Chapter Text
"The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life."
- Richard Bach
David Rossi didn't think much about soulmates. Most people had at least one soulmate, which were usually platonic, but there were still some people who didn't have one.
When he was young, he hoped he had at least one soulmate and sometime during his teenage years, he started feeling pain which didn't come from his own injuries. It was usually only from minor wounds, but at an alarming rate. At one side, he was glad he had a soulmate, but then on the other, he worried about them and what they had to be going through.
Then he joined the Marine Corps and ended up in Vietnam, where he didn't have much spare time to think about his soulmate. The only moment he had time to do so was when he ended up with a concussion in infirmary. He was glad that painkillers helped ease his, and based on many research studies, his soulmate's pain.
Sometime following his return to America (one good thing that came from his concussion), he joined the FBI and helped Jason Gideon with the founding of the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI. The start was rather rough, and they didn´t have the best workplace, but they managed.
And he was happy when his soulmate didn´t hurt that much anymore, possibly moving to a safer environment, but that happiness was rather short lived when he started feeling similar pains to the first one over the course of a few years, each different from the others. One of those stopped abruptly after the first time, the soulmate probably using blockers, but the others remained.
But, since the possibility of meeting them and saving them from their pains, like they saved people with Jason, was almost astronomical, he ended up focusing on his career and stopped thinking about them, only reminded of them when he got hurt on a case, or when one of his started hurting again, or when he was reminded of their pain on particular cases.
A few years later, he met Aaron Hotchner, an agent from the Seattle division at the time, when working a case. Aaron inherited the case from agent Bidwell, with whom Rossi worked on the case before in 1992. They tried to lure the killer out of hiding, but he wasn´t active in the area anymore after the two kills.
It was… Easy, working with Aaron. Easier than any other officer, agent or person he had encountered, which wasn´t especially hard, considering how the other officers usually behaved. What was weird was that working with Aaron Hotchner might have been even easier and better than working with Jason.
Even if he knew Aaron only for a few weeks while they tried to gather more clues about their unsub, he found himself being friends with Aaron, keeping a light hearted banter sometimes. Afterwards, he tried to leave his guards up, but in the end, he almost ended up giving Aaron his business card with his personal number, to call David whenever he needed or wanted.
David tried to not think too hard about that, or the fact it might imply, after the case grew cold. At least until he met Aaron on another case.
They managed to catch this unsub before he killed another victim, but not before he managed to get a shot at Hotch. Luckily, he got shot in his bullet-proof vest, which was far better than dealing with a gunshot in the chest.
David fired a shot at the unsub, the bullet hitting the unsub's abdomen, one of the officers immediately going to help the unsub, calling for medic. Rossi wanted to go check on the younger agent, but he didn't have time to do so before a sharp intense pain erupted from his chest. He fell down on the ground, and somewhere farther away, he heard someone yell, “Two agents down, we need more medics here!”
"I'm fine, get agent Hotchner help,” he managed to say.
Then the pain stopped.
David, who still remembered the pain from before, but too worried about the other agent to care, quickly got up and went over to check on Aaron.
Aaron's eyes were closed, but he was still breathing, even though shallowly. He checked for a pulse and was relieved when he found it. He was next to the other agent as the ambulance arrived and before he knew it, he was on his way to a hospital with Aaron.
Hotch ended up with broken ribs, which meant he would have to be careful for the next few weeks and had to take pain medication for the time being.
“How are you feeling?” spoke up the older agent.
“Like I was shot in a bulletproof vest,” remarked Aaron.
He hated hospitals. The lights were usually too bright and white, and the hospitals smelled so strongly of disinfection it overwhelmed him. He could almost taste the sharp alcoholic smell and he felt like he was choking on it. He started tapping his fingers against the bed and repeating a few sentences from his favourite book in his head.
He thought about mentioning his problems to Rossi, like asking if it would be possible to dim the lights somehow, but decided that it probably wouldn't be a good idea, based on his past experiences. He will manage, he was used to dealing with it.
“Yeah, I figured. You really need to be more careful.”
“Says the guy who got a severe concussion,” muttered Hotch.
David considered giving him a glare and defending himself that it wasn't his fault, but given the fact that Aaron was in a hospital, he decided against it.
Later on, the two agents tried to meet at least once a week, and about a month later Aaron joined the Behavioral Analysis Unit.