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“Sometimes, when it comes to family, common sense and procedure go out of the window”
Hotch’s own words had been ringing in his ears for months now.
Every time there was a particularly dangerous case, every time the Unsub got too close for comfort; those words, his own goddamn words, rang in his ears like church bells.
They were meant to be for Morgan, to help him understand Spicer’s actions. They weren’t supposed to feel so personal, so true.
Aaron wasn’t entirely unreflective – he knew that he had been affected by the presence of family in cases before. Hayley and Jack, Foyet, losing her and nearly losing him; he had been frantic, untameable. He would’ve done anything, he did do anything, to get them back.
But that made sense; that was his wife, albeit ex-wife, and son. Everyone understood. Everyone could see the desperation in him and recognised it as both rational and acceptable.
But this – well, this was getting ridiculous.
Reid was a trained fucking FBI agent and a grown adult. Hotch’s reactions were irrational, utterly unprofessional and entirely inappropriate.
But he couldn’t help it. Every time Reid went out on the field, every time he got was anywhere near an Unsub physically, it was like a siren was screaming in Hotch’s head, blocking his thinking and making him frantic.
It stopped him doing his job well enough; he couldn’t get into the mind of an unsub, think like a killer, if his mind was fixated on Reid. Where he was, who was near him. Hotch was losing the ability to do his job, and something had to give.
He started keeping Reid at headquarters, or whichever police station they had set up in. His knee injury made that easy, at first, and soon, keeping Reid resigned to near enough desk duty was the only thing that soothed his spiralling anxiety.
He had thought he was hiding it pretty well; Reid was a thinker, less of a doer than the others, and so keeping him working in geographical profiles and studying data was a logical move as the Unit Chief. It was his role, after all, to use the talents of his agents to the best of their ability, and Reid excelled in finding patterns and analysing movements.
None of the team ever questioned it, least of all Reid himself, and for a while, Hotch was able to do his job again.
It didn’t last, not that these things ever did.
Because Spencer Reid had a multitude of talents, a fact known to all in the BAU, and analysing and interpreting body language was one of them. He wasn’t as a good at deciphering tone, that was more of Rossi’s speciality, or coaxing answers from unresponsive interviewees like Prentiss, but he could rival Hotch on how well he noticed, catalogued and interpreted body language.
Reid’s brain just did it quicker than anyone else’s on the team. Which meant that sometimes, when interrogating suspects on a time crunch, Reid was the only man for the job. He saw things, miniscule muscle movements and minute finger twitches, both faster and with more consistent accuracy than even Hotch himself. And so, for the good of the team, Hotch should have let him be part of the interrogation for this unsub.
He was tricky, choosing to stay mute instead of risking a lie, and there was a girl somewhere who could have been dying from dehydration as they spoke. He wouldn’t talk, he couldn’t be tricked into speaking. Reid was the only one who could watch him, see those tiny responses he fought to hide, and recognise which were nerves, satisfaction or fear. Reid was the only one who would be able to think quick enough to form a pattern from them, to generate the right questions from his observations and hopefully reveal the location of the girl.
Hotch knew this.
But. But.
But this fucker was one sick son of a bitch. He had been chained down in the interview room because he had already bitten three of the arresting officers, breaking two ribs and cracking a nose while he did so. He was lethal, armed or not, and Hotch didn’t like how much leeway those chains gave him.
Hotch tried to force himself to send Reid in there, but all he could see was Reid’s high cheekbones cracking beneath the force of his fist, his delicate wrists snapping under the unsub’s heavy boots. He imagined the scars the unsubs teeth would leave on Reid’s skin and he felt physically sick.
He couldn’t do it. He physically couldn’t send Reid in there.
Morgan argued with him about it vocally, so did Prentiss. The whole team watched as Hotch refused to send Reid in, insisting that he and Rossi complete the interrogation themselves instead. JJ looked on perplexed and even Rossi shot him a frown as he pushed open the door.
But worst of all, was Reid.
Stood, there, mouth open, looking like a puppy had been kicked.
He looked so delicate under the harsh lights of the station; thin skin stretched over brittle bones and those huge, dark eyes staring at him like he had committed the worst kind of betrayal.
