Emily
.
89.
"Maybe we were wrong about him," Sergio suggested of Aaron, but Emily didn't really want to hear that. The last thing she needed was her stupid dæmon joining Team Aaron. Spencer was already there, and Emily would be the first to admit why that pissed her off: she was jealous. God was she jealous. Fuck Aaron fucking Hotchner and his holier than thou ways, coming in on the only good thing she had going right now. Fuck him. He wasn't going to come between her and something she'd come to treasure; her friendship with Spencer was different, it was real, and she'd fight for it if she had to.
"He just hasn't been an asshole yet," Emily snapped. "He still has the potential."
Despite this surety, she couldn't help but soften in person. It was hard to remember everything she knew was dangerous about him when he was sitting there looking all solemn with his dæmon tumbling about on the grass and his eyes locked on whatever they were eating. A big dude, yeah, but there was a pinched kind of look around his eyes and mouth that made her feel uncomfortable, reminding her of hungry kids she'd seen lurking in street corners of some of the cities she'd travelled to with her mother. Hungry kids, and stray dogs, always waiting to be kicked. Was he like that, she wondered? Was that why he was like he was? Was he just waiting to be kicked?
That was a rough thought.
Miserable or not, the truth was that, now that he was here, there was no time alone with Spencer anymore. If Spence was there, Aaron was too, and she missed being able to talk to Spencer without worrying about Aaron butting in. She wanted it to be how it had been. She wanted to see if she could coax out the boy she'd seen glimpses of that night at the park: the silly, vibrant boy who'd held his mouse-dæmon like he was precious and wondered about his own potential. Shit, if it took a bit of pot to finally calm Spencer down enough that he wasn't manic with his own thoughts, then she was down for that. There were parts of him that he kept hidden — and she reckoned she knew how to draw them out. He needed it, or he was going to shatter under the weight of his own expectations. But there was no way Aaron 'Saint' Hotchner was going to be okay with her getting their weirdo friend stoned; he didn't have the spine to bend.
.
90.
At work, she found Aaron's file and read through what she could. She found what she needed to finally decide whether she was going to let him in or shut him out. It wasn't hard to pick the lock on the filing cabinet holding their therapy notes, and it sure as shit wasn't any moral conundrum to find his file. They all knew what he was here for; he could be dangerous. Hungry dogs could be, especially when they were waiting for a blow.
It took her two hours to read the file, under her desk and smiling disarmingly whenever someone walked past her. In this time, she learned several things about Aaron Hotchner:
One: he wasn't a murderer. There wasn't a single doubt in Jerry's mind that Aaron had had absolutely nothing to do with the death of Ricky Whitechapel beyond simply being present.
Two: he still had nightmares about that night. She paused over this. There was a whole section on working through death and trauma in there. Aaron was haunted by that day.
The third and final thing she found was something that she regretted reading as soon as her eyes skimmed over the neat Times New Roman laying it out for her. She remembered their argument at lunch and promptly put the file away, slinking back to her desk and laying her head in her arms to deal with a churning gut that whispered accusingly along with Sergio: "What are you going to do with this information?"
Because the third and final thing she'd found was this:
'It is my belief that Aaron Hotchner is a victim of sustained violence and victimisation within his home. It is my recommendation that, due to the danger I see him as being in, a full and immediate investigation be opened with Child Protective Services, and that he be removed immediately from the home.'
.
91.
"Have you heard from your mother?" Jerry asked.
Emily replied, "Nope," without even deigning to look up from picking at her nails, sprawled sideways in the chair set aside for her and with her stockinged leg bouncing to an imaginary beat.
"Have you tried?"
"Hah, no."
Therapy with Emily very rarely went easily. Jerry knew this. He settled back in his chair and eyed her over his steepled fingers. She considered poking her tongue out at him or flipping him off, but either would land her back in detention and probably with double therapy to boot.
"Why not?"
"Because she's a total bitch." Emily bit down on her nail, wincing as she tore right to the quick. "Why else? I don't need her shit in my life. I've got nothing to tell her anyway."
"You could tell her about your new friends."
Emily turned the best stare she could onto him, trying to channel the piss-worthy glare that Aaron and his fucking monster of a dæmon could nail when they were angry. It didn't seem to work, even when Sergio shot up into a wolf and sneered along, all narrow and pokey with tufts of fur standing upright. "What friends?" she spat. "Spencer? Why would I tell her about him?"
"And Aaron. You've all been sitting together lately — I was under the impression you were getting along. Isn't that something she'd be interested in?"
