#hotmontagne

[jaspxr]

“ɪ ᴅᴏɴ’ᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ꜱᴄᴀʀᴇᴅ.”

“ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴇᴛ ꜱᴄᴀʀᴇᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ,”

— Adding it all up - a hotmontagne fic by @masterwords

made for @masterwords' Halloween party event: ₊˚⊹♡ Office Halloween party / Haunted house date ₊˚⊹♡

#aaron hotchner #will lamontagne #will lamontagne jr #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fics #hotmontagne #aaron hotchner x will lamontagne #hotch x will #criminal minds #masterwords ⚔️ #masterword's halloween party event #jasedit

[masterwords]

short time

This isn't really a story, it's just a fun little Hotch/Will ficlet because sometimes my brain says WRITE THIS QUICKLY and I have to. I'm working on a couple of nice, longer ones but this is quick and dirty and...yeah.

It's not much. Just a re-write of the "Hit/Run" bomb attached to Will situation but with Hotch instead of Emily. (For simplicity sake, so I don't have to write a huge backstory for this tiny little thing - Hotch & Will are in an established relationship and this does not involve JJ in any way. Don't try to complicate things. It's just some tasty hotmontagne brain soup.) The title is just a funny little nod to what my husband and all the wrestling coaches yell at the kids in matches when they're down to the last few seconds and they need to try and go crazy and get a point out of desperation.

Words: 1.4k

**

Hotch instructs Emily and Reid to go to the left, he goes to the right. Up the stairs to the Mezzanine, around the barricade. His feet fall light on the marble floor, he hushes his breath. Everything feels surreal. This is just a movie scene, and the music has dropped out, just the sound of his heavy breathing. Any minute now the Director will yell CUT! and people will swarm and reset the scene for a re-take.

His ear throbs, the pain lighting up the side of his face with every careful step up. It was bleeding again, he could feel the warmth pooling, dripping in a slow sticky rivulet down his neck. It’s a nuisance, nothing more. (For now. He has no future until this is over anyway.)

Scaffolding. Construction. Paint buckets and drop cloths. Everything covered in a fine layer of silky dust. His foot slips in it as he pulled his gun higher and slows his steps.

“I found Will!” Hotch says into his comm. He regrets it instantly, they’re going to want to come up and he wants them as far away as possible. What he sees is a nightmare.

“Is he mobile?” Emily's voice breaks through, out of breath.

“Negative. He's got six transmitters on him.” And duct tape, he says to himself as he creeps closer. He scans the floor for trip wires, trying not to disrupt anything. Once he’s satisfied it’s just he and Will and the open mezzanine, he crouches beside the other man and pulls the duct tape from his lips.

“Aw hell...why?”

“I’m sorry. Are you alright?”

“Where are you? I'm on my way,” Reid says, and even though it’s only into the comm Will can hear it too. Loud and clear. He shakes his head. The movement is slow and pained, he's barely hanging on.

“Tell them to get everyone out.”

“The bomb squad is on its way,” Hotch says, looking at the bomb.

2:48

“How far out is the bomb squad?” Hotch asks into his comm, daring to hope for one second that they would come rushing through the door as if on command. No such luck.

“Three minutes,” Rossi replies. Hotch feels his heart drop. Not metaphorically, he's pretty sure it actually drops down into his stomach.

“They need to get everyone out.” Will is bleeding all over his shirt, he looks sick. There's sweat on his brow and Hotch wants to reach out and dab it away but there's no time for that kind of intimacy. “You too. Go. They're at your house, they've got Jack.”

“It's taken care of. JJ's got him.”

Will screws up his face, trying not to cry. “It's my fault. I keep Jack's information in my wallet, in case I have to pick him up...or if his school calls...”

“Shh, we don't have time.”

“You have to get out of here.”

2:35

“Stop wasting time whining. I'll get Reid up here, and you can walk him through it. With his memory and your...”

Voices, dismembered and chaotic, float from the main floor up toward the vaulted ceiling. The squealing of brakes, trains on their tracks, echo against a marble landscape. Will shakes his head adamantly.

“No. Not Reid. Come on Hotch, if I gotta die, I want your face to be the last thing I see.”

“You're not going to die.”

“I am if you don't get busy on this bomb...if it gets down to thirty seconds, you run. You hear me?”

Silence between them. Time ticking toward zero.

“Hotch. Promise me. Thirty seconds and you run for an exit. I won't be the reason Jack loses his only parent.”

2:12

“Talk me through it, then. Everything they did was about them. Their story.”

“When did they meet?” Will asks, closing his eyes for only a second to slow his heart before it crashes through his sternum. He’s usually frighteningly good under pressure, always the last person to get worked up, but he’s never had explosives strapped to his chest before. This is a new one. He’s a little panicked.

“2008,” Hotch whispers, punching in the numbers.

1:57

Wrong. Colors flash, Hotch's heart stops briefly. “Hotch. Seriously. Just go. Jack needs you to live through this. Don't be stupid.”

“I have plenty of time. Hold on.” He tries another code, another failure. Will lets out a pained whimper and shakes his head.

“Hotch. Dammit. You gotta go. I'm glad I got to see your face one more time, now just give me a damn kiss and run like hell. Tell Jack I love him, aw'right?”

“We have one more try.”

“And if you get it wrong we both die.”

“And if I get it right, you walk me through some wires I don't understand. I won't give up on you.”

1:01

“This isn't about them,” Will says finally, the low throb in his shoulder no longer a distraction. He’s cold and tired. Maybe he’ll die before the bomb ever goes off, it hadn’t even occurred to him until now. “This is about her. This is his love letter to her.”

“Okay...” This would be the time for Reid. Coming up with random four letter words that meant love would be easy for him. Hotch felt every word he'd ever known suddenly vacate the premises. He’s nothing but a caveman blindly navigating his way through this modern technological mess.

“Izzy...” Will whispers. “Her name is Izzy.”

Hotch punches it in without thinking. The time is too short, it’s too late to question him. They’re both goners anyway.

IZZY

Green lights. A small door pops open.

00:30

“Wires?”

“Wires.”

Will lets out a long, drawn out sigh. “What colors are they?”

“Red, blue, yellow.”

00:28

“Hotch, what's your status?”

Hotch stares hard at Will, meeting his eyes, locking there. He doesn’t know what to say. Is fucked an appropriate response?

00:20

“Hotch, do you copy?”

He rips his ear piece out and lets it fall around his neck. No distractions.

“The story's in the details...”

00:14

“These wires mean something,” Will says. He’s disgusted by these people, the audacity of them to make everyone else unwitting participants in their sick love story. “The colors. Usually you can tell by how they're...but this time...” the pain is back and it’s making him dizzy.

He knows there's a way he uses to get to the right answer, he knows it. Will tells him to look at certain things, see where they go, but he's not listening. He’s in that same movie scene again, the soundtrack has dropped out, it’s just the sound of his breathing. Heavy, exaggerated breathing.

00:08

He can't hear anything now. Maybe that’s his ear, there is some latent pain there that he knows should feel a lot worse except he’s barely connected to his body. Will’s lips are moving, he’s explaining something quickly but his ear is ringing, sound has taken on a muffled underwater quality. Maybe the injury, maybe the anxiety. He thinks of the US flag and the Chad flag, and with his eyes locked on Will’s he offers the smallest fuck it smile he can...

00:04

He snips the yellow wire.

00:01

The bomb goes dead, the world stops spinning. Hotch falls back onto his butt and Will breathes a huge sigh of relief.

“How'd you do that?”

Hotch looks at him as sound slowly trickles back into his surroundings. It's still muffled but it's there again. Color bleeds back into his vision, and for a moment he thinks he might be sick or faint but it passes quickly.

“I stopped listening to you.”

Will laughs. “Classic.”

They stare at each other for a minute, relishing the fact that they’re still alive. Somehow they’re still alive. They can’t really believe it.

“You gonna leave me in the chains or what? My ass is going numb and I think I might bleed to death.”

“I guess I could call someone.”

“You guess?”

Hotch leans close and Will kisses him, right on the mouth, right there in the wide open. If he had his hands free it would have been violent and possessive, hands grabbing at Hotch's face, holding him there. It doesn't really matter that he can't, Hotch can feel it anyway. Each time he tries to pull away, to say something, Will follows. Trails him, chases him, keeps them connected like he's drawing life from the kiss. He isn't ready to stop and how can Hotch deny him that while he's strapped to explosives?

Hotch knows that once he makes the call and says the bomb is diffused, they’ll be flooded with people. For now the mezzanine is still theirs. It was mean, making everyone wait. But Will is still kissing him like he needs it. Another kiss. And another. Hotch's jaw aches by the time the sound of feet crashing against the floor tell them that the bomb squad has arrived.

“We got it,” Hotch says into his comm not a moment too soon. He’s a little out of breath and it has nothing to do with the bomb. “Barely. We need someone who can cut through chains. And a medic. Stat.”

#aaron hotchner #will lamontagne #hotmontagne #ficlet #just a short little thing it's nothing really

[masterwords]

adding it all up

Summary: Hotch follows Reid and Jack into a haunted house. Inside he meets a ghost and stumbles right into some unexpected arms.

Pairing: Hotch/Will

Words: 3.2k

Warnings: nightmares, ptsd, minor injuries, panic attack

Notes: I formally submit to you my entry for @imagining-in-the-margins Meet Cute/Ugly Challenge with the prompt: Character accidentally gets hurt in a spooky attraction and a scare actor breaks character to help. To the surprise of no one at this point, I took some creative liberties with the prompt. There isn't much to the plot, it's pretty simple and we mostly just have an excuse for kissing. As with everything I've written so far about this pairing, we live in a universe where Will is a DC Metro Detective but he is not nor has he ever been with JJ because we don't have time for that kind of backstory in these little one-shots. Thanks for reading yo! Let's show this incredibly rare pairing some love. (And now I return to writing about hotchgan...I can only stray for so long.)

**

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease dad!”

“I’d rather not,” Hotch said, as if it was going to change the mind of his six year old son. And maybe he didn’t really want to because his argument was pretty flimsy. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go in, or that he didn’t like Halloween. “I don’t like to be scared.” That was a lie and Reid saw the opening, poking a huge hole in it immediately.

“You get scared for a living,” Reid pointed out from behind him and Hotch groaned. He’d been hoping Reid would take his side. “Come on Jack. If your dad is too chicken I’ll take you in. I’m kind of an expert.”

“You are?!”

Reid crouched beside Jack as best he could, favoring his still sore (always sore) knee and leaned as close as he could to the child. His whisper smelled like kettle corn and candied apples and cotton candy, that’s what Jack thought anyway. Reid smelled like a carnival. “I’ve already been through it three times. I bet you could find some people in there you know. Like playing a really big game of Where’s Waldo…”

“Who’s in there?!”

“You’ll have to come in with me and see.”

“Can I dad?!”

Hotch sighed and nodded reluctantly. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“You don’t have to if you’re too scared! You can stay out here! I’ll be tough.”

“I know you will buddy.”

Hotch looked at Reid and then at the doorway. He wasn’t scared, it wasn’t that. He simply didn’t care for jump scares or people being that close to him, close quarters, being vulnerable. Not in control. In the dark. Worse than that, he didn’t want any of that to be witnessed by a man he’d just begun seeing just a couple of weeks prior. Because that would be embarrassing. Big strong FBI Agent can’t handle a clown yelling boo in his face.

He always knew this was a possibility. Jack had never wanted to go into the house of mirrors or the haunted house before, he preferred to stick to roller coasters and prize games when they came to the carnival. He thought he’d be safe, especially this year. They were coming up on one year since Haley died and he thought for sure Jack wouldn’t want a thing to do with fake blood and jump scares but here he was practically dragging Reid through the entrance. Dutifully he followed them in, staying a few steps behind. “See you at the end dad!” At the entrance he was asked to wait. Reid and Jack got shoved in with another group and he was about to be sorted with the next when he asked if he could go through on his own.

