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film-bro-hotch · 1 year

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Victim of a Bad Habit - Hotch x Fem!Reader -- one shot

This is completely self-indulgent and simply because my brain is hyperfixating on Love and Human Remains. Please enjoy

Synopsis: You grew up with Hotch. You always knew him as the cocky asshole who slept around. The two of you were in a weird friends-with-benefits-type relationship. You kept it up through high school and would hook up during winter and summer breaks from college when you were both home. You hadn’t seen or heard from him since graduation, and honestly you hadn’t thought of him Not until he showed up at your job one day, asking questions about a recent murder.

Warnings: smut 18+, oral sex (f receiving), consent king Hotch, flashbacks mixed with pining, smoking, Hotch is an asshole, you are an asshole, I think that’s about it

WC: 3.6k

You were running as quickly as you could, or at least as quickly as the mix of your heels and Philly potholes would allow. You slept in a little later than usual and had to skip your morning coffee, just trying not to be late. You looked down at your watch. 9:03. Okay, you just had a couple more blocks to go. Maybe your editor wouldn’t notice that you weren’t at your desk yet.

Crossing one more street and taking large strides to maneuver the crosswalks of downtown Philly, you managed to make it to the newsroom at 9:09. The hustle of the place was normal. There was always someone running around, someone on the phone making calls. What you weren’t expecting to see was a couple of police officers and men in suits.

Sure, talking to cops was part of your job as a reporter, but you usually spoke to them on the phone, over email, or you went to them. Cops rarely ever come to you.

“You’ll want to talk to Ms. L/N. She is the one that ran the story. Her editor should be here soon as well.”

So your editor wasn’t there yet, perfect. But the cops wanted to talk to you. You ducked into the hallway to your office, trying to make it seem at least like you weren’t ten minutes late. You were logging in to your computer when you heard a knock on your door and someone say, “Ms. L/N?”

When you turned from your chair, the last person you expected to see was your old go-to hookup, Aaron Hotchner.

“Holy shit,” you said in disbelief. “If it isn’t the biggest asshole I know. It’s been a minute, Hotchner. You really know how to keep a girl waiting.” What you hadn’t accounted for, though, was change. His lips were creased in a tight line, and annoyance seemed to be pressed permanently into his face. His partner looked more shocked than Aaron did, though there was some amusement behind it.

“Excuse me?” his voice made it sound more like a command than a question.

“What? Would you have rather I called you a whore?”

His partner’s snort of either shock or laughter interjected before he could say anything. “You two know each other?” he asked, his voice wavering a bit like he was trying to hold back a laugh.

“Old friends,” you said.

“Former classmates,” he said at the same time, earning your raised brow.

“Okay,” his partner said, clearing his throat and shoving his hands into his pockets. “I haven’t had coffee yet. You want some coffee?”

“I would love some coffee,” you say. “Cream and sugar is fine.”

The other agent gave a nod and looked over to Hotch, but he only gave a firm shake of his head. He looked back to you, smiling in a way that told you he knew at the very least that the two of you messed around back in the day. “I’ll have that right out sweetheart,” he said before closing the door and heading down the hall.

You stood from your chair, moving a little closer so you could lean on your desk, arms crossed. “So, law enforcement?”

“FBI, actually,” he said dully.

“A Fed? Damn, you really made something of yourself…but it seems you got a little boring in the process.”

He bristled at that. “I am not boring.”

“Maybe not boring, but compared to the Hotch I know, this guy is…well, I have yet to see that shit-eating grin you used to always have.”

“People change.”

“That much?”

You weren’t sure how, and you weren’t going to ask, but somehow Aaron had gotten the keys to the theater’s rooftop. He was smiling like a fool as he climbed up the ladder, taking your hand and pulling you up the rest of the way.

“You sure no one is going to call the cops on us? I would rather not have to explain to my parents that I was caught having sex on someone else’s private property,” you said, giving him a critical look. You thought he was crazy when he suggested this, and he probably was. But you said yes anyway.

“Oh come on, live a little, Y/N.” He already had a cigarette in his mouth and was in the process of starting his lighter. When he managed to light it, you plucked it from his mouth, feigning annoyance.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you to wait on a lady?” you asked.

“You’re considered a lady?” he countered, earning him a rough shove to the chest, but you were both laughing.

“You can be such a dick sometimes, you know.”

“Yeah. Keeps the people I don’t like away,” he mused, taking the cigarette from your lips and replacing its warmth with himself. His lips brushed yours, feeling the bump from where his lips were starting to chap. It was getting colder, and he more than likely forgot to put on a moisturizer. It was almost a surprise to you considering he was always preening himself. You pressed yourself into his arms, feeling his stubble brush against you.

“Good thing I tolerate assholes,” you mused before going right back to the kiss.

Well, he was certainly still an asshole. Just one that grated your nerves a little bit more. You had a feeling that he wouldn’t tell you what changed, what seemed to make him such a different person. Was it really the job?

