Biological Trigger (2/4)
Title: Biological Trigger (2/4)
Rating: NC-17
Genre and/or Pairing: Criminal Minds; Hotch/Reid
Warnings/Notes: set immediately post Corazon. Established relationship; angsty h/c fic. language. Sex.
Word Count: 2,958
Summary: To avoid what Reid fears the most, he just might have to give up the one thing he’s realized he desperately wants.
The slight rise in Hotch’s eyebrows didn’t give too much away. “I know they’re often brought on by severe stress. In some cases they can be a symptom of a brain tumor, although in general they’re not the only symptom for that condition.”
“All true, but not as relevant as the fact that experiencing sudden migraines is a key symptom of the onset of schizophrenia.” His words tumbled out all over each other, a breathless jumble and still it didn’t make the saying of it out loud any less terrifying. His pulse raced, hard enough that if Hotch slid his hands a little farther down he’d have felt it against his fingers.
Nothing in Hotch’s eyes looked surprised and really, why should he? He was a profiler. He might not know as much as Spencer did about schizophrenia but he certainly knew more than enough for this.
When he spoke it was soft and measured, not too far from the pitch reserved for frightened victims and delusional unsubs. “With the stress our work involves, migraines aren’t surprising. There are still times you don’t sleep well and combined with the long hours we work and the things we see, stress related migraines-“
“Might seem the most likely, if I was older and my mother wasn’t a known paranoid schizophrenic.” He took a deep breath, fuel to try and spit the rest out. “I’m distracted, Hotch. I find it hard to keep myself focused and you’re right that I’m not sleeping well and I had an appointment with a neurologist today and he confirmed that there is no physical source for these headaches. He said they’re psychosomatic.”
When he was a teenager, he’d been sure this day would never come. He could remember it so well still, his sixteen year old self sprawled on his bedroom floor with his genetics book propped up against his shoes as he read. If he carried the gene, it still wouldn’t matter. He’d save her in plenty of time to save himself.
“Based on the word of the first and only doctor you’ve seen for this, you’re going to diagnose yourself with schizophrenia?” Worse than the outward cool of the words was the question under it, the current of hurt he’d felt in the way Hotch’s fingers tightened when he’d mentioned the doctor. Months ago, with the a ache in his knee soothing under Hotch’s knowing fingers, they’d promised that next time, next time neither of them would be in the ER alone. Technically, he hadn’t broken his word.
Agitated, Spencer pulled away so he could pace, could let himself think away from the distraction of Hotch’s touch. Hotch fought it just enough to prove he wasn’t letting go of his own free will, but just like always his grip loosened to let him pull away. In even that his mind betrayed him, his damned curse of forever making connections pushing memories to the front of his mind. They were making love, Aaron’s left hand snaking around both his wrists to hold on tight right up until the moment saw the flash of fear in Spencer’s eyes. It stopped him cold, and he drew his hand away like he’d been scalded, though almost as quick it was wrapping around the back of his head to hold him close.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just, Raphael-
Don’t apologize to me for this. Broken and rough, almost harsh but then- I’m sorry, Spencer; I wasn’t thinking. Since, he’d held him a hundred ways but he’d never fully restrained him, just like he’d never settled himself across Aaron’s hips as they lay in bed, never given him reason to see Foyet and the glint of the knife and remember how it felt to almost bleed out in a place he should’ve been safe.
The memories themselves were their own kind of rush, and at the swarm behind his eyes Spencer wanted nothing more than to grab the nearest object and put it through the kitchen window. They fit, him and Aaron and Jack; they fit so well it hurt and the thought of having actually had it all and facing down this…
If the disorder doesn’t institutionalize him(and if he’s got it, odds are it will), the loss will finish him off, no doubt.
