Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Don’t!” Derek cried out, swatting at Hotch’s hand as it moved dangerously close to his hand, a natural instinct for him to reach out and touch to try and help. It was something he’d done with Jack enough times that it was instinct, reach out and inspect the damage, assess, dress the wound. He was so calm that Derek almost let him at first, until his vision went red, until he was startled by how dangerously close Hotch was to his blood. Derek pulled his hand closer and pushed Hotch away almost in unison. “Don’t touch me.”

Hotch, confused, stepped back. His eyes danced over the scene, an onion on the cutting board splattered with blood, Derek’s hand hovering over the sink, tiny droplets of red everywhere. “What?”

“Just get me a bandaid and don’t touch anything okay?”

“Derek…”

“Hotch please.”

Hotch did as he was told without further argument, heading for the bathroom to get the good first aid kit. There was one beneath the kitchen sink but he knew it was depleted, needed desperately to be restocked, he just hadn’t had the time. Now he was beating himself up. By the time he got back, Derek was holding a wad of paper towels over his hand and Hotch still had no idea how badly or where he’d actually cut himself. Just an onion and a knife.

“May I see it?” Hotch asked in his calmest voice. The look Derek gave him was that of a wounded and afraid animal. He couldn’t understand why. Something had changed in that split second.

“Don’t touch anything.” He offered his hand, palm up, to Hotch. Careful to keep distance. Blood was running in rivulets from the side of Derek’s thumb, one long thin slice. Slowly, like honey, the rivers flowed toward the floor. Derek felt faint at the sight of it.

“You need stitches.”

“Just get me some gauze and tape.”

Derek patched himself up with shaking hands and continued to bat Hotch away every time he attempted to either help or clean.

“Derek what is going on?” He knew. There was no reason for Derek to behave this way otherwise, but he needed to hear it. He’d lived through it too. Lost plenty of friends to it. And in that instant he was grieving another loss, as if Derek were already gone, because no matter how things changed they always stayed the same. Diagnosis meant death. He’d known plenty to die, and he’d known none to live.

Derek met Hotch’s glare and shrugged helplessly. What else was there to do? “I have HIV. I’ve had it a long time and I take my pills on time every time and I’ve got a really good doctor…”

Hotch didn’t mean to look as shocked as he did, he knew Derek could have used a very different reaction but it just didn’t compute no matter what mental gymnastics he attempted. Derek didn’t look sick. In fact, he looked like the healthiest person Hotch had ever known. His breathing became shallow as he searched the depths of his mind for something to say.

“Hotch?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.”

“Look, I probably shoulda told you sooner but it’s never come up. I’ve been really lucky with my treatments, and the FBI knows, I disclosed right away. I know all of the field protocols. I just need you to trust me. I’m not gonna get anyone sick.”

“I didn’t…” Hotch started, unable to hide the offense he took at the insinuation that he was worried Derek would get anyone sick. That Derek was somehow dirty. It had never occurred to him, not once in all his years of fighting this war had he ever seen it as something dirty. Maybe he was too close to see it, but he doubted that. “I don’t think…”

“Okay. I get it. I’m sorry it had to come up like this, I’ve wanted to tell you so many times but it never felt like the right time.”

Hotch nodded solemnly.

“Look, it’s really no big deal. I mean, it was at first. But it’s been ten years, I’m on a really good cocktail, my blood counts are always really good and my doctor is hopeful that they’re on the verge of a really big breakthrough. I guess there have been some pretty significant research studies given the greenlight recently, I just gotta stay healthy until they come around.”

“Ten years?” Hotch whispered, finding his voice. Derek had been saddled with this thing, this huge thing, for his entire adult life. Suddenly that faraway sadness he’d always seen in Derek’s eyes called out to him, this was a man who had already planned for the eventuality of his own death. He’d probably already planned his funeral so it wouldn’t fall on his mother and sisters. No wonder he never got attached to anyone, no wonder he never seemed to get himself into anything that lasted more than a couple of months. That was long enough...just barely...to convince someone that not having sex was normal. After that...well he’d either have to tell them or hit the road. Hotch was familiar with that, he’d buried three good friends from college who weren’t so fortunate.

Ten years. He still couldn’t quite believe that. No one he’d known ever made it past two, and here was Derek sitting at ten looking like a god among men.

“Yeah. It’s been a while. Are we good?”

“Do you know how you got it?”

“Yeah,” Derek said with a shrug. His nonchalance was jarring. “I do. But I’d rather not talk about it though. It’s in the past. What matters now is that we’re here, and I think I need to get some stitches in my thumb because I’m bleeding a lot and my hand is going numb. Can you drive me to the Urgent Care?”

“Absolutely.”

Hotch was careful to let Derek take the lead, watching as he cradled his hand against his midsection gently, keeping the wound as covered as he could. He was watching for blood everywhere he went.

It took two hours at the clinic to get his stitches, and Hotch let him stay on his own. He’d offered to come in but Derek refused, said it was a waste for both of them to sit there. “Go do your own thing. We’ll get takeout when I’m done now that my kitchen is a biohazard.”

“I can go clean it up.”

“Absolutely not. Stay outta there, man. I’m not kidding.”

“Derek, do you think I’ve never been around someone positive before? Three men I went to law school with died of AIDS before you were even diagnosed. One of them was positive and didn’t know it when we were together. I had to submit to a barrage of tests for a long time after, to make sure I wasn’t positive too. I was fortunate. Whatever that means.”

“Hotch…”

“I was studying for the bar and taking care of a dying friend, Derek. I know how to clean up infected blood...among other things. Let me do this.”

Derek appeared to give it serious thought as he stood in the parking lot, caught between wanting to let Hotch in and being scared something would go horribly wrong. He could never live with himself if Hotch was infected because of his negligence. He’d never gotten this close to anyone, it was always cut and run for their safety long before he would ever have to say a word. “Okay,” he said, finally giving in. He knew whether he said yes or not, it was likely Hotch would go clean up the mess anyway. He may as well give his blessing and mitigate the damage. Avoid a fight. “But I swear if you…”

“I promise to be safe. I will wear gloves.”

He was safe. He knew exactly what he was doing, he’d cleaned his entire apartment in college every single day until his own hands were dry and cracked. Scrubbing surfaces with ammonia so often he probably should have found a way to buy stock in the stuff. It wasn’t that much blood, it was contained mostly to the kitchen counter and the sink, a few small splotches on the floor where they’d stood just a little too long in their stunned silence. He threw away the cutting board and cleaned the knife and the surrounding areas with ammonia. Three times over he took the ammonia, and then threw the sponge away with his gloves, never touching the exterior with his skin. The memories it dragged up were a burning effigy and he cried while he scrubbed at the counter wondering why this was his lot in life. Why every time something good happened, it was taken from him with a quickness that left skidmarks in its wake. He wouldn’t try again, that was for sure. Not after this. He would see this through to the end, whenever that might be, and close off his heart. He couldn’t do it anymore.

