#how was she able to look Spencer in the eye and say Emily is dead and help him grive while also playing Scrabble with her

[only-one-brain-cell]

“None of which we had access to for security.” Oh really? Then how the fuck was JJ able to play Scrabble with her then?????

[irndad]

a/n: continuation to this, but you don't necessarily have to read it first! all you need to know is reader got shot protecting maeve, and both survived. spencer has been in love with her the entire time.

“Have you called Maeve?” 

She asks it on a beautiful, rainy day, about five weeks after the event in question. She’s a little too nonchalant about the whole thing, has been from the start- Spencer’s been correcting for that. He’s been treating her like something fragile, a beautiful glass figure that was almost shattered. This is something he knows irritates her, but how can he not?

He tries not to think of it, but the memory of her in a hospital bed, bandages over her abdomen, the wooziness of giving her blood. He can’t help his caution, now. People assume, quite often that Spencer was unaware of the fact he’s in love with his best friend. Like it was something he didn’t know, didn’t have to live with. 

Spencer can be oblivious about a lot of things, but being in love with the person he’s shared a desk with for 4 years is not among them. 

“No,” he replies, looking up at her as she sits down, handing him the cup of tea she made him. They’re at his apartment. She’s been cleared for desk work, but Spencer had been nervous about the whole thing. They’ve fallen into a rhythm of her going to his apartment after work, and for how determined he is to tell her how he feels, he’s not really able to pluck up the courage.

“Spence,” she sighs, “You have to call her.”

“I did! When it happened, I called her. We talked. We just don’t talk anymore.”

She furrows her brow in an adorable way, and Spencer’s heart threatens to fall out of his chest. He’s been playing a game of she loves me, she loves me not in his mind for the. Past few weeks. 

Took a bullet to see me happy. She loves me. 

She stirs her ceramic spoon, the clink of it against the mug fills the silence. She bites her lip, clearly disappointed with his response. 

Wants me to call my not but kind-of ex. She loves me not.

She’s wearing this blue floral dress, and he is trying not to stare at where the fabric has ridden up, kissing the skin above her knee. She’s got lipstick on, and he tries not to read into how she’s sitting so close to him. Except he is kind of reading into it. 

Before she got hurt, he had tried to shove this feeling down- tried to ignore the swoop of his stomach when she walked by, or when she gave him a compliment, or when she let him do a card trick for her. He tried to shove down how much he fucking hated it the one time she had a date pick her up at the office. 

She’s just easy to be in love with. She writes little smiley faces on post-it notes and leaves them on his desk, and when the whole Emily thing had gone down, she’d spent weeks taking care of him through her own grief. 

She’s sitting on his couch. Five weeks ago, she was half-dead in a hospital bed, and now she is on his couch, in a beautiful dress after returning from the job they both share. 

He does not want to call Maeve. 

The comfortable silence turns tense as the episode of Doctor Who plays in the background, and he’s still a little gunshy- she’s breathing, she’s okay. He feels creepy, but he lets his eyes close for a moment so he can hear the sound of her breath, to know it’s still there.

“Spencer,” she says, after she pauses the show, and he turns fully to face her, “I am okay.” She grabs his hand, and he takes a couple of seconds to process the touch as she places it over her own wrist. ‘I am fine. They fixed me up. You are allowed to stop worrying.”

Her tone is even, but intentional. She’s giving him permission, as if his presence is some guilt-driven notion that’s stopping him from getting what he really wants. It’s true, though, that he doesn’t always believe she’s okay. Notices how she’ll wince when she bends a certain way, and the scar by her eyebrow is healing well, but he still searches for it in her face.

He savors the feeling of the soft skin of her wrist under his touch, running his fingers over the junction of her hand and wrist with delicate affection. How she hasn’t figured out he’s in love with her is anyone’s guess. 

He wonders what it would feel like to kiss her there.

“I know I can call her,” he manages to say back, meeting her warm gaze in a maybe too honestly in love glance, “I’m where I want to be.”

“Before I got hurt, you picked out an outfit, you asked for advice on dating, Spencer. You did that. I just-“ she sighs, moving her hand from his grasp and pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, “The piece of you that wanted that is obviously still there. You don’t have to spend a Friday night with me in your apartment because you feel guilty that I got shot.”

“You’re not here because I’m guilty-“

“Then why-“

“You’re in my apartment right now because I am in love with you, and if you’re out of my sight for more than twelve hours than it’s like I forget that you’re still alive. That you didn’t get yourself killed before I ever got the chance to actually tell you.”

He’s not yelling. Well, he’s kind of yelling. Talking loudly, anyway. Her eyes widened and he’s hyperaware of how close she already was, is. She smells like lilies and her, and it’s all so present. She could have died. She might have never heard it. 

She’s heard it now, he supposes. All the weeks of agonizing, notebooks he’s managed to fill in the last few weeks trying to figure out a way to say it to her that could charm her into loving him back- all gone. He’s told her, now. 

All the cards are in her hands.

Her doe eyes almost sparkle at him, her head tipped to the side in a fond, loving gesture, and he wants to kiss her, wants to feel her faded-lipstick pout against his mouth. He wants his I love you to turn into I can have this. 

“Spence,” her voice is a trembling, insecure thing. One half of his mind wants to rage at him- there’s no way she’s going to tell him she loves him back, that someone like her could ever want someone like him. But the other half, one that seems dangerously like hope- she took a bullet for him. She didn’t even think twice. “You’re in love with me?”

It’s like it’s not even him who replies. Some bitter thing takes over his voice and speaks for him. 

“How could I not be? It’s you.”

It’s then he notices, that oh, she’s tearing up. 

A beat passes, and Spencer sucks in a deep breath before rambling an absurd amount. 

“You don’t have to- We can still be friends, obviously, you know that. But we can, I just- I needed to tell you because when you were in that hospital bed and you’d never heard me say it, I just couldn’t live with you never knowing. But now you do, and you don’t feel the same, and that’s okay-“

He doesn’t get to keep talking, because she grabs him by the collar of his shirt and kisses him. She’s warm and beautiful and her hair brushes up against his cheek and there’s something in him that takes over when he moves to  cradle her head between his hands, both desperate to keep her in his grasp and savor the moments he gets to hold her. She tastes like cherry chapstick and something completely undefinable. 

When she pulls away after a moment that feels entirely too short, heavy lidded eyes meeting his in affection, and Spencer thinks he’d like to do that for the rest of his life. 

“I love you too,” she says back, and he commits it to memory, the sound of her so-sweet voice wrapping around the words he’s fantasized about hearing since the first time she smiled at his joke about philosophy. “I’ve loved you a really, really long time, Spence. I just thought I lost my chance, you know with- with everything. I never really thought I had one.”

He can’t even speak, really. He doesn’t think he can wrap his head around the fact that she felt like he wouldn’t like her back. 

It doesn’t feel like a concern, now, when he leans in to kiss her again. She smiles into him, and Spencer memorizes the feel of her waist encircled in his arms, when he realizes that this is the heart he is able to hold without limits. 

She loves me too, he thinks. She is safe, she is okay, and she loves me back. 

On the following Monday, when Morgan sees the two of them with linked hands before Hotch gets to the office, he doesn’t say anything. 

He does hand Emily 20 dollars, though. 

[golden1u5t]

back from the dead | a.h x fem!reader

ꨄ requested: @vyviiennestar

ꨄ genre: angst

ꨄ summary: you find out that your best friend wasn't actually dead and you're extremely pissed that aaron, your husband, kept it from you for as long as he did.

“y/n, get back here." aaron called after you, hoping that his voice was strong enough to keep you from walking out of the door. everyone stood there watching the scene unfold before them, still trying to wrap their heads around the fact that emily's not actually dead.

you could hardly believe that she was back, after all those months of sulking and crying to aaron about the loss and not being able to get out of bed. it had been a rough couple of months and you were just starting to come to terms with the fact that you would never see her again.

aaron was the last person you'd expect to do something like this to you, to the team. although it wasn't just him, ji was involved too, it sure felt that way because jj wasn't the one who sat up with you at night comforting you and telling you that everything would be okay.

you stopped in the doorway, your hands balled into fist by your side. there was an anger bubbling inside you, the type of anger you hadn't felt in years. "are you saying that as my husband or my boss?"

emily looked between you both and cleared her throat, signaling to the rest of the team to give you both some privacy. they made sure to close the doors so that when you started yelling—which they knew was coming—it wouldn't travel out of the room.

"y/n, don't be upset. please just sit down and let's talk about it." aaron followed after you as you rolled your eyes and walked out of the room, not caring if anyone else heard the conversation.

"why, aaron? so you can tell me about how my husband lied to me about my best friend being dead months? there's nothing else to talk about."

you stopped at your desk and gathered your things, you figured that you could follow the hunch about the case you'd gotten by yourself. aaron stood at the top of the stairs watching you, he didn't say anything else because he knew there was no point. just as the elevator doors were about to close, a hand slid through them to stop them from closing all the way, you could tell it was spencer by his hand.

"do you mind if i come with you? i can't stay here any longer." he sighed and fixed the strap on his satchel, you looked over at him and nodded your head.

[outerspacebisexual]

Memories of Days Gone By - Spencer Reid

Summary: Spencer has never understood having a cluttered desk at work. Then you start at the BAU, and he's forced to share a desk with the least desk-tidy person in the whole FBI. Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader Word count: 3.1k Warnings: none, except talk of reader getting shot a/n: woah, outerspacebisexual actually writing instead of just reblogging post about writing? crazy Masterlist

Spencer always thought that having personal mementos in the workplace was weird.

Maybe it came from his mother, whose desk was always so cluttered she could barely place anything down without something else falling off. He could—as with everything else—vividly remember sitting in her office chair, spinning in around and around in circles, watching his framed toothy six-year-old-self flying past him again and again and again.

She never swapped out that photo, even when he got older and his round, chubby face became angular with his teen years. Not when he graduated high school, or college, or college again. In fact, he knew for certain that photo still sat on his mother’s bedside table. So you’re always here with me, she’d said on one of her good days. And even though most of the time she had no idea who the tiny child with thick frames was, she still traced a finger down the side of the glass before bed.

When Spencer first joined the BAU, he’d made a point to ensure his desk was cleared every hour. Empty coffee cups, old files, shredding, sticky notes; after one hour, it all went. That way he could ensure that everything got done.

And that same habit continued for years, until you showed up.

Hi, you’d said on your first day, sticking out your hand and smiling wide. Looks like we’re desk buddies.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. The desk had belonged to Emily before you got there, and the idea of looking up and seeing you was just another reminder that he’d lost her.

He was nice to you, of course. You hadn’t done anything wrong. You’d simply taken a job opening from the ballistics unit to the BAU. It wasn’t your fault that his dead friend’s desk was now yours.

At first, he noticed how you had a habit of leaving empty coffee cups on your desk, choosing to get another one rather than reuse the one already on your desk. It wasn’t a problem. There were plenty of mugs in the kitchen. But when your chair hit your desk, they chimed together, and the noise set him on edge.

He left it alone for the first month.

But then came the files.

Files piled up on your desk---not in neat piles marked ‘Complete’ and ‘Incomplete’ like his—just spread out across the surface in every direction and orientation. And as the week went on, more and more were added until there was no discernible way to tell which had been done and which hadn’t. This led to you having to leaf through folder after folder until you found the one you were looking every day.

Spencer had been tempted to say something one week when he’d watched you out of the corner of his eye search for a file for fifteen minutes. You’d found it right as he opened his mouth, spinning in your chair and heading straight for Garcia’s office. Spencer had sat and stared at the mountain of manila folders then entire time you were gone, thinking to himself, How could you put up with this?

How could you deal with having to fight with your desk at every second of the day just to find something? The idea of it made him want to throw up. Not that his apartment was any better, he knew that. But there was a difference between work and home. Home was allowed to be messy and cluttered, full of the rest of your life outside of work. Work was work. It depended on being able to obtain information quickly and efficiently—not after ten minutes of rooting around.

Hey, Reid? you’d asked one afternoon. Have you seen that Milwaukee case file?

Which one?

The consult one? With the three missing girls?

He tried his best not to roll his eyes. I think you put it down on the edge of your desk.

You spun and rifled through the stack, grinning when you held it up. You’re a genius, you know that?

Pursing his lips, he said, Believe it or not, I do.

Spencer might’ve been bad at reading social clues, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew that you were just trying to be nice and start a conversation, but he reached over and lifted the phone to his ear, pretending not to notice the way your face fell. You quietly turned back to your computer and opened the file.

A week later, you tried again. Reid, do you want coffee?

No, he answered quickly, despite blinking back the sting of a 3:00am emergency case. ‘Urgent’ was all the text from Hotch had said, and now he was sitting behind his desk once again, for the fifty-second hour this week. Hotch was never wrong. There had never been a case that Hotch had chosen where the team hadn’t been needed, not in all the years Spencer had worked for the BAU. But he couldn’t deny that there were times that he wished he wasn’t at work.

You sure? I know we got more sugar, if that’s what you’re worried about.

I’m fine, he snapped, harsher than he’d intended. Thankfully, you left it alone.

+

Then, you were all in Atlanta, consulting on a case of three male bodies and another man missing. By the morning, his head had cleared, and he noticed the space you’d put between the two of you when you both arrived at the ME’s office.

Doctor Glenn, thanks for meeting with us, you started.

Doctor Glenn had smile brightly at you, standing from behind his desk to shake your hand. Spencer waved. Of course. And please, Scott is fine.

You sent him a soft smile. Where are we with the latest autopsy?

Well, from what I can tell, the murder weapon was some sort of short-bladed knife. What kind, I can’t say for certain. The advanced decomposition on all three makes it tricky.

Something like a kitchen knife? Or pocketknife?

Scott nodded. It’s possible. Like I said, I can’t be sure at this stage.

Can I see the photos? Spencer asked.

Absolutely, Scott replied. I was going to give you the file anyway. He opened the closest folder to him, but frowned. Oh, this isn’t right. Sorry, it’s here somewhere.

Noting his reddening cheeks the longer he searched, you said, Your desk looks a lot like mine.

If Scott noticed you attempt to put him at ease, he didn’t make it known. Brows pinched tightly together, he queried, The BAU doesn’t have strict guidelines on that kind of thing?

You shrugged. Maybe, it does. Though, I’m sure I’d have been written up by now if it did. You leaned forward in your chair to glance at the photo frames on the side. Spencer could see them clearly from where he sat. Two dozen frames littered the side of his desk, all displaying four boys---from baby photos to teenagers. Are they your boys?

Scott, visibly grateful to have a distraction while he continued rustling through drawers, didn’t look up. Yes, the four of them. James, Patrick, John, and Liam.

Spencer watched in silence the conversation the two of you had.

How old?

James is almost 21, Patrick, 19, and John and Liam are both 16.

Twins?

Indeed.

Must have been a handful when they were younger, I’m sure.

He smiled gently. You don’t know the half of it. John’s decided to head to college in California and Liam’s heading to New York.

It must be nice to have them close, at least for the time being, you replied.

It is. I don’t quite know what I’ll do once they’re gone, if I’m honest. And I worry. Like every parent does, I suppose.

Well, if they’re half as kind as all these photos make them out to be, then I’m sure they’ll be just fine.

That’s kind of you to say. I’m not blind, either. I know it’s a lot.

You laughed. It’s not, I promise. It’s nice to have something to remind you of the good. Especially with jobs like yours and mine. Reminds you of what you’re working for. Who you’re working for. There’s so much darkness out there, if we don’t remind ourselves, we can get lost in it.

Scott produced a file from the bottom drawer, and Spencer just stared at you, even as you took the file and flipped through it.

+

A month later, Spencer found himself hunched over his desk, computer brightness on low as he tried his best to block out the noise emanating from every corner of the bull pen. With the migraine he was sporting, he was sure he could hear all the way to reception, which did nothing to help his pounding head. He clicked random buttons on his computer as his eyes watched each minute tick by.

Four hours. That was all he had left. Then he could leave and collapse down onto his couch and sleep for two days until it was gone. With each passing minute, his brain fog got worse, until he was reading the same sentence for the fifth time in a row without comprehending what it was saying. Who even sends an email at 1:04pm on a Friday?

Aaron Hotchner, according to the contact name at the top. He needed to reply. Hotch would be expecting an answer.

Spencer hadn’t even realised you’d been speaking until you waved a hand in the air over the partition between your desks.

What? he asked, when you just stared blankly at him.

I asked if you were OK?

He sat up straighter, doing his best to ignore the pain that stabbed through him. I’m fine.

You cocked an eyebrow. Are you sure? You don’t look great.

I said I’m fine.

You were silent for a long moment, and you refused to break eye contact with him. That was until you leaned over and reefed open a drawer.

What are you doing?

You continued to dig through it. I have some pain meds in here. Nothing fancy, but you look like you could use some ibuprofen.

I don’t need it.

And I don’t need to sit here and watch you suffer for the rest of the day, Reid. Seriously. It’s painfully obvious.

Spencer didn’t have it in him to reply. Any other day, and he might’ve snapped at you. But today, he would take your kindness. As he came around to your side, he peeked inside your drawer, noting it was the same as the top of your desk. Cluttered and messy.

He stared at the mountain of files, eyes roaming over your desk. Your nameplate. Your empty coffee cups. Your photos. He paused as he took them in—for the first time since you’d been here.

Many different photos were tacked onto the partition. Most were of a cat and a dog and a few people who he assumed were family and friends from outside of work.

Only one was framed—a photo of the team. He could remember the day. You’d only been at the BAU for a month and upon returning from a hard case, Garcia had surprised you with a cake and balloons in the conference room. You’d cried, he remembered. Which he’d thought was weird, but hadn’t taken much note of at the time. Anderson had snapped a photo at Garcia’s insistence.

Suddenly, a sleeve of ibuprofen was thrust into his chest. Here.

Thank you, he mumbled.

You don’t need to thank me, Reid. Just take it, and maybe seen Hotch about leaving early. That can be your thanks. You gave him a tight-lipped smile, which he returned before heading to the breakroom.

+

Six months after you started at the BAU, you got shot.

Not life-threatening, but a bullet to the shoulder meant you were laid up on leave for two weeks.

The bullpen had never been so quiet, Spencer thought. Though maybe it was his guilt that made him think that. It had racked him every day of the two weeks since they’d gotten back from Wichita. The bullet had been meant for him, and if he’d actually been paying attention to his surroundings, then he wouldn’t have missed the UnSub lining up the shot, and you wouldn’t have pushed him out of the way, taking the hit for him.

Your screams still echoed in his mind. The first, his name: Spencer! Get down! And the second, your yelp of pain. Spencer had fired off two shots in quick succession, taking out the UnSub with barely more than a thought before he was turning to you lying flat on your back and gripping your shoulder.

He’d accompanied you to the hospital, where they said long-term damage was unlikely, but you would have a long road to recovery until you had full use of your arm again.

Hotch had immediately put you on leave, threatening that he’d make you take even longer if he saw you in the office at all before the two weeks was up. You had kept your word to him that you’d take the full two weeks.

Spencer hadn’t been sure what to do about your desk for the first few days. Hotch had instructed him to take over your files, which was easier said than done.

Heaving your last folder into his ‘Complete’ tray, he breathed a sigh of relief. Glancing at the clock, he realised he’d been zoned out writing reports for four hours. The rest of the team had all gone—aside from Hotch, but when wasn’t he in his office.

Starting over the partition, Spencer eyed the mess that still cluttered your desk. He hadn’t wanted to touch anything except the files, which he’d gingerly sorted into what was done and what wasn’t, careful not to disturb anything else on the desk.

Now, staring at all you’d left behind when they’d suddenly been forced to jet off, he wondered if tidying it was the least he could do. Maybe you would thank him for it. Or maybe you’d tear his head off for touching your stuff.

He decided to take that risk.

Collecting the loose papers and random Post-its, he placed them neatly into piles to the right of your computer. Most where mindless reminders for yourself—Get the dry cleaning! and Pay the water bill by tonight!

Spencer wasn’t always grateful for his eidetic memory, but not having to remember small day-to-day tasks was a huge bonus for him. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to cope without it.

He straightened the tacked photographs and wiped down the team photo. He made sure your computer was properly plugged in. He ensured your tablet was fully charged for your return. He was almost satisfied, when he noticed one green Post-it note had fallen behind your monitor screen. Weaving his hands between the cords, he pulled it out.

