red tissues | ·˚ ༘ aaron hotchner ,,
summary - you get nose bleeds regularly, the alarming increase in their appearances gets aaron’s attention, especially when you wake up one day to blood covering your entire face for aaron to see.
genre - hotch x fem!reader, fluff
warnings - lots of mentions of blood, nose bleeds, mentions of being over worked, sickness
a/n - i’m going to open a permanent taglist for anyone who wants to be tagged in every criminal minds fanfiction i write, so either comment on this or make a request that you’re interested! ❤️
The office was buzzing with the sound of typing and chatting, pens being passed and chairs being adjusted. The night was surely coming, sun setting against the window panes to cast shadows onto piles of files. Your desk was dark and your pile was unfortunately much taller than everyone else’s.
Funny how shooting a criminal earns punishment through 10 more files to fill out.
But right now, all you cared about was filling your Snoopy mug with something. The coffee machine was broken by a certain muscly man, so some tea bags delivered that day were your only solace. Chamomile. Sounded tranquil enough.
As you waited for your beverage to brew, you glanced back to your desk and then to your teammates. You should’ve taken Spencer and Emily’s offers to take some files off you, but being a perfectionist and selfless, you kindly declined. Shoulder’s slumping, you pulled the mug close to your nose and took a long smell, closing your eyes in relief.
Suddenly, right before you could take the much needed first sip, a pang hit your head and your eyes and eyebrows ached, causing you to clench them. When you opened your eyes, the light brownish-yellow of the tea was mixing with red.
Blood. Shit.
You swiftly turn to grab some tissues as your boss, Aaron Hotchner, was grabbing his plain mug from the top shelf, you hadn’t even noticed him in your panic. He followed you with his eyes as he grabbed a green tea packet. The tissues held against your nose were turning red and soggy. And before he could ask what had happened, you had abandoned your mug and vanished from the room, heading for the bathrooms.
Aaron furrowed his eyebrows and noticed the discolouration in your mug, before grabbing it and washing it out for you.
A few days later, Morgan and Reid were sat in front of you, JJ leaning on your seat’s armrest as Aaron conversed with a lawyer over the phone. Prentiss covered the basic details of the case but all you could focus on was the slight pang in your heart when you heard Aaron chuckle at whoever was talking with him. Though your eyes didn’t leave the case files, your ears were suddenly attached to your boss’ voice.
Which was much closer, after he sat down next to you.
You felt stupid, being happier now that his attention wasn’t on some other woman, even though his attention still wasn’t on you. He sighed as he sat, a whiff of his strong cologne circling the group as they updated him on other details they had caught. You mentally scolded yourself for acting like a 14 year old girl crushing on her teacher, but alas, you would continue.
“We noticed all of the victims went to private religious schools, most of them went to church as well. Y/n pointed out how in all of their photos, they were dressed in a conservative way - which is a contrast when we look at their ages.” Spencer started before Rossi added,
“They’re all teenagers, nearly turning 20. They all had boyfriends, and we found that one of them was already engaged.”
You listened carefully, looking at the faces of the victims that were spread on the table, “As well as the common religious commitments, they all had one other thing in common.” You squinted your eyes with a short breath, feeling a headache approaching before you pointed something out that nobody else had noticed, “Same initials, all of them.”
Hotch nodded, “Amy Sanders, Alice Soo, Adriana Santiago and Alexa Smith. Nice work, Y/n.”
But before you could reject the complement and internally squeal, a throb attacked your head, and your eyes scrunched to create wrinkles you would try to massage away that night, before you threw your hand under your chin to swiftly catch a drop of blood. It was like a 6th sense these days.
“Excuse me.” You croak, leaving the back of the plane with Prentiss close behind you. You bent your head back before the raven haired woman’s hand pushed it forward.
“Don’t do that, the blood might go down your throat.”
You followed her instructions and raised any eyebrow, pinching the bridge of your nose.
“My niece used to have a lot of nose bleeds whenever she had a cold.” She promptly explained as she bent to pull out tissues from the white bathroom cabinets.
Around 5 minutes later, you and Prentiss returned to your respective seats, no one but you noticing a strong stare following you.
“Are you okay, L/n?” Spencer asks, squinting in curiosity.
“Yeah, sorry, sensitive nose, that’s all,” you lied.
