#jessica brooks
running toward nothing (part five)
Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him. (Set around 07x01 - It Takes a Village but canon divergent by a lot.)
Warnings: drug use/drug theft, addiction, lies
Words: 3.4k
Pairings:Hotch/Morgan established
Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel’ s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal…oh, we have more betrayal? Is everyone betraying everyone? Maybe. I spent the weekend getting sunburnt at a Little League tournament dreaming up more ways to hurt these people so buckle up folks.
Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing
**
In the morning, Derek looked exhausted. Like a man who slept at his desk, but he’d done one better, he’d slept on a chair in a hospital room. Letting Jessica take the cot had made sense, she would sleep, he would not. He paced the corridor anxiously, sometimes the only sound in the entire place was his footsteps. There was the distinct feeling he’d forgotten something, but each time he tried to get there everything went blank. Probably just worried about Jack, about Sean being out of his depths there…did Sean know what to do about Clooney? Surely, he could figure out a dog. He’d called anyway, just to put his mind at ease…and yet it didn’t help. Something still ate at him. Looking haggard at his desk had been hard earned.
Spencer loomed in his doorway for a moment, his eyes lidded heavily. He looked exhausted and upset, though the upset part was muted somehow behind some wobbly looking glass. It was warped and softer than it should have been. The minute Derek saw him, a look of complete horror flashed over his features.
“Ohkid…” he started. “I’m so sorry, I completely…shit.”
Silence. He deserved that. Spencer held grudges, and right now he was basically an expert at it. He was still shaky around JJ after the Emily ordeal, and for that matter, he wasn’t exactly solid around her either. Some part of Derek knew he hadn’t even begun to deal with Hotch’s secrets and lies, but something about his injuries seemed to at least divert him for the time being. Well, Derek figured, at least with him being the focus of Spencer’s anger and feelings of betrayal, maybe JJ could enjoy a brief respite.
“It’s okay. The movie wasn’t very good anyway.” That was a lie, he’d enjoyed it very much. He would have enjoyed it even without the help of the little happy pill. Derek had detected the lie. Maybe the pill, too, Spencer thought.
“Look,” he began, running his hands back over his head…he’d forgotten to shave that morning, the stubble raked against his hands like rough sandpaper. Hadn’t even gone home, these were the same clothes he’d worn the day prior. Wrinkled, disheveled…by the end of the day he’d be looking rough. “Hotch was admitted to the hospital yesterday with an infection, I got so caught up…”
“I’m sorry,” was all Reid could think to say. Of course he’d chosen Hotch. He knew it had to be Hotch, in some way or another, and he couldn’t help but feel a little less bad as time went on that he’d taken some of his pills. Hotch really did get everything. “It’s okay. There will be more movies.”
It wasn’t the first time he felt a crush of something like jealousy over Hotch, if he was being honest. Gideon had always treated him differently, like the prized son, not something to be coddled and cared for but something brave to be proud of. He would walk into police stations proud to introduce them to Hotch, give him the floor. He would watch Hotch with a sparkle in his eye that Spencer never saw for him. There was a seed that had sprouted in him when Gideon left, some nip of green and ugly the first time he realized that Gideon probably still spoke to Hotch on occasion…maybe not often, but he’d overheard talk between he and Rossi. Gideon spoke to him because they were equals, Hotch was not a child, Hotch was…well it didn’t matter what he was except that Reid was not it. They were not the same.
It made sense, then, that Derek would also choose him. Even from the start. Derek had been looking at him with those eyes long before the ring disappeared from Hotch’s finger. It was the first time he realized that he was profiling a teammate, breaking that cardinal rule that they all broke repeatedly.
“Reid,” Derek started again, sounding wearier than ever. “Spencer. I really am sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Hey guys? We have a case…” JJ’s chirpy voice broke through the stare down that followed his statement, Spencer’s silence damning. Derek felt his heart stop beating. Of course they did. With Hotch in the hospital, it made all the sense in the world. Bring it on. “Garcia’s already set up at the round table…”
“No way to get us out of it?”
“I’ve been working with Strauss for a few weeks, pushing cases to other teams, offering phone and online consults…she’s been keeping everything at bag but this one is bad. They need us.”
(x)
Colorado was cold. Derek didn’t like cold. Growing up in Chicago, he knew plenty of ways to deal with the cold but that certainly didn’t mean he liked it. The way his nose hairs froze was particularly irritating. A few thousand feet in the air, he was more than a little irritated at the balmy spring he’d left behind for a mountain that hadn’t quite gotten the seasonal message. There was no spring here, the locals said, just 9 months of winter and a mild few months of non-winter.
To make it worse, he’d had to leave Hotch in the hospital. Not for the first time, but probably the worst time. The look on Hotch’s face matched his words, understanding and calm. You have a job to do, he’d said so softly Derek thought he really believed it. Both of us out just doesn’t work. They need you more than I do. That was the first lie of the day, but certainly not the last for either one of them.
With two pairs of gloves pulled tight and stiff over his hands he walked over the frosty high school football field. Counting the yard lines, a distant ghostly roar of fans cheering in the stands, he shoved his hands in his pockets and wondered at how far away from these days he was. Sometimes it felt like his mom should be calling up the stairs that it was time to put his pads on and get ready, others it felt like that was a completely different life. When he’d blown out his knee, he mourned the loss of football…he probably could have played again, but as he sat and tried to peer into a new future, he started to want nothing more than to walk away from the sport that had brought such horrors into his life. He’d already paid a high price to be where he was, but he no longer felt tied to the debt. It was only now that he could look back with any fondness on the sport again.
The goalpost loomed, and he blinked into the blazing dawn over the treetops. His boots crunched in the frosted, crispy grass and he could see the place the body had been hanging. Knew already how high up it was, the types of tools and strength and numbers needed to get a full grown man up there. In his hip pocket his phone buzzed, just once and he knew it was Jessica with the morning report. A call if it was bad, a text if everything was good. They were discharging Hotch, his fever had broken and things were going well.
