dangerously ↝ a. hotchner

t w o

When Aaron didn't come back after half an hour, Dave knew something was wrong. His mind immediately went to Hayley, maybe she'd started another one of her fights? He decided to leave it alone, knowing Aaron would come back, just to give him time.

An hour later, Rossi was seriously worried. The whole team could see it and they were becoming increasingly more agitated as the minutes passed. Spencer kept on talking about the percentage of wives who kill their husbands, which was not helping them one bit, but they knew it was his coping mechanism for stress, so they half heartedly listened.

"We gotta call him." Rossi rushed into the bullpen, narrowly missing walking into Reid's desk. "He's been gone for a long time."

Morgan nodded, immediately picking up his phone and calling his boss. He called twice, each time no answer. Rossi tried as well, no answer. Then the team brought out the big guns. Who was actually the only team member who didn't have a gun. Penelope programmed her phone to send a message every minute, then she physically called him a whole bunch of times. Each time, he didn't answer.

"That's it." Garcia said loudly, slamming her phone down. "I'm pinging his phone." She announced, muttering something about ringtones as she walked away.

She appeared a few minutes later with her laptop in hand, her eyes focused on the screen before her. "It says he's at a gun range? I don't understand, we have a perfectly good one here." She said, sounding confused.

Rossi sighed, knowing what this meant. "If he's there, we best leave him be. He'll come back when he's ready."

The team hesitantly agreed after Rossi convinced them not to show up at the place. Aaron only went there when he was incredibly stressed. That was only a few times before — on the anniversary of his father's death, after his first high-profile case and the day he started having marriage problems.

The team worked quietly on paperwork the whole day, Spencer sneaking out periodically to make secret phone calls to Hotch. Rossi had told them explicitly not to, but he did anyway. Not that the man answered.

"Still nothing?" Emily asked as Spencer got back after making his sixth call.

Spencer's eyes grew wide, but he knew better then to lie to a bunch of profilers. He shook his head sadly, "No."

"He's fine. He's probably just blowing off some steam. We'll see him later." Morgan told them, speaking more to himself than his team.

Spencer nodded slowly, not believing a word Derek said. Mr. 'you're in a safe space' hadn't stopped bouncing his leg up and down since Garcia traced his phone. And he knew better than to look at Emily's hands, he knew her nails would be jagged and short.

It was extremely uncharacteristic of their boss to just suddenly go missing in the middle of a paperwork day. They were all equally worried about what could've prompted this and how he was doing.

A few hours later, Spencer's phone rang. He almost fell off the couch as the loud ringing woke him up from his peaceful yet extremely uncomfortable nap on Hotch's couch. It wasn't the couch, no, that was comfortable. He had somehow managed to sleep in a very awkward position. His bones popped as he stretched, almost falling off the couch again when he saw who was calling.

"Hotch?" He said tentatively, waiting for the man to tell him something first.

"Hey Reid." Aaron replied tiredly, after the range, he had crashed at a hotel and stayed there the whole day. "I'm fine. Alive. And I'll see you tonight." He said firmly and ended the call as quick as that.

"You what? Hello-?" Spencer sighed when he realized there was no one on the other end.

He left the office, seeing his team sitting lazily at their desks, fiddling with whatever they had in their hands, their paperwork strewn to the side, forgotten.