A/N

Title: Spencer Rocket

Author: Ihli

Rating/Warnings: M/Prostitution, Slash, language, sex, etc

Pairing: Hotch/Reid

Summary: Prostitutes are dying in Las Vegas and the BAU is called in to catch the unsub responsible. Hotch has never met anyone like hooker Spencer Rocket. Hotch/Reid Slash!

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters I just like to play with them sometimes. I promise to put them back where I found them.

Thanks for all the reviews. They keep me writing. After this, there is one more chapter and an epilogue. I hope you enjoy this next chapter. Please Review.

Thanks to The Shameless BookWorm for Beta'ing this chapter! All mistakes are mine.

Chapter 7

They met up with the team. Aaron tried to school his expression. He worked with the best profilers in the world. They would read the change in his face and body language if he wasn't careful. He didn't need to explain his feelings to his team, but he was still an FBI agent, and from their perspective, he had slept with a hooker.

The team continued to investigate when Spencer spoke quietly to Aaron. "You know, there's a casino called the Aztec Inn Casino on the strip."

Aaron's head snapped up. "There is? I've never heard of it." Aaron could see the rest of the team had their attention on Spencer.

"It's small and obscure. But it has a great address." Spencer looked around at all the eyes trained on him. "I…I thought of it because of the unsub's obsession with the Aztecs… yet he hasn't left a body there."

"That's brilliant. Come here." Hotch brought Spencer over to a map on a tack board. "The green tacks represent where the victim was most likely solicited based on their usual patterns. The red tacks represent where the bodies were found."

Spencer's lifted his hand. "And here," his index finger landed right in a dead zone in the middle of the map, "Is the Aztec."

"I bet this is his home base." Spencer added.

Hotch took out his cell phone.

"Welcome to the Oracle at Quantico. How can the prophetess serve you?"

"Garcia, get a list of all of the people staying at the Aztec Inn Casino and cross check them with the lists of experts in the Ancient Aztecs," Hotch ordered.

"Your query is being submitted to the great Computer deity as we speak. I will get back to you." Hotch, punched the screen to hang up the phone and pocketed it.

He turned to Spencer, pride filling him. Spencer had wrapped his arms around himself. Aaron was certain the young man was once again imagining being punished for being smart. His heart started thumping in his chest. "Spencer, let's go check out the Aztec."

"Okay." Spencer looked up at Hotch, his champagne brown eyes wide like the sun.

The trip to the casino was short, but Hotch still made sure he held Spencer's hand. His mind was racing. He needed to find a way to get Spencer to leave with him when the case was done. He needed to help him. He was falling in love.

Once Hotch entered the casino, he focused on profiling the place seeing if there was any clues about the unsub. But the Aztec was not a theme casino like so many on the strip. It was a large room with slots, electronic poker, and a large internet Kiosk in the middle.

The sun streamed in through many windows, and a small bar area graced the corner. There was very little from the Ancient Aztec culture here.

Hotch was about to call Garcia and see if she had any luck getting the guest list when a man came walking up to them.

"Spencer Rocket, this is a respectable establishment. We don't have room for your kind here."

"Excuse me sir, do you work here?" Hotch tried the polite approach.

"No, just a concerned citizen," the man said, narrowed eyes never leaving Spencer.

"Then I will thank you not to speak to my colleague this way. Spencer is a consultant for the FBI." Hotch answered showing his credentials, silently fuming inside.

Spencer drew himself up to his full height, a hand on one hip. "Don't worry about it Agent Hotchner. This guy's just afraid people will find out he paid to fuck me."

Hotch's jaw hit the floor. That was only going to antagonize the man.

"What…What…I…I..no…I'm not a freakin' fag." The man's face had darkened now through red to purple.

But Spencer just kept going. "Well how else would you know who I am? I'm surprised I remembered you. It's not like I could really feel something that small."

The man was clearly about to punch Spencer. "Agent, you should arrest this slut, not work with him. Add slander charges while you're at it." He cocked his arm back but Hotch got right in his face.

"Back off sir, or I will arrest you for assault." He stared the man down. His death glare was on full. No one threatens my Spencer, even if maybe Spencer went too far.

