truth shall deliver you

by magnoliablade (chahakyn)

Summary:

Hotch doesn’t waver because he knows that you will take care of what he can’t. He leads from the front and you fill in the gaps in the rear.

You two make a good team.

You’re in danger. You can feel it.

Breath filters out your nose in short, harsh bursts. You can’t smell anything except your own fear as blood courses through your body, panic vibrating through your system. You want to run. But you’re frozen by fear, by the fact that your body won’t move. And then it’s moving but it’s too fucking slow.

Your fingers curl tighter around your gun, except it feels like fabric, coarse threads pressing deep in your palms as you feel yourself shake. You can’t find the trigger. You’re trapped and it’s dark and there’s nothing you can do, but—

But.

The fear quivers in you, standing still. It doesn’t grow like it should.

A second passes. Then two. And then ten.

And you catch up to yourself as you blink against the hazy, half-dark.

You are—were—dreaming. You were asleep and now you’re not. You’re not trapped, but curled up in a loveseat that has seen better days.

You blink, focusing blearily on the moonlight that struggles through the cracks in the curtains to light up the edges of various bodies strewn around the room. JJ and Emily, passed out on the bed. Morgan on the floor, somehow making a nest of extra pillows and sheets look comfortable. Spencer contorted on the couch, Rossi tucked neatly into the rollaway bed that’d almost taken official FBI jurisdiction to get into the room. Hotch, sitting in the desk chair with his ankle draped over his knee and his fingers propped against his temple.

He’s looking right at you.

Alright?

You squeeze your eyes shut for a moment. Exhale. Raise your hand and rock it side to side for a moment before it falls. You can smell the familiar notes of the team’s scent through the oppressive smell of dust and smoke that have settled into the motel walls, but it’s not nearly enough to settle you.

You let yourself wish for a moment, childishly, of your own bed. Tea in the cabinet and a comforter to drag over your face and nothing to worry about except whether to doze off again.

But you can’t have that, can you?

You push yourself up silently, drifting past Hotch to hook your finger into the back of your coat. Arm in, over the shoulder—the faintest tendril of his worry curls against your cheek with an undercurrent of something else you can’t quite parse—before the room door clicks shut behind you and you take the stairs to the curb, into the cold bite of night air that wakes you up for good.

You sink to the ground, sitting on the concrete to watch your breath billow into smoke for one long exhale, and then another. You may be awake, but your mind can’t really do much more than take in the silver-gilded scenery around you.

It takes another four exhales for a hand to extend in your field of vision, a lit cigarette pinched between thumb and forefinger.

You haven’t smoked in a long time. But you accept it regardless. You take a long inhale to feel the smoke seep into your lungs, holding it in as long as you can before letting go. Your shoulders are already starting to slump as you hold the cigarette back out to Hotch. He hums low in his throat.

“I quit years ago,” he says, breath coalescing in the air. And you know. You know that he picked up smoking in high school for fun—and then dropped it when he and Haley got married—the same way you know how JJ and Will are in the middle of a big fight right now, how Emily’s taking the steps to try and reconcile with her mom even though she dreads it, or how Spencer has been taking suppressants for the past 13 months in the hopes that Morgan will do something about it. You know because you watch and listen and you remember the little inconsequential things that always turn out to be consequential in the end because it’s your job to catch what slips through the cracks, to use it to hold the BAU together.

It makes you easy to work with, especially for Hotch. He watches from his position as unit chief and he uses what he sees to steady himself in his role. A leader needs to be stoic and sure and he doesn’t waver because he knows that you will take care of what he can’t. He leads from the front and you fill in the gaps in the rear.

You two make a good team.

“You know I did too,” you remind him, twitching the cigarette accusingly in his direction. You’re not entirely sure how he found out; it’s been widely agreed that out of everyone, you volunteer the least about your past. Not because it was terrible or anything. You had a perfectly fine childhood and a perfectly average everything ever since; there are just far more important things to talk about than all that. “Take responsibility for being a bad influence on me.”

Hotch’s mouth curls at the corner, a knowing thing. The cigarette fits easily between his fingers, his lips, familiarity worn into the hollow of his cheeks as he inhales.

There’s always a certain sort of…allure to an alpha. Confidence, strength, ease in their designation. Aaron Hotchner is no exception. You can feel the pull when he walks in, cutting a sharp figure in the Bureau office through the sea of other suits as he directs the team and manages everyone else, a jerk of his head or flick of his finger enough to send people scrambling. But he’s an outlier in some ways. Doesn’t posture or project his scent, always mindful of the steel in his tone so it's low and soft, especially when he makes a dry comment that has Rossi snorting into his coffee. He’s careful and controlled, but in a way that’s a testament to his capacity as opposed to a detriment. You’ve never begrudged the people who gravitate towards Hotch on cases because honestly, you get it. Strength and skill are attractive, even more so when unassuming.

But any feelings you have about him have to be tempered by the fact that you know it’s all a performance. One that isn’t meant for you. Whatever you might feel in terms of physical or emotional attraction are an inconsequential flash fire against the tide of your own discipline and the purpose of your designation as a beta. You aren’t an omega. You aren’t what he wants or needs, and that’s that.

But you can still take the cigarette when he offers it back to you. You can imagine the lingering taste of his mouth on the paper as you inhale, wonder what your lips leave behind for him as you trade it back. You can let your fingertips brush as the cigarette burns down to the filter and you take the last inhale, crushing it beneath your heel.

“We’d understand if you wanted to step away from this one,” Hotch says. It takes you a moment to place that he’s talking about the case. It’s a nasty one; secondary sex hate crimes never sit well with the team, but this one is specifically targeting betas. You can’t help but see the faces of people you care about in the victim photos, and it’s times like this you’re grateful Garcia is holed up safely at Quantico where nobody can touch her. “Everyone has their limits. We’d understand.”

Limits. What’re yours? You could pin them down if you tried, but at this point it feels like an exercise in futility. You’ve pushed past so many breaking points that it feels like second nature to look at something horrifying, to turn it over in your hands and grimly decide that it’s one more thing you can stand to take. You were built to bend and that’s what this job demands. And you are nothing if not very, very good at this job.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

You push yourself up with your hands on your knees, ignoring the crack of your right knee and the languishing PT referral buried somewhere deep in your inbox. Hotch steps forward, close enough that you have to tilt your head back a little to keep him in your sights.

The ever-present furrow to his brow is somehow a little deeper as he watches you. His gaze is oddly intense. Heated, even though his voice is quiet and cool as he asks, “Do I need to make it an order?”

“No, sir.”

You watch his nostrils flare, something flashing in his gaze before it darts into shadow again. His scent quietly curls against your nose, insistent smoke and sandalwood, and the jagged pieces of the last few days suddenly slot together with an unsatisfying click.

The irritability. The tenseness. The closed-door meetings that’d put him in a fouler and fouler mood, JJ’s mock wide eyes and her hand slicing over her throat as she’d all but bolted out of his office. You’d thought it was the aftermath of the divorce, of selling the house and having to uproot his entire life only to try and find his way back again. You didn’t think it could be a rut because that’s not due for another four weeks—and that was going to be a problem for you to deal with later, but it’s here now because stress does funny things to human biology and you should have known.

You resist the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose.

Fuck.

You lose the rest of the night taking advantage of the fact that Quantico is three hours ahead from Phoenix and there’s too much to do. By the time the team’s up and ready to go, you’ve got accommodations booked that can comfortably hold the team for the next two nights, over-the-counter suppressants ready for pickup at the pharmacy down the road, and a favor in your back pocket in case Hotch needs to be jetted back to Virginia in the dead of night with minimal warning. You’d rather it not come to that, but alternative options to a sudden onset rut are slim right now given that Spencer has his sights set on being involved in a different BAU member’s sex life and Emily would probably deck Hotch if he came within two feet of her smelling like he does now.

It’s not exactly a secret that every member of the team has a designation, but it’s not something that they advertise. Sometimes it’s a boon; Emily obliviously cocks her head just the right way and the truth spills out, Morgan sniffs out a second unsub before any other evidence shows, or JJ puts just enough push in her tone that some poor reporter does exactly what she says without quite knowing why. But it’s times like this where it’s a fucking nuisance; everyone’s on edge, Derek and JJ snippier than usual, and Spencer’s zoned out. Again. Even Emily has a slightly hunted look in her eyes that she can’t quite shake.

Rossi catches your gaze, shoulders tense as Hotch nearly snaps at him, and you know what you need to do.

“Hotch,” you prompt carefully, watching him turn and run his hand absently through his hair. The barest hint of spice and heat tickle past your nose and Spencer stiffens. Morgan growls low in his throat, but Rossi steps forward, a quick jerk of his head that has Morgan falling into a surly silence. You trust Rossi to handle it, turning your full attention to where Hotch is tracking everyone’s movements with a wary eye.

You raise your hands, palms facing him as you shift forward. His gaze snaps towards you.

It hadn’t seemed as bad last night, but in the light of day, you don’t know how you missed the signs. The furrow between his brows is deep, eyes sunken back and jaw tight. He’s got his hands tucked behind him instead of in his pockets, like he might do something stupid if he doesn’t physically hold himself back. Like showing up to a case in the beginnings of a rut isn’t already stupid enough.

You push your irritation deep into your chest because you get it. Aaron Hotchner is a man dedicated to his work and to his team. You’re the same way. Except for him, the greater sin would be to be absent then to be inconvenient, because he already knows the consequences of not being where he’s needed. You would normally trust him to understand the implications of this level of inconvenience, but there’s much to be said for how an alpha’s libido can defy all logic.

You are, once again, deeply grateful for your designation as a beta.

You pull out a little pack of rut suppressants from your pocket, courtesy of the nearby pharmacy. Hotch’s mouth does that little irritated downwards tick.

“Until we solve the case.” You incline your head, catching his gaze. “If there’s anyone…”

You know there isn’t. He knows you know. A muscle in his jaw tightens as he punches out two pills, tossing his head back and swallowing them dry before shoving the packet into his inner jacket pocket.

“We’d understand if you want to pull out,” you say carefully, an echo of his words only hours ago. Hotch’s brow lifts, mouth a flat line.

“That won’t be necessary.”

And it isn’t. The BAU is a good team, even when their Unit Chief is incapacitated. Hotch locks himself in his hotel room and phones in so everyone can work together. By day three, the case is neatly wrapped up thanks to Spencer finding some blessedly obscure fact that turned everything around. You’re grateful; even with Garcia’s help delivering some stronger suppressants, fever reducers, and painkillers to the hotel—which you could just kiss her for—you’re ready to get out of Phoenix and back to Virginia, where this problem can get taken care of quickly and quietly.

But first you need to talk to Hotch about how you’re going to get him onto a jet with the team for three and a half hours without some kind of incident and then, after that…

There’s a lot to arrange. And to top it all off, Hotch’s not answering his door.

You try the handle, just to drive the point home.

The door swings open.

Hotch’s scent hits you like a wave, catching you off guard enough to drag you in. The room is dark, curtains drawn. The smell of his rut is so thick in the air that it stifles your lungs as you try to take a breath. It’s a miracle every omega in a two-mile radius isn’t trying to break down his door.

“You didn’t take the suppressants,” you say muzzily.

Hotch’s head tilts from where he’s standing by the desk. You can see his tie and jacket are tossed on the floor, the light spilling in from the hallway catching on undone buttons of his shirt. Just the top three, like he can’t even let himself relax any further. His sleeves are rolled up too.

“Case’s done,” he replies, the words almost slurring against his teeth. “Don’t need them.” He jerks his head away from you, hands twitching behind his back.

You can tell he’s too far gone into it, and this is where you know you should shut the door and call Raj and remind him how requesting emergency transport is actually a really reasonable request compared to how his department didn’t get reamed by OIA last fiscal year thanks to you. You should get Hotch back to Virginia and fly back with the team and put this whole thing behind you before something happens.

Because you can feel it; something is going to happen. Pheromones don’t discriminate, and you can feel your higher functions wavering with every second you spend standing between light and shadow. The window to act is closing. It’s coming down to flight or fight.

The heady scent of sandalwood curls against your nose, twisting down your throat.

You have to remove Hotch from the equation. You’re not an omega. You don’t have the tools to handle this.

But you’re flexible, aren’t you? Your entire job, your entire life, is built around adapting.

And so you decide, in that moment, that you aren’t going to be calling in that favor.

“I guess not.” You take a deep breath, shoving down your better judgement with the smell of smoke and spices and heat. And you take one step forward. And then another. You pull the door closed behind you with a click, trapping yourself in a room with a man that’s almost animal. “You need something else now.”

Hotch moves fast. Fast enough that he has you pinned to the door before your training and instinct can kick in, hands on your wrists and thigh pressing between your legs. Fear shivers up your throat but you exhale through it, letting your head loll back against the wood so your neck angles towards him. Your vision is adjusting, and you can see his pupils dilating even further, lip curling up to show his teeth.

“Don’t play games.”

“I’m offering,” you breathe. There are other things you could be offering, but everything else feels so away from this cramped, dark room, from the scant few inches wavering between the two of you.

You stutter on an inhale as Hotch sways forward. His self-control is hanging by a thread. You can feel his hands shaking, grip punishingly tight on your wrists and you can smell the want, feel the heat radiating off his skin so close to yours.

But he doesn’t have to hold back now. You’re here and you’re willing, and if he wants to take then he can because you’re ready to do this. You’re ready to let him.

“I’m offering, Aaron,” you say softly. He shudders. “Take it.”

The words have barely left your mouth before he lunges, fingers digging into your face and pushing your jaw up to greedily shove his face to your throat. He takes a few, open-mouthed breaths, shoulders moving with them, like it’s the first time in three days he’s properly filled his lungs.

Maybe it is.

His lips mouth against the delicate skin of your pulse, teeth scraping over where your scent glands hide, and you have a crazy, touch-starved moment where you think that you wouldn’t mind it, if he bit you. It wouldn’t have to mean anything, it would feel good because you want that sharp sting and then the dull ache of belonging, the thing you’ve always felt has been missing—

But you can’t.

The thought reaches both your heads at the same time. Hotch yanks himself back as you shy away, except he’s got your arm in his grip and he’s dragging you to the bed and it’s really fucking hard to unbutton your slacks and push them off while you’re being shoved onto the mattress, but you make do. You’ve just gotten your underwear kicked off when something soft and soft falls into your hands, slipping against your fingers.

“Cover your neck,” he rasps, pushing insistently at his tie curled in your grip. It’s the logical choice. You would do the same. The sting of it isn’t his problem, and as you shove it deep down where it won’t see the light of day, you decide that it isn’t your problem either. At least, not right now as you wind the smooth silk around your neck and as Hotch pushes you face down onto the bed. Your mind spins as you run through action items like ticker tape.

You’ll need to inform the team of this, make apologies to the front desk in the morning, maybe slip housekeeping a tip just to be decent—there’s the click of his belt buckle, and then the thick sound of leather dragging fast against cloth, fuck—and the paperwork, Jesus, there’s going to be an incident report except you can’t fucking remember the policy number for—

Hotch’s thick, callused fingers push down your ribs under your shirt, and every single thought you’ve ever had disappears in favor of more, more, more. You curse under your breath as his touch drags back to your waist. You’re wetter than you’ve ever been, but you’re not an omega, you can’t take all of him like this, there has to be—

Your mind suddenly flicks back through the supplies Garcia had delivered. There was a bottle, one you didn’t recognize. At that point, you had been more worried about researching suppressant dosage amounts and making sure the meds could stand to be mixed than trying to figure up what Garcia was up to, but now…

The paper bag you passed on to Hotch is on his nightstand. You stretch your arm out to snatch it, tipping out of Hotch’s grip enough that he hisses out a frustrated noise. You push your hips back against him as you shake the bag’s contents out on the bed next to you.