But he would go buy Derek some new cutting boards before picking him up from the clinic, that would eat up some time and provide him with a hopeful distraction. Cutting boards meant time, they meant meals, they meant life. There was a nice little kitchen store in a strip mall on the way back, high end nonsense he didn’t have much use for but he felt bad throwing away Derek’s cutting board and he needed something to pull him back from the brink.

The kitchen store felt oddly familiar. Like he’d done this before. It took a few aisles to figure out that he had, he’d been here before doing this same thing. For Alan in 1988. A cutting board. He couldn’t remember the circumstance though he suspected it had been this exact scenario. Cutting something. Not an onion though. Broccoli? A tomato? They ate a lot of caprese salad, feeling metropolitan with their buffalo mozzarella and balsamic vinegar. Everything between them burned hot and fast, the fashion of the day. Everything except their love, that was constant and still took up space inside of him though Alan was long gone.

But it wasn’t tomatoes, not that time. It was cabbage. They were making coleslaw. Alan had been craving fried fish and coleslaw with raisins. Hotch insisted he would do the cooking and they’d argued, Alan refused to admit he couldn’t do as much, that he was getting weaker so Hotch let him slice the cabbage. It seemed safer than him with hot frying oil. In retrospect...well he was so young, he didn’t know any better. He didn’t know to anticipate the blood. That was when it hit him, when Alan was hunched over the sink with his hand under the running water, blood splashing all over the place. It was pure horror. He couldn’t kiss Alan for a week after, he couldn’t even touch him. He felt awful for it now. It still touched him in nightmares. The guilt would last him a lifetime.

So he bought Derek three new cutting boards, really nice ones. Hand-made, hand-carved. Thick oiled wood. Beautiful charred woodgrain and a few bottles of oil to keep them in good shape. He dropped more money on cutting boards (and a few other kitchen gadgets that he thought looked fun or like something Derek might get a kick out of) than he usually did on a good suit when all was said and done.

It still wasn’t enough. It might never be enough.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Derek said when he looked through the bags Aaron had purchased, digging through with one hand while the other sat useless in his lap. Six stitches and a numb hand later, he was ready to call it a night. “I mean you really didn’t...I never use my kitchen. You know that man, we’re never home.”

“I like when we cook,” Hotch said quietly. “It’s nice.”

Derek, with tears in his eyes, just stared into the bag of cutting boards. Every nightmare he’d ever had flashed before him. Every time he ran away, played the part of the dog so easily just to avoid the honesty, the looks, the accusations. The terrified way they had of recounting every moment they’d spent with Derek just to make sure they hadn’t been exposed to his filth. And here was Hotch buying him kitchen accouterments, practically begging to come closer.

“Can we take a rain check on dinner? I’m tired,” Derek said finally, tearing his eyes away from the bag that was a lot more than a bag. It was heavy and full of life, a life he didn’t deserve, a life he could never live. What was he supposed to do, leave these cutting boards to Hotch when he died? His will was already filled out and he didn’t have any room for cutting boards in it.

“Sure.”

“Thanks man.”

Derek’s life had been forfeit since he began playing football for Northwestern. Since that damn physical, since the blood test that told him Carl Buford would be with him forever. He didn’t have the nerve to confront the man, to ask if he’d known what he was doing, but he suspected it was intentional. As much as that could be, anyway. He’d meant to pass it on.

As he stood in his kitchen, alone with the remnants of what was going to be a shared dinner between two men tiptoeing around something that could get pretty serious, he wondered what the hell he was doing. It wasn’t fair to involve himself with anyone knowing that it couldn’t ever be forever, it couldn’t even be a real commitment. What could he commit to besides a life spent tracking T-cells and praying for a miracle? He was healthy now, his last bloodwork came back outstanding, but there was a ticking timebomb inside of him. The way that Hotch looked at him, brimming with hope, hurt worse than anything. He was a man who was made to be monogamous, he was crafted from the very idea of forever. He just was. And Derek wanted that more than anything, but if he couldn’t give forever then what was he doing at all?

He stayed in all weekend, expecting to get a call about a case and glad they didn’t. Not this time. He had six stitches in his thumb and a melancholy ache in his chest that couldn’t be cured by anything in a doctor’s office. He knew that for certain because he’d tried, he had an entire pharmacy at his disposal in his medicine cabinet and none of it took the edge off.

“We need to stop,” Derek said on Monday morning, entering Hotch’s office with a confident stride. It was all false bravado. His heart was breaking. “I always knew it was going to be hard, but after Friday night…”

“Why?”

“What you want, I can’t give you. We can’t be intimate, not really...and I can’t give you forever. Hell, I can’t even promise you years.”

“I never asked you to promise me anything, Derek.”

Frustrated at Hotch’s stern refusal to accept the reality of their situation, he balled his hands up into fists. “I wanted to, though. I would give you forever if I could dammit. It’s just too damn hard knowing that I can’t.”

“What does that even mean? You can give me as long as you have, if you want to. That’s forever in my book. And if you don’t I understand.”

“Dammit Hotch, why do you have to be so understanding all the time?”

“Have a seat, Derek,” Hotch said, gesturing toward the chair in front of his desk that had recently been vacated by Chief Strauss. She may still be lingering nearby listening to their conversation. He hoped not, but he wasn’t about to stop now on her account. “When I was in law school, I had a good friend who briefly became more than a friend. We were roommates and lonely. He was out, I was not but I knew what I wanted. It’s easy to fall in love with someone you spend so much time with.”

“Don’t I know it,” Derek muttered, his eyes burning into Hotch. In the couple of years they’d worked together he had managed to do exactly that. Hotch wasn’t immune.

“We had been intimate prior to him finding out he was positive. He didn’t come home for three days after the test and I didn’t understand why, I was worried as you could imagine. My roommate and lover just disappearing. He wasn’t the type.”

“He was trying to figure out how to tell you he might have killed you.”

“Or perhaps he was trying to find a way to ask me if I was the reason he was infected.”

“Not you.”

Hotch frowned. “Not him, either. We were both very similar, he’d just been out longer. As it turns out, an ex of his was positive and made the decision not to let him know prior to them being intimate. He insisted I go in and get an antibody test immediately, so I drove up to New York to have it done so my parents wouldn’t get wind of it. They didn’t have anonymous testing at the time. I was negative.”

“That’s pretty damn lucky.”

