Rom-com Gone Wrong (Hotch x Reader)// ✔

4. Someone Else

Summary:

Maybe this mentoring business works because a coworker asks for help, and Hotch promises, in his own way, to ask about a case in the very near future

Notes:

a short one but a bit more advancement in the dynamic!

--------------------

The funny thing, you'd found some years ago, about having a niece and nephew is that you get to babysit them at sudden, unplanned moments, such as this one when a hangover headache is splitting your head and seemingly making your bones rattle. And the best thing children know how to do? Giggle and shout and talk loudly and without coherence. That's what your Saturday had been at least – watching your brother's kids, seven and five, run around your apartment.

Today, on the lord's day, as your brother had said when he called to tell you the news that his brethren, he'd dumped on you on Saturday (because of a sudden work trip in New York and no babysitter in Boston) were going to picked up later; and the same motions were at play. Turning upside down every pillow and couch cushion for a pillow fort. Eating in every room of the house, leaving a trail of crumbs like Hansel and Gretel. Barreling full speed from room to room, like they weren't tiny humans but police cars on a chase. Spreading Legos all over the floor, dangerous to unprotected toes and bare feet. Assembling and disassembling until the cars and trucks and Star Trek space ships didn't entertain them any longer.

Your brother shows up three hours later than he'd announced, his old Sudan pulling up your driveway, looking as unwashed and dusty as it had been Saturday. Instead of his kids running to him, they stay seated on the rug inside your living room, eating the fruit you'd cut up for them as they watch old cartoon shows.

"How's your eleventh PhD going?" you hold up another, similar plate with fruits to him and he shakes his head but still takes it, slouching all the way from the front door until he plops down over your couch.

"It's great. I have to adjust a few things but I should be on it--"

As he starts blabbering about details that make you zone out, you think back to Doctor Reid and the fact he'd just... slipped you his phone number. Well, it was his friend (or so you assumed but it might as well have been an older brother). Agent Morgan had passed you a scribbled napkin with numbers on it and told you with a wink and a grin that split his face. "Our resident genius loves physics magic too. You should text him sometimes."

You'd just taken it, folded the paper in two, and taped it on the cover of one of the books he'd recommended. Now, you're considering how it easy it could be to actually text him, when you're so used to your own brother's rambles. And well, if everything blows up with Agent Hotchner – or Hotch , as he now had started signing his emails – you'd have a plan B. You shake that thought off. Maybe, this whole ordeal is turning you into a loon or at least a con artist, just thinking of clean exit routes and back-up plans.

"...and dad's staying a whole week so I had to take a few days off before then." Your brother looks at you expectantly, and you realize there must have been a question in his blabbering when you'd zoned out. Your mind though focuses on the last sentence you've caught, and the pang in your chest is familiar.

"Dad's staying at your place?" you ask. "He's flying out from Ohio to Massachusetts to stay at your place, Matt?" Sure, makes sense to bypass New York and head to Boston, even though it's literally on the way. Bypassing you completely even after you'd offered him several times to stay over when he mentioned a reunion with his old mates.

Matt winces, "Sorry, I know he's been a bit distant... but maybe it's better?" He pulls you down to sit beside him, and leans over to drop forehead kisses on each kid. "You said job was getting hectic, no? More cases and whatnot?"