“You didn’t wait for me!” Spencer called, trotting the length of the field with two hot coffees in hand. Big ones, and Derek could see the steam billowing from the slit in the tops from where he stood.
“Sorry, had some things on my mind…” He nudged at the grass with the blunt toe of his boot and let out a long sigh, watching the way his breath curled around him and carried away on the breeze. Spencer hadn’t held the grudge Derek thought he would, in fact he was downright sweet and almost too attentive. He couldn’t figure it out, but he was glad he hadn’t hurt his friend too badly. Out of a sense of duty, he kept Spencer close, still trying to make up for what he’d done. Even if Spencer moved past it, he felt awful.
Shared hotel rooms were the name of the game, it seemed, almost every time they found themselves in these little mountain towns. In this case there were plenty of rooms but the Bureau just didn’t think it was necessary…it was a ski resort town and the rooms they did get shot the budget to hell. Always about the almighty dollar, Derek thought bitterly as he signed for three rooms to cover his team of five. Rossi bought them all dinner in return for getting his own room.
After a full day (and night) in the field, Derek was spent. He’d told everyone to head back for a few hours, get some shut eye, and they’d hit the trails again in the morning. They were close, and he really didn’t have the energy to think about it any longer. There was something right in front of them and everyone was too exhausted to see it. A few hours of lying in bed watching Golden Girls and trying to sleep would help him hit the reset button. Just as his eyes began drifting shut, his phone rang. Not just a text this time, a constant ring and he frowned. Groaning, he rolled over and swatted at the phone, noting that it was just after midnight.
It was Hotch. Not just Hotch, but Hotch at 2am (it had taken his muddy mind a few seconds to do the timezone math)…Derek could tell before he even hit the green button that it was going to be bad. He wasn’t up at 2am for any good reason.
“The vicodin is gone.” Hotch’s voice was groggy and thick with tears.
“It’s not due for a refill for two more days, how can it be gone?” Derek sighed, that wasn’t exactly the best way to approach it, especially given Hotch’s state of mind. The phone was harder for him to work with, the conversation without eye contact, without social cues, his mind didn’t seem to have caught up there yet. Still, Derek was tired and all he wanted was twenty minutes of sleep. Just a nap. A fucking break from the hell he was living.
“I don’t…” Hotch paused, sucking in a shaking breath. He was in terrible pain and the only thing he could take at this time of night was vicodin. The hydros made him sick, he wouldn’t touch those and the oxy gave him nightmares. Not just nightmares, night terrors, waking up in a cold sweat with a scream swelling in his dry throat. The percocet was the morning pill and vicodin was middle of the night desperation. Only they were gone. “I don’t see them.”
“Aaron,” Derek tried to stay calm, keep his voice even as he spoke. Spencer was on the other bed thumbing through a book, pretending he wasn’t paying any attention to the conversation happening beside him. “I’m in Colorado, I can’t exactly look. Is Jessica there?”
“She’s…” another pause, like he couldn’t sort his thoughts. He sounded almost hysterical, on the verge of a panic attack. “She’s asleep. She’s here.” He didn’t sound sure of that, though. “Sean too. But…Derek the vicodin…”Desperate for a fix, Derek thought. He couldn’t blame him. They’d been weaning him off of a lot of it, he was doing well, but after the infection he was bound to have a few bad nights coming off of that.
“Aaron, just take a percocet.”
“I’ll be awake all night.”
“You’re awake now….” Spencer could hear it in Derek’s voice, the cord was ready to snap. His voice was eerie calm, forced, but it was only the calm before a storm. Something gnawed at Spencer’s guts, something dark with fangs as he listened and pieced together the conversation from Derek’s snappy words. He didn’t feel guilty yet, but maybe he would.
Hotch was starting to hyperventilate; he could hear it. Worse, Derek was on the verge of implosion himself. “Aaron. Are you upset about the missing pills or are you actually in pain?”
“I…” he had no answer, something about the way Derek phrased the question twisted him up and now he couldn’t remember. He was always in pain, since the moment that damn vehicle exploded, he hadn’t known a moment without pain. He thought it had to be that. “It hurts, Derek.” The ache was worst at the front of his thigh, and he rubbed mindlessly at the sore muscles, willing them to stop cramping, stop screaming at him and let him sleep.
“You need…”
“Vicodin, Derek. I need…” He was on a loop now and Derek’s patience had officially run out.
“No, Aaron. If it’s missing, then you need to take two of the percocet and go back to bed. Lay there awake if you have to, at least you won’t be in as much pain. Have Jessica help you into the hammock if that sounds better, I’m sure it’s warmer there than it is here. Do something, but I can’t help you. When I’m back, we’ll figure out what happened to the pills.“ He paused, sucking in a deep, angry breath. "I can call for the refill in the morning, as soon as the pharmacy opens. They won’t fill them for another couple of days but I’ll put it in anyway.”
He was sitting up now, eyes closed, but his voice was a little loud. Spencer’s stomach twisted angrily and Hotch cried. Derek could hear the breaths, shaky and childlike, far away because he’d pulled the phone away from his ear. Great. Hotch was having a panic attack at 2am in the bathroom, and it was his fault. “I’m going to call Jessica. Stay where you are.”
Sean was already in the bathroom and grabbing the phone from Hotch’s hand. He stood there speaking to Derek in hushed tones, one hand pressed firm against his brother’s shoulder while he talked. It was comforting, sure, but also just to hold him in place. To make sure he didn’t try to get out.
Spencer pretended not to be listening, not to be a little less than sad that Hotch was having a hard time. The vicodin in question was in his bag…still two pills. He hadn’t taken the last two, he’d decided he would return them over and over again, but figured he’d bring them on the trip just in case. Maybe the headache would come back and he’d be ready…but no, he’d return them before they were noticed, he didn’t want them. Only now that was blown to hell. Hotch knew they were missing.
After the phone call, Derek paced the room like a lion on the hunt.
“Everything alright?”
He glared at Spencer, and then softened, crumbled. “No.”
