First Criminal Minds one-shot. Whoo.

I have to say, before you read, just know that this was written one night when I couldn't sleep. At two a.m., when I was already sleep deprived. And I didn't even mean to write this. I was going to write soemthing totally different. But this just sorta... happened. So I hope that for that, you like it. :)

Tell me what you think! Review button loves to be clicked on!

Cold hands. Dead hands. Reaching out at him, grabbing at him. Grabbing handfuls of his hair. Snatching at the tie he wore around his neck. Tearing at his sneakers. Ripping at his shirt.

He tried to push them away, force them to leave him alone, but his attempts were in vain. Each time he would slap one of the hands away it would be replaced with yet another. Hundreds and hundreds of hands connected with hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies come back to haunt him.

He stared wildly around at all of the faces he saw, recognizing each one of them thanks to his perfect memory. They were victims. Victims he could have saved had he caught the UnSub earlier. Each of them was staring at him with accusatory looks, blaming him. Men. Women. Children.

"Why didn't you help me?" they all asked, their voices slurred and blending with each other's. They were spitting clumps of dirt out as they talked. Dirt fell from their hair, clothes, and every other orifice of their bodies. It seemed that their hands were permanently dirty, and as they reached out for him they left long streaks on his skin and clothes of dark mud that mingled with the blood that dripped down their arms from their wounds.

"No! Please!" he begged them, pushing at them frantically, trying to escape their cruel stares. "Please! Leave me alone!" He kicked out at them, fending off as many as he could and pushing through the crowd. He wildly ran through them, looking at each of their faces and remembering each of their sad tales. He managed to break free finally, almost collapsing with relief once he was out in the open air again. But he was stopped by one last body stepping in front of him.

"Chose one to die!" the familiar harsh voice spat at him. The cold unfriendly eyes almost seemed to pierce him like some sort of cruel laser. The man raised his hand and pointed back at the crowd he had just managed to escape and said again, "Choose one to die!"

"No. I won't," he moaned back in response, looking at all the innocent faces of the ones he could have saved. "I can't."

He looked back at the threatening man that towered over him, and this time the man was holding something out towards him. He identified the object as being a loaded revolver. The threatening man said firmly, "It's God's will, boy."

"No. No, it's not. Stop it," he moaned, backing away. The revolver the man was holding slowly morphed into a syringe.

"It's okay. It helps. You'll feel better," the towering man said kindly, following him as he backed away even more quickly.

"NO! It doesn't help, it doesn't! I don't want it! Leave me alone!" he yelled, turning and running back into the crowd of people, who immediately started grabbing at him again. One man caught a hold of him and whirled him around with surprising strength. He stared into the man's face for a second, finding it far too familiar. He stared up into his mentor's face, a face full of anger and betrayal, before other hands grabbed at him and began shaking him by the shoulders. He tried to pull away, but the older man and former BAU agent held him steady there. The dead hands continued shaking him and pushing at him.

"Let me go! Let me go!" he whimpered, desperate to get away. He couldn't handle the disappointed and betraying looks being sent to him by his mentor, or the accusatory stares coming from the hundreds of bodies surrounding at him, pulling at him again. He collapsed to the ground, feeling the other bodies falling on top of him. He felt the sticky blood mixed with the glutinous mud that was now getting all over him. The last thing he saw was his mentors face before he turned around and walked away from him, leaving him. The bodies finally succeeded in covering him completely, the last thing he saw being his mentor's retreating figure.

~CriminalMinds~

Hotch rubbed his tired eyes, attempting to get them to focus themselves on the paperwork he had set in front of him. It may have been late, but his routine was to always begin his paperwork before they returned, and after this case he didn't think he really wanted to sleep anyways. It had been a particularly bad one involving the UnSub abducting and brutally murdering children from the ages of nine and thirteen because they reminded him of an old childhood bully. The UnSub's recent psychotic break had led him to believe he was a child again, and he wanted revenge on his old tormentor.

He looked around at his teammates, each of them having fallen asleep themselves. Dave sat across the little table from him, his head leaned back and resting on the seat, snoring slightly. Derek was sitting in one of the chairs by the window, headphones still on. Emily had been occupying the seat next to him, and when she had fallen asleep her head had dropped down onto Derek's shoulder. JJ had taken a seat near them and had also nodded off, stretching out to take up the seat next to her as well. Reid was lying on the couch, a blanket draped over him.

Hotch smiled a little at seeing his team so peaceful and turned back to his work, before being distracted by a strange noise coming from over on the couch. He looked over at Reid in concern, and after a few seconds Reid mumbled something indistinguishable. Hotch watched him for a few more seconds where Reid lay peacefully, before turning back to his paperwork. But his attention was once again distracted.

"It's not… stop it," the young genius mumbled, his face twisting up slightly, in what looked to be almost fear. Hotch suddenly understood. Reid was having a nightmare, no doubt triggered by the awful last few days. But before he could act, Reid started mumbling again.

"No… it doesn't help… it doesn't…. I don't want it…. Leave me alone," Reid muttered, beginning to thrash around a bit. Hotch put his paperwork down on the table and stood up, walking over to his dreaming friend.

He knelt down and began to gently try and shake Reid awake, but his face just contorted even further. His thrashing became even more intense, and he nearly shouted "Let me go! Let me go!"

"Reid!" Hotch said loudly, trying to snap the younger man out of his obviously terror filled dream. "Spencer!" he shouted again, getting no response.

Finally, Reid's eyes snapped open and he bolted up, breathing hard and looking around wildly. He was obviously disoriented, and it took him a few seconds to even realize that Hotch was right in front of him.