Hotch knew he’d fucked up; he knew it in the way that Reid’s face contorted, the same way it had when Gideon had left him that god-forsaken letter.
Untrustworthy, unwanted, belittled.
And all Hotch could do was apologise with his eyes as he went in to interview the murderer.
*****
The next time was in Texas, and if possible, it was worse.
Reid hadn’t looked at him the same since that day. He had been respectful, sure, and continued to be an excellent agent, but he looked at Hotch differently now.
Gone was that trust; the inherent belief that Hotch had his back. Instead, he looked wary, unsure, and every time he found something to add to the profile, he ran it by Hotch privately first, like he was worried Hotch would belittle him for it in front of the team.
Aaron hated it.
He wanted to speak to Spencer, but he didn’t know what to say. What could he say?
Hey, Spence, I am really sorry that I didn’t let you conduct that interview. But it wasn’t because I don’t trust you, it’s because the thought of you even breathing the same air as some of these psychopaths sends me so wild that I think I might just end up putting a bullet in their brains if they look at you wrong.
Yeah, no.
That wasn’t going to work.
So, he stayed silent and watched as the rest of the team forgot, but Spencer didn’t. He watched as the agent questioned all of his abilities, over and over again, looking for his own weak spots with worrying ruthlessness, like he was terrified of Hotch finding them first.
In Galveston, Texas, it all started with a uniformed officer.
He was loud and opinionated, and Prentiss had rolled her eyes at him three times within the first hour of meeting him. He was in his thirties, and his record showed he had already failed his detective’s exams twice. He was frustrated, believed himself more important than he was, and bigoted to match.
The whole team hated him, but as usual, they kept their heads focused on the job, ignoring him when he spoke and disregarding most of his viewpoints in private.
But Spencer seemed to struggle with him the most.
Spencer was everything this man seemed to loathe; young, successful, respected by his colleagues. He bit at Spencer with savage words and a persistent vengeance, each snipe more snide than the last, and it took all of Aaron’s restraint not to smash his nose in every single time he even looked Reid’s way.
As it was, Aaron did haul in the man’s superior officer.
“I will not have my team belittled,” Aaron’s voice was deadly quiet, a kind of low growl, spat out between clench teeth.
The officer, Abbot, looked suitably intimidated.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, looking both exhausted and frustrated all at once. “Banner has been here for years, he’s a fucking piece of work. But he’ll work all the hours, and I can’t start sending people home when we’ve got a killer on the loose.”
Hotch resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“I understand, detective,” he said, lying. He did not understand how this man, Banner, was still employed. “But I refuse to subject my agents to bullying in the workplace. Not for your city, and not for anyone’s. Send him out on every patrol if you have to, but I want Banner absolutely nowhere near agent Reid for the duration of our stay here. Am I clear?”
The detective had fumbled an agreement, and changed the rotas as quickly as he could, and Hotch was relieved when it seemed that the problem had been solved.
Until their penultimate day, of course.
Reid was frustrated at the case; everyone could see that.
The unsub was using code to communicate with his online fans, and with every passing murder, the code changed. It seemed as soon as Reid worked out one code, another appeared using an entirely different alphabet and grammatical set up.
It made the young agent wild, and Hotch knew why. There was little in point in any other of their agents, excluding perhaps Gracia, even attempting to help him solve the code. They wouldn’t see the patterns in time, and the likelihood was they would just interrupt Reid’s flow. This was on him, and he knew it.
Reid felt like he was failing.
Aaron ached to tell him that he wasn’t.
“Pretty boy, it’s okay,” Morgan soothed, watching as Reid reassembled the Egyptian alphabet once again. A new pattern, a new attempt. “This unsub has been forming these codes for years; you’ve been working on them for 48 hours. You’ve already solved four of them, and you saved the last girl.”
Reid waved his hand, like he was pushing away Morgan’s condolences.
“But we didn’t get him,” Reid stated simply, like he was speaking to a child. “We still haven’t got him. There will be another girl tonight.”
Well, no-one knew what to say to that.
