Retribution, A Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 41. Shades of Fatherhood

“C’mon, Aaron, we both have vacation time coming. And there’s nothing the others can’t handle on their own for a couple of days.” Rossi was doing his best to push his friend into another trip to upstate New York.

“I just don’t think it’s really necessary for me to tag along, Dave.” Hotch liked the old doctor and he’d actually felt a little thrill of anticipation when Rossi had approached him with the idea of accompanying Reid. He couldn’t explain it, but he always felt as though he’d been given permission to regress when the old man was around. It was okay to be just Aaron, who made mistakes, who sometimes needed to be reminded to eat, whose cowlicks needed smoothing, who sometimes needed to be told he was a good man even if he didn’t quite believe it. He could shed the badge and gun, and embrace not having all the answers…not being the one people looked to for decisions. When he applied his profiling skills to himself, he supposed he felt that way because there’d never been a safe place for him when he was growing up. Finding one now was like having Rossi tell him he loved him as a son: better late than never.

It felt good to be around that strange, kind, elderly physician…like an emotional purr.

Now, as he listened to Rossi enumerate the reasons for another trip north, he could almost feel the old doctor’s hand on his face, running that worn, comforting thumb over his cheekbone as he had a number of times before. Even dredging it up from memory made him relax a little.

And that’s why Hotch didn’t want to go. The place and the man had too much power over him.

One of these times I’ll stay. I just won’t come back. I’ll bring Jack and just…stay.

And that was dangerous thinking.

Rossi narrowed his eyes and stroked his beard. “I’ll make you a deal, Aaron. You go where I tell you for the next few days, and I’ll let you off the hook for redoing my bedroom in your weasel-version of Twisted Disney.”

Hotch’s brows rose. This was an interesting carrot to dangle. “Does that include the spillover into your office?”

Rossi swallowed the acid reflux that afflicted him whenever he thought of the mounted unicorn head that had lasted on his office wall for a grand total of five minutes before he tore it down with his bare hands. “Okay. But you have to go where I tell you without arguing. Deal?”

Hotch had a feeling there was something lurking between the lines of this verbal contract, but he couldn’t think what it might be. “D-e-e-al.” He drawled the word, infusing it with caution.

Hotch expected the older agent to smile, having won this round of bargaining, but Rossi looked almost sad as he nodded.

“Good.” He took a deep breath. “Then we start after work. Have Jack stay with his aunt. I’m taking you to dinner first, and then…well,…we’ll see.” Rossi turned, heading back toward his own office, but before he was out the door something clicked in Hotch’s mind, triggered by his friend’s sorrowful look.

“Dave?”

“Hmmm?” Rossi stopped, glancing back over his shoulder.

“Are you going to take me to that cemetery again?”

There was a beat of silence as the men’s eyes connected, reading what they could, knowing it wasn’t enough to make any judgments on either side.

Rossi took a step back into the office, keeping his voice low. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Silence.

Rossi walked all the way back to stand beside Hotch where he sat at his desk. Without hesitation, he reached out and brushed his thumb over the prominent cheekbone. Having just been thinking of the old doctor’s hand doing the same thing, Hotch stiffened, on alert for…something…he wasn’t sure what. Maybe for being lured into letting someone take care of him, letting himself be weak. Maybe not. But maybe. Some deep, emotional scar told him to be wary of affection. Sometimes it turned to pain. Safer not to let anyone know you wanted it.