So basically I’ve been spreading the phrase “silly quirky” around my department kind of to show that we all have little quirks and it’s okay to be different, and people have adopted it and generally use it in good faith, but I have a theory (with good evidence) that the freshman just genuinely does not like autistic people, and it’s making me really bummed out since she’s one of my close friends :(

ngl i would genuinely get off to making haley jealous and angry because of how fucking easy it is. my personal hc here but i think she was controlling and thought she had hotch wrapped around her finger and it infuriated her that his job was the only thing he refused to listen to her about. i also think she tried to baby trap him with jack in the assumption that would "fix" their marriage and when it only made it worse she blamed aaron for never being home when she easily couldve hired a nanny or regular babysitter so she could work or do whatever. i believe she cheated bc of that one phone call to their house when hotch answered and it was a random man asking for haley before hanging up and the look hotch gave her like yeah he knew she was fucking around too. i think it made her even angrier that when she filed for divorce hotch didnt even fight her onit! didnt ask to work things out or for counseling or anything. just "okay ill sign the papers when i get back from this case"

now assuming reader is mid twenties i think your very existence would have her enraged. aaron seems happier and even healthier. hes got more color in his face, hes put on some healthy weight, he smiles and laughs now, he takes more time off work, his life has clearly significantly improve since she left him and she cant fucking stand it. she thought she was the best thing that ever happened to him and now shes seeing in real time she's actually the worst thing ♥️♥️

and you thinks its funny as hell to watch a 40 year old woman with a whole ass kid be that bent out of fucking shape because the man SHE LEFT is fine without her. like yes maam i am younger than you, hotter than you, nicer than you AND i can ride the dick just right. stay pressed bitch 💕. and when she tries interfering in your relationship hotch asks you to put up with it just for a bit because he knows hack is still adjusting to coparenting and he wants the best for his son so you let him handle his exwife until she crosses a line and tries to accuse you of some shit and aaron finally puts his foot down and haley cant believe that shes really lost complete control over aaron (haha fuck you haley)

like i fantasize about a situation where haley is trying SOOOO hard to break yall up and drive a wedge between you two and it isnt until jacks birthday or some big family function aaron brought you too and haley cant help it but lowkey stalk yall all night and so youre like "aaron watch this" and you drag him off to some secluded corner and hes like ??? but you tell him "hold on baby give it a minute. bet you anything haley pops up" and then once you hear footsteps you give aaron a big fat smooch and surprise surprise!! whos coming around the corner? why its haleys stalker ass following you two like a creep!

i literally just want to cuck haleys pathetic ass because fuck her and her scraggly blonde hair and that nappy ass wig she had on in witness protection with her no-style-no-personality-all-about-me havin ass 😒😒😒😒

sorry this is such a convoluted mess i just hate that lady 😭😭

I NEEDN'T SAY MORE THIS IS EXACTLY MY THOTS I WANT THAT WOMAN SEEEETHING AT THE SIGHT OF AARON BEING HAPPY AND THRIVING. SHE WOULD ABSOLUTELY BE THE CRAZY EX WHO PROBABLY ENDS UP HARASSING YOU.

The SECOND she says smth nasty abt you Aaron is soooooo fucking pissed. She insults you saying you're just a whore sleeping with Aaron for his money (and cuz us babes are plus-size queens she HATES THAT) and that Aaron is not attracted to you.

And Aaron OOF he takes her to one side and tells her she is fucking nothing but the mother of his child now. That YOU are his everything. YOU make him the man he is now. He's fucking happy with you as the love of his life and that Haley made him chronically stressed and depressed and almost completely ruined his self esteem. He warns her to back the fuck off from him and reader. He does not want any communication with her unless it's to do with Jack. End of.