“Okay, fine. What does the FBI want anyway?” you asked, tilting your chin up a little bit. You could be pompous too.

“The recent string of murders,” he started, and you nodded.

“I know. I’ve been covering them,” you interjected, mostly just to get on his nerves. Which you did, it seemed.

“Your article about the one two nights ago, it had some information that came from anonymous sources. We need to know who those are.”

“Ah ah ah, it isn’t that easy, Hotch. I take my sources very seriously. I’m not just going to give them to you.”

“Why not?” he seemed more in disbelief than anything

Oh? Why not? You couldn’t help the smirk on your face. He sounded like a spoiled child who didn’t get his way.

His partner came back in then, holding two steaming cups. He handed one over to you which you gladly took. Toying with Hotch really was exhausting. “Thank you…I don’t believe I ever caught your name.”

“Hotch didn’t introduce me while I was gone? Seems like he’s slacking. I’m Agent Dave Rossi,” he said, extending his hand. You happily took it, not bothering to look at Hotch as you did it. You knew how bruised his ego was, and you loved kicking it while it was down.

You leaned back against your desk, one arm across your body still and the other holding your cup of coffee. “As I was saying, I can’t just give up my sources, no matter how much you say it is going to help you in your case.”

“And if I get a subpoena for you?” Aaron challenged.

“Listen, I don’t expect you to understand, but anonymity is something we take very seriously. If I grant my sources that, they will get it. And if I get subpoenaed, what do you think is going to happen? Like every other journalist, my paper has funds for this kind of stuff already set aside. I’ll have to pay a fine or spend a little time in jail, so what?”

“So what? Do you not care about justice being served? About protecting the community you are writing to?” Hotch asked, an edge to his voice you hadn’t heard before.

“Maybe if you did your jobs a little better, reporters wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

You seemed to really have struck a nerve then. His jaw clenched, and he looked at Rossi. “We are done here,” he said before storming out of the room. Rossi offered you a half smile, pulling out his wallet and handing you two cards, what you assumed were their business cards.

“If you change your mind. Oh, and thanks for the coffee,” he said as he turned, closing the door to your office on his way out.

You only had a few classes with him in high school, and to be honest you really didn’t talk when you saw each other. You both had your circles you ran in, and they didn’t overlap. Sometimes you would give the other a nod in the hallway. It was known that Aaron got around. Some rumored that it was not just with girls, but you didn’t care about that. It wasn’t any of your business anyway.

You simply took the time he would have with you and relished in them when you could. You were usually out late in some part of town or your room when your parents were gone, which was more often than not. You never went to his place. No one ever did.

One of the last times the two of you did anything together, you were both 22 and on break from college. It was just a couple of months away from graduation. He had just gotten into the law program at George Washington. You were lying on the roof of that same theater. You don’t think he ever got rid of the key he had back in high school.

The two of you had been drinking, and you were sharing a cigarette. Your hands were in his hair as you asked, “You really want to do this? Go into the whole law thing? You can’t exactly sleep around being a lawyer.”

“Sure I can,” he said with that stupid grin, “name a lawyer who doesn’t.” He had a point there. Your free hand was still running through his fluffy black hair.

“I mean it. Like, do you think you’ll enjoy it?”

“Law is black and white. There is a right and a wrong. It’s that kind of simplicity that draws me to it. I don’t have to think when I work, so I can spend every moment outside of it pondering everything like I always have been.”

“And this thing we are doing? Trespassing and all that, right or wrong?”

“Oh, very wrong, but that’s what makes it fun.”

That was the last time you saw that devious smile of his. No trace of it was on whatever you saw today. You wanted to know what happened to the man you once knew, the man that had such an annoying grin that somehow managed to make you smile. You shook your head. You had gone years without thinking of him, you can go the rest of your life pretending it didn’t happen.

You spent the rest of your day working like usual, calling sources for your next article, brainstorming new ideas. Even with his business card shoved to the back of your desk drawer, you felt called to it, to him. You had gotten most of your things in your bag, ready to leave for the day. Even at the door you felt you were missing something. You knew what it was, but you also knew you couldn’t leave without it. “Fucking bastard,” you muttered under your breath, grabbing the card and shoving it into your pocket. For safe keeping.

When you got back to your apartment, you threw your stuff on the kitchen table like most days, lounging and deciding that dinner would be something you thought of later, that today was far too tiring to think of what to cook. You stayed like that for a long while, surfing the tv channels and finding nothing that was satisfying. Nothing could seem to take your mind off of him and the way he was nothing like the man you remembered. Against your better judgment, you pulled out the business cards, deciding to give Hotch’s partner a call.

He picked up after the first couple of rings. “Agent Dave Rossi.”

“Hey, this is Y/N L/N, the reporter from the newspaper. I know it’s a little late, but I was wondering if I could talk to one of you.”

