scribblinlenore | Criminal Minds FIC: The apple and afterward

Title: The apple and afterward
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Hotch/Reid
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 12,000
Warnings: Drug addiction, prostitution, mentions of rape, murder and other horrific BAU-style crimes
Summary: What if Reid hadn't managed to kick his Dilaudid addiction? What if he needed a job on the side in order to afford his habit?

Notes: This story is for

svmadelyn who won it in the

help_japan auction. Thank you to Madelyn for her generous donation and the fantastic prompt. Many thanks also to

alizarin_nyc and

karraparis for all their help with the story.

The apple and afterward
By Lenore

He meets Frank at Starbucks, the one near his metro station, a completely innocuous beginning. There is nothing to suggest that Frank is a drug dealer, even to an FBI profiler. He wears a stretched-out brown cardigan with holes in the elbows and an air of resignation. Spencer would have pegged him for a high school teacher, maybe chemistry or physics, with a class full of students incapable of understanding thermal loading.

Halfway through a latte with four shots of espresso, a blissful amount of caffeine that is almost, almost, not quite distracting Spencer from the gnawing ache in his gut that never entirely goes away, he notices Frank watching him. The fact that people look at him has become less surprising if still not exactly explicable. He imagines the awkward pickup line that may be coming and sorts through a list of polite excuses.

"I've got something that'll help with that," Frank says instead.

Spencer realizes, with a hot rush of shame, that it's his hands that Frank has been watching, the fine tremor in them as he clutches his coffee cup. "That's not," he stammers. "It's nothing—I'm fine."

He really is, no matter what anyone else believes. There's a bottle in his pocket with twelve pills in it and one refill left on his prescription. His next dose is in two hours. He's always careful to keep to a schedule. It can't be a problem if there's a schedule.

"My mistake." Frank holds up his hands to show he meant no offense.

Spencer goes back to his notes, a series of carjackings in Maryland, the victims all attractive professional women in their forties, killed but not raped, the cars abandoned, notes left behind that contain scraps of courtly poetry. The words swim up from the page, and Spencer tastes the last sip of coffee in the back of his throat, threatening not to stay down. He curls his fingers around the pill bottle in his jacket pocket. Two hours suddenly seems very far away.

He wipes away a line of sweat that’s beginning to form along his hairline and finds that Frank is once again watching him, this time with a knowing smirk.

"I need to get to work," Spencer says, scooping his papers into his bag, not making eye contact.

"I'll be here when you change your mind," Frank promises.

In Spencer's early days at the BAU, before he had any ability to distance himself from the misery he routinely observed, there would be random moments while working cases when everything was going along fine, fine, until suddenly it wasn't. The reality of what had happened to another human being would collapse on him like a too-heavy weight, as if gravity had become brutally disordered. His stomach would rebel, and it would feel as if everything he'd ever eaten in his entire life was trying to come back up.

He feels that way today, but it has nothing to do with the case.

Derek does a double take as he passes Spencer's desk, stops, and frowns with concern. "Hey, kid, you okay? Looks like you're about to lose your breakfast all over that report."

Spencer makes a rueful face. "I think I'm fighting the flu. I've got an appointment to see the doctor at lunch."

One part of this is true. Spencer likes to think that lessens the lie.

"Maybe you should just go home?"

Spencer shakes his head. "It's not—I'll be fine once I've seen the doctor."

He manages to slog his way through three more hours of the cryptic ramblings of a serial bomber, trying to find clues to his identity, before it's finally, thankfully time to leave for his appointment.

"I should be back by two," he tells Hotch on his way out.

Hotch gives him a long, gauging look—something he's been doing far too often lately—before nodding in acknowledgment.

It takes forty minutes to drive to the doctor's office, on a rundown block in the otherwise well-kept town of Springfield, nowhere near anything that has to do with Spencer's life, which is precisely the point. This is the third doctor he's been to see in the past three months.

He smiles at the receptionist and gives his name and accepts the clipboard with forms to fill out. "I'm sorry, Dr. Hoover is out today with a family emergency, but Dr. Cassidy is filling in," the receptionist tells him. "He'll be with you shortly."

Spencer swallows and manages another, more feeble smile and sits down to complete the paperwork. Dr. Hoover is semi-retired, with a vacation home in the Dominican Republic funded in large part by pharmaceutical company kickbacks. He's known for writing prescriptions without asking too many questions. Spencer always does his research; unfortunately today it's not on the right subject.

Dr. Cassidy turns out to be the worst-case scenario: young, early thirties, muscled beneath his white lab coat, with close-cropped dark hair, probably former military. In other circumstances, Spencer would find him attractive. Today he just finds him inconvenient.

"So what brings you in?" Dr. Cassidy makes eye contact, ready to listen.

Fuck.

Spencer reaches for his shoulder, offering a wry expression, and goes through the well-rehearsed story, about the old injury he aggravated while running down a suspect. Dr. Cassidy nods along and makes notes.

"I've been trying to shake it off, but it's killing me," Spencer admits, with just the right note of hesitance.

"Soft tissue injuries can be tricky." Dr. Cassidy presses on Spencer's shoulder in various places. Spencer sucks in his breath and flinches convincingly.

"Okay, let me give you something for that." Dr. Cassidy moves over to the counter where there's a prescription pad. "But if the pain persists, we should do some tests."

"In the past, my doctor has prescribed Dilaudid," Spencer suggests, in a neutral tone, as if he only means to be helpful.

"Mm-hm," Dr. Cassidy murmurs while he scribbles away. He tears off the prescription and hands it over.

Spencer stares at it disbelievingly. "This is for Tylenol with codeine."

"Should help take the edge off."

"I'm in pain," Spencer insists, voice rising, a little too close to hysteria.

Dr. Cassidy meets his gaze solemnly. "I know, and I'm trying to get you the right kind of help."

Spencer manages to leave before the doctor can foist a "Prescription Drug Dependence and You" pamphlet on him. For several minutes afterward, all he can do is sit in his car while his lungs work too hard and he becomes increasingly light-headed.

He's still shaky when he gets back to the office, and it doesn't help that he's greeted by worried looks from every member of his team. He hunches over his computer and does his best to concentrate on the report he's writing, but it's hard to think about anything other than the precipice he's fragilely balanced upon.

Fact: there are three lonely pills left in the bottle, not enough to get him through the day. Fact: he has no prescription, and it's too late to make another appointment with a different doctor. Fact: he is completely screwed.

It's only when he notices his hands shaking on the keyboard that he realizes, with a dizzying sense of relief, that there is something he can do, a way to salvage this disaster.

At the end of the day, he leaves to the same flurry of concerned glances.

"Hey, kid," Morgan calls out. "Don't come in tomorrow if you're still looking like you might fall over."

"I'm sure I'll feel better by then." At least, he will if Frank has kept his promise.

He runs up the stairs when he gets off the metro, darts across the street, barely avoiding a taxi, and pushes through the door of the Starbucks. For a moment all he sees are students with laptops and people in suits talking business, but then, there, in the back corner, a moth-eaten mustard-colored pullover.

Frank breaks into a told-you-so smile when Spencer heads for his table.