Chapter 13

The second they stepped into the Cottonwood grove everything changed. The sinlight penetrated the leaves like a laser in search of a target. The leaves fluttered like sunlight on a creek at dawn. The sound of the road vanished, and the air felt thicker, and full of life. Nature had a way of calming everyone down. Nobody's brain could compute that just a few minutes ago they had been in front of Lure's Bait and Tackle. We were all in a completely different world, with a completely different set of rules. Erin hopped over a tree which had fallen into the pathway and looked back. We had never really planned to do anything, we just knew that if we were in the forest it was probably better than being in civilization. I remembered one winter Erin and I had eaten some mushrooms with the plan of going cross country skiing. But the weather just got too bad, and the wind was too intense, so we packed up and drove back home. We somehow ended up in Menards buying honey roasted peanuts. The power tools, and the intercom, and all of this civilization stuff seemed toxic. It was the opposite of how we approached psychedelics. Everything manmade felt a bit shallow and fake, whereas nature never ceased to amaze. We had formed a long single file line, and were all quiet as we ventured further into the woods. And this was fine, the best type of friend is one that you can be quiet with. Where those "uncomfortable silences" never felt uncomfortable.

A squirrel hopped from one tree to another, it's tail spinkling fairy dust down below. Erin looked back at me, smiling, and I nodded in acknowledgement. Guy was still in the back, he had wandered off to pee, and hadn't fully recooped from his breakdown by the vacuum cleaner. I walked up to Erin, and we both stared up at the tree branches, squinting our eyes. The squirrel had perched themself at the tip of the branch, and was looking down at us as if we were some kind of invaders. Erin broke the silence.

"It's ok little one, we're just passing through, I know this is your home. We' won't break anything I promise!"

The squirrel barked back. My attention turned to the river, which could be made out through the trees. I wandered off in that direction.

"Where you headed?!" Erin asked quizzically.

Let's go check out the water. " I responded.

Guy followed along, silent, and in his own world. The bank of the river was more like a cliff, with trees on one side. There was no bank per se, just a steep 15 foot drop off. I plopped down on a tree, and Erin and Guy sat down next to me. We all just watched the sun dancing on the ripples. As the light broke up into millions of little bits. It was more like liquid mercury, colors dripped and glided into one another. I exhaled deeply. Just then, a huge pontoon blaring Toby Keith came into view. There were a couple of beer bellied 40 year olds with their shirts off manning the deck, while the wives drank sangria. Their kids were towards the back of the giant floating living room, and both of them were wearing VR headsets. I wouldn't doubt if they were playing a fishing game.

"You think they're happy?" Erin said

"They look happy don't they?" I responded.

" I don't know. You ever see those videos of people who go to Africa, and they bring something for all the people in the village, and all the kids are jumping around, and just being kids. I think that's what happiness looks like. Pure unbridled joy. And the kids... They're just soooo kid like. Doesn't matter where in the world you area. Kids understand humor. They understand laughing with their whole body until they collapse onto the floor. I think that's why everyone likes kids so much. We get to see the world again through their eyes. They remind us just how much the culture has shaped us to see it how we see it."

"I think there's some truth to that. But those kids also have a lot of difficulties don't they? They have to worry about getting malaria, and they can't just get a football delivered to their front door." "Abshir seemed happy too" Erin replied.

"Sure. He did seem like a good person" I said

"I think we need to live without something to be happy. It's too easy to take everything for granted. Now people aren't even happy with reality. They can't even look at a beetle walking on a tree stump. You see a kid look at that, and you can see the wonder in their eyes. How closely they look at the antennas feeling around, and their rainbow colored shells"

The forest began to feel like it was breathing to me, and I was feeling a bit of anxiety beginning to creep in. I focused on Erin's words to help ground myself. Toby Keith was still echoing in the distance. She continued to speak, but I could no longer make out any words, I had focused on a gnarled piece of wood near the bank below us. Focusing on it, and felt like a thousand intricate knots that wrapped around each other like a bucket full of snakes. I looked back at Erin, and she was still talking. But I had absolutely no way of actually making out what she was talking about. I laughed at something she said, and then laughed about laughing at something. What was I laughing at? I thought to myself. I have no idea!

