Chapter Text
“Fuck.”
The voice is low enough that you think you’ve imagined him at first, but there he is, standing at the bottom of the stairs leading to his office with one hand pressed to his forehead and staring at the phone in his other like it’s burned him.
“Hotch? Are you alright?”
He turns to look at you, appearing about as startled as you imagine he ever can. “I’m fine,” he says. “I didn’t know you were still here.”
In his defense, you didn’t expect to be here this late either. The others had left the bullpen over an hour ago, having finished their paperwork much before you.
You hold up the culprit for your staying behind, a Use of Force report that had ended up taking a lot longer than planned. “Just finishing up. Are you sure you’re okay?”
The hand on his forehead moves to his hip, and he studies you for a few seconds. Then he sighs. “My car’s in the shop. Jessica was going to bring me home, but Jack’s gotten sick and she doesn’t want to move him from his bed. I’m going to call a cab.”
That explains why he’s leaving so early. You’ve never heard of him leaving before eight or nine.
“Poor kid. That’s never fun,” you say with a wince. “But you’d be lucky, Hotch. It’s seven on a Friday night. Everyone and their mother is calling a cab.”
“It’s quicker than the subway.”
His voice is flat, worried. You make the decision in a second. “Not quick enough. Let me drive you.”
Hotch’s brow furrows as he considers your offer, mentally calculating the distance from your apartment to his. “I couldn’t ask you to do that for me. I’m miles out of your way.”
He’s right. He is miles away, but that doesn’t deter you. As wonderful as Jessica is, from what you’ve heard, you know Jack idolizes Hotch. He’ll want to be with him now.
“I’m not doing it for you,” you say with a smile, knowing you’re about to play your ace. “I’m doing it for Jack, who is sick and should see his father.”
There’s no room to argue with you. Hotch picks up his briefcase and thanks you. With long strides, he leads the way out of the bullpen and towards the garage.
Ten minutes later, find yourself rushing to stack empty to-go-cups and loose papers, shoving them away as Hotch climbs into your car. “It’s no problem, really. Sorry about the mess.”
Hotch shakes his head. His lips are a little less downturned than usual, which in your mind almost constitutes a smile. “Consider it noted,” he says, “We’ll talk during your next performance review.”
Fighting a smile, you can’t help it. You hit his arm. “I take it back. I’m not sorry.”
“It really isn’t a mess,” he says. “And you really shouldn’t be sorry. You should see my car. You can’t move for Jack’s toys.”
You hum, hands gripping the wheel as your reverse out of the spot, “Be careful what you admit around me. You might be my boss, but I can always snitch on you to yours.”
An amused huff is the closest you get to making him laugh, but you take it. He shakes his head. “I’ve had too many uncomfortable conversations with Strauss to bother counting. I’m sure I’ll survive.”
“Not if I have a hand in it.”
Neither of you says anything for a long while after that, and neither mind. What the protocol is for driving your boss home outside of work, you aren’t sure. If there is something in the FBI manual about it, you’re quite sure Hotch knows it – but asking him feels a little on-the-nose, and so you keep quiet and put the radio on.
You’re also sure that there isn’t anything in the FBI manual about what music is appropriate to listen to with your boss in your passenger seat. If there were, you’re certain the songs on at the moment – half of which you vaguely remember Morgan and Garcia dancing to on one of the team’s nights at the bar, and the other of which might be their next choices – don’t make the cut.
Feeling your face heat up, you clear your throat. “I think I have a couple Beatles albums in the glove box if you wanna look for one,” It isn’t so much a suggestion as it is a request — maybe even an order – and you know he senses that. With a nod, he reaches over to open it.
“You’ve got eclectic taste,” Hotch says after a moment, raising an eyebrow at you as he pulls out one of the CDs buried somewhere in the pile. “I didn’t take you for a Mozart fan.”
The corner of his mouth pulls itself into a smirk. It’s the kind reserved for non-working occasions, or, alternatively, occasions that don’t require the wearing of a suit jacket. Like now. Not that you’ve noticed the broad lines of his shoulders in his dress shirt, or the movement of his Adam’s apple as he speaks, more easily seen with the top two buttons undone. And if you have, that’s nobody’s business.
You shrug. “I’m not one, really. Reid likes it.”
For a long second, he looks at you. “You keep a CD in your car for Reid?”
“He doesn’t like the radio. It’s distracting. I don’t particularly like it, either.”
Hotch doesn’t let up, “That’s…very thoughtful of you.”
Keeping your eyes on the road is more of a task than you’d like.
“They’re only a couple dollars. I just buy them when I see them.”
He takes another look in the glove box, grabbing a beaten-down copy of The White Album and pushing it into the player. But before the opening to ‘Back in the USSR’ is even over, he’s pressed pause and shifted in his seat to look at you head-on. Silence stretches between the two of you again. The dull hum of the engine and the rain battering the windows sound, of a sudden, much louder.
“What? You’re making me nervous.”
He is. If becoming skilled in the art of dangerous driving weren’t a side-effect of working with the BAU, you might’ve crashed the car by now.