The entire office watched as Reid’s brain took over; he scanned books at such an alarming rate that Hotch heard one officer ask her friend if he was on speed, and he scribbled letters and numbers on the whiteboards so illegibly that no-one else could read what he wrote anyway.
Hotch couldn’t help but watch in wonder.
This was Spencer Reid, uninhibited by the world’s expectation of him. He was unrestrained by the attempt to blend to social expectation, and he was uncaring of typical platitudes and manners. He almost looked superhuman, only briefly stopping to take sips of cold coffee from cups that Hotch kept refilling. He didn’t think Spencer even noticed, but perhaps he did. His brain seemed capable of anything when it got like this.
Two hours later, a shout interrupted the entire station.
“I got it!” Reid exclaimed, papers flying everywhere as he stood. His curls were wayward, flying out in all directions, and his tie was abandoned on the table next to him. He looked rumpled and magnificent, and Hotch could hardly look away.
“Reid,” Rossi gestured him over to where all the officers had gathered, and Reid stumbled his way across the station, occasionally bumping into desks as he went. Once he arrived at Rossi’s side, he stopped.
“Explain,” Rossi prompted.
“It’s not a man,” Reid was speaking quickly, the way he did when his lips could barely keep up with his mind. “I’ve been profiling the code wrong, this whole time. I assumed, because the unsub was a man, the person writing the code was male. I was wrong!”
He looked up at Hotch, eyes bright and alive, and Hotch nodded, signalling for him to continue.
“He’s got a woman working with him,” Reid continued, turning to scribble frantically on the board behind him. “The way men and women approach creativity, especially writing, is entirely different. Men are focused on content, women on how that content will be received. She is writing the code like she’s making art; it’s not what she’s using, it’s the way she’s presenting it.”
The letters he drew looked unfamiliar to Hotch, but there was something in the break down of the lines that he felt echoed in his mind.
“Verses,” Hotch said as Reid wrote. “She writing in verses.”
Reid hummed in agreement.
“She’s using Egyptian lettering, which is part of Arabic alphabet. But she’s presenting in a traditionally Latin, romantic, style; poetry. Once I got that, I understood the rhyming pattern, and from there I could decipher the changes made to traditional Arabic syntax. I think I’ve got it.”
There were murmurs in the room, small conversations breaking out and Reid translated the lines, his pupils moving so fast Hotch was alarmed he might faint.
Once finished, he turned to look at Hotch.
“The dockyard,” he breathed. “Three twenty-eight am, beneath the sunbeam.”
Hotch nodded, opening his mouth to tell Spencer that he had done well, when a snide voice cut through them.
“The sunbeam at three in the morning?” Banner’s drawl came from the back of the room where he had been lingering in a small crowd. Hotch hadn’t even noticed his return. “There ain’t no sunbeams at three am, unless I am mightily mistaken.”
Morgan rolled his eyes, and Hotch shot Detective Abbott a withering look.
“It’s not always self-explanatory,” Hotch said shortly, already looking round to gather his cell and gun. “Often unsubs are metaphorical. We’ll find more when we get there.”
Banner snorted.
“Banner,” Detective Abbot said warningly, his arms crossed and annoyance flittering across his face. “Not now.”
Banner huffed, stepping forward towards the centre of the room.
“Well, I’m sorry for being sceptic,” his tone was mocking and his voice was hard. “It’s just that we all seem mighty eager to take the word of a boy barely out of diapers, whose spent the last two days staring at squiggles on a board that no-one else could tell if he was lying about anyway. He’s not been out there, helping the people who are scared. He’s been here, thinking about poetry when people are dying.”
Hotch watched as JJ placed a placating hand on Morgan’s shoulder.
Taking a deep breath, Hotch stepped forward.
He squared his shoulders and looked down at Banner, pleased to see the man was a good few inches shorter than him. His eyes were dull, lifeless, and mottled red. His nose, bulbous and unpleasant, was covered in tiny capillaries, some burst, which gave him an unpleasant purple tinge.
When Hotch breathed in, he could smell the tang of bourbon on his uniform.
“Are you suggesting that Dr Reid is wrong?” His voice was calm, deadly. The station around them seemed to shift in discomfort. Hotch didn’t make a habit of embarrassing others in public, but he was burning with rage.
