#mysogeny | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ssa-dado · 3 months ago

Note

i’m actually convinced that hotch is secretly a huge gossip. what if that’s the thing that gets him and fleabag reader to start talking? maybe it’s about one of the other pool dads ? hotch actually knows him cause his kid goes to school with jack and it’s something real scandalous. idk i just need to have hotch being nosey and spilling tea.

Pinot Grigio

triathlon!Aaron Hotchner x fleabag!reader Genre: 21st-century-feminist-meltdown-over-an-old-man mutual pining Summary: It’s a party. You’re the help. He’s the Hotchner. He shows up to the gala in jeans, insults a politician for you, then stands around long enough to overshare a bunch of gossip you didn’t ask for (meaning: casually reveals he’s been tracking your poolside admirers like a repressed Victorian husband.) Warnings: Explicit sexual language! (not graphic, it's all in reader's head and meant as a joke... for herself, apparently), alcohol use, age gap, cuss words, hint of the vile act of female masturbation *pearl clutch*, classism, mysogeny, unhealthy coping mechanisms (wine, gossip, Hotchner) Word Count: 4.2k Dado's Corner: This prompt was so juicy and triggered my brain just right, I had to fumble a lot to find the perfect setting to reveal Hotch’s true chatty grandma self hihihihi this was so funnn! (I think I wrote three different versions of it because my brain cells just refused to collaborate… but hopefully this one works.) [I didn’t end up scripting in the part where Hotch knows the dad because of Jack, butttt! trust me, it’s probably for the better.] Thank you so much for the request, marry meeee <3

masterlist(s)

Pinot Grigio.

Just a normal white wine.

Pear on the nose. Citrusy. Crisp. Innocent.

Until yesterday. 7:24 PM.

When Penelope Garcia - who you don’t know, didn’t follow, would absolutely remember if you did (because of the most adorable Lego duck earrings and blonde curls) - posted a single photo from some FBI event on Facebook.

A glass of wine in one hand. Aaron Hotchner’s shoulder in the other.

A bottle of Pinot Grigio right there on the table.

Since then, it’s been panic.

Pool moms liked. Pool moms shared. Some pool moms commented, even.

Penelope is now famous.

She’s gained at least forty new friend requests from women named Debbie (the cool-girl rebrand of Deborah), Beth (Bethany, but pretending), and Lisa (just... Lisa) - all of them hoping for fresh content.

A new Hotchner sighting. A blurry arm. The back of a head. The profile of his nose.

And now you are paying the price.

Because you’re six bottles deep into Pinot Grigio and currently opening your seventh for the Pool Extension Project Announcement Party.

(A name so thrilling it could only have been brainstormed by three men named Greg in a windowless office with beige carpets and no dreams... broken dreams, maybe.)

(Apparently they’re adding a spa? Maybe? You weren’t listening. You were too busy arranging the buffet to look “effortlessly elegant” while silently sobbing into a tray of beet hummus.)

You’re catering it. Sort of.

You were a last-minute call.

You were a desperate substitution. Someone dropped out, and they called you.

Because you are reliable.

Talented. Charming. Funny. Qualified. And – crucially - cheaper.

(Not cheap. Cheaper. Enough of a bargain to be flattering but still slightly degrading.)

And of course, you said yes. Said “I’d love to,” said “What’s the dress code?” while internally shrieking because - what if Aaron is there too? (He might be. He probably is.)

You also told yourself you weren’t dressing for him.

That you just wanted to look professional in your very black, very tailored to your body catering uniform (with a slutty apron) - but your ass looks absolutely divine in these trousers, and if it’s not captured in one of the official photos and framed in the break room, you’re suing.

Mayday. Mayday.

He’s here.

Confirmed visual.

Aaron Hotchner.

In the flesh. In the room.

Looking slightly out of place, which of course only makes him stand out more.

Navy button-up. Jeans.

(Jeans? Him? He owns a pair of jeans??? Who sold them to him? Who authorized this? Who gave this man thighs and then denim?)

(Well… apparently so. And they fit. Criminally well.)

