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honeypiehotchner · 27 days ago

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Couldn't Make It Any Harder (Hotch x Fem!Reader) -- one shot

Anxious girlies rise!!! I'm just fantasizing about someone staying and not being an asshole and in my mind Hotch would stay and wouldn't be an asshole, so this was born (also yes I listened to Sabrina Carpenter's song by the same title while I wrote this!)

Warnings: hurt/comfort, angst all over the place, very anxious reader, Hotch being the kindest and most understanding man alive, est. relationship, fluff!, maybe autistic!reader if you squint

WC: 3.2k

Dating Aaron Hotchner is never short of any surprises.

With how hectic his work schedule can be, plans are often impromptu and random text messages before phone calls asking if you’re free for anything: dinner, a drink, a movie, a walk.

Dating him is also never short of innocent questions.

These, you didn’t expect, but maybe you should’ve — or would’ve, if you truly understood what his job is. He explained it to you, but it’s hard for you to wrap your head around the fact that he’s part of a team of people so good at reading the behavior of other people that they can catch criminals based on it alone.

His job almost seemed fake, too good to be true — and so did he.

Especially when, after a month of dating, neither of you had stayed the night with one another, and he wasn’t pressing the subject when he’d suggest it and you’d politely tell him no.

You almost thought it meant he didn’t like you at all and was only being nice by going on dates with you, even though he didn’t seem like that kind of guy at all. Still, you can never be too careful.

And when he made reservations for your six-month anniversary at a fancy restaurant downtown, and told you when he’d pick you up, and even showed up a few minutes early but told you to take your time, you thought you were going insane. There was no way it was true, that he was true.

But he was. And is.

Except, your relationships have a shelf life. Or rather, you have a shelf life.

None of your previous relationships have made it this far, none of them too thrilled about the fact that you’re not well-experienced sexually, or the fact that you want to actually wait until you feel secure in a relationship before taking that step. Of course, none of them said that was the reason they were ending things, but you knew. You could tell.

After having it happen to you multiple times, you can’t let yourself relax. Any time that you feel like you’re maybe going to get comfortable, some anxious thought rears its ugly head and sets you right back where you were.

You try your hardest to enjoy the relationship with Aaron, and you do. Knowing his work schedule varies allows you to keep your distance, making it easier to keep telling yourself that you’re keeping your guard up. You’re keeping yourself protected for when the inevitable other shoe drops to the ground like a bomb.

So, it’s no surprise that as your relationship approaches the eight-month mark, and Aaron asks if you’d like to come over to his place for dinner on a random weeknight after a couple weeks of not seeing each other, you think the worst.

“How do I look?” you ask your best friend over FaceTime as you spin in a circle. “Hot enough to be broken up with?”

“You are not getting broken up with!” she cries over the phone. “And yes, hot, as always.”

“Thanks,” you sigh, strategically not commenting on her theory that you’ll still have a boyfriend by the end of tonight.

“He’s not going to break up with you,” she says again, softer this time. “He’s different.”

“I always think they’re different, that’s the problem,” you mutter. “He just took a lot longer than I thought he would.” You don’t need to spell it out for your best friend to know that this one will hurt the worst out of them all.

Because this time, you love him.

“You don’t know that he’s going to break up with you.”

“You know that gut feeling I always had before the others?” you say, looking at her solemnly. “I have it right now.”

She frowns. You almost think she’s going to argue with you, but she doesn’t. Because she knows. You had the same gut feeling the last five times. Why would it be wrong on the sixth?

“I’m sorry,” she finally says.

“It’s okay,” you shrug, picking up your purse and lifting your phone. You glance at the clock. “I guess I should go.”

He offered to pick you up, but you said you’d drive yourself. You figure you’d rather do your future self a favor and save yourself from the awkward post-breakup drive home.

“Call me after,” she says with another sad smile. “We can cry if you need to.”

“Thank you.”

“And hey, if he does break up with you, I can come up this weekend and key his car for you.”

“Babe. He works for the FBI.”

“So?”

You laugh as you roll your eyes. “Goodbye. I’ll call you later.”

You drive to Aaron’s in complete silence. You don’t even intend to, you’re just on autopilot.

You’re trying not to shut down emotionally, but you can already feel it happening. It’s inevitable when you feel like you’re about to be hurt. The shield goes up, the walls raise, and nothing gets past them.

With any luck, you won’t even cry when he breaks up with you. You don’t always, which gets you labeled as a cold hearted bitch, but that doesn’t bother you.

You put your brave face on when you pull into his driveway, only it quickly morphs into shock when Aaron comes out the front door in dark jeans and a black button down. He opens your car door for you with an easy, genuine smile, looking as handsome and happy to see you as ever.

“You didn’t have to do that,” you chuckle nervously, stepping out and letting him shut your car door.

“I wanted to,” he shrugs, leaning in for a kiss.

You accept it, trying not to seem so stiff, but the slight furrow of his eyebrows tells you that he felt it. He doesn’t say anything about it though.

