Come Open Your Eyes, for mondays_eyes, Hotch/Reid, PG-13 (original) (raw)

Title: Come Open Your Eyes
Author: luredin
Recipient: mondays_eyes
Pairing: Hotch/Reid
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,772
Warnings/spoilers: Angst and shmoop! Indirect mentions of 6x03 and 6x04. I may have fudged the timeline a little bit concerning Hayley and ‘100’ (ahem) but it was all in the name of boy!kissing.
Summary/prompt: Hotch realizes, over time, that the affection he's feeling towards Reid is more than just a protective instinct. It's love.
A/N: Huge thanks to my wonderfully supportive betas, and to my Number One Cheerleader. The title is a lyric from a ridiculously cheery piece of Springsteen canon called “Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!” (Surprise, surprise / Come open your eyes / And let your love shine down).

“Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;

Naught may endure but Mutability.”

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

_ _ _

October came to Virginia one crisp, cool fall morning without any pomp and with very little circumstance. The leaves on the trees didn’t change color over night. They turned from summer green into shades of autumn gold and orange and red gradually, over a period of days and weeks. They generally went unnoticed until they had flamed out in all of their fiery glory along highways and in front lawns and across office parking lots up and down the East coast. Then and only then—like all good harbingers of change—they caused people to sit up and take notice. People began to notice the way the sun hung a little lower in the sky and the way the light filtering through the trees seemed a little harsher than it did just a month ago. People began to turn their thoughts inward, to the coming winter, and they wrapped themselves up tight and pulled each other close and waited, or so it seemed.

Everyone was waiting for change.

_ _ _

Aaron Hotchner leaned back in his chair and stared out of his office window, his pen absentmindedly scratching against the legal pad on his desk before him. Uncharacteristic. He should have been busy, tense, making notes on the case before him. Briefing in ten. But instead his mind had wandered out the window to the parking lot below. His eyes were drawn to the line of trees dotting the far hillside where the leaves were clinging to the branches in clusters of yellow, covered in spots with amber and brown. Farther out along the horizon he could see candy-apple red and a dark kind of mahogany mixed in among the green.

He thought about Jack’s Crayola box at home, full of crayons of every color, and he wondered when this had happened. How had the seasons changed so suddenly? Was he that oblivious to the world around him, wrapped up as he was in his work and his home and anything that could keep his mind occupied for days and weeks at a time—anything that kept him busy and moving and not actually thinking about the past…or the future? Aaron tilted his head, the pen in his hand stilling against the paper, and he watched the breeze blow through the trees outside causing the leaves to fall to the ground. He watched them float down and away, one after another littering the pavement and the hoods of cars, until the sunlight shifted against the building, causing him to blink and remember where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.

A soft knock at the door brought him fully out of his reverie. He glanced away from the window as Garcia poked her head in the office, and he had to suppress a faint smile as he took in the color of her hair today—a perfect match to the autumn colors outside.

“Sir?” she said tentatively. “We’re ready when you are.”

“Thanks, Penelope.” Aaron nodded and began clearing his desk, gathering the files they’d need for the briefing, and just like that his mind was occupied again with the present moment, with where he was, who he was, and what he needed to do. Before he left his office, however, he glanced over his shoulder to the scene outside, and for a split-second he paused.

A thought, a niggling thought, was trying to rise from his subconscious, was trying to tell him something. But just as soon as he tried reaching for it, the idea was gone. The moment passed and was blown away, falling just like the leaves from the trees.

Aaron shook his head and moved on.

_ _ _

The case was not far from home, but it was one of their most grisly. Aaron looked around the police station at the rest of his team, their faces pinched and drawn, exhausted. Morgan was pacing back and forth in front the conference table, restless. Emily was wringing her hands in frustration, her dark eyes large and worried. Rossi was wearing a perpetual mask of anger tinged with guilt, and the tension radiating out from his body was enough to put everyone on edge. So they worked that much harder, that much quicker, but it still didn’t seem like enough.