“I’m not saying I didn’t want-or that I don’t want-” Spencer scrubbed his fingers though his hair hard, swallowed around a tongue that tasted like lead. “But I just, I can’t. I can’t do this anymore, Aaron. When I look at myself and I look at the odds, it seems increasingly likely these headaches are just symptoms of my early stages as a schizophrenic. If it’s going to happen…”
If it was going to happen, if he was going to make it through this conversation the way he needed to, he honestly hoped it took his memory right along with it as soon as possible. All alone in some Godforsaken hospital, he didn’t need to spend his days remembering what all this had felt like, love and family and the way he’d never felt more at home in his life than he had just weeks ago. Hotch’s arm had been slung easily over his shoulders on Rossi’s couch, the room full of everyone in the world they trusted. No, no if he had no choice but to leave, that wasn’t something he wanted to remember.
“I may not have a choice in what happens to me, but I won’t put that on anyone else. I can’t do that to you, Aaron, and I won’t-” Goddamn his voice, all the cracks and shudders it never let him hide. “I know what it’s like to grow up with a parent like that, and I won’t do that to Jack; I just won’t.”
Standing across from him, he could see it so well, Aaron’s transition from worried lover to unreadable mask. Everything about him shifted, from his frame all the way to those eyes Spencer loved so well. Like that, even Spencer had a hard time squinting through the cracks in the wall for the glimpses of Aaron Hotchner behind it.
“So this is your backup plan. Your mother worked right through her diagnosis, fought for her life and everything she loved for as long as she possibly could. You decide to do the exact opposite; you hear a hint of a possible diagnosis and you decide to give it all up, the job you love, the people you love, just on the chance that you might forget them.”
There was something maddening about the matter of fact tone of it, the way it rolled off his tongue just like any other profile. His only give away was the tiniest flicker of pain as he held Spencer’s gaze, and even then it was gone as soon as Spencer blinked. Every time, Spencer was always the blinker.
“it’s not like that; it’s not about me it’s-”
“isn’t it? You made the decision alone, you consider only your personal opinion, and beyond that, you pick a road undeniably similar to the one chosen by your own father.”
As a scholar, he had always assumed the phrase “the words hit like a punch” to be unrealistically dramatic. In that moment, though, he could properly understand. It knocked the wind out of him, throat clenching around silence before he unglued it enough to mutter what he felt like yelling.
“Fuck you. You don’t-” Know how he felt about his father? No, that wasn’t quite right. “You have no right to-“
“I have every right!” After so long of Hotch clearly reigning it in, it almost felt good to be yelled at. Good but for the pounding in his head, at any rate. “And before you say it, I’ll give you another answer: I’ll stop profiling you when you tell me the whole truth. You tell yourself the truth. You make yourself look at what this is really about, and you accept the fact that no matter what happened before, I’m not your father.”
Even if Spencer had been able to properly scrape up something other than an instinctive denial to say to that, he didn’t get the time.
“I actually thought I’d managed to get this through to you already, but I’m not going anywhere. He walked out on you, and I know Gideon walked out after you’d already decided he was safe-“
Even now, years past it, sometimes Gideon’s name still had the power to make flinch. He mostly hid it in his motion, arms coming up to wrap protectively over his chest, fingers twitching against his arms.
“-but that’s not what I’m going to do, because you’re worth- I need you to listen to me.”
He was listening, really, even if he was also squeezing the life out of his arms and studying the floor. Hotch’s hands on his shoulders were warm, almost too hot even through the fabric of his shirt but he didn’t pull away.
“I love you, Spencer.” No matter how many times he said, from the first till now, it had an undeniable ring of truth.
“Even though love is often traditionally seen as an evolutionary advantage due to the protective instincts over mates and offspring it inspires, occasionally-“
The light shake of his shoulders rattled Spencer’s words to a stop.
“You saw me at my worst. God knows I deserved it, but you never gave up on me.”
“No, you didn’t.” He hadn’t meant to answer, but he couldn’t let that one go. Aaron might blame himself for the wreck he’d been after Foyet flayed his whole life open, but that was no ones fault but the Reaper’s. As long as he lived, he’d do everything he could to remind him of that.
“Tell me, did you ever think about walking away?”