“Come on,” he murmurs, one hand on the small of your back as he walks you inside. “I’ve never made this for dinner before, so we might end up with pizza.”

“All good,” you laugh, setting your purse in its usual spot on the table by the door.

The conversation is fine, if a little awkward, as you sit in his kitchen so he can keep an eye on dinner in the oven. He offers wine and you decline, just taking some water. He keeps furrowing his eyebrows just a little, his tell for when he’s reading your behavior but doesn’t quite know what to make of it yet.

You sip your water and avoid eye contact while he shuffles around the kitchen, finishing up dinner.

He washes his hands, leaning back against the sink as he dries his hands with a towel. He watches you with a soft expression.

“Is everything okay?” he finally asks.

You hate when they do this. Because if you say you’ve had a rough day, they won’t break up with you because they don’t want to “make it worse”. But if you say you’ve had a good day, they will go through with the breakup, because they’d rather ruin your good mood instead of make the bad mood worse.

“Yep,” you say with a tiny smile. “Just watching you.”

He returns the smile, but it’s not at all easy like before.

Fuck. Should you just rip the band-aid off and ask?

You nearly do, but then he says dinner should be ready, and you can’t. You almost expect to be eating right here at the stools on his counter, or for him to break the news and you leave without eating, but he waves you through to the dining room.

You follow after him, a little confused, stopping dead in your tracks in the doorway when you see the sight before you.

A white table cloth over his little square table, candles in the middle, a small bouquet of your favorite flowers set aside to make room for the dish he made, plates and cutlery and a wine glass already laid out on either side.

“What is this?” you ask, your heart hammering in your chest and threatening to escape up your throat.

“Our favorite restaurant was fully booked,” he explains with an awkward laugh. “So I tried to recreate one we always order, and thought I’d try to recreate the table too. It’s a little…wonky, but it’s close enough I think.”

You blink. “Why?”

The deep concern returns to his face. “Because I want to.”

“But why?” you ask again, staring at him with wide eyes, like you’re trying to catch him in something.

He comes closer, the worry on his face only growing. “We haven’t been able to have dinner together in a couple weeks because the cases have been packed, so I wanted it to be special.”

“Okay,” you swallow, nodding slowly. He just wanted it to be special. Right. “Okay.”

“Come sit,” he says softly, hands reaching out for you as if he needs to steady you. You kind of need him to.

After he safely has you tucked into your seat, and he’s brought your water over for you to drink, he sits in the chair beside you.

“Dinner’s gonna get cold,” you murmur, not wanting to be the subject of his profiling right now. You stare down at the empty plate.

“I can warm it back up,” he says, taking one of your hands. “Can I ask you a question?”

Skeptical, you nod.

“Why do you always seem so shocked when I do something nice for you?”

Your eyes close as you grimace. Great. Now he thinks you’re ungrateful on top of it all.

“I don’t mean it in a rude way,” he clarifies, his thumb rubbing back and forth on your hand, soothing you. “I just mean…when you ask why I do these things, like dinner and bring you flowers and open your car door, and I say I’m doing it because I want to… You almost look like you don’t believe me, and today you really look like you don’t believe me.”

“I do believe you,” you rush to say, but now he looks like he doesn’t believe you. “Or maybe I don’t,” you add quietly, looking back down at where your fingers are tangled. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, honey,” he says, and he sounds so desperate that it makes your heart ache. “I just want to understand you better.”

Your face crumples at that, the emotion too much to keep at bay when he’s being this kind to you and you were thinking he was going to break up with you — and he still could.

“Sorry,” you sniffle, your free hand coming up to cover your mouth as you shake your head. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not, it’s not stupid,” he says, using both hands to hold yours. “Is it something I did? Or said?”

“No, it’s just—” you cut yourself off, letting out a shaky breath. “I thought you were breaking up with me tonight.”

He stills. And it makes your heart freeze. You caught him. Here it is. You brace for impact.

“Honey, I— That’s not at all what I was planning on doing tonight. What made you think that I was going to break up with you?”

“You invited me to dinner at your place,” you cry, and when you say it out loud like that, it really doesn’t make any sense.

“Why would I do that if I was going to break up with you?”

“You wouldn’t believe the ways I’ve been broken up with,” you let out a laugh, trying to make light of this now very emotional and awkward situation. “I’m sorry, I’m ruining what was supposed to be a very normal, romantic dinner—”

“Listen to me, you are not ruining anything,” he says firmly, still looking up at you with those kind brown eyes. “I just want to understand what’s going on in that brain of yours.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Trust me, I do.”

You stare at him for a moment, wondering when the twist is coming. The moment he says it was all a ruse and he is ending things. The moment you can call his bluff.

But it never comes. His gaze doesn’t waver, and neither does the care in his eyes.

“Okay,” you murmur. “But can we talk over dinner or after? It smells really good.”

He laughs at that, the sound warming you from the inside out. His smile is infectious as he nods and says, “Of course we can. We should probably taste this and see if we need to put in a pizza order.”