Thanks for the ibuprofen. I really appreciate it.

Below his barely legible script, sat a small face he’d doodled. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought anything of it since he stuck it to your monitor.

But you still had it, even two months later.

He stuck it back where he’d put it the first time.

+

You’re back, Spencer said as he entered the bullpen the next morning.

I am, you replied, grinning wide. Do I have you to thank for this?

Placing his bag down on his seat, he said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Oh, come on. There’s only one other office neat freak in this whole place, and I know for a fact it wasn’t Hotch. When he said nothing, you rolled your eyes. Fine. Guess I’ll have to pass my thanks on to the boss man.

Spencer smiled as he unloaded his bag.

Cat got your tongue or something, Reid? He kept his lips sealed perfectly shut. Ok, then. Keep your secrets. I don’t need to know them. I don’t want to know them anyway.

I’m getting a coffee, he said suddenly, cutting off your teasing drawl. Do you want one?

You blinked. What?

I said, I’m getting a coffee. Would you also like one?

Uh, yeah. That would be great, you managed after a moment. Thanks.

He nodded, and he pretended he didn’t feel your eyes watching him the whole time as he made his way to the break room.

+

“Reid?” Morgan called, and Spencer looked up from the file he was currently nose-deep in. “Are you coming?”

“What’s happening?” he asked, furrowing his brows.

Morgan groaned. “Don’t tell me you forgot about dinner at Rossi’s tonight.”

“Oh, that’s tonight?”

“Yes, pretty boy. How could you forget?”

“I didn’t forget,” he mumbled, gathering his belongings as Morgan made his way over to him.

“From the looks of it, you absolutely did.”

“I didn’t. I just…have a lot on my mind.”

Morgan stopped at the side of Spencer’s desk, his signature smirk adorning his face. Spencer didn’t even look at him as he hastily jammed files into his bag.

“This is new,” Morgan commented, and he glanced over to see him staring at a framed photo he’d picked up.

When he flipped it around, Spencer could see it. The photo of him in his apartment, sitting on the couch, grinning ear to ear, and you sat right beside him, holding your left hand up to display the shiny ring adorning your finger. You’re looking directly at the camera. Spencer is only looking at you.

Spencer took the photo from him. “I liked it, so I got it printed.”

He didn’t have to tell him that he got every photo printed now. He’d never been a fan of technology, and the idea that all his best memories were being held ransom on a device that could be destroyed any minute made his head spin. So, he got every photo printed. Most were safely tucked away in albums on his bookshelf at his apartment.

But this one was special.

Morgan’s voice was gentle as he said, “It’s nice.”

Spencer smiled and brushed a finger over the glass. “Reminds me of the good,” he said.

Then he placed it back down on his desk, the frame right at home amongst all the others.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

The Longest Night: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.3k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Summary: Derek is hell-bent on finding the Prince of Darkness before he can kill the little girl he stole. Derek is lashing out at everyone in anger, Ellie is running out of time, and you're just trying your best to help the situation. The Prince of Darkness uses shadows to hide the monster that he is, and you don't realize just how close the monsters you know are to you.

Season Six Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

"What do you mean Derek is in trouble?" Emily says through the open window.

"I don't know. I just have a feeling. He's in trouble and he needs our help."

You climb back into the car just as Hotch turns on the sirens. He swerves out of traffic and starts driving on the emergency side of the freeway to bypass the traffic. The normal music stops as the radio announcer comes on.

"This is what you're all afraid of. The power grid is overloaded and gone completely down, plunging Los Angeles County into near-total darkness. City officials are unable or unwilling to speculate on when the lights might be back on. Between the blackout and the Prince of Darkness running around out there, they advise locking doors tight and staying very alert. As one official said off the record, it's going to be a long, long night."

Hotch manages to get to Matt's sister's house but the entire house is in complete darkness. There is no activity on the street but that doesn't mean Matt, Derek, or the Prince of Darkness is inside there. Hotch and Emily don't wait for backup as they charge inside, and it's clear as day that no one has been inside for hours. By the time Hotch and Emily are done clearing the entire apartment, the rest of the team arrives on site.

"Spicer's sister's not in her apartment. The building manager said she left hours ago," Hotch says.

"What about Morgan and Spicer?" Rossi asks.

"No one's been in or out since the power went down."

"Morgan said they were coming here, right?"

"Yeah, and he was a lot closer than any of us. Something must have changed." Hotch tries to use his phone but the cell service is down. "The cells are down."

"How the hell do you find them?"

All eyes are on you, and you shake your head.

"Look, I'm glad you have so much faith in me, but I wouldn't be able to find anything in this city much less where Derek and Matt went. At best I can tell you the direction they went in, but if they hit the highway, I'd lose their energy."

"What would cause Morgan to change his mind like that when he knows he can't tell us?" Rossi asks.

"The unsub had Spicer's sister and daughter. Morgan knew he didn't have a lot of time. His first guess has to be right. The unsub attacked Spicer specifically through his family. How long has his sister lived here?" Hotch asks Adam.

"Six or seven months."

"That's why they didn't come here. If the unsub wants to hurt Matt, he'll do it someplace that means something to him. Derek must have realized the same thing."

"The unsub and Spicer do share one place in common. Santa Monica where he killed his parents."

"Let's go."

"This is Kurzbard in major crimes. I need a priority response," Adam calls it in.

The team heads west to Santa Monica faster than it took to get to Matt's sister's apartment. This time, Hotch takes the side streets instead of taking the highway. When you get to the house, the police and paramedics are already there. You head inside and meet with the lead detective on the case who looks solemn.

"Where's Spicer?"

"We got here as fast as we could but... he's dead," he sighs.

"What about Kristin?"

"She was beaten and sexually assaulted. She's out in the ambulance, and the bad guy took Ellie with him. One more thing--there was another couple murdered a mile from here an hour ago. We've got a team there, but we're pretty sure it was the same guy."

"Where's Matt?"

The detective takes Adam away to where Matt is, and you turn your attention to Derek who is sitting in the living room with a paramedic who is doing her best to do her job. However, he keeps flinching away from her in annoyance. There is blood on his face from where the unsub hit him but he's fine otherwise.

"Ah! Damn it. Just put a bandage on it and leave me alone," Derek groans.

Waves of anger come from Derek which keeps you from going over to him.

"How is he?" Hotch asks.

"It's nothing, Hotch," Derek sighs.

"He needs a CAT scan, stitches, and a lot of rest."

"She's right, Morgan."

"Guys, I'm not going to any hospital until we find that little girl. Now, please, just put a bandage on it."

Hotch nods to the paramedic and she quickly puts a bandage on his forehead before leaving. There is a small notebook on the table with Derek's handwriting in it.

"Morgan, what's with the notebook?"

"I asked the sister to tell me everything she could remember about the unsub."

"What's her condition?"

"It's bad."

"I'll go check on her," Emily says and leaves.

JJ and Spencer walk into the house just as Emily leaves, already in conversation.

"How many cops are there in LA?"

"City or county?"

"You actually know the answer?"

"I know both answers."

JJ gasps when she sees Derek, shocked at the state he's in.

"I'm alright."

"You don't look alright."

"Reid, drop it."

"The local bureau office found us these satellite phones. It should bypass any outage problems on the ground." JJ passes out the phones to everyone on the team. "Any word on Ellie?" Derek scoffs and leaves the group, giving JJ a death glare as he passes by her as if she said something offensive. "I was just--"

"It's not you," you sigh. "Excuse me."

You leave the group and follow Derek who is outside talking to Penelope on the phone.

"Garica, I need you to run something for me."

"You really had us worried, and by 'us', I mean me. I didn't know where you were—"

"Now, Garica."

"Okay," she says softly.

"I'm looking for an old RV. Partial California plates--Michael-David-3. That's all she was able to get. The victim thinks it may have been the first three letters of the plate, but she's not sure."

"Yes, sir."

"Call me back on this number as soon as you get a bite."

He hangs up before she can say anything.

"Derek," you sigh.

"You know, she really needs to be more professional sometimes."

"She gets the job done every time," Hotch says from behind you.

"I told him, Hotch. I told him that we should wait for backup, but he wouldn't listen to me. We split up and he headed around back before I could stop him."

"Derek, sometimes when it comes to family common sense and procedure go out the window. We do the best we can."

"This unsub raped the aunt and then beat her for no reason. She didn't resist and he still pistol-whipped her until her ribs were crushed. He killed Spicer while he was on his knees. He was unarmed. This guy's a pure psychopath. I want this guy," Derek growls.

"We'll get him," Hotch says calmly.

"Better do it fast. Taking Ellie was like a game to him. The sick bastard thought it was funny. He's gonna get pissed at her, man. She's nothing but a little girl. She's gonna show him fear and when she does, he's gonna kill her."

The team heads back to the station and allows the local police to do their job at the crime scene. The unsub is long gone and you have to focus on finding Ellie before something bad happens to her.

"Alright, what we have is an unsub in complete behavioral chaos."

"Meaning?"

"Serial offenders, especially long-term, successful ones, don't just suddenly change what they do or how they do it," Rossi answers Adam's question. "Going after a high-risk target like a police Detective and then all of a sudden abducting a child is fairly unheard of."

"Fairly?"

"Sometimes they devolve as they know we're getting closer to them and their time's running out, but this unsub doesn't appear to be devolving. Devolution generally means loss of control. They find it harder and harder to keep the outside world from noticing them."

"I think he's becoming more controlled. He spent a lifetime murdering seemingly random victims, then out of nowhere sought out Spicer, recreated his parents' murder, lured him into a trap, killed him, and took his daughter. The behavioral spectrum is alarmingly different," Spencer explains.

The satellite phone rings and Derek answers it eagerly.

"Yeah, Garcia?"

"I want to have better news, mon ami, but there are zero RVs in the state of California with M-D-3 in that order on the plate. I'm sorry."

"Sorry's not helping anybody. I need results." He hangs up on her before she has a chance to respond. "Garcia's got nothing on the partial plate."

"Derek," you gasp but he ignores you.

"Maybe Kristin's wrong. It's not surprising considering her situation at the time."

"How the hell are we supposed to find this guy?"

Emily walks into the police station at the right time, having heard Derek's question.

"We can contact him," she suggests. "Kristin remembered in the ambulance that the unsub listens to news radio incessantly. He would even stop assaulting her if the broadcaster said anything about the Prince of Darkness."

"Makes sense for a narcissist."

"Oh, no," JJ sighs.

"What is it?"

"The LAPD just put all the information they have out to the press. A spokesperson at the crime scene was talking about the RV and about Ellie."

"So, this guy knows exactly what we know," Derek sighs.

"That might force him to dump the RV or kill—"

Spencer immediately shuts up when sees the glare Derek is giving him.

"No, I don't think so," you quickly say.

"Why not, Y/N?"

"He could have killed you and Kristin but he didn't. He kept you alive. He can't be surprised that we know what he's driving and that he has a hostage."

"There are about twenty radio stations in Los Angeles. How can we guess which ones he listens to?"

"The emergency alert system," you say. "It would be a way to communicate over all the stations simultaneously."

"How do we do that?"

"I don't know."

"How hard could it be to work out?" JJ asks. "I'll make some calls."

JJ leaves just as Derek walks over to the coffee machine even though he doesn't touch it. You walk over to him and approach him like you would a wounded animal.

"Derek, yelling at everyone isn't going to make this any easier." He turns and gives you a death glare, but you don't flinch back. "Come on, that doesn't work on me."

All you get is an eye roll in response, and Emily walks over.

"Kristin wanted me to tell you she's sorry she made you promise her brother. She said it wasn't fair. You want to tell me what she made you promise?"

"That I wouldn't let anything happen to Ellie."

"She's right. That's not fair."

"How is anything we handle out here fair?" Derek sighs.

"A boy just woke up his neighbors and said he escaped from the Prince of Darkness," Adam says when he walks into the room. "He said they're still in his house right now."

"They?"

"There's a girl with him."

Your team doesn't waste any time in getting to the house. However, when you got there, the unsub and Ellie were gone. They left behind a car-shaped hole in the garage since he stole a car and used it to escape, leaving his RV behind in a hurry. First mistake. You think Ellie had something to do with the little boy escaping which means she's stronger than you think.

"The neighbors all banded together and came after him, but he was already in the car," Adam says after getting the information from another officer.

"Ballsy neighbors," Rossi says.

"California has its moments. The first units all got here within four minutes of the call. A local watch commander locked down a five-square-mile grid and there's an APB on the car. We believe they never made it out of the area."

"Tell your officers not to approach him if they spot him. He's getting desperate."

"It won't be easy with a cop-killer."

"Then you'd better ask them how they'd feel about getting that cop's daughter killed."

You, Derek, and Spencer enter the RV and you immediately recoil from the stench inside. On the small bench by the kitchen is a pair of scissors and hair.

"He cut her hair."

"I swear to God when I get my hands on this son of a—"

"It's a good thing, Derek," you say. "Why disguise someone you're going to kill?"

Derek opens the cabinets and flinches back when he sees what the unsub has been doing to himself. He pulls out a pipe that's used for smoking meth.

"Here's how he stays awake all night."

"Look at this article on Spicer."

Spencer hands over a newspaper so you and Derek can see.

"We already know he was obsessed with all the attention Spicer was getting."

"Look what's underlined three times. There are a ton of papers on Spicer."

"Eight-year-old Ellie is a bright, happy child," you read.

"I don't normally take to kids, but this one's just special. That's what he said back at the house. Ellie was his target all along, not Spicer." You follow Derek back outside where the team is. "He wasn't after Spicer."

"We were just coming to the same conclusion. It doesn't make sense he hasn't killed the girl if she wasn't what he was after. He disguised her to keep her."

"Look at this." Derek shows the newspaper to them. "There's a stack of them in the RV. Reid's reading them all right now."

"So, we profiled his obsession with Spicer was over not getting credit for his law enforcement career. Maybe it's the daughter he's not getting credit for. He thinks he's responsible for her."

"Well, she wouldn't even be here if he hadn't allowed Spicer to live twenty-five years ago. A bastardized version of a grandparent. That's a pretty twisted delusion."

"It only has to make sense to him."

"When a delusion like that crashes, it crashes hard."

x

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[loving08]

I Love You

Aaron Hotchner x Y/N

Summary: Y/N has been working in the BAU for a year now, she is satisfied where she is along with her crush on her Boss Aaron Hotchner, but the entry of a new person would broke her or will she be able to be with man she love.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Epilogue

The sound of knocking woke Y/N up from her sleep, rubbing her eyes Y/N got up and goes to open the door, she saw Spencer outside waiting for her with a go bag in his hand. She stepped aside to let him in and asked "Spencer what are you doing here at....uhh...3:20 am in the morning". Spencer puts his go bag on the floor and turned towards her and said "I knew you will not check your phone, we have a case, so get ready we will go together".

Y/N just nodded her head and goes to her room to get changed. Her and Spencer get along very well, working for a year in the BAU and she found herself her best friend, she and Spencer connected instantly, firstly they both were the youngest of the team, Y/N was just 21 and Spencer was 24 and just like Spencer she also has an IQ of 190, so knowledge was common factor that they connected first. she always told Spencer everything even her crush on her boss, he was the only one who knew about her feelings and kept her secret, she knew she can always go to him and he will always be there whenever she needed him.

After getting ready she goes to the living room and grabs her go bag and they both left to go to the jet directly. Upon reaching there they parked the car and go to the jet. Going inside they saw all the team members have already arrived but they both noticed a new person sitting beside Aaron hotchner, the seat that would always be occupied by Y/N was occupied by someone else, it was odd for not only Y/N but everyone else as they have all known that seat has been always occupied by Y/N so they all thought it was a little weird but didn't said anything.

Sensing eyes on himself Hotch looked up from the file and said "ah yes I forgot, this is Agent Beth Archer she is an intern, she will be working with us in this case". Everyone introduced themselves and when it was Y/N turn Beth ignored her. Y/N felt awkward and seat beside Spencer. After everyone gets comfortable Hotch turned on the tap and Garcia face appears on the screen "Hello my lovelies, how you all doing, hope good" said Garcia. Hotch looked at the tap and said "what do we have", "ohh....yeah so 3 teenagers were kidnapped yesterday afternoon in Ohio from a party they were attending. Parents didn't think too much about it since they assumed they were at the other's house spending the night, but called it in when all of their parents did not hear from them after they were dropped off. Missing is Sarah Mitchell age 15, Dantae Pitterson age 16 and Belly Pitterson age 16".

Y/N looked at the picture of the victims on her tap and said "twins I assume?", "yes and no one know where they went after the party was over". Emily tilted her head and said "okay but why are we being called in? I mean its a big deal that the teenagers are missing but maybe the kids just decided to go to somewhere or something".

"That would be a way to think about it, but this is a kidnapping because the families have received tape recordings with messages from their kids and were send notes with their bloods saying they'll be returning the kids dead bodies if they didn't give $600,000 dollars to the given account number and that they only have 48 hours to get their children's back" said Garcia. "Do we know the relationship between these kids? friends? Dating? Relatives? classmates?" JJ asked. "friends since childhood, the messages to the Pitterson's are same as Sarah's. They are working on limited time that's why we are being called for this case and the Pitterson's are very high maintenance and a well respected family, Anthony Pitterson is the volleyball coach at the local high school and Mary Pitterson is the President of the Council of Community Schools".

Y/N frowned and said "what bout Sarah's parents?", "umm...she lives with her dad Samual Mitchell, her mom Laila Mitchell died 4 years ago due to a Road accident. The Pittersons and the Mitchells knew each other from high schools and stayed friends" said Gracia. Y/N nodded her head when Morgan asked her "why you wanted to know about the Mitchells?". Y/N looked at Morgan and said "its just....there's barely anything about the Mitchells in the file and its all about the Pitterson. I just hope they realize that Sarah is missing and she is just as important as the other kids even if her father is not a big shot". This mad Morgan cough to cover his laugh but nodded his head agreeing to her statement.

Hotch grabbed his others files and said " we can ask questions when we get there, get some rest, we all be needing it".

After a while later Hotch looked at the team and said " when we reach Ohio I want Rossi and Morgan to go and interview the Pittersons, JJ, Prentiss and Archer will go talk to the kids who attended the party, Reid I want you to look at the notes and the recordings with Garcia again, and Y/N I want you to interview Mr. Mitchell". Everyone Nodded but Beth looked up at Hotch and said "can't I go with you or stay close to you, I'm not that much comfortable with everyone as I am with you so...., please" and gave him a sad look. Everyone can see what she is trying to do, Y/N and Spencer locked eyes with each other and they both shared a look. Hotch looked at Beth and said "Agent Archer I know you are not used to the team yet and because of that I assigned you with my other Agents so that you can know them better, so take this chance to know them". and with that he turned back to his files.

Y/N knows what is going on, Beth also has a crush on Hotch but for the first time she felt like maybe.....maybe he might choose Beth over her and yeah that was not a good feeling.....at all. She shook her head and decided to focus on the case not noticing the way Hotch was looking at her, the soft look that he had only for her.

[weirdmorefics]

Unmasked Chpt 5

AO3, Etsy Shop, Youtube,

Chpt 1 Chpt 2 Chpt 3, Chpt 4

Taglist- @bunbunbl0gs

TW- Dead body

Word Count- 1,678

After collecting my thoughts and trying to remain calm I join the team at the van.

"So much for getting settled in the hotel," Tara tries to lighten the mood.

I smile back but I think everyone could tell it was forced, they are profilers after all. Spencer is still radiating anger from being sent to the van for fighting with the local police. It probably didn't help that Emily chewed him out for causing more hostility than there already was.

"JJ we need to have a press conference immediately the civilians are getting restless. Can you do that?" Prentiss demands all work mode not a hint of the woman that we go out drinking and dancing with.

"On it," JJ responds.

Prentiss turns to Garcia who seems to be extra antsy but it's understandable she's not normally out in the field and this is by far no normal case. "Garcia, were you able to get anything from the number?"

She frowns, "No it's blocked, this person really knows what they are doing."

Prentiss nods sadly and turns to me, "Did you get checked out at the ambulance?"

"I'm fine. I've been through much worse than some bruised knuckles and a fall down some stairs," I assure her and she looks at me still assessing if I'm okay.