The bottle is small and cool in your grip. A quick squint at the description almost makes you laugh in relief.

Lube. Of course. Trust Garcia to save your ass at the eleventh hour. You twist the cap open with your teeth and reach back. The angle is awkward and your arm is contorted in a way that can’t be good for your shoulder, but you get enough to drip down between your legs where you need it.

Your hand’s shaking. Hotch’s scent is washing over you in an intoxicating, inescapable wave. Wood and smoke are filling your lungs and twisting your thoughts and pushing everything down until all you can think of is how bad you want it. You’re still holding the bottle. Hotch swats your hand away with a growl and braces one broad hand to your waist and—

He’s pushing in, one inexorable slide, and he’s big, fuck, you can’t remember the last time you had sex, let alone the last time you took something this thick and heavy inside you. His hands won’t stop roaming over your bare skin and it feels like you can’t open anymore for him, take him any deeper, and then you do, his skin like a furnace against yours, fingers knotting in your hair to pull your head up and, and…

You barely have time to remember who’s on the other side of this wall—Rossi, Jesus Christ—before Hotch’s pulling back and snapping his hips back in all in the space of one breath and there’s nothing you can do but grip the sheets and arch your back and take it.

You’ve heard stories of alphas talking in heat, saying the filthiest things imaginable to a cock-drunk omega that can do nothing but agree mindlessly. Hotch doesn’t do that. He fucks you hard and fast and doesn’t say a single word and honestly, that’s the best thing you could ask for. It lets you focus on how you can already begin to feel his knot swell and catch, a burning drag against your hole.

Your body opens eagerly for him. You push back into him, breath catching as his fingers dig hard into your hips to hold you in place. Hotch’s grip slides from your hair to the back of your neck, slipping against his tie. He grunts, pushing your face into the pillow and shoving his hips into you harder. You can hear a high-pitched whine in your ears, and it takes you more than a few seconds to realize it’s coming from you, your mouth slack against cotton as he wrings the sounds from your mouth.

“Fuck,” Hotch hisses under his breath. His arm braces by your head and you latch onto it, digging your nails into his skin and feeling the muscles in his forearm flex. You feel yourself grow even wetter, heat spiraling between your legs as you clench around him involuntarily. He pitches forward, teeth digging into the vertebrae at the top of your spine—not hard enough to break skin, but your hindbrain wishes for a moment that it would.

Hotch snarls at you as you squirm, shoving his hand between your legs to hold your hips flush against his. The heel of his palm digs into where you’re most sensitive, every thrust pushing you to grind against his hand until your thighs are shaking and your hands are gripping the sheets, every muscle in your body tensing as you tip over the edge with a cry. You feel yourself clench down, body pulsing around his cock in a rhythm that you can’t control.

Hotch groans into your skin. He thrusts into you, once, twice, his knot stretching your hole and then settling deep, an almost too-tight fit. You can feel the dull warmth of his spend spilling inside of you, his hips hitching into you as he pumps you full. It’s not really comfortable, but it doesn’t have to be.

His scent curls against your face, deeper and warmer as his pleasure tickles your skin. You press your face into the pillow, rubbing your cheek against the cotton. Everything smells like him.

Hotch’s hips push up into you every so often, the aftershocks of the rut working itself out. He keeps nosing at your covered neck, breath fanning hot and wet against your shoulder as his body stays tight against yours in a long, burning line down your back. A hint of his growl shudders from his chest through yours as he tries to push past the smooth silk.

You’re exhausted. But by the third time he tries to nose around his own tie, you blearily wonder how much he misses fucking an omega. How much of his body is searching for Haley right now. You don’t want to know, so you don’t ask. You let yourself drift off, pulled tight against Hotch until your body is trying to shake itself awake what feels like days later.

You’re nearly cognizant by the time you hear the door unlock, someone slipping in.

You can tell immediately that it isn’t Hotch.

“How are you feeling?” JJ asks, setting down a styrofoam plate heaped high with various continental breakfast foods before sitting next to you on the edge of the bed. You stomach gurgles in response as you push yourself up on one hand, snagging a piece of toast. 

The morning sunlight’s leaking through the curtain folds as you knuckle at your eyes and wince at the stretch of the muscles in your back. You don’t need a clock to tell you that you missed the jet takeoff at 7AM sharp.

“Where’s—"

“He flew in with the rest of the team earlier. He…” JJ frowns, lips pursing as she rubs the corner of the bedsheet between her thumb and forefinger. She’s frustrated; it tinges her scent, amber and pepper sharper than usual against your nose.

You close your eyes and take a steadying breath. Hotch has a team to lead and he’s not going to waste any more catering to his biology than he already has. It’s the smarter choice; you agree with him on that.

“He’s right, it’s better that way.”

JJ tilts her head as you open your eyes. Her cool, blue gaze cuts through you the way it triages through cases to hand to the team, day after day. Knowing. Decisive.

“You don’t have to be alright with it,” she says, and there’s a banked fire there beneath the ice, indignation for you and your situation. It’s kind of her to think that way, and you say as much to her. But what else can you do? What’s done is done, and you would do it again for him. For anyone on the team, if they needed it. You know yourself better than anyone, and you know it’s the moments like these, the ones where you see the impact of your effortt that make it worth it. You know you shoulder these kinds of burdens so your team doesn’t have to. You hold them tight so they don’t fall, and you’re alright when you end up with scraped knees or a bruise here and there for it because that’s what you’re meant for. It’s what you’re good at. And if it takes showering away the evidence of last night and dousing yourself in scent blocker so you don’t rile up anyone on the flight back to Virginia to prove to JJ that you’re alright with this, then so be it.

Except she doesn’t let you go back to the office. She stops the car in front of your apartment, giving you a look. “Rest. You’re going to need it.”

You raise your brows at her, as suggestive a lilt as you can give before JJ rolls her eyes and gives you your bag with a gentle shove.

Your apartment is as you left it, a time capsule to the person you were merely 4 days ago. It feels like months have passed. Everything has shifted on its axis since you woke up from a nightmare and shared a cigarette with Hotch in the cold, Arizona night air.

The sex was good, you reflect as you struggle out of your clothes and fall into bed, but logistically the whole situation was not your best work. You’ll be ready, next time. For whatever is needed.

 

---

 

It takes a little under four months for the signs to start showing again, which lines up with your math. You give it an extra day, to see if Hotch’ll leave early and take care of it, but he seems just as determined to white-knuckle his way through this rut as he did the last.

 You wait until everyone else has left to slip into his office, the lamp glowing a warm butter yellow in the darkness. His gaze flicks up at as you walk in, tracking every step you take to his desk, the shift of your arm and twist of your wrist as you place a pack of suppressants on his desk.

He left the last pack in the hotel room. It’s funny, that he thinks you wouldn’t have noticed.

His pen stops scratching as he looks carefully at the box. His head tilts up, gaze cool, and says, “Did you put in a requisition for that, or are you asking me for a reimbursement?”

You barely resist the urge to snip back, “It was ten dollars,” because you’re patient and you recognize a deflection when you see one. Instead, you say, “If you need it, I’m offering”. There’s no need for clarification; you both know you’re not referring to the medication.

“I don’t, thank you.”

He’s lying. You expected as much because you know Hotch, and you know that this is the point where he’s feeling guilty for what happened. He really shouldn’t feel bad for taking advantage of a poor, unsuspecting beta because you’re the one who choose to angle your neck and let him get close enough to bite. You chose to go on your knees and let him knot you, and he should know that you let him do that.

But you can forgive him for being careful. A good leader knows when to push and when to concede, and you can tell Hotch is conceding because he’s thinking of the team. You could counter with fraternization regs and policy numbers, the itemized list you prepared on why last time was a logical decision and how this follows a useful pattern. How he needs someone to trust with this. How the team needs the stability this would provide.

But you’re good at your job. You know Hotch. There’s better way to push back.

You can be blunt and harsh. You can do that easy.

“So you’ve made arrangements?” Your palms press against his desk as you lean forward. “There’s someone waiting for you when you need it tonight?”

Hotch sets his pen down, a sharp snap against the pile of paperwork. You know you’ve hit the mark when you hear his frigid tone. “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern, Agent.”

“It’s my concern if my unit chief is lying to my face about a personal decision that impacts the rest of my team, sir,” you respond, stepping around his desk. You’re standing and he’s not, but the way Hotch sits in his seat, legs spread, and hands resting deceptively calm against the arms of his chair, you don’t feel like you have any sort of upper hand. You take another step closer. A growl rolls deep in his throat and you tamp down the urge to shiver. He could snap your neck, if he wanted to.

“Watch your tone,” he says lowly. Your eyes narrow.

“If you have what you need to see it through, then we’re done here. But I’m not going to play to your pride or your need to save face. I’m not going to jeopardize the team or the safety of the people I care about. The people we both care about.” You take the final step, sinking down on your knees in front of him. His legs twitch further apart as you reach up and rest your palms on his thighs. You don’t intend to do any more than that, not here at least, but the threat, the promise, of more makes the desire well up, Hotch’s gaze turning hot and heavy even as he grits his teeth.

“Say you don’t need me,” you breathe. “Tell me you’re going to find somebody else to fuck.”

Something darts in his gaze, so fast you can’t parse it. His fingers flex against the leather and you know he wants to put his hands on you. To yank you closer or shove you away, you aren’t as sure.

“This is not your responsibility.”

That could be said for a lot of things. That doesn’t stop you from doing them, does it?

“And yet I’m still here,” you murmur, holding his gaze steadily. You feel it the moment he gives in. His scent pushes forth easily, heat and want eager to fill your lungs as Hotch leans forward, his fingers slipping into your hair and tightening. He pulls back, angling your neck in one long, vulnerable line. His breath burns against your skin and you give in to the urge to shiver this time, arousal curling hot between your legs.

You can practically feel the weight of every policy violation in the air between the two of you. It’s late, but you’re still at the FBI, the blinds to Hotch’s office pulled open and the door unlocked. Anyone could walk in. Anyone could see. But you can’t look anywhere from his face, his hooded eyes and sharp jaw, the muscle in his cheek that flexes as his nostrils flare.

“Still want to be here?” he says softly, an almost mocking edge to it that you so rarely hear. You let your body go slack enough that your head tips back even more. You hear him inhale sharply.

“I’m not afraid.”

Hotch closes his eyes. His touch in your hair grows softer, head dipping to press his nose to your throat. He inhales deeply and smoke and spice fill your nose, heady enough to make your head spin even as it steadies you in your resolve. Hotch nudges his mouth against your scent gland, hot breath fanning against your skin before he pulls away.

There’s a murmur of his address in your ear and then the air rushes in as you push yourself up. You don’t look back, but you do leave the door open. With every step you take, you imagine you can feel his presence with you, the heat of his gaze and the weight of his hand ghosting over the small of your back guiding you all the way to his apartment.

Haley didn’t take the house when they divorced. Hotch had it and he lasted barely three weeks before he traded it for an apartment. But it doesn’t matter if Haley’s never stepped foot in the place; you can feel the ghost of her in every corner, from how Hotch helps you out of your coat and takes your bag to how he has you against the wall in seconds, fingers digging into your thigh through your slacks. You end up on your back, surrounded by his sheets and his scent and him and you can’t help but wonder if this is how Haley liked to be fucked. If he’s putting you on your back out of habit or out of preference. If she liked his broad, thick fingers, three of them enough to make your thighs start to shake when he presses them deep in you. You wonder if he’s thinking about her now. If each time you’ve touched him skin-to-skin, it’s Haley he’s wishing for.

You’re not an omega. You aren’t what he wants, but you can at least give him what he needs.

There are benefits to catching the wildfire before it spreads uncontrollably. This time, there’s a little more intention in the drag of Hotch’s hand down your side, the hint of teeth against your shoulder as he wraps his tie around your neck. His fingers cinch in your hair and you arch into it as he puts you on your knees against the mattress, cock pressing hot and thick inside of you. You shudder into the pillow. A growl rumbles low in Hotch’s chest, a possessive sound that narrows your field of vision as he grips your shoulder and fucks you hard.

You lose track of how many times you orgasm (five, maybe?), but you don’t lose track of how many times he knots you in one night (three). You’re boneless by the end of it all, dawn starting to creep in at the edges of the horizon when he slips out of you with a sigh that sounds less pained and more like what you hear when you both have to sit down and start drafting the BAU’s annual performance report.

You make a move that would help you sit up, if your body were interested in doing such a thing. Hotch’s hand immediately curves over your shoulder, calluses scraping pleasantly against your skin as he presses you back down against the sheets.

“You have the morning off. Get some rest.”

He doesn’t even have to make it an order. You hum vaguely, fingers brushing against his before you let the exhaustion pull you down into blissful unconsciousness.

Hotch’s gone when you wake up. And you’re not stupid enough to try to go to the office without showering and changing at yours first, but any hope of being clandestine flies out the window as four heads jerk up when you walk in. They must still be able to smell Hotch; Spencer’s mouth is practically hanging open. You’d assumed some sort of walk of shame would happen, but you can’t help how your cheeks heat when JJ, in the middle of breezing by, stops dead in her tracks to look at you. She gives you a onceover and a long, low whistle.

“Agreed,” Morgan chimes in, leering playfully at you. In a fit of petulance, you give him a rude gesture that has Emily choking on coffee. JJ sidles up to your desk as Spencer whacks Emily over the back a few times in the background. Her palm rests carefully on the corner of your monitor.

“Everything went okay?”

“It was fine.” You tilt your head up at her. Her mouth is twisted to one side, but there’s something gentle in her gaze, a look you’ve started to see in her more and more ever since she had Henry. It makes you reevaluate, softening your words to add, “Hotch’s alright now. We took care of it.”

“And you?”

What about you? It’s not like you were the one going through a rut. You got fucked within an inch of your life and you got to sleep in; from where you stand, that’s a pretty fair deal. By the third rut, you’ve realized the added expenses of scent blockers and a skyrocketing water bill is less ideal, but you’re prepared to take it all in stride.

The rest of the team slowly follows. JJ watches over you, tries her best to put off any travel or funnel out pressing tasks for you when Hotch’s ruts roll around. Emily always coaxes you into drinks or dinner the day after. Morgan teases you gently, Garcia less so. Spencer offers relevant statistics sometimes, qualitative study results on the stability of alpha-beta arrangements other times, and every so often, a companionable silence to fill the gaps of what he can’t quite figure out how to say. As for Rossi…

You know Rossi isn’t as keen on it all.

It doesn’t come up until you’re crouched over a body, three days old and methodically cut open with rearranged organs. Rossi stands behind you, arms crossed as he scans the horizon. Spencer and Hotch are halfway across the field, examining the trunk of a tree that Spencer’s deemed significant to the investigation. The wind carries a hint of his infectious excitement twined with Hotch’s mild bemusement, and you smile until you feel another scent waft from behind.