“I’m sayin’ that your ‘genius’,” he put the words in air quotes, and Hotch wanted to break those fingers. “Has spent his whole life being told how special and clever he is. He is so used to just announcing shit and having all of us uniforms rush out to his every command, like dogs. But who’s in danger if he’s wrong? Not you, who seem to believe every word that he says. Me. So forgive me if the whole poetry thing doesn’t quite reach me. But I think his ego needs seeing to, and if no-one will do it, I will.”
“Spencer Reid,” Hotch began, his stomach clenching and his fingernails biting into the skin of his palm. “Is the youngest agent to ever work in the FBI. He became qualified at twenty-two, and had worked at the BAU since then. He has solved well over two hundred cases since he started, and has done so while getting yet another PHD to add to his collection. He is currently being headhunted by every major university in the country, along with nearly all those in Europe too. I receive around thirty letters a week requesting his transfer to other units of the FBI, all of which I battle away in a desperate attempt to keep him with the BAU. Not because he is never wrong; because he is one of the best agents who had ever worked for the FBI. Because he phenomenally successful in every endeavour he undertakes and underestimating him has resulted poorly for every single individual who ever did so,” Hotch took a deep breath, deliberately not looking at the other faces around the room.
“Spencer Reid has been kidnapped, drugged, shot, stabbed, burnt and assaulted, far more frequently than any of your uniformed officers ever have. So no, I do not feel his ego needs ‘seeing to’,” He finished with a snarl, slotting his gun into his holster with a resounding click.
The entire station was silent, watching him, and Hotch knew his face was flushed with indignation.
He daren’t look at Reid, or any of his agents. He stared ahead when he said, “Come on,” and marched forward, shoving Banner to the side as he headed towards the doors determinedly.
“By the way,” he heard Reid’s voice ring out from behind him, and he turned to see the younger agent staring Banner down.
Reid was flushed, embarrassed, but with a hardness to his eyes.
“I don’t give a fuck if you believe me,” Reid continued, shrugging like he didn’t care. “Because your opinion has absolutely no standing when it comes to solving this case. I am sure your name wont even make the report.”
**
They saved the girl.
On the plane on the way home, Dave settled into the seat next to him.
The entire team seemed to watch from behind their lashes, conversations pausing.
“Aaron-” Rossi started.
Hotch held up a palm.
“Don’t.” He interrupted, voice hard, and he continued to write in lines of the case report in front of him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
*****
In New Orleans, Reid finally loses his patience.
Aaron was impressed that it had taken him this long to confront him. He had been holding his breath for months, anticipating a conversation every single time he gave the order for Spencer to stay at headquarters, every time he sent Morgan or Prentiss into the field instead.
This time, he knew he was being entirely irrational.
“Reid,” he said, not looking up from the file he was pretending to read. “Keep focusing on the geographical profiles. Morgan, with me to the strip club. He’s likely to try again tonight.”
“Hotch,” Morgan said, hand twitching at his side. “Come on, man. We all know what he’s looking for; skinny, young, pretty. I can tempt with the best of them, but if we wanna get close, we all know we need Reid.”
Aaron looked up, catching Morgan’s eye and staring him down. He raised an eyebrow, but Morgan remained undeterred.
He didn’t need this now; they were on a time crunch. This unsub did have a type, but he also had a hunting ground and very specific hours that he worked between. He didn’t have time to argue.
“I am not putting one of my agents at risk of being murdered, simply because he is the unsub’s type,” Hotch snapped, throwing the file down to the surface of the desk with a slap. “We’ll stick to observing the club, and you’ll fit in better.”
Morgan opened his mouth to argue again, but this time, it was JJ who intercepted Hotch’s gaze. Her tone was soft, but her frown creased in confusion.
“Hotch,” she said quietly. “Come on. You’ve sent Emily out to clubs before, had Morgan flirt his way round possible unsubs. It’s no different. You’ll all be there, and Morgan’s right – he’ll get closer if he’s attracted to one of you. And Reid is only one who fits victimology.”
