[Criminal Minds] Acute Angles (Prentiss/Rossi/Hotch, NC-17) (2/4)
Title: Acute Angles
Author: smittywing/Smitty
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/David Rossi/Aaron Hotchner (and subpairings within)
Rating: NC-17/FRAO/NSFW/Etc.
Wordcount: 6,100 words (this part)
Spoilers/Warning: All seasons/episodes through 5x11: Slave of Duty, and some indistinct time afterward.
Summary: When Hotch said things have changed, he meant for all of them.
Note: For wojelah's birthday. Please forgive me for posting this part before answering comments from part 1 - I could not deny Woj the newly completed section. As before, many thanks to mingsmommy, shetiger, and smacky30 for holding my hand and offering up their fabulous brains.
Acute Angles: Part 2
"First Morgan, now you," Hotch says as Dave drops a closed casefile on his desk. "Is there a conspiracy I don't know about?"
"A conspiracy to make you think not every piece of paper that goes through this unit is your responsibility?" Dave asks. Hotch lifts an eyebrow, silently reminding Dave of his own days as Unit Chief and the asschewing he got whenever someone fucked up the paperwork. The man who'd had Erin Strauss's job was now the Director of the Bureau. Dave didn't hold it against him. Much. "There is such a thing as delegation," he points out but Hotch has won this round.
"Thank you," Aaron says, moving the file to a stack that Dave figures, by process of elimination, is his "done" pile.
"You want to get out of here and grab something to eat?" Dave asks. "Emily's having dinner with her mother so it's just us."
Aaron shook his head. "I'm trying to get home to have dinner with Jack every night," he says. "It would be a nice family tradition if we can keep it up."
"So?" Dave shrugs. "Pick him up. We'll all go out. We'll go to one of those places with the skeeball and the ball pit. I used to throw some fifties back in the day. Bring Jessica, too. My treat."
"Apparently you've never had the food at one of those places," Hotch says dryly. He signs off on something and puts the pen on the desk. "I'd rather not."
"We'll go somewhere else," Dave offers. He's pushing the boundaries of politeness and one of them is going to have to break sooner or later.
"Dave." Hotch's voice is firm. "I told you, things have changed. I need to do what's best for Jack."
"And that excludes having dinner with an old friend?"
Hotch sets his jaw so hard, Dave thinks maybe he could hear the click. "I'd rather not have this discussion here."
"Which is why I've been trying to talk to you outside work, but you won't have it." Dave sits down in the chair he's always thought of as his.
Aaron tightens his mouth and when he speaks again, his voice is subdued. "Dave, think about it," he says. "I live in a two-bedroom apartment with a four-year-old who hasn't quite realized his mother - " He cuts himself off and glances toward the open door. "I don't have time of my own anymore. I don't have lonely weekends. And my sister-in-law is the only reason I can still do this job. I can't risk - " He stops again, turning his gaze down to his desk.
Dave lets him breathe it out. Aaron's overwhelmed, overburdened, and right now, trying to figure out how to keep up his corner of their triangle is too much for him. "Hey," he says finally. "We're not going anywhere. Once things get more settled, we'll work something out about...." He lifts both eyebrows at Hotch to silently acknowledge that sex with three people in one bed is rarely quiet or discreet.
Hotch just shakes his head. "I don't think that's an option anymore," he says.
Dave fills his chest with air and huffs it out. He knows what Hotch is doing and he doesn't like it. He respects the sentiment behind it - Hotch wants to devote himself to Jack and plans to wall himself off from all possible distractions - but he knows that kids grow up and they need their parents to be people, too. He also knows that now isn't the time for Hotch to be making difficult decisions. He's not about to say so, though.
They hear footsteps on the stairs, heels, and then JJ sticks her head in the doorway. "We have a case," she tells them, brandishing a file, and heads for the conference room, all business. Dave and Aaron exchange regretful looks - a case means bodies, another unsub, and JJ's brusqueness means time is a factor. There will be more bodies. This conversation is going to have to be shelved.
"All I'm saying," Dave tells Aaron as he stands up, "is that you should leave your options open. Just in case."
"Dave," Hotch said two days after they apprehended Norman Hill and found his dead family. They were sitting in Hotch's office after hours drinking bourbon - Hotch's office, Hotch's drink.
"Hm?" Dave asked. Hotch's office was a pocket of stillness in the normal restlessness of the BAU and Dave had let his mind wander - to Emily, to the weekend, to the odd suspicion that he just might be growing content in his old age.
"Are you busy tonight?" Hotch asked. It wasn't a casual question and Dave immediately caught the pained expression on Hotch's face. "I - " The fine muscles in Hotch's jaw trembled. "I don't want to have to talk about it."
"Aaron," Dave murmured. He hadn't thought that Hotch would want this again. He certainly hadn't seemed interested when Dave returned to the unit. He hated to deny Aaron this - anything, but especially this - but his thoughts were full of Emily and how there was no way to pretend she wasn't part of this equation. "Aaron," he said again. "I'm with someone."
If Hotch wanted to take a shot, to hurt Dave, he could have said, When has that ever stopped you? It would have been true. But in matters of his personal life, Aaron more than played fair. He played scrupulous.
"I understand," he said with a short nod, and looked into his glass. Then, quietly, he asked, "Does she know about your...history?"
Dave laughed a little and had to smile to himself. "She knows I've slept with men," he confessed. "First woman I ever told." And God, did that move pay off in spades, he thought. "But," he added. "I didn't tell her who I slept with."
"If it comes down to it," Hotch said in the same odd voice. "You have my permission." And then, "Is it who I think it is?
It wasn't that Dave had really thought he was fooling Hotch when he took up with Emily. But he was still startled that Hotch had voiced it. Then again, it wasn't like the conversation was explicitly professional to start.
"Probably," he said. "But until I know who you think it is, I can neither confirm nor deny."
"You have a type, Dave," is all Hotch said in reply.
Six cases after Hotch comes back to the BAU, six cases they've worked together after the funeral, and Hotch hasn't come to them once. Hasn't offered or accepted a personal touch or a dinner invitation, not even to a restaurant. Dave has tried. Dave's even tried to comfort Hotch on his own, knowing how reluctant he is to leave Jack. But Hotch keeps pulling away, keeps shutting them out.
"I'm going to go see Hotch," she says one night after dinner.
Dave sighs. "I don't know if that's a good idea," he says. "He wants some time. And some distance. If you push too hard, he's going to push back."
"Maybe he needs to push back," Emily argues. "Maybe he needs to confront this head-on. It's not like him to be so passive-aggressive."
"I'm just saying," Dave says wearily, "that forcing the issue is not going to get you the results you want. Just back off, Em. Leave him alone for a bit."
"And what you've been doing has worked just great," Emily says. "He's out there building up big stone castle walls of avoidance and denial. Dave, if we let him slip too far away, we may never get him back."
"As much as neither of us want to hear it, he may not want to come back," Dave replies calmly and anger flares in her chest, her cheeks, her eyes.
"Well, I won't accept that," Emily tells him, keeping her temper under careful control. She knows Dave isn't as impassive as his demeanor suggested and that pisses her off even more. "I'm going to go let him know that we care about him and we're worried about him."