Not even once; walking away wasn’t what he did, just something he’d gotten good at watching others do. There’d been a time he’d feared Aaron wouldn’t let him in close enough to help him heal, but he’d never once entertained the thought of giving up.
“That was diff-“
“And if you didn’t run from that, what makes you think I’d run from this? From a possibility that’s honestly only unfounded speculation?”
“It’s different, whether you choose to believe that or not. Of course I stayed with you, but you were, you were a mess, but you still knew me, you knew me and you trusted me and if this happens, you’ll be lucky if you get a few days a week I even know who the hell you are, much less trust you.”
“Then your refusal to trust me now is good practice.”
It hurt just enough to stall him, like salt rubbed into all the raw cracks and crevices of his pains. He trusted this man more than trusted any other, just like he had with a gun to his head and Hotch’s name falling disturbingly easy from his lips. He crossed his arms tighter across his chest, just tight enough to hurt.
“This has nothing to do with how much I trust you!”
“It’s got everything to do with it. Because if you trust me, Spencer…” Hotch’s fingers found his, rough and warm skin tangling with his own, lanky and cold. “If you trust me, then when I say we face this thing together if it happens, you’ll believe that no matter what your father did, no matter what everything else you know tells you I’ll probably do, I’ve made my choice. I chose you.”
It’s hard, loving a profiler. Harder, really, than it is to be one. Worst, perhaps, is both. He knows exactly how Hotch does it, knows everything he saw and picked apart to find the roots Spencer keeps diligently burying in his own mind. He was so young, so young and so worried and so afraid, and he’d watched his father walk away from his mother’s pain without even a last “I love you, Spencer” that he could pretend might theoretically have been true. It’s a cold weight beside him, something that’s shifted and melded over the years until its seemed to become a mathematical constant. He’s not worth trouble, not a little and certainly not a lot, but Hotch is standing there holding him like he could wait forever and he knows all Spencer’s dark sides, knows the dilaudid and his moods and his fears and the twitch he feels under his skin just then isn’t the urge for his drug of choice, it’s an urge to let himself be wrapped up by this one stabilizing force and never, ever let go.
He swallowed hard, wished suddenly that he’d drunk the whiskey when he’d had he chance. “Jack-” It was his last good card, the most solid one he held all along and still, it came out wrecked.
“Loves you, no matter what. You’re part of his life now, and whatever you may fear, you’re good at it. I know you love your mother, and I’ve listened to you tell me plenty of good memories. I know it was hard, what you went through, and you’re right that it was no life for a child but Spencer if it comes to that for you, we’ll be together. It’s nothing like it was for you. He won’t be alone…and I won’t let you be, unless you can honestly tell me it’s what you want.” Against Spencer’s hands, Hotch’s always felt so strong, so solid. Even the squeeze of his fingers did something funny to his breath. “So tell me now, are we a family? Or not? That’s the only question that matters.”
The only answer he should give was no. No, because no family was ever in need of a burden like he could easily become. No, because Jack should never have to think before he reached to hug him, to wonder what year it was that day or who else might be in the room. No, because God, Hotch deserved better. He’d been through more hell than most people could imagine and he deserved a life so much better than suffering for the love of an addiction prone potential schizophrenic. No. No, no, no, no, no; but finally, those tears he’d struggled with had taken advantage of his exhaustion. He couldn’t get it out, couldn’t manage anything but shuddering breaths that weren’t quite sobs and, dammit, it just made the pain worse. He wouldn’t have believed yesterday that it could even get worse. Too weak to protest, he found himself folded into Hotch’s arms and held tight against his chest.
With his head buried against Hotch’s neck, he breathed him in. A dozen memories fought for dominance, late nights in bed and the graveyard after Tobias and wrapped in a worn sweatshirt once at an NA meeting, the scent on his collar reminding him simultaneously of his three biggest reasons to stay clean: the man he loved, the boy he loved, and the job and family he loved. It was fascinating really, the brains response to scent. No other sense was so primal, so capable of instilling innate fear or comfort. His body responded, shifting into the source, arms unclenching from around himself so he could cling to Hotch hard enough that his fingers dug into his neck as he breathed in just a little deeper.
