Hey guys! Welcome back to the Agent Fatal Series! This will be the third installment, named The Lightening Strike. First off, I am going to introduce a few new things to this part of the series. 1) Reid and Hotch are now referred to as Aaron and Spencer and 2) I will be posting what song I was listening to when I was writing a chapter. So I hope you enjoy the first chapter of AF III. It's long, I warn you, but I had to get the ground work covered and hopefully my shifting tenses was not too confusing for you all! The timeline is exactly a year after the start of Agent Fatal (fitting in somewhere in Season 7), Aaron and Spencer have been broken up since September when Emily returned and it is now December 2012 (a little future fic for those of you who enjoy them :))

Also, I know this chapter is pretty somber but it will lighten up - I tried to fit in a little humor so hopefully you will all pick up on that!

I want to dedicate this story to Kee12345 who has been such a support in writing and developing this series. And to Special Agent Thomas Pacer who helped me with the technical FBI categorization terms and CIA info. Thank you Kee and love you Tom!

Song: Heartbeats by Jose Gonzales

Agent Fatal III

The Lightening Strike

The lightening was beautiful. It stole across the sky, illuminating the bands of honey and bougainvillea pink clouds that poured splashes of slate rain. Rolls of thunder beat the sky like a racing heartbeat and Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner stroked the rim of his tumbler of bourbon, the fiery liquid a comforting burn in his throat. The weight of the crystal in his hand was significant and if he were to hurl the glass through the window he stared out of, it would surely ignite the welcome of the storm into the living room of his apartment. Water would pool in pearl-grey plots, washing away the evidence of a night spent nursing three glasses of alcohol and admiring the oyster face of the clock above the bay window as it ticked through the hours of what had become Spencer's omnipresent night for dates.

Nights spent with his novel companion, a man who Aaron had grown accustomed to hearing at the threshold to his apartment on Tuesday and Saturday nights when he picked his former lover up with great politeness and dropped him off in the early light of dawn.

Spencer, who had suffered a major depressive episode, still lived with Aaron as he had sold his apartment and moved in with his superior and his son in the three months spent in idle contentment prior to Emily Prentiss's death and subsequent reappearance. And when Aaron had been reassigned to Pakistan for that aching month in summer, Spencer had been the acting father to Jack. Showering him with comfort and guidance, the genius had been the strength that was essential to both the Hotchner men's pain of separation. It had been the young agent who had tucked in his flaxen-haired boy at the end of the night, regaling him with stories of Paddington Bear, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Lynley Dodd's Hairy Maclary series.

Of course, that had all been before.

Before Emily's shadow darkened the doorway of the Behavioral Analysis Unit's conference room.

Aaron curled his hand tightly around the tumbler as his eyes lit a tired brown as more lightening whipped the black sky in cruel excitement. They had made love on that conference room table. Right there in the middle of it after Aaron had come close to being thrown from one of the government cars and into a narrow ditch on a case in late August. It might as well have been a graveyard, Spencer had recalled as he had gently pushed his then-lover against the glass door and sniffed back the tears of relief.

Not anymore.

Who knew what Spencer was doing these days? Not certainly pushing Aaron against a door. Not certainly kissing him and not certainly talking to him under any circumstances other than professional and when Jack was present. They had pushed their deceptive differences aside for the boy, who held tightly to Spencer's quasi-fatherly authority.

The irony that a man who hated him and yet still lived with him for his son's sake was not lost on Aaron. Bitterness had become a permanent guest in the small household, lingering in dark corners and watching with glee as chronic tension deepened the lines in each man's brow as the days and months passed by with no solutions as to how to handle their problems.

If Aaron was placid water, grey with no life, attempting to smooth things through, Spencer was volatile fire. Explosive and dangerous, he was benzene. There was no method to disarm him, only contain him until he merely bubbled and simmered with quiet rage. That had been the situation in October. And now Spencer was more like a shadow of his once lively self and Aaron suspected he tucked away his former luster, only to share it with his new man.

