Tremble for yourself, my man,
You know that you have seen this all before
Tremble, little lion man,
You'll never settle any of your scores
Your grace is wasted in your face,
Your boldness stands alone among the wreck
Now learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
-"Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Sons
He must have blacked out at some point, but he raised his head sharply, jerking back and striking hollow metal. The world swam around him, warm green and acid blue; his vision wouldn't clear but he hazily guessed it was the grass of the football field and the cloudless sky.
A sea surrounded him, half-blurred faces with open mouths baring too many teeth. He blinked, trying to bring his vision back. They were staring at him. He didn't know why.
His muscles burned. He tried to shift his weight, to ease the pain, but he couldn't move. His arms were pulled back in an unnatural angle, his shoulders straining and his elbows aching. A little whimper broke from his throat as he tried to pull himself free. But he couldn't move.
He was tied. He was tied up. Somebody had tied him up.
Rope cut into his thin wrists, tied too tight enough to threaten his circulation. And to his horror he realized the ropes wound around him like a snake, crossing over his chest and his stomach and his hips, all the way down to his knees. His chest heaved.
The bare skin of his back pressed against hot metal, hot enough to burn into him. His chest heaved. He was naked. His school uniform was gone.
Realization crashed into him like a wave, pulling him under, drowning him. They had tricked him to come out here. They had grabbed him, they had stripped him, they had tied him to the goalpost.
He raised his head, his hair falling into his eyes. They were watching them. And they were laughing.
Why were they laughing at him?
"Let me go," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Please, let me go."
But he knew. He knew they wouldn't let him go that easily.
JJ gritted her teeth. This used to be so easy. She used to turn double pirouettes easily, sometimes even triples. Why couldn't she land just one?
She tried again, centering herself on the slick floor, watching her form closely in the mirror. Her prep was correct, she knew that, and she could pull herself up into passé without any problem. She just kept falling out of the turn somehow, tilting too far to one side before she could make a proper rotation.
"Dammit," she grumbled under her breath, digging her fingernails into her palms. She pushed her hair back from her face, and as she caught her frustrated reflection, she realized with a start what the problem was.
She'd grown.
She hadn't realized exactly how much taller she'd gotten since the last time she walked into a dance studio, but it was at least two inches, maybe three. And her body had shifted without her knowledge, her legs stronger with muscle after spending so much time running up and down the soccer field. She couldn't force herself to dance the way she used to. She had to adapt instead.
So she tried again, pulling herself up into passé again, using the clock on the opposite wall to help her spot. This time was a little more successful- she almost made it all the way around without falling out of the turn, her feet falling heavily into an unsteady fourth position. It wasn't perfect, but it was better.
And Jennifer Jareau was stubborn to a fault, had always been stubborn to a fault, and so she kept going, kept trying, until she made a full rotation and finally stuck her landing.
"Yes!" she cheered, her voice a little too loud in the quiet studio. "Yes, yes, yes!"
She tried it again, and made it again, and her heart skipped beats. She could still do this. She hadn't lost it. It was still a part of her.
"Watch your arm," Coach Buford warned, tapping his right bicep. "You're getting a little sloppy, you've got to keep in control."
"Sorry," Derek said, letting go of the handles. He'd always been a little intimidated by the fancy weights room at St. Thaddeus, and the chest press machine was a lot more intense than he'd been expecting. "I usually just use free weights, I'm not used to this kind of stuff."
Coach Buford laughed, not unkindly. "Hey, don't worry about that," he said. "Everybody had to start somewhere, right?"
"Yeah, I guess," Derek said. He stretched out his arms, feeling the pull in his muscles. "Thanks for taking the time to help me. I know you're pretty busy."
"This is what I'm here for," Coach Buford said. He sat down across from him, his elbows resting on his thighs as he leaned towards him. "My whole job is helping my players. Especially the ones with potential."
His stomach flipflopped at the unexpected praise. "You really think I have potential?" he asked.
Coach Buford smiled at him. "Absolutely," he said. He reached over and squeezed Derek's knee. "You know I fought to get your place on the team, right? They were a little unsure about you, you know, you're still so young. Less experienced. But you've been proving me right. The rest of the coaching team is pretty impressed with you, Derek Morgan."