Men tougher that this jerk had been broken by the death glare. This guy never had a chance. He backed away and left the casino. Hotch was surprised at how little attention they had drawn; people just kept on feeding the machines.

He led Spencer out back to the car, prepared to read him the riot act on why he shouldn't be so cocky and make things worse. However, as soon as Spencer was seated, the young man curled in on himself, hands around his waist, shaking. His eyes glistened as a tear rolled down his cheek.

Hotch watched the total transformation from over-confident trouble maker to broken shell, stunned.

CMCMCMCMCM

Spencer stared at his knees, trying to hold back tears. He didn't belong with Aaron. He was just a whore, with a string of Johns to remind him just how worthless he was. A tear streamed down his cheek but only one. He refused to cry. To let them hurt him. He was who he was. His only mistake was trying to pretend he was someone worthy to stand beside Aaron Hotchner.

"Talk to me Spencer." Aaron said, his hand reaching out to Spencer but not quite connecting.

Spencer shrugged. "What's there to say?"

"Who was that?" This time Aaron did put his hand on Spencer's shoulder.

Spencer shook the hand off. "I have no idea." Out of the corner of his eye, Spencer could see Hotch's jaw drop.

"Why would you say those things?" Aaron asked quietly.

Another shrug. "Reflex. The guy attacked; I fought back."

Now, Aaron looked pensive, glaring out the window.

"Maybe you should bring me back to my corner now. I'm no more use to you." This had been a fun little vacation, getting to be a good guy who did things for joy, but it was a farce.

"No." Aaron's face looked hard, just like it had inside. Spencer flinched.

"Wh…what?" Spencer reviewed the incident in a heartbeat. Had he crossed a line and Hotch was going to arrest him?

Aaron shook his head, and his face softened. "You have a remarkable mind. Why are you wasting it trading petty insults with jerks and selling your body? How come you aren't curing cancer or solving cold fusion."

"It's hard to cure cancer when your mother is a schizophrenic who can't take care of herself or her ten year old son." It was out before Spencer could stop himself. The thing he never told anyone.

Hotch reached for him again, and this time Spencer allowed the touch. He needed it. Craved it. "You were alone with just your mother? Why didn't you tell anyone, get help?"

"What were they going to do? My father left us; he couldn't take it. The crazy wife and the overachieving son who would probably be crazy, too. Schizophrenia's genetic." Spencer pulled his legs up on the seat and wrapped his arms around them. But all his focus was on the hand on his shoulder.

Now that he started, he had to continue. "I read up on what the system would do. I would get sent into foster care. The stats for children my age weren't great. I would probably be abused sexually or otherwise. And my mother would be put into some state institution. I loved her."

He looked at Hotch now. "One day a man came up to me at school, Hector. He had noticed my clothes barely fit. We couldn't afford new ones. In fact, the mortgage was due, and I was becoming pretty desperate. There aren't many ways for an 11 year old boy to earn money, and Mom wasn't lucid enough to do it."

His voice was softer now, almost a whisper. It took every ounce of will to force any sound out of his throat. "He offered me a choice. He told me men would pay for my ass. Especially whoever got me first. Thousands. So I went with him."

He paused for a moment as the memory swirled around him, clear as the day it had happened. "He auctioned me off." He allowed those memories to surface, the room in the hotel. The eager men, so many men. Each willing to give more and more money for the privilege of being the first to violate a young boy.

"I made $5000 that first time for a half an hour of… work," Spencer said, shuddering from the memory. The pimp had prepared him, but it still hurt. He had promised himself he would be brave, but tears had still streamed down his face.

And now they were streaming again, just as silently. "He had them lined up for me. I hadn't hit puberty yet, and I didn't understand why they wanted this. I mean…I read how it all worked. But I didn't understand it in here." He thumped his chest.

"I felt ashamed at what I was doing with my body. I was sure everyone could tell. So I dropped out of high school." He was already a freak. On good days, everyone ignored him. Bad days…that's when they didn't ignore him.

"How old were you?" Aaron asked so quietly. Spencer wondered if he was afraid that speaking would end this confession of sins.

"I told you, eleven." Spencer's voice was steady at this. It was ancient history.