He couldn't blame the agent. Not at all.

Aaron had betrayed the trust of his team. Belittled the very men and women he considered family and in the sticky web of lies, Spencer had been caught in the crossfire as both a member of the team and a dirty little secret lover. It had been as simple as that. And when Spencer had fled Quantico Aaron hadn't thought twice to go after him in the naive hope that he would manage to convince the genius to trust him again and to believe that there was no other escape out of the situation. Of course JJ had been indicted of knowing the truth, which she had, and that had only sparked the fire.

Not one, but both of the people Spencer considered the closest thing to family had gone behind his back.

Aaron supposed he could not really condemn Spencer's hysterical behavior - a bloody mess for the Unit Chief to discover at his apartment after his lover had collided with the steel railing of the apartment stairwell in a tainted rage and ripped at the sensitive flesh of his forearm.

Aaron hadn't slept for four days after the incident.

His eyes had remained trained on the young man for hours, eyeing him in concern for any signals of a relapse into Dilaudid. Of course Spencer had slipped under his fatigued surveillance to seek solace in the arms of a certain blonde Pentagon employee and of course Aaron had experienced the beginnings of what was sure a myocardial infarction when he had assumed his lover had sought the solace of a dealer instead.

JJ's soothing voice over the answering machine informing him of Spencer's arrival to her house had not masked the grief in her tone. He knew just as well as she did that Spencer running bat between them did not do anything to ease the burden on their shoulders. It had only meant more tension and culpable glances at each other when the team gathered together for cases.

Aaron had watched from the doorway of their bedroom a few days after Emily's return as Spencer simply lay in bed, what was once their fortress of passion. His head was turned towards the window, cradling his wrapped arm close to his chest and regarding the setting September sun. Aaron walked in, setting the cup of green tea on the nightstand and perching on the edge of the bed.

"How are you feeling?" He had murmured somberly, reaching out to stroke back his former partner's hair.

Spencer had moved out of his reach and rolled over, their eyes never meeting in anything other than regret in one pair and hatred in the second. Aaron had sighed, the quivering of his outstretched hand palpable in the overwrought air of the bedroom.

"Spencer, please talk to me. Please, sweetheart."

Spencer had rolled back over, and their gazes caught together. The young man's eyes were blank, like two paper moons and the fear that seized in Aaron's heart at such an impassive accusation was greater than anything he had ever experienced thus far.

"I can't. I just...can't. I understand why. But I can't. Not yet."

"I'm sorry," Aaron's uttering was lame and they both felt it.

Spencer's face remained expressionless for a few moments before he turned over, drawing the covers close to his little frame.

"That's just not good enough anymore Hotch."

To call on the hands above would not have been enough either. No prayers to be said to save the wicked man from his sins.

For Aaron was certainly a sinner, Spencer neither a saint nor demon but a combination of both that begged to exorcise that terrible, terrible look from his eyes.

In their long time together, the Unit Chief had seen the range of expressions from beginning to end in his lithe lover's eyes: content, distraught, overwhelmed, lighthearted, heated, lustful... everything.

Never had he witnessed nothing. A nothingness that plagued two ponds of gold, shining no light and no dark.

Emily's death had brought them temporarily closer in a way. There was the expected increase of protection and communication between all members but then Aaron knew that being one profiler and friend down had been like venom spilling over all of them and they needed to bond together. After a while, however, they were falling apart at the seams and the proverbial chain of faith in each other had snapped like a cheap rubber band when Aaron and JJ stood in the conference room to reveal the horrific truth. No one trusted each other anymore, that much true.

Both agents were fading, becoming strangers to each other in both determination and disinclination. There had been a promise made, four hands bound together and two souls vowing to erase the fatal romance of their past.

