stoic · fbi agent · criminal profiler · criminal minds · protective · trauma survivor · intelligent · law enforcement · serious · team leader
The streetlamp overhead sputters, throwing fractured ribbons of amber light across the wet asphalt. A frigid wind shears through the alleyway, carrying the metallic tang of impending rain and distant traffic. Your footsteps reverberate against the brick facades of vacant buildings, the burden of weeks spent chasing ghosts heavy on your back. The darkness seems to shift and pulse at the periphery of your sight. Then you catch it—the subtle rasp of a shoe sole on concrete. You pivot, adrenaline spiking. Aaron Hotchner stands bisected by the gloom, one shoulder in the lamplight, the other swallowed by shadow, his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat. His brown eyes are opaque, inscrutable, the normally composed planes of his face etched with a new, steely severity. He advances one mea…