"You could have a concussion you did hit your head on the stairs better safe than sorry," Spencer jumps in and I send him a life-threatening glare. I do not have time to be checked out when Ghostface is still out there.

I shake my head, "No will take too long to be checked out."

"Your health is the priority agent," Prentiss states. God I hated it when she called me agent it meant there was no questioning her demand. Her eyes soften as she looks at my angry face, "At least let Spencer check you out and make sure you're brain is in working order."

"Like he doesn't check her out enough as is," Alvez says causing Garcia to chuckle and to Rossi smirk at the comment. There can't be any truth in this comment I'm the one they are always teasing about having a crush on Spencer when he isn't around they never tease Spencer but the light blush on his cheeks tells me otherwise.

Prentiss shakes her head at the antics, "Everyone except Y/n and Ried let's prepare for the press conference."

Spencer just stares at me in awkward silence after everyone leaves. "So Doc you gonna check my head for a concussion or what ?"

He nods and pulls a flashlight out of his bag and clicks it on and off to test if it's working. He's being oddly silent which is making me even more nervous.

I rub my hand across my arm, "Um, thanks for sticking up for me back there I appreciate it. You really didn't have to though I've heard those things since a teenager I'm used to it."

He tucked the hair away from my face behind my ear, "You shouldn't have had to hear those things, you were just a kid."

I swear I must have looked like a tomato from how flipping hot my face felt. Always knew it was unfair I had to hear all those accusations thrown at me as a teenager but life is unfair no one comforted me over this fact. It Spencer's kindness meant the world to me and I think I'll always feel the warmth of his hand on my face brushing my hair away. Though he was probably just brushing my hair out of my face so he check if my pupils reacted to the flashlight yeah that's why he did it and that should not disappoint me.

Spencer cleared his throat, "Your pupils are reactive which is a good sign I still think you should take it easy."

I smiled, "Never going to happen taking it easy is simply not in my nature."

"I am well aware," he smiles back.

Spencer and I walked over to the press conference which is at the hospital, that is one of the only good things about Woodsboro everything was within walking distance because it's so small but that is also its downfall.

As we got closer we could hear JJ's voice, "This case is still currently under investigation we are pursuing multiple leads but for the sake of the case the suspects will remain confidential. We are taking questions at this time so now is your opportunity."

As Spencer and I stood in the back of the crowd I saw a familiar brunette in heels and her signature reporter outfit push through the crowd. I sigh, "Gale."

Spencer's eyes follow my gaze to the reporter who has successfully pushed to the front of the crowd.

Gale shouts loudly, "Agent! Any comment on that these killings seem to resemble the exact pattern of the original Woodsboro Murders?"

JJ tenses at the abrasiveness of Gale, I may not like Gale but she was one hell of a reporter. I make my way to the front and Gale's eyes widen at my presence she must not have expected me to come back to the town I despise. Dewey was behind JJ he seemed nervous as I approached Gale makes sense considering I do have a history of punching Gale Weathers in the face.

"You see copycat killers repeating notorious murders is fairly common especially when they can just watch a movie of it courtesy of you Gale Weathers. Wouldn't you say the same Agent Jareau?" I smile professionally no ounce of anger but the words doing all the battling for me.

JJ clears her throat, "Back to what I was saying. We just want the community to know we are pursuing all leads and are speedily working to close this case and bring the whole situation under control."

JJ is quickly cut off by a woman's scream and everyone looks in the direction of the scream. A body is thrown from the rooftop and everyone scrambles and screams. I couldn't pull my gun in a situation like this it was way too crowded. Next thing I know I'm being pulled into someone's arm as the body lands with a loud thud on top of a news van. The body hits the news crew's van camera sending sparks and wires everywhere and causing the crowd to scream even more. I wrestle out of the person's grasp holding me. There was no way Ghostface would put themselves in a crowd of people to get me and I oddly felt comforted by this person holding on to me shielding me from the sparks but I had to protect the civilians.

I struggled against the hold no matter how comforting it was, "let me go."

Spencer whispers soothingly to me, " You have to stay back, you're a target."

"We have to secure the crowd," I look at him determinedly but my eyes soften when they meet his worried eyes.

"Prentiss and Rossi have it covered, you need to worry about yourself," he assures.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes purely because Spencer's eyes are looking at me like a wounded puppy. I nod at him to hopefully soothe some of his nerves.

He pushes my stray hair behind my ear, "Please, look after yourself."

"Jeez, Spencer you are practically begging," I try to make light of the awful situation. It is what I do best.

"If begging is what it takes for you to take care of yourself I'd beg on my knees," he says so seriously I suck in a deep breath and my face turns fifty shades of red.

I hear Alvez shout from the roof, "There's no one up here Prentiss!"

That jumpstarts me back into reality and I awkwardly pull away from Spencer's arms.

"I need to check up on Dewey," I stuttered much more flustered and breathy than I meant to.

Spencer smiles at my reaction and I can tell he is taking joy in how flustered he made me. I definitely need to get him back at a future date if Ghostface doesn't kill me first. I make my way to the news van where Dewey is currently checking the woman for a pulse. Gale is unfortunately right there as well ready with a microphone in hand.

"The BAU has this totally under control. Right, Y/n?" She says full of sarcasm.

I clench my teeth and growl, "Sid and Dewey may have forgiven you but I never will. You are the reason for the movies and the movies are the reason for the nonstop copycats."

"You don't have to like me, I happen to have a lead and you don't," she grins.

"Gale," Dewey warns.

"Let me know when y'all all back on team Gale!" She shouts and storms off into the crowd.

"Why did you marry her again?" I look up to Dewey.

"Says the girl making nonstop goo-goo eyes at her coworker," he chastises.

I look back at Spencer and back at Dewey, "I am not!"

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt darling. I also never said which coworker, " he smirks.

I am getting mad at how flushed my cheeks have been getting today. They are total traitors to my emotions. "Shut up Dewey."

Spencer taps my shoulder, oh my god when did he get there! And how much of this conversation did he hear?

"Prentiss wants all of us to head back to the precinct to form a profile," Spencer relays the information.

I nod a little too aggressively than needed but hopefully, it erases the conversation from his mind that Dewey and I were having... then I remember his photographic memory. Damn, his perfect mind!

"Yes. Yes. Gonna be a long night so let's get going... see you back at the station Dewey," I say awkwardly silently cursing myself.

"See you both back at the station," Dewey nods and winks at me. I am fuming now is not the time to make me awkward and tease me!

[overtrred28]

Welcome home kiss | Emily Prentiss x GN!Reader

Pairings: Emily Prentiss x GN!reader

Summary: Emily’s return to the BAU brings some deep emotions to the surface

Warnings: swearing, use of a cigarette, mentions of a slight ED

Words; 1.1k

No one is permitted to steal, copy, or reblog my work as their own!!

Not my gif. @leightonxmurray​ 

Read the prequel here; “Goodbye my lover...”

“Meeting table. Now.” Aaron Hotchner walked into the BAU office for the first time in months, bypassing your desk.

“When the hell did you get here?” You asked as you followed the booming voice in the previously silent room, getting up from the desk and started walking with him. 

“Not now Y/L/N.” Hotch shook his head as he walked up the stairs towards the room.

“Okay then. Nice beard though.” You continued following him, confused on the situation, taking your normal seat next to Penelope and waited.

“Welcome back.” Derek looked to Hotch as he filtered in with JJ and Rossi behind him.

“Thanks. Everybody have a seat.” JJ walked around to stand with Hotch, confusing you even more.

“Why? What's going on? Everything all right?” Derek questioned, standing opposed to Hotch and JJ. 

 “7 months ago I made a decision that affected this team. As you all know, Emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. But the doctors were able to stabilise her.” Your heart begin to pound in your chest, Hotch’s words barely registering in your mind as he continued.

“And she was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda under a covert exfiltration. Her identity was strictly need-to-know. And she stayed there until she was well enough to travel. She was reassigned to Paris where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to for her security.” 

“What are you saying Hotch?” You looked up from your spot on the table, looking him in the eye.

“She’s alive?” Penelope piped up, Hotch stayed silent with his arms crossed.

“But we buried her.” Spencer’s quiet, broken voice echoed through the room.

“I watched her die in my arms.” You whispered, images from that awful night plague your mind, sending you into a spiral of pain. Small tears of sadness, anger and betrayal pool in your eyes.

“As I said, I take full responsibility for the decision. If anyone has any issues, they should be directed toward me.” Hotch finally spoke up again. 

You placed your head in your hands, shaking it trying to make sense of the situation. 

“Any issues? Yeah I got issues!” Derek shouted at Hotch, feeling the same emotions as yourself and the other team members. 

People slowly turned their heads towards the door, the sound of heels heard walking up the hall.

“Oh, my god.” Penelope spoke softly from beside you, causing you to lift your head, slowly turning towards the door. 

Emily Prentiss stands in the doorway, alive and making eye contact with you. Mind riddled with confusion, sadness and anger, you pick yourself up and walk out the back doorway and down the stairs towards the glass door, walking out. The team all look towards you but are too stunned with the arrival of the thought dead woman to do anything. 

As the rest of the team reunite with Emily, you make your way towards your secret spot on the roof, forgetting how cold it can be, especially when you don’t have a jacket on. You did manage to remember to bring your new coping mechanism, a cigarette and a lighter.

Moments later the door can be heard opening. Not turning your head towards the door, you can still feel the familiar presence of someone.

“Well that’s new.” Emily points towards the lit cigarette in your hand.

“Well a lot can happen in seven months.” You take another puff, avoiding eye contact as Emily finds a seat next to you, wrapping a jacket around your cold shoulders. “Thanks.” You mutter softly.

Moments pass before Emily speaks again. “I’m sorry. Utterly and completely sorry for what I did to you.” Emily shuffles to face your shoulder. You take a final puff before putting it out on the ground with you shoe. Facing you eyes to the sky, you sniffle, tears fall down your cheeks slowly.

“I watched you fucking die in my arms Emily.” You turn to face the other woman now. “Saying sorry will never be enough to fix that, and I know you will try, and I am willing to try. But, that. That was the worst day of my life. A-and then I was expected to just go ahead and bury you and move on with my life! How am I supposed to do that! H-how is anyone supposed to do that when they lose the love of their life?” You stand up and run your hands through your hair.

“I had no choice my love.” Emily looks up to you. “JJ, Hotch  and I all decided that’s what was best for me and the team. Even if that meant I had to hide from you for a little while.” 

 “A little while? Those were the worst seven months of my entire life. I-I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t eat, I ended up in the hospital because I was malnourished. And if Garcia hadn’t come to check up on me that night…” You trail off and shake your head. Both of you were now crying, Emily takes a step closer to you and softly holds your cold hands. 

“Baby… I am so sorry.” She slowly moves closer and attempt to wrap her arms around your shaking frame. You immediately latch onto Emily harder than ever, never wanting to let go.

“Don’t ever leave me again. Ever. I can’t take it.” You muffle inter her shoulder, gripping tighter with every breath.

“I would never dream of it my darling.” You hold on two each other for what feels like an eternity until you both feel a buzz in your pockets.

Can you love birds please come back down so we can deal with Doyle? Love you both xoxox - Garcia

You both chuckle at the message and slowly let go of each other, resulting in a hand hold as you make your way towards the roof door. You pull it open and get away from the coldness.

“You grew out your bangs.” You point out as you walk down together.

“Do you not like it?” Emily smiles lightly.

“Not really. I much prefer your pretty face with bangs.” Emily laughs and nods her head, taking in the advice. “I also find bangs HIGHLY attractive, if you hadn’t noticed already.”

“Is that so?” Emily raises her brows as you bite your lip and nod your head. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to fix that if I wish for a welcome home kiss, won’t I?”

“Wellll, I guess you could get one now.” You both pause at the bottom step before the door, turning to face each other. Emily smiles at you, placing her hands on your hips, pulling you closer. You place both your hands on either side of her face, moving her closer to you. 

Your lips finally touch for the first time in over seven months and it’s like the first time all over again. It’s like magic is flowing through you, bringing you back together. This is the happiest you’ve ever been.

——————————————————————————

[ssa-atlas-alvez]

Whumptober Day 16 (Prentiss!GN!Reader x Morgan)

No. 16 NO WAY OUT

Mind Control | Paralytic Drugs | “No one’s coming.”

ALT: Emergency Blanket

Warnings: Death, Death of a sibling, blood, going into shock, faking death (?)

Word count: 645

You feel someone place a blanket over your shoulders, it’s weighted and the yarn itches slightly, but it’s still welcomed. You’re so cold and you can feel it starting to warm you up. Your hands are trembling as you continue to stare down at them. 

You can’t believe that just happened. Your eyes trace over your hands yet again, they’re bright red. Covered in blood. Your sister’s blood. Emily’s blood. Someone speaks softly to you but you can’t hear them and you don’t know who’s talking but you assume it’s one of your team. It’s not your sister, she’s in the back of an ambulance fighting for her life and you’re too out of it to be able to travel with her. Instead, you sit on the stairs outside the building with a blanket over your covered in her blood. 

A hand gently places itself over yours, a wipe in hand as it gently begins to remove the blood. When the wipe is pink, the hands grab another one and resume its purpose. You just watch, unblinking. You didn’t know if she was going to be okay, if she was going to hang on. You watch until your hands are no longer coated in her blood. The hand covers yours again, gently holding it. Your eyes flick up, meeting Derek’s and your lip quivers. 

“She’s going to be okay, right?” You ask softly.

“I hope so,” Derek replies, bringing you into a tight hug, “God, I hope so,”

She wasn’t. Hotch and JJ break the news to you all whilst you’re in the waiting room. And you break. You’re a sobbing mess on the floor. Your one constant in life has just been ripped from you. The only family member you talk to, gone. Now you don’t know what to do with yourself.

In the following days you debate leaving the FBI, but then you realise if Emily were alive she’d hit you for doing something so stupid. You find it hard to do anything, you’re sluggish, and find joy in nothing. But, everyday, you’re at work on time, looking glum, but you’re there. You tell yourself that that counts for something. The funeral comes and goes - you had a speech prepared but were too full of emotion to speak, Derek says it for you. 

Months pass and you finally have a lead on Doyle. And then she’s there. Alive. In front of you. And you think that, maybe, you can’t even trust some of the people you thought you could. You trusted Hotch and JJ with your life and they knew she was alive and didn’t tell you. They watched you mourn your sister, your closest friend and didn’t tell you. And Emily, you trusted her more than anyone else and she didn’t try to reach out. Not once. 

You and Spencer hold a grudge the longest. When Emily sits down in front of Spencer, saying “I lost 6 friends.” You lose it. How dare she!

“No. You knew we were alive. We buried you. We fucking buried you!” You exclaim, standing up. “How dare you- You just had a holiday away from your friends, we thought you were dead. We had to go to therapy, we had an evaluation! But yeah, no, that's totally exactly the same…”

You storm over to the counter, trying to get as much space between you and her as possible. You know it’s not her fault, but she could have at least reached out when she was told you all thought she was dead.

Derek stands next to you whilst you try to calm down the best you can. You know you could get into trouble if you go too far. You’re still at work, after all. And, as it turns out, you aren’t all as close as you think you are. 

At least you still had Derek.

[sequinsmile-x]

I Know the End - The End is Here

She wishes they’d met earlier, that they’d had more time. Meeting him here, at the end, was cruel even by the universes standards.

A Hotchniss on the run AU, told in 3 parts

Part 3/3

Series Master List

Words: 2k

Warnings: Major character death, canon typical violence, references to trauma/PTSD, criminal activity

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

He sighs as he watches the final flames die out, the smell of smoke and burning permeating the air, catching in the back of his throat. 

The building was derelict, an old warehouse in the middle of nowhere. A place that had once been the workplace of hundreds of people was now a shell, all but burnt to the ground. 

“Agent Morgan?” 

Derek turns, fixing a polite smile on his face as he greets the local fire chief, reaching out and shaking his hand. 

“Cheif Johnson,” he says, casting a look back at the warehouse, “what are your findings?” 

“The fire does seem to have been started on purpose, but it spread much faster than anyone could have predicted,” he sighs, looking at the building himself, “whoever was is unlikely to have been able to escape, even if it was just lit as a decoy like you and your team suggested.” 

“Have you found the bodies yet?” 

Chief Johnson shakes his head, “Not yet, but my men will let you know when they do.” 

“Thank you,” Derek says, waiting until the other man is no longer looking at him before his smile slips off of his face, sighing as he looks back at the warehouse. “Damn it Hotch.” 

___

Three Months Earlier 

“Are you sure it was him?” 

Derek groans as he clenches his fists at his sides, his eyes stern as they meet Spencer’s. 

“Positive,” he chokes out, “he looked at me, he hesitated. It was Hotch.”

“And you said he was with a woman?” JJ asks, her eyebrows furrowing as she leans back in her chair, looking around the conference room at the rest of the team.

“Yes, I have no idea who she was though,” Derek replies, sitting down at the roundtable. 

“I do,” Penelope says as she walks in, plugging her laptop in so it connects to the large screen in the room, a picture of a brunette woman appears on the screen, “Her name is Emily Prentiss.” 

“How did you find this?” Dave asks, his expression somber. 

“I tracked the CCTV,” she explains, “once Morgan said he saw Hotch I followed them until I found a decent image, then I put her picture through the database.” 

“Would she have any idea what he’s done? Is there a chance she’s in danger?” Derek asks, and he turns sharply to look at Dave when he laughs. 

“Danger? Come on Morgan, this is Hotch we’re talking about.”

“He killed a man.”

“Yeah, who killed his son and ex-wife,” Dave replies, any further comment cut off by Penelope. 

“She’s not in danger,”  she says, stopping the familiar argument from going any further, “her file is heavily redacted, with a bit more time I’ll be able to break through, but what I do know is not only is she drop dead gorgeous, but she’s an ex-Interpol agent presumed dead, her car was found burnt beyond recognition. She killed her target without getting the order.” 

Derek sighs, falling into silence before he looks back at the technical analyst. “Now we’ve seen them, can we continue to track them using your programmes?” 

Penelope clears her throat, hesitating before she answers. “Yes, but-”

“Then do it, we need to find them.” 

“Morgan,” Dave says, sighing, “Do we really need to do this? We found him by chance, no one knows she’s alive. We could just leave them to it.” 

“He killed a man,” Derek repeats, holding his hand up to stop any further protests, “regardless of his reasoning, that is what happened and then he ran. We need to find him, it’s the right thing to do,” he looks at the screen, the photos of Aaron and Emily next to each other, “that’s what he taught us.” 

___

She’s packing furiously, the few belongings they had thrown haphazardly into their bags. He watches as the tension rolls off of her, her shoulders tight with it.

“Em-”

“We’ve got to get going, Aaron,” she says, cutting over him as she continues to throw things into their bags, “You said yourself they’ll find us.”

He sighs, reaching out for her, his hands on his shoulders as he turns her around, pulling her into a hug she immediately melts into. 

Aaron often wondered how long she’d been like this. Strong, fiercely independent almost to a fault. He thought it must have been longer than she had been on the run. She’d told him about her childhood, how she’d always felt alone. Their secrets spilling out to each other in cheap motel rooms across the country, trying to take in as much of each other as possible. 

Despite his best efforts he had fallen in love with her. She made him feel like he had during the early years of his relationship with Haley, something he was sure he wouldn’t ever be able to replicate. 

“They aren’t going to in the next five minutes,” he says, guiding her to sit down, gathering her into his side, “you can take a minute to breathe.” 

She leans her head on his shoulder, “Are you sure they just won’t leave it be, just…let us go?” 

He wishes he could console her, that he had less confidence in the people he would have once called his family. But he knew them, he’d trained them. They knew how he valued honesty, the morals he used to structure his life around spreading to all of them as they worked together. 

There was an irony, he thought, to the fact he had created his own downfall. 

“They are very good at what they do. They know me, they’ll find us again.”

She smiles sadly at him, her hand reaching out for his, linking their fingers together to comfort herself as much as she wanted to comfort him. 

“You have a lot of faith in them.” 

“Yeah,” he chuckles dryly, shaking his head, “they used to work for me.” 

Her lips curl upwards even further, a spark of mischief setting off in her eyes. “You have a lot of faith in your ability as a team leader.” 

Aaron narrows his eyes playfully at her, “I was very good at what I did,” he replies, tugging her even closer to him, “I would have even been able to keep you in line.” 