These weren’t the first times you’ve had nose bleeds at work or around the team. There was one on your third day of work, the second time you went to a bar with Garcia, and one time on the plane around 4 months ago. You had been lucky that all your other nosebleeds happened either on the way to work or in the comfort of your own apartment. These days, when each case was followed by a heavier one, and each road trip was followed by a 10 hour flight, you were starting to get exhausted. You’re body has decided nose bleeds was the indication for you to take a fucking break.
The next week, you had almost forgotten about your unfortunate trait until a certain tall man called you into his office.
“I need those finger print files done by tonight, is that alright?” He asked, smooth voice cutting through your fatigue, leaning on the front of his desk only a metre away from you.
You glanced at him up and down. He was clad in a smoke grey suit, perfectly fitted to his muscles and wide shoulders, tie loose enough to show the amount of work he had been through that morning. He smelt amazing, like wood and petichor, like metal and…
“Yeah of course, sorry. I put the victims confirmed profiles on Spencer’s desk to check over before I could finalise the um…” Shit. Why did this have to happen right now?
But before you could even excuse yourself or hold a hand to your nose, a soft hand was cupped under your chin, careful not to touch you but close enough to catch droplets. Heat was radiating from the near contact, and you weren’t sure if it was because of the eye contact you were putting yourself through, or the blood that was currently pooling down your chin and into his palm. Aaron had appeared so swiftly, you wondered how he knew.
“We should really get you checked out.” He said, recalling back to your third day on the job.
“You can check- You’re right I should get… your hand is getting blood on it.” He broke your eye contact and glanced down at his palm, before taking a breath and nodding.
“Right, let’s get you cleaned up.”
His other, clean, hand is hovering over your lower back, and everyone’s eyes are hovering over the two of you, following you into the closest bathroom available. You can feel your cheeks heat up. As you pass the kitchenette, he picks up the box of tissues and you try to grab some from his hand, but instead of allowing you, he takes your wrists and holds one to your nose himself. His grip is soft, but restricting, warm. And you can’t help but look at him as he searches for an empty bathroom.
In the bathroom, he guides you to lean over the sink, washing his hands in a sink beside yours while watching you carefully. You look at him through the mirror, and you’re so distracted you almost don’t hear him tell you, “Lean forward more, don’t pinch your nose too hard.”
You comply and he crosses his arms and leans adjacent to you. “Do you know what’s causing all these nose bleeds?”
You thought back to shorter than 5 minutes ago and bit your lip, feeling your cheeks heat up once again. “Um, I think it was your cologne.” You glance over to him finding he was already looking into your eyes. You were embarrassed, he was your boss and you were basically insulting him. “You smell great, don’t get me wrong. My nose and I obviously have different… opinions.”
Aaron nods with a small smirk, compelling you to look away before you say anything more.
Thankfully, saving you from any more embarrassment, your nose stopped painting the porcelain sink reddish-orange. “Thank you for helping me, Hotch.”
Aaron returned to his computer and opened a tab, searching ‘Common causes for frequent nose bleeds’, and, ‘Ways to avoid nose bleeds’.
And the next morning, Aaron walked into the office to get his coffee (the machine had been promptly fixed after your nose bleed situation) before Morgan spoke up, “New cologne, Hotch?”
Hotch nodded, and turned back to his coffee, pocketing some chamomile satchels to dispose of later. The comment reassured Aaron.
He wanted to be someone you could be around without risking anymore red tissues.
Aaron placed himself next to you on the plane, the team had gone over the case six times already, and the plane flight was long. It’s always been long. You opened your mouth to greet him before he cut you off, “We can provide a doctor for you, if these nose bleeds keep happening.”
You blink in surprise, “I’m sorry they’re inconvenient but there’s not much I can do about it.” You bit the inside of your lip, unaware that your bleeds had caused anything negative other than a decrease in tissue supplies and unwanted attention (not including Aaron’s).
“I’m not saying it’s an inconvenience to me,” he shakes his head, “They’re an inconvenience to you. I’m worried it’s because you’re overworked.”
Oh.
You cleared your throat and avoided eye contact.
He continues, “You get to work the earliest, stay the latest, you’re always the one travelling the furthest when we have to split up.”
A smirk appears on your face as you finally look back up at the stoic man, “Sounds like someone I know.”