Reid was perched on edge of the conference table, his back to Aaron, who was sitting in the chair behind him. He appeared to be concentrating on the lists in front of them, scrawled across the marker board in his own chaotic handwriting. Possible connections, possible theories, because they all wondered what it was about this Unsub that they were missing.

Aaron knew that look on Reid’s face, the way his eyebrows were drawn together and his eyes were narrowed, and the way he almost seemed to stop breathing while his mind worked twice as fast as anyone else’s in the room. He half-expected Reid to leap off the table at any second, throwing his arms around frantically, exclaiming with excitement “Guys guys guys!”

But no, Reid stayed still, and Aaron continued to watch his co-worker, suddenly tensing at the realization that he had been waiting for several minutes now for Spencer to put together the pieces of the puzzle that no one else had. He was relying on Spencer not out of desperation, but out of habit, because this was their routine. Whenever the team hit a wall, Spencer was almost always the one who broke through first, who suddenly understood how the square peg fit into the round hole. Aaron was beginning to realize that these moments—when Spencer overflowed with such enthusiasm and a childish wonder at knowing the answer—these were his favorite parts of working the case these days.

Seeing Spencer withdrawn—sitting half cross-legged on the table—bothered him. Aaron angled his body in his chair, taking in Reid’s profile: the ever-present purple-blue smudges under his expressive eyes, the rebellious attitude of his newly shorn hair, the slight tilt of his head. He was obviously fighting to keep hold of his nervous energy, his hands fidgeting on his lap, fingers curling and uncurling subconsciously.

Aaron watched Reid’s fingers with interest. They seemed to have a life of their own, in contrast to Reid’s still posture. His hands shifted, one second his fingers rapidly tapping patterns against his knee, then finding each other again in his lap, wringing, twisting, stilling, moving again. Every so often he would reach up and brush his long, slender fingertips against the fringed edge of his purple scarf.

Aaron watched the way the muscles of Reid’s forearms, visible as the sleeves of his dark cardigan had been pushed up to his elbows, flexed with each movement of his hands. His eyes traveled higher, taking in the long expanse of Reid’s neck and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed with each frustrated swallow. Aaron’s arm had been resting on the table this entire time, but now he noticed that his hand was nearly touching Reid’s leg, his knuckles almost brushing against Reid’s knee. He suddenly had a feeling, a warm stirring low within him that was decidedly not _supervisory_—a thought that involved him stretching out the fingers of his own hand, running them along the length of Spencer’s thigh, and twining those long, delicate, nervous fingers with his own.

That’s when he began to panic, not knowing how long he had been lost in his thoughts, studying Reid. How long had he been silent, while his team chattered around him, bouncing ideas off of one another? What on earth was he doing, thinking, feeling?
Fear washed through him then, and like waves crashing against a rocky shore, something started to break inside of Aaron.

_ _ _

Several weeks had passed since The Butcher case in Virginia, and Aaron found himself constantly fighting wayward thoughts of Reid. They came blowing and drifting across his mind, at the most inopportune times, in the most inappropriate places. Small things—a purple streak across a sunset sky, a random curl of hair at the nape of a stranger’s neck, the way Jack insisted on sprinkling sugar over his Cheerios in the morning—reminded him of Spencer.

Aaron watched Spencer as much as he could—as much as time and work constraints and outright decency would allow. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that his heightened observation of Spencer went unnoticed, but he preferred it that way. He knew the day would come when one of his team—most likely Dave—would pull him aside and ask: Why Spencer? Why now? The longer he could stay in denial meant the longer he could prolong the inevitable. He wasn’t certain yet just what the inevitable was, but he knew this constant distracted state regarding Spencer was new, and different, and probably all sorts of wrong.

The problem was the more he tried to push thoughts of Spencer away, the more right they began to feel.

