Work Text:
“Alright my little love cats,” Penelope Garcia moved around the room like a whirling dervish. She was packing things into her laptop bag and her giant satchel purse. “I need to fly but if you need anything you can just text me. The boy is outside, burning gas outside waiting for me. Do you know the price of gas these days? It’s utterly ridiculous.”
The boys let her talk; it was Penelope thing. She would just talk no matter what she was doing. Often she wasn’t talking to anyone in particular but that didn’t stop her from sharing Garcia’s words of wisdom.
“Hey Penelope, are you going to be able to hook me up with that tee shirt?” Anderson asked when the bubbly blonde teenager took a moment to breathe.
“Oh yeah, it’s all yours. My mom said that the vintage concert tees should be in at the end of next week. She’ll give it to you for $25 with the friends and family discount.”
“Wow, times have changed. It would’ve cost me like $10 if I went to the show.”
“Get in the Tardis and make a trip back in time.” Penelope smiled. “That’s my college money so here I am not feeling sorry for you. See you lovelies tomorrow.” She waved while disappearing out of the classroom door in a wave of blue and black polka dots.
“You're getting a tee shirt from Penelope?” Hotch asked.
He sat down at his computer and put a driver in the USB port. Even though Jordan Todd was a junior, she volunteered her time to take photos for the yearbook. Hotch was grateful since most of the seniors acted as if they were too busy to help preserve memories of their final year at LBJ. While class pictures and individual senior shots would be done professionally, Jordan handled everything else. She had a Nikon D300S and a sharp eye. Hotch no longer had to worry about pictures. Now he worried which of the many amazing shots would make the final cut.
“Her parents run this really cool vintage clothing store in Alexandria. They're ordering old school concert tees and I'm getting one for Foghat’s 1975 U.S. tour. I get to add it to the massive supply of boy shirts I own. That’s what my mom calls them. I told her I can wash my own clothes but that’ll never happen. It would shatter her borderline control freak tendencies.”
“I know all about that.” Hotch nodded. “Are you a big Foghat fan? I don’t know much about them.”
“They're alright. It’s a nice band to smoke weed to.”
“You smoke marijuana?” Hotch sounded surprised when he asked the question.
He didn’t like being judgmental, people had done it to him many times before, but Anderson didn’t look like a stoner. He actually didn’t look like anyone else Hotch knew. Summer or winter he wore tee shirts. Right now he wore one showing the 1927 film Metropolis with a long sleeved white shirt underneath.
His jeans looked as if they were tailored to fit. Doc Martens, or some variant, were always on his feet. And his haircut was ‘male model French Vogue’. Hotch had no idea if Anderson took tons of time on it to if he was just lucky that way. 18 year old boys were rarely that lucky.
“Sometimes I do.” Anderson shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal…I'm not an afterschool special or anything. Weed is just cheaper than anti-anxiety meds. And now my mom doesn’t have to think that I'm not perfect and it’s somehow a reflection on her parenting skills since my dad died. You know, the usual teenage bullshit.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Anderson looked away from the pages he was measuring and looked at Hotch. Six weeks they'd been working together and he still had problems with staring. He tried to stop; he tried really, really hard. The guy was absolutely gorgeous. The raven hair, the hazel eyes, the shoulder and back muscles clearly visible even in his button down shirts or Polo sweaters.
Hotch dressed conservatively but nothing about him said square. OK, maybe he was a little square. He still wore it well. And the few occasions when he wore jeans…Anderson wanted to fall out of his chair. Getting to know Aaron Hotchner hadn’t done a thing to diminish the crush.
If anything, it was getting worse. When Hotch looked up, he couldn’t look away fast enough. He smiled a little; didn’t take much for those dimples to come out and play. Just the sight of them made Anderson smile too. Hotch’s face went solemn again but it looked as if he was struggling not to smile. It was probably just Anderson’s wishful thinking.
“I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Me?” Anderson pointed to himself.
“Yes.” Hotch nodded. “There's abundant evidence that you may not be the loner you purport to be.”
“Purport?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t try to distract me with semantics.”
“Pick your bone, Hotchner. I can take it.”
“I saw you out last week…and you were with people.”
“Oh no,” Anderson gasped, putting his hands on his face like the kid in Home Alone. “Did it seem like I was having fun? I assure you that I was really miserable.”
“Were you?” Hotch’s face turned serious.
“Not really.” Anderson shook his head and laughed. “There are people I hang out with sometimes, though they try to drag me out more than I want to go. Who did you see me with?”
“I went to Chevy Chase Mall to get some things for school. I didn’t recognize all the kids but one of them was Spencer Reid. The other was the trans girl; she used to be named Adam. Is trans girl the right way to say it?”
“Girl is fine…her name is Amanda.”
“It was the two of them and two girls. The brown haired girl had her arms around your waist.”
“That’s Austin Seaver and her sister Ashley.” Anderson said. “Austin's wicked cool.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” Hotch asked.
