legend

I had this idea. And I sprinted it in 20 minutes and didn't edit it and if it sucks, I'm sorry but CM: Evolution has really put me in my Hotchgan feels HARD (as if I ever really leave but...) so this happened. It fits with the @comfortember prompt for today: proud. ❤

1.6k words. Cheesy, stupid, self-indulgent and so sweet. Hotch & Morgan semi-retired and freezing at a Northwestern University football game.

Breathing hurt.

Hotch tugged his hat down over his ears and pressed his gloved hands over his mouth and nose, sucking in one, two, three deep breaths through the filter of warm knit wool. It didn't sting his lungs the way the air did. Derek's aunt made them for him, and a hat to match, and they were holding up better than anything he'd ever purchased at the store. She had made some crack about how he was always cold and made him two pair...his indoor gloves and his outdoor gloves. It was meant as a joke, poking fun at the way he wrapped himself in blankets or seated himself as close to a fire as he could, but he'd never minded a good joke at his expense. Especially not when that joke came with the warmest gloves he'd ever put on his hands.

“WOOOOOOOOOOO! GET EM!” Derek shouted from beside him, startling him by jumping up and waving his arms in the air wildly. “YEAH BABY!” Hotch glanced up at Derek and smiled cold and dreamy. He had no idea what had just happened on the field, but it mattered little. He had sixty quizzes to grade and Derek had a game to watch, that was the deal.

“You see that? DID YOU SEE THAT?!”

Hotch blinked up at him and Derek knew what that meant. He hadn't. It was okay, too. He would explain that it was one of the boys Derek had mentored at the youth center, one of the many he'd helped get scholarships to Northwestern. He was in his last year and he was a stud. NFL quality, Derek said, and he was working his tail off to get scouts out, get him noticed. He had connections.