Title: The Five Things that Dave Learned the First Time Vacationing with Aaron and Jack
Author: Kuria Dalmatia
See Chapter 1 for Comments/disclaimers/etc.
The Fourth Thing: Aaron and Jack on simultaneous sugar highs make Reid's benders look tame.
It's seventy-thirty in the morning and the TV is blaring. Of all the goddamn things, Aaron is singing the theme song to Scooby Doo with Jack shouting along and the dog barking. Dave wakes up pissed off, because one of the things about vacation is fucking sleeping in. He throws back the covers, gets dressed, puts his slippers on, and goes down the stairs.
What he finds in the living room makes him stand there in shock. The furniture has been rearranged to accommodate the inflated air mattress with sleeping bags covering it. Blankets are draped around the sofa and loveseat to create tunnel. It's like a fort made of bedding. But what really stuns Dave is what's on the coffee table: a bag of powdered doughnuts, a gallon of milk, a can of strawberry Quik powder, two glasses half full of dark pink milk, cereal bowls, a box of Corn Pops and…Dave blinks. Hershey's chocolate syrup.
"You're awake!" Jack cheers.
Aaron scrambles up off the floor and bounds up to Dave with enthusiasm that is just not right for a forty-five year old man at such an early hour. He kisses Dave playfully. His eyes shine brightly. "We have doughnuts!"
"They're awesome in strawberry milk!" Jack added enthusiastically.
Dave stares at the sugarfest, notices what's in the cereal bowls, and his stomach turns. "Please, dear God, tell me you didn't put chocolate syrup on your damn cereal."
Aaron grins. There's no doubt where Jack got his smile from. "Chocolate syrup and strawberry milk," Aaron clarifies. "Like Neapolitan ice cream with a cake cone."
"It's like a diabetic coma," Dave shoots back. "Christ. What's with all this? You turned into Reid or something?"
"I'm embracing my inner child."
"You'd better let him go. When you crash from all of this," he waves a hand in the direction of the breakfast foods as he addresses Aaron, "you're not getting any sympathy from me. Carb hangovers are ten times worse than ones from booze."
There's a pause and Aaron pitches his voice lower, "There was this one summer in Charleston that I spent with my Uncle Freddy. My parents were in Europe." His smile turns wistful. "This was our Saturday morning splurge. Scooby Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian, and all the things I wasn't supposed to have for breakfast."
It would be easy to make some snarky comment, but Dave realizes that this is one of Aaron's few good childhood experiences. One that can be shared without the painful baggage that usually accompanies a trip down Aaron Hotchner's Memory Lane. So Dave juts his chin towards the table and asks, "This the same Uncle Freddy who taught you how to Cha-Cha?"
"The one and only," Aaron replies before brushing his lips gently against Dave's. "Coffee?"
"I'll get it. You need to go back to see if Scooby and the gang figure out who the UnSub is," Dave tells him. That earns another kiss and Aaron goes back over to Jack and settles between his son and the dog.