#I think i was too distracted by how ill-fitting the jacket was on jj

[dribs-and-drabbles]

The Thai Communal Wardrobe item #144

Wandee Goodday ep 8:

Sunset x Vibes ep 2:

for @hotasfahrenheit 💙

[whump-town]

Professors

No one asked for more of this AU and, truthfully, I don’t even know why I keep writing it. We all know I have other things to be doing. The Cancer AU, the PowerPoint, and other fics left unfinished. Yet, here I am offering garbage

WARNING FOR Reid whump, implied abuse

Growing up, Spencer Reid relished his escapism. Spending hours, days even, cooped into the smallest holes of his mother’s house with nothing but books and the ability to lose track of time and space. More importantly, his ability to ignore the obvious. Here it did not matter that his mother thought he was a spy. That she’d slapped him so hard he’d felt his teeth smack together and his eyes shake in their sockets. 

Now, he’s a little too old for that. Escaping is so much harder to do. 

“Reid?”

The lights of his office are off, the door shut firmly behind him. With every ounce of his concentration on steading his ataxic gait and forcing his trembling hands around the doorknob of his office, he would have remembered to lock the door on his way in. Unfortunately, his days of complete solitude are behind him. A toll often paid for in order to acquire friends. His fellow professors of-- whatever it is they all teach. 

“Spencer--” Hotch. Thank god. “I’m going to come in okay?”

Now, Reid can remember the distinct tap of Hotch’s approaching figure. Closing his eyes and pushing his head further into his couch, Reid hears the door open. Tap. Hotch’s old shoes scuffing across the unforgivingly rough carpet. Tap, more muffled now. One more half-raised step and the sound of the real, thick wood of Hotch’s cane being hooked over the arm of the plastic chair painted to look wooden to his left. 

“What can I do?”

Reid doesn’t answer, just keeps his sweaty palms pressing into his ears. If he moves, he’s certain that his body will explode. Little bits of genius coating all for walls. His books covered in gore. Another mess. 

“You haven’t been sleeping.”

Hard, calloused fingers wrap around the back of his neck. The tips digging into the stiffened muscles until Reid lets out a whimper. Then, with certainty and reflexive habit, one hand remains kneading the muscles until they ease while the other plants itself firmly on his flank. Stilling his body. Well, to be as still as Reid can. 

His body has been out of his control since he was nine. The maternal drive had not been enough to protect him. For years, his mother had been distracted with work and by his father. She made time for him amidst the books but he was spared her anger and confusion. Until his father left and she could no longer work reliably. Then, one night in a fit of paranoia, his mother had hit him. She’d hit him so hard that no amount of genius had sparred him.

His cerebellum is damaged. 

Garcia could tell you far more about the reasoning behind how he is now. He can too but it’s far too taxing to recount each of his bodily flaws. His disabilities. 

Their silence is interrupted by a soft knock at the door and peaking out from under the suit jacket Reid hadn’t realized Hotch had tucked around him, he can see Emily. Her dark eyes flash twice over the scene before her and immediately she sinks. That’s what he loves most about her. In all her hardness, Emily is easily one of the kindest people he’s ever met.

Raised by her mother’s hip, Emily had known too much about politics and little of the reflexive kindness of those around her. To be born good and to choose good is always a rewarded ideology. People like Penelope Garcia and Derek Morgan. Born good, surrounded by good, and only learning of the evil much later are fantastic people. They have their own struggles but they overcame them. To Reid, there is nothing more interesting than those surrounded by the cold curling fingers of the world but come out good. Emily wasn’t hugged as a child. Praise came at the expense of crushing her peers and never knowing what a good friend was. Hotch was raised by two abusive, domineering parents. For them to choose kindness, to willingly soften their edges is… it’s commendable. 

But maybe that’s all the pointless rambling of a book nerd. 

“Que pasa?” Spanish has always lent itself to be Emily’s most practice language. Perhaps, it has to do with the softened curls and rolls of the language. It’s never sounded rough, coarse coming out of her mouth. She sounds like the women who raised her. The maids who cleaned gravel out of her knees when she fell in the driveway and the calloused fingertips that ran under her eyes to quickly wipe her tears. 

With a soft, tsks Emily comes into the room. “Get off the floor,” she whispers to Hotch. His long spider-like legs curled every which way. She has no way of being able to tell how he’s been on the floor but she knows any length of time will come with repercussions. “If you can,” there is an emphasis on his abilities. Not to push himself. “Get Penelope-- wait…” She realizes a moment too soon that won’t work. “She’s got a class. I need you to get Derek.” 

Garcia is like their shady doctor. She went through all the training-- undergraduate, medical school, and interned. After a bit though, she realized that stitches, sutures, and contusions were not in fact something she loved. Not even a little. So, she went to computers. A huge financial burden to take on but that was her calling. Now she has tenure and spends her time balancing JJ’s art classes with her own class on programming. 

