Better Together ReaderxHotchxReid

three

I woke up and at first I felt fine, and thought that maybe it was just a one day thing. However, right when I stood up, Hotch took one look at me from where he sat at the table and pointed back to the bed that I had just gotten up from. "Bed. Now." He says and I went to protest when a wave of nausea crashed over me and I grabbed my stomach momentarily while nodding, climbing back into bed. I've never felt so sick in my life.

"You're off the case till you're better, you can't work like that. You'll make yourself worse." He says and I groan. "Hootchhh. C'mon I'll be okay." I mumble, pressing my face into my pillow even though I knew my words were untrue. He was right, I needed rest. But I knew by time I got better we'd have the case finished and be on our way home and I'd feel nothing short of useless. "Absolutely not. This is a direct order. You're burning up I can tell from looking at you." He says and I lifted my head up, turning to look at him.

"I'm not, I'm perfectly fine just nauseous." I say seriously and he took a sip of his coffee, wiping his mouth with a napkin before standing up and he caught me off guard when he literally pressed his lips to my forehead. "Thats the proper way to tell, everyone knows that. And as I suspected, you're burning up." He says and I just kinda stared at him. "Spencer and Prentiss left to get you cold and flu medicine since the migraine medicine didn't help, they insisted so don't yell at me." He says while sitting on my bed and I groan. "They're babying me. You all are." I mumble and he raised his eyebrows at me, as if he was amused or something.

"Y/n, you're sick. I could be an oh so terrible boss and force you to work extra hours non stop or something. Me caring for you is not babying you, I simply care for your well being." He says seriously, a slightly joking tone to his first sentence and I tried to crack a smile but I just didn't feel up to it. I really was exhausted despite sleeping so much already. "I thank you for you caring nature Hotchner." I say and he playfully scoffed at the use of his full last name, gently bumping his shoulder against mine.

"I'm sick and you're abusing me? Woowww. Wait till I tell the team." I say jokingly and he smiled widely at me. "Oh I see how you are huh?" He says and I managed as much as a smile as I could and his face dropped. "Oh you poor thing, here lay down." He says and at first I thought he was mocking me or something and I gave him a weird look. "I'm serious, you can barely even smile. You're weak you need rest." He says gently pushing my shoulders to have me lay down and I did so, letting him pull the covers over me, still slightly confused.

"There you go honey, you need rest." He mumbled and I wasn't sure if he meant to call me that or not but he didn't apologize or even acknowledge it so I didn't either, just slightly smiling. My eyes were heavy and the headache I had was starting to come back, pounding slightly in my head. He moved my hair from my face and I let my eyes flutter shut, going back to bed. When I woke up again there was a bottle of cold and flu medicine on the bedside table next to me, with four bottles of water and a note.

"Y/n, Take one every 5 hours. We expect atleast two of these water bottles to be empty by time we get back tonight, you need to stay hydrated and rest up. If we can we'll stop by to check on you, please message one of us every once in a while just to let us know you're alright okay? Hope you start feeling better soon, sweetheart.

Aaron, S.Reidxo"

I smiled at the sweetness of the note, the use of "sweetheart" and the fact that not only did Hotch sign off with his first name, but Spencer signed off on the note as well. It was sweet and I smiled at it, reading it over again before putting it back down. I took a pill, drinking less than half of one bottle before I laid back down and fell asleep for about another half hour. I still felt like shit when I woke up, but I decided to stay up for a little bit, and made a group chat between Hotch, Reid and I.