She laughs and wraps her arms around his neck, kissing him quickly, “I don’t think there is a universe where you could ever dream of keeping me in line Agent Hotchner.” 

Their laughter fades, the air around them becoming thick again. “So what do we do now?” He asks, his thumb running back and forth over her wrist. 

“We carry on running until we have nowhere else to run,” she answers, flashing him what she hopes is a reassuring smile.

She knows she’s failed when he tries to do the same before he leans in and kisses her desperately, putting everything they cannot, and would not, say into it. 

___

The days pass by quickly, a sense of inevitably in the air. She hates it, that the closest thing that had found to peace was gone, shattered as quickly as they had created it.

She knows she could leave him, he suggested it at least once a day, but she can’t. Can’t return to the lonely life she had been living before him. She can’t leave him to be caught, knowing it would happen without her. 

The end was coming, lingering on the horizon for them like a ghost. A dawn they never wanted to see. 

“What are you thinking about?” He asks, his hand running up and down her bare spine. She was all but laying on top of him, wanting to soak in as much of him as she could. 

She raises her head, resting her chin on his chest so she could look up at him.  “I think…I think I might be in love with you,” she says, her voice wavering. And despite everything they’ve told each other, the things they’d admitted they’d done, this feels like the biggest divulgence of all. The words are heavy in the air. “And I can’t,” she chokes out, “we can’t. This…I know the way this ends,” she says bitterly, shaking her head at herself as she wipes a tear from her cheek, “and it’s not with us happy and together somewhere.” 

She finally looks up at him, not sure what she’d find. The adoration in his eyes surprises her, and makes her breath catch in her chest. It makes it worse, she thinks, that he clearly feels the same way too. 

“I think I’m in love with you too,” he says, pulling her in for a kiss, “I like to think, in another life, where we made different choices, where less horrible things happened to us, we might have had a chance.” 

She chuckles dryly, biting her lower lip to stop herself from crying. “I like to think that too.” 

She kisses him, and as he rolls them over, pressing her into the motel mattress, she lets herself get lost in it. She imagines a life for them where they could have this forever. 

___

It’s Aaron who spots the SUVs, the familiarity of them making his heart drop into his stomach. He rushes into the gas station where she was buying snacks for them, having been waiting outside for her. 

He finds her in the candy aisle, something that would usually make him smile. “Em-”

“Do you want M&M’s or peanut butter cups? Or…” she turns to look at him, her smile slipping off her face when she sees the tension in his. “Aaron?”

“They are here,” he says, nodding over his shoulder, and she looks outside to see the lineup of SUVs, people she doesn’t recognise but knows he does interviewing people on the opposite side of the street. 

“Shit.” She says, pulling at his arm to move him out of the way of the window. “We need to do something, distract them so we can get out of town.” 

She looks around the gas station, there’s a desperation to her gaze that has him grabbing her hand, linking their fingers together as he squeezes. He wants to remember how it feels to have her hand in his in case this was really the end of it all. 

“I have an idea,” she says, her head tilting towards the gas canisters, “but I don’t think you’re going to like it.” 

___

They slip past the team, something he knows he would never have been able to do without her, her past as a spy coming in handy for what feels like one last time.

The warehouse she drove them to is abandoned, an old factory where clothes were once made, somewhere that used to be the almost derelict town’s main place of work. 

“Are you sure about this?” He asks, watching as she pours gasoline on the ground, the smell burning the back of his throat. She looks up at him, blowing out a steady breath as she drops the empty canister on the ground.

“No,” she chokes out, “Not at all,” she reaches for him, her fingers idly fixing the collar of his polo shirt, “but I’ve disappeared before, I can do it again.” 

Aaron hears sirens, in the distance, slowly getting louder as the people chasing them make their final approach. It strikes him as odd, and a small part of him wonders if it was the team sending him a warning, giving him one final chance. He watches as she gets out the book of matches she’d taken from the motel when they checked out, removing one of them from the packet. 

“Em-”

He says it so softly, it makes her choke on a noise she is sure was once meant to be a laugh. She knows what he wants to say, it’s written all over his face. 

“Don’t,” she says, cutting him off, her hand drifting to his neck, her thumb at his jawline, “don’t say it,” her smile shakes despite her attempts to stop it, “I know,” she says, her voice wavering, “me too.” 

He smiles down at her and nods, his hand at her cheek, his thumb tracing her lower lip. 

“You ready?” He asks, his voice soft. Almost too gentle for the moment they found themselves in. She smiles up at him, pressing a kiss to his thumb. 

“Yes.” 

She lights the match.

-x-

Let me know what you think! <3

-x-

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[letarasstuff]

Normal People don't know their IQ

(A/N): Inspired by me, who recently discovered normal people don’t know their IQ, while I was tested two or three times already...

Summary: A certain someone is the only way to get the UnSub. But there’s also something different that makes her special.

Warnings: Angst (fluffy end, I swear), language, mentions of rape and torture, mention of dead people, the usual CM stuff I guess Wordcount: 2.0k

✨Masterlist✨ _________________________________________

“Garcia, I need you to look into high school teachers, who are suspended or fired for inappropriate behavior towards students and live in the area of the kidnappings”, Hotch orders in a stern voice. But you can’t blame him, after all there are currently six dead teenage girls and one missing. One can only hope and work as fast as possible to get her back to her parents alive.

The team is working a case in Sacramento, California. Teenage girls get abducted on their way home from school, are held for exactly a week and are killed by a simple cut to their throat. The torture they have to endure beforehand isn’t as simple. The last two also show signs of rape.

The dumbing sites are different parks all over the city. The placing happens overnight only to have the girls found the next morning by a clueless jogger or stroller.

“Let’s go over the profile again, I feel like we are missing something”, Rossi commands. His gut feeling tells him only that much, he just has to find out what it is.

“It’s a white male in his mid thirties to late forties. He blends in, so he has to be or has been a teacher. Someone who looks like they belong into a school isn’t suspicious”, Spencer counts the facts.

“The victims all look similar, probably resembling an ex-wife or girlfriend”, Morgan adds. Before he can get into the depth of the torture a phone rings.

“My lovely crime fighters, I got an address. Charles Collins. philosophy and history. Got suspended for suggestive talk towards his female students. He is also said to stare at them and certain body parts for way too long and way too obvious. Gross. Annnd that- wait”

“What is it, Garcia?” Hotch asks after a moment of silence, which is unusual for the ever bubbly tech analyst.

“You got your profile wrong. Collins doesn’t take these girls because of an ex flame.”

The team looks at each other in confusion. Garcia always stresses how she isn’t a profiler and can’t judge over people, because she only wants to see the good in them. How is she able to tell that the profile is off?

“Shoot baby girl, we don’t have much time left”, Derek urges her. He wants nothing more than to have this SOB finally behind bars. The whole team wants that.

“He has a daughter. Technically it’s not his daughter, it’s someone else’s, but he is her foster father. Go and please save both girls!”

Penelope doesn’t have to say it twice. After a brief thank you and goodbye the team is on their way to the given address. As soons as they get there, everyone notices the absence of a car in the driveway. Hotch sends Spencer, Emily and Derek through the back door, the rest goes in from the front.

“FBI! OPEN UP!”

It’s needless to say that nobody opens up. There is no other way than kicking the doors down.

After entering the house and clearing the first floor, Rossi points towards the stairs that leads to the first story. There are only two rooms. A bathroom right hand and a closed door left hand.

Morgan counts quietly down before also kicking this door down and screaming “FBI!” But he seemingly talks with air, because there is no one to be found. Once again the team swarms out to look for evidence or clues.

As Spencer looks through the room they cleared last, he sees various things that make him smile. Several bookshelves are flooded with all kinds of genres, authors and covers. At first he can’t make out in which way they are sorted. But a closer look makes him realize that they are sorted by the author’s birth year. The doctor is kind of impressed, because that means the person knows when they are born in order to find a certain book. He likes the idea, it is a nice little challenge.

While he investigates further a sound makes him stop. He sends a text to Emily and waits for her. When she enters the room Spencer gestures to her to keep it quiet. Then he points to the bed.

They lower themselves down to the floor at the same time on each side of it. A girl, no older than 14 years, lays there shivering in angst. With big doe eyes she looks at Spencer and whispers:

“Please don’t hurt me.”

A while later the team is back at the station with the girl sitting in one of the interrogation rooms. The temperature is already set down, though Hotch feels really bad for it. Still there is another girl out there waiting to be safed.

“Baby girl, what can you give us on her?” Morgan sets his phone in the middle of the table and switches the speaker on.

“Our little girl’s name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N), fourteen years old. Parents were deemed to be unable to look after her since they are both heavy drug addicts and didn’t even register her crying for two hours straight. Since the age of six months she bounces through the system with nobody wanting to keep her longer than two years. They claim she is too smart for them and want somebody to look after her, who can challenge her intellectually.

“Collins took her in one and a half years ago. He got her signed up in several activities after school, like chess and academic decathlon. As of right now she is a junior with an opportunity to graduate next year. Her teachers describe her as incredibly bright with a complicated way of thinking.”

“Complicated way of thinking? Her intelligence was neglected for years, so she gave herself her own challenges. I found her books sorted by the birth year of the authors. She found ways of making things more difficult for herself, that’s why she fabricated strange ways of thinking. This is often found in children with high intelligence, who are not boosted enough by their environment”, Spencer explains, getting more and more furious.

His colleagues feel that this is a sensitive subject for their resident genius. JJ comfortably puts a hand on his shoulder, making the tense go away.

“Emily and Dave, I want both of you to interrogate her. We need to know where he hides the girls. JJ, try to hold the press off for a bit longer. Morgan, Reid, I want you to watch and look for tells or anything else”, Aaron orders.

Everyone works on their given task immediately.

You don’t need to be a profiler to see that (Y/N) is scared out of her mind. She has her feet on her chair and her head lies on her knees. When the two agents enter, she tries to at least fake some kind of composer. But she fails miserably at it.

“Hello (Y/N), may I call you that?” Emily begins in a soft voice. The teenager nods shyly. “Good, (Y/N). My name is Emily Prentiss and this is David Rossi. We are agents from the Behavior Analysis Unit from the FBI. Do you know why you are here?” The teenager shakes her head.

“Ok, let’s cut the chase”, David's voice booms through the small room. “You know exactly why you are here. From what we saw in your room you are an incredibly smart girl. How high is your IQ? 130? 135?”

“147 a-actually”, she nervously corrects the agent, never meeting his eye. The team notices this fairly quickly.

“Even better, normal people don’t know their IQ. So you know what your forster father does. You saw the news, you read the papers, you heard your classmates talk. In addition to that, the girls look alarmingly similar to you. And all of the sudden Charles is more often out than usual. So do us a favor and come clear.” Then he pulls out a picture from a manila folder on the table. Emily tries to intervene.

“Rossi, don’t. She is not the UnSub. (Y/N) is just unfortunate to be at the wrong place.” “She might as well be another UnSub if she doesn’t do anything to help us. Do you know how long you are going to jail for helping hi-”

“I don’t know anything. I- of course I saw what is h-happening. A-and I connected the dots a long time a-ago. You know, Charles lost his job and that’s a stressor. T-then Child Service was investigating him, because of the suspension’s reasons. I-I couldn’t do anything. I had no evidence, the police wouldn’t believe me. I asked him once wh-what he thinks about, you know, what’s happening. He slapped me and told me to not talk about it again. I’m so sorry, I wanna help. The only thing that comes into my mind is an old cabin he once mentioned when I first arrived at his. B-but I don’t know if it helps you. P-please, I don’t want to go to jail or juvenile, I-” Then (Y/N) breaks down into tears.

Emily is in an instant by her side trying to calm her down, while Hotch gives the information to Garcia. As soon as she finds the location, JJ takes a seat next to (Y/N) and the rest of the team flies out.

“You don’t have to be scared of him anymore, Sweetheart. My colleagues will find him and he will be tried and convicted. He will never be a threat to you again”, the blonde tries to comfort her.

“Whenever I leave an abusive home, there will be another one that’s exactly the same. The only difference with Charles was that he seemed to understand me. He helped me. There’s nobody who is willing to do what he did for me”, she admits sadly.

It breaks JJ’s heart, because her words are true. Even though he is a killer, Collins did help her. But she is also determined to show the young girl that he isn’t the only one who can do that. That there are more people out there, who are kind and as helpful if not more.

Not long after this the team brings the man into the station, Morgan guiding him with a deadbolt-like grip.

Rossi spots (Y/N) in a break room with a hot drink in her hands. While making his way over there, Spencer follows him. He wants to talk with her as well.

“(Y/N) I’m sincerely sorry if I hurt you earlier. I didn’t intend to scare you, we just had to act quickly and you were the only source of information available. I also wanted to tell you, that your achievements are astonishing and I guarantee you a bright future, maybe even at the FBI”, he winks at the end of his last sentence.

“I understand, Agent Rossi. But doesn’t everybody know their IQ? I assumed everybody gets at least tested once in their life in some way”, she asks with surprise in her voice.

At that the older man is speechless. Of all things she could accuse him of legitimately, (Y/N) goes with the most innocent question.

“Actually, not everybody gets tested. A reliable test has to be done by a psychologist and most people don’t go to one. Furthermore there has to be a valid reason to do one, that’s why a great part of the population doesn’t know their IQ”, intervenes Spencer. He has to infodump, since the last time was over half an hour ago.

“But you also have to differentiate between the several kinds of intelligence, because intelligence is way more than being good at math. There…”

Rossi stopped listening to the excited interaction between the two geniuses. Instead he watches their body languages and facial expressions. He hasn’t seen both of them more at calm than they are now.

After all there might be a way for (Y/N) to get a little Happy End.

[yourmidnightlover]

never stop loving me

Summary - Spencer lashes out at y/n after being upset for a while, only to be far too harsh and push her away.

TW: mean spencer, swearing, bomb, injured reader, kissing

WC - 5,647

masterlist

-----------------------------------------------------------

spencer had been acting weird lately.

and it wasn't his normal, quirky, adorable weird self. it was quiet. too quiet. he didn't ramble like he usually did when you brought anything up.

he was distant. he didn't sit beside you on the plane ride home, or hold your hand as you drove the both of you to your shared apartment.

you didn't want to push him to say anything he didn't want to, but you were getting worried. you rarely had to corner him into talking, but there was the occasional time where you knew he wouldn't get through whatever it was eating himself up until he spoke up and voiced the words in his mind.

so when you both entered the apartment, you hung your coat up on the hook and placed your bag beside the couch as you plopped down.

"spencer?" you asked quietly as he hung his coat up. he turned to face you as you began to pat the seat beside you, wanting him to sit down. he complied with a huff as you took note that he sat at nearly the other end of the couch.

"what?" he asked without looking at you, you could sense the attitude in his voice.

"i'm worried about you," you whispered. "can you open up? what's bothering you right now?" you moved closer to him and placed a hand on his lower thigh comfortingly.

"you're worried about me?" he spat out, looking at you incredulously. "i'm sure that's true," he scoffed sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he flicked your hand off his leg.

"spencer why would yo-" you started as you scooted closer to him on the couch.

"why would i what? why would i not believe you when you ask me that? you're a smart girl, y/n. figure it out," he nearly yelled at you as he began to get up from the couch. you grabbed his hand with both of yours, not wanting him to leave you like that.

"please, spence. i just need to kno-"

"you should be able to figure it out yourself!" he shouted. "and stop touching me! oh my god all you ever do is touch me! did you ever think that maybe something's wrong with you if you have to always be touching someone? god! just don't ever touch me! you're so annoying! what the hell is wrong with you?"

"i-i'm sorry. i didn't think it wa-" you started apologizing.

"exactly! you didn't think! you never think about anyone but yourself! you never stopped to think about how fucking uncomfortable you touching me is! i hate being near you. i can't do it," he started shaking his head as he ran his hands over his face.

"wh-what?" you asked as the teas you didn't know were gathering in your eyes began spilling down your cheeks.

"you heard me," he said as he started to turn around. "i'm just gonna sleep alone tonight," he started walking towards your bedroom.

"i'll sleep on the couch," you spoke up before he made it to the room, he stopped in his tracks. "your back's been hurting lately, and you're too tall to fit on the couch comfortably. i'll sleep on the couch," you whispered, partially afraid that he wouldn't be able to hear you, wiping at the tears.

"whatever," he said as he finished his journey into the bedroom, not bothering to look at you.

you wanted to wait until he was asleep to get any blankets or anything, so the only things going through your mind were his words to you.

what the hell is wrong with you?

i hate being near you...

just don't ever touch me!

you weren't sure what was bothering him this much, but if you knew anything about spencer it was that that man could hold a grudge.

when emily had 'come back from the dead' it was like it was a different kind of person. it wasn't the spencer you fell in love with and you knew it, but that doesn't excuse his words.

so, you did what anyone in your position would do. you gave him space. you dialed the number of a trusted friend and colleague, praying she would pick up.

"hello?" the groggy voice rang out from the phone speaker.

"hi," you meekly replied. "sorry, i know it's pretty late. i umm," you sniffled, "i just didn't know who else to call."

"what happened, y/n? are you hurt? is everything okay?" she asked worried.

"yea, yea. everything's okay," you sighed. "i think spencer might just need some space is all."

"ummm, okay. is there anything i can do?"

"actually, yea? i hate to ask you this or put you in a weird position, but i was wondering if i could stay with you for a while?" you rambled out.

"of course you can. do you even have to ask?" she replied quietly.

"oh my gosh, you're a lifesaver. i-it might not be for long, i'm not really sure," you began. "it might be until spencer is ready, o-or maybe until i umm," you sniffled again, "until i find my own place?"

"that's okay, honey. i promise," she answered sweetly.

"thank you so much. i owe you, em," you sighed as you wiped the tears from your cheeks.

"don't even worry about it, y/n. i'm glad you came to me. are you coming here tonight?"

"if you don't mind... i'm not sure if spencer would want to see me when he umm, when he wakes up," you nodded even though she couldn't see you.

"okay. i'll be waiting."

"alright. i'll probably leave in like half an hour. bye."

"bye," she replied before you hung up.

you snuck into your bedroom, and noticed how spencer was sleeping peacefully.

you had began as friends at the bureau. you didn't even think of him in a romantic way until he admitted his feelings after one drunk night out with the team. it was sweet, a bit sloppy, but sweet.

he kept rambling about how beautiful you were, and how good you smelt when you would lay your head on his shoulder to fall asleep or when you were cuddled up on your couch watching movies. he told you about how you made him feel like less of a weirdo when he would ramble about things he knew, just wanting to be liked by others.

he mentioned how he loved that he could come to you for anything at any time. he also told you about how he appreciated that when you met him, you didn't try to shake his hand. you knew how uncomfortable he was with touching a stranger and allowed him to make the first move. you let him be the one to cross the bridge that was physical touch because you were just that caring for others, and that's truly what he loved about you from the beginning.

then he said that he would never tell you how much he liked you because he never wanted those things to stop.

by that time, you had already driven him back to his place, and helped him into bed. he begged you to stay, so you obliged kindly and opted to take the couch. he told you to stay in the bed with him. he was the one to pull you closer onto his chest. he was the one to stroke you hair as you fell asleep to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

he didn't even remember that night. he woke up with you in his arms, content with the warmth you provided him. he loved the way you instinctively curled into his chest even more.

you never brought it up.

then you realized that you felt the same for him on one of the later cases. you wanted to hold him while he cried, and rejoice with him when he had his wins. you wanted to hear his stupid rants about something as miniscule as sprinkles on a birthday cake. you wanted that closeness he graced you with. you just wanted him.

and now, as you picked a few more pieces of clothes to pack, you heard rustling coming from the sheets. you turned to see spencer now sitting up in bed, looking at you.

"...hi," you whispered with tight lips.

"what're you doing?" he asked. you couldn't tell what he was thinking since it was still dark.

"i'm umm, i was gonna stay with emily for a while," you said as you wiped the tears from your cheeks for the thousandth time. "i um, didn't think you'd want me to be here when you woke up," you nodded as you folded the clothes in your hands. "i was going to leave in about 20 minutes, so i'll be out soon," you felt your lip quivering.

you didn't want to cry in front of him. maybe it was that you wanted to have a sense of dignity, but if it came down to it you would bet that you just didn't want him to feel bad. even after he basically said he hated you.

because that's who you were.

you were a touchy person. that's how you show love to others. that's how others know you care for them.

but now he said he hated that about you.

he hated the way you would gently graze his hand with yours when you could tell he was upset. he hated the way you ran your hand through his hair when he was stressed. he hated the way you placed your hand on his shoulders when he was sad or frustrated.

he hated you.

and he just looked at you standing there. he didn't say anything. he looked at you as tears welled in your eyes from his words.

the words that felt like a burning blade being dragged along your spine. the words that felt like bile rising from your stomach.

