The Other Side, Part VIII Criminal Minds Big Bang
Reid’s eyes open to a startlingly white ceiling, which is only made worse by the painfully sterile white walls. He groans, trying to move, but every muscle, inside and out, hurts.
He allows one eyelid to open slightly and glimpses out to see where he is. He sees Morgan sitting on an identically white plastic chair eating, no, slurping, red jell-o.
“Hey, isn’t that my jell-o?”
Morgan looks up, surprised, with a red jiggling glob hanging in mid-air on the way to his mouth. He looks at the spoon and quickly swallows what he has in his mouth. “Uh, Reid! You’re awake! It’s great to see you up and conscious and stuff…”
“That is my jell-o, isn’t it?”
Morgan looks down and puts on his puppy pout that will get him anything from Garcia. “Yes, but it’s not like you were using it.”
Reid and Morgan have a much needed laugh for a minute or two, until he looks around the empty white room. Concerned, he says, “Where is everybody? Where’s Hotch?”
Morgan refuses to look the sickly human in the eye, so Reid repeats his question louder, but no response is forthcoming. And, suddenly, it clicks. Reid’s eyes widen and with a slight shake of his head, he whispers, “Please, Morgan. Please tell me he didn’t…”
With a heavy sigh, Morgan looks Reid in the eye. “When we were in the library Hotch thought of a way that might save you. He, uh, he did everything he could.”
“What?” Reid shouts, startling Morgan, “What did he do?”
Morgan, ashamed, whispered, “He made you drink his blood. He figured, correctly by the way, that the poison would rather attack his dead cells than attack your live ones. He, um, we didn’t see a change at first, so Hotch kept feeding you blood. Reid, I’m sorry, but he isn’t doing too well. He’s across the floor,” Morgan says, indicating the room on the other side of the building designated for vampire care. “He and you have been out for about 3 days. He gave you too much blood, and he doesn’t seem to be accepting the blood they’re trying to feed him. I’m so sorry.”
So many thoughts run through Reid’s head he just sits in his hospital bed for a moment, dazed. However, the moment he recognizes Morgan’s statement that Hotch is nearby, he is up and out of his bed in no time at all. With a single minded effort, he rouses energy he doesn’t have and throws himself out of his bed with Morgan questioning his sanity and calling for the nurse.
Something tugs at the back of his hand, and the pain in his hand makes him stop, confused. It is at that moment that Morgan, with a sigh, pulls his rolling saline and medicine infusion saying, “Here. You won’t get far without this.”
He runs into a tidy, petite nurse who is also wearing that ungodly bright white. She tries to stop him saying, "Dr. Reid I’m sorry but you must return to your bed. You have just gone through a large shock, you must get back to bed. Dr. Reid!” He pushes past her, ignoring her cries. Deliberately calm, he states, “Aaron Hotchner. Where is he? What room?”
Reid slowly ambles towards the “Vampire Care” wing of his floor, while Morgan has a word with his nurse. With a sigh from behind him, Reid finally realizes that he doesn’t actually know where he is going, and so turns around. The nurse and Morgan both stare at him with their arms crossed against their respective chests. “Are you done with the melodramatics, Reid?”
Reid has the decency to look ashamed, but holds his ground. “I want, no, I need to be with Hotch, Morgan.", Desperate, he throws out, “What if it were Garcia?”
Morgan’s eyes widen slightly and his posture straightens infinitesimally. “That was below the belt, but ok. Fine. He’s in room 1104 on your right.” The nurse next to him smacks him on the arm, comically angry. “What?” he says shrugging his shoulders the perfect picture of innocence. “He needs to see him. He isn’t going to hurt himself.”
The nurse sighs long suffering. “Fine, but if I get fired for this, I am blaming you. Do you know who he is? He’s a Sel…”
Reid blocks out the rest of the conversation, uninterested. He needs to see Hotch.
When he pushes the door to 1104 open to see the eerily still form lying still in a bed in the center of the room, he almost collapses. Hotch should not be like this. Hotch is always moving, always thinking. Reid just sees Hotch’s mind trapped with the motionless form, and his heart breaks. Reid begins to cry silently, and Morgan leads him to Hotch’s bed side.