“I don’t have a guide for a solo trip,” the young man at the door said. “You good at following directions? There are little green glow in the dark arrows along the ceiling that point you the direction you’re supposed to go. Keep an eye on them and you’ll find your way. Don’t go too fast or too slow. There are little red lights on the walls where there are emergency exits if you get hurt or lost or too scared to finish.” The young man flushed a little as he said the last part, Hotch didn’t look much like the type to get scared of anything but he still had to say it. There was a script and he followed it. He liked his job.

“Got it. Follow the green. Red means emergency exit. Thank you.”

Great. Alone. Jack didn’t even care to walk with him, too enthralled with whatever whispers and promises of adventure Reid was feeding him. He didn’t even turn around to see where Hotch ended up. He moved at a relatively quick clip, barely looking in the direction of the sets or the mini scares. Up ahead he was sure Reid was peeking at all the details, getting the most out of everything and helping Jack do the same. He was barely paying attention to any of it. Occasionally he found himself jumping when a clown popped out with a hatchet. That was natural, his heart thumped a little harder, but he smiled and thanked the volunteer in costume before stepping around the corner into a room that was filled with spider webs and hissing sounds. He’d never been afraid of spiders, in fact as a child he’d found himself collecting them in little mason jars and feeding them for a week or two before releasing them back out into the woods. He batted at a piece of cotton webbing that tickled his ear and frowned, not caring much for that feeling. It was worse than the room full of animated spiders.

The haunted house wasn’t huge but it felt like it lasted forever, twisting and angling and collapsing in on itself until he really did feel dizzy. His senses had been warped by the strange dark shafts and violent twists and hanging bloody sheets behind which shadows lurked.

Was he lost or could it really be this long? He glanced up as if to assure himself that he was going the right direction, and squinting into the dark he was able to make out one small green arrow.

There was only one way to go, really. He could hear Jack’s chirpy little voice up ahead and Reid’s surprise, maybe real or maybe an act, and there were voices not too far behind him but he was otherwise completely alone in the maze. The ceiling ahead dropped until he was hunched over in a sort of soft, undulating tunnel. It was pitch black, with only a foggy red light to guide him from what looked like miles away. Hunching like this hurt his back. Up ahead was a pinprick widening to an opening he had to step through into what looked like a torture chamber with bodies hanging from the walls. He’d seen this in real life, this wasn’t entertainment. This was work. Well researched, too. He recognized bits that had been pulled from crime scene photos, small elements not many would recognize but they made his breath catch in his throat more than once. People’s fascination with serial killers would never cease to worry him.

“I’ll gut you like a fish!” growled a man in a grisly voice from the shadows beside him. Hoarse from saying his line so many times, Hotch knew, but something about it still made him flinch away. There was a strangely familiar quality to it, something ghostly and pale, dry leaves rustling in the chilly October wind. “You should have taken the deal…” the voice whispered in his ear and he froze. His legs wouldn’t move. A flash of muzzle and the smell of gun smoke, steel bright in the dark and then pitch black.

“What?” he asked, ashamed of the fear that welled up in his chest. There was a vague pain where his heart should be noisily thumping but was making not a sound. “What did you say?” (He knew, somewhere deep inside, that the man hadn’t said that. There was some still quiet voice of reason in there, it was just disappearing second by second as fear seeped in.)

No reply. He had to be hearing things. There was no way. (Someone could have read the book. He told Colson what Foyet had said to him. He'd been on pain medication, heavy stuff, when he talked to Roy...he should have said less. He knew it but Roy had been so good to him, he found it hard to hold back.) He squinted into the dark where he stood motionless, breathless and saw a black mask coming toward him, outlined by a sickly white fog. Hovering there, not attached to a body for the longest time, and then around him materialized a hooded sweatshirt. Foyet’s mask. He knew it wasn’t Foyet, he’d seen the autopsy report, Foyet was dead. But the mask still startled him, and when it came closer (the person now muttering their actual lines and not something his frightened mind invented on his behalf) he found that his legs did work. They just didn’t obey his commands. He stepped backward, his heel catching on the curtain separating the two rooms and he managed to pull part of it down on top of himself. The feel of the fabric against his neck sent him into a tailspin and he lunged forward past the man in the Reaper mask (now reaching for him and asking if he was alright) until he stumbled into the next corridor where he narrowly missed stepping on a body on the floor. One of his victims, presumably. Hotch glanced down at her, stabbed repeatedly (do you have any idea how long it takes to stab someone 67 times?, he thought) and felt his blood run cold.

Was this some kind of a sick joke? Did someone know he was coming today? (Someone aside from Will? Will would never…he’d been there that day, that was how they met.) As he stepped around the woman on the ground with her guts strewn all around her, he slipped in the gore and took a header down the small flight of black and white checkered stairs. The sound his body made as it hit the wall was horrifying – he wouldn’t doubt if the people outside waiting in line had heard. He groaned and tried to push up to standing but he knew right away that he was hurt. Or just about ready to pass out. His head swam and he collapsed in a heap. “Dammit,” he mumbled. His chest was tight and there was a pain, a burning and squeezing that ran through his left arm. He couldn’t catch his breath.

“You okay mister?”

He recognized that voice, that molasses drawl he’d been hoping to hear in any way but this. Never this. Slowly he looked up, taking the hand of a werewolf who helped him stand. He was dizzy after hitting his head and his ears were ringing. Most of the time his tinnitus was manageable, background noise, but when he was around loud noises or when he hit his head it made sure he remembered it was with him forever. Now it was screaming so loud he felt like his head might burst.

“Will?”

“Hotch?”

“Yeah,” Hotch replied, slipping back against the wall when the group of people who had been a few turns behind him made their way curiously down the stairs. They looked perplexed, probably wondering at all the commotion a few turns ahead of them. Waiting to see a body on the ground. Will quickly maneuvered them until they were part of the exhibit, pretending to eat Hotch and to his credit, Hotch moaned because...well he really felt like it, his head hurt that bad. Once that group passed, Will lifted his mask and eyed Hotch in the dark. There was only a dim foggy glow from the previous room but even in then he could see that something was wrong.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” Hotch swayed where he stood and watched as an ominous gray cloud crept in at the edge of his vision. He felt foggy and wrong, his heart had slowed to a syrupy thump in his chest. He thought he might pass out. There had been such an immediate feeling of panic and now his heart felt like it might give out entirely. “Maybe.”

“What happened?”

Before he could answer, another group came around the corner and they slipped back into their role of werewolf devouring a poor innocent man. It wasn’t exactly what Will’s job was supposed to be, he was supposed to jump out from around the next corner howling and chase the passersby to the next room but it beat not doing it all or having undue attention paid to him.

Hotch swallowed hard. Was he really about to admit he’d been frightened in a haunted house? Really truly scared? And now he probably had a concussion to take home as a souvenir once this panic attack left him alone? “I don’t know,” Hotch said quietly, incapable of finding the right words. He couldn’t admit what he saw. Was it real? Had his mind played tricks on him? “The last room got to me.”

“The torture chamber?” Will asked, his hands gripping Hotch’s waist to steady him. “You seen stuff like that a hundred times…I guess the mad scientist was kinda creepy, I just thought he looked like Doc from Back to the Future.”

“Mad Scientist?” Hotch asked, gripping Will’s forearms. “I didn’t see a Mad Scientist.”

“Huh. I coulda sworn today was Mark’s day. He loves that damn wig. Who was in there?”

Hotch swallowed hard. His throat was dry and clicked painfully, and for a split second he questioned not only his hearing but his eyes...had he just made it all up? Before he could answer another group came around the corner and Will pulled his mask back down and once again set to devouring Hotch’s jugular. Hotch was happy just to stand there pretending to be eaten, it beat the hell out of exploring the caverns of his mind. Of wondering what happened. Did he invent it all? It was possible. He’d been having nightmares again as the anniversary crept closer but he thought he had a pretty good handle on them.

“You want me to get you outta here?” Will asked when they had a brief break. “You’re still shakin’ and you're breathing all funny. My shift is over in fifteen minutes, I can meet you out front when I’m done. We can talk then.”

“Jack is with Reid,” Hotch whispered. “Can I stay?” He didn’t think he could walk. One step and he had the distinct impression he’d be face planting. Maybe if he stayed until this silent panic attack passed – this panic attack he was so far not admitting to – it would be okay.

“Yeah. Sure. But I gotta do my job so you think you can help me out?”

“I’ll try.”

Will smiled from beneath the mask and let it fall back over his face, taking Hotch’s hand and leading carefully, slowly down into the hallway. He kept his arm around Hotch’s waist, walking with purpose. “Right here, lay down.”

“Lay down?” He liked the sound of that. His head was swimming and his legs felt like they’d been poured with concrete.

“Down.”

Hotch eased himself down until he was on the oddly soft fake grass, and Will nudged him until his body was flush with the wall painted with a glowing full moon and pitch black trees. It looked like something painted by children. “When people come, I’m gonna pretend to be eating you. Then I get up and chase ‘em down the hallway and come back. You just lay here. Close your eyes. Play dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hotch had no complaints about closing his eyes, it instantly made the pounding in his head quiet to a dull throb. Will shifted above him, and he heard the distinct sound of a howl. It was low, gutteral, almost sexy. Hotch shifted where he lay when he felt a heat growing in his belly. This was not the time, but it did settle the racing of his heart, and the ache in his chest. There were footsteps beside him and Will was panting, chasing a family who giggled and squealed at him, and then he was dropping to his knees over Hotch.

He expected the fur from the mask against his neck again, but instead in the blind darkness he felt the soft flush of Will’s lips against his own. The mask bobbed against his nose, obscuring both of their faces as Will drew him into a kiss. He was breathless from running, Hotch’s chest was constricting like his heart was going to give out, and suddenly the world around him erupted in kaleidoscope colors behind the black of his eyelids. He sucked in a deep breath, a wanting breath as Will stood and chased a couple past them. And then a group of teenagers, one of whom kicked the bottom of Hotch’s shoe before Will returned.

Another kiss. And another. Hotch had rolled over enough that he could press his thighs together to stop his body from responding in ways that would be wholly inappropriate in a haunted house. Every kiss brought him back to the surface for air, and slowly the panic in him drained to quiet nothing. He forgot, briefly, about Foyet’s mask. He’d been caught up in the moment, that was all. Just his mind taking the haunted house a little too seriously. The nightmares seeping into reality. The handle he thought he had on them was weaker than he thought.

Fifteen minutes later they emerged into the glaring daylight. Hotch had almost forgotten it was just barely afternoon, the sun was still overhead bathing everything in its warm glow. Will held his mask beneath his arm, the sweat on his brow making the strange mix of facepaint he’d had on beneath clump and smear. His eyes were blackened, his lips gray and lifeless. Reid smiled and nudged Hotch, handing him a paisley print silk handkerchief from his pocket.

“You uh...you’ve got something right….there…” he said, indicating his lips. Hotch glanced at Will’s smudged gray mouth and frowned, realizing what he must look like too. “Did you need CPR?”

“Something like that.”

“See ya LaMontagne!” an officer yelled as he exited the haunted house, his black hoodie tied around his waist and a mask dangling from his arm. Will glanced at the mask, and then at Hotch, and then back at the mask. He doubted it was intentional, at least not aimed at Hotch. How could it be? Probably just a practical joke, trying to get the best out of a local legend. Still, he was angry and embarrassed. This was one of his guys. Not a great look.

He didn’t even need to say it and Hotch wouldn't want to hear it. Likely he would argue on behalf of the officer, make an excuse for his poor judgment and lack of taste, and maybe he'd be right too but Will didn't want to listen. Roy Colson's new book about the Reaper's last stand was studded with Hotch's own memories, a gift to his friend for keeping his promise during the initial investigation, and the entire squad was in the process of reading it. They knew, they all knew. He couldn't believe one of them would think this was appropriate. Hotch turned away and wiped the grease paint off of his lips while Reid followed Will’s gaze at the officer and the mask. “Is that…”

“Yeah,” Will grunted. “I’ll handle it.” The guy was going to be seeing a lot of paperwork and grunt security jobs in the near future.

“Who wants a funnel cake?” Will asked, changing the subject abruptly.

“I do!” Jack had never turned down an offer of sweets in his life, and even Hotch could hardly say no to an offer of deep fried batter covered in powdered sugar.

“Well lets go find some grub then!”

