Dec 14, Dec 17, Criminal Minds, Hotch & Reid, Change of Traditions & Appreciation
Title: Change of Traditions Author: alti_angel Fandom: Criminal Minds Characters: Hotchners and Reids Rating: PG Word Count: 1200+ Disclaimer: not Mine Prompt: Dec 14 naughty or nice A/N: not beta read
Thanksgiving had been wonderful. Aaron Hotchner had spent it in the company of his brother and his son. With his own family, for the first time in years. Well, what there was of it that would talk to him.
Sean had come down from New York and had made everything for the meal. Jack was there and Sean had let him help. Sure, his mom hadn’t come, but then his mom hadn’t come to anything he asked her to since he divorced Haley, including Haley’s funeral.
Have you put out the naughty or nice poster yet?” Sean asked Aaron as they sat down after cleaning up from dinner. Jack was laying out on his tummy playing with cars and blocks.
“For God’s sake, no. That was a horrid thing.” Aaron replies, his mind immediately going back to the poster displayed front and center on their living room wall while growing up, with gold stars or black checks lining up as the days passed.
Sean laughed.
“I never did figure it out either. What type of behavior got us a gold star and what got us a check.” Sean said.
“That’s because there never was any standard for it. Face it, you got a gold star when you stole Mrs. Preston’s wallet and all their Christmas money and another gold star for refusing to give it back.” Aaron said.
“And you got black checks for taking it away from me and returning it. Mom said they were for making me cry.”
“Yes, well. I always got black checks for that, it was about the only constant.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you know.” Sean said after a while.
“I know Sean, I have known for a while.” Aaron said.
“And I do know what you did, what you put yourself through, to keep me happy and safe.”
Aaron looked at Sean. Their birth father had died when Sean was five, and Aaron had hoped that Sean had no memories of him. Their step-father had doted on Sean, who was still little enough to soak it up and not wonder what the cost was going to be. He’d catered to Sean’s every wish and whim for the almost 12 years before he too passed away. It had been hard for Aaron to watch and harder still to live it. His mother, having gotten used to Aaron being to blame for everything…protecting her and her small son from her first husband, decided not to change that way of being. Sean got bad grades? Somehow Aaron was to blame, even when he was out of the state. He was used to it. He was still used to it.
“What did mom say when you told her you were going to be here?” Aaron finally asked.
Sean laughed. “Jillian was bringing a girl for me to meet. Mother was quite irate I wasn’t going to be there to meet her.”
“All of Rex’s children going to be there?” Aaron asked. Rex was his mother’s third husband, and he had four children from his first wife. Their mother adored all four, and doted on her ‘grandchildren’ from them excessively. She took them on trips and paid for their dance or sports or other lessons. She was always giving them gifts.
“Always.” Sean said.
Jack looked up and giggled. “Daddy! Is it almost time?”
Aaron looked to the clock. “It is, come on and I’ll open the lap top.”
Sean looked at him quizzically.
“Did you ever meet Spencer Reid?” Aaron asked.
“Skinny young dude? Works for you? Smart one? Long hair?”
“That’s the one.” Aaron said. “He writes his mother every day. Every day. He mentioned Jack in one of the letters and how he was sad Jack wasn’t getting the experience of a grandmother at this age, let alone a mother. Diana Reid wrote me the day after she got Reid’s letter. Every Thursday night, when she is well enough, one of her doctors helps her link up with us on Skype and she reads Jack a story. Spencer usually comes to listen if we are here; because she reads Jack kids’ books…she did not read Spencer kids’ books when he was a kid.”
“Where is he tonight?” Sean asked.
“In Las Vegas with him mom.”
As soon as Skype was up and running, the call from Diana Reid came through. Reid waved from the back ground and Diana was smiling.
“Hello, Sir Jack. I have had a wonderful day with my Spencer. Did you have a wonderful day with you father and uncle?” Diana Reid said.
“I did! Uncle Sean is a real honest to goodness cook and he cooked our meal!” Jack said.
“Really. What an honor to be in his presence. Do you remember what we have been reading?” Diana asked.
Jack smiled. “We are reading fairy tales and folk tales! Last week was Rapunzel.”
