Chapter One: Halcyon - June, 1992
AN: Otherwise known as the fic where they both manage to be remarkably silly for a good three decades.
So, I essentially flipped Hotch and Sean's birth order for this fic just so I can have tiny Spence and Aaron being buddies. Welcome to baby brother Aaron Hotchner AU! Actually, this whole thing is wildly AU, so... have fun!
Warning for eventual sexual content and referenced dark themes, including child abuse, sexual assault, and incredibly unhealthy coping mechanisms.
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"We're not friends," said the boy stubbornly, wiping blood from his chin with one grubby sleeve. "You shouldn't have done that."
Aaron shrugged, examining his knuckles. They were split and swollen, oozing grossly.
The other guys looked worse.
"I don't like people who use their size to pick on people smaller than them," he said, taking a cautious step forward. The boy backed away, battered sneakers nudging the loose chain-link fence that hung grimly onto the edge of the quarry to stop people from drunkenly tumbling over. In theory. In practise, it just became a dare to walk out onto the—in some places—almost horizontal surface to see how far you'd go.
Aaron always got the furthest. "You're mental," Tony always said as he watched Aaron bounce on the edge without even glancing down to the sheer drop. "Absolutely mental."
Not really. He faced worse at home.
"You don't have to be scared of me," Aaron said, holding his hands out in a I'm not gonna hurt you fashion. He'd seen his mom use it before, to no effect. Sean too, before he'd left one day and never come back. Not that Aaron cared. "I'm not like them. I'm not gonna hurt you, kid."
Hazel eyes narrowed behind thick coke-bottle glasses that had, somehow, escaped being damaged in the scuffle between the boy and the bullies. Dirt smeared his face from where they'd shoved him down, a cut on his chin marking where he'd hit a rock on the way. His shirt was a deep navy that hid the grime, hanging from his frame like there was nothing but bones underneath, a proud, gold SEP LOGO emblazoned across the front. The backpack dangling from the edge of the fence, the strap the only thing stopping it from a swift plunge, was similarly coloured.
"That's what they said too," he said finally, voice soft, looking down to hide his eyes behind curls of wild brown hair. "Next thing, they're trying to throw me out… there." He shuddered, jutting his chin to the drop.
Aaron glanced at the drop again, then back at the boy.
We're not friends, hummed the boy's voice in his brain, gnawing at him. Not so different, really. Aaron didn't trust anyone but his friends either.
"What if I get it for you?" he asked, and bounded forward without waiting for a reply, ignoring the startled cry as the boy lunged at his arm. One step, two, and he was balancing easily across a metal support pole that clattered and bounced as he balanced along it. He slowed, not wanting to jar the bag off, not looking down. "Will you trust me now?" he called cockily over his shoulder.
"The median height of a fatal fall is forty-nine feet," the boy called after him, voice choked. "One-hundred percent fatality is incurred after eighty-five feet. Come back! It's not worth it, I trust you, okay?"
Aaron looked down. "I'd say this is about sixty feet, yeah?" he guessed wildly, glancing back and smiling. The bag was just within reach. He just had to… get it. "See?" He turned, holding the bag up. "No prob—woah!"
The fence rocked with the wind, tipping him forward and rolling him down the incline to sprawl ungracefully on the ground at the new boy's feet. "No problem," he finished, wincing and pushing the bag towards those feet. "Here. Trust me now?"
Standing this close, he was at least two heads higher than this kid, looking down on him. The boy looked away, shy. "Guess so," he said, clutching the bag closer. Spencer Reid said the backpack, in clumsy felt tip marker. "That was both… really brave and really dumb."
"I'm Aaron," Aaron introduced himself, because they were standing here awkwardly like weirdos and he kind of wanted some thank you for saving the kid's life, twice. Another peek around the sparsely wooded clearing showed an interesting jumble of materials propped up in a pile next to a hastily discarded book. "Hey, is that yours? What are you doing?"
Silence. Spencer's face was the picture of mistrust.
"Is it a fort?" Aaron tried again, eyeing the planks of wood. "You making a fort up here?"
More silence.
"Hey," Aaron said, shoving his hands in his pocket. "Look, I'm not… this is kind of my spot, okay? Sort of. I come here too…" Hide? Sulk? Exist? "… think. I don't care if you're here too, but right here isn't a great place to build. Those guys? They'll come back. They smoke over there." He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the fence, where the wind blew beer cans and smoke butts and litter to push the fence down. "I can show you a better place, more hidden."
Kid didn't look like the noisy type. And maybe it would be cool to see him do… whatever he was doing.
"Why would you give up your place for me?" Spencer asked. He shoved his glasses up his nose, leaving a streak of grunge. "You don't know me. We're not friends." There was a miserable kind of tone to his voice on the last word. "I don't even live here… I'm just here for the summer."
Even better. SEP were the nerd kids who came in from out of state to 'relax' during the summer. He'd probably make an awesome-smart fort thing, and then go back to wherever he came from and Aaron could take it over. Look after it for him, whatever. Win, win.
"We could be," he offered, instead of saying any of that, despite it probably being a lie. Aaron couldn't imagine what the two of them would have in common. "Or not, whatever you want. I'll just do my own thing." He glanced back at the wood, most of which looked about the size of the shrimp standing in front of him. "And I'll help you carry it down."
Silence. Aaron wiped his face again, feeling sticky, flies buzzing overhead. The silence lingered.
"Okay," Spencer finally said, nodding hard enough that his glasses slid down his nose. "But… that's it. We don't… talk or anything, once we're there." He shrugged, helplessly, twitching back when Aaron stepped closer. Nervous. Aaron understood that. He didn't like it when people got close either. "We're not friends or anything, just because you're helping me with manual labour. And because you beat up a couple of adolescents for me." He looked at the fence. "And because you risked your life on that for my bag."
Aaron smiled, enjoying the awed tone creeping in.
"So you keep saying," he said, shrugging, and turned to collect the wood. "You gonna finally tell me what you're making?"
"Rhosgobel," Spencer said simply, and refused to elaborate further.
Aaron was beginning to get the feeling his summer had just gotten a lot weirder.