"i'll just go now," you said as you ran out of the room and into the living room, not noticing the way that spencer followed you.

"hey," spencer spoke up as you piled the clothes into your go bag that was still beside the couch.

"yea?" you sniffled, not bothering to look at him while pulling on the sweater that was keeping you warm.

when you finally turned to see him he was looking at you with a blank expression. he was looking at the sweater you were wearing. you looked down at it, not remembering it was one of his he had let you worn during the case in north dakota. it was the one you wore when you realized your feelings for him, almost a month after he admitted them for you.

the one you wore when you shared your first kiss in the snow.

"oh," you said as you felt the tears build up again. "you... want it back?" you asked as the tear fell down your face, leaving a burning sensation that felt far better than what you felt inside.

he didn't say anything. you couldn't even see him since the tears were blinding you. so, you slowly unbuttoned the sweater and folded it nicely as you handed it to him.

"i-i'm sorry," you sniffled. "i didn't um - i didn't want to make you un-uncomfortable," you said as you zipped the bag up and grabbed your keys, heading to the door. "just know that i um, i love you."

and you were gone. you rushed out of the door. you didn't want to wait to see if he would tell you he loved you back, scared that you'd be waiting for a lifetime. so you ran to your car and drove off to emily's place, leaving spencer standing in the living room, frozen from what just happened.

but you couldn't see his heart breaking in return. he pulled his sweater up to his face and recognized the sweet scent of you on it that made him break down.

when he noticed how cold you were from the snow from forgetting your jacket at the hotel, he automatically gave you his. he didn't even care how cold he would get - just that you'd be a bit more comfortable.

he draped the sweater over your shoulders to help you put it on, and rubbed your arms for more friction to get you more warm. then, when you turned to look him in the face, you leaned in slowly and grabbed his face.

"can-is this okay?" you asked kindly.

he didn't even respond. he just connected his lips with yours after giving you the brightest smile. he relished in the moment of feeling content, whole, peace. you.

and now you gave him back that very sweater.

in reality, he was looking at the sweater you were wearing as a sign of hope. he thought that maybe since you were still wearing it, he hadn't completely squandered his chance of forgiveness with you.

but you gave him his sweater back with tears in your eyes.

he made you cry.

he drove you away.

when emily answered the door, you broke down in her arms, which was quite the role-reversal.

you were always the one to comfort the other team members. you never really went to anyone for help, you never wanted to burden them with your problems when they all had lives. you just wanted to help them. that's just how selfless you were.

"i'm here, y/n," emily consoled you. "let it out, sweetie. that's it," she stroked you hair as she led the two of you to the couch so you could cry in her arms.

when you finally calmed down a little bit, you started apologizing.

"i'm so sorry. i know it's really late, i just didn't know who else to go to and i'm just so..." you sniffled.

"don't worry about it. i'm glad you came to me. now, care to tell me what happened?"

so you told her. everything.

okay, so you made him seem like less of a douche bag, but you told her. you just tried to explain to her his side of the story, trying to be more understanding.

"and you feel bad? you aren't mad at him?" she questioned in disbelief.

"yea, of course i feel bad. being myself has made him uncomfortable, em. how could i be mad at him when i'm so hopelessly in love with him?" you asked in question.

"oh, sweetheart," she said as she pulled you back into a hug.

she had a plan.

okay, it wasn't much of a plan.

it was more of just chewing him out.

but she knew that would work.

because she also knew how much he loved you. and she knew there had to be a reason he was treating you like that.

the next day you had gotten called in at 4 a. m. with a new case. you drove to the office with emily and walked in behind her. once you saw spencer sitting at the round table in his normal seat beside yours, you felt a kind of rage boil inside of you.

he was just sitting there with a gloom look on his face, not trying to apologize for what he had said to you or anything. you'd thought that maybe he'd even look at you by now but he hasn't even noticed your presence. nothing.

you huffed, walking over to sit in a chair you normally wouldn't be in. spencer finally turned to see it was you who sat down, so you looked him up and down before turning your eyes towards hotch who was giving you all the briefing.

there was a bomber in charleston, california. he would send bomb to local corporations that had a history of animal testing. He was essentially trying to rid the world of those who harm animals, which is quite ironic since that involved killing humans.

each of the buildings were two stories, yet the bomb didn't level it. that's how you knew the bomb was meant to send a message rather than kill more people.

so until his message was spread and out in the open for all people, he'd continue to kill people without hesitation. human life wasn't valuable to him, so it was your job to stop him.

once you had gotten to california, you had all been divided into teams. you went with morgan and spencer to the most recent bomb site to analyze anything they might've missed.

the entire scene smelled like burnt papers, no surprise there. aside from the fact that people had previously died where you were standing, the tension in the air was so thick it felt as though the smoke had remained from the explosion.

you had avoided spencer, tried to talk to him as little as possible when you had to. unless it was for the case, you didn't speak. until hotch decided to room the two of you together.

you had asked the girls if you could room with them, only for them to refuse and make you 'work things out with your beau.' so essentially, you were screwed.

you trudged into the room before spencer had made it, being sure to lock the door behind you just to annoy spencer. was it petty? sure. did he deserve it? yes. would you apologize? absolutely not.

once you turned around, you realized there was only one bed. of course hotch would do that. what a dick. you sighed before placing your things on the couch, deciding that spencer's back pain is completely different than being temporarily locked out of your room. you were truly doing it for yourself so you wouldn't have to hear him complain the next day about his back hurting.

after you had gotten out of the shower, your body in only a small towel, you heard the door knock. you knew it was spencer, his signature knock giving it away, and decided you could open it for him. when he realized you were practically naked and everyone had a view of you from the hallway, he quickly pushed you further inside along with himself and slammed the door shut.

"what the hell, y/n?" he whisper-yelled at you, gesturing to what you were wearing. "anybody could've seen you and you're practically naked!"

"and?" you crossed your arms over your chest. "i don't see why you should have any say so in what i'm wearing."

"you're wearing a towel," he stated as if you hadn't already known.

"and?" you shrugged. "is my body making you uncomfortable? is that why you don't want to touch me, spencer?" you rolled your eyes before turning to get your clothes from your suitcase.

you decided to just strip right in front of him, just to tease him a bit more. you slowly slid the towel down your body, your back still towards spencer as you shimmied into your shorts that barely covered anything. you turned around to get your shirt, revealing your bare chest to spencer who stood in awe of what was happening in front of him. you put your thin shirt on tantalizingly slow, aware that he could probably see your nipples through the fabric, but that was the entire point.

spencer walked over to you slowly, you smiled at him happily as he approached you. when he brought his hands up to cup your face gently, you swatted his hands away from you.

"ah-ahh," you shook your head no. "there's no touching allowed," you rolled your eyes one last time before getting comfortable on the couch, pulling the one extra blanket in the room over your body in an attempt to keep warm.

as the minutes turned into an hour, you felt yourself becoming more upset. his words, even if he didn't mean them, had an impact on you. he couldn't just unsay the words or take them back, that's not how it works. instead, he made you live with the thought and constant worry that you made him uncomfortable by touching him.

and that pained you. that pain turned into tears, which ensued sniffling because of your runny nose. and your tears and sniffles pained spencer even more. he listened in wait as you cried yourself to sleep once more, the sniffled slowing down which told him of your slumber.

when you woke up, you had realized you were awake before spencer. you quickly got ready and made your way downstairs to retrieve some mediocre coffee. deciding to not be a complete asshole, you got spencer his own cup as well just how he liked it and placed it on the bedside table for when he would wake up.

when he did wake up, it was to the smell of coffee beside him. he had obviously realized you had gotten it for him, he wasn't a complete idiot other than the fact that he had hurt you in the first place. when he took a sip of it, it was just as he liked it.

of course it was, he thought, it's you.

since there were so many animal activists that were recorded online, you couldn't really narrow down the suspect range. once you had all made it back to the precinct that morning, they had widdled down all the companies that have ever used testing on animals. there were four companies in total, so you would all split up and investigate each one.

you, of course, had been paired with spencer once again. it was obviously the rest of the team conspiring to get you two to make up, but he hadn't even apologized. and you refused to make the first move.

so as you drove to the company you had been assigned, there was yet again that irritable tension in the air that made it seem like someone could choke on it. you pulled into the parking lot and got out as quickly as you could.

making your way inside, you asked where the owner of the company was while flashing your badge, spencer making his way inside just in time to catch where you were going and follow.

"hi, ma'am," you introduced yourself, extending your hand for her to shake. "i'm here in regards for the-"

"recent bombings? yes, i figured you would be," barbara cooke sighed as she released your hand.

"yes, i'm agent y/n yl/n/ and this is dr. spencer reid," you motioned to him as he gave her an awkward wave. "we were wondering if you've received any recent threats concerning your history in-"

"animal testing? we get those all the time, agent... what was it again?" she asked disrespectfully.

"y/l/n," you informed her once again.

"right, well we get those too often for it to be significant. in fact, we get those almost weekly," she rolled her eyes before turning back to the computer on her desk.

"ma'am, if you wouldn't mind just trying to think of a threat that stuck out to you. one in particular that made it seem as though they might follow through?" spencer asked kindly.

"i actually do mind. i have a company to run and don't need to waste my time on something that won't ever affect me. so please, see yourselves out," she motioned to the door with a sigh.

you and spencer looked at each other before turning around and leaving her office. instead, you decided to ask the employees if they saw anyone that seemed as though they were landscaping the office.

"no, not really. i'm too busy trying to finish the work cooke gives me."

"i'm sorry, no. i try to just ind my own business around here."

"i'm sorry, there have been bombings?"

there wasn't much luck.

you were making your rounds right back to the front of the office, asking nearly everyone that you passed if they noticed anyone suspicious until you noticed a mailman near the front of the room.

he was dressed in an all-brown outfit, but with no logo of what company he worked for. not even a hat to display the name. all the companies that delivered had company logos displayed on the outfits, just to display for publicity.

when you looked around at who was near you, your eyes locked on spencer who was walking towards you, his head down. once you saw the mailman walk out of the office and saw the lady at the front desk begin to open the tape, you grabbed spencer by the arm.

it all happened so quickly.

you pushed spencer out of the door and locked it, blocking him from the blast that would surely ensue, and ran as quick as you could to drag the woman away from the box. you shielded her with your body, turning your back to where the bomb would go off to lessen the impact on her body. before you could even register what happened, you were pushed into the wall cati-corner the desk, knocking you unconscious.

-

spencer didn't know what was happening until he heard the bomb.

he assumed the blast wasn't as intense as it was previously by the fact that the second story was still standing. the blast from the other bombs at least made a bit of a dent in the second story.

in an instant, he realized that he might've lost you forever. the love of his life. gone.

and you were still mad at him. you hated him. you thought he hated you.

once he was able to form a coherent thought, he pulled his phone out and called 911, being sure to tell them there was a possible agent down in an explosion. once he hung up, he mustered up his inner derek morgan and kicked the doors in, it helped that they were already frail due to the explosion.

with the doors now open, smoke flowed out of the now open space, looking for an escape as spencer was looking for his love. all he could hear were coughs and whines of the employees around him. then he felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked to see the face of the lady from the front desk.

"she-she saved me," the woman told spencer in reference to you. "she's over here," spencer helped her navigate himself to where your body lay limp on the ground, drywall covering your face and body.

"oh my god, y/n," he called as he moved the rubbish from your body before looking for a pulse.

he found himself whispering a series of pleas that you were okay, that he would find the pulse in your neck or wrist. that he would feel the warmth off your body against his, be able to touch your skin and have you grab his hand when you were nervous. he wanted you to never stop touching him.

because ever since you had joined the bureau, you had been a touchy person. you were the person people went to when they needed comfort because they wanted a hug. you were the person the team counted on when comforting the mothers or children because you had a comforting touch.

and he wanted that comfort. he needed that comfort right then. but the one person he needed the comfort from didn't think he wanted it from them. you didn't think he wanted you anymore.

so you had to be okay. because he couldn't imagine a world where you weren't his, which sounds so cliche but couldn't be any more true.

ever since you waltzed into his life, he could never remember what it was like without you. what it was like without your hand running through his soft hair. without your hand on his knee underneath the bau table during a meeting. without your face buried in his neck while you were cuddling at night. without your kiss...

without you.

he needed you.

and he found the small, faint, minuscule pulse that beat throughout your body. a gentle but safe way to know you were alive and still with him. maybe you'd still want to be with him.

when the ambulance arrived, he didn't hesitate to hop in the back of the van, opting to call the team to inform them of what happened.

they had put an oxygen mask on you to ensure your safety and had told him that you had a concussion from the blast. they would do further tests once they got to the hospital, which felt like it took forever, according to spencer.

once they had wheeled you away, spencer sat in wait once again. the team slowly trickled in, trying to comfort spencer but ultimately failing. when the doctor finally came in, spencer was the first to jump up and ask how you were.

"she'll make a full recovery, she's rather lucky," he nodded at spencer before checking his chart. "she has three bruised ribs and a minor concussion. she'll be able to fly in a couple of days, but will have to stay out of the field until her ribs are fully healed. she shouldn't be doing any strenuous activities until then as well," he informed the doctor. "other than that she's healthy as a horse."

"thank you. can i see her now?" spencer asked eagerly.

"yes, of course," he nodded before turning around. "right this way."

when spencer came into your room, your eyes were barely open. it looked like you were struggling to stay awake. your face and arms were littered with an occasional bruise, which he's sure were worse on your stomach and legs. your skin was a bit paler than usual, it didn't have that glow you normally had, that liveliness.

but you still looked like you. you still looked beautiful.

spencer took the seat beside your bed and moved it closer to you, taking your hand in his before you snatched it away, turning on your side to face the wall opposite of where spencer sat.

"y/n, please..." spencer pleaded, feeling his eyes well with tears. he thought you were just angry at him until he heard your soft sniffles. "darling, please look at me," he placed his hand on your shoulder, gently pulling you back to face him. you turned yourself back around to face him, eyes red and swollen as your lip was quivering.

"what?" you spat out, trying to maintain your own composure until you saw he was crying himself. you raised your brows in shock before asking him, "what's wrong?"

he laughed, "you're asking me what's wrong?" you nodded. "i'm just so, so sorry i'm sorry i said all those things about you. i'm sorry it took you almost dying for me to apologize. and i'm sorry for ever making you feel like i didn't love you, y/n. i love you so much. every part of you, your touch included. it's anything but annoying. it's comforting, and sweet, and calming, and does so much more to help me than it does hurt or annoy me," he took your hand in his once more, placing a kiss to your knuckles. "i love you so much and i'm so sorry."

"and i'm sorry i had to touch you to push you out of the way of an explosion," you rolled your eyes with a chuckle so he knew you were joking.

"thanks for that, by the way - saving me," he shrugged. "which brings me to my next point... do you know how reckless that was? how dangerous and stupid and how you could have died? because you could have died and if you died i don't know what i'd do with myself. especially knowing you were mad at me when you died," he held your hand to his chest so you could feel how his heart broke in those moments he didn't know if you were alive. the moments he thought he might've lost you forever.

"but i'm alive. i'm right here," you assured him, bringing his hand to your lips this time to press a kiss before holding the one with both of yours. "why'd you say those things anyway? why were you so upset?"

"well remember the officer that was on the case?" you nodded. "remember how he kept touching you?" you rolled your eyes with a nod.

"god, it was so annoying," you interjected.

"well it didn't seem like you thought it was annoying," he avoided eye contact with you, you pulled his arm to get his attention once again.

"are you saying you thought i wanted him to be so handsy?" you questioned, he nodded guiltily. "spencer, are you kidding?" you chuckled. "i had to do that because if he knew i hated him he wouldn't have been so cooperative. i promise, you are the only one for me. you're the only one i want to touch me like that. but that doesn't excuse you talking to me like that. you saying those things hurt me, a lot."

"i know, i know they did... and i plan on making it up to you. i will make it up to you, i swear," he nodded along eagerly.

"yea, you better dr. reid. i'm holding you to that," you huffed out a laugh, spencer following suit as he leaned forward to press a kiss to your forehead.

then to your nose. then right and left cheeks. then your lips. it wasn't a kiss that demanded anything. it wasn't hostile or passionate. it was content. it was a way of showing you love and saying that your love was enough. that you were enough.

"i love you, spencer," you whispered as he pressed his forehead against yours.

"and i love you, y/n," he whispered back. "please never stop loving me the way you do."

[ivyyreid]

pain: gone, gone

description: reader escapes from abductor.

category: fluff

warnings: mention of wounds, blood, and sexual assault

masterlist

the cold breeze blows your already tangled hair. your vision blurs at the edges, and your long t-shirt provides little warmth.

you have been running for what feels like years. you know you lost him, but you have to keep going.

you have no idea where you are. the only visual recognition you have of the small, quiet town is a starbucks. but it’s closed, like everything else. and even if it was open, you wouldn’t be allowed to go in looking the way you do.

you wear nothing but your underclothes and a long t-shirt. your hair is a knotted mess, and your eyes are wild and large. cuts and bruises decorate you’re body, and blood covers any exposed skin. the only place where the blood isn’t present are your cheeks, where tears pushed the blood away.

you have no idea what time it is, only the understanding that it’s late. the sky’s dark, and everything’s closed. if you’re vision and head would stop spinning, you would have been able to guess that it was about 3am, based on the position of the moon in the sky.

your breath is ragged as you search for an open shop, anywhere to get help.

the night and fog seems to swallow you. you don’t have time to wait around for morning. you are about to give up, curl into a ball and wish for death because you should have died weeks ago, but then you see a red beacon of hope.

a telephone booth.

seven weeks and seven hours earlier.

the moonlight casts an eerie glow on the corn maze. you hold your gun out in front of you, your flashlight under it. 

your breath creates small clouds, and the stalks of corn rustle as you prowl through them.

the unsub abducts women in their twenties, sexually abuses them, and tortures them in a variety of ways, all over a span of one to two weeks. and you and the team have tracked him to this small farmhouse. it’s not where he performs the murders, but it’s where he resides.

you lost spencer a few minutes when he took a different turn, but you’re confident in your ability to take down the unsub alone.

a rustling in the distance catches your attention. your body tenses, and you slowly and silently follow the sound. you hold your flashlight out, keeping your hand steady as you turn a corner, two fingers on the trigger of the gun.

but in the next few seconds, your gun will do you no good.

because as you turn the corner, your head collides with cold metal. and you collapse.

present day.

your shakily dial the number etched into your brain. it takes a few tries, because your hands are wobbly and stiff, but the phone eventually begins to ring.

and it rings.

and rings.

and then stops.

“hello, this is penelope garcia, technical analyst for the behavioral analysis unit of the fbi, how can i assist you?”

and the familiar voice clogs your throat. a tear spills from your eyes.

“hello, how can i assist you”

and for the first time in weeks your lips part and almost form a smile.

“hello, is anyone there?”

and you try and control your breathing, try and talk.

“p-p-penel...penelope.” you breathe, your voice hoarse and scratchy from the weeks of silence, and little water.

“oh my god! oh my god! y/n!” she gasps, and you can hear her voice break. but you know she’s happy.

“penel- penelope....please” you choke out, collapsing against the wall of the booth due to exhaustion.

“hold on y/n, i’m locating you.” you hear frantic typing, and penelope speaks again. “we were so worried, we thought you were... we’ve been trying to find you, i can’t believe it’s you!”

they thought i was dead. and the funny thing is, you think you were too. you felt dead. after weeks of laying in a small cell, being repeatedly violated and tortured, you started to feel dead.