“I make time, Y/n.”
You wrung your hands in your lap and sighed, “I’ve had this problem since I was a kid, Hotch. My longest record between nose bleeds was three months, that's only because I finally found some medication.” Aaron raised an eyebrow. “They had terrible side effects, it wasn’t worth saving some tissues. I can deal, is what I’m saying.”
He nods and looks away in thought, that's when you allow yourself to look over his chest and arms, his posture and his… smell?
“You smell different.”
“I didn’t want a repeat of yesterday.”
You couldn’t stop thinking about Aaron Hotchner since what he said on that plane a little over five days ago. He changed his cologne, he offered to find a doctor, he listened to your reasoning. You thought he was being friendly. You wanted him to be a little bit more than that.
The plush seats and convenient seating arrangement that put you next to Aaron didn’t offer any comfort against the dry and hot weather of Nevada. If a place was your enemy, this was it.
You had already concealed a small bleed in the drive over, Spencer not giving you a second look when you pretended to sneeze into a tissue. With the increased frequency, she didn’t want any useless worry. You weren’t going to take a break, so you needed to hide any signs of exhaustion as best you could.
Even when the sheriff opened every window in the temporary office, JJ continued waving herself with a file, Morgan had already chugged three plastic bottles of water. Even Hotch only had a dark blue dress shirt on and damn did he look hotter than the sun.
But even with your best techniques and play-pretends (never looking down for too long, staying hydrated, avoiding the hotter places in the precinct), an unfortunate pang hit the front of your head and travelled to your nose. Your eyes shuddered, and you started to look for a tissue, before one appeared at the bottom of your chin before blood even trickled down your top lip.
It was Aaron holding it there, eyes on the case.
You looked at him in surprise and awe, before you took the tissue off him and excused yourself, getting a worried look from the old sheriff.
The tall man had learnt when you were about to get a nosebleed, a sudden stop in motion, scrunched eyebrows and eyes, stopped breathing. And as you left his line of vision, he tried not to worry about the amount of blood you would lose in this weather, and it motivated to close this case even more.
Everyone around the table glanced at Hotch and then at each other, putting on blank faces when Hotch looked up.
It wasn’t much better in the hotel rooms you had been given. They had aircon, and free water, but small windows, and broken fridges.
It was a relief to be able to sit on something that wasn’t covered in someone else’s sweat, even if it would be covered soon by your own. You had the coldest shower you think you’ve ever had, put on a larger t-shirt and a small pair of basketball shorts to fight against the heat during the night.
It came a surprise to you when you were blood free the entire afternoon and you counted it as good luck for the flight home, forgetting to place tissues or water on your bedside table. After denying an invitation to poker, you threw yourself onto the bed with crisp white sheets and soft pillow cases, in the direct shot of the air conditioning and only window in the room, and passed out.
There was a frantic knocking on your door, or maybe a pounding in your head. You couldn’t tell, and when you tried to investigate, you felt like your eyelids were sewn shut.
You were able to peak them open and lift yourself weakly, when suddenly a figure appeared in front of you with long blonde hair and soft hands on your shoulders.
“JJ?” Your lips felt tight.
“Jeez, Y/n. How long have you been sick?” Her voice was muffled, but as your vision became clearer so did your hearing. Hotch stopped in your open doorway, already dressed and bags dropped in the hallway, before walking in.
For a second you were going to try and stand to clean your room, realising how late it was. But as soon as you tried to stand, everything went hazy, and you could taste metal on your tongue.
“Y/n, we need to get you cleaned up.” JJ said sweetly, as if you were a child. She took your heavy arms and pulled them to the bathroom, light making your headache into a migraine.
You lifted a hand to the bone between your eyebrows, and when you took it off, it had dried blood on it. As JJ grabbed your body towel from last night and wet a corner of it, you stole a sight of your face. Your mouth and nose was covered in dry blood, some of it had travelled to your left cheek, and between your eyebrows. There was fresher blood on your chin and some even on your next.
You had a delirious thought that you had been stabbed, or you had stabbed someone, but when you looked out into the bedroom and saw Aaron taking the pillow case off of the pillow you were using, you wondered if you caused it to go from white to red overnight.