Money has never been especially important to Spencer. He lives in the same one-bedroom apartment he's had since he started with the BAU. It's a convenient location, and the rent is modest, and he spends most of his time at work anyway. Some of the clothes in his closet date back to his teen years. His ideal vacation would be a week just to curl up on the couch and read. Books have always been his one indulgence. The rest of his money he shuffles into savings, not with any real purpose, just because he has to do something with it.

All that changes with Frank.

The balances on Spencer's accounts nudge downward, downward, and then take an all-out nosedive. Soon he's maxed out his credit cards and finds himself watching the mail for offers of new ones. For a few months this keeps him afloat. Then he gets his first rejection, applies for a different card, gets another no-thank-you. When he finally accepts that his credit has been cut off, fear settles into the pit of his stomach like a cold, hard stone. Not because the electric bill is past due or he might get kicked out of his apartment, but simply: how is he going to afford Frank?

"I have a strict cash-only policy, no bartering arrangements," Frank says when Spencer stumbles his way through the admission that he's out of money.

For a moment, Spencer is too stunned to say anything. He was only planning to ask for more time to come up with the payment. He certainly hadn't made the mental leap to will fuck for drugs, but now that the option has been taken away, he feels oddly disappointed. That would have been a comparatively simple solution to his problem.

"Don't worry, professor. I know someone who can help you out." Frank slides a card across the table. On the plain, expensive card stock is the name Angela Carson and a number. "She's very discreet, and from what I hear, her clients are big tippers."

Spencer stares at the card. The fucking for drugs option, it appears, is back on the table. He has only been this terrified once or twice before in his life.

That doesn't keep him from memorizing the number and pocketing the card.

"This just came in from the Fulton County PD," JJ says grimly as the images of six young women fill the conference room screen, all prostitutes, all brutally slaughtered, their bodies mutilated, slurs of "whore" and "filth" written on their skin in yellow paint.

Spencer rubs at his cheek. He keeps feeling as if something is there, his hair falling into his face, only he cut it short weeks ago. The ghostly sensation is a reminder that what he really needs is to lock himself in the bathroom and swallow down his next handful of pills.

"Hey, you okay?" Emily leans in to whisper.

"Yeah. Fine," he whispers back.

They must suspect, all of them, the whole team. Spencer hasn't wanted to admit that possibility, but, really, how could it be otherwise? They're trained professionals. They know human behavior. They know him. No one has confronted him about it yet, not directly anyway. An FBI agent who's accused of abusing drugs—wouldn't be an FBI agent much longer. They won't want to ruin his career. They trust him to sort it out on his own. He wishes he could be worthy of that faith.

As JJ takes them through what they know about the Atlanta victims, Spencer scans their dossiers for more details. Maria Shelby, only seventeen years old, liked horses and china dolls when she was a little girl. Wynette Hoskins cut pictures of Paris and Florence out of magazines and taped them to the walls of her by-the-week motel room. Constance Diehl had been a graphic artist—published several cartoons in the New Yorker—before a crack addiction savaged her talent and her life.

None of them could have expected to wind up on the streets. None of them could have imagined how they'd come to an end, dumped like yesterday's trash in a filthy alley.

At the end of the briefing, Hotch tells them, "The unsub is clearly escalating, so time is of the essence. Wheels up in half an hour."

Spencer lurches to his feet, which feel suddenly very far away. Pictures keep churning up from the stockpile of things he'd be better off not thinking about: those photos so optimistically clipped of places Wynette Hoskins would never see, decorating a room she would never return to. He rubs at his temples. His head feels like a balloon stretched too taut, threatening to explode.

"Reid." Hotch catches him by the arm. "This case is going to be challenging. I need to know I have your entire focus."

"Of course," Spencer says, lifting his chin, as if he can't imagine why Hotch would doubt him.

He hopes it's a convincing lie. The truth is that all he can think about is the bathroom, the soothing coolness of the tile, the bright flare of relief he'll feel when he's gobbled down some pills. If Hotch's expression is any measure, the lie is patently obvious, but he lets Spencer go anyway.

Spencer fights down the urge to run as he keeps his rendezvous with oblivion. He sits on the lid of the toilet and closes his eyes as he waits for warm waves of numbness to spread through him. His brain, though, keeps coming back to Maria and Wynette and Constance and all the others.

The night before, his own career in prostitution began over get-to-know-you drinks with Angela at a swanky chrome-and-glass lounge where he'd felt decidedly out of place. She chatted him up as if she were interviewing him to be an investment banker or a stockbroker rather than a whore, asking about his interests and his five-year goals. Angela herself looked like a corporate attorney, in a trim black suit and a strand of pearls, her dark hair pulled back into a tidy bun.

"Well, I'm satisfied with what I've seen," she declared over a second glass of merlot. "Do you have any questions for me?"

"Um—" he stumbled. "I feel like I should tell you—"

"Yes, I know what you do for a living," she cut in. "I never meet with anyone without doing my homework first. Taking on an employee with your background is unusual, I'll admit, but you have Frank's referral. That's good enough for me."

"Actually, I was going to say," he swallowed nervously, "that I haven't done this before. Um. Professionally."

"Oh, that." Angela waved away the concern. "That's precisely your appeal. I have several clients who will be very eager to meet you."

"I have kind of a busy travel schedule, and it can be unpredictable. Is that going to be—" He was almost hoping she'd say she couldn't work with him.

"No problem at all. Just keep me apprised. I can plan around your day job." She leaned in to close the deal. "I really think this arrangement can benefit us both, Spencer. We'll keep each other's secrets and make a lot of money together. What do you say?"

He could have said no. Could have tried to figure another way out of the mess he'd made.

"When do I start?"

It gets easier to compartmentalize, maybe too much so, cases in one part of his brain, the things he does to earn the much-needed Frank-money in another.

Coming back from Wichita, Spencer is preternaturally awake after ninety-six livewire hours trying to find a missing boy, Mitchell Scarborough, kidnapped from a local mall where he'd gone to buy his mother a birthday present. He was the fourth in a string of abductions and murders of teenaged boys. The unsub's pattern was to keep the boys alive for precisely five days, during which time he repeatedly beat them, before strangling them and dumping their bodies in deserted areas on the outskirts of the city.

Mitchell Scarborough had only three days and ten hours to live when they hit the tarmac at the Wichita airport unless they managed to find his abductor. A stray bit of trace evidence unraveled the case. A rare industrial-grade fire-resistant fiber suggested the unsub worked as a welder, and when Garcia supplied them with a list, one suspect leaped out from the rest. Donald Barnes grew up in a string of foster families and group homes where he was routinely bullied by older boys. He had no arrest record, but there had been a complaint made against him by a girlfriend, later withdrawn, that he physically assaulted her teenaged son. It appeared that Barnes was reliving his past, turning the tables, becoming the bully who instilled fear.

The team tracked him to an abandoned canning factory where he held his victims. Mitchell Scarborough should still have had twelve hours to spare, but Barnes must have sensed the authorities closing in. They found the boy's body, so newly dead it was still warm, hidden in an industrial drum on the factory's grounds.

Spencer is a little high from the handful of pills he took right before the flight, although not nearly as high as he'd like to be. He's so painfully awake it's conceivable he might never sleep again, as if his body has lost the genius for rest. His phone buzzes, and he reaches for it, slowly, fighting the sense that he's under water. It's a text from Angela wanting to know if he's available tonight. He calculates how many pills he has left, when he'll next need to meet Frank for coffee, and texts Angela back that he'll be free after ten.

