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There’s a slight shift in the atmosphere as someone comes up behind his seat on the jet. Aaron’s got his head tipped back and his eyes closed, but he knows his pain is spelled out on his face.
He’s situated himself in one of the two single seats, facing away from everyone else, to spare them the worry of having to watch him flinch and wince for an hour and a half, and so far no one’s bothered him at all. He probably should have just driven the seven hours home, but he hadn’t wanted to leave the team, and he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself that he probably shouldn’t be working.
“A rupture of the tympanic membrane,” the person standing above him says, “Likely from the acoustic trauma of the blast.” Aaron cracks his eyes open to see Reid’s upside down face looking down at him, hair falling softly from behind his ear.
“Reid,” Aaron says, knowing he sounds exhausted and knowing he sounds miserable and not doing anything to change that.
“Hotch,” Reid says back. There’s something different about Reid’s tone, almost gentle, and there’s concern written large across his face. Usually, he would continue listing facts about Aaron’s injury, maybe statistics about full recovery of hearing, but today he simply says, “You shouldn’t be on this plane right now.”
Aaron closes his eyes again. “I know.” The jet jostles slightly, probably unnoticeably to everyone else, but it sends a ringing spike of pain through Aaron’s ear and into his brain.
“Hotch,” Reid says again, “I can help, if you want.”
It takes a minute for Aaron to parse that one out through the distinct feeling of a needle lodging itself in his grey matter. “What?”
“I— I mean, I know what might help. With the pain.” Reid sounds slightly embarrassed, but he also sounds confident in his statement. He is a doctor, Aaron supposes.
“Do whatever you need to do,” Aaron says, wincing slightly as another wave of ringing comes and goes, and listens to Reid walk briskly away before he has to refocus his attention inwards to try and hold his head as still as possible. His neck twinges, but he can’t relax his muscles without risking more of that sharp pain.
Reid is back quickly, rounding his chair and setting a hand on his knee. Aaron opens his eyes and looks at him, albeit slowly.
“Are you allergic to ibuprofen?”
“No,” Aaron sighs, reaching out to take the pills from Reid’s hand and swallowing them dry.
Reid hands him a glass of water anyway. “You should drink at least half of this. Dehydration can contribute to any dizziness you might be feeling as a result of the damage to your inner ear.”
He disappears again while Aaron sits there and drinks, discovering that he’s actually far more thirsty than he had noticed. It’s slightly ironic that he’s being taken care of by perhaps the most absentminded, accident-prone member of his team, but he has to admit that the kid isn’t doing a bad job of it. Reid’s back, taking the glass from his hand and setting it aside, rubbing a small, grey packet in his other palm.
He moves out of Aaron’s view, behind him again, and something radiating warmth presses against the back of Aaron’s neck, tucked gently beneath the collar of his shirt.
It feels so good that Aaron gasps, then hisses with discomfort as Reid guides his head to tip back and his neck twinges.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, hang on,” Reid murmurs, and digs his thumb right into the place where the twinge is. And it just…vanishes. The relief is so great that Aaron’s eyes flutter shut involuntarily.
The feeling lasts for a few seconds before the jet hits another tiny patch of turbulence and pain lances right through the middle of his head like an arrow. Aaron can barely keep from making some undignified noise.
And then there’s more warmth, this time seeping into his hurt ear, easing him out of the pain, back into awareness. Reid’s holding what feels like another one of those little packets over his ear, and it occurs to Aaron what they are. “Chemical hand warmers?”
“I have chronically cold hands,” Reid explains quietly. “The blood circulation in my extremities isn’t great, so I usually carry a few of these with me. Dry heat is recommended to relieve pain caused by a rupture of the eardrum.”
“Is that why you always have your hands in your pockets?”
He can hear Reid smiling. “That’s part of the reason why, besides the social awkwardness and the general aversion to touch.”
“I’m sorry,” Aaron mutters, suddenly realizing he’s probably being inconsiderate, asking for this, “Are you— is this okay with you?”
“Hotch, I offered. And if you haven’t noticed, I don’t mind it when you touch me. Can you maybe—“ and Reid reaches down over him, scooping up his wrist off the armrest and moving his hand to hold the hand warmer in place over his ear. “Yeah, hold that there. Don’t press too hard, since creating a seal around your ear can create pressure, and releasing that pressure will undoubtably cause you more pain.”
Aaron does as he’s told, expecting that Reid will probably move away now that he’s been taken care of adequately, but instead he feels slender, quick fingers move delicately over his face, tracing a path from his temples down to his jaw.