Hotch’s fingers carded through his ruffled hair, tangled there just tight enough to tuck his head in a little closer. “Talk to me.”
The low rumble of his voice felt so good like this, a warm vibration against his chest, and Spencer was talking in short breaths before he was even sure he could.
“We use scent so often in cognitive interviews because it’s so linked to memory, but it’s also one of the most powerful biological triggers. Wolves don’t only use it to find their mates, they’re actually soothed and comforted by the smell, even in injury or before death. A woman with difficulty conceiving can sometimes have better luck after spending time with a baby and experiencing repeated exposure to the scent. Dogs often seek out the scent of dead companions on favorite things to comfort themselves; penguins are more likely to choose a nest that smells like their mate than one bearing the scent of no penguin at all. Not to mention, many animals, mammals in particular like the scent of themselves on their mate, a likely reason we have a tendency to wear the clothes of the people we love. Cheetahs-” He caught his breath, willed himself to stop. Here, alone, more often than not Hotch would let him ramble until he ran out of steam. He’d listen, and when Spencer finally stopped he’d actually have something ready a little relevant to say, with plenty of warm amusement in his eyes.
Even though he’d stopped, getting himself to the point didn’t feel any easier.
You smell like home. You smell like home, like mine, and I’m scared, Hotch, I’m so scared because I can’t let myself have this, I can’t, I…
Hotch turned his head, lips pressing against Spencer’s neck, his jaw, all the way up to his temple. Right under them, the ache seemed, impossibly, to lessen. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I know, your head-“
“it’s alright.”
“it isn’t.” Slowly, his body was giving up he tremors, melting into Hotch’s strength. “Can I take you to bed now? You need to rest.”
“Yes.”
Against his scalp, Hotch’s fingers gripped just a little tighter. “Yes?”
Despite the clamoring of fears that were perhaps his oldest, he knew when to fold. In these arms he felt safe, the kind of safe he’d never felt anywhere else. Instinct had to count for something, didn’t it?
“Yes.”
Rating: NC-17
Genre and/or Pairing: Criminal Minds; Hotch/Reid
Warnings/Notes: set immediately post Corazon. Established relationship; angsty h/c fic. language. Sex.
Word Count: 2,958
Summary: To avoid what Reid fears the most, he just might have to give up the one thing he’s realized he desperately wants.
The slight rise in Hotch’s eyebrows didn’t give too much away. “I know they’re often brought on by severe stress. In some cases they can be a symptom of a brain tumor, although in general they’re not the only symptom for that condition.”
“All true, but not as relevant as the fact that experiencing sudden migraines is a key symptom of the onset of schizophrenia.” His words tumbled out all over each other, a breathless jumble and still it didn’t make the saying of it out loud any less terrifying. His pulse raced, hard enough that if Hotch slid his hands a little farther down he’d have felt it against his fingers.
Nothing in Hotch’s eyes looked surprised and really, why should he? He was a profiler. He might not know as much as Spencer did about schizophrenia but he certainly knew more than enough for this.
When he spoke it was soft and measured, not too far from the pitch reserved for frightened victims and delusional unsubs. “With the stress our work involves, migraines aren’t surprising. There are still times you don’t sleep well and combined with the long hours we work and the things we see, stress related migraines-“
“Might seem the most likely, if I was older and my mother wasn’t a known paranoid schizophrenic.” He took a deep breath, fuel to try and spit the rest out. “I’m distracted, Hotch. I find it hard to keep myself focused and you’re right that I’m not sleeping well and I had an appointment with a neurologist today and he confirmed that there is no physical source for these headaches. He said they’re psychosomatic.”
When he was a teenager, he’d been sure this day would never come. He could remember it so well still, his sixteen year old self sprawled on his bedroom floor with his genetics book propped up against his shoes as he read. If he carried the gene, it still wouldn’t matter. He’d save her in plenty of time to save himself.