Hotch slips into the seat opposite him. "You didn't eat anything before we left Wichita."

Spencer shrugs. "I'm too tired to be hungry."

"We could go for dinner when we get back to Virginia."

The invitation is not entirely startling. They do spend time together outside the office, and yet Spencer suspects dinner will be accompanied by an interrogation or at least some well-meaning concern. He's glad to be able to say with perfect truthfulness, "I just made a plan for the evening."

Hotch's eyes widen a bit in surprise. "I didn't know you were seeing someone."

"Just a friend." Who's willing to pay to keep me in the narcotic-laced lifestyle to which I've become accustomed.

"What's going on with you, Reid?" Hotch levels an intense stare that could bore holes into walls and unspool hardened criminals.

Spencer knows he should meet that hard stare head on, but he can't keep his gaze from sliding away. "Nothing, Hotch. Really."

Hotch lets it drop for now, but this is clearly far from over.

At home, Spencer takes a few more pills, showers, grabs something out of his closet. Angela encourages his tendency toward sweater vests. They want to debauch you. The only thing more perfect would be a school uniform. Thus far Spencer has had no requests for costumes or roleplay.

Tonight's client is an older man, well dressed, obviously successful. "John," he says as they shake hands, probably not his real name. He betrays no hint that he finds his chosen alias ironic.

They slide into a shadowy corner booth, and John orders two Jamesons on the rocks without consulting Spencer. The first sip burns on the way down, and Spencer quickly takes another. "So," he says, wishing they could skip the small talk and cut right to the sex. "You're in town for business?"

John nods. "Plumbing parts convention. That's my business. Best quality copper pipes you'll find anywhere. There's big money in it."

Spencer nods along, trying to look interested as the man goes into a long-winded discourse on the inherent inferiority of cross linked polyethylene. John's hand wanders over onto Spencer's thigh before he's finished the first sentence and grows steadily bolder, moving up and up and over until he's rubbing Spencer's crotch. The groping isn't entirely hidden by the table, and an elderly tourist couple casts a shocked look of dismay in their direction.

It's probably not the best idea to profile the man who is about to pay him for sex, but Spencer's brain works the way it works. He adds up the suit that is a little too bold, the overly ostentatious signet ring, the man's need to express ownership and dominance in a public setting. Quickly he comes to the conclusion that this is a self-made man, probably from a disadvantage background, living in a small community where he wields considerable influence, but feels compelled to keep his sexuality closeted.

Spencer feels certain that the man is going to want to hold him down and fuck him until he begs.

This proves prescient when they go upstairs. The door has barely closed when John manhandles Spencer out of his clothes and flings him onto the bed. "Grab the headboard," he grates out, kneeling on the mattress, whipping off his tie. He binds Spencer's wrists so tightly his fingers soon go numb. Spencer can't help flashing back to the ligature marks on Mitchell Scarborough's wrists and ankles.

He forces down the cold lump of fear that threatens to choke him. John strips off his own clothes, and then he's on top of Spencer, and there's no room to think about anything. He lines bites from Spencer's neck to his nipples, hard enough to sting, and Spencer arches up into each one. Getting fucked isn't quite as good as the pills at erasing complexity, but it will do. When the man pushes into him, with too much force and too little lube on the condom, Spencer doesn't flinch. He's already floating away.

On the way home, his phone rings. He checks the number and lets it go to voicemail, but once he's in his apartment, he changes his mind. "Hey," he says when Hotch picks up. "Sorry, the restaurant was kind of loud. I didn't hear my phone. What's up?"

There's a pause. "Did you have a good time?"

Spencer's well-used ass aches, and Hotch's voice in his ear is low and quiet. Spencer has to exert himself to keep those things in separate parts of his brain. "It was fine."

"Reid." Suddenly Hotch sounds as weary as Spencer feels. "You know I'm not just your supervisor. I'm your friend. You can talk to me. Off the record."

For a moment Spencer wonders what Hotch's reaction would be if he spilled a different carefully concealed secret: I used to tell myself this was only a crush, because that was so much easier than the truth.

"I appreciate it," Spencer says at last, "but there's nothing to talk about. Everything's fine."

He hangs up and takes his nightly ration of pills and falls into a dream he doesn't remember at all the next morning.

For three miraculous days, they get a break in the mayhem, or at least there are no requests from local jurisdictions that JJ deems appropriate for BAU attention. Spencer hunches over his computer, ignoring the headache that has been drumming in his temples all morning and the clammy sensation of being too sweaty in his clothes. He tries to concentrate on the paper he's writing, an analysis of interviews with over a hundred serial killers that he's supposed to present next month at the annual convention of the National Association of Police Organizations. The urgency of the deadline helps to keep his thoughts from sliding away to—other things.

Funny what can turn out to be comforting.

He sticks close to his desk all day. For lunch, he dusts off an ancient Cup of Noodles that has been sitting forgotten since last October and keeps his head down while he eats, so he doesn't have to meet the glances turned his way. Every now and then sensation will spark up his spine and along his nerve endings, anticipatory terror of the evening ahead. He rubs the bridge of his nose and pretends he doesn't feel anything at all. The Cup of Noodles splatters when he tosses it into the trash, and he goes back to work, focusing even harder on his paper, trying to shut out everything else.

Dave stops by his desk at the end of the day. "Hey, Reid, we're going over to Dewey's for a beer. You in?"

It's been forever since he's gone out with his team. Drug habits are not just expensive, but time-consuming. "I wish I could." Spencer manages to pull his face into an approximation of regret. "But I'm kind of on a deadline. I really need to get this done."

"Come on," Dave cajoles. "Take a break. You'll still be brilliant tomorrow."

He's said exactly this same thing on many occasions, and usually Spencer ducks his head and blushes and shuts down his computer. The fact that he's part of a team, that he's found a place where he actually belongs has been an ongoing revelation, a persistent source of joy. At least it was until recently. Now when he tries to reach for that old sense of satisfaction, it feels ghostly and tarnished. A lie.

"Rain check," he tells Dave, trying to sound causal.

Garcia sweeps over in a chorus of bangle bracelets. "Shake your bacon, boy detective. We've got cocktails to sample. Conversing to do on subjects wholly unrelated to work." She taps the oversized face of her boisterously pink watch. "Time's a-wasting."

"He wants a rain check," Dave announces. "Too much work."

"Come on, kid." Morgan stands up from his desk. "Call it a night."

Emily hovers by the door, beckoning to him.

"Another time," Spencer says firmly. "I'll see you Monday."

Hotch lingers the longest, fixing Spencer with such a penetrating look that he has to fight the urge to curl in on himself for protection. "Get some rest this weekend," Hotch says finally. "You look like you could use it."

Then Spencer is left alone with the paper he finished an hour ago blinking at him on the screen and nothing to fend off the rising sense of panic. He nearly leaps out of his skin when his phone chimes with a text. It's Angela. Still on for tonight? After a moment's hesitation, he texts back an affirmative.

That wasn't his reaction when she'd first broached the possibility with him. He'd just sat there and stared.

"I thought you might be a bit taken aback," she said. "That's why I wanted to meet and discuss it in person."

"It's—how many did you say there would be again?"

