Title: Quiet Absurdity
Summary: Aaron isn’t quite sure which idea is more absurd.
Characters: Aaron Hotchner, team
Pairing: Reid/JJ
Rating: K
Notes: Season 3

Aaron isn’t quite sure which idea is more absurd; the fact that they love one another, or that they don’t know it. As unit chief, he knows he shouldn’t be turning a blind eye to this but as he watches Reid’s long index finger twitch – if the slow, rotating motion could be called a twitch – against the back of JJ’s wrist as the plane shudders in the turbulence, he just can’t bring himself to say anything to either of them.

Reid looks up and glances to the others on the plane: Morgan, sprawled out on the long sofa asleep; Emily leaning against the wall, watching out of the window; Rossi, playing with his newly acquired Nintendo console. Before Reid’s eyes can meet his own, Aaron closes them and feigns sleep; he’s did it often enough to know that Reid won’t see that he’s not actually lost to the land of slumber.

He waits for a few long minutes, feeling the vaguest strands of unconscious wrap around his mind before he opens his eyes. In the dim light of the plane, he can’t help the slow smile that spreads across his lips as he watches Reid sit stiffly with JJ’s head in his lap. This time, he’s not quick enough at closing his eyes and Reid freezes momentarily. Aaron waits a moment before he nods – just once. Reid’s body slackens and one hand falls from the book he’s reading to rest on JJ’s shoulder, playing with the ends of her hair.

Aaron waits until Reid turns back to his book, his fingers absent mindedly playing with JJ’s hair, before closing his eyes and letting sleep take him as a welcome prisoner.