Letters were burned, rings were returned, and their knowledge of each other was quietly ignored. Aaron pretended to not know about Spencer's gluten-free diet and Spencer returned the favor by flouting the shudders that wracked his superior's body at night in their shared bed as he silently sobbed with the powers above to make it all better again. To erase the mistake and return the two men to the passion they once knew. Aaron would never forget the night he gave all of himself to Spencer in Miami.

Never.

Spencer had whispered in the midnight silence as Aaron cried on, "I hope Foyet and you are cellmates when you finally go to hell."

Aaron had not registered the conversational tone in Spencer's voice until almost an hour later when the lucidity was given back to his eyes and his side of the bed was thoroughly soaked in tears.

Spencer slept peacefully through it all and Jack and he were gone when Aaron finally woke.

Two days later.

He had been roused only by his mind resurrecting itself after it had shut down from Spencer's murderous musing. He had found his body coiled around a mangled pillow like a panicked cobra, the sound of the front door closing a scream in the emptiness of the apartment. The brief steps along the carpet ignited a struggle to break free from the tangled sheets for Aaron to reach his gun, still encased in its safe on the bedside table.

Spencer? He had thought in slow hope.

"Clear!" He heard Morgan's voice echo and then suddenly there was another scream, another door opening, and Aaron was staring into the four eyes of four guns drawn at him.

"Oh my God," Emily breathed, her eyes rolling back and her body shuddering as she sunk down to the ground, dropping her gun on the floor. "We thought you were dead."

Aaron flinched because she had been there before. She had burst into his empty apartment with nothing more than a portentous stain of scarlet to greet her.

"Christ, Aaron." Dave had growled, and pressed his palm over Morgan's wrist to lower his gun. "You didn't answer either of your phones or your house phone."

"I was just asleep for a few hours," Aaron breathed.

Spencer's face had not been among the grief-stricken expressions of Emily, Morgan, Dave, and JJ.

Morgan's shoulders fell and he slumped against the wall with Emily, his dark eyes losing all alertness and instead clouding over like a black death. "Hotch, it is Monday," he had announced quietly. "We haven't heard from you for two days."

The air swiftly had departed from Aaron's body and he had felt himself suddenly falling, back against the humid sheets on his bed. A glance at his hands had told him they were raw and red from clutching the pillow and his pajamas were shriveled with wrinkles and his mouth hot and thick.

Aaron still was not sure why he was not fired at that minute but he was sure it was Dave's political wrangling with Strauss the past few days that had covered his unnerving absence.

"Where-" he had begun, but broke off, swallowing painfully. "Where's Spencer?"

Emily looked down, at a loss for words it had seemed. "He's back at the BAU. With Jack and Jess." Seeing his expression, she had continued. "They're fine, they're all right. They came there instead of here when Jess didn't hear from you...I guess she didn't want - she didn't know if...well, the last time...Jack-"

"She did the right thing," Aaron had replied, the sterility of it all drawing a blank in his mind. He watched the red blink of his phone, like an eyeball in pain. He clutched the small Blackberry and his eyes had widened in horror at seeing a total of 342 voicemails, messages, and emails on the device.

"You want to explain?" Dave's voice had been without hostility and with more than the concern Aaron had anticipated. The veteran profiler holstered his gun and patted the edge of the bed for the remaining members to sit. They crowded around Aaron on the bed like ironic disciples, ready to listen to the wisdom their leader would pour out to them.

Yeah. Sure.

JJ still had said nothing and the rage had boiled in Aaron at the thought that she probably knew what had happened in the first place was nothing more than a hostile glower in her direction.

"He said...he said he hoped Foyet-" Aaron's broken eyes flicked up to the ceiling in concentration. He would lose himself if he cried in front of his team. "That Foyet and I would be cellmates when I finally went to hell."

There was no noise in the agents, Aaron recalled, watching as a police car thundered past his apartment building under the sheet of rain that continued to pour as he downed another tumbler of bourbon. It stung and he relished its sear as he returned to the memory.