Meanwhile, everyone else is trussed up in three-piece suits, using big grown adult vocabulary like municipal redevelopment-

(Meaning: someone’s cousin is getting paid a suspicious amount of money to plant four trees and call it urban renewal)-

and strategic infrastructure planning-

(Meaning: they’re finally going to pour some lukewarm asphalt over the holes in 45th St NW, right before election season.)

They all shake hands with fake smiles, congratulate each other on breathing, and pretend the room doesn’t still vaguely smell like feet and chlorine, despite the mountain of imported cheeses you spent hours shaping into perfect little geometric offerings to the gods of local politics.

And Aaron-

Aaron just stands there.

Not speaking. Not smiling. Not performing. Just existing.

And yet, somehow, he still looks more elegant than all of them combined.

God, what a man.

…A man you’ve had full conversations with–

in your head.

While brushing your teeth.

While shaving your legs.

While marinating chicken.

You’ve practiced your banter with him more than you’ve prepared for actual job interviews.

The fact that you’ve barely spoken to him in real life is not because you’re shy. Not because you’re afraid of rejection. Not because there’s the occasional whisper that he’s technically old enough to have fathered you if he’d started very, very young.

(Which, most of the time, only makes it more erotically confusing.)

No. (Yes.)

It’s because you lowkey hate him.

You hate him because he walked in holding his pool bag.

…He just showed up here to do his laps.

And you just know - deep in your soul, in your bloodstream, in your ovaries - that inside that bag is a navy speedo. Matching. To. His. Shirt.

A Speedo that will now never fulfill its destiny, heartlessly imprisoned, crushed by a rolled towel and - if you had to guess - a blister pack of ibuprofen (he’s old enough to break his back sneezing and still blame it on “tight hamstrings.”)

Because, clearly, judging by the way he’s confidently flipping the strap back up onto his shoulder…

He has no idea the pool is closed today.

Didn’t know there was a party. He wasn’t briefed. He didn’t glance at the laminated flyer at reception with a dolphin in a bowtie that said “Join us for the Pool Extension Gala!”

Beautiful, beautiful man. But apparently can’t read for shit.

Because he was too busy doing… FBI things.

Whatever that means.

You don’t really know what he does.

In your head it’s just a sweaty, shirt-clinging montage of him saving lives, wrestling evil, or rescuing kittens from burning houses and carrying them out in one arm while the other cradles a bleeding witness.

You just know it’s hotter than whatever the hell you do, because before he can take more than two steps into the room, he’s already being mobbed by politicians.

Actual, elected men - men with power, men with authority, men with at least three types of stress-induced hair loss and thinning temples they pretend aren’t happening.

And they know him. They recognize him.

They even lower their voices when they speak to him, they shake his hand with such reverence, you can smell their intimidation from all the way across the room.

The fear. The respect. The power. The arm veins. The way Aaron has no idea he’s the main event at a party he didn’t even know existed.

Quite ironically, on the other hand - on the small, overworked, kind of underpaid, sexually malnourished hand that is you - you haven’t slept properly in a week because of it.

Because of the stress of the endless prep and logistics and… fine, because of him too.

Sometimes at 4 a.m., you’d find yourself just… staring at the ceiling. Lying in the dark, vibrating with anxiety and something much less noble and your only two options for survival were:

Cooking. Loudly. Desperately. Whipping up reductions and spreads in your tiny kitchen, determined to perfect the fig-and-goat cheese tartlet while trying not to scream when the oven beeped and you realized the sun was already rising.

Or… Well. Let’s just say your neighbors must think you’re really, really into dental hygiene. What kind of electric toothbrush has that many vibration modes? What kind of dental tool sings at such frequency?

Answer: not a toothbrush.

It’s pink. Plastic. Takes two AA batteries and a prayer.

You may or may not bought it during a very dark week with your café tip money at 2 a.m. from the back shelf of a pharmacy, and since then it’s been the most stable relationship of your adult life.

You’ve had to steal batteries from your TV remote more than once just to get through the week.

She’s not fancy, but she gets the job done.

You’d recommend her.

You’d even recommend her to the woman now standing in front of you - if she’d stop looking at Hotchner and trying to hormonally inform him that she is, at this very moment, in the mating phase of her cycle.