You could have sworn you felt his smirk through the phone. “Oh, it’s no trouble at all. If you would like to come to us, we are staying at the Marriott on 2nd Avenue.”

Just down the street from you. “That would be perfect. 30 minutes okay?”

“Sounds great. Room number is 317.”

You said goodbye and hung up the phone, grabbing your keys and wallet, shoving them into the tote bag you usually kept in the kitchen. You could just grab some dinner on the way back. If you were talking to Rossi then maybe it wouldn’t last too long. You left your house, walking along the sidewalk a few blocks away until you reached the hotel. It was nothing fancy, pretty standard really. You figured people wouldn’t exactly like their tax money being spent on housing federal agents in 5-star luxury hotels every case they had. If only that was true, that would be quite the story. You take the elevator up to the third floor, hanging a left and finding the room with relative ease. You knocked, stepping back and waiting for Rossi to answer.

But the man that opened the door was not Rossi, and he looked nearly as shocked as you.

“Y/N? What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, his shock turning to annoyance.

“I called Agent Rossi…said I wanted to talk. This was the room number he gave me.” You should have expected this. He seemed to eat up the little bit of the interaction he saw between you and Hotch earlier today.

Hotch seemed to think for a moment, but finally he stepped back from the door. “Rossi isn’t even here. He’s back at the police station working on paperwork. Just come in and we can talk,” he said, giving you room to step in. It was then that you noticed he had changed into more casual clothes. A George Washington Law School sweatshirt and some sweatpants. He looked like he was about to go to bed.

“Listen, I’m really sorry for earli-” you had started, but he cut you off.

“It’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it.” His tone said otherwise. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees. There was a long moment of silence between the two of you, a tension that the other seemed to refuse to break. You were the first one to speak.

“What changed?” you asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Everything about you. It’s like you are a different person,” you would have continued, but his agitation stopped you.

“Jesus Christ, not this! Can’t you just deal with the fact that I’ve grown up and you haven’t!” he snapped.

“I haven’t grown up?” you asked, baffled.

“You called me a fucking whore in front of my coworker!” Well, he had a point there.

“I know that was uncalled for, and I’m sorry, but I called you an asshole, that’s different.”

“No, it isn’t!”

“I’m trying to fucking apologize, Aaron! Would you just let me?!” That was the first time you had raised your voice at him, and it seemed the two of you had run out of steam. You were both quiet, neither wanting to challenge the words that hung thick in the air.

“What changed, Aaron?” you asked again.

He was silent for a long moment, his eyes not meeting yours. His gaze was fixed on the floor, his eyes deciding that it was much more interesting than facing you. “I was a stupid kid, Y/N,” he started. “I didn’t know what I was getting into. I didn’t think I would care. I saw so many cases go through my door as a prosecutor, and I felt like even though I was serving justice, I wasn’t making any difference. I wasn’t saving any lives. I felt - I was so lost. I went through high school and college coasting, and I was so lost.”

You were quiet as you moved closer, placing a hand over his. You felt his calloused edges, and his fingers brushed over your cuts and scrapes. “Still picking at your fingers?” he asked, finally meeting your eyes.

“We all have our bad habits,” you said, your fingers finding themselves lacing with his.

“Mind if I pick this bad one back up again? Just this once?” he looked up at you, and you could feel a part of your past self smile. There was still a hint of him there. You took your free hand, running it through his hair. It was shorter now, parts of it stiff from a little bit of a heavy hand at the styling gel.

“Please,” you found yourself whispering. Your breath was taken out of you as he pressed his lips to yours, your hand still in his hair and gripping the back of his head as you pulled him closer. His weight pushed you into the plush hotel mattress, still holding on to his hair. You winced a little, his teeth colliding with your bottom lip as he tried to deepen the kiss, and you couldn’t help but laugh a little. You could hear his soft chuckle against your lips, feel the way his laugh made his chest shake. You started to move away from his lips, your kisses peppering the corner of his lips, down to his jawline, but he pulled away abruptly. You expected regret, for him to tell you to get out and not call him again. But when you saw his face, you saw that stupid, shit-eating grin he had been missing.

“I think I owe you a little something. For being a bit of a dick, I mean.”

“A bit?” You asked, raising your brow, but he didn’t give you time to complain. His lips were on your jawline now, slowly moving lower to your neck, staying in a few places a little longer, with the intent to leave a mark no doubt.

He worked devilishly, moving to your collarbone. You went to unbutton your top, but he stopped you. “Ah ah ah, my job.”

Oh, damn him. His fingers were agonizingly slow, going one button at a time, leaving a kiss at each place that had once been covered. When he reached your breasts, one hand slipped to your thigh, the other taking hold of your bra strap. “Is this okay?” he asked, pulling away from his work to look at you.