"He's mad," JJ had finally breathed, her tone sympathetic and hushed as though they were in a church and not in the bedroom of their once competent leader who had blocked out the world for two days. "He's acting out."

As if that was the justification for it all.

"Yeah, no shit." Morgan had shook his head. "He's like a bomb waiting to detonate at any moment."

"He needs time off," Emily had whispered in defense for she knew that she was who had really stuck the knife deep into Reid's back when she had returned from Paris. Aaron and JJ might have pushed it deeper but she had put it there in the first place, despite not having a choice.

"We all do," Morgan closed his eyes, idly tracing the carved wood of Aaron's four-poster bed frame.

Dave's eyes had flashed in registering what Morgan was saying as an idea slowly began to roll around in his head. He remained silent, however, as his four teammates continued to talk and to soothe one another.

Let them lick their wounds, he had thought, and maybe I'll provide the cave for them to retreat.

The heartbeats of thunder returned Aaron to the present and he stroked the glass neck of the bottle of bourbon, studying the fingerprints he was making on the cap.

It was nearly empty.

Christ.

Jack was sleeping in the next room, his door open a crack for Aaron to keep a watchful eye over him, though the chief wondered how watchful an eye it would be considering the haze of fiery liquid he had fallen under. His mind sloshed as more memories from the past few months tempered through his thoughts, breaking and washing like the waves of the ocean.

Aaron wanted to go see the ocean. Hell, he wanted to drown in it, lose himself completely to the sucking soul of the water. He could just float out into the deep, eventually losing consciousness and power and fall inaudibly below into the sand among the dead who inevitably rested there too.

He would lay among the skeletal remains and sleep forever, running away from his problems and away from the eyes of the mean that penetrated his very self every time Spencer deigned to look in his direction.

Aaron slipped from his position in his armchair onto the floor and leant against it, running his fingers over the soft fibers of the carpet. Sobs balled in his throat but he swallowed them down, refusing to be reduced to tears again.

It was December again.

A full year to the day had passed since a sweet and innocent genius had materialized in the doorway of Aaron's hotel room in Pennsylvania.

Now snow fell again, a clean blanket to mask the past horrors of what the team had endured and Aaron wondered what Christmas would bring. Maybe Spencer would be with his new boyfriend, whatshisface...Marvin...Malcom...the Unit Chief exhaled as he battled to remember the name of the man he hated.

The bourbon had erased all chances of awareness.

They hadn't lasted more than a few months. Aaron thought bitterly, Spencer and him. He rolled the tumbler around on the floor and watched the last drips of alcohol spill out onto the carpet. He had been stupid to think cream carpeting was a smart idea anyways. Let him make his bed and lie in the damn thing.

Mark.

That was it.

Some hotshot with a business card. Spencer had erroneously left it tucked among a pile of mail on the hallway table one night evidently and Aaron had found it the following afternoon spent sorting through bills. The bourbon had dulled Aaron's sharp memory and he could not remember for the life of him what had been on the rest of the card. He had never met the character, only heard him in the doorway. Never laid eyes on the snake.

The agent felt as though he were barely holding onto his self control and he snarled at what a dull name Mark was. Nothing striking about it. He bet they had dull sex too.

Aaron giggled.

Dull sex with dull Mark.

A frisson of fear ran up his spine however when he glanced back at the open oyster face of the clock, noting the early hours of the morning that signaled Spencer probably would not be returning tonight.

"Daddy?"

Aaron's bolted upright at the sound of a voice tearing at the silence and he stumbled over his bare feet in a drunken cloud, dropping the empty bottle of bourbon where it smashed against the crystal tumbler and shattered glass over the carpet. Jagged pieces sparkled wickedly as another flicker of lightening blazed through the living room. The sprinkling snow that had begun to fall mingled with the frozen rain on the outside ledge of the window and it would have been glorious to admire in any other situation that was not this.