Derek is an actual doctor but he only practice theoretical medicine. Too busy teaching know-it-all medical school students about ethics. Reid likes to joke that he’s just a philosophy professor. Being an english literature professor leaves him pretty open to any comebacks Morgan can think of in the moment. 

Slowly rising to his feet, Hotch totters. Emily’s long fingers curl around his bicep, an unspoken order to hold still for just a moment. Long enough for his labored breathing to calm back down and his back to stop aching so feverishly. “You’ll be no help hurting yourself,” she comments, releasing him. She avoids his eyes, almost flushed having been caught touching him. Stepping into his space. It’s nothing for someone else but Hotch isn’t someone like Garcia and she’s not gentle like Reid. Turning her back, she’s stops any further comment. Any looks or reciprocation of that touch. 

Hotch leans heavily into the cane curling into his right palm. The wood slick with the calmness of his hand. “I’ll be back,” he promises, feeling a sickening twist in his stomach. All too conscious of every step being measured out by the tap, tap of his cane on the cold tiled floor. 

It’s that very sound that alerts Derek to Hotch closing in. 

Unlike Reid, what ails Hotch is undetermined. People, like puzzles, are simple enough to put together with enough the edges put together. For Reid, the edge pieces are his mother’s schizophrenia, her bouts of aggression, and her love of books. From there, blossoms the genius of the youngest professor the school has ever had. His cerebral injury is accounted for by his mother’s illness. Her abuse. No matter how much Reid dances around the use of that word. Her love had taken him here, to this university and to his profound love of books. To Reid, that love, has always mattered more than the rest. 

Hotch, though, he is a man completely lacking in edges. 

What does Derek Morgan know about Aaron Hotchner? He used to work at the District Attorney’s office. There is a mark on his record but the matters of it have been expunged, he was about sixteen according to the date. Those are matter of public record. He likes orange juice better than apple juice. If someone else is making it, he takes his coffee black, but when he makes it for himself it’s a mess of gradually adding sugar and creamer until he’s content. And the cane. It’s purpose is clear. The why is more important. It’s not very typical of men not yet fifty to need mobility aides.  

The tapping stops at his open door, he doesn’t need to look up from what he’s doing to know who it is or where he is. “You’re going to royally fuck your shoulder up if you don’t start using that cane on the other side.” 

As it always does, his comment is ignored. The excuse is always the same. Hotch is left handed, he simply prefers to keep his left hand free. It’s a matter of convenience. “Reid is having an episode--” 

Pushing himself up, Derek doesn’t need to hear the rest. For a moment he does falter. Unsure if should falter back with Hotch, allowing the older man to set their pace rather than making Hotch’s slow, zombie like lurches seem exaggeratedly slowed by Derek’s easy, long pace. Deciding Reid to be what he needs to focus on he simply walks around Hotch. “Use the cane on the other side,” Derek says, as he steps on. “Or I’m going to start emailing you articles about the damage you’re doing to your body.”

Hotch huffs.

“If that doesn’t work I’ll send them to JJ and Emily.”

Hotch curses softly, “you wouldn’t.”

Morgan just smiles, jogging on down the hall, and knowing by the paced tap, tap that Hotch is coming in behind him. 

“Pretty boy.” Sinking to his knees with an ease Hotch could not afford earlier in his comfort, Morgan pushes Reid’s sweat soaked hair back from his skin. The fever and tension become immediately apparent. Reid’s brain, as genius as it is, often forgets that Reid and his body are one. Not two separate things in which one needs to be attacked to protect itself. Today, his entire body suffers with the attack. His stomach aching, brain swelling, and back in flames. His body often betrays him. 

Emily moves away from the pair, untangling her own body to stand and leave the room. Reid won’t appreciate a crowd and Morgan can handle this. Plus, she’s a coward. She doesn’t want to see him in pain any longer. 

“He’s okay.”

Emily steps out into the hall to find JJ and Hotch. Having found a seat in the hall, Hotch is failing to subtly rub at his aching side. JJ, covered in red paint, is only finding his pain as fuel to the fire. Obviously, she is taking his word for a grain of rice. 

“Emily,” JJ greets. “How is he?”

Hotch just shakes his head, leaning his head forward onto his cane. 

“Derek’s with him. He’s just having an… a moment.” Episode sounds too harsh. A thing that Reid can never be. His skeletole, looming gentleness is tender. Clammy, at times, but nothing but loving. “He just needs a moment.” None-the-less, JJ understands exactly what she means. 

But that is, in a way, simply a lie. There is nothing that can be done for Reid in these moments. blinded by pain, he still will not cave. Never, not once, has Reid ever allowed them to give him something to manage the pain. He’ll take vitamins and ibuprofen for headaches but not for the other things. Not for this. 

“Just breathe.”

All they can do is be there. Rub their fingers into the tension and hold his hand.