“ok y/n, i have your location. we’ll be there as soon as we can. i’m going to hang up now, please be safe”

two-thousand, five-hundred eighty-five miles away.

the team, minus you, sits in the briefing room. sloppy outfits, eye bags, and a hopeless expression is one thing they all share. the common denominator.

everyone has dressed in dark tones, even garcia, like you’re already dead, and they’re attending one big, long funeral.

at first, garcia tried to keep up her usual quirky, colorful outfits, but after two weeks, it started to become hard.

in the past seven weeks, most of the teams time has been spent in the briefing room, looking over files and trying to find leads. the case was closed after a month of silence from the unsub, but the team is still desperately trying to find you.

emily is about to share an idea about where you could be (that is rather far-fetched) but garcia swiftly enters the room.

everyone knows what the wide smile on her face means.

back to y/n.

you’ve been on the phone with garcia for an hour. she says the team is coming. she says you’re in gabbs, nevada.

now she says they’ll be within 200 yards of you in 5 minutes.

the breath leaves your body.

seven weeks. seven weeks with seeing no one but your abuser.

and now your team is coming. your friends are coming to save you.

a few tears slip out of your eyes, and you look at the sky as a joyful sob leaves your body.

“you’re going to be ok, y/n” penelope says.

the sound of speeding vehicles fills your ears. the quiet that you’ve grown accustomed to is gone, replaced with the sounds of your saviors.

you drop the phone, leaving it dangling from the cord, and rush out of the telephone booth into the street. about two-hundred yards away, you see a black suv pull over, and a group of people get out.

your friends.

“i’m here....help!” you try to yell, but it comes out hoarsely, and quiet.

they don’t see you.

but then, someone turns.

a tall, skinny figure. with a mess of brown hair.

and he stands there, shocked.

you run toward him, limping slightly.

“spencer,” you cry, and he runs toward you.

you crash into him, and he pulls you into a hug, kissing your forehead. he’s calling the team on his radio, and he’s crying, and he’s blaming himself, and your tears are mixing, but you don’t feel dead anymore. you’re going to be ok.

you and spencer are silent. just embracing each other, and crying.

the rest of the team comes, followed by an ambulance. emily’s and jj’s and derek’s and hotch’s and rossi’s voices all mix, but the only voice you notice is spencer.

“i thought i lost you,” he says, resting his head on mine. i shake my head feebly, my tears blurring my vision.

“i love you,” he whispers into my head, and i feel my heart stop.

he loves me. and i love him.

he

loves 

me

loves 

him

“i love you too.”

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

The Crossing: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.7k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities." - Christian Nestell Bovee

"How are you and Will doing?" you ask JJ when you enter her office the next morning.

She is sitting at her desk with folders displayed all around her, but that's not the thing you're focusing on. Her very flat stomach has a yellow glow to it, and there is only one reason why her stomach would glow like that.

She's pregnant.

Does she know? Does she want you to know? Does Will know? If you're going to talk about this to her, then you have to let her come to you.

"We're doing just fine," she smiles and fishes around her desk for something.

Either she doesn't know or she doesn't want to talk about it.

"Okay, what did you call me in here for? Not that I'm not happy to see you. I'm always happy to see you."

"I got this letter from someone who is meeting me in ten minutes. I want you to read it."

You grab the letter and read it quickly, your eyes widening in shock. This woman is claiming someone is stalking her, and that she believes she will die soon if she doesn't get help from someone. She has a dog and a husband that she can't fathom leaving behind. It's a powerful letter, you'll give her that.

"Wow. I can see why you'd want to meet with her."

"Agent Jareau?" There is another desk agent knocking on her office door. "Your appointment is here."

"Okay, just one minute."

JJ doesn't have a minute because seconds later, a red-headed woman comes inside her office with a look of determination.

"Hi. I'm Keri Derzmond. I'm the one who sent you the letter."

"Right. I'm agent Jareau and this is agent Y/N."

"I'm sorry to rush in, but when I got the message you'd see me this morning, I could barely sleep last night. That's nothing new, though. I haven't been able to sleep for about two years."

"I just read the letter you wrote to agent Jareau and the Silver Spring police," you say and hand JJ back the letter.

"Begging and pleading wasn't getting their attention. They needed to know I wasn't going away."

"So, you've been getting these notes for the past two years?" JJ asks.

"I used to live in Atlanta. I moved here six months ago, and then out of nowhere another note. I can't live like this anymore. I want my life back."

"What did the police tell you?" you wonder.

"The detective I met with was very sympathetic, but his hands are tied unless something happens to me. Then it will be too late. Will you help me?" she asks.

She's not begging and she isn't complaining. She is confident in what she wants, and you admire that about her.

"I'm presenting the case to our team this morning. I'll let you know what we decide."

Keri sighs and grabs a sticky pad off JJ's desk along with a pen. She starts writing names down while saying them out loud.

"Lou Evans, Ed Derzmond, and Ryan Scott. Those are the people who you'll be calling when you find me dead."

She's really adamant about this being a case, and you really hope Hotch and Rossi believe so as well. They aren't here right now, but you know if they find out you took a case without it being official, you can get into a lot of trouble.

Keri was told to wait downstairs while you and JJ head to the briefing room where Derek, Spencer, and Emily are waiting.

"Where's mom and dad?" Derek jokes as you take your seat next to Spencer.

"Hotch and Rossi are still at the seminar in Boston. We shouldn't wait on this."

"JJ pulled me in early. I agree with her."

JJ puts Keri's picture on the screen for all to see.

"This is Keri Derzmond. Two years ago in Atlanta, she started receiving anonymous notes that meticulously described her whereabouts throughout the day. Local authorities never found out who was responsible. Recently, she moved to Maryland and brought the stalker with her."

"Do they think it's the same person?"

"Yes because he includes pictures of himself."

JJ flips through several pictures of the unsub, but none of them are of his face. It's of his legs, his arms, his hands, etc. It's like he's trying to show off for her without showing his face.

"None of his face. That's very telling. He's either trying to protect his identity or he has self-image issues. He's controlling the parts of his body that he shows to her," Spencer says.

"He writes to Keri in these letters about their 'future' together, like having kids and growing old. He believes Keri is in love with him and just doesn't know it yet."

"Okay, so the guy's clearly delusional, but what makes this a BAU case?" Derek wonders.

"He's so obsessed with her that he tracked her over six hundred miles away. He could kill her, and then how would we feel if we didn't help her?" you ask.

"This is unusual. Typically, a stalker will change his focus to another woman if the object of his affection moves away."

"Y/N, I get that, and he's way past the first level of escalation, but... still."

"When Keri received the first letter in Maryland, she went to the locals for protection. They told her they couldn't help her. This woman is in serious danger, I felt it the second I saw her."

"This case is in my hands now, and if we do nothing and something happens to her, I'll be the one notifying her family," JJ says seriously.

"Okay, I believe you two," Derek shrugs.

Once Keri hears you'll be helping her, she is over the moon. She was so excited that she left back to Maryland the first chance she got. Her place is only an hour drive from Quantico, and Derek drives quicker than the average person.

You make it in forty-five minutes.

Keri didn't want you to meet at her house in fear Ryan, her fiance, will get upset over this. She asked for you to meet her at her office while the rest of the team sets up base at the police station. JJ has been on the phone since you got into the state, and she is now getting off it when you arrive at Keri's office.

"What was that about?"

She didn't seem too happy over the phone.

"Bureaucratic red tape. Every case we take, I have to explain why in terms of cost and size how it relates to the BAU. They don't always think it's worth it."

"I mean, I'm all for being here and helping, but they do have four agents doing the work locals should."

"Just because there isn't a dead body doesn't mean we shouldn't take the case."

"I know that, JJ. I'm with you on this one. I just understand where they're coming from."

"Y/N," JJ sighs and stops outside of the building. "Last year in Denver, a woman was being harassed by her ex-boyfriend. Cops knew who he was, but they couldn't arrest him. We didn't take that case. She was finally granted a restraining order three days after he threw acid in her face. Right now, I don't care about limited resources. I cannot make that same mistake again."

"JJ, I understand. You don't have to explain yourself to me. I got your back."

When Keri lived in Atlanta, the initial communication between her and her stalker happened at her job. Then, it started getting more personal by involving her home. The first card he ever sent her is most likely an anniversary date of when they met or when he first saw her.

March 21, 2006.

It was a Tuesday, so your team should focus on other Tuesdays, the 21st in previous months, and March of 2005. If your team can figure out what makes the date important to the stalker, it can trace his connection back to Keri."

You and JJ head inside the building and up to Keri's office. She eagerly greets you when she sees you.

"So, Keri, why did you move to Maryland?" you ask, getting down to business.

"Ryan lives here, and my firm just opened an office. The move wasn't because of the stalker, although the police back in Atlanta thought it was a good idea. I'm always cautious, but for the first time, I felt that if I looked over my shoulder, no one would be there."

"We need you to make a list of names of everyone you know, even acquaintances, both here and in Georgia," you say. "Don't forget ex-boyfriends either. Nothing is insignificant."

"Of course. If I knew what I was doing to make this guy so obsessed, I'd stop," she sighs.

"When your paths crossed, something clicked with him. If you were smiling, he probably thought you were smiling at him," JJ explains.

"We have no way of knowing what his fantasy is. What we do know is you're the star of it."

Someone knocks on her door, and it looks like she could be Keri's assistant.

"Ryan is on line one. He says it's an emergency."

Keri is quick to pick up the phone.

"Are you okay? ... Yeah, they're here now." She puts Ryan on hold and looks like she is about to cry. "Ryan's at home. There's another card and a box at the door."

"Tell him not to touch it. We're on our way now," you order.

Keri does as she's told, and then the three of you head to her house to inspect the package.

"Here it is. I appreciate you driving Keri home. Ever since this guy showed up again, I've been taking her everywhere," Ryan says once you arrive.

"Would he send something that could hurt me?" Keri asks.

"Probably not, but we don't want to take any chances."

"Do you really think this guy would do something like that after all this time?"

"At this point, you haven't done anything to provoke him, but it's never too early to be cautious."

There is a note that JJ inspects with gloves on her hands, and you take the gift in your own gloved hands. It's a small gift box that might hold jewelry in it. Almost immediately, you connect with the energy he attaches as soon as he adds a bit of himself to the gift. You close your eyes and see a wall of pictures of Keri.

Though, it's not a typical wall. It's kind of like a wall inside a van or a very large car. You're not getting anything on the unsub, but his passion for Keri is what makes you see this.

"What did you see?" JJ asks you.

"The wall of a van or some large car with dozens of pictures of Keri taped to it."

"I'm sorry, did you say 'see'?" Keri asks you.

"I am an empathetic psychic that connects with energies and spirits. The passion this man has for you attached itself to this gift, and I am able to use that energy to create a picture of sorts. The picture led to a wall of your face dozens of times."

"At this point, I am willing to accept any kind of help," she sighs.

You take the top of the box off before removing the velvet jewelry box. You open it carefully to reveal a pair of old-looking earrings.

"Rest easy, it's just earrings," you show the couple.

"They look like antiques."

"He says they were his grandmother's like a family heirloom," JJ says after she read the note.

"He wants to make you a part of his family by giving these to you."

"Well, we have the back of his head now," JJ scoffs at the picture he took. "He hopes that you give him a gift soon, too."

"What does that mean?"

"We should probably get this back to the station and start a trace," you say and box up the earrings again.

"Can you find him that way?" Ryan asks.

"First-class mail is harder to track, but we'll see."

"Officers will be driving by your house periodically looking for anything suspicious. Plus, you have my number if anything happens," JJ offers. "We'll call and let you know if we find anything."

"Thank you."

You and JJ leave Keri's office with the note, the picture, and the gift.

"His confidence is building, and now he wants something. What do you think that is?" JJ asks you.

"I don't know, but I'm scared about what happens when she doesn't give it to him."

The rest of the team is waiting for you at the station, but because tracing the gift and note is going to be a lot harder than one would think, and the fact that you have nothing else to go off of, the only thing you can do now is to wait and hope nothing else happens.

But when do you ever get what you want?

The stalker made an appearance at Keri's place last night while you were sleeping. He stole her dog in an attempt to either get to know her or to get a reaction out of her. The rest of the team is at the police station with all the evidence including what happened last night while you and JJ are at Keri's house talking to Ryan and Keri.

JJ is nervous about something, and your eyes flit down to her stomach. The yellow glow hasn't disappeared yet as if it could disappear. She's acting like she doesn't know, but she's giving off the impression that she does. Her energy and behavior tell you she knows, but her words say differently.

You want to ask her about it, but you don't want to come off as pushy. Especially about a subject as delicate as this one. It took a whole year for her to come out publicly with Will, and a child's upbringing is a lot more intense than that.

"Are you sure you're okay?" you whisper to JJ when Keri gets Ryan from upstairs.

"Yes. Why do you keep asking me that?"

"No reason. Sorry," you bite your lower lip nervously.

"Have you found our dog?" Ryan asks when he comes downstairs with his fiance.

"We haven't found your dog, but we do have more of an insight into who this guy is. Based on the pictures he's provided us, it's clear he's trying to mirror you, Ryan. He's even got the same haircut as you. He's trying to replicate what Keri's attracted to."

"When he starts feeling good about himself, he's gonna find the courage he needs to actually meet her."

"What does this have to do with our dog?"

"Taking the dog might not seem like much to you, but it tells us that he's desperately trying to feel close to her. He was bold enough to break into her backyard. Add that to his proven determination and we've got ourselves a serious escalation here. By putting the fliers up this morning, we might actually get him to call you."

"Why would he do that?" Ryan asks.

"He wants to prove how much he cares, or he won't call if he's jealous of how much attention the dog is getting. If he really believes that he's ready to eliminate all of his competition, Ryan could be next."

"Do you think he's got the guts for a confrontation?"

"He moved here and took Brodie. He's not going to let anything get in his way," JJ answers.

"He cares about Keri. Maybe he won't hurt her. He hasn't yet."

"He doesn't want to, but if he feels like he's gonna lose her, then he will," you sigh.

"Lose her?"

"He's been rejected his entire life. To escape, he built a vivid fantasy world in which someone accepted him. Worst-case scenario, he gets you alone. In this case, it would be important for you to play along with his delusions. I stress that very much here."

"You mean to tell him I love him?" Keri shudders.

"Within reason, do what he wants until you can get to safety. By gaining his trust, he'll let his guard down, and that's when you can make your move."

"Do you think it could come to that?" Ryan asks worriedly.

"Not if we can help it. We're gonna have to comb through your life ever since he's been a part of it."

"Haven't we already done that?" Keri sighs.

"We're talking about each and every moment for the last two years. The answer could be in the smallest detail."

"Okay. Please, come sit," Keri says, inviting you to the couch in the living room. JJ follows her inside, but you need Penelope to dig up what she can so there are no surprises when you talk to her.

x

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[parkerslatte]

Fun & Games [Chapter Two]

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Series Summary: After getting up close and personal on a case, neither Y/N nor Spencer can get enough of one another.

Part Summary: It's a paperwork day and Y/N and Spencer can't help but let their longing gazes continue throughout the day.

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: light smut. This series and 18+ series MINORS DNI

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***

CHAPTER TWO: JUST FRIENDS

The very next day at work, Y/N was surprised to find herself there before the majority of people. The only ones in work were Hotch and Rossi and both were already in their respective offices already tackling their paperwork for the day. Looking at the stack of work on her desk, Y/N sighed and headed to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. As she stood there in silence, she suddenly regretted not getting one before work started. However, in her defence, she was distracted. 

Ever since the incident between her and Spencer happened while they were undercover at the restaurant the day previous, Y/N hadn’t been able to get her mind off it. The feeling of his body pressed tightly against hers and his hands roaming her body. When their lips connected for the first time and Spencer flipped their positions so her back was against the wall. All of these thoughts gave her butterflies in her stomach. Butterflies that Y/N didn’t want.

It was one way to think of a co-worker in a romantic setting but a friend - let alone a best friend. Y/N didn’t want to be having these thoughts, especially not when her desk was located diagonally across from hers. Their kiss was nothing but professional in a professional setting. 

As soon as Y/N finished making her coffee and headed back to her desk, the bullpen had already begun to fill up. Derek was sitting at his desk as was Emily and JJ. Y/N gave them all a smile as a greeting before sitting down at her own desk. Without meaning to, Y/N’s gaze shifted over to Spencer’s desk and found it vacant; there was no sign of the resident genius. With a small shrug of her shoulders, Y/N got to the pile of work she had to get through that day.

Not even five minutes into her work, Y/N was already interrupted by Spencer tumbling into the bullpen. Of course, there was a small look of shock on everyone’s faces at Spencer’s late arrival as he is mostly always early to work but that wasn’t all they were shocked at. His hair was a mess and stuck up in several different places. The first few buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned and his tie was undone - not a typical Spencer Reid look.

“Sorry I was late, my alarm didn’t go off.” Spencer mumbled as he tried his best to flatten his hair and sort out his appearance as he made his way to his desk. 

Y/N couldn’t help but let her eyes wander over him. As soon as she realised what she was doing, she gently shook her head of any thoughts before returning to the pile of work on her desk. Despite her only thinking about Spencer moments ago, Y/N easily slipped back into the routine of her work without much hassle. All she wanted to do was get through her work as quickly as possible and head home to yet again her empty apartment and watch television all night.

For at least forty minutes, Y/N had been in a perfect routine and nothing had distracted her. If she were lucky she would be able to go home early. It wasn’t until she reached to the side to take a sip of her coffee that her routine had been interrupted. Her mug was empty, disrupting the flow of her work. Sighing, Y/N leaned back in her chair, she wanted to get a new cup of coffee but she didn’t want to stand up and walk over to the kitchen area to make one. It wasn’t lazy, it just wasn’t efficient. 

As her eyes scanned around the bullpen, everyone was engrossed in their work - just like Y/N has been until she was interrupted by her empty mug. Her eyes scanned over Derek’s desk, then Emily’s, then JJ’s and then finally Spencer’s. However Spencer wasn’t hunched over doing his work like everyone else, he was staring directly at her. Their eyes made contact and Y/N couldn’t help but feel everything else melt away. 

Ever since Y/N had known Spencer, she always knew that he had nice eyes but it wasn’t until the previous night that she realised how beautiful they really were. There was a warmth to his eyes that just drew you in. Now whenever Y/N looks into Spencer’s eyes, she can just think of the desperation within them after their kiss and that image was seared into Y/N’s brain. 

The two only broke eye contact once someone walked past Y/N’s desk, breaking their eye line. As the person passed Spencer was staging down at his desk again. Letting out a small sigh, Y/N went back to her work abandoning her mug of nothingness. 

The flow of Y/N’s work was ruined completely. She couldn’t get back into the routine she was originally in before. Mainly because she was getting thirsty but was too stubborn to go and get herself a drink and secondly because of the fact that she and Spencer would occasionally make eye contact from across the bullpen. Whenever they turned away the corners of their lips turned up in a slight smile. They thought no one noticed these small barely noticeable interactions but someone did. 

The next time Y/N was interrupted from her work it was Penelope marching over to her desk. She had this look on her face that Y/N had never seen before. It sort of looked like...betrayal?

“Hey Penny,” Y/N greeted her blonde friend, “What’s up?”

“What’s up? I’ll tell you what’s up!” Penelope said, before leaning down to Y/N to whisper harshly in her ear, “You and boy genius kissed!”

Y/N’s eyes widened, even though Penelope had the decency to whisper it into her ear, the whisper was still pretty loud to hear. She was lucky that Spencer was still engrossed in his work. 

“Okay, Penelope, let’s just keep our voices down-” Y/N said.

“So it is true?” Penelope said, “I should’ve been the first to know. That’s what I’m here for, to help you and Reid finally figure out your feelings toward one another.”

“That’s technically not what you’re here for, you’re the technical analyst,” Y/N states, “And yes we did kiss but it meant nothing, we had to do it to lure the unsub closer, he was losing interest.”

“And you didn’t feel anything after?” Penelope questioned, “Like nothing?”

“I didn’t feel anything at all.” Y/N lied. Of course she felt something after kissing Spencer, she was thinking about it all night and whenever she made eye contact she was brought back to that moment. 

“If you didn’t feel anything why did Derek say that the two of you have been eye-fucking all afternoon?” Penelope questioned.

Y/N raised an eyebrow before looking over Penelope’s shoulder to look directly at Derek Morgan who was just looking back at Y/N with a small smirk on his face. Y/N turned back to face Penelope.

“We were not eye-fucking, it just so happend that he looked up whenever I did and vice versa. It was all coincidence.” Y/N said.

