#legit got Covid on Friday last week and it hit me like a truck

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

The Construct of Time, Chapter 05

Pairing: HotchReid

Written For: The HotchReid Valentine’s Day Trope Challenge, Trope Assignments = Historical AU, Time Travel

Summary: The year is 1924, half a decade after the first World War, and a few years before the Great Depression would devastate the nation. It is a time of contradiction: the modernist uprising of science and innovation, met with a traditionalist, fearful desire to cling to the past in a fast-evolving, urbanist society. And on this morning in Washington D.C. an unmarked package is left outside the office of Aaron ‘Hotch’ Hotchner, P.I., with a note simply telling him to find the rest, and a substantial price tag attached. What he finds in this package is something he has never seen before, hundreds of years old, and he barely knows where to start trying to find more like it. Ultimately he is pointed towards someone that may just have a clue what to do with his charge: a Classics Historian working in the basements of the Smithsonian, Dr. Spencer Reid. Together, what they discover sends them on a break-neck chase across the city, searching for a mysterious collection of powerful artifacts, and the people that are trying to sell them. Forever changing everything they know about the world, the people in it, truth, lies, love, and the fragile construct of time.

Rating: Mature/Explicit (to be determined)

Chapter CW/notes: short chapter (gasp. shock. me?! couldn’t be). Lots more gratuitous flirting and suggestive things thought about because Hotch can’t control himself I guess. Some time-period typical misogyny here, but not a lot. A lot of talk of languages and linguistics, and some insanely incorrect translations. I’d like to thank my co-author: GoogleTranslate.

Word Count: 3,378

Masterpost Link

Ao3 Link

–

Chapter 05: Academic Sources

–

.

Hotch knows Washington D.C. like the back of his hand. Can navigate the streets and buildings, neighborhoods and transit systems, as easily as most can navigate their homes. He might not have been able to go inside all said buildings and establishments, or at least not most of them, but if someone asked for directions he could practically draw a map and label the train numbers to take. So when he and Spencer leave Smithsonian Castle, in the heart of the District, he knows the exact route to Georgetown even though he hasn’t stepped foot onto the campus since his early years as a prosecutor. They have one hell of a Law Library.

Georgetown is located just past Foggy Bottom and the West End, up along the Potomac where it monopolizes quite a few square blocks of the city. The buildings are about as grand and pretentious as you could imagine, with the same air and grace as Smithsonian Castle and the Library of Congress, but after visiting the other two such destinations Georgetown doesn’t seem as ethereal. Hotch is definitely getting a good sense of what the academic crowd are going for, though, when it comes to the nation’s capital. 

They arrive right after morning classes begin, students milling about laden down with books and papers; half with a frantic anxious energy and the other half too tired to care. Hotch certainly doesn’t miss those days, and he bets Spencer doesn’t either – although the other man blends into the student body near seamlessly. Once on campus the young doctor leads them through pillar-lined walkways and past vibrant green lawns, into the castle-like fortress where the hallways and hundreds of doors look more like a labyrinth than a university. But Spencer knows exactly where he’s going, just as before.

Hotch had half expected to be led into the Classics department, or history, and is surprised when they walk into the faculty offices for the Department of Linguistics. 

“You weren’t kidding about the translation, were you,” Hotch says with his usual even tone, dry humor that very few laugh at. It makes Spencer bite back a smile.

“As much as I am well versed in both modern and ancient Greek, I was a little… shaken and thought it best to get a second opinion.” 

“Good morning, Dr. Reid,” the receptionist greets, familiar and much like the employees at the Library. “Did you have an appointment with Dr. Blake? I don’t think I have you on our schedule–”

“No, she’s not expecting me. Is she in class?” he asks with a charming smile. “I was hoping to drop in and ask for her advice on a translation project.” 

Oh wow, Hotch had been right, his smile and sweet demeanor really could open doors. As the receptionist lets them sit in the professor’s office, despite the fact this Dr. Blake is indeed teaching a class, Hotch suddenly wonders what sway that sweet smile might hold under different circumstances. The academic world doesn’t appear to be as locked up and secretive as the crime beat is, but as he’s learned spending time with the young Dr. Reid the past two days – appearances can be deceiving. 

They don’t have to wait very long, barely enough time to settle into the chair by a very nice mahogany desk and for Spencer to skim through a book that the door opens to a woman just a little older than Hotch. She has a serious face, inquisitive eyes, and a firm set to her mouth as she takes in Hotch first before she notices Spencer is there as well. It lessens her squared stance when she catches sight of him. 