Jack stood in the doorway of his bedroom, holding his hands to his chest. His eyes were wide and a coffee-bean-brown that reflected the dominant genes of his father. Aaron was seeing the beginnings of Haley's gently sloping nose and curved lips on his son. Jack Hotchner would be handsome, a heartbreaker probably.

Like his father.

"Go back inside your room, buddy, there's broken glass. I'll be in there in a few minutes," Hotch worked to keep the waver of fear and slur of intoxication out of his voice as he crouched down to pick up the bottle pieces. Some kind of father he was. Drunk with his seven-year-old boy. The bottle had broken in large chunks thankfully as did the tumbler so there was to be no drawn-out canvassing of the area with crime scene tape and no need to bring out the surgical gloves to dispose of the smaller pieces. No need to bring in CSI for a rapid groom.

Fuck was he married to his job, Aaron cursed, dumping the bottle and glass in a few loops of paper towel before throwing the mess in the trashcan.

He gently padded back into Jack's bedroom to find his son back in his bed and clutching the stuffed green stegosaurus Spencer had given him a few weeks ago after returning from a trip to Seattle with Mathias or whatever the hell his name was. The man who Aaron hated.

Fuck Mathias and his fucking trips to Seattle.

Aaron knew his thoughts were irrational - it was he who had burned Spencer and destroyed their relationship - but if he were honest with himself, it had never occurred to him that Spencer might develop feelings for someone else in the future.

It was the narcissism in Aaron that he kept a secret from most at the FBI, a quality most commonly associated with the inhuman humans they hunted, and he while he realized he was possessive and jealous for a reason - Spencer was beautiful after all and of course he would attract someone else - he doubted that anyone else could love him the way Spencer had.

He was unlovable, indefinitely.

"I didn't mean to startle you, buddy. I'm sorry," Aaron murmured as he crouched down to rearrange the tangled comforter at the end of the bed. "Did the storm wake you?"

Jack nodded in silence.

Aaron smoothed a strand of his son's wayward golden hair behind his ear as he climbed into the bed. Both father and son shared a wistful exchange and Aaron tucked the comforter tighter around their bodies. A brief chill settled in the air and Jack slipped a sticky hand into the Unit Chief's calloused one.

He knew what Jack was silently asking.

Why isn't Spence here? He's always here.

It wasn't fair to Jack. None of it was. Aaron had wrecked another relationship for his son to suffer from. He had driven his mother away and inadvertently caused her murder. He had started a relationship with his male subordinate, an episode unto itself in explaining to Jack why Daddy was kissing a man and not Mommy, and introduced him into Jack's life with the hope that Spencer would be a stable figure and then had driven him away too. The young profiler had stayed, however, and knew that Jack needed him in his life even if he hated his father. However, with the passing of time, Spencer's presence in the apartment had inevitably diminished slightly and the subsequent introduction of Mark (Aaron wasn't stupid, he knew when Spencer took him for the day or night that Mark would be there) was just another ingredient to poison the once placid mixture. It was like divorce, only not.

Mr. All-American FBI Agent living in his white-picket fence apartment. Twice divorced and a side of man sex to really ruffle the feathers.

So when Jack nestled down against Aaron's chest, and whispered, "I miss Spence," all Aaron could say was "yeah, buddy. Me too."

Jack looked up into his father's dark eyes, his expression one of disappointment and confusion. "Do I make you sad because I miss him?"

It was an incredible question for a seven year old to ask but Aaron knew with grieving difficulty that at a young age, Jack had seen and experienced far more than any normal child should have. His observations were thus typically more advanced than those of his peers.

"Buddy you're not making me sad at all," Hotch soothed, pressing a kiss to Jack's soft hair. "Why would you say that?"

"Whenever I ask where he is you look down." Jack replied, chewing on his lip. "You look sad, Daddy."