“I’ll be safe,” Reid’s voice was gentle, hesitant, like he was trying to soothe a spooked horse. Hotch looked at him; his willowy stature screamed please listen and Hotch couldn’t help but hesitate when their eyes met. “You’ll all keep me safe, I know it, Hotch.”
Hotch stood still, feeling the weight of his team’s eyes on his face as he weighed up his options.
He knew that the unsub would be more likely to approach Reid than anyone else; Reid was just his type, and significantly more attractive than some of his previous victims. To the unsub, Reid would be the ultimate prize; young, hot, intelligent. It would be the win of a lifetime for the unsub.
But – but. Reid would be right there, in the firing line. His pretty face being touched by those killer hands, his body being leered at. He could be too tempting; the unsub could devolve and change method. The rest of them could be too slow, and Reid could be face down and sedated in some back alley before any of them even noticed.
God, what if the unsub touched him? What if he kissed his unresponsive lips?
“I can do this, Hotch,” Reid’s voice was smooth like silk, and Hotch watched as he swallowed down his nerves. “Please, trust me.”
His eyes were huge and vulnerable, and for one horrendous moment, Aaron imagined he saw the life draining from them. He imagined the dark irises glazing over with the fade of death, and the whites staining yellow with decaying. There was vomit in his mouth and a sickness in his stomach.
“No,” he said, watching as Reid’s expression flickered between betrayal and mortification. “I’m sorry. I trust you, Reid, but the risk is too high.”
And without waiting for the rest of the team to follow, Hotch stormed to the car, using the moment’s solitude to scrub at his stinging eyes and chanting to himself that he was doing the right thing.
**
Reid cornered him in his hotel room that night.
He had knocked, and Hotch knew who it was from the rapping of knuckles against wood. Reid always knocked in a specific pattern. Most of the team thought it was one of his oddities, but Hotch knew it was an old morse code pattern requesting entry. Reid was a sucker for the classics.
Aaron could see the way he shuffled his weight from side to side form the shadows his feet cast underneath the door, and Aaron sighed before he opened it. He set his shoulders back, knowing he would be facing a challenging conversation, and placed a natural expression on his face as he swung the door open.
“Reid,” he greeted simply, immediately clocking the man’s furrowed brow and tense shoulder set. “Can I help?”
Reid looked at him, incredulous.
“Can we talk?” he asked, though his tone left little room for debate.
Sighing, Aaron stepped to the side and gestured for Reid to come in, which he did with little hesitation. Aaron tugged at his collar as he closed the door, grateful that he had not yet changed into sleeping clothes but frustrated that he had already removed his tie and suit jacket. He often wore them like armour; a persona he could shift into for work. Without them, he felt exposed and underprepared, but it would seem exceedingly strange to place them back on again now Reid had seen him in just his shirt and trousers.
When he turned, he noticed Reid had settled into one of the corner chairs in his room, and he joined him on the one opposite, grateful that neither man had to be seated on the bed. That felt too close, too intimate, for Aaron knew was to be a hard conversation.
Reid’s eyes were sharp, assessing, and for a moment, Aaron simply let him look. He let Spencer drag his gaze from Aaron’s face down to his crossed ankles, analytic and tactical, and then allowed him to assess the room in the same fashion. Once Spencer had seen what he wished to, his gaze returned to Hotch’s face, waiting.
“Finished?” Hotch asked, a slight grin pulling at the side of his mouth. Reid nodded. “What do you need?”
Spencer looked at him with frustrated eyes.
“You know damn well what I need, Hotch,” his tone was short and scathing in a way that Aaron hadn’t heard since the Dilaudid. He resisted the urge to wince, and instead kept his expression set.
“Tell me,” Was his response, gesturing with open palms as if to say I’m all yours.
Spencer growled at his deliberate ignorance, and Hotch, not for the first time, was so impressed with how well this man knew him. He knew Hotch was being purposefully obtuse, and he knew it was being done to undermine him. So instead of reacting, Spencer took a deep breath.
“You have concerns about my ability to do my job, chief,” Reid said steadily, though there was still a tremor of annoyance to his tone. “I have come to see what I can do to alleviate you of your concerns.”