“Dr. Reid. I see you sweet-talked Ms. Reeves into access to my office,” she chastises, and Spencer lets out a sheepish smile like it’s something he can’t actually help. Being that charming and unassuming. 

“I hope we aren’t intruding,” he says in apology.

“Not at all, my day was actually looking to be rather dull.” She glances at Hotch, who had stood as soon as the professor entered the room. Chivalry ingrained in him nearly as well as the words of the Law. He also removed his hat, and if he spots Spencer smiling fondly at his gentlemanly attempts then Hotch doesn’t draw attention to it.

“Alex, this is Mr. Aaron Hotchner, a Private Investigator that has asked me for help with a case. Aaron, meet Dr. Alex Blake, the head of the Linguistics department here at Georgetown and one of my favorite colleagues in the District.” Hotch shakes her hand, the woman having a very strong, firm grip and commanding presence. Her penetrating stare is about as well masked as any lawyer or crook Hotch has ever met in his entire adult career, but he knows when he’s being sized up and judged. “We’ve worked together on some of my Classics projects and curations at the Smithsonian.”

“It’s a pleasure, Dr. Blake,” Hotch says politely, warm but only so much. Keeping it professional. That will get them much further in discussions. When he had told Spencer that he is very skilled at reading people, Hotch meant it. But the reading only goes so far without adaptable application. He needs to read what a person is like, and know how to best appeal to them. This woman lives and breathes her profession. She gives him a lukewarm smile in return, charmed, and then gestures for them to sit in the chairs by her desk. 

“What kind of case would require Dr. Reid’s assistance?” she questions, straight to the point as she seats herself in a neat perch behind her desk, hands folded on top and giving them her undivided attention. 

“Stolen museum artifacts,” Hotch says, just as plainly. “I was given Dr. Reid’s name by a friend in the police department. They told me he would be the expert I’m looking for. And they were right.” 

“Artwork?” she pries, with a tilt of her head.

“No, more like… relics. Jewelry, some pieces I wasn’t even sure what their purpose was for,” Hotch says in good humor, still on the fence if he should reveal just how calculating he can be, or if it would benefit them more if he played the fool. A smart man can learn quite a lot by playing dumb. If people don’t give you enough credit to understand a situation, they end up saying more than they probably would have meant to. “Hence the consult.”

“Well, that sounds very exciting.” She doesn’t seem to actually think so, oddly, and by the dismissive turn of her head she gives her attention back to Spencer. Hotch watches the interaction unblinkingly. “What brings you to my office?”

“I actually need your help with a translation,” Spencer says, and that calls forth the first real look of shock on the woman’s face.

“You?”

Spencer shrugs, sheepish again. “I’m uncertain about the dialect, it seems distorted somehow. Almost as if it’s been mistranslated from the original to English and back again.” 

“How odd,” the intrigue is there, it shines in her eyes brighter than any other emotion, and relaxes her stance as she leans on her desk with her fingers near her chin in contemplation. “Show me.”

Spencer only hesitates a moment, and Hotch doesn’t miss that one bit. He’s not sure if this Dr. Blake notices it, either, but it’s as good as a confirmation to him in that moment. He’s never met Dr. Blake before, doesn’t know what about her behavior is just quirks of personality or tell tale signs of what he actually thinks is going on here. She’s hiding something. Or, more specifically, knows a bit about what’s going on. Feigning that she doesn’t. Not the only person in the room that understands the benefit of ‘playing the fool’.

Hotch would bet all the cash in that unlabeled envelope back at his office that Dr. Alex Blake could give them an exact address to the auction they are searching for, if she felt so inclined. 

But Spencer pulls out his research notebook, and turns to a page that looks fresh. Save for a string of Greek letters written there in his own hand. The actual stark white paper and message must be somewhere else in his notebook, and Hotch isn’t actually sure when Spencer had the time to copy it down. But he’s glad the young man thought ahead to do so, especially after that inkling of a realization they had back in his labs. Have you ever seen paper like this before? No, Hotch hasn’t, and neither has Spencer, because it’s not modern paper. It’s something else entirely –

Dr. Blake takes the notebook and looks at the words, reads them out loud, and even as she does there seems to be breaks in the words, “Poté min afíseis to méllon na se enochlísei. Tha to synantíseis, an chreiasteí, me ta ídia ópla logikís pou símera se oplízoun enántia sto parón.” She’s squinting hard at it, frowning, brow furrowed and murmuring a couple of the words to herself, correcting dialect and reaching for a pen on her desk – only thinking to look up at Spencer and ask quickly, “May I?” Spencer nods and then Dr. Blake begins to mark it up, fix certain words, circle others – and as she starts to translate what some could mean… she pauses.

