Disclaimer: I own nothing Criminal Minds related.

Title: Niche

Rating: K

Warnings: Slash, pre-established Hotch/Reid

After making the Morgan/Reid oneshot set-thing-whatever, which is infinitely easier than posting each one individually, I decided that I might as well make one for Hotch/Reid because I write just as many oneshots for them. xD

To be honest, Spencer was used to it.

He had always felt like the odd one out. He had always been estranged from every other person on the planet. He had always received those looks. He had always received those stares. He had always received a plethora of emotions ranging from admiration to utter loathing to sheer jealousy for what came so naturally to him. For things that Spencer really had little to no control over.

He had never been able to connect with someone. He had never been able to really talk to someone. He had never really ever been able to be well, him. Just him, as he was.

He was different. That was simply how the world worked.

He was different from his parents – Spencer would never, ever allow himself to be anything even remotely like his father. He was different from his peers – they had always been several years older, but despite that, they had never been on the same intellectual level as him. It was a conceded, egotistical thought that Reid didn't much care for but after a lifetime of people giving him baffled, bewildered looks as soon as he opened his mouth, he knew that it was the truth.

They just didn't understand him, but he was used to it. It was simply just how the world worked.

He was strange. Plain and simple.

People didn't like what was out of the norm, and Spencer had never been able to fit their perfect mold.

And for the longest time, he had been apologetic for the fact that he was so different. He had done nothing but utter apologies for not living up to their perceptions of how he should be. For the longest time, he had been so sure that it was him. That there was something wrong with him. That it was his fault that the people around him bullied him, tormented him, hated him. That he forced them to do it. He had thought, well, if only I was normal…

He had tried to change. God, he had tried so hard his entire life to fit in. To blend into the crowd, fade into the background. He wanted normal. He wanted basic, simplistic. He tried being more conversational, he tried harder to pick up on social cues, he tried being nicer, he tried changing his appearance, he tried biting down any statistic and fact that threatened to spill forth… he tried everything he could think of.

He tried success. He tried failure.

But there was always someone that was standing there, shaking his or her head. Always someone to tell him that he didn't belong whether it was at the lunch table back in high school or amongst the other cadets for dinner at the academy. He was always left just standing there, by himself. He was always left to his own devices.

Why mess with perfection? the words of his mother rang through his head over and over again.

This was perfection? A man that could recite every word of anything he had ever read, that could give you a statistic for any possible situation, that could rattle off the first few thousand digits of pi without thought, that could –

But none of that really matter because at the end of the day it was just him by himself.

He tried, he tried, he tried.

And nothing worked.

He just didn't fit into that picture of the white picket fence. He'd never fit in.

But that was before BAU; that was before he had found his family, his niche in life.

Oh sure, he was close to Morgan and Garcia and Prentiss and JJ and, hell, even Rossi, and sure, he did consider them family… but they weren't his family. His family was sitting right there in front of him, arguing over a mathematical story problem on Jack's homework.

"That's not how my teacher explained it!" the youngest Hotchner protested loudly, throwing down his pencil in a clearly defiant gesture. "You did it wrong!"

Hotch slowly set down his own pencil, sitting back against the chair as he gave his son a rather stern look. "Jack," he exclaimed with a hint of warning to his voice. But like his father, Jack didn't know how to back down, and he was completely immune to his father's glares that had been known to make many a grown man cry. Jack merely sat there, pursed lips, meeting his father's stare with one of his own. Neither showed even the faintest sign of backing down.

There was a moment of silence that passed between the two Hotchners before: "Reid," Hotch drew quietly at the same time Jack exclaimed a loud, "Spencer!" Both males promptly looked over towards the silent third party that had been minding his business up until this point.

Spencer audibly swallowed as he looked up at the two. "Uh, yes?" he asked somewhat meekly, his finger pausing on where he had left off in his book.

Their looks said it all however. Hotch's was a clear, You have a degree in mathematics, don't you? Isn't there something you can do? While Jack's was more of a, Tell Daddy how wrong he is. Tell him that I'm right!

Oh boy.

Slowly, however, Spencer managed a smile for the two most important males in his life. He leaned forward, eyes flickering over the paper to assess the problem and how to best explain it to the two Hotchners. Another glance towards the scratch paper, easily deciphering what had been Hotch's method in comparison to Jack's.

"Well, actually, you're both right," Reid began slowly.

"How can we both be right?" Hotch asked, arching a brow at his lover, but Jack merely let out a whine.

"Not you too Spence!" he exclaimed exasperated, clearly annoyed that Spencer would take the side of his father over him and his teacher.

"No, really," Spencer insisted gently, trying not to tread on anyone's feelings as clearly both males were taking this personal for some reason.

And when Spencer looked up, he was greeted with the usual baffled looks that had accompanied him his entire life, but he simply smiled because these weren't judgmental looks, these weren't malicious. At this moment, be didn't feel so different. He felt needed, useful and as he started into his explanation and Hotch reached under the table to gently take his hand and gave him an appreciative squeeze, he felt apart of something.

Apart of this family.

It was so simplistic. So basic. It was just homework. It was just sitting at a table, helping out with homework.

But as Jack murmured an 'aaahh' of understanding and Hotch's lips twitched up into a soft smile that Spencer had never seen Hotch give anyone but the two of them, Spencer knew that this moment was perfect. That this was all he could have ever wanted, that this was all he could ever want. So long as he belonged there at that dining room table with Aaron and Jack, he would never need to belong anywhere else ever again.

At that moment, he was just him. At that moment, he didn't need to apologize to anyone because they saw him and they loved him, and that was more than enough.

Spencer would never feel strange again.