#aaron hotchner #will lamontagne #hotmontagne #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #hotch x will #reid is in the story too but he's not a main character so i'm not actually tagging him

[masterwords]

🌹

Hiii! <3 Why yes, how about a snippet from a Hotch/Will story I'm working on? It's the only WIP I have that isn't hotchgan. As with all of these snippets, they are very very rough so...don't judge too harshly.

...

Full of beingets and strong chicory coffee, Hotch and Will walked side by side silently down a shady side street. Around them brick buildings rose like empty tombs, cracked foundations festooned with lush green vines creeping out of the earth, taking back the city that once belonged to them. “I’d better get you back to the station,” Will said, dipping his head to the side, narrowly missing a clump of kudzu trying to reach to the sidewalk. His head bumped Hotch’s shoulder and he smiled as he straightened himself back up. “Wouldn’t want anyone worrying.”

“No one has noticed my absence,” Hotch replied quietly. He’d felt more or less invisible on this case, being assigned to the station by Gideon while everyone else was roaming the city. “I guarantee it.”

“Well, in that case, you wanna make one more stop before we get back?”

Hotch hesitated, his sense of duty clamping tight in his chest. He wanted to say yes, he wanted desperately to say yes but he couldn’t. Stuck at the station though he were, he was needed. And so was Will. Reid was already barely functioning as a member of the team, they couldn’t afford for him to do the same. “We shouldn’t. Another time?”

“Yeah, sure. ‘Course. Another time.”

...

I'm hoping to have this one finished soon!

send me a 🌹 and i'll share some of a wip with you!

#wip game #hotmontagne #hotch/will

[masterwords]

I haven't read all of your fics, so I can't tell you which is my all time favorite, but I will remember the atmosphere and tenderness you created in the hotmontagne 'drabble' as long as I live 💕😎🙌💐

Ohhhh. So much love for the mosquito fest! <3

what's your favorite story i've written?

#struggling to write the last few days #everything is a mess

[masterwords]

“I’ll do it for you”

Make it hotmontagne. Do it. Please.

Your wish is my command! Now I need more excuses to write them. I've done it, I broke the seal. I'm in it now. (1053 words about Hotch and Will at a cabin. On AO3, if you prefer.)

Want me to write something quick and fluffy for you?

**

Less of a cabin, more of a shack on stilts at first glance. Will's family had owned it for generations, barely used it anymore. It had fallen into a state of disrepair and Will intended to start some renovations during an attempt at a vacation. Neither man was much accustomed to taking time off.

“No one wants to come out here much these days,” he'd said as they hauled their bags inside and Hotch listened to the high-pitched squeal of a mosquito near his ear. The cypress trees wept thick over the water, roots twisting and gnarled along the kudzu drenched banks. A willow draped herself over the place they parked their car, long tendrils fluttering in the gentle warm breeze. “Watch for gators.” Will winked at that and Hotch glared. He knew. He and Jack had been reading about this ecosystem for the last two weeks in preparation for this trip he was taking, and the more he learned, the more he understood why Will's family might choose somewhere else for vacations.

It wasn't the alligators he needed to contend with, though, it was the mosquitoes. They hovered in thick clouds above the still water and swarmed his sweat slicked skin without mercy. He smelled like citronella, so strong is made his stomach ache, which only seemed to incite the anger of the indignant little beasts...they came anyway, and Will sprayed him down again and again to no avail.

“They don't seem to want anything to do with you,” Hotch grumbled, scrunching his nose as he smacked another one and was left with a small spot of blood on his forearm. Hopefully his own, though he doubted it very much. It itched immediately. He wiggled, shimmied his shoulders to stop his shirt from tickling his itchy back. Trying to arch his arm up over his shoulders to reach the spot didn't work, and going from beneath was even worse, each time just barely missing the spot. Watching Will cook, he leaned against the corner of the doorjamb, ramming it between his shoulder blades to cut off the misery at the source. It held momentarily so he could watch Will cook the catfish he'd caught earlier with his bare hands, slicing and seasoning and breading it the way his dad taught him. Without thinking, Hotch began shifting from side to side across the edge like a bear, scratching his miserable spine against the wood.

“Why would they want me when they got you?” Will asked his question without even turning around. His fingers were caked thick with wet, seasoned flour, red and black and white goo dripping into the hot oil behind lumps of the fish. Once the fish was in, hissing and popping in the oil, he washed his hands and set to throwing together their salad.

The cabin smelled like hot peppers and fish while they ate, and the angry bites gave him a brief respite in which to enjoy the fruit of their labor. He had helped find the greens for the salad, but he'd only watched from the shore ankle deep in thick gray muck while Will waded into the water and plunged his arm in at the exact moment to come up with a catfish wrapped around his fist. It's not exactly legal, Will had mentioned as he tossed the now dead fish into their cooler of ice. Not expressly illegal either, Hotch replied with a smirk. The meal was important to Will in ways Hotch could sense in every bite, this was his childhood in a snapshot.

After dinner they set up the outdoor shower, just a hose hooked up to the kitchen sink and run out through the window. Moths fluttered against the porch lights, tiny furry bodies smacking against the bulbs eagerly. Will insisted that showering this way was the best way...the cabin had a very nice indoor shower, a new addition in the last decade or so, but Will was adamant. It was the way he and his cousins showered off after a long day fishing or playing in the mud and climbing trees. While he would have just preferred to be stark naked right there on the groaning deck, he threw a tarp up on some hooks for Hotch's sake, the man's modesty extended even to being in the middle of nowhere with no one around. Afraid the owls are gonna say somethin'? Will had asked, tying up the last corner of the tarp. Hotch frowned and folded his arms over his chest, preferring the chorus of the frogs to Will's ribbing.

“You ready?” Cranking the faucet, Will turned on the sink and listened as the water moved though the old, cracked hose. It was cold, would only get lukewarm at best. Still far too hot outside, even in the black of night, for a hot shower. “It'll take some of that itch outta you.” Hotch shivered under the cold spray, but Will was right. It did quell the irritation.

Washing the sunscreen and citronella off while watching the fireflies dancing was like floating in a weird dream. Nothing he saw made any sense. Up was down, down was up and he was cold on a hot night. Tiny glowing balls flickered on and off, hovering over the water and creating shifting constellations no one would ever have a chance to name on the black surface of the water. Turning his face to the sky, he saw familiar shapes and clusters. Orion loomed over the canopy of trees. He was suddenly very aware of being small and unsteady in this waking dream, but then Will's hands were soaping and swirling over the expanse of his back, up his shoulders and neck, wrapping around him. Warm, wet kisses and low humming sounds joined the song of the night creatures. His pulse quickened as the intensity of the song reached crescendo.

In bed, Hotch struggled to get comfortable. His arms would itch first, then his legs and feet, finally culminating in a creeping sensation up his back. He wiggled against the sheets until Will rolled toward him and nudged him over onto his belly. “I'll do it for you,” he whispered, scratching long lean lines up and down Hotch's spine, gently grazing each miserable mound until he was comfortable enough to fall asleep.

#aaron hotchner #will lamontagne #hotmontagne #hotmontagne time #criminal minds #it finally happened #we have arrived

[masterwords]

heredity

Summary: Hotch struggles to know what Jack needs as a new single father. Will helps.

Notes: There is no pairing here, it's just a short thing that has been in my WIP folder forever and isn't getting better or bigger. It just is what it is. Let the purge continue. (Aroung 1.6k words.)

Warnings: Depression, grief, pain medication

**

Hotch knows he doesn't come from good stock, not so far as fathers go. He's always been keenly aware of how little foundational knowledge he has, how he couldn't think of a single figure he'd want to emulate. At a certain point, and with great disappointment, he realized that his father wasn't the first emperor of heavy-handed corruption in the Hotchner line. No, his grandfather and his father before him all bore the mark, he could see it in the photo albums. Hidden in those celluloid smiles he could see it.

Sean might not ever think of it this way, but he knows it's why he won't settle down. Jack will probably never see Hotchner cousins.

“Take care of your son, Hotch.” Morgan might not have meant anything by it, but there was a sting in those words as he breathed them in. Poison gas burning his lungs. In Morgan's eyes he could see Jack's future, a boy forced to learn life with only one parent still breathing and it was up to him to make that somehow okay. He'd had two breathing, and both were worthless and at a certain point he had to hope that he was at least better than that.

So why had he been so foolish, so enchanted by Haley to think he could overcome it? He's weaker than Sean, weaker than his father. He doubts his father ever thought he'd be good at it, but no...he had. He'd looked into Haley's glittering eyes and he'd felt hopeful. He could do this, break the curse, break the cycle. Be the change, everyone says but he knows Sean is the wise one, Sean understands heredity.

Now, with Haley's ruined life still under his fingernails, he knows it was always a lie. He'd just been better at hiding...more hours at work, more out of town cases, if he wasn't there then he couldn't fail. The divorce papers had been a blessing in disguise, she'd broken the cycle for him. Never really gave him a chance to take that first step.

“Daddy?” Jack asks, poking his head into Hotch's room long after he was supposed to have been asleep. He doesn't look at Jack, only the clock, and grunts something about being out of bed. “Daddy I had a bad dream.”

“You have to sleep to dream, Jack,” he whispers softly, sighing. This is knowledge he has acquired through years of insomnia, he hasn't come by it easily. “You didn't go to sleep.” Jack, in his childish way, insists he had been asleep. For hours, in fact, even though bed time hadn't been so long ago. His concept of time is shaky at best and Hotch really doesn't understand it...he hasn't been around enough to know all of the little quirks. This is only their third night alone. The most nights the two of them had ever been alone together, and he's acutely aware now as Jack creeps closer to his bed that things will not go smoothly. There is an electricity in the air he can feel, it makes the hairs on his arms stand up.

“When is mommy coming?”

A whimper escapes his lips involuntarily as he rolls to face Jack, his broken ribs groaning at the unwelcome movement. He could cry. He won't, but he could. The concussion doesn't help. “Not tonight,” he mutters, patting the bed. It's all he can do. No way his body is letting him sit up let alone get out of the bed, not now, but Jack can lay with him. Maybe they'll both sleep.

It's like that for two more nights, he manages to escape the breakdown that's looming with the creeping knowledge that Haley isn't coming to get Jack. They're both halfway expecting it, and Hotch stares at the door just as often as Jack does, expecting a miracle.

The next person to knock on the door isn't Haley, it's Will. Hotch can barely remember making the call to JJ, pleading in his quiet way for help. In his bedroom Jack is throwing his toys against the wall, his wails excruciating, and the worst part is that Hotch feels with all his exploding cells like joining him. He'd been at his lowest, the minute Jack closed his eyes, and took his painkillers for the first time that week. So important to stay focused on Jack, he could manage his own pain, but the shared tears had put him over the edge. And wouldn't it figure that would be the night when Jack would wake inconsolable from a very real bad dream, Hotch unable to come down from the swirling feeling the drugs gave him. The worst part is knowing that even if he hadn't taken the medication, he'd still be useless. He could stare down monsters without flinching but his four-year-old terrified him. “JJ,” he'd muttered into the phone. “I'm sorry, I know it's late...I need help...”

To say she'd been scared would be an understatement. There was a quiet moment of panic where she grabbed for her purse, reached for the door handle...not even planning to tell Will she'd gone, but a flash of clarity struck her and she woke him instead. “Will, I need you to go to Hotch's...I'll stay here with Henry.”

Will was unexpected, but not unwelcome. He looked tired, his already sleepy eyes barely dragging themselves open each time he blinked but he had coffee in his hands and that soft knowing smile on his face. “How can I help?” he asked, without skipping a beat.

The shrill sound of Jack's cries make Will's hair stand on end, and the dead look in Hotch's eyes...that's all he needs to know. He ushers Hotch to the couch first, can see that the man is barely standing. “Hotch?”

“Jack had a bad dream,” he says, his voice monotone. Void of the panic JJ had heard not long ago. “I don't know how to help him.”

“What do you usually do?”

Hotch turns his tired eyes up at Will and he can see the tears there, some spilled and dried, some new and threatening. “It hasn't ever happened before. Not like this.”