It’s not even subtle - the little cleavage tug, the fluttery eyelashes, the way she’s nodding absently while you talk about acidity and finish, eyes locked on the back of his neck rolls.

You get it. You’ve been there. Last week, actually.

And even now - when you are categorically not ovulating, when you are actively trying to be a functioning member of a patriarchal society - he does, objectively, have a beautiful neck.

A neck that has almost certainly never been stressed about fig preserves or the structural integrity of a puff pastry shell.

“I’ll have that one,” she says, stopping you midway through your ramble and pointing at a bottle.

The fucking Pinot.

Of course you will.

You smile.

Because you are a professional.

Because rage doesn’t pair well with brie.

“Sure,” you say, and pour.

You handpicked twelve white wines for this event. Twelve.

Each chosen with a level of passion that should’ve been reserved for, say, human relationships or personal growth.

Some of them had to be pulled from tiny Italian cellars with shipping so disorganized you’re now on a first-name basis with a man named Lorenzo who thinks you’re unstable and possibly in love with him.

(You might be. You’ve sliced figs and cried about tannins. Your grip on reality is… soft.)

You woke up in cold sweats for a whole week wondering if the Soave made it through Zurich because Italians do not believe in emails. Or customs. Only God.

But none of it mattered, because in the end, it’s always the Pinot, for her – and all the other people that came to your stand earlier.

You call it the Aaron Hotchner Effect.

The logic goes like this:

“If in the picture, he was drinking Pinot, and I drink Pinot, then we have something in common. We can laugh. We can clink glasses.

He’d say something dry and low - “You’ve got good taste” - and brush my fingers as he takes the glass. Maybe the hand. Maybe the elbow. Maybe the fucking thigh.

We’d flirt.

And then he’d fuck me.

Some really good rough, sex up against his hardwood bed. He’d keep his tie on. Hold my wrists. Press his mouth to my shoulder to keep from making a sound, because letting go like that, making noise, would be too revealing. Too honest.

He’d fuck me until my knees gave in and my breath stuttered and my voice cracked from begging. He wouldn’t come until I had. At least three times.

And then, of course, He’d marry me.

All because I drank his wine.”

That’s the pipeline. That’s what’s happening behind their eyes.

And you can't even judge them.

You’d be doing the same, if you weren’t currently being reminded by the smell of onion jam soaked into the pocket of your apron that you’re on the job.

You’re the help, the wine girl no one listens to until the glass is already full and the flirting has failed.

But you’d do it. You would.

Just… correctly.

Because while everyone else in that cursed Facebook photo saw the bottle, you saw the glass.

His glass, the one shoved off to the side, barely in frame - because God forbid someone like Aaron Hotchner be photographed holding the fun juice. That would imply he experiences pleasure. Or whimsy. Or serotonin.

Still, you zoomed in. You don't like to admit that. You really don't. But you did.

And thanks to the course that still haunts your bank account - the one led by three men, all named Marco - you can confidently say, with devastating clarity:

That was not Pinot.

It was Verdicchio.

Lean. Salty. A little green around the edges.

The kind of wine that doesn’t care if you like it.

Citrus and sea air and something just a little bit wrong at the end, like it’s judging you.

And maybe it is.

It’s bitter. Quiet. Difficult.

Difficult also because no one knows how to properly pronounce its name - you didn’t. You butchered it every time and got scolded by each of the Marcos at least once.

(Marco One - smoking indoors in his wool turtleneck in July, would hiss, "No, no, Ver-deek-kio, not Ver-dish-ee-oh, do you want to die in shame?")

(Marco Two made you repeat it five times in a row in front of the whole class.)

(Marco Three just muttered “Madonna Santa” and poured himself another glass.)

Verdicchio doesn’t seduce.

It holds its distance, stands in the corner of the room with crossed arms, and waits for you to prove you're worth the conversation.

Half the people who taste it hate it. The other half get addicted.

It lingers. It cuts. It stays in your mouth longer than it should.

A wine with boundaries.

A wine that says: you don’t know me.

You think you do, but you don’t.

Just like Aaron.

