holding intense eye contact to the point it’s uncomfortable with people he doesn’t know, because that’s what he was taught to do - look them in the eye. but looking at his hands or at the ground with his team because he’s comfortable enough to not have to assert that he can function ‘regularly’
hotch creating a script for small talk because no matter how hard he tries it does not come naturally
the way he’s the only person who can deep down read garcia and reid - ie, the two most obvious autistic characters on the show - and understand what the rest of the team may consider to be their ‘quirks’
his ties are assigned based on their colour/day of the week. he has a pair of each tie, one set at home and one in the go bag, so he’s always ready to wear the right tie on the right day
speaking of clothes, his suit is his safe outfit. that scene in the hospital? you know the one, ‘where are my clothes, please’ he is DISTRESSED being out of his own personal assigned uniform, specifically the fact that he was put there by someone else’s doing
i could literally go on about autistic aaron hotchner for HOURS
I'm going through the horrors do you have any autistic hotch thoughts
hello!! sorry to hear about The Horrors, i hope they ease up for you soon. sorry it's taken a bit to get round to answering
most of these are just going to be assorted headcanons but if you're looking for anything in specific feel free to ask!
i think canon hotch is 100% one of those people who goes through life undiagnosed, mainly because he finds a career that works for him and falls into a lifestyle that accommodates the majority of symptoms
(divorce notwithstanding, but in all fairness, the "you're more invested in your work than the marriage" happens to allistics in far less all-consuming jobs than FBI agents lol)
Sort of like this, except very much subconscious:
he was also one of those kids you hear about who don't talk for ages and when they do it's in proper little sentences
criminal psychology + criminal justice was his biggest special interest since he was old enough to understand it
the very first one was the coins he talks about in early on in s1 (I believe?). in part because i think that's adorable and also because i'm going to take whatever crumbs of information about his childhood we get
(he still has the collection somewhere. it hasn't been much of an interest in decades but he's kept them)
also the flat affect and somewhat monotone voice? been with him since he was little and got some quite confused responses from people insisting he was bored (maybe, but he wasn't intentionally being rude about it) or sad (no, that's just how he is?) or tired (again, maybe but that's got nothing to do with what his face is doing), though it also proved quite useful when it became apparent people struggled to read him as a teen and later, working in law and profiling
(I maintain that he's really not that difficult to read at all, you just have to look at his eyes, but I might be biased)
if we want to go angsty for a minute, i like to imagine a lot of his autistic traits are ones he shares with his father :)) for double motivation to mask them
also why i use the idea of jack being autistic in fics sometimes because i think it's one of the more realistic ways to get canon hotch to engage with that in himself - if you've ever heard the stories where a child is diagnosed and a) it was difficult because a parent or parents saw nothing unusual because they're also autistic or b) it becomes evident that the traits in the child are very much present in the parent? that.
Used to drive Haley mad (affectionate) because if left to his own devices he could go ages doing the same sort of things (listening to the same albums, eating roughly the same things) while she would go for more variety a lot sooner. not always, but often.
i think pre-foyet hotch would get the best night's sleep of his LIFE if someone introduced this man to the concept of weighted blankets
Summary: JJ is pregnant and as she was worried about the health of her fetus, she made some research on Internet. A thing leading to another, she has made a curious discovery on one of her coworker. And when Prentiss joins her, the question of telling him or not rises.
Characters: JJ and Emily Prentiss
Contents: mention of pregnancy (obviously), but this chapter is most of all about my hc that Hotch is autistic. If you disagree, just don't read please.
PS : English is not my mother language so they are necessarily mistakes. Sorry about that.
___
JJ brushed her rounded belly. Now seven months pregnant, she was gradually preparing to give up her position temporarily. A prospect that made her anxious, she had to admit. However, two days earlier, after a grueling case, she had experienced severe abdominal pain and, driven by Will, had rushed to the obstetric emergency room. Ultimately, her test results came back positive and the gynecologist's speech reassuring. Like everyone else, he had asked her to take it easy, but all was well with her fetus.
Nonetheless, concern for her unborn son remained, and she hadn't been able to sleep a wink the night before. In desperation, she left the bed and went into the living room, where she sat down in front of her computer. Guided by a single obsession, she began a search that kept her awake for long hours. In the end, she'd barely slept when she reached Quantico. Troubled by one of her discoveries, she had returned to one of the websites she had visited the day before and completed a questionnaire, taking time to reflect between each answer. The conclusion disconcerted her so much that she didn't notice Prentiss when she entered her office, smiling, mug in hand.
“Is everything all right?” she worried, perplexed.
“Oh,” reacted her coworker, flinching. “Hello, Emily.”
“Why so long face?”
The profiler stepped into the room after closing the door behind her.
“Uh… nothing. I… Nothing serious,” stammered the tenant as her visitor took place in front of her.