He touches the much too cold hand, and Reid recoils. “He shouldn’t have done this. He should have just left me.”
Morgan lays his hand on Spencer’s shoulder, and says, “You know he would never do that, and that’s why you love him. Remember him that way, ok?”
Reid turns away, unable to see the raw affection blazing in Morgan’s eyes. “I just want to be alone with him for a while. Is that ok?”
Morgan and the nurse turn to each other and say simultaneously, “Sure, buddy.” And “Of course, Dr. Reid.”
At the click of the door, Reid pushes his rolling medical bag hanger next to Hotch’s and angles himself up onto the bed. He lies down , draping himself over Hotch, just as he always wanted to. He remembers all of those nights curled into a ball on his empty mattress wishing Hotch were with him. Now, he finally is.
Reid’s tears soak their pillow.
***
After three days of concerned visits from his team members and angry conversations with his doctors, Reid opens his eyes to see deep, dark brown eyes staring back.
***
Hotch wakes up disoriented and ravenous. He tries to get up, but is impeded by a large form to his left. He realizes immediately that it is his human. He bears his fangs to the sleeping figure and leans up to leverage himself over the slumbering sub. He bends forward to sniff at the pale neck, knowing underneath the thin covering is a deliciously sweet and warm nectar begging to be taken. It is then that his human snuffles and wakes, slowly opening up his eyes.
His own looks up, more awake, instinctively knowing the danger this sort of position dictates. Hotch isn’t thinking clearly, his pupils are blown and his unblinking eyes can’t stay focused on the human’s own eyes because they keep flickering to the thumping jugular.
When the trapped human shifts slightly, Hotch grabs at him, growling softly, warningly. The young human stops and bears his neck in submission, so Hotch returns for another sniff. The human lets out a small gasp when Hotch licks the skin trying to taste what is underneath, but something is holding him back from taking it.
Hotch, with a small whine, pulls back and finally gets a good look at Spencer with the question in his eyes.
“I know you want it. Take it, it’s the only thing I can give. Chilcott,” Hotch growls loudly at the name, “took everything else. Let me help you, you need fresh blood.” Spencer smiles sadly up at Hotch, and the fog over Hotch’s mind clears. He would never take this from Reid just because he feels guilty.
Reid has already been used so much; he doesn’t need Hotch to be what that bastard Chilcott was. Hotch needs to be better. He pulls back slightly, giving himself room to think and physically shakes his head.
“You’re mine,” Hotch spits out, his ears ringing with Reid’s heartbeat. “I want more than just this, Spencer, my own. I want you. I don’t care what that…man did. It doesn’t matter. Not to me.” He lifts his hand to wipe a tear from Reid’s cheek. “You were always what I wanted.”
Reid pushes up on his elbows and finally kisses the man he dreamt of for the past two years. Hotch grabs at Reid’s hair, yanking him closer. Hotch bites at Reid’s lip, drawing blood and a groan from both of them. The flavor bursts across Hotch’s tongue, violently reminding him of his bloodlust, and his cock springs into full hardness. But he pushes the small voice vying for blood away, pouring his desperation into the kiss. Hotch digs deep, finding his top headspace where he is able to control even his own bloodlust.
Reid’s tongue pushes into Hotch’s mouth, following his own taste and taking control of the action. Hotch collapses on the body underneath him, forcing Reid down, and grabs both of his sub’s hands, dragging them upwards. He holds them down in a bruising grip, as he takes back control of the violent kiss, reminding Reid who he is. With the painfully delicious reminder, Reid immediately hardens.
Hotch pulls back when he feels Reid submit and relax into the pose. “Strip, now. I want you, now.”
Frantically his sub pulls at the loose pants he was given and the even bigger white t-shirt Morgan brought him from his own closet. Hotch, watching closely, yanks off his hospital gown. With skin touching skin, Hotch starts moving downwards, kissing and nipping at Reid’s chest. Hotch licks and sucks at Reid’s obviously sensitive nipples. He sucks into Reid’s chest, marking the boy as his. The trembling human, unable to handle the onslaught, squirms and breathes out, “Hotch, oh god, you, uh, that’s too much!”
Hotch lifts up his face from where it was around Reid’s navel, and whispers deadly serious, “You will not move or speak unless I ask you to. Understood?”
