Aeipathy

CHAPTER 16.

After what had felt like an incredibly long week, you'd collapsed onto your sofa with a takeaway and a bottle of wine with the intention of nothing but relaxing and attempting to forget the events of the previous few days. This week had been tough and had left you feeling drained, especially since two weeks had now passed since the argument with Hotch and the underlying sexual tension between the two of you had been replaced with that of an incredibly awkward one. It was only as you replayed the blazing argument between the two of you in your head that you were suddenly hit with the full weight of Hotch's words and as tears poured from you, so did a mixture of emotions; stress and relief from the case you'd just been working on and then the anger from Hotch's actions, but you soon realised it was more than just anger at what he'd done. It was hurt. Allowing yourself to wallow in your feelings for the rest of the evening, you thought back to your conversation with Morgan in the gym and decided that you needed to put everything behind you, there wasn't any point in letting things fester and Hotch wasn't worth your anger, nor your tears. Most importantly though, you both had a job to do and under no circumstance did you want anything to hinder that.

Despite your efforts to get back to normality, Hotch was determined to avoid you at all costs, even going as far as changing his usual seat on the jet so he no longer sat opposite you and would often sideline you to smaller tasks during a case, making sure to direct you in the complete opposite direction from him. If you were honest with yourself you knew that this would happen at some point, mostly because at some point or another the rest of the team had been sidelined by Hotch and you couldn't help but scoff at his theatrics, you'd previously called him childish and he was doing nothing but proving your point. The team had just wrapped up a case in Detroit after finally apprehending an unsub who had been burning his victims alive in his fit for revenge against his parents. All in all, the case had gone smoothly throughout, the only minor hiccup being told off by Hotch for sparring with Morgan in the hotel lobby, but neither of you gave it any mind, only sharing a look with each other and carrying on shortly after much to the amusement of the others.

There was low chatter throughout the cabin which was slightly drowned out by the audiobook you were currently listening to with Reid, you'd both recommended it to each other before you'd left for the case and decided to listen to it together and so far it was proving to be a good recommendation. Lifting your head from Reid's shoulder as the chapter comes to a close, you're briefly aware of the conversation taking place between the rest of your team, but choose to ignore it, moving back to your previous position and closing your eyes to focus on the narrator's voice. About five minutes later both you and Reid are roused from your peaceful positions by Morgan yanking your headphones out, looking at you with a wide grin. "I was just saying we'll all be there for Hotch's triathlon, right guys?" he questions, seeming to be asking you more so than Reid.

"Of course, yeah!" Reid answers and from the way he props himself up you can tell he's about to rattle some sort of fact to do with triathlons. "It's fascinating actually, the number of participants in triathlons amounted to approximately 4.04 million in the US" he informs you all and you nod along in interest.

Initially you'd convinced yourself that you weren't going to go, it would just be too complicated and you didn't want things to be even more awkward than they already were, but upon hearing that the girls had made plans for a drinks evening the night before, you figured that it wouldn't be that bad and even if it was, you'd probably be too hungover to care.

"Yeah we'll be there, that's if Garcia doesn't finish us off with her infamous cocktails" you joke. Last time you'd had a girls night, she'd managed to make some ridiculously strong cocktails that left all of you rather drunk after only having three drinks and funnily enough you didn't remember much of the evening, only that you'd had an amazing time and awoken with a very sore head the next morning. Hotch doesn't even spare a glance in your direction and returns to the file he was working on and you thought you saw a hint of a smile ghost his features, but then again, it was probably just a trick of the light.