“Nothing serious?” repeated Prentiss. “That means that there is still something.”
JJ sighed. Sometimes she forgot who she was working with. However, she wasn't sure she was in her right by broaching the subject that was bothering her with the first person she met. Even if she was a friend and confidant.
“No, I… I probably have made a mistake. It’s… False alarm.”
“What are you talking about?”
All the issue was there. She wasn't talking about anything at the moment and had no real knowledge of what was troubling her, but she knew it wasn't harmless. That it wasn't something trivial that could be taken carelessly. She herself would have liked to ignore it, so as not to prejudice the accused individual; but the fact was, her brain couldn't dismiss the question out of hand.
“JJ, are you okay?”
She rose her eyes to her opposite who was watching her with an anxious face.
“Yes. Yes, it… it’s not about me.”
Emily placed her mug on the desk, between two stacks of files, and stretched her arms out in front of her.
“Okay. It's too confusing, you'll really have to tell me more.”
The liaison officer sensed that this confession would trample on the freedoms of a man dear to her. She couldn't tell how much of it was reciprocal, but she was sure he wouldn't appreciate the conversation. On the other hand, perhaps the dark brown hair agent would be able to help her untangle her thoughts, muddled as they were. Her gaze kept returning to the numbers on the screen, which said too much and too little at the same time. She took a deep breath and said:
“Fine. Promise me you’ll keep it for yourself.”
“JJ, I want to, but I don't even know what it's about.”
She understood her reluctance to give here word, given what the BAU was working on. The team was swimming in a lake of confidential information, some of which could filter outside its walls under certain conditions, and some of which would never come to the surface. And the lives of their fellow citizens depended on many of them.
“… I went to see my obstetrician yesterday. I… I had very painful cramps and was worried about the baby.”
“Is he all right?” inquired Emily at once, her black beads swiveling toward her round belly.
“Yes. Everything was normal on ultrasound and the results of the latest tests arrived this morning. Clean.”
“Everything is fine then?”
For her and the fetus, yes.
“I… I spent the night surfing the Internet to find out what the consequences of these pains might be and...”
“What?”
“Did you know that autism can be diagnosed in adults?”
“What?”
Same interrogation, two very different tones. The brunette’s confusion was understandable. A little contextualization was in order.
“I… I was afraid the baby could be autistic, so I made research on the subject. To prepare myself, you know,” she added, uncomfortable. “And… I discovered that there were online tests. For adults especially.”
“If it was to find out if Reid was autistic, there was no need for a test,” joked her colleague, smiling.
She had clearly relaxed now that she knew neither her neighbor nor the offspring she was carrying were in danger.
“I didn’t do it for Spencer.”
For whom the question didn't really arise, indeed.
“For who, then? You?”
“Hotch.”
Emily tensed immediately. JJ was aware that the two agents had an on-again, off-again relationship. Initially stormy, it had since calmed down and, as far as she had been able to tell recently, it was now at an all-time high. At least, from what she could make out of the giant's behavior, who shut his emotions and feelings behind very high walls. One of the reasons she'd pushed it so far.
“… Oh. And?”
“Well, we've never been confronted with certain suggested situations, so I've sometimes had to answer at random, and some answers are biased by the fact that he's been trained to analyze people's behavior...”
“JJ,” interrupted her guest, who raised an inquisitive eyebrow in her direction.
“Okay. I obtained a score of thirty-five on fifty.”
“And above how much are we supposed to be autistic?”
“Twenty.”
A silence fell over the room, during which Prentiss seemed to cogitate intensely, as she had done before.
“Well, that would explain a lot,” nodded the profiler.
“That would explain everything, you mean,” she corrected on the spot. “His hyper-fixation, his inability to realize when he's hungry or thirsty, his difficulty in expressing his emotions, his inability to break rules or the fact that he imposes them on himself... all this falls completely within the autism spectrum.”
“Just like staring at people, disliking physical contact or spitting out excerpts from books he read over twenty years ago,” Emily pursued, enthusiastically. “Like Reid does.”
“Reid that he understands faster than anyone else.”
All the pieces of the puzzle fitted together so easily after these results appeared. She was relieved to hear that her thoughts were shared by someone more knowledgeable than herself in the field. She was also relieved to see that the latest recruit wasn't frightened or repulsed by this hypothesis.
“It’s so obvious. Why are we only noticing it now?” the latter continued, dumbfounded.
“Because we thought he was just… uptight.”
A realization that twisted her insides. And to think that for all these years, she and her colleagues had been making fun of him and his strange habits and inconsistent attitude, when in reality, he had no control over it.
“Morgan won't like it when he finds out he's not doing it on purpose,” Prentiss resumed, with a mocking sneer.
“We won't tell him,” JJ objected, serious. “Nor him nor anyone else in the team. And even less so to the principal concerned.”
Although a lover of gossip, she considered this information to be the last to circulate in the corridors. In fact, it should never leave this office.
