OMG I NEED MORE - Blog Posts
forever is the sweetest con: chapter one
Chapter One: Genesis
A/N: hello there. glad to have you. I've got this posted on Ao3 already, but I've decided to crosspost here. Here we go.
Summary:
If asked now, he’d see it clearly. Where it started, how it started, and why. It all comes back to Tobias Hankel.
OR
Hotch/Reid through the years and what happens when things are left unsaid.
~000~
If asked now, he’d say it was obvious. Where things were going- where they’d always been going since that day in February, when the sharp chill of the Georgia air hardly touched the team when compared to the way fear turned their blood to ice in their veins.
In Aaron Hotchner’s veins, when the call came in.
JJ was gone, no one could reach her.
And Reid- Spencer- was gone, still, when they did eventually find her.
If asked now, he’d see it clearly. Where it started, how it started, and why.
It all comes back to Tobias Hankel.
“I choose-” He watched on in desperate fear, eyes never leaving the screen. He couldn’t bring himself to move, to look away, to close his eyes when he knew any second how that trigger could be pulled and Spencer Reid would disappear in front of him. “I choose Aaron Hotchner.”
All eyes turned to him, but he remained frozen. He heard the sharp intake of breath from his left, felt JJ’s eyes slide over his expression. His face remained neutral, schooled thanks to years in this role. He, despite what Reid might say, had the best poker face of them all.
“He’s a classic narcissist.” Hotch watched intently as Reid continued, looking for any slight of hand, any tell Reid could be giving. It was a message, and he knew that. He just needed the cipher. Come on, Reid, he thought. I need more than that. You’ve got to give me more than that.
“He thinks he’s better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4-” He burned the words into his memory. He needed to remember that, he knew it. He knew Reid. “Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, falseness, vanity, and futility. For these shall be his recompense-”
Thank you, Reid, his eyes finally, finally slid shut as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Thank you.
He turned on his heel, exiting the room. Out in the living room of that old, dank house, Hotch retrieved the bible left on the side table.
“I’m not a narcissist-” He started, ready to start translating Reid’s message.
“Come on, Aaron, you can’t take anything he said personally-”
“No, Gideon, stop, stop-” He snapped, frustrated. That’s not the point, how do you not get it? His mind raced, and he briefly wondered if this was how Reid felt every moment of the day. “Everybody right now, what’s my worst quality?”
The team stared at him blankly, and the wild streak of anger and impatience he worked so hard to control flared again. That’s not the fucking point, he wanted to scream at them. It’s right in front of you and you’re all missing it. “Stop worrying about hurting my fucking feelings- tell me, now. My worst quality. I’ll start. I have no sense of humor. Prentiss?”
“You trust men more than women.”
“Okay, JJ?”
“You’re a bully.”
“Alright, I’m a bully. Morgan, go.”
“You can be a drill sergeant sometimes.”
“Good, I’m all of those things,” And he was, he wasn’t blind to his own faults. Everything they had said was true, but- “Yet, none of you said I put myself above the team because I don’t. Ever.” Still, they didn’t get it, and he groaned in frustration. “Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism on the way here. He knew that I would remember that.”
“Hotch, we know you’re not a narcissist, man-”
“That’s not the point.” He finally snapped. “That’s not the fucking point, listen-” He looked up and finally, finally, he had their attention. “He quoted it wrong. Genesis chapter 23, verse 4, look-” He lifted the scripture into the light and read the correct quotation aloud. “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you, give me property for a burial place among you, that I might bury my dead out of my sight.” It registered with Gideon first, and Aaron could breathe a bit easier. “He wouldn’t get it wrong unless it was on purpose.” He insisted, holding eye contact. “He wouldn’t.”
“He’s in a cemetery.” Morgan muttered, and now Hotch could take a real breath.
The rest moved quickly. He did it, he found Reid, they were there and he just had to find where in the cemetery-
Then the shot rang out from just over the hill Aaron’s own two feet were standing on, and everything slowed down again as he ran towards it. “Reid!” He shouted. “Spencer!”
Not like this. Please, just not like this.
“Hotch?!” He doesn’t remember getting there. He doesn’t remember his path from the top of the hill down to the bottom, or who was following in his wake. He just remembers the relief flooding his chest as he pulled Spencer Reid off the earth and into his arms.
“You okay?” He muttered, one hand wrapped firmly around Reid’s waist while the other cradled his head.
“I knew you’d understand.” Spencer choked on a sob and tightened his hold, tears staining the collar of Hotch’s shirt. “I knew you’d understand.”
And so it began.