Aaron Hotchner (Criminal Minds) x fem!reader
Hotch spends six months convincing himself his feelings are unprofessional while everyone else wonders if he's aware he's visibly in love.
first ever CM fic im nervous
Aaron Hotchner had built an entire life on discipline, restraint, and the unwavering belief that emotions were things to acknowledge privately and control absolutely, because feelings clouded judgment, attachments created vulnerabilities, and the moment an FBI profiler started allowing personal desires to interfere with professional responsibility was the moment someone got hurt. He knew this. He believed this. He had lived by it for years.
Which was precisely why, six months after you joined the BAU, he found himself standing in his office at seven-thirty in the evening, staring at absolutely nothing while internally conducting what could only be described as a prosecution against himself.
It was entirely inappropriate that he looked forward to your morning greeting.
It was unprofessional that he knew exactly how you took your coffee.
It was concerning that he could identify the sound of your laugh from halfway across Quantico.
It was unacceptable that he found himself unconsciously watching for you after particularly difficult interviews, just to make sure you were all right.
None of that meant he was in love.
It meant he was... attentive.
Responsible.
A good unit chief.
Yes.
That was all.
Across the bullpen, Derek watched Hotch pause in the doorway because you were standing on a chair trying to reach a box from the highest shelf.
Without saying a word, Hotch crossed the room, took the box down with effortless ease, set it on your desk, waited until you smiled and thanked him, nodded once, and then continued walking toward his office as though he hadn't altered his entire route just because you'd looked mildly inconvenienced.
Morgan slowly turned toward Emily.
"...You seeing this?"
Emily didn't even glance up from her paperwork.
"I stopped keeping track four months ago."
The first team betting pool started after Garcia walked into the conference room one afternoon to discover Hotch already sitting down for the briefing.
Which wasn't unusual.
What was unusual was that the chair beside him remained conspicuously empty despite Rossi trying to sit there moments earlier.
"I'm good here," Hotch had said smoothly.
So Rossi had moved.
Three minutes later, you arrived, apologizing because your printer had jammed.
Without looking away from the case file in front of him, Hotch gently nudged the empty chair beside him out with one foot.
Your chair.
The one nobody had technically assigned to you.
The one you had somehow occupied during every meeting for the last three months.
"Oh, thanks," you said brightly as you sat beside him.
"Of course."
Garcia watched the exchange.
Emily watched Garcia.
Morgan watched both of them.
Rossi pinched the bridge of his nose.
Later that afternoon, Garcia dramatically slapped a twenty-dollar bill onto Morgan's desk.
"I am officially opening the 'When Will Hotchner Notice He's Madly in Love?' pool."
Morgan immediately contributed another twenty.
"My money's on another six months."
Emily looked offended.
"Optimistic."
Aaron, meanwhile, remained blissfully unaware that he was the only person in the building who believed he was hiding anything.
"She's an excellent profiler," he told Rossi one evening while they finished reports.
Rossi didn't even look up.
"Mhm."
"She's exceptionally compassionate with victims."
"Mhm."
"Her instincts are improving remarkably."
"Mhm."
"And she's remarkably resilient considering the workload."
"Mhm."
Aaron frowned.
"You don't seem particularly interested."
Rossi finally looked over the rim of his glasses.
"Aaron."
"Yes?"
"You've just spent twelve uninterrupted minutes complimenting one woman."
Aaron blinked.
"...I was discussing her professional development."
"You sighed after the word 'compassionate.'"
"I did not."
"You did."
"I don't sigh."
Rossi smiled the smile of a man watching a train very slowly approach a wall.
"If you say so."
The breaking point, according to Penelope Garcia, arrived on a rainy Tuesday.
The team had returned from a brutal case involving children, and everyone looked exhausted.
You looked worse.
Aaron noticed before anyone else.
Not because he was watching you.
He absolutely wasn't watching you.
He simply... observed everyone.
Equally.
Professionally.
Objectively.
Which was why he immediately noticed the slight tremor in your hands as you gathered your files, the tightness around your eyes, and the way you quietly declined Morgan's invitation to dinner because you claimed you were just tired.
You made it halfway across the bullpen before Aaron called your name.
You turned.
