Title: Five Things about Aaron Hotchner that Aren't in His Personnel File
Author: Kuria Dalmatia
Rating/Warnings: R (profanity, offensive language, physical and verbal abuse), spoilers for Season 5. Occurs after "Faceless, Nameless"
Characters/Pairing: Hotch (Hotch/Haley, Hotch/Reid)
Please see Chapter 1 for Disclaimers, Warnings and Comments
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Fact Four: Aaron Hotchner has been unofficially banned from all shooting games at the Church of Saint Christopher festivals.
Throughout his courtship of and marriage to Haley, Hotch was never sure how she felt about his prowess with a gun. He was a good shot—his trophies were proof of that—but he never really bragged about it because he had recognition where it counted. But, whenever they were at a festival or carnival or amusement park that had a shooting game, Haley insisted he toss down a few bucks and try to win her something.
The games were rigged, of course, so it always took a few shots for him to adjust so that he would hit the mark. Haley would tease him, saying he wasn't as much of a badass as he thought he was, but she meant it good-naturedly. After all, she considered herself a pretty good card shark but was no match for the semi-pro dealers.
The games at the church festivals weren't as badly rigged as most. It usually only took Hotch one or two shots to make the adjustment instead of the five or six at an amusement park. They had only been parishioners at Saint Christopher for six months when the fall fundraiser rolled around. Haley begged Hotch come along despite just having come off a thirty-six hour hostage showdown with a mouthy UnSub. His nerves were frayed and he didn't want to deal with crowds.
"Just an hour," she pleaded with him softly. "One hour so people will believe I'm married to a real man, not a figment of my imagination."
So he was there. Tired. He was in a foul mood that he hid with ease as he shook hands and put up with people calling him "that FBI guy" with little smirks on their faces and pointing finger guns at him. Haley tried her best to shield him from the stupid remarks but there was only so much she could do.
Especially when some jackass challenged him to a shooting game, saying he'd love to win something for Hotch's "little lady" because Hotch wasn't man enough to do it himself. Knowing that if he won Haley a stuffed animal, he would get to go home right afterward, Hotch handed over his ten dollars. He picked up the toy weapon, adjusted his stance, and proceeded to hit every single target, all the while chanting, Front sight, trigger press, follow through to himself.
The booth worker was in shock—so was Hotch's challenger, who apparently missed the memo that he was an FBI agent—but the worker was still able to rattle off the 'double or nothing' spiel. Hotch took him up on it and, again, hit all the targets. He did this until he had enough points to racked up to not only win the massive unicorn for Haley and two-foot Scooby Doo for the child they hoped to have, but ten other medium-sized stuffed animals, which he distributed to the children who had gathered around.
Women swooned, Men glowered, and Hotch didn't give a flying fuck.
The only person allowed to "win" something for Haley was him.
Oh, and if he missed a target in real life, someone could die.
Period.
"Can we go home now?" he murmured as he picked up the two huge stuffed animals. Haley only nodded but later apologized for making him go in the first place.
Five months later, when Hotch and Haley began walking down the main gaming row of the Spring Festival, Principal Cobston approached and pulled them somewhat discreetly to the side. The man addressed Hotch, "Are you planning on, ah, any target practice this evening?" His tone was mildly threatening.
It took an amazing amount of willpower for Hotch not to laugh, because it was a pathetic attempt to warn him off. He held up his hands and offered a lopsided smile. "No target practice."
Cobston smiled, obviously pleased with the answer. "Good."
It wasn't the story that Hotch told Doctor Frost. He said, "I once won a stuffed unicorn for Haley at a church festival," because he calculated that this was the session he was supposed to talk about the impact of having Haley and Jack put in protective custody.
Frost smiled encouragingly, and linked that bit of information back to Han Solo and the Cha-Cha.
Hotch was disappointed she didn't try to include the McRib reference as she droned on about heroes, romance, and marriage.
So, it was Hotchner Three, Frost One.
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