Will can hardly believe that. Kids have bad dreams, that's a given no matter what they've experienced. Monsters, cartoons, thunderstorms...a kid doesn't have to lose a parent to feel scared, he thinks. “Do you know what Haley would do?” He doesn't pull punches, he's here to help and helping means finding out what Jack needs first. Hotch flinches at her name and shakes his head.

“No. I don't...I thought JJ might...” Mom magic, he hopes. There must be some inherent knowledge that fixes these problems, because nothing he's tried has helped. He's offered his bed but that's not on the agenda tonight, he's offered a snack, placating him by way of a movie on the couch...nothing has broken through the rage that Jack is in. His fury scares Hotch.

Without another word, Will makes his way to Jack's bedroom and Hotch sits on the couch with his face buried in his trembling hands waiting. Jack's shrieks turn to cries, and eventually soft sad whimpers. Will works some sort of magic, and before long Jack is giggling and saying goodnight. Hotch should feel better about it, he knows he should feel good, but he's left feeling empty and worse than he'd started. Will comes from good stock. A good father from a long line of good fathers, he'd been taught in the old ways. He understood something that Hotch didn't even have access to.

Will seemed almost to glow in Hotch's tired eyes as he walked down the hallway, and he couldn't breathe. “Will,” Hotch rasped desperately, gasping breath into burning lungs. “I don't know how to do this...Haley was...I don't...” he can't form full sentences, he can't think straight, and Will drops easily to the couch and pulls him into a hug. The kind that squeezes the air from your lungs. He's never hugged Hotch before and he's surprised that it doesn't feel awkward, wonders how he'll explain it to JJ when she asks about their night. It's not a big deal, though, that's the thing. The man in his suit and tie, he can't imagine even getting this close to but this man here in his t-shirt and sweatpants, he was easy to hug. He needed it. He needed it badly.

A dad hug. Hotch feels a sob shudder through him; the last time arms had been around him like this, it was Morgan pulling him off of Foyet's bloody mangled corpse and he just can't feel hugs the same again. Maybe he never had felt them right anyway. “I know,” Will drawls finally, still holding tight. “But I'll help you figure it out.”

“You don't understand,” he starts, but he can't finish that thought. No way he can finish it. And somehow, Will understands what it means, on some level. His hand pats hard against Hotch's spine, rubs up and down without worrying too much about broken ribs and bruised flesh.

“Go kiss your son goodnight and tell him you're going to bed,” Will starts, ushering Hotch to standing. “And then you go to bed, because you need sleep too. And you leave your door open...he knows he can come in if he needs to. That's where you start, Hotch.”

“I don't...” he whispers, his shoulders trembling beneath the weight of another sob. “Please, Will. He needs something I can't give him.”

“No, he doesn't.” That's all Will is going to say on the matter, Hotch understands that even in his limited state. He walks achingly slow; his legs feel too heavy to lift but Will is beside him every step of the way. Tomorrow, when Hotch is awake and thinking straight, he'll explain what he did, how to replicate it...for now he just needs to take comfort in his pillow. Sleep it off.

In the morning, he doesn't remember getting to bed, and he doesn't remember Will leaving though he thinks it was late, maybe even after sunrise. It almost feels like a fever dream. He wakes with Jack sleeping in the bed beside him and he wonders whether any of it really happened until he smells it. Cinnamon and apple, oatmeal on warm in the slow cooker. Left by a friend who had lessons to teach. He can't beat his own heredity by wishing it away, he's always known that, but he also knows there is hope.

#aaron hotchner #jack hotchner #will lamontagne #jennifer jareau #criminal minds #hotmontagne time

[masterwords]

quiet

Note: It's just Will cleaning Hotch up after the battle with Foyet. Quick and dirty, no plot, I can't seem to wrap my mind around any of my WIPs today. (~970 words of gentle Will and grieving Hotch // AO3 if you prefer)

**

“Hold tight.”

An eerie silence fell over the apartment while Will took in the sight. What he'd anticipated, especially after seeing the house Hotch and Haley had shared, was nothing like what he saw. Everything in that house was tidy, decorated like a showroom, immaculate and impersonal. This was chaos. There were stacks of boxes against the walls collecting dust, the dining table littered with case files and books. What looked like a nest of blankets and a pillow on the couch told Will that Hotch probably wasn't in the habit of making it to his bedroom many nights. None of it fit the careful persona he walked out the door wearing every day. Will threw open a window and pushed back the curtains, letting the fresh air waft in and drench the place with the sounds and smells of the city's bustling afternoon. Car horns, people chattering, flowering dogwood, he was acutely aware of all of it as it rushed in to fill the void.

Hotch sat hunched over on the couch like he was taking up space in someone else's home, not his own. A small bucket, neon green plastic made for playing at the beach, filled slowly with cold water in the kitchen sink while Will rummaged around in the freezer for an ice cube tray. He thought about his own freezer, everything in a chaotic disarray, if he ever managed to find an ice cube tray it would probably have been put back with only one or two broken cubes left. Neither he nor JJ were particularly good at maintaining kitchen organization. Hotch's freezer, though, was stark contrast to the chaos of the apartment. Small boxes of single serving microwaveable dinners in a neat stack, some ice packs with Batman and Wonderwoman symbols dancing over their clear plastic covers and two full ice cube trays that looked like they were regularly changed out or used.

Cracking the ice into the bucket, he swished the cubes around and glanced up at the man on the couch. He hadn't moved, not even a little. Staring somewhere into nothing, straight ahead but not at anything in particular, Will wasn't sure he ever really left that house. If he was crying he would try to hide it, wouldn't want Will to see it and he understood that. He took his time, made a little extra noise as he hefted the bucket of ice water out of the sink to give Hotch warning that he was coming.

“May I?”

Crouching on the floor, knees popping loud on the way down, he took Hotch's hands in his own with all the gentleness he would use on Henry's scraped knees. He unbuttoned the cuffs of Hotch's bloody shirt, pushed them up his forearms carefully and examined the damage. He was no doctor, wasn't looking for anything more than what he could do to get him cleaned up. Make him comfortable.

“Probably not gonna like this much...”

He plunged Hotch's hands into the water after a nod of acceptance, silent understanding, and watched him wince at the shock of the temperature. Ice settled against the open wounds and his shoulders tensed, he drew a hissing sound in between clenched teeth. It was the first sound he'd made since they entered.

“Y'all got a first aid kit?”

Another nod and Will was off again, ready to rifle through the cabinets in the bathroom for what he needed. He was a simple man with simple needs. Some ointments and some gauze, a bottle of peroxide if he could find it. While Hotch's hands trembled in the water he wiped at the blood on his face until uncovering the gash across his nose that was the culprit. It didn't look bad once it was cleaned up. If it was Henry, he would have told him it made him look tough, asked him to make his tough face, but he thought it only made Hotch look sadder.

Wrapping the gauze loose around Hotch's hands, like taping up a boxer, was easier than he'd anticipated. Everyone warned him he was in for it, Hotch was a terrible patient, he'd play nice until they got back and then he'd put up a fight and refuse care...but they'd all been wrong. Maybe none of them could bear the thought that this was enough to take the fight right out of him and in a way, Will was glad to be the guardian of that. If they asked, he'd say Hotch gave him hell...why not? Not much else he could do, nothing that Hotch would ask of him certainly, so he cleaned up the mess he'd made and refilled the ice cube trays while vowing to do the same at home.

“Guess I'll be off,” he said, clapping Hotch's shoulder and giving it a little squeeze. “I should get back to the scene, see if I can help. You gonna be okay for a bit?”

Hotch nodded solemnly and Will forced a weak smile. “Jennifer and I will bring you dinner later, when we bring Jack home. You sure you're okay?” He wanted to stay, thought he should, but he got the impression Hotch would prefer to be alone. Couldn't blame him, really, but still hated to leave. With no answer, Will let out a soft sigh and made for the door.

“I'd like to lie down,” Hotch called after him, his voice cracked and raw. Will turned and in Hotch's eyes he saw the hurricane, his father in his home alone and dying, every day since missing a person who was so much a part of him. “Would you...please...” He couldn't seem to form the words for what he needed. Will nodded anyway. He didn't need to hear the words to understand.

“I'll let Jennifer know.”

Will stayed.

#aaron hotchner #will lamontagne #hotmontagne time #criminal minds #ficlet #or something #i don't know what this is...it's nothing

[masterwords]

what a night

Summary: Hotch shows up on Sean's doorstep a confused, bloody mess. (Coda to 04x01 - Mayhem...sort of.)

Warnings: alcohol, vomit, explosions, blood, graphic descriptions of wounds, a lot of swearing

Pairings: none

Words: 2.8k

Notes: I don't know what this is. @unionjackpillow gave me an idea and this is definitely not what they had in mind I'm sure but...wanna see Hotch after an explosion through Sean's eyes? I guess that's what this is. If you're looking for plot, you won't find it here...only a ton of swearing, and chaos. Seeing things through Sean's POV is a...lot.

Read on AO3: soon

**

His head hurts.

That's all he can think as he squints at the numbers on the buzzer. His head really, really hurts. His forehead has its own pulse and it's playing tricks on his senses. Is that Sean? He doesn't trust his eyes, but he knows Sean's smell, that stale cigarette and tea tree shampoo smell. “Sean?”

“Yeah...” Sean looks dumbfounded. He didn't even know his brother was in town, and he wasn't normally one for a pop in, especially late at night. “What the fuck, Aaron?” There is blood draining from one of Aaron's ears, various patches of skin on his face are torn and oozing. He's wearing a mask of gore, like childish Halloween paint. The kind you threw on your face to go to class on Halloween and hoped your teachers wouldn't make you wash it off...messy, sloppy, but he's pretty certain this is real, he's not that drunk and it isn't Halloween, anyway. “What are you doing here?”

He has no idea what the answer to that question is. Slowly, he licks his dry, blood caked lips and tries to follow some path through the electrical pulses in his head to something coherent. “I'm thirsty. Do you have any water?” That's not it, that's definitely not why he's on the sidewalk outside of his brother's apartment in the middle of the night but he can't find the path that leads him to any answers and he is very, very thirsty. His throat is on fire. It hurts to breathe.

Sean can't figure out what's going on. He's half a bottle of wine deep, some dark red slop that was so thick that it coated his lips and he'd sucked it from his date's tongue hungrily when the bottle was gone. Port, he thinks. It was disgusting at first, but she works for an Italian restaurant and assured him it would be good...it hit him all at once, knocked him on his ass with its succulent syrupy sweet. Now he's just floating, not sure what to make of a situation that looks way too serious for his state of mind. Speaking of his date...she's upstairs waiting in bed and he's half-dressed on the sidewalk staring at his brother and trying to figure out if he's got water. What's going on? Aaron looks like he's been mauled by a bear. A city bear? Maybe he was mugged, but then that didn't seem likely, Aaron carries two guns...people don't just mess with him. “Come up. You got a hotel or something right? My place isn't...”

“I think so.”

“You...think so?” God, Sean thinks. He's a little scared...he's seen his brother in bad shape before, plenty of times really. It isn't that hard to close his eyes and think back, but this is somehow scarier. Their father wasn't some unknown force, it was familiar and they knew how to handle it. This...he didn't know where to begin with this, whatever this was. They walk up the two flights of stairs, Sean skips a few steps and then turns back to check on his brother who is lugging himself up much slower, feet clambering for something solid to land on. Trembling hands and white knuckles, he's almost dragging himself up the stairs by the railing, it looks like his legs are going to give out. Once inside his place, Aaron stops briefly and looks around confused.

“You moved your couch...”

“Got a new one, dumbass. Isn't she pretty?” His first new piece of furniture. Bought from a real furniture store, delivered on a real truck by real men in jumpers...things weren't so bad now, huh? Aaron wrinkles his nose, he doesn't care for it. Maybe he does. No, he doesn't, it looks like something their grandmother would have covered in plastic.

“...it's nice...” He clearly can't form thoughts, let alone be honest. And why would he need to be honest anyway? Sean likes it. Without waiting for further conversation, Sean pours them each a glass of water from a recycled juice carton he keeps in the fridge and hands one to Aaron who holds it in his shaking hands. He just stares at the way the ripples form on the surface. His eyes go far away, he's sinking in the tiny waves.

