I owe everyone a massive apology for basically dropping off the grid for the past few months but a whole lot of life hit me at one time and then I was in the Caribbean without internet access or phone service for a while but I'm back and so is AFIII :) Enjoy and don't hate me!
Song: Pictures/Atlas Hands (basically been my entire existence lately and everyone should listen to these songs) - Benjamin Francis Leftwich/Sweetheart, What Have You Done To Us? - Keaton Henson.
Icicles dripped from naked trees like diamonds, sparkling and swaying as snow flurries became torrential white violence. Rocks snapped and crackled at the undercarriage of Aaron's SUV as the car slowly made its way around the meandering roads of Beaver Creek, Colorado. Morning had come only a few hours ago, the sun turning smoky rouge that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. It was evening again, the rotations of drivers recycled back to Rossi directing the car toward Vail.
Spencer jolted awake, lifting his body up and away from where he had been resting against Aaron's thigh for several hours. The car came to a halt at the foot of a steep and buried pathway, and his hazel eyes immediately assessed his surroundings. The blue glow of the headlights ahead lit Rossi's silent profile from the driver's seat, and the young agent turned to lean his head on the cool glass window, going hollow as he realized he had woken from a dream so vivid and all too familiar.
Spencer had been in bed with Mark, their warm limbs intertwined as they looked on at empty space, cut off from the rest of their respective worlds.
"I thought I loved him," Spencer had murmured
"What's love?" Mark rolled over, gold eyes sleepy and hurt. "If a man asks a woman 'do you love me?' and if, after a long and awkward pause and considerable deliberation, she replies 'well, up to a certain point, under certain conditions, to a certain extent,' then we can be sure that whatever it is she feels for this poor man is not love."
Spencer had paused, as touches became desperate and fierce and not one of them spoke again before Mark had broken away from a punishing kiss. A pain Spencer thought of as deliberate and spiteful.
"Is that not what Aaron did to you?" Right eyebrow raised, citrine eyes now sharp and inquisitive. "If love is a measure, the only measure of love is love without measure."
Spencer looked at him through the dreamy haze, over and across the expanse of white sheets.
"It represents a giving, without holding back, an unconditional commitment, which marks love with a certain excess. There is no merit in loving moderately."
There is no merit in loving moderately.
Mark's words stung Spencer.
"I suppose I loved Aaron. But there were certainly conditions. He hurt me. Does that not draw a line somewhere?"
"You tell me, Spencer. You're the one who ran away from him." Mark's fingers were smoothing the genius's hair away from his face.
"What if I hurt you? Would you not love me anymore?"
"I've been hurt before." Of course he had. "Far more than anything you could even fathom. You wouldn't hurt me and I wouldn't stop loving you."
Of course that was no longer true. This was dream-Mark, and in reality Spencer had hurt the man and Mark would stop loving him just like everyone did eventually.
"So you love me?" Spencer had then placed a hand on Mark's bare chest, the skin warm and welcoming under his fingertips.
"I love you, Spencer. How could I not?" Mark had pushed up, moving over his lover. But when their lips met it had been Aaron Spencer had been with.
And now sensations lingered where Aaron's hands and mouth had been, nerves alive and wanting.
How long had he been sleeping?
Spencer slid his eyes to his left, where his superior was sleeping stoically against the car door, propped up at an awkward angle. Jack's head was against his father's thigh and Aaron's hand lazily traced circles over his son's back. Spencer swallowed, eyeing the patterns the man's hands were making, for they had always made those patterns on the agent's own naked skin. His fingertips tingled as he fought the immediate urge to slide close to Aaron and stroke the lean muscles of his chest and arms, not even knowing why these feelings were suddenly surfacing again.
Again, Mark's words from the unwelcomed and bizarre dream floated in his mind. There is no merit in loving moderately.
A few months ago, there had been times when Spencer had been afraid to fall asleep. He had battled the fluttering eyes, the drowsy movements, and the relentless yawns for fear that by falling asleep he would wake up to find his days with Aaron cut short. Erased. He had come to dread leaving the day's delicate moments behind and every morning he was met with surprise, a flirtation with fate, that promised the moments were still there. He would turn and stretch to look into dark eyes that were warm for him, for his heart. He would know that today, that day, would be a good day.
And now for all of Spencer's doctorates, degrees, and wealth of knowledge, he could not figure out why the embers of what he felt for Aaron had begun to burn again. Of course the anger of betrayal - again - was sour in his stomach, but it was a little harder to ignore, a little more difficult to explain this time around.
He turned back to Aaron again before noticing the flickering of headlights that colored the man's elegant and handsome face.
He swiveled in his seat.
Of course more cars were behind them. And the young FBI agent was confident that they belonged to JJ and Will, and Emily.
"Are we here?" Spencer mumbled to Rossi, leaning forward and stretching out the muscles between his shoulder blades. He was eager to leave his thoughts of his powerful CIA and equally powerful FBI exes trapped in the car.
The veteran agent turned, surprised by the interruption of silence and then glanced at the other vehicles gathering behind Aaron's.