Not only is Reid a natural sub, but he is a Selected so he knows Dom tricks such as this one. Reid doesn’t answer and stays perfectly still except for his eyes flicker with annoyance. Hotch smiles. “Excellent. Let’s continue.” Hotch returns to his work, heading downwards towards Reid’s groin. His mouth purposefully travels around Reid’s dick, and traces the seam of his thigh. Hotch bites, not breaking skin, although that is the predominate thought running through his mind, and leaves a dark bite bruise on the inside of Reid’s thigh. He pulls back to admire his work, and returns to lick it once more for good measure.
When Hotch fingers his sub’s balls, Reid whole body shivers slightly, unable to hold back the motion. Hotch quickly pulls on the balls in his hand. “Didn’t I say ‘don’t move’?” He yanks them one more time just because he can, and says, “I guess you need to be punished.” At that, he wraps his lips around Reid’s weeping cock. Hotch is mildly impressed at Reid ability to have his first ever blow job and not so much as move a muscle.
After a few minutes of beautifully agonizing torture, Hotch lets go of the cock with a pop. Reid is breathing heavy, his chest heaving. Hotch decides to let that movement go because he is still technically supposed to breathe. Hotch pulls himself up face-to-face with his gorgeously flushed human. Hotch’s bloodlust overcomes him for a moment, and he again dives his nose into the crook of Reid’s neck. He pulls himself away slowly after laving the area with his tongue, leaving a serious hickey. He looks into Reid’s eyes and the space between them becomes heavy with unsaid words and emotions. “You never said it back,” Hotch whispers, self consciously.
Reid breaks Hotch’s rule, which both of them leave forgotten. “Silly man. Of course, I love you, too. You are the best man I know. I want you to take me, Hotch. I wish you could have been the first one to have me, though,” Reid whispers back, his hand reaching up to touch the scar on his neck self-consciously.
“That doesn’t matter to me. I mean, of course it makes me angry that he would ever touch you, what is mine. That he would ever…” Hotch’s voice drops off, as he is unable to speak.
Reid moves his hand to Hotch’s chest, by means of recompense. “I never came, I mean,” he says blushing, “He, uh, couldn’t ever get me to do that.”
Hotch, with a feral grin, leans forward and whispers to Reid’s mouth, “That’s because you’re mine.” He finishes with a brutal kiss, attacking Reid’s lip. Everything Hotch demands, Reid gives over willingly; perfect balance of Dom and sub.
Hotch’s hand wanders to the metal tray sitting next to the bed, grabbing the medical lube. He squeezes some onto his fingers, tossing the tube aside. He reached his fingers down to Reid’s ass, while his sub is still obliviously focused on his kiss. Hotch’s finger touches and gently breaches Reid’s hole. His sub freezes, while Hotch continues to kiss him. The vampire thrusts his finger in, crooking it from side to side, as if searching for something, for a couple of moments, allowing Reid to get used to the intrusion, and as he begins to relax Hotch pushes two more fingers in, Reid gasps, although even the young human himself is unclear if it because of the shock, pain, or pleasure. The burn is intense, and Hotch can see his sub biting his lip, can smell the resulting blood. Hotch goes in search for it, and comes back triumphant with a red stained tongue. His fingers, just sitting and keeping Reid full, remain unmoving as Hotch calms his worried sub.
After a few minutes, Hotch opens and scissors Reid open, finds his sub’s prostate and starts to rub the little nub within. Reid gasps throwing his hands onto Hotch’s shoulder and squeezing. His nails dig into Hotch’s flesh leaving tiny crescent moons on his back.
Breathing heavy, Reid barely pushes out his words, “Aaron, you ca-can’t. I’m gonna come.”
Hotch pauses and stares his sub down. “You will not come until I say so.”
Reid blinks, surprised at Hotch’s vehemence, and nods. “Of course, Master.”
Hotch tenses and emits a slight growl, “Don’t, don’t call me that.”
“Yes, sir.”
Showing deference by titles such as ‘Master’ and ‘Sir’ is common practice in a Dom and sub relationship, but Hotch hated being called Master, even more so after Chilcott, so Hotch’s face broke into a wide smile when he was called ‘Sir.’ “That’s my good little sub.”