“We are. This week I’m going to tell you about the twelve dancing princesses. Ready?”
Jack nodded and Diana told her story. As she finished, she pulled another book from her lap.
“Today was a special day and so I’m going to read you one more story. In fact, I’ll read you one extra story every Thursday for the next month.”
Diana Reid proceeded to read Jack a story about a Christmas Quilt a girl and her grandmother made together.
“Spencer will bring you a treat when he goes home and help you with it. It won’t work like the one in the story, but he’ll tell you other ways to have it work just as good.” Diana said as she finished the story.
Jack smiled and told her thank you and Reid waved again before they all logged off.
Aaron put Jack to bed and went back to sit and relax with Sean some more.
“That’s a much better thing to see than a naughty or nice poster.” Sean said.
“It is.”
“How does it work when you aren’t here?” Sean asked.
“Jessica gets him on or Garcia comes over to help them. They both look forward to it almost as much as Jack does.”
“And you?”
Aaron leaned back. “Reid writes his mother every day. Some of it, I know, is still guilt. But I never understood his devotion and why he felt guilty until she wrote and offered up an evening of her time every week for one small boy. Furthermore, she is determined to be well enough to do this. She’s even been lucid enough to write another paper and have it published. But it is because she wants one small boy to have some woman in his life that does some grandmother things with him. I see why Reid writes his mother every day. If I’d a mother like that, even hidden deep under illness and pain, one I’d seen even a few times…I’d write her every day too.”
“I would too.” Sean said. “I wonder what she is sending home with Reid.”
Aaron smiled. “Spencer is heading back tomorrow. If you stay for the whole weekend you’ll be sure to see.”
“I wouldn’t be imposing?” Sean asked.
“Never. You’re my brother and I want you here as much as you can be.”
“Really?” Sean asked.
“Really. I am proud of you, you know. I know I was a …yeah… for a while, but I realized when I came back to the BAU that one had to do what one loved if they could.”
Sean smiled. “Thank you. I wonder what next week’s story will be.”
Aaron smiled back. “You know, Garcia showed me how to record the Skype sessions. I could forward them to you.”
Title: Appreciation Author: alti_angel Fandom: Criminal Minds Characters: Hotch, Reid Rating: PG Word Count: 400 Disclaimer: not mine nor do I make any money off this Prompt: Dec 17 A/N: not beta read
A local detective from one of the cases they worked out somewhere in the western states once asked Hotch how he could stand working with Reid day in and day out.
Granted, it was one of Reid’s chatty days, he was trying to piece together the crimes and find the non-obvious patterns in his head and when Reid is working things out that way he tends to do one of several things, and since the station lacked spinning chairs and he had two fingers still in a cast from an accident he’d had trying to fix his vehicle (before he gave in and took it to the shop) the chattering was what they were left with.
It didn’t help the detective himself had sent Reid off to interview not only the local town historian, but local paranormal enthusiast. Reid simply had a lot to talk about after talking with those two. It stuck with Hotch though, and sometimes it echoed in his mind when Spencer spoke on and on.
However, Hotch found himself grateful for Spencer Reid as being a single parent settled in and Jack got older.
Yeah, with a name like Hotchner, he probably ought to have known the story of Chanukah. But they’d been Lutheran, and his mother, although she never took them to church; never let them learn about any of those other religions. So when Jack came home from school asking about it…Hotch had the answer.
“Jack, let’s call Spencer.”
Ten minutes later Jack was sitting with the phone on speaker and he and his dad were both taking notes as Spencer told them all about Chanukah, and other related histories and tales. When the call was over and all note taking reformatted into a short paper that Jack could take to school and share from, Hotch picked up Jack and started to get him ready for the next day. They set out his clothing and filled his backpack.
“You know what daddy?” Jack said.
“What?”
“You are so lucky. You get Spencer every day. I wish I could have him with me every day. I would bring him to school with me and he could make my lessons so much more interesting and tell us all the really interesting stuff that we often don’t get to hear.”
The next time a local law enforcement officer commented on Reid’s tendency to tell everyone details about seemingly random things, Hotch just smiled.
“I know, isn't it wonderful? I guess I am just the lucky one here.”