Aaron felt a spasm of shame cut through him; he had no doubts of Spencer’s abilities to profile, or even to be a field agent. He was exceptionally proud of the agent Spencer was. He hated that Spencer could think otherwise.
“I assure you, agent Reid,” Hotch said soothingly, emphasising the use of the title agent. “I have no concerns. Your last performance review, as with all of those previous, was exemplary. Your work has been excellent, as usual. I feel very lucky to have you as part of the team.”
Spencer’s eyes looked lost for a moment, disarmed, and briefly, Hotch saw that twenty-two-year-old man again. So much potential, but so unsure. Then, his expression shuttered down, and Hotch felt like he was already mourning the glimpse he had gotten.
“If that is true,” Spencer said, crossing his long legs and wrapping those elegant fingers around his knee. Hotch considered that if he ever got tired of the FBI, he could almost certainly go into modelling. He had the elegant poise for it. “Then why have I been out of the field for months?”
Hotch sat up straighter, though there was an anxious edge gnawing at his stomach. He swallowed it down, and looked the agent in the eyes.
“Reid,” he let his voice dip down softer, like he was confessing something. “You were shot in the knee. Your body needs time to recover. I won’t send you into the field just for you to permanently inhibit your ability to do this job.”
Reid scoffed, rolling his eyes, and Aaron loved the way it juxtaposed his poised elegance from earlier.
“Hotch, my knee was healed months ago, and you know it,” His tone was clipped, impatient. “You got the same doctor’s report I did. And besides, interviewing unsubs? Hardly a risk to my knee, is it?”
“They could attack at any moment-” Hotch began, but Spencer interrupted.
“So could any person on the subway, Hotch, but I don’t see you dragging my railcard out of my hands.”
Hotch remained quiet, and Reid cocked an eyebrow at him.
“And then, in Texas, it was so different. It was like you couldn’t shut up about how amazing an agent I was, even though I didn’t ask you to. And I thought, hey, Hotch does trust me. He does think I can do this job,” Reid was flushed, slightly embarrassed, and Hotch resisted the urge to place a soothing hand on his knee.
“And then here we are; back to square one. I’m not allowed to do anything outside of geographical profiles or data analysis. It’s like you don’t even recognise that I have talents beyond that. Okay, I’m a quick reader and I can spot patterns, but I can be in the field too, Hotch. I can be a real agent; I don’t need to spend the rest of my life holed away in an office, never seeing an unsub. If I wanted that, I’d be in a different department.”
Reid was breathing heavily now, chest expanding quickly, his earlier demeanour of calm shattered. He was sat forward, elbows on his spread knees and eyes searching Aaron for a reaction, for a glimpse of whatever he was searching. His posture screamed frustrated, but the way his eyes blinked too quickly and his lip was locked between his teeth, Hotch knew he was holding in his emotion.
Hotch felt his chest ache.
“I trust you-” he began, but Spencer’s eyes flashed.
“Then put me in the fucking field,” he snapped, eyes wet and lips bitten red. “I could have helped with this unsub, Hotch. He wouldn’t have drugged the last boy if I’d have been there.”
“You don’t know that,” Hotch protested quietly, but it was drowned out by Spencer’s ramble.
“And I get that you don’t see me as someone with the ability to seduce, Hotch, but I could’ve fucking had him. Easier than anything. Just because you don’t think I can communicate with people outside of statistics-”
“That is not what I think!” Hotch growled, his temper snapping as Spencer’s theories clouded his ability to rationalise. He stood, pacing the small space between the chairs and his bed. “Don’t tell me what I think about my own agents, Reid.”
“Then you fucking tell me!” Reid exploded, standing to meet him, intercepting his pace by placing his lean body in the way. “Then you tell me, Hotch, because I have been trying to figure it out for months. You’re hot and cold; one minute I can’t be trusted to even speak with a suspect and the next I am greatest thing since sliced bread. I can’t keep up!”
