Hotchniss Challange: Sad/Whump OTP

7. "I can't take this anymore."

He's dysfunctional. There are times where he's borderline OCD. He's got to check the locks once, twice, three times before he can go to bed. He'll walk the house once, checking windows three times, and smoke alarms once a month. He checks and he maintains order so that when he looks in the mirror when he has to see his past engraved into his chest he knows he's doing everything he can to stop it from happening again.

She's damaged. When he moves behind her, she flinches. She's not the cold-hearted new girl anymore. "She's right. You've never blinked."  She bites her nails till there is nothing. She leaves the skin raw. She's self-conscious. She's a liar. She smiles like a politician promising change and cries in the locked bathroom. At the end of the day, her fingers are covered by band-aids and her waterproof mascara has been put to the test.

"Take the blankets one more time, Emily Elizabeth, and I am going to put my cold feet on you." 

The thing with being a leader, a parent, or generally anyone who is in the position to tell other people what to do as a professional/skill set is that they acquire voices for emotions. Aaron is a little more complicated. He's all fleeting glances, glares of varying atonement, and a rare snarl that comes out just as he intends it to. Threatening. 

He's never threatened her. God, he's so stuck in his head that if he so much as swung his hands to aggressively in an argument he'd shut down. His father did a number, threatening doesn't happen. 

However, the husky, sleep-deprived mumble of his words coming from his buried face kind of sounds like a threat. She's going to push it. "You're awfully cheery this morning. Who crapped in your cornflakes?"

She can feel rather see him lift his body off of the bed, she does, however, open one eye and peer at him with the innocence of a fox. A rather coy one. But the look on her face has her turning over in the bed to hide her satisfied smirk.

He sleeps on his stomach. It's annoying. Some mornings she thinks he's dead. He does it anyway. This morning is no different. He's holding himself up on an elbow, his eyes still laden with sleep, and his hair sticking in every direction. Right now, scowling unhappily at her, he is the opposite of FBI Unit Cheif Aaron Hotchner. 

With her back turned to him, her body shaking the bed with her laughter, he flops back down. His face buried back in his pillow, he mumbles," I can't take this anymore. I'm going to retire. I'm sleeping until I'm sixty."

Dramatic Aaron Hotchner is something that takes time to understand. Dramatic Aaron Hotchner should not and can never be compared to the man who runs an elite FBI team. No, dramatic Aaron Hotchner is a mess. His emotional capabilities are that of a kindergartener putting together a gingerbread house. 

A gigantic mess.

"Listen," now she's propped up on her elbow, a hand on his back, and half the mind to push his head into the pillow until he stops thrashing. "I'm going to cover you back up with the comforter and leave you to drool for another hour."

She does push his head into the pillow but she does lovingly tuck the blanket around his chest too so at least she loves him. "I'll come get you when breakfast is done." She pants a kiss in the thick black mess of his hair and leaves the room, leaving the door open just enough that light creeps in. 

He'll be up in thirty minutes. She can hear their kids rustling in their beds, one of them is bound to slither into bed with him until then, he's free to sleep peacefully.