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Statues Must Come Down - Criminal Minds/Supernatural - Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid - Words: 1,459
Written for Angst Bingo; Prompt: Diaries and Journals
Summary: Every Hunter keeps a journal and the contents read like a reflection of that Hunter's mind and soul.
Content Notes: None. PG.
Author Notes: This is # 3 in a Criminal Minds/Supernatural fusion where Hotch and Reid are Hunters instead of FBI agents. To Field and Hollow (Series Page) Title is from the quotation: "When my journal appears, many statues must come down," - Arthur Wellesley
On AO3: Statues Must Come Down
They'd been holed up in a rough cabin in a tiny town called St. Michael, North Dakota, for the past four days, half recovering from nearly having the life drained from them and half laying low in hopes that they've managed to not attract any undue attention. Right next to St. Michael, a small patch of mud with a Catholic church that passes as a town, is a lake called Devil's Lake, with an attached town by the same name on the other side. Both the town and the lake are aptly named. Burning bones from dozens of bodies that had been submerged in water for decades was a task Aaron was not looking forward to repeating any time soon.
Spencer was in the shower again, which was where he was when he wasn't wrapped up in blankets. He'd insisted that he only had mild hypothermia, which Aaron thought was a load of crap, but he just did what he could to supply warm food and spend as much time skin to skin with him in front of the fireplace.
Aaron finished cleaning up after their scant meal, he would have to drive to a gas station and get more food if they wanted to stay more than another day or two, and sat down in the chair in front of the fire and picked up the unevenly bound book that was sitting on the side table.
Every Hunter Aaron had ever met kept a journal of some kind. Most of them were in books with scraps of paper tucked between the pages, hand drawings that illustrated the monsters they encountered, and warnings liberally covering the pages: Never approach an Chicawalla head on, garlic does pretty much nothing against a vampire unless you're about to kiss one, hallowed ground can only protect you against so much. Many of the books they used for research had either been Hunters' journals or had their information purloined from a set of them. Now some Hunters published their journals online; there was a Hunter in California with a website that had provided information they desperately needed on more than one occasion. Aaron still carried his father's journal with him even though he'd started his own journal years ago.
There was rarely a night that passed that Aaron didn't find Spencer bent over his own journal. Spencer had occasionally shared an entry with him, or shown him some of the research he'd saw fit to include in his entries, but for the most part he kept his journal tucked away in his bag away from prying eyes.
Spencer had been writing in his journal just before dinner and had left it out when he'd gone straight from the meal to the shower, his nail beds and lips starting to tint blue again and mumbling about cyanosis.
Aaron picked up the journal and started to flip through, telling himself he was only looking for the entry Spencer must have written about the snow demon in Montana. That was six months ago now and Spencer was still extremely susceptible to the cold; maybe there was something they'd missed and the demon had cursed him somehow. Curses uttered in the last moments before death could be incredibly powerful, and also incredibly difficult to undo.
The journal fell open to the page where a pen was nestled into the binding, a page with Spencer's uneven scrawling words half finished and the pen still uncapped. Aaron paused as he realized that this was a letter and not a journal entry, though on the opposite page there was the end of an entry detailing the creatures that had dragged them into the lake. There was a rather stylized drawing of the creature at the bottom of the entry page, a stooped form with huge eyes and elongated hands, and while it wasn't a photo-realistic representation Aaron thought it was absolutely recognizable.
Aaron's eyes drifted back over to the other page and started reading even though he knew this was a violation of Spencer's privacy. Privacy, when you spent nearly every waking moment with someone, slept in the same bed, and fought the same battles, was almost a joke, but they both protected their past experiences and their thoughts zealously. He was crossing a line but after reading the salutation he couldn't pull his eyes away from the page.
Dear Mom,
We're in the northern states at the moment and it's four degrees below freezing. I think you'd like it here. The quiet, the trees, and even the cold. You always said that Vegas was too hot.
I hope you enjoyed the Margery Kempe book I sent last month. I found it in a used bookstore in Washburn. You would have loved the store; the narrow aisles, the books gathered in piles that hadn't been sorted yet, the smell of paper and old binding. There were many I wished I could take with me. One day I'll build the library you and I used to talk about, a real world reflection of the library we built in my mind.
As always you can send mail to my central post box. I should be traveling west in the next few months. My phone mail box number remains the same and if you need someone to call me and leave a message, just ask them to have me call you back. I lost my phone in a lake - that's too long a story for right now - but I should replace it soon.