“Keep going,” you breathed out. His hand slipped behind you, unclasping your bra with an ease that surprised you despite his known history. He pulled it off your body, leaving your breasts exposed for him. His lips continued their journey, one hand gripping your left breast while his lips toyed with your right. You couldn’t help the high pitched yelp of surprise when you felt his teeth graze your nipple. “Aaron,” you managed, feeling yourself squirming underneath him. You could feel a heat growing between your legs, one that you tried to stifle by keeping your thighs closed.

Of course he noticed, and you could nearly feel his smirk in his kisses, the way he moved from your breasts down to your navel, stopping occasionally to leave his mark. He looked up at you then, asking for permission to go further, and you nodded. “Your words. Use them,” he scolded. If you were in any other situation, you would have rolled your eyes, but at that moment you needed him, so you gave in and said, “Yes.”

His fingers were nimble as they unclasped your belt, unbuttoning your pants and pulling them down, throwing them to the side. Next was your underwear which in his eagerness he nearly ripped. You opened your mouth to complain but stopped as he moved closer, placing your knees on his shoulders and starting the real work. You nearly came undone by his first touch, something he was surely going to tease you for later. One hand was still on your thigh, gripping hard enough it was sure to leave a mark come morning. He kissed the most vulnerable parts of you, slowly pulling you apart like an intricate braid that only he knew the secrets to. You could feel yourself building, and Hotch could too. He pulled away just long enough for you to groan, your body begging for his return. “Aaron,” you called, hearing him laugh from between your legs.

“So impatient,” he toyed.

“Asshole.”

“You already knew that one.” It only took a few more waves of his devilish hand to bring you to your peak, gripping the cheap, white bed sheets and crying out, gasping to regain your breath. You could hear your heart thumping in your ears, a sound that nearly overwhelmed you when Hotch came back up, grinning like a fool and kissing you. Tasting yourself on his lips, your hands back to his hair and his hands cradling your face. It all felt so right, and for a moment it felt like you had that Hotch back.

“You think we could keep this bad habit up?” you asked, still trying to catch your breath. Hotch just gave a little laugh and shook his head.

“No, I don’t think we will.”

“Glad we are on the same page,” you breathed as you kissed him again.

The two of you laid like that for a while, sharing the occasional kiss but mostly just staying in each other’s arms for as long as time allowed. You still weren’t sure if you would be there come morning, but that didn’t matter. You would be back one of these days. You were both victims of bad habits.

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emberfrostlovesloki · 5 months

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Studying with Aaron [requested]

All photo credits after the tag list.

Hello, loves! I hope you are all having a good day/week so far. This post is for my sweet anon who asked for some Aaron study inspiration. Thank you so much for your request. I had such fun coming up with the mood board, HC's, and a little drabble. I hope you enjoy it and good luck with all of your studying and exams! You've got this! Love Levi -❤️

If you'd like to submit a request of some kind, please see this post, Request Post (linked)

Aaron knows that it gets cold in the library, so he brings an extra sweater or blanket for you to wear while you both study.

Aaron gets you any candy or snacks that you want from the vending machines on the second floor. He also knows that apart from the basics, the machines don’t have everything you like, so he buys a few bags of your favorite chips and salty snacks and has some in his apartment and in his backpack in case you need a change from sugary snacks.

If you're on the quiet floors of the library and a person or group is being loud, he will go and tell them to move and is serious about this request. He will stand and glare at the individual(s) until they are gone.

Aaron will quiz you on formulas and concepts for your math and science exams and has written a detailed list of major dates, people, and events for your history courses. He takes all the time you need to remember the important things for each class. He suggests memory devices and tricks to help you retain the stores of information you need.

Even if he says he’s not a good writer, Aaron is a good editor. He will read over any papers or presentations you must turn in. He will make remarks on the whole paper and major points, but he’ll also correct you on your syntax and grammar. As a prelaw student, he is used to detailed work and he wants you to present your best work.

He doesn’t bother you when you are working. He has his own studies too, but every hour you will both debrief and say one major point that you have both learned in that time. You write them out on a whiteboard next to your table. You and Aaron also both have major goals or assignments listed on the board and when either of you finish one of them you cheer each other on! (This is on a non-quiet floor of the library of course).

The short Hotch drabble is below the cut. 1.2K words.

Pairing Hotch x gender-neutral reader

Category: Fluff/comfort

Word count: 1.2K

Content warnings: None

A/N: Two things. 1. This isn't well edited and 2. I use the slang Diffy Q which stands for differential equations. If you liked this story, likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

