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The first sneeze of the season was always a benchmark.
In Spring, it let them know the pollen was on the move and that the trees were calling to the bees to do their thing. Derek would pull out the Claritin first, choosing not to even mess with the itchy eyes one moment. Hotch, on the other hand, would wait. His system was already inundated by pills of varying shapes and sizes, medications that ranged from benign to downright sinister, so a stuffy nose and some dry itchy eyes were not the end of the world.
Virginia hadn't ever treated him too badly, but he was convinced that Chicago meant him harm. Still, he persisted with a handkerchief stuffed into his pocket and saline drops for his dry eyes. He could wear his glasses now without fear of ridicule...it was almost expected of a man in his position. They may have clashed with his suit and tie, but they were the perfect accessory for his sweaters and khakis.
So, the first sneeze of Spring didn't worry him much.
The first sneeze of Autumn, however, set off the alarm bells. It was almost always Jack first with Derek hot on his heels. Hotch and Hank were sitting ducks, waiting for whatever germs the two of them brought home to fully culture inside their walls.
“Already?” Hotch asked, watching Derek rummage through the medicine cabinet for that damn box of DayQuil he knew was in there. “It's awfully early in the school year for this.”
“Tell that to my students. Jackson was puking in the trash can at football practice last night, Burkhardt was spitting loogies all over the damn field and where the fuck is my DayQuil?”
Hotch didn't even look up from the stack of papers he was grading. “Top shelf, right. Behind the contact solution.” His classes didn't start until 11, he really didn't even need to be up yet. Derek, on the other hand, should have been out the door a half hour ago and was certainly going to be late.
“It's not there.”
Hotch hummed. “Check under the sink, maybe you need to open a new package.”
Sick days were a menace at best. Everyone was grouchy, not a kind word in sight. Jack trudged around the house with kleenex shoved up his nose like walrus tusks and insisted on staying home while simultaneously refusing to actually rest. A nap was out of the question, which was a cause for more than one argument when Hotch demanded to know why he wouldn't nap when he was sick but he was nearly impossible to get out of bed in the mornings. Tensions ran high. To top it all off, his kleenex never quite seemed to make it to a trash can and Hotch found himself walking around picking up wads of the stuff from every surface of the whole house, scarcely wanting to imagine the state of the kid's room. That task he made Jack deal with on his own. He had his limits.
Derek was terrible at being sick. The minute he had a sniffle, he was grouchy. Angry at his body's betrayal. “Why do I workout so much, huh? Drinkin' those nasty green smoothies every damn day and for what? Huh?” Punctuate that with a cough or a sneeze and he was a mess. Hotch would only find it in him to smile, to press the back of his hand to Derek's fevered forehead and tell him to sleep it off.
“You always fight it off faster when you sleep,” Hotch said, guiding him toward the bed. “Take the day off.”
“I can't.” Cough, cough, wheeze. “We've got varsity tryouts today. I got some real boneheads thinkin' they're gonna make it and that damn assistant coach they gave me this year is a bleeding heart.” Sneeze. “He'll tell 'em all they got the job just to avoid the talk.”
Hotch had to smile at that. Derek had been complaining about his assistant coach since the summer, but he was a nepotism hire so Hotch understood and there wasn't anything he could do short of taking on twice the work himself so he could save himself the trouble on the back end. Unfortunately that meant going to work sick, pumping himself full of Sudafed and DayQuil at what he deemed to be safe intervals though Hotch had other opinions on the matter.
“Go lie down, I'll make you some tea. At least go in late. Take a half day.”
Thoughtfully, Derek considered the option. He was already late. Tryouts weren't until 4 anyway. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah...good idea.” He slept all day, right on through the tryouts, and didn't have enough energy to be upset about that when he finally did wake. Hotch stuffed him full of tea with honey, vitamins, extra water and a few more kisses right to the top of his head before leaving him to sleep.
He slept on the couch that night, his final attempt to stave off the germs. Clooney slept behind his knees, curled up in a ball there.
It only took a few days before Derek and Jack were on the mend, were carrying around the last of the dry coughs and stuffy sinuses. They would wake up in the morning and hack hack hack, then be fine by the time their showers were over.
Being the newest kid on the block, it only took a few days to take Hank the Tank down entirely. After that, Hotch knew it was only a matter of time before he followed suit. His immune system would fight the longest and crash the hardest. If you looked at most of the scattered pill bottles in their medicine cabinet, you would see plenty that read with simple, off-putting language like do not consume with alcohol, or may cause drowsiness, but then you would stumble on that token few that claimed that they might make it harder to fight off infections. He did a damn good job of not getting them in the first place, at least until now...until Hank. But he couldn't resist the little guy and his weepy eyes and snotty nose, his fevered skin and damp curls. Hank would hold his arms out and beg to be held by Hotch and Hotch alone, and what could he do but say yes and scoop him up? How do you tell a squishy little two-year-old no when all they want is a hug (and to rub their snot all over you)?
“You're toast,” Derek muttered, breezing through the room to try and find his slacks. The nice ones. He had meetings all morning with athletic scouts, setting up dates and times for them to come and check out his players. “You know that right?”
Hotch nodded and pressed his cheek into Hank's curls, closing his eyes. He was well aware that he was absolutely in for it. Didn't stop him from kissing Hank's forehead and humming little songs to him while the kid drooled all over his t-shirt.
Waking at 2am with the chills wasn't exactly out of place, except when he was buried beneath three blankets already. He pushed further beneath the covers and huddled there, basking in Derek's warmth, until he fell back asleep.