Aaron didn't answer right away and he wasn't sure how to answer. His son had just profiled him in a perfect minute. Jack Hotchner would grow up to do great things.

Like his father.

His heart clenched with a deep sadness, bestowing all that he had put his son through. His son, who didn't understand why his mother had been taken away, who accepted that he talked to her through a lit candle, and who loved and admired his father unconditionally even though Aaron knew he didn't deserve it, and who loved and accepted Spencer as his father's boyfriend.

He watched the streak of lightening burn behind the curtains of Jack's bedroom window and he breathed in the scent of innocence that permeated the pillow beneath his head. Spencer had the same smell of youth and virtue but Aaron was sure that if scent could be categorized by the FBI, his scent would read like the following:

Federal Bureau Case File 100032B / The Aaron Hotchner (homo sapiens, anima abrupta) / Kingdom: National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, Behavioral Analysis Unit - 1 (Crimes against Adults) / Class: Middle / Rank: Advanced, Special Agent in Charge / Species: Sub - equivocal to - Monster

a). Scent 1: Bleu de Chanel cologne (notes of Citrus, Spice, Sandalwood) - equiv. - Mysterious, secretive, deceptive.

b). Scent 2: Tide laundry detergent - AKA - Clean son of a bitch.

c). Scent 3: Glen Garioch bourbon, 1958 - equiv. - Drunk, neglectful.

d). Scent 4: Gun oil - AKA - UNSUB. * BOLO out immediately.

Aaron exhaled thickly, his eyes slowly closing as he felt his son nestle into his side. He supposed Spencer's scent categorization would not read as similarly and as dark.

Federal Bureau Case File 100032C / The Spencer Reid (homo sapiens, ingeniosus) / Kingdom: National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, Behavioral Analysis Unit - 1 (Crimes against Adults), Starbucks Coffee House on Pennsylvania Avenue / Class: Middle / Rank: Advanced, Supervisory Special Agent / Species: Holier Than Thou - equivocal to - Angel

a). Scent 1: Creed Green Irish Tweed (notes of French Verbena, Florentine Iris, Violet leaves) - equiv. - Quirky little minx, classic, Fougère.

b). Scent 2: Sugary coffee - AKA - Sex on two legs.

c). Scent 3: Leather messenger bag - AKA - Private bastard.

d) Scent 4: Gun oil - equiv. - Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.

e). Scent 5: Whatshisface, Markus, Malvolio - equiv - Rape victim * BOLO for Markus out immediately.

"Buddy?" Aaron adjusted his cramped body and continued to stroke Jack's hair. "I'm not sad and you don't make me sad. I just hope you're not sad, honey."

"I'm sad Spence isn't around anymore," Jack rubbed at his nose.

"He will be though." It was a vow Aaron was making to himself though he knew he shouldn't be making promises with the devil anymore.

Nine stab wounds, the last time he had done it, though he was sure Spencer wouldn't hack him to death.

Then again maybe not.

"I hope so." Jack mumbled, his voice turning over into a sleepy slur. Aaron drew the covers up around them, not bothering to change out of the dress shirt and trousers he had arrived home in hours earlier.

"Do you want to talk to Mom?"

Jack looked up all of a sudden. "Will it make you sad?"

Aaron smiled lightly, touched by his son's protectiveness. "No, buddy. I want to." He reached for the small votive he kept by Jack's bed and let his son hold it, a ritual they had developed in the days following Haley's death. They spoke to her in silence and with words, the troubles of the day shared with the heavens and it calmed both Hotchner men to know what someone up there was listening, Aaron was sure.

"Hi, Mom." Aaron prompted, gently caressing Jack's temple.

"Hi, Mommy." Jack echoed quietly, his brow furrowed in concentration. "I miss you. I don't want Daddy to be sad no more and I don't want Spencer to be sad."

They waited as moments of silence passed through.

"Thank you, Mommy." Aaron finished the prayer. "And keep Jack safe."

"And Dad."