_y/n_ = your name

You look at your phone again. It had been nearly half an hour since Aaron had run out to grab a drink. Unless he was getting plastered somewhere off campus then ‘Going to grab a drink’ shouldn’t have taken him more than a few minutes. Just as you were about to shoot him a text asking him where he was, the man in question came walking down the hall and toward your table. He was rather awkwardly holding two 711 Styrofoam cups. He took a sip of one of them to make sure he was giving his partner the right cup. He was right and set the other cup in front of you. You smile at him and in a teasing voice say, “Have you suddenly anthropomorphized into a car and needed some petrol to keep that brain of yours going?” Aaron scoffed and replied, “You know you stop making sense when you’re this tired _y/n_.” You jokingly pouted and said, “What are you talking about, I’m at my peak performance right now.” Just as you finished saying this, you couldn’t stifle a yawn from coming out of your mouth. You hide the betrayal of your body with your mouth. This really had Hotch laughing, and he said, “Well maybe your soda will help you a little bit.” You smiled up at him and grabbed the cup. You take the straw in your mouth. Once you had taken a sip, you smiled even more. Aaron watched you. The little gleam in your eyes at tasting the drink was worth the walk to the convenience store just across from campus. Once you had taken a sip, you said, “You didn’t have to get me root beer Aaron, that was very sweet of you.” Hotch pulled out his chair and sat back down, as he said, “Well you deserved a treat. After all, you finished that twenty-page sociology paper. And I needed to stretch my legs. My eyes were starting to glaze over with this reading.” You looked over to the large textbook in front of Hotch and asked, “Is this still Poli Sci?” Hotch nodded and said, “Mhm.” You reached over and pat his hand as you both slipped back into your respective studying.

A half hour later you ran a hand through your hair and made a sound of frustration. Hotch looked up and asked, “What bothering you _y/n_?” You set down your pencil and said, “This freaking calc review is impossible. I don’t know why my professor decided to include problem types that we’ve never seen before here? I’ve tried working problem seventeen three times and I’m still not getting the answer provided. I’ve checked my stuff and it’s not working.” Hotch nodded and asked, “What concept it is over?” You looked back down at the guide and said, “antiderivatives, which I’m normally good at. But this is something else, let me tell you.” Aaron steepled his fingers under his chin and said, “Why don’t you try writing it out on the board. Maybe seeing it bigger will help you see something differently?” You stand and say, “Well it can’t hurt my chances of figuring it out.” Aaron smiled and said, “That’s the attitude I’m looking for,” as he tossed a green marker at _y/n_. You grabbed the marker and wrote out in neat writing: f(x)=ex−3x2+sinx

You continued to work on this problem for another few minutes before hearing someone call you and Aaron’s names out. You turn and see Spencer and Penelope walking toward you. You beam and move away from the board; the annoying problem is momentarily forgotten. Garcia rushed forward and gave you a hug, while Aaron gave Reid a strong pat on the shoulder. When Penelope had released you, you and Hotch changed positions as you hugged Spencer and Aaron gave Pen an embrace. As everyone pulled apart, you asked, “What are y’all two here studying for?” Spencer spoke first saying, “Diffy Q and computational engineering.” The thought of Spencer’s highly advanced school load had your head spinning and you were grateful when Penelope said, “And I’m here to write an essay for Brit Lit and remind myself for the seventieth time who Plato was and why his cave is important.” At hearing this, Spencer rolled his eyes as his gaze moved to the whiteboard, he clocked the unfinished calculus problem. The boy genius asked, “You working on calc, _y/n_?” You sighed and said, “Yeah, unsuccessfully.” Reid smiled softly and said, “How about I solve this one for you and then give you another similar problem? I won’t tell you how I’m solving it, but I’ll leave my work and you can reference back to it?” Hearing this, you smile and nod saying, “That sounds great Spence, thanks.” Reid annoyingly quickly solved the problem and provided a new one. Once Reid was back next to Garcia, Hotch asked, “Would you like to join us?” Penelope nodded no and said, “We booked out a room upstairs for the next three hours. I need ultimate silence to write.” You nodded in understanding and asked another question: “We’re still set to meet tomorrow at Commons to work on the speech, right?” Garcia and Spencer nodded, and Pen replied, “We sure are my sweet. Darn was I lucky to be put in a group with all of you. My friend Stacy who’s also in the class said half of her partners hadn’t even started their parts of the presentation.” Aaron chimed in with a “Here, here to that.” The friends spoke for a few more minutes before Spence and Penelope moved up to their booked room. As you turned back to the board to study Spencer’s work, they reflected on how they had met their best friends at school. It was fate or the academic advisors who had thrown the four into the same Intro to Communications class. You had sat next to Penelope and across from Aaron on the first day of class. They had all hit off well. In the second week, Spencer had heard Pen complain about her history class and he joined their group. It was Garia who had told you that she thought Aaron had a thing for them. You hadn’t believed her, but later that week, Hotch had texted you asking if you wanted to grab dinner off campus sometime? And the rest, as they say, was history.

