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It wasn’t hard, per say. In fact, the emotions, the feelings grew with such intensity, such speed that Aaron Hotchner was in awe.
Haley had been his Guide, years ago. Murdered before Jack was even a year old.
Hotch hadn’t ever been close with a Guide other than her.
And then Elle Greenaway left and Doctor Spencer Reid stumbled in to replace her.
Guide.
Tall, willowy, big hazel eyes and auburn curls, glasses sloppily perched on the bridge of his nose and clothes just a size too big — he looked anything but active.
Yet Hotch could feel it. The calm, the protectiveness every Sentinel felt pulled toward the Guide.
It wasn’t quite soulmates, you see. Guides and Sentinels were compatible in the same way blood is — some more than others and only in specific combinations. But everyone, even mundanes, knew that there were rare pairings — Omega pairings. A Guide and a Sentinel whose bond formed so vividly that even mundanes can feel it.
Hotch had met Haley in high school. Could tell she was a latent Guide right away and had been drawn to her. When she came online, they’d bonded without hesitation, the pull being one of those on the stronger side.
The pull he felt toward Spencer Reid left Haley in the dust.
So no, it wasn’t hard. The pull, the falling — the love. No, none of that was hard.
“Do you think I’ll ever find a Sentinel?” Reid murmurs, leaning back in the swiveling chair to look upside-down at Hotch. The Sentinel raises an eyebrow, ignoring the way his senses immediately focus upon the genius.
As if they hadn’t already been.
“I think that, in time, you will find someone worthy of your abilities to bond with,” Hotch allows after a beat before turning back to the board. A smile ghosts his lips at the sight — covered in Christmas lights and tinsel. “I really should sort this out with her.”
“Why? It’s cheerful,” Reid rebukes and Hotch can hear him crossing his arms and pouting. “I don’t see any reason why Garcia should stop.”
“Not even when we’re pinning murders and stalkers to the board and it looks as if we are glorifying them with the holiday spirit?”
The dry remark pulls a laugh from Reid and Hotch’s Sentinel rumbles at the sound. If he straightens, stands a bit taller, well… he doubts it’s noticeable enough for Reid to catch.
“Okay, I yield,” the Guide laughs. Hotch hears him stand and — oh god, he’s approaching. Focus; not on the pull. Deep breath—
—coffee, old books, leather and chocolate, forest after the rain—
Maybe Hotch hadn’t thought this deep breath thing through.
Reid stops to hover at Hotch’s elbow, taking in the local missing person’s case they’re currently observing, his intelligent brown-green eyes sweeping over every piece of information and committing it to memory before Hotch could even breathe a word.
Not that he could. Especially after Reid’s next words:
“Have you ever thought about bonding again?”
Have you ever thought about bonding again?
Of course he had. But after Haley… after feeling his Guide’s death, knowing it was his fault, his occupation that caused it, hearing her plead to keep their son safe…
“For stability purposes,” Reid rushes to add, face flushing. Hotch is able to restart his lungs with those words, even if it means he has to ignore the way they make Reid’s heart speed up. Lies.
“Yes,” Hotch replies simply; his tone is open where he knows it should be closed. But the pull, to a Guide, to Spencer —
“I used to think the Omega pairing was a myth,” Reid confesses softly. “That pairs — bonds — so strong were just a result of the pair being overly infatuated and believing things were more than they were. But then…”
“Then…?” The prompt slips out unbidden but Hotch can’t retract it, especially not when it makes Reid blush like that.
“Then I realized I’d never felt the pull toward others like they describe. The natural pull to bond with a Sentinel was present, but I’d never been inclined. It’d never been about compatibility with me,” he admits. Hotch’s brow raises. “I delved into research, thought I was broken. But then I learned that with Omega rank Guides, they only ever felt the pull toward their Sentinel. Which, as cliche and juvenile as it sounds, it was relieving to me to discover the reason behind my lack of inclination toward Sentinels.”
But Hotch had stopped listening.
I delved into research, thought I was broken. But then I learned that with Omega rank Guides, they only ever felt the pull toward their Sentinel.
“… Hotch?”
Omega rank Guides.
“Uhm… sir? Are you going into a zone out-?”
Only ever felt the pull toward their Sentinel.
“Aaron!”
The sound of his name, his given name, startles him out of his thoughts and his gaze refocuses on a frantic, worried Guide.
Perhaps he should have read the signs. Listened closer, between the words and veiled looks. Perhaps he would have caught it, then. What he was — they were.
A distressed Guide. His fault. Yet…
The thoughts racing through his mind jolt to a standstill and suddenly his senses sharpen, pinpoint laser focus on—
“Spencer,” he murmurs and, oh, the smile the Guide, his Guide, breaks into is worth it. Every year, the heartbreak, the desolation and endless grief. “Guide.”
“Sentinel,” Spencer responds warmly, flushed and preening at finally, finally being noticed by his Sentinel.
“I didn’t know, I—”
“I know, Aaron. It’s okay,” Spencer interjects, stepping forward. The first touch, now, will bind them, permanently. Maybe that’s what makes Spencer hesitate, the Guide’s eyes growing a bit nervous and Aaron can’t stand that he put that look there.
So he closes the gap. Rests their foreheads together and the instantaneous connection that begins, now, threads tying, binding, writing them in ways they’d never even realized existed, let alone ways they thought possible.
No, it wasn’t hard. The pull, the falling — the love. None of that was hard. What had been hard was admitting how much he wants, how much he loves.
It’d felt wrong, as if he was tarnishing the memory of Haley, her gentle hands and soft blonde hair and—
But now Spencer surrounds him, embeds himself in Aaron’s every sense, and Aaron’s hands are framing the Guide’s face and Spencer is backing into the wall with a soft exhale as their lips finally meet.
And oh is it heaven unlike anything either has ever experienced, light and full and perfect—
“Uh, bossman, you know that’s tinsel and not mistletoe hanging there, right?”