Chapter Thirty-Four: May, 2002

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Aaron wasn't drunk, but he was having to double-check to make sure.

"You're seeing this too, right?" he asked the grinning Simon, who was drunk, and decidedly delighted about the two men belting out Breakfast at Tiffany's at the karaoke stand. "I'm not hallucinating?"

"Oh, to have a camera," Simon responded giddily, joining in on the chorus.

"Aw, Ethan's really good," Kate said, leaning forward to stare. "Um, but… Spencer seems a little nervous."

It was true. Spencer appeared to be attempting to slip behind Ethan as his friend held him firm with one arm around his shoulder. Aaron could see his mouth moving, but there was decidedly only one voice informing the thin crowd that it's plain to see we're over.

A glass scraped on the table as Simon shoved it over to it. "I think your boyfriend requires rescuing," he said, still grinning, right as Ethan attempted to swing Spencer into a dance that was definitely much more coordinated in his head. "Get up there, O' Knight."

"Oh boy," Aaron said, draining the glass and standing. This was not going to be a story he told Sean. Spencer looked relieved as he stepped up to them, tugging away from Ethan's disappointed grip.

Aaron grinned, slinging his arm around his other shoulder and joining in, the horrified Spencer pinned between them as they sang, Simon and Kate shouting the lyrics back from the audience. After a beat, even Spencer gave in after a muttered why would you do this to me, I thought you loved me, and started singing along to Don't Dream It's Over, his hand sneaking into Aaron's behind the safe screen of their hips on the we know they won't win.

He wasn't terrible.

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There was a sleepy, snuggly genius curled up against him, and Aaron was panicking.

"I'm going to fail my exams," he told that sleepy genius, who mumbled something that could have been no you're not, and just kept snoozing. "I'm going to get kicked out of college, I'm going to be a complete failure, I'm going to—"

Spencer's eyes slid open. "Aaron," he said firmly. "You're fine. Give me that book, I'll quiz you. Studies have shown that practise tests are far more effective than rote memorization when it comes to recalling information under exam conditions." He fumbled for the book, tongue flicking over the corner of his mouth as he woke up properly.

"You worked all night," Aaron protested, lifting the book away. "You're working again tonight, I know, Elle told me you're pulling a double shift to make up for Ethan having to play at Jeremy's. You're working bar. You need to sleep."

Sounding affronted, Spencer grumbled, "What about that combination indicates that I need more sleep than usual?"

"You're clumsy when you're sleepy." As though to illustrate Aaron's point, Spencer lunged for the book and instead elbowed himself on the nose with a startled whine.

"I'm perpetually clumsy," he complained, rubbing his nose and glaring at the offending elbow. "Let me help."

Aaron put the book aside with a glance to the black-out blinds, rolling on the mattress to face his boyfriend. He was really going to have to talk to the man about buying a bed. Surely working the hours he did, he was making enough that sleeping on the floor was a little unnecessary.

Not that that money seemed to translate into anything other than books, seeing as the cupboards were always bare until Ethan filled them, and his clothes were still on the shabby side of tattered. If it wasn't for Aaron's utter determination to abide by his promise to respect the other man's privacy, they'd be having some serious discussions about budgeting.

That's what he told himself anyway, to stave off the dark suspicions about all the places a disposable income could go.

"You know what, it's time for a break anyway," he declared, lobbing the book into a corner. It skidded on the carpet, thunking against the wall with a hollow impact sound that they both winced at as someone downstairs swore. "See, look. Naptime. We're going to nap."

Spencer flopped back down, scowling. "It's ten am," he protested. "You just woke up."

"And you haven't slept at all yet," Aaron said, rolling to lean over the other man and slot their noses together, staring at him. Spence wasn't the only one who could be really disconcerting if need be. "And this way I get to watch you sleep. Intently."

Spencer didn't look the least bit worried about this. "Oooh," he said, brightening. "Can you see if you can track my REM stages by the minute movements of my eyelids? I'm curious about how they—"

Aaron huffed and shut him up by kissing him, pulling a face at their stale breath and then ignoring them anyway. "New plan," he mumbled sliding a leg over and slipping into place as easily as if the one place he was absolutely certain of belonging was gently crushing the man under him. With love. And sex. Lots of both. "I have a better idea about how to get you to sleep."