“Aaron, what happened?”

“I'm not...” he gulps the water down through his sandpaper throat. At first it's soothing, cool against scorched flesh but another drink and he coughs and tastes the smoke and ash in his lungs. It sets off a fit that splinters his chest, he presses one palm flat against his sternum while he hacks up soot and blood into his mouth. Explosion. Car. “There was a bomb. In my SUV. No...under. Under my SUV. Not inside.” That part is important, it's why he's alive. He's certain of that.

“WHAT?”

“I'm...I think I'm okay...”

Sean puts his hand on Aaron's back and guides him into the apartment, gets him out of the little entryway that's starting to suffocate him. It's almost immediate, the shrill sound of Aaron crying out, screaming at the pressure between his shoulders and Sean pulls back automatically. They both look confused by the reaction. “My back hurts.” Even he realizes how absurd that sounds. Can't do anything about it. He sways where he stands, unsteady and uneasy as the pain in his back returns to its place beneath the surface...it can't compete with the supernova in his head.

“No shit...” Sean scowls and tries to tug at Aaron's suit jacket. He manages to shimmy him out of it, tugging at the sleeves until it loosens around his shoulders. He hears the sickening pull of something wet and sticky as the fabric pulls away from the shirt. What he sees makes him gag; the back of Aaron's shirt is bright red, almost black in places, and torn up. Shredded. Some fancy designer thing reduced to rags.

“Aaron...” he whispers, gagging again. Harder this time, he can taste the bile rising in his throat. Bile and Port. “I need to take your shirt off.” Does he though, or should he just call an ambulance? He's frantic and he's definitely going to be sick.

“It's cold...” He sounds like a child, like a little boy, everything he says and feels reduced to its simplest form. Sean is sobering up too fast.

He unbuttons Aaron's shirt slowly, hating the way it tugs at his skin, the fabric stuck in congealing wounds. There are burns on his chest, his skin is an angry pink and blistered in places, but it's nothing compared to what he knows his back looks like as the picture of what happened fleshes itself out. He can picture it in the map of injuries, his arm extended with the keys in hand, he unlocks the car and BOOM, he's flying through the air. Can't picture another way something like this happens. But the shirt, he's brought back to the present, this moment by the sounds the shirt makes as it pulls from his skin, sticky and wet. He manages to hold on until it's off but once the full picture is in view he turns his head and loses the contents of his stomach at his feet. All over his floor. Dark red wine, all he's put in there recently...they were going to order take out, he and Linda, and God he was hungry but now Aaron is staring at the crimson mess on the carpet and wondering if it's his. If he's suddenly bleeding from who knows where. “Sean?” The fear in his voice is palpable.

“Sorry...” he mumbles, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. He's ashamed of himself but he really can't help it, he hasn't seen anything like this in his life. What's he supposed to do? Road rash, the worst he's ever seen, covers every inch of skin. There used to be scars here, he knew them so well, could tell you their stories and now they're all just...obliterated. Maybe it's a good thing, some weird way of washing him clean and starting new but man it's a fucked up way to go about it. He's astonished that Aaron is upright, let alone not screaming in agony. “Aaron....”

“Am I bleeding?”

“Are you bleeding?! Aaron you look like someone turned you inside out!” He can't even think of another way to say it, but Aaron doesn't seem to really register anything. His back is Freddy Kreuger's dream and he's lost in space somewhere; meanwhile Sean is just thankful that his date is passed out in his bedroom. She hasn't bothered them, she's smart like that...he'll buy her some flowers or something nice in the morning if he lives that long. He can't think of a single good way to explain this to anyone and if she were to come out and see it, she might never come over again. No way he could convince her this isn't usual. Aaron is usually the good one, the smart one.

He's just not even sure where to start with his brother but getting him onto the couch had been the number one priority no matter how it killed him. Brand new fucking couch, cream colored and fancy as hell. Two whole paychecks. It isn't comfortable, it's hard and the fabric is a little rough but man it's nice. Was nice. Not anymore. It's about to be covered in blood, that'll never come out.

He's willing to try picking out some of the gravel because he sure as hell doesn't want to fight his brother over a very necessary trip to the hospital. He's got some random first aid stuff under his sink, stuff he's stolen from the restaurant over the last few years. He's about to just dump hydrogen peroxide down his brother's back, drown him in the stuff. His date wanders out in her underwear, and one of his t-shirts, woken either by their arguing or Aaron's coughing fits. She doesn't pay much attention to him at first, just grabs some water and starts to head back.

“What are you doing?” She was drinking from one of the glasses of water, staring at them now.

“Linda...” he whispers, absurdly ashamed of something that isn't even his fault. “This is my brother. I don't really know what happened, he just showed up.” The absurdity of the moment swirls in his head. His hands start shaking, not ideal when you're trying to be precise with glass and shards of metal using dull tweezers sanitized using a zippo and hope, but he's got to get this stuff out of his skin. Too drunk or too sober, that's the real question. He's not sure which is the culprit. Maybe neither, maybe it was just staring at his brother's mangled inside out back. Every few minutes he stops and peers at his brother's almost cadaverous face while she watches, staring, all wide eyes and bare legs. Legs that should be wrapped around him, Sean thinks, and instead...no, he can't think about that, he needs to focus.

“You should put him in the bathtub. If he soaks in the water, maybe the stuff will just...come out?”

“Fuck. I'm not...that sounds dumb as fuck, Linda...go to bed.” Her idea might have merit in some lines of thought (should he do it?) but what's he going to do, get naked and get in the bath with Aaron? How is he going to keep Aaron from drowning? No, the tweezers and the spray bottle are about as good as this is going to get. If he hadn't had so much of that damn port, he'd be able to think.

“Aaron, I can't do this. You need a hospital. You need a doctor, not your drunk brother.”

“No Sean,” he was becoming more lucid. With that came ringing in his ears and a splitting headache that felt like it was splintering his skull. He licks his lips, tastes blood and closes his eyes against the strange pain in his back. He feels removed enough from it that it doesn't really hurt, exactly, not in the way one might think. He knew it should, and the fact that it didn't should have been concerning to him, but lying there on the couch, long limbs barely contained, he can't even fathom how to move. His legs are tingly, filled with television static and the sounds of crunching leaves; his feet are blocks of cement that weigh him down, keep him in place. None of it really matters, though, because there is a squall in his head that is gaining strength. His ears are ringing, popping, bursting in and out. They're singing an opera of pain.

“Okay, I got most of it...maybe a shower would be good, huh? You wanna take a shower?” He heard himself say it and at once knew two things. First, Aaron was going to say yes because he would never turn down a shower. Second, that he should definitely not be in the shower, there was no way he could stand that long and Sean wasn't eager for an eye full of his brother's naked body.

Barely keeping his eyes open, he was putting pieces together. The bomb was coming into focus, the fact that Kate had been with him and he doesn't know if she survived. His phone is in his pocket, he paws for it but his jacket is gone and he realizes it a moment too late for Sean not to catch on to what he's trying to do. That's it, it seals the deal.

“Aaron. We're going to the hospital.”

“Okay.”

Putting Aaron in one of his over-sized band t-shirts was no walk in the park, he really could have planned that better but Linda was in his bedroom asleep and the last thing he needed was more of her ideas. He grabbed the first thing he found on the floor and went with it. Lifting his arms, pulling the fabric down so it rested against open wounds...could he even call it that? The hospital was only a few blocks away, and as badly as he didn't want to shove Aaron inside of his little junker, he also didn't want his brother passing out on a sidewalk full of people either. “Lean forward,” Sean instructed, forcing Aaron to fold his arms on the dashboard so he could rest his head there, keeping his back away from the seat. He could see blood through the thin fabric of the t-shirt. Only a lap belt, Aaron hated this car, called it a rust bucket, but it hadn't ever let him down. He fumbled around until he found the key with the broken tip, the only key that worked in the ignition, and pressed the gas pedal a few times to prep her before the engine roared to life. Or, rather, gurgled and spat but she got there. They would make it to the hospital, and this wouldn't be in his hands anymore.

“I need to go to...” Aaron begins, his voice a hoarse whisper. He pauses, licks his lips. Remembers Kate beside him, he needs to talk to her. “Federal Plaza...can you drive me?” His eyes aren't even open, he's barely conscious, his breathing is shallow and labored. The radio is on and it's all emergency alert broadcasts, no music.

“Aaron, it says on the radio that all those roads are blocked, listen.” He pauses, listens to the warning on repeat as he sits in traffic. Aaron tries to listen but the words float in and out on waves of ringing and static, he can't make sense of it. The hospital looms on the horizon, only a massive traffic jam stands between them and their goal. “There was an SUV explosion at Federal Plaza...one Federal Agent deceased and another unaccounted for...gonna go out on a limb here and assume that's you. And then another explosion, an ambulance in Central Park. You can't do anything about any of that. You need a fucking doctor.”

He wakes in a hospital bed on his belly, his back slick and sticky and...cold. Unbearably cold. He's under a mountain of packed ice, he can't move and beside him sits Will with his sleepy worried eyes, hands steepled in his lap. Aaron watches him as he slowly comes to, he watches and thinks about how Will shouldn't be here, he should be with JJ, he should be celebrating becoming a father. “Will?”

“Your brother had to go...” he drawls, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He's so casual, so calm in spite of how worried and exhausted he is. He's going to be a great father. “The team is pretty busy; they'll be workin' all night but it's your lucky day. I had nothing to do.”

“Thought you flew back to Virginia...” he whispers, eyes drifting shut again. God his head hurts. He can feel his heartbeat in his back, but his head is pulsing louder, so loud he wonders if Will can hear it. If he can see it pounding. Thump...thump...thump...he squeezes his eyes shut tight against the pain and it doesn't go away, doesn't even touch it.

“Funny thing. When bombs start goin' off all over the city, they don't let planes take off...”

#aaron hotchner #sean hotchner #will lamontagne #hotmontagne time #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction

[masterwords]

His Sentimental Sway

Summary: As Hotch goes through the motions leading up to Haley's funeral, he's looking for something - a connection, a friend, a hug. He finds it in an unlikely place while he stands alone at the funeral. (Filling in some gaps in the timeline of 05x10 - Slave of Duty)

Warnings: canon-character death/funeral (Haley), concussion, injuries, depression, grief/mourning, alcohol

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan

Words: 3.9k

Notes: This is for Hotch Appreciation Week Day 3 - Backstory & Comfortember 2021 Day 3 - Hugs. Thank you @hotchappreciationweek for a really fun list of prompts to celebrate this week with! This one got a little dark, and instead of limiting myself to one backstory, here we have a whole bunch of mini bits peppered in. I pulled out all the stops - scary mom, Sean, Derek, Jack, Jessica, Will....

Find the rest here: Hotch Appreciation Week, Comfortember 2021

**

It was cold in the hall, the high ceilings and open floor plan made it nearly impossible to keep well insulated. He'd always hated when his mother threw parties here. In summer it was sweltering, they could scarcely keep the bugs out but the windows had to remain open, the air conditioning wasn't powerful enough to keep large parties comfortable. In autumn, they froze. For such a majestic old building, it certainly had its faults, but it was where he and Haley had their wedding reception and her parents insisted it be where she take her final bow. Exit stage left. Aaron argued that he'd rather find another venue, somewhere without memories of a white dress and broken promises, somewhere he couldn't feel his mother's disapproving glare even when she wasn't there. Her photo hung on a wall of trustees, a placard in front of a small but well-groomed grove of cherry blossoms lining a small path that lead to a lower level and a parking lot bore her name, she was everywhere and nowhere.

“She was your ex-wife, Aaron,” she'd contested as he spoke through clenched teeth, jaw tight. Anger beneath the sadness, anger for her. She knew what he looked like, she didn't have to see him to know his features would be pinched, stone cold, so like her own. He didn't look a thing like his father, round faced and wide eyed, Sean got all of that. He had the sharp angles, the harshness of his geometry on display as he lost weight, lost hope. Didn't have to see it to know, he was so like her. She could hear the carefully placed emotion in his voice, sad but nowhere near tears, just frigid. Fruit of her loin. He'd learned long ago that tears did nothing but distance him from her further. “It's improper. I won't do it, I won't have all of those people looking at me...not after what happened to her, poor girl. Give me the Brooks' address, I'll send a card and some flowers.” Not after what happened to her, he thought bitterly. That was certainly one way of putting words to what everyone was thinking. Not after what you did to her was what she meant, he heard it plain as day. It didn't sting as much as it should have.

