different story. He watched Derek pick the puppy up and take her outside, leaving him completely alone in the room. He hadn’t been alone all day, not since he sat at the kitchen table in shock, back when he hadn’t considered anything more than the feeling of oh shit.

Derek was gone almost twenty minutes, and in that time Hotch had started to fold up the blankets he’d been sleeping in all day, preparing the couch to be empty for the night. His crutches were within reach and when it looked like Derek would be a little longer, he pulled himself up to standing carefully and reached for them, tucking them beneath his arms. He hated crutches but they would get him where he needed to go without having to make Derek carry his weight again. He managed to make his way around the front room, tidying and locking up without any problems. It wasn’t much but he was pretty proud of himself after a day of being waited on hand and foot. It almost felt like a little told you so moment, if only Jess had been there to see it. A man in his 50s behaving like a child...he was glad he was alone for that moment.

“What are you doing?”

“Helping,” Hotch said, pulling the last of the curtains closed. Derek just shook his head and started shutting off lights. He didn’t have it in him to argue. You couldn’t take independence away from Hotch, and if you tried, you’d be met with a fight you didn’t want. It was better just to keep an eye on him and gently remind him not to overdo it. He would never recognize that on his own until it was too late.

“I’ll get your meds and everything once you’re in bed. You just get there. Deal?”

“Deal.” At least there was that. Derek stayed a few steps behind him as they walked down the hallway, and to be on the safe side, he kept Paige in his arms. Didn’t need a repeat of that morning.

Their bed had become a nest of sorts in their absence. Neither of them had been in there since Sarah had set to work, and now they knew what she was doing. Piles of blankets and a heap of Christmas throw pillows, all of his prescriptions and the OTC meds within reach. It was sweet of her to do that, but it was a little much. It just made him feel worse, like more of a burden. Their bedroom looked like a hospital room minus the get well balloons and stuffed animals. He’d foolishly thought that this would be his sanctuary, where it was just normal, where he wouldn’t be faced with the aftermath of his frailty.

“You okay?” Derek asked, noticing how long Hotch had been just leaning on his crutches and staring at his bed. “I know it’s a lot. They mean well.”

Hotch hesitated. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I know. Where are you going to sleep?” There was a pile of pillows on Derek’s side of the bed.

“Right beside you. Those pillows are hitting the floor.”

Derek took the crutches from him and helped him get undressed and into his pajamas, carefully sliding a pair of his over-sized sweatpants over Hotch’s bandaged foot because there was more room in his pants than Hotch’s own. And he just liked seeing him wear them. He liked to cinch the drawstring around his narrow hips so the bones just barely peeked out over the top, so the bottom of his t-shirt didn’t quite meet the waist and that little tuft of black hair was visible. And since Derek was more or less in control of the entire dressing situation, he made damn sure he got what he wanted. After that it was a soft kiss and gentle hands helping him lift his legs up onto the pile of pillows covered in reindeer and Santa Claus and little elves. An ice pack came next, one on top of his foot and one behind his knee – he hated the ice, it gave him the chills but it did help with the pain so he put up with it and kept his complaints to a minimum. After that it was the humiliating job of brushing his teeth and spitting into a bowl held by Derek because Derek insisted he not be upright anymore, then taking his pills and hoping on everything he could think of that he would just be able to sleep.

He managed a few hours, which was better than anticipated. Once he was comfortable and the lights were off, he found it shockingly easy to drift off. The gel ice packs Derek used would lose their cool after about twenty minutes so he didn’t have to worry about getting frostbite, he could just sleep.

It might have been the sound of Paige scratching at the door to go outside that woke him, but he doubted it. He was pretty sure it was the intense shock waves in his foot, the deep throbbing that sent pain coursing up to his knee and if he moved at all it followed all the way up into his hip. Derek got up to let Paige out and Hotch tried to keep his eyes closed, tried not to let Derek know that he was awake or hurting...he couldn’t do that to him, not at this time of night. While Derek was outside he reached over to his nightstand and turned on the lamp, whimpering at the bolts of pain shooting up his leg – he’d opted not to take the stronger stuff before bed and he was regretting it now. With shaking hands he reached around all of the bottles until he found the ones he was after and tried to open them. The damn child safety locks were too hard to get his trembling fingers around, he only ended up frustrated and ready to throw the whole bottle across the room. That was the sight Derek walked back in to see.

“Hey,” Derek said, closing the door once Paige had trotted inside and took up her place in bed again. “Need help?”

Hotch nodded, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat.

“Pretty bad?”

Another nod. He didn’t have the energy to expend on his voice, not right now. He just needed relief and it wasn’t going to come from the pill, he knew that already. It was just the easiest thing for him to try on his own. It felt like doing something when he didn’t know what else to do.

“I can give you a couple more ibuprofen if you want, maybe run a bath until they kick in? I know you didn’t want to take these…”

A bath sounded nice, but moving sounded like hell.

