Reid was either cooking or cleaning. It was something to require he wear an apron because it will definitely come in handy later.

If he was cooking, he was cooking something overly complicated and Italian because it's their goddamn anniversary and they had to eat something. If he was cleaning, he was on his hands and knees to prompt whatever mystery person would walk through the kitchen door in about two minutes to say something about how he looks good like that, something that is often said before a tiff is initiated. Big words in long, over-descriptive paragraphs mean shit will get pretty real this time.

Hotch appears; he's wearing his suit and tie, the outfit we all know him by, the grumpy man outfit, God bless him. The author has put him in this get-up because it will make the later fight look oh, so ridiculous to those who read with an image of the action in their minds. His face is scowling, something I'm unsure Hotch was even able to do in the first place. Just kidding. He never smiles, remember?

Reid, who is not of the suited variety, looks up. He makes the same face I imagine a deer in the headlights would make if the car hurtling toward them was the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, for no other reason than to include a totally unrelatable metaphor. Most likely to foreshadow that Hotch has a ginormous dick because no one has a beautiful personality and good looks without completing the package, says the author who is scrambling to form long paragraphs to make the reader emote and thus comment, because at this point, they're scraping the bottom of the barrel just to make a pointless fight scene look deep by creating some sort of aura that they know what they're doing, when in actuality, they're just sad and they thought of a really sad sentence and wrote it down in their notes at, like, five in the morning and now they're constructing a plot around it.

Anyway, yeah, Hotch is scary and Reid is terrified for some goddamn reason (probably schizophrenia or his mom) that'll be thrown in the fruitcake mix later when it's the least expected.

I guess it's time for dialogue.

"You look good like that," said Hotch, completely validating what I've said above.

"Thanks," said Reid, unsure of where this is going. Even I, the author, am unsure of where this is going. It's eight in the morning on a Monday with no prior obligations and I'm writing fanfiction in the living room of my grandmother's house and no amount of coffee will bring me out of this depressive spiral. I'm a borderline-suicidal high schooler with practically no positive relationship experience and a crucial summer project I haven't touched that I'll probably do last minute, but God knows I need to write this ball of festering sub-par angst no one asked me to write. This is all a sham for validation.

Also, Reid is wearing an apron. This will come in handy later.

Hotch walks into the kitchen. It's a clean kitchen for some reason, although we all know that kitchens were made to be messy, but we're going to pass this off as an AU because it's so badly written it might as well have been written by a baby Jack, crawling up and down on the keys of a piano.

He then leans on the countertop directly adjacent to Reid, who is still on the floor, which would be a very interesting image had this been a movie, but in a teenager's fan fiction, it just embodies the lack of awareness this person has in their own life.

Reid smiles at him, "How was work?"

This leaves us wondering what exactly Hotch's work is. The author (me) has stated that this can be considered an AU, but how much of an AU is it? Maybe he works at the law firm he used to before all of the FBI business? A completely strange and out of character job, like a travel agent? If so, how did Reid and Hotch meet? The author (still me) acknowledges all of these unknown questions and decides to lazily answer them by putting it in a large block of exposition that should come with an epilepsy warning.

"My boss, Familiar-Name-That-Will-Make-You-Mad, the man who introduced us at that expositional coffee shop, demoted me from Boring-Desk-Job to Slightly-More-Boring-Desk-Job-With-Less-Pay just because I got shot and my leg's all messed up. This makes me agitated, which is most likely the cause for my aggressive and unreasonable behavior later on. You could call this foreshadowing, but wait, no you don't have to, because I'm literally telling you right now, I might go Hulk on you in T-minus five minutes just because I made a mistake and got a consequence for it."

Reid nodded submissively because he's the housewife in this situation, also he's in an apron. This is symbolism for nothing, but one of you will interpret it as symbolism, and it'll make me feel better about myself and I'll agree with it and people will praise me for thinking ahead and I'll never tell the truth that it was just a subconscious decision that I milked into the ground once someone mentioned it to me.