Hotch looked at him as his jaw went slack. "You were in high school at age eleven?"

Spencer nodded. "I was a senior. But I found a way to pay the bills, and take care of mom." It was good to remember this. Satisfaction washed over him. This had been his choice.

"After a few years, puberty hit. It made it easier since I was actually gay. Sometimes I could almost enjoy it." Spencer ducked his head as his face heated. He hated admitting that he enjoyed it sometimes. He knew that made him some kind of disgusting deviant.

He kept his eyes on his hands as he continued. "After another year I was too old for Hector's clients. I struck out on my own. I've been on my own ever since."

Spencer glanced at Aaron out of the corner of his eye. The man was attentive but none of the disgust he expected colored the man's face. All he saw was open interest and something else. Could it be sympathy? It gave him the courage to continue. "When I turned eighteen, I sold the house and put my mom in Bennington."

He shuddered at the memory of his mom screaming as they took her away. "I hated doing it, but I couldn't take care of her anymore; she was too sick. She needed drugs and treatment."

Aaron's hand started rubbing up and down his back in soothing circles. It encouraged Spencer to get the rest out. "After…after Tobias, I hooked up with Kitty and Lis; we watched each other's backs. I failed them, too."

Spencer closed in on himself. He had never told anyone his story, not even Kitty and Lis.

"I'm not bringing you back to that corner." Spencer looked up at the hard note in Aaron's voice.

The corner of Spencer's mouth turned up. "What, you're going to kidnap me?"

"No, but I want you to come home with me. I…I want to be with you." Now Aaron looked away. Spencer hadn't known him for long, but he sensed that Aaron was normally confident and didn't hesitate like this. His heart stirred and for a moment; he wanted to believe there was a future for him that didn't involve selling himself.

But then he clamped down. People like him didn't get happy endings. Hope just led to disappointment. He needed to cut this now, end it. Protect himself from when Aaron left him.

Spencer started laughing, a harsh grating laugh. "What could possibly possess you to say such a ludicrous thing? I'm a fuck toy. I'm not someone you take home to meet the folks."

"I have no folks for you to meet. Just a young son. I want you to come and live with us." The luminous look in Aaron's eyes broke Spencer's heart. He started shaking his head in denial.

Aaron wasn't finished. "If you want, we don't have to have sex ever again. It's not about that. It's about me getting someone I'm…I'm falling in love with out of a bad situation and into one he deserves." He took Spencer's hand.

"You could go to college, study anything, be anything." Spencer wanted to believe, but clearly this was impossible, and he focused in on the biggest issue.

"You want me around a child? Now who does drugs here?" Spencer said with disdain. "You don't get it. I'm not fit to be around normal people. I need to do what I do so my mom is taken care of. There are no choices."

Aaron put some force into his tone. "There are if you let me help you. I will make sure your mom is taken care of… at Bennington."

"What are you some kind of Millionaire Super-Secret Agent?" Stop tormenting me. "I doubt the FBI pays well enough for you to take in a stray like me, care for my mother, and put me through college without short changing Hotch Jr."

"I'm not wealthy, but I can help." Spencer looked into Aaron's eyes and saw something he hadn't ever seen before. A hopefulness, a longing, a sweetness.

"Why?" He whispered.

"I…I love you. I know it's too soon. But I know it's true." Aaron brought Spencer's hand up to his mouth and kissed it.

Spencer wanted to give another sarcastic retort, but he couldn't. He was falling in love, too; that's why he told his story. He wanted this man to really know him. How that happened, he had no idea. He was totally unworthy.

"If you won't come with me for yourself then do it for me. Please." Aaron was begging. It seemed totally out of place, and yet it struck Spencer.

Spencer wanted to ask what happens six months from now when you get bored of me? But he could already tell. Aaron was not that kind of man. He stuck to his commitments. "What if I want us to have sex, too?"

Aaron's smile lit up his face like the sun rising in the east. "Then everything will be perfect."

"Okay." Spencer said quietly.

"Okay?" Aaron asked.

"Yes, I will come with you."

Spencer was swept up into Hotch's arms and found himself being kissed enthusiastically, passionately. And he responded with all the newfound love in his heart.