"Four. One of them is a very good client of mine," she hurriedly assured him. "He wants to try something new, and, well, some guys can only have gay sex if their buddies are doing it too." She smiled wryly.

"I just—" He really did have a hard time wrapping his head around it. "They'd all—"

"Yes. If you agree, I'll send Bruce along to make sure nothing gets out of hand."

Bruce was the human slab of muscle who escorted Angela's female employees when they met with new clients.

"I've—" Never had sex with more than one person at a time, never even considered it. The words stuck in his throat.

Angela leaned in, her expression sharp, all business. "Naturally, I'll pay you several times more than your usual fee." She always knew how to close a deal.

The plan is to meet Bruce at the hotel at eleven o'clock. Spencer takes a larger-than-usual handful of pills while sitting in his car in the parking lot. By the time he's riding the elevator up to the client's suite, his head is swimming. His hands dangling at his sides don't feel entirely attached to his body.

The elevator doors open on the top floor, and Bruce trudges along at Spencer's side, enormous and matter-of-fact. It's just another day at the office for him. A thirtyish man in chinos and a pink button-down shirt opens the door when they knock.

"Entertainment's here," he calls back into the room, before standing aside to let them in.

Music bounces off the walls, something bass-heavy that Spencer doesn't recognize, and cigarette smoke hangs in the air. Bruce parks himself on a chair in the vestibule. The pink-shirted man propels Spencer into the living area. "Come join the party."

The three others wear nearly identical uniforms; only the colors of the shirts vary. Investment bankers, Spencer guesses, or maybe high-end sales reps. They have set up a bar on the sideboard, and lines of cocaine streak the glass coffee table. The blue-shirted man does a line, sits back and wipes his nose.

Pink Shirt nudges Spencer forward. "Don't be shy."

For a moment, he imagines his heart exploding from the combination of cocaine and Dilaudid, but then that moment is over. He kneels by the table. He's never snorted anything before, and it goes a little awkwardly, but he manages. At first he thinks maybe the two drugs will cancel each other out, but then there's this surge, this whoosh, intensely physical, a roar in his ears like the wind when he's driving too fast with the windows rolled down. His eyes spring wide open. Every cell in his body buzzes with energy.

Someone presses a glass into his hand. He drinks until it's gone. The glass is taken away, and he's handed the bottle instead. He takes a swig and another and another. He feels both insulated and alive, a beautiful contradiction.

It takes him a moment to realize that someone is staring. He turns to look and finds Blue Shirt sprawled in the chair above him, pupils blown, legs wide spread like an invitation, or possibly an order. I am the entertainment, Spencer remembers. He's not sure how to start. All his other clients have set the pace. Have just taken whatever they wanted.

"Should I—" He kneels up and presses his face against the man's crotch.

Apparently this is an acceptable way to start, because the guy grabs Spencer's hair and pushes him down, mashing Spencer's nose against his zipper. "Fuck, this whore is eager."

The exact progress from point A to point B gets blurry, but soon enough Spencer's clothes are gone, and he's down on his hands and knees, a dick in his mouth and another one lining up against his hole, pressing inside him. He gets fucked and fucked and fucked, losing all sense of time. When it's over, the four men are gone, and Bruce is there, helping him back into his clothes. There's come, either dried or drying, all over his skin. He's fairly certain the mess on his stomach is his own.

Saturday, it's past two in the afternoon when he jolts awake from a dead sleep, his heart drag-racing when he opens his eyes, stomach trying to do a vertical leap up into his throat. He stumbles to the bathroom and bends over the toilet and heaves and heaves, disappointed when there is nothing left to vomit.

What Spencer wants more than anything else is to crawl back into bed and burrow under the covers like a defeated mole and not emerge until it's time to go back to work Monday morning, but he's supposed to meet Frank that evening. If he doesn't—well, that's not even a possibility.

He huddles in the shower until the hot water runs out, drags himself into some clothes, and spares a thought for food. His stomach spasms at the possibility, ambitiously trying to regurgitate even though there's nothing left to purge. Maybe by the time he gets to Starbucks, he'll be up to some coffee.

The short walk there feels like a cross-country journey through quicksand. He's breathless and sweating by the time he's gone a block. His skin feels wrong, too tight, and he aches everywhere, deep inside most of all. His mouth stays dry no matter how many times he tries to wet it.

The only good news is that Frank is already seated at his usual table. Spencer carefully lowers himself onto a chair, and they make the swap with the sure-handed efficiency that comes from much practice. Only this time Frank is staring.

"What?" Spencer asks, defensively.

"You," Frank answers, not very instructively, and then he reaches across the table and rubs his thumb over Spencer's lips, still swollen and raw from last night's cocksucking. "You almost make me regret that no-barter policy."

It doesn't escape Spencer's notice that he's spending the majority of his energy just trying to hold things together. He could draw conclusions from that about the state of his life if he were so minded. He isn't.

The latest case is on home ground, a serial rapist who follows young women from the metro, blitzes his way into their apartments, blindfolds and ties them to their beds, and assaults them for hours. The most recent attack happened near Spencer's neighborhood. He's been studying the case files all morning. Instinct tells him there's something there, a connection that will point to the unsub's identity, but he can't see it. The harder he looks, the cloudier everything becomes. He rubs tiredly at his eyes and keeps going, trying not to be a complete waste of a team member.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he fishes it out, checks the number. It's blocked, and that can only be one person. "Hey," he answers.

"I have a date for you tonight if you're available." Angela's voice is clipped, to-the-point. "It's a nice easy one."

"Sure, if it can be late," Spencer says after a moment's consideration. Something should be easy.

Angela texts him the details, and Spencer grabs a quick shower in the locker room once the rest of the team has gone home. These days he keeps a change of clothes on hand for last-minute appointments. He makes it to the hotel by midnight, picks up a key at the front desk as instructed, and goes up to the room.

He steps inside, catches a glimpse of dark hair, blue suit, square shoulders, takes another step, and jolts to a stop, paralyzed. It can't be. He must be hallucinating.

Hotch moves quickly, shutting the door, pulling Spencer into the room before he can bolt—his overwhelming impulse once his brain resumes function. Panic rushes all through him, the worst of his life, a cacophony in his ears. Hotch is talking, but Spencer can't follow. It's just word soup.

At times during this past year, Spencer has woken up with his heart pistoning in his chest like a runaway machine, the bile-taste of terror in the back of his throat, all the ways things could go wrong darting through his head. Blackmail. Pictures of him finding their way onto the Internet. He never truly believed any of it would happen. Never thought anyone would find out. That Hotch—

"Are you listening to me, Reid?"

No, but he can fill in the gaps, phrases like "leave of absence" and "professional help," maybe even "liability to the team." He can't keep his head above water. The only thing he has is his job, his team. It's all he's ever wanted.

"Hotch. Please. Don't turn me in. You don't have to. I'll—I can—" he stutters out. Desperation drives him, makes him grab for Hotch, hold on like he might fall if he lets go, and fumble a kiss onto Hotch's mouth. "I'll do anything—if you just—" He slides his hand down to Hotch's cock.

Every muscle in Hotch's body tenses, and Spencer expects to be abruptly pushed away. When Hotch snaps into action, he does shove Spencer, but up against the wall, his body following, boxing Spencer in. The kiss is hard and punishing, Hotch's hands on Spencer's hips, gripping, leaving marks. At times Spencer has tried to imagine what Hotch's reaction might be if he ever found out about the drugs—disappointment and concern and maybe even a misplaced sense of responsibility—but he never would have predicted the hot, bitter fury that's being poured into his body.