Explaining what happened, Spencer pursed his lips and nodded in all the right places. Hoped he wouldn’t give himself away. In his bag was a little golden bottle with Hotchner, Aaron printed clear as day on the label. He felt a little too bold for a man in his position. But he was fucked if Derek found out, so he had to play the wild card. Dig himself in deeper.
“You said Sean was staying there for a while, right?” Spencer asked, not outright saying anything necessarily but planting a seed of doubt. Deflecting a little. He thought he should feel guiltier than he did about that one. Derek sighed.
“I thought of that. I just…I don’t want to bring that up on the phone. He’s clean now, I can tell….”
“Maybe he wanted to sell them?” Sean was almost too easy a target.
“Yeah…yeahmaybe…” The conversation turned in circles, revolving heavily around Sean and the what ifs. Had Derek been paying more attention, he would have noticed the way Spencer’s pulse quickened and throbbed beneath his jaw each time he lied his way further and further from the evidence in his go bag. In war there were always casualties, and while Spencer wasn’t sure this was a war for Derek…he was fine with Sean being a casualty. Sean was just wasted potential anyway, a leech at worst and a distraction at best. Not even Hotch would bat an eye at the idea that it had been him pocketing the pills.
(x)
Sean and Hotch made it out to the hammock, the fresh air helping calm the panic. Because Derek built it himself, the hammock was wide and flat enough for two people to lay on and Sean found it easy enough to get them both comfortable beneath a wool blanket beneath the last of the stars. Hotch wouldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, and Sean was drinking a red bull in a desperate attempt to stay awake. Jessica said she’d give him the bed for a nap later if he stayed up with Hotch. He had more overnighter experience. They didn’t talk much but then Hotch never had, he just tumbled around inside of his own head.
When the sun crested the treetops, Hotch’s voice full of gravel, he smiled a little dizzy and asked Sean if he remembered the camping trip with Haley’s family right before he left for college. Roy had packed his rusty old pick up with all of the essentials but forgot the tents so they had to make do with stringing tarps up in a thicket of trees, creating a sort of shelter. One tarp for a roof, the other for the ground, sleeping bags spread out haphazard on the tree roots. “There was a spider in my hair,” Sean muttered quietly. “I felt it on my ear.” He wouldn’t ever forget that. It had scared him out of his mind, and yet after that he’d asked to join the Boy Scouts. Went all the way up through Eagle, he was a pro in the outdoors now. No more spiders giving him night terrors. Now he went camping without a tent on purpose. Just Sean, his sleeping bag and a fire.
“You were always funny about peeing in the trees,” Sean chuckled, ruffling his brothers hair. The hammock swayed in the breeze and Hotch couldn’t help smiling.
“It’s barbaric.” Clooney’s tail thumped the ground beneath them as the sounds of night became sounds of morning, crickets and frogs giving way to chirping birds and a cooing dove on a nearby phone pole. A gentle drizzle, not even actual rain just quick little bursts of tiny droplets, floated overhead and Hotch closed his eyes, relishing the cool mist on his flushed cheeks. Building the words and working up the courage to ask a question he wasn’t even sure he wanted the answer to.
“Sean…” Hotch asked, quietly. “I won’t be mad if you did, but…” he paused, the words floating into the misty gray dawn and scattering. He fumbled for something in the silence, but Sean seemed to grasp it anyway.
“I didn’t touch your pills. I’ve been clean for two years, and I don’t need money that bad…” It was so calm, no trace of defensiveness that would give him away any other time. Hotch rubbed at the ache in his eyes and nodded. He shouldn’t trust Sean, had a million reasons not to, but he did.
“You didn’t really think I took your pills, did you?” Sean asked, almost amused. So relaxed, and Hotch was certain now it wasn’t him. That only complicated things, though. It would have been so much easier if it had just been Sean.
“No.” It was the truth, and that actually shocked him more. “You would have taken the oxy…” He said it with and smirk and Sean didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended so he did both.
“Three Vicodin aren’t worth squat, you’re right. Not worth dealing with you, that’s for sure. Besides, if I was gonna steal from you, don’t you think I’d wait until I was leaving?”
Hotch let out a soft chuckle and let his eyes drift shut. The ache in his hip was deep and the panicky flutter in his chest would continue to keep him awake, but he felt comfortable enough to rest his eyes until Jessica woke up. It took both of them to help his stiff, aching body out of the hammock and back into the house, both Sean and Hotch collapsing in the bed exhausted. With a wall of pillows stacked between them, an homage to sharing a bed when family would come and stay with them as children (Sean always lost his room to guests, it didn’t yet smell like teenage boy his mother said), they both managed a few hours of sleep.
Hotch slept right through two missed calls from Derek and woke to a short, apologetic voicemail. He barely remembered the conversation but he could recall Derek’s harsh tone, and that didn’t bother him, he figured he probably deserved it. Calling Derek in hysterics while he was on a case was really stupid. He wouldn’t call Derek again, they’d talk when he got back. That was good enough.
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running toward nothing (part four)
Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him. (Set around 07x01 - It Takes a Village but canon divergent by a lot.)
Warnings: drug use, hospital, infection/emergency, drug theft
Words: 3.1k
Pairings:Hotch/Morgan established
Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel’ s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal…we finally have some solid betrayal going on here! And some very very bad choices being made by a few people. I will be out of town for Little League tournaments all weekend so the next update will be Monday, most likely.
Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing
**
“Sean…”
Hotch’s voice wavered, confusion made it sound watery and insubstantial. He didn’t trust his eye, not in the low light and red haze. The shadows had been playing tricks on his sleepy mind. Still, it was more than his eyes, he could smell his brother’s cologne, something musky and almost floral to mask the cigarette smoke in the fibers of his clothes. Sean was standing there or he’d reached a new level of hallucination. One seemed more likely than the other, especially with the vertigo he’d experienced on his way to the bathroom earlier that morning. Out of nowhere, legs made of jelly and a strange heat that surged from his hip to his knee. Over in a flash, not concerning enough to mention, he took his medication, relieved himself and hobbled back to bed without incident. Now his brother was staring at him, not just standing but looming, really, backpack slung over his shoulder like he was just leaving instead of just arriving. “What are you doing here?”