“He wasn’t convinced. He had me go and get tested frequently, the stress of it was eating him alive. Negative each time for nearly a year before he stopped worrying so much. He got sick quickly. I was taking care of him and studying for the bar at the same time. Every year, on his birthday, I have myself tested. As a gift maybe. I’m not a superstitious man, but I can’t seem to bring myself to stop. Maybe it’s a way to honor his memory and to believe that he’s at peace, I don’t know. But it’s coming up in two weeks.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“If you think I would change my mind about pursuing something with you because of a virus, because our time together would be limited, I want you to know you’re wrong. If you still want to end it, do it because you want to end it, Derek. Not because you believe you’re saving me from something.”

After that kind of a rebuff, Derek was speechless. He supposed he did always feel a bit heroic, saving his partners from the fate of having to watch him die, though he never thought of it that way in the moment. It wasn’t supposed to make him a martyr.

“We have a case in Buffalo,” Hotch said, breaking the spell of silence when it dragged on a beat too long. When it was clear to him that Derek had some thinking to do. He was glad Derek didn’t return to his prior argument, that it was over, and he would take the reprieve. “The jet leaves in forty-five minutes. Will you be joining us?”

“I...what?”

“You’re supposed to leave in two days for Chicago for your mother’s birthday. It’s alright if you’d rather stay behind, you can help us from here. I can’t guarantee we’ll be back in time for you to make your flight home.”

“So I’ll reschedule. If we’ve got a case, I gotta go. That’s the job.”

“No you don’t.”

“Hotch, don’t do this. Don’t start making special accommodations now that you know man. I never asked for ‘em before and I don’t want ‘em now.”

Hotch pursed his lips and stared straight ahead, refusing to back down.

“You asked for the time off and it was approved. We don’t need you on the ground in Buffalo. That isn’t special accomodations.”

“Does Gideon agree?”

“It’s my call, Derek.”

It didn’t do any good to argue with Hotch when he’d made up his mind. Derek loved that about him, but right now he hated it more than anything. Knowing that they could never go back to normal, that he would never know whether Hotch’s decisions were clouded by his diagnosis. It was the last thing he wanted.

Gideon didn’t say a word about Derek not going to Buffalo with them. They all gathered around the round table like the knights of old and lobbed ideas back and forth, staring at horrors that it was getting a little too easy to distance themselves from. They all felt it. Emily was the quietest, still unsure of her place in the room, unsure of her abilities when stacked up beside the rest of them. He thought maybe his not going might help her open up a little, she had mentioned to JJ that Hotch and Derek could be intimidating to be in a room with. The way they could convey an entire conversation with just a look was unnerving. She could appreciate profiling but they were on another level entirely. “It’s creepy,” she’d hissed and Penelope giggled “I know, but it’s kind of sexy too” in return. That wasn’t helpful.

“Wheels up in thirty,” Hotch announced as the voices in the room trickled away to silence. “Buffalo PD needs us to hit the ground running.”

Derek looked expectantly at Penelope as everyone stood to leave. “Put me to work, Miss Thang,” he said, tapping his fingers on the table. “Whatever you need.”

“A foot rub?” she asked with a smirk. Surprisingly, he didn’t shoot her down. Of course the bandage on his hand would make a foot rub more than a little cumbersome, so she changed her tune back to professional as the team worked their way out. JJ and Emily whispered between one another, their tone conspiratorial, no doubt wondering why Derek wasn’t joining them. It couldn’t be the thumb, that wasn’t enough to keep anyone out of the field. “Why aren’t you joining the team sweet cheeks”

“I’ve got a trip to Chicago booked, the plane leaves in two days. Hotch doesn’t think they’ll be back in time and my time off has already been put through payroll. I’m here until my flight.”

“He grounded you for a vacation? You’re gorgeous honey, but I didn’t know you were an actual real magician too. You’ve got the boss-man wrapped around your little finger.”

“It isn’t like that,” he said a little defiantly, as if she’d insulted him. He knew she didn’t mean it that way, but then she didn’t know about them and if she did...he couldn’t take that chance. She didn’t know about a lot of things.

He knew he was bound to break her heart, but that was eventual and it wasn’t now. That was how he justified it. As long as he wasn’t actively sick he never had to say a word, never had to worry anyone and he could just jump from antiviral dose to dose, hoping that the miracle was right around the next bend.

“You sure?” she asked, grabbing him by the tie and leading him out the door and down to her lair. She had plenty of work for him to do. And his defensive reaction to her joke gave her something to ponder, she might have some information to try and get out of him. It would be an interesting couple of days.

As it turned out, the case didn’t keep them away long and Derek wasn’t missed terribly except by people who simply liked having him around. He was able to do just as much for them from Quantico as he could have in Buffalo, a fact that pleased him. He’d been more than a little concerned that he was going to be useless and pining for the rush of being in the field. Penelope drove him to the airport and kissed him goodbye, begging him to send pictures of him spending time with his mom and sisters. She hadn’t managed much in the way of getting information out of him regarding the nature of his relationship with Hotch, that would be something for the future.

“Call me when you land,” she shouted after him as she waved him through the gate. He lifted his hand and waved back at her, a silent promise she hoped. She missed him already.

Chapter Text

Fran Morgan was the rock of the entire Morgan family, but she had a worrying way about her where Derek was concerned that made him feel sick and fragile, though he was neither. She looked at him like he was a walking headstone, like he was already dry bones. “It’s so good to see you,” she cooed when Derek walked through her door with his bag slung over his shoulder. “I almost didn’t believe you’d come. You always get called away at the last minute. I’ve missed your smile.” The way she said it made him unbearably sad, she didn’t mean it was good to see him because she missed him, she meant it was good to see him because she never quite believed he’d live to visit again. She would never say as much.

“Aw, ma. I always make it up. Hotch took it easy on me, we got a case in Buffalo but he made sure I still got to come.”

That made her frown and he could tell already what she was about to say. He knew every single one of her looks.

“It’s okay, ma. They didn’t need me.”

“He knows now?”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s never prioritized your time off before. Since you two began working together you were stuck like glue. Having you in the field has always been the most important thing and now he doesn’t need you on a case? Smells fishy to me. Either you’ve suddenly fallen out of the top spot, or he knows your status.”

Derek waggled his bandaged hand in her face and shrugged. “Had to tell him. He tried to help me clean up the mess.”

“Oh! What happened?”

“We were cooking dinner and a knife slipped while I was cutting an onion. Ruined dinner and needed some stitches. I don’t know what the hell to do now that he knows...maybe I’ll figure it out while I’m here.”

“What was his reaction?” She looked concerned. He hated that he made her feel like this, it was part of the reason he’d moved away. Cruel as that was, he just couldn’t take how sad his existence made her. She looked at him like his life was already forfeit, snuffed out. She looked at him and knew that she was not only a widow, but the mother of a dead man walking. It was too much for him to bear the guilt of her grief.