"Is this what you want?" Hotch's voice sounds as unrelenting as a metal grate, his breath hot against Spencer's ear.

Not even close, but Spencer can feel the familiar buzzing in his head, the blessed blankness that comes along with narcotics and reckless sex, blotting out anything even resembling good judgment. He can't make himself stop kissing, and he's still afraid that if he lets go of Hotch he'll fall. It's only when he tastes salt that he realizes there are tears involved.

The tension in Hotch's arms relents by degrees, the nature of the embrace shifting, from anger to comfort. "Spencer."

Spencer can count on one hand the number of times Hotch has used his first name, each dire in its own way. He sags, pressing his face against Hotch's shoulder. He really wishes he could figure out how to stop shaking.

"It's going to be okay." Hotch strokes his hair.

If there is anyone in the world Spencer takes on faith, it's Hotch, and he wants more than anything for him to be right about this, but it's so hard to believe.

"Come on." Hotch maneuvers him over to sit on the bed.

Spencer listens to Hotch on the phone, speaking in a low, measured tone. "I'm going to take you somewhere you can get help," he says when he hangs up, and Spencer nods numbly. There's nothing else he can do but agree.

The trip to the car seems long and perilous. A potted palm darts into Spencer's path; an armchair in the front lobby tries to trip him. He's too shocked and scared for his motor control to function properly, and only Hotch's whipcord arm around his waist keeps him on his feet. They drive, and Spencer closes his eyes and tries to tell himself that this isn't the end of everything that's important to him.

They stop in front of a nondescript brick building with sliding glass doors at the front like an emergency room entrance, the kind of place that people euphemistically call a hospital.

Hotch gets out and comes around to Spencer's side and opens the door. "Come on. They're expecting you."

Inside the fluorescent lights arc into his eyes, hurting, blinding him. He grips tighter to Hotch's arm. "Almost there," Hotch reassures him.

"Mr. Reid?" Spencer blinks, but the woman attached to the voice doesn't become any clearer. "I'm Holly Davis. I'll be your counselor while you're with us. Come on. Let's get you settled."

Later, Spencer will think he remembers Hotch brushing a kiss to his forehead before saying goodbye, but there's no way to be sure. He can't trust his skin to tell him the truth anymore.

In Spencer's room at rehab, there's a long crack in the ceiling plaster above his bed. He stares up at it when he can't sleep, which is pretty much every night, and tries to lull himself by reciting in his head:

Adam lay ybounden, bounden in a bond;
Four thousand winter, thought he not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerkes finden, written in their book.
Ne had the apple taken been, the apple taken been,
Ne had never our ladie abeen Heaven's queen.
Blessed be the time that apple taken was,
Therefore we moun singen, Deo gracias!

He memorized it with his mother when he was three years old. She said it would help to soothe him, this notion that even the worst mistakes could offer the possibility of redemption. Since then, he has repeated the poem every night, as many times as it took until he fell sleep. Now, though, his mind tends to wander, and the old sense of comfort the poem used to give him seems like an artifact of someone else's life. Perhaps he would be better off counting sheep.

The first two weeks of rehab passed in a blur, spent in the infirmary under medical supervision. Now the days unspool in plodding routine, individual and group therapy, checkups with the in-house physician, recreational therapy with ceramic mugs to paint in bright grade-school colors.

He spends the largest share of time with his counselor, Holly. From their first meeting in her closet-sized office, he feels determined to tell her nothing, a stubborn impulse that he doesn't examine too closely. They sit in near silence for the first few sessions, Holly patiently waiting him out. Eventually he finds himself haltingly relating the story of Tobias Hankel.

Holly listens with a slowly deepening crease between her eyes. "And you never talked about this with anyone after it happened?"

Spencer gives a desultory shrug of the shoulder. "A few sessions with an FBI psychologist."

Holly raises an eyebrow at him. Clearly, she can imagine how forthcoming he was.

"Okay, I never really talked about it with anyone," he admits.

She looks at him very seriously. "We're going to need to work on that."

Slowly she begins to chisel away at his reserve. He tells her about other cases that wake him up in the middle of the night with a numbing sense of despair. He tells her about stopping for a latte at Starbucks and meeting Frank. He even tells her about Angela, although when Holly delicately tries to get him to elaborate he balks.

"It's okay if you don't feel comfortable confiding in me," Holly says. "But you do need to tell someone. Trying to handle everything on your own is how you got here in the first place."

Twice a week, Spencer is allowed visitors in the day room over paper cups of weak tea and stale sugar cookies. Officially he's on a leave of absence from the FBI with "family issues," and someone from the team comes to see him every week. Derek brings a bag of mandarin oranges from the fruit stand near the office, and JJ bakes brownies. Penelope catches him up on reality TV shows he doesn't actually watch but likes to hear about from her. Emily and Dave give each other a hard time, just to get a smile out of him.

Hotch usually comes alone, and they never talk about what happened that night in the hotel room.

"Jack wanted me to give you this." Hotch hands him a crayoned drawing of two stick figures, one diminutive, one long and skinny with a shock of yellow hair, and in the background a dinosaur skeleton grinning, showing off big, chartreuse teeth.

"We had fun the day we went to the Museum of Natural History," Spencer says, a little wistfully.

He can see now how Hotch has made openings for him in his life, deliberate acts of friendship. Spencer appreciates how significant that is for a person as private as Hotch, and the possibility that he's messed that up beyond all repair makes his throat close up with regret.

"You and Jack can go to the museum again when you're finished here," Hotch says, holding Spencer's eyes, as if he can read his mind.

Trying to handle everything on your own is how you got here, Holly's voice reminds him.

"I still think about—" he stumbles. "I just wish I could have said something to make it turn out differently."

Hotch doesn't need Spencer to spell out what he means. "Tobias Hankel wasn't your fault."

"Then whose fault was it?"

"His father's, for torturing him," Hotch enumerates calmly. "His mother's, for abandoning him to the care of a sadist. His teachers, his school, his neighbors, everyone who suspected something wasn't right and did nothing about it. There's a long list of culpability, and you are nowhere on it. By the time you met Tobias Hankel, he was long past the point of being saved."

Spencer has never known anyone more judicious than Hotch, equally fair with his criticism and his praise. There's a part of Spencer that desperately wants to believe that if Hotch says it's not his fault then he should believe it.

Hotch smiles slightly. "Yes, you should."

In group therapy, Spencer's reluctance to admit what he did to get drugs slowly dissolves. It's hard to feel alone in his depravity when everyone has a story to tell.

"I never meant to," says Crystal, the nearly skeletal girl in the black hoodie at least four times too large. "I just—needed it so bad, and there was no money, nothing to sell, only—" Her voice cracks. "Briana. My baby." She drops her head a little lower. "Even if I get clean, I won't ever get her back."

Bill, barrel-chested and ruddy-cheeked, talks about missing his chance to say goodbye to his father who passed away a few months ago from liver cancer. "I got the message from my brother while I was down at Carmine's, that's the place I always used to go drinking. I knew I needed to get right over to the hospital, that Pop wasn't going to last much longer. But I kept telling myself: just one more and then I'll go." Every word looks as if it burns on the way out.