"Fine," Dave says. "But you're not getting any sympathy from me when he tells you something you don't want to hear."
Emily spends plenty of time being pissed off at Dave, but it's over transient cares, little things, and proper bedcovers allocation. She doesn't like this feeling - that he thinks she's wrong, that he's not supporting her, that she's not on solid ground.
She's in her car before she remembers to call Hotch and let him know she's on her way. He tells her that Jack's going to be asleep and to knock quietly.
Jack's not asleep when she gets there, is fussing because he doesn't want to go to bed wtihout his dad. He's been raised to behave in front of company, though, so Emily's presence actually helps, even if she dislikes being considered "company."
"Hey," Hotch finally says, standing in the middle of the living room with his hands on his hips. That position irritates Emily - it irritates her when Rossi does it too. "What did you need to talk about?"
"I wanted to see how you were doing," Emily says, getting up from the couch and moving around to where Hotch stood.
"You see me every day at work," Hotch reminds her, eyebrows drawing closer together.
Emily takes a steadying breath, trying not to let Hotch notice her frustration. "I used to see you out of work, too" she says evenly. "I think we need to do that again. It's not good for you to just wall yourself off from your friends and from me and Dave. Let us in, Hotch." She closed the distance between them and tilted her head up to kiss him. "We miss you," she whispers, and leans in.
Hotch leans away.
Emily swallows her hurt and steps back. "I'm not trying to push," she starts. "Things have changed, I know that. But that doesn't mean we're not here for you."
"I am completely responsible for Jack, now," Hotch says, gesturing toward the closed door in the back of the apartment. "The time is past when I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, and that includes having casual sex at the drop of a hat."
"I can't even begin to understand how much pressure you're under right now," Emily starts, trying to ignore the word casual that he'd dropped in there so...casually. Like everything they'd done was just for fun.
"No," Hotch says in that tone of voice that shuts down dissent. "You can't."
Emily actually physically takes a step back. It's clear what he means - she can't understand because she doesn't have a child. Because she's never taken on that kind of commitment and responsibility. Because no one ever loved her that much, her brain fills in traitorously, reminding her that what she has with Hotch, and maybe even with Rossi is casual in his eyes.
It's dirty pool, and Hotch knows exactly how to hurt her, and she knows this. It's easier to regroup when she tells herself he's just trying to push her away, that he's hurting and scared in his own way, and wasn't ready to be pushed. It still hurts that he did it at all.
"I was going to say," she says calmly, "that if you let the weight of all that responsibility crush you, you'll be no good to Jack at all. He'll learn nothing from you but how to be sad. That's what I learned from my father."
She picks up her bag from the sofa and types in the code for the alarm system so she can let herself out without waking up Jack, or Hotch's entire building. Her hand's on the door and she should just leave, but she can't help saying one more thing. "It wasn't casual for me," she tells him, not looking at him, not giving him the satisfaction or the guilt of seeing the tears in her eyes. "And it wasn't casual for Dave, either."
She gets out of there, fast, pulling the door shut behind her. The tears don't fall until she's behind the wheel of the car, and then only the ones in her eyes. She pushes Hotch's words back and away, categorizing them into the things said by damaged, angry people, and they don't quite fit in that box, they refuse to be tucked away so summarily, but it's the best option she has for now. She blots the tears away with the heel of her hand and fumbles for her compact in her purse. A little powder around her eyes and a fresh coat of mascara, and she's 90% sure Dave won't be able to tell for sure if she'd been crying.
She doesn't even consider going back to her place in the city.
In bed with Dave, coming down from a shuddering orgasm, Emily felt the mattress shift as Dave rolled onto his side and said, "I have to tell you something."
Confessions came easier this way, in the dark, with the echoes of their lovemaking lingering in the air and on their skin. A sweet curl of anticipation coiled in Emily's stomach, wondering what new secret Dave was about to share with her.
"Tell me," she urged, reaching out to trace the line of his neck. His skin was hot under her fingertips.
"It's not all my story to tell," he confessed, and she nodded, silently promising discretion. "Back, long ago, when Hotch first joined the BAU," Dave said, reaching for her, pressing his palm against her hip, "he was young and new, and I wanted to make it easier for him, to give him an outlet. Sometimes you can't explain the things we see." His hand tightened on her hip. "Sometimes you need to know someone else saw it without having to say the words. I wanted to be that person for him. And I was, for over a year. And then I left."
Emily studied Dave's face in the dark. He looked troubled, uncomfortable confessing Hotch's secrets along with his own. She might have guessed that Hotch, so staid and buttoned-up and earnest was holding so much inside, but not with Dave. Never with Dave. The idea of them together was...appealing, to say the least.
Everyone had a little bit of a crush on Hotch at one time or another. It was generally a pretty platonic crush, because Hotch was so in love with Haley, and besides that, he could be, on occasion, terrifying, and if someone made it past all that, he was also a workaholic perfectionist who would probably profile you in bed.
But everyone was also a little in love with him because he did the things the rest of them couldn't or didn't want to, and he stood up for them in ways they knew about and ways they didn't, and they all knew how much he put into the job and how well he did it.
Emily may have had a few fantasies about how all that focus and intensity might feel directed on her, but she was a realist and wasn't about put any hope into the idea. But now, knowing that Dave had touched him, jerked him off, maybe even fucked him - and God that was hot, that image - Emily had to think of him as a real person again, someone with physical needs and quirks and she began to wonder.
She propped herself up on her elbow and circled her fingers down to the base of Dave's throat, to the notch of his collarbone. "Why now?" she asked.
"He asked me tonight," Dave said carefully. "He needed me to be that person. And I told him I was with someone."
That hit Emily hard, hit her in the gut. She knew Dave loved her, knew Dave was committed to her. But to hear that Dave had turned down someone else - someone he loved, at least as much as he loved her, though maybe in a different way - was...amazing. She felt embraced, adored...and selfish.
"I think he knows, Em," he said. "That it's you I'm with. I don't think he'll say anything, but I wanted you to know."
"Is he okay?" Emily asked.
Dave sighed, eyes falling closed. "I don't know," he admitted. "He keeps shutting things away. He won't talk to me about Kate Joyner or his hearing or anything that's happened since then. And I hate that he doesn't have Haley and Jack. He needs...I don't know. An outlet of some sort and I can't give it to him."
"It's true," she said. "It helps when you don't have to explain it." She leaned up and kissed his mouth and said, "There's an easy way to solve this problem, you know."
"Oh, yeah?" he asked, pulling her closer, tight against his body. She hooked a leg over his hip and pressed herself against his leg. "God, how are you wet again?" he wondered, pressing his mouth against her ear and cheek.
"He's your friend," Emily said quietly but firmly in his ear. "You need to go to him."
"Emily." Dave pulled back and cupped her cheek in his hand.
"I mean it," she said. "Life's too short. I know...I should be jealous. Maybe I should think of him as competition. But it's Hotch and he's alone right now and - " She shrugged as much as she could, sprawled sideways on the bed and curled around Dave. The truth is, she knew how tightly his ex-wives had tried to hold on to him, and everything she'd learned about him since told her that squeezing him would only make him slip away. " - he needs you," she finished lamely. "It's not true that onlies don't know how to share."
