InsaneJournal

alti_angel (alti_angel) wrote in adventdrabbles, @ 2012-12-29 15:47:00

Current mood:

determined

Dec 02, 05, 06, Criminal Minds, Gen, Book By its Cover & Terms & Lost
Title: Book by it’s cover
Author: alti_angel (altaira)
Rating: G
Pairing:Gen Word Count: 400
prompt: dec 02, scrooge
Warnings: not beta read, pre-slash if you tilt your head sideways and squint
Fandom: Criminal minds

Disclaimer: Not mine. No money is being made from this bit of fiction and this is put forth for entertainment purposes only.



From outside Spencer’s apartment one would thing Scrooge lived in it. There were no blinking twinkling lights in the window, no Christmas scenes stuck to the glass. There wasn’t a tree placed front and center, decorated precisely to catch attention. Not fake frosted windows.
Hotch was therefore no prepared when he walked into Spencer’s place.

“I’ll be right out. I can’t believe I’m running this late. I think my clock must be wrong.” Spencer yelled from his bedroom, where Hotch could just see his bare back as he was pulling on a shirt. “You could get a soda from the fridge.”

“I’m fine.” Hotch said, looking around the living area in wonder.

Spencer had a huge table. It was predictably covered in stacks of books and papers all round the edges, like Spencer sat at different spots to work on different things and then left the spot ready to pick up exactly where he left off the next time he got around to it. In the center, though, was a pinecone and holly wreath, an advent wreath. Hotch could see the burnt candles from the first and second Sundays, the third and fourth candles still unlit. There were candles and holly and ivy and other bits of greenery all about and ornaments hung from everything but especially from the ceiling. The throw on the couch was red and green and there were red and green pillows.

Spencer came out in a black shirt and a festive tie and sweater. He grabbed his bag and keys and coat.

“Ready.”

Hotch smiled and headed to the door. “I never thought you were religious.”

“The advent wreath? I’m not; note the lack of a Christ candle. However…I don’t have to be religious to light a candle for hope and joy and peace and love. Every night we are home I light them and wish for those for Christmas.”

Hotch smiled. “Not much better to wish for, really.”

“Not much more I want, except maybe someone to love and who loves me. I’ve got a job I love and there are just some things you learn not to wish for over the years.” Spencer said looking towards Hotch and then the sky as they walked to Hotch’s car.

Hotch smiled and looked at Reid. That would almost match his own wishes exactly. Odd that in Spencer he found his own desires matched so well.

Title: Terms
Author: alti_angel (altaira)
Rating: G
Pairing:gen Word Count: 1000+
prompt: dec 05 -jewelry
Warnings: none really
A/N: not beta read
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money is being made from this bit of fiction and this is put forth for entertainment purposes only.



The conversation on the jet had turned to what jewelry they each wore and Hotch tried to avoid the topic. No one would let him, even Rossi insisted he join in. Just, it hadn’t been all the long ago that Haley had been killed, really, but long enough that between dealing with Jessica and Haley’s parents he’d stopped trying to idolize her and had started back into seeing her again as the human she was…remembering all the faults and problems. However, he still felt guilty when he did, like he wasn’t thinking well enough of the dead, like he should be turning her into the perfect angel who did nothing wrong that they all spoke to Jack of and he should take blame for everything wrong, like they all spoke to Jack of. And this jewelry conversation was rubbing a still open sore that had just been buried for so very long.

“Hotch,” Prentiss asked, after confessing to a hemp anklet with pieces of seashell woven in the strands that she always wore, “Did you ever wear anything other than your wedding ring and your watch?”

Rossi laughed, the gold chain her wore around his neck swinging free. “I have never known him to; in fact I do remember a huge argument once over that question.”

“It wasn’t an argument.” Hotch said.

JJ, who jewelry of choice was a locket from her sister, one from Will and rings, plural, asked what Hotch was sure they were all dying to ask. “What wasn’t an argument?”

Hotch sighed. “When I first met Gideon, it was actually before I was married. I was almost finished with law school and he was recruiting for the FBI. I wore an id bracelet, one I’d worn since even before Sean was born. He asked about it, I told him about it. When we met up years later, when I was working in Seattle, he noticed I didn’t wear it anymore. He asked about it and I told him about it and I didn’t watch how I put things. My marriage was not in the best place and his advice didn’t go over well. For what it’s worth, he said ‘I told you so’ years later and I said I ought to have paid attention to him the first dozen times he had told me so.”

Morgan, who wore whatever looked good but didn’t have anything that meant too much to him, apparently, asked for the stories.