He ducked his head. "I've wanted to play football my whole life," he said. "My dad used to coach me, brought me to games whenever he could."
"Is he going to come see one of your games this year?" Coach Buford asked. Derek hesitated, trying to form an answer. It never got easier to explain. But his coach seemed to catch on. "When did you lose your dad?"
"I was ten," he said. "He was a police officer, and it, uh...robbery gone wrong, basically."
"Sorry to hear that, Morgan," Coach Buford said. "I'm sure he was a good man. But I hope you know you can come to talk to me. You know, man to man."
Derek offered him a smile. "Thanks, Coach," he said. "I appreciate that a lot."
Hotch sat stiffly on the couch. He didn't know what to do with his hands. What did he usually do with his hands when he sat on a couch? Not that he usually sat next to pretty girls on couches very often. Not that the girls he hung out with weren't pretty- but Penelope and JJ were so young, and Alex was practically a sister, and Emily...well, he was always either a little irritated or a little scared of Emily.
Haley curled up next to him, her slender legs tucked up underneath her, smiling to herself as she listened to the music. He could catch the scent of her perfume- strawberries and peaches and something light and floral that he couldn't quite place- and her hand was nearly resting on his thigh.
At this point he'd been silent for two and a half songs, and he felt like he had to say something. He cleared his throat. "This, uh...this is pretty nice," he said.
"Oh, yeah, it's one of my favorite shows," Haley said. "I'd kill to play Julia, but I'm sure it'll go to a senior, sophomores don't get leads."
"I'm sure you'd be great, though," he said. "Would they really not cast you just because you're not a senior?"
She laughed. "That's the way it works," she said. "Theatre's super competitive for girls. I'm sure you could walk into the audition room and get a part, but us girls have to fight."
His cheeks reddened. "I don't think so," he said.
She leaned her elbow on the back of the couch and leaned her chin in her hand, watching him intently. "Why?" she asked.
He wasn't sure how to answer. "I'm, uh...I'm not that great of a performer," he said. "Never really performed, actually."
"Why'd you join theatre club, then?" she asked.
His mouth went dry. "I, um...needed an extracurricular for my college applications," he said. That wasn't a complete lie. Just mostly. "And besides...Penelope wanted me to join, and she's pretty persuasive."
Haley laughed. "Yeah, I get that vibe," she said. "Well, I'm glad you joined, no matter what the reason was."
There was absolutely no need to make them come here in person for this meeting. James glanced down at his watch and bit back a sigh. At this rate, they wouldn't be out until almost dinner.
Dave sat at his left, his arms crossed over his chest and his chin tipped forward. Almost as if he was-
Dave let out a gravely snore, and James bit back a laugh. That had always been one of Dave's special skills, being able to fall asleep anywhere, at any time. It wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep during school, and it definitely wouldn't be the last.
He knew this sort of thing didn't worry Dave much, anyway. Various teachers and counselors and professionals were lecturing them about college applications and scholarship deadlines, and that was something that he didn't have to think about.
James glanced over at Alex on his right. She was listening intently, writing down information in a spiral-bound notebook. During their freshman year she'd developed her own kind of shorthand, and now she was writing in it without thinking, the black ink from her favorite Staedtler pen smooth and dark across the page. Today her hair was drawn back with a black satin ribbon, soft copper strands falling over her shoulders and catching the light in gold streaks from the stained glass windows of the chapel. She frowned at something the speaker said, tapping her pen absently against her pointed chin and leaving a small black mark like a freckle.
Sometimes he wondered if she knew she was beautiful. He had a feeling she didn't, and he didn't know how to tell her.
Dave was right, though. He needed to figure out how to ask her out. Doubtless she had all sorts of plans in mind- schools to attend and degrees to gather and countries to visit. Once they graduated, she'd be too busy and accomplished to notice him. They'd be Facebook friends and run into each other at their school reunions, and that would be all.
Alex slid her notebook towards him, nudging the corner into his knee. He blinked out of his reverie and squinted at the page.
Are you okay? You look sad.
She held out her pen; he took it and wrote an answer back.
I'm fine, just thinking :)
A smiley face. He could have drawn a heart, or better yet, nothing at all, and he drew a damn smiley face.
He scribbled another note.
