Work Text:
He takes a bullet to the shoulder in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s little more than a graze. A barely-there groove carved along the curve of his muscle that aches only as far as ibuprofen can reach. It’s nothing. A blip.
Spencer’s breath is scorching on it. Burn-hot. A veritable sun and Aaron has called him that once or twice—Sunshine when Spencer is moody or clueless or cute or efferfuckingvescent—but the heat verges on too much tonight.
“Tell me what you did wrong,” Aaron murmurs.
“I didn’t follow through,” Spencer whispers. “But I—”
“No.”
Aaron took a bullet to the shoulder in Omaha, Nebraska because the alternative was another dead kid. He’s haunted by enough ghosts. Spencer Reid haunts him as it is.
“Doubt will kill you before an UnSub ever has the chance,” Aaron says.
Spencer ducks his head. “Doubt will kill for me.”
Aaron lifts him by the chin. He tuts at the raw rise of Spencer’s brow, scraped when he hit the pavement. He swipes a spot of gravel off of flushed skin.
“I killed for you,” he says.
“Because you knew I’d miss the shot,” Spencer says.
“Is that what happened?”
Spencer shrugs. “Yes. No. You— I knew I’d miss the shot.”
“And so you did. The blood is on my hands, now.”
“You prefer it that way. It’s…cleaner.”
A bead of plasma trickles down the meat of Aaron’s arm. The scald of it is a bit like anger. He grunts at the rough catch of gauze against his cut. Presses his hand on the back of Spencer’s until their palms are layered flat over the wound.
“Does this feel clean to you?” Aaron says.
Spencer shivers. “They’ll take away my gun.”
“If you can’t make the shot, you shouldn’t have a gun.”
“If I can’t have a gun, I shouldn’t be in the field,” Spencer says.
“I‘m not taking you out of the field. I’ll keep you safe.”
“You can’t promise me safety.”
“Watch me,” Aaron says.
***
He takes a knife to the forearm in Knoxville, Tennessee. The laceration is textbook defensive. Deep-set over bone. He waves off stitches in favor of butterfly closures and he pulls Spencer’s hair when the kid dabs butterfly kisses around it in the precinct bathroom.
“Stop,” he mutters.
“Does it hurt?” Spencer says.
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
Aaron scoffs. “Where were you looking?” He scratches his nails against Spencer’s scalp. Digs them in. “I told you to stay alert. I told you to watch the shadows. I told you—”
“I was looking at you,” Spencer says softly.
“Don’t. You need to be more aware of your surroundings. It’s dangerous, Reid.”
“You’re dangerous. You subdued the UnSub with his own blade.”
Aaron’s heart stutters. It shocks itself back into a steady tattoo. Lub-dub, lub-dub, fifty beats per minute. A killer’s rhythm. A rotten part of him preens.
“I was doing my job,” he says.
A whetted smile cuts itself across Spencer’s lips. He drags Aaron’s arm up by the wrist. Kisses the corner of the canyon dug into his flesh, and flashes his teeth.
“The people we hunt,” he says. “They’re scared of you, Hotch.”
“Does that scare you?” Aaron says.
“Sometimes.”
Aaron hums. “But not always.”
“Not always, no.”
The locked door rattles. Spencer peels out of his orbit. Aaron tugs his ruined sleeve down, and he washes his hands until the water runs clear.
***
He takes a knee to the chin in Hartford, Connecticut. His head drones like a well-rung bell. He’s splitting with it. Breathing in through his mouth and hissing out of his nose. He spits pink-frothed blood on the pavement and grinds it in with his heel.
The hand he folds around Reid’s waist is proprietary. He knows. He leans on his elbow in the back of the ambulance, left arm locked in front of him to keep Spencer near and far, and he feels like he’s cast them as unwitting subjects of a Leyendecker painting.
“Tell me what you did wrong,” Spencer says.
Aaron snorts. Groans. “Ask me again when there’s only one of you.”
“I’m calling the paramedic back. Double-vision is a classic sign of traumatic brain injury, and—”
“I was kidding,” Aaron says. “Kind of. I’ll be fine.”
Spencer jostles the ice pack against Aaron’s blooming bruise. He mutters a sweet, fake apology. He reeks of frustration. Aaron pinches his hip.
“Go on, then,” Aaron says. “Tell me what I did wrong.”
“You hesitated,” Spencer says.
“Why did I do that?”
“You thought I blocked your shot. You could have taken it. You wouldn’t have hit me.”
Aaron shakes his head. “Do you really think I’d take that chance?”
“You should have,” Spencer says. “You would have spared yourself a lot of pain.”
“No,” Aaron says simply. “I hope you never have to learn how to live with the kind of pain that would create.”
***
He takes a knuckle to the brow in Lansing, Michigan. It’s a bleeder, and he blinks and blinks and blinks but the whole world’s gone red.
“He wasn’t worth the trouble,” Reid says tersely. “If Strauss hears that you started a fight with a local LEO...”
Aaron scowls. “He called you a—”
“I’ve been called worse. You’ve called me worse.”
“When have I ever called you anything close to a prissy little cocksucker?” Aaron snaps.
“You’ve called me your friend,” Reid says.
Aaron flinches. Slapped, and his ego has been chafed enough for one day. He drops his chin in Spencer’s palm. Winces at the cloying antiseptic stinging his eye.
“You are my friend,” he says.
Spencer huffs. “Haley won’t be happy,” he says flatly. “It’ll scar.”
“You’re upset with me.”
“It’s bad enough that I have to hide behind you. I don’t need you fighting my battles, too.”
“I know you don’t,” Aaron says. “You can’t expect me to sit there and do nothing, though. You don’t deserve the abuse.”