"You should go home."
"I am."
"No," he said gently. "Go home. Get some sleep. I'll finish your reports."
You stared.
"So will I," Morgan added immediately.
Emily nodded.
"I'll help."
You frowned.
"You guys don't have to—"
"We know," Rossi interrupted warmly. "That's why we're offering."
Your eyes softened.
"...Thank you."
After you left, Aaron silently picked up the stack of paperwork from your desk and carried it into his office.
Morgan waited exactly twelve seconds before following him.
Hotch looked up.
"Yes?"
"Sooo."
"So?"
Morgan leaned casually against the doorframe.
"You know you're in love with her, right?"
Silence.
Aaron looked at him for several long seconds.
Then, "No."
Morgan blinked.
"No... you're not?"
"No," Aaron repeated calmly. "I'm not in love with her."
Morgan waited.
Aaron returned to reading a report.
"...You're sure?"
"Quite."
"...Because you're doing her paperwork."
"She's exhausted."
"You've memorized her coffee order."
"Many people drink coffee."
"You carry painkillers because she forgets them."
"They're standard issue."
"You canceled a meeting because she had the flu."
"She needed rest."
"You glare at anyone who makes her cry."
"They shouldn't make her cry."
"You smile differently at her."
"I do not."
"You literally just did."
Aaron frowned.
"I don't believe that's accurate."
Morgan laughed so hard he nearly slid down the wall.
The next morning, Garcia walked into the bullpen carrying a small whiteboard.
Written across the top in bright pink marker were the words:
DAYS SINCE HOTCH ADMITTED HE'S IN LOVE
Underneath, in enormous numbers:
0
Aaron looked at it.
Looked at Garcia.
"Ms. Garcia."
"Yes, sir?"
"What is that?"
"A motivational tracker."
"For what?"
"For personal growth."
"I see."
"You don't."
"I don't."
She smiled sweetly.
"I'll update it daily."
Aaron sighed.
"Please don't."
"Oh, I will."
Three weeks later, you wandered into Garcia's office carrying a folder.
"Penelope?"
"Hm?"
"Can I ask you something?"
"Always."
You looked adorably confused.
"...Does Aaron seem... different around me?"
Garcia froze.
Very slowly, she turned in her chair.
"...Different?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I feel like he's watching out for me more than everyone else, but maybe I'm imagining it."
Penelope's eye twitched.
Imagining it.
The woman whose chair Hotch unconsciously pulled out. Whose coffee appeared on difficult mornings before she'd even ordered one. Whose safety he tracked like breathing. Whose name he somehow managed to say more softly than anyone else's.
Imagining it.
Garcia inhaled deeply.
Then smiled.
"Oh, honey."
"...What?"
"I think Aaron Hotchner has been trying very hard to convince himself of something."
"What?"
"That he's a lot subtler than he actually is."
You laughed softly.
"I don't understand."
From somewhere across the hallway came Morgan's unmistakable voice.
"She still doesn't know?"
Emily answered without missing a beat.
"Nope."
Rossi chuckled.
"Remarkable."
You looked between them, utterly baffled.
"What?"
Aaron stepped out of his office at that exact moment.
His eyes found you immediately, his expression softening with unconscious warmth before he even seemed aware he'd done it.
The entire bullpen watched the transformation happen in real time.
Morgan pointed dramatically.
"There! That face!"
Aaron looked around, confused.
"What face?"
"The one you only make when she walks into the room."
Aaron frowned.
"I don't have a face."
The room erupted into laughter.
Even you couldn't help laughing, shaking your head in complete bewilderment.
Aaron looked genuinely perplexed by everyone's reaction, completely oblivious to the way his gaze drifted back to you after only a few seconds, lingering with quiet affection so obvious it might as well have been written across his forehead in permanent marker.
Rossi simply leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and smiled with the infinite patience of a man who had witnessed countless stubborn people fall hopelessly in love.
"He'll figure it out eventually," he murmured.
Morgan grinned.
"You think?"
Rossi watched Aaron absentmindedly walk over to your desk to hand you a file that you had been about to retrieve yourself.
"Oh, no," he said with a quiet laugh. "I think she'll have to tell him first."