I looked past Erin, and expected to see Guy sitting next to her. But he was gone! "Erin!" I said. "Where's Guy?!" Erin began to look around as well, and called out "Guy?!" There was no trace of him. "GUY!" I shouted, standing up, while the whole world spun around me. We had entered another world completely. One which had a tinge of dread and uncertainty. We began searching around the grove with our eyes, trying to find a trace of him, but there was nothing but trees, and water. "Should we split up?!" I said somewhat frantic. "Of course not!" Erin responded. We continued to call out. But got nothing back. We walked the banks further into the forest, calling out his name every few seconds, but heard nothing in response.

Then we saw the river had formed a sandbar, and there was a person in the middle of it. "GUY!" I shouted, the figure didn't look back, it looked as if it was working on something. Plopped down on the bank of the sandbar. "That's gotta be him" Erin stated. We slid down the cliff, holding onto tree roots as descended, and took off our shoes. We would have to walk through some knee high water to get to the sandbar in the middle of the river. We continued to shout his name. "That's him!" Erin stated. "What is he working on?". We waded through the water, which was ice cold at this time of the year, and it felt hot to the touch. It wasn't cold. It was hot. In fact. What was the difference between the two? The silt squished between our toes, and it felt like we were in the desert walking. A wide open plain of water in front of us. Our friend in the distance, at some oasis working on something. What was he working on? He was bent over for sure, and he wasn't looking back. A couple jet skis whizzed by in the distance like hornets cutting through the air. "GUY!" Erin shouted again. Nothing. "What a goober" Erin stated as we came up to the banks of the sandbar, Guy was still a good 50 yards off. For a split second. I had a moment of terror. I thought about the giant beaver creature we had seen previously. I thought to myself "Why are we trusting Siri?" "How do we know she's even trying to help us!". As we got closer, we began to slow down a bit, both of us filling with trepidation about what we were going to discover. "Guy?!" Erin said in a normal voice "What's up buddy?" she continued.

As we got closer we could see that Guy was sitting in the water, and was playing with something in the water. A large form, that simply looked too big to be a fish, at least from this river. With a few more steps it came into focus, and Guy was gently caressing the belly of a large prehistoric fish. A Sturgeon which had seen better days.

"There was a hook stuck in his mouth. I got it out" Guy said. "He was washed up on the shore. Didn't want to be in the water."

I crouched down and inspected Guy's find. The gills were still "breathing" like fish do, but the fish was largely unresponsive. A barbed hook lie near him. At this moment, Erin remembered the minnows. She took her backpack off immediately and got the sandwich bag out, which was jam packed full of the silvery little guys that looked like a million pieces of molten steel against the sun which was beeming down on this unusual warm late fall day. Erin took the rubber band off the bag and released the minnows into the water. The Sturgeon's eye opened up and looked straight at all of us. A dinosaur from another age which somehow made it through the great extinction event. It was still here, and Guy was helping it live. The minnows scattered into the river, and a couple of them hung out near the banks, basking in the sun. Erin and I both petted the Sturgeon. "Come on buddy" Erin said as the banks of the river undulated and sloshed up onto our shins. Another pontoon came stupidly zooming by, it was being driven by someone in their late teens. The pontoon's wake kicked up the river, and caused the sturgeon to sway back and forth. The sturgeon's eye was open, and black, and looking at all of us, and we were looking back. It had to know we were trying to help it. In a second, as if it had been hit with a shot of adrenaline, it flopped around vigorously, and water sprayed onto all of us. It's tail slapped against the water, and the bank for a moment, and then it was gone. Disappeared into the dark river which flowed so quickly through this town.

"I think he's gonna be ok" Guy said in a calm, yet reassuring tone.

"Yeah, he'll be alight" I responded.

"Come on buddy" Erin said, putting her around Guy's big waist. Lets head back to the grove.

"OK" he responded. And we all made the trek back through the water, and up the embankment, and back into the safety of the shade and trees.