Dave frowned at her, stroking his thumb along her cheek. "What if I only want to be with you?" he asked.
Emily blinked at him. It wasn't quite a lie, even if it hadn't been in the form of a question. But she knew him, and she knew his history, and she wasn't sure either of them really believed it. "Then only be with me," she said. "But if you want to be with Hotch, too, it's okay. I'm okay." She smiled. "It would be nice if you told me. So I know where you are." She licked her lower lip. "And so I can think about what you're doing."
"So that's why you're so wet," Dave said, sliding his hand around her leg, urging her up higher so he could stroke her from behind. "You are having impure thought about your boss."
She leaned forward, pressing her mouth against his. "I'm having impure thoughts," she admitted, "about my lover sucking off my boss."
Dave groaned into her mouth and slipped two fingers inside her, not too deep, but just far enough to push up against her g-spot. "C'mere," he urged. "Come sit on my face."
"Oh, Dave," she purred, pushing herself up and walking up his body on her knees. "You say the prettiest things to me."
He might have said something else, but she braced herself on the headboard and lowered herself down, brushing her pussy over his mouth and beard.
"Emily," he murmured, licking her clit and sliding his other hand up the back of her leg. Dave ran his tongue back to where his fingers were angled inside of her and up again to her clit. Usually when he went down on her, he was deliberate, tracing careful patterns, playing with pressure and methodically pressing every button she had until she was screaming his name as she came.
In this position, though, she had all the control and he lapped at her like a thirsty man at an oasis. Dave wasn't much for giving up control, but when he did, he liked her to take advantage of it.
She lifted up, away from his mouth. "Will you tell me about it?" she asked.
"What?" He lifted his head, chasing after her, but she braced herself above him and looked down.
"You and Hotch." She tensed deliberately, squeezing around his fingers. "It's hot. Will you tell me about it?"
He turned his head and kissed the inside of her thigh, halfway up from her knee, and looked up at her. "This is really making you horny," he said. He scissored his fingers inside her and she gasped. She could feel her face heating.
"Can you blame me?" she asked.
"You like thinking about me sucking his cock?" Dave asked, easing her back down to his mouth. He flicked his tongue across her clit.
"You have a really talented mouth," Emily told him. "Don't go getting a big head about that."
Dave chuckled, sending tiny vibrations through her. "Is that what you want us to do?" he asked. "If I go to him, I should offer to suck his cock?"
"I don't know," Emily said, trying to imagine Hotch's face when Dave presented it that way. "Is that what you want to do? Is that what he likes?"
"What do you want me to say if he asks what you like in bed?" Dave asks, tilting his head up to look at her and brushing his beard right across her.
Emily pulled away, the contact too harsh, and a shiver ran up her spine. The idea of Hotch wondering what she liked in bed was equal parts exciting and absurd, but she got Dave's gentle rebuke. He wasn't going to kiss and tell without explicit permission. "You should tell him I like being eaten out, sitting on your dick, and pegging you," she said, shifting around on her knees because it was an awkward position and she was getting overly sensitive. "Also, red wine and long walks on the beach."
Dave licked his lips. "He was the first guy I let fuck me," he said finally. "Usually I fucked him, but there was one night I needed it and damn if he didn't give it to me."
"Dave," Emily gasped, because she had just about given up on satisfying her curiosity.
"Him and you, Em," Dave said. "That's it. I slept with a few guys after I retired - they'd hit on me on the book tours sometimes - but either I fucked them or let them suck me off."
Emily whimpered and pressed down over Dave's mouth. He licked her wild and messy, catching her clit between his lips and sucking, and fucking her with his fingers until she shuddered and came, curled over him.
When it was over and she was stretched out on the mattress next to him, he pressed his thumb into the clasp of her hand and folded his fingers over hers. "I can make it a condition," he said, brushing his lips against her knuckles. "That I give you full disclosure."
"No conditions," Emily said drowsily. "But full disclosure? I can make that worth your while."
Aaron feels awful the moment Emily leaves his apartment. He tells himself it's necessary, that it's the only way he can go forward with the new life he's committed himself to living, one more focused and balanced than what he had before. One where Jack's the most important thing.
But a week at work convinces him otherwise. Emily treats him normally, or what was normal before - she's professional, competent, sociable, even cheerful. But when he's watching, and he's always watching, he sees shadows pass over her face. The corners of her mouth turn down when she's concentrating and he catches her taking deep breaths like she can't get enough air in her chest.
Dave isn't any happier, but he's harder to watch. Mostly because he's usually watching Aaron. Aaron wonders how much of the conversation Emily relayed. He knows she wouldn't tell him the worst parts, wouldn't want him to know how much Aaron had hurt her.
Aaron's chest aches all the time. He keeps telling himself it's for the best, but as frustrating as it would be to try to be with Dave and Emily, it can't be as hard as pushing them away when all he wants to is to cling to them both.
His guilt finally overwhelms him in the middle of a case. He's interviewing a prostitute who explains she's aborting the unsub's baby, not because he raped her and cut her face, but because she's already aborted one pregnancy and figures she's "not exactly mother material."
Aaron has to excuse himself and go to the restroom where he grips the sink and wonders what kind of person he's become without Haley to temper his dark moods. It's this kind of moment where Dave tends to barge in and dispense wisdom, but he's at a crime scene with Emily and Morgan, so Hotch pulls himself together and finishes the interview.
When the case is over, he finds a blank notecard and handwrites his apology.
Dear Emily,
I owe you the kind of apology that should come with flowers and dinner and heartfelt promises never to hurt you again. I can't give you that. I said horrible things, things meant to hurt, and I deeply regret ever having said them. At the time, I wanted to give you a sense of how much pain I was in, make you understand my desire to hide from the world. It was a cruel thing to do.
I said what we did was casual. If that were true, I wouldn't have to walk away because it wouldn't hurt so much. Being with you and Dave reminds of me of falling in love with Haley all over again. You two will be fine. I've never seen him love anyone the way he loves you. He told me to keep my options open but it doesn't seem fair to ask you to wait for something that may not happen for months or years, or at all.
I can't be who you and Dave want me to be right now. I am grateful for the concern and affection you have both expressed, but right now I can only be Jack's father. Haley is the last thing I'm letting this job take from him - she was too big a price to pay and I didn't realize until it was too late. I promised her I'd spend the rest of my life making up what we lost, and the only way to keep that promise is to be the best father I can possibly be to Jack. As tempting as it may be to let you and Dave be my comfort, I'm afraid that if I lose my footing, I may never find it again.
Speaking of Jack, he asked about you the other day. He'd like to see you. I know I've been unwelcoming. Please give me a chance to correct that. I've tied our sexual relationship and our friendship together in my mind and that's been a mistake. Jack and I need our friends. Please don't be a stranger.
He hesitates over the closing and finally chooses, With love, Aaron. He walks next door to Dave's office the next day and holds it out.
"Will you give this to Emily for me?" he asks. "At home."
Dave lifts an eyebrow, which makes Aaron want to talk more, but he resolutely keeps his mouth shut and waits for Dave to take the envelope. "Sure." Dave tucks it into an inside pocket of his jacket. "You okay?"