“You don’t have to approve,” you say. Rossi hums noncommittally, shifting to stand next to you.

“I never said I didn’t.”

You push your sunglasses up to give him a look. “You didn’t have to say anything.”

Rossi makes a vague noise, thumbing at his nose. “Aaron’s a good man, but he’s been through a lot recently. Historically, that doesn’t make for the best decision-making. Especially where a man’s libido is involved.”

Even more so for an alpha, you hear him not say. And you don’t begrudge him for that; you’d have the same concerns if anyone else were in your place. A supervisory special agent—and an alpha unit chief to boot—getting involved with one of his direct reports? It’s messy. Dangerous.

“I understand that—”

“I’m not saying you don’t,” he says pointedly. “I’m saying that it doesn’t have to be your cross to bear.”

But then who would bear it?

It was…difficult to watch Hotch through the separation, even before the official divorce proceedings. He buried himself in work because in the face of failing as a husband and father, all he could do was what he did best, what led him to it all in the first place. He practically lived in his office. He barely slept. The team’s report completion rate was at an all-time high, and you could receive fund approval within three hours of a request.

But the team was stretched too thin. Hotch started taking some cases personally. Decisions started skewing in strange directions and everyone knew why, but nobody could stop it. You remember Westbrook. Dallas. Allentown—Christ, that one was the worst. It felt like trying to drive a car without a steering wheel, every case a question of whether the team could swerve just before the crash.

The BAU needs to feel secure to function. That security wavered for a period of time and those were the hardest months of your FBI career. But you made it through because there was no other choice. You and Rossi handled finances. You rallied the team into thwarting Hotch from staying late, herding everyone to group dinners at least twice a week. JJ and Garcia coordinated with you on curating a more stable caseload until things settled. You submitted reports and requests, covered mistakes and erased others. You protected everyone until you could pull them back into place, onto the right track, and you know how easy it would be to stumble again. How quickly it could all fall. Hotch can’t go back to that. The team can’t go back. And if it takes an easy sacrifice on your end to keep it that way, then you can make peace with that.

Besides, it’s not as if you don’t like doing this for him. You can be honest with yourself; it’s important to you that you’re making a difference in the team, but you do like that in this way, Hotch is almost yours. Just a little bit.

So, you keep on doing it. The calendar pages flip and the sex persists until it’s been almost a year and half and everything’s changed, but somehow nothing has at all. JJ’s on her way to having her second kid. Emily and a beta in Forensic Analysis are getting on so well that there’s a betting pool on when they’re finally going to bite the bullet and fuck. Spencer and Morgan keep playing hot and cold with each other, and Garcia’s got her eye on joining that fun. Rossi goes on book tours and staunchly refuses to share copies of his latest drafts. As for you and Hotch…

You keep it separated. The nights (and sometimes days) you spend in his bed don’t touch the days (and most nights) spent working on cases, saving people’s lives. You balance the budgets, deny Garcia’s more outrageous requests for new and exciting tech, and catch the little details that would otherwise slip through the cracks. Hotch manages the team seamlessly in the field, teaches a handful of one-off introductory courses at Quantico, and stays later and later to catch up on the paperwork. And when your paths cross, he signs your requisition forms without batting an eye and you entertain his ideas on potential ways to expand the BAU’s reach and you cover each other’s backs in the field.

Neither of you say much about the arrangement. But sometimes, you touch his elbow when you need his attention and he turns before your fingers have even brushed his jacket, like he could feel your presence. Sometimes, he catches your eye across the room on a case and tilts his head towards something and you know as easy as breathing what needs to happen. You cycle through the ruts and through the normalcy and it all becomes routine. Easy.

Too easy, until it isn’t.

 

---

 

Sometimes, working at the BAU is like checking off points on the world’s worst bucket list. Case in point, you can now confirm that being taken hostage is terrifying. It’s the scariest thing you’ve ever experienced and you were once on a case where a bomb had to be defused two feet away from you.

In hindsight, you can recognize that was a different type of fear, the kind where you were intensely aware that every breath you took could have been your last. The kind of fear you’re feeling now is potent and present. Not waiting for death, but bracing for more pain. You blacked out sometime when you were getting repeatedly kicked in the ribs. Your leg is most definitely broken, and you’re pretty sure you have a concussion. 80% sure? Spencer would have a more accurate percentage. Probably 100%. He wouldn’t need a doctorate degree to figure that one out.

Your captors weren’t really interested in hurting you more than they already had once they’d figured out that you weren’t willing to talk. In reality, you really don’t have the answers to what they’re looking for; you forget sometimes that most people don’t understand the inner machinations of a massive government agency and how most departments, especially ones like the BAU, are siloed and would not have immediate knowledge of anything having to do with foreign counterintelligence. Emily would probably have some idea, but it’s not like you can really ask her, can you?

You sigh, tipping your head back and wincing as your head throbs. You have no idea how long you’ve been here. The room you’re in has no windows, so you have no way to contact anyone on the outside or even gauge what time it is. The upside of that is that it’s mercifully dark; you’ve already got a pounding headache without the lights on, so God knows what fluorescents would do to make that worse. But you can’t sleep it off because you’re awake, cold, and in a lot of fucking pain. Currently, you’re keeping yourself awake and—somewhat—sane by mentally walking through hostage protocol.

Last you knew of, you were in Los Angeles, but you can’t be sure where they took you. In any case, if the team knows where you are, they’ll have set up a base a couple of miles out. JJ will be coordinating with the police not to let any information leak, Rossi and Hotch will be rounding up the task force and deciding on next steps. Morgan will be taking in as much information as he can and keeping everyone in line, Spencer will be running stats in his head because nobody will want to hear your chances of survival (surprisingly high, as long as it doesn’t come down to a shootout), and Emily will be coordinating with Garcia to see if there are any other angles they can be utilized, any other blind spots that can give them an edge up in the negotiation.

They will do everything they can to find you. You remember Colorado; it’ll be just like that. All you have to do is hold on and not do anything stupid—

The door slams open as the lights flick on, someone barging in to pull you up from the floor by your hair and shove a cellphone in your face. Hope flies up your throat, choking you as you hear your name over the line. Tension you weren’t event aware of bleeds out as you and you feel yourself tilt instinctively towards the phone despite the sting of your scalp.

“Rossi?”

“Are you alright? We’re—”

“Enough.” The phone is yanked away from your ear. You barely manage to catch yourself before your head hits the concrete as they release you. “You got confirmation. You have eight hours to give us what we want.”

Eight hours? Hilarious. You can’t even get Central Accounting to respond to your urgent emails in eight hours, much less fulfill whatever unreasonable request these people are asking for. You wonder briefly if it’s money and how much they think you’re worth. Hopefully the number isn’t too low; that would be a very unhelpful note on your employee evaluation in a few months.

The man terminates the call, slamming the door behind him as he leaves. The sound makes your head spin, but at least he’s not in the room anymore; you can smell him still, that angry alpha scent he left in the air and on you when he grabbed you by the throat and pinned you to the floor earlier. You’ve been trying to scrub it away, pushing your wrist over the side of your neck over and over, but it won’t fucking leave. Sharp graphite, sour rain. It makes you want to scratch your skin off. You miss peppermint and rosemary. Gardenia, cedar, pine and pepper. You ache for smoke and sandalwood, hot against your cheek, broad callused hands holding you down and keeping you stable. Everything hurts and nothing makes sense and you can’t help but drift with time, unable to keep count of the minutes and hours before you hear something outside the door.

Yelling. Gunfire. A rumble in the walls when you press your palm to it.

Fuck.

You push yourself across the floor, pressing yourself flush up against the wall adjacent to the door not a moment too soon. The door slams open, the barrel of an M4 peering in to sweep the room before vanishing, footsteps thundering down the hall with it. Your pulse hammers in your throat, breath coming too fast. Something bad must have happened if they’re cleaning house. You need to get the fuck out of here and fast.

You wait for the gunfire down the hall to subside before you push yourself up, gritting your teeth as you try your best to limp to the door. Every step feels like fire racing up your leg, but you can tell the pain is coming from your shin as opposed to your femur. Small mercies.

The hallway is abandoned, dust floating in the flickering light. It’s close to dusk outside, the darkness creeping over the horizon broken up by the flash of police lights in the distance. The colors are fractured but the bullet hole cutting clean through the window at the end of the hall.

It’s going to hurt to get through that, but it’s your only way out right now. You can make it work.

You drag as much up of your long-sleeve as you can, bunching it around your elbow before slamming your arm into the spiderwebbed glass. It takes a couple hits, but it the thick glass breaks in messy shards, sharp enough to slice at your skin as you drag yourself over the sill and topple into the dirt. Your entire body protests vehemently.

Fuck. You’re outside, but there’s nowhere to go. Your back is bleeding, you can feel dirt grinding into a few cuts on your chest and stomach, your head is still spinning, and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe through the pain. You want it to stop. You want to lie in the dirt and let someone find you, regardless of who they are or what they’ll do to you.

But you can’t. You have to keep moving forward—or wherever the hell forward might be. You point yourself towards the familiar flash and red and blue lights in the distance and dig your elbows into the dirt to drag yourself along, biting your lip against the sob of pain that wells up in your throat. One step. You just have to take another. And you will take another, because you have to keep going. You have no other choice.

You don’t know how long your drag yourself across the ground, nor how far you even get. All you can do is force yourself keep going, one agonizing motion at a time. Time blurs. Your head spins. There’s someone running towards you. You can’t tell who it is, if they’re friendly or not, but you have to keep going, you can’t stop moving because if you stop—

Strong arms grip your shoulders. You smell cedar under gunpowder and smoke, hear Derek Morgan say your name, and it’s such a relief that you nearly collapse there and then.

“Derek—"

“I got you baby, you’re gonna be okay,” he says, making a move to help you to your feet. You thump your fist weakly against his bicep, shaking your head.

“Broken leg. Ribs. ‘n concussion, I can’t—”

“Just hold tight, I’m gonna pick you up.”

Your back screams in protest when he turns you over, arm bracing to bloody cuts as he lifts you up in his arms. You press your face into his neck, half to fill your lungs with his scent, half to try and ground yourself against the wave of nausea trying to drag you under. Every step he takes feels like nails pounding directly into your temple, but each bounce of pain means you’re that much closer to safety. You can take it, you can take it, you—

“I’ve got you, we made it,” he says, wasting his breath to reassure you. There’s nothing you can do except hold on, arms clamped around his neck even as he tries to put you down for the medics. You can’t unlock your fingers, can’t stop shaking even as Derek pries himself from your grasp so they can wrap a shock blanket around you. “It’s okay baby, it’s okay,” he says over and over, and you wish for a moment that saying things could just make them true.

The medics push him back to examine you before you’re ready to lose him, their penlights flashing in your eyes and voices ringing in your ears and unfamiliar hands gripping your wrist and your shoulder, strange scents assaulting your nose. You twist in their grip, snarling as nausea pushes hard against the back of your teeth. You know it’s logical, necessary, to be examined, but you’re being passed from captive to stranger to stranger and they’re all hands that you don’t recognize, hands that can hurt you, and you feel the panic building because you’re surrounded by people but you’re trapped, alone, and you’re looking for safety, looking for your pack except you don’t have one and you can’t, you can’t—

Cool hands cup your face. Rosemary and lemon drifts into your awareness, Saturday mornings in spring, and Emily holds your gaze steadily.

“Look at me,” she says and you do it because you can’t think to do anything else. Hands continue to move over you, examining the cuts on your arm and taking your blood pressure, but she holds you steady. “You’re sitting in an ambulance, being checked over by medics. We’re in the Valley, we got here as soon as Reid and Garcia pinpointed your location. The unsub’s been caught, nobody on the team was injured. We’re all safe. You’re safe, do you understand?”

You nod slowly. Emily nods back.

“That’s good. Are you still with me?”

“’m here,” you rasp, half a truth. Her eyes flick over your face, warm but firm.

“Stay with us. You’re almost there, okay?”

You blink as Emily starts to back away, arms starting to reach out desperately for her. She can’t leave, not yet, she asked you stay. You’re going to stay. She needs to stay with you.

Something suddenly crashes into you.

It’s Spencer. His chin digs into your shoulder as his arms wrap tight around you. You think you hear Derek mutter, “whoa, easy there,” but you can’t be sure. You can feel the cuts on your back threaten to start bleeding again, the entire front of your body already starting to burn as you move, but you still reach up and fist the back of his tac vest, breathing in time with him. He extracts one arm, snaking his touch down and pressing two long, slender fingers to where your pulse beats at your wrist.

“’m okay.” Your wrist flexes against his touch. His grip tightens.

“Right. You’re okay. No fear?”

“No fear,” you echo back numbly, the familiar words rolling over your tongue on instinct. You can’t tell if they’re more for him that you, but you honestly don’t care because he smells like pen ink and case file pages and home and you miss debriefs with the team and your spreadsheets and the stupid travel forms and you just want—

Pain radiates up your leg and you gasp, twisting in his hold. Spencer jerks back, apologies stuttering from his mouth that you can barely parse.

“Calm down kiddo, they’re setting the leg. Everything’s gonna be alright.” A hand holds out your shock blanket, carefully pulling it over your shoulders. “Keep this on, it’ll help.” You look up, watching Rossi’s mouth twist down as he adjusts the shock blanket again where it’s threatening to fall. You’re shaking. You don’t know how to stop. He covers your hand with his, closing your fingers over the plastic to grip it better.

“It’s good to have you back with us,” he says, as serious as he always is, but warmth leaks through the cracks. You can’t think too hard on it, but you’re intensely glad he was the person on the line. You wouldn’t want your negotiation to be in anyone else’s hands.

You try your best to smile at him, but your mind won’t stop flitting between thoughts and sensations, voices and touch and light and ringing in your ears that won’t stop. You try to search through the mess, blinking as you catch the words, “—follow medical transport and meet you at the hospital, it should—"

“Hotch,” you breathe. Your body twists blindly, searching for him. You heard him, you know it, he’s here, he’s—

Your eyes find him. He’s already looking at you. You blink and he’s suddenly close, so close, looking you up and down, slow and methodical. You wonder what you look like to him; broken leg in a brace, covered in blood and dirt. You’re still trembling.

A muscle in his jaw flexes as he steps closer, and you feel something deep in your chest yawn open in want as much as you feel the urge to shy away. Hotch reaches out. His fingertips skim over your cheek, tracing the line of your jaw to cup the back of your head and subtly drag his wrist over the scent gland in your neck. Smoke and sandalwood flood your awareness, and you feel your shoulders start to loosen.

“You’re safe,” he murmurs, a rumble you feel in your bones as he settles next to you, arm hooking carefully over your waist to pull you against him. “I’ve got you, you’re okay.”

You twist closer to bury your face in his neck, filling your lungs with his scent as he presses his palm to the back of your neck, a firm, comforting pressure. There’s nobody touching you except for him. It feels like time has slowed down, everything muffled and far away except for his voice filling your ears, thumb rubbing at your hip where your shirt’s slid up. You focus on the feeling of his tac vest scratching against your cheek, spice and heat pressing against your lips and coating your tongue as your body sags into his grip.

Everything feels like it’s crashing down on you. And your mind allows it, letting your vision go fuzzy and then dark as you feel it all start to fade.