“I told you! You are an excellent agent-”
“Bullshit!” Reid was red now, flushed in agitation. His hands moved frantically as he spoke, long fingers twisting into shapes in the air that Aaron couldn’t decipher quick enough. “I am the unit freak, the circus attraction that couldn’t possibly draw any unsub in-”
“You could draw anyone in, Reid,” Hotch was shouting now, his shirt too tight and his hands restless. “Don’t you get it? That’s the issue. You are too fucking tempting, for everyone. Do you know how easily you could get hurt? Do you know how quickly these psychopaths would be drawn to you? One look at you and they’d lose their fucking heads.”
Aaron brought his palms up to his eyes, pressing them there until his sight filled with blotching shapes. He couldn’t bare to look at Reid’s face, the sharp inhale he had caught at the start of his rant enough to terrify him.
“And all I can see,” Hotch continued, voice dropping in volume and softening. “When I close my eyes, is them hurting you. Some sick fuck running his hands over your body, or a sadistic one slicing you up with a knife. It’s all I see, Spencer, every time I consider you on the field. It haunts me.”
There was a moment of silence between them where the air hung thick and heavy, full of the admissions just shared.
“Aaron-” Spencer’s voice was light, brittle, nothing like the sharp shouts of before.
Hotch shook his head, eyes covered, begging him not to continue.
He turned, facing the shitty hotel bed instead of his agent, and wiped ferociously at his wet eyes.
“A while ago, I told Morgan that common sense and procedure go out of the window when family is involved in a case,” Hotch kept his voice steady, but his sniffles were poorly disguised. “I thought about Jack when I said it. It didn’t occur to me that it was about you, too.”
Hotch heard a ragged intake of breath, and then, finally long fingers wrapping around his bicep from the back. That hand tugged, but Hotch stayed stubbornly turned away, mortified still of his dripping lashes and wobbling lip.
“Aaron,” Spencer said, taking a rapid breath of air in. “I need some clarification.”
Hotch tensed his shoulders, and Spencer’s grip on his arm turned into a caress between his shoulder blades. It was hesitant, unsure, but Hotch couldn’t help but learn back into the pressure slightly.
“When you say that you think of me as family,” Reid continued. “I need to know what that means.”
Aaron took a shuddering breath.
“It means that I care,” he said sharply. “I care too much.”
Reid hummed, his fingers continuing to stroke the muscle between Hotch’s shoulders, almost absentmindedly.
“Morgan calls me his little brother,” Spencer admitted, fondness creeping into his tone. “He doesn’t stop me going out onto the field.”
Aaron sighed impatiently and rolled his eyes.
“I called you tempting, Spencer,” he scoffed, feeling the heat of Spencer’s body radiate onto his back at the man took a step closer. “I don’t think we can argue that I think of you like a little brother.”
Spencer exhaled again, and Aaron wasn’t sure if he was delusional to think it sounded relieved.
“Thank god,” he said, and Aaron could hear the smile in his voice. “It would be awkward if you had, considering I’ve wanted you for years.”
Hotch felt the words hit his consciousness, one at a time.
Wanted you for years.
His stomach dropped, and his face heated. He whirled around, confusion ladening his brow, to find Spencer’s angular face very close to his own.
He studied the features there; dark eyes soft but open, lips parted but with a slight quirk to the corner that indicated happiness. His cheeks were still flushed, his curls still in disarray. He looked sinful, addictive.
“Spencer,” he started, and the younger man broke his stream of awareness by cupping his cheek, long fingers stroking patterns into his temple.
“Don’t doubt it,” Spencer begged, his voice low. “I have felt it for years. Please don’t tell me that I don’t know what I am saying; I do.”
“I don’t know if you can know what you’re saying,” Aaron’s voice was strained. He knew his brows were furrowed, severe in the way they became when he was thinking and one of Reid’s long fingers pressed itself there, smoothing away the crease gently.
Aaron took a deep breath, and the scent of Reid’s skin was tantalisingly clear. There was coffee there, unsurprisingly, but the sharpness of peppermint was familiar too. Aaron resisted the urge to bury his nose there and inhale.
“I’m nearly double your age,” Hotch said gently, like he was calming a spooked horse. “There is a power imbalance that comes with that. Add in the fact that I’m your superior and…”
Spencer huffed, eyes rolling, and brought his face closer to Aaron’s.