You spent another half hour trying at the problem, but you were getting tired and frustrated. You flopped into your chair and put your head in your hands saying, “I’m gonna fail this exam.” Aaron reached out and placed a hand on your shoulder saying, “Hey, no negative self-talk. This exam isn’t until Wednesday and it's only on Sunday. Reid will help you, and you can meet with your professor if you’re really, really concerned. You’re incredibly smart and capable _y/n_. Don’t let this one problem get you down.” You looked up slightly from your hands and saw how genuine Aaron was being, and how proud he was of you.” Softly you said, “What did I ever do to deserve you, Aaron?” Hotch smiled and said, “Nothing. And you never will, _y/n_. Now, it’s getting late. How about we call it here? I can drive you back to your place.” You agreed. You both packed up and as you walked toward the exit, you were very happy to be at the library at 12:30 a.m. As long as you had Aaron as a cheerleader, you knew you could make it through finals. You were pretty sure you could make it through anything with him by your side.

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tag list: @criminalskies @tgskitten @geminitapestry

Want to be added to the tag list? Please see this post, CM tag list (linked)

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Photo credits

Top row: Center and Right (@shakespearesdaughters)

Center row: Left (@shakespearesdaughters) Center: (@foldergif

All other photos are mine.

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vahineri · 9 months

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Sketchy sketch Spider-Man AU part 2

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olivinesea · 2 years

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A Mixed Blessing

a/n: If you were here for the beginning of this, you’ll know this is not a nice ride. Things are serious, themes are dark and a lot of demons are present. We’re still in the thick of it but I will say, everything is not hopeless. It’s still a struggle but now we’re struggling towards the light.

A little summary of events so far: Aaron has a terrible home life that he’s been trying to outrun for years. Unable to find physical safety or comfort, he began leaning into drugs and alcohol to escape. In high school he meets an older boy who shares a similar background and shows Aaron the attention and understanding he’d been lacking. It feels perfect. However, Cole is unstable and pulls them both deeper into a dangerous addiction, all the while becoming yet another example to Aaron of the way love and pain are unavoidably intertwined. There is a brief moment when he meets Haley when it seems like things might turn around for him, only to be dragged back into Cole’s orbit once more. Feeling reckless and like he doesn’t belong anywhere, like there’s no one that cares, Aaron takes an excessive hit and lets fate handle the consequences.

warning for descriptions of injuries & overdose aftermath; ~2.8k

chapter nine: and the ghosts

The stage lights were bright in her eyes as she took her final bow, the sound of applause almost enough to drown out the nagging worry that had chased her from scene to scene. She hadn’t spotted Aaron all night. She squinted into the audience, thinking maybe he’d come late and been relegated to the sidelines. Or maybe he’d forgotten entirely. She wouldn’t be that surprised with the way things had been going. Disappointed certainly, but the antagonism between him and the theater teacher had only intensified. His behavior had been too erratic to ever fit in despite her best efforts to conjure goodwill toward him from the group.

She was swept off stage by the bubbling cast, voices chattering over one another, everyone riding the high of adrenaline that followed an opening night success. No one else seemed to miss one tall, dark-haired pirate. With unease winding up her spine, Haley decided to skip going to the green room and instead diverted to the stairs by passing through the wing offstage. Her long skirts were dragged by an object on the ground, half buried in shadows. Pausing to bend over and pick it up, her fingers became icy as her blood drained away and was replaced by fear. It was the ratty pirate hat she knew belonged to Aaron. The stitching was loose and she’d been meaning to fix it for him before the show. He kept forgetting to bring it to her. He’d promised her he wouldn’t forget it tonight.

She moved faster then, perplexed about where he could be. Clearly he’d been here so why wasn’t he still backstage? She hurried into the sea of bodies, currents of movement swirling every which way as people stood in groups to chat or drifted idly toward the exits. She struggled to spot her family, midway back, waiting for her in an aisle. Fixated on Aaron’s non-appearance, she couldn’t make sense of their smiling faces. In turn, buzzing from their enjoyment of her performance, they couldn’t recognize her worry. Only Jessica, as her sister came closer, began to grow puzzled at Haley’s obvious distress. She continued scanning the people, searching for one towering shape as she crossed over to her family. Hoping this was just a mistake, just a hiccup in the evening she had planned so well. This was supposed to be a turning point. This was the night he was going to meet her family. She’d told him how important it was.

But he wasn’t there.

“Haley you were wonderful,” her mother smiled at her, handing her flowers that she accepted distractedly.

“Have you seen Aaron?” She was too concerned to take in their praise. There was a vibration at the back of her skull, a warning that something was terribly off. He should be here. He’d been strange that afternoon—longer than that really if she was being honest with herself. She’d wanted to believe she could help, could keep him in her world but she’d watched his eyes lose their brightness, the dark circles filling back in around them. He’d become even quieter than he had been when they first met. He barely paid attention when they were together, his mind drifted to the solitary places he barred her from following. If he wasn’t here she had an upsetting certainty about where she might find him.

She bolted up the aisle, no sooner than she’d had the realization, she was already moving toward the exit. Her feet acted before her mind registered the thought completely. She needed to get to him right now.

