Sweet n' Sour
They're well and truly out of their comfort zone…
#
They end up at a fast food place smack bang in the centre of what feels like the world's largest kid's party. Hotch isn't sure how they got here, or why; all he knows is that whoever the kid whose party this is is, they're spoiled as hell and with more friends than he's ever had. It's a weird feeling to resent a seven-year-old, but he's also just a little on edge.
"I was sick," Spencer says as a cheese fry whizzes by his ear, fidgeting on the shiny hamburger-shaped stool he's propped on. His crutches keep sliding on the tiled floor. Hotch is forced to sit beside him instead of across from him in order to protect his leg from hyperactive pre-teens slamming into it. It makes it harder to gauge his expression, although Hotch can see the worry written across his features as he babbles on, "The night of the date, our date, that, uh, night…I was sick, and I didn't want to cancel even though I should have, and I was sick before the date, and I guess that helped it go…how it did."
He finishes, fingers coated in the white flakes of the napkin he's shredded, and meets Hotch's eyes.
Hotch, who has no idea how to express the bubble of hope/realisation/something that's welled up at these words, just nods gravely even though he's in a McDonald's Café area with his elbow on a tacky plastic tray and his sleeve dangerously close to a pool of sweet 'n sour sauce. It's not really the place for 'stoic', but he doesn't know how to be anything but.
"You were there," he says finally, his voice husky and low enough that he knows Spencer can barely hear him. "When I woke up…you were there, despite that." He gestures to the knee, of which he has a morbid fascination with, at the same time repelled by the notion of such catastrophic damage being done to one of his team members while he was unable to protect them. "I…thank you."
What he needs to say is "That's important to me," but he doesn't know how.
"Is that all you want to say?" Spencer asks, flinging Hotch right back into deeply uncomfortable, away from the well-worn shores of stoic. "I don't know, I feel like we're dancing around each other. I don't want to do that. Not after…Foyet. Or that." That is the knee again. "We could have died, and we would have died feeling terrible about a date that wasn't that bad, really."
Hotch swallows, watching the kids. They're dressed for Halloween, much like they aren't, and he wonders if Reid had a costume he'd decided not to wear.
He decides to be uncomfortable. "Do you want to try again?"
Reid smiles, eating a fry and wincing because it's cold. "Sure. But maybe anywhere but here."
They go back to Spencer's, which isn't a mistake because all they have there is each other.