“I don’t have a girlfriend. Anyway, she's kinda crazy about Spencer right now. I don’t know if that’s going to work out but she’s playing aloof, which I think is the way to go in situations like that.”
“I'm sure it is.” Hotch nodded. “Do you have plans with friends this weekend?”
“Actually I have much better plans than that. My mom and stepdad are taking my sisters to visit with my grandparents. They live in Lewes, Delaware. I told my mom I couldn’t go because I have a Calculus test on Monday. So its home alone Friday night. Elle and I might hang on Saturday afternoon if she's not busy but its home alone Saturday night too. On Sunday I'm going to need to recover from all the awesomeness I’ll inflict on myself.”
“What's your idea of awesome?”
“Some of that time will be spent dusting off my mom’s Donna Summer records and dancing better than Hugh Grant in Love Actually.”
“I don’t think anyone dances better than Hugh Grant in Love Actually.” Hotch said.
“You’ve never seen me dance.” Anderson smiled.
“That’s true, you got me on that one.”
“Hey, do you want to hang out?” he couldn’t believe he was asking but he was and there was no take backs. “I'm sure you have better things to do on weekends but if you want…”
“I can't dance.” Hotch quickly shook his head. “I really sincerely mean that. I'm only trying to save you from laughing yourself to death.”
“We could watch movies instead. I have Whit Stillman on VHS that I'm dying to try out. Penelope tricked out my old VCR and it'll probably work until the Second Coming now.”
“He's not a French surrealist director is he? The name sounds familiar.”
“He made a film trilogy in the 1990s, set in the 1980s, and they’re comedies of manners.” Anderson replied. “Stillman is covered on page 12 of the Loner’s Manifesto…page 3 of the Ultimate Hipster Handbook. You're behind in your required reading, Hotch.”
“OK.”
“OK?”
“OK, I'm down for Whit Stillman movies. I’ll bring some pizza.”
“Calm down stud, you don’t want me to fall in love with you or anything.” Anderson held up both hands as if to keep Hotch at bay.
“You better be harder to get than pepperoni, Anderson.” Hotch said laughing.
The teenager bit his lip so hard to keep from saying that it depended on whose pepperoni it was. For some reason he almost felt confident tonight, and he was definitely flirty, but he didn’t want to put his foot in his mouth.
“I guess you'll find out on Friday night.” He said instead. Yeah, that wasn’t too bad.
“I guess I will.” Hotch smiled, looking back down at his computer screen.
After a few minutes of silence, Anderson grabbed his backpack. He needed to get out of there and get some air. Tonight he was taking the train home. It was cold but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to be in a small car with Hotch tonight.
He didn’t want to think that Friday night was some kind of date. That would be bad. It would be very, very, apocalyptically bad. And whatever Anderson did he couldn’t let Elle find out. He didn’t keep much from her, which was easy since she preferred that secrets be salacious, but he was keeping this.
“I'm going to head out.” He stood, walking across the room to get his coat.
“Oh, I can drop you off if you want.” Hotch said.
“No, it’s OK.” He went back over to the table and cleaned up. Anderson was working on page spacing and making sure all the dedications fit properly. “I have to run an errand for my stepdad on the way. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“OK. Have a good night.”
“You too. Bye.”
“Hey Anderson?”
“Huh?” he was halfway out the door but turned and came back.
“Shake my hand.” Hotch held out his hand.
“Is this some kind of weird teenage boy ritual that I'm not aware of?”
“C'mon…I don’t bite.”
“Why?” Anderson asked.
“Well as a kid my parents told me that it wasn’t nice.”
“Hotch…”
“Just shake my hand. Can you do it because I asked nicely?”
Anderson sighed, reaching out for his hand. Hotch’s touch was even softer than the blanket his grandmother bought for him last Christmas. How was that possible when he swung bats and gripped baseballs all the time? His handshake was firm and he looked straight into Anderson’s eyes. He looked down because he didn’t want Hotch to see into his soul.
“We good?” he slipped his hand out of Hotch’s and put it in his pocket.
“We’re getting there.” Hotch nodded. “Be safe going home.”
“Sure. Goodnight.”
He only made it about fifteen feet down the hall. Anderson had to stop, breathe, and lean on the lockers. Closing his eyes, he put the hand Hotch held on his chest and his other hand over it. Holy shit, what was he even supposed to do with this?
Without a second thought he held the hand under his nose and inhaled Hotch’s scent. He smelled so damn good, fresh like a rainy spring day or a towel right out of the dryer. Anderson opened his eyes, looking down the hall. Hotch peered out of the classroom at him. Anderson dropped his hands to his sides.
“Are you OK down there?” Hotch asked. This time he couldn’t hold back his full blown grin, dimples and all.
“I'm good; I'm leaving.” Anderson started walking down the hall again. “I hate you, by the way…just so you know.”
“Yeah, it’s written all over your face. See you tomorrow.”
***