(no subject)
Prompt: Minutiae (Hotch/Reid)
It had never been about the bigger things. Neither men had wanted it to be about more, not at first, and even after all this time, it was the small, finer points that made the most difference.
The casual hand on the shoulder, the subtle glances when the atmosphere was just too heavy to bear; the way Reid would touch his tie if Hotch’s knot came out of alignment, and how Hotch would brush back his own infallible hair if Reid’s got a little too wild.
Conversations were never mundane with Reid, and Reid was never bored with Hotch, even lazy Sunday mornings watching a few Star Trek reruns were more amazing than the same episodes re-watched alone in Reid’s apartment, even having nothing to do when together made it more worth while. A simple tangling of fingers together, resting a head on the shoulder of the man beside him, smiling back at each other- those moments were more powerful, more precious than any copious amount of Hallmark Cards and chocolates that the mass media told them romance was about.
The five minutes they could steal while having a morning cup of coffee and intricately profile china patterns, and how both men would merely laugh when profiling the other’s dishware- hoisted upon each man by a different pushy blond or another, and the discussion of picking out a set together that would describe them as a couple had made the difficult job bearable.
Morgan sent Reid and Hotch a look as the two men hovered around the coffee pot, lingering a bit more than absolutely necessary for coffee, but not a socially unacceptable amount of time, especially when one remembered Reid’s affinity for coffee and Hotch’s affinity for Reid. Screwing on a smug smirk, he waited for Hotch to finally walk back to his office before approaching.
“Hey pretty boy, what was that all about?”
“Coffee.” Reid picked up his cup in demonstration and took a sip, hoping to hide his own satisfied smile at the prospect of finding a suitable China print that would fit into both men’s personal style. He imagined a regal, classic, but uncluttered approach.
“Yeah, sure it is. Just like China’s just all about…” Morgan froze when he saw Reid’s face blanch, that was an odd reaction. Had they been talking about China? Did Reid think he was listening in? But what would a conversation (and statistic) about a country have on Reid to make him react like that? “What… Hotch finally pop the question?”
He let out a chuckle, until he realized Reid was choking on his own coffee.
“Reid… Reid! Man, it was a joke… breath, seriously!”
Holding up his hand, Reid coughed three more times to clear his airways before giving a weak, “Right.”
Returning to his desk, Morgan clicked his tongue, he now had something to watch for, something much more interesting than Prentiss and Garcia’s chat about designer handbags. No, his Baby Girl would have to deal with his disinterest in which handbag was trending the most right now, making the time for him to now search for the, as Reid would say, minutiae clues and piece together just exactly what the hell he’d missed up until this point. Seriously, Hotch and Reid picking out china patterns? If he could miss something as obvious as that for so long, he really was losing his touch.
It was blatantly obvious both had a thing for the other, but that he hadn’t realized that two of the best profilers in the FBI had missed that about the other? That sort of rookie mistake made him wonder just how many other of the finer points he was missing. He shot a glance over to Garcia. Nope, he still saw her finer points easily enough. That much was a relief.
Gucci, similarly, was apparently the brand of the week.
In the round room, Morgan watched as Reid sat next to Rossi and Garcia, the five o’clock position to Hotch’s twelve, and he couldn’t help but to smile at how intentional that was now that he was looking for those small details.
Finito.