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Hotch found out the date almost by accident, three years into knowing him, buried in an old personnel file he had no real reason to be looking at except that Strauss had asked for updated emergency contact information and Reid, predictably, had left half the form blank. October tenth. He'd filed the fact away without much thought at the time, one more small piece of a colleague's life, noted and set aside.
It was only much later, once things between them had changed into something neither of them had bothered giving a name to yet, that Hotch started noticing the tenth of October pass, year after year, with nothing marking it at all. No mention from Reid. No cake in the break room, the way Garcia insisted on for nearly everyone else on the team. If Hotch hadn't already known the date, he'd never have guessed anything about that particular Tuesday or Thursday or whatever day of the week it happened to land on was different from any other.
This year, he decided, was going to be different.
He brought it up carefully, a week out, over a quiet dinner at his place that had become, by now, an unremarkable fixture of their week rather than anything either of them needed to explain.
"Your birthday's coming up," Hotch said, watching Reid's reaction carefully over the rim of his coffee cup.
Something flickered across Reid's face, surprise at first, that Hotch knew the date at all, followed quickly by the practiced deflection Hotch had learned to recognize as a person trying to close a door before anyone got a good look at what was behind it. "Oh. Yeah, I guess it is. I don't really do anything for it."
"I know," Hotch said. "That's what I'd like to change, if you'll let me."
"You really don't have to," Reid said quickly. "It's just a day. I've never been big on birthdays."
"Why not?" Hotch asked, gently, no judgment in it, just genuine curiosity.
Reid was quiet for a moment, turning his mug slowly between his hands. "My mom's episodes always seemed to get worse around it, when I was a kid. I think the reminder of me getting older was hard for her, some connection to my dad leaving, maybe, or just time passing in a way she couldn't control. By the time I was twelve or so I'd basically stopped mentioning it existed at all. It was easier than watching her spiral over a cake." He shrugged, the gesture too practiced to be as casual as he wanted it to look. "After that it just never seemed worth the trouble. Nobody else was going to make a big deal out of it, so I stopped expecting anyone to."
Something in Hotch's chest ached at the matter-of-fact way Reid said it, not looking for sympathy, just stating a fact about his own life the way he might state a statistic, worn smooth from years of not examining it too closely.
"I'd like to make a big deal out of it," Hotch said. "Not a huge one, if that's not what you want. But something. You deserve at least one day a year were getting older is something to celebrate instead of something to brace for."
Reid looked at him for a long moment, something vulnerable and uncertain crossing his face. "I don't really know how to do that," he admitted. "I don't know what I'm supposed to want."
"You don't have to know yet," Hotch said. "Just tell me if there's anything you'd hate. I can work with the rest."
"I'd hate a surprise party," Reid said immediately, with enough conviction that Hotch laughed.
"Noted. No surprise party."
"And nothing at work. I don't want the whole team making a thing of it in the bullpen."
"Also noted," Hotch said. "Just us, then. Whatever that looks like."
Reid's expression softened at that, something like relief settling into it. "Just us sounds okay," he said quietly. "Better than okay, actually."
The tenth of October fell on a Saturday that year, which made it easier than Hotch had expected to keep the whole day clear, no case pulling either of them away from it. He picked Reid up mid-morning, refusing to say much about the plan beyond that Reid should wear something comfortable and not expect anything that would embarrass him in public.
"That's an oddly specific reassurance," Reid said, climbing into the car. "Now I'm suspicious."
"You'll live," Hotch said, pulling out of the apartment complex with the particular satisfaction of a man who had, in fact, planned something he was fairly confident would land well.
The morning started at a used bookstore Hotch had found weeks earlier, three floors of overstuffed shelves and the specific, dusty smell of old paper that made something in Reid visibly relax the second they walked in. Hotch gave him an hour, unbothered by the fact that Reid disappeared almost immediately into the science section and had to be gently extracted, eventually, with an armful of books he clearly hadn't planned on buying and absolutely intended to buy anyway.
"I wasn't going to get all of these," Reid said, a little sheepish, setting the stack on the counter.
"You were," Hotch said. "I watched you decide to about four different times before you actually admitted it to yourself."
Reid huffed, but didn't argue and let Hotch pay before he could protest that either, waving off the objection with a look that had, by now, become entirely familiar and entirely unmovable.