"Aw," Spencer said, mouth twisting into what was almost a pout. "But Aaron, I'm tired."

It would never cease to amaze Aaron that Spencer would shove aside his exhaustion to read endless laws with him in a heartbeat, but he had to be coaxed into sex.

"I didn't say you had to be energetic," he replied pertly, and made his way down the other man's torso, counting ribs as he went and silently planning a shopping trip. "Now, close your eyes. You better be asleep by the end of this."

"Doubt it," Spencer muttered, twitching as Aaron's mouth reached his hip. "You have terrible ideas."

But it worked. A slow, steady undoing of the other man that ended with a soft moan and exhausted limbs only slightly twitching under him, Spencer's eyes lidded and almost shut. Aaron swallowed the musky taste down, grinned at the sated, limp form of his deeply sleeping boyfriend, and then padded away to the shower and more studying on the couch until he woke up. It was an odd kind of life, but he wouldn't trade it.

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"Why is it that every time one of us even remotely achieves something, you drag us out to break the law?" Aaron complained, without really meaning it, slouched comfortably in one of Velvet Underground's roomy booths with his shoulder tipped against Kate's and holding him up. "You're supposed to be the adult."

Simon, busily attempting to see how many straws he could drink through at once, looked offended. "I have never professed to being an adult!" he declared, shoving seven in his mouth at once and sucking deeply. Aaron watched as the cocktail made a half-hearted attempt to climb the clear straws, his friend's face reddening with the effort. "These straws are broken. Bring me another!"

"Elle!" shrieked Kate suddenly, lurching up. Without her against his back, Aaron slid down with a yelp, finding himself sprawled on the booth staring straight up into Elle's cocked eyebrow.

"Evening, lads," she said briskly, leaning over and frowning down at Aaron. "Making the human race proud, I see? I should card the lot of you urchins and send you home with… oh look, never mind, Mama Simon is here. Also being an urchin."

"You should not," Simon said, leaning his chin on the straws. "I am an adult. An adulty adult allowed to do adulty things like adult alcohol."

"As opposed to minor alcohol," Aaron explained. "Like… ginger beer. And that beet juice stuff that tastes boozy." He paused. "I thought you weren't an adult?"

"He's a liar," Simon said, beaming. "I'm totally adult. And you're frowning. We're being good! Aaron's the one making a mess."

Elle looked down at Aaron, who looked at the bottom of the table. "There's gum under here," he informed her, followed by, "I only spilled one drink, and I cleaned it up. I swear."

She rolled her eyes. "Good god," she muttered, leaning her tray on the back of the seat. Even drunk, Aaron noted the way her eyes skittered around the room, her mouth tight. She was on edge, jumpy. Dark shadows under her eyes showed even through her makeup. "I don't understand how Spencer is as normal as he is with you lot around."

Hey. That was.

Hey.

"You think Spencer is the normal one?" Aaron said, snapping upright just in time to see Simon seeing how many cocktail umbrellas he could balance in the straws and overturning his glass with a soft oopsie. Softening his voice, confident she could hear him even over the throb of the music, he murmured, "Are you okay?"

She jolted, turning that see-right-through-people gaze onto him. "Yes," she snapped, too fast, and the warm drunk delight of celebrating surviving another year of college vanished to be replaced with the familiar something-awful cold sober feeling. "You guys aren't hanging around all night, are you? Don't you have less creepy places to be than hovering around Spencer's workplace?"

"Oh, honey," Simon said with a lecherous wink that was completely odd on his face, "we're not here for Spencer. I find myself captivated with the way you swing that… tray. Ow!"

She swung it alright, knocking him gently over the back of the head. "Don't be a cabron," she scolded. "It doesn't suit you, sweet-boy." She walked away with one last disgusted glance at them.

"She called me sweet-boy," Simon sighed, nipping at the straws. "I think she likes me. What a gal."

"She also called you a douchebag in Spanish," Kate said, standing to make her way to the bar, and calling back over her shoulder, "Don't do it. She eats men for breakfast. She'll kill you."