All this makes it easier for Spencer to confess his own sordid truths, that he startles awake at night with the vivid memory of rope burns on his wrists, that sometimes in the middle of eating lunch or looking out the window he'll suddenly flash back to how it felt to have two men using him and two more waiting their turn.

"Sometimes there's this sensation like there's something crawling on my skin," he admits in a small voice, "Shame that—I'm somebody who would, who has, fucked for drugs."

What he doesn't know how to tell anyone is that sometimes he sort of misses it.

The next time he sees Hotch, he—doesn't exactly talk about what happened that night at the hotel—but he does ask something that's been puzzling him. "How did you know I'd be there?"

Hotch doesn't appear particularly surprised by the question, but he does take a moment to consider his answer. "I knew something was wrong, so I started watching you, learned who your associates were. When I approached Angela Carson, she saw the reason in giving up one employee to save the rest of her operation."

For a moment, Spencer can't say anything. Hotch is already risking a great deal by covering for him with the Bureau, but now it appears that he's also turned a blind eye to a prostitution ring. Because exposing Angela would also have exposed Spencer.

"Hotch, I'm—"

"Just concentrate on getting better," Hotch tells him. "We want you back when you're ready."

Later that day in group, Spencer has something else to confess. "I have feelings for my boss, and I'm really not sure what to do about it."

A few nights later, he's staring up at the crack in the plaster as usual and recites the poem the whole way through without losing focus, and then a second time, and a third. For the first time since he got to rehab, he begins to entertain the possibility that maybe Hotch was right after all. Maybe he really will be okay.

On his first day back in the office, Spencer likens himself to an alien taking that first, tremulous step out of his crashed spaceship. Everything feels disconcertingly strange. Months of sweatpants and T-shirts in rehab, and now his work clothes don't seem to hang right on his body. No one has moved anything on his desk, but it's devoid of papers and oddly naked looking. He passes several people in the halls that he doesn't recognize, hired or transferred in while he was gone.

Three months can be a long time.

"There you are, you beautiful boy!" Garcia sweeps him into a big hug.

"Hey, Garcia," he says, blushing, much to his chagrin.

"You are a sight for sore eyes, my friend." She hugs him again. "I will go now and leave you to get settled in, but please know that you were greatly missed."

"Hey, kid," Derek says with a smile. "That cubicle looks a lot less lonely with you in it."

"Thanks, Morgan," Spencer says, his cheeks threatening to turn pink again.

He resigns himself that this will probably happen a lot today.

JJ gives him a kiss on the cheek. Emily brings him a cup of coffee. Dave has baked enough cornetti for the entire building and plops the bag onto Spencer's desk. "Mangia," he insists. "You're looking too skinny."

Even Section Chief Strauss offers an awkward show of support. "We're pleased you were able to resolve your family issues and rejoin us." Spencer wonders if she knows the truth. He doubts there's much that escapes her. He's so overwhelmingly grateful that she's willing to let the cover story stand that he actually feels dizzy for a moment.

"It's really good to be back," he tells her, a little sheepishly.

Today is exactly one week since he got out of rehab, and he still hasn't completely adjusted to days that aren't mapped out for him. At home he rattles around in his apartment, which feels strangely empty after spending every waking moment for three months in the company of other people. He's memorized the schedule of all the NA meetings in the DC metro area. His sponsor's name is Tracy, and he keeps her number in his wallet next to his ATM card as a reminder.

He doesn't have to handle everything on his own.

Hotch's welcome is more low-key. He stops by and levels a long look at Spencer and asks, "Everything okay?"

Spencer nods. "Fine. It's—no problems."

"Good, because we have a new case. Briefing in five."

He strides away, and Spencer gets the distinct impression that he's taking a wait-and-see approach. Which is fair. Hotch certainly knows the worst of it.

"San Diego PD contacted us after the third attack on a gay couple in the past two weeks," JJ begins the briefing.

Spencer turns his attention to the screen, feeling unnervingly like it's his first day of school. Images flash up, men smiling in vacation snapshots and holiday card pictures, followed by grisly crime scene photos.

"In all three cases, the couples lived together, were well to-do, and there was a significant difference in their ages. The unsub breaks into the victims' homes at night, ties up the older man, sexually assaults the younger, and then shoots the older man in the head. He leaves the younger victim alive. The unsub uses a condom, and so far San Diego PD hasn't been able to recover any significant forensic evidence."

Spencer considers the photographs, an idea starting to form.

"Reid?" Hotch prompts.

"It's just—I find it interesting that the unsub sexually assaults the younger man, but lets him live. If he were eliminating witnesses, he would kill both men. Maybe what he wants is exactly that, for someone to witness his power. That would explain why he makes one partner watch as the other is raped. An unsub who's obsessed with exerting power likely doesn't have any in his daily life, and given that he's targeting upscale couples, I'd expect him to be comparatively economically disadvantaged. There's an aspect of envy to the crimes, the destruction of someone else's happiness. We should look for a man who feels marginalized by the gay community, is unsuccessful in relationships or is possibly even closeted."

For a moment, there is absolute silence, and then smiles break out all around the table. Dave proclaims, with a twinkle in his eye, "Welcome back, Dr. Reid."

Spencer ducks his head, but he doesn't fail to notice that even Hotch's mouth turns up a little at the corner.

In San Diego, every step of the process feels like learning to walk again: studying the board they've set up in the situation room, analyzing the most recent crime scene, interviewing witnesses. He begins to piece together aspects of the case, pleased to find that his old talent for recognizing patterns hasn't deserted him.

An in-depth analysis of the victims' lives leads to a beach club where they had all been members at some point, which in turn leads to Travis Albee, fired a month ago from his janitorial job. He'd been let go for making inappropriate advances toward one of the members, a young man in his twenties. It had culminated with Albee getting into a fistfight with the young man's partner, a man in his forties, the founder of a successful software company and archetype for subsequent victims.

When they apprehend Albee, he is sitting in a beaten up panel van outside the home of two men, presumably his next intended targets. They find zip ties, duct tape and other tools of restraint in the vehicle, along with a forty-five-caliber pistol. Ballistics confirms it's the murder weapon. A search of his home turns up framed photographs and other items stolen from the crime scenes, trophies of his bloody handiwork. Hotch conducts the interview, playing the sympathetic listener, and it's not long before Albee is spilling his stockpile of resentments and the details of his crimes.

On the plane home, Spencer settles into a seat and tips his head back and lets out a long breath. He's exhausted—he's forgotten what forty-eight straight hours of working feels like–but it's a satisfying sort of weariness.

Hotch takes the seat next to him, and Spencer waits for the inevitable question, but it doesn't come. There is just an open-ended silence that Spencer can fill or not as he sees fit.

"It's been an adjustment, getting back into things, but it feels good to be useful again." He turns his head to look at Hotch. "I'm okay." For the first time in a long, he means it.

Hotch considers him a moment and then nods. "You did a good job on the case." He turns his attention to paperwork, and Spencer takes up his book, but he feels the warmth of Hotch's approval all the way back to Virginia.