“She was...” he began, ready to let his mother hear something, anything that might melt her icy heart, make her stand beside him so he would, just this once, not be left alone...but he stopped short. It didn't matter whether she was there or not, he would still be alone. She couldn't truly be anywhere with him, she could hardly stand to look at him. So like her, in every way - from their brooding dark features to the carefully hidden bruises, bound together. The worst part of it was that he didn't even blame her, he didn't want to go either, to stand and be crushed under the weight of the accusing stares. Not after what happened to her.

“I'm sorry, Aaron,” Sean said later that evening, he at least sounded genuine. And busy, he was out of breath and Aaron could hear the clatter of dishes and voices in the background, he'd taken the call at work. It had to count for something. “I really can't afford the trip down.”

“I'll pay for your plane ticket, pick you up, whatever you need...please Sean...” Don't make me beg, you sonofabitch. So desperate just not to be alone. He would give anything to see Sean, to have his brother there. And for what, really? Sean was nothing but a myth, more the idea of a brother than anything real. He let his guard down, let his voice shake with emotion, he could hear Sean's struggle on the other end. There was silence on the line for a moment, and when he spoke next the kitchen noises were gone, he'd gone somewhere private.

“I'm working two jobs and tons of overtime right now just to pay my rent, not sure how I'll cover utilities and food...I can't miss the shifts or I'll get fired, man...I'm really sorry about Haley, I just can't...not right now. Maybe in a few weeks..." He always had a list a mile long of can'ts that meant it wasn't his fault, he wanted to, truly. And the worst part was that Aaron believed him, he knew Sean struggled perpetually - it was where he was comfortable. When things were too good he got itchy, he would do stupid things to sabotage his good fortune. The Hotchner Curse, they liked to call it once enough beers had numbed them, opened up their smiles. Sean used it everywhere he could, Aaron seemed only to pull it out in his personal life, when it really mattered. Derek had been the first person immune to the curse, the first person to see through it and put him in his place.

“I understand.” Sean wasn't good at being there, he wouldn't have known how but Aaron always thought maybe this...this big thing would be the thing that changed it. His wedding, the birth of his son, divorce, being stabbed nearly to death...nothing was big enough to drag Sean away from whatever seemed to be plaguing him. He would call, send all of the important cards, maybe fire off a text or two. A congratulations card came after Jack was born, sympathy after his divorce, it seemed to be the only trait their mother had managed to instill in both of them - some old fashioned sense of etiquette that allowed you to pass on real human connection so long as you had a pen and paper and a few well-thought out catchphrases. After Foyet nearly killed him, he'd invited Aaron up to New York, it was the most substantial offer he'd ever received but traveling wasn't on his agenda, Sean didn't seem to comprehend the magnitude of his injuries or maybe it was his safety net - he could offer more, knowing Aaron wouldn't come. Maybe it was better that way, maybe it would have been disastrous if Sean ever did come and make an effort to be part of his life – most days he was alright with it, today he'd probably sell his soul just for the opportunity. A fight with Sean, in person, would be better than whatever this was.

Jessica helped him into his suit, the strain in his shoulders almost enough to make him give up and cry every time he moved. He could have done it, she insisted. Gave her something to do with her hands anyway and it spared him the tears. They burned his eyes every moment he was awake but wouldn't fall, just constant pressure in his sinuses, built up in the dark purple crescents beneath his eyes. It was bad enough that Jessica had commented. “Your bags are packed, Aaron,” she mumbled, smoothing her thumbs over his cheekbones. “You've got to cry sometime.”

He hadn't cried since holding Haley's body and there was nothing Jessica or Jack or Derek could do about it. The tears just stayed put, ready at a moment's notice but no one had given the signal. She slid one arm in and then the other, calling him useless, poking at him, trying to get something out of him. A smile, a frown, a fuck off.

“You're worse than Jack,” she chided, pushing him down to the bed so she could help with his tie, he was too tall. “Come on, Aaron,” and he was so angry at himself for even needing her help as if she hadn't just lost her sister. Here she was being strong for both of them, all of them, an entire family hung their pain around her neck. He pushed her hands away, tried to work his fingers into the material, to make a nice knot, and she rolled her eyes and took it over quickly - sure, maybe he could do it but she wanted to, and she couldn't take the pain on his face while he worked. She hated seeing him in pain. “We're in this together. You and me, kid.” She hadn't called him kid since high school, since she was mocking him for his grades being worse than hers in the creative writing class they'd both begrudgingly ended up in when everything else was full. Neither of them excelled at the topic, neither of them was terribly creative but somehow she pulled it off. She beat him only slightly. Better luck next time, kid, she'd said and he'd fumed. Only 6 months apart but a full grade, and when you're a teenager, that one grade might as well be a lifetime where maturity was concerned. Best of friends, worst of enemies. Haley couldn't stand when they got going, at least Jack provided some distraction for her when they went at it. They'd both, lovingly, accused her of wanting a baby just so she wasn't outnumbered anymore.

“I miss mommy,” Jack whined from the doorway, all dressed up and ready to go except the milk spilled down the front of his shirt. Jessica had already changed his shirt twice, it was only milk, it would dry and be fine. “Mommy has da good cereal wif da mashmellows.”

“Daddy's cereal is just fine,” Jess snapped, knowing this was the worst possible time for Jack to start in on this...again. It would be the third time that morning and who could blame him, really? He didn't know any better, the energy in the house was weird and his dad...well, his dad wasn't behaving like his dad. Gentle one minute, angry the next, despondent when all else failed. What was he supposed to do? Still, each outburst just set her back that much farther with Aaron. “We'll go buy you what you like tomorrow, all of your favorite foods so the cupboards are stocked baby. If you're hungry now, you'll eat what daddy has.”

“Not hungry...” Jack muttered, pouting. She sighed.

“Jack, honey, please...” She didn't even know what she meant to say. Not today? Not now? Awful. How could she? “Come here,” she said, and she pulled him in to a hug, stayed right beside Aaron hoping he'd join in but he was somewhere else entirely. Checked out, she could see it in his eyes. Part of it was the concussion, she understood that – the constant headache and the nausea, the way that he wanted to sleep all the time, but it was just a river flowing into the ocean of his grief. She couldn't tell the difference in the brackish water. Did he need another Tylenol or did he need to cry? Derek seemed to be able to tell the difference, he had some ingrained sense of Aaron that made her fumble and wonder if she knew him at all - no one had ever done that before, not even Haley. She understood him because they were so alike, but Derek wasn't a thing like either of them and he just...knew. To her, it simply looked like he was dying, barely beyond her grasp. He was suffering in ways she couldn't understand, he'd seen and done things to protect the rest of them that would weigh on him for the rest of time. Maybe, she thought, Haley was the lucky one - she went so quickly, Aaron's death would be a slow fading out of existence if he continued on this path. She would lose her sister and her brother in one fell swoop.

Dave picked them up. Not Dave, exactly, but Dave in a rented car because he insisted that none of them should drive. Under normal circumstances Aaron would have thrown a fit, but he put up only the weakest protest. Didn't have it in him to fight much of anything.

“You're in no condition to drive,” Dave assured him and he patted him on the shoulder. A poorly concealed wince told him all he needed to know about how Aaron was healing after the fight with Foyet, about what he looked like beneath that suit and tie. Derek was keeping his mouth shut, keeping the team focused on work and not Aaron, but they all had their ideas and the exhaustion in Derek's features each morning told them plenty. He worked himself to the bone keeping the BAU afloat and went home to his grief stricken family, tried to hold them together through the darkest hours of the night. Back and forth, between Aaron who couldn't sleep and Jack who couldn't stay asleep, even Jessica who cleaned out the fridge with a toothbrush at 3am, he was the in the trenches with each of them. Aaron, in spite of the pain it caused, turned in to the touch, half expecting and maybe hoping for a hug but Dave turned away from him and lifted Jack into his arms instead. “Shall we?”

A blinding sea of emerald, clods of dirt and roses. His day was marked only by mementos, snapshots out of order, the rest disconnected fog. His vision blurred and his face flushed, felt too hot and he wavered only briefly as he gave his eulogy that he would have no memory of later. Jessica would tell him it was beautiful, perfect, Haley would have loved it. He would be honest with her, tell her that he didn't remember what he said, he'd blacked out but somehow remained upright. All eyes on him, blaming him, her casket his failure, his betrayal. Til death do us part, she'd broken that promise but he took it too literally. His scars felt like fire, he forced himself not to look down for fear they'd opened up, were pouring his life out all over the hallowed ground. He moved away from any attempt at touch. People wanted to pat him, to shake his hand, offer empty condolences.

But the building, the cold building with its great open balcony overlooking his mother's coveted cherry blossoms and the twinkling lights of the city beyond soothed the burn. He felt cold here, and cold was better, cold kept him even. So like his mother. The headache held steady behind his brows, a constant rhythm of pain for days now like he might never be rid of it, the pressure forcing his eyes into narrow slits. Still there were no tears, only the choking sound in his voice gave away any emotion at all. Jessica stood close to him, they received guests and their condolences with solemn features and quiet voices when it was their turn, when her parents needed a break. Like a competition, who could be more composed. Haley would have rolled her eyes and called them both imbeciles, begged them to put on a show for her. I'll only die once, you know, I deserve the waterworks, a theater kid to the end.

“Nice party,” Roy grunted from behind him and he turned, nodded. Roy had that glint in his eye that told him to hold his tongue, he may have stopped talking but he'd really only just begun. “How much do I owe you?” With his checkbook clutched in his hand, he waited.

“It's taken care of,” Aaron whispered, lips hardly moving. In a very childish way, he hoped Roy would put away the checkbook and open his arms, pull him in the same way he'd done when he was a boy. Seventeen and so thin, deep bruises and swallowed tears and there would be those arms, that bear hug that crushed him, compressed aching ribs and held him together when his world was flying apart at the seams.

Too tight, too long, too much at first.

He fled from the sudden outpouring of paternal love. In his limited experience, that love meant pain and he could barely survive the first thrown at him, he would never withstand a second.

“Like hell it is. She is...was...my daughter, she wasn't your wife anymore...you've done more than enough.” To anyone casually listening it might have sounded gracious but Aaron knew better, he understood Roy plainly. This second paternal love reduced to ashes, pain in its wake, just took longer to get here. This part he understood.

“It was paid for by the Bureau,” Aaron replied, eyes downcast. Jessica watched the way shift in his demeanor, from strength to humiliation, just like when he was seventeen and couldn't look Roy in the eye. He couldn't admit he'd done something wrong, made a mistake for fear of disappointing the only man who had bothered to treat him like a son. A man who never had to, a man who made the choice and look at all it had gotten him. “It's taken care of.” He repeated it, and Roy grunted, scrunched up his nose and shook his head.

“We don't want your damn blood money,"

"Roy," his wife began and he rolled his eyes and snorted.

"Give me a name.” Sighing, Aaron thumbed through his wallet and located Chief Strauss' card, told Roy to call her and discuss it. He was holding back, Aaron could see that there was so much he wanted to say, so much his whole family wanted to say. He didn't need to hear the words to know them, to feel them himself. To agree. They were all much too raw to talk. His head swam and he excused himself, stepped aside to gather his bearings.

"You should sit down," Jessica said, following him. "You can go home with Derek, I'll bring Jack back with me later." She tried to fawn over him, tried to take care of him right there in front of her family's watchful eyes. He shook his head, waved her off.

"I'm fine, I just need a moment." Couldn't allow it.

The team were there, each of them solemn and silent, keeping their distance from the rest of the guests. None of them really spoke to him, just watched him warily until Dave chanced it, took the first opportunity to pull him away from his host duties. Jess looked almost relieved at the glass of scotch passed from one hand to another and she shot Derek a nod of approval – sending Dave in as a buffer was always a smart move. They spoke in hushed whispers, broken only by Derek with bad news.