"No. You don't know her, she's only interested in the capital I bring her as her offspring. She doesn't give a shit about Spencer, or Aaron, or the gigantic stick he has up his ass."
"That's not really how I'd expect you to talk about a friend."
Emily muttered, "You don't know shit about me either."
.
92.
She didn't tell Spencer about Aaron. She couldn't. That wasn't her secret to tell, but the word danger lingered in her mind. She began watching Aaron, noting his careful sizing up of those around them, noting how he'd wince when people shouted near him. Emily had never once faced someone within her home laying a hand upon her, and it was a frightening and alien thing to consider what it would be like to fear going home. It was also beyond her ability to help him, really. Bullies in school were one thing; bullies at home entirely another.
"We can be his friend," Sergio offered. "Give him an escape."
"I refuse to be friends with him out of pity."
"It doesn't have to be out of pity. We could like him. I like him. Hal is sweet to Aureilo."
Emily paused, bare feet scuffing on the rug under her heel. "What if that's a ploy?" she asked her dæmon. "Hal can be mean."
"Hal's never mean. I've never seen her mean once, only defensive. I can be mean — I know what mean looks like. Mean looks like this." He changed into a fox with a snarling muzzle and cruel mask. It wasn't the shape that was mean, it was the intent he put behind it, and Emily shivered: "Mean doesn't look like this." And then he was the wolf that Hal walked as sometimes, head low and ears slicked back. "This is defensive. But that's never how she looks with Aureilo, is it?"
He changed one more time, to a mouse with a gentle stare.
"Don't do that," she said uncomfortably, disliking how little he was right now. That wasn't her. They weren't Spencer, content to tuck themselves away from the world. They faced it, furiously.
There was a knock at her dorm room door, lazy and slow. In the corner of her eye, as she glanced at the door, Sergio flickered and grew, but she didn't look to see what. Instead, she let Andrews in and stood aside to let him past. The dæmon on his shoulder was a rook again, just like the night of the party, and she shivered.
"Hey there, Emma," Andrews said, smiling. Emily eyed him, under no illusions about why he was here. Oh, she was going to buy from him, but they were probably also going to have sex.
"Emily," she corrected shortly, closing the door.
It was better than feeling nothing.
.
93.
"Man," Andrews slurred. He was pressed against her body with both of them strung out along with the thump of a stereo playing next door, Emily's brain looping and torquing along with the fingers of sound playing catch-up with her neurons. Acid was never kind to her, never, and she loved how it felt just as much as she loathed how it felt. His next words weren't strung out at all: "I don't know why people hate you so much. Easy girls are fun."
Emily closed her eyes, pretending that there was something in this room still worth being something for.
.
94.
After that hour, Sergio was a wolf with his ears tucked back, his form wavering and wild as they came down. They were alone. The music was gone. She hadn't bothered getting dressed, splaying her hands across her flat stomach and wondering if there was anything under her palm that was worth all this energy. The roof danced and the walls twitched along and all of it ignored her stupid dæmon, who wasn't anything special if she wasn't. Always stupid, just like her, and just as easy.
"Why didn't you throw him out?" asked the wolf.
"He's not wrong," she replied, touching the wall to see if it would move with the pulse of life she could feel in her abdomen. "Is he?"
The wolf didn't reply.
.
95.
There was a weekend where she managed to haul Spencer out to a party, knowing he'd probably hate it and determined to do so anyway. Introvert or not, he couldn't just sulk in his room for his whole life, and she knew Aaron didn't visit late on Saturday nights, sneering as she imagined church-boy off to pray the next morning to whatever he thought was waiting to listen. He'd learn that there was nothing there but lies and bullshit soon enough.
She was drinking. Spencer wasn't, leading her in wobbly circles around the open property where the party was spilling outwards: a plot of land set around an old farmhouse almost an hour out of DC. They'd caught a ride out here with Andrews, Spencer silent and furious in the backseat the whole time with Emily uncomfortably aware that Spencer could see Andrews trying to sneak a hand up her skirt as he drove. At least they were finding their own way home, with Spencer bringing money for a taxi. She hated relying on others.
"Why are we walking in circles?" she asked, slinging her arm around Spencer's waist and dragging him in a looping kind of almost-dance. "Dance with me!"
"I don't dance," Spencer replied, shaking his head. She rolled her eyes at him, ruffling his hair up nicely and tugging him close, trying to get those narrow hips swaying. "Emily! Stop!" But he was laughing, the worried look in his eyes lessening slightly. "I don't like the crowds."
