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whiskey-bumblebee · 1 year

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I'm On Fire (Chapter 2)

Pairing: DBF!Aaron Hotchner/Reader

Word Count: 2470

Warnings: older Hotch/younger reader, cheating, daddy issues, a little bit of angst

Taglist: @littlepeanut03 @rosaline-black @moonmark98 @yuly @jazzymariexoxoc @frogoko @morgthemagpie

You're staring at the kitchen sink, a full glass of water on the counter to your left. Alone again. It's been days since you've seen your dad.

You let your head rest in your hands as you prop your elbows up on the counter. Aaron had left his number in your phone when he dropped you back home after your late night drive. You were using every ounce of strength not to call him.

It had been a week or so since that night, or morning, you supposed, since you'd watched the sun rise together, when you teased him for his Spartan taste in coffee and breakfast food. You hadn't heard anything, and you were starting to think it must have meant nothing to him. You were nothing but his friend's daughter. Another thing to take care of, like the unmown grass, or filing taxes.

Despite how little you seemed to mean to him, you couldn't stop replaying your conversations in your mind. Although you'd been sleeping for much of the time, when you were awake, you'd talked about everything. He'd opened up about Haley, the way that their marriage was slowly disintegrating because of their different goals, his difficult work schedule. He'd hesitated before telling you another piece, unsure if it was even appropriate to mention it to you.

"She's started..." He sighed. "She's started trying to tamper with the birth control we use. She hasn't refilled her prescription for the pill in a while and..."

He turned away from you as much as he could, fixing his gaze on something on the left of the horizon. His voice dropped to a low whisper.

"The other night when we were... You know what I mean. She tried to pull off the condom. A week ago I was looking in my bedside table for one of my watches, and the condoms were all over the place. The drawer was sticky, so I picked up one of them," He paused again. "It had a hole in it. I thought okay, leak, I'll just throw this one out. But I looked at one of the others, just in case, and..."

"Oh my god," You said softly. "Aaron, that's not okay. If someone I was dating did something like that..."

You felt your jaw clench. How fucking awful was that? Trying to trap him with a baby? It was one thing to try and convince him, to try and save their marriage, to talk about why he was hesitant, but it was a different thing entirely to start taking matters into her own hands. It would obliterate the last of the trust between them. It was sick.

He'd talked a little about his college years, but his playful smile told you there was a lot he was holding back.

"C'mon, Seattle in the 90s? You must have gotten up to no good," You said, trying to eke out some information. "Concerts, weed, girls?"

"I focused on studying," He said, and pressed his lips together.

"You're lying again. That's one of your tells," You pointed at his lips. "You go like this."

You mimicked his expression, the physical manifestation of withholding information or some emotion.

He looked over at you and laughed. "You'd make a good profiler."

"Profiling," You said dreamily. "And you get to travel all over the place. What's it like?"

"It's hard work," He said slowly. "A lot of the time it's unpleasant. But I like to think we make a difference."

"Could you profile me?"

He looked over at you, his expression serious.

"It's not like astrology, or palm-reading" He said. "You might not like what I have to say."

"I won't hold it against you," You replied. "I'm sure none of it will really be new to me. I spend a lot of time thinking about who I am and how I got here."

"You're independent, probably more than you should be, but that says more about your father than it does about you." He paused, taking a breath, and looked over at you again, sadness in his eyes this time. "You're constantly reading the people around you, or at least me, trying to figure out what they're thinking."

You nodded. "It's not just you."

He pulled into the drive through, joining the long line of cars queuing for their morning coffee. For a moment, you thought about how the two of you must look to anyone who took a second to look through the windscreen or one of the windows. You, in a salt-starched button up shirt. Aaron, in a faded blue t-shirt and the joggers you'd been wearing a few hours before. A strange pair of lovers, or maybe just a strange pair.

"The reason you read everyone is because you use it as a pre-emptive defense mechanism. If you know how everyone is feeling, you can adjust your behaviour to avoid making anyone upset."

