(no subject)
Aaron Hotchner in his personal life, perhaps due to his upbringing, always made a habit of walking on egg-shells and trying too hard. He would argue that he tried just the right amount, just in the wrong way, but that was neither here nor there.
Here being the middle of the hallway outside of the bedroom facing a closed door, which is braced by what he can only assume is the large dresser also accustomed to being in the room. There would be inside that bedroom, currently housing a very disgruntled Dr. Spencer Reid.
Here being the dog house, there being heaven, and he most clearly had not made it to heaven after the blunder he made. Now if only he knew what it was. Spencer rarely would get mad, and after three and a half years dating the man- he had finally started to stop acting like the floor was decorated in crushed-glass carpet and he forgot his shoes.
Spencer didn’t do pedestrian arguments, the benefit of a very empathetic genius, he just usually seemed to float above it all. Unfortunately, thanks to almost 20 years in a relationship with Haley, his high-school sweetheart who had all but mastered the argument of emotional irrationality (‘Really, how is it my fault that you’re upset I didn’t call you during lunch because you were upset? You were fine in the morning and I was at work, I didn’t know there was a status change-’ ‘-THAT’S the point, you NEVER notice things about me!’ happened to be one of his all-time favorite examples of what he put up with, because that one was concise.) he’s out of practice, and never developed skills involving lengthy arguments with Spencer.
Even the arguments with Reid, the agent, were solely when Reid got too lost in his head and he had to pull him out and back into the world of socially-accepted practices, like not pissing of LEOs just because damn it, he got it, Owen was dealt a really shitty hand. The point was, so were a lot of other people, and they didn’t typically go around spree-killing.
Recollection, Hotch knew, could be his salvation or his annihilation, he knocked on the door trying to reason with Spencer to make him open the door one more time, and had heard the same response as the previous two attempts, “The couch is downstairs.”
He knew damn well where his own couch was, but he took great pleasure in knowing that of all the time he and Spencer spent in his house, he had never yet once had been banished there, and like hell he’d start now. He was done with that shit.
“Spencer, this is my house, I’m not sleeping on the couch!”
Somehow, that outburst had gotten more resolve than the soft quarries and hushed tones of misunderstandings.
He heard the heavy furniture slide to the side and the door push open, “Oh, you’re right. Absolutely, I should leave. I’ve been an ungrateful guest.” The splash of ice-water dowsed inside the verbal throw is enough to make Aaron realize just what the hell happened.
“Spencer! I didn’t mean it like that! Christ, it was just a casual comment at lunch, I didn’t mean it like that!”
Maybe he wasn’t as out of shape at deflection as he thought.
“Absolutely, a Freudian slip, right? You only subconsciously meant to say I haven’t been living here as a part of this family for the past three months, that I’ve just been on a really long sleep-over. Well, my ex-landlord will be HAPPY to know she has a rent-check coming back in.”
“Spencer! Be reasonable…”
“Reasonable?! You… you… what the hell about being here for three months every day outside of working on cases makes you think I don’t consider this my residence? How is THAT reasonable that after dating for over three years our living together is preposterous? The only way would be if you don’t plan on my staying around much longer!”
“Spencer!”
He grabbed his go-bag as he pulled on one chuck, the other in the same hand maneuvering it onto the one foot.
In all, it took Spencer 30 seconds to be put together enough to hold his cell-phone, wallet, and go-bag. It took 2 more seconds to get Morgan on the phone.
“Hey Morgan, I need a place to crash, is it alright if I…?”
Aaron grabbed his phone, “No, he doesn’t. We’ll see you on Monday.” He hung up the phone and threw it into the bedroom onto the bed, he grabbed Spencer’s wrist and started to pull him into the kitchen.
Aaron had played the egg-shell game, it led to misery, he’d been playing the happiness game just fine for the past 6 months and like hell he was going to give it up so easily.
“Sit.”
“No.”
He pulled out the chair, “Sit, Spencer. Jesus, I’m going to make some coffee and we’re going to talk. I’ll start, I’m sorry I offended you today, I didn’t mean to imply that this was anything less than OUR home together, all three of us, Jack, yours and mine. That’s what this family is, and this is the home to our family.”
“Then why did you…?”
“Refer to it as the Hotchner domain?” He rolled his eyes, “Alright, so I’m a bit old-fashioned, I always assumed…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, “No, wait a minute. If I’m going to fuck this up so badly, I have to at least get the important parts RIGHT.”
Spencer looked at him completely lost. Aaron reached to the cereal cabinet, pulling out the oatmeal box that both Jack and Spencer avoided like the plague. He fished inside the box and pulled out a velvety black necklace box, he discarded the oatmeal box on the counter, leaving the drawer haphazardly open.
Aaron took that moment to give Spencer a heated look, not of anger, never of anger- but passion, his eyes softened at the confused look in Spencer’s eyes, sometimes the man’s mind processed faster than his physical reaction time could keep up with, he raked his fingers through his own hair before bending onto one knee in front of Spencer, in between his legs in effect trapping him from running out of the room, which he thought to be completely plausible.
He’d run out of the room in a flash if he ever saw this sort of stunt coming, he was sure, “I just always assumed you’d hyphenate my last name into yours. What I mean to say is, Spencer, will you marry me?”
Spencer’s eyes twitched twice in unison in a strange spasm that struck across his brow as his lips turned into a frown.
“If this is a joke mocking me, somehow…”
Aaron opened the box revealing a platinum band with a sleek, elegant, but simple design at the very top of the box, a silky fabric taking up the remainder of space in the long box.
“I am not joking, earlier this week, when I skipped our lunch date for errands…?”
Spencer nodded, eyes tearful, “I thought you might have finally come to your senses about being with me… and maybe found another woman so Jack could grow up with a normal situation…”
“Nothing about my life is normal, Jack seems to be coping well, besides, who wants to be normal when they can be happy being themselves? As I was saying, the errands included switching titles to the house, the car, the accounts, health and life insurance policies to add you onto them. I want you with me for the rest of my life, Spencer, I want you to marry me. We can discuss name-changes or keeping both our own for work-related reasons, I wanted to wait a little longer but…”
He moved the silky flap of fabric to show the modified deed to the house to include Spencer Reid within the title.
“I am absolutely serious when I say this is our home, and that you are one of the two most important people in my life.”
“Wh…what were you going to wait for?”
Aaron smirked with a bit of a devious twinkle in his eyes, “Next week, that big out of state conference we have…?”
“About domestic disputes and the breeding ground for pathology a broken home creates…?”
“That’s something like what I told Garcia to make the mailer look like, yes.”
Spencer’s eyes went wide, “You mean there isn’t really a conference…? But why Connecticut then?”
“Because if you say yes, we can get a license there and have the ceremony here when we get back.”
“…If I say yes?”
“Well, you do have a choice, Spencer.”
Spencer smiled, “Do I? Where I sit I only see one possible answer, and that’s a resounding yes, I’d be honored to marry you.”
Aaron smiled, “Good then, are you still offended about earlier?”
Spencer shook his head, “No, and it’s official that your track record remains undisturbed, you won’t have to sleep on the couch tonight… not that I can promise much sleep in the bedroom.” He leans forward, wrapping his arms around the back of Aaron’s neck as he pushes himself closer into Aaron’s form, obliterating the space between their bodies. Aaron navigated the ring onto Spencer’s finger before the couple did a backward slide toward the upstairs bedroom, blissfully unaware of any and all obstacles in between the kitchen and the bed.
Fin.