So, I really battled with this chapter so I decided to rewrite this - you'll see why soon because I'm planning on writing a lot more for this story and perhaps writing a sequel (H/R series, anyone?). Hopefully you all will like this version better!
Thank you to everyone who has bared with me while I write this and done all that fun stuff like alerting and everything! Anyways, enjoy!
"What the…?" Hotch snarled, as he was roughly flung against the icy steel walls of the cramped elevator. His vision blurred and he all but staggered over his long, narrow feet, hands coming to rest on something silken and inviting. He grasped hold of it, yanking hard to regain his footing, and a sharp gasp echoed within the constricted space. He blinked, his surroundings coming into focus under the harsh lighting and he found himself nose to nose with Reid, his fingers intimately intertwined around the agent's slim back tie.
A fizzle of electricity seemed to crackle and snap between their suddenly sweat-flushed frames, fluffy air coming to swirl up and envelope them in a sultry heat. There was an audible pause in both their movements, Hotch's hands still wrapped around Reid's slender neck and he found himself drowning in a pair of eyes so purely gold that it was almost too hard to fumble away.
They seared into his soul. Needy. Panicky.
Beautiful and consuming.
As if an intruder suddenly hit "Play" on a remote, the agents whirred into motion again and desperately pushed against each other to disentangle themselves. Reid felt Hotch's muscled belly beneath his shaking palms and he felt himself fighting the urge to grab the charcoal lapels of his superior's suit jacket and give a yank of his own.
Reid stuttered for an excuse, anything to explain what the hell had just happened but Hotch neatly cut him off, clearing his throat and smoothing his scarlet tie down over his pressed dress shirt.
Stoic, even at the most flustered of times.
The younger agent gulped, squeezing his eyes shut and accepting the burn of his raw, arid throat as a consequence of his deceptive actions.
Lies cut the heart; secrets scar the soul.
Reid opened his eyes again, searching feverishly to rest on something other than his atrociously gorgeous ex-lover; unheard words bubbled up at the back of his mouth and before he had a chance to swallow them, they poured out like dam set free.
"I would never cheat on you!" Hazel eyes widened in surprise at hearing the frantic voice, laced with fear and anguish.
Hotch's handsome face flushed peach and his features crumbled for a couple seconds before hardening with suspicion and security. He was keeping his heart firmly behind armored doors if he should take such an emotional beating.
"Reid-" he set a low bar for warnings but his tone was impatient.
Reid swiftly pressed this thumb against the button indicating the seventh floor and the elevator purred to life, moaning as it creaked upwards.
"Aaron, you have to listen to me. Please." His tone was low and consuming.
Hotch exhaled in frustration and simultaneous unwillingness, raising his eyes to the tiled ceiling of the elevator and then pinching the bridge of his nose. He closed his eyes, letting his head sway as he dared look anywhere but at those trusting golden eyes.
They would swallow him whole if he let them and he knew he wouldn't be able to fight it, now matter how fiercely he tried. He would be sucked right back under, right under those thick Bambi lashes never to be heard from again.
"Start talking," Hotch folded his arms across his chest, total composure under hand.
Reid licked his lips, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he was revving for a challenge.
"You came to my apartment after the Dakota case and you asked for forgiveness. You sat in my shower and you apologized and you begged me to believe that you were telling the truth."
"I don't beg."
"You begged me, Aaron." Reid broke off, knowing his voice was morphing into the tone he frequented when he interrogated killers – low and quick, soft but firm, confident and dogmatic. "And then we made love."
Hotch's left eyebrow twitched in response but he remained completely silent and stalwart.
"You told me you were a coward and I told you that you were frightened and unstable." Reid drew his bottom lip into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
"No biting," Hotch murmured, his words an echo of what he had said months ago in a chilly hotel room in Pennsylvania. When everything had smudged from a concise black and white to a watery puddle of grays, blues and fiery oranges
Perhaps that was it.
Their thwarting of the boundary had blurted color into their previously dull, dull lives and Hotch was at once a simmering vamp red: diabolic and sexy and timeless and mysterious. So temptingly dangerous that it was impossible not to want a taste.