"Oh," You said. "So that makes me... a psychopath, or something?"

Aaron chuckled and shook his head, looking at you properly now that the car was safely stopped. "No. It makes you like a lot of other women."

"Oh," You said again, somehow feeling even more dejected. "Just ordinary."

He shook his head, reaching across the centre console to wipe some salt from your cheek. "You're far from ordinary."

"Next in line," Came the staticky voice from the speaker. "How can I help you?"

"What do you want?" He whispered.

"Something sweet," You replied. "And a bagel."

He relayed the information to the disembodied voice.

"Is that all?"

"No, could I also get a black coffee? No cream, no sugar, and do you have a bacon and egg sandwich?"

"Sure. Drive up to the next window."

"Thank you," Aaron replied, shooting you a conspiratorial smile. Why did you feel like you were getting away with something?

"Mr. Bacon and Egg," You teased.

"What?" He replied, reaching for his wallet. "Nothing wrong with the classics."

There was a knock at your door, and you jumped. Your dad?

You took a big sip of water before making your way to the door, then peered through one of the little glass windows to see who it was. With a sigh of relief, you undid the deadbolt. Aaron.

"Is your dad home?" He looked you up and down, but there was no hunger in it.

Your brow furrowed. "No."

"We need to talk," He said, letting himself in, locking the door.

Your stomach dropped through the floor. Here it comes. He's going to tell me that I've been coming onto him and it needs to stop. Head heavy with shame, you let your body fall to the couch and looked down at the rug. He's married, how did you think this was going to end?

"Haley's leaving me."

You looked at him, waiting for the next sentence. None came.

"Aaron," You breathed. "I'm so sorry."

"I went for a drive," He said. "To the beach. In Delaware."

There was a long silence, and he walked to the kitchen and back, bringing you the glass of water you'd abandoned.

You took another sip, looking down at the floor again.

"I..." He took a seat beside you.

You looked at him, searching his face.

"I can't read you," You said softly. "You need to tell me."

He looked deep into your eyes, no doubt seeing the feelings you had for him. You couldn't put words to them yet, but you had a feeling your eyes were telling a story your heart hadn't yet been able to commit to. "I didn't like the beach."

Agony tearing through you, you broke the eye contact, rubbing your face with one of your hands. What had you expected?

He took your hand in his, pulling it from your face. His grip was rough, but it was nothing compared to the confusion and pain radiating through your body.

"No," He said insistently. "I didn't like the beach because... It wasn't the beach. It was you."

You looked at him hopefully, praying to every god whose name you'd ever learned that your heart was right to start beating wildly, full of anticipation.

He whispered your name, his hand coming to the side of your face as the space between you seemed to shrink.

"Haley wouldn't mind," You whispered.

"She wouldn't," He replied, his face close enough to yours that certain syllables sent his lips brushing against yours. He rubbed his nose against yours, waiting to be seized by a sudden rush of morality. It didn't come.

You closed the gap between you, taking his chin between your thumb and forefinger, sealing your lips to his. For a moment you stayed like that, just pressing your lips together, not moving, hardly breathing.

Then it was like lightning- his lips moving against yours, his weight starting to shift on top of your body as you slipped beneath him, your hands moving to cup his back, hips dropping open to accommodate his body in this new position. The harsh noises of your breathing between frantic kisses, the wet sound as your tongue just barely left your mouth, tracing over his lips. A thud as his hand met the arm of the couch, supporting his weight. And if that all was lightning, the electric lick of light across a bright sky, the rest was apocalypse, the hounds of hell breaking loose as your bodies settled against each other, his tongue snaking across your lips, testing the seam of them, whether you'd let him in. You tugged his bottom lip between your teeth, running your tongue across the slightly swollen skin as you released his lip.

You settled into a rhythmic tempo, swaying against each other like the waves on the shore, the push and the pull like something divinely inspired, driven by the moon, something of a greater magnitude than mere magnetism. Something like gravity.