_ _ _

Standing in the narrow hallway of an apartment building in Akron, Ohio, with his eyes locked on Spencer’s, Aaron felt as if as if his entire world had suddenly narrowed to this one point in time. The space was tight and hot and Spencer was facing him. He was standing too close, and he wasn’t breaking eye contact. He was determined. Because I am not an Alpha male, Spencer said. He said it out loud, but his quiet eyes said so much more. He was silently asking Aaron to trust him.

Aaron wasn’t a blinker, but he wanted to blink then; he wanted to look away because in that moment Spencer looked unbelievably vulnerable and implausibly strong all at once, and the sight was almost too much. He raked his gaze over Spencer’s face: full lips, pale skin stretched over a set jaw, half-moon circles under his eyes—_blueblackpurple_—always there. Spencer looked more than tired. He looked exhausted. Before he knew what was happening, worry fell like rain onto Aaron, blanketing his mind in nothing but Spencer. The hallway and all its other inhabitants seemed to float away and disappear, and there was only Reid, looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer.

Of course Aaron’s number one priority was always the safety of his team. He protected them—no, that wasn’t right. They protected each other. But this feeling that was suddenly washing through his insides was about more than Reid’s safety, physical or emotional. This feeling was like a tidal wave of concern and fear and admiration and trust, and Aaron had to fight not to lift his hand to Spencer’s face, to not trace the line of worry forming in the crease between his eyebrows, trying to erase the bone-tired look he saw there. He had a split-second realization that this was something more, before the hallway rushed back into view, crowded and noisy and tense.

Aaron and Spencer had known each other for a long time; they weren’t new to each other. Year after year they had seen each other at their best and at their worst. Aaron trusted Spencer. He always had, and he always would. So he nodded an almost imperceptible yes. Spencer turned quickly and entered the apartment—where a pregnant woman sat waiting for someone to convince her that her husband was a murderer—and he didn’t look back. That was the thing about Spencer Reid. Once he made his mind up to do something, he didn’t hesitate or show fear, and he never looked back. He was like a rocket, a missile aimed straight at the future, all nervous energy and quiet optimism hurtling forward. Always forward.

Aaron, on the other hand, had stopped looking forward—ever since that bright, hot day when he’d suddenly found himself covered in Hayley’s blood, unable to wash away his sins.

_ _ _

The November winds were sharp, and biting, and came rushing across the Bay in great bursts, shaking the last of the leaves from the trees. Daylight was in short supply—not unlike people’s tempers. Words were clipped; people spoke in shorter sentences as they hurried from point A to point B without lingering in-between. With every abbreviated day that passed, Aaron began to find himself thinking, wondering, worrying more about Reid. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Aaron found himself seeking out Spencer wherever he was. He began to leave the door of his office cracked open ever so slightly so that he could hear Reid’s voice occasionally drifting up from the bullpen below. He began timing his coffee breaks so that they coincided with Spencer’s, and, as a consequence, he began drinking a lot more coffee than he ever had before.

So maybe it was all the extra caffeine that kept him up at nights, staring at the ceiling of his darkened bedroom, wondering what Spencer was doing at that hour. Sometimes he pictured him curled up on his couch sleeping in that feral, cat-like way he had, like he did on the plane. Other times he pictured him awake and pacing, book in one hand, coffee in the other. Aaron gave up trying to halt the flow of his thoughts. Late at night he gave in to them, and often drifted off to sleep—finally, blissfully—thinking of nothing but Spencer and his fine jaw line and slender fingers and large hazel eyes.

However, in all these long November nights, the thought never once occurred to Aaron that Spencer might by laying somewhere thinking of him, too.

_ _ _

This would be Jack’s first Christmas without his mother, and Aaron was terrified of doing everything wrong. What if he did too much? What if he did too little? How did he know what was enough? He stood staring out his office window, his back to the open door. It was dark out now. Ice had spent all afternoon forming along the sidewalks and across car windshields, blanketing the parking lot in cold cut-glass, making the world glitter in the light of the lamps. Aaron suddenly felt very alone. He knew the feeling was absurd. He wasn’t ever truly alone, not at work and certainly not at home. Somedays—somedays though, he felt as if it was just him and Jack, alone, against the world, and good God, what if he screwed it up? That thought was enough to paralyze him with fear.
Aaron didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind him, and he gave a little start when Reid said his name. He spun around a little too quickly, meeting a mop of disheveled hair and clear hazel eyes head on.