You’re safe now. And you know that you’ll be alright. You always are, aren’t you?

 

---

 

The doctor says you got lucky.

A few cracked ribs, broken tibia, concussion and countless lacerations doesn’t feel lucky.

The pain comes and goes. You can handle that; you’ve always had a high tolerance, ever since you split your knee open when you were seven and barely cried even when they were stitching you up and you could feel the threads pulling at your skin.

What you can’t handle is the restlessness. You’ve slept so much that your body feels like it’s actively rebelling when you lie down, every limb twitching impatiently, waiting to go. You stare at the ceiling, counting the minutes and walking through your day in the office. You’d be making tea. You’d be halfway through your weekend email overflow. JJ would come in for a second opinion on the next case, Rossi would send you a passage from that book that you’d been debating on reading, Hotch would—

“You know, people tend to look better after being put on bedrest for two weeks,” Emily says when visits one evening, fresh off a case. You can smell gunpowder in her hair. It makes something in your chest ache.

“Sleep can’t fix the kinds of problems I have,” you respond, only half a joke. She smiles anyway and catches you up on what you’ve missed. And you let yourself be content with what she gives you because you can count the days. You’ve missed a rut. Emily knows it and so do you. But she doesn’t say a word and so it doesn’t exist for a little while, even though you can’t forget how your doctor made it very clear that sex with an alpha qualified as the kind of “intense physical activity” you shouldn’t be engaging in for at least 6 months, which means you’re going to miss another rut. Where does that leave Hotch?

Where does that leave you?

It follows you back into the office, that itch. You think of cool, Arizona air and a cigarette being passed to you before burying the memory and everything surrounding it in the work you need to catch up on, pushing your way through the weeks you missed until you find your way back to familiar ground. But everything’s changed. You’re stuck in a wheelchair, mobility impaired until you have a clean bill of health. Your team is going out into the field without you. You’re behind, papers stacked high at your desk and so much to catch up on. And all the while, your mind can’t stop turning over the memories of Hotch’s fingers, the stark line of his throat, the feeling of his five o’clock shadow scraping against your inner thigh.

You missed a rut. He didn’t call. Not to ask for help, but to let you know he handled it, except he doesn’t owe you that at all, but you want to know and you can’t stop thinking about it and—

Fuck.

You knew it before, but in the days after you come back to the office, it becomes clear; you weren’t built for a desk job. Going out into the field with your team is what kept you sane through all the hours sitting in one place sorting through budget sheets and memos and endless emails. But now you don’t have that. All you have is a three by five space that you can ruthlessly prune until it’s spotless, eliminating every outstanding requisition form in sight just to try and forget how bored you are. You’ve even started to sneak files off people’s desks to subtly write and submit their post-case reports. Nobody seems to have caught on yet, though Derek did make a seemingly guileless comment last week about how his paperwork pile was shrinking for once.

The one saving grace is that you get to hang out in Garcia’s office when the team’s out in the field—by her invite, of course. The whir of her desktop system and the rapid-fire click of her keys is soothing. It drowns out the noise in your head and the nervous energy in your limbs, the kind that makes you endlessly spin your pen over your knuckles. She’s busy crunching numbers, code flying across her screen faster than you can ever hope to parse.

“How’s it watching the master at work?” She asks smugly, pressing a key with a flourish before swiveling around to look at you. Her gaze is hopeful and you know she doesn’t hear nearly enough praise for all she does. So you give it all to her, the compliments that she deserves and more. And Garcia really is cute when she blushes; it’s a shame you don’t get to see it more often.

“Flatterer,” she giggles, wagging her feather-tipped pen at you. “You could give Derek a run for his money with how you’ve made my heart flutter.”

You smile. “He’s a busy man, so I’m filling in for him while I laze around.”

“Honey, if anyone deserves to laze around it’s you.” She gives you a mischievous little grin. “Let the team sweat a little. They’re learning what it’s like to have to function without you and it’s fascinating to watch.”

“They’ll get the hang of it, I’m sure. It’s not that hard after a bit.”

Garcia’s brow arches. “What, are you saying what you do for your work isn’t hard? That’s a little too much modesty, methinks.”

You frown. Isn’t it easy though? Anyone can figure out how to do what you do. You say as much, watching her mouth twist into a pout.

“Where did you get that idea? Did someone tell you your job is too easy? Do I need to—”

“Don’t touch anyone’s credit score,” you interrupt sternly, pushing at her wrist. “Nobody said anything. That’s just...how it is, isn’t it?”

Garcia’s eyes narrow in a way that indicates she does not agree, but you’re saved by the phone blessedly, mercifully ringing. Garcia jabs her pen at line 2, chirping something into her headset as she watches you. You wave her concern off, mouthing “getting some air” before taking the opportunity to wheel yourself out of the room as she fields whatever request the team has. The hallway is empty and you take a moment to press you fingers to the bridge of your nose, hard.

It’s not that you think you’re not—

No, it’s just a fact that of all the positions on the team, administration and financial responsibilities are the easiest to replace without any—

Look, if something happened to you, it wouldn’t be nearly as hard to triage. JJ already handles a good chunk of admin work, it wouldn’t be hard for her to figure out what you do and pass off the less sensitive stuff to someone like Agent Lacey or Johnson, and Garcia would have enough pull in the system to ease the wait times if anything really had to get pushed through fast. Hotch already signs off on your requisitions so he knows what tends to come through and when, so it wouldn’t be that difficult to funnel Emily or Derek into the process just to make sure those requisitions actually make it up to Hotch. Everyone knows how to fill out forms. Or maybe they could even have someone 50% it from AP, just to make sure things actually get submitted—God knows the BAU could afford it, Strauss has been pushing for some fund redirection once she found out the BAU’s annual projections compared to its actuals. And you know Rossi keeps a keen eye on the budget, a habit from when the unit was still getting on its feet. You’ve already worked with him on stuff like this before. He’d know what to cut if things got too tight.

So the point isn’t that you think you aren’t useful. You know you are; you’ve made it your job to fill the gaps that people miss.

The point is that you work with brilliant, talented people who can adapt. It won’t take them long to figure out what you do. Different people can fill the gaps you’ve left, and they will. They’ll adjust and grow and they’ll prove to you that they’re beyond needing you. Not like you need any more proof; you can see it from where you sit now. Garcia doesn’t need you here. Hotch doesn’t need you to help him. The team doesn’t need you to support them. Nobody needs you for anything.

But maybe you can still have some time. You can still be useful yet. That’s the mindset that has you camped out—not hiding—in the file room in the basement, blinking against dust as you sift through years’ worth of yet-to-be-digitized files. You’ve been meaning to get a few of the Honors Interns to make a dent in some of this for ages, but they’re only here for 10 weeks and there’s just never enough time—

Your phone rings. You sneeze twice before picking it up, glancing at the caller number.

“If it’s about those files from Omaha—” you sneeze again— “Tell Rossi that I’m slaving away in the basement file room for him.”

Derek’s laugh echoes over the line. “And what if I just called to hear your voice?”

“Did you accidently dial me instead of Garcia?”

“Hm, someone always busy, never gives themselves a break, and keeps us from overspending on new HD monitors? I know who I called.”

“Derek,” you say, only a little impatient—because you read the case file a few too many times over and you know exactly what the team is up against right now— “Don’t you have a sociopath to catch?”

“I got time to check on you. Garcia said you were feeling some type of way the other day. Not being yourself. You alright?”

You press your lips together. Garcia’s a blessing from whatever higher power may exist, but that doesn’t mean she’s capable of shutting her mouth every once in a while. This is why you don’t tell people things in the first place.

“It’s fine.”

“Doesn’t have to be. You know you’re important to us, right? We couldn’t do this without you.”

But you are, you want to say, the words burning in your chest. You’re out there, right now, doing it without me.

“You’re just saying that because Rossi’s breathing down your neck for these files,” you respond. There’s a tinny sound of a door opening and a muffled voice. It’s almost a relief to quickly add, “go, they need you. I’ll have Garcia scan everything over to you when I find it.”

“You’re the best. And don’t think I’m gonna forget this conversation. We’ll talk about it more later.”

If it was your call, the topic would never come up again; there are much more important things for the team to be doing than trying to dig their fingers into your psyche. Luckily, the BAU is a busy place full of busy people, which means a lot of things get dropped in favor of just trying to survive. Which means you don’t have to think about it. All that’s left now is do your job well enough that people forget you were ever gone. You get out of the wheelchair after a bit, and then the cast comes off after that, and you hand your clean bill of health to Hotch with a sense of relief, knowing full well that in two weeks, everything will return to normal because you’ll be back in the field and because he’ll—

Except he doesn’t. It’s the day of his rut and he doesn’t come to your desk once everyone’s gone, holding out your coat to help you into it. He doesn’t call you into his office and hand you a carton of takeout to dig into as you both sit together on the couch, your knee nudging against his thigh every so often. He doesn’t text and he doesn’t call and you give it one day and then two before letting your knuckles rap lightly against his door, tilting into his office.

Hotch glances up from a sprawl of paperwork and he looks…fine. There’s a crease to his brow and his mouth is twisted down, but no more so than usual.

“Everything alright?” He asks in the silence. You nod and slip out, wondering for a moment if you need to get a cognitive test.

But no, you can count. And you notice another rut missed after that, months gone between working yourself hard enough that you collapse into bed most nights and spending the rest of those nights staring at the ceiling, wondering where you went wrong.

You eventually come to the conclusion that you did what was needed. Nothing more. Where you’re going wrong is assuming that any of this was going to continue. Hotch never promised anything and you know that. You know that.

Except some nights you jolt awake, the back of your neck tacky with sweat and your sheets tangled around your legs as you tremble under the phantom touch of broad palms and callused fingers that can circle both your wrists with ease. Some days, on cases when the team has to be discreet, he stands next to you and his voice curls low and firm against your ear and it takes every ounce of your willpower not to lean towards him.

You stop counting the days. For your own sanity.

 

---

 

The pine needles silence your steps as you edge forward, gun pointed down at the ground. You can see Derek and Hotch out of the corner of your eye, following you quietly through the trees.

Derek raises his hand, two fingers pointing at you and Rossi before signaling to the house. You nod, watching Hotch jerk his head in the direction of the barn.

This unsub could be anywhere. You can smell him even in the crisp, open air of Milford, his scent turned sour and sharp in all the hallmarks of a rut frenzy. It makes something roll in your stomach as the smell wafts around you. Everyone who’s not an alpha is back at the station—except for you.

You’re one of them tonight.

“This unsub already has compulsions of killing, but his current state has driven him to a state where he can’t think past the need. There’s no way he can resist it. The only way he can get a reprieve is if he makes another kill, or if he satisfies the rut. We can’t let either of those things happen.”

You may be playing alpha, but nobody knows about the little bottle in your pocket, the one you can feel bumping against your thigh with every step you take. The ethics of scent enhancers are…dubious, but supposedly, they work on beta scents. Not ideal, but a rut-frenzied alpha just might take it over other threats in their territory. It’s your only backup, but you need to be prepared for the worst.

Rossi catches your gaze, tilting his head towards the front door as you approach. You press yourself against the wall, gun steady as he kicks the door in.

The unsub’s scent rolls out in an overwhelming wave, so strong it feels like being bowled over. Your hands start to shake. Rossi makes an irritated noise in his throat. You both push through it, clearing room after room and choking on air as you try to call out each location as clear. It’s dark, your eyes can’t stop watering, you’re half-tempted to just open a window or two so you both can actually breathe—

There’s a crash behind you. You whip around, gun trained on where the unsub is suddenly pinning Rossi to the ground. Fuck. He’s going to break Rossi’s neck, you can smell the visceral anger in the air and you don’t have a clear shot—

You drop your gun to the floor, snatching the bottle from your pocket. You dump the contents over your wrists in a bastardization of putting on perfume, rubbing it all desperately over the scent glands in your neck as you lunge forward.

You’re not sure if your footsteps or your scent alert him, but the unsub turns around so fast his neck cracks. Rossi struggles in his grip. There’s blood dripping down his face.

You take another step forward.

The unsub’s pupils are dilated so wide you can’t see the blue of his irises.

You slowly put your hands up, turning your wrists out towards him. You can feel your blood pumping, adrenaline pushing your scent out into the air. The enhancer’s amplifying it a little too well; even Rossi tosses his head restlessly, lip curling up in a snarl to show bloody teeth.

You tilt your head to the side, stretching your throat out to him in one long vulnerable line. A growl rumbles low in the unsub’s chest and you know you have him, hook, line, and sinker.

“Come and get me,” you hiss. You twist around and sprint. The door slams on its hinges as you burst out of the house, cold night air whipping against your face as you run.

You have to get back to the cars, there are officers waiting there, you just have to get to where there are more people.

Steps slam behind you, loud even against the pine needles. You can hear the unsub’s heaving gasps behind you, hot air so close it’s almost tickling the back of your neck.

You’re running as fast as you can, practically leaping over logs rocks compared to how his heavy steps gallop after you. But you’re not going to be fast enough. There’s no way you can outrun a frenzied alpha. The only thing you have on your side is that head start. And you’re going to lose that advantage soon.

Static crackles through your earpiece.

Got eyes—on the wa—

Something shoves into your back, hard. You crash to the ground. Weight crushes you immediately, pinning you belly-down into the dirt. You throw your elbow back wildly, gasping as you feel your shoulder strain to connect with something hard. But it’s not enough.

Hands close over your hips, yanking you back. You can feel something hard bumping against the backs of your thighs and you struggle, but your body gets flipped with ease, back landing hard against the ground. You lash out, nails clawing against his face as your knee cracks into his side. The unsub swats your hands aside like it’s nothing, pulling your leg down as he crowds close.

His hands find your wrists, holding them together in a burning grip as he leans down, breath fanning white-hot over your throat and you tuck your chin down, spitting in his face as you try to twist away to—

There’s a blur of movement. Weight careening to the right, lifting off you as someone tackles the unsub.

Derek.

They roll in the dirt, away from you.

Your chest heaves as you choke on cold, clean air. You vision is spinning. You can still feel the burning marks of his hands on you.

Something moves above you. You twitch back against the dirt, shying away until you catch the familiar scent of sandalwood and smoke.

Hotch.

You reach out blindly for him, fingers twisting in the pressed lines of his shirt as he drops down on his knees next to you. One palm presses to your cheek, the other to your shoulder. The pressure grounds you, and you try to steady your breathing, matching it to his as the world spins around you.

You can hear the struggle playing out next to you, Derek hissing low in the unsub’s ear to the clink of cuffs being snapped on his wrists. You can feel rocks digging into your back, grass tickling your ear. You can see Hotch, brows drawn as he looks down at you.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, ‘m okay,” you gasp. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” Hotch says tightly. “Then you can explain to me what the hell that was.”

You haven’t heard him this angry in a long time. And never this angry at you. You blink up at him. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. He can smell you. He can smell what you’ve done.

“Backup plan,” you cough out. His fingers twitch against your collarbone.

“There’re other—” Hotch cuts himself off, a muscle in his jaw tightening. His scent sharpens to a point, scraping harsh against your skin. “You were planning on doing this before he even touched Dave, weren’t you?” His fingers swipe over your throat, grazing your scent gland, over where you rubbed the scent enhancer. His touch is almost too daring. As if to prove a point. You grit your teeth against the shiver that tries to slide down your spine. “You could have been hurt.”