“What is it?” Hotch asks before Spencer can.

“ – this is a quotation,” she says, suspicious and careful. “I know it.” 

Hotch and Spencer glance at each other, knowing without speaking that it must be true. The first message was a quote from a famous Greek Tragedy. It only makes sense that this clue is also from another old work. 

“So I was right?” Spencer asks. He probably doesn’t get to ask that question often, Hotch thinks with a smirk. “It’s a translation of a translation?”

“A very poor one,” Dr. Blake agrees. Abandoning the notebook, she stands and goes to her bookshelf. The tome she pulls is old, well worn, well read – and Spencer cranes from where he sits to try and read the title from across the room. “It’s Marcus Aurelius, from his Ancient Greek writings. Meditations.” She flips through the book, finds the page, and hands the book directly to Spencer. 

It’s in Greek, but Spencer finds the line easily after tracing his finger down the page. Eyes wide in shock, darting to Hotch in quiet meaningful glances, before he translates for him.

 .

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”

 .

A chill goes down Hotch’s spine at the first line. Never let the future disturb you. It holds a completely different meaning to them after that morning. After watching Spencer disappear and reappear, slipping through subtle cracks in time. If the items could bring someone backward, did it also mean they could bring someone forward? To the future? ’Have you ever seen paper like this before?’ 

‘–he was gone. Not dead, Hotch, gone.’

Hotch is more spooked by the line than he even dares to admit.

While Hotch had latched onto the ‘future’ part of the quotation, Spencer has already moved past it to the rest. “Weapons. Arm. You don’t think–” his voice trails off, and he goes very still. Hotch catches up to the young doctor’s train of thought very quickly after that, and does his utmost best not to look at the satchel housing their two recovered artifacts. “ –could they be weapons of some kind?”

“That’s not what the translation means,” Dr. Blakes says, almost as if in reprimand. Like Spencer should know better.

“Yes, I know,” he defends, words spilling forth quicker as his brain tries to process everything faster than he can speak. “But the word choice in this quote can’t be coincidence for much else. Especially from Marcus Aurelius. Weapons. Reason. Arming oneself. Meeting one’s future. Virtute et armis.” That’s not Greek, it’s Latin, and that Hotch knows. 

“... by manhood and weapons?” he says, brain wracking for his own studies years and years ago. “Or – by virtue and arms.” That sounded more like a Roman proverb, and Dr. Blake nods. Spencer looks so quietly pleased and impressed that Hotch has to clench his jaw to keep a smile at bay.

Dr. Blake paces back to her desk. Elaborating as she goes. “Virtue first and foremost, but a person always has the tools of last resort.”

“A good man can also be a desperate man, under dire circumstances,” Hotch murmurs out loud, not so sure they should be picking this particular theory apart under the watchful eye of Dr. Blake. He glances at Spencer again, and reiterates, “-- this could have something to do with weapons.”

“But the translation is ‘weapons of reason’,” Dr. Blake adds without preamble, with a hint of something almost… defensive. “What if it is in reference to your stolen museum pieces? Perhaps the persons you are searching for thought they were doing something good. Keeping it out of nefarious hands – the act of a crime being the metaphorical weapon?”

“And take it where?” Spencer asks, “then it becomes a matter or moral perspective. Is their hands any better than the ones who would buy and sell it on a black market?”

“Not if they are returning them to their country or origin, to the ones whom it belongs to in the first place!” Dr. Blake insists. Her outburst like a shockwave, and Spencer looks stricken by it. Pieces carefully aligning into place. “There’s such an imbalance in the museum society, you know this Spencer, of artifacts and art pieces and culture that – belong to the people it originated from. It’s their history, their heritage, who are we to say it belongs in the Louvre or the London Museum? Or the Smithsonian?” It’s a sharp barbed throw, and Hotch can see her passion behind the cause, but he can’t help but think… how naïve one had to be, to consult with criminals to obtain such a result, and still think the artifacts won’t fall prey to those who would rather make a quick buck.

“ –Maybe,” Spencer says, slow and drawn out, also not convinced that this is what actually occurred – not with what they know – and Hotch thinks then that they have overstayed their welcome far past what could be considered safe and sane. Dr. Blake doesn’t appear dangerous. But knowing who some of the dark underground places this case has touched, the woman might not fully understand what she has put in motion. If Emily Prentiss had been involved and backed out due to it being too risky? Those dark places were the equivalent of pitch black. 

And yet – she doesn’t seem worried. As if it were already too late.

