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His clothes are covered in blood and his face is still bleeding; his knuckles are reddened and starting to swell, the left hand almost certainly and possibly his right broken. In the state he’s in, Derek thinks Aaron might end up just decking an EMT if they get too close out of sheer frightened instinct. So that’s going to have to wait until…
Until.
“Hotch,” Derek says. He doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t look up, just stares blankly ahead. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”
His gaze is fixed on the house. Half the lights are on, spilling long shadows out onto the lawn, and figures move past the windows. Just a few hours ago it was deserted. And a few months ago, it was his entire life in there. Derek can’t blame him.
“She’s…” Aaron says, voice rough with disuse. “I can’t leave—”
“I know,” Derek says gently. He’s trying not to be concerned, because this is common in shock victims but he can’t help worry when he’s already told him this twice. He can’t decide if a concussion or pure denial is worse. “Rossi’s staying with Haley, remember? And Jack is with JJ.”
The way his throat convulses as he swallows says no, he doesn’t remember, and his jaw tightens. “I can’t.”
Derek kneels on the grass beside him. It’s rained; the moisture soaks through into his pants. “You can’t stay here all night,” he says, in what he hopes isn’t an order but just a statement of fact. “You’re gonna freeze, man. Aren’t you cold?”
Aaron shrugs a little, though the movement is so small it’d be easy to miss. Blinks slowly. Derek suspects he’s not feeling much of anything, let alone the chill, but if it gets him to agree to go…
The thing is, he can’t think of anything strong enough to draw Aaron away save for Jack. And he’d held it together well enough until Jack had gone with JJ but after that – after he had broken down and sobbed like Derek had never seen him before, after they had convinced him to let go of Haley, stumbled outside and all but collapsed out here – the blankness had taken over and seeing Aaron like this wouldn’t do the kid any good. Pale and glassy-eyed and distant.
“Come on,” Derek says, offers him a hand. “We can go see Jack or I can take you home first, whichever you want.”
Either way he’s hoping to convince him that a shower might help – not because it will, though he’s got his fingers crossed that some sort of change in scenery will – just so that if he says he wants to see Jack they have an excuse for a quick detour back to his apartment to give Aaron a minute to breathe.
Aaron’s tongue darts out over his lower lip but he only swallows, like the words are lodged somewhere in his throat, trapped. His fingers try to curl into fists. The pain prevents them from moving much; they twitch on his knees. The pulse in his neck beats faster and he avoids Derek’s eyes, withdrawing further into himself.
So choices probably aren’t the best thing for him at the minute. Right. That makes it a lot easier but it’s also going to make Derek feel absolutely shitty ‘forcing’ Aaron to do things.
“Home?” he suggests.
And with a jerky nod like it pains him, Aaron agrees.
As he stands, Derek swears there’s more blood on him than he remembers; it’s sprayed across the front of his shirt, soaking dry darker patches at his knees. Browning spots on his shoes. And there’s a splatter of it across his neck, up each arm and his hands – he can’t tell whose blood it even is. Doesn’t seem to matter much now, does it? They’re dead and Aaron is barely alive.
He’s seen some of the looks passed between the emergency crews, the cops traipsing in and out of the scene. There were the photographers too and the coroners’ have been hovering around waiting for their turn. It is not a clean kill—neither of them. Blood all over the house where Derek assumes they’d fought, smashed remnants of a vase and spots of blood, a dropped flashlight and the battery rolled loose, holes in the plasterboard. From the get go it’s chaos.
As for Foyet’s corpse, in the clinical sense it’s overkill. The gunshot wounds were surprisingly accurate in the circumstances and left alone he’d have bled out before medical help arrived. But the broken bones and bloody mess of his face are stark and sharp, caving inwards like crumpled paper, and they are going to have a field day asking Aaron to defend that. Clearly unnecessary.
In his personal opinion?
Derek had pulled Aaron away for his sake only.
But he’s not afraid of Aaron like they are, outsiders just seeing Foyet for his injuries, judging him for the blood on his hands. Afraid for him, sure, because there is an awful emptiness in his eyes and it’s the antithesis of everything he ever is, that constant observation and the thoughts; Aaron thinks more than anyone he’s ever met and it isn’t always a good thing but Derek wishes he had overthinking Aaron spiralling into anxiety instead of him dissociating completely, because one of those he can help.
Being afraid of him is something completely different and nearly laughable. Derek wants to ask where in the evidence are they finding a hint that any part of this was for anyone’s sick enjoyment other than George Foyet? Because there might be blood crusted beneath Aaron’s fingernails but there are still tear tracks drying on his face; his hands shake not with anger but fear. Where they’re seeing a violent man is a defeated one.
Aaron follows him but hardly draws his gaze away from the house. The keys are still in the SUV he’d taken, the door flung open, and Derek figures he might as well use whatever will get them out of here the fastest.
