Chapter Text
Being on the team has very few perks. The occasional grateful family that sends them home with snacks. A letter from a victim personally thanking them or even just a simple healthy-looking picture. At the end of the day, they sacrifice more than they ever get back. Nightmares haunt their dreams. Their free time is still dedicated to the job. They call it casualties of the job but it is so much more than that.
It’s like an inside joke. Anything they don’t want to talk about, any side effects of their job they just write off as ‘casualty of the job’. It’s painfully normal to them. Which is in no way shape or form, a good thing.
“Truth or dare?”
Emily contains her snicker for the sheer purpose of the pained groan coming from Hotch. It’s discernible but overall she imagines he’s not delighted with the situation. Looking over at him, she sees the highlighter pink bandage across his forehead. “Any particular reason for the...?” She points to the bandaid.
Garcia looks disappointed, upset that no one’s biting. “Come on, guys. Truth or dare?”
Rather than address her question, Hotch clears his throat in a manner that is to get attention and not remove something from his airway. “This isn’t a sleepover,” his gaze drifts to Garcia, that little parental glare in place. A clear indication he means what he’s saying and he has to look stern but he’s in no way mad. He sighs, rubbing on the opposite temple as the band-aide.
“Headache?” Emily asks, settling herself beside him.
They seem to get off of one case, only to be put onto another. Yesterday was their day off. Today he came into the office at 8:30. A little behind schedule but still ahead of all the others in terms of getting in. JJ gave him a case file and sent him on his way. It’s 12:56 now and they’re sitting in a quarantine room all of them having been exposed to a deadly disease that has neither a name, a cure, or even an explanation of how they were exposed.
Hotch sighs, deeply. He keeps rubbing, digging his thumb into his skin. “At this point,” he glances at her out of the corner of his eye. He shakes his head, closing his eyes. “We’re quarantined to this room.” He grumbles, “ we could die and they want to play truth or dare.”
Emily laughs softly, watching Morgan pick ‘dare’. She has no idea what he’ll do, they’re in a rather small room and surrounded by concrete walls. She has a sneaking suspension, he’ll end up licking the wall. “Let them have their fun,” she chides. “How frequently do we all just get to hang-out?” She can think of two times, once at Rossi’s and once before Hotch’s divorce. “I mean, I was starting to think I was going to have to die again to get you guys together.”
He shakes his head and silences a grimace but she catches how his eyes squint. He keeps her on her toes. There’s nothing as challenging as figuring out what's going on in his head. Admittedly, he is not the person she should have tested that joke on but at the very least he should have shot her a disapproving frown. “Are you sure you’re okay, Hotch?” She places a hand on his back and he doesn’t shrug it away. That’s by no means a good thing. Worry now creeping in, she’s glad the others are distracted with entertaining themselves, Garcia and Morgan their main entertainers.
Hotch presses his palm to his forehead, the other coming over to protect his left ear. “I’m fine,” he grunts. Seeing Emily’s concern he offers her a small explanation. If he doesn’t shut her down, she’ll get the others involved. Locked in this cement block with nowhere to run he’s adamant to let her continue on. “I was trying to fix the sink in the kitchen the night before last.” He looks at her again, knowing she’ll derive some sick joy out of what he’s about to tell her. “Jack, he was trying to help, but he-he dropped a wrench on my…”
Emily’s eyes go wide, her hand coming over her mouth to poorly hide her smile. “No,” she mumbles around it.
He nods sullenly. “Yeah,” he sighs. “So, I sat up and I hit my head on the pipe.” He looks down at his lap, “scared Jack pretty good.” For some reason, he dares a small smile her way. Even telling her, “we both cried.” It does nothing to ease the pain in his skull of throb in his ear. Something about the way she looks at him helps though. Emily’s never overly sympathetic. Her touch never comes out of nowhere. She’s predictable in a way he finds familiar. When she knocks shoulders with him or sits down beside him he doesn’t even think anything of it.
She offers a short chuckle at his expense, “does that explain the bandaid?”
He touches it, nearly having forgotten its existence. “Jack,” he explains, recalling his son’s fat tears. Lap still very sore, he held Jack to his chest until they both were done crying. Then, riddled with his father’s guilt complex Jack cried again when he saw the blood running down the side of his face. Which is why he was sent to work today with a little pink bandaid.