You could have been bitten, you hear between the lines.

The adrenaline shifts, making way for the anger that bubbles up your throat. The intensity scares you, but it feels right to be angry, to think “Oh, so now you care because I was about to get claimed by a rut-frenzied alpha?” It’s not like Hotch’s fucking you anymore, so what does it matter to him? He doesn’t get to act like that.

“I did what was best for the team,” you snap.

Something hardens in Hotch’s gaze. It feels almost as good as it feels bad because you know he’s thinking back now. Wondering if every time you were in his bed, it was because you viewed it as part of the job.

You did, in the beginning. For that first time in Phoenix at least, you helped him out because it was best for the team. Your designation was—is, always is—a tool and you wielded it effectively.

But that’s not to say your opinion couldn’t have changed. Didn’t change. How could it not? Now you know what his hands feel like against your bare skin, hot and demanding. You know what he sounds like when he wakes up, a quiet groan muffled into the shuffle of cotton as he stretches lazily. You know how he runs in the morning, how he comes back smelling like sweat and satisfaction before he showers it away and all you can smell is clean soap mingled with spices and smoke as he kneels down to brush your hair away from your face while you doze.

You know how he looked at you sometimes after a rut. His gaze would flick down to your mouth and his body would tilt forward, as though he were thinking about touching his fingers to your chin and leaning down to—

But if Hotch’s found someone else, then what does any of it matter? You’re a beta. You were never what he wanted or needed. And if he’s not going to ask you for more, then the task is done. You did your job.

So you put your head down and continue your work. You don’t let yourself think about the distance that yawns open between you and Hotch, wider with every passing day. Your roles shift back to the professional, to trading forms and discussing supply restocks and debating if integrating SIOC into early case discussions would save time in case of a wider crisis—you both hold differing opinions to the latter, but it doesn’t matter because you and Hotch have had this conversation before and it’s easy to do again, to follow the well-worn tracks of what’s known.

But you have knowledge of other things you can’t shake. You know the feeling of those dark eyes pinning you to his bed instead of regarding you across his desk, you know exactly how the writing calluses on his left hand scrape against your skin when he—

No. You won’t think about it any further.

You settled into a new normal once. You can do it again and do it well.

Except…

Except you feel the light rap of knuckles against wood, the top of your desk shivering at the impact.

“Walk with me?” You hear Spencer ask lightly. You peer up at him, eyes adjusting from the two reports you had been scrutinizing, one in each hand. You could use a change of scenery. Green is supposed to be good for the eyes, yeah?

It’s a surprisingly pleasant spring afternoon. A breeze tugs at your jacket as you step into the sun and you hum, rolling your neck as you soak in the warmth. Spencer slows his pace to let you indulge as the two of you wind an aimless path across campus. That’s enough to tip you off; Spencer is anything but aimless, especially when it comes to physical exertion.

You flick your gaze to the side. “So…?”

“Thought you might want to talk,” he says, too casual not to be contrived, and you let your fingers curl, thumb pressing unconsciously against your knuckles to feel them pop.

“Spencer,” you say quietly. A warning, because the last thing you need right now is to be profiled, especially by him. You remember the first time it happened. Cheap burgers for dinner, a bottle of vodka being passed back and forth on your sofa to bond over being the newest members of the BAU, observations that anyone with two braincells to rub together could guess without your training.

But then it got more serious. Spencer dug a little too deep, drink filing his hard edges to a point in his tipsy eagerness. You don’t blame him. You blame the alcohol for how much you cried, how much you told him that night. It’s something you refuse to let happen again.

“You’re not getting profiled,” Spencer says, quick enough that you know he’s thinking about that night too. He has eidetic memory; it’s probably even worse than you remember. “You’re getting observed, which is a perfectly normal human experience on both sides.”

“And who’s observing me, Dr. Reid?”

“A friend,” he replies easily. “Just a friend that’s worried about you.”

He shouldn’t have to worry; you always figure things out, don’t you? You say as much, watching his mouth purse.

“What about Hotch?”

It takes everything in you not to let your steps falter, to keep your face neutral and voice steady. “What about him?”

You watch Spencer shove his hands into his pockets and shrug. His scent brushes past your noses, something you can’t quite parse before it’s carried away in the brisk breeze.

“The two of you were spending ruts together. Now you aren’t.”

It sounds absurdly simple, when he puts it like that. But he’s not wrong; it’s a reminder that it was all just an arrangement, at the end of the day. You offered a service to Hotch. Nothing else was agreed on beyond that.

“He hasn’t asked for help. There’s nothing else to it.”

“That’s not true. What about you?”

Your face must do something against your will because Spencer stops walking, his gaze sharp even from behind his glasses as he looks at you.

“What do you want?”

“It doesn’t—” You catch yourself. Exhale through your nose.

Alright. Fine. You can let yourself entertain the thought, just for a moment. Hotch. What you might want from him. Maybe even the silly idea that you could somehow have him. That he might want you back.

There would, of course, be paperwork. Scrutiny, too. Strauss would hate it. It could mean trouble for the BAU. You could both potentially lose your job or get transferred. And if you didn’t, there would be a much more pronounced change in the team dynamic; sex out of necessity is one thing, a relationship is something entirely different. And then if something were to happen, if Hotch were to change his mind or if someone were to slip or if things go too personal, or if—

It could go wrong in so many ways. And you can’t afford that. Neither of you can.

Really, what’s the point in thinking about what you might want when it wouldn’t even be good to have it?

You shake your head. “Don’t,” you add quietly. The wind feels like it’s cutting through your jacket, the sun piercing your skin. The weight of weeks, months, of pressure and thought suddenly bears down on your shoulders and it’s too much to consider because you are just so tired. “Just leave it, Spencer.”

He nods, but not before tapping his fingers to the back of your hand. You twist your wrist, sliding your palms together. Something passes between the two of you as you look at each other. His scent tickles your nose, sharp ink cut through with something floral and sweet. He’s still worried, you can smell it.

“You know, you don’t have to be afraid of getting what you want,” he says, squeezing your hand tight before letting go.

You’re not sure if that’s true.

You want a lot of things. You want to do good work. You want to be useful, helpful, to have a place. And you have those things. It just comes at a cost because sometimes, you can only hold on until you’re in the privacy of your own home, where it’s safe to fall apart. Sometimes throw up your dinner before falling into bed, stomach growling. Sometimes you cry yourself hoarse in the shower because there’s nowhere else you can do it. Sometimes you stay up later than your body can stand, sitting on the floor and watching the dawn creep over the darkness that paint the walls of your apartment gold and bright.

But every morning you walk back into the office, back to the BAU, and you make it work. You have what you want and you don’t think about the other things you can’t have because it’s a waste of time. There’s no use in thinking about things you can’t change. All you can do is put your head down and do what you do best until it’s the evening on your birthday and JJ finds you with an almost apologetic look on her face. And you don’t mind—it’s not like you had any plans to begin with; the years have begun to blend together more and more recently—but it’s out of habit that you sigh before dropping your bag by your desk.

“This late?”

“Duty calls,” she says with a helpless shrug, handing you a file folder as you both make your way to the conference room. The team’s already inside, and you’re prepared to jump into it, to see grisly images on the screen and a tired, worn group of people gathered around the table trying to explain it all.

But the room you walk into is full of energy. The projector is off, table filled with trays of food as opposed to crime scene photos and research. There’s excitement and happiness and a tinge of something warm in the air, and it doesn’t smell like work, it smells like—

An enthusiastic jumble of “Surprise!” and “Happy birthday!” reaches your ears as you feel yourself being lifted by the waist and spun in a circle, your fingers digging into Derek’s his shoulders as you hang on for dear life. You’re sure you let out a rather undignified shriek, but you can hear Derek laughing and Garcia letting out a thrilled little whoop as she claps her hands. The room spins around you and you stumble a little as Derek sets you down.

He makes to let go, but you cling to him for just a second longer. A memory sticks to you for a moment, your arms tossed over his shoulders, his grip digging into the fresh cuts on your back and you’re scared, you’re scared—

But that was in the past. You’re surrounded by people who care for you. You’re warm and dry and you aren’t in pain. There’s a folder gripped between your fingers, the soft cotton of Derek’s shirt pressed against your cheek instead of a hard tac vest. You force your breathing to slow as the room stops spinning.

You’re here. You’re safe.

You let go, but Derek keeps a careful hand against your waist.

“I know it’s not glamorous, but we wanted to do something for you,” Rossi says, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“And we figured you’d seen enough of the inside of your apartment this year,” Derek adds, steering you towards the food as he leans a little closer. “Alright? Lost you for a second there.”

“I’m fine.” You smile up at him. “Better. So if there’s no case, the file…?”

“Those are for you, from Henry,” JJ jumps in, beaming. You glance down at the folder in your hands, flipping it open. There are a few papers inside—you’d wondered why it’d felt suspiciously light—covered in colorful crayon drawings. “He wanted to present them to you and explain all his artistic choices, but I told him he can do that next time he visits.”

Her words make something tighten in your chest. It happens again when Garcia gives you a kiss on the cheek, slipping a flash drive into your pocket with a wink, again when Spencer makes a plate for you with all of your favorites, when Rossi squeezes your shoulder and gives you a smile. And when you smell him, sandalwood and smoke, achingly familiar as it drifts under your nose, your chest tightens too, but for a different reason.

You turn.

Hotch’s gaze flicks over your face, expression softer than you expected. You glance down, taking in the slim book-sized box he’s offering to you. You can tell upon taking it that it’s too light to be an actual book and your fingertips slip under the lid to—

His palm covers your hand and you wonder, just for a moment, how far into his cycle he is.

“Later,” he says with a shake of his head. You nod, pulling the box to your chest and feeling almost…shy. It’s not something you’re used to, especially not with your unit chief, let alone the man you had regular sex with for nearly two years.

Hotch tilts his head, considering. “We’re lucky to have you,” he says, quiet and serious. And then it happens so fast, you aren’t sure if you imagined it or not.

His thumb brushes gently over your jaw. It steals your breath. Your mouth falls open slightly, and you know you aren’t imagining it, the way his gaze darts down to your mouth. For a moment, everything around you seems to slow. Heat prickles over the back of your neck, and you can’t think of anything except the shape of Hotch’s lips and how good he smells and how it would be so, so easy to just tip forward a couple of inches to—

The moment pops like a soap bubble, sound and smell rushing in as you hear Emily let out a cheer. You whip your head away, glad for the excuse of watching her goad Spencer into shoving multiple deviled eggs in his mouth at once. It does make you laugh, even as you feel the tension stretch tight between you and Hotch for the rest of the night. It isn’t much; just a gentle heat on the back of your neck, a reminder every time you can feel his eyes on you.

You don’t mind feeling it as you eat and talk and let yourself get pulled into the festivities. It’s a good evening. It doesn’t feel like anything can bring it down.

Reality does set in eventually; JJ has to get home to Henry and everyone does have work in the morning. Clean-up is efficient, even as people linger to chat and put on coats and grab bags, Hotch and Emily deep in conversation about the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, you and Rossi discussing the books you managed to catch up on while on leave. Conversation hums in the air you as you hike your bag over your shoulder.

You turn to look back behind as you’re about the step into the elevator. The office is empty, but warmth and laughter still hang in the air. If you leave, it’ll all be gone. You’ll be back in your apartment, alone and left wondering if all of this was just a dream.

Your hand tightens over the strap of your bag.

You’re not ready for this to end. Not quite yet.

You make your excuses, weaving your way back to your desk once the elevator has closed its doors and taken your team with it. Your coat goes over the back of your chair, bag beside your feet as you dig into your pocket for the flash drive Garcia left you. Plugging it into your desktop makes you blink at your monitor as color bursts forth.

Photos. Pictures of you and the team over the years, some that you’ve seen and some that you haven’t. Some of them are blurry, but all of them are achingly intimate in how they capture tiny moments you’d forgotten. Spencer’s arm flung over your shoulder, both of you absorbed in a riotous spread of notes and books at his desk. You and JJ reading over a report together with little Henry cradled in your arms, back when he was so tiny you couldn’t believe he was real. Rossi crouched on the balls of his feet, palms pressed against the grass with a wide grin as you’re a doubled-over blur of laughter beside him. Emily, tongue clamped between her teeth as she tries to balance a cup of coffee on your head, JJ wide-eyed in the background—you remember that one ending badly but it was a slow Friday afternoon and the two of you just hadn’t quite cared enough to stop. Derek hoisting you in a fireman’s carry and running towards the ocean, from the second summer after you’d joined when you’d forced everyone to take an extra day after a case that brought the whole team down to Santa Monica.

There’s one of all of you standing next to each other after a presentation. It was the first time you’d helped with an outreach class a couple years back, a gaggle of middle schoolers crowding around you to ask questions. You’re crouched down, pointing something out on the projector screen. He’s just slightly out of focus, but you can tell that Hotch’s watching you, mouth curved in a gentle little smile.

So many of those kinds of photos, of seconds in time that make your heart ache with how much you love it, how much you missed it all while you were gone. Missed all of them. It’s almost too much to look at. You click through them blindly, stopping only when a text document opens. You recognize the words in an instant, two lines from Chaucer’s Truth that you and Spencer have traded and turned over, again and again when things got too difficult.

 

Hold the heye weye, and lat thi gost the lede;

And trouthe shal delyvere, it is no drede.

 

it’s been a rough year. let’s all make this next one better together.

 

Your vision is blurry. You reach for Hotch’s gift because you don’t know what else to do, your fingers shaking against the box.

Fabric spills out as you push the lid back, silky soft cloth slipping through your fingers like water. It’s a gorgeous scarf. Your favorite color. You think of his tie, smooth against your fingertips, your throat, and you wonder if this is an offer. A question hidden in the cool, soft folds of silk and the touch of his thumb to your jaw, its answer written in broad hands roaming your skin, a deep heat settling into you as smoke and sandalwood take the place of the very air you breathe.

Can you accept it? Any of it? Is this something you can let yourself take, let yourself have?

You don’t have to be afraid of getting what you want.

But you are, because the truth is that you’re not good enough. For any of it. There are photos of you and fond memories and so much love and it’s all going to leave once the people you care about realize they don’t need you. When they realize you were just desperately trying to keep up alongside them when even though in all this time, you weren’t anywhere to close to their level. Your entire life has felt like this, an attempt to train yourself into bending as far as you can before you break because the second you snap, the second you let go, it’s over. You’ll disappoint them, the way you’ve disappointed everyone.

But the thing is. The thing is, you don’t want it to end. You’ve tried so hard, for so fucking long. You want the work, you want to the struggle, the satisfaction, the knowledge that you have people to come back to and people that want to come back to you. You want the photos and the jokes and the beautiful, wonderful things that come out of loving and being loved. Most of all, you just don’t want to ruin it all when you finally get to have that.

But you already have, haven’t you? You ruined it the second you started because you’re you. And that’ll never change.

Your fingers tighten against your knee, crushing precious fabric in your grip as you squeeze your eyes shut. You can’t, you can’t, not right now, you’re in the office and you still have to go home and clean up and try to sleep as much as you can—

Except you can’t help it. You can feel tears starting to roll down your cheeks, dripping down your chin as your breath starts to run fast and you’re starting to shake and you can’t stop and you just, you just want—

You hear your name.