Spencer’s lip twists. A half-snarl caught on half-bared teeth.
“Do you know what else they call me?” he says. “No matter where we go, they call me—”
“Daddy’s boy,” Aaron says. It curls low in his belly. He looks away.
“Whose fault is that?”
“I’m only trying to protect you.”
“I’m not a kid,” Spencer spits. “I’m not helpless. I’m not your boy.”
“I promised you I’d keep you safe,” Aaron says quietly. “You have to let me.”
“I really don’t, Hotch.”
Aaron hooks his foot around the leg of Spencer’s chair. Reels him in. They’re on the wrong side of a one-way mirror to risk sitting so close. It is Aaron’s fault. Everything is.
“Let me keep you safe, Sunshine,” he murmurs.
Spencer sighs. His fingerprints feel like a brand on the throbbing skin of Aaron’s jaw.
“Please,” Aaron says.
“Who’s going to keep me safe from you?” Spencer whispers.
***
He takes a boot to the gut in Tallahassee, Florida and he takes an elbow to the spine in Raleigh, North Carolina and he takes a wire to the neck in Dallas, Texas and—
“What are you trying to prove?” Spencer says.
“I don’t know,” Aaron says. It’s almost honest.
He strangles a scream in the back of his throat. Glares at the doctor testing the range of motion in his newly set shoulder. Spencer trails his fingers across the wrist of his uninjured arm and Aaron softens, tamed.
“Did I push you too hard?” Aaron says.
“You always push me too hard,” Spencer says.
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant. I only bruised my knee when I fell. I’ll live.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” Aaron says.
Spencer laughs. “You’re such a child, sometimes. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself.”
“This would have happened even if you had a gun. We were ambushed. Blaming yourself won’t get you anywhere.”
He splays his fingers out. Waits for Spencer to slot his own through them, and squeezes his hand.
“The only times you touch me are after you almost died,” Spencer says quietly.
“I know,” Aaron says.
“Can you always feel it, or do you ever get a break?”
Aaron blinks.
“The blood on your hands,” Spencer says, tracing the tendons wrapped over Aaron’s knuckles. “Can you always feel it? Is that why you don’t touch me?”
Aaron pushes himself up on the gurney. He scrunches the blanket down to his waist, goosebumps flitting over his chest.
“Look,” he says. “This,”—he points to a broken-bottle gash along his hipbone—”is from a serial rapist in Kentucky. This,”—he stretches the skin of his rib cage, showing a set of barbed-wire wounds—“is from a foot chase in New Hampshire. This,”—he flexes his arm until the overhead light shimmers on scar tissue mottling his bicep—“is from a political arsonist in Minnesota.”
Spencer’s eyes are glazed when Aaron tilts his head back. Aaron lays the pad of his thumb on the side of Spencer’s lower lip.
“What’s this one from?” Aaron says.
Spencer sighs. “Lenny Richards. He threw a brick at my face in gym class.”
“Where’s Lenny now?”
“I don’t know.” Spencer fidgets. Clears his throat. “Wall Street.”
“You still think about him,” Aaron says. “You’ve been hurt enough. You don’t need to carry any more scars.”
Spencer huffs. “You’re a patchwork quilt, Aaron. I don’t want to be the story in your skin.”
“Yes, you do. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to a claim.”
“Because you won’t cheat on your wife,” Spencer says.
“Right.”
He already has, in his own way. Severed a piece of himself to serve up on a tarnished platter, feeding a kid who wouldn’t know common sense if he bit straight into it. All Haley knows is that he’s being reckless. She doesn’t understand that he’s never had more to lose.
“You’re fracturing,” Spencer says. “Your scars are fault lines.”
“My scars are proof,” Aaron says.
“Of what?”
“That I’m alive. That you’re alive.”
“Where’s my proof?”
Aaron rests their joined hands on his stomach. The pulse of his aorta judders them up and down, up and down.
“Is that good enough for you?” he says.
“For now,” Spencer murmurs.
***
Spencer takes a rifle-stock to the cheek in Des Plains, Illinois. He takes a shot, and he makes it. Aaron takes a deep breath and he takes Spencer’s wrist and he leads him into a quiet exam room away from the hostage team. He’s inside-out.
“I hurt you,” he says. It sounds distant to his own ears.
“You did,” Spencer says. “And I kept you safe.”
Aaron nabs a cotton round off of the counter. He walks Spencer back until the kid hops up on the surface. Scrubs tacky blood off of his skin, too brusquely if Spencer’s grimace is anything to go by.
“You did well,” Aaron says. “I’m proud of you.”
Spencer hums. “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not true. I always do something wrong.”
Aaron raises a shoulder. “You protected me. That’s all I need to know.” He lifts the hems of Spencer’s tops. Spreads his palm over the quiver of his battered belly. “How bad is it?”
“It’s better than dying,” Spencer says.
“Is it better than killing?”
Spencer smiles, mouth skewed down. “My hands aren’t clean anymore.”
“They haven’t been for a long time,” Aaron says. “Doubt couldn’t kill for you forever, Sunshine.”
“No. No, I suppose he couldn’t.”
Aaron presses a kiss to his temple. Presses his sidearm into his hand, and says, “You’ve more than earned it.”
“Does that mean…”
“You don’t have to hide behind me, now.”
Spencer checks the safety. Tucks the pistol in his pocket, swinging his legs.
“What if I want to?” he says quietly.
“People will talk,” Aaron drawls.
Spencer laughs. “They’re not wrong, though, are they?”
“No. But you and I can never be more than this.”
“Okay,” Spencer says. “Just…promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?” Aaron says.
“Promise me you’ll let me keep you safe.”
Aaron huffs. “You can’t promise me safety.”
“Watch me,” Spencer says.