"Hotch?" Reid asked quietly, still sounding terrified. At that, Hotch could have sworn that someone had reached inside him and physically pulled on one of his heartstrings.

"Yes, Reid. It's me. You're fine, you're safe," the team leader said gently, consoling the younger man. He was slightly surprised when Reid threw his arms around him and wrapped him in a hug, but immediately hugged him back. He knew from his experience with Jack that it was best to comfort him until he calmed down. He saw over Reid's shoulder that JJ had woken up as well, and he mouthed 'make coffee' at her. She nodded and stepped back into the little kitchen.

After a few more seconds Reid pulled away from him and leaned back against the couch again, considerably more calm. "Reid, are you okay?" Hotch asked cautiously.

Reid nodded back slowly in response. After a few seconds, he managed to stammer out "Thanks… thanks for waking me up."

"No problem," Hotch said quietly, heaving himself up to sit on the couch as well. He sat comforting the younger agent as he waited for JJ to finish fixing up the coffee. Once she had brought it over and Reid had accepted it, taking a few sips, Hotch asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, it's alright. It was just a nightmare brought on by the stress of the last few days," Reid said quickly. "Did you know that a lot of people actually aren't bothered by nightmares? In fact, they find them more interesting than anything. About half of people who have nightmares view them as fascinating and creative acts of the mind, whereas others would dismiss them as just simply dreams."

"Reid. I know you're just diverting the topic of conversation away from yourself," Hotch said smartly.

Reid stared at his boss for a moment before saying, "Oh, alright. I dreamed about the victims. The victims that we don't save in time. And about Hankel threatening me. And about… Gideon." Reid mumbled the last word into his coffee cup, so it took Hotch a few seconds to understand what he had said. But once he did, he felt that invisible person tug on his heartstrings again. He almost didn't know what to say.

"Well… it's okay. You're safe now, Reid," Hotch said, assuring him. "And don't you go feeling embarrassed, either. We've all had our fair share of nightmares too."

"Really?" Reid asked him quietly. "Even you?"

"Even me," Hotch confirmed. "You think that with everything that happened with Foyet, I didn't have any nightmares at all? Of course I did. I dreamed about something happening to Jack all the time. I still do, occasionally. With this case, I probably won't sleep peacefully tonight, either."

Reid nodded, looking a bit less ashamed of himself then before. He finished off his coffee and set his mug on the little table next to the couch. Hotch noted that JJ had fallen back asleep, her head on her chest.

"Are you going to go back to sleep?" he asked Reid, who shook his head.

"No. I think I'm going to read for a bit," Reid replied, pulling a book out of his bag.

"Okay. I'm going to go keep working on the paperwork. You sure you're fine?" Hotch asked once more. Reid nodded again. Hotch gave him a reassuring smile, standing up and walking back over to his seat across from Rossi, streching before sitting back down and picking up his pen. He was just starting to get back to work when he was interrupted once more.

"Hotch?" Reid asked timidly. Hotch turned his head to look back at the genius. "Thank you," Reid said, a bit shyly.

"Anytime," Hotch said comfortingly, getting satisfaction out of the fact that Reid smiled and buried his nose in the book after his words. He watched the young man for another minute before signing his name on a few different papers, thinking about just how true his words were. He would always be there for Reid, who was almost like a son to him in a way.

After a while, Hotch looked back over at Reid, making sure he was okay. Reid had fallen back asleep, book open on his lap and wrapped up in a blanket. Hotch smiled once more and lay his pen back down, stepping back over to the younger man. He gently picked up the book off of his lap and put the bookmark that was sitting on the little table into it to mark the page. He threw the book back into Reid's bag, and then gently moved him back into a laying position.

Reid snuggled into the blanket a little bit, smiling slightly. Hotch felt the corners of his mouth turn up as well. He reached over and gently brushed the stray locks of hair out of his eyes. He watched the genius sleep for a minute before turning back towards his seat. Dave had woken up and was now smirking over at him.

"Oh, shut up," Hotch said, sitting back across from him. Dave chuckled.

"You really care for the kid, don't you?" Dave asked slyly.

"Of course I do. We all do. He's the youngest, and we're therefore more protective of him by nature," Hotch stated. At Dave's unbelieving expression, he added "Yes. I do. He's almost like a son to me. Happy?"

"Yeah. I am," Dave said, before giving him a slightly teasing look and shifting his position to make himself more comfortable.

"I allowed him to suffer once. I'm not going to let it happen again. I'm going to take care of him," Hotch said defensively.

"What do you mean, you allowed him to suffer?" Dave asked curiously.

"It was about a year before you came back. He was kidnapped, tortured, and drugged for two days. And I know for a fact that we all feel much more protective of him for it," Hotch explained quietly. Hotch watched as Dave slowly digested the information.

"Guilty?" Dave asked him slowly after a minute.

"No. I just want to make sure I don't send him off to that again," Hotch said firmly. Dave nodded in defeat.

"Alright, alright. It's just kind of adorable how protective you are over him."

"Don't call me adorable," Hotch said, sending a firm glare over at the man across from him.

"Alright, sorry," Dave said, standing up and stretching. "But it was adorable," he added, walking away immediately after to the far end of the plane.

Hotch shook his head and returned back to his paperwork for what felt like the tenth time. He snuck one last look over at the peacefully sleeping Reid before focusing his attention fully back on the horrors of his job.

Two hours later when they landed back in D. C., he had to shake a sleeping Reid awake again. There hadn't been so much as a peep out of the young man, and this time he awoke with a smile already on his face.

Well, there we go. Not too fluffy and sappy, I hope.

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SO GOOD!