Penelope sighed, not satisfied with her answer, “Y/N, you know I love you but you seriously need to figure out whatever is going on with you and Reid. Ever since you started working here he’s come out of his shell more, he even flirts with you while working.”

“It’s exactly what you and Derek do!” Y/N defend.

“Yes but both Derek and I know that we don’t mean anything by it, with you and Reid, there is always this sexual tension whenever the two of you flirt. It’s so thick you can cut it with a knife.”

“No there isn’t.” Y/N denies.

“You might not be able to see it but everyone else does, even Hotch and Rossi, and it’s driving us all crazy.” Penelope says.

“I highly doubt that this so-called sexual tension between Spence and I is driving everyone crazy, I don’t think Hotch and Rossi even care,” Y/N says, “And it doesn’t exist. Sure we flirt occasionally but that’s all it is. Flirting. And that kiss we had yesterday that’s all it was a kiss, it’s not like it’s ever going to happen again.”

Penelope let out a quiet huff, “Fine, but the longer you keep denying it, the more you’ll begin to realise your feelings.”

“Bye Penelope.” Y/N says, as the blonde begins walking away. 

The moment Y/N turns back to her desk, she sighs. Y/N was extremely glad that Penelope wasn’t a profiler otherwise she would be able to see through all of the lies she just told. Just as she was about to get back to her work, Y/N felt a presence behind her. Thinking it would be Penelope again, she swivelled her chair around and came face to face with the person she had been thinking about all day.

“Spencer!” Y/N exclaimed, “I thought you would be Penelope.”

“It just looked like you needed this.” Spencer says, offering her one of the mugs he was holding in his hands. 

Y/N let a small gasp past her lips, “Where would I be without you?”

“Probably dead in a ditch.” Spencer says, leaning past her to place the mug on the desk.

“I could’ve gotten out of that ditch myself,” Y/N defended, “You’re help wasn’t needed.” Spencer raised one of his eyebrows, “But it was greatly appreciated.” Y/N added before realising how close their faces were. 

Silently she cursed Spencer for placing the mug down on the desk himself instead of just giving it to her. If this were any other day, Y/N would easily just give a small flirtatious comet before the two of them went along with the rest of their day. But it was today, and both of them knew that a comment like that wasn’t going to cut it. 

“There was something I wanted to talk about with you.” Spencer said quietly as he remained in his position with what looked like no desire to move.

“Oh yeah? What do you want to talk to me about Dr. Reid?” Y/N muttered under her breath.

There was a small pause before Spencer answered and in that small pause, his gaze trailed down from Y/N’s eyes to her lips and back up again. Once Y/N realised what he did, she didn’t stop herself from doing the same thing before making eye contact with Spencer again. 

“I wanted to talk to you about what happened between us yesterday.” Spencer stated and Y/N felt her heart drop though she didn’t let it show.

“Okay, well we can talk after work if you want, I just want to quickly get through these files first.” Y/N offered. In reality she only wanted more time to figure out what she was going to say.

“That’s fine,” Spencer said, giving her a smile, “I’ll talk to you later.”

Y/N gave him a smile before going back to her work, quickly getting back into her routine but now that routine had something new added - worrying about what she was going to say to Spencer.

As Spencer sat back down at his desk, he couldn’t hemp but let out a sigh of relief. Even though he seemed calm and collected asking Y/N to talk about their kiss, he was freaking out internally. Giving her one final glance, Spencer began to work through the stack of files on his desk, him too worrying about what he would say to Y/N.

***

Nearly everyone in the bullpen had gone home. They had either finished all of their work for the day or they had taken the remainder of the files to finish at home. The only two that remained in the bullpen were Y/N and Spencer - even Hotch left ages before them.

Of course Spencer had finished his work a while ago, he had only been fiddling with things on his desk or reading a few books to pass the time it took until Y/N finished her work. Spencer had even tried to steal a couple of files but Y/N made him put them back deeming that it was her work to do not his.

It was nearly ten at night and Y/N was finishing off her final bit of work for the day. She knew that Spencer had been done for a while. There were multiple times where she told him that he could go home but he waited there regardless. The closer she got to finishing her file the more nervous she got knowing that her conversation with Spencer would be happening within the next few minutes and she had no idea how to approach the topic. 

Before she could finish the last file she noticed that Spencer lent against her desk with his arms folded.

“I can tell you’re procrastinating.” He stated.

Y/N sighed and closed the file, “That’s because I am.”

She stood up to match Spencer’s height better and so she could talk to him face to face. 

“I’ve been thinking about what I was going to say all day about what happened yesterday. I guess you want to talk about this kiss, correct?” Y/N asked and Spencer nodded. 

“That kiss,” Y/N begins, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. When I went home last night, all I could think about was how good I felt when your lips were on mine and your hands were roaming my body.”

Y/N didn’t know where her sudden burst of confidence came from but she had begun to close the small gap between their bodies so Spencer's was trapped between her and her desk. She snaked her hands up his chest and leant up so her mouth was level with his ear. While her hands were resting on his chest, Spencer’s ghosted over her hips, hesitant to touch her.

“To say that I enjoyed the kiss would be an understatement.” Y/N mutters in his ear. 

Spencer’s hands finally come in contact with Y/N’s hips and he can’t stop himself from giving them a small squeeze making Y/N let out a small gasp. 

“I’m glad you said those words,” Spencer mumbled, lips brushing her ear, “Because I feel exactly the same way.”

Y/N’s lips begin to pepper small kisses across his neck and up his jaw before they hovered just before Spencer’s. They were both panting slightly, getting lost within one another. Both of them knew that they shouldn’t be doing this but neither of them could stop, just being with each other in this way was intoxicating. 

Spencer leaned forward and finally connected their lips. They kissed each other with the same amount of passion as the night previous. Y/N’s hands gently tugged on his hair causing Spencer to occasionally let out small whimpers against her lips. The more they kissed, the more both of them wanted. 

Y/N’s hands trailed down from Spencer’s hair to the top of his shirt as she began to loosen his tie. As she did this, Spencer’s flipped their positions and sat Y/N on top of her desk. 

“You really like flipping the positions don’t you?” Y/N teased.

“Shut up.” Spencer muttered before kissing her again.

His hands fell to her thighs as he slowly began to push her skirt further up her legs. Y/N’s legs parted letting Spencer know that she was okay with it. As he continued to trail his hands up her thighs, Y/N began to unbutton the first few buttons on his shirt, fully exposing Spencer’s neck to her along with a small bit of his chest.

Slowly she began to pepper kisses down his neck, occasionally biting down to get a reaction out of him. As she did this, Y/N’s hands sank lower and lower down Spencer’s chest until they found his belt. Pulling him slightly closer, Y/N could feel the erection that was growing every passing second. She moved her hand over it, purposefully avoiding giving him any sort of relief. Spencer gently grabbed the back of her neck to make her look at him, “Two can play at that game.”

Spencer’s hand’s trailed higher up Y/N’s thighs until her skirt was bunched around her waist. He began to kiss down her neck as his hands firmly held her thighs in place. As his thumb lightly passed her clothed core, Y/N let out a rather loud whimper. 

“Spencer please…”

Spencer chuckled slightly before he slowly moved his thumb to press gently over her clit - enough to give her some sort of stimulation but not enough for Y/N’s liking. Letting out a soft moan she tried to move her hips towards Spencer’s hand but he moved it away before she could get any sort of relief. 

“I hate you.” She muttered.

“No you don’t.” Spencer said before leaning in to capture her lips again.

However, before their lips could connect, they both heard footsteps coming their way causing Spencer to jump apart from her. Not that it would exactly do them any good. His shirt was unbuttoned and his tie was slack and he had a small trail of hickies trailing down his neck - not to mention the bulge in his trousers. Y/N wasn’t any better with her sitting on her desk and her skirt bunched up at her waist, if it weren’t for the thin underwear she would be exposing herself completely. Her hair was a mess and she was very flushed in the face. If anyone walked in it was very clear what the two friends were doing.

The footsteps only seemed to get louder before they went away again making both Y/N and Spencer let out a sigh of relief. Whatever mood that had been created between the two had been entirely ruined. As they looked at each other, both of them let out small chuckles.

“You should probably hide those before tomorrow.” Y/N pointed to Spencer’s neck.

Y/N hopped off her desk while pulling her skirt back down and straightening her clothes out while Spencer buttoned his shirt back up, although he took his tie off completely not seeing the point of putting it back on.

“I should be glad that you don’t have any, otherwise it would look very obvious what happened between us.” Spencer stated.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” Y/N said, “We’re best friends and nothing more.” 

“And I agree.” Spencer said.

The two stared at each other in silence before Y/N spoke up again, “But tomorrow night I have a free apartment so if you want to come over to relieve some of this tension I’ll be there.”

Spencer nodded, “Sounds like a plan.”

“Okay but after that we’re just going to be back to being just friends,” Y/N offered her hand for Spencer to shake, “Deal?”

“Deal.” Spencer said, shaking her hand.

---------------

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[ssahotchhner]

reckless endangerment

the reader can't let go of the trauma of aaron being kidnapped and tortured six months ago.

pairing: hotch x reader

warnings: kidnapping, torture, smut, dom!hotch

masterlist

questions, comments, concerns

It was stupid to jump on the helicopter that contained at least two terrorists as it took off that roof in Manhattan. Even stupider that you had done it alone, Aaron’s voice screaming for you from behind. You weren’t sure he would forgive you for this if you survived so you supposed it was a good thing you weren’t planning on surviving.

Why did you jump on the helicopter, you may ask, and that would be a reasonable question. Perhaps it was your hero complex finally getting the better of you, knowing the helicopter was planning on flying straight into the Empire State Building, loaded with explosives. Or perhaps it was because these terrorists were part of a group that had tortured Aaron for hours a few months ago when he was on assignment in Pakistan and you had always believed fully in revenge. Aaron did not, he was much better than you.

“Hold your fire!” Aaron had yelled when it was clear you weren’t getting off that helicopter, “Federal agent on board!”

“With all due respect, sir, but you said that helicopter was headed for the Empire State Building where there are thousands of tourists and--”

“I said hold your fire.” Aaron snarls at the leader of the SWAT team. He knows he’s being ridiculous, letting emotion cloud his judgement, but how can he let them blow up a helicopter that you’re on? And why the fuck had you jumped on it in the first place?

The SWAT agent glared at him, “That helicopter gets within a hundred yards of the building, I’m ordering my men to shoot it down.” And then he walked away.

“Hotch!” Morgan yells, the rest of the team not far behind him, “What the hell did she do that for?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He responded. He was furious with you, so much so he couldn’t think straight.

JJ steps closer, the panic evident on her face, “She’s not responding on radio.”

He looks at the rest of the team, all of them one step away from absolutely losing their minds over the fact that one of their own had gone on a suicide mission without consulting any of them, and then he looks back to the helicopter that’s getting smaller and smaller by the second.

***

SIX MONTHS AGO

You take a sip from your glass, “I miss you.” You say to your computer screen.

On that screen, SSA Aaron Hotchner smiles back at you, “I know. I’ll be home before you know it.”

“When you get back,” You say slowly, “Can we… Can we tell them? About us?”

By them, he knew you meant the team. He gets quiet, the smile falling off his face, “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Hotch, they’re like our family. I feel terrible keeping things from them. It was fun in the beginning, but I don’t want to hide it anymore.”

He swallows, but then nods, “Okay.”

“Really?”

He smiles, “Yeah, of course. I don’t like hiding you either.”

You’re about to tell him you love him when there are suddenly men in the tent, “Aaron?” He looks around and scrambles for his gun, but he’s too late. One of the men hits him in the side of the head with a blunt object and he’s out, “Aaron!” You yell and then the feed cuts out.

***

It was surprisingly easy to disarm them, you supposed because you had surprised them. You easily knocked the gun away from the one who wasn’t piloting, ducked some of his punches before kicking him square in the chest, causing him to fall down. He hit his head on a hard metal handle on the way down, knocking himself unconscious. The Empire State Building was looming closer and closer and you knew if you didn’t stop it, SWAT would shoot down the helicopter. It would lead to less deaths than crashing directly into the building would, but people would still die from fallen debris. You wouldn’t let that happen. You pointed your gun at the man in the cockpit.

***

“Garcia, is her body cam on?”

“No, sir, but I can turn it on.”

Seconds later, the team was viewing the inside of the helicopter. You had knocked one of the men unconscious and handcuffed him to a handle, but you still had to get control of the helicopter.

“Can you hack the helicopter, Garcia?”

He hears the frantic typing of the technical analyst, but she huffs on the other end, “Not under these time constraints no, by the time I get in it’ll be too late.”

“Agent Hotchner, the snipers have locked in on the target.”

“Just give her another minute.”

“We don’t have another minute.”

He sighs, “She’s about to take control of the cockpit.”

“Does she know how to fly a chopper?”

“She’ll figure it out. Stand down, I won’t say it again.” Hotch’s radio goes silent after that.

***

You waste no time getting the team together and forty minutes later you’re sitting in the conference room, styrofoam cup of coffee warming your hands.

“You were video calling Hotch? At 10 PM?” Reid asks. From anyone else, it would sound accusatory, but you knew he was just genuinely curious.

“10 PM here is 7AM for him. I caught him right before he started his day, wanted to ask him about a case.”

Spencer frowns, “What case?”

Your mouth falls open as you try to fumble for something, but it’s already too late. “I knew it.” Rossi says quietly.

You grind your teeth together, “I’m sorry, is dissecting my love life more important to you guys than finding Hotch after he’s been kidnapped by a terrorist group?” You stand, squashing the empty styrofoam cup in your hand and toss it in the waste bin as you walk out of the room.

Moments later, Spencer’s standing next to you and you immediately feel guilty, “I didn’t mean to pry,” He says, “Honestly, the two of you being romantically involved was the last thing I would have guessed.”

The corners of your lips turn up just slightly, “I didn’t mean to snap in there, I know you meant nothing by it, I just… Right before he was taken we talked about telling you all. Together. Once he got back.” You sniff, “Part of me feels like all of you figuring it out without him here is the universe saying he’s going to die out there. I know that’s silly, but…”

“It’s not silly at all. When you’ve witnessed something traumatic, like a loved one being taken away in front of you with no way for you to help, your brain looks for anything to rationalize it. Even the universe predicting the outcome.”

Spencer's voice throwing out facts was actually fairly soothing, “Thank you, Dr. Reid.”

“Come on.” He squeezes your shoulder, “Let’s bring Hotch home.”

***

“Slowly put your hands up and back away from the controls,” You say, flexing your fingers on the gun, “Now!” You say when he doesn’t move. You’re running out of time. Finally, he slowly raises his hands, but at the last second turns and lunges for you. The helicopter tips as you fall over, your gun misfires at the ceiling before tumbling out of the chopper, and you’re free falling until your face slams on the floor and your hands grab the outside edge of the helicopter so hard you’re sure you ripped out your fingernails. Dangling, you grunt as you scramble to hook your feet on something. The pilot, already assuming you’re dead, had gone back to the cockpit.

Finally, you haul yourself back inside and run to him, ripping him out of his seat. He’s bigger than you, though, and quickly overpowers you. His hands wrap around your throat as you’re pinned to the floor and you’re choking, suffocating. All you can think is at least you’ll die before the chopper goes up in flames. And then, in a last ditch effort that’s more involuntary reaction than conscious choice, you’re able to knee him in the groin. His hands immediately leave your throat and instead of taking the moment to catch your breath, you kick him off you and he rolls to the open door. You reach for him, but you’re too late, he falls.

You wanted revenge, but you didn’t want to kill anyone. But you had no time to think about that now. You cough a few times and then stumble over to the cockpit. For the first time since you jumped on the helicopter, you turn your radio back on.

“I don’t suppose one of you knows how to fly a chopper?”

***

When you reenter the conference room everyone’s watching the last few seconds of the video call. They look at you apologetically and you nod in acknowledgement. You have to close your eyes at the sound of your own screams.

“Who was he working to take down while he was there?” Morgan asked.

“The leader of the Kashmir Jehad Force, his name was Syed Khan.” You said.

JJ frowned, “He told you all of this? Wasn’t it classified?”

You nodded, “Hotch asked to bring me on a few weeks ago when they were stuck. I was debriefed, but then they had a break before I could get on the plane. They finished the operation a few days ago, Hotch was supposed to come home in the next couple of days.”

“So Khan is dead?” Rossi asked.

You nod, “No one was supposed to know it was the US Government who did it. They wanted it to look like an accident. They shouldn’t have known Hotch was there.”

“Are you thinking there’s a double agent?” Emily asked.

You shrug, “It’s either that or Hotch was sloppy. Which one would you bet on?” The room is silent. “Exactly.” You say quietly.

***

They don’t have time to be relieved about the fact that you single handedly re-hijacked the chopper because now you need to figure out how to safely land it and you’re a football field length away from the Empire State Building. Reid jumps into action, apparently having read a lot about helicopters when he was younger.

“I’m assuming he had it on autopilot, the button will be glowing green on your left, turn it off and then get ready to steer.”

You sigh, “Spencer, I am so happy to hear your voice.” You flip off the switch like he said and the helicopter immediately starts beeping at you and plummets. You try and remain calm and pull it up and then turn the helicopter in the opposite direction from the building and sigh. “You know how to land this thing, right Reid?”

“Yeah, I’ll walk you through it.”

Hotch has to walk away from the conversation because he’s so caught up in feeling relieved that you’re alive and absolutely furious with you for doing what you did. He thinks he knows why you did it. You had been absolutely torn up when he had been taken while in Pakistan and you had been on edge this whole case knowing the terrorists you were after had been a part of the group that had tortured him.

***

When Hotch wakes up, he’s chained to the ceiling by his wrists, shirtless. He can feel a migraine blooming from his temple where he was hit, but he knows the real pain hasn’t even begun yet. He can hear talking from the corner of the room and before they can see that he’s awake, he begins detaching himself. He pictures your face, smiling at him on your first date. The way you smile sleepily at him when he kisses you first thing in the morning. The way you scrunch up your forehead just a little when you’re thinking really hard. The first time you told him you loved him. And then he’s with you and no one can touch him, no one can hurt him.

***

“Do you know where they would keep him?” Strauss is sitting in the conference room now, looking at you, “You were debriefed, is it enough for a profile?”

You sighed deeply, eyes darting back and forth as you tried to recall all the information you know, “I know most of the profile for Kahn, but we never focused on the group as a whole because we wanted to find him alone when we neutralized him.” You tap your fingers on the table, “I have no idea what a group without Kahn would function like, even knowing what I knew before, the fact that Kahn is gone would change the whole profile. We don’t know who took over.”

“And what do you know about the group?”

“Um,” You blinked a few times, you were having a hard time focusing, “They were all followers, none of them would have been capable of leading. Whoever is in control now was outside of the group.”

“Maybe our double agent?” Emily says.

You nod, “That would make sense.”

Strauss frowns, “You think there’s a double agent?”

“There’s no way the group would have known Hotch was responsible if they didn’t have insider information.” You say.

“What you’re proposing is that a terrorist somehow infiltrated a Top Secret US Operation, waited for us to kill a terrorist leader, then took over that same terrorist group and kidnapped the leader of our operation.” Strauss said and waited for someone to say something, “Does that not sound ridiculous to anyone else?”

“Do you have any other ideas?” You ask sharply.

“Yes, that Agent Hotchner left something behind at the scene that pointed the remaining group in his direction.”

You’re shaking your head, “If you’re so certain that’s the case, then check their old stronghold. If it’s a new guy, they would have abandoned it, which I’m certain they did. But be my guest, waste our time and your men.” You storm out of the conference room for a second time.

***

You find yourself in Aaron’s office and you tilt your head to the side, stretching out a kink in your neck before sitting on the couch. You look around the office, well decorated with plaques commemorating his work in the bureau. When you get up and walk around to his side of the desk, you notice a small gold frame that hadn’t been there before. In it is a small picture of the both of you sitting on the beach at sunset. When had he put this here? When had he decided that it was worth the risk of your coworkers noticing that new frame? Seeing you propped on his desk like that?

And then you were crying and you couldn’t stop it and you just wanted to hold him. “Looks like you just outed your relationship to Erin.” You looked up to see Rossi standing in the doorway and wiped your tears, sniffling.

“Not like she can say anything considering you both make it a habit of checking in at the same hotel every weekend.” You snap, and then sigh instantly, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, kiddo.” He says and walks over to put a hand on your shoulder, “You miss him.”