I will try to visit soon, maybe in the spring
Aaron blinked and reread the letter once more. He had seen Spencer sending letters nearly every day ever since they'd first started traveling together, but he'd assumed they were to other Hunters in the network. He knew Spencer's mother wasn't a Hunter, it was obvious from the letter that she had no idea what Spencer did, but there was something more to it than that. Spencer had told him that his mother was the reason he was a Hunter and Aaron had privately thought that meant she'd been killed by a demon. Now Aaron didn't know what to think.
He heard the the shower turn off and quickly flipped back through the pages of Spencer's journal, finding the entry about the snow demon just as Spencer emerged from the bathroom.
"Read anything interesting?" Spencer asked when he saw what Aaron was holding. He had a towel around his hair and was still shivering despite his sweats and the blanket he had around his shoulders. His lips didn't look any less blue than before the shower.
"I thought perhaps we'd missed something about Great Falls," Aaron said, holding up the book and tapping the picture of the snow demon in Montana. He kept his expression neutral and hoped that Spencer was too busy freezing to notice that Aaron had avoided the question entirely.
"A curse?" Spencer asked as he crouched down next to the fire and held his hands toward the flames.
Aaron skimmed the entry and closed Spencer's journal. "I think so. It's worth looking into. Maybe we should go down to Florida or California until we figure it out."
"There's a curse breaker in Florida. He's retired but he might be willing to help if we do a job for him," Spencer said as he shivered.
"You know David Rossi?" Aaron asked with surprise.
"I've never met him but I've read everything he's written about Hunting. He's incredible. You know him?" Spencer asked.
Aaron nodded as he sat down on the floor and wrapped his arms around Spencer. "I've Hunted with him."
Spencer twisted around to stare at Aaron, his eyes slightly unfocused without his glasses. "That must have been amazing. What is he like? No, don't tell me."
"It was something," Aaron allowed. He counted Dave as a friend, even understood why he'd left the business, but the last hunt they'd gone on together tended overshadow the memories of all of his other memories of Dave.
"So, Florida?" Spencer asked as he placed his painfully frozen fingers against Aaron's wrists.
"Florida," Aaron agreed before falling silent.
Three weeks ago he'd found burning footprints in front of their motel room. Two weeks before that a cloud had followed them across half of Illinois. Something was following them, and while Spencer's letter had been fairly unspecific about as to where they were and their destination, there were other ways to track people by using objects they'd put something of themselves into. At some point he'd have to mention the letters, but he couldn't bring himself to tell Spencer he couldn't write to his mother. Not yet at least, not until he knew for sure that was how they were being tracked.
Written for Angst Bingo; Prompt: Diaries and Journals
Summary: Every Hunter keeps a journal and the contents read like a reflection of that Hunter's mind and soul.
Content Notes: None. PG.
Author Notes: This is # 3 in a Criminal Minds/Supernatural fusion where Hotch and Reid are Hunters instead of FBI agents. To Field and Hollow (Series Page) Title is from the quotation: "When my journal appears, many statues must come down," - Arthur Wellesley
On AO3: Statues Must Come Down
They'd been holed up in a rough cabin in a tiny town called St. Michael, North Dakota, for the past four days, half recovering from nearly having the life drained from them and half laying low in hopes that they've managed to not attract any undue attention. Right next to St. Michael, a small patch of mud with a Catholic church that passes as a town, is a lake called Devil's Lake, with an attached town by the same name on the other side. Both the town and the lake are aptly named. Burning bones from dozens of bodies that had been submerged in water for decades was a task Aaron was not looking forward to repeating any time soon.
Spencer was in the shower again, which was where he was when he wasn't wrapped up in blankets. He'd insisted that he only had mild hypothermia, which Aaron thought was a load of crap, but he just did what he could to supply warm food and spend as much time skin to skin with him in front of the fireplace.
Aaron finished cleaning up after their scant meal, he would have to drive to a gas station and get more food if they wanted to stay more than another day or two, and sat down in the chair in front of the fire and picked up the unevenly bound book that was sitting on the side table.
Every Hunter Aaron had ever met kept a journal of some kind. Most of them were in books with scraps of paper tucked between the pages, hand drawings that illustrated the monsters they encountered, and warnings liberally covering the pages: Never approach an Chicawalla head on, garlic does pretty much nothing against a vampire unless you're about to kiss one, hallowed ground can only protect you against so much. Many of the books they used for research had either been Hunters' journals or had their information purloined from a set of them. Now some Hunters published their journals online; there was a Hunter in California with a website that had provided information they desperately needed on more than one occasion. Aaron still carried his father's journal with him even though he'd started his own journal years ago.
There was rarely a night that passed that Aaron didn't find Spencer bent over his own journal. Spencer had occasionally shared an entry with him, or shown him some of the research he'd saw fit to include in his entries, but for the most part he kept his journal tucked away in his bag away from prying eyes.
