Chapter Text
“Fall on your knees.
Oh Hear the Angel Voices…
Oh Night Divine!”
–The Bible, Somewhere, Chapter 3 Verse You better Know
Sunlight was a funny thing that morning. It played around the edges of reality like notes against an untuned piano. Long tendrils splayed into being to clash harshly with a rigid routine, rendering every note off-key. Nothing ever made sense when they came up against religion.
“I’ve never been to New York City outside of a case.”
The Manhattan skyline loomed ahead, steamy and uninviting where it sprawled all lit up behind the miles and miles of outlying industrial parks emitting their wondrous display of fuck-all pollution.
It was December 20th, the night before the Winter Solstice, and it was cold.
The train they were on gathered speed after its last stop in Jersey, chugging along toward Grand Central Station at the heart of New York. Spencer Reid sat with his legs folded up beneath him, staring out through the frosty window. Aaron Hotchner read the paper with one leg casually draped over the other, his arm over Spencer’s lap playing with the end of his purple scarf. He had to answer that simple question with a simpler truth.
“Neither have I, truthfully. Aside from a school field trip I went on when I was eleven. We stayed in Connecticut at a ‘brother school’ and spent the day at the Museum of Natural History. Other than that all I know about New York City is the crime rate and the wealth disparities.”
Reid laughed lightly. He shrugged and curled into himself, one hand lifting to his mouth to tap tap tap against his lip in between quick chin scratches.
“Great, so we’re both going into this with hardly any real-world experience…. Why did we choose New York for our one and only chance to get away together?”
“I wouldn’t call investigating serial homicides in the biggest City in the U.S. ‘hardly any real-world experience’, Spencer. But, if you need a reminder, I believe you wanted to see the Rockefeller Christmas Tree and visit several museums in between our private time at the Plaza.”
Hotch reached over to take Reid’s nervously tapping hand in his own. Reid paused his relentless fidgets, relaxing into the warm squeeze of his partner’s hand. He cleared his throat, head swiveling around to meet Hotch with a quick peck against his lips he hoped no one saw. Hotch tried to lean into it but Reid drew back, shaking his head with his eyes wide open and wary.
The relationship was still too new for him to feel comfortable being seen kissing another man, let alone his boss. He still wanted to express his amazement that neither of them had ever been to the “Big Apple” for pleasure before now.
“You know, I was an infant when you were a teenager touring the Natural History Museum.”
Hotch groaned and sat back against his seat.
“You know every time you remind me of our age difference, it just makes me age more, right?”
Reid shook his head seriously, not understanding Hotch’s attempt at humor.
“That’s impossible. It’s a simple fact, you’re fourteen years older than I am–”
“Spencer, please–for this trip, we are the same age. Just this once.”
They hit a tunnel and the train car was plunged into a sultry darkness backlit by soft yellow lights above and the flickers of the tunnel lamps every ten meters. Reid took a deep breath and started feeling excited about his first ‘vacation’ with his new partner. He would revisit the troubling nature of their age-gap and Hotch’s refusal to acknowledge it later.
“We can pretend, I guess. Role-play is a healthy diversion for committed couples–oh, can I pretend to be your teacher? We can revisit your first trip to New York as a young teenage boy–”
“No. No we cannot. Just, try to enjoy this with me? As my partner. My boyfriend. No ages, no past experiences, just… just us experiencing a getaway together?”
Hotch felt like he might be asking too much of Spencer Reid when the man looked so deeply perplexed. Then he watched Spencer flush deep red and smile at him glowingly as they reached the terminus of their destination at Grand Central Station.
“Boyfriend?”
Hotch blinked and realized that he had never referred to Reid as his boyfriend outright quite like that.
He is my boyfriend. For lack of a better term, aside from ‘partner’. We’ve been sleeping together for seven months…. Ever since Haley left. He has a key to my new apartment… I have a key to his. We spend almost every night together when we’re not on the job….
“Yes. Boyfriend. You are my Boyfriend.”
Spencer sat there staring hard at Hotch like he’d never seen anything so delectable and so amazing in his entire life. Hotch was beginning to feel like he might need to shake the young twink awake when a cool voice sounded from overhead to announce their arrival.
“Now arriving at Grand Central Station.”
“Are you… okay? We’re here, Spencer.”
Spencer shook himself out of his entranced incredulity and stood up abruptly.
“Right–um–yes, of course. Bags? Here, ah, I’ve got them–shit–”
Hotch stood up quickly to help catch his luggage when Reid yanked too hard at the handle and nearly sent multiple bags tumbling down on top of them. It took several minutes to work out what was what and make sure they weren’t forgetting anything after the leisurely Amtrak ride from D.C. to NYC.