Waking at 7am dizzy, unable to focus his eyes...that one was a little more concerning. Swiping one hand over the nightstand, he found his glasses and that helped tremendously with one of the problems. It did nothing to ease the swaying dizzy feeling as he sat himself up, but at least he could see. “Derek?” he asked, pawing at the bed behind him until he touched the lump of blankets that he presumed was his lover. “Derek?”
“Mmmfff...” Derek grumbled, his face deep in a pillow. “Mmf?”
“I need your help, please.”
He'd gotten good at that, recently. Asking for help. One of the stipulations, agreed upon up front, like forging a treaty between warring villages. Derek wouldn't put up with him collapsing, excusing himself to do so, not again. No more avoidable scares. And Derek, to his credit, took every plea for help with alacrity. He never so much as batted an eyelash at it, he would drop everything to come and he always did so with a brightness that made Hotch feel at ease no matter what situation he found himself in.
This morning was no different. The minute he said the word help, Derek was sitting upright rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What's up baby?”
“I need to use the bathroom,” Hotch started, a little sheepishly. “But I'm too dizzy to stand.”
“Hank the Tank's cooties got you, huh?”
“Looks like it.”
With Hotch settled against his side, hand possessive and firm against his hip, Derek walked them to the bathroom. He nudged Clooney's sleeping form out of the way and flipped on the light. The bathroom was always warmer than the bedroom, a fact that was not lost on Clooney and his old bones. By the time Hotch was leaning against the sink, staring into his pale and drawn features reflected back at him, he wasn't feeling quite so bad. The dizzy feeling had all but passed.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and Derek took that as his cue to leave him to his business. Clooney had taken up residence on the bed in the warmth they'd vacated, he noted with some sourness, when he exited the bathroom. Hotch wouldn't mind. He'd call in sick and spend the day in bed with the dog now that he was the only one sick in the house. Everyone else would leave, let them to their peace and quiet. Two old men who genuinely adored hearing the creaks of a settling foundation over loudly talking voices. The hum of a refrigerator over music. The whistle of wind through their sparsely treed yard over the television. They love their family, but in times like this, quiet was the best medicine. Hotch was willing to ask for help, but he still wanted to be by himself when he didn't feel well.
“You call in?” Derek asked, bringing Hotch tea in bed. Hotch nodded and shifted his hips, trying to get comfortable around the deeply settled ache in his joints. He was radiating heat. Derek had already taken his temperature once, not alarmingly high yet but he'd take it again when he came home from work...or maybe he'd send his mother over to check on him in a few hours. She would have Hank for the day anyway.
“Go to work, I'll be fine.”
Clooney was lying beside him, the length of his back firm against the length of Hotch's side. Pressed in heavy. Hotch let one hand rest on Clooney's chest, against his ribs, delighting in the gentle rise and fall of the sleeping animal's breath.
“Your nurse is sleeping on the job.”
“He does that.” Hotch didn't cough, and he didn't sneeze. The cold settled deep into his sinuses and his chest, but only made everything ache and feel tight. Like he was pulling in on himself and expanding to his limits all at the same time. His skin hurt and his eyebrows hurt and his head hurt. More or less, everything hurt. It made his ears get stuffy, for a few days his hearing would be shot.
But there was no snot, and he considered that a win.
There was a time in his life when he would have pushed through, gone to work, pretended he was okay. He'd moved through one of the worst cases of his life feeling as bad as this once upon a time. He'd come face to face with George Foyet, handed him his glasses and told him that they'd catch The Reaper...he'd hung up on the man in his own hotel room...all with a fever high enough to warrant medical attention, and he'd watched Derek hold up the bullet intended for his head while that fever broke and left him chilled to the bone and hoping no one could tell he was sweating it out. Of course, Derek knew, had confronted him after, a fact that later led to their current ask for help agreement. Well, one of many facts. His life was a list of such occasions, such learning experiences.
You can teach an old dog new tricks, he thought hazily, his eyes heavy and unfocused as Derek kissed him on the forehead and told him he'd see him later. Maybe, maybe not. He intended to sleep well into the next century, the way he felt right then. Tired didn't even begin to cover it, and he dozed off thinking of every word in every language he knew that could account for how tired he was. None came close. Probably, he thought as he lost his battle with conscious thought, there was a phrase in German that would perfectly sum it up. Something about being so tired your bones ached, that would do.
He wouldn't remember that when waking. A pity, too.
Fran delivered chicken soup to him, secret Morgan family recipe that she claimed could kick any virus' patootie, and kept an eye on him while she cleaned up their house. It didn't really need much, they kept things tidy, but they didn't get into all of the cracks and crevices. She could do that to keep herself occupied while she waited for Derek to return home. Hotch and Hank slept soundly, flanking Clooney, all afternoon and well into the evening without stirring. It was Hank that woke first, hungry and weepy. His cold was mostly gone but he was crying a lot more than usual, and exhausted.
Hotch only woke once to sit up, wonder at the fuzzy face of the clock, trying to reason out the numbers that blurred one into the other. Deciding it wasn't of any real importance because he didn't plan to do anything other than roll over, he adjusted himself to the other hip, curled around Clooney, and went back to sleep.
“You have a lovely family,” Fran said, pulling Derek in for a hug before leaving for the night. “I adore each of you very much. But if I get sick...”
“You're sending me the bill. Got it.”
She patted him on the cheek and smiled up at him. “Good boy. I love you dear.”
“Love you too, moms.”