Spencer had been writing in his journal just before dinner and had left it out when he'd gone straight from the meal to the shower, his nail beds and lips starting to tint blue again and mumbling about cyanosis.
Aaron picked up the journal and started to flip through, telling himself he was only looking for the entry Spencer must have written about the snow demon in Montana. That was six months ago now and Spencer was still extremely susceptible to the cold; maybe there was something they'd missed and the demon had cursed him somehow. Curses uttered in the last moments before death could be incredibly powerful, and also incredibly difficult to undo.
The journal fell open to the page where a pen was nestled into the binding, a page with Spencer's uneven scrawling words half finished and the pen still uncapped. Aaron paused as he realized that this was a letter and not a journal entry, though on the opposite page there was the end of an entry detailing the creatures that had dragged them into the lake. There was a rather stylized drawing of the creature at the bottom of the entry page, a stooped form with huge eyes and elongated hands, and while it wasn't a photo-realistic representation Aaron thought it was absolutely recognizable.
Aaron's eyes drifted back over to the other page and started reading even though he knew this was a violation of Spencer's privacy. Privacy, when you spent nearly every waking moment with someone, slept in the same bed, and fought the same battles, was almost a joke, but they both protected their past experiences and their thoughts zealously. He was crossing a line but after reading the salutation he couldn't pull his eyes away from the page.
Dear Mom,
We're in the northern states at the moment and it's four degrees below freezing. I think you'd like it here. The quiet, the trees, and even the cold. You always said that Vegas was too hot.
I hope you enjoyed the Margery Kempe book I sent last month. I found it in a used bookstore in Washburn. You would have loved the store; the narrow aisles, the books gathered in piles that hadn't been sorted yet, the smell of paper and old binding. There were many I wished I could take with me. One day I'll build the library you and I used to talk about, a real world reflection of the library we built in my mind.
As always you can send mail to my central post box. I should be traveling west in the next few months. My phone mail box number remains the same and if you need someone to call me and leave a message, just ask them to have me call you back. I lost my phone in a lake - that's too long a story for right now - but I should replace it soon.
I will try to visit soon, maybe in the spring
Aaron blinked and reread the letter once more. He had seen Spencer sending letters nearly every day ever since they'd first started traveling together, but he'd assumed they were to other Hunters in the network. He knew Spencer's mother wasn't a Hunter, it was obvious from the letter that she had no idea what Spencer did, but there was something more to it than that. Spencer had told him that his mother was the reason he was a Hunter and Aaron had privately thought that meant she'd been killed by a demon. Now Aaron didn't know what to think.
He heard the the shower turn off and quickly flipped back through the pages of Spencer's journal, finding the entry about the snow demon just as Spencer emerged from the bathroom.
"Read anything interesting?" Spencer asked when he saw what Aaron was holding. He had a towel around his hair and was still shivering despite his sweats and the blanket he had around his shoulders. His lips didn't look any less blue than before the shower.
"I thought perhaps we'd missed something about Great Falls," Aaron said, holding up the book and tapping the picture of the snow demon in Montana. He kept his expression neutral and hoped that Spencer was too busy freezing to notice that Aaron had avoided the question entirely.
"A curse?" Spencer asked as he crouched down next to the fire and held his hands toward the flames.
Aaron skimmed the entry and closed Spencer's journal. "I think so. It's worth looking into. Maybe we should go down to Florida or California until we figure it out."
"There's a curse breaker in Florida. He's retired but he might be willing to help if we do a job for him," Spencer said as he shivered.
"You know David Rossi?" Aaron asked with surprise.
"I've never met him but I've read everything he's written about Hunting. He's incredible. You know him?" Spencer asked.
Aaron nodded as he sat down on the floor and wrapped his arms around Spencer. "I've Hunted with him."
Spencer twisted around to stare at Aaron, his eyes slightly unfocused without his glasses. "That must have been amazing. What is he like? No, don't tell me."
"It was something," Aaron allowed. He counted Dave as a friend, even understood why he'd left the business, but the last hunt they'd gone on together tended overshadow the memories of all of his other memories of Dave.
"So, Florida?" Spencer asked as he placed his painfully frozen fingers against Aaron's wrists.
"Florida," Aaron agreed before falling silent.
Three weeks ago he'd found burning footprints in front of their motel room. Two weeks before that a cloud had followed them across half of Illinois. Something was following them, and while Spencer's letter had been fairly unspecific about as to where they were and their destination, there were other ways to track people by using objects they'd put something of themselves into. At some point he'd have to mention the letters, but he couldn't bring himself to tell Spencer he couldn't write to his mother. Not yet at least, not until he knew for sure that was how they were being tracked.
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