“Based on the word of the first and only doctor you’ve seen for this, you’re going to diagnose yourself with schizophrenia?” Worse than the outward cool of the words was the question under it, the current of hurt he’d felt in the way Hotch’s fingers tightened when he’d mentioned the doctor. Months ago, with the a ache in his knee soothing under Hotch’s knowing fingers, they’d promised that next time, next time neither of them would be in the ER alone. Technically, he hadn’t broken his word.
Agitated, Spencer pulled away so he could pace, could let himself think away from the distraction of Hotch’s touch. Hotch fought it just enough to prove he wasn’t letting go of his own free will, but just like always his grip loosened to let him pull away. In even that his mind betrayed him, his damned curse of forever making connections pushing memories to the front of his mind. They were making love, Aaron’s left hand snaking around both his wrists to hold on tight right up until the moment saw the flash of fear in Spencer’s eyes. It stopped him cold, and he drew his hand away like he’d been scalded, though almost as quick it was wrapping around the back of his head to hold him close.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just, Raphael-
Don’t apologize to me for this. Broken and rough, almost harsh but then- I’m sorry, Spencer; I wasn’t thinking. Since, he’d held him a hundred ways but he’d never fully restrained him, just like he’d never settled himself across Aaron’s hips as they lay in bed, never given him reason to see Foyet and the glint of the knife and remember how it felt to almost bleed out in a place he should’ve been safe.
The memories themselves were their own kind of rush, and at the swarm behind his eyes Spencer wanted nothing more than to grab the nearest object and put it through the kitchen window. They fit, him and Aaron and Jack; they fit so well it hurt and the thought of having actually had it all and facing down this…
If the disorder doesn’t institutionalize him(and if he’s got it, odds are it will), the loss will finish him off, no doubt.
“I’m not saying I didn’t want-or that I don’t want-” Spencer scrubbed his fingers though his hair hard, swallowed around a tongue that tasted like lead. “But I just, I can’t. I can’t do this anymore, Aaron. When I look at myself and I look at the odds, it seems increasingly likely these headaches are just symptoms of my early stages as a schizophrenic. If it’s going to happen…”
If it was going to happen, if he was going to make it through this conversation the way he needed to, he honestly hoped it took his memory right along with it as soon as possible. All alone in some Godforsaken hospital, he didn’t need to spend his days remembering what all this had felt like, love and family and the way he’d never felt more at home in his life than he had just weeks ago. Hotch’s arm had been slung easily over his shoulders on Rossi’s couch, the room full of everyone in the world they trusted. No, no if he had no choice but to leave, that wasn’t something he wanted to remember.
“I may not have a choice in what happens to me, but I won’t put that on anyone else. I can’t do that to you, Aaron, and I won’t-” Goddamn his voice, all the cracks and shudders it never let him hide. “I know what it’s like to grow up with a parent like that, and I won’t do that to Jack; I just won’t.”
Standing across from him, he could see it so well, Aaron’s transition from worried lover to unreadable mask. Everything about him shifted, from his frame all the way to those eyes Spencer loved so well. Like that, even Spencer had a hard time squinting through the cracks in the wall for the glimpses of Aaron Hotchner behind it.
“So this is your backup plan. Your mother worked right through her diagnosis, fought for her life and everything she loved for as long as she possibly could. You decide to do the exact opposite; you hear a hint of a possible diagnosis and you decide to give it all up, the job you love, the people you love, just on the chance that you might forget them.”
There was something maddening about the matter of fact tone of it, the way it rolled off his tongue just like any other profile. His only give away was the tiniest flicker of pain as he held Spencer’s gaze, and even then it was gone as soon as Spencer blinked. Every time, Spencer was always the blinker.
“it’s not like that; it’s not about me it’s-”
“isn’t it? You made the decision alone, you consider only your personal opinion, and beyond that, you pick a road undeniably similar to the one chosen by your own father.”
As a scholar, he had always assumed the phrase “the words hit like a punch” to be unrealistically dramatic. In that moment, though, he could properly understand. It knocked the wind out of him, throat clenching around silence before he unglued it enough to mutter what he felt like yelling.