You chance a look over at him. His expression is set in a frown. Over your short tenure with the team, you’ve fallen witness to enough of what Morgan deems his ‘Hotchner frowns’ (trademark implied) to know that this one is different. There’s something softer about it, more considerate than displeased.
“Those other albums…Sinatra, Radiohead, Stevie Wonder…you’ve barely touched them. Not compared to the others.”
Damn profiler. The stubborn part of you — which was a larger part than you’d like to admit — wanted to ignore him. Even so, you know it’d never work. Hotch is just as stubborn as you are, and worse than that, he is far more patient.
“They’re not my favorites, no, but—” you relent.
Gently, Hotch cuts you off. “No, they’re not. They’re Rossi’s, Prentiss', and Morgan’s. I’m sure you’ve got records in there for JJ and Garcia. And–”
You look down again at your hands where they rest on the wheel. The skin of your knuckles pulls as you tighten your hands around it. In a sigh, you admit it. “—And for you too, yeah.”
He tilts his head. When he speaks, his voice is soft. “Why?”
Retreating into silence again, you turn the corner onto his street. But even off the clock, Hotch’s presence is commanding, his stare on you unassuming and exposing all at once.
You laugh. “Remind me never to end up in an interrogation with you again. You’re terrifying.”
“You haven’t learned enough from them if you’re still deflecting,” he says, ignoring your jibe. Instead he folds his hands in his lap.
You could double down, tell him jokingly to fuck off and then claim that swearing at him is entirely acceptable in non-working circumstances. What it is stopping you from giving him the answer he wants, you’re not sure. This isn’t the office. It’s not neutral ground. This is your car, your territory. Forced out of the context of work, Hotch is no longer just an abstract concept, your hardass of a boss — he’s a real person. Your friend. And something about that pulls at you.
“I had a little trouble adjusting, at first,” you say, stretching the words out until they become unfamiliar things. “More than I’d expected. I knew when I took the job what it’d be like. On paper, at least. But the first few cases…it was another thing to be doing it, you know?”
It’s the truth. The early days, right after you joined the team, were rough. They’d been a constant guessing game of when to speak up and when to keep quiet, when to shove down all of the stress and the fear and the self-loathing and when, if ever, to let yourself feel it.
Hotch stays quiet this time, and you can’t bring yourself to look at him. Was it too honest to admit that? His presence has gone to your head, like wine on a summer evening.
“I never let it affect my work–” you say in a rush, self-preservation instincts in full swing. You stop halfway, let the words wither in your throat.
One of Hotch’s hands twitches as if to reach for you, but retreats at the last seconds, remaining limp in his lap. He hums, his voice a low murmur. “I know that.”
You’ve come this far. Might as well finish this. “We’d come home from a case, and sometimes I’d drive Reid back so he didn’t have to get the subway. We’d drive back to our apartments with the radio on. But the news…”
Hotch sighs, “...Another robbery, another murder. Another thing out of our reach.”
There’s no judgment in his eyes, none of the sharp analysis profiling demands. It hits you again that you aren’t talking with the man that conducts your performance reviews, but the man who rolls his eyes at Reid and Morgan’s bickering, the father who’d drop anything to make his son happy.
A smile feels a little out of your reach as you remember those early months, so you settle for a nod. “I picked up a CD or two after the first couple weeks. Then I found out Reid liked classical music, so I looked for some. And it made sense, if I was giving Morgan or Prentiss or Garcia a ride too. I guess it got a little out of control.”
Hotch shakes his head. “That’s not out of control. It’s kind,” he starts, then stops for a second, his features rearranging themselves into a frown once more. “You know you don't have to do nice things for people to get them to like you, don’t you?”
Eyes widening, you almost think you’ve heard him wrong. “What?”
He tilts his head, his gaze on you soft as you put the car into park in front of his apartment complex. “Maybe you don’t do it anymore, but towards the beginning…I got the feeling you thought you’d have to move mountains to get the team to like you. And you didn’t.”
He’s right. You really had felt alone, for the first few months. You’d done everything you could to make yourself tolerable: memorized Garcia’s miles-long Starbucks order, lied about where you lived to Reid so he didn’t feel guilty about taking a lift from you, nodded along when Morgan told you about his housing projects even though you hadn’t a clue about property development. You’d done it all. And it had worked.
Maybe you hadn’t needed to do it. But over time, obligation had morphed into affection, and you liked to. Hence the music.
“Hotch…”
You’re glad he speaks before you can get any further, because you really have no idea what to say. “I mean it,” he says quietly. “Anyone with sense would do that all on their own.”
“Thank you,” you say, swallowing. “I hope Jack feels better soon.”
“I’ll tell him you said hi. He’ll appreciate it.” he says, checking his watch. “I’d better go check on him. Thank you for driving me back. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
You nod. “Tomorrow.”
He climbs out of the car, head bowed against the rain, and you wait for him to get inside before you pull away. You’re not mad about the Beatles. The White Album wouldn’t be your pick of their records. But the drive is long, long enough to let yourself think, and you leave it playing until you’re home.