“Reid, you don’t have to—“
Reid strokes over the path again, this time with hard, even pressure, and then back up behind his ears, spreading the tips of his fingers slowly over Aaron’s scalp, and Aaron entirely loses track of what he’d intended to say.
There’s hands combing firmly through his hair, forward and then back again, pulling it away from his forehead, and it’s sending these tingling waves of sensation down his spine that are making him want to go limp. And then Reid really starts in on his neck, rubbing tight circles right at the base of his skull, and Aaron has to bite his tongue to keep from groaning.
“You clench your jaw constantly,” Reid says conversationally, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Aaron’s brain is melting out his ears, “And your shoulders and neck are always tight. There’s no way the tension in all your facial and neck muscles isn’t putting unneeded stress on your inner ear.”
Aaron is distantly aware that this probably shouldn’t feel like a religious experience, but no one’s done anything like this for him since Haley, and that had been long before their marriage problems. He considers the likely possibility that he is extremely touch starved, but Reid is working on his forehead now, massaging the ache out of his temples and scratching gently at his hairline, and it’s like he can’t even begin to think past how incredible Reid’s hands feel. God, Reid has nice hands.
Time passes. Reid doesn’t let up, seemingly determined to systematically reduce Aaron to a pile of well-stimulated nerves in a suit. He might even fall asleep at one point, he doesn’t know for sure, but he definitely slips into a daze because the bump of the plane hitting the ground brings him back.
He doesn’t open his eyes even though he can hear the team moving, grabbing bags and making their way off the jet. Reid has one hand holding the hand warmer to his ear—he must have let go involuntarily, so maybe he was asleep—and the other hand still buried in his hair, petting him like a cat.
Aaron feels ridiculously good. His neck and shoulders and head are warm and loose, and the air smells of something unfamiliar, clean and slightly herbal.
Reid takes the hand off his ear, removing the hand warmer, and Aaron wants to protest, but Reid almost immediately puts his hand back on the side of Aaron’s face, one finger circling over his temple. “Feeling any better?”
“I think I love you,” Aaron mumbles almost drunkenly, his brain to mouth filter nowhere to be found, then freezes, tensing up. Shit.
But Reid is laughing softly, smoothing his thumbs across Aaron’s brow. “Stop doing that to your face, you’re undoing all my hard work.”
Aaron opens one eye, to make sure that Reid isn’t actually freaking out, definitely not so he can see what Reid looks like when he laughs like that, and has to open both eyes to take in the blush high on Reid’s cheeks, the little smile in the corner of his mouth, the way his hair has completely come unraveled and hangs down around his face.
Reid makes eye contact with him and grins, brushes his fingers over Aaron’s eyelids, closing his eyes again. “I would recommend that you order yourself some hand warmers. I would also recommend that you don’t fly again until you’ve been cleared by your doctor. You’re smart, Hotch, I don’t need to tell you that this was a bad idea.”
“Reid—“
Reid’s fingers rest lightly over his mouth, stopping his words. “A simple ‘Thank you, Reid,’ will suffice.”
Aaron can’t stop himself from smiling. “Thank you, Reid.”
There’s a small intake of breath from above him, and Reid’s fingers brush his cheek. “I— you have dimples,” Reid says under his breath, sounding shocked, and Aaron smiles wider.
“That’s a state secret, I’ll need you to sign an NDA for me later.”
“You made a joke,” Reid whispers incredulously. “Did I give you brain damage? What year is it?”
Aaron laughs, and Reid gasps again, tiny and almost pained, and then something soft and warm touches Aaron quickly in the center of his forehead, and Reid’s hands are gone.
Aaron opens his eyes to see Reid across the plane, satchel on, holding tightly to the strap like he’s restraining himself. He smiles at Aaron but it’s tight, a little sad. “I’ve never seen you laugh before.”
“Reid,” Aaron starts, and then stops because he can’t figure out how to ask, Did you just kiss me on the forehead?
“Take care of yourself, Hotch,” and with that Reid is out the door and off the jet and Aaron is alone.
He’s doing paperwork later that night in his office and finds himself absentmindedly touching the spot where Reid’s lips had been, and he shuts his eyes and feels a ghostly hand pass through his hair.
Looking over into the bullpen he can see a small bottle of hand lotion on Reid’s desk, and he knows exactly what it smells like.
There are chemical hand warmers in the glovebox of his car. There’s a random, blank NDA in the middle drawer of his desk.
Aaron considers the likely possibility that he’s never going to stop thinking about this.
Shit.