Just a little lick.
And Reid was a peridot green, more of a kaleidoscope of shimmery bullion and intrinsic purple than anything pure. Innocent and clean on the surface but uncut? It was a gorgeous eruption of sparkling genius. Something to delve deep into, hands at the ready in case one never came up for air.
"This is me being frightened and unstable." Reid breathed, at the mercy of the man in front of him. "This is me being a coward."
"What do you mean?" Hotch's tone wasn't gentle but more concerned above all else. Something in Reid's admission had triggered the paternal thread in his heart. "What's going on with you?"
The elevator dinged as it passed the fourth floor.
"I've been getting these…headaches. Migraines really." Reid felt his voice crack and pitch upwards. "I didn't tell you because I was afraid. I was scared that maybe you would pull me from the team or keep me from seeing Jack because you didn't want to expose him to the effects of Schizophrenia…" he shook his head because there weren't anymore words to explain why he lied, why he broke Hotch's rare trust.
"Is that what you really thought?" Hotch's voice was sore.
"I didn't want to hurt you."
"Well you hurt me regardless."
Reid felt ashamed that he would so carelessly abandon his faith in Hotch's character as not only a Unit Chief but more importantly as a lover and partner.
"Are these headaches serious? I'm not doubting your ability as an agent, Spencer," Hotch noted the wounded look in Reid's eyes at the mention of his profiling talent. "I just can't have you signing off on your own medical reports like you have the past. That still hasn't escaped me."
"Are you really thinking of transferring?"
"Are you still going to lie to me?" Hotch countered. His face was unreadable, nothing even the best profilers could dissect.
"No. I love you."
Hotch didn't reply but dropped his gaze to study the tips of his polished dress shoes as they kissed Reid's smudged high-tops. He glanced back up when Reid continued.
"I'm not asking you to love me now. Or ever love me again. But don't forget us if this is really over now. Don't forget what we had and what we meant to each other. Please, Aaron. Love the memories of how we used to be and how we hoped we would be." The slender man turned to press the elevator buttons but Hotch caught his arm as he jammed his thumb against 7 and spun him back around.
"Just once, I want someone to be afraid of losing me." He whispered sadly.
"I'm afraid every damn day," The Unit Chief growled, his dark eyes flashing in the bright light as he drew their bodies close together. "But you promised me you'd stay safe. You promised me it would be different this time around." He flexed his jaw as he drove his gaze straight into the golden eyes that stared right back. "You promised me heaven and then put me through hell."
Reid's cheekbones were tinged the color of raw tuna, flushed with guilt. "I know," he murmured. "I know and I hate to remember how I hurt you before. I broke my promise and I think about it every day. It's a constant battle. A war between remembering and not being able to forget."
His bottom lip, rouge with small teeth marks and mauve with bruises, trembled as he drank in the silence.
"Aaron," he reached a hand out to touch his superior's rough cheek, barely touching neatly styled hair. "I know how many scars you have and I have memorized the shape of your lips. I know the curve of your lower back and I have counted, touched, kissed, your ribs, your fingertips, your ears and your shoulders. I'm fluent in your body language and I want you. All of you, not just a little bit."
"Spencer-"
"I love you more than anyone on this earth. I love you more than anything in the sky and everything in space. We have a fire together and I want to believe in this…in me…in you and the way your eyes burn when you look at me. You don't have to love me but I know you still do."
Hotch watched as elegant fingers came to flutter in the air, short-circuiting from the elegant words that flowed from Reid's battered lips.
"When you're attracted to someone, it's because of the details. It's their kindness and their eyes and their smile and their laugh. It's you, Aaron. It's your kindness and your eyes and your smile…even when you don't smile-"
Through the passionate declaration Reid was delivering he hadn't noticed Hotch grasping his floundering wrists, leaning over and pressing his warm and firm lips tenderly against the young agent's.