“Fuck you. You don’t-” Know how he felt about his father? No, that wasn’t quite right. “You have no right to-“
“I have every right!” After so long of Hotch clearly reigning it in, it almost felt good to be yelled at. Good but for the pounding in his head, at any rate. “And before you say it, I’ll give you another answer: I’ll stop profiling you when you tell me the whole truth. You tell yourself the truth. You make yourself look at what this is really about, and you accept the fact that no matter what happened before, I’m not your father.”
Even if Spencer had been able to properly scrape up something other than an instinctive denial to say to that, he didn’t get the time.
“I actually thought I’d managed to get this through to you already, but I’m not going anywhere. He walked out on you, and I know Gideon walked out after you’d already decided he was safe-“
Even now, years past it, sometimes Gideon’s name still had the power to make flinch. He mostly hid it in his motion, arms coming up to wrap protectively over his chest, fingers twitching against his arms.
“-but that’s not what I’m going to do, because you’re worth- I need you to listen to me.”
He was listening, really, even if he was also squeezing the life out of his arms and studying the floor. Hotch’s hands on his shoulders were warm, almost too hot even through the fabric of his shirt but he didn’t pull away.
“I love you, Spencer.” No matter how many times he said, from the first till now, it had an undeniable ring of truth.
“Even though love is often traditionally seen as an evolutionary advantage due to the protective instincts over mates and offspring it inspires, occasionally-“
The light shake of his shoulders rattled Spencer’s words to a stop.
“You saw me at my worst. God knows I deserved it, but you never gave up on me.”
“No, you didn’t.” He hadn’t meant to answer, but he couldn’t let that one go. Aaron might blame himself for the wreck he’d been after Foyet flayed his whole life open, but that was no ones fault but the Reaper’s. As long as he lived, he’d do everything he could to remind him of that.
“Tell me, did you ever think about walking away?”
Not even once; walking away wasn’t what he did, just something he’d gotten good at watching others do. There’d been a time he’d feared Aaron wouldn’t let him in close enough to help him heal, but he’d never once entertained the thought of giving up.
“That was diff-“
“And if you didn’t run from that, what makes you think I’d run from this? From a possibility that’s honestly only unfounded speculation?”
“It’s different, whether you choose to believe that or not. Of course I stayed with you, but you were, you were a mess, but you still knew me, you knew me and you trusted me and if this happens, you’ll be lucky if you get a few days a week I even know who the hell you are, much less trust you.”
“Then your refusal to trust me now is good practice.”
It hurt just enough to stall him, like salt rubbed into all the raw cracks and crevices of his pains. He trusted this man more than trusted any other, just like he had with a gun to his head and Hotch’s name falling disturbingly easy from his lips. He crossed his arms tighter across his chest, just tight enough to hurt.
“This has nothing to do with how much I trust you!”
“It’s got everything to do with it. Because if you trust me, Spencer…” Hotch’s fingers found his, rough and warm skin tangling with his own, lanky and cold. “If you trust me, then when I say we face this thing together if it happens, you’ll believe that no matter what your father did, no matter what everything else you know tells you I’ll probably do, I’ve made my choice. I chose you.”
It’s hard, loving a profiler. Harder, really, than it is to be one. Worst, perhaps, is both. He knows exactly how Hotch does it, knows everything he saw and picked apart to find the roots Spencer keeps diligently burying in his own mind. He was so young, so young and so worried and so afraid, and he’d watched his father walk away from his mother’s pain without even a last “I love you, Spencer” that he could pretend might theoretically have been true. It’s a cold weight beside him, something that’s shifted and melded over the years until its seemed to become a mathematical constant. He’s not worth trouble, not a little and certainly not a lot, but Hotch is standing there holding him like he could wait forever and he knows all Spencer’s dark sides, knows the dilaudid and his moods and his fears and the twitch he feels under his skin just then isn’t the urge for his drug of choice, it’s an urge to let himself be wrapped up by this one stabilizing force and never, ever let go.