Dave's snoring
Alex leaned around him to get a better look at Dave, her hair brushing against his arm, and bit back a laugh. She shook her head, and all he could do was smile at her since he couldn't think of anything interesting to say.
Penelope jiggled her leg anxiously. She and Emily were supposed to present their debate topic, but Emily was still nowhere to be seen. Although, to be quite honest, the odds weren't great that Emily had gotten any work done in the first place.
She bit back a sigh. JJ had told her that she'd eventually regret signing up for so many clubs. And she did. She really did. She was exhausted, running around from club to club, preparing for multiple projects and trying to keep her schedule straight, and somehow get all of her homework done too. And she didn't even like most of the stuff she was spending all this time on. Really, if she could just keep ukulele and theatre, she'd be absolutely happy.
She glanced at Strauss out of the corner of her eye. The English teacher was famous for being a hardass- grading too harshly, sticking exactly to deadlines for homework and projects, watching her classes like a hawk in search of any refractions. And she wasn't any more relaxed as a club supervisor. She made Penelope unspeakably nervous. Like, about to break into hives nervous. If she'd had any idea that she'd have to deal with Strauss after school when she didn't actually need to, she would have run in the opposite direction. And she didn't even like running.
Penelope tapped her hot pink felt tip pen on her desk. She wasn't paying even the slightest bit of attention to the group currently presenting, and that was definitely going to come back and bite her in the ass when they had to give feedback. But she was sure that Emily was going to walk through the door any minute now. Except...they were already half an hour into the meeting, and thirty minutes was a lot of minutes to wait.
Maybe she could slip her phone out and text her really quickly. She was pretty good at texting from inside her sleeve or under her desk, and with Strauss watching the current presentation, maybe she would be distracted enough to get away with-
"Miss Garcia? Is that your phone I see?"
Penelope nearly dropped it. The rest of the club members were staring at her, and Strauss fixed her with a withering look from the across the room. "I'm sorry, Ms. Strauss," she said, her voice coming out in a nervous squeak.
Strauss beckoned her across the room, and Penelope dragged herself to her desk. "Power it down," Strauss said, holding out her hand. "I'll take care of this for now."
Reluctantly Penelope turned it off and placed it in Strauss's palm. Emily had better have a really good reason for ditching, because she definitely owed her one now.
Emily leaned back against a tree, the bark rough through the thin fabric of her uniform shirt. Another cigarette dangled from her fingers. She'd lost count of how many she'd smoked, initially riding the high of the broken rules and the bright sting of nicotine, but now she had a headache pulsing at her temples and a raw soreness scratching at the back of her throat. Maybe she'd overdone it a little bit.
She took another light drag and exhaled slowly, then stubbed out the cigarette in the dirt. The afternoon sun was annoyingly bright and sweat clustered at the nape of her neck. Lazily she dug around in her pocket for a hair tie and pulled her hair into a sloppy knot at the crown of her head, then reached for the laces of her boots.
The coolness of the water was almost a shock to her system as she waded into the creek, the rocks at the bottom smooth and unbalanced under her bare feet. "Shit," she sighed, her voice almost too loud in the soft thick silence.
She wandered aimlessly in the cold water, letting her thoughts filter away like the silt she kicked up into the creek's surface. Her gaze fell towards the electric fence half hidden in the trees, and for a brief heady moment she thought about what it might be like to break through the fence and find herself in the woods on the other side of the water.
She shook her head. It was silly. She was being stupid. And there wasn't any reason for her to feel like this anyway.
Suck it up, she thought, and she kicked at the placid surface of the creek, the resistance of the water slowing her down and turning up the frustration burning under her skin.
It was so hot.
The ropes held him fast, digging into his soft skin, rubbing raw into his wrists and ankles, ripping at his chest and stomach and thighs. The sun-warmed metal of the goalpost pressed into his back; he was tied too tight to lean away and earn himself relief from the bite.
"Please, just let me go," he pleaded again, but no one was listening. The bigger kids grouped around him in clumps, their faces blurring in his vision, their conversations a dull roar in his ears. "Please, I just wanna go. I wanna go home."