Except he wasn’t dead. His counts were good. “Exemplary,” his doctor had said at his last visit. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up.” Ever the optimist, his doctor was his biggest cheerleader and the only person who didn’t look at him like he was already dead. He was a big fan of experimental drugs, but not for Derek. Derek was such an example of health that he wouldn’t chance it on a cocktail that hadn’t been proven a success.

“He was actually…” what word did he want? Did he need? Understanding was too mild. It wasn’t that. Hotch didn’t just understand, he knew firsthand what it was like to watch someone die, he’d been there. He knew more than Derek if he was really being honest. Derek didn’t seek out a community, didn’t embrace it, he ran from it. He got as far away as he could, because it wasn’t a community he belonged to. Most of the men he’d met got it from one night stands, longterm partners, not abusers. Not men who liked to stick their dicks in children. There was a lot more to his story than he was willing to share and all of those groups wanted you to pour out your trauma in deference to oneness. He couldn’t do that. And that was where he got frightened about Hotch knowing – would he eventually ask with a little more intent than just simple curiosity? He’d already shared so much of himself unprovoked and Derek had given him nothing but the cold shoulder in return. “He was good. Really good, ma.”

She narrowed her eyes as if smelling a lie but nodded. It was his life to guard. “Okay. You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I was kind of a dick but he was good.”

“You have every right…”

“No I don’t. I wish you wouldn’t do that, don’t give me a pass because I’m sick. You’d call me an asshole if you didn’t think I was dying right now.”

“Derek…”

“What can I help you with ma? You got a list of things for me to take care of or want my help with dinner?”

“Your sisters are baking a cake. You can help me with the meatloaf if you’d like.”

“As long as I don’t use a knife, right?” He smiled at that, hoping she would catch the joke but the look she gave him was heartbreaking. He hated it. He would rather be burning the midnight oil at work than looking at that face. “Lighten up ma. Come on.”

His sisters tried a little harder not to treat him like he’d just been exhumed from the grave for a family dinner. They never brought it up, and he only caught them watching him closely when he used the knife a couple of times like he’d never used a kitchen utensil in his life. He enjoyed himself with them, he could lighten up. It was twenty minutes where he didn’t think about his status, didn’t think about his infected blood, didn’t think about any of it. It was just he and his sisters ribbing each other ruthlessly.

“You find anyone who can put up with you yet?” Sarah asked, rinsing the salad while Desiree put the finishing touches on the cake.

“Not yet,” he said quietly. She didn’t believe him and that was obvious.

“Ohhhh he did! You see that Desi?! He DID find someone!”

“Who in the world could possibly be willing to put up with this princess?!”

“Someone with the patience of a saint,” Sarah replied, nudging Derek in the ribs. “Amiright?”

“Shut up ya big mouth.”

“Ohhhh she’s touchy!”

“Mooooooooommmmmm they’re ganging up on me!” he wailed. From the living room he could hear Fran erupting in laughter but she made no move to come into the kitchen, only shouted from the other room.

“Girls, take it easy!”

She loved these moments. They didn’t happen often enough anymore, all of her kids under her roof. The same roof they’d all grown up under. She never missed her husband as much as she did in these moments, these times that he shouldn’t be missing. He should see his children grown, loving each other, loving their parents. Some part of her almost envied Derek. He would be seeing Hank sooner than she would. He could be with his father. She knew that was a dark thought, and it was one she would never say aloud of course, she couldn’t imagine anyone would take it the right way, take her meaning as she felt. No one felt for Hank or missed him the way she did except for Derek. He lived with the ache every day, she could see it in his eyes.

He’d grown into a man, a wonderful strong man, but he would never stop missing his father and that was a wound he wore in the open.

“Happy Birthday, ma,” Derek said as they brought the cake out. He wrapped her in his arms and squeezed her tight, burying his face in her bright red curls. She smelled like roses and vanilla. “They didn’t let me help with the cake so I don’t know how it’s gonna taste…”

They moved from dinner to dessert to the couch with little fanfare. By the time his sisters said their goodbyes, he was stuffed and content. He’d taken his pills on time and no one had said a word, possibly a first for them. They let the little timer go off on his dispenser, watched him walk to the kitchen and down a handful of multicolored caplets with a glass of tap water and come back without a peep. Someone almost always had to comment, ask him if there were any advances, any new pills, it was like an opening for them to dig in. It was nice spending an entire evening not talking about his impending death.

But like all good things he’d ever known, it didn’t last. Gordiniski’s sour face at his mother’s door was about the worst thing he could imagine. “You can come with us of your own accord or we can put you in cuffs. Up to you, Derek.” The contempt with which the man used his name was unmistakable.

He looked at his mom and set his jaw. “Don’t call anyone. I’ll take care of this.” He would ask them for his phone call and he would call Hotch, but he wouldn’t allow someone else to spin this away from his grasp. He wouldn’t let Hotch be caught up in his mother’s fear. “You hear me ma? Don’t call anyone. Just sit tight, I’ll be home soon.”

“I hear you.”

They walked him to the car in silence, but he knew that wasn’t going to last long. Once they had him securely in the backseat, powerless, locked in, they would begin berating him. He could almost sense it word for word, he’d been down this path enough times. They loved to pick him up for anything and everything they could stretch in his direction. If he was even remotely close to a crime scene, he was the number one suspect in Gordinski’s eyes, nevermind that he’d never been able to pin a single thing on him since the fight with Rodney Harris and he’d been too young, too stupid to try and hide that. He wasn’t wrong, he’d known it then and he knew it now, and that had been his undoing. If he’d never gotten himself into that mess, then Buford never would have had cause to write the letter that got his record cleaned up and maybe he wouldn’t be in this mess. Just one fight and everything in his life changed.

But he hadn’t done anything since coming to Chicago. He’d been shopping with his sister, he’d stopped by the youth center to check up on the boys, needing to know somehow that things were okay. He’d been nowhere near any crimes he could think of, nothing but Rodney Harris trying to punk him out repeatedly and that wasn’t a crime, it was just annoying.

He sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap and waited patiently for the assault. He’d be lucky if they didn’t try to lay hands on him like the good old days, knock him around some just for the fun of it. They knew he wouldn’t fight back, not as a scared kid in cuffs with nothing to lose and not as an FBI Agent who stood to lose an awful lot if he wasn’t careful.

At the station, he gave them enough lip to put him close, almost wishing they would try to put hands on him. They resisted. He could see how hard it was for Gordinski not to smack him, give him one solid open handed slap, maybe a fist to the nose – whatever they had him in here for had to be too good to mess up and it gave him his first shock of fear. The longer he said waiting, the worse that icy fear became until it had welled up inside of him. He hadn’t done anything, but they were certain they had him by the book and that made no sense to him.

“I want my phone call.”