Aaron takes a deep breath. "Sometimes," he says, internally railing against every word, "it's harder to ask for help that to do it on my own. I'm okay," he adds quickly at the sudden concern on Dave's face. "But I've been a jackass. To you and to Emily."
"I think you're owed the right to be a jackass once or twice," Dave says carefully. "You put up with me, after all."
"Emily's done nothing to deserve it," Aaron says. "And sometimes I forget that we're friends, even when we're not - " He inclines his head, because they're at work and somehow he can't say that out loud. "You should come over sometime this week," he adds. "To see Jack."
"Yeah," Dave says. "That'd be nice." He glances at his jacket where the envelope is nestled. "And this?"
Aaron gives him a wry smile. "Please make sure she gets it," he says. "She puts up with both of us."
"Let's get a drink at your place," Dave had said to Hotch on a Friday afternoon.
By the time Hotch let them into his apartment, an embarrassing clutter of boxes of not-yet-unpacked books and personal items, and poured bourbon into two glasses, he had a pretty good idea of what Dave was doing there. Neither of them admitted it though, not right away. Not until he hit the bottom of the second glass did Dave say, "Still don't want to talk about it?"
Aaron stared at the remainder of his glass and then back at Dave. "What about Prentiss?" he asked. He never got confirmation, but he'd watched them together, watched how they interacted and it's a well-educated guess.
Dave grinned a little, pleased, maybe, that Aaron's figured it out. "I have a dispensation," he said. "For you."
"For me?" Hotch repeated. He never imagined Emily Prentiss as the type to give "dispensations."
"I can fuck you," Dave said. "Everyone else I have to run past her first."
"Wow," Aaron said, half to himself. "That was fast."
"What do you mean?" Dave asked, frowning a little.
"I just - " Hotch shrugged. "I'm not arguing." He put his glass on the steamer trunk that was sitting in front of his couch and stood up. He'd already thrown his jacket over the back of the couch, next to Dave's, but he was still wearing the rest of his work clothes and he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt cuffs before he lost his nerve.
"Good." Dave stood up too, and kissed him, one hand cradling the back of Hotch's head. Kissing had gotten easier after that first time and eleven years wasn't as long as Hotch remembered, or maybe Dave practiced on other people since then.
That was an odd thought, Dave kissing other men. Aaron knew Dave had experience with men before that first night but it hadn't occurred to him that he would have pursued men after. He wouldn't have needed it, according to their initial reasoning, not walking violent crime scenes anymore, and who would he have fucked if he had? There were very few people who saw what they saw.
Dave eased off, his hand dropping to Aaron's shoulder. "What did you mean 'that was fast'?" he asked again.
Aaron's not even sure what he meant, but he said, "Emily. I didn't think she would - you actually told her you were going to come have sex with me?"
"It was her idea," Dave said, and that was not what Aaron was expecting at all. "I told her about it and she said I should go to you." He moved his hand from Aaron's shoulder to his own hip and rubbed his beard with his other hand. "You think she's gonna change her mind?"
Aaron shook his head. "I don't know her like you do," he said honestly.
Dave lifted an eyebrow and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "You want to call her and get permission?" he asked, offering the phone to Aaron. "She'll probably want you to put us on speaker."
Aaron glanced at the phone and then up at Dave's face. "You want me to call her," he said. "Because youwant to call her."
"You're the one who's worried about her reaction to this," Dave pointed out.
"You're never living this down," Aaron assured him. "Not with all the shit you gave me about calling Haley. For years."
They stood there for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. Aaron glanced down. "You have an erection," he commented. "Are you thinking about me or her?"
Dave blinked soberly at him. "Both," he said. "I think Emily's pretty sure about this. She's worried about you, she wants you to be okay, she knows you're safe with me and most importantly, she understands too, she knows what it's like to need to be with someone who understands the things we see."
His words shook Aaron a little. Clearly Dave and Emily were far closer than he'd realized. Dave had never been like this with the women he'd slept with. He spoke about Emily like he'd speak about Aaron himself. "She'd really be okay with you sleeping with someone else? A man that you work with? That she works with?" It seemed like an impossible tangle, the way they were all together and yet not. Aaron tried to imagine working with Emily, knowing they were both sleeping with the same man, and balked.
"Okay with it?" Dave asked. "Jesus, Aaron, she's so turned on by it I can barely keep up with her. I'll either have to quit talking about it or get some backup."
Aaron thought about it and nodded. The easy answer was, of course, for Dave to stop talking about it. In law they called it a Chinese wall - a barrier of paper excluding lawyers with conflicts from contact with a case their firm had taken. Of course, his other statement would be just as effective, Aaron thought wryly. If Emily was really interested, really wanted to watch, maybe they should just invite her to join in and if Dave needed help... "That would fix everything," he murmured to himself.
"What?" Dave asked. "Calling for backup to have sex with - " He cut himself off. "You wanna be my backup?" he asked.
Aaron should be able to read his face better. He couldn't quite tell if Dave was intrigued or angry or just disbelieving. Also, he hadn't quite meant to say that out loud. He licked his lips.
"I guess the question is," he said, conflicted about what he wanted the answer to be, "is if the thought of me and Emily together turns you on."
The Dave he'd known a decade ago wouldn't be. The Dave who'd fucked him had been possessive, traditional about his female lovers. He wouldn't have liked the idea of another man fucking them at all. In fact, Hotch knew for a fact that was a factor in at least one divorce. But this Dave was different and if this was going to sort out for the best, there was really only one answer to that question.
Dave licked his upper lip and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, that's - fuck." He shook his head. "Hell, yeah." He looked at Aaron. "Does thinking about me being with her make you hot?" he asked "Does thinking about all three of us together make you hot?"
Aaron thought of Emily with her long, long legs and her pretty, perfect-sized breasts and imagined Dave's hands on her, wondered if Dave touched Emily the way he had touched Aaron, firm fingertips and gentle palms, hard kisses and bruising thrusts. He imagined Dave was gentler with Emily, that she didn't have bruises in the shower the next morning, and then he imagined that maybe she did.
"You've got a hard-on, too," Dave observed.
Aaron lifted his eyebrows and glanced down at the front of his pants. "Answers that question, doesn't it?" he said.
Dave looked down at the phone he was still holding loosely in his hand. "What happens now?" he asked.
Aaron shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "Somehow, this is never a question I've had to ask myself before."
Dave nodded, biting his lip and smothering a grin. Dave always had appreciated Aaron's humor. "I think," he said, weighing the phone in his palm. "I think, maybe, I should go talk to Emily. In person."
Aaron nodded, regretting the loss of comfort, but feeling strangely hopeful and at peace. "I think that's a good plan," he said.
"I'm, uh, sorry that I'm leaving," Dave said, the reluctance obvious in his voice.
"I understand," Aaron said. "Me, too." They exchanged rueful smiles. It wasn't hard to guess what Dave was thinking. Aaron was thinking the same. They were both aroused, wanted each other, but they wanted Emily, too, and she wasn't there.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow," Dave said. He reached out and squeezed Aaron's shoulder, lingered a little. He leaned in and kissed Aaron again, and it was even more familiar, hot, with the scratch of Dave's beard against Aaron's face. He smiled and squeezed the back of Aaron's neck, and let himself out.