"They're crowdy," Aureilo yelled from his shirt, voice barely audible over the nearby music. Emily hummed along, looking around for a solution. The bonfire to the back looked less crowded — although not by much — but there was another further back that was smaller again and mostly just the more reclusive kids.
"Come on then," she said, dragging him along with a hopping bounce. They'd lost Andrews and she wasn't sorry at all. Tonight was a night to find that happy, giddy boy again, the one who was hiding behind the worried light in Spencer's eyes; she missed him.
The smaller fire was languid, the people around it spilled on the ground like they'd been left there by a lazy hand, only moving to pass around the bowl they were smoking. Spence hesitated, just for a second.
"You told me it felt good," Emily said. "Like not thinking."
"Do it," added Aureilo.
Spencer rolled his eyes at them, taking a place next to her at the fire and relaxing by her side. She leaned on his shoulder.
This; this was what would help him, she was sure.
.
96.
"My wallet is gone." Spencer sounded only slightly surprised by this, patting his jeans down one more time as though he wasn't quite sure what was going on. Emily kneeled in front of him, trying to fix his silly sweater-vest up so that the argyle pattern would line up nicely in her eyes. She laid her hands flat across the wild lines, feeling for the beat and pulse of the same life in him as she'd found in herself. "Em, my wallet is gone — I must have dropped it. Somewhere." He looked down at her hands, laughing a little before the worry returned and he caught them in his.
She gasped at his long fingers across hers, feeling swallowed by that grip before shaking herself. "Well, fuck," she managed. "What now?"
He just shrugged loosely, distracted by her hands. "I think I've dropped Aureilo too?" he questioned, trying to turn in a slow circle to look for his dæmon. "Well, fuck."
He swore so rarely that she giggled to hear it, which only distracted him further from the search for his lost belongings.
"We're fine," she mumbled, closing her eyes and sprawling back to curl around her dæmon, stroking his spine. "We're fine, Spence, lie down with us." He ignored her, turning in another circle, and then another, and then going oop and tumbling sideways as he got dizzy. She nuzzled close and added, "They'll both come back when they're done partying."
"My wallet will?" he asked. His voice cracked amusingly, but she wasn't paying attention anymore.
.
97.
It hit them an hour later, just how fucked they were.
"Uh oh," Emily said, double-checking his pockets and finding a paperclip, a Bic lighter, and Aureilo, but no wallet. Uselessly, Spencer just laughed. "Stop laughing, idiot, how are we going to get home? You're a genius. Do something genius!"
"Okay." Spencer curled his knees to his chest, thoughtfully examining the dying flames. Emily looked around for someone they knew, seeing no one familiar among the drunken shapes of the people dancing and hooking up around them. Teenagers staggered past, a keg stand going on by the wall. "I've got it! Sergio can turn into a horse and we'll ride him home. Wait, no, I don't know how to ride horses, bother…"
Emily looked at Spencer now, covering her mouth with her hands to forestall a giggle that would only encourage his idiocy. In his defence, he looked solemn enough, but she saw him hiding a smile with his hair curling down into his eyes.
"Yes," Sergio said. "That's the only problem with that idea."
"I'll be a horse!" Aureilo announced. He stood bravely on Spencer's shoulder and fell off with a squeak. They all heard the thumpf of him gently hitting the soft ground before Spencer twitched and belatedly tried to catch him.
"Is that the only idea you have?" Emily asked. There was a field nearby: maybe they could just sleep out there, or in the barn. Up in the hay, like a couple of barn cats. That sounded comfy.
"Hal would be a pretty horse," Aureilo added, skittering over the leaves and jumping onto Sergio. "Don't you think?"
"Come on," she said. "We're finding a phone and calling Aaron."
"Are we?" Spencer asked, brightening. "Awesome."
.
98.
Aaron looked amazingly out of place walking through the crowd, his car keys dangling from his fingers and his gaze darting everywhere. Hal was stiff-legged by his side, a wolf again, and Emily couldn't help but laugh. Church boy dressed pretty in a dress shirt and jeans: all he was missing to complete that clean-cut look was the tie. Alerted by her laugh, Spencer turned and saw Aaron, his face splitting immediately into a stupid grin.
"Aaron!" he yelled, lurching up and throwing himself at the other boy. "You came!"
"I don't have to be a horse!" Aureilo could be distantly heard to be explaining to a very confused looking Hal. Aaron had reflexes that Emily envied right now as she drunkenly considered getting up to greet their friend and realised that she probably didn't have the feet for it. He caught Spencer mid-leap with his face covering a complicated array of emotions before settling on bemused as he half-carried, half-dragged Spencer back to the fire they were, mostly, alone at.