Abruptly Hotch pulls his fingers from Reid and immediately thrust in his cock so that his sub isn’t left empty for more than a moment. Reid’s eyes roll into the back of his head, and he lets out a long, toe-curling groan. Hotch holds still for as long as possible, but his need overtakes him. He grabs his sub’s long legs and wraps them high around his back, effectively changing the angle, letting Hotch sink in deeper. It is the vampire who let out a groan this time.
Hotch begins to thrust painfully moving the young profiler up the bed. Reid’s hands scratched up and down his Dom’s back and were waving around manically, unable to find a place to latch. Hotch quickly grows tired and says, “The next time, we’re using handcuffs.” He grabs both of Reid hands, as he did earlier, and thrusts them above his head in a vice-like grip.
A few thrusts later and Reid is whining and bucking wildly, while Hotch taunts him about what it would feel like to finally come while being fucked into the mattress by a true top. Reid can barely breathe. At last, Hotch, picks up the pace, actually fucking him into the mattress, nailing his sub’s prostate with every thrust, and whispers wickedly, “Oh, you can come now.” With those words, Hotch shifts his head to his own’s neck and finally takes what his blood has been screaming for.
Given the permission, Reid lets go and comes across both his and Hotch’s chest. However, he hasn’t expected to be bitten, and the feeling added pure pleasure on top of what he was already feeling. Hotch knows Reid loves what his top is doing to him, he can feel it; the true submission rolling off of Reid in waves. The young sub is finally able to appreciate what being taken and what belonging feels like. It is beautiful.
Hotch comes quickly after, unable to handle the dual onset of his sub’s blood in his mouth and his tightening channel.
***
Reid wakes up about an hour later to feel gentle fingers probing his hole. He tries to turn, when Hotch’s face greets him over his shoulder. “You know, I’m dripping from you right now.” Reid immediately hardens. “If we were home right now, I would have plugged you so that I would be in you all day. Do you think you would like that, little one? Hmm?” Hotch continues to whisper his dirty plans into his sub’s ear while gently dragging his fangs across Reid’s shoulder.
Reid comes once more, and the two spoon, lying pleasantly sated for a while before they know a nurse will come check up on them.
Out of nowhere Hotch speaks, “I never gave up. I loved you so much all this time, and I couldn’t say anything. I berated myself for weeks knowing I could have made my claim on you and gotten you help, but I was too scared. I couldn’t lose someone I loved again,” he squeezed Reid’s hand hard, “I couldn’t.”
Reid turns around to face his top on the narrow bed. “What do you mean again? Does this, uh, have something to do with what…he mentioned? Haley?”
Hotch flinches when Reid spoke the lady’s name, but he doesn’t break his gaze from Spencer’s face. He takes a steadying breath, “It was when I was first turned. It happened in Boston on Friday the 13th, 1802. I know, I get a kick out of it now, but back then? Not so much. I was turned by a rogue vampire, who had no intention to mentor me, but I ended up finding help with a man from the Council, Gideon. At the time, I had just started a family with my love, Haley and our baby boy, Jack. I was heartbroken when the Council commanded I couldn’t be with her anymore because of what I was, so I did what I had to.” Hotch’s hand is slowing stroking and tracing Reid’s palm lines.
Reid has been listening quietly, eating up every little piece of information he can get from the man he has long considered a mystery. His mind is quick, though, and he realizes what Hotch is implying. “Hotch, no.”
“I changed her. I, I had to, Reid. I couldn’t be without her. I figured we could wait until Jack was old enough and then change him as well.” Hotch says all of this with such veracity and desperation that Reid longs to comfort him. He realizes that now he can, so he squeezes Hotch’s hand that had stopped moving. “However,” he says slowly, as though it is hard to speak at all, “the Council was outraged by my insolence. See, the Council, at that point in time, was dealing with an uprising of sorts, where vampires were lashing back against the law commanding them to not turn any human without clearance, so new-borns were extremely frequent. Hence, they decided to make a lesson out of me to the vampire community and to make their position clear: they do not abide lawbreakers of any kind. They,” he shakes his head, tense, as if reliving the scene in his mind, “they killed her in front of me. I can still hear her screams, her pleading for Jack’s life. It was horrible, but it only got worse. They drained him. They drained my little boy.” Hotch no longer able to hold back buried his face in Reid’s neck, crying.
