April 25, 2014
I'd Come for You—Nickelback (4:23)
Criminal Minds
Hotch
He gave a sharp nod to acknowledge Gideon's correction. "Dr. Reid, our expert on, well, everything." He should have remembered to introduce Spencer with his title. He knew better. Gideon was protective of the kid and wanted everyone to acknowledge that Spencer was special and smart.
He knew all that of course. Still…It was hard to remember Spencer was a grown man sometimes. All of them were protective of the kid. Hotch knew that he was one of the more overprotective of the team. He couldn't help it though.
It wasn't as though Spencer himself did anything to dispel the image of childishness. Spencer always waited on the stairs to the plane to make sure Hotch was coming. Those big doe brown eyes sought him out over crowded rooms to make sure he was there. His soft smiles were always reserved only for Hotch. The others got smiles too but they weren't the same.
From the first day Hotch had known that Spencer made him feel things that no one had in a very long time. Unfortunately those feelings couldn't exist. They were wrong. Hotch was married and so he forced them to become something else. Something safer. Spencer would never know that Hotch's protectiveness and wonder were anything more than a friends or a siblings. That was all they could be. That was all they'd ever be.