Aaron locked the door after him and looked around. And he wondered, What on earth did I just get myself into?
Part 3
Author: smittywing/Smitty
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/David Rossi/Aaron Hotchner (and subpairings within)
Rating: NC-17/FRAO/NSFW/Etc.
Wordcount: 6,100 words (this part)
Spoilers/Warning: All seasons/episodes through 5x11: Slave of Duty, and some indistinct time afterward.
Summary: When Hotch said things have changed, he meant for all of them.
Note: For wojelah's birthday. Please forgive me for posting this part before answering comments from part 1 - I could not deny Woj the newly completed section. As before, many thanks to mingsmommy, shetiger, and smacky30 for holding my hand and offering up their fabulous brains.
Acute Angles: Part 2
"First Morgan, now you," Hotch says as Dave drops a closed casefile on his desk. "Is there a conspiracy I don't know about?"
"A conspiracy to make you think not every piece of paper that goes through this unit is your responsibility?" Dave asks. Hotch lifts an eyebrow, silently reminding Dave of his own days as Unit Chief and the asschewing he got whenever someone fucked up the paperwork. The man who'd had Erin Strauss's job was now the Director of the Bureau. Dave didn't hold it against him. Much. "There is such a thing as delegation," he points out but Hotch has won this round.
"Thank you," Aaron says, moving the file to a stack that Dave figures, by process of elimination, is his "done" pile.
"You want to get out of here and grab something to eat?" Dave asks. "Emily's having dinner with her mother so it's just us."
Aaron shook his head. "I'm trying to get home to have dinner with Jack every night," he says. "It would be a nice family tradition if we can keep it up."
"So?" Dave shrugs. "Pick him up. We'll all go out. We'll go to one of those places with the skeeball and the ball pit. I used to throw some fifties back in the day. Bring Jessica, too. My treat."
"Apparently you've never had the food at one of those places," Hotch says dryly. He signs off on something and puts the pen on the desk. "I'd rather not."
"We'll go somewhere else," Dave offers. He's pushing the boundaries of politeness and one of them is going to have to break sooner or later.
"Dave." Hotch's voice is firm. "I told you, things have changed. I need to do what's best for Jack."
"And that excludes having dinner with an old friend?"
Hotch sets his jaw so hard, Dave thinks maybe he could hear the click. "I'd rather not have this discussion here."
"Which is why I've been trying to talk to you outside work, but you won't have it." Dave sits down in the chair he's always thought of as his.
Aaron tightens his mouth and when he speaks again, his voice is subdued. "Dave, think about it," he says. "I live in a two-bedroom apartment with a four-year-old who hasn't quite realized his mother - " He cuts himself off and glances toward the open door. "I don't have time of my own anymore. I don't have lonely weekends. And my sister-in-law is the only reason I can still do this job. I can't risk - " He stops again, turning his gaze down to his desk.
Dave lets him breathe it out. Aaron's overwhelmed, overburdened, and right now, trying to figure out how to keep up his corner of their triangle is too much for him. "Hey," he says finally. "We're not going anywhere. Once things get more settled, we'll work something out about...." He lifts both eyebrows at Hotch to silently acknowledge that sex with three people in one bed is rarely quiet or discreet.
Hotch just shakes his head. "I don't think that's an option anymore," he says.
Dave fills his chest with air and huffs it out. He knows what Hotch is doing and he doesn't like it. He respects the sentiment behind it - Hotch wants to devote himself to Jack and plans to wall himself off from all possible distractions - but he knows that kids grow up and they need their parents to be people, too. He also knows that now isn't the time for Hotch to be making difficult decisions. He's not about to say so, though.
They hear footsteps on the stairs, heels, and then JJ sticks her head in the doorway. "We have a case," she tells them, brandishing a file, and heads for the conference room, all business. Dave and Aaron exchange regretful looks - a case means bodies, another unsub, and JJ's brusqueness means time is a factor. There will be more bodies. This conversation is going to have to be shelved.
"All I'm saying," Dave tells Aaron as he stands up, "is that you should leave your options open. Just in case."
"Dave," Hotch said two days after they apprehended Norman Hill and found his dead family. They were sitting in Hotch's office after hours drinking bourbon - Hotch's office, Hotch's drink.
"Hm?" Dave asked. Hotch's office was a pocket of stillness in the normal restlessness of the BAU and Dave had let his mind wander - to Emily, to the weekend, to the odd suspicion that he just might be growing content in his old age.
"Are you busy tonight?" Hotch asked. It wasn't a casual question and Dave immediately caught the pained expression on Hotch's face. "I - " The fine muscles in Hotch's jaw trembled. "I don't want to have to talk about it."
"Aaron," Dave murmured. He hadn't thought that Hotch would want this again. He certainly hadn't seemed interested when Dave returned to the unit. He hated to deny Aaron this - anything, but especially this - but his thoughts were full of Emily and how there was no way to pretend she wasn't part of this equation. "Aaron," he said again. "I'm with someone."
If Hotch wanted to take a shot, to hurt Dave, he could have said, When has that ever stopped you? It would have been true. But in matters of his personal life, Aaron more than played fair. He played scrupulous.
"I understand," he said with a short nod, and looked into his glass. Then, quietly, he asked, "Does she know about your...history?"
Dave laughed a little and had to smile to himself. "She knows I've slept with men," he confessed. "First woman I ever told." And God, did that move pay off in spades, he thought. "But," he added. "I didn't tell her who I slept with."
"If it comes down to it," Hotch said in the same odd voice. "You have my permission." And then, "Is it who I think it is?
It wasn't that Dave had really thought he was fooling Hotch when he took up with Emily. But he was still startled that Hotch had voiced it. Then again, it wasn't like the conversation was explicitly professional to start.
"Probably," he said. "But until I know who you think it is, I can neither confirm nor deny."
"You have a type, Dave," is all Hotch said in reply.
Six cases after Hotch comes back to the BAU, six cases they've worked together after the funeral, and Hotch hasn't come to them once. Hasn't offered or accepted a personal touch or a dinner invitation, not even to a restaurant. Dave has tried. Dave's even tried to comfort Hotch on his own, knowing how reluctant he is to leave Jack. But Hotch keeps pulling away, keeps shutting them out.
"I'm going to go see Hotch," she says one night after dinner.
Dave sighs. "I don't know if that's a good idea," he says. "He wants some time. And some distance. If you push too hard, he's going to push back."
"Maybe he needs to push back," Emily argues. "Maybe he needs to confront this head-on. It's not like him to be so passive-aggressive."
"I'm just saying," Dave says wearily, "that forcing the issue is not going to get you the results you want. Just back off, Em. Leave him alone for a bit."
"And what you've been doing has worked just great," Emily says. "He's out there building up big stone castle walls of avoidance and denial. Dave, if we let him slip too far away, we may never get him back."
"As much as neither of us want to hear it, he may not want to come back," Dave replies calmly and anger flares in her chest, her cheeks, her eyes.
"Well, I won't accept that," Emily tells him, keeping her temper under careful control. She knows Dave isn't as impassive as his demeanor suggested and that pisses her off even more. "I'm going to go let him know that we care about him and we're worried about him."
"Fine," Dave says. "But you're not getting any sympathy from me when he tells you something you don't want to hear."