And you tried, betraying everything the three Marcos ever taught you about integrity, balance, and correct regional pairings, to guide each of your (unwanted) patient tragically afflicted with Hotchism toward the Verdicchio.

Even when it didn’t pair with what they were eating. Even when it clashed. Even when it made your soul itch with the wrongness of a soft-rind Brie beside all that salinity.

You’re not a bitch. You don’t gatekeep. You offer your knowledge freely. Warmly. Kindly.

But you’d be lying if you said that knowing the truth didn’t make you feel good.

Smug.

A little superior.

And yes, fine, maybe that made you feel close to him.

Closer.

Maybe you are a bitch.

Because you could have said it, could have casually dropped the line - “Oh, by the way, he was drinking Verdicchio. It wasn’t the Pinot.”

You could have been generous. Transparent. Correct.

But it wouldn’t have changed anything.

You’d be out of Verdicchio instead of Pinot.

They’d still fawn.

Still flutter.

Still call him Agent Hotchner with that glazed, pseudo-coy voice like they’re already imagining what his mattress feels like.

(It’s probably very firm. Orthopedic. Recommended by his chiropractor. No softness. No give. Posture is sacred. Comfort is weakness.)

(He probably tucks the sheets so tight you’d have no choice but to scooch closer to him just to have some room to breathe. Which, obviously, is the point.)

Same thirst, different label.

Maybe you’d tell the first one who actually listens to you.

The first one who doesn’t treat you like furniture in an apron. The first one who doesn’t cut you off mid-sentence the moment they clock that the politicians are loosening their grip on him.

Maybe the reason why you have such a crush on him is because he’s everything.

And you’re- well. You’re here.

In shoes that are starting to pinch. With wine on your hands and fig paste in your hair. With bills and back pain and the slow, creeping dread that no one really sees you unless you’re holding something they want.

And even then, just barely.

He’s elegant, unreadable, capital letter Important.

You’re… nice. Warm. Cheap... cheaper.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the whole appeal.

Maybe that’s why you keep staring at him as he’s basically dragged to your tasting stand by a small parade of men who spend their days warming seats in the Senate and collecting checks for pretending they invented civic duty.

One of the men makes the effort to squint at your name tag.

You can see the gears turning in his head as he uses it - not to address you - but to soften the blow of a condescending joke he thinks is charming, such as “how rare it is to find a young woman with taste… especially one who serves.”

You smile.

Because that’s the job.

You’re the help. The scener-

“What do you mean?” Aaron asks, turned slightly toward the man, voice flat.

He looks disgusted.

(Though, in fairness, everything he says sounds vaguely judgmental. That’s just his face.)

“Oh, no… Hotchner, don’t get me wrong. I mean it as a compliment. I admire it. Not everyone’s meant to chase titles or build a résumé, you know? And that’s not a bad thing - society only works because some people are content doing the everyday stuff. The real work.”

You’re two seconds away from breaking the last Pinot bottle over his head.

Kill two birds with one stone: one bottle, one condescending prick, and finally, blissful silence.

“…We need the people who keep the wheels turning. Mechanics. Hairdressers. Cooks…”

He gestures vaguely to you, apparently your existence is now an example. A concept. An idea. Something nice to look at when dressed in black and pouring wine.

“Really,” he adds - just in case you didn’t catch the insult the first three times - “I admire it.”

“Do you always talk to people like this?” Aaron doesn’t raise his voice - just tilts his head slightly, gaze locked on the man with a kind of stillness that, for reasons you’ve yet to comprehend, is louder than yelling.

It’s unsettling.

“What? I’m paying her a compliment.” Senator Asshole tries to laugh it off.

“You’re condescending to her. It’s not the same thing.”

“Come on,” Senator Asshole chuckles, flicking a desperate glance around, “I’m just saying she’s good at what she does.”

“And I’m saying maybe you should stop talking,” Aaron hisses.

The silence is immediate.

Aaron just stares at him – for one, two, three, four??? Seconds.

Senator Asshole, sadly, does not burst into flames. He’s stolen away by Councillor Buttchin, who probably heard everything and tries to mop it up with the limp excuse of needing to discuss “urban renewal”

(Meaning: gentrification. The rich man’s robbery.)

