First time Hotch and Morgan say 'I love you'
Your wish is my command. Here is 5600 words leading up to that moment...why so many, you ask? I don't know. But I asked for soft Hotchgan requests and I got so many good ones...we're going to end 2022 on a soft note with all of these. Starting here with a power outage and a whole bunch of slightly awkward love.
**** Perspective ****
Pitch black.
They were sitting on the couch beside the fire, Hotch with his feet kicked up on Derek's legs reading. He wasn't deeply engaged in the book, not enough that he didn't glance up every so often to admire Derek's profile, the way he sat with his headphones on bobbing his head only slightly along with the beat. He could sit and listen to music for hours, and not just listen but feel it. In much the same way, Hotch devoured silence.
And almost like all the oxygen was sucked from the room through a vacuum, the lights went out. What he thought had been silence became actual eerie silence, no more humming from the refrigerator and the furnace, no more water heater, just dead quiet until his hearing adjusted and he was drawn back to the crackle and pop of their small fire.
“Did the power just go out?” Derek asked, stunned. Hotch smiled at the absurdity of the question.
“Looks like it.”
Immediately, as if on cue, Hotch's phone began ringing. He stared at it in disbelief, wishing that for one blissful minute he could simply deal with his own life before having to handle whatever catastrophe was happening at Quantico.
“Garcia?”
“Sir, I'm sorry to bother you, but Strauss wants us to get down to Quantico ASAP to monitor the systems for any potential security breaches before the generators kicked on. She says it's routine but she sounded concerned.”
“I'm a little further away than usual, it may take me some time to get there.”
She was silent, and he could hear her sharp intake of breath. It was pointed, the way she realized what he said without saying it aloud. “Yes...yes sir. I'll get started without you.”
Derek's headphones were around his neck now and in the dim orange light of the fire Hotch could see his wicked smile. “She knows.”
There’s so much to say. The tension of their nights organization… Derek not thinking of Haley and Jack coming over as a big ask and Hotch’s work affecting his love life again but Garcia coming back with him?? Telling Hotch to just say it and he does?? Jessica calling them inside out of the cold? Hotch waking up to turn the lights off?? Love the disorganized little family thing they have