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thinkingbrainthoughts · 1 month

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We're Going to Be Friends

Summary: How Y/N and Aaron first start talking during their time in college (Aaron shouldn't be let into a lab)(also yeah, listen to the song when you read if you want)

Word Count: 2k

Authors Note: I don't think anyone really noticed but I'm sorry this took a second longer than normal to get out. I just had a really weirdly abrupt and messy break up (?) and when I usually write I've just been sleeping but we are doing better now that that's been resolved but like- guys what the fuck? Anyway, this was nice to write to kinda get out of my head. Cheers xoxo

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It was your first day in the forensics chemistry lab after waiting two years to even be let into the lab space. You held your bound lab notebook to your chest as you walked in alongside the rest of the class and took your places at the lab benches, silently picking your lab partners. You were with a wiry girl with big blonde curly hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Hey at least she looked smart- it meant you wouldn’t have to carry the two of you to an A grade. As the class waited for the professor to come in you couldn’t help but overhear the laughter from across the classroom. Your head looked up to the source of the noise only to see the grinning Aaron Hotchner looking at his lab partner. Aaron and you had been in many of the same classes but had never really interacted beyond the polite head nod when bumping into each other. Sure there was nothing wrong with him, in fact, there was a lot that was right with him. He was handsome, in a bit of a nerdy Clark Kent sort of way, always looking like he rolled out of bed effortlessly and threw him glasses on before running to class. He was also fairly nice when it came to the general population. The Criminal Justice pathway in uni was highly competitive so it often meant everyone was insanely cutthroat, but he was always offering hints and help to others you’d notice. He was smart, very smart, but was very humble about it, in a way that only someone watching him could really realize how much he knew, and unfortunately, you did. Not even purposefully, but your eyes always had a way of falling onto the back of his head in class. Perhaps it was because he was the most attractive man in the cohort, or perhaps it was because you were just so intrigued at his charm.

The lab started and you were drawn from your thoughts as you tied your hair back and slipped on the snug safety goggles, glad that they even made everyone, even him, look a little bit dorkier. You and your lab partner (who you found out went by Jen), started setting up the titration and you pulled out your lab notebook to start writing the results down. The two of you small-talked about classes and movies as she slowly let the base solution drip into the acid, waiting for it to eventually turn pink. After running through a round you two switched positions and you leaned over as you tried to line up the new beaker under the buret.

Swiftly there was a new figure besides you. At first you assumed it was the professor, about to harass you about some incorrect technique or form, but you were surprised to see it was Aaron. He grinned as he looked down at you, and you suddenly felt very self conscious about leaning over so far in front of the buret. You quickly snapped up, standing straight, focusing on the buret with a reddening face.

“You’re Y/N right?” he asked. How he knew your name was beyond you, you’d never really talked to him before beyond a few yes or no’s.

“Yeah,” you answered, trying to maintain a calm demeanor, still intently focusing on the meniscus in the buret.

“Do you know where the sodium hydroxide is? I need some more,” he asked.

“Um, it’s just over there, you should just have to pipette it into your beaker,” you said, pointing to the dark brown container kept under the chemistry hood. His mouth formed an ‘o’ as he slowly nodded looking over.

“I see, thank you!” he said in a chipper demeanor as he walked over.

“What the hell was that about?” Jen asked, jumping onto anything other than the mundane topics. Your face reddened again as you didn’t even know what the hell that was about.

“What do you mean?” you asked, turning to face her, but before she could elaborate Aaron was back.

“Hey Y/N have you used one of those automatic pipettes before?” he asked sheepishly, holding a still empty beaker. You finally turned to face him and looked up. God he really was tall, or were you just short…nevermind that all.