“Haley!” her father called after her while her mother looked around confused, asking questions to the air. This was so unlike their daughter. Maybe the older one might have pulled a stunt like this, but not Haley. Not with all her patience and care for those around her. She’d never abandon them without explanation.

Jessica had been watching, at first amused that Haley had become so infatuated with a boy that she was acting like this, but as she saw the crease form between her eyebrows, her worry deepening, Jess caught on to the seriousness of her sister’s anxiety. She knew just enough about this boy that she could make the connections nearly as fast as Haley.

“I’ll go with her, don’t worry,” she tried to placate her parents as she started to follow up the aisle.

“Go where?” her mother nearly wailed.

“To find Aaron,” Jess called back over her shoulder, not risking turning around and being caught up by more questions. Haley had already almost reached the exit and while Jessica thought she knew where she was headed, she didn’t want to be too far behind.

“Aaron?” Mr. Brooks said the name like he was having a hard time placing it. “That Hotchner boy? What the hell—“

Mrs. Brooks leaned a hand on her husband’s shoulder, watching her two daughters disappear into the crowd, behaving in ways she would never have expected, could not understand. “Where are they going Roy?”

Mr. Brooks shook his head. He trusted his girls, he knew they had solid heads on their shoulders, but that boy…that whole Hotchner family, he wouldn’t trust them for a second. “We better go get the car.”

Mrs. Brooks picked up the bouquet Haley had dropped, the small white petals of the daisies bruised and bent.

The cold air scraped at her face as she ran through the grass behind the school. She wouldn’t have been able to put into words how she was so certain she would find Aaron in the woods, so convinced that time was not on her side. Her heart was screaming at her to run faster, pushing her lungs to keep dragging in air despite the fear that constricted their movement. Her long costume skirt got tangled around her ankles, nearly tripping her more than once. She was briefly thankful that she had insisted on boots rather than the character shoes favored by the director. Her co-lead had been short, their kiss too awkward an angle for high schoolers to manage without a little bit of a bruised ego. She thought about the way the boy had sneered at Aaron and wished she had done more to bruise his stupid ego. It was too late for that now.

As if time blinked she was suddenly crashing into the clearing. Her loud entrance exaggerated by the stillness she found there, a dark, lonely scene. She had only been here once before and found it uncomfortable enough during the day. If it had been a miniature hell then, presided over by Cole’s demonic presence, it was now a haunted chapel, spindly trees towering above, branches muttering curses. Everything appeared dirtier, more broken down in the dark, like no one had been there for hundreds of years, the ruins of a faith unanswered. She had to stop to catch her breath, dizzy from the run. There was nothing to be afraid of from the woods, she scolded herself. The danger she felt, the evil of this place was contained in the rundown shed. With a determined set of her shoulders, she kept moving.

She could make out the barest flicker of light coming from around the edges of the windows, the crack between the frame and the crooked door. Her hand met the doorknob and instantly all her will disappeared. She had no strength to push it open, too afraid of what she would find. Then a branch snapped behind her, alerting her that she’d been followed and reminding her of the time she was wasting with her hesitation. She bit down hard on her tongue, tasting blood and sorrow. Whatever she was going to find on the other side of that door was going to weigh heavily on the rest of her life, she was sure of it. She only hoped it wasn’t too late to repair the damage. The rush of sound made by someone drawing closer was enough to finally push her forward. The door gave easily and she stumbled into the dark.

Jessica had never seen her sister run so fast. They’d grown up racing, with Jess usually winning by virtue of her longer legs, the benefit of a couple extra years of growth already accomplished. She never let that basic reality diminish her pleasure in defeating her sister each time. She loved to run and kept at it even when Haley stopped giving into their mismatched races. Sometimes she would find it too boring to walk, feeling that time was taking too long, and would race herself to wherever it was she was headed. It earned her a few disapproving looks and more than a few shouted reprimands from teachers or other older people she passed by. She hardly cared and it never once slowed her down.

In an effort to appease her mother’s requests to show some school spirit—like your sister—she had even joined the track team one season. She had been the fastest on the team but couldn’t find any motivation to run like that. What was the point, she’d wondered, of working so hard to end up where you started? It held none of the thrill of diving headlong through fields and forest, unexpected obstacles waiting to catch you at every turn. The sterile rubberized track and the matching uniforms and the oddly specific quirks of team sports that everyone else seemed to understand without being told sent her running from that quickly enough. She would still find reasons to run of course, her body was unwilling to let go of that thrill.

So it was surprising to find that it was such a struggle to keep up with Haley’s flight from school. With every extra ounce of effort she became more frightened by this. Haley didn’t scare, she was solid, not the silly flighty thing people liked to read into her blonde ponytail and wide blue eyes. If Jessica was the wind, restless and racing from place to place; Haley was a rock, steady and reliable, determined and stubborn to the end. Seeing her like this was more than enough to tell Jessica that she needed to prepare for the worst, that a threat lay ahead.