"But what a glorious way to die," Simon breathed. Aaron groaned at the expression on his face. "Hey, come on, not all of us can swing a relationship with our childhood sweethearts. Some of us prefer a love life more 'backroom of seedy video rental' rather than 'TV special'."

"I've never seen a TV special that adequately captures Spencer," Aaron said drily, craning his neck to watch Elle slip around the edge of the crowded room, her eyes darting everywhere. Watching the… exits.

Simon was still going. "… you know, like My Girl, without the bees…" Elle shifted in place, her hand shifting up to her ear as though to scratch it. Lingered in place. "… of course, in this analogy, you're a girl and Spencer is Macaulay Calkin…" Elle looked over at him, caught his eye, and frowned. Rolled her eyes at him, shoulders stiffened. She looked tense. She looked like Aaron when he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. She peered away, eyes tracking three men in business suits as they crossed the floor and disappeared past a bouncer up the roped off VIP staircase. Aaron watched them as well, tipping his head back to peer up at the balcony ringed by glass tilted at just the right angle to obscure the other side from those below. "… also, I'm moving to Cuba and leaving you the apartment. I expect you to continue my rigorous schedule of two am star jumps to annoy Kathy downstairs until I return."

"Wait, what?" Aaron blurted out, spinning to stare at his friend. Simon had finally shoved aside the drink, watching Aaron with the kind of gaze that belonged on a man who'd consumed far less highballs that what he had. "You're leaving?"

"No, you're ignoring me," Simon complained, and then looked up as well. His fingers, rapping along with the beat, paused. "You know," he said quietly, "I enquired about those rooms. Family connections and all, figured it might get me a look in."

Aaron froze. "You hate your family," he pointed out. "And you hate using their name to get you places."

Simon inched closer, glancing over his shoulder. Elle wasn't the only twitchy one in the room anymore, he looked positively edgy. The tension was working on Aaron too, his hands clenching in his lap as he fought back a nervous look around the room of dancing young adults. "Yeah, I do," Simon said, voice low and hard to hear, "but I hate my friends getting into shit they can't handle more."

"If you're talking about Elle again," Aaron said, relaxing. It was just another Simon-scheme to find himself 'the one'. "I can assure you, she can handle probably anything they—"

"It's ten grand to get through that door, Aaron," Simon said bluntly. Aaron blinked. Was that… normal? "That's just to get through the door. I asked Rob. He said there's rooms behind rooms, and each one is a steeper price. Want to bet what happens behind those doors? I wouldn't. But I bet it brings in a pretty penny indeed if that's the asking price."

Aaron's head whirled. He couldn't even… fathom having that much money, let alone using it to, what? Have a little more privacy in an, admittedly nice, nightclub on the seedy edge of town?

But he wasn't naïve. There was no way all that was going on back there was dancing.

"This affects us how?" he snapped, already knowing where Simon was slowly leading the conversation, letting Aaron make the connections himself. And he was, despite not wanting to. "Ethan and Elle work bar, they've got nothing to do with—"

And Simon leaned back in his chair, swallowing. Aaron trailed off.

That much money… drugs, for sure. Gambling, definitely. An IRS field day. Taxation nightmare.

Unless they had someone cleaning up after them.

"Fuck," he hissed, pressing his hand against his mouth to hold back a growl of frustration as his head began to throb. "That idiot."

"I don't know about you," Simon said, looking up again, "but if I was moving that much dirty money, I wouldn't be saying no to a math genius rocking up on my doorstep, no matter how bad his dress sense is. Last year? When he was vanishing? That was about end of business year… bad time to be running illegal high-stakes gambling rooms. And I went to his college last week, on a trip for my supervisor. He teaches there, Aaron. On the side of his doctorate research, he lectures. Not enough to be loaded but enough that he shouldn't be this broke… unless someone's tapping his pay-check. And if it's not drugs…" His eyes skipped up to that ominous glass.

"Fuck," Aaron said again, and dropped his head to the table.

"Fuck, indeed," Simon agreed.

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In retrospect, he probably should have called out her name or something.

One second he was walking up behind her as she unlocked her car door, glancing around the lit parking lot for anyone listening in and opening his mouth to speak, the next he was on his ass with a boot on his chest and her lipstick knife pressed against a carotid.