“Why?” frowned her coworker. “It could be important for him to know it.”
“I… I’m not sure he’ll take it very well.”
Truth be told, she'd known him long enough to be sure he wouldn't like this news at all.
“Why not?” insisted the brunette. “He hired Spencer, which proves that it's all right with it.”
“Emily, we're talking about someone who runs a unit that specializes in tracking down serial killers,” she reminded her. “If you were in his shoes and you learned that you were in fact incapable of understanding the most basic social codes, or that you didn't even realize you needed to go to the bathroom, would you stay on?”
The profiler remained silent for a few moments, but it didn't take her long to answer:
“… No.”
If only to avoid endangering his subordinates, he'd hand over his badge and gun right away.
“And if Strauss were to find out, she wouldn't even take the time to listen to us before kicking him out.”
There was no doubt in her mind that the fifty-something was doing everything in her power to get him fired. An enmity whose origin she had never understood.
“Okay for Strauss and him, but the others?”
“Spencer already has his own problems to deal with, so let's not burden his mind with a secret he can't keep.”
“Penelope would insist on telling him.”
And would leak the info the second she got tipsy, she prolonged in thought. If she wasn't outright trying to organize a party to celebrate the news and encourage him to accept it – which was exactly everything the agency director hated.
“And Derek wouldn’t even believe us. For him, Hotch is intentionally annoying,” she assured, lucid about the ex-policeman's lack of discernment towards their superior.
“Left Dave.”
The man who had known the unit leader the longest. The one who had gotten him hired at the FBI. A relationship closer to friendship than to a professional bond existed between the two.
“Yes. I hesitate to talk to him about it,” she confided. “Maybe he already suspects something.”
In any case, he never seemed to mind the colossus' wanderings.
“But?” bounced Emily, suspicious.
“It’s just online tests,” she underlined. “It is clearly stated that the results must be confirmed by further examinations, with specialists, etc. Not to mention the fact that traumatic past experiences may be at the root of autistic behavior, without the person actually being autistic.”
She didn't know much about the titan's childhood, but her colleagues suspected a violent past had forged his unexpressive personality.
“Given our work, I think he has a few in reserve,” Prentiss added.
“Besides, I didn't have the answers to all the questions,” she also admitted.
“So, his score may be much lower.”
“Or much higher.”
A new silence passed, during which the two women digested all this information and this potential news that cast a different light on the man who commanded them.
“In your opinion,” she went on, “would that explain why he can't take a hint when someone makes a pass at him?
“Totally.”
___
This is my birthday gift to all the people who have the same hc.
I hope it won't offend anyone, because it was not my intention (as much as I love the idea of him being autistic, I'm pretty sure he will freak out learning it. Not for him, but for the people he cares about).
Happy Autism Awareness Day to all the neurodivergents around! ^_^
I've been binge watching Criminal Minds (now on s6!) and I've been wondering what it would be like in a "Humans are Space Orcs" situation with them.
For example, what if they got Reid? or Hotch? I headcanon both of them to be autistic, so they're not exactly an entire representative of humanity. Aliens might not even know the diversity of the human brain.
I feel Reid will just tell them straight away he's autistic, but Hotch will be much more apprehensive (if they're able to establish communication).
But what if it were the whole team? The BAU is also not a representation of all humanity, only a small part of people who see the worst that humanity can offer.
I can already see Garcia and Reid being so excited that aliens are real, even though they've been kidnapped. Love those nerds.
I personally feel like Aaron doesn’t even do anything fancy with his hair, or use incredibly expensive products. Looking at the products he use in his shower like “🙂 I’m so.. happy that your hair is that nice… while using these.. products.. I’m not jealous at all…….”. Your own hair is still nice but his is just SPECIAL…
motherfucker probably uses head and shoulders or 5 in 1 body wash lets be honest LMAOO (i say as if i don't use really cheap products but they make my hair so soft icl 😭)
nah he probably doesn't and i'm not saying he's not hygienic but i feel like that's just the most money efficient and easiest thing to access when he's constantly on the move for work, yknow? can't imagine him lugging a bunch of hygiene products around with him. he probably does treat himself though occasionally and go a bit more high end when he wants to feel nice and fancy but he doesn't really like to switch it up that much because he's worried he won't like it.
tbh now that i'm really thinking about it, he probably only uses a specific product bc it's the one he's been using since he was a kid and he probably doesn't like the idea of changing it. when he's on a case and runs out and needs to grab whatevers available he gets kinda overwhelmed/stressed and all he thinks about is how his hair feels/smells different and it gets on his nerves and he's much more irritable or easily annoyed
despite all that though, his hair would somehow be so soft no matter what he uses and you're kinda just like 😐 (bc he's a lucky mf) but also 🥺 bc playing with his hair is so nice and it'd smell so good and so him too and ughhhfhskdhsk