He hesitates before he sits, his jaw clenching and a hard line of tension running straight across his shoulders. His knuckles are going deep, rich shades of bruised but not a hint of pain is visible. Just the grief, the anxiety, all coiled up into a painful tension he holds in his slow movements.
Derek has to drum his fingers on the metal of the seatbelt to get Aaron’s attention, and even then it takes him a moment to seem to recall what he’s supposed to do with it. He can just about manage with his hands as they are. It worries him, how literally Aaron will follow his – he hesitates to call them commands but they almost are, because without them he doubts he’d be doing anything at all - down to the letter but nothing more. He wishes it was out of spite. Anger is something to work with. This distance, dissonance, this chasm between his head and everything else frightens Derek.
It's a quiet drive.
Aaron says nothing. Stares out the window and isn’t bothered by the sideways glances Derek sneaks every time he can. He’s still breathing a little off-kilter, a little wet with the last remnants of the sobbing, but the glistening in his eyes doesn’t spill over into tears again. Derek is, for a moment, selfishly glad that he’s not talking; he has nothing he can possibly say to make it easier on him. No answers. No comfort. No words.
They had decided it wasn’t a good idea to leave Aaron alone – and if Derek hadn’t been convinced then, he certainly would be by now – and his apartment hadn’t seemed like the greatest place to be either, a freshly opened scab on that wound, the same carpet with the too-light bleached patch.
“You said home,” Aaron says as Derek takes a turning towards his.
“You’ve got clothes at mine,” he explains. Then, because it must’ve mattered more than it sounds like if Aaron’s said something, “That okay?”
There’s just a beat too long before Aaron gives him another wooden nod.
“You sure?” Derek says. And it’s not like he wants to take Aaron back there but if familiar ground – well, more familiar – helps him then he doesn’t want to deny him that either.
He shakes his head, doesn’t look at Derek.
“Okay,” Derek says, though it’s just as much to convince himself as it is Aaron. Prays this isn’t going to be some sort of guilt thing, punishing himself all over again. “Yeah, okay.”
They lapse back into silence and he wants to say something, do something, make himself useful because Aaron might as well be sitting on his own for all the help Derek has been so far. Nothing feels right. How can it?
When they get back, the way Aaron lags after him with his hands held stiff and sore in front of him, looking almost unconcerned about the blood on his clothes, attracts more than a few stares. If there is a silver lining it’s that Aaron misses them entirely and Derek just walks right past their gawking. Wants to ask where that attention was the night they heard—because they did, they must have and he’s never fucking forgiven the neighbours for it—a gunshot. No, they’re only concerned after everything has unfolded. When it’s too late.
Derek lets them in and enters the alarm code before it even has the chance to start beeping out the warning. He glances over his shoulder at Aaron.
The very last hint of colour has drained from his face and he swallows repeatedly. His gaze skitters around the room in a sudden burst of anxiety and Derek doesn’t have the chance to say something before a strangled sound slips through his teeth and he lurches for the kitchen sink.
Given there’s not much he can do and he knows how well touching him would go right now, even just a hand on his back as he’s retching, Derek slips past Aaron and digs around in the freezer for the small ice packs they keep buried somewhere. They’re only little things, intended more for kids Jack’s age, but he’s going to need them later for Aaron’s hands. Especially if he won’t go see a doctor for a little while.
“Shower?” Derek suggests when he’s done throwing up, standing in the middle of the kitchen with a faint confusion on his face.
Aaron blinks then disappears down the hall. Once he’s filled the packs with water and shut them in the freezer, Derek follows after him.
He hadn’t expected Aaron to get far in this state. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise when he’s stood fully dressed in front of the bathroom sink, staring down at his hands. They tremble when he tenses them, forms bloody fists. At Derek’s prompting he sits and tries with unsteady fingers to undress.
“Let me,” Derek offers, not wanting to overstep but not about to just leave him to struggle. It’ll frustrate him, he knows, for Aaron to be unable to do this right now. He’d rather have Aaron be angry at him later than at himself.
Aaron tilts his head up with a faint sigh. Derek loosens his tie and unbuttons his collar, revealing a smear of fingerprints wrapping around his neck. Adds that to a list of possibly concerning injuries though Aaron’s voice isn’t hurt but absent. With every button lower he opens on his shirt, he glances back up to the same blank look. Thinks what’s that definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing and expecting different results? He eases the shirt down Aaron’s shoulders and tries not to jostle his hands too much taking it off; though Aaron makes no effort to move, he doesn’t resist when Derek does. It's the closest to a response he gets and it does little to get rid of the sour taste in his mouth.