And so Aaron watches him leave, before he turns back to you.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “The asshole didn’t even apologise.”

(He’s very hot when he swears.)

You wave it off. “It’s alright.”

“No. It’s not. It’s disgust-”

“It’s not the first time,” you cut him off. Because you don’t want to hear it. The apology. The concern. The male guilt wrapped in decency like it's somehow revolutionary.

Yes, thank you for noticing misogyny exists. Gold star.

You’ve done the bare minimum and you’re very tall so it feels like more. Congratulations on not being a monster.

At least, that’s what the rational part of you is saying. The one with a spine. The one that reads theory and donates when she can.

The other part – the one currently regulating the lubrication levels of a certain region of your body that apparently believes being mildly defended by a man with forearms like that is enough to justify reproduction - has… other thoughts.

Darwin would call it natural selection.

You’d call it bringing feminism back fifty years in one pelvic pulse.

But maybe your body’s oh-so-romantically prepping for insemination because he doesn’t make a speech.

He doesn’t continue to perform, doesn’t launch into a well-rehearsed monologue about respect, social or say something like “I have a lot of female friends, my mom is a woman, for instance.”

He doesn’t explain how decent he is.

He just… nods. Gives you a flicker of a concerned half-smile (because he’s a dad, and concern is hardwired into his frontal cortex, right between disapproval and knows best.)

But it’s quiet. Undramatic.

Like he saw it. Heard it. Filed it.

And now he’s moving on. Not because it didn’t matter. But because it did.

And not just emotionally, physically. Actually moving-moving.

Shifts halfway down the shorter end of your stand - not technically in your area, but just close enough that if he got any nearer, people might start asking him what cheese pairs with a Chablis.

(Which would be a disaster, because he looks like he’d say “cheddar” and then stare you down until you corrected him.)

Close enough to feel like a choice.

He doesn’t look at you. Scans the room instead, until his gaze lands on something. Someone.

“See that guy?” he says, nodding subtly toward ‘that guy’ across the room.

You follow the gesture.

Ah. That guy.

Mid-thirties.

You don’t know his name.

You just know he’s always suspiciously nearby. Hovering. Lurking. Casually orbiting the table where you sit every week in the pool cafeteria while waiting for your friend to finish her laps.

Objectively hot - if your type is broad shoulders, hollow eyes, and a divorce lawyer in waiting (and it pretty much is, unfortunately.)

He has a kid, you’re pretty sure. And a wedding ring he forgets to forget.

The kind of man who blames his wife’s headaches instead of confronting the fact he thinks the clitoris was a Greek philosopher.

(“Clitoris? He makes an appearance in Plato’s Symposium, doesn’t he?”)

“He’s been battling with himself over asking for your number for about a month,” Aaron says. “Still hasn’t managed it.”

Oooooooooooooookay.

Weird. Unexpected. Also deeply awkward.

(How strange that it’s not you making things weird for once.)

“And…” you trail off, because you’re too distracted by how he looks like he’s regretting it all - what a loser. “You’re saying this because you want me to hand it to him directly?”

“Oh, not at all.” Boy. That was fast. Too fast. “…he’s married.” You knew that already. “…You shouldn’t-”

“I shouldn’t?” You blink.

“Um, you…” He shakes his head, “You should… just… know this.”

…Right.

Aaron’s wife definitely cheated on him. Or maybe he’s just a prude. Or a control freak.

All possible. All extremely inconvenient. Poor him. Or maybe he deserved it, who knows.

“…Thanks,” you say flatly. “You… want something to drink?”

You ask because it’s polite… and also because he’s technically clogging the line forming behind him (all faint whiffs of Pinot settling directly into your nostrils from people pretending they need a refill, when really, they just want to stand near him.)

(Mr. Aaron.)

(Awkward-mr.-Aaron.)

(Socially-repressed-emotionally-terrifying-mr.-Aaron.)

(Mr. very-much-returning-to-the-place-he’s-meant-to-be, mr. Aaron.)

(Mr. leaning-in-to-read-the-wine-list, mr. Aaron.)