When they finally made sense of the baggage and made it onto the platform, Spencer turned around to grab Aaron by the hand and pull him through the throngs of people all attempting to move in every direction at once.
“Let’s check in to the hotel, it’s just a few stops from here!”
Hotch allowed himself to smile at his boyfriend’s exuberance, somewhat in awe that he wasn’t overwhelmed by the crowds and the germs present. Reid seemed perfectly at ease navigating the underground station until they found the right connecting line.
He also seemed perfectly at ease holding Hotch’s hand the entire time.
Up until this point, Reid had been hesitant to do so much as touch Hotch in any way that may be perceived as more than workplace associates interaction in an often-times physically demanding job.
Hotch knew it had something to do with Reid’s fear that they’d both be fired if they were found out, and he also knew Reid had never had a boyfriend or a girlfriend of any regularity before but… he didn’t really understand the depth of Reid’s issues with intimacy until he was Reid’s one and only intimate partner.
To stand on the subway car swaying back and forth hand in hand with Dr. Spencer Reid while said Doctor outlined every last bit of their next day together felt like the best Christmas present Hotch had ever received. He hardly even heard Spencer’s detailed plans or the sound of the people around them, the crinkle of tissue paper or Christmas packages all tied up with bows and strings and glitter rattling along on the train floor….
All Hotch wanted to do was get his skinny, pretty, brilliant little twink back to a hotel room where he could ravage him as soon as possible. He had spent years ignoring the impulse. Now here he was, in the biggest city in America, holding hands with the man who unknowingly haunted his dreams every night he was forced to spend alone without him.
He haunts my dreams even when I do get to sleep with him.
Hotch was ruined already, and he knew it.
He let Reid lead him up and out of the subway, vaguely listening to his chattering speech about where they would go tomorrow and how they might spend tonight. Hotch could barely do anything but nod at the bellhop when they arrived to check in to the suite he reserved at the Plaza Hotel.
“It’s under your name, right? Uhm, check under Hotchner?” Spencer said to the concierge when Hotch did nothing but nod his head vacantly and stare at him intently. The clerk smiled and checked his computer, noting the way Hotch gripped Spencer’s hand tighter and got closer with every passing second.
“Oh, yes, I have a Mr. Aaron Hotchner and guest booked for a king-bed suite, two nights. Is that correct, Sirs?”
Spencer shrugged at Aaron and cleared his throat purposefully.
“Is that correct? You made the reservation, Aaron. I understand if speech is a lot to handle right now but can you maybe handle this?”
Aaron managed to make his brain work long enough to look at the concierge and nod again, feeling like an idiot between how horny he was and how difficult it was to process the last hour.
All he knew was that he needed to get Spencer Reid into a private bed, very, very soon.
“Yes, yes, that is correct. We won’t require any help with our bags. Just the key to our room, please.”
The concierge gladly handed him the key card once he checked his ID. Spencer stood to the side wondering if Hotch had somehow gotten drunk since they left on this journey north.
Hotch was punch-drunk on love and excitement as they strolled down the marble-tiled hall toward the elevator bay, still hand-in-hand.
“Are you okay, Aaron? You’re acting… off. Weird. Not in a bad way just–you’re not acting normally,” Spencer posited, whispering in his ear so no one around heard him as they made their way to go upstairs.
Hotch blushed, shrugging, squeezing Spencer’s hand tighter.
“I’m fine. More than fine. I just can’t really believe we get to do this together, finally. Seven months of sneaking around… pretending I don’t care about you as deeply as I do… it feels crazy now, to actually be with you. Really be with you.”
He looked up at Spencer’s stricken expression while they waited for the elegant elevator to descend. Hotch had rarely seen anyone look so innocent and yet so beautiful all at once. Spencer’s long hair lay in two tousled waves framing his pink-cheeked face, his expression one of consternation and confusion. He remembered the first time they ever had sex. Spencer looked a lot like that. And then, he made it clear he was feeling just as new to this experience.
“You’ve been inside of me three dozen times exactly, so, I hope you found those experiences worthwhile despite how private we kept them. Actually, I really hope you enjoyed every time I gave myself to you like that for more than just a sexual release, because I know you only came twenty-seven times.”
Hotch nearly choked when the woman beside them in line for the elevator laughed against her hand and the seasoned doorman almost dropped his give-no-fuck facade.
“I–I know that, Spencer, I wasn’t–wasn’t talking about–sex–” he whispered desperately. The elevator doors opened and no one followed them inside.
Spencer sighed and dropped his bags. Then he pinned Hotch against the wall of the elevator before the doors were fully closed.
