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“No.”
Hotch made no move to say more, and you thought you might just wither up and die on the spot at the severity in that one little word.
“No?” Derek asked. “Why not?”
“Y/L/N should stay here and work on the geographic profile with Reid. I’ll take you with me to the third dump site.”
The heat rushed to your cheeks at the sheer mortification of what was happening. Hotch was reassigning you. Because he didn’t want to be alone with you. You furiously blinked back tears, thankful that the rest of the team was clueless as to what had just transpired. They were already moving on, getting started on their assignments.
You watched Hotch and Derek as they left the precinct, neither of them sparing a glance back.
Hotch couldn’t even stand the thought of being trapped in a car with you for three hours. It had all been in your head. How completely and utterly humiliating.
“You okay?”
You blinked, Spencer coming into focus in front of you. The worry on his face tugged at your heart. What an angel.
“Yeah, Spence. I’m fine—let’s get started.”
The hours passed by in an endless blur, everyone focused on the case at hand. And then—just like that, it was over, ending in a whirlwind of activity.
The sudden stasis that hit after a case like this was always a bit of a shock to the system. You found yourself in your hotel room later that night, that one moment from earlier playing on a loop in your mind. It was all you could think about. The embarrassment burned at you.
Had it really all been in your head? Every hushed conversation, every lingering touch, every stolen glance? Had it all been nothing?
It couldn’t have been. For you, it was everything.
You knew the complications of intra-team relationships, of course you did. Those complications multiplied expeditiously when you took into account that Hotch was your boss. Still, despite all of that, you hadn’t been able to ignore it.
The two of you were often the last ones in the office, working on your respective stacks of paperwork in companionable silence. You weren’t quite sure when it had happened, but at some point it had become the norm to work side by side. You’d take your files into his office, using the little side table he had cleared for you, and you’d put on whatever music you’d been listening to that day, the volume on low.
It was strangely intimate, working in such close proximity. Neither of you would speak until you were done—or as close to done as you ever were. And then, somehow, the minutes would turn into hours as you spoke to one another quietly. You talked about anything and everything. It was usually surface level—music, movies, what Jack was making in school—but every once in a while you were able to go just a little deeper, to really get to the heart of him.
You didn’t think that all of that had been nothing, but then you thought back to the last few weeks. It had been subtle, really. Hotch had slowly started avoiding you, pulling those walls back up around him. His office door was locked most nights, the blinds shut. He no longer sat next to you on the jet, his thigh pressed against yours. He had stopped bringing you coffee, made just the way you liked it. You had missed your stolen moments together, of course you did, but you had assumed that he was just busy at first.
Now though, you understood with startling clarity.
You had made the whole thing up.
You had crossed some invisible line, and he knew exactly what was going through your head. This was just how he knew best to let you down gently.
Well, nothing about this felt gentle.
Despite the late hour, you suddenly found yourself pulling on your sweater and heading down the hotel hallway. Something pulled you, be it anger or the aching desperation of simply wanting to know why.
You knocked on the door before you could talk yourself out of it, pushing past Hotch and into the room before he could stop you.
“Why are you here?” He looked as weary as he sounded, and it took everything in you not to reach out and touch him, to take his face in your hands.
“You know why.”
Hotch made no move to deny it. He pressed his lips together, exhaling slowly. “I didn’t think it was… professional to have us paired together.”
“Why?”
He leveled his gaze at you, and you shifted uncomfortably on your feet. “You know why,” he said, your own words echoed back to you.
Of course you did. You just didn’t think that he knew it too. “Okay, maybe I have a crush on you!” Hotch’s eyes widened. “So what? That doesn’t mean that I can’t do my job, that I don’t know how to conduct myself in public!”
“I know that.”
“Oh, do you, Hotch? Do you really? Then why the fuck did you get me reassigned? Can you really not stand to be alone with me for even a minute?”
“It’s not that.” His voice remained level, a stark contrast to your rising volume.
“Then what is it, Aaron? You’ve been avoiding me for weeks.”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.” The silence that followed was all consuming. You could feel your heart shattering with every second that passed. “I thought at the very least that we were friends,” you continued, your voice cracking. “But I guess I was wrong. Sorry for bothering you, sir.”
You turned to leave, determined not to let him see you cry. After all of that, there had to be a way for you to keep what little dignity you had left.
You were almost to the door when strong fingers wrapped around your wrist, their hold on you gentle but firm. The sudden touch startled you, and you spun around. Without warning, Hotch was right in front of you, his face mere centimeters from yours—close enough that you could easily press a kiss to that frown of his. You stepped back instinctively, only to be met with the wall behind you.
“What?” you asked, your defenses all but crumbling immediately. A lone tear escaped, trailing down your cheek. He reached up and brushed it away, the softness of his touch threatening to undo you completely.
“It’s not—it’s not that I don’t want to be alone with you.”
The way he looked at you, so vulnerable and undone, made you ache. Confusion and hope bloomed in your chest, an inextricable combination. “Then what is it?”
“It’s that I don’t trust myself to be alone with you.”
All of the oxygen seemed to rush out of the room at once. Hotch’s gaze was steady, his hand still around your wrist. There was a hunger in his eyes that you were certain was reflected in yours.
“And why is that?” you asked, your voice low.
“You know why.”
There was a moment’s pause, the air thick with anticipation, before you reached for him. Your hands cupped the back of his head, and you pulled him into you. His lips met yours without hesitation, and he finally did it. He kissed you. He kissed you as though perhaps it was the only thing he had ever wanted to do.
You let yourself fall back into the wall, perfectly content to let him consume you. Your fingers threaded through his hair, tugging gently. You sank into the kiss, the pleasant feel of his weight as he leaned into you almost grounding.
Hotch pulled back suddenly, his chest heaving. “This is—this is complicated.”
“I don’t care, Aaron. I really, really don’t. I want you—complicated or not.” You brushed your thumb across the apple of his cheek. “What do you want?”
That hunger blossomed in his eyes again, and he wordlessly tilted your chin up towards him. He leaned in and kissed your neck, just under your jaw. A self-satisfied smile spread across his face at the soft sigh that you let out.
“I want you.”