"Almost. Vail is about a twenty-minute drive from here. The house is up this road." The man paused and then spoke after a few moments. "Reid, I didn't mean to bring you here under false pretenses. My intention was not to hurt you."
"I know that," Spencer exhaled slowly, meeting his teammate's apologetic gaze. He felt Jack's feet push against his legs as the boy stretched himself further across the backseat. He settled his slender fingers on Jack's back absent-mindedly but drew them away when he skimmed Aaron's hand by accident, the touch too similar to what he had been feeling in his dreams.
"JJ, Will and Henry are here?"
"Hmmm mmm." Rossi turned his attention back toward the pathway and then shifted Aaron's car into the off-road setting.
"And Emily and Morgan and Garcia?"
"Yes, everyone was invited."
Spencer sighed, drawing his pea coat closer around his body. He often found that the most distressing affliction was to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Aaron give a small stretch. His eyes slowly opened and for a moment, their gazes caught, their breath held. Aaron's eyes were filled with their familiar, and now expected, sadness while Spencer's own hazel eyes were a concoction of trepidation and wistfulness. The genius eventually broke the shared look, turning and coughing in the direction of the window.
It was too soon. Too soon after ending his relationship with Mark. Too soon after being betrayed in an airport in Chicago by those he was supposed to trust each and every day.
It was just too...soon.
Mark's words battled for another chance to haunt the man and Spencer wouldn't let them in.
Snowflakes swarmed and darted by at frantic speeds, freckling the windows of Aaron's car so much so that it looked as though the agents and Jack were cocooned from the world.
Rossi carefully navigated the car up the steep road as the Unit Chief bit his tongue to keep from being a backseat driver and Spencer listened, refusing to turn his head. They sat in silence while Jack continued to sleep, and, behind them, Morgan drew Emily's Jaguar up to full tilt, packing the snow beneath the tires. The LaMontagnes followed and Spencer wondered whether it was too late to be left on the side of the highway.
As he stared back into the face of darkness, he let his mind wander back to the night when he had first visited Aaron Hotchner, a man who was sophisticated, cool to the point of not feeling anything. It was a night he often thought about, though it became easier and easier to remember each moment in complete clarity. The nervous laughter, the somber looks, the brushing of fingers was stark like ink on pages because now, if Spencer was honest, he had moments like that very rarely. He had never been particularly talented at noticing when he was happy, except maybe in retrospect. He could have said his real weakness was a kind of long-sightedness. Usually it was only from a distance, and much too late, that he could see far-flung spots of perfection in his lifetime.
Rossi's house was nestled among clusters of black spruce and aspens, all of them thick on the edge of the mountain. Saplings grew at steep angles, the slender boughs straining over the estate before gravity bended them back. The house itself was exposed brick and smooth stone, with modern plated glass for windows that overlooked what Spencer was sure was a sharp drop into the sunken back of the mountain.
A wrought-iron black gate crept open as Rossi pulled the car close and he flicked on the bright headlights. The eerie blue blanketed black shapes that became snow-caked bushes, short trees, and a circular driveway.
"We're here, buddy." Aaron said softly to Jack, unbuckling the boy's seatbelt and hoisting him into his arms. Jack mumbled something Spencer couldn't hear and made a half-hearted attempt to hang onto the collar of his father's jacket while keeping his eyes tightly shut. "Alright, we're getting you to bed."
Car doors slammed, voices muffled as the team greeted one another with surprise and relief that they had all made it safely through the storm. Boots crunched over snow, flattening fluffy banks and Penelope's laughter sounded in the distance.
Spencer stepped into the brisk darkness, the wind already on his neck as though someone was blowing through pursed lips. Above him, whirling drifts of white wind carried over his head, lifting his tousled hair into the air and threatening to bring his whole person with it.
'Spence." It was JJ, immediately beside him, smiling timidly while Will maneuvered their son out of his car seat behind her. "You're here. You came."
"Not under my own will," a small smile of his own tugged at the corners of his mouth and before he knew it, JJ had her arms around him. She drew him in tightly, as though she were scared he might flee back down the mountain.
Instead Spencer found himself overwhelmed by a sense of calmness. He didn't like his dream with Mark, or his dream with Aaron, frankly. But JJ's affection and familiar smell were something of a kryptonite for him. He could never stay mad at her, her intentions being too good, too pure to fault.
As the pair hugged, Spencer felt Morgan's hands clasp his shoulders and squeeze. The elder agent didn't look particularly animated but the genius could tell he was grateful that Spencer wasn't at home either loathing his team for luring him to Colorado, or packing his bags for the insane asylum while Mark waited outside with the engine running.
Rossi unlocked the imposing double doors, and disabled the alarm before beckoning the team inside and out of the looming blizzard that seemed ready to strike at any moment. Reid felt more pats, more squeezes on his arms and shoulders and Penelope stood on her tiptoes to give him a small kiss on the cheek.
Their boots beat snow from their treads on sisal rugs that covered a burnt orange flagstone entranceway. Beyond the hallway, Spencer could see three or four stairs that emptied into a sunken living room with floor to ceiling windows and suede couches that faced an imposing fireplace.