You hurriedly drag the back of your hand over your face, whipping around. It’s Emily, frozen at her desk, hand poised over the back of her chair. She forgot her coat.

“Are you alright?” she says carefully, taking a step towards you. And then another, all the way until she’s standing next to your desk, close enough that you have to tip your head back a little to keep her in your vision.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. You look up at her, squeezing your eyes shut before trying to open them again. “I’m okay, just—please don’t tell anyone. Promise you won’t tell.”

Your mouth clicks shut immediately. You shouldn’t have said it like that, why did you have to say it like that? Like a child, cowering over their own mistakes. It’s silly, to feel like that. You haven’t been a child in a very long time.

Emily reaches over, dragging Derek’s chair closer so she can sit next to you, legs spread and arms balancing on her thighs with her hands clasped. It’s the stance she takes when she’s talking to victim’s families, when she’s bracing herself to handle something difficult. She doesn’t need to do that. You’re not going to be difficult. If she would just give you a few seconds, then you could gather yourself and then you could just explain everything.

“’m okay,” you say as she ducks her head to look at you. “I’m fine.”

Her lips press together as she shakes her head. “You’re crying. Tell me why. Tell me what’s wrong.”

You shake your head back. There’s pressure building behind your eyes and you can’t stop it, but you shake your head again even as you tilt towards her. She reaches out, wrapping her arm around your shoulders to bring you close as your curl into yourself and shake.

“I’m okay,” you repeat, over and over because you are okay. You have to be.

You’ve never had any other choice.

 

---

 

You’re halfway to boarding the jet mid-morning on a Friday when you realize that something’s a little…off.

Onboarding for this case was hectic. Too hectic. You’d barely registered what the crime was, let alone where you were supposed to be going as JJ shoved a case folder into your hand and Derek ushered you to the elevator, gallantly adjusting the strap of your ready bag where it was slipping down your shoulder. You vaguely remembered Spencer handing you a cup of tea just minutes ago, but your left hand was empty—

“No time to debrief,” Rossi had said, immediately plucking the folder out of your grip—which, weird. "We’ll do it on the plane.”

“Oh…kay?” You’d replied, almost dazed. JJ’s conciliatory pat on your shoulder as she jammed the ground floor button was…also weird.

In hindsight, Emily cheekily wiggling her fingers at you from where she was perched on the edge of Spencer’s desk should have tipped you off. But you were occupied with more pressing problems, like finding out where you were actually flying to and where the hell your tea went.

Except now you’re standing in the jet and it’s empty except for you and you’re starting to think you’re being played—

Well. You’re not actually alone. The back of a familiar dark head of hair turns and you can’t help the little “oh” that slips from your mouth as your gaze meets Hotch’s.

It’s been a while since the last time the two of you were alone. Truly alone, not alone in his office with the door open or the blinds up, budgets and forms and contracts spread out between the two of you until the space is so vast that neither of you can cross it—

His palm pressed to your ribs, tongue sliding up your sternum. You look down and accidently catch his gaze. His eyes are dark and hungry as his fingers push between your legs to—

Your fingers tighten over the handle of your ready bag. “Sorry, did I misread the schedule?”

“Not at all, you’re right on time.” Hotch tilts his head to the spot across from him, a file laid out for you. You take the seat, bag tucked beneath you as the jet’s engine suddenly starts in a low rumble.

 You crane your head to glance at the door. “Where’s everyone else?”

“They’ll catch up,” Hotch says without looking up. Given that the jet is now taking off and you and Hotch are the only ones onboard, you’re pretty sure that’s not going to happen.

You last about an hour before you crack. You’ve read the file cover to cover four times and have concluded it’s pretty run-of-the-mill. If the team were here, you could imagine a coherent theory easily being formed by the time you touch down in the PNW, which then begs the question of why the hell you and Hotch are on this jet together. You close the file and look up.

He’s watching you. His folder is open, but he seems utterly uninterested in it. Come to think of it, you haven’t heard a page turn from him in a while. Something tightens in your chest as you push the file across the table to him.

“Is there actually a case, or am I just missing something?”

“There’s a case,” he says calmly, folding his folder shut before leaning back in his seat. “It was solved an hour or so before you boarded.”

You force your expression to smooth out as your fingers drum irritably against the table. If there’s anything you hate, it’s not knowing what’s going on. Especially when you’re the only one out. “Okay, so, we’re not going to Astoria?”

“We’re still going to Astoria. We have to meet the local police department and assist with some clean-up, but it shouldn’t take the two of us more than the rest of day to do so.”

You nearly have to bite your tongue to keep yourself from asking “And then what?” because you aren’t really sure you want to know. But the question follows you like a shadow, tucked in the corner of your vision every time you feel Hotch’s gaze on you.

The case wrap-up, in itself, is incredibly routine. Reviewing everything with the county’s team makes you realize that this case just barely touched FBI jurisdiction. Barely. You’re not sure how JJ slipped this one past you because you definitely would have found a better use of the team’s time elsewhere. But in your defense, you’ve been…distracted, lately.

Not that you’re much better now. It’s been some time since you’ve worked in such close proximity to Hotch, longer still without having the team there as a buffer. You fall into the familiar rhythm easily enough, but you’re aware of its fragility now. How fickle it is for your heads to be bent together over the table as you both examine a map of the county, cross-notating body dump sites for the final report. The brush of fingers as you hand Hotch a cup of coffee. His hand, light against your waist as he shuffles behind you to grab some interview notes because this room is pretty cramped due to how the county’s police headquarters are actually quite small and you’re kicking yourself just a little for not noticing how you easily you were played, all the way up until the two of you drive to your lodgings for the night.

It’s a remote little cottage, rustic wood walls and large widows soaking up the sunset. The location is beautiful and definitely not within the Bureau’s nightly lodging limits.

“Is this—”

“I’m not allowed to tell you how much it cost,” Hotch says mildly, hiking his bag up his shoulder as he shakes out the correct key. “Only that Garcia ‘did a thing’ to make it fit into the budget.”

Your mouth purses as you watch him unlock the front door. “And did it fit?”

“I just signed the forms.” The corner of his mouth kicks up at your groan, his hand ghosting over the small of your back as he holds the door to let you in.

It’s even nicer on the inside. Hotch flicks the lights on and the cozy little living room is suddenly bathed in a warm, comforting glow. You can see a few open doors, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom all within eyesight. And you can’t think about how there’s probably one bedroom with only one bed, so you let yourself latch onto the idea of—

“Shower’s yours,” Hotch says like he’s reading your mind, and you tell yourself it’s the promise of hot water beating incessantly down on your back that has you rushing to shut yourself into the bathroom. A boiling hot rinse loosens maybe eight of the however many muscles in your body that are tensed to high hell, but that’s eight less than before and for that, you’re grateful. You shiver with the cool air that sweeps in as you open the bathroom door and look for Hotch to let him know you’re done.

He’s sitting on the couch, arms resting on his knees as he looks over the spread of files that exploded over the coffee table while you were away. His sleeves are rolled up, tie and jacket and belt draped over the back of the armchair.

You know the sound that particular belt makes when it snaps against his slacks because it’s the same dark, buttery brown leather you gripped tight between your fingers last time he fucked you in his bed. Judging by the way Hotch’s looking at you, he also knows it’s the same.

And you know what you should do. There needs to be a conversation, an understanding. You have the script ready, words you’ve rolled over and over in your mind caught behind your teeth and ready to strike. You need to be responsible.

We need to talk.

You need to just say it.

What am I to you? Do you still need me?

But—

If you’ve found someone else, tell me and I’ll—

But you’re tired of being responsible.

You take the last two steps. You don’t care where your weight lands, where your hands gravitate towards because the only thing that matters is where you crash into Hotch, lips moving against his hungrily as you kiss him for the first time in months.

His hands are on you immediately, fingers digging into your waist to yank you down. You land in his lap, straddling him, and he’s already hard in his slacks, heat pushing up between your legs in a way that makes you keen low in your throat. An answering growl rumbles deep in his chest, his fingers knotting in your hair to pull your head back. His teeth scrape over your jaw. His fingertips press hard to the divot behind your ear, and his scent rolls over you in a wave of heat and spice. You feel yourself shiver as you practically melt in his grip.

Hotch’s mouth finds yours again, tongue pressing against the flats of your teeth as his thumb drags down, down your scent gland to the hollow of your collarbone. But even that one touch sends your mind spinning.

You can’t help it. You think of his tie, always ready to stand between his teeth and your throat. But it’s so far away, and his mouth is so close. You can feel the wet heat of his breath, ghosting over your skin. Maybe something’s changed. Maybe he’s due soon. And maybe he wants, needs—

Hotch’s hand pushes up your shirt, palm dragging against your shower-damp skin. His hips roll up into yours as you shift down to meet him, and it feels so good. You can’t help how your nails drag through the hair at the nape of his neck, how your chest presses tight to his, how you pull away just enough to gasp, “How long until the next one?”

Hotch freezes under you.

Shit. Not close then. Not even in the slightest.

But he kissed you back. He’s still hard. You can feel his heat between your legs, even through multiple layers of cloth. It has to mean something, right? He has to still want you, in some way.

You dig your teeth into your lower lip, keeping your eyes down as you start to wrestle with his shirt buttons. You’ve got four popped before his hands circle your wrists. Loose at first, and then tighter, stopping you from moving down to work open another one.

Hotch says your name. You avoid it, avoid him until his fingers are gripping your chin, moving your face so that you have to meet his gaze.

There’s something in the way his face is set. You can’t quite read it, but it feels like pity. Like guilt. Anger flares bright in you, indignance fanning the flame.

You don’t want his charity. You don’t want anything like that.

“Don’t,” you snap, twisting your face out of his grip. “Don’t do this because you—because you think you owe me. If you’re done, then we’re done. Tell me if you don’t want me like this anymore.”

“It’s not—”

You don’t let him finish, taking advantage of his precarious balance to tip both of you over. Hotch’s head just clears the arm of the couch, breath hitching out of his mouth as he lands hard on his back. You settle in the cradle of his hips, hands planting on either side of his head as you grind down and Hotch groans deep and hot, as hot as the feeling of his broad hands gripping your bare thighs. You want him so bad you can hardly stand it.

You can’t mess this up again.

You can’t.

“Just tell me what you want so I can do it right,” you say, your voice catching just barely at the end. Hotch’s fingers dig hard into your skin.

Your gaze tilts up to meet his.

Fuck. You know that look.

You don’t usually sit at the interrogation table, but Hotch does. And even through the glass, you can always track the glint that sharpens in his eyes when an unsub slips, gives themselves away. You can see it now, inches away from your nose. He saw the crack. And now he’s going to fit his fingers into you and pull it open because that’s what he does. That’s what he’s good at. And you can’t resent him for it, because it’s part of what makes you—

“Why?” he asks, quiet and careful. “Why do you want me to tell you what to do?”

“Isn’t that how it always works?” You hiss lowly, shaking your head. “You lead, I follow. We’re good at that. Let me be good at it.”

You can feel the desperation bleeding into your words. Part of you shudders away from it, making you grit your teeth and tilt your chin up defiantly. But another part of you, deep down in your bones, doesn’t care at all. That part of you wants so intensely it feels like it’s written across your forehead in permanent ink.

Let me do this right. If I can’t have what I want, at least let me be useful.

His hand twitches against your thigh. Something shutters itself behind his eyes and you already know you aren’t strong enough to face it. You knock his hands away, pushing yourself off of him before he can tell you “no”.

You stumble back from the couch and the scent of sandalwood following you, bleary and unsure. Hotch braces himself up on his elbows, but you don’t wait to see what he has to say. You turn on your heel, too many steps from here to the bedroom before you shut the door behind you, back pressing hard to the wood as you sink to the floor.

You can feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins, that jittery feeling running up your limbs, making you want to jump up and pace and shake it off of you. But you can’t. You’re frozen in place, paralyzed by everything you could do, everything you want to do, everything you’ve failed to do. It pushes in on all sides, weighing you down, down, until your hands are shaking and all you can do is feel the guilt crawl up your throat until it chokes you. You try to breathe in shallow, little inhales, fighting against the pressure building behind your eyes.

No. You will not do this, you will not do this, not around him, not right now.

You stifle a sob in your throat. Your look down at your trembling hands.

And then you force yourself, one movement at a time, to plant your palms against the ground. To push yourself up onto your knees. Onto your feet. Step by step, you make your way towards the bed. One knee onto the mattress, and then the other. Fingers curling over the blankets, pushing them back with a shaky motion, and then pulling them towards you, up to your ears and over your head.

Your breath is hot against the pillow. So are the tears that leak out against your will. You press your lips together, squeezing your eyes shut as you try to hold it all in.

 

---

 

Your heart races as you suddenly jolt awake. You don’t even remember closing your eyes but sleep still clings to you, sticky on your tongue and heavy over your mind. Everything smells different and looks different and you can’t, you can’t remember why, or how, or…

You blink against the moonlight pushing through the thin curtains. It’s so unnervingly quiet.

And then you remember. You’re in Oregon. You came for a case that was already solved. You came with—

Hotch’s mouth opening against yours, a groan scraping over your teeth as your hands cup his face. His arm looping over the small of your back, pulling you closer until your hips press together and you can feel his body in one burning line against yours and you—

You kissed Hotch.

And he kissed back. Until he didn’t. Your fault, either way. You shouldn’t have said what you did. You showed too much of yourself and now you can’t shake the feeling of his hands bracing to your hips or his gaze locking with yours, something like regret darting behind his eyes.

The blankets shift against your skin and suddenly they’re too hot, too heavy, itchy cotton and cloying detergent scented like spring breeze or something asinine grating against the inside of your throat. You wrestle yourself out of them, throwing them to the side before remembering that the bed was built for two and you might not be—

The bed is empty beside you, pillow free of any dents.

You’re alone.

You slink out of the room to find Hotch stretched out on the couch, arm tossed over his face. His chest rises and falls, slow and even, and you tell yourself it’s something in the air, something about waking up at night in an unfamiliar place that has you slipping your hand into the side pocket of his ready bag. Your fingers close around familiar shapes and you emerge victorious, a cigarette and lighter clamped between your fingers before you straighten and back away.

The night air is cool as you step out onto the porch. There’s a swing. You haven’t sat on a swing in years. It makes you feel…small, but in a way that doesn’t feel bed. The swaying motion of it is strangely comforting as you push off before gathering your knees to your chest.

The lighter flame flickers against your palm, dimming for a moment as it catches paper. You inhale deep into your lungs and it stings just a little but you hold it for as long as you can before blowing out a stream of smoke, rolling your neck as you close your eyes.

You rarely lose track of time, but there’s something about how the moonlight spills onto the porch slats and brushes the edge of your toes, how you can only hear crickets instead of the familiar sounds of the city, that lulls you into a trance. Time isn’t passing. Nothing matters except for the steady inhale and exhale of your own breath, the measured rotation of your elbow as you bring the cigarette to your lips and then pull it away again. You can feel it burning down, close to where your skin is touching the paper. You can’t really bring yourself to care.

There’s a creak behind you. You stiffen as something touches the back of your hand.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Hotch says quietly before you can open your mouth to ask. His large fingers wrap carefully around your wrist, holding you steady as he takes the smoldering end of the cigarette clamped between your fingers and stubs it off in the ashtray, careful and precise.