As he goes to take off his shoes—because he’s not sure Aaron would even hear him if he suggested he do it—it strikes him what feels so terribly wrong about it all: Aaron letting him do this without complaint. Because even if he does need help, obviously and undeniably injured, he’d much rather suffer through it alone. Probably would try to untie his laces with fully broken fingers, wait for the pain to be absolutely unbearable before letting someone know and it’d be begrudging even then.
“Okay?” he asks, and Aaron nods but he’s silent as Derek tugs his undershirt over his head. He hasn’t seen him shirtless, fully shirtless, ever.
Knowing about the stab wounds really doesn’t prepare Derek for the stark reddish lines slashed across his torso, and they’ve flattened with healing but haven’t faded. They themselves don’t hurt – it’s the scar tissue beneath on the worst nights, because Aaron’s never said anything but he’s seen where his hands go during those twinges of pain – but they look like they should.
Derek turns on the shower and adjusts the temperature as Aaron finishes undressing. Seeing him without his shirt is a distinctly different sort of vulnerability to fully watching him shower. He says something about the ice packs, getting a towel, and receives the same blank look. He leaves the door shut but not locked.
Maybe the ritual of it is as much for Derek’s sake as it is Aaron’s, because he accomplishes everything and is pacing in the hall with a clean towel in two minutes. He hasn’t heard anything, which is good, but… he hasn’t heard anything.
“Hotch?” Derek calls. “Everything okay?”
That’s a stupid question if he’s ever asked one and he’d be glad to hear Aaron get annoyed at him for it if nothing else but there’s no reply beyond the roar of water. Despite the reassurance from the medics on site, Derek’s mind jumps to concussions and haemorrhages.
“Hotch? Aaron?” he tries. “I need to hear something or I’m gonna have to come in.”
Nothing.
Derek eases the door open, his footsteps purposefully loud on the tiles, and Aaron glances up; his eyes are red in the brief second before he averts his gaze. The water is pelting down on his back, splashing up and wetting the hair on his neck, and he’s got his arms folded on his knees, face hidden from it all.
Derek leaves the towel warming over the radiator and kneels by the bath, sits back on his heels. “Am I all right here?”
Aaron nods.
Well, at least this part he knows how to handle. Derek wets a washcloth under the spray and wrings it out then taps his fingers on rim of the bathtub, the hollow ring getting Aaron’s attention less jarringly than calling him might.
“Look at me?” he says.
Aaron raises his head.
With slow, careful motions Derek dabs at the cut across the bridge of his nose, which isn’t deep but has bled like it was, blood crusted down the side of his nose, orange smeared on his upper lip. Aaron exhales and his eyelids flutter, brows drawing together, though he doesn’t pull away from the gentle touch. Derek follows the trails of blood down his face, wiping them away as he goes. The little cuts at his hairline have bled down his temples, clung to the curve of his jaw and dried underneath. He gives the cloth a quick rinse and then goes back for the salt stiff trails on his cheeks. His eyelashes are spiked from the tears and his eyes cold and dull as he stares into the distance, the whites speckled with broken blood vessels. Washing away blood is the easy part. Having life back in those eyes… all he can do is hope.
(And god, does he.)
The traces on his neck and throat Derek takes his time with washing off, his touch brief and quick, holding off whenever he notices a muscle in Aaron’s jaw start to tense or his shoulders twitch inwards. Though his eyes are glassy, his body is keeping the score, keeping those reflexes close. Scaring him is the last thing Derek wants.
Aaron coughs a little, like shaking something loose in his chest, but it doesn’t sound like a bad thing so Derek focuses on his cold hands, one at a time, holding it in his as he straightens out each finger until Aaron stops him. They are an icy white. He’s playing at being a doctor really, same as Aaron’s vaguely pretending to be okay, but at least they seem more sore than actually immobile. And then it’s washing off the traces of blood not dislodged by the shower spray, scrubbing it out of his fingernails until his hands are warm and pink and clean.
It hasn’t really helped, not that Derek can notice. That does worry him more than he’d care to admit but it’s been less time than he thinks. Stability is more important than Aaron being completely fine this soon.
“Gonna wash your hair,” Derek says. Questions seem a little useless. No objection. No agreement. Aaron does tilt his head back into his palm, eyes closed, and he takes it for what it’s worth.
Aaron’s hair is stiff with sweat and blood. Derek tips his head back just enough to wet it without spilling the water over his forehead and runs his hand through the worst of the knots, eases them apart without too much trouble. Warm water sluices down his back. And the scars there, he hasn’t had a full look at yet, and his stomach sinks when he does. Because Derek has had his suspicions but not ones he’s ever wanted to be right about. Those kind of marks show up too frequently—unsubs outnumbering victims—for him not to recognise.
He breathes in, breathes out. There is a time to be angry about that (he’s heard about Aaron’s mom, albeit very little, but never anything about his dad) and that is not tonight. Not when Aaron needs him.