Silence washed over the elevator cabin as both men let themselves sink into each other. Hotch snaked his arms around Reid's trim waist, arms coming to press against his back and fingertips rubbing slow, deliberate circles over the damp cotton of his shirt.
Their lips moved together urgently. Desperately. Savoring everything and anything in case they would never taste each other again.
When they broke away their foreheads rested together and Reid fisted his hands in Hotch's shirt, both of their gazes down, both their breathing labored.
Minutes passed before any of them dared break the hazy air.
"I hate the way you lied to me," Hotch began, curling a finger under Reid's chin so their eyes could meet. "I hate that you felt you needed to hide something from me, after all we've been through….after everything that's happened."
Reid drew his lips into his mouth before Hotch cradled his jaw tightly as a signal to stop biting.
"I hate it when you give me those Bambi eyes and I hate that you know what I'm thinking and that you're always right. I hate that you see straight through me."
There was another lengthy pause and both agents shared long and sad looks that broadcasted their unspoken apologies.
It was the words they never said that turned into the only thoughts they knew.
"But I realized that no matter how much I hated what you did, I hated even more that I still loved you and didn't want to. With Haley…the guilt overrode my feelings and there came a time when I couldn't decipher between loathing and love. I found what I knew I loved in you and I let it kill me."
"I'm sorry," Reid's voice was almost invisible. "If I could go back and do it all over again I would."
"I know you would."
"I tried to keep your love safe."
"I know you did."
"I want to kiss you again."
"I know you will."
Reid cupped Hotch's face, letting his hands fall to his broad shoulders and then to the lapels of the Unit Chief's jacket before tugging on them and fusing their lips together. His tongue probed at the seam of Hotch's mouth, curious and familiar all at once.
He poured every ounce of passion he held into the kiss, letting it swell and spark as their tongues twisted together and their limbs became tangled. Reid mouthed at the soft patch of skin beneath Hotch's ear, earning a soft and sound groan of pleasure.
He had never imagined in his capable mind that someone who understood even the darkest corners of his mixed-up soul could exist before he had knocked on the decrepit and dusty door of a man who seemed to thrive in his own darkness.
Before he had felt the pressing urge to gently dismantle the armored plates, the deflective words and the steeled glower to uncover not Agent Hotchner but Aaron, the worst fourth pirate in history who had a secret affair with a box of Grahams Crackers every Saturday night while he watched Cars with his flaxen-haired son.
A tug of his collar brought Reid from his thoughts and he whimpered as Hotch began to devour his jaw possessively. He felt his lover's smirk against his neck at the sound and if a lack of passion was fatal then Hotch was sure to outlive every gunshot and stab that echoed his way.
The elevator hummed to a steady jolt and the agents, startled, pulled apart. A pair of swirling dark eyes met a golden pair and Hotch gently squeezed Reid's elbow before he stepped back, letting out a breath.
He was sure that if all the stars in the sky were to rain down upon them at that very second, he would silently lay awake in a heavy dose of atmosphere, clutching his former lover….his lover, whatever they were….and then begin to doze on the cusp of life, safe an soundly.
His body was drained of the tension it had harbored for the past few days and instead was replaced by serene calmness. From a million miles an hour to absolute composure in the span of seven floors and a hundred whispered promises.
"Stay close." He commanded and Reid nodded, the barest hint of a smile on his kiss-chapped lips.
Hotch felt his brow flatten and a suppressed grin tug at the corners of his own lips and as he slipped through the doors and into the sunlit, glass-paneled homicide office, he winked.
It wasn't a promise to be together, it wasn't everything they wanted, but it was the start of picking the shattered pieces up from the bloodied floor.
Because Reid knew from that good were never easy to catch and the easy were never good to know. Love never happened the way he thought it should and deception and protection were admirable traits.
One would breed love, the other hate.
Stay tuned for a revelation on Reid's headaches! Please review if you have the time
Quick side note: when I wrote this, I was actually organizing my nail polishes and thought of Hotch as Chanel Vamp and Reid as Chanel Peridot (you can Google the colors, they're beautiful)...let me know what you guys think of that and if you agree!