unedited

a lot of fluff in this chapter bLEURGH vomit gross

THIRTY ONE. MISSED CALLS

ONCE DAISY STEPPED OUT OF THE PLANE RESTROOM, SHE WAS TAKEN BY THE ARM AND GENTLY TUGGED TO THE SIDE. Instinctively, she pulled back with wide eyes before she realised she was safe. She looked up and saw Hotch slightly surprised at her reaction. He retracted his hand, muttering a soft apology, his expression confused and slightly hurt. She wanted to smack herself for being so jumpy. It wasn't exactly keeping the low profile she wanted. 

"Sorry," Daisy said quickly, avoiding the burning stares of Spencer and Emily on the other end of the jet. Her hand lifted to her shoulder and scratched her skin as a way to relax herself, which Hotch caught instantly. "I didn't get much sleep last night."

Hotch observed her carefully. It was no secret that she was acting strange, but he had missed her calls the night before due to his visit to the former detective who'd worked the Boston Reaper case, Tom Shaunessy. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing he'd like to do on his night off; watching an old man die as he admitted to making a deal with the serial killer. "Is everything okay?"

Daisy hesitated. She looked at her shoes, before back up at him. She forced a smile. "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"

Hotch lightly touched her upper arm, and she subconsciously leaned into it. It was a moment of peace between the two, one that almost everyone on the jet caught. Hotch swallowed. "Listen, I'm sorry I missed your call last night, was it something important?"

Daisy remembered the images of the latest murder. She remembered learning about the case in the academy; the brutal and sadistic M.O the reaper had. She could see that Hotch wanted the Unsub behind bars, and he couldn't handle much else at the moment. So, she shook her head. "No, it was nothing. Sorry to bother you."

Hotch had trouble believing her. He inched a little closer, sensing that she was hiding more than she was letting on. "It's not a bother, Alvarez. We'll talk about it later, alright?"

"Alright," Daisy exhaled though her nose and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. She nodded, her hand softly brushing over his. Hotch noticed how cold she was, and he resisted the urge to do something about it. 

Daisy squeezed past Hotch and took her seat beside Derek, who reached over and ruffled her hair. She didn't mind, she just leaned against him for a second and opened her file. 

"The Reaper is driven by a need to dominate, control and manipulate," Hotch stepped up, his own file open in his hands. 

"So then why would he offer a deal that would stop him from doing that?" Emily asked, her eyebrows dipping in confusion. 

"Well, killing gave him power, but after so many, the payoff began to diminish, so he decided to switch tactics. Offering the deal gave him the ultimate power, better even than killing. He manipulated the police into voluntarily surrendering,"  Hotch replied, his eyes drifting to Daisy in concern every few seconds. As much as the case meant to him, he couldn't help but worry a little bit about whatever it was she'd called him about last night. He knew it must have been something serious from the way she hadn't made sarcastic comments about it, and the fact that he wasn't the only one that appeared concerned about her only made him feel worse. 

"He even got in in writing," Spencer noted, looking over the note Shaunessy  had received a decade earlier. 

"He won," JJ piped up. "Why start killing again?"

"Because the only person who knew he'd won, the person he made the deal with, just died," Daisy responded, her eyes not straying from the papers in front of her. 

"Narcissistic killers need other people to recognise their power. That's why they contact the media," Rossi finished Daisy's thought. 

"So how did he stop for ten years?" Emily hummed, looking around the team. 

Spencer reached for the book he'd set on the table. "In Night of the Reaper, the author suggests he had been arrested for an unrelated crime or died. Perhaps he's trying to correct that misconception."

"What has he been doing all this time?" JJ inquired, looking over at the doctor. 

"Planning what he would do if he started killing again," Hotch answered, his eyes hard with the anger he'd hidden away since he thought the case had ended.  

★☆

"George Foyet, twenty-eight, was the ninth victim and the only one to survive the Reaper," Hotch brought up images onto the television screen of said man. His identification photo, as well as pictures from after the attack. 

Daisy swallowed at the sight of the dozens of sewn up cuts strewn across Foyet's body. The poor man. Rossi seemed to agree. "Not for lack of trying."

"Amanda Bertrand, nineteen, his date for the evening, was not as lucky," Hotch then showed pictures of the young woman's battered corpse inside what must have been Foyet's car. Daisy grimaced, both at age difference between the two victims and the sight of her mutilated body. "He likes to attack them inside or near their cars, at night, on poorly lit, less populated roads."

"Foyet said he approached them pretending to be a lost tourist," Sergeant O'Mara continued, also having worked the original case. "In the hospital, we put Foyet with a sketch artist."

Daisy looked up at the drawing that appeared next. It wasn't much to go on. 

"The Reaper always uses some sort of ruse to get close to and spend time with his victims," Hotch finished. 

"The eye, as he depicts it, appears to be the eye of providence," Spencer pointed to the Reaper's signature, a red eye in a triangle with several lines emerging from each end. "A symbol adopted by the U.S government and incorporated into the Great Seal in seventeen-eighty-two with the words, 'annuit coeptis' inscribed beneath. That's Latin for 'providence' or fate 'has favoured our undertakings'. The Reaper seems to see himself as the personification of fate."

"So, how did Foyet survive?" Daisy asked, nodding to the gruesome images of his injuries. "Surely the Reaper knew the right places. Did he miss?"