His own shirt is caught in the spray when Derek leans in to lather in the shampoo, working small circles into his scalp, firm but gentle. Already his hair is smoother and silkier between his fingers, the blood and grit swirling down the drain. He cups a hand against Aaron’s forehead to stop the water streaming into his eyes and works it right around his ears, up to his hairline—
Aaron ducks forwards with a shudder, a ragged gasp like he’s been holding his breath and Derek thinks he’s missed a cut somewhere, massaged soap directly into it, until he catches how his shoulders are shaking. The tiny bursts of wet heat against the hand over his eyes.
Derek freezes. He’s not sure what pushed him over the edge but he already feels guilty for it. And he hasn’t come up with the right words to apologise, and to ask, when Aaron’s head is in his hands once more.
Maybe it’s not necessarily bad, he thinks, and that Aaron stays still when he tentatively continues assuages his fears. If he is crying, he’s doing it quietly enough Derek can’t tell.
He rinses it out and it runs clear enough Derek doesn’t strictly need to wash it again. He does anyway. If it’s the only kind of comfort he can give Aaron tonight then he’ll make sure he’s getting it. Then it’s the fancy conditioner as another reason to keep his hands there.
When Derek’s excuses come to an end, Aaron is steadier on his feet than he looks, his joints clicking after being so still for so long. Steadier in himself: the tears are only little tracks down his face and the blood is gone. Looks almost normal when one hand covers the bruising on the other. Derek leaves him in the bedroom towelling off his hair – he’d suggested Aaron put on the clothes he usually used for pyjamas and there had been no argument, for which he was grateful and discomfited. It’s easy to take care of him like this, and he’d love to get to the stage where Aaron genuinely doesn’t argue about letting himself rest and relax, but for now it just isn’t him. Derek doesn’t want easy; he wants Aaron.
But when he comes back with the ice for Aaron’s hands, he’s sat on the end of the bed with the towel a crumpled heap beside him and his hands in his lap. Derek sits beside him. The mattress dips with his weight but Aaron gives no reaction if he knows he’s there. He’s staring into nothing.
“Aaron,” Derek says. “Hey.”
The pads of his fingers rest against each other and he’s tapping some of his fingers. It isn’t a pattern Derek can identify beyond that he’s stressed.
“Talk to me,” Derek says. It’s a plea more than anything but he’s trying to keep his voice light, persuade him to do it rather than pressure him. “I want to help. Can’t do that if I don’t know what’s going on up there.”
Aaron is silent for a long time and he’s starting to seriously worry about how long this is going to last when he speaks.
“I don’t want to do this any more,” Aaron says. He has the same fear, the same sadness in his eyes he’d had when he looked to Derek back at the house—a vulnerability nearly childlike in its intensity. It’s the last thing Derek ever expects to see on him and it terrifies him when he does, because it’s so utterly unlike him it means something has gone awfully wrong. Too broken to be fixed.
This time it’s him who has to break eye contact first.
Derek is very careful to keep his thoughts to himself about this one, because Aaron is the best possible person for the job and he can’t imagine doing what they do without him. If this is a decision he’s making, he doesn’t want to get the way of it, push him to make a choice he doesn’t really want. Aaron wouldn’t let himself be convinced by others but he’d definitely take Derek’s thoughts into consideration probably more than his own.
“I know,” he says. Because his opinions don’t matter. Aaron just lost his family – he’d be worried if he wasn’t doubting it all.
Aaron breaks from his trance to press the heels of his hands to his eyes with a shaky breath. His eyes still shine when he looks up. “I don’t know who I’d be,” he admits, “if I wasn’t profiling. I don’t know what I’d do.”
“You’d find something,” Derek says. Admitting he doesn’t either is hardly going to help. “Nobody’s asking you to make a choice right now – you’ve got time to think about it.”
“I don’t need to think about it,” he says, his thumb flicking over his fingers. “Derek, I want to stay. I just can’t…”
Derek lays his palm gently on Aaron’s shoulder and he actually leans in to the touch. “Yeah.”
“I can’t do this again.”
“You won’t,” Derek says firmly. “He’s gone. Jack’s okay. But… yeah. I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” Aaron murmurs.
He bites back an apology because that wouldn’t do much except make things more awkward. “I’m serious though. If you need to figure out what you’re gonna do…”
“I know,” Aaron says. “I will.”
“Profiling isn’t everything,” Derek says. “And yeah, you get that already but I mean it. It really isn’t. And you do know you’re never getting rid of us that easily if you aren’t in the BAU, right? We’ve got Penelope. You can’t hide.”
“I know,” Aaron repeats. “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing,” Derek says. He inclines his head at the dark bruising across Aaron’s hands. “They hurt yet?”
“No.”
“Good,” Derek says. “We’re icing them anyway.”
Aaron says nothing but he rolls his eyes and Derek smirks. There he is, if only for a moment. It’s a good sign.