"We have a case," he said softly, and Dave nodded. None of them were surprised.

“We've gotta go, ” Derek whispered, standing with him just out of sight of the guests. Close, very very close, foreheads and noses touching, pressed against one another. Derek didn't care much for personal space, not when it came to this. Aaron sucked in a deep breath, nodded – of course he understood, of course it made sense to him. “Everything's gonna be okay. I'll call you when we land.”

“You don't have to...” He hated that Derek worried, but he knew it wasn't without reason. "I'll be okay. Jess won't let me out of her sight." The last part was meant as sarcasm, but it was also true and they both knew it. Derek simply shook his head.

“I said I'll call you when we land,” and the I love you was whispered as a soft kiss pressed against his cold lips, one hand cupping his jaw, sowing warmth where it lay. Derek tasted like wine, deep and red and velvet. A nod and a smile and that was it. He was alone in a sea of wolves out for blood. Somewhere he thought he could hear Haley's honey gold laughter, now you know what it feels like Aaron.

“Hotch?” A slow drawl from behind startled him as he stared at the trees, leaned just a little too far over the ledge. “I hope you don't mind me stayin'...” It was Will, Aaron thought he'd gone when JJ did but here he was. “I noticed that not a lot of people 'round here seem to be sayin' very nice things 'bout you and the team...”

“Can you blame them?” he asked, more than a little sour and instantly sorry for it.

“'Spose not,” Will shrugged, unbothered by Aaron's tone. Truly, he seemed unbothered by everything, always so calm and collected, Aaron was more than a little envious of Will's demeanor. “Still. Thought you could use one person in your corner...”

“You really don't have to stay.”

“I know. So, I uh...I talked to Haley's sister and she said you had your weddin' reception here. Little morbid, don'tcha think?”

He couldn't help it, Aaron laughed. A real laugh that started way down in his diaphragm, rumbled up through bruised ribs. There was life in his bones yet. “Haley's mother insisted.”

“Well. Can't stop the mamas, huh?”

“I suppose not, no.”

“You look like you could use a drink...”

Beside his hand sat the scotch from Dave, still untouched. The smell made his head pound, eyes water. It wasn't going to help, though the burn might make him finally cry but for all the wrong reasons. He felt sick just thinking about it. He'd intended only to say no thank you, that was all that went through his mind but what came out was very different, bypassed all of his filters. His operating system had gone rogue.

“I don't know what I need.”

Will couldn't hold back, there was some sense of urgency tangled in the desperation of Aaron's tone that told him now, do it now. Aaron set the glass back down and began worrying his fingers back and forth over one another, a little tick JJ had mentioned once, something he did when he was anxious. Maybe it was fatherhood that made him do it, see a need.

He reached out and he pulled Aaron in for a hug.

He knew the man was hurt and he paid it no mind, didn't coddle him, was not gentle. Aaron, uncharacteristically, didn't pull away, he let it happen. He fell into the embrace, the familiarity of it. Will smelled like cedarwood and baby powder with a hint of lavender, he smelled like a father who carried his family with him everywhere he went. Suddenly he was seventeen again, not for the first time that day and probably not the last. He was in Roy's arms, admitting his failure, his mistake – maybe a bad grade, a fight in the school yard, wrecked his bike. Before he knew what he was doing, before he could stop himself, he felt a sob shudder through him. The force of it was so violent he couldn't have stopped it if he'd tried, if he'd seen it coming. Will patted him fiercely on the back, hands splayed over tender shoulder blades, his pats rough and reassuring. It hurt, and the pain made him feel alive, connected to someone. It was the kind of hug a father gives their child as they say they forgive them, I know you made a mistake but I'm just glad you're okay. The kind that says this hurts me more than it hurts you, the kind that says you're loved and someone always has your back. There would be time for shame later, there always was – for now, he cried. He drenched Will's shoulder in his tears, and Will never tried to push him away, never told him he'd had enough.

He just held steady, he wouldn't budge.

Too tight, too long, but not too much.

#aaron hotchner #derek morgan #criminal minds #mortch #hotchgan #fanfiction #jessica brooks #roy brooks #jack hotchner #sean hotchner #aaronhotchnerappweek #hotch appreciation week #comfortember 2021 #haley hotchner death #will lamontagne #hotmontagne time

[masterwords]

Hotter Than That

Summary: Morgan goes undercover as Head of Security at a riverboat casino in New Orleans being operated by the DEA in order to catch a serial killer who is suddenly targeting employees and patrons of the casino. Because this job isn't a solo gig, he drags Reid and Hotch along with him. Lots of action, lots of kissing!

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan (established relationship)

Warnings: canon-typical violence, murder, sex, gambling, alcohol, hospital, coma, drowning, dead bodies everywhere, explosion

Words: 16k

Status: COMPLETE

Read on AO3: hotter than that

Chapter 1: All Through The Night

Chapter 2: Any Dark Space Would Do

Chapter 3: The Morning's So Many Miles Away

Chapter 4: The Sun Is Humming

#criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #spencer reid #criminal minds #mortch #hotchgan #gambling #murder #undercover agents #will lamontagne #hotmontagne time

[masterwords]

Hotter Than That

Chapter Four: The Sun Is Humming

Summary: Will Lamontagne makes a trip down to New Orleans to stay with a friend, Spencer's evening on the town goes a little awry, and Leroy's been keeping a tiny little secret. The conclusion all two of you have been waiting for is finally here!

Warnings: canon-typical unsub business, hospital, coma, canon-typical violence, death, blood

Pairings: Hotch/Morgan

Words: 3.7k

Chapter List

**

“Go fish,” Will drawled, leaning over Aaron's lap to push a card into his hand. He'd been there for days (how many, at this point, he wasn't certain), running on coffee from the doctor's lounge and food carted up from the cafeteria. A steady diet of salad with cold cuts thrown on top and a packet of dressing usually, but if he was particularly fortunate (and the nurse bringing him food liked him), a steaming bowl of tomato soup would accompany his leafy dinner. It wasn't the worst diet he'd been on but he was looking forward to a real home cooked meal – even if he would be the one doing the cooking. He felt guilty, sitting there eating on the tray beside Aaron who was being fed through a tube, life being pumped into him. He kept notes, scribbled down things the doctors said, tiny movements he made, and sent grainy text photos to Garcia so she could share with Derek and Spencer – hoping that it would keep them moving forward, help them find a way to end it all and go home. A guard stood sentinel just outside the door, paid for by Trudeau, and Will was more or less trapped inside. He played endless games of cards with Aaron, more than once losing his entire pot to the still sleeping man. After losing a packet of croutons, a candy bar and his Sprite, he decided to lower the stakes and play games he often reserved for Henry. Go Fish was a favorite, they'd been at it an hour and he wasn't certain but he thought he could see the worry lines vanish, the crease between Aaron's brows that they assured him was normal but he knew meant his friend was in pain disappearing at the familiarity of the childish game. Even if briefly, it was better than nothing. He had to be careful not to give himself away, but late at night when the hallways were clear and only a few nurses haunted the floor outside he would update Aaron in small ways – Jack was with JJ and Henry that night, she made them spaghetti and they even had pie for dessert. Dave and Emily were at war over something or other, no one understood the battle but it was fierce and a constant source of amusement to them.

“It should be me in this bed,” Will kept his voice down, speaking through waves of exhaustion between short bouts of sleep. The nurses came in every hour to do their rounds, doctors every two hours and he couldn't sleep while they were there as much as they encouraged him to do so. “You should be back at Quantico fixin' this mess.” Another quiet hour passed and he pulled out Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Connect Four. The pediatric unit was gracious enough to share their stash with him, unconventional as his tastes may have been it was what he knew. “I'm 'onna take you down today. Got a plan this time...” He would move Aaron's hand, slip a black piece between his fingers and close his eyes, run it along the top of the board until finding a spot and let the piece drop into place. It hadn't been effortless, more than a few pieces had to be fished out from beneath Aaron's legs or under the wheels of the bed but they figured it out. He would drop his red piece in with precision and take up Aaron's hand again, it felt just like teaching Henry to play the game, to get a handle on his fine motor skills in order to hold the piece, to find a place, to push it into the slot instead of dropping it. The nurses got a kick out of it, had a running tally going on the white board beside the rounding schedule and a little pool of fun sized candies going to the ultimate winner.

Every so often a finger would twitch right in the middle of their playing, sometimes sending a game piece flying and he'd think something was wrong, only to be assured it was normal. Aaron could hear and feel him there, he was helping, they said. “You shouldn't let him win,” one doctor told him. “Might give him a complex.”

“I'm not lettin''im win,” was Will's sour reply. “He's jus' too damn good.” Whatever system he'd devised to play games with a sleeping man was not working in his favor.

Across town, Leroy was busy convincing Spencer he needed to blow off some steam, to deal with what had happened to him. The staff didn't know much, just that he'd narrowly survived a harrowing experience and everyone was whispering about Shadow Man of course. Spencer, on the other hand, just towed the line – he didn't remember anything. It was concerning to him that he didn't, it wasn't often that he could say “I don't remember”, those words were foreign and stung. He'd started the last two days by taking showers that lasted nearly an hour, scalding hot water burning the filth of the corpses from his flesh. He couldn't use enough soap to make himself feel clean.

“C'mon boyo,” Leroy said, clapping him on the shoulder. “One night on de town.”

“Okay,” was Spencer's reply, laced with trepidation. It wasn't that he didn't want to go out, just that he was distracted, he couldn't stop thinking about Aaron, couldn't stop looking over his shoulder. The city was lit up with noisy tourists, and Leroy made sure to point out that this was the slow season as they fought their way upstream through the crowds. The people smelled flammable, everyone booze soaked and laughing, shoulder to shoulder whether they were friends or strangers. He thought of Vegas, the ease of pick-pocketing in busy streets and wondered how many of these people might not make it back to their hotels with all of their belongings. How easily he could just slip his fingers away from his hip, slide a wallet right out of a pocket and continue moving – no one would know until it was too late. Not like he'd do that, his life had altered course and he no longer needed to get his kicks in that way but he entertained the thought until the moment they walked into the bar of Leroy's choice.

The bar wasn't busy, not like some of the others – there were no signs sporting wild drinks for the tourists, just rows and rows of alcohol in glimmering glass bottles.

“Two bourbons, neat,” Leroy demanded, slamming a bill on the counter. “None a that weak shit, we want the good stuff boyo.”

“You get what you get, Roy,” the bar tender snapped, but his eyes darted to the bill and he nodded, reached up high for a bottle without a label. Spencer was a little concerned but he rolled with it.

“Can you feel it?” Leroy whispered, leaning close to Spencer as he sipped his drink. “He's here. He's watchin' you.”

“Why me?” Spencer asked, feigning innocence. Leroy let out a chuckle and slammed his empty glass on the counter – where the drink had gone, Spencer didn't see. He either dumped the entire thing down his throat or onto the floor beside him. More bourbon found its way into his glass, it almost seemed bottomless and Spencer was trying his best to look around without seeming too obvious. He pulled out his phone, shot a text to Derek with the name of the bar and nothing more.

Penelope was staring at a map of the city with an overlay of the sewage system, a marker in place for Spencer's location. If Shadow Man was there, he would likely have an easy escape if he tried anything. The guy didn't seem to leave anything to chance.

Stay. That's all Derek sent, hoped Spencer understood what he meant. It wasn't the ideal location for a showdown but Derek was ready to end it no matter what. They were prepared to swarm, the DEA and SWAT, every powerful entity within the city at his disposal. If he was the type to be drunk on power, now would be the time.

The decision was made to wake Aaron after enough encouraging brain scans, and Will breathed a sigh of relief as they made preparations. They would pull him out slowly, gradually lower his sedation and Will watched hopefully. The anticipation was quickly overshadowed by his gag reflex when they extubated him, when he heard Aaron gag and sputter, the sound of the tube dragging along his throat turning his stomach. After that, they busied themselves with the machines, medication dosage, vital signs and then it was a waiting game. Could take 24 hours or longer, they told him, but by the time they'd finished tucking him back into the blankets he was already somehow looking like he was coming around. His eyelids fluttered, tried to open, and his muscles twitched beneath the blankets. There seemed to be color in his cheeks again.