"Are you drunk?" he asked Spencer before looking down at Emily as Spencer did nothing but chirp, "Nope!" and then laugh.
Emily tried to look innocent. "He's just drunk," she lied, relying on Aaron's slim knowledge of alcohol to get this past him but, judging from the raised eyebrow she got in return, it wasn't working. "Okay, fine, he's baked."
"He smells like weed," Hal complained, sniffing Aureilo. The mouse's fur was visibly shifted about by the big nose snuffing at her before she picked Aureilo up with her teeth as gentle around him as possible and carried him back to the fire. Aureilo seemed to find this hilarious, his shrill mouse-laugh borderline hysterical.
Spencer had his hand around Aaron's arm, grinning with a kind of manic wideness that she recognised. The kid was only barely stoned, touching on sober, and he was panicking. His gaze switched from the chick with the empty bowl and back to Aaron as he began to fret over how this made him look in front of the boy he was desperate to impress.
Emily remembered Rome and being so recklessly frantic to fit in that she'd have done anything.
"Sit down," she told Aaron. "I'll get you a drink."
Aaron frowned. "I thought I was coming to pick you up…" But his eyes lingered on Spencer, whose smile was slipping, his gaze growing glassy as the panic spread outward. "Do you want to go home?"
"I'm…" Spencer began, wobbling in place. Aaron supported him effortlessly. Emily ached to see that, just how easy they were around each other. It had taken her twice as long to get past Spencer's shields. "I'm … having fun? I guess. I think. We can go though. We should go. Let's go."
He walked off in entirely the wrong direction. Aaron collected him with a low sigh, herding him back to the fire where Emily somehow managed not to laugh.
"Give him two hours and he can drive," she said slyly, nodding at Spencer. That might be pushing it a little, but if they got Aaron drunk, what would it matter? Shit, if all he had to look forward to at home was cruelty, maybe he needed this. A night where he could see how sweet Spence could be when he wasn't worried about his knotty brain. "You could drink if you want to."
"You can drive?" Aaron asked Spencer, startled.
"I have been known to be one who has driven," Spencer rambled before looking confused. "Wait, no, what? Yes. I … what?"
"Come on, Hotchner, you need to loosen up sometimes, you know. Let it go!" Emily was teasing, but intent. It would be fun, and they all needed fun.
"I don't even know what that means," Aaron complained, sitting down and looking startled as Spencer flopped next to him, tucking himself close and beaming.
"We know." Emily found her feet and went to find some alcohol for the kid before he changed his mind. "Maybe we need to get you laid."
"That's a hard no," Aaron said firmly as Spencer turned an inexplicable shade of embarrassed.
.
99.
It was morning when it happened, just barely. Aaron had made himself a friend between his first drink and his fourth, smiling nervously as she — Claire Sinclair, Emily recognised, and she was one of those sweet, arty kids with the wicked smiles — sat on the side of Aaron opposite Spencer and flirted shamelessly with them both. Spencer, being Spencer, didn't seem to notice. He was half asleep by now anyway, head on Aaron's shoulder and mouse-dæmon snoozing in the hands he had folded in his lap. Emily nestled on his other side, stupid-content with the quiet rundown of the night and feeling nothing but cozy. Someone had brought out more weed at some point; Aaron had declined, Emily had declined for Spencer considering they actually needed to go home at some point, and she'd partaken. No reason why she should be sober like this, not when she was so close to feeling like she was finally home.
This was home, she thought, turning her head and breathing deep just to feel Spencer against her. But their corner was tucked away from the wind, almost enclosed, and now that the fire had burned down there was probably more pot smoke floating about than air. Aaron looked fucked, his eyes taking on that hundred-yard stare of the truly wasted, his cheeks flushed pink. Pretty, she thought, eyeing his neat mouth and the nice line to his jaw. What a pretty kid. Fuckable, she'd think, if she wasn't so determined to keep their weird three-way friendship PG to avoid things getting knotty like Rome had.
Under her arm, Spencer jerked awake with a damp snuffle. "It's almost morning," he noted unnecessarily before turning to look past Aaron. "Oh, hello, who are you?"
Claire laughed at him, shaking her head. "More conscious than you," she teased. Her dæmon was a cat by her side that rolled in the grass and laughed along in a sweet voice that was almost musical. "You poor thing."