“Who are you gonna call?”

Derek frowned. He could play coy, but it would get him nowhere. “My supervisor at the FBI.”

“Agent Hotchner? He’s already getting a call. Don’t you worry about that.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll find out, Derek.”

(x)

“Sir, is that what you were looking for?”

Hotch was staring at a digitized newspaper article about the Upward Youth Center being a haven for HIV+ youth, specifically disenfranchised young black men. The youth that the city was happy to be rid of, Carl Buford would welcome with open arms. “Buford is seropositive,” Hotch muttered under his breath.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Penelope. This is exactly what I needed. Thank you.”

“Do I get to know what it’s about because I found it?” She sounded hopeful, not liking being left out. She was worried for her friend. He hated to crush her but he couldn’t give this one away. This was Derek’s secret and if he’d wanted people to know, he would already have told them.

“No, I’m afraid not this time. You’re done now though, you can go home.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re finished here. This is what I needed. You can close down for the night.”

“So...he’s free?”

Hotch thought briefly about that word: free. Was Derek free? No, not really. He was forever tied to his abuser. Could he ever be free as long as he had to take timed medications and see his doctor for blood counts? Could he ever be free with the weight of death draped around his shoulders like an ever-tightening noose?

“He didn’t murder anyone Penelope. The rest is up to the work we’ve done, which you have been absolutely instrumental in. No more questions please. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

He was fried. He’d had enough. He had to get out to Gideon before Derek realized the interrogation room door was open, he couldn’t watch Derek leave. Not if he had any hope that this half-cocked plan of his would work. He still had his doubts that they could pull this off without discussing it, he had to hope that Derek knew him well enough, that they could share their thoughts now as well as they ever had.

“Jason,” Hotch said, approaching with a cautious air. Couldn’t look too urgent. “I think I know what he was afraid we’d find.”

“HE’S ESCAPED! The prisoner has escaped!”

Hotch balled one hand into a fist at his side, gritting his teeth over the word ‘prisoner’. Gideon looked at Hotch, met his eye and nodded.

“We need to get to him before they do.”

“No. We should go with them. They need to see it too, they’ll never take his word for it.” Hotch hated himself for saying that, for knowing what it was going to do to Derek, but Derek had to know that the minute he walked out of the police station and began pounding that pavement he would be hunted. He was practically shouting that he was guilty. And that whatever happened at the end of his trail was going to be done with an audience.

“Let’s go then. Before it’s too late.”

“JJ and Emily, you stay here and make sure they don’t incite a panic. This isn’t going to get violent. Reid, go to Morgan’s house and sit with his family. Make sure they don’t turn on the news.”

“Why?”

“No time to talk, just do it!” Gideon shouted, and Hotch knew then that he’d put something together too. Maybe even before Hotch had. It wasn’t likely he knew all of the details, but his intuition was too good. No wonder Derek worked so hard to keep his private life private if it was so easy to open him up.

“We need to protect this case file,” Hotch said breathlessly as they climbed into the SUV. His hands were trembling and for once he let Gideon do the driving. “I’ll do the report myself.”

“You’re too close to this, Hotch.”

“I know.” That wasn’t going to stop him this time.

(x)

Standing outside the Upward Youth Center, Hotch watched as Derek walked Buford to the car in cuffs himself. They let him have that moment, putting his hand on Buford’s head, pushing him down into the vehicle. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough, but he figured it had to be something. Now it was on him to make sure that Buford didn’t get off somehow. Hotch knew he’d have plenty of lawyers, a man like that doesn’t get away with the things he does for as long as he has without connections.

He was going to play hardball, but he was going to do it in Hotch’s court. Being a former US Attorney carries a certain weight in a courtroom, even when he’s just an FBI Agent called in to testify. He knows people.

“I’m riding back with Gordinski,” Gideon said, patting Hotch on the shoulder. “You’re too close. Remember that.”

“I know,” Hotch reiterated, as if it made any difference. He was too close, and Gideon had already figured out exactly how close, but he was still encouraging it. Hotch thought he might never really figure Gideon out no matter how hard he tried. “Derek…” he waved as Derek shut the door and shoved his hands into his pockets, not quite knowing what to do with himself. Hotch hurried over toward him, taking long strides to cross the distance as efficiently as he could without seeming desperate. His trench coat billowed behind him dramatically, catching the wind at exactly the right time. Like a scene from a movie with no happy ending.

“Thanks, man,” Derek said unprompted. “For putting your ass on the line.” There was a weak joke in there if Hotch wanted to take it, but now wasn’ t the time. He let it fade into the night along with the flashing blue and red lights finally escorting Carl Buford to the place he belonged.

“Can I give you a ride back to the station?”

“I uh...I don’t think I want to go back there tonight. You know a lot of those guys, they worked with my dad, went to his funeral, gave speeches about what a man he was. They worked with me...and none of them gave a fuck. Anyone tell you they thought I was innocent? That they worked with me and I was a good cop? Anyone ask how they could help you guys out?”

“A couple. Not nearly enough.”

Derek scoffed. “Yeah. You think you know people, huh? Those guys supposedly had my back. Brotherhood doesn’t mean shit.”

“Detective Gordinski was absolutely convinced you were their man. He had enough evidence that it would have convinced just about anyone, he even had a profile from Gideon that he said pointed right at you. I think many of them were caught up in his hysteria. Can I give you a ride to your mom’s then?”

“I think I’ll walk...you wanna walk with me? My mom’s probably got leftovers of her pot roast waiting. I know you haven’t eaten in two days.”

“Text me the address. I’ll go back to the station and get everything I need. Meet you at your mom’s in an hour?”

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

Hotch beeped the key fob and began walking toward the vehicle alone, hands jammed in his pockets. Walking away from Derek felt wrong on every level but he was surprised to find that no matter how separate they got over the next hour the connection never severed. He called once, just to make sure Derek made it to his mother’s okay, like something might befall him on the trip. Hotch had no idea how far Derek had to walk but he doubted it was far. Before he dialed, Gideon pulled him aside and asked him how Derek was. His answer was that he didn’t know, not really, but he would spend the evening making sure he was okay.

“Be careful Hotch,” Gideon said as he shrugged on his jacket, ready to leave for the night. He couldn’t wait to get back home.

“Why?”

“You know exactly why.”

Hotch frowned, folding his arms over his chest. A challenge, absolute defiance. He was going to make Gideon say the words aloud, not let him get away with alluding to it repeatedly. This was what he’d fought for in his twenties, as he maneuvered the tumult of coming out. As he waded through the graveyard of friendships lost in the war. He had no patience or time for people who couldn’t muster that kind of courage when they faced him, not anymore. He’d spent too much of his life tolerating it.

