rest
Summary: A virus sweeps through the Morgan-Hotchner household.
Pairing: Hotch/Morgan
Words: 2.4k
Warnings: illness, snot, fevers, meds...but soft and fluffy.
Notes: This is fluff. Just some sickfic fluff set in the Chicago semi-retirement years. How each member of the household deals with it when they get the cold that's going around. All because I wanted to write about Hotch and Clooney, old men napping together. Clooney is the goodest boy and ageless, really. I've had this in my WIP folder forever and it's one of those not getting any better or any more of a plot scenario so...I cleaned it up and now I give it to you. Making room for some new WIPs!
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The first sneeze of the season was always a benchmark.
In Spring, it let them know the pollen was on the move and that the trees were calling to the bees to do their thing. Derek would pull out the Claritin first, choosing not to even mess with the itchy eyes one moment. Hotch, on the other hand, would wait. His system was already inundated by pills of varying shapes and sizes, medications that ranged from benign to downright sinister, so a stuffy nose and some dry itchy eyes were not the end of the world.
Virginia hadn't ever treated him too badly, but he was convinced that Chicago meant him harm. Still, he persisted with a handkerchief stuffed into his pocket and saline drops for his dry eyes. He could wear his glasses now without fear of ridicule...it was almost expected of a man in his position. They may have clashed with his suit and tie, but they were the perfect accessory for his sweaters and khakis.
So, the first sneeze of Spring didn't worry him much.
The first sneeze of Autumn, however, set off the alarm bells. It was almost always Jack first with Derek hot on his heels. Hotch and Hank were sitting ducks, waiting for whatever germs the two of them brought home to fully culture inside their walls.
“Already?” Hotch asked, watching Derek rummage through the medicine cabinet for that damn box of DayQuil he knew was in there. “It's awfully early in the school year for this.”
“Tell that to my students. Jackson was puking in the trash can at football practice last night, Burkhardt was spitting loogies all over the damn field and where the fuck is my DayQuil?”