"That's a good point," Sergio said, sitting upright. "Get him up and walking, Em, wake him up."
"Alright, alright," she grumbled, tugging him up. Aaron protested the loss of Spencer's heat, looking up at them with the most woeful expression, but Claire's hand was on his thigh and he didn't move to follow. "Come on, skinny, we're going for a trot around the yard. Get those knees up."
Most people were either gone or unconscious by this point, the sky slowly turning pink-blue with the oncoming dawn. They walked in silence as Emily watched Spencer's senses beginning to sharpen, his eyes red but clear and his clothes ruffled.
"It's real nice here," he said finally, turning to stare at the dew-wet morning field with Aureilo yawning on his shoulder. "I'd like to see more, when sober. During the daytime."
"We'll bring you out here sometime and you can have all the farm you want. You think you're good to drive without flinging us into a tree?"
"Yeah," Spence replied, rubbing his face with both hands and leaving white lines from the pressure of his fingers. "But I need water first. My mouth feels horrible. And my throat hurts."
"Cotton-mouth," she teased, herding him back to go find Aaron.
But, when they got there, Aaron and Claire were gone.
.
100.
Aaron found them sitting by his car, waiting for him. Spencer was quiet, Aureilo hidden in his shirt. They watched their friend walk towards them with an unsteady slope to his gait and looking more than a bit confused. Emily noted a red mark on his throat, his hair rucked up stupidly like someone had run their fingers through it, and an entirely dazed expression cemented on his face.
Emily teased, "What. A. Slut." as soon as he was in earshot, gratified by Hal glaring at them with her own fur in total disarray.
"Are you ready to go?" Spencer asked him with his voice quiet and sad. "I have a headache and it's a long drive."
Aaron just nodded, handing his keys over without a word and crawling into the backseat. Hal staggered up and flopped next to him. Before Spence had even driven them up the road and turned onto the highway, they were asleep.
The rest of the drive was silent except for their soft breathing and the tap tap tap of Spencer's fingers on the steering wheel.
.
101.
They dropped Aaron home, rousing him just enough for him to mumble about them not walking him up as he vanished alone into his apartment building. Spencer lingered, unhappy about not making sure their friend had made it all the way, but Emily eventually coaxed him away.
The walk to Spencer's wasn't far from here even as the day began to pick up around them, traffic building on the roads and sidewalks. They both looked trashed, Emily knew, but she didn't care. Spencer, on the other hand, slung his hands in his pockets and avoided meeting anyone's gaze.
"You okay?" Emily asked. This silence was grating.
"Yes," Spencer said shortly, before, "Well, no. Not really."
He fell quiet again, ignoring her pointed looks.
Emily jogged to keep up with his long legs, letting him choose when to finally talk. It turned out that that was only when they were back at his apartment, letting themselves in and waiting until they were sure that William wasn't home before making themselves comfortable without fear of him looming. Flopping on the couch together, over-tired and with Spencer's expression frustrated, Emily waited for him to speak.
He did, eventually.
"Is there something wrong with me?"
"No? What? Why?"
"Well, I…" He stopped and started, halting, confused; she hated seeing him fumbling for words. "I mean, he gets there and, seconds later, she's all over him. She didn't even look twice at me?"
"Is this because Aaron hooked up?" Emily asked with a bark of laughter, regretting her bluntness as Spencer winced and changing it to: "I mean, whatever he did, they probably just talked. Or looked at flowers. Or something. Aggressive cuddling."
"No one ever looks at me," Spencer mumbled, huddling down into the couch. "I'm awkward and weird and ug—"
"Shut up. You're gloomy, that happens. It's just the weed wearing down and you'll feel better after you sleep. Besides, you didn't want to hook up, did you? Also, can I stay over?"
Bless him, she actually saw his brain stall to a stop on that as his brain misinterpreted that, his logical mouth going, "No," even as the teenage-boy locked up tight in his head made his face twist a bit like he was in pain. "And, yes? On the couch?"
"On the couch," she reassured him, poking him in the ass until he got up and moved away from her sleeping spot. "Go sleep. After that, you can whine about not getting aggressively snuggled by strangers, okay? I'll even listen with only moderate eye rolling."
She bunkered down, ready to snooze and almost missing his wry, "I don't know why Aaron complains about your moods, you're real sweet when you're cranky."
"Fuck you too."
She flipped him off as he walked away, not looking to see if he'd returned the affection. But, when she woke, there was a pillow under her head, a blanket over her shoulders, and he'd left her some water, so she supposed he wasn't that angry with her.