“Hotch—your door was open. I should’ve knocked.” Reid said apologetically.

“No, Reid. It’s fine.” Aaron felt his heart race and he wanted to believe it was because of the adrenaline rushing through him from being startled, but he knew deep down that it wasn’t. He suddenly felt very warm and very alive and very unsure of what to do or say in Reid’s presence. “Did you need something?”

“No—I.” Reid paused, as if trying to collect his thoughts. His eyes were warm and thoughtful as he regarded Aaron. “You looked lost in thought. I—I wanted to make sure you’re okay, before I headed out.”

Aaron smiled a genuine smile that lit up his dark features and seemed to ease some of the nervous tension from his body. He suddenly realized that he had been holding his arms across his chest, a psychological barrier between himself and Spencer. He lowered his arms to his side and let out a short breath, allowing himself to relax. “I was just thinking about…Christmas.”

“Ah,” Spencer replied, moving a couple of steps closer to Aaron, his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. “Jack?”

Aaron nodded. Spencer smiled—a lopsided grin that made him look impossibly boyish and young for just a moment. “You know, Hotch, it’ll be alright. Whatever you do. It will be alright as long as the two of you are together. That’s the important part.”

Of course it was. Aaron knew that. Just maybe in all the rush and worry and work filling the entire month, maybe he had forgotten it, and here was Spencer reminding him because Spencer always knew what to say. He wondered if Spencer would ever know how much that meant to him, how he was a calm in Aaron’s storm, and how much Aaron was grateful for his thoughtful, quirky, caffeinated self—and the way Spencer seemed to anchor him to the present.

Spencer rolled up onto the balls of his feet and glanced down at his watch, before looking back up. He seemed to be about to say something more, but Aaron spoke first. “Are you going somewhere—your time off?”

He knew he should’ve known the answer to this already. After all, he was the one who’d signed off on the leave request, but he hadn’t inquired. He’d been too busy making plans for Jack’s Christmas, and, to be honest, he didn’t want to seem like he was prying, or paying more attention to Reid than was strictly professional.

“Vegas.” Spencer replied. Aaron couldn’t help but notice how Reid, as always, referred to the city and never used the word ‘home’ to describe the place where he grew up.

“You’re spending Christmas with your mother?” The stupidly obvious question rolled off Aaron’s tongue before he had a chance to catch it.

Spencer crossed his arms over his chest as if he suddenly caught cold and nodded. The corners of his lips quirked up slightly as he looked at Hotch. “I thought I’d try something new this year.”

“Your mother will be happy to see you.”

Spencer didn’t answer. He was still looking at Hotch with that strange half-smile on his face, but the smile didn’t light his eyes anymore. Aaron felt that familiar sense of worry and care and concern and something else he couldn’t quite name begin to creep up his spine, vertebrae by vertebrae until he was positively tingling, and he found himself stepping closer to Spencer. When he spoke his voice was unusually low and soft. “Promise me—promise me you’ll get some rest while you’re away. I realize you’ll be in the city that never sleeps, but please try?”

Reid nodded, as if not sure how to reply, and he cleared his throat conspicuously. “I should get going. Flight leaves in a few hours actually.”

Aaron took a step back. “Right. Have a safe trip.”

Spencer nodded again and turned towards the door. He was almost to the doorway when Hotch called out his name. He turned around to face him. Aaron was standing with his mouth open, suddenly aware that he had no idea what else he wanted to say. He closed his mouth and felt his words melting like ice cubes on his tongue. He was suddenly numb with the desire to stop Spencer from leaving.

“Merry Christmas,” was what he finally managed to say.

“Yeah,” Spencer smiled at him—a genuine smile, that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You too, Hotch.” And then Spencer was gone.