Spencer tapped a button on the keyboard, bringing up an audio recording. 

"Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"

"I just murdered two more."

"Excuse me, sir, did you say you murdered someone?"

"Victims eight and nine, by a silver Toyota on Riverton past the Tyson Quarry."

"That call was made from a pay phone about a mile from the crime scene," Spencer explained once it had finished. "EMTs arrived fifteen minutes later. Bertrand was D.O.A, Foyet barely breathing."

"So, the Reaper made one of these calls after each of his killings, telling the police where to find the bodies," Emily concluded. 

"Until this one, the ninth," Hotch said. "If he hadn't made this call, Foyet wouldn't have been found in time. The call saved him."

"So the Reaper didn't make any nine-one-one calls after this one," Morgan noted, and Hotch shook his head. 

"Looks like he learned his lesson," Daisy muttered softly, her eyes unable to tear away from the stitched up holes in Foyet's body.

"There's a reason he left Foyet's glasses at the last crime scene," Hotch picked up the ziplock of evidence from the scene they'd visited once they arrived in Boston. Inside were said glasses, found on the latest victim. "Foyet could be in danger."

"We'll find him," Emily assured the unit chief as they were dismissed.  

★☆

At four a.m the next morning, Daisy awoke to a knocking at her hotel room door. She shot up in bed, having only been half-asleep anyway, a deep fear settling in her chest. Had he followed her here?

Getting up, she tiptoed to the door, grabbing her gun and hiding it behind her back in the process. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she opened the door, her nervous breathing settling once she saw Hotch. 

She lowered her gun to her side and ran a hand down her face, rubbing her tired eyes. She looked up at him, and froze when she saw his bloodshot eyes. He'd been crying. "What-"

"Can I come in?" Hotch asked, his voice softer than it had ever been. Daisy nodded quickly, opening the door wider and letting him slip past her. He began pacing in the room, his hands trembling as he tried to figure out what to do with them. 

Daisy locked the door and set her gun back down, walking over and putting her hands on his shoulders. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

"He called me," Hotch muttered, his voice cracking. "He offered me the deal and I hung up on him. Then I got a call from O'Mara saying that seven people were murdered on a bus. He...he did it because I-"

"Hey," Daisy's hands rose to cup his cheeks. She dipped her head a little so that she could look him in the eyes, using her thumb to wipe away his smudged tear. It was horrible, seeing the strong man like this. "It's not your fault."

"But-"

"Don't try and act like it is," she cut him off. He looked down at her, his eyes watery and helpless. "Aaron Hotchner. You're a man doing his job, and your job is catching monsters. He is using your integrity as a weapon against you. You can't let him win like this, because it's exactly what he wants. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you did what you had to do. We're gonna get him, I know we will."

Hotch released a shaky breath, and reached up to envelop her hands in his. She was still cold. His eyes were captivated by her face; she had no make up on, and an imprint of the patterned cushion on her cheek, yet she still look beautiful. His lips flattened, and he began to lean in.  

Daisy wanted to kiss him, she really did. But she couldn't. Not when they were both going through so much. She sighed, her head falling against his chest. "Raincheck?"

Hotch's shoulders dropped, but he understood. "Raincheck."

"Do you want to stay here until we have to leave?" Daisy offered, her eyes drooping a little. She'd only been asleep for an hour or so before he came, and in all honesty, she knew she'd get a better rest with someone she knew in the room. "I can take the couch."

Hotch found it in him to scoff. "I don't think sharing a bed is the strangest thing to have happened between us, Alvarez."

Daisy chuckled, pulling away from him and walking back to the bed, crawling back under the covers and groaning a little as she felt the comfortable mattress beneath her. Hotch went to the other side and removed his shoes and jacket. He lay on top of the duvet, but held his arm out so that she could cuddle into him.  

That was how they stayed for the next three hours, both agents finally beginning to drift off despite the horrors that plagued their minds. Daisy's head resting on Hotch's steadily moving chest, his hands in her hair and body providing her with a new kind of warmth.  

It was intimate, and completely out of character for the pair who were usually at each others throats. However, neither of them complained, and actually relished in the peace they brought one another. 

It was a feeling they didn't want to go away just yet. 

★☆

shoutout to unspoken bonds

yeuCGH anyway gross fluff ew but aw but ew? i mean i used to shake my ex bfs hand so that just goes to show how comfortable i am with casual intimacy 

but enough about me

idk how i feel about this chapter but things are finally moving along so yay!!! there will still be angst no need to worry but i feel like it's important that hotch and daisy have a solid connection too oopsies

ALSO as per last author's note, i'm feeling a little bit better, i was terrified i had covid (i most definitely do not) ,, and i had to miss the one direction anniversary night a local club was throwing and I'M GUTTED about it but that's life so ummm yeah

how are we? i miss people, even though new zealand is literally back to normal, but i'm really bad at talking to new people irl so i've just been not vibing 

where are you guys from? how's life? yall keeping safe? wearing masks if it's required where you live? hopefully you are! 

and thank you so much for 50 FUCKING THOUSAND READS WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!! y'all are the actual best and i have so much love and appreciation for all of you <333333

super long author's note i'm not sorry i just miss talking to people oop

okay goodbye!!!!