Sean smirked, as if to challenge Hotch’s mental acuity. Even with the long shadows cast over his features Hotch could tell he wasn’t going to take it easy. He never had. “Guess.”
“Jack told mom what happened,” Hotch started, flickering through a line of thought that was almost solid enough to grasp. “Mom called you. Probably bought you a bus ticket…how long are you staying?” He spoke slowly, carefully choosing each word, proud that he had managed to get through it without stumbling.
“Boss gave me a week.”.
With some great effort, Hotch talked Sean into helping him out of bed. He’d taken his pills on an empty stomach and it was starting to hurt. The dizzy feeling swelled in him, pounded from his eyebrows to his chest and he clutched Sean’s arm tight. He hadn’t intended to but it was just no use pretending he could do it on his own. The vertigo would pass. Blame the eye, he figured, he’d left it uncovered the last few days and it was messing with his equilibrium. Hell, it was messing with everything. Seeing the world through the red glare was like watching some old movie representation of Hell, minus the horns and pitchforks. “You good?”
Hotch nodded, he couldn’t focus on walking and talking at the same time but he could nod. The walk to the kitchen was slow, and he was dragging his leg more than stepping but the joint had slowly become a ball of flame and all he could think about was sitting down.
“Where’s Derek?”
“Work.” More of a grunt than a word as he sat, eased himself down into the chair leaning heavily on his good side. The ball of flame in his hip shattered and became shards of glass. “He’s going to a movie with Spencer later.” Sean didn’t seem to pay much attention to the way his face scrunched up in pain as he sat down, maybe he thought it was normal.
“Cool.” A break, Sean studying the cabinets one by one, inspecting their food selections and organization. He was a kitchen guy, it was what he did. “Alright, time to get you some lunch Skeletor.”
While he fumbled around for the items he wanted, the front door opened and slammed shut, followed by cheerfully loud voices. Jack and Spencer breezed through quickly, Jack stopping only to wave hello to his dad and paying no mind to his uncle at the toaster. Spencer said nothing, just walked right through to Jack’s bedroom and they heard the door slam shut behind the two friends. On the door was a handwritten sign with a hand drawn flag of Jack’s own invention and words that didn’t quite make sense, the spelling was just creative enough to be nonsense, but the basic idea was that Jack’s room was off limits to anyone that wasn’t he or Spencer.
“Not even a hello?”
“Spencer is teaching him how to play Risk. They’ve got a card table in there covered with it.”
“He’s a little young for world domination…”
“He’s good at it.” Not just good, great. He’d listened to Spencer over dinner the night before rattle on and on with information he could barely keep up with, but it all amounted to praise for Jack’s awareness and ruthlessness.
The conversation was halted by the dropping of a piece of toast slathered with orange marmalade and a glass of sweet tea in front of Hotch. Sean’s specialty. He was southern through and through. Hotch couldn’t help but smile. Sean’s after school snack, day after day. It was memories on a plate. There was a twinge in his hip and he shifted, pressing his thumb a little nervously into the joint.
In Jack’s room, they’d already set themselves down at the table and Jack was studying the board to make sure he remembered where everything was, what he’d wanted to do. He was little but he wasn’t stupid, he’d figured the game out now he just had to remember all of the mechanics. What his plans had been when their timer went off. Spencer was just glad Jack was trustworthy, everything was in exactly the same place as they’d left it though he was sure Jack had been faced with temptation more than once…just to make a little move, just one little thing. See if Spencer would notice, but he knew that he couldn’t fool Spencer. He’d win without cheating. Spencer rubbed at the ache in his temples and squeezed his eyes shut while Jack concentrated on the game, double checking that he remembered the rules.
“Your head hurts again?” Jack asked, huge brown eyes studying Spencer carefully. Spencer nodded, a little embarrassed that the kid had seen his discomfort.
“Yeah, it’s fine, kiddo. Not so bad today.” Jack ignored him, already on his feet and moving toward the door with a plan. He’d been thinking about it for the last few days, once his mind was set on something it was set. He’d talked to his dad and Derek already, really. If your friend has a hurt should you help them? A seemingly simple question with a very simple answer. If you can, yes. Even Jessica had elaborated enough to say that you should always try to help people, even when it’s hard. Even when they aren’t your friends. Well, that had settled it…he knew he could help Spencer.
Perched on the sink, his feet dangling over the edge, he rifled through the medicine cabinet. Top shelf, the daddy pills. Everything else was Band-Aids and tummy stuff, but Derek kept those yellow bottles that made daddy feel better up high. He didn’t know what any of the words on them meant but he’d figured out they all really did the same thing, daddy only had pills to make the hurt go away. He twisted and twisted at the little white caps but to no avail, they wouldn’t budge, they would just spin and spin. He could figure them out, he knew he could, but something told him just to take a bottle to Spencer and let him do it.
He hoped he wasn’t doing anything too wrong…his dad had so many and it seemed like Derek was always getting new bottles, he could spare just a little to help Spencer play the game with him. “Here you go! My dad takes these…they make his leg not hurt so bad…”
Spencer held in his hand a poisonous tube of sweet relief. He almost salivated, and still he wanted to push them back. Like it burned. Hadn’t he just been thinking the other day that he’d like to get his hands on something? Anything? Closing his eyes he saw the orchids, still fresh and beautiful and blood red on Derek’s desk. Blood red just like Hotch’s damned eye that wouldn’t seem to heal. It was creepy. He wore sunglasses, even in the house, just to hide it but Spencer saw the blood in there and imagined it sloshing around. “No, Jack I…these are your dad’s.”