He swallowed hard, wished suddenly that he’d drunk the whiskey when he’d had he chance. “Jack-” It was his last good card, the most solid one he held all along and still, it came out wrecked.
“Loves you, no matter what. You’re part of his life now, and whatever you may fear, you’re good at it. I know you love your mother, and I’ve listened to you tell me plenty of good memories. I know it was hard, what you went through, and you’re right that it was no life for a child but Spencer if it comes to that for you, we’ll be together. It’s nothing like it was for you. He won’t be alone…and I won’t let you be, unless you can honestly tell me it’s what you want.” Against Spencer’s hands, Hotch’s always felt so strong, so solid. Even the squeeze of his fingers did something funny to his breath. “So tell me now, are we a family? Or not? That’s the only question that matters.”
The only answer he should give was no. No, because no family was ever in need of a burden like he could easily become. No, because Jack should never have to think before he reached to hug him, to wonder what year it was that day or who else might be in the room. No, because God, Hotch deserved better. He’d been through more hell than most people could imagine and he deserved a life so much better than suffering for the love of an addiction prone potential schizophrenic. No. No, no, no, no, no; but finally, those tears he’d struggled with had taken advantage of his exhaustion. He couldn’t get it out, couldn’t manage anything but shuddering breaths that weren’t quite sobs and, dammit, it just made the pain worse. He wouldn’t have believed yesterday that it could even get worse. Too weak to protest, he found himself folded into Hotch’s arms and held tight against his chest.
With his head buried against Hotch’s neck, he breathed him in. A dozen memories fought for dominance, late nights in bed and the graveyard after Tobias and wrapped in a worn sweatshirt once at an NA meeting, the scent on his collar reminding him simultaneously of his three biggest reasons to stay clean: the man he loved, the boy he loved, and the job and family he loved. It was fascinating really, the brains response to scent. No other sense was so primal, so capable of instilling innate fear or comfort. His body responded, shifting into the source, arms unclenching from around himself so he could cling to Hotch hard enough that his fingers dug into his neck as he breathed in just a little deeper.
Hotch’s fingers carded through his ruffled hair, tangled there just tight enough to tuck his head in a little closer. “Talk to me.”
The low rumble of his voice felt so good like this, a warm vibration against his chest, and Spencer was talking in short breaths before he was even sure he could.
“We use scent so often in cognitive interviews because it’s so linked to memory, but it’s also one of the most powerful biological triggers. Wolves don’t only use it to find their mates, they’re actually soothed and comforted by the smell, even in injury or before death. A woman with difficulty conceiving can sometimes have better luck after spending time with a baby and experiencing repeated exposure to the scent. Dogs often seek out the scent of dead companions on favorite things to comfort themselves; penguins are more likely to choose a nest that smells like their mate than one bearing the scent of no penguin at all. Not to mention, many animals, mammals in particular like the scent of themselves on their mate, a likely reason we have a tendency to wear the clothes of the people we love. Cheetahs-” He caught his breath, willed himself to stop. Here, alone, more often than not Hotch would let him ramble until he ran out of steam. He’d listen, and when Spencer finally stopped he’d actually have something ready a little relevant to say, with plenty of warm amusement in his eyes.
Even though he’d stopped, getting himself to the point didn’t feel any easier.
You smell like home. You smell like home, like mine, and I’m scared, Hotch, I’m so scared because I can’t let myself have this, I can’t, I…
Hotch turned his head, lips pressing against Spencer’s neck, his jaw, all the way up to his temple. Right under them, the ache seemed, impossibly, to lessen. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I know, your head-“
“it’s alright.”
“it isn’t.” Slowly, his body was giving up he tremors, melting into Hotch’s strength. “Can I take you to bed now? You need to rest.”
“Yes.”
Against his scalp, Hotch’s fingers gripped just a little tighter. “Yes?”
Despite the clamoring of fears that were perhaps his oldest, he knew when to fold. In these arms he felt safe, the kind of safe he’d never felt anywhere else. Instinct had to count for something, didn’t it?
“Yes.”