"I'm sorry, baby," Reid says, using a nickname because that's what normal people do and this is a last ditch attempt to make this realistic.

"It's okay," Hotch says. He pauses and thinks about all of his life choices, in real time, for about an hour. The reader is not subjected to this, but Reid is, but it will be forever unknown how he reacts to this because Hotch continues out of the blue, "Actually, no it's not."

Reid frowns, "This is where I start getting worried, and my worry will then evolve like a shitty Pokemon into fear. This distinction will be really easy to notice because it'll be stated in, like, two seconds."

"And I'm about to blow up. I just need to..." Hotch presses his fingers to his temples and meditates, in real time, for another hour. Once again, Reid just watches, still on the floor and still wearing an apron. Hotch opens his eyes and slams his hand onto the counter top. Silverware goes everywhere, despite the fact that this was a clean kitchen a few minutes ago because Reid was cleaning. Or was he cooking...? I don't know, one of those housewife things. Whatever makes this more pathetic.

Reid jumps, because he is afraid, just like I said. He opens his mouth to speak but no words come out because he's in shock, I guess.

"This is your fault!" Hotch roars, which is a completely crazy verb that couldn't be applied to Hotch because the guy doesn't even yell, per se. He just raises his voice a bit and the pitch of his voice goes up a little, but I wouldn't call that yelling. I don't think I could imagine him yelling like this. But how else am I supposed to evoke angst if not make Reid, the relatable and emotionally vulnerable genius, the victim?

Anyway.

"HERE'S WHERE I YELL SOMETHING TOTALLY OUT OF THE BLUE THAT'S SUPER HATEFUL, BUT THE AUTHOR DOESN'T FEEL LIKE COMING UP WITH SOMETHING SO I'M JUST GONNA SAY SOMETHING ABOUT SCHIZOPHRENIA OR YOUR MOM!" Hotch's face turned as red as the tail lights on the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. That, my friends, is called a callback. Use it responsibly.

"H-how dare you," stutters Reid, yet another implausible verb, but if Reid just got really sassy all of a sudden, I'd have to scrap the entire build up to this fanfiction. Oh, WAIT! No, I don't. "It's definitely your fault, not mine. Here's the part where I reopen wounds about you and Haley out of the blue with a sassy fire in my veins. See, if it's convenient for the plot to go on, I can have multiple personalities like James McAvoy, and that opens a place for me to plug a movie I had no part in but it's a pop culture topic that'll probably spark up a conversation. Also, hints of schizophrenia. So you were kind of right."

Hotch's eyes catch on fire, which sounds painful but would look awesome, and he grabs Reid by the shoulders and pulls him to his feet. Reid looks in his eyes, determined yet scared, once again like a deer in the headlights of the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. Another callback? Is it Christmas?

The tall agent lifts him up Dirty Dancing style in order to slam him against the cabinets with a bruising grip on his arms, a power play that can easily be miscalculated as a sexual advance. And, for the sake of time and keeping my audience satisfied, it will definitely be miscalculated.

"I want you," says Hotch, a very sexually ambiguous and confusing statement, but that is what I have resorted to. "I want you in the bedroom wearing only the apron. This is a super obscure and widely used Titanic reference, and it makes me upset that most people don't really acknowledge this fact."

Reid raises his eyebrows, "Psh, that's totally not a cliche everyone says when someone's wearing an apron in a room full of sexual tension."

Hotch nods, the two of them looking into the distance as the fourth wall is reduced to flames and destruction, distant sirens are heard as my dignity and my English paper I'm not going to do catch aflame too.

Reid sighed happily, placing his hand on Hotch's chest before dropping a bombshell that no one saw coming in this borderline abusive and awkward relationship based on literally nothing, put in italics to make it seem really dramatic, when in actuality it's just put in italics to give a sense of closure to the audience and I won't feel bad about dropping this later in life when someone mentions my "fanfiction career" and it makes me have a panic attack that I'll never rebound from.

"I'm pregnant with your child."