When you broke away, it was all changed. Even from this distance, hardly an inch away from him, you knew the world had tilted on its axis. You became aware of the sound of children playing outside, the ring of a bicycle's bell. You were certain that if you walked outside, you'd see them riding their bicycles straight into the sky, or the birds would be flying upside down. The warmth of the sun would radiate from the ground, and the tickle of the grass would rain down on you.

Your eyelashes seemed like monuments as you blinked slowly, attempting to clear your vision. When you opened your eyes, nothing had changed. There he was. There you were.

The sun warmed your bare skin as you curled into Aaron's chest. Something about the kiss had been draining, as beautiful as it was, and you'd led him upstairs to rest. He traced shapes on your back.

"That was intense," He said, finally.

"I'm tired," You said, suddenly feeling like you might cry.

"I shouldn't stay."

You tilted your head to look up at him, taking a moment to appreciate the way that he looked in your bed, his short dark hair contrasting with your cream-coloured pillow.

"You could," You said.

He shook his head.

"I thought you said Haley left?"

He nodded. "She did. But your dad could come back any minute."

It was your turn to shake your head. "He won't be here until Tuesday. He stays at her place from Thursday night until Tuesday morning so they can have weekends."

"Generous definition of weekend," He scoffed. "He should take better care of you."

"He makes sure there's food when he comes. And besides, I can take care of myself."

"You shouldn't have to," He said softly, stroking your cheek with the back of his hand. His voice was filled with fondness, and you broke his gaze so you could rest your head against his chest again.

"You take care of me," You whispered.

"I could," He whispered. "You deserve to know what it feels like."

There were butterflies in your stomach. You lay like that for another hour, waiting to decide what to do. There was no clear path forward, you knew that much.

"I should go," He murmured. "I have some errands to run before everything closes for the night, and work in the morning."

"What are we going to do?" You said softly, sitting upright.

He sat up too, swinging his legs out of the bed.

"What if this is it?" He replied. "The simplest thing to do would be to leave it here."

"Aaron," You said, your voice breaking. "I couldn't live."

You reached for your phone.

"Can I take a photo of us? So at least I know it wasn't a dream?"

His mind flicked to Penelope, and her incredible capacity for unearthing files from anywhere. Your phone was far from secure, and he just couldn't risk a photo like that ending up somewhere it shouldn't.

He shook his head. "It's too risky. No one should find out about this."

You sighed, looking over at the wall, the last of the day's light filling the room with light, although it was limited to a square in the shape of the window.

You took him by the chin, pulling him gently into the light.

He laughed.

"What?"

"Hell of a metaphor," He said, shaking his head with a small smile.

You raised an eyebrow at him, but he shook his head. You dropped the subject and gestured at his shadow on the wall, the silhouette of his head.

"How about this?"

You leaned into the light, leaving your silhouettes facing each other.

He nodded. "That works."

Careful not to let your phone cast a shadow, you framed the shot and looked at him while he looked at you, both of you fighting back wide smiles. Your phone clicked softly, and you checked to make sure the picture was okay. You nodded and showed it to him. He smiled and kissed your forehead, wrapping an arm around you.

"This isn't going to be easy," He said.

You took one of his hands in both of yours, and looked at him seriously. "I don't need easy. I do need you."

You both sat there for a moment, letting your words hang in the air and permeate your skin.

"God," You breathed. "I can't believe you said what if this is it? I couldn't leave things here. I'd die."

"How about this?" He said, echoing your words from earlier. You followed his gaze as he looked down at his hands. He slipped off his gold wedding ring and placed it on your bedside table.

"My promise this isn't it."

You looked at him, tears forming in your eyes, and nodded.

He took your hands in his, and pressed a kiss to them before enclosing them completely in his.

#aaron hotchner/reader #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner #hotch x reader #hotch #criminal minds #my writing #i'm on fire #dbf!hotch

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