Aaron turned back to the window and let out a deep breath. Snow had started falling, dusting the crystalline landscape in white. He should check the weather and see how much snow was predicted to fall. Jack would want to know if they would be able to make a snowman in the morning. Aaron smiled at the thought of Jack, and he smiled even wider remembering how Spencer had knowingly said exactly what he had needed to hear. He continued to watch the snow fall for several long minutes, wrapped up in the warmth left in Spencer’s wake—the warmth of understanding and of not alone.

This was the first snowfall of the year—and yet, Hotch felt as if he was seeing snow for the first time in his life.

_ _ _

Late—eleven thirty—on New Year’s Eve, Hotch was sitting in his armchair watching Jack, sprawled across the sofa, chest rising and falling slowly. The television was turned down low, background noise, and Aaron wasn’t really paying attention. He was concentrating on the peaceful rise and fall of his son’s breathing, and he was content. He had done it—made it through the holidays with no major drama, just him and Jack and Jessica, of course. Hell, he had even managed a perfectly friendly phone conversation with Sean. Now he just had thirty minutes to go until the New Year, and he could say that they had all survived and that life does indeed go on, in its own quiet way.

Aaron wasn’t sure at first that he’d heard the knock, soft as it was, on his door. He tilted his head to the side and listened. There was definitely someone knocking on his door. He tensed and stood, padding his way across the living room, socks shuffling against the carpet. He paused in front of the sofa to lift bits of streamers—a glittering assortment of tinsel and confetti—out of Jack’s hair, tossing it onto the coffee table. He continued quietly towards the door, where the knocking continued, soft and steady. He glanced quickly out the peephole to see Spencer standing on his doormat.

Aaron stepped back quickly, disarmed the alarm, unfastened the deadbolt, and threw open the door. Spencer stood there blinking at Aaron, his eyelashes wet with melting snow. “Reid! Are you alright?”

“I should’ve called.” Spencer reached up and ran a hand through his damp hair, his long fingers tangling in the unruly strands. “Or you know, at least waited until a normal-person hour.”

Aaron shook his head in confusion and stepped aside motioning for Spencer to enter. They both took a few steps into the room and stood staring at each other. Aaron watched the melting snowflakes trickle down Spencer’s forehead and waited for him to say something more. The silence between them seemed surreal with the television chattering in the background.

“When did you get back?”

Spencer cleared his throat and attempted a smile. “Last night.”

“Did you have a nice time with your mother?” Aaron felt completely idiotic, but what else was he supposed to say? Spencer Reid was standing in his living room, dripping all over the carpet at practically midnight on New Year’s Eve, and all Aaron wanted to do was pull him close, warm his hands, and kiss away the snowflakes.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did but the entire time I was there…” Spencer hesitated, waiting for reassurance. Aaron nodded at him to continue. “The entire time I was there, all I thought about was you. All I kept thinking about was the conversation we had in your office before I left and I know this is completely insane, Hotch, I know, but I can’t help thinking that there was something there and that…”

Aaron held up a hand, trying to slow down the barrage of words tumbling out of Spencer’s mouth, fast and loud and a bit frantic. He moved a finger to his lips and inclined his head towards the sofa where Jack was sleeping. “Spencer.”

“Oh, God. I really should’ve called first.” Reid whispered, sucking in a sharp breath. He tilted his head and studied Aaron’s face, a worried expression clouding his features. Then he breathed out, as if steadying himself. “Something’s changed.”

“Yes,” was all Aaron could manage. He felt as if the wind had been completely knocked out of him. Spencer looked so earnest and vulnerable and the last thing Aaron wanted to do was cause him any pain.

“Something’s changed between us.” Spencer reiterated.

“Yes.”

“For the better?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“Spencer…I…”

“You don’t look at me the same way you used to.”