Hotch moaned into the sudden kiss, raking his hands up underneath Reid’s sweater vest, wrenching his tucked in button-down up and away from his tight ass cords cinched around his waist by a belt.
I can’t wait to slide that goddamned belt out of those pants and watch them drop.
Reid was always dominating in his kisses.
Hotch let him do his thing in these scenarios… he loved being kissed like he was being given life by an EMT. Reid delivered the fantasy so well. They had never kissed in public places, not like this, not when the possibility of being discovered was so close.
The elevator doors slid open to the seventh floor but Reid didn’t stop assaulting him with his tongue and lips, his hands clasping his head so hard Hotch felt like he might collapse from a lack of air very soon.
He had to hit him to make Reid step back and keep the lift from closing and descending prematurely.
Wack.
“Spence–come on–” Hotch mumbled when he got a chance to speak between desperate kisses. Reid disengaged, as if he were separating himself from the only air he could possibly breathe.
Hotch watched his pretty twink boyfriend stumble backward and hold his arms out clumsily to keep the elevator from closing.
“Right… ah, well, Sir, I think we need to find our suite for the evening.”
Spencer nodded over his shoulder down the hall and Aaron couldn’t say anything aside from, “Yes, we do.”
They found their suite at the Plaza Hotel while a heavy snow fell against the windows. The weather outside was surely frightful. Thank goodness they made it here before it got Bad. Just in time for things to get delightful.
Spencer made his way around the special suite, taking note of every detail he could while he still had his clothes on.
He and Hotch had shared a few hotel rooms together before, sure.
A Knights Inn in Charleston, West Virginia, back when they weren’t able to handle the tension. Spencer didn’t prep before that encounter. Hotch didn’t care at all. The hot and heavy situation between them ended up being a major milestone on his personal love map, regardless of preparation or penetration. And then… there was Orlando.
They stayed in a themed hotel in Orlando together after pretending they weren’t dying from sexual tension, culminating in the moment neither of them would ever forget…
The moment being the time Hotch told Reid he had REAL feelings for him and that his marriage was a collapsing shamble. It wasn’t as if it was some surprise. But it was far more real of an experience than Hotch ever anticipated sharing with someone from his Team.
He knew Reid deserved to know, though. He knew Reid was the one he needed to tell. Reid wasn’t just someone from his Team.
Reid refused to acknowledge that reality at first. They were staying at a Disney World hotel, after all.
Everything around them was a fairy-tale, until it wasn’t. Reid never liked imagining himself on the dark end of a fairy tale. They didn’t have sex at Disney World but they came very close. His fairy-tale ending with Hotch was very different from what actually ended up happening.
I never would have done anything with him if I knew I was going to be a flashpoint of contention for years on end….
Spencer was still dealing with the fallout of being a player in the long and drawn-out break-up of Haley and Aaron Hotchner.
He was still dealing with being the man Hotch turned to when he needed to vent. Decompress. Fuck away the pain.
Spencer remembered the times they spent in those hotel rooms together like they were sacred moments in the gospel of his own life.
There would never be anything more important than the days Hotch asked him to be there as a witness to the moments he chose to move forward and away from.
Then there was the constant rotation of sad, horrible motels on the outskirts of D.C. where they could fuck through the tension and pretend like it was nothing until everything was officially DONE and Hotch could legally say he was a divorced, single man.
Reid pretended like he didn’t care at all. Until it was clearly over and he could be who he wanted to be in Hotch’s life.
Then, and only then, they started going places together.
And so here they were.
At the Plaza Hotel, at Christmas. On vacation.
Both of them taking leave from the BAU with no explanation.
Spencer knew he was pushing his luck when Aaron emerged from the bathroom in a robe.
“Wow. I like you in a robe.”
Aaron Hotchner stood there wearing said robe, feeling like he should be on his knees in thanks to be with this man.
All he could manage was a curt, “Thank you.”
They stood there stiff and uncertain at the edge of a king bed until the moment thawed just enough between them. There were no murders to solve. There was no one to hunt. There were no profiles vying for their immediate attention.
Hotch didn’t have a wife to go home to anymore. At least, not one who wanted to see him.
Reid would never have a wife to go home to. At least, not one who lived outside of his imagination.
Reid sucked in a long, uneven breath before he suggested something he was pretty sure his Unit Chief would say NO to outright. He hoped to be proven wrong for once.
“I wouldn’t mind going down on you, Sir.”
Hotch grinned down at him, unable to keep himself together as he let his robe fall open.
“I wouldn’t mind it either, Reid.”
The snow fell soft, slow and wet outside. So did two idiots in love.