The swing rocks with his added weight. The slow creak of metal and wood disappears into the night stillness, and the only thing left is the steady thud of your heartbeat in your ears.

Part of you wants to fight again. Kick and scream, do whatever it takes to distract from the weight of everything that needs to be said and done. But you’re tired, so, so, tired in a way that’s soaked so deep into your bones that you don’t remember what it was like to live without it.

You close your eyes. Take a quiet breath.

“If you want to end it,” you say, nearly proud with how steady your voice is, “just tell me. It’s alright.” You push at the ground with your toe, keeping the swing rocking gently as you wait for his answer. The silence is excruciating. You can’t look at him.

“Why did you ask me to tell you what to do?” he finally asks. A dart of irritation lances through the anxiety. You’ve done your job, laid everything out the way you’re supposed to, and yet he’s still managed to side-step it. You suddenly wish you were at work. At home. Anywhere but here.

But that’s not true, is it?

“Does it matter?”

You hear his mouth shape around your name, syllables rolling familiar and easy over his tongue. It’s everything you want and yet nothing close to it at all. Frustration flashes forward in your mind, barreling over every carefully-conceived path you’d mapped out for this conversation as you feel your control suddenly snap.

“Look,” you hiss, twisting to face Hotch. “I don’t know what I did but you stopped coming to me for help, so I clearly fucked something up. I don’t know what it was or how to fix it so if you would just tell me what you want, I can do it right.” You click your tongue, flicking your hand irritably. “Or you can tell me to fuck off and we can forget this ever happened. Just—give me something.”

“I’m not going to—” Hotch cuts himself off, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “Is that why you think I kept coming back to you? Because you did everything right—”

“Didn’t I?”

Hotch’s expression stiffens, that familiar crease in his brow as he looks you over. He looks as serious as he always does. Serious and stern and unreadable. You want to so badly to reach up and smooth your thumb between his eyes, to unfold the creases of his expression into something you can understand.

The swing rocks gently. Moonlight curves harshly over the lines of Hotch’s face as he speaks.

“Every time after you and I spent a rut together, I told myself it had to be the last time,” he says, and you feel yourself stiffen. It’s happening. It’s like being in free fall, tumbling over the edge with no way to catch yourself. “There was no way it wouldn’t escalate, and I knew that everything that went wrong with Haley could go wrong with you. That’s not even taking into account the fact that we work together. That I’m your superior.”

“But then you got injured. I took suppressants and I thought it would make it easier to stop wanting you. But it was worse. I would see you every day and it…it was difficult. Even if it was supposed to be the right thing to do. But it gave me time think about this and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve made a lot of mistakes—” Hotch exhales sharply, a rueful twist to his mouth as he shakes his head. “Well, I already knew that. It’s more that I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but you aren’t one of them. You are a…a very good thing in my life, and I’ve taken what you’ve offered over and over without giving you anything in return.”

You can barely breathe. It almost feels like being underwater. You can hear his words, feel them sink into your skin and pierce something deep inside you that you’ve never thought to seek out before. It hurts the way an old bruise hurt. Aches the way your knee does before a storm, before the first cold snap of winter. It takes everything in you to inhale shakily, to swallow around your dry throat and say, “You gave me things.”

Finger-shaped bruises over your hips that you liked to rub your thumb over sometimes. Morning cups of tea pressed into your sleepy grip even though you know Hotch only drinks coffee. Hands stroking through your hair and kisses pressed to your shoulder in the dark when he thought you were asleep, when you kept your breathing deep and even so he wouldn’t stop.

“But I never asked if they were what you wanted.”

His tongue flicks out to wet his lips. His hand lifts, stopping inches away from your face. You give in before you can think, pushing into his touch. His palm is warm, fingers pressing lightly against your temple.

“You came to help me. But you also put yourself in my care,” he says softly. “And I didn’t take care of you.”

You shake your head. There’s a horrible pressure building behind your eyes and you don’t know how to make it stop.

“You’ve worked hard,” Hotch says, firm and gentle all at once. “You always do. And I hurt you. I’m sorry. I should have done better. I will do better, if you let me.”

His thumb strokes the delicate skin beneath your left eye. It’s a dry pull of skin on skin until it isn’t, until his touch starts to glide with the tears that are dripping down your face. You can smell sandalwood and smoke, his wrist gland practically pressed to your lips, and it makes something ache deep in you because you’ve missed this.

You’ve missed him.

“What do you need?” he murmurs, cupping your face both hands as he shifts closer. His voice vibrates through your bones, low and comforting. “Right now. What do you want?”

What do you want? You want everything to make sense. You want to be in bed. You want Hotch’s arms around you and his teeth pressed to your throat. You want him to fuck you because he wants to. You want what he’ll give you but you also want more and you want—you want—

Your mouth opens. You try to let out a sigh and it comes out as a sob. And then another. Your vision is blurry and there’s ringing in your ears and beyond it all you can hear are these horrible, heaving, choked noises that don’t sound like you at all.

Your body tips forward helplessly before your mind can tell you not to.

And Hotch catches you. You ask him to hold you and he does, arms wrapped around you to pull you close as you press your face into his chest and sob.

It’s horrible. It’s far from some dainty cry that you can dab your nose about; you can feel his shirt soaking through with your tears, your nose plugging up as the skin around your eyes start to burn, as your body shakes uncontrollably. But you can’t stop. Your fingers dig into his shoulders like you can somehow stop him from leaving and Hotch responds in kind, his fingers tightening over your ribs. You can feel his lips pressing to the crown of your head, moving as he murmurs things you can only catch hints of through your crying, words like “I know”, “I’m sorry”, and “sweetheart”.

There’s a vicious, habitual pull inside you, one that trends toward guilt. Embarrassment. But by the time your heaving sobs have died down into soft, wet hitches of breath, you can’t feel anything but wrung out. Tired. You don’t even have the energy to insist that you’re fine, that you’re a capable enough person to walk 20 feet to bed when Hotch fits his arm tight across your back and under your knees to lit you into his arms.

So you let him carry you. You let him put you to bed, and when he makes to pull away, you grip his wrist and you don’t let go until he’s crawling in next to you. His hands are careful but steady. He pulls you tight against him, the familiar line of his body pressed to your spine, and something inside you that’s been pacing relentlessly inside you months finally, finally settles.

You feel your eyes close against your will, body relaxing easily into safety. But not before your mind thinks, ever so carefully.

Maybe it’ll be alright.

 

---

 

It’s the shrill ringing of Hotch’s phone that jolts you awake this time, silenced in a few seconds by his low, sleep-scratchy voice quietly saying, “Hotchner.”

You roll away from the too-bright window to squint up at him. Your mind blearily takes in how large his hand is. How small his cellphone looks cupped his fingers.

“How soon can you get there?” He glances down, eyes tracing over your face. A yawn slips past your guard, large enough that your eyes squeeze shut with it. “Good,” he continues at his normal timbre. “Have Garcia reroute us to AST, they should be able to push us through. Call me if there are any problems.” His phone clatters to the nightstand, fabric shifting as he sinks back into the sheets.

“What…is it?” You mumble around another yawn.

“We’re meeting the team in Tacoma. The nearest airport is civil-military so if they won’t take us, we’ll be driving.”

Your noise of agreement comes out more of a grumble as you press the back of your hand to your eyes while stretching. “Time?”

“Quarter past seven.”

Your mind fumbles through time zones for a moment before deciding 10am is enough of a lie in for you. Lifting your hands and turning puts you face-to-face with Hotch. His hair is sticking up in the back and there are pillow wrinkles pressed into his cheek and it’d make you smile if it weren’t for that serious furrow to his brow, the one that makes it look like he’s bracing for something bad. That wakes you up quick enough.

“This part isn’t going to change,” he says, and you don’t have to dig too far to hear what he’s trying to say.

This is what it will always be like. What I will always be like. Work will always win. Haley couldn’t take it. Can you?

You prop yourself up on your elbow, chewing on your lower lip as you look down at him. It’s barely a few inches between you, so you reach out and let your touch drift over the line of his throat. Stubble pricks at your fingertips, and you focus on that as you try to gather your thoughts into something coherent, something that will sound good and right and…

True. You press your lips together. Above all, you want to tell him the truth.

Something moves deep in your chest, a tectonic shift that has your mind pivoting in a different direction. Every step of this has been so hard. You’ve tried to be responsible, to be kind, to be firm, to be what you thought Hotch needed. Except last night you failed because you weren’t any of those things; you let your guard down enough to just be yourself.

Maybe…maybe you can do that again. Maybe it doesn’t always have to be hard.

“Thinking about the future is…hard for me sometimes,” you start, pushing back against the instinct to make your words diplomatic and palatable. This is the truth. You can let the words flow. “I just, I always get caught up in the potential of what could happen. How it could be good or bad, how I could fail at it all or maybe how it could all come together to be exactly what I want.” You laugh under your breath, shaking your head. “It’s not good for me, to only see things in absolutes.”

“But the way I think about you, about us…I’m not thinking about two, five, or ten years from now, when you might not be my superior anymore or I might have transferred to another department or how things could be steadier between us if we waited long enough to settle down the way things are “supposed” to be.” You shrug one shoulder, flicking your eyes up to meet his.

You find that you can’t look away. Hotch’s eyes bore into yours, focused and steady, and you grip onto it like a lifeline.

“I’m thinking about us. Right now. How I want to be on this case with you so we can review it on the plane or in the car. I want to be with you when we do the job right and save the day, and I really want to be with you when things are hard and everything goes wrong and we still come back bright and early the next day because we have to try again.”

Your breath is catching in your throat but you keep talking because you have to get the words out, even if they’re coming faster than you can speak. “I want to do this with you even if the phone keeps interrupting us, even if we don’t get to be alone again for the next month because the world needs us to our jobs because that means I still get to work with you. Right now I want to do this with you, every day. And I just, I just want—”

The words stumble back. You can feel the doubt creeping in. You’re saying too much, you’re asking for more than you can get, you’re not bending the right way and if Hotch doesn’t want this, it’ll be too late to back out and then you won’t…you can’t…

Except you can hear it. Spencer’s voice in your head.

You don’t have to be afraid of getting what you want.

“Aaron, I want you,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself, “I want you like this, right now, and I, I really want you to want me, so please just tell me if you—"

There’s a mouth pressing hard against yours before you can finish. Hotch’s hands cup your face, thumbs smoothing over your jaw as a shaky noise hums low in his throat.

“Yes,” he says against your lips. You can taste his desperation on your tongue, curling behind your teeth like it’s trying to find a home inside you. “I want this. Want this with you. Want you—with and—without the ruts,” Hotch says in between kisses to the underside of your jaw, against your throat. He presses a hard, open-mouthed kiss to your scent gland. It makes you whine high in your throat. You feel his response vibrate against you skin and it feels so good and it’s almost too much, to have this. To have what you’ve wanted for so long.

You don’t realize you’re shaking until Hotch pulls back, until his thumb is pressing gently under your eye to catch a stray tear that rolls out.

“I want to take care of you. Just as good as how you take care of me.”

You shake your head. “That’s not my best. I can do better.”

“I don’t want better,” Hotch says, nudged his forehead to press against yours. “I just want you.”

Oh.

Could it be so easy? Can you be allowed to have this? You’re too tired to cry, but your body still trembles in his grip, like it can’t contain all the contradictions existing in this moment.

He wants you. But you don’t deserve it. But he still wants you.

Your breath starts to come fast. You scramble to press your palm to his chest, to try and match your breathing to his. You need something to ground you. Something that proves to you that this is real.

His heart beats steadily beneath your hand. You don’t know how long you lie there in his arms, tracking the steady rhythm of his pulse, but eventually you hear Hotch’s phone buzz on the nightstand. And you expect him to pull away to do his duty, the way he said he would. You’re ready for it. Almost.

Except Hotch doesn’t move. He doesn’t even tense like he wants to move. He just holds you close, stroking your hair until your breathing has evened out and you don’t feel like you’re going to shatter with one wrong more.

“Was th—” You clear your throat. “Was that Garcia?”

Hotch hums, a noncommittal lilt buzzing against your skin. He twists around to grab his cell, one arm still curled tight around you. He has to contort himself a little to make it work, but he doesn’t let go and it makes a pleased warmth trickle down all the way to your toes.

“AST can’t take us,” he sighs as he scans through the message. “We’ll have to drive.”

Your mind eagerly takes the excuse to think about logistics because it’s easy. Familiar. It should take the team around five to six hours to fly in, and you and Hotch will probably need around two to three hours to get to Tacoma. Need to get gas, breakfast, maybe a map depending on Garcia’s directions, and would Hotch like to drive or would he rather review the case? He’s a smooth driver; you could read the details to him without getting carsick…

You glance up. Hotch is watching you. You tilt your head to watch him back and the details in your mind... they don’t go away—because they never do—but they go quiet, just enough that it feels peaceful.

You share a lot of good things with Hotch. And you know you could share so many more. But…

“If we do this…” You inhale unsteadily. “How do we know it’ll work?”

“We don’t.” Hotch’s brow furrows for a moment. “But how do we know it won’t work?”

You can feel patience in his words, but behind it, a challenge. It feels like sitting across from him on a case, working through every step side-by-side. It feels like having him at your back in the field, his voice in your ear as he covers you. All of those moments that are better because you’re doing it. Together.

“We don’t,” you whisper.

The fear is still there. The anxiety too. But it’s not the only thing you can feel because there’s something else there too, something that burns bright at the sight of his mouth tilting up at the corner and you give into the urge you’ve felt so many times because you can. Because now you can lean in to press you lips to it and you can feel his smile against your mouth. It makes something in your chest tighten. Maybe it’s hope.

“We don’t,” you say again, more to yourself than him. And for the first time, something about that uncertainty makes you feel fiercely, undeniably happy.

 

---

 

“I thought we agreed to never let them play cards again,” JJ says with a roll of her eyes as she pushes the doors open to the office. Everyone rushes in behind her. Hawai’i was gorgeous, but the flight time almost didn’t make it worth it, even with a fueling break in the middle. There were only so many things to do on the way back home.

“We’ve exhausted everything else.” You check off your fingers. “Chess, checkers, dominoes, backgammon—”

“I’m gonna bring Battleship or some shit next time,” Derek scoffs. Spencer scoffs, hand waving dismissively.

“Mathematically, I could win at that even easier than cards—”

 “I have a set of Chinese checkers somewhere?”

“Don’t bother,” Emily huffs. “Invest in a slab of stone and a chisel so they can fuck off to the corner of the jet and play very slow hangman.”

“We still have non-essential entertainment funds leftover after the retreat,” Rossi adds unhelpfully from the stairs. “Carving stone could count as team bonding.”

“I’ll think about it,” you lie blandly. Emily snickers at Rossi’s very sarcastic salute and you salute him back, groaning as you make to settle into your seat.

Except your seat gets snatched out from under you, something wrapping tight around your arm to pull you upright.

“Do you hear that?” JJ says cheerfully as she links arms with you. You blink as she begins to walk you away from your desk.

“Hear what?”

“The sound of you clocking out for the weekend.”

You tilt your head at the rest of team settling at their respective seats. “Is that what you’re all doing?”

“I trust you to submit all your paperwork bright and early on Monday. Everyone else going to do their write-ups before we go out for drinks.”