Hotch’s tears soak their pillow.
Reid carefully comforts him, gently calming him, watching as Hotch forms his hard mask, which, oddly enough, isn’t as cut-off as it usually is. “So, I tried to stay away, to not let myself feel this, but it turns out you had already wormed yourself into my heart. Once that happens, little one, I never let go. Ever.”
Hotch presses forward for a kiss, filling the gnawing whole that has always been a part of Reid since he left his mother in the insane asylum. He has a home.
***
***
Three Months Later
His leg keeps shaking, and he can’t get it to quit. It isn’t until Hotch reaches over to put his hand on Reid’s leg that the jitters subside. Reid looks over at his partner and Dom, smiling. “Thanks.”
Hotch leans in for a soft kiss. “Any time.” Hotch carefully lifts his hand to straighten the silver-chained, leather-lined collar gracing Reid’s neck. He bends down and huffs a breath over the name plate, and wipes away the mist, revealing a gleaming patch of silver with the word “Mine” engraved.
“I thought we decided that the Council shouldn’t know that you already collared me without their permission,” Reid says worriedly.
Hotch, ever so eloquent, shrugs, replying, “Yeah, but I like seeing it on you. Knowing you’re mine. So, it stays.”
Reid shakes his head with a smile, saying under his breath, “Possessive, old top.”
Hotch mocks outrage and puts his hand to his chest. “Excuse me! Damn straight,” he says, leaning in, “and you love it.”
They both laugh, Reid having forgotten, for a moment, the extremely important Council hearing about to take place.
Reid suddenly quiets as Garcia and Morgan walk out of the large, oak doors, down the hallway, that have been equally friendly and unfriendly to Reid. Hotch’s hand gently squeezes the back of Reid’s neck, calming him.
“I don’t want to do this, Sir. Can’t we just, I don’t know, go…”
Hotch cuts off the worried rant he has heard three times before it begins. “Calm, my own, this will be fine. You know they made Griffin the new Supreme Councilor, and she loves you. For God’s sake! She was at your collaring ceremony, ok? And, listen,” Hotch says with a sudden directness, turning Reid’s head to him, “this will be different than the last time you were here. I will be with you. I will always love you, and I will not let you go. Do you understand?”
Reid looks down, struggling. He wants to believe what Hotch is saying, but what if…. Something clicks for Reid: he realizes that in every what if situation, Hotch would be there for him. Hotch would find him and get him. Hotch just would. He is that stubborn. “Yes, Sir. I do understand.”
Hotch gives Reid one of his true smiles. “Good.”
“Hope you two are ready to follow up one amazing act!” Garcia gushes when they finally reach the sitting couple.
“My hot mama and I gave some ringing character references! If they don’t love you now, they won’t ever love you,” Morgan says with an equal amount of glee. However, his comment brings Reid back to worrying, which both Garcia and Hotch notice. Garcia smacks Morgan on the ass.
“Go, get outta here before you make poor Spencer hyperventilate! I will meet you outside,” Garcia says and makes a shooing motion. “Shoo!” Morgan looks confused and then hurt as he turns around. Garcia, though, pinches his butt and gives Morgan a wink as he heads out, showing that he wasn’t in an y actual trouble. Morgan leaves with a smirk on his face, mumbling about crazy tech goddesses.
Garcia turns back to Reid and his shaking leg. “Sweetie, you two will be just fine. They do love you, never mind Derek. Now, Morgan and I are heading out with JJ and Prentiss,” she says, standing straighter and directing her comments to Hotch this time. “Apparently they have some ‘news’ for us. As if we didn’t know they’ve been fucking for the past month. Ha!” Garcia looks down at the stunned faces of both Hotch and Reid, and gulps. “Oh. Sooo, we didn’t know then? My bad. Well, surprise!”
Hotch merely says, distracted, his attention back on Spencer, “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Aye, aye, bossman,” she replies, giving him a sloppy salute with her freshly painted orange nails, which match her orange and pink hair. She turns and walks a few steps away, then stops and looks back. Reid and Hotch, holding hands, have begun to march down the corridor. Garcia shouts to them, “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine. See ya on the other side!”
The End.