“You’re a forever kind of guy,” Gideon said quietly, grabbing his briefcase. “His forever is a lot shorter than yours.”

“You don’t know that.”

Gideon shrugged sadly, deferring to Hotch’s unwavering faith in Derek. He’d felt that way once about David Rossi and where was he now? Rossi might still be alive, but he’d still gone. That forever friendship, a bond at their very souls, was as fleeting as life itself. But he wouldn’t take that from Hotch, so he forced a sad smile. “We can hope.”

“Jason…”

“I won’t say a word. The reports will all go through you. This case is yours to lock up as tight as you like. No one else has to know, but you still have to figure out how far you’re willing to take this. He’s eventually going to get sick and as of now there is no cure and none on the horizon. We’ve all seen what it does to a body. You know better than most. What then Hotch?”

Hotch felt sick and steeled himself against the worry, the same as he’d done in the week since his world was exploded wide open. He had nothing to worry about right now. Derek took good care of himself, he was on antivirals, his numbers were good. For the time being, there was no real concern. “One day at a time, like anything else Jason. We’re all terminal. Born to die, isn’t that what all of the poets say?”

“And if he gets hurt in the field?”

“I’m not going to change things for him now that we know. He’s lived with this long enough, he’s the expert. I trust that he’s got plans in place. He’s been hurt in the field before and it hasn’t been a problem.”

Gideon’s features fell as he nodded, knowing Hotch wasn’t thinking as clearly as he should be. His judgment was clouded by love, that much was abundantly clear. He couldn’t fault him for that, but it was going to put people in danger. He would have to keep a close eye on the situation, monitor it from the shadows.

“I’ll see you in the morning. The jet leaves at 8.”

“I’ll be there.”

He would be, but Derek wouldn’t. He was going to tell Derek to take a few extra days, to make up for his vacation being wrecked. That wasn’t going to go over well, he would likely accuse Hotch of playing favorites or doing something he wouldn’t do just because he was in on a mortal secret but he thought he was just being reasonable. Derek was supposed to be spending time with his family not sitting in an interrogation room accused of murder. Not facing the worst years of his life head-on for an audience.

The cab ride from the police station to Derek’s mother’s house gave Hotch plenty of time to think. To wander back through his own battlefield of illness, the headstones that marked important lives, the pills and the ammonia and the fevers and sweats and fear. So much fear. He would never be rid of it, no matter how far he walked in the opposite direction of that time in his life.

When Derek opened up the door, he was wearing sweats and a t-shirt, glasses instead of contacts. He looked tired but relaxed. “Come on in,” he said, stepping out of the way to let Hotch inside. Hotch slipped his shoes off and let Derek take his coat, allowing for some formalities that would make the night take on a normal feeling after the intensity of the day. In socks, Hotch followed Derek through the apartment to the couch where there were two beers waiting, sitting side by side. “Have a seat,” Derek said, falling heavily into his mother’s old couch. It smelled like Febreeze, Hotch recognized the smell. Under the Febreeze he detected a hint of cigarette smoke – Fran had always smoked inside, until she gave up the habit some years before. The smell never really left once it was in the fibers.

“Is your family home?”

“My mom is out with my sisters. Guess Reid told them to stay away from the TV, so they decided to go have a girls night. Assuming that was your idea?”

“I had a feeling Buford’s arrest would make the nightly news.”

“It did. My phone’s been blowin’ up. I put it on silent and tossed it in my bag after we talked last.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll handle it in the morning.”

“I’m a big boy, I can…”

“I want you to separate yourself from this case as much as you can. For your own safety. There is no telling what Buford may do or say as retribution, to try and clear his name. I’m the Cast Agent, all calls should go through me.”

“Gideon’s okay with that?”

“I didn’t give him a choice.”

That made Derek laugh a little and he picked up Hotch’s beer, handing it to him. “No more case talk. You ever been to Chicago before? Like really been here, not trying to solve a murder?”

“I can’t say I have, no.”

“You gotta leave tomorrow?”

“I do.”

“Damn. Well I guess you’re gonna tell me I can stick around though, huh?”

“If you’d like. Your vacation was kind of a bust.”

Shrugging, Derek sipped his beer. “Better now than when I’m sick, huh? He got to see me at my best. I guess that’s not nothin’.”

“Derek…”

“No, come on. Let’s not talk about Buford or the case or anything. Somethin’s been eating at me the last few days. Can I ask you something deeply personal?”

Hotch knew what Derek was going to ask before he ever said the words. He’d prepared himself for the possibility of having to dig up some bones. “I suppose that’s fair.”

Hotch’s formality, even when he was sitting with one foot tucked beneath him on Derek’s mom’s couch, sitting in socks with a beer in his hand as casual as anything would never cease to amuse him. It was cute in ways he couldn’t explain and didn’t think he would ever try. “You can say no, if it’s too much.”

“You didn’t.”

“True. Alright, I wanna know about Alan.”

“I’m going to need another beer for that…” Hotch replied in a voice that sounded more like a death rattle. Derek almost felt bad asking him to open it up, but he had to know and he’d just had his wounds opened by gnashing teeth for hours on end. He knew his teammates looked him up, dug through his past. They wouldn’t know too much, not before Hotch shut it down before it got too far, he knew that with a certainty he couldn’t quite place. Hotch wouldn’t be sitting in his mom’s house right now if he’d fucked that up, plain and simple.

“Beers are in the fridge. Bring me one too?”

When Hotch came back, he sat a little closer. Their knees touched, and he leaned forward as if telling a secret. “I’m sure you think I’m a closeted stiff,” Hotch said quietly, a sly smile dancing on his features. “You don’t have to pretend not to.”

“We’ve kissed Hotch, I think that ship has sailed...but yeah...I guess you kinda give off that vibe.”

“That’s by design,” was Hotch’s response. Derek didn’t think he’d ever heard anything sadder in his life. “I learned early on how to hide in plain sight. If you keep quiet enough, people tend not to form too many opinions. But when I answered an ad looking for a roommate near George Washington, my cover was blown. I moved in with Alan and he saw through me right away. Sort of like you.”

“Yeah, it’s not easy if you pay attention. You’re kind of an open book if you know how to read.”

Hotch laughed, delighting briefly in the way Derek had with words. He had a sparkling clarity about him that was infectious. “Would you mind moving this outside?” Hotch asked quietly, hearing the jingle of keys in the lock. The girls were coming home. “I’d rather not have an audience when I tell you about Alan and Fire Island.”

“Oh, yeah. Why don’t you grab us two more beers, I’ll get some blankets and we can sit on the balcony. My mom’s got some shitty uncomfortable wicker furniture out there. It’s windy and cold as shit this time of year, but the city is beautiful.”

“Two beers coming right up.”