(Mr-)

“How did you know about the guy?” slips out of you, as you’re already pouring something into an empty glass just to keep moving… you don’t even look at the bottle.

No pear. So, not Pinot. (Small victories.)

“He always sits on the side of the table facing you, instead of watching his son’s swimming lesson like the rest of the parents.”

Yeah, okay, that guy is a bit way too obvious, but the problem only continues to be him.

Aaron.

“He straightens his posture every time you laugh.”

Aaron, who shouldn’t have time to notice these things. Who stops by every other week, maybe. Maybe less. Always suited. Always in a rush. Always delivering the same three lines.

“Americano, no sugar.”

“Card.”

“Have a nice day.”

He never lingers. He doesn’t sit. Doesn’t even stir the coffee. Just takes it and goes. Gone before the register beeps. FBI stuff awaiting for him.

“He ordered the same drink as you twice. Didn’t drink it. He doesn’t like cappuccino, he only did that because he thought you’d notice him”

So, how the hell does Aaron know? How does he notice you? Because he must have.

Somewhere in those two-minute drop-ins. In the blur between Card and Have a nice day. In the handful of seconds he’s ever been within ten feet of you.

Unless…

“Puts his phone down when you walk in. Doesn’t check it again until you’re gone.”

Unless he did look. Unless he looked specifically at you. Out of all the people. All the tables. All the parents and staff and regulars.

“His son finishes swimming before your friend. He doesn’t leave. Doesn’t talk to anyone else. Always finds something to do. Phone. Book. Pretending to read the sign about pool shoes.”

He saw you. And he remembered.

Which means…

“Always leaves five minutes after you. Never before. Never with anyone else.”

He’s either been paying attention. Or this big, terrifying federal agent is actually just… a massive gossip.

You freeze, because he picks up the glass you poured.

It wasn’t meant for him. You didn’t even know what it was.

Aaron swirls it once.

Leans in. Smells it.

Then brings it to his lips-

And hums.

A low, pleased little sound that settles right between your legs lungs, ergo straight to your heart. Because you’re a professional. And you take the sommelier thing very seriously.

You’re just passionate about your craft.

Especially about praise.

You love being praised.

On the job.

For the wine.

“People give a lot of themselves away when they want someone,” he says softly, almost kind.

Then he licks his lips. Just to clean the red off.

But it’s slow. Thoughtless. (Only makes it worse for you, honestly.)

You’re magnetically locked onto that smart mouth, so it’s easy to catch the small smile he gives you before turning and walking away.

Still with that soggy pool bag slung over his shoulder.

Fuck.

The things you wouldn’t do to that man.

“Can I have what he just had?” the next woman in line asks, already stepping up.

Of course you can.

That’s the point of lines, isn’t it? You wait your turn, you get what you want, and you leave. No lingering. No swooning. No involuntary pelvic lurches.

Survival.

Even if the sommelier - oh, that’s you! What a coincidence - would swear to drink Pinot for an entire godforsaken month just for five more seconds with that huge, handsome, back in that goddamn navy shirt… and that mouth too.

You glance at the bottle in your hand.

What did you even pour?

Oh. Of course.

It’s that wine.

The one you only open on nights when you’re either crying or coming.

The one that tasted like a mistake the first time and like a need every time after.

Aglianico.

Black fruit. Smoke. Leather.

Earthy. Dense. A little savage around the edges.

Unapologetic.

Masculine.

Slow to open.

Demands patience.

Tastes better if you wait for it.

Like all the worst things.

And all the best ones.

What a coincidence, really.

Phi's Corner: requests for fleabag!reader x Hotch are (wide) open(ed)!

taglist: @beata1108 ; @c-losur3 ; @fangirlunknown ; @hayleym1234 ; @justyourusualash ; @khxna ; @kyrathekiller ; @littlemisskavities ; @lostinwonderland314 ; @mmmunson ; @mxblobby ; @oxforce ; @percysley ; @person-005 ; @prettybaby-reid ; @reidfile ; @royalestrellas ; @ssa-callahan ; @softestqueeen ; @theseerbetweenus ; @todorokishoe24

#fleabag!reader #aaron hotchner #hotch #aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x reader #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner imagine

516 notes · View notes