“A few hours ago we were talking about what we were going to do when he gets back, and now he’s gone.”

“He’s coming back, Y/N. We’ll find him.”

***

You had been right about the former stronghold being abandoned. All signs now pointed to a double agent. You tried to think of everything Aaron had told you about the team that would be a part of the operation, but you kept coming up empty. When a list was brought out with pictures of each you went over it again, every conversation you had had with Aaron since he left.

And then… there was one interaction, one interruption that you and Aaron had both dismissed at the time.

A man walks up behind Aaron while he’s talking to you, debriefing you back when they thought you’d be flying in. At the look on your face, Hotch had turned around to face him, “Can I help you with something?”

The man had simply shook his head and left, but you could have sworn for the rest of the call, he had lingered. Listening. Aaron had explained to you that most of those involved in the operation hadn’t known the full details of the plan up until they had left, in order to prevent situations like the one they were in now.

There were times when Aaron was talking to you on the phone and he told you he felt like someone had been watching him, but you both dismissed it as paranoia. And when the pictures and names were presented to you again, you pointed to the man you were sure you saw on that one video call. “What do we know about him?” You asked.

And the look of dread on Erin’s face when you pointed him out told you everything you needed to know. Garcia did what she always did and soon they knew every detail of his life. He was a textbook narcissist and sociopath. Incredibly charming, everyone loved him, he could convince almost anyone to follow him. He had an FBI background and rumor had it, he thought he was to be the one to lead this operation until Aaron showed up.

“So he takes over an entire terrorist organization just to take out Hotch?” Morgan asks, “We have to be missing something.”

You’re getting impatient, “Well let’s figure it out on the jet.”

“This team is not going to Pakistan.” Erin says firmly, “We will inform an extraction team that’s already on the ground when we figure out where they’re holding him.” You’re already rolling your eyes and preparing a retort and she notes that and continues, “If you can’t compartmentalize your emotions, Agent, I will have you removed from the case.”

You hold yourself back from yelling that you need to be the one who brings him home, because you know how ridiculous it sounds and you being stubborn isn’t helping Aaron. “Fine.” You say, “Here’s what I can tell you.”

***

You’re on top of him, straddling his hips, giggling as your hair falls in your face. He reaches up to push it away and you grind your hips against his. “Hotchner.” You say, “You have to wake up.” He frowns. It’s not your voice.

And before he can stop it, your face swims away and it’s replaced by SSA Scott Carter. It takes him a few moments to realize that Carter isn’t here to help him and that he was probably behind this whole thing. “Carter?” He manages.

Carter smiles, “Ah, the darling of the BAU finally awakens. What were you dreaming about, Hotchner? Sounded juicy. Was it about your girlfriend?” His head shot up at that. If you were in danger, he’d kill this son of a bitch. “Oh, I hit a nerve.” He smirks, “Did you tell her you weren’t planning on coming home this week? That you had some loose strings to tie up?”

Hotch blinked, his brain was still fuzzy from what he assumed was a concussion, “You… You’re the one stealing the military weapons and selling them to the terrorist organizations.” He hadn’t told you he was planning on staying a few more days to figure out who was transporting the weapons, he had still been hoping to figure it out before his flight was scheduled to leave, but Carter had been his prime suspect. Apparently, Carter had figured out he was on to him. It was why he was able to get Khan’s men to drag him from his tent this morning.

Carter gives him a slow clap, “You know, for a profiler, I’m disappointed you hadn’t figured it out sooner, Hotchner. Really, I’m very torn up about it. I have half a mind to fly to Quantico after you’re dead and demand your position.”

Aaron laughs, “You’re out of your mind if you think my team won’t figure this out in a quarter of the time it took me to.”

“What did you tell them, Hotchner?”

“I haven’t been in contact with my team in weeks.��

“Oh, but your girlfriend. Did you think I’d forget she’s a federal agent in the BAU as well?”

“She doesn’t know anything, the mission was classified, you know that.”

“You never mentioned your suspicions of a lucrative weapons trading operation?”

“No.”

Carter hums and takes out a knife, “I don’t believe you.”

Hotch doesn’t flinch, “Then go ahead and carve me up, Carter. You won’t be the first.”

***

With Reid’s help, after working through the night you were able to narrow down the possible holding sights to three places and Strauss ordered three separate teams to check each place. Now the only thing left to do was wait.

You’re sitting alone in Hotch’s office when Penelope, JJ, and Emily all walk in, JJ holding a tea for you. You give her a small smile of thanks as you take it, “You guys don’t have to sit with me, I’m okay.”

“Did you think we were going to just let you gloss over the fact you never told us you were dating Hotch?” Penelope said.

You manage a genuine smile and look down at your tea, “We weren’t sure when or how to tell you guys. Or if it would make things weird.”

JJ shrugs, “We’re already family and families are weird.”

“Not the point,” Penelope interjects, “We need all the details now, who made the first move?”

“He did, actually,” You smile recalling the memory, “He asked me if he could call me outside of work hours and I said sure, he could always call me to discuss a case. Then he got really red and I asked him if there was something else he would want to call me about. And he cleared his throat and asked if he could call me to ask me out to dinner sometime and I laughed and said yes.”

Emily shakes her head, “Hard to imagine that man getting flustered over anything.”

You laugh, “Yeah, he gets really awkward around women he likes romantically, it’s kind of endearing.” You clear your throat, “Thank you guys for trying to distract me.”

JJ nods, “They’re going to find him. Alive.”

You nod, “Yeah. I just wish it was my face he was seeing first.”

***

You had somehow managed to fall asleep at some point, head in JJ’s lap with her fingers gently combing through your hair.

“Guys.” Spencer’s voice jolts you from sleep, “They found him.”

All of you jump up, but you’re the first one out of the room, trailing Spencer, “He’s okay?”

“He’s injured, but yeah, he’s gonna be fine.”

Your legs almost give out, but JJ and Emily come on either side to grab your arms as you walk into the conference room.

“They’re airlifting him to the hospital, he was stabbed a couple of times but they were shallow, some burns, looks like he was waterboarded as well,” Erin Strauss smiles, “But he’s fine. They’ll transfer him to DC first thing in the morning.”

“What about Carter?” You ask.

“It turns out he was stealing weapons from the military and selling them to terrorist organizations and Hotch was onto him. That’s why he took him. Not because of Khan. He wanted to know how much Hotch knew and if he had told you anything.”

You shake your head, “I didn’t know anything about that.”

Strauss nodded, “Carter has people here. Hotch didn’t mention it to you on purpose. So that they wouldn’t take you if something happened.”

You close your eyes. That man, always trying to protect you. Always being the hero. You could have found him hours ago if he had just told you. But that was the man you had fallen in love with.

***

You insisted on being on the roof of the DC hospital when the chopper landed and you charmed all the nurses into allowing you into every room he was wheeled in until he was settled. They had sedated him for the long flight and it seemed he would wake at any moment. You slid your small, cold hand, into his large, warm one and waited.

“I know that ice cold hand,” He said slowly. His voice was gravely and it brought tears to your eyes to see that he was trying to smile. “Oh, hey, don’t cry.” He reaches his hand up to stroke your cheek and you turn your head into his hand to kiss his palm, sniffling.

“I’m very happy to see you.” You manage, choking down your sobs, “I didn’t think I was going to see you again.” His smile grows, “It’s not funny!”

“It’s very funny, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry over anything and certainly not me.” You glare at him through your tears and he chuckles, “Ah, there she is, tough guy. I know the only thing holding you back from punching me in the shoulder is that I’m injured.”

“Oh, I’ll still do it if you don’t shut that pretty mouth of yours.”

He smirks, “Promise?”

And finally you break into laughter and lean over him to kiss his mouth, “You should’ve told me about Carter.” You say, “You could have at least told me you were in danger.”

“And what, have you worried from an ocean away when it might have been nothing? I needed more evidence.”

You bite your lip, “I’ve never been so scared in my whole life, watching you get taken like that.”

“I came home.” He says softly, “I’m okay, I promise.”

You swallow, “Did they get Carter?” He nods, “And what about the guys that took you in?”

“Sweetheart, that’s a whole terrorist organization, no they didn’t get them.”

“They kidnapped a federal agent!” You say indignantly.

“And the federal agent is alive.”

“But—!”

He puts a finger over your mouth to quiet you, “Don’t make me argue with you like your unit chief right now. I just want to be your boyfriend.”

You sigh, “Okay,” Leaning over him, you rest your head on his chest and he begins stroking your hair. Having not slept at all since Hotch had been taken, you fall asleep like that. Finally at peace.

***

You hadn’t really been able to let it go, even when Hotch was better and back to work, he could tell you were harboring real anger about his kidnappers.

And on that morning, the morning you jumped on the god forsaken helicopter, when the BAU was asked to come to New York to investigate a possible terrorist threat, he debated telling you not to come. The government had suspicions that they were here to take revenge for Khan and he knew you’d be upset with being benched.

“Hotch, I’m fine. I’m not angry.” You had said when he pulled you into his office after debriefing the rest of the team.

“If you even hint at taking impulsive, reckless risks I will suspend you immediately, understood?”

You sigh, “I hate when you use your boss man voice with me.”

“Y/N—” He starts impatiently.

“Yeah, yeah, fine, understood. No being reckless. Got it.”

His eyes scan your face to see if you’re lying, “Good.” He says finally and presses a kiss to your forehead, “Let’s go then.”

He should have known you were lying. It was only the previous night you had woken him up tossing and turning from a nightmare. When he had finally gotten you awake you practically flung yourself at him, arms twining themselves around his neck as you caught your breath, “I thought you were gone again.” You had said breathlessly. And he had wordlessly held you to him, running his fingers through your hair until you were asleep again. It hadn’t been the first time he had had to comfort you. You had had far more nightmares about him being taken than he had about himself being tortured. Truth be told, he had been through far worse than being kidnapped and tortured for 24 hours. He knew it made you feel weak, the nightmares, when you weren’t even the one who had been tortured so he never brought them up. Never made you talk about them. But they worried him all the same. You relived the trauma again over and over, nearly every night. How were you expected to let the anger go when you were still living through it?

He should have known, but he let you out in the field anyway. Would that not put in question his ability to lead? His ability to lead with you on the same team?

He can barely see through his anger as he turns back to where Reid is instructing you to land. When you successfully land and jump out of the chopper, the rest of the team gathers around you to hug you, but Hotch stays back, watching.

When you notice, you walk over to him, “Hotch, I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have--”

“You’re suspended for at least a month, if not more.” He starts, “You’re lucky I don’t remove you from this team all together.”

You frown, “Aaron, I was able to detain one of the suspects, now we can learn more about the group--”

“By doing what you did you put yourself and hundreds of civilians at risk. We could have shot down the chopper, but because you jumped onboard I had to instruct them to stand down. Which, by the way, I had to do several times because they were more than willing to kill you to get that chopper down, do you have any idea the damage you caused? What could have happened if you didn’t get control of that chopper when you did?”

“I… Baby, I’m sorry--” You reach your hand out to put on his arm, but he pulls away.

“Don’t talk like that, I’m not your boyfriend right now, I’m your unit chief. Now give me your badge and gun.”

You know you can’t blame him, he had warned you he would do this and you had disobeyed him intentionally. But still, your hands shake as you hand over your gun and badge. You don’t say anything else as you leave the roof, heading down all the way to ground level to get a taxi back to the hotel. And then you wait. You lay on your back and wait for the sound of the door opening and when it does hours later, you push yourself up and sit cross legged on the bed.

“Hi.” You say softly when he walks in.

He spares you a glance before heading to the bathroom without a word. You sigh and fall back on the bed. When you hear the shower running you decide to undress yourself and head in.

He sighs when he realizes you’ve joined him, but doesn’t object when you wrap your arms around his waist and press your face to his back, “I’m sorry.” You murmur.

“You keep saying that, but I know if you were given the opportunity to do it all again, you’d make the same decision.”

You pause at that, “You’re right, I don’t regret what I did, but I’m sorry I had to disobey you to do it.”

He turns in your arms and looks down into your eyes, “Do you not see the problem with that? You did what you did out of revenge. You let your emotions get the best of you, you broke the number one rule of being in the BAU.”

“Those men were prepared to die at all costs, I just didn’t want them to get off that easy. I want them to pay for what they did to you, and this way, at least one of them will. Would you not have done the same? Did you not murder Foyet after he had given himself up because he had killed your wife and threatened your son?”

“Don’t.” He warns.

You scoff, “You have this God complex sometimes, Aaron, and it’s so frustrating. You can do whatever you want because you always have a reason and from your standpoint you’re always right. But whenever one of your toy soldiers falls out of line, it’s a different story--”

“What I did with Foyet did not put myself or civilians at risk.” He says firmly.

“You went in alone.” You said, “You didn’t wait for backup.”

He looks down and shakes his head, “You cannot compare what you did today to the things I’ve done because I would never endanger hundreds of innocent people just for some petty revenge.”

He thinks your eyes water, but it’s difficult to tell in the shower, “It wasn’t petty, Aaron. Not to me.”

He sighs and bends his forehead to yours, bringing both hands up to cradle your face, “Honey, I’m fine. You have to let it go.”

You close your eyes at his touch and lean up just slightly to capture his mouth with yours and as he sighs into your mouth you pull away, just slightly, “If it was me… If I was the one who was kidnapped and tortured in a country thousands of miles away, what would you have done?”

He swallows, and searches your face, “There wouldn’t have been a single protocol that I wouldn’t have broken to get you home safe.”

You nod, “I’m sorry. I understand why you’re upset, I put others in danger. It won’t happen again.”

He kisses you hard on the mouth, “You’re still suspended.”

You hum and he pushes you against the shower wall, his hand coming up to rest on your throat, “Are you going to punish me?” You asked breathlessly.

“Maybe.” He leans down and scrapes his teeth against your neck, hand tightening around your throat just slightly in warning when you squirmed. “I’m still angry with you.” He says, his eyes looking up to meet yours, tightening his grip on your throat again.

You can barely breathe through his grip, “For disobeying you?”

“No.” He says roughly, “For nearly getting yourself killed.”

You manage to swallow, “And that would have upset you?”

The desire immediately fizzles out of his eyes and he drops his hand, “Of course it would, how could you ask that?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, I just…” You shrug, “I don’t know, forget it.”

“No,” He puts his hands on your shoulders to keep you from leaving, “Do you really think I wouldn’t have been upset if you died?”

“Aaron,” You say slowly, “You are the love of my life. But Haley was yours. And that’s okay, I don’t expect anything else, but it’s just a fact of our relationship that I love you more than you love me.”

He stares at you blankly for another moment, and then looks away to turn the shower off. He leaves you standing there, wet and naked as he climbs out of the shower and towels himself off silently.

“Aaron.” You say after he’s been silent for so long, stepping out of the shower and wrapping your own towel around yourself.

“You think there can only be one?”

You blink, “What?”

“A person can have more than one love of their life, you think you just get one and done?”

You frown, walking over to the bed and lowering yourself onto it, “Yes, that’s the whole concept.”

He scoffs at you, “I forget how young you are, you think you know everything there is to know about relationships, you have no idea.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Me?” He raises his eyebrows, “Don’t patronize you, you’re the one who just tried to convince me you know more about my feelings, about who I love than I do. That’s quite patronizing, wouldn’t you say?”

You look down at your hands, “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

He sighs and walks over to you, crouching in front of you, “Haley was the love of my life, that’s true. But in my head,” He swallows, “There’s the me from before Haley, and there’s the me from after Haley. And you,” He brushes his index finger over the tip of your nose, “Were the person who made the me after Haley believe I deserved love again. You are just as much the love of my life as she is and I have no idea where I’d be right now if I hadn’t met you.”

You finally give him a little bit of a smile, “Probably even more insufferably miserable than you are now.”

He chuckles and you relish in the sound, bringing your fingers up to lightly stroke his cheek, “I’m sorry. For everything today, being reckless, bringing up Haley… I’m sorry, I was out of line.”

“It’s okay,” He says softly, “But you pull a stunt like that again, I’ll fire you.”

“Yes sir.” You say, smirking as you lean in to kiss him, twining your arms around the back of his head. Gently, you tug and pull him back on the bed, on top of you and you feel him smile into your mouth.

Since you’re already naked from the shower, he can’t stop his hands from wandering across your soft skin. His hand grips your thigh, lifting up your leg and allowing him to squeeze your ass. You gasp into his mouth just the way he likes and he bites down on your lower lip. “Aaron,” You whine.

“Did you want something, sweet girl?” He whispers in your ear as his hand slides between your legs.

It’s not fair, he knows when he works you up like this it’s nearly impossible to get a coherent word out of you. You manage only to moan his name again as he slowly, torturously, rubs over you again. “Come on, baby, use your words.” He teases and you can hear the smile in his voice. Bastard.

He runs a single finger down your folds, “Should I make you come with my fingers?” He slowly dips a finger inside you, eating up your reaction as your mouth falls open and a moan claws its way up your throat. “Or,” He pulls his finger out and you glare at him, “I could do it with my mouth.” Your eyes roll back when he licks you and you physically ache at his touch. But then he stops, “Or maybe,” He crawls back up to kiss your mouth and you can taste yourself on his tongue, “I won’t let you come at all since you’ve been such a bad girl.”

“Please,” You whine, “Please, I’ll be good. I promise.”

When he pulls back to look at you, his pupils are blown out and you feel such a rush seeing your effect on him. “We’ll see.” He says softly and without warning thrusts into you. Your back arches against the mattress as you curse. When your eyes meet his, he has a look of such confident satisfaction it nearly makes you come undone right there. “I think,” He pulls out slowly, “I’ll take my time with you tonight.” He reaches up a hand and wraps it around your throat again, “Is this okay?” He says softly, breaking his role for the first time.

You nod, “Please.” You say again, knowing how he loves when you beg. He scans your face once and then he grins again, tightening his hand around your throat until you’re gasping. “Good girl,” He whispers in your ear and slowly pushes into you again, gently biting your ear.

“Baby,” You manage with what little air you’re able to take in. He immediately stops, taking his hands off you, but you shake your head and pull his hand back to your throat, “Harder.”

He sighs and shakes his head, “Fuck,” He curses, wrapping both hands around your throat, “You’re gonna kill me one day.”

And you smirk as he pushes down on your windpipe before slamming his hips into you at full force, you’re rapidly approaching climax, but Aaron can tell. You don’t know how he can tell, but he immediately slows his hips and takes his hands off your throat. You gasp at the sudden release and cough a little bit, “I didn’t tell you you could come.”

“I didn’t,” You say breathlessly, your heart hammering against your ribcage.

“You almost did, and you would have if I didn’t stop.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looks at you and tilts his head to the side as he watches you, “Turn around.” He says calmly.

You hide your smile as you do what you’re told, turning on your knees, letting your forearms and face fall to the pillow. He roughly pulls at your waist, repositioning you and pulling your ass up even farther. He runs a hand over your ass, “Look at you, so pretty for me.” He says softly before pulling back his hand and smacking it hard against your ass. You moan into your pillow and then he’s inside you, a fistful of your hair in his fist.

“Are you gonna be good for me?” He asks breathlessly.

“Yes.”

He slams into you roughly making you yelp, “And you’ll never disobey me again?”

You swallow, “Never.”

He releases your hair and leans over you, sweetly kissing your shoulder and you can feel his smile against your skin, “That’s my sweet girl.” He reaches his arm around your front and begins to massage your clit as he thrusts into you. “Come for me, baby.” He says and speeds up his movements. It’s all the permission you need and you’re immediately unraveling. It takes everything in you not to collapse onto your stomach until he’s also climaxing, brought to his edge by the pulsing of your walls. He swears and collapses fully onto your back, your knees giving way under his weight.

You both lay there like that, him resting on your back in silence for a few moments, catching your breath. Then, Aaron sits up quickly, hands searching your skin, “I’m sorry, baby, did I hurt you?”

“No.” You say, but he presses kisses all over your skin anyway, immediately entering aftercare mode.

You sigh sleepily and pull him to you, wanting to snuggle with him. He obliges, wrapping his arms around you and nuzzling into your neck. “I love you.” He murmurs into your skin, “So much.”

You hum, “I love you. Thank you for not firing me.”

“If you ever end up getting yourself killed I’ll never forgive you.”

You chuckle and kiss his temple, “Noted.”