Title: The Burn to Quell the Flames
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Allusion to suicide.
Prompt: Hotch - It's ironic that I drink to make my insides stop hurting
Summary: Aaron wonders how he got to this place, and how soon before he'd be free.
A/N: This is a little different from my normal stuff.
It was a burn. A fire. It raged deep within the depth of him like an inferno of grief, pain and shame. He, the supposed protector of his family, had failed to do the one thing expected of him.
It was some kind of sick joke on a part of the universe that made the burn of the liquor in which he indulged every night the only thing that could tame the flames. His life had been reduced to replacing one searing burn with another. The only way he could feel anything but guilt and disgust was to poison himself slowly and hope it would cancel out the poison that was his very existence.
Sat slouched in an armchair, he looked down at himself and almost thew the glass against the wall.
He was still in his suit.
His work clothes.
His costume.
The man he was, the man he had turned out to be, was a man who couldn't leave the job that had killed his wife for the sake of his son.
The kind of man who'd let a dominance match with a dead psychopath override his need to be there for his grieving child.
The kind of man Aaron would have, at one time, looked upon with utter disdain.
That was the man he'd become. The only thing he had left now was a severely part time relationship with his son and his livelyhood catching the bad guy's he felt constantly one push away from becoming.
Those things, and his memories.
When he and Haley had gotten married, it was the happiest day of his life. He'd looked at his wife, at his future laid out before him, and smiled. He knew without a doubt what he wanted. Move to a city - Seattle as it turned out - and buy a big house with a giant yard for the children they had long ago planned on having. He'd work as a prosecutor for ten years before applying for city council. He'd work his way up the ladder until, finally, Washington.
Sometimes Aaron looked at that life, at that road not taken, and wondered what would have kept him on that path.
Refusing a chief witness, an FBI S.W.A.T. unit leader, when he asked him out for drinks to celebrate their victory?
Not listening to all the tales from their work?
Seen the business card handed over with a promise to fast track him into the academy as something other than an opportunity?
He'd looked at those three, bold letters and wondered what he was really accomplishing in his work. Sure, he helped put the bad guy's away. But he could be out there stopping them before they had a chance to create the carnage he saw spread over his desk every day. He could make an actual difference. He could become more than what his past, his childhood would otherwise dictate.
So he'd taken it. Worked through the academy, gained his degree in criminal psychology and adamantly accepted Gideon's invitation into the BAU.
Haley had been hesitant, concerned and he'd paid her no mind. He'd put his own desires before his wife.
"I know this is something you need to do, Aaron. I do. But you can't keep putting the world before us. I need you too."
The woman he loved had pleaded with him using those words. He'd dismissed the one person who he'd at one time thought would be the purpose of and inspiration behind his life. The woman who was supposed to be his reason and his ambition.
Haley had died because he was a selfish bastard too consumed with defeating his abusive dick of a father to care about others.
The day of his wedding had been the best of his life. But then Jack had been born and that day was replaced as top spot. Jacks birth wasn't overshadowed but strongly challenged when his son's first word had been 'Daddy'. He'd held onto the boy for an hour, savoring what he had.
What Haley had given him.
Now, tipping the glass and letting the smooth liquid swirl in his mouth for a second before swallowing, Aaron sneered at himself. The aim of life was to top happy memories with even happier memories. But he knew that no day in the rest of his life would top the day Haley was killed as the worst. The sound of the gunshot was the last thing he heard at night and the first thing he heard in a morning. It rang in his ear, deafening, until in began to sing. The melody of his guilt, of his culpability, echoed through his mind and reminded him that no matter how hard he'd tried to be different, no matter how hard he'd tried to become something other than a repeat of his father, he'd hurt the people he loved more than he ever could have.
He'd killed them.
Because Jack had heard it too. The shot. And if the way he woke up screaming for his mommy at night was any indication, he'd known, even at his young age, what it had been.
He knew what had happened.
He knew how Aaron had failed him.
He knew how his father had failed them all.
These days, Jack was clinging to him, to the idea of the man he was supposed to be. He called him his hero and said he wanted to be just like him. But Jack was a child, he was deluding himself because he needed to. Aaron was the only parent he had left so of course the boy would feel the need to convince himself his father was anything but the man who'd killed his mother. That illusion would fade away one day, when he no longer needed Aaron for emotional survival.
Aaron threw back the rest of the scotch and laughed to himself bitterly. He laughed until he cried.
Because one day maybe, just maybe, Jack would grown to hate him even more than he hated himself. When that day came?
That would be the day he'd finally be free.
Then and only then however.
Because as much as he wanted too, as much as he wanted to free his family, his team and his son from the toxic poison that was Aaron Hotchner, he couldn't. Because Jack said he needed him. Jack clung to him because he needed Aaron around as long as he chose to believe his father was someone worth loving.
So he'd wait. He'd wait until Jack realized what kind of man he really was before he pulled the trigger.
He had too.
With a sigh, Aaron put the gun down on the table where it's heft made it drop with a bang.
Pouring himself another drink, Aaron convinced himself it would be okay.
Everything would be fine.
He'd be free one day.
End.