The cases keep coming—a sniper in Kansas City, a string of armed robberies across the Pacific Northwest, three incidents of ricin poisoning in a Chicago suburb that turn out to be acts of personal vengeance rather than domestic terrorism—and Spencer doesn't backslide or break, contrary to the fear that has been lurking in the underbelly of his thoughts. He does, though, sometimes get blindsided by cravings, a sudden, urgent emptiness that demands to be filled, with drugs or anonymous sex or something, leaving him sweaty-palmed and shaking. Fortunately, Tracy is an insomniac and doesn't mind 3 a.m. calls.

It takes him three months to decide he's ready to brave his old Starbucks. He pushes the door open tentatively, taking one careful step at a time, scanning the tables for dilapidated knitwear. It's not entirely clear to him what he'll do if he runs into Frank—stand his ground or flee—but the question turns out to be moot. There's no sign of Frank anywhere. Spencer imagines Hotch's handiwork in this, tries to picture that conversation, Hotch's calm, gravelly suggestion that Frank should move his business elsewhere.

Spencer stands in line to place his order and leaves with nothing more chemically altering than a Venti cup full of caffeine.

A serial killer targeting cab drivers takes them to New Orleans, and the days edge into one another, a mind-numbing blur of leads that go nowhere. Spencer stops paying attention to trivial things like what day it is. Only on the plane back home, as he's staring out the window at the flat plains of clouds, does it occur to him that it's Friday. A whole long weekend stretches in front of him. He has no idea what to do with himself.

"You could come over tomorrow night and watch the game," Hotch suggests, not looking up from the stack of reports he's reviewing.

This is something they do—Hotch is one of the few people who knows Spencer is a closet basketball fan—and it feels almost as if they're taking up where they left off, as if nothing has changed. There's a certain comfort in that, as well as cause for dissatisfaction. They still haven't talked about what happened that night at the hotel.

"I'll make dinner," Hotch says, sweetening the offer.

As if that's necessary.

"Yeah. Sure. Seven o'clock?" Spencer's heart does a nervous thump against his ribs. He tamps down the urge to wipe his suddenly clammy palms on his pants.

This is Hotch, he has to remind himself.

He mostly manages to reign in his nonsensical nervousness until he actually gets to Hotch's house. Seeing Jack's toys on the front porch makes him suddenly uncertain whether he should be there or not. What is the half-life on whoring and addiction? He doesn't know the equation, can't do the math to figure out if it's truly safe to be around him or not.

Hotch answers the door before Spencer can decide what to do. He's wearing jeans and an anciently faded Georgetown T-shirt. "Dinner's almost ready." He holds the door open as if he has no doubts about inviting Spencer into his home.

Spencer makes it as far as the foyer before he feels duty-bound to broach the subject. "Jack—"

"Was sorry to miss you, but he already had a sleepover planned with his friend Matthew." Hotch is leading the way back to the kitchen, so Spencer follows. He tells himself that it must be okay. If there is one thing Hotch would never do, it's jeopardize Jack.

"Can I help?" Spencer asks, although he has already settled onto a stool at the kitchen island. They both know his proficiency, or lack thereof, with food preparation.

"All under control. You want something to drink?"

At Spencer's nod, Hotch pours glasses of seltzer, cuts wedges of lime. In other times, it would have been wine or bottles of beer, but Spencer isn't drinking these days. Don't replace one addiction with another. More good advice from Holly.

He sips his soda and watches Hotch stir the pot of sauce, the minute flex of the muscles in his forearm, the scent of tomatoes and oregano bubbling up into the air. His memory of the first time he saw Hotch in something less formal than a suit is so vivid he feels as if he can touch it, turn it over in his hands, examine it from every angle. He'd stopped by Hotch's place—the suburban married home he shared with Haley—to drop off a file. Hotch had answered the door, fresh from working in the garden out back, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt with a hole in the shoulder. The angularity of Hotch's body, his stubborn uprightness, kept even those clothes from looking entirely casual. Spencer still stuttered his way through an explanation of why he was there, unable to stop staring.

If he cranes his neck, he can catch a glimpse of Hotch's bare feet, narrow and elegant and pale against the slate tile of the kitchen floor. Spencer has never lost the feeling that being allowed to see Hotch like this, relaxed and domestic, is an act of trust, of affection even. The problem is: Spencer isn't sure he deserves it anymore.

The spaghetti tastes even better than it smells. Hotch makes exactly five dishes—chili, tacos, roast chicken and macaroni and cheese the other four—and he is a master of each one.

"The Wizards' emphasis on defense is problematic given they don't have players particularly skilled in that aspect of the game," Spencer says between mouthfuls, because this is the kind of thing they talk about during these basketball-watching evenings together.

The possibility that he doesn't belong here anymore has wedged itself into his thoughts, though, and he shifts restlessly on his chair, unable to get comfortable.

Hotch gives him a long, steady look. "People make mistakes, Reid," he says, as if the conversation has always been about this, culpability and grief and penance. "And they can be forgiven."

Spencer considers that for a moment, and then nods, and the tension in his shoulders eases a little. "I do still think the Wizards need to concentrate more on offense."

Hotch smiles.

Spencer does the dishes when they're finished eating, insisting that it's only right since Hotch did the cooking. He has no idea why this is the moment, elbow-deep in suds, when he's ready to blurt out that little sliver of truth he could never bring himself to confide in Holly or even the group. "I didn't hate it. The sex. I know I was probably supposed to, but—"

One last step over the edge, and he's freefalling, lost in the terrifying gap between confession and absolution.

He doesn't stay lost for long.

"It was sex," Hotch says matter-of-factly.

For a moment, Spencer can't believe he heard that correctly, and then relief surges through him, light, almost giddy. Maybe he hasn't ruined this, whatever it is, after all.

"Come on." Hotch touches Spencer's shoulder. "The game's starting."

They've shared this same couch numerous times before, watching the Wizards' depleted lineup lose abysmally. This time they sit perceptibly closer, knees brushing. Want makes Spencer's throat clench, his mouth go dry in a way that the seltzer can do nothing to solve. He knows all the reasons why this would be a bad idea—now more than ever. He swallows down the sour taste of frustration and keeps up a running critique of the Wizards' defensive strategy as a necessary distraction.

Hotch's arm sprawls across the back of the sofa, an arc of warmth that Spencer wants to settle into and never leave. The pace of his commentary speeds up until he's practically babbling.

With five minutes to go in the game, it looks as if the Wizards may actually mount a comeback, but their true genius lies in snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. They manage to lose in the last three seconds of overtime.

"Why do we keep rooting for this team?" Spencer asks rhetorically, in disgust.

Hotch smiles. "I'm sure you could construct a detailed analysis if you wanted to."

He could. It's true. But that's not what he wants. "I didn't kiss you just so you wouldn't report me," he says before he can change his mind.

There's a moment before Hotch answers that is so crowded with what might or might not happen, an overload of possibilities, that Spencer can barely stand it.

"I didn't respond just because I was angry." The way Hotch looks at him is quiet and sincere, an open door.

Spencer swallows. "Can I do it again?"

Hotch nods, and Spencer leans in. The memory of Hotch's mouth is more than a little fuzzy, lost in a blur of terrified desperation. This time he lingers, the first touch barely anything. He catalogs each sensation like the scientist he is, discovering, memorizing: the shape of Hotch's lips, their warmth and texture, the way desire leaps all through him when Hotch's lips move against his own.