Derek watched as Hotch came sauntering through the glass slider, shutting it on its mucked up, runner. It slammed a little harder than he intended. Derek was lounging on the couch like a cat on the little wicker loveseat covered in dirty pink floral cushions that were probably right out of Sears or Kmart in the 1980s. Hotch’s mother had similar furniture in her shed awaiting summer.

Derek watched Hotch walk across the small patio, no he wasn’t just walking he was sauntering, two beers in one hand held casually by their necks. When he sat, he sat right between Derek’s legs, leaning until he rested with his back up against Derek. He tucked his cold socked feet beneath him and let Derek cover them both with a huge old quilt that smelled like dust. “Alright, now wait a sec. Hold the hell up. You? Fire Island?”

“Me.”

“This I gotta hear. Come on. Give it to me.”

“There isn’t much to tell. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Oh, that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one. Come on now. There’s gotta be something there or you wouldn’t have just dropped it like that.”

Hotch’s smile faded briefly, his features serious in the evening shadow. The sun was sinking over the Chicago skyline and the temperatures were dropping rapidly. The wind, though it whistled through the buildings, didn’t seem to touch them in their little stucco alcove. Walled in entirely with a private view of the city, they felt entirely alone and safe. Hotch hadn’t felt this safe in a long time, not even in his own home. There was the world, and here were Derek’s arms. But his chest ached at the thought of opening up, a sting of hot tears prickling at the corner of his eyes when he thought about those years. That place. He hadn’t told this particular story in over a decade, and if he was being honest, hadn’t ever planned to again but after the last few days how could he deny Derek a peek into his own shadowy past?

“It was the summer of 1987. I was twenty-one years old, and my roommate had a trip planned with a group of his friends during summer break. One of his friends had to drop out, at the time it was all very mysterious...no one would say what it was that made him stay behind, though of cousre we later found out. We only knew it had to be serious because this particular friend never missed an opportunity for a good time. He would quit a job if they wouldn’t give him time off.”

“It was AIDS.”

“Yes. But at the time, it as still so hush hush. Especially among the young men. No one ever wants to believe it can happen to them, we were the immortals. AIDS only happened to the older guys. As a last resort I’m sure, my roommate invited me. We had kissed one night, but he was very out of the closet and I was very...not. Still, it was either go and see what all of the fuss was about or go spend the summer dying a slow death of ennui at my mother’s house. My father was ill at the time, my brother was eleven, it wasn’t exactly the sort of place a kid that age wants to go unwind after a long school year. I had no love for my father, either. I would have loved it if he’d passed knowing I was frolicking in a gay paradise.”

“Sure, man. I got you. So you said hell yeah, take me up to Fire Island to be with all the freaks huh?”

“In a sense. I guess I just wondered if it was possible for me to fit in.”

“You never have taken the path of least resistance, huh?”

Hotch smiled and set the bottle to his lips, draining nearly half of it in one gulp. The wind nipped at his cheeks and he closed his eyes, letting the movie play out before him in the darkness. The last easy days. “I had a panic attack the morning of our flight. It was big and messy. Alan told me I didn’t have to go, but that only made it worse because if I couldn’t go on this silly meaningless vacation...how could I ever be myself? Once I was on the plane I was fine, and by the time we were sucking the spray of the waves on the ferry out to the island I was actually a little excited.”

“What was it like, walking onto that island for the first time?” He was living vicariously, now. Lost in his own imagination, the dreams he’d had as a young man when he heard stories of a place you could go and live out every carnal fantasy you ever had without anyone to tell you no. Of course it had backfired, and he was sure Hotch was about to lay it out plain as day how much of it had gone so wrong so fast, but there was a time when it was all perfect. An oasis.

“It was nothing like I’d imagined. Men everywhere, of course, but the main landing area was tame. Some storefronts, a couple of restaurants, nothing much. I saw men holding hands and kissing as they walked down the sidewalk, fully clothed, nothing wild. I remember I made a joke to Alan about suing him for fraudulent misrepresentation. We’d just survived a tedious class on tort law, I thought I was hilarious. I remember his laugh, it was the laugh of a man who saw into the future. It only took five minutes of walking away from the docks before I saw how wrong I was. Or, rather, how right. The beach was crawling with naked men, some just lounging, some having sex right out there in the open. All over the place. Alan took me to the house he and his friends had rented and it was like...ancient Greece.”

“You join in?” He knew the answer already, of course, but he had to ask. Maybe there was some little rebel hiding inside of Hotch yet.

“I did not. Alan made introductions and left me to it after that. I made acquaintances with a few nice men who seemed as out of place as I was – closet cases, Alan called them lovingly. Called us, I suppose. He never used the term in my presence but I can’t imagine he withheld it in my case when I wasn’t around.”

Hotch quieted for a moment, lost in thought. That first night. It was hot, almost unbearably so, and he was overdressed. But seeing all of those men with their tanned bodies, he couldn’t bear the thought of joining them with his less than ideal body. He hadn’t been to the gym in weeks, was pale and hairy and scrawny. His body was made to be hidden by khakis and sweaters, not on display like David. He felt like a child among men.

“You get freaky while you were there at least once?”

“I uh...on the third night, Alan and I went to a party at one of the mansions a ways up the beach from our rental. I had too much to drink, the freedom of the island had started to sneak its way into me as well. I met an older man who plied me with more drinks, until I could scarcely stand up on my own. He told me he had a little place a few doors down, if I wanted to go somewhere quieter. He called himself a poet, said he had first editions of some of the greats, claimed to be someone of importance on Broadway. He may have been telling the truth, I can’t quite recall his face the way it looked that night but I’ll never be able to drink Crown Royal. I smell him every time it’s near. “

“Hotch…” Derek could see where this was going, he could feel the man’s muscles tense against him. He squeezed a little, one arm wrapped around Hotch’s middle, trying to let him know he didn’t have to continue. This wasn’t supposed to dig up things that were better left dead. He wanted to hear about young love, about an oasis of gay men on hot sand, not about what was undoubtedly one of the worst nights of Hotch’s life. But that was par for the course with them. Neither of them had had an easy go of it.

“It wasn’t exactly rape. I was a willing participant, in a sense, but when he kicked me out afterward without even letting me put my clothes on first, it certainly felt like it. I stumbled out onto the promenade naked, with my clothes in my arms, sore and alone. It was my first time.”

“If you were too drunk to give consent…”

“It is what it is, Derek.”

“Did you run into him again?”

“Only once, the next year actually. Alan and I took a trip to New York for spring break and I saw him exiting an off-Broadway production. He was sick, I could see it even from a distance. He had that look about him, that wasted frail look they all got near the end. I don’t know if he was positive when he...but he died not long after we saw him that night. I saw it in the obituaries, Alan clipped it for me. I suppose he thought it might make me feel better to know he’d died a horrific death.”