“What happened?” JJ asked, carefully placing her fingertips on the bottom of your jaw while her other hand dabbed softly at your face. You couldn’t answer, even though you had a fairly good guess. Aaron appeared in the mirror to hand JJ some pain killers, for you.
Swallowing was painful, but as your blonde friend wiped off the last bit of blood from your top lip, you looked worse than your throat felt.
“I’m sorry JJ, I could’ve cleaned myself up.”
“Don’t apologise Y/n. You worried me. You weren’t responding to your texts, not even Hotch’s,” she put the towel down and looked into your eyes with a motherly concern. “I think you need to listen to Hotch when he offers you a doctor again.”
And you nod, because she was right.
JJ left the room with a hug, leaving you with a very cross Aaron Hotchner.
“I’m-“
“You could’ve choked, or suffocated, or passed out- Actually I think you did.” He motioned towards your alarm clock that had been running since 5 a.m. “Y/n…” He looked confused, worried, sad? Your eyes hadn’t 100% cleared yet, a headache slowly throbbing, knees still slightly buckling. You wanted to lay down and be thrown into an ice bath.
“How was I supposed to know this would happen?” You croaked out.
“You’ve got one window open, cold and dry aircon on, and no water bottle on your bedside table. You should’ve asked to sleep in the same room as someone, in the same room as me.”
You looked down to your feet, only noticing now that Aaron had packed all of your things for you.
“I thought you had been…” He raked a hand through his hair and paced before placing his hands on your upper arms, “I’m going to get you to a doctor, and you can’t say no. That’s an order.”
His grip tighten only slightly, before he turned around and left with your luggage, heart beating fast in his chest.
You were back home, thank god. The air was cooler and clearer, and you didn’t feel like you needed to moisturise every two minutes. You stretched your arms above your head, squishing your eyes closed for some relief to the sting from the computer screen. Your chest expanded deeply, and your nose finally cleared.
And when you opened your eyes, you glanced over to your boss’ office windows to see if he was still working. But he was already out of his door, looking at you.
Butterflies played tag with each other in your stomach, a blush crossing your face and you both shot your gazes away.
His shoes were nearly silent against the floor, but when you quickly stood to pack your shoulder bag and take the sweater off the back of your chair, Aaron was there to greet you when you turned around.
“Let me walk you out?” He asked, as if the last words he said to you weren’t full of unprofessional emotions.
You were silent for at least 3 seconds, Aaron getting worried for a second before you stumbled over your words, “Y-Yes plea- Yeah. Sure.”
He smiled, a genuine smile.
Side by side, his briefcase touching your shoulder bag, you made your way towards the elevator. Aaron fiddled with his fingers and felt unfamiliarly nervous, heart thumping a little harder than when he walked out of his office.
“Thank you for everything. Caring, catching my blood. I would ask how you knew, but you are a profiler after all.” You smile softly, and he nods.
“I’m glad you noticed.” He presses on the car park level in the elevator, hands coming to discreetly fidget once again.
And you can’t take the silence, “You still smell good.”
“You always do.” Aaron looks as surprised that he said that as you do, looking away quickly before looking up and sighing, “Tomorrow is Saturday.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have any plans?”
“I have a movie I want to watch, maybe a recipe I wanna try,” you reply oblivious, shuddering at the sudden change of temperature when you both exit the elevator. Suddenly a thicker layer of fabric was draped over your shoulders, one that smelt like new cologne. You blushed, looking up at him.
The cold breeze was pushing his hair out of place slightly, making his nose a little redder, his eyes clearer. He looked like the word handsome humanised.
“I think that you should watch that movie and try that recipe at… my place.”
You widened your eyes chasing any regret or embarrassment in his eyes, but all you got was nervousness, something you had rarely seen in him before.
He is so handsome, I can’t believe this is happening, I have to tell Garcia- Can I tell Garcia? He’s my boss after all- I mean this doesn’t mean it had to be a date or anything-
Some blood dripped onto the jacket draped over his shoulders.
“You could’ve just said no.” He joked as you pinched your nose, smiling against the small headache. It must’ve been the last bit of blood from that morning.
“No, I wanna go, I do- Just, could you get a tissue from my glovebox? I don’t want to get anymore blood on your coat.” You reply, nasally and carefully.
“We’re definitely getting you to a doctor.”
“Sounds like a fun first date.”
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