“He has five bottles…I counted.” It was so innocent. Five bottles meant enough to share with a friend, Jack couldn’t see any reason not to. He got the impression from the look on Spencer’s face that maybe was doing something wrong and thought he might want to apologize. Spencer looked scared. He considered giving the bottle back, telling Jack to take it to the bathroom but what if he was caught? He didn’t want the kid to get in trouble, but he certainly couldn’t take it back…if he was caught with it, even as innocently as this, Hotch would think he was relapsing. As if he’d even cared the first time, really. Who was he kidding? Hotch was so blitzed out on a cocktail of these things right now that he probably wouldn’t notice. He shook the bottle, only a few left in there anyway, the prescription was probably ready to be refilled. Maybe they wouldn’t even notice.
“Five bottles?” Spencer asked, quietly. His voice raised an octave and that was hard to control. He was talking more to himself, but Jack nodded. “Thanks Jack.” He wasn’t confirming he’d take any of them, but he had decided that the kid was only trying to help. Slowly, reverently, he dropped them into the pocket of his vest when Jack looked back down at the board and decided he’d find a way to put them back in the bathroom before he left. No way he’d keep them. He couldn’t keep them.
He’d worked so hard to stay away. He’d survived being shot in the knee and healed just find without them…what was some annoying headache in comparison with that?
Except he was so excited about the movie he was going to with Derek later that he forgot all about them in his pocket. He and Jack played an hour of intense Risk and he all but ran out of the house and to the movie theater without considering that he’d now taken a disastrous and dangerous step toward relapse. By the time he realized they were there he was parking in the garage, the flashing lights of the theater inviting him in. He’d put the pills back tomorrow, he figured. Hotch had five bottles…four now…of whatever it was he was taking. Probably a hefty mix, all things considered. Besides, there were only three left in this one, he’d counted the little shadows. Three wouldn’t be missed for a while.
One day wouldn’t hurt.
(x)
Hotch started acting funny about halfway through his toast, after swallowing his sweet tea and Percocet. He’d been planning to ask Sean to pass him a cookie, one of the oatmeal raisin ones Penelope made for him in secret. Watching Sean pick his way through the Tupperware full on the counter was making his stomach grumble, but he couldn’t manage to slop the words together. His ears were ringing, his tinnitus back with a vengeance. Inside his skull was the entire percussion section of a 2nd grade band, complete with out of time triangles and tambourines. It wasn’t that he couldn’t think around it, more just that he couldn’t do anything but drown in the cacophony.
“Sean?” His voice was ragged and soft by the time he found it. “My hip feels…” Like fire? Like shards of glass on fire? Not for the first time that day, but certainly the worst and for the last fifteen minutes it hadn’t let up, it only seemed to increase. Afraid to touch it, to explore, he squirmed and felt the last remaining sutures pull. Where there had been so many, his entire side stitched up this way and that, only small places still remained and those places were the source of the flames. Breathing was getting hard. The heat was terrible, creeping like a forest fire over the surface of his skin. Sean came quickly and helped him stand, he was sure it was just the sitting down that was doing it but standing only served to make it worse.
“…lie down…” he mumbled almost incoherently as the vertigo came back with a vengeance and he faltered, slumping heavily into Sean’s side before the world went gray and he went headfirst into the fog.
On the couch, Sean put an ice pack on Hotch’s burning hip and called Derek who spared no time rushing home. He’d started running while he was on the phone, not bothering to shut his office down…he’d ask Penelope if she could later, it seemed unimportant now. By the time he rushed through the door, Hotch was awake but barely. Groggy and blinking slow, sweating beneath ice packs with Sean pacing behind him nervously.
“Sean,” Derek called, breaking his trance. “I’m sure you didn’t do anything. Help me please.” With Sean’s help, they shifted Hotch enough on the couch that Derek could see the incision, the site that now looked red and infected. The sutures, only four of them left, pulled taught around glistening pink skin. It was hot to the touch and Hotch flinched away from even the remotest sensation. Even the warmth of Derek’s cinnamon gum breath was too much. “Looks like an infection,” he said softly, pulling out his phone to call Jess and let her know.
Derek would take Hotch to the hospital while Sean stayed with Jack. It wasn’t exactly something Sean was comfortable with, he’d never been on his own around a kid before, especially not this kid who was so different from other kids. Jack who looked right into you, who spoke in words most six year olds wouldn’t use, Jack who knew too much about life.
Lifting Hotch into his arms, Derek grunted and struggled to secure him in place. Long legs, head lolling to the side and back exposing his throat until Sean tipped him forward, dropping his chin to his chest. It was Sean who guided him, held doors open, made sure he got to where he was going without slamming Hotch into walls and doorways in his hurry. Holding him was no problem, even at his heaviest he wouldn’t have given Derek any trouble, but those long legs…they seemed to go on forever and there was no good way to fold him up.
Derek was pacing the exam room while they poked Hotch’s already bruised and scarred arms with needles, placed IV tubing and dimmed the lights. They were going to admit him, already planned to without the results of the blood tests, they could see the signs of infection already in his growing fever and redness. It was just a waiting game now…can you guess his counts? How bad is the infection? How long had it been festering unnoticed? Derek couldn’t help it, he thought of Osmosis Jones, a movie he and Jack had watched more times than he could count. You ever try to blow dry your hair with a fart?It made him smile and would make for an easy way to help relay what was happening to Jack. Or maybe it would just keep his own spirits up.
Jessica sat with him. Paced with him. Conspired and whispered with him. They lost all track of time while doctors and nurses floated around them, in and out, adding and changing IV bags, checking vitals, poking at him.
At Derek’s house, Sean was doing everything he could think of to entertain Jack who seemed oddly okay with what was going on. A little worried look would flash over his features but it was so quick that Sean nearly missed it. He guessed it made sense, Hotch hadn’t been home long, he’d been away overseas, it was almost just like he hadn’t come back at all. “Wanna watch a movie?”
Jack always wanted to watch a movie. By the look of uncle Sean, he’d pick a good one…something his dad wouldn’t approve of, and he wouldn’t even ask if it was okay. He got in his pajamas without complaint, helped Sean clean up the house and make some snacks, anything he could do to ensure that they got to watch a good, good movie. Not a baby movie. Jack fell asleep with a chocolate milk mustache on Sean’s chest in a mess of popcorn to the dulcet sounds of Ripley blasting her way through aliens.