By the time the seventh month arrived, the betting pool had evolved from a joke into an institution.
Garcia had added glitter.
Morgan had begun accepting side bets.
Emily had started a spreadsheet.
Rossi refused to participate on principle, while somehow also being the only person everyone came to when they wanted to change their prediction.
Aaron Hotchner remained completely oblivious.
Or perhaps, if anyone had asked Rossi, not oblivious at all. Simply terrified.
Because there was a difference between not recognising your own feelings and recognising them so completely that you spent every waking moment trying to bury them beneath professionalism and duty until they became something too heavy to carry without everyone else noticing.
The realisation had finally come to Aaron during a sleepless night after a difficult case in Oregon, when he found himself sitting alone in his apartment, unable to stop thinking about whether you had remembered to eat dinner after the flight home, whether you had made it safely back to your apartment through the rain, whether you were sleeping or still awake reading one of the mystery novels you always carried in your go-bag, and somewhere around two in the morning, after losing an argument with himself that had lasted the better part of half a year, he had quietly admitted aloud to an empty room what every single member of the Behavioural Analysis Unit had apparently known since spring.
"I love her."
The words didn't feel dramatic.
They felt inevitable.
And infinitely more frightening than any serial killer he had ever faced.
"You look awful."
Aaron glanced up from the case file in his office to find Rossi leaning against the open door, coffee in hand and wearing the sort of knowing expression that usually preceded uncomfortable conversations.
"I slept poorly."
"Mhm."
Aaron returned to the file.
"I've accepted something."
"I know."
Aaron looked up.
"You know?"
"Aaron," Rossi said patiently, "you've been in love with that young woman for seven months."
Aaron blinked.
"...Seven?"
Rossi laughed.
"I appreciate that that's the part you're questioning."
For the first time in a very long time, Aaron smiled sheepishly, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.
"I don't know what to do."
It was such an astonishing admission that Rossi almost dropped his coffee.
Aaron Hotchner, legendary unit chief, feared by criminals, respected throughout the Bureau, capable of negotiating hostage situations with perfect composure...
...was asking for dating advice.
David set his coffee down before he laughed himself into a coughing fit.
"Oh, this I have to enjoy."
The opportunity arrived three days later.
Not because Aaron planned it.
Because life rarely waited for perfect timing.
The team had closed another exhausting case, and everyone lingered in the bullpen, too emotionally drained to rush home.
Garcia had disappeared to retrieve celebratory cupcakes from somewhere she refused to disclose.
Morgan and Emily were arguing over basketball.
Rossi was pretending to read while listening to everyone.
JJ had taken a call from Will.
Spencer was explaining statistical probabilities to absolutely no one.
You stood by the windows overlooking Quantico, watching the evening rain streak across the glass.
Aaron found himself walking toward you before he'd consciously decided to move.
"You alright?"
You smiled softly when you looked at him.
"I am."
"You've been quiet."
"Tired."
He nodded.
"So are you."
"I suppose."
For a comfortable moment, neither of you spoke.
Rain tapped gently against the windows.
The bullpen buzzed quietly behind you.
"I've been meaning to ask you something," you said.
Aaron's heartbeat accelerated.
"What is it?"
You hesitated just long enough for him to prepare himself for anything except what you actually asked.
"Have I done something wrong?"
His expression fell immediately.
"No."
"You've seemed... distant."
Aaron closed his eyes for the briefest moment.
Of course.
He had spent months trying to convince himself to create professional distance. Months trying not to linger. Trying not to seek you out. Trying not to make his feelings obvious.
And somehow, in attempting to protect both of you, he had only managed to make you think you had done something to deserve the distance.
"You haven't," he said quietly.
"Then why?"
He looked at you.
Really looked at you.
At the concern in your eyes. At the patience that had always been there whenever he needed a moment to think. At the kindness that had quietly worked its way into every corner of his carefully ordered life without asking permission.
Because the truth was that he had never simply fallen in love with you.
He had arrived there one small moment at a time.
Every smile. Every conversation on the jet. Every cup of coffee. Every report finished side by side late into the evening.
Until loving you had become as natural as breathing.
"Aaron?"
He took a slow breath.
