#but i'm more likely to just make another half a dozen moodboards and three more pinterest boards

[mishkakagehishka]

Day 280 of saying "just you guys wait until i get the free time to write again"

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

Congrats on 200!! 🤗

I would love 🖼 a moodboard for .... hhhhmmmm how about HotchReid?

And I can't find a pencil, but I would love any blurb about HotchReid as well ❤

Eeeehhh I'm excited!! Congrats again! 🤗

I am ALWAYS on board for HotchReid, and you were my other freestyle moodboard so you get my Light!HotchReid moodboard that’s all soft and warm and romantic <3

AND IN THAT VEIN, I had an idea and ran with it so this is half blurb/half one-shot and idk where it came from but have some domestic, established relationship HotchReid C: and thank you so much for sending me the asks and celebrating with me!

--

//In which Jack outs his dad and Spencer’s relationship before they even get a chance to call it one//

--

They don’t mean to start sneaking around. Honestly they don’t. 

It just… happens.

There was no rhyme or reason for it, hiding what was very obviously becoming a permanent fixture in their lives in and outside of work. This gradual build up of moments and conversations and late nights that turned to intimacy as easily as everything else about them. Shared looks, subtle touches, feather-light at first -- until the glances turned heavy and the touches more prominent. The stolen moments turned to stolen nights, hidden behind hotel room doors or buried in tangled sheets back home in D.C. 

They didn’t need to hide anything. Not from the team, their friends they considered closer than family. But they did -- purely because they didn’t want to share this yet. Label it. Place it in those societal boxes of expectations and questions and future aspirations when right now it was… so easy. So perfect. Almost domestic in its comfort it offered, because it was theirs and theirs alone. It can be whatever they wanted it to be --

And right now, it felt like home.

-

Hotch always rises with the sun. He goes on early morning runs at all times of the year, rain or shine, even when it snows. He’s always back in enough time to get Jack up and ready for school, shower and get himself dressed for work, he’s a creature of habit and routine is his comfort zone. But now --

Now, sometimes it’s hard to leave his bed in the mornings, and the sight that always greets him when he returns from his runs makes him smile like he hasn’t in a long time. 

Spencer sleeps much later, sometimes until Hotch is done showering and has already tried to wake him up two or three times with bribes of coffee. Kissing his cheek or wild curls while still smelling like sweat from his run, and Spencer swats at him or hides under the covers without even opening his eyes. And Hotch lets him until it gets too close to the time when they need to head into the office. 

“Why does Spencer get to sleep in?” Jack asks with a tired whine, now nine-years-old and pouting over his bowl of cereal as Spencer finally drags himself from bed and to the coffee pot at half past seven in the morning. Hotch smirks and weaves around the man, scooping him close to kiss him good morning before letting him continue his trek. 

“Because he finishes his homework before bedtime,” Hotch answers his son, looking pointedly at the half completed math homework on the kitchen table. The deluge of questions were just another diversion tactic, he could see right through it, and he doesn’t let up until Jack picks up his pencil once more. 

“You have homework?” Jack asks Spencer, who sits beside him and is still rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses. Steam off his coffee the only breath of life he needs to wake up fully.

“Oh, I always have homework. Last night it was actually Morgan’s ‘homework’, he thinks I don’t notice when he slips files onto my desk.” 

Hotch sends Spencer a reprimanding look, because they both know that Morgan and Prentiss slip Spencer files all the time and he’s supposed to be putting his foot down about it. 

“He should really do his own homework,” Jack mumbles, glaring at his own math equations. 

“Well you be sure to tell him that when you see him again, Jack.” Spencer would pay good money to see that conversation, and he smiles fondly at the young boy for having his back. 

It’s barely ten minutes later when Spencer is getting up from the table and is gravitating towards the coffee pot for cup number two when Jack pipes up again.

“Hey -- was I supposed to not tell anyone about Spencer living here?” 

Hotch and Spencer look at each other, not realizing that… really that was what had happened in plain terms. Spencer did indeed live there. He couldn’t even remember the last time that he had been back to his apartment. Weeks, maybe. 

“It’s not really a secret bud, why?” Hotch asks, hesitant because… it’s not a secret, they just haven’t said anything to anyone.

“Because Aunt Penny didn’t know and now she’s sending me lots of screaming emojis.” 

Spencer looks to his phone and he also happens to have about a dozen text messages from Penelope. Most of it unintelligible key smashes and strings of pictures. 

“No texting at breakfast, you know better,” Hotch reprimands Jack as he checks his own phone. The juxtaposition making Jack scowl and Spencer snicker. Hotch finds he doesn’t have as many messages from their tech analyst, but he does have a few. The whole team probably knows already. 

He sends out a text to everyone that says ‘team meeting 9am’ 

“Guess I don’t have to take the train today.” Spencer is giving him a look over his coffee mug, amused but still hesitant. “I feel like we should be nervous, but I’m not.” 

Hotch can’t help the smirk of a smile on his face as he presses Spencer to the counter and kisses him fully, but still at least a little chaste -- with Jack making gagging sounds in the background. ’Dad, gross--’

“Finish your homework, and go brush your teeth,” he tells him without looking over. One more kiss that tastes like coffee and too much sugar, grinning a little too wide.

“I can’t tell if you’re happy, or plotting something.”

“A bit of both,” Hotch answers cryptically.

“Now I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be, I’ve been planning for this day for a long time.” But he keeps his secrets to himself as he ushers Spencer towards the bedroom -- their bedroom, he now realizes -- to make him get ready for work.

--

An hour later, the team is gathered at the round table in the conference room, and Hotch passes out binders to everyone packed with training material.

"Wait, this is an actual team meeting?" Prentiss blanches.

"How is this not about you and Reid sleeping together!?" The shock of a five pound binder in their hands seems to have taken any accusational tones out of anyone’s voices, but Hotch still scowls at Morgan’s outburst, and Spencer immediately jumps to their defense.

"We aren't sleeping together, we're…" they look at each other. "Living together. Are together."

"Dating." Hotch simplifies.

"Okay, so this ISN'T about you two 'dating'?" JJ elaborates this time, careful gaze darting between them, as is everyone else’s. 

"No, this is about how none of you noticed we were dating,” Hotch answers evenly, calmly. “If it had been about announcing ourselves, the text would have said ‘family’ meeting." 

That makes a few people smile, Penelope making a soft squeal in delight, and it changes the air in the room dramatically. 

"So ‘family’ dinner Saturday, Dave's house thank you for volunteering." Hotch says, just to wipe the smug look off the older man's face. He hadn’t said a word, yet, but with the smirk he’d been sporting all morning he didn’t need to. 

"This," he points to binders. “is a refresher course you all get to audit. Profiling 101, I want them on my desk by the end of the week. Morgan do not pass it off to Reid, you're doing your own homework this time."

Spencer can’t help it, he laughs. Hotch manages not to -- even in the face of Morgan’s comically betrayed expression.

At least Jack would be pleased to hear it.