Hotch told them about the nurse who’d treated him for the fifth time in a row in a four month period and the bracelet she had waiting for him time number six, with his name on one side and the word courage on the other side, and how she stated that sometimes having courage was as simple as getting up every day and doing what one needed to do. He never took it off. Haley hated it. Someone other than her had given it to him and he wore it. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t known each other back then, or anything else. It wasn’t from her and therefore he should have trashed it the moment he started getting interested in her, and certainly be the time they were dating. She tolerated it though, until he ruined her life and got a job with the FBI and moved them to Seattle, where she didn’t even have her mom to comfort her during her great time of need…or make Aaron recognize the error of his ways and change his job back to one that could get him into the House, at least…if not the Senate or the Governorship. Aaron lost it with her, about the fourth or fifth time she’d thrown her and her mother’s ambitions for him in his face and yelled at her that he would never have gone into politics anyway, so she should have listened to him instead of just ignoring him all these years they’d been together in the first place. The next morning he’d woken up with the bracelet gone and his wife smug as could be. In fact the next two weeks met with any item he’d ever cared about being systematically destroyed, unless it was worth a great deal and Haley used it to brag about. However, she acted like everything was fine other than pouting and Aaron had figured she must have gotten used to his new job and kept telling himself that it wasn’t his wife who was behind the destruction, just accidents and bad luck. He’d met up with Gideon during that two week time frame.

Reid, who had admitted to wearing surfer type necklaces for a short time in his life, and crystals for another short time in his life…all on silk cording or cotton rope, listened and it was Reid who set the comforting hand on Hotch’s arm as he told the story.

“Did Gideon really think it was Haley?” JJ asked.

“It was Haley.” Hotch said. “After Boston, when I was sitting with Gideon at the hospital after we’d returned here, and Haley was mad because I hadn’t come directly home from work as she had demanded, she stormed in shouting about how if I was going to be ruining her life again by not obeying her when she demanded it I would find my precious items once again destroyed and then maybe I would learn who should be the most important being in my life.”

“I always thought your marriage was mostly happy,” said Morgan.

“Of course you did,” Hotch said. “It could not have been any other way.”

Rossi grumbled and Hotch gave a dark chuckle. “The team before Derek had a better idea, they’d seen a bit of her temper. By the time Derek came, though, she was wanting a baby and I refused to even try for a baby just to subject them to tantrums and tizzy fits.”

“She always said Jack was your idea. That you pushed for her to have him, to make a family.” JJ said.

Hotch sighed. Before anyone else could say anything Reid spoke up.

“So, has anyone noticed items of jewelry Garcia or Strauss wear? Or how about Anderson or Dickens?”

“Dickens?” Morgan asked.

“Please tell me you do look and remember the names of the people who pass you through security every day! Dickens, the lady with the red hair. She wears it in braids all the time.” Reid said.

“Oh, the one who has the nice…umm…never mind.” Morgan said.

The conversation swept back to peoples jewelry that they couldn’t be without, and Hotch sat filled with the guilt of telling those stories of Haley, true as they were, because she was dead and he shouldn’t even think anything negative about her. Reid kept softly patting his arm.

Two days later, a small box appeared on his desk sometime while he was out to lunch.
In it was an exact replica of the original ID bracelet Hotch used to wear. It was the same width and had the same weight of chain; his name and the word courage were both in the same font. He pulled it out and placed it on his wrist and felt peace.

The note at the bottom of the box simple said “I concur, Reid.”

Hotch wasn’t sure he was ready to name the second emotion quite yet.

Title: Lost
Author: alti_angel (altaira)
Rating: G
Pairing:Gen Word Count: 260ish
Prompt: Dec 06 –frosted trees
Warnings: may offend men
A/N: not beta read
Disclaimer: The characters contained herein are not mine. No money is being made from this bit of fiction and this is put forth for entertainment purposes only.


It was simply freezing and all Reid could see where snowy fields for miles and back roads lined with a row of frost covered trees. Not even a thick row of trees, just a single row that showed clearly the white undisturbed fields beyond.

“I think we are lost.” Reid told Morgan.

“We’re not lost,” Rossi insisted from the front seat.

“Hotch, are we lost?” Reid asked, because Hotch was the one driving.

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Reid asked. “Because, I don’t see tire tracks. If this was the way to the crime scene, shouldn’t we have seen tire tracks?”

“We are not lost.” Morgan said.

“I also don’t see the other truck.”

“We aren’t lost.”

So Reid stopped asking and stared out the window, at the frosted trees and the snowy fields, until a black pickup pulled up beside them.

“Where ya all been? We’ve been waitin’ for ya for an hour now. Didn’t ya notice the turn? I done told ya, two roads past the double row, to the left.”

The sheriff was looking in at them.

Reid smirked and leaned back as Hotch followed the sheriff to a spot where they could turn around and then back down the dirt road to the right turn. Two fields down, but within view Reid could see that the frosted tress were two deep in their rows.

They all unloaded from the SUV and joined the ladies at the crime scene.

“Where were you? It’s too cold out here to be out for too long just waiting and the gentlemen wouldn’t let us start without you.” JJ hissed.

“We were lost.” Reid said, just as the other three shouted “We weren’t lost!”