Lunch was at a small Ethiopian place Reid had mentioned once, months ago, in an offhand comment about a case that had taken the team through a neighbourhood he'd wanted to explore and never had time to. Hotch had remembered. Reid noticed that he'd remembered and the quiet, startled pleasure on his face at the realisation was, Hotch thought, worth every bit of the research it had taken to track the place down.
"You remembered that?" Reid asked, halfway through the meal, still faintly disbelieving. "That was months ago. It was one sentence."
"I remember most things you say," Hotch said simply, like it wasn't remarkable at all, though the flush of quiet happiness it brought to Reid's face suggested it was, in fact, exactly the kind of thing that mattered enormously.
The afternoon was slower, unstructured on purpose, a walk through a park neither of them had been to before, Reid narrating an increasingly elaborate series of facts about the local ecosystem that Hotch was fairly sure he was inventing at least a third of, just to see how long it would take Hotch to catch him at it.
"There is no such thing as a three-eyed woodpecker, Reid."
"You don't know that. You're not an ornithologist."
"Neither are you."
"I contain multitudes," Reid said, with such solemn dignity that Hotch actually laughed out loud and Reid's answering smile was the kind that reached all the way to his eyes, easy and real in a way that made the whole afternoon feel worth every bit of planning it had taken.
They ended up back at Hotch's place as evening settled in, the house quiet and warm, a cake simple and homemade, slightly lopsided in a way that made Reid laugh when he saw it was waiting on the counter where Hotch had left it that morning before picking him up.
"You made a cake," Reid said, something caught and disbelieving in his voice.
"I made an attempt at a cake," Hotch said. "The internet assures me the frosting hides most sins."
Reid looked at it for a long moment and when Hotch glanced over, he found something bright and overwhelmed shining in Reid's eyes, held carefully in check but not quite hidden. "Nobody's made me a cake since I was maybe seven," he admitted quietly. "I didn't think I'd mind not having one. Turns out I minded a lot more than I let myself realise."
"Well," Hotch said, gently, "that ends tonight. Every year from here on, if I have anything to say about it."
He lit a single candle, no elaborate number, just one, simple flame and Reid stared at it like it meant something far larger than its size suggested, which Hotch supposed, it probably did.
"Make a wish," Hotch said softly.
Reid closed his eyes for a moment, something private and careful passing over his face, and blew it out. When he opened his eyes again, they were damp, though he was smiling despite it and Hotch reached over without a second's hesitation to brush a stray tear from his cheek, an easy, unthinking gesture that had become, somewhere over the last year, entirely natural between them.
"Thank you," Reid said, voice thick. "For all of it. The books, and lunch, and well this. I don't think I've had a birthday like this. Ever, maybe."
"Then I'd say it was overdue," Hotch said, drawing him into a hug that Reid sank into immediately, arms coming around Hotch's middle, face tucked against his shoulder.
"I used to make myself forget it was even happening," Reid admitted, muffled against him. "It was easier than being disappointed when nobody remembered. I didn't expect this to feel like this."
"Like what?" Hotch asked gently, one hand moving in slow, familiar circles against his back.
"Like I actually matter enough to plan around," Reid said, small and honest. "Like it's not selfish to want someone to make today different from every other day."
"You matter enough for a lot more than a bookstore and a lopsided cake," Hotch said, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "I intend to keep proving that to you for as long as you'll let me."
Reid huffed a wet, unsteady laugh, still holding on. "Thank you, daddy," he said softly, "this might be the best birthday I've ever had."
"Good," Hotch said simply, holding him close, feeling something settle deep and certain in his own chest at the words. "That was the whole idea."
They ate cake at the kitchen table afterward, Reid picking at the frosting with the delight of someone rediscovering a pleasure he'd long since decided not to expect for himself. Later, when they were curled together on the couch with the new books stacked on the coffee table and some old movie playing quietly in the background, Reid falling asleep against Hotch's shoulder before it even finished, worn out in the good, easy way that came from a day spent entirely without vigilance, entirely without needing to brace for anything at all.
Hotch didn't wake him. He simply reached for the soft blue throw blanket, settled it carefully over both of them, and let the movie run on unwatched, content to sit in the quiet, ordinary glow of a Saturday evening that had, for the first time in longer than either of them wanted to think about, given Reid a birthday worth remembering for reasons that had nothing to do with what it had cost him in the past.