He didn't know what home he was talking about, not exactly. The heat that dried out his mouth and seared his skin was pressing into his mind, mixing up his thoughts, tangling up his memories. Maybe home was a shabby stucco house with newspapers over the windows and garbage heaped on the floors, maybe home was the public school library where he found refuge hiding behind shelves and under tables with a book in his hands. Maybe home was wherever Hotch and Alex and James and other kids were, somewhere safe and peaceful and quiet.
He didn't know where home was, but anywhere was better than here.
"I wanna go home," he whimpered, and he didn't care that he sounded pathetic, that he sounded like a child, he was a child, and they were older than him, and bigger than him, and stronger than him.
"Please, get me down," he begged. "Just let me go."
A headache pulsed at his temples. He tried pulling at the ropes and cried out when his shoulder pulled in an unnatural angle. Struggling did him no good. There wasn't any point to it.
"Please," he sobbed, but he couldn't cry, his eyes were bone dry. "Please, please, I'm sorry, please, somebody get me down…"
The edges of his vision clouded like fog rolling in before a storm. His chin dropped, the world tilting and spinning around him like an out-of-control carnival ride.
"Make it stop," he whispered. "Make it stop, make it stop…"
He raised his head, the weight almost too much for him to bear. There were fewer gawkers standing around him now, he realized, and he watched as they began to turn away as they got tired of watching, onlookers to his misery until they got bored.
Terrified rage surged in his chest. "Why won't you help me?" he screamed, a sudden burst of energy coursing cold in his blood. One of them glanced back, but no one stopped.
"Why won't you help me?" he shrieked again, his lungs constricting so tight he couldn't breathe. "Help me!"
But they continued their retreat, wandering away from him. His muscles ached, his body held upright only by the tight ropes cutting off his circulation, and the sudden adrenaline left his body like water spiraling down a drain, leaving him weak and shaken and exhausted.
"Help me!" he shouted, his voice high pitched and tight, and the sound echoed across the empty field. He was alone, and the afternoon sun scorched his skin, and he couldn't move.
He was so small, swallowed up in the vast expanse of soft green grass and cloudless blue sky, and his little body couldn't hold the heartbreak, and all he could do was scream, wordless and wild, even if no one could hear him.
JJ lost her balance as she tried to sit down on the studio floor, her self-conscious little giggle bouncing off the walls. Her legs ached pleasantly in a way they hadn't in a very long time. Soccer used her muscles differently, and while her body remembered those well-trained forms she thought she'd forgotten, she wasn't used to it anymore.
She slid her soccer sneakers back on and tied up the laces, then picked up her bag. The door creaked as she stepped back into the hallway, and she lingered for a moment to look back at the empty studio. She almost didn't want to leave. For the first time in a long, long time she felt content.
But it was late- already past five- and she was starving. The others might've already headed over to the dining hall for dinner; she was used to them starting without her on the nights that practice ran late. Still, she probably had enough time to shower before she headed over there.
She wended her way through the maze of the gym hallways, her steps slow and leisurely. Just as she was wondering if she might be the only person in the entire building, the door to the weights room opened and she jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting smacked.
"Sorry, Jayje!" Derek said. The neck of his gray tee shirt was dark with sweat, but he was beaming. "I didn't know you were here. Did you have soccer practice?"
"No, it got canceled," she said. "Didn't you have football?"
"Also canceled," he said. He tossed the strap of his bag over his shoulder. "But Coach Buford was super nice, he gave me a private training session."
"Teacher's pet," she teased, elbowing him lightly.
He rolled his eyes. "Aw, come on, JJ, that's not me," he said. "Coach just sees a lot of potential in me, that's all."
He pushed the gym doors open and held them out for her. She winced at the sudden rush of heat. "Jesus, I'm glad they canceled practice," she said.
"Yeah, there's no way we could have survived running around out here," Derek said. "And if they made us football players practice in full gear? Nope, they'd be calling ambulances left and right with all of us passing out."
They started down the path towards the rest of campus. "I'm so hungry," she said happily. "Do you think everyone else is-"
She paused, but Derek kept walking. For a moment she stood there, frowning, but she darted forward and caught his arm. "Wait a minute," she said. "Do you hear that?"
He stopped and tilted his head to the side. "Yeah," he said slowly. "What do you think it is?"
"I don't know, but it's coming from the football field," she said. "We should go check it out."
