✓ | 𝗔𝗣𝗛𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗜𝗧𝗘 · ͟͟͞͞➳ spencer reid

HOTCH ━━━

# ! | HOTCH
- I really don't know
who's bde is more powerful

━━━ AARON HAD BEEN hesitant to make a move. At first, he hadn't even been sure Meryl was attracted to men. Let alone men like him. After losing Haley and Jack, he wasn't sure he'd ever love again, either. (Yes, I killed Jack off. I don't like kids and Jack has weird vibes. Someone had to say it.)

Something switched in him the day he found her nearly naked and covered in bruises that day in that musty old hotel room. The side of himself that he'd lost, the role of a husband and a father, he felt it come back to life in that moment. His protector instinct.

Holding his breath, Aaron rams his shoulder into the door and immediately poses his gun in front of himself. There's no need for that, though, as he takes in his surroundings. Two dogs dead on the floor, Meryl tied up in a chair, and Dr. Laing swinging from the ceiling, face a shade of blue.

Meryl coughs out a wheezing request. "Please, untie me and give me your jacket before you let them know I'm here. I don't want them-" she stops to cough up some blood, "to see me like this."

What a sight she was, wig sticking up in all directions, eyes bloodshot. Her porcelain skin was now caked with blots of yellow, green, purple, and blue. Dried blood lingered everywhere you looked.

Hotch can't even speak for a fear of breaking down right there, so instead he does as she asks, shrugged out of his navy and yellow jacket and cutting her free. As soon as she's zipped up, Hotch speaks into his communicator. "I got her."

That feeling only grew, harboring a spot in his chest and flickering to life any time he thought Meryl might be in the slightest bit of danger, which was about six times a day. But Aaron wasn't stupid, he knew she could take care of herself blind, deaf, and with her arms bound. He thought about that last scenario a little more than he should, actually.

He wasn't blind. He could look through his office window whenever he wanted and see her walk by in her tight pants and cinched dresses. Her hair always a little messy. The slight masculine quality about her only attracted him more.

Now, Aaron watches her over a cup of coffee that she'd brought him around half an hour ago. He fiddles idly with the cuff of his white button down and scans his eyes over the curve of her strong shoulders in the fitted purple dress she'd worn into the office today. He clocked Spencer looking too, but didn't think anything of it. Reid had blown his chance the second he yelled at her on the plane a few months back.

"Would you end my suffering and ask her to dinner or something already?" asks Rossi, traipsing in front of Hotch and offering him a withering look.

Aaron glances down at his paperwork. "That'd be incredibly unprofessional."

"And eye fucking her at work isn't?"

This catches Emily's attention and she looks up with a knowing smirk. "That habit's a little hard to break," she comments, watching JJ as she strolls by. Once the blonde passes, Emily turns toward the men. "Seriously though, c'mon Hotch. The whole damn office knows you've got the hots for Miss Murphy."

But didn't they know? It was so much more than that. It was this deep urge in him to keep her safe and cook for her and please her. He wanted to make sure she fell asleep with a smile on her face every night. He wanted to be the cause of that smile. There was a part of him that could be happy just taking her dinner and then following it up with the part of the night that she'd really remember.

"Goddamnit," he mutters under his breath. He stands up and Rossi snaps his fingers in applause like he's at a poetry reading.

Meryl glances over her shoulder as she hears Hotch approach. Her thighs clench together and her mouth goes a bit dry. He'd upped his fashion game lately thanks to some pointers from her and now he was really doing it for her. Not that he hadn't been before. The authoritative energy that oozed from him was enough to make her weak in the knees. She liked that. She didn't know whether she wanted to call him daddy and have him use her how he wanted, or get the man on his knees and obeying her every word. It depends on the day. Today, it was a bit of both.

"Evening, sir," she greets, turning to look up at him through a fan of dark lashes. "Something I can do for you?"

Flirting. Okay, Hotch could do this. He smiles, just barely. "That depends. Do you have plans after work?"

"Just a date with the couch and my dog."

Aaron leans against her desk. "How about one with me instead?"

There's no mistaking the innuendo that drips from her voice as she says, "Can you offer a night better than what I had planned?"

Aaron laughs. "I'm certain."

Meryl stands up after putting her desktop to sleep. "Alright then, Agent. Prove it."

The check can't arrive fast enough. Around half way through the main course, Meryl had begun dragging foot up at down Aaron's leg, an action that turned him in to a perplexing degree. Over the course of the night, they'd laughed and learned so much about each other, and Meryl found she was actually having a really good time with her high strung boss. Hotch had also been enjoying himself, but this was not much of a surprise.

However, they'd both learned that there was no long term capacity between them. They both loved control too much. Hotch needed someone reliable, constant. Someone he could come home to.

"You won't find that in me," Meryl had told him as he poured himself another glass of wine.

Aaron nodded. "That's okay, it doesn't mean tonight has to end."

But in the end, that's exactly where it ended. She couldn't be that vulnerable with someone so new, and he still just saw Haley. In the end, they didn't even kiss.

God, Rossi had a field day with that.