"I should have told you how important you are to me." Hotch strokes his fingers through Spencer's hair.

The old, familiar sense of craving swamps Spencer, only this time he knows exactly what he wants. He slots his body closer to Hotch's, as close as he can get and it's still not nearly enough. There's an urgent tension in his arms as he grips Hotch's T-shirt and kisses his mouth, any notion of taking his time and exploring completely gone. He just wants, so much it's going to burn him up.

He squirms, trying to erase the last few molecules of space separating them. Hotch's thigh slides between Spencer's legs, hard muscled thigh rubbing against his crotch. Spencer moans out loud. This seems to loosen the cautious restraint Hotch has been practicing. He tightens his grip on Spencer's shoulders and tips Spencer's head back, taking control of the kiss. There is a streak of domination in Hotch's personality that he's always careful to moderate. Spencer wants to liberate it, melt into it.

But Hotch's self-control reasserts itself, and he pulls away. "We should take this slowly. There's still a lot—"

"I know we have things to talk about. I know there are reasons we shouldn't—believe me. I've spent a lot of time cataloging them. But—please." He's shaking with desire, with the fear that Hotch might make him go home. "Please."

When Hotch gets to his feet, there is a plummeting sensation in Spencer's chest, but then Hotch holds out his hand, and Spencer scrambles up from the sofa. Hotch settles his palm at the small of Spencer's back and guides him upstairs to the bedroom, the weight and warmth of the touch like an anchor, like a spark meeting gasoline.

The cream-colored coverlet on the bed is precisely creased at the corners. A stack of books sits neatly arranged on the nightstand. For a moment, knowing that Hotch is reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln seems more jarringly intimate than the fact that they are about to have sex.

The thing to do, Spencer decides, is to get naked as quickly as possible. He strips his shirt off, pushes his pants and briefs down, and kicks them away, eager to lose himself in bodies and skin and erotic desperation. He knows how to do that.

"Hotch." Spencer reaches for him, gripping the hem of his T-shirt and pulling it up. He can't decide what to do—stare at Hotch's chest or touch him or kiss Hotch's mouth until the after-images behind his eyes start to dim at the edges—so he tries to do it all at once, messily.

"Spencer."

He gets his hands on the fly of Hotch's jeans. The button puts up resistance, and Spencer's shaking hands certainly don't help. Adrenaline jumps through his blood, and his heart revs like a frustrated engine. He has this desperate, can't-breathe, can't-breathe terror that if he doesn't get them both naked right now this will all dissolve away into nothing.

"Spencer," Hotch says again, more firmly. He gathers Spencer up and pulls him close, calming and restraining him, pressing kisses to his temple, into his hair. "You don't have to rush. I'm not going anywhere. Okay?"

Spencer leans into Hotch's embrace, face tucked against his neck, his back rising and falling with his overwrought breathing. "Okay," he mumbles against Hotch's shoulder. "But—can you still take your pants off?"

This startles a laugh out of Hotch, and he pulls back for a kiss, his fingers laid against Spencer's cheek. His eyes are bright and warm and there's something in them—it might be delight. He takes his pants off.

"God." It just slips out, but Spencer wouldn't want to take it back. Hotch's slimness is so different from Spencer's own, coiled and powerful. Spencer runs a hand up Hotch's chest, almost shyly, his touch stirring the light covering of dark hair. He's acutely aware of the heaviness of his own cock between his legs.

Hotch is staring too. He places a hand on Spencer's hip like he's staking a claim and draws Spencer in to a long, intense kiss. Spencer gasps out a harsh breath at the first touch of skin, and then he moans, lingering on the sound, as their bodies slide against each other.

"Beautiful," Hotch murmurs. He kisses Spencer's mouth, his jaw, a place on his neck that makes him shiver.

They lie down together, side-by-side, and trade touches, some exploratory, others pure hunger. Things grow more heated, and Hotch's carefulness gives way to the alpha-male truth of him. Soon Spencer is on his back, Hotch on top of him, an arousing weight. He spreads his legs to bring Hotch closer, fingers sliding on Hotch's skin, trying to find purchase. Hotch kisses with intense deliberation, hips moving, pushing Spencer deeper into the mattress.

It's so good, and Spencer can't hold back a moan. Hotch goes suddenly tense, as if he's only just realized what he's doing. He looks up, questioningly, a crease of concern between his eyes.

"I like it," Spencer tells him, a whispered confession. "Being taken. It's what I want."

Hotch's expression goes bleak with lust, and when he bends his head to kiss Spencer's nipples, there's an edge of teeth. His grip on Spencer's hips is rougher, more demanding, and it's exactly what Spencer wants, for Hotch not to be careful with him.

"I'm going to suck your cock," Hotch says thickly, and Spencer barely has time to beg yes, yes before Hotch's mouth is closing around him.

If he ever wondered whether Hotch had any experience with men, he gets his answer now. Hotch goes down easily, masterfully, doing things with his tongue that send hot curls of pleasure all through Spencer's groin, setting off pyrotechnics in his brain, lights and colors and oh God, please.

Saliva and pre-come run down Hotch's chin, and the sexy, unexpected mess of it is almost as hot as the way Hotch's hand is working between his own legs. A defunct career in prostitution probably should have done something to increase Spencer's staying power, but when Hotch starts to hum in the back of his throat, as if having Spencer's cock in his mouth is just so very, very good, the notion of self-control ceases to exist altogether. Spencer comes, panting, straining up, a mess of flailing limbs, as if no one has ever touched him before.

"You can fuck me," he says blearily when he can manage words again. It's what he always intended, and it doesn't matter that he's pleasure-weak and sated. Hotch can still have him. Hotch will always have him. He spreads his legs in offering.

Hotch huffs out a soft laugh against Spencer's shoulder. "Maybe next time." He kisses Spencer's throat.

A few more of Spencer's sluggish synapses start to fire, and he realizes that Hotch is soft against his thigh, that he came just from—a frisson of want burns through the hazy satisfaction. He shifts in Hotch's arms, to be able to kiss him. The next time needs to happen very soon.

Hotch smiles into the kiss, fingers lightly stroking up Spencer's arm, over his shoulder, down his back. Spencer settles closer, his head on Hotch's chest. Several long seconds go by, and Hotch makes no mention of those things they need to talk about. Spencer relaxes more fully into the embrace. There will be plenty of time in the morning for discussion.

"Jack will be home for lunch tomorrow if you can stay," Hotch murmurs. "He'll be very glad to see you."

For so long now, Spencer can see, Hotch has been making room for him in his life, and here now is the door wide open. A rush of feeling makes his throat tight—gratitude and joy and the humbling sense that he probably doesn't deserve any of this. But it's his, and he means to hold onto it as tightly as he can.

"I'd like that," Spencer whispers, his voice rough.

Relationships aren't a cure for anything. In fact, they can make everything more complicated. Holly often reminded them of this in group. Spencer knows she's right. He can see that the way ahead is no less difficult or confusing. The cravings won't be magically banished. Love can do many things, but it can't whitewash the past, can't file away regret.

It does, though, give Spencer one—no two—more reasons to navigate the complexity while causing as little grief as possible. This is more than he ever expected.

Blessed be the time that apple taken was. He falls asleep before he can finish the stanza.

Note: If anyone is interested, here is more info about the poem quoted in the story.