The Clockwork Boy, 38/39
Title: The Clockwork Boy
Rating: R
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Universe: Creatures of the Night (Part 2)
Pairing: Reid/Austin, Morgan/Prentiss; JJ/Hotch
Genre: Supernatural/Drama
Summary: The BAU is divided by two cases that tests their loyalties. Some things are found. Some things are lost. Some things were never really meant to be.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
David Rossi feels the enormous rush of power. It overcomes him, and though he’ll never admit it to anyone, he’s pretty sure he almost blacked out from the sheer force of it. His vision grays at the edges, and he grips his staff to make sure that he doesn’t fall to the ground.
It’s powerful enough that he knows Elle had ignored his warning, that she is putting every ounce of her strength into the blast. It’s like a nuclear explosion, only worse and Rossi is really, really glad that he’s not on the receiving end of it.
The surge continues for a good few seconds before washing out like the tide. Rossi manages to catch Elle before she falls to the ground, her face pale, lifeless. He puts a hand to her cheek, and the skin is cold to the touch, but she’s breathing. Barely.
Raids like this are the reason an ambulance tags along; Rossi’s fairly sure that he hasn’t gone three raids without someone blowing up a house because they don’t want to go to prison, or trying to hypnotize an agent, or, on one memorable occasion, trying to seduce an entire S.W.A.T team into submission. They don’t get all that many Siren serial killers, but the earplugs are now magic dispelling nonetheless.
Satisfied that Elle is in safe hands, he makes his way towards Hotch, who is a little less fortunate. The spell had not only knocked him down, but interfered with respiration, so the paramedics are working towards getting him breathing before they move him anywhere.
Fear is a strange thing.
This isn’t the first life-threatening situation that has ended with paramedics, and Rossi doubts that it will be the last. He’s fairly sure that he’s spent at least a dozen nights in hospital waiting rooms over the last six months alone. Hotch nearly gets his throat torn apart by a psychotic vampire, JJ gets blasted by psychic energy, Anath’s Circle nearly take out the whole damn team…
Even after all that, he’s still a little bit afraid, every time that one of them is in danger.
Today is somehow even more trying, because the team is separated by nearly a whole damn country, and he doesn’t know whether they’ve found Reid, or if they’ve all mysteriously been eaten by the legendary land kraken that supposedly roams the Pilgrim Desert that runs between Argadnel and Casimir.
Stranger things have happened.
Maybe it’s time to retire.
Of course, retirement is by no means a guarantee of peace and quiet. When your life has been so fraught with evil sorcerers and pirate ninjas and zombies, it becomes engrained. It becomes life blood. The saying goes “an FBI agent never retires. They just get better furniture,” because apparently the Bureau’s horrendous office chairs are even more legendary than the kraken.
Even still, he lets out the softest sigh of relief when the paramedics succeed in their task. The sight of Hotch’s chest rising and falling is the most joyous sight that he’s seen all day. Maybe on par with seeing Elle for the first time in so long. The sorcerers that had come to kill her were dead, and he knew that there would be an inquiry - if not for that, then for the three sorcerers she had killed before today.
Amnesia and culpability are strange bedfellows.
Retirement may not be an option, but at the very least, they’re all due a vacation.
Somewhere with sun might be nice.
…
JJ wakes up with a start, only she isn’t really awake; that much, she knows almost immediately. Lucid dreaming had been the first of many side effects of becoming psychic, but this isn’t quite that either. It’s a dream, but she isn’t alone.
‘Hello?’ She’s in a seemingly endless void, with no physical characteristics, but her voice echoes anyway. The void turns into a church, with a high roof, and hundreds of pews. That’s not right either, though, and the church turns into a forest, trees stretching towards the night sky. It’s her dream, so there really don’t need to be any stars in the sky, but she likes her dreams to be as accurate as possible. It makes them easier to deal with.
She feels his consciousness before she sees him. It’s more welcome, more familiar than the depths of her own mind, and that’s kind of frightening. JJ pushes through the undergrowth, trying to find him. The forest ends, and there’s a hill there instead.
He’s on top of the hill, staring up at the sky.
‘Hotch?’
It’s kind of strange. He’s here, inside her mind, and yet she can’t quite bring herself to call him Aaron. That, more than anything, reminds her of how afraid she is.
‘JJ?’ He stands, a little startled. ‘Is this…are we dead?’ He sounds almost fearful, though she isn’t sure why. The Aaron Hotchner she knows is as stoic, as unflinching in death as he is in life.
‘No.’ JJ shakes her head. ‘No, we’re not dead.’
She sits down, and the grass is wet with dew. After a few moments, Hotch sits beside her, and they’re granted a few moments of silence.
‘I remember getting hit with a spell,’ he says eventually, frowning.
‘Lucky,’ JJ says with a bitter laugh. ‘Spells knock you out almost instantly. I got hit with a bullet.’
His brow furrows in concern, and JJ gives him a shaky smile, trying to alleviate his concern. ‘I kind of knew it was coming,’ she tells him with a half shrug. It should hurt, but there are no wounds on this psychic plane.
He doesn’t scold her for recklessness, but then, it isn’t exactly the place for it.
‘Where are we?’ he asks, finally.
‘In hospital?’ she ventures. ‘This…I think this is a psychic link of some kind; our minds are compensating for bodily injury.’
‘So I’m not dreaming?’
She gives him a smile. ‘It’d be a pretty good dream, if you were.’
‘It would.’ Hotch doesn’t smile often, but when he does, it lights up his whole face. The worry lines disappear, and he looks as though the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders.
‘I’m sorry for letting you go to Argadnel,’ he says eventually. JJ gives him a look.
‘This won’t work if you try to insulate me,’ she tells him. ‘I’m a trained field agent.’ With a raised eyebrow, she adds, ‘And how is this any different from you getting yourself blasted by wizards?’
For a man of unrivalled stoicism, he has the best innocent look she has ever seen.
The silence is long, but it’s not uncomfortable. Not awkward. JJ has known Aaron Hotchner for a long time, long enough to be able to just sit there and appreciate his company.
‘Did you want to grab dinner sometime?’ he asks, and JJ smiles. Just because she’d known he was going to ask, doesn’t make it any less amazing.
‘Absolutely,’ she says.