(x)
Spencer waited and paced the movie theater lobby, watching the clock tick away the time. He checked it against his own watch, and then his phone, to make sure. First Derek was just late but that could be traffic easily, he was working and sometimes things got jammed up pretty good this time of day. They had plenty of time until the movie started. And then Derek was even later, so he bought them their popcorn and sodas and found the best possible seats. No sense waiting in the lobby, Derek knew how to get into the auditorium. He left the ticket for Derek at the box office and settled in. When the movie started, the room went black, he was still alone. Sodas in the cup holders surrounding the seats he’d chosen, sitting on the outside so maybe Derek might use their shared arm rest and be closer to him…it had been planned out perfectly, except the seat remained empty. He set his popcorn there and fought back the tears. No text, no call, nothing from Derek except silence. Halfway through the intro credits, the music already agitating his now immense headache, he felt the bottle of pills in his pocket. Vicodin.
Just three. Still three. He could take one now, and put the bottle back with the last two when he brought Jack home from school the next day. He doubted they were inventorying them, that wouldn’t make any sense. They weren’t worried someone was eyeing the stash. Popping one into his mouth quickly, he slurped it down with a gulp of Pepsi and a handful of popcorn. His headache vanished quickly, but a lead ball settled in his belly. Guilt. A deeply upsetting feeling of stepping back in time…he knew damn well, the way his head swirled pleasantly with the soundtrack, that he wasn’t going to return the other two pills either. He’d already named them dinner and dessert. The thought amused him as he slipped further into the memory of this light feeling.
Hello old friend.
running toward nothing (part three)
Summary: Hotch is injured in an explosion while on overseas assignment, putting Derek in a difficult position both with the team and with Spencer who has spent the last few months inadvertently falling in love with him.
Warnings: bombing, fire, surgery, pain medication, angst
Words: 2.9k
Pairings:Hotch/Morgan established
Notes: This is for @tobias-hankel’ s Spencer Whump Challenge. My assigned prompts to do my evil with were Derek Morgan & Betrayal, and if you know that going in… well I’m sorry. How are we feeling here? We’re getting there. Spencer’s really in it now. I have never written a love triangle before so I greatly underestimated the amount of build-up we would need to get to Spencer’s pain. We’re on our way now though!
Read on AO3: Running Toward Nothing
**
“DADDY!”
Jack’s voice rang out loud through the house, vibrating through the old hardwood. Hotch stiffened briefly, bristling at the sound that crashed through his head. He heard Jessica shush him, reminding him that daddy wasn’t feeling good and we need to use our indoor voices but he knew that Jack simply couldn’t help it. They hadn’t seen each other in months. There was bound to be at least a little excitement he couldn’t contain, afterall, there had probably been times Jack wondered whether his father would come home at all. Even before the explosion. There was a spell of silence, almost like a mockery, and then the pounding of feet, little feet, and Jessica’s voice again calling behind him. Hers wasn’t exactly a whisper and definitely not a yell, somewhere hoarse and sharp and it made goosebumps raise on Hotch’s arms.
“Jack, remember to be gentle!” That was the last thing she tried to chirp at him, but her voice fell on deaf ears, and Jack was launching himself into Hotch’s waiting arms. The explosion of pain in his hip barely registered, though he knew it was there and he knew he would pay for it. The relief of holding Jack was too great. In the doorway Jessica stood, arms folded over her chest, shaking her head in disbelief. After all the preparation, after all the lectures, the kid just couldn’t keep it light.
In the dusky bedroom she felt the sting of tears when their eyes met, when he smiled through Jack’s hair at her. “Hey,” she mouthed, and he blinked back at her a silent hello. “Love you.” Just the lips, just the tears. There was time for the rest later. Another second chance, she figured, but her eyes stayed trained on him. Not a ghost, not as scary and fragile as she’d expected, just Aaron. Tired, exhausted even, but still him.
“Did Derek show you the cookies?” It came out almost naturally, each syllable perfectly timed and neatly enunciated, and he figured Jack probably wouldn’t be able to tell he’d been rehearsing it for hours. The look Jessica gave him, that tiny quirk of her eyebrow and twitch at the corner of her lips said she saw right through him, but then she always did. She knew better than to say anything, it wasn’t for her benefit.
“COOKIES!” Jack squealed with delight. Things were always made easier with the promise of sugar.
“Go find Derek, I’ll be right out.”
He didn’t want Jack to watch him struggle to his feet, and as Jessica pressed Jack’s shoulder and nudged him down the hall he began the arduous process of swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Her hands were on him quickly, helping slide off of the bed and holding him upright against her. He’d lost weight, an unbelievable amount of weight, since she’d last seen him. From the doorway he’d looked alright, but now she was close enough to see the way his chin sharpened to a point, his hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes. If he put on a billowing cloak he might look like a Scooby Doo villain. Another conversation to have with Derek, later always later. He wouldn’t want her to prod him, not right away. Instead she stole a hug before grabbing for his walker, the metal contraption that Derek kept propped frustratingly close.
“Cane,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Don’t need that thing.”
“You sure about that?”
“Cane.”
With a frustrated huff, the same sound she had already made plenty of times that day, she reached for his cane and pushed it into his palm, watching the way he curled his fingers around it and made it an extension of himself. Immediately relief flooded his pinched and pallid features, the weight removed from his bad leg. They moved out slowly, her clinging almost desperately to his side, holding his free hand in both of hers, and for some inexplicable reason he didn’t try to brush her off. He let her stay, let her fuss, let her stick to him.