“You are sixteen years older than me,” He scolded, and Aaron wanted to smooth away his frown like Reid had done to his own. He resisted, worried that lingering on his face may cause him to lose his last scarp of control. “And power imbalance is only relevant if one party uses it against the other.”
“Untrue,” Aaron protested. From this angle, he could see the fine lines that gathered at the corners of Spencer’s eyes, scattered like spider’s webs. He ached to see them deepen when Spencer smiled. “Subconscious power bias is present and dangerous in many relationships despite being entirely unintentional.”
Spencer did smile then; wide and bright and like the sun coming through the window on a summer’s morning. It softened his sharp features, making him more human, and Aaron was momentarily dazzled.
“Aaron,” Spencer’s voice was soft, and his other hand came up to cup Aaron’s neck. “It is impossible for you to do anything subconsciously. You consider everything, all the time. You wouldn’t put a finger on me without considering all possibilities.”
“Everyone has subconscious behaviour, Spencer.”
“Not with me,” Spencer shook his head. “You couldn’t hurt me; subconscious or conscious.”
“Spencer…” Aaron’s voice trailed off, muffled against the finger Spencer was pressing to his lips.
“I love you,” Spencer said, his tone light but his eyes intense, like they were when he really focused on a case. “I love you and I trust you. Please trust me, too. Please let me in.”
Aaron felt something tight in his chest heave, the magnitude of Spencer’s words settling over him like a blanket on concrete.
“I trust you more than anyone,” Aaron whispered, a hidden confession, cheeks warm and cradled by Spencer’s hands. The other man’s dark eyes were soft; molten and fond and Aaron couldn’t help but nuzzle his cheek against Spencer’s palm. “I trust you with everything, with anything.”
Suddenly, there were soft lips pressing against his own, gentle but insistent. Aaron gasped at them, then welcomed them, sparks zapping across the tiny gaps between them.
Spencer’s hands on his face tightened when they connected, and Aaron couldn’t help but grab at his waist. He could feel the edge of Spencer’s ribs and the swell of his breath when he inhaled raggedly against Aaron’s fingertips, and he nipped at Spencer’s bottom lip just to feel the way his breath stuttered. Their kiss was intoxicating; warmth and burn and tingle, a kind of addicting taste lingering on his lips.
Aaron lost himself. He lost himself in Spencer’s fingers playing with the short hair at the nape of his neck, he lost himself in gasps and whines. He lost himself in the smell and the taste of the man that he had been falling for, slowly to begin and then hurtling headfirst, until he didn’t think he could distinguish his lips form Spencer’s.
It suddenly became unclear and unimportant where Spencer ended and he began; they were one being, connected by more than the press of lips and grasp of desperate fingers, and Aaron knew there was no going back from this. This connection had been building for too long, had wound itself too expertly around his heart, and now all he could do was close his eyes and accept nay love Spencer was willing to give.
With a deep inhale, Spencer pulled back, merely an inch from Aaron’s face.
His cheeks were flushed, his curls messy, with eyes as bright as the sun. He looked beautiful; so warm and alive and loved that Aaron couldn’t help but use one finger to trace the blush on his face, watching as it curled up to his hairline.
Aaron smiled, and Spencer did too.
“What does this mean?” Aaron asked, attempting to sound serious but unable to keep the gleeful grin from his lips.
Spencer looked up, eyes wide and trusting.
“It means we have some home/work boundaries to consider,” he answered with a wry grin, pressing his ringer finger into the dimple on Aaron’s cheek. “And it means you have no excuse to keep me on desk duty anymore.”
Aaron’s eyebrows shot up.
Actually, his mind raged, he has even more reason now –
He looked at Spencer’s dark eyes; sarcastic but unyielding, and he rolled his own.
“Okay, okay,” he surrendered, resting his forehead against Spencer’s own. “I’ll figure out my protectiveness.”
Spencer hummed happily, eyes drifting closed and breath dancing across Aaron’s face.
“You better,” he warned, but his voice dripped in warmth and contentment. “I am trained in firearms, Agent Hotchner, and I won’t hesitate to use it.”