“Have you not?” you asked, a bit shocked he’d gotten this far without having been subjected to one in high school or the general labs. He grinned again shrugged,

“Think you can help a poor guy out?”. You felt your stomach do a bit of a flip as you mumbled some sort of an agreement under your breath. He handed you the beaker once you were at the sodium hydroxide and you tried to explain the process and how to use the pipette. He made sure to make a dramatic show of nodding before you handed him back his beaker. You handed him back the beaker and stared at him a second before rolling your eyes,

“You know how to do this you little-” you started going off at him before he grinned mischievously,

“You do it so good though!” he exclaimed and nudged your arm which did shut you up, “You always just seem like you know what you’re doing,” he added.

“I don’t know about- ah- thanks,” you mumbled as you looked around the room, trying to avoid eye contact, not knowing where any of this was coming from. Has he really been paying attention to you this whole time? He thought you were smart? He thought you knew what you were doing? Was he complimenting you? He laughed and walked back to his lab bench as you went back to yours and apologized to Jen.

“You still don’t know what that’s all about?” she laughed under her breath as she pointed her pencil at you. Going back to the buret you shook your head.

“Honest to god I didn’t even think he knew my name,” you said, with a small smile, “he just wanted me to do his damn work for him though,”.

Another hour later once the lab was about halfway done your feet started hurting from standing for so long. You regretted not wearing better ones, but how were you supposed to know… As you were stretching your back and trying to get comfortable you made eye contact with Aaron from across the lab. The goofball had a thing of sodium hydroxide right next to him on his side of the lab this whole time. He never needed to come to your side. Instead of looking away he smiled and waved. You snorted to yourself and bit your bottom lip as you quickly waved back before looking back to your experiment.

After the tortuous three hour lab was finally done you let down your hair and threw your lab goggles into your backpack, catching yourself in a mirror on the way out and realizing just how bad the marks left behind on your face were.

“Raccoon eyes!” Jen laughed as she appeared by you in the mirror, finding herself in a similar situation.

“How the hell are we supposed to be taken seriously on campus like this?” you laughed as you tried to see if pulling on your skin helped at all, but much to your chagrin it did nothing.

“I mean they’ll just be jealous we get to do labs instead of just lecture all day,” Jen hummed as she waved goodbye. You smiled and waved back as you threw your backpack over your shoulder and moved to follow.

“Y/N!” Aaron yelled from behind you, getting you to look over your shoulder, “Look we’re twins,” he laughed as he pointed to his face, also having deep marks from the goggles around his glasses on his forehead and cheeks. You couldn’t help but laugh not only at his comment but also how absurd it was that he was now treating you like a close friend.

“I think we all learned our lesson today with the goggles,” you said as you started walking out, with him falling into step beside you.

“You heard the professor: goggles on, risk gone,” he recited, doing an excellent impression of your professor which garnered another laugh from you. “Hey, so I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while, but um, do you want to study together? You’ve always been getting the top grades in our classes and you don’t seem like a total nerd…” he said, trailing off as he tried to think of a way to finish the sentence.

“A total nerd?” you asked, faking shock at his accusation.

“See- you can take a joke,” he defended himself and holding his hands up, holding the door open for you with his hip, “I’m trying to get into the FBI, y’know, and I know I heard you are too, so I was thinking of proposing a sort of pact?” he continued to explain, glancing down to see your reaction. You met his eyes before quickly darting back down. It’s true, you did want to be a part of the FBI, as stupid a dream it sounded some days. At the beginning of the year one of your classes had you all go around and discuss what you wanted to do in the long-run, mostly just so then the professor could guilt you into remembering you saying that when students were struggling.

“I’ll bite,” you say simply with a nod, “you’re really stand out in the psychology classes,” you added.

“And you’re a genius at the science stuff!” he said, turning to walk backwards in front of you, keeping his pace right ahead of yours as he talked facing you, “you’re seeing the vision!”. You couldn’t help but laugh again as you looked at him getting giddy.

“Okay okay, don’t trip,” you said as you pulled his wrist so he was back in step with you, both of you smiling like idiots at this point, knowing that this would be the start of a special friendship.

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A/N yeah I'll stand by Aaron being a total college himbo (/endearing) and I'll probably write whatever big event causes him to get serious near the end of his time in college and turn into the daddy hotch we know and love.

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