In the front room, Jack chattered at Derek while poking at the trays and trays of cookies. He couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Careful to keep his eyes on Jack, he tried to watch Hotch move in his peripheral vision, tried to ensure he made it to the couch and down into his spot without incident. He had two favorite spots these days, one slightly safer than the other. The couch was a nice one, his heating pad and heated blanket stayed right there to ward off anyone who might think to sit there. Derek had hammered together a quick little table, like the kind of TV tray his mother used to have so they could have special treats sometimes and watch a show on the couch with dinner, only this one was sturdy enough that Hotch could use it for leverage to push himself upright. Any old store bought one would collapse, this one might withstand the apocalypse. (His other favorite spot was a hammock in the backyard, built on a sturdy frame from Derek’s own design. One large piece of thick cloth that stayed more or less flat even when he lay on it and would swing gently in the breeze. He needed help getting in and out of it, but he said it was the most comfortable place in the house. He often napped there after physical therapy, the only place he could get comfortable.) Taking his place on the couch, he let Jessica help him get a pillow beneath his knee and the soft cushioned ottomon under his foot. He could sit here about an hour before he’d be sweating and unable to pretend he wasn’t in pain. An hour would be enough.
After Jack’s visit, they had some decisions to make.
“Talk to me,” Derek whispered, lying beside Hotch in bed. In the quiet moments, once the pain medication fogged his senses and the pillows and ice packs did their jobs, his head didn’t scream like a siren and he could think. Even better, he could talk. “What’s on your mind?”
“I dreamed about the surgery today,” Hotch replied after a moment of careful consideration. He’d been gathering his words in a heap. The plan was to sort them and fit them together in order to tell Derek something he hadn’t told anyone yet. He might not want to tell anyone, but he owed it to Derek who was fumbling around in the dark trying to put his pieces back together and for what? Love? It was the least he could do. “I saw it. It’s still…some parts of it don’t make sense. I woke up screaming louder than I’ve ever screamed, loud enough that my throat hurt for days after. They said I did it four times, I would pass out…and wake up screaming.”
“I can’t imagine you screaming.”
A simple statement, but one that made them both laugh. Hotch’s with less amusement, but the sentiment had struck him nonetheless. He couldn’t remember the last time he actually screamed. Though, he supposed, he didn’t really remember this time either. “I guess they had run out of all of their pain medication, even Tylenol, after so much chaos and so many injuries. It wasn’t just me,“ he added the last part with some solemnity that made Derek sigh and blink back tears. Hotch was, so far, emotionally unaffected by the retelling…he’d already cried so many tears over this. "So once the anesthesia wore off I was on my own for almost an entire day…the shipments were being held at a security checkpoint waiting for the area to be cleared. Every box, bag, bin had to be opened and rifled through in case there was another bomb.”
“So, you woke up from a major surgery…”
Sober. Dry as a bone. Clean as a whistle. His mind played word games, associations with phrases his brother would use, and his father would use…all of it meant the same. He woke up without anything to take the pain away, and if that wasn’t just the most obvious thing in the world…
But then he deserved it, didn’t he? He’d sent Emily away, hidden her deep, lied to his family and friends…so if he woke up from surgery without anything to ease that…well. So be it. “Yeah. I guess I screamed until I passed out. I don’t remember it…and when I dreamed about it today, I was just watching. Helpless, like one of the nurses who would hold my hand and put cold rags on my forehead like it made any difference.”
“…fuck…”
“Yeah. They knocked me out the minute they could and kept me under.” And that, he didn’t want to say, was when the real horror started. The explosion replaying over and over in his drug addled head, the screaming, blood in the sand, the flames licking up the sides of their tents. A spray of glass so loud, followed by another and who knew a Humvee had so damn many windows? One explosion lead to another until everything flammable had made its boom and then the silence and the apocalyptic pain. Post-op was nothing to that moment of realization, of fear, of wishing he hadn’t survived and hoped he wouldn’t…not if it felt like that. He didn’t want Derek to ever think about that, ever have a clear picture of what happened. For his own peace of mind. They’d already been over it, as Derek ran his hands along the new slick pink scars on Hotch’s forearms and the back of his neck, they’d already been well on their way to healing by the time he’d been transported. “What happened” was always met with the same answer. “Nothing. It didn’t happen.” The long and short of it was simply that it didn’t happen. None of it did. His job overseas would be scrubbed, maybe whatever information remained would be thrown into the bottom of a file no one would ever look in and he would have to come up with some interesting story to tell down the road when people asked about his limp. The limp he’d probably have to live with for the rest of his life, if his doctors were to be believed. He might run again, get back into shape to be in the field even, but the injury was severe enough to be problematic forever.
“Hey, so I go back to work Monday…”
Hotch hummed; he knew. Jessica would come over, she’d already taken care of her FMLA coverage. In truth she’d been working hard on her “vacation” to make sure she was ready to hit the ground running when she got back. Not that she should be saddled with this burden, but she’d volunteered before Derek had a chance to talk about hiring an in-home nurse and well, he figured this was the best course of action anyway. He could heal with Jessica.
“Jess and I were thinking we might get your PT appointments here instead of having to get into the car every day…make it a little easier on you, on everyone.”
He saw red. He didn’t mean to, but he did. And not the red from the blood in his eye that was hanging on, no this was…worse. And judging by the serious look on Derek’s face, it wasn’t over. There was bound to be more. “Spencer offered to pick Jack up from school and hang out with him in the afternoons, until I’m off. He’ll come in earlier so he can get out earlier, maybe start doing more lecturing again instead of office work so his schedule fits. It’ll give you a few hours after PT to rest. And then we do the family thing, get back into our routines. You, me, Jack. Right? Jess if she wants…like old times.”
What he thought was a mixture of things, most bad, most downright mean. But what he said was simply “What about soccer? I volunteered to coach this season.” What a silly thing to say, he knew he wouldn’t be coaching anything anyway. He should have already called or emailed, told them to find someone else…why hadn’t he?
“I know. Look I don’t know shit about soccer and I really don’t wanna learn but Rossi said he’d give it a go, and JJ offered to help out too. She went to school…” on a soccer scholarship, he remembered but he let Derek say it anyway. Say it like he couldn’t remember. Maybe Derek would want to remind him who Rossi was next, wouldn’t that be fun? The red film was spreading and he closed his eyes, tried to remember to breathe.