Emily spends plenty of time being pissed off at Dave, but it's over transient cares, little things, and proper bedcovers allocation. She doesn't like this feeling - that he thinks she's wrong, that he's not supporting her, that she's not on solid ground.
She's in her car before she remembers to call Hotch and let him know she's on her way. He tells her that Jack's going to be asleep and to knock quietly.
Jack's not asleep when she gets there, is fussing because he doesn't want to go to bed wtihout his dad. He's been raised to behave in front of company, though, so Emily's presence actually helps, even if she dislikes being considered "company."
"Hey," Hotch finally says, standing in the middle of the living room with his hands on his hips. That position irritates Emily - it irritates her when Rossi does it too. "What did you need to talk about?"
"I wanted to see how you were doing," Emily says, getting up from the couch and moving around to where Hotch stood.
"You see me every day at work," Hotch reminds her, eyebrows drawing closer together.
Emily takes a steadying breath, trying not to let Hotch notice her frustration. "I used to see you out of work, too" she says evenly. "I think we need to do that again. It's not good for you to just wall yourself off from your friends and from me and Dave. Let us in, Hotch." She closed the distance between them and tilted her head up to kiss him. "We miss you," she whispers, and leans in.
Hotch leans away.
Emily swallows her hurt and steps back. "I'm not trying to push," she starts. "Things have changed, I know that. But that doesn't mean we're not here for you."
"I am completely responsible for Jack, now," Hotch says, gesturing toward the closed door in the back of the apartment. "The time is past when I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, and that includes having casual sex at the drop of a hat."
"I can't even begin to understand how much pressure you're under right now," Emily starts, trying to ignore the word casual that he'd dropped in there so...casually. Like everything they'd done was just for fun.
"No," Hotch says in that tone of voice that shuts down dissent. "You can't."
Emily actually physically takes a step back. It's clear what he means - she can't understand because she doesn't have a child. Because she's never taken on that kind of commitment and responsibility. Because no one ever loved her that much, her brain fills in traitorously, reminding her that what she has with Hotch, and maybe even with Rossi is casual in his eyes.
It's dirty pool, and Hotch knows exactly how to hurt her, and she knows this. It's easier to regroup when she tells herself he's just trying to push her away, that he's hurting and scared in his own way, and wasn't ready to be pushed. It still hurts that he did it at all.
"I was going to say," she says calmly, "that if you let the weight of all that responsibility crush you, you'll be no good to Jack at all. He'll learn nothing from you but how to be sad. That's what I learned from my father."
She picks up her bag from the sofa and types in the code for the alarm system so she can let herself out without waking up Jack, or Hotch's entire building. Her hand's on the door and she should just leave, but she can't help saying one more thing. "It wasn't casual for me," she tells him, not looking at him, not giving him the satisfaction or the guilt of seeing the tears in her eyes. "And it wasn't casual for Dave, either."
She gets out of there, fast, pulling the door shut behind her. The tears don't fall until she's behind the wheel of the car, and then only the ones in her eyes. She pushes Hotch's words back and away, categorizing them into the things said by damaged, angry people, and they don't quite fit in that box, they refuse to be tucked away so summarily, but it's the best option she has for now. She blots the tears away with the heel of her hand and fumbles for her compact in her purse. A little powder around her eyes and a fresh coat of mascara, and she's 90% sure Dave won't be able to tell for sure if she'd been crying.
She doesn't even consider going back to her place in the city.
In bed with Dave, coming down from a shuddering orgasm, Emily felt the mattress shift as Dave rolled onto his side and said, "I have to tell you something."
Confessions came easier this way, in the dark, with the echoes of their lovemaking lingering in the air and on their skin. A sweet curl of anticipation coiled in Emily's stomach, wondering what new secret Dave was about to share with her.
"Tell me," she urged, reaching out to trace the line of his neck. His skin was hot under her fingertips.
"It's not all my story to tell," he confessed, and she nodded, silently promising discretion. "Back, long ago, when Hotch first joined the BAU," Dave said, reaching for her, pressing his palm against her hip, "he was young and new, and I wanted to make it easier for him, to give him an outlet. Sometimes you can't explain the things we see." His hand tightened on her hip. "Sometimes you need to know someone else saw it without having to say the words. I wanted to be that person for him. And I was, for over a year. And then I left."
Emily studied Dave's face in the dark. He looked troubled, uncomfortable confessing Hotch's secrets along with his own. She might have guessed that Hotch, so staid and buttoned-up and earnest was holding so much inside, but not with Dave. Never with Dave. The idea of them together was...appealing, to say the least.
Everyone had a little bit of a crush on Hotch at one time or another. It was generally a pretty platonic crush, because Hotch was so in love with Haley, and besides that, he could be, on occasion, terrifying, and if someone made it past all that, he was also a workaholic perfectionist who would probably profile you in bed.
But everyone was also a little in love with him because he did the things the rest of them couldn't or didn't want to, and he stood up for them in ways they knew about and ways they didn't, and they all knew how much he put into the job and how well he did it.
Emily may have had a few fantasies about how all that focus and intensity might feel directed on her, but she was a realist and wasn't about put any hope into the idea. But now, knowing that Dave had touched him, jerked him off, maybe even fucked him - and God that was hot, that image - Emily had to think of him as a real person again, someone with physical needs and quirks and she began to wonder.
She propped herself up on her elbow and circled her fingers down to the base of Dave's throat, to the notch of his collarbone. "Why now?" she asked.
"He asked me tonight," Dave said carefully. "He needed me to be that person. And I told him I was with someone."
That hit Emily hard, hit her in the gut. She knew Dave loved her, knew Dave was committed to her. But to hear that Dave had turned down someone else - someone he loved, at least as much as he loved her, though maybe in a different way - was...amazing. She felt embraced, adored...and selfish.
"I think he knows, Em," he said. "That it's you I'm with. I don't think he'll say anything, but I wanted you to know."
"Is he okay?" Emily asked.
Dave sighed, eyes falling closed. "I don't know," he admitted. "He keeps shutting things away. He won't talk to me about Kate Joyner or his hearing or anything that's happened since then. And I hate that he doesn't have Haley and Jack. He needs...I don't know. An outlet of some sort and I can't give it to him."
"It's true," she said. "It helps when you don't have to explain it." She leaned up and kissed his mouth and said, "There's an easy way to solve this problem, you know."
"Oh, yeah?" he asked, pulling her closer, tight against his body. She hooked a leg over his hip and pressed herself against his leg. "God, how are you wet again?" he wondered, pressing his mouth against her ear and cheek.
"He's your friend," Emily said quietly but firmly in his ear. "You need to go to him."
"Emily." Dave pulled back and cupped her cheek in his hand.
"I mean it," she said. "Life's too short. I know...I should be jealous. Maybe I should think of him as competition. But it's Hotch and he's alone right now and - " She shrugged as much as she could, sprawled sideways on the bed and curled around Dave. The truth is, she knew how tightly his ex-wives had tried to hold on to him, and everything she'd learned about him since told her that squeezing him would only make him slip away. " - he needs you," she finished lamely. "It's not true that onlies don't know how to share."
Dave frowned at her, stroking his thumb along her cheek. "What if I only want to be with you?" he asked.