"That's illegal," he coughed, feeling the knife shift away as his throat moved, Elle's mouth thinning. "No person shall carry within the District of Columbia either openly or concealed on or about their person, a pistol, or any deadly or dangerous weapon capable of being so concealed."

"Jesus, Aaron," she snapped, "such a fucking lawyer." She vanished, letting his wheeze his way upright, folding her arms and leaning back against the open car. "You creep up on people in the middle of the night often?"

He thought of Spencer, Ethan, and laughed darkly. "Oddly, yes. It's become a common enough occurrence. Good way to meet people, I find."

"Good way to get your dick shot off," she replied rapidly. The knife was gone, sequestered on her person somewhere, and he eyed her uniform cautiously.

"You carrying?" he asked, edging back. Shit, he trusted Elle. But there was trusting Elle and then there was trusting Elle.

"That would be illegal," she responded, looking around as well. Still edgy. He noted where she'd parked. Dead centre, just outside of a ring of light thrown down by a streetlamp. Complete view of her surroundings, no cover for anyone waiting nearby. The light would blind people approaching her from the open alley, while giving her the option to make it back to the club. Two of the five cameras around the area converged on the spot. And yet, he'd still gotten close enough to startle her. "What do you want?"

"Why are you here?" He charged forward with the conversation, feeling unsteady.

Her eyebrows lifted. "You wanna narrow that down for me?" she mocked. "Here as in this parking lot, this city, this… earth?"

"Working, here." He gestured back at the nightclub behind them. "This isn't where someone like you picks up a buck. You're too… no bullshit. Educated."

"Educated, like your boy Spencer? That kid is plenty smart, and he works here. And I don't know if you've met Ethan, but his bullshit tolerance is pretty…" She made a hand shape indicting zero with a smirk. "Unless you're here on some misguided attempt at 'wing-manning' for Simon…"

"I think people like you become cops, not bartenders," Aaron said in a soft voice that wouldn't carry as it began to click into place. "You're trained. Why do you think I didn't call our earlier? You saw me coming. I'm twice your size and you put me on my ass to teach me a lesson. A lesson, and a little bit because you don't trust men as much as you do women and you're still unsure of my intentions. You've parked in the spot I would have picked, if I was paranoid of the people around me and expecting an attack from any quarter. You look for exits in every room you enter. You judge people immediately—"

"Alright, alright, stop before you get to detailing what I like in bed," she said with a huff. "You, Hotchner, are wasted as a lawyer. What the fuck was that? I didn't realize just because you and Spencer are cuddling now didn't mean you were becoming him by osmosis."

Aaron ignored that. "Am I correct?" he asked, probably unwisely.

Brown eyes studied him. "Tell him to quit this place," she said suddenly, standing upright with her shoulders braced. "I've tried. For a smart kid, he's damn stupid."

"Why would I tell him to quit?" Aaron kept his voice even, not a trace of how his heartbeat had started racing at the soft order showing in his tone. He just kept staring her down, letting her know he wasn't going to back away. If Spencer was in danger, he would know about it by the end of this night.

"You know I'm not going to tell you that," Elle responded. "You know I can't. I'm already stepping over a damn line for that idiot in there just by warning you. Get him out now, before shit starts flying." Her eyes ticked up past him, watching over his shoulder. "Speak of the devil."

"Elle? Aaron?" called a voice. Spencer, finished for the night. Aaron had been waiting for him when he'd seen Elle walking to her car.

Aaron went to ask how before he lost the chance, hearing footsteps thumping towards them, but fumbled the words.

"Hey," Spencer said, grinning stupidly as he skidded up. "I'm done. What's up?"

In Aaron's pocket, his phone rang shrilly. They all looked down at it. He tugged it out, shooting Elle a look that said this isn't over and glanced at the screen.

His racing heartbeat skipped and stalled. Whatever he was feeling, his mind blanking, it showed on his face because Spencer's expression turned scared, and Elle stepped forward. Aaron answered the phone without thinking.

The four am phone call. Just as ominous as the knock at the door, the squad car pulling up outside. Everyone feared this call.

Don't be Sean. Don't be Sean.

His voice cracked, choked, but he forced it out anyway. "Hey," he said, hearing the breathing on the other end hitch. "Mom? What's wrong?"

Please don't be Sean.