Nothing to do but agree, he had no choice. So Spencer would be watching his kid, and Rossi and JJ would be coaching his sports, and Derek would be doing Hotch’s job at the office…all it seemed to leave him was time to rot in bed. Angry really didn’t begin to cover it. (That he should also feel incredibly fortunate was not at all lost on him, but he wasn’t capable of reaching that yet. Later, he’d feel it later when the guilt washed over him and he cried himself back to sleep at 3am to the gentle sound of Derek snoring beside him. If he wished, once again, that he hadn’t survived that bomb…he wasn’t going to tell anyone except the clock that ticked his minutes away in the dead of night.)
(x)
Coffee isn’t a good idea at midnight, and Spencer could tell you that, but as he frothed the foam and listened to the way it hummed through the pages of all his books he smiled. He felt light, energetic, and almost good if not for the nagging pain in his head. Psychosomatic the doctors were telling him, no medical reason for the pain. Nothing on the MRI, in fact his brain as he admired it in photographs, was perfect. He’d hung it on his fridge, like maybe if he walked by it enough times it might grow teeth, fangs…jump out at him. A tumor lurking in the folds of slick gray. But no, just slippery perfect lobes.
Psychosomatic, he said to himself, his tongue clicking over his teeth at the end. It was a delightful feeling and he said it again. He pictured Derek and smiled.
There was a book he’d been wanting to pull down, and in his half-sleepy half-caffeinated daze he wanted to thumb his way through it leisurely. This was pleasure reading, the careful soaking in of words and phrases, absorption into his bones. He devoured books but he didn’t always enjoy them…this one he intended to enjoy. Or do his best to.
He was going to read Vonnegut. Not because he hadn’t before, or even because he was terribly interested…Vonnegut’s particular brand of satire hadn’t ever struck any gold in his mines but Derek loved him and he wanted desperately to understand that. He wanted to feel Derek’s heart beating in the pages; to know someone most intimately, he figured all you really needed to do was seek the things they poured themselves into or pulled themselves out of. This felt like a good way to spend his night.
His headache was a distant memory the moment his eyes scanned the first words.
All this happened, more or less.
(x)
On Monday morning, Spencer showed up a little early with a coffee for Derek. His favorite order from his favorite stand, a welcome back of sorts. Derek was running late, something about traffic and Jessica getting Jack to school, so he figured he had time to drop it off on Derek’s desk as a nice little surprise.
Except someone else had thought of a nice surprise first and it was a hell of a lot better than a coffee, he figured. Maybe not more useful, but better. There was a bouquet of the most exotic flowers Spencer had ever seen in person sitting on Derek’s desk. It wasn’t big, actually it was quite modest, but it was…exquisite. Like it had been pulled from some alien planet, spiraling spindly blood red orchids smiling at him. Phalaenopsis, he whispered. Unmistakable and mocking him. Every detail precision, a small fortune. The vase was nothing but slick crystalline glass, an elegant fishbowl filled with water, no frills, no gimmicks. He thought of Hotch’s injured eye, the way blood filled the aqueous liquid and obscured the warm amber like a bloody fishbowl. Maybe Hotch was being cheeky with these flowers, but he thought not. He probably didn’t see the connection. He flicked the card with his forefinger and read the neat type on the back, as if he didn’t already know exactly what it was going to say. Maybe not exactly…but he’d be silly not to see it coming.
I love you &I miss you already.
xoxo
He didn’t even have to sign his name. It wasn’t surprising and it wasn’t out of character, of course Hotch wanted to wish Derek well and make sure he knew he was thinking of him. Hotch, knocked around and mixed up, was still Hotch and he was romantic and traditional, and he made gestures like this all the time. Nothing about this was surprising, except maybe that there hadn’t been some cheeky sonnet attached…but it gutted him anyway. He glanced at his coffee cup, the barista’s loopy scrawl of "raise my hand” on the side (a cheeky Vonnegut quote) and he dumped it into the trash on his way back to his own desk.
For the first time since the headaches began, he thought that he might need something stronger than avoidance and caffeine to get through his day. His finger twitched…he was thinking about something a lot stronger. His head was screaming.
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- Warnings: Character death & mentions of abuse
- Notes:Just all up in my feels here for some reason. I have about six different WIPs right now but this one was calling to me. Here you go…a fic about Roy dying that no one asked for. (In this, we assume that Scratch did not stalk Jack and force them into witsec. It was just business as usual.)
Conversations with the dead were always very one sided. Sometimes, with the right person, a conversation with the living could feel the same.
“I’m dying, Aaron,” Roy had said as he shuffled through the house on feeble legs, scooting his walker along. “You’ll be rid of me soon. And once that happens…” he grumbled, the click and slide of his walker the only sound in the room. “There’ll be no one left to hold you responsible for the things you’ve done. The lives you’ve destroyed.”
“Sit down, Roy, before you fall.”
“Dad, sit down. Be nice.”
“Grandpa!”
“Oh, wouldn’t you just love that? If I fell?” Roy found the door he’d been looking for and swung it open, scooting himself inside and slamming it behind him. This was an hourly occurrence. He would come out of his room, make a loop around whatever space he found Aaron in, and then find his way back to bed. Perhaps he was hungry, looking for food to begin with, but the very sight of Aaron turned his thoughts to one thing: Haley. It was true, he was dying, and he’d prayed desperately that he could know happiness one more time before he went, but that meant he’d have to forget her and in a cruel twist of fate, he’d managed to forget nearly everything else that made up his life except Haley.
“How is everyone holding up?” Dave asked, standing on the front porch in the early morning sunlight. Jessica lived in the suburbs. The neighborhood was nice, cozy even, with regular sized houses for regular people. It was quiet, and Jack could play with all of the neighbor kids in one of the many backyards – trampolines and pools dotted the street. Aaron helped Jessica pay for her house, helped her take care of her father. Roy had told him it was the very least he could do after everything he’d taken from them and he supposed that was probably not wrong. Aaron slipped out onto the porch, folding his arms over his chest, shrinking in the chilly autumn air.