She made it to the clearing just in time to see Haley standing outside the shed door, shoulders pushed back as she shook her head, steeling herself for what she was going into. Not one for religion, Jessica breathed a prayer anyway, that her sister was as strong as she believed.

Inside the shed, the light was dim but his form was easy to make out. Haley’s eyes were immediately drawn to him, sprawled out on that dirty mattress in the center of the room, like a staged crime scene in a bad movie. She was frozen by all the information coming at her, overwhelmed by what she saw. It was as if she could see every grain of the universe around her, the atoms shaking and wanting to dissolve to black. She fought against the urge to faint. The world tipped like a slide and she was rushing forward, dropping down beside him, ignoring the painful shock in her knees as debris crunched beneath her.

“Aaron, wake up, Aaron.”

She was afraid of touching him, afraid her fingers would tear at his pale, papery skin. She reached out but held her hands just above his cheeks. They were scarily devoid of color, like he was made of ash, sure to dissolve at the slightest disturbance. She settled for touching his shoulder, hoping the fabric of his shirt would protect him. A distant, logical part of her demanded to know why he was out here in only a shirt. This sorry excuse for a structure was no barrier to the frigid winter temperatures. Why would he do this? There was no reaction to her touch, no sign of life. She shook his shoulder gently but that only caused a sickening loll of his head. His face turned towards her, eyes closed and shadowed, his dry lips cracked and bruised.

Feeling sick, Haley removed the belt he had wrapped around his bicep. She ran her hand along the inside of his arm, startled by the chill on his skin. She lingered over the marks inside his elbow, a dark purple red that jumped out from his pale skin. They were the most striking colors on him, perversely the strongest tie to life she could make out in his appearance. But there were other messages taunting from his skin, blue green bruises and traces of scars not easily explained. Some were silvery and faint, others seemed fresh, new enough that she was undoubtedly with him while they were forming. How had she missed all this? Could he really have been so good at hiding how bad things had gotten? Her cheeks burned as she thought about the past few months, the course of their friendship. Had she been respecting his privacy or was she just afraid to see, afraid to look at the shame of what he had returned to? She had told herself she was making a difference, she was rehabilitating him. Really she was no better than any of the others, maybe even worse. Her heart twisted in her throat.

“Please,” she whispered, close to tears. “Please don’t do this.”

Jessica crashed down beside her, seemingly unafraid to disturb the body Haley wasn’t sure still held Aaron within it. She pressed her fingers hard against his neck, feeling for a pulse. At the same time she leaned in close to him, all but pushing Haley out of the way. Unwilling to lose contact she shifted to sit on the mattress beside him, holding his hand. It was so cold her own skin burned against his. Illogically she rubbed his fingers between her own palms, like this motion could do anything to help.

Jessica could feel the warm tickle of air on her ear as he exhaled, his breaths so shallow they were almost non-existent. The sensation was the only thing that convinced her the slight twitching beneath his skin was a pulse and not her imagination. He was still alive, however barely. He needed help but that wasn’t going to come easily out here.

“He’s breathing. We have to get him to the hospital.”

Haley’s eyes widened, hope a tiny seed in her chest. He was alive.

“It’s too far to carry him,” she continued. “We have to go back to school to call an ambulance.”

“I can’t leave him.” Haley became frantic at the thought of him alone again in this place. Knowing he was still in there, that there was still a chance, she felt like she couldn’t stop looking at him in case that was the moment his soul let go. She studied his face, his arms, all the bruises and damage inflicted there. She knew, looking at all the evidence in front of her, he wasn’t going to be the one to hold on; she would have to do it for him. She squeezed his hand even tighter, like the pressure would tether him. She was not going to let him slip away.

“I’ll go. If he stops breathing you have to give him CPR okay?”

Haley sniffed and brushed away a tear. She had never appreciated her sister’s cool rationality more than in this moment. “Yeah, of course.”

“Good, I’ll be as fast as I can. Here, put this on him.” Jess found a thick mildewy grey blanket on the ground. It smelled but it was better than letting him freeze. She helped Haley cover him, tucking the blanket around his shoulders, carefully avoiding blocking his airway. Haley settled cross-legged behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest and leaning his weight against her, hoping her warmth could make a difference. She whispered into his ear, promising that help was coming, begging him to stay with her a little longer. She didn’t look up when Jess left, a cold rush of air announcing her exit as the door swung open and closed.

The minutes felt endless, she was sure every other moment that he had stopped breathing. She leaned closer and closer until she was resting her cheek against his, breathing as he breathed.

“Please, please, please,” she was stuck repeating this one word over and over. The sour smells of the shed and her tears mixed with the dirt and created a slick layer of grime on both their faces. She listened for footsteps, for tires, for sirens. Anything to indicate help had arrived. All she could hear was silence and the hope that pulsed with their heartbeats, fading with each passing moment.

#aaron hotchner #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #hotch backstory #young hotch #young haley #jessica brooks #a mixed blessing

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