That was it really. What else could Hotch say after that? It was the truth. For the past several months he had been trying to pretend not only that it wasn’t true, but that no one else had noticed the way he watched Spencer, gravitated towards Spencer, relied on Spencer. Now he just felt like a fool. He wanted to say something profound, something that would make Spencer understand that these feelings were more than—what were they exactly? Aaron cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice was dry and tight. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“I know that feeling.” Spencer replied quietly.

“Do you ever feel like you don’t know anything but at the same time you know everything?” He took a step closer to Spencer, expecting the other man to move back, to put more distance between them. But then Spencer did something rather surprising. He moved closer.

“What aren’t you sure of?” Spencer whispered into the space between them—the blissfully tight, filled-with-heat-space between them, and Aaron closed his eyes.

“I don’t know how to make this work. I don’t know how to make this right. These feelings I have for you...” He stopped talking. He could feel Spencer’s hand on the side of his face, his thumb rubbing gently at his jaw line. His eyes snapped open, and for a moment he was sure that he had imagined the feel of Spencer’s finger, tracing a line on the side of his face. But his touch was real. This was really happening, and Aaron felt himself yielding to the pressure, tilting his head so that Spencer could cup his face in his hand.

Their bodies leaned towards each other as if by some mutual accord, and then their lips met. Aaron’s lips, warm, dry touching Spencer’s, damp, cool. The kiss was tentative, chaste, but welcome. New and different and right. Aaron circled an arm around Spencer’s waist, drawing their bodies flush together. Spencer angled his head to the side, his fingers moving to the back of Aaron’s head, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss. Someone moaned, but Aaron didn’t know who. He didn’t care because Spencer’s lips were parting, and Aaron’s tongue was sliding between them, and they were the only two people in the world right then.
Except that they weren’t. They both froze suddenly, hearing a stirring behind them coming from the sofa. Aaron tore himself away and spun around. Jack lifted a sleepy head from his pillow and mumbled a groggy, “Who s’ere?”

Aaron bent over the arm of the sofa and murmured, “Spencer’s here.” He kissed the top of Jack’s forehead. “Go back to sleep?”

“Will he b’ere intha morning?” Jack asked.

“We’ll see.” Aaron whispered back, which was apparently a satisfactory answer for Jack, who had already rolled over and was falling back to sleep. Aaron turned back around and found Spencer staring at him, wide-eyed, with an enormous grin on his face. He was suddenly very, very self-conscious. “What’s that look for?”

Spencer quirked an eyebrow and said suggestively, “We’ll see?”

“Oh that…” Aaron stammered. “I didn’t mean…well, I did. But it wasn’t meant to make you think…”

“Aaron.” Spencer reached out a hand, his slender fingers fisting in the cotton of Aaron’s t-shirt, and he pulled him close. “Stop talking.”

This time, when their lips met there was nothing but passion and heat and want, a clash of tongue and teeth that left them both breathless and needing more. Aaron’s hands were in Spencer’s hair, and this time he was certain that he was the one moaning. He felt Spencer slide a hand underneath his shirt, across the smooth expanse of his stomach his fingers tracing the edge of his waist band. Aaron shivered and wrapped their bodies closer together. His mouth slid to Spencer’s neck and he kissed along his pulse point, his nose grazing Spencer’s earlobe.

Outside snow was blanketing the ground silently. Inside, the TV was still on, reminding them that the night was still young. Somewhere in New York a shiny ball of light was descending from the sky, and somewhere, the world over, couples were ringing in the New Year, bright and shiny and full of promise.

Aaron and Spencer stilled for a moment, listening to the celebrations, their foreheads pressed together, their breathing synchronized and slow, and then they both began to laugh. Sometimes there’s so much joy in just one perfect moment that it cannot be contained, at least that was how Aaron felt right then. He moved his lips over Spencer’s jaw and smiled against his skin. He thought about the rest of the night, and he thought about the next morning. He thought about the future, and he wasn’t afraid.

Aaron wasn’t afraid, because he was no longer alone.

_ _ _

Love is not consolation. It is light.

-Friedrich Nietzsche