Emily blinked at him. It wasn't quite a lie, even if it hadn't been in the form of a question. But she knew him, and she knew his history, and she wasn't sure either of them really believed it. "Then only be with me," she said. "But if you want to be with Hotch, too, it's okay. I'm okay." She smiled. "It would be nice if you told me. So I know where you are." She licked her lower lip. "And so I can think about what you're doing."
"So that's why you're so wet," Dave said, sliding his hand around her leg, urging her up higher so he could stroke her from behind. "You are having impure thought about your boss."
She leaned forward, pressing her mouth against his. "I'm having impure thoughts," she admitted, "about my lover sucking off my boss."
Dave groaned into her mouth and slipped two fingers inside her, not too deep, but just far enough to push up against her g-spot. "C'mere," he urged. "Come sit on my face."
"Oh, Dave," she purred, pushing herself up and walking up his body on her knees. "You say the prettiest things to me."
He might have said something else, but she braced herself on the headboard and lowered herself down, brushing her pussy over his mouth and beard.
"Emily," he murmured, licking her clit and sliding his other hand up the back of her leg. Dave ran his tongue back to where his fingers were angled inside of her and up again to her clit. Usually when he went down on her, he was deliberate, tracing careful patterns, playing with pressure and methodically pressing every button she had until she was screaming his name as she came.
In this position, though, she had all the control and he lapped at her like a thirsty man at an oasis. Dave wasn't much for giving up control, but when he did, he liked her to take advantage of it.
She lifted up, away from his mouth. "Will you tell me about it?" she asked.
"What?" He lifted his head, chasing after her, but she braced herself above him and looked down.
"You and Hotch." She tensed deliberately, squeezing around his fingers. "It's hot. Will you tell me about it?"
He turned his head and kissed the inside of her thigh, halfway up from her knee, and looked up at her. "This is really making you horny," he said. He scissored his fingers inside her and she gasped. She could feel her face heating.
"Can you blame me?" she asked.
"You like thinking about me sucking his cock?" Dave asked, easing her back down to his mouth. He flicked his tongue across her clit.
"You have a really talented mouth," Emily told him. "Don't go getting a big head about that."
Dave chuckled, sending tiny vibrations through her. "Is that what you want us to do?" he asked. "If I go to him, I should offer to suck his cock?"
"I don't know," Emily said, trying to imagine Hotch's face when Dave presented it that way. "Is that what you want to do? Is that what he likes?"
"What do you want me to say if he asks what you like in bed?" Dave asks, tilting his head up to look at her and brushing his beard right across her.
Emily pulled away, the contact too harsh, and a shiver ran up her spine. The idea of Hotch wondering what she liked in bed was equal parts exciting and absurd, but she got Dave's gentle rebuke. He wasn't going to kiss and tell without explicit permission. "You should tell him I like being eaten out, sitting on your dick, and pegging you," she said, shifting around on her knees because it was an awkward position and she was getting overly sensitive. "Also, red wine and long walks on the beach."
Dave licked his lips. "He was the first guy I let fuck me," he said finally. "Usually I fucked him, but there was one night I needed it and damn if he didn't give it to me."
"Dave," Emily gasped, because she had just about given up on satisfying her curiosity.
"Him and you, Em," Dave said. "That's it. I slept with a few guys after I retired - they'd hit on me on the book tours sometimes - but either I fucked them or let them suck me off."
Emily whimpered and pressed down over Dave's mouth. He licked her wild and messy, catching her clit between his lips and sucking, and fucking her with his fingers until she shuddered and came, curled over him.
When it was over and she was stretched out on the mattress next to him, he pressed his thumb into the clasp of her hand and folded his fingers over hers. "I can make it a condition," he said, brushing his lips against her knuckles. "That I give you full disclosure."
"No conditions," Emily said drowsily. "But full disclosure? I can make that worth your while."
Aaron feels awful the moment Emily leaves his apartment. He tells himself it's necessary, that it's the only way he can go forward with the new life he's committed himself to living, one more focused and balanced than what he had before. One where Jack's the most important thing.
But a week at work convinces him otherwise. Emily treats him normally, or what was normal before - she's professional, competent, sociable, even cheerful. But when he's watching, and he's always watching, he sees shadows pass over her face. The corners of her mouth turn down when she's concentrating and he catches her taking deep breaths like she can't get enough air in her chest.
Dave isn't any happier, but he's harder to watch. Mostly because he's usually watching Aaron. Aaron wonders how much of the conversation Emily relayed. He knows she wouldn't tell him the worst parts, wouldn't want him to know how much Aaron had hurt her.
Aaron's chest aches all the time. He keeps telling himself it's for the best, but as frustrating as it would be to try to be with Dave and Emily, it can't be as hard as pushing them away when all he wants to is to cling to them both.
His guilt finally overwhelms him in the middle of a case. He's interviewing a prostitute who explains she's aborting the unsub's baby, not because he raped her and cut her face, but because she's already aborted one pregnancy and figures she's "not exactly mother material."
Aaron has to excuse himself and go to the restroom where he grips the sink and wonders what kind of person he's become without Haley to temper his dark moods. It's this kind of moment where Dave tends to barge in and dispense wisdom, but he's at a crime scene with Emily and Morgan, so Hotch pulls himself together and finishes the interview.
When the case is over, he finds a blank notecard and handwrites his apology.
Dear Emily,
I owe you the kind of apology that should come with flowers and dinner and heartfelt promises never to hurt you again. I can't give you that. I said horrible things, things meant to hurt, and I deeply regret ever having said them. At the time, I wanted to give you a sense of how much pain I was in, make you understand my desire to hide from the world. It was a cruel thing to do.
I said what we did was casual. If that were true, I wouldn't have to walk away because it wouldn't hurt so much. Being with you and Dave reminds of me of falling in love with Haley all over again. You two will be fine. I've never seen him love anyone the way he loves you. He told me to keep my options open but it doesn't seem fair to ask you to wait for something that may not happen for months or years, or at all.
I can't be who you and Dave want me to be right now. I am grateful for the concern and affection you have both expressed, but right now I can only be Jack's father. Haley is the last thing I'm letting this job take from him - she was too big a price to pay and I didn't realize until it was too late. I promised her I'd spend the rest of my life making up what we lost, and the only way to keep that promise is to be the best father I can possibly be to Jack. As tempting as it may be to let you and Dave be my comfort, I'm afraid that if I lose my footing, I may never find it again.
Speaking of Jack, he asked about you the other day. He'd like to see you. I know I've been unwelcoming. Please give me a chance to correct that. I've tied our sexual relationship and our friendship together in my mind and that's been a mistake. Jack and I need our friends. Please don't be a stranger.
He hesitates over the closing and finally chooses, With love, Aaron. He walks next door to Dave's office the next day and holds it out.
"Will you give this to Emily for me?" he asks. "At home."
Dave lifts an eyebrow, which makes Aaron want to talk more, but he resolutely keeps his mouth shut and waits for Dave to take the envelope. "Sure." Dave tucks it into an inside pocket of his jacket. "You okay?"
Aaron takes a deep breath. "Sometimes," he says, internally railing against every word, "it's harder to ask for help that to do it on my own. I'm okay," he adds quickly at the sudden concern on Dave's face. "But I've been a jackass. To you and to Emily."