“It didn’t.”

“Of course not.”

“That why you get tested a lot?”

Hotch shrugged and shivered a little against Derek. In response, Derek finished off his beer and tightened the blanket around them. He burrowed his face into Hotch’s neck, closing his eyes, relishing the delicate feel of Hotch’s pulse against his cheek. When Hotch spoke, he could feel the vibrations like they were part of him.

“Alan and I were romantic partners for a short time after Fire Island. He must have contracted it on that trip. I dodged two bullets and I have no idea how or why.”

“So is that how you figured me out back there? Cos of the Broadway shitbag?”

“You could say it gave me some insider knowledge, in a sense. Though I wouldn’t compare what you went through to what I experienced. Different scenarios entirely.”

“It’s not a pissing contest, Hotch.”

“Aaron.”

“What now?”

“Aaron. I’d prefer that you call me Aaron when we’re being intimate. You always call me Hotch but...”

“So Hotch isn’t a nickname for you everywhere, you prefer it saved for work?”

Hotch smiled and leaned his head back against Derek’s shoulder. His face was getting chilled as night settled over the noisy city below, but the blanket was keeping them warm, or perhaps that was Derek doing all of the work. He was a walking furnace.

A train roared by on the tracks that ran behind Fran’s building, and Hotch wondered if anyone inside had looked out and seen them in their private reverie. He doubted it, though he found that the thought didn’t bother him in the least. “Something like that.”

“Okay. Aaron. You ever go back to Fire Island or was that a one time thing?”

“I went once more with Alan, the following summer. He was already dying, and though we’d had a summer trip planned to Greece for most of the year...by this point as friends, our fling having lasted only a short time...he was too sick to travel that far. As it was, our trip to the island was a stretch, but he wanted to put his feet in the hot sand once more and wouldn’t settle for anywhere closer. It was more of a farewell tour than a vacation.”

“How long did he make it?”

“Eighteen months from his AIDS diagnosis to death, though I believe his death certificate officially said cancer. There wasn’t a test at the time he got sick that could say how long he’d had HIV, at least none that we knew of down in Washington. He wouldn’t have wanted to know anyway, though he did expect me to know my own status. He obsessed over it.” Hotch’s voice broke for the first time as he said that, and Derek knew to let that topic rest for a moment. He could feel Hotch’s ragged breathing against his chest and didn’t want to be the reason for it.

“What’d you guys do on the island?”

“We lounged around in the sand, completely naked, and drank a lot. Kept to ourselves. That year the parties had died out, so many were sick by then. The rest were scared. It was nothing like our first time, but I preferred it that way. I fussed over his drinking, of course, but he said if he died on the beach with tequila in his belly lying next to me, he’d be perfectly fine with that. The fatalism of a man in his early twenties is astonishing sometimes. You think you can’t die and yet you’re perfectly okay with the idea because you can’t fathom growing old yet.”

“You sound like a romantic.”

“I’ve been accused of it once or twice.”

Derek kissed Hotch’s neck, nipping at the sinew beneath the skin, nuzzling behind his ear. “I wish I coulda been on that beach with you.”

“No you don’t.”

Derek bit Hotch’s earlobe, licking the tiny hole that once held a delicate diamond stud and smiled. “I do. Think about what we coulda been if there had been no Buford and no Broadway shitbag. If we’d met in that place, if we kissed at sunset, if we fucked in the sand with no worries.”

“It never would have worked. For one, you’re eight years younger than I am...you were thirteen.”

“Alright, wise guy. You know that’s not what I meant. You might be a romantic but you’re also really damn good at killing a mood.”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, and I agree with the sentiment. I wish there was a place where we could feel so free now.”

Derek sucked in a stifled breath, tears prickling at his eyes. “You know we can’t do anything. This is as far as it goes. I won’t be the one who gets you sick.”

“Derek, that isn’t fair.”

“No, now listen. Your friend didn’t die hoping and praying that you lived through this mess only for you to go and fuck it all up on me. Not on my watch.”

“Do I not get a say?” Hotch’s voice was thin and frail, knowing this was a futile attempt to grasp at something he so desperately wanted to believe in. The further they dug into themselves, the clearer became Jason’s words. His forever is a lot shorter than yours.

“In this? Sorry man. You might be the big boss, but on this one thing I’m in charge. We can get as physical as two kids in puppy love but that’s where it stops. I’m not the guy who puts on a rubber and believes it’s safe, not when it’s death on the line. If that’s not enough for you, we gotta end this.”

Hotch gulped down the last of his beer, noting that it had gotten warmer than he would have liked in the waiting. It tasted as bad as what Derek was saying.

“Does your mother know?”

“What? About us? I think she figured it out the minute I said your name. And I know she’s peeked out that window more than once at us.”

“And she’s okay with it?”

“My mom is cool as hell. She’s my best friend.”

Hotch smiled at that sentiment. He didn’t share it, not with his mom anyway. She had been less than cool with his coming out, though she hadn’t said so in words. The cold front had been plenty.

They were trying to thaw it out. It was a work in progress.

“My best friend is my ex-fiance’s sister.” Hotch blurted it out, caught up in the moment, and realized instantly how childish it sounded. But it was true nonetheless. He and Haley may have called off the wedding when she realized that she could never quite live with the idea that he also liked men, and that there might be someone out there she couldn’t compete for his affections with. She didn’t mind that he liked men as much as women, not in that way. What she hated was that if he chose a man over her there was nothing she could do to change that, nothing she could do to make him choose her. Another woman and she might have a shot, but what could she do for him up against a man? The thought of it had given her an ulcer while she tried to pick out a wedding dress. When Jessica made an offhanded comment about how Hotch might prefer she wear a tux. She lost fifteen pounds without even trying, and finally two weeks before the wedding called it off.

Hotch was relieved, to say the least. He loved Haley so much it hurt, but he didn’t ever really want to be married. He would have gone through with it though, and he would have honored his vows, but the relief he felt was immediate.

“Ex-fiance?”

“You don’t get two stories in a row, not without giving me something in return.”

“You dug through my whole past today. You were all up in every nook and cranny I got. You know stuff about me that no one else on this entire planet knows. What can I possibly tell you that Garcia didn’t already dig up?”

“Tell me your favorite childhood memory. She didn’t have access to that.”

Tired as they were, they managed to sit up all night talking. Living in a past that felt more real now than it ever had, even when they lived it. They breathed new life into old stories, embellished a few details here and there though they hardly realized they were doing it, and watched the sun come up in the same place they watched it go down, freezing and huddling together for warmth on Fran’s balcony.

“I could fall in love with you, Aaron,” Derek whispered, his eyelids heavy, his heartbeat slow. Hotch smiled a languid smile, already half-asleep.

“I hope so.”