"Wow," Morgan whistled, his voice echoing under the high ceilings. He tipped his head to admire the artwork on the walls.
"This was very generous of you to invite us all here," Will smiled and shook Rossi's hand before adjusting Henry over his shoulder.
"Of course," Rossi nodded, "we're family and family should be together for Christmas."
"Christmas!" Jack, who had apparently woken up from the noise of the front door slamming, cheered from his father's arms. "Is Santa coming soon, Daddy?"
"Very soon, buddy. But not if we don't get you to bed soon."
"Speaking of bed," Emily interrupted from where she was brushing snowflakes off of her dark jacket, "where are we all going to sleep in this...castle?"
"Will, JJ, and Henry have the ground floor bedroom." Rossi directed the family through the living room where there was a hallway that led to a spacious bedroom and attached bathroom. "Emily and Penelope, do you mind sharing the second floor bedroom nearest the staircase?"
"Nope, not at all, as long as I can get Internet access, my crown prince." Garcia tucked her arm through Emily's and the two collected their suitcases to turn up the stairs.
"Third door on the right!" Rossi called after them. He turned back to where Aaron, Morgan and Spencer remained. "Morgan and Reid, if you follow them, there are two twin beds in the room three doors down. There's a bathroom too in there, which is attached to the bedroom Aaron and Jack will be staying in."
Spencer could only imagine colliding with his superior in the dark of dawn as they both made a beeline to brush their teeth before anyone else was awake. The thought wasn't particularly appealing but it was not as though there was some kind of open forum for protests.
"...Your bags?" Aaron's voice broke Spencer's thoughts.
"Sorry, what?" The younger agent realized they were alone all of a sudden in the hallway and he had been staring at the front door.
The Unit Chief frowned. "I asked if you would help me with the bags. Morgan took Jack upstairs to go put on his pajamas."
"Oh." Spencer paused, glancing at the staircase and then back at the man in front of him. "Sorry, uh, sure."
Silence folded around them as the pair retreated back out into the furious storm, heads ducked low and hands balled in jacket pockets. Aaron opened the trunk and pulled out their two suitcases and then a duffel bag belonging to Jack.
"Thanks," he murmured as Spencer took each bag from him, the sweeping of fingers against hands not lost on either of them.
Aaron shut the trunk and for a moment, it was just them, out in the storm, alone with their thoughts and the feelings they didn't want to feel. Spencer felt Aaron's eyes trace over the lines of his lips and his stomach turned at the contemplation of his dream. He wanted to tell the agent that he felt recklessly alone now, that his body contained his unsteady heart and something else, something he felt but could not describe. It was a something that shifted with flecks of thought, with urge and memory; salted with brightness, flickering with white and pale gold like stars or at least something that looked like stars because they were made from the same substance.
He hadn't really lost all interest and affection for Aaron but sometimes the sincere words Spencer had spoken to him seemed so far away, no longer theirs but the air's.
Aaron felt it too, the genius was sure of it. And when the elder agent stepped forward, Spencer didn't step back. They stood close, white huffs of breath mingling with one another as Aaron, very slowly, reached up and tucked a loose strand of his former lover's hair behind his ear. The touch was intentional, almost teasing, with slender fingers lingering on creamy skin.
For Spencer, life seemed to rush by at a speed that was at once impossible to catch and too cruel. Aaron's warm skin on his made it seem like the most intense moments between them happened to have occurred only yesterday and nothing had eased the pain and pleasure, the impossible intensity of love and it's dog-leaping happiness, the bleak blackness of passions unrequited, or unexpressed, or just plain unresolved as it was for them.
The genius fought the urge to reach up and press Aaron's hand against his cheek, close his eyes, not care that it didn't seem real. Snow fell faster, and he wondered if sometimes it were possible for nature to know how humans felt. Sometimes it felt like the short bleak night in North Dakota had known that Spencer's heart had been breaking since he fell in love with Aaron. His rib cage began to ache deeply the way it came to when he was with his lover. His heart would beat the same desperate rhythm of Love me, Love me, Love me, just in the same way the snow now fell across Aaron's dark hair and nestled in the open collar of his jacket.
"We should go inside," the Unit Chief sighed, stoic, but his voice was gravelly.
"We should." Spencer felt the hand drop away, the touch only now a memory that didn't even seem real.
They collected the bags, weaving between boots strewn across the front hallway floor, and made their way upstairs in awkward silence, unsure of what to say to one another.
"I'll, uh, see you tomorrow then," Aaron stopped at his door, his eyes searching for something, anything, in Spencer's own eyes. His posture was formal, his tone cool and at complete odds to whatever had just transpired between them outside.
It was a familiar setting...one Spencer could immediately place as the man had behaved the same way after they had spent the night together for the first time in Aaron's hotel room. He called it the Hotchner mode.
"Good night, Spencer."
"Good night, Aaron," the younger agent replied. Both men paused, and then Spencer turned away to his own room.
That same something returned to his chest, fluttering, as he realized that maybe, just maybe, Aaron was really going to fight for him again.
And maybe this time he would fight too.
Please review and more soon I promise!