You list instinctively towards your computer at the thought of everyone working except for you. JJ’s grip suddenly goes iron-clad.

“JJ—”

“Don’t even try it,” she says sternly. You twist towards your computer regardless, just in time to see something pop up on your screen. A video feed of Garcia blowing you an exaggerated kiss with a wink, before your computer shuts itself down before your eyes.

“Everything will be there on Monday,” Emily says with a fond grin. “So try not to have too much fun without us?”

Her head tilts subtly in the direction of Hotch’s office, door open and lights on behind the half-open blinds. You try not to let your gaze linger on his head bent over his desk, probably signing off on the last few forms you handed off to him before you’d all left for the case. The end of the fiscal year is coming up; you’ve been trying to get ahead of it for months and you have a feeling that the deadlines might not actually sneak up on you this year, though AP does always have some kind of last-minute trick up their sleeve—

Your head jerks back to face the team as Emily clears her throat pointedly. You just manage not to blush at her arched brow. Sometimes Derek does make a lewd enough comment that you have to cover your face, but you’re getting better at keep your poise.

“Well,” you say fussily, adjusting your coat over your arm, “I guess I’ll head out. Don’t do drugs, stay in school, all that good stuff.”

“We never get to do anything fun,” Derek mock groans even as he shoots you a wink. You wave at both of them as Spencer and JJ escort you—like you’d be stupid enough to bolt for your desk—to the doors.

“Have fun, use protection!” JJ chirps as she releases you to the elevator with a little push. Spencer’s cheeks flush as he coughs into his fist. You’re sure your face isn’t much better.

So much for getting better at handling it.

You close your eyes at the soft chime of the elevator floors. You’re exhausted. But happy. It lingers at the corners of your mouth and in your heart as you pull out your phone.

yours or mine? You type out. Hotch’s response comes in seconds.

Yours. I’ll bring dinner.

He’s true to his word; the spare key’s jiggling the lock just as you emerge from the bathroom while toweling your damp hair. You can tell from the bag that it’s from that Thai place two blocks away that you like.

“You’re really good at that,” you mumble as Hotch bends down to catch your mouth in a light kiss. “Knowing what I want for dinner.” Your grip slips against his tie and the kiss deepens as he licks hungrily into your mouth. It takes a few seconds to find the thread of the conversation once he’s pulled away. “Do…do I have a tell or something?”

“That’s classified.” His thumb presses playfully to your chin. Though, there’s a light flush dusting the bridge of his nose that makes you grin; he’s not always as suave as he makes himself out to be.

Hotch sheds his jacket and tie as you grab utensils, the two of you sprawling out on the couch to pick at your dinner. You’re halfway through your pad see ew before you decide you’ve had enough, depositing it on the coffee table and tipping over to lean heavy against his shoulder.

“Giving up?” He asks around a mouthful of curry.

“Maybe.” You stretch over to peck the arch of his cheek. “Probably.”

“Is that so?”

You hum, pushing into his space to kiss him. You pay for it immediately—his lips are spicy.

Hotch laughs at your pinched expression, putting his food down and taking a few sips of water before cupping your face in one hand and kissing you again, harder and deeper. His fingers drag back to tighten deliciously in your hair. There’s still a burn to his mouth, but it fades into something pleasant by the time you have Hotch flat on his back, your mouth dragging down his palm as you grind down idly in slow circles of your hips.

“Wanna bend me over the couch?” You murmur, teeth scraping against the scent gland in his wrist. Hotch lets out a rough laugh that has a shiver pressing down your spine.

“I’m not 25 anymore,” he scoffs, though the sudden influx of his scent curling against your nose indicates he’s more interested than he’s letting on. You huff out a laugh, ducking down to lick teasingly at the gland in his throat. Sandalwood fills your mouth, hot and heavy as you drag you tongue hard against it twice more before his hips are bucking up against your weight, head tipping back as he groans.

“I dunno,” you murmur, pushing kisses up to the underside of his jaw, “I think you could figure something out.”

“Maybe I have something else in mind.” Hotch props himself up on his elbows, nudging you back until he’s sitting up. You don’t have the chance to ask what it is he has in mind before his hands are bracing under your thighs and lifting you up.

You yelp, legs clamping instinctively around his waist as he carries you towards your bedroom and okay, you’re more than a little breathless at his casual display of strength as you tease, “Should I tell Rossi you’re actually lifting with your back now?”

“I think you shouldn’t talk about Dave at all while I’m trying to fuck you,” he says lowly before he tips you over onto your bed. You eagerly tug your shirt and shorts off as Hotch crawls forward, reaching out to kiss him frantically as your fingers fumble over the buttons of his shirt.

The AC broke at the office a few weeks back and Hotch ended up wearing polo shirts for three days straight; you’re still deciding what you liked better, how those short sleeves stretched over his biceps when he crossed his arms or how easy it was to take the polos off of him at the end of the day. You’re saved from having to decide in your head because you finally get all the buttons undone and Hotch pushes his shirt off before pulling his undershirt off by the collar.

You’re once again torn. Part of you wants to keep watching him strip, but more of you wants to keep your gaze glued to the shape of your teeth imprinted into skin, right where his neck and shoulder meet. He’s always so put-together with his pressed suits and stern tone that half the time you’re with him, you forget that he carries your bite mark under his collar. It makes something in you burn bright as you lean forward to press your lips to the puckered skin.

Hotch shudders. His hands settle at your waist, pulling you to roll on top of him. You blink down at him, hands bracing by his head as you lean in to brush a kiss to his mouth.

“Yeah?” you breathe against his teeth. He nods. You reach over to dig in your bedside drawer for lube, quickly coating your fingers and lifting yourself on your knees before pressing into yourself almost impatiently. You can tell by the weight of Hotch’s gaze that he’d much rather be using his tongue to open you up, but you don’t want to get distracted. And that’s what Hotch’s mouth is—distracting.

It takes three fingers—and a few judicious pumps of his cock in your slick grip—to feel ready. You don’t normally ride him; it’s hard on your bad knee, but tonight there’s something sparking in the air, something that makes you want to feel that tight burn between your legs as Hotch pulls down you slowly onto his cock. It’s good. It’s so fucking good. You bite your tongue as you sink down on him, breath pushing harshly through your nose. Your gaze lists off to the side, eyes starting to close as you try to focus and—

You feel Hotch’s touch against your mouth. The pad of his thumb hooks behind your bottom teeth, pulling your mouth open.

“Look at me,” he says, the barest hint of a push to his words that has your gaze snapping to his face, your body clenching hard around enough around him that you bottom out. You both groan, Hotch’s hips tilting up as you curl over him, palm to his chest. His heart is racing. Your pulse pounds in sync with this, throbbing between your legs.

You lift yourself up shakily, holding yourself above him until you can’t take the emptiness anymore. Your body rocks back down, finding a rhythm that has Hotch gritting his teeth and grinding his head back against the pillow. His grip is punishingly tight against your hips, pulling you down against him as his hips try to thrust up and meet yours.

He doesn’t last long. He never does, when you’re on top. His nails dig into your skin, eyes squeezing shut as he moans. You can feel him filling you up, hot and wet inside you. The thought alone is enough to almost tip you over the edge.

“Aaron,” you murmur, stroking the sweat-damp line of his forehead as he starts to come down. Except his eyes are still dark and wild and it’s your fault for not expecting it, the way he rolls you over in one swift movement.

You hiss as you pulls out. And then you’re choking as Hotch presses three of his thick, broad fingers into you, spine curving as he bends to drag his teeth against your hip.

“Oh, fuck,” you hiss, tensing as his tongue pushes in alongside his fingers, wide knuckles pressing you open as his fingers flex apart. His tongue shoves in deeper and your hands twist in the sheets as the tension inside of you suddenly snaps.

Your hips push up desperately, thighs trying to close around Hotch’s head as you shake apart beneath him. Your body is just starting to relax into the endorphins when his arm presses down hard against your stomach. He pulls his fingers out slowly, though his tongue stays in. You can feel his thoughtful hum vibrating through you, almost too much because you just came and of course he’s going to push for another. Hotch’s never satisfied with one. For you, he always wants more.

“Aaron, Aaron, please,” you moan as he licks in long, broad strokes, thumbs prying you open so he can push deeper. Your hips stutter, trapped in his grip. You can feel yourself clenching hard around him, stomach twisting and legs shaking as he works you back up just to tip you over the edge again. The fall isn’t as hard this time, but Hotch knows how to draw it out; his fingers dig into his bite mark in your skin, rubbing hard at the divots his teeth left in you. You moan weakly, trembling weakly until his touch turns soothing. His palm cups your throat, thumb rubbing your cheek.

“Too much?”

“’s good,” you mumble, curling into him. Your nose presses into his neck. He smells good. Your brain feels like soup, and you blame it on that for how you whine plaintively when he starts to pull away.

“I’ll be right back.” You feel a kiss to your forehead, hear the brief splash of the sink before Hotch returns with a warm, wet cloth to clean you up. He crawls back in with you immediately and you toss your legs over his thighs as his palm rests against your stomach, spanning most of its width.

Your breathing slows enough to let your mind wander. It’s an idle sort of thought process, aimless as you stroke your thumb over Hotch’s bite mark. You think about the case, how you’re going to write it up on Monday, and next week’s team dinner and did the updated submission deadline include internal Bureau charges or is that due later next month for—

Oh. You’ve been meaning to talk to Hotch about something.

“I got an email the other day.”

“God forbid that happen at work,” Hotch murmurs. Something twinkles in his gaze as you squint up waspishly at him—but you don’t mean it and he knows it. The corner of his mouth twitches. “Go on, I’m listening. What was it about?”

“Cynthia wants to get together and catch up over coffee,” you say, watching him carefully. Hotch hums, still calmly focused on you as he drags his knuckles up and down your bare shoulder.

“That’s friendly of her.”

“Cynthia only ever suggests coffee after you and Weiling have had a meeting.”

Something flickers behind his gaze. You wouldn’t have caught it if you weren’t looking for it; now that you’ve seen it, you can feel something twist anxiously in your chest.

“What did he want from you?”

Hotch gives you a long look before he taps your arm. You lift yourself up, giving him enough room to push himself off the bed. You’re confused more than anything as you watch him bend down to tug his briefs back on and part of you starts to panic. You pried too deep, you said something wrong, the sex wasn’t good enough and Hotch is done, he’s going to—

You force yourself to shut your eyes. Breathe deep through your nose and out your mouth.

Calm down. Don’t assume, you need to ask, you need to—

Your eyes open at the gentle touch to your elbow. Hotch’s head tilts as he looks down at you.

“Nothing bad,” he says, holding out his dress shirt to you. “Just a clothes-on conversation.”

You prop yourself up and slip your hands into the oversized sleeves, pushing your nose into the starched collar and inhaling the familiar notes of smoke and sweat as you watch Hotch pull his undershirt back on. He sits down next to you, not as close as before—though, if you shifted forward just an inch, your knees could touch.

You stay where you are.

“It’s more of a question of what Weiling wants from you.” At the confusion on your face, he exhales softly through his nose. “There’s an open position in IOD, project administration into management. The listing is public but you know the Bureau prefers hiring internal when they can, and your name has been passed around as a strong candidate. I was planning to talk to you about position this week, but that was before the case.”

Oh.

“You’d start in D.C., but I imagine they’ll move you into the field quickly once they understand how well you can adapt. The position is a good fit for you.” His gaze is serious. “It’s a good opportunity for your career, an opportunity that the BAU can’t offer you.”

“I understand,” you say automatically, head spinning.

“You don’t have to decide now, but I would talk to Emily about it. You’d do well there.”

“Hotch—"

“You would,” he says firmly. “You’re sharp, focused, dedicated to your work, and diplomatic. You’d do well anywhere you wanted to be in the Bureau.”

It’s high praise from Hotch. Everything you always want to hear. Except like this…

You glance down, fiddling with the cuff of Hotch’s dress shirt as it slips over your knuckles.

“Can I…talk to my unit chief about this on Monday?”

Hotch’s eyes widen. “Yes, yes of course,” he says quickly, hand twitching against his thigh. “Whenever you’d like.”

“Okay.” You hold his gaze pointedly as you lie back down. The knot in your chest loosens as Hotch follows your lead, knees bumping against yours. You push closer, a shiver of satisfaction curling around you as you feel his palm rest over your hip, heat spreading over your skin even through his shirt.

“Hi,” you murmur, darting forward to peck at his lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“No, you couldn’t have known.” He ducks closer to kiss you back, drawing it out a little longer. “That’s on me, I should have waited to tell you, but it’s always—”

He exhales hard, eyes squeezing shut for a moment. And you get it, you really do; not bringing work home is an impossible task. You both try your best but it inevitably bleeds through the cracks, sometimes more. Like two weeks ago, when Hotch’s cell rang late in the evening and he’d actually answered with his cock still buried deep in you—though, you were the one that had handed him his phone and then gestured impatiently for him to answer it, so really, you’re both just as bad as each other.

You give Hotch a smile. “Weiling never asks for anything easy, does he?”

Hotch huffs out a laugh, teeth flashing in the low light. “No. No, he does not.” His hand drags up to cup the side of your neck, fingers rubbing against his bitemark. You close your eyes and let yourself relax into his touch.

“Aaron. Can I tell you something?”

His touch doesn’t waver. “I’m here.”

It’s the weight of his hand against your skin and the firm but simple assurance of his words that holds you down as you think because this is the kind of opportunity you dreamed of when you first joined the Bureau. Your fingers urge with the itch to seize this with both hands before it all slips away; a chance at a new job, a new life, traveling the world and maybe finding a place that you can finally call home.

Except…except you have that, don’t you?

You have a job you excel at, even when it challenges you to your limits. You have a team you care deeply about, that you would do nearly anything for. You have an apartment you’ve made yours and a fantastic café just next door that you’ve become such a frequent patron of that your order already ready by the time you’re reaching for your wallet to pay.

You have people you love. And people who love you right back.

You open your eyes. You feel Hotch’s gaze on you before you see it, warm and patient. And you know, deep down, that IOD will just have to do without you. You’ll talk to Cynthia and to Emily—and maybe even Weiling, if it comes down to it—but later. Monday will come soon enough. For now…

“I want to stay with the BAU.” You just barely bite back the “if that’s alright” that your mind wants to add, except it doesn’t even matter because you can see the relief in Hotch’s expression, the way his shoulders fall slack as he leans in close.

“That’s good,” he murmurs against your lips before slotting them between his, a kiss that burns deeper as he presses closer and licks into your mouth. He doesn’t have to say more; you honestly aren’t expecting him to say more because Aaron Hotchner can be a man of few words when he wants to be, but he pulls back with a slick noise, lips brushing against yours as he says, “I’m glad. I want you to stay.”

You still haven’t gotten used to hearing it.

I want you here. Stay with me. I love you.

You hope you never get used to.

“’m gonna tell Weiling you said that,” you mumble as you duck down to press your face into his neck. Spice and smoke fill your nose as Hotch’s laugh rumbles through your body, warm and comforting.

And in that moment, you know as easy as breathing that you’re finally home.

Notes:

Hold the heye weye, and lat thi gost the lede;
And trouthe shal delyvere, it is no drede.

 

Hold the high way, and let your spirit steer,
And truth shall deliver you, have no fear.