He moves his plate so he stays sitting right beside you, where he can keep his hand tucked in yours. It feels safe.

One bite in and you’re amazed at how well he recreated the dish and how good it tastes. You’re too busy devouring the food to even think about explaining your thought process behind tonight anymore.

Except, Aaron does return to the subject, not wanting to let it go just yet, because clearly you have him spooked after saying you thought you were going to be broken up with.

So, you explain. There was the guy who broke up with you on your birthday. And one who did it a day before Valentine’s Day. And another who decided that mid-six-month-anniversary date was prime time to end things. And then a couple others with bad timing but not the worst. But all had one thing in common.

“I know we haven’t had sex yet and I guess I’ve just grown to realize I have a shelf life.”

Aaron looks alarmed. “Shelf life?”

“Yeah, like, I tell people I want to wait before I take the step to do anything sexually, and I only have so much time before me being desirable…expires, I guess.”

He blinks. You watch what looks like a thousand emotions cross his face at once and you’re unable to read any of them. “Did someone…say that to you?”

You shake your head. “Not really. Not exactly those words. But I kind of came to the conclusion after the third time it happened. I guess I just expect it now.”

Aaron is quiet for a moment, thumbs rubbing gentle circles on the back of your hand. You’re not sure at all of what he’s going to say. “The last time we had dinner before my work schedule got so crazy these last two weeks…did we move too fast?”

You try to think back to that night. It was dinner and then the two of you came back to Aaron’s for a drink. Nothing crazy because you needed to drive home still. But the two of you did get pretty hot and heavy on the couch.

Come to think of it, you didn’t drink much at all that night, because there was hardly a moment to spare when Aaron’s lips weren’t on yours, or on your neck, or your collarbones.

It didn’t escalate. He offered, you declined, said you wanted to just continue what you were doing, and that was that.

Then, you didn’t see Aaron for two weeks because of his work schedule, which meant phone calls were short and rare and text messages were as good as you could get. And so your mind put pieces together and created a scenario that wasn’t true.

“We didn’t,” you say, genuinely meaning it. “But I guess my brain freaked out because it thought you had finally had enough of hearing me turn you down and that I had finally…expired, I guess.”

He squeezes your hand. “Please don’t ever talk about yourself that way. You don’t have an expiration date. And I don’t care that we haven’t taken that step yet. I am willing to wait as long as you need to—”

“That’s what they always say,” you murmur through a watery smile. “But thanks.”

He frowns. “How can I make you believe me?” he whispers.

“I don’t know,” you reply truthfully, your face crumpling again. Your hand slips from his so you can cover your face, sniffling hard into your palms. “I’m sorry. I know I don’t make it easy.”

“Honey…don’t make what easy?”

“Dating me,” you sob, not knowing if he can even understand you through the tears. “I get it if you— If this is your limit, I get it. I'd understand.” You sniffle again, wiping your face and nose and trying to regain any sort of composure that you can find.

Aaron looks up at you, and after a moment too long of silence, you almost think he’s actually going to do it, but he doesn’t. He does the opposite.

“I love you,” he says.

You inhale sharply, wiping under your nose again. “You do?”

He doesn’t move to grab your hands after you’ve taken them away, but he reaches toward you, nodding. “I wanted to say it at our favorite restaurant, but that fell through, so I thought I’d make it special and tell you here instead, but…I had no idea you were feeling like this.”

“I didn’t wanna tell you in case I was right,” you murmur. “I didn’t want to scare you away by being too needy, I guess.”

He smiles gently. “Nothing is going to scare me away,” he assures you, taking your hand again. “Can I ask a favor, though?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you tell me the next time you’re feeling like this?” he asks softly. “I want to be able to help, but I can’t if I don’t know what’s going on. And I hate the thought of you silently suffering with this when I’m right here and I can give you the reassurance you need.”

You nod more now. “I can. I can do that.” You pause. “Hey Aaron?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I love you too,” you reply, feeling a wave of relief come over you after you let it out, knowing he feels the same. It makes fresh tears spring into your eyes all over again. “I’ve felt it for so long and I think it was scaring me because I can’t ever let myself relax into a relationship without worrying that something is going to go wrong—”

He hauls you into his arms without another moment’s hesitation, letting you cry into his shoulder. It’s all the months of worry building up and finally boiling over, and he lets you get it all out.

“I’m so sorry,” you say into his neck, taking in shaky breaths.

“Please don’t apologize, honey,” he replies, rubbing circles on your back. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Thank you for listening,” you say, barely able to get the words out through the emotion in your voice. You take a deep breath, relaxing further into his arms while simultaneously gripping his shirt as hard as you can. This has exhausted you.

“Do you want to move to the couch?” he asks. “We can put on that show we were watching together. I can pour us some wine if that might help you calm down?”

You nod into his neck, not quite wanting to leave this spot just yet. “I’d like that,” you sigh. “Can we stay like this for a minute?”

“Of course,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your temple. “We can stay as long as you need.”

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