"I think you're owed the right to be a jackass once or twice," Dave says carefully. "You put up with me, after all."
"Emily's done nothing to deserve it," Aaron says. "And sometimes I forget that we're friends, even when we're not - " He inclines his head, because they're at work and somehow he can't say that out loud. "You should come over sometime this week," he adds. "To see Jack."
"Yeah," Dave says. "That'd be nice." He glances at his jacket where the envelope is nestled. "And this?"
Aaron gives him a wry smile. "Please make sure she gets it," he says. "She puts up with both of us."
"Let's get a drink at your place," Dave had said to Hotch on a Friday afternoon.
By the time Hotch let them into his apartment, an embarrassing clutter of boxes of not-yet-unpacked books and personal items, and poured bourbon into two glasses, he had a pretty good idea of what Dave was doing there. Neither of them admitted it though, not right away. Not until he hit the bottom of the second glass did Dave say, "Still don't want to talk about it?"
Aaron stared at the remainder of his glass and then back at Dave. "What about Prentiss?" he asked. He never got confirmation, but he'd watched them together, watched how they interacted and it's a well-educated guess.
Dave grinned a little, pleased, maybe, that Aaron's figured it out. "I have a dispensation," he said. "For you."
"For me?" Hotch repeated. He never imagined Emily Prentiss as the type to give "dispensations."
"I can fuck you," Dave said. "Everyone else I have to run past her first."
"Wow," Aaron said, half to himself. "That was fast."
"What do you mean?" Dave asked, frowning a little.
"I just - " Hotch shrugged. "I'm not arguing." He put his glass on the steamer trunk that was sitting in front of his couch and stood up. He'd already thrown his jacket over the back of the couch, next to Dave's, but he was still wearing the rest of his work clothes and he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt cuffs before he lost his nerve.
"Good." Dave stood up too, and kissed him, one hand cradling the back of Hotch's head. Kissing had gotten easier after that first time and eleven years wasn't as long as Hotch remembered, or maybe Dave practiced on other people since then.
That was an odd thought, Dave kissing other men. Aaron knew Dave had experience with men before that first night but it hadn't occurred to him that he would have pursued men after. He wouldn't have needed it, according to their initial reasoning, not walking violent crime scenes anymore, and who would he have fucked if he had? There were very few people who saw what they saw.
Dave eased off, his hand dropping to Aaron's shoulder. "What did you mean 'that was fast'?" he asked again.
Aaron's not even sure what he meant, but he said, "Emily. I didn't think she would - you actually told her you were going to come have sex with me?"
"It was her idea," Dave said, and that was not what Aaron was expecting at all. "I told her about it and she said I should go to you." He moved his hand from Aaron's shoulder to his own hip and rubbed his beard with his other hand. "You think she's gonna change her mind?"
Aaron shook his head. "I don't know her like you do," he said honestly.
Dave lifted an eyebrow and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "You want to call her and get permission?" he asked, offering the phone to Aaron. "She'll probably want you to put us on speaker."
Aaron glanced at the phone and then up at Dave's face. "You want me to call her," he said. "Because youwant to call her."
"You're the one who's worried about her reaction to this," Dave pointed out.
"You're never living this down," Aaron assured him. "Not with all the shit you gave me about calling Haley. For years."
They stood there for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. Aaron glanced down. "You have an erection," he commented. "Are you thinking about me or her?"
Dave blinked soberly at him. "Both," he said. "I think Emily's pretty sure about this. She's worried about you, she wants you to be okay, she knows you're safe with me and most importantly, she understands too, she knows what it's like to need to be with someone who understands the things we see."
His words shook Aaron a little. Clearly Dave and Emily were far closer than he'd realized. Dave had never been like this with the women he'd slept with. He spoke about Emily like he'd speak about Aaron himself. "She'd really be okay with you sleeping with someone else? A man that you work with? That she works with?" It seemed like an impossible tangle, the way they were all together and yet not. Aaron tried to imagine working with Emily, knowing they were both sleeping with the same man, and balked.
"Okay with it?" Dave asked. "Jesus, Aaron, she's so turned on by it I can barely keep up with her. I'll either have to quit talking about it or get some backup."
Aaron thought about it and nodded. The easy answer was, of course, for Dave to stop talking about it. In law they called it a Chinese wall - a barrier of paper excluding lawyers with conflicts from contact with a case their firm had taken. Of course, his other statement would be just as effective, Aaron thought wryly. If Emily was really interested, really wanted to watch, maybe they should just invite her to join in and if Dave needed help... "That would fix everything," he murmured to himself.
"What?" Dave asked. "Calling for backup to have sex with - " He cut himself off. "You wanna be my backup?" he asked.
Aaron should be able to read his face better. He couldn't quite tell if Dave was intrigued or angry or just disbelieving. Also, he hadn't quite meant to say that out loud. He licked his lips.
"I guess the question is," he said, conflicted about what he wanted the answer to be, "is if the thought of me and Emily together turns you on."
The Dave he'd known a decade ago wouldn't be. The Dave who'd fucked him had been possessive, traditional about his female lovers. He wouldn't have liked the idea of another man fucking them at all. In fact, Hotch knew for a fact that was a factor in at least one divorce. But this Dave was different and if this was going to sort out for the best, there was really only one answer to that question.
Dave licked his upper lip and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, that's - fuck." He shook his head. "Hell, yeah." He looked at Aaron. "Does thinking about me being with her make you hot?" he asked "Does thinking about all three of us together make you hot?"
Aaron thought of Emily with her long, long legs and her pretty, perfect-sized breasts and imagined Dave's hands on her, wondered if Dave touched Emily the way he had touched Aaron, firm fingertips and gentle palms, hard kisses and bruising thrusts. He imagined Dave was gentler with Emily, that she didn't have bruises in the shower the next morning, and then he imagined that maybe she did.
"You've got a hard-on, too," Dave observed.
Aaron lifted his eyebrows and glanced down at the front of his pants. "Answers that question, doesn't it?" he said.
Dave looked down at the phone he was still holding loosely in his hand. "What happens now?" he asked.
Aaron shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "Somehow, this is never a question I've had to ask myself before."
Dave nodded, biting his lip and smothering a grin. Dave always had appreciated Aaron's humor. "I think," he said, weighing the phone in his palm. "I think, maybe, I should go talk to Emily. In person."
Aaron nodded, regretting the loss of comfort, but feeling strangely hopeful and at peace. "I think that's a good plan," he said.
"I'm, uh, sorry that I'm leaving," Dave said, the reluctance obvious in his voice.
"I understand," Aaron said. "Me, too." They exchanged rueful smiles. It wasn't hard to guess what Dave was thinking. Aaron was thinking the same. They were both aroused, wanted each other, but they wanted Emily, too, and she wasn't there.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow," Dave said. He reached out and squeezed Aaron's shoulder, lingered a little. He leaned in and kissed Aaron again, and it was even more familiar, hot, with the scratch of Dave's beard against Aaron's face. He smiled and squeezed the back of Aaron's neck, and let himself out.
Aaron locked the door after him and looked around. And he wondered, What on earth did I just get myself into?
Part 3