But Derek didn’t wait for a nod this time. He just handed Hotch a couple of the ibuprofen and went to the bathroom to start filling their jetted tub. It was huge, luxurious, took a while to fill but was worth every penny to basically have a private hot tub when they needed it. When Derek had decided to redo the bathroom, they splurged, and in the two years they’d had it...they more than made up for the cost. Fran had laughed at them, told them they’d never used it, everyone she knew who had a big jetted tub didn’t bother to use it because it took so long to fill but...well they didn’t mind waiting. They had plenty of time.

Hotch wasn’t in a cast yet, just a soft bandage beneath a removable splint and he was relatively certain that if they got in together, he’d have no trouble keeping it safe. He was allowed to remove the splint if he was so inclined, and Derek sort of thought he might as well now. After the surgery he’d be in a hard cast for a few weeks and things would get so much more complicated – it felt like he had to take advantage now.

So what if it was 3am? They had the house to themselves, and he was already walking around naked while he prepared the tub. After all the care he’d taken to dress Hotch in his pajamas, he enjoyed undressing him even more. When the cold air hit his chest and goosebumps rippled along the shadows of his ribs, when he let out that first little involuntary shiver, Derek smiled.

Getting into the tub wasn’t easy, it involved a lot of interesting angles and Derek sort of wished he’d done a little better in geometry as he tried to figure them out, but they managed after a while. He had a vinyl bath pillow he could use to prop Hotch’s foot up on at the edge (it was used for Hotch’s knees in the shower so often anyway, it was really just his pillow), the rest of their bodies were easily submerged beneath the hot bubbling water.

“How you feeling?” Derek asked automatically. “Need anything?”

“No,” Hotch said, his voice strained through his ability to barely manage the pain he was in. He was slowly starting to come down, the pills taking some of the edge off but not enough. He was simply willing the hot water to work its magic while he waited.

“Just let me know…” Derek had turned on some music, a little distraction, and clicked away at the lights until he found the party brights. Red, blue and green flashed beneath the surface as the bathroom light dimmed, he’d set it all up – partly just to irritate Hotch because why did their bathroom have to be a nightclub? But he also just liked it. What was the harm in having some fun? Why did everything have to get so serious when the gray hairs started making their debut?

They stayed in the bath for over an hour, until the water finally started to cool and Hotch’s pain had returned to a level that he thought he could sleep through. Or at least return to bed so Derek could sleep.

Derek’s alarm was set on his phone, but it turned out he didn’t need it. Paige had him covered. They’d already done some training with her and she was a little too good at asking to go outside – however, if they missed her little yips and whines, she would relieve herself right where she stood. Time was of the essence. Hotch was finally asleep, having drifted off just as the sun had crept up into the sky, finally exhausted enough to sleep through the pain that lingered.

Jess showed up while Derek was playing with Paige outside and had breakfast and coffee in hand. “Woman, you are a goddess.”

“How is Aaron?” she asked, noting that he was not up anywhere. She hoped that was a good sign.

“He was awake all night. Bad one. Bet he just fell asleep in the last hour or so…”

“Oh, you guys…”

“Nothing you could have done if you were here. We just had to wait it out. You know how it is.”

Jess played with Paige while Derek drove to the airport to get Penelope through the early morning Chicago traffic. The first real frost still lay on the ground, slicking the streets with a layer that made everyone on the freeway a little extra cautious. He was frustrated by the time he pulled up at the airport to find Penelope already waiting outside for pickup with all of her bags stacked at her feet. He hurried to get her loaded in to his car and got the hell out of there before he finally said a word to her.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” he said as he pulled out onto the wide open stretch of highway that would lead them toward shopping. Everything had opened up – it was short lived but he was glad for it. He loosened the grip he had on the steering wheel and listened to her ramble for a few minutes about her flight, about the team, about how everyone had sent her with all sorts of gifts and promises to come visit and help out if needed. The thought of the BAU flying in to help them was overwhelming and Derek was already rummaging around in his head for excuses to shut it down.

“You up for some shopping?” he asked, cutting her off as he took the exit toward the hardware store. “I have some things to do on the house today.”

“Oh, sugar, I have a list a mile long.” She did. A list of stores she had to hit, of things to buy in order to make her stay as worthwhile as she could. “Call your mom. Ask her what I can make for Thanksgiving. Ask her what she needs me to do.”

“Oh you do not wanna step into the mess that is a Morgan Thanksgiving, babygirl.”

“I absolutely do, now call her or I will. I have been begging you for an invitation for years and now that I have it I will be making the absolute most of it.”

He couldn’t argue, not with any of these women. They’d completely taken over. He had to accept now that he was just along for the ride in his own life. “Yes, ma’am.”

[wedgeantill]

Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011) dir. Paul Johansson

[camyfilms]

A MAN CALLED OTTO 2022

Marisol, If you're reading this, don't worry. I haven't done anything stupid. It turns out having a big heart isn't as nice as it sounds.