"I don't know," he began, but she was already gone, heading down the hill towards the field, her soccer bag bumping against the backs of her knees.
"JJ, slow down," Derek complained. "I just spent like two and a half hours working out, my legs are dead." She didn't seem to hear him; she was already pretty far down the path. "JJ, come on! It's probably just an animal or something. You know there's woods all over the place, something probably just wandered too far."
There definitely was something down in the field. The sound grew louder the farther they walked- a sharp, keening wail, rhythmic and desperate. He'd heard somewhere that foxes could sound like humans, maybe one got trapped somewhere.
JJ was far ahead of him now, past the field house, almost to the thirty yard line. "JJ, come on," he called.
His foot caught on something and he looked down in surprise. It was a backpack, a purple one, the stitching solid and the fabric unfaded. It looked new, and Derek's stomach slowly twisted.
"JJ," he called again.
He looked up to see her standing on the twenty-yard-line, still as a little statue. Her bag had slid from her shoulder and fallen to the ground.
"Jay-" he started to shout, but he could see what she was staring at, and before he fully understood what was happening he broke into a run, pushing past JJ, dropping to his knees in the soft turf.
Spencer was tied to the goalpost. His soft skin was burned bright red in the sun and his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. And he was screaming with all the strength left in his little body, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath, his ribs painfully visible with every sob.
"What happened?" Derek demanded. "Spencer, what happened? Who did this?"
Spencer sobbed, straining against the ropes lashing him in place. "They won't let me go," he wailed. "They won't, they won't…"
"Slow down, pretty boy, slow down," Derek said. "Take a deep breath. Can you do that for me?"
Spencer tried to obey, but the air caught in his lungs and broke from him in a gagging cough. Derek didn't know if he could touch him. His hand wavered, and instead he looked back over his shoulder.
JJ was still, her eyes round and too bright in her pale face, her fingers trembling. "JJ, do something!" he demanded. "You can't just stand there!"
All the color had drained from her face, and still she didn't move. "For fuck's sake, JJ, do something!" he shouted. "Call Hotch, call somebody! Go get help!"
JJ blinked slowly, like she was sleepwalking, and fumbled for her soccer bag, her hands visibly shaking as she pulled the zipper and dug around for her phone. Derek turned his attention back to the terrified child tied to the pole. "It's okay, pretty boy, JJ's calling for help," he said. "Everything's gonna be okay, I swear."
Spencer only cried harder, but there were no tears on his cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot, the vessels popped from the effort of screaming, and Derek rocked back on his heels. He'd never felt so young or so helpless in his life.
Hotch felt his shoulders tensing up again. Relax, relax, relax, he told himself sternly. Haley was holding her phone up between them so he could see the screen; they'd long since finished listening to the music and she was showing him clips of the show. She was so excited, her cheeks pink and her voice bright and animated. It was almost dinner time, and he kind of wanted to go meet up with the others in the dining hall...but he couldn't possibly leave her.
He frowned and tilted his head, listening intently. Haley shifted beside him. She was so close to him that her cheek nearly rested on his shoulder. And now he didn't dare move, and risk pushing her away. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he said. "I thought I heard my phone, but...I guess not." He cleared his throat. "So...which song is this?"
Alex bit back a frustrated sigh. They'd been told the meeting would probably run till five, but it was definitely past that. For a moment she debated switching on her phone to check the time, but after suffering this so long, she didn't dare break the rules at the eleventh hour.
She tucked her fingers in the cuff of James's shirtsleeve and tugged his arm towards her. He jumped. "What are you doing?" he whispered.
She pushed the cuff back and checked his watch- almost five-thirty. "Thanks," she whispered back, setting his arm back down.
He half laughed. "You have a little.." he said, gesturing towards her chin.
She frowned. "What?"
He gestured towards her face. "Your pen, you got a little ink right there," he said.
She wrinkled her nose and rubbed at her cheek. James shook his head, smiling, and rubbed the pad of his thumb over her chin. "Got it," he whispered.
"Thanks," she said, and when she met his gaze her heart squeezed unexpectedly. There was something so soft in his eyes when he looked at her, but she didn't know what the hell that was supposed to mean.