As if the artifacts have already reached wherever they were supposed to be. Dr. Blake doesn’t know they have the puzzle box, or the locket, and she didn’t much seem to mourn their absence. 

But Hotch doesn’t want to push his luck. They need to go.

He stands, then, hat in hand and the look of a man ready to be out the door. “Dr. Blake, thank you so much for your assistance. It has helped us tremendously,” he adds politely, taking her hand to shake again in parting.

“Of course, anything for Dr. Reid,” she says as well with a prim, concealed smile. “I hope you find what you are looking for, Mr. Hotchner.”

Her tone indicates that they won’t. 

Hotch keeps his face neutral, but he knows now without a shadow of a doubt that whatever else they had hoped to recover – they were long gone from Washington, D.C..

 .

–

 .

“Where do you think they are?” Hotch asks as soon as they are out of the offices of the department of Linguistics, one hand pressed lightly to the small of Spencer’s back to help lead him out of the labyrinth of hallways and keep him close enough to speak quietly. “Halfway to Europe by now?”

“By boat? Without a doubt,” Spencer murmurs, numb and so sad sounding. “By plane? They could be in Rome, London, Cairo, Madrid. Depends if we missed them by a single day or multiple.” 

Shit. Hotch knows that if he had been in such a position, plane would have been his first bet of getting the items out of D.C. and away as fast as humanly possible. And it wouldn’t be hard at all with academic resources as a cover, not with how much excavation was going these days. Egypt will have nothing left once the archeologists were done with it. Which is exactly what Dr. Blake was getting at – but to get involved with the criminal underground like this in the name of preservation? She couldn’t really think that she could somehow swindle real thieves and smugglers into returning priceless items, could she?

“How can someone so smart be so dumb,” Hotch mutters, shaking his head. He bets Dr. Alex Blake hasn’t been called oblivious a day in her life, but the term sounds much nicer than willful ignorance.

“She honestly thought she was doing the right thing, I think,” Spencer mumbles, his ears red and shame staining his cheeks. His head must be ringing with that shot at the Smithsonian. At his life’s work. 

Without meaning to, Hotch finds his hand pressed more solidly to the younger man’s back, as they make it out into the mid-day sunshine and side-step to a small alcove. Away from prying eyes and ears, surrounded by stone walls and pillars, able to breathe and collect themselves in their seclusion. Spencer still looks shell-shocked, trying to find his footing as he paces there.

“So what do we do?” he asks.

“Well, I’m not giving up this chase. Even if everything is halfway to Madrid.” Hotch says, and Spencer’s soft gaze near glows in admiration. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m getting paid a fat wad of cash for it.”

“You don’t care about the money,” Spencer says, and it’s not a question. It melts the façade right off of Hotch’s face.

“No, I don’t. I also don’t care that everything might already be gone. Are you ready to give up and go back to your basement laboratory?” There’s a lilt to his tone, and brightness to his dark eyes that he doesn’t want to hide from the other man, because he already knows the answer. Enough he allows himself to hope. 

“Not a chance,” Spencer smiles.

“Good. So what do we do next.” Hotch hadn’t realized how close they were standing until that moment, curved towards each other, barely a few inches distance. With just a twitch of his fingers he could reach for Spencer’s waist once more, curl a hand around it, draw him closer still until they touch chest to thighs. “We can’t trust your academic scene any more, and we can’t trust my underground one by default – so where do we turn next?” 

Spencer chews on his lip. Hotch has to resist the urge to free it with his thumb. “Well… firstly I think we should find out if one of these artifacts is actually a weapon of some kind. I’d rather not be carrying around the equivalent of a live grenade as we go trapezing about the city.”

“Smart.”

“So I’ve been told,” Spencer smirks, and it quirks surprise into Aaron’s lips. He knows because the action catches Spencer’s honey hazel eyes. “I – I have some friends outside the academic community we can consult. On the far side of town. I needed to deliver a book to him, anyway.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” Hotch smiles, small and sincere and it reflects in Spencer’s face tenfold. Bright and blooming. 

This was turning into the wild goose chase that Hotch had so dreaded just the following morning, but with the warmth of Dr. Spencer Reid’s brilliant adoration fixed solely on him – and another long day in his company awaiting them – Hotch finds he doesn’t mind the drawn out case any longer. Let it twist and wind for days, in his opinion. 

He hasn’t been this happy in years. 

.

—

tbc…

—

⬅Previous Chapter

Next Chapter➡

—

Tagged list so far: @physics-magic​​ @thaddeusly​​ @sideblogforcrimpy​ @anxious-enby​​​

(To be added to the taglist just send me a message via comment, reblog, ask, or DM!)