"I was trying to convince myself that what I felt for you was unprofessional."
You stared at him.
"...What?"
"I thought that if I kept my distance..." He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh that sounded almost foreign coming from him. "I thought it would go away."
Your voice became almost impossibly gentle.
"Did it?"
He met your eyes.
"No."
A long silence settled between you.
Then, so quietly he almost missed it, you smiled.
"I was beginning to think you were never going to tell me."
Aaron frowned.
"...Tell you?"
You laughed softly.
"Aaron... I fell in love with you months ago."
For perhaps the first time in his career, Aaron Hotchner genuinely had no words.
"You..."
"I figured you either didn't feel the same..." You smiled with amused fondness. "...or you were overthinking it."
Behind you, someone dropped something.
Neither of you noticed.
"I've been overthinking it," Aaron admitted.
"I know."
"I've spent months telling myself this wasn't appropriate."
"I know."
"I made lists."
Your eyebrows shot upward.
"...Lists?"
"Pros and cons."
You blinked.
"Aaron..."
"The pros won."
You laughed—a bright, delighted sound that echoed through the bullpen—and before either of you could think better of it, you reached for his hand.
He looked down at your fingers intertwined with his.
Then back at you.
"May I kiss you?" he asked, with all the sincerity and respect that defined the man he was.
Your answer was to close the distance yourself.
The kiss was gentle.
Careful.
The kind born not from reckless passion but from months of restrained affection finally being allowed to exist.
His free hand rose instinctively to cradle your face, as though you were something unimaginably precious, and when you smiled against his lips, Aaron smiled too—fully this time, without restraint, without calculation, without the walls he'd spent so long maintaining.
It was the happiest anyone in the BAU had ever seen him.
Unfortunately for both of you...
"...I WIN!"
Garcia's triumphant shriek shattered the moment.
You both sprang apart just enough to see the entire team standing several feet away.
Morgan was pointing both hands toward Rossi.
"I said this month!"
Emily groaned dramatically.
"I was off by nine days."
Spencer looked down at a notebook.
"Technically Garcia's prediction was closest by a margin of—"
"I DON'T CARE!" Garcia yelled, already dancing around the bullpen with both fists in the air. "LOVE CONQUERS ALLLLLL! ALSO I JUST WON EIGHTY DOLLARS!"
Aaron slowly turned toward Rossi.
"...There was a betting pool."
"There were three."
"Three?!"
"One was just about when you'd admit it."
Morgan grinned shamelessly.
"The second was about who'd say 'I love you' first."
JJ smiled.
"The third was whether one of you would have to kiss the other before you figured it out."
Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You all discussed my personal life?"
"For months," Emily answered cheerfully.
"In excruciating detail," Morgan added.
Garcia skipped over and threw her arms around you before hugging Aaron too, despite his startled expression.
"I have been waiting for this for so long."
"You knew?" you asked.
Garcia stared at you in disbelief.
"Honey... he looked at you like you personally invented sunshine."
Morgan nodded.
"The man would stop mid-conversation if you walked into a room."
Emily folded her arms.
"He remembered your schedule better than his own."
JJ smiled warmly.
"He always made sure you were the first one safely on the jet."
Spencer adjusted his glasses.
"Statistically, his behavioral indicators were consistent with romantic attachment for approximately two hundred and eleven days."
Aaron sighed.
"...Was I truly that obvious?"
Every single person answered in perfect unison.
"Yes."
You looked up at him, laughing so hard tears had gathered in your eyes.
"So much for subtle."
He shook his head with quiet resignation before slipping his hand back into yours, this time without hesitation, without worrying who might see, his thumb brushing gently across your knuckles as though he had wanted to do it for months.
"I suppose," he said, his eyes never leaving yours, "subtle was never really an option."
"No," you agreed softly, leaning up to steal one more quick kiss as your family of profilers immediately erupted into cheers, groans, applause, and demands for someone to pay out the betting pool. "But I think I like obvious better."
Aaron smiled—a real, unguarded smile that transformed his entire face—and kissed your forehead with a tenderness that spoke far louder than words ever could.
For seven months he had convinced himself that loving you was something to suppress.
It turned out that loving you was the easiest thing he would ever do.