At this point, Penelope was sure that the embarrassed red flush on her cheeks was going to be permanent. The whole club had watched her get caught with her phone out, saw Strauss scold her and take it away, and then witnessed her completely bombing her presentation. The humiliation made her vaguely nauseated.
Strauss dismissed them without acknowledging that she'd kept them late; it was a quarter till six and doubtless the dining hall was already filling up. Penelope hung back, waiting for the rest of the students to file out into the hallway, and sidled up to Strauss's desk.
Strauss didn't look up from her computer. "May I help you, Miss Garcia?" she asked.
Penelope cleared her throat. "I would like to apologize for my presentation, and for texting, and may I please have my phone back?" she asked.
Strauss clicked on an email. "I accept your apology," she said. "I understand that your presentation was a bit more difficult without Miss Prentiss to assist you." She started typing out a reply. "Unfortunately, I hold the clubs I supervise to the same standards I hold my classes. So you may pick up your phone tomorrow afternoon, after the last bell."
Penelope's jaw dropped open. "But I need it!" she protested. "My phone is my life, I can't function without it, I...uh...tonight is the night I have a scheduled phone call with my grandparents, they'll think something's wrong!"
Strauss looked up at her over her glasses. "There's a payphone on campus," she said. "No need for your grandparents to worry. I will see you tomorrow afternoon, after the last bell, and not a minute sooner." She turned back to her email, but then paused, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. "That will be all."
"Thank you, Ms. Strauss," Penelope said through gritted teeth. She left the classroom and closed the door behind her, and as soon as it was safe she stamped her feet in a silent frustrated temper tantrum.
Emily yawned. She'd given herself a headache from smoking too much in the summer heat, and she was dreading the trek back to campus. But she was hungry now, and after spending her so much time outside, she really wanted to take a shower.
The melancholy that had weighed so heavily on her shoulders had begun to lift a little bit. Maybe things weren't so bad. At least for today. She sat up, brushing grass off her shoulders and reaching for her knee socks. Alex would give her that disapproving mom look if she tracked grass and leaves into their room. And she still hadn't cleaned up her mess after trashing her side of the room before the party. She could probably do something nice for Alex and fix the chaos.
She slid on her boots and tied up the laces, then reached for her phone. She still didn't have any service, but it was almost six, and-
"Oh, shit," she said aloud. "I forgot. Oh, Penelope's going to kill me."
She pushed herself up to her feet and sighed. Now she needed to plan some kind of thing to make it up to her. At least she knew what sorts of things Penelope liked- anything pink and glittery would win her approval back.
JJ's hands shook, her phone threatening to slip from her grip. The sun was threatening to go down, the edges of the horizon scarlet and orange, and all she could hear was Spencer sobbing. She couldn't look at him. If she looked at him, she would freeze again, and she couldn't freeze, not now.
She kept cycling through phone numbers, trying everything. Alex. James. Dave. Hotch. Penelope. Emily. No one was picking up. No one was answering. And Spencer was crying, harsh gasps ripping from his throat, and she couldn't bear to look at him.
"Derek, no one's answering," she said, her voice small and wobbly and lost, and she despised herself for it.
"Keep trying!" he barked. "Somebody has to answer!"
So she tried again, repeating the cycle over and over again, pressing the number and listening to the handful of rings, and then the crackle of static and the tinny sound of a voicemail message.
She kept trying. It was all she could do.
Derek tore at the ropes, frustrated tears smarting behind his eyes. He couldn't get it. He couldn't untie the ropes.
Whoever had tied Spencer up had gone the extra mile- tying tight around his ankles and weaving around his skinny legs, lashing his wrists together so they were pinned behind him. And it wasn't just one rope, it was multiple, old ropes stolen from the fieldhouse and woven around Spencer like overlapping spiderwebs, knots catching against his hips and his ribs and his chest.
Spencer was still crying, but exhaustion was getting the better of him. His sobbing had faded into a thin raspy wail, spiraling tight and high through his teeth. Derek watched his eyes start to roll back in his head.
"Hey, hey, pretty boy, stay with me," he coaxed. He let go of the knots long enough to touch Spencer's face, forcing him to look at him. "We're gonna get you down. You're gonna be safe. I swear."