“You're gonna find nothin' but my ugly mug when you open your eyes...” Will said, pulling the chair up beside Aaron's bed. “I'm real sorry about that.”

His phone startled him, hadn't made any noise in ages. He'd nearly forgotten there was a world outside of Aaron and this room but he answered it and stepped out of the room briefly, Aaron still in his line of sight. The last thing he wanted was for Aaron to open his eyes to an empty room.

“You got 'im?” he asked, more than a little relieved at the thought, the optimism in her chirpy voice. JJ spoke quickly on the other end of the line.

“Not yet, but she's cornered...”

“She?”

“Yeah, long story...but I just wanted to let you know. Dave and Emily are on the jet, they'll be there soon...” There was no more information she was willing to share over the phone lines, instead she filled him in on what was going on at home, how Jack and Henry were getting on, random tidbits because she missed her partner. She fought all urges to ask him about Aaron or what he'd been up to, kept it short. “I'll see you soon.”

Derek didn't want to wait for back up, didn't want to wait for Dave and Emily but he had explicit orders from Strauss to do so and with the avalanche of disasters already on this case, he knew he needed to play it as by the book as he could. One fuck up and it would be all over. They had Shadow flanked, had the bar surrounded and the sewer system as good as plugged up. There was no way out, but she still had Spencer and Leroy trapped inside with her, which ultimately meant she still had a card to play. Leroy was pounding bourbon as fast as he could, Spencer hadn't touched his, not even a drop.

“Is he close?” Spencer asked, because loathe as he was to admit, he didn't have the same sense Leroy seemed to. A nod from the other man, a deep burp, a smile.

“She's at the end o' th' bar,” he whispered, slamming his glass down and wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Canne' touch 'er here, though...”

“How do you...” Spencer asked, brow furrowed. Suddenly Leroy stumbled away from the bar, dragging Spencer with him into a back room and down a rickety flight of stairs into a dank cellar that smelled of mildew, sweet with rot. He didn't protest, was too busy concerning himself over how Leroy knew Shadow was a woman, how he knew exactly who it was. They ducked into a storeroom full of bottles balanced precariously in box towers and backed up against the far wall. Leroy tapped at his hip nervously, beady eyes darting from wall to wall like he was hallucinating some action sequence that Spencer couldn't see. “Leroy?”

“Down!” he shouted, shoving Spencer into a corner. He stumbled over his feet and collapsed in a heap behind a stack of boxes as a bullet smacked hard into the wall, plaster showering the floor where Spencer had been standing a moment before. He blinked stupidly a few times, found Leroy ducking in the opposite corner, one finger pressed to his lips to keep Spencer quiet. There was a scuffle, shouting, Derek's voice rising over the others and then there was the crash of bodies slamming into boxes, glass shattering and liquid splashing everywhere, washing the floor with whiskey soaked fumes. A body slid toward them, a woman dressed all in black, and she scampered to pull herself upright, gun raised straight ahead.

The sound of gunshot startled Spencer, deafened him and he reached up to cover his ears as it echoed through the concrete cellar.

She dropped boneless to the floor in a heap, and Spencer stared at Leroy wide eyed, gun aimed to where she'd been standing moments prior. Blood, thick and black, spread beneath her head, dead eyes trained on Spencer.

“So you're CIA?” Spencer asked, taking Leroy's extended hand and pulling himself upright. Sometime between the bar and the cellar it had clicked, Leroy should have been stumbling, should have smelled like he'd slept in a whiskey barrel but he was clean and sober - the bottle without the label wasn't alcohol at all, just a ruse. Leroy, himself, was nothing more than an illusion.

“Correct,” Leroy said, smiling. “And you're FBI?”

“Correct. How long have you been here?”

“Years...rather not talk about it...” Leroy replied with a wink. Spencer looked more than a little dejected and the other man laughed. He knew what was coming.

“I'm gonna miss you,” were the words, and they fell like a rock at Leroy's feet. Not what he'd been expecting.

“I'm gonna miss you too, boyo. We sure had fun. I'm glad it's over, though, she's been loose on these streets so long now I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself. Thank heavens for Trudeau and all of his money or we'd still be lookin'.”

“C'mon kid...” Derek grabbed Spencer, draped his arm around the other man's shoulders. “We're gonna take off. This scene is Leroy's...” he winked, and Leroy nodded.

“Guess it is, huh?”

“Oh, hey...Leroy? Do you know what the shadow was?”

“Her calling card. They all got one.”

“No, yeah...I get that...but what was it? How did she do it?”

“Confidential information. My advice? Forget about it, forget you ever saw it. You dig too deep, you might find someone on your doorstep you ain't too happy t'see.” Forgetting wasn't something Spencer did and the idea ate at him, the not knowing killed him.

They never did find out Leroy's real name, much to Spencer's dismay. He was a ghost just like she had been, they wouldn't see him again, at least they wouldn't recognize him if they did. Piling into an SUV, ripping off his too tight tie, Derek drove them all to the hospital, barely obeying traffic laws. He had one thing on his mind and one thing only.

The room was dark and quiet when they entered, all of them piling in one after another. They found Will sitting in the chair beside Aaron who was lying with his eyes closed, it looked like they'd been sitting that way for hours. Will, the moment he registered what was happening, jumped up, rushed over to shake hands and ask how everything had gone. Voices erupted all at once, excitement bubbling over from the shootout at the bar. Derek was the only one who didn't speak, he let them handle it, he had more important things to tend to.

“His head hurts,” Will whispered, scooting up beside Derek, watching as he curled one hand around Aaron's and gave it a soft squeeze. The team had resumed chatting among themselves, Dave and Emily desperate to hear Spencer's story, what he'd been up to, how he liked bar tending. “We're keepin' the lights off, makes 'im feel better, but he's been awake off an' on for about an hour now. Not able to do much talkin' yet. That throat tube did a number on 'im.” He felt the bile rising in his throat again at the thought of them pulling it out, gulped it down and forced a smile.

“Good...I don't wanna hear his voice anyway...” Derek grinned, sitting down on the bed, refusing to be so far away as a chair. That was Will's spot. At the pressure, Aaron's eyes fluttered and he let out a soft whimper, his entire body hurt as they weaned him from the pain medication. Derek's hand slipped up his arm, fingers dragging feather light over his skin, up his neck, dancing along his troubled jaw and back into his hair. Aaron's eyes found their way to Derek, blinked lazily a few times to try and focus. No one was speaking loud but the noise level in the room was more than he wanted to entertain, more than the pain in his head could handle.

“...talk too much...” he mumbled, lips twitching into an attempt at a smile. He groaned, his voice a raspy hoarse whisper and like a well oiled machine, Will brought a cup of water to his lips, tipped it upward just enough to let him wet his dry tongue, ice cold water trickling down his painfully raw throat. Derek watched and smiled, so glad JJ had let them borrow her husband. “...trying to sleep here...'m on vacation...” Derek let out a belly laugh and shook his head, not at all surprised that of all the things Aaron could say from a hospital bed, he would choose that.

“You're getting downright lazy, Agent Hotchner,” he replied and Aaron tried to laugh with lungs that didn't want to pull in enough air. Derek didn't mind, he had a cool rag in his hand thanks to a nurse who came to ask them to quiet down or they'd have to ask some of them to leave. He began pressing the chilled cloth to the deep ache in Aaron's forehead, smoothing his furrowed brow with his thumb and whispering inappropriate things in his ear, anything to make him somehow comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. He was somehow okay with it, so relieved to have his eyes open, to see Derek and not the underside of a toxic lake. Her face. The sewers.

“So, on the jet, when you said weren't worried about living with him for a while...” Spencer said and Derek glanced up at him, winking. The infuriating ease of that wink said everything Spencer needed to know. “Wait, so you guys were sitting there in a love shack and I was alone?”

“Some love shack,” Emily scoffed. “One star accommodations at best. Would not recommend.”

Spencer nodded and snorted a little indignantly. “I got kidnapped too you know. And I had body parts all over me,” he muttered under his breath and Derek stood, pulled him in for a hug.

“Kid, I've never seen someone get so many phone numbers thrown at them in my life – you had plenty of opportunities.”

“Phone numbers?” Emily asked, curiously, nudging Spencer with her elbow. “Really?”

“I got a few...” Spencer beamed and Derek rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, like a few every hour he worked...Aaron, back me up here...”

“'s all true...” Aaron whispered and Will lifted the cup, helped him take another icy sip to soothe his rough throat. Dave opened up the laptop and set it down facing Aaron, pulled up the meeting with Penelope and JJ. Will waved at his wife and Aaron glanced up at Will fondly, still on just enough medication that his walls were down and he was feeling overwhelmed by relief.

“...stayed w' me...” he muttered, offering a small smile. The first words he'd really said to Will, or at least, the first he rememberd.

“...thank you...” Will nodded and blinked the tears from his eyes.

“My pleasure. Aside from you kickin' my butt at Connect Four, not my finest hour.” Aaron had only a vague feeling that he understood what Will was saying, nothing concrete but he smiled anyway and let his eyes drift shut.

Later, long after visiting hours had concluded, Derek was allowed to remain. He could flirt his way into anything. Aaron was able to sit upright, and Derek was helping him shave, preparing for their return to Quantico as soon as he was discharged. Both of them preferred the hospital room to their apartment, at least. It was late when they heard footsteps and looked up from their hushed banter to see Trudeau come wandering in. Derek hadn't been sure he'd see the man again before they left, and was strangely glad that he could.

“Hey,” he said, handing Derek a card. “I owe you my life and the lives of a lotta people I care about. Don't you even try to give me none a that I was just doin' my job bullshit, you didn't have to do it the way you did, 'specially after everything happened wid 'im. You're always welcome on my boat." Derek turned the card over in his hands, worried his fingertips at the seam briefly. "Not now. Open that on your trip home...I don't need t' be getting' all teary eyed here. And you,” he turned his attention to Aaron who sat propped up by pillows, his hands in Derek's lap while Derek had been working at the bits he'd missed shaving. Trudeau could see he was in pain, ready to crawl out of his skin, but he still looked happy somehow. “You must be somethin' pretty damn special. This fella here moved heaven and Earth to get to you. I ever hear you're mis-treatin' him, you're in trouble.”

Derek laughed and Aaron tried to force a smile but he was a little worried that the threat wasn't a joke. In truth, his gut was right, it wasn't a joke. Lighthearted ribbing, maybe, but serious nonetheless. “Yes, sir,” he replied like a scared teenager with a shotgun aimed at him from the doorway and a corsage in his hand. Derek let out a huge laugh at the way Trudeau had effortlessly turned Aaron into a puddle.

“We're all good,” Derek said, standing to shake Trudeau's hand. “Thanks for everything.”

#aaron hotchner #derek morgan #spencer reid #criminal minds #mortch #hotchgan #david rossi #fanfiction #hotch whump #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #will lamontagne #hotmontagne time

[masterwords]

WHAT IF — i will pick an important choice or event in my current project and write three sentences (or more?) about if it’d gone done differently

From the writer prompt!!! 🥰

Thank you for asking @vintagesubmariner! Aiding in my procrastination is a worthwhile endeavor!

Okay, so WHAT IF? In Hotter than That, Morgan has a very hard decision to make. Here is the (very rough) point where he has a decision to make:

“What are you gonna do, sugar?” Garcia asks, and he's staring so hard at the time quickly ticking down on both screens. They have more time for Spencer, but not enough time for both. He can gather that Hotch's air will run out at the end of his clock but what happens to Spencer when his runs out? Is Spencer even still alive? He doesn't know.

So...there is a way it goes and everyone reading will know all about it tomorrow. And it does go bad, which is to be expected, but if he made the other choice (the emotional one)...it would have been worse, by far. The Shadow Man has it all planned out, he's three steps ahead of everything Derek does and he knows things about the city that Garcia has yet to figure out. But if he made the other choice, Will never would have had cause to come down to New Orleans and that would be a travesty because we need more Will.

Want to bully me into telling you about what I'm working on? Come at me!

#i don't know if i answered this correctly but hey! #it's something #ask game! #hotmontagne time