Jack sent him with one the day before, this one neon green. He took it off in the car but by the time he got home he forgot about it. Jack was very upset with him for not keeping it on. “Daddy, your scratch won’t get better if you don’t take care of it.” Then hit him with the “Are you mad at me?”. So, today he caved rather than come home and be confronted with another round of Jack’s tears.
Emily nods in understanding and he has no doubt that she really does. Jack is almost too much like him for his own good and, yet, nothing like him. Emily derives great joy from this fact. While Hotch only gets emotional when he’s high out of his mind on morphine (which was strictly on one occasion but she refuses to let it go), Jack will tell her anything she wants to know. It can be about Hotch or Jack’s day, everything is acceptable for him.
“He’s got you wrapped around his finger,” Emily taunts. She knocks her shoulder against his, chuckling at his expense. She’s seen Jack’s little games in person. The way he hits Hotch with those sad little eyes, asking for a cookie or five more minutes before bedtime. Hotch is a sucker, at the end of the day. “You’re a sucker.”
He doesn’t offer a rebuttal or even an acknowledgment, his fingers just keep running back over his forehead, rubbing creases away.
“Agents?” The window of the door slides open, Strauss standing just outside. She looks them all over, able to see the entire room. “I assume you understand the circumstances at hand?” Arms crossed, frowning, there’s a distinct impression she doesn’t care all that much. In all fairness, if they die, it takes out Hotch. That’s a lot of her problems right out the window.
College-educated, FBI filtered and educated, they understand the simplicity of what is at hand. Reid had Anthrax, so considering their luck a very dangerous airborne, nameless toxin doesn’t seem that bad. Certainly, not as bad as Anthrax. None of them even have symptoms.
Rising to his feet, Hotch goes to the window. “We’ve been briefed,” he confirms. “We gave a blood sample and had our temperatures taken less than an hour ago.” He crosses his arms, he’s got a headache and he wants to get out of here. “The results of those tests should have come back by now.” He wants to go home to his tired elementary schooler. Be whined at until he caves because they’re both in a bad mood and screw it, why not just eat macaroni and hot dogs for the third night?
The worst part might actually be that macaroni and hot dogs sound really good right now.
“Actually, they have Agent Hotchner.” She sighs and although he can’t really hear it, he really doesn’t like the sound of that. To her credit, she looks displeased. “David, Ms. Garcia, Agent Jareau, Derek, and Dr. Reid,” her eyes fall on them and Hotch’s stomach forms knots. He already knows what she’s going to say. “You’re to be escorted to another room, isolated for another four hours, and if all remains steady released.”
It’s Garcia, in the noise of the other’s chattering excitedly, that realizes two names have been left off their list. “W-Wait,” she turns a pair of teary eyes to Hotch and Emily. Their forced smiles make her stomach hurt and she can already hear their reassuring words long before they even attempt to soothe her. “What about- What about Em’ and Boss Man?” She looks back to Strauss, “we can’t leave them!”
The worst part, the casualty to the job, is that it’s not hard to fall right into place. Vocalizing what needs to be done.
“Baby Girl,” Morgan’s already talking Garcia down, providing a distraction so she can be whisked away with the rest of them.
Rossi nods his head to Hotch, solemn. “I’ll pick Jack up from Jessica’s when this is all over,” he promises. “I’ll tell him you’re at a conference.” His smile to Emily makes the room feel light, “you mind if I take the kid with me to feed Sergio?”
Hotch offers a tight smile and Emily bumps her shoulder against his. Jack loves Sergio. “They’ll both love it,” and she’s not sure if she’s attempting to offer Hotch some comfort or reassuring Rossi.
Just like that, they’ve run out of proper things to say. Rossi wants to pull them into a hug, apologize for the universe always seeming to make it these two when a cross must be bared. No words come out of their mouths, silent glances confirming and promising. Reid keeps looking between the floor and the pair of them. Whether it’s personal guilt for not being sick or craving their proximity while he’s ushered away. Emily winks and Hotch nods, dutifully Reid does as he’s told. Rossi’s left-hand trembles at his side, it’s an ‘I love you, guys’ and ‘take care of each other’ wrapped into a side-eye.
“Tell Jack-” the words won’t fall off his lips.
“He knows, son.” There’s something about the way that Rossi regards Hotch in this very second that makes Hotch’s stomach knot in unease. “He knows.”
Hotch can only hope his son truly does.