Spencer didn't seem to hear him. Derek turned back to the knots, pulling and tugging and digging his fingertips into the nylon fibers till he was sure they were about to start to bleed, and he started to panic because he couldn't get them fucking untied.
"I'm sorry," he choked out. "I'm sorry, pretty boy, I'm trying, I swear. I swear to god."
He yanked hard, trying to get even the smallest bit of slack, but he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried.
Haley tucked her long legs underneath her and leaned a little closer to Aaron. She was running out of reasons to keep him, but oh, how she wanted him to stay. He sat close to her but not too close, his shirt sleeves rolled up his forearms and his dark hair a little ruffled over his forehead. He'd spent the whole afternoon listening to her and asking questions, still clearly a little nervous around her. She had been hoping this would be the perfect situation to turn this into a conversation, maybe get to know him a little better, but she had no idea how to do that.
She'd gone on dates with a handful of St. Thaddeus boys, even gone out with a couple long enough to consider them a boyfriend. Most of them were football players, or at least basketball. They were fine, she supposed. It was just sort of expected of her to have a guy with her for cheer events, like all the other girls on the squad.
Aaron was different. He was so solemn all the time, his mouth pulled down into a perpetual absent frown. She'd noticed him the year before, in passing. He was cute, she supposed, but he'd be cuter if he smiled.
It wasn't until she ran into him at the theatre club signups that she saw a different side of him- there was a sweetness hiding under all the seriousness, something kind and vulnerable. He'd blushed pink around her, too shy to speak without stammering.
She wasn't exactly sure when she realized she had a crush on him, but she was sure of it now. She liked Aaron Hotchner, even if the other girls on the squad thought she was crazy. She liked him a lot.
Haley shivered, and Aaron looked over at her. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, it's just a little cold," she said. She was wearing a crop top and shorts- practical for cheer practice, not great for hanging out in the basement of a theater. "I'll live."
Hotch frowned. "Hold on," he said, pushing himself up from the old couch. He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a dark blue hoodie, tipping the bag over in the process. "Here, you can borrow this if you'd like it."
"Thanks," she said, smiling up at him, and that pink nervous flush showed up on his face again. She slid her arms through the sleeves. The soft fabric was well worn and soft, and smelled like his soap, clean and spicy.
"Oh god," he said. "I, uh...sorry, I wear that hoodie all the time, I didn't realize how ratty it is…"
"It's fine," she said, grinning at him as she zipped it up. "It's really warm."
He shifted his weight. "Let me at least get the loose strings off," he said. He scanned the dressing room table and picked up a pair of scissors from a bin of mismatched sewing supplies. She held out her arms, and he delicately trimmed a couple of threads off the wrists, his hand balancing her forearm gingerly as if he was a little nervous to be that close to her.
"So, do you want to maybe-" she started to say.
But Aaron's phone had slid free of his bag and it was vibrating noisily, the screen lighting up. "Sorry," he said, juggling the scissors in one hand and his phone in the other. "I should probably answer that."
Haley tugged the cuffs of Aaron's hoodie into place. Her heart skipped a beat. She really, really liked this boy.
"JJ...Jay...Jayje, I need you to calm down," Aaron said into the phone. "I can't understand you. What's wrong? What-" She watched him go completely pale, his jaw tightening, and he fumbled for his backpack one-handed, dropping the scissors inside. "I'm on my way. Tell him I'm coming, okay?"
He dropped his phone in his pocket. "Is everything okay?" she asked.
Aaron threw his backpack on his shoulder. "I have to go," he said. "I'm sorry, Haley, but I have to go."
He bolted out of the room, and Haley listened to his footsteps die away as he ran.
Author's Notes:
Oh man. I'm so sorry I'm ending this chapter here and you have to wait till next Thursday...
There's a LOT of comfort to make up for the hurt in the next chapter, though! So many emotions. Lots of angst. Lots of Spencer getting cuddled and cared for.
Special thanks to xGoldentigerlilyx, ItsEmilyFreakingPrentiss, sweetkid45, mercigirl01, Caz, jellolids, nitrogentulips, Daisyangel, Kawalter08, Cootisms, Cabeswater's Assassin, ferret54, It's Morley To You, Cat, and a guest for reviewing!
Come hang out with me on tumblr (themetaphorgirl) if you'd like to chat!