"Dad too," Aaron nodded, a twinkle beginning to form in his tired eyes and the cloud of intoxication beginning to lift. "Alright, time to settle down, sport. It's almost morning. Do you want me to stay with you?"

Jack shook his head and smiled. "You're taking up my bed."

"Oh, my apologies Baby Bear," Aaron quirked a grin and kissed his son goodnight before returning to the living room.

The thunder continued to drive night into morning and the agent stayed awake, admiring the glitter of electricity that crackled like fire as the sun began to rise hours later. He hadn't slept but he knew he wouldn't have been able to, not without Spencer home. His mind had become a razor blade, thoughts turning bad in an instant when his imagination got the better of him. Though his thoughts were not all that far fetched given his profession and what his team had witnessed and dug through - the deepest and darkest evils of humanity had been documented, sealed, and sorted through in his years as an FBI employee.

He sat in the armchair once more, eyes narrowed at the mist of the dawn. He missed Spencer. He missed him and hated him for hating him. The first months of absolute fury had dissolved into weeks of hurt and then everything had eventually collapsed into nothing more than wistful blankness and the two men floated around each other on eggshells, afraid to fight for anymore more than a passing nod of recognition at home and a professional relationship at work.

And that was during a good week. Spencer would be volatile at best sometimes, like an errant child Aaron knew he could not scold.

And then there were the passive aggressive signs of Spencer's resentment every now and again that were dropped in Aaron's lap like grenades. In the second month of Emily's return, the initial tidal wave of rage was in mid-pass when Aaron came across the first sign. Richmond PD had enlisted his help in grooming over a few cold cases and cataloguing them. The cases had been four cardboard boxes deep and it had taken Aaron two weeks to sort through them all, arranging them chronologically by day, month and then year in order to determine more developed profiles of the killers and their patterns of attack.

He had left for an hour after completing his project to go collect Jack from school and when he returned to quickly browse over the boxes before sending them back to Richmond, he had thundered a series of profanities that would have sent any Jack Sparrows packing for the Bible Belt of Tennessee.

Spencer, who of course had made a swift escape from the apartment before Aaron returned, had rearranged the cases alphabetically and destroyed Aaron's meticulous work with no chance of redemption. When Spencer eventually turned up at work, a pink glow of smugness tinting his cheeks, Aaron had confronted him in his office.

Spencer's response had been defiant, his eyes narrowing as he spat "I wonder what that's like. Having everything you worked for erased in a matter of hours."

The agent was becoming sharp witted, his tongue a blade to cut Aaron to shreds and the elder man knew he deserved it. Hell, he deserved to have his car keyed and his team taken away from him.

He learned, however, to keep work locked up away from Spencer but the grenades so to speak kept coming. They weren't obvious...Spencer was far too sophisticated for childish pranks...but would be sure to ruin Aaron's day or make its mark. A stranger's Audi R8 car keys attached to Spencer's keyring... Disposing of their condoms and lube in their shared bathroom...

Dull voices outside of the front door sprang Aaron from his position and he silently debated diving under the coffee table to hide in his own home. Instead he swallowed, casting a longing look at the second bottle of bourbon that winked at him from the kitchen island.

Could he?

Yes.

He swallowed a quick cap, followed by a second and third before the creak of the door opening sent him back to the armchair where, like a child caught by his parents awake at night, he pretended to be asleep. So much for Aaron Hotchner, lethal prosecutor and feared chief of the BAU. This was Aaron Hotchner, drunk at age nine.

"... A great time, babe." Shit. It was that Macbeth creature or whatever the fuck his name was.

Babe? Aaron rolled his eyes. What a common and unoriginal insult. He peered around the edge of the chair, straining to see the shadows that dared darken his hallway. He didn't want MacDonald in his apartment. He didn't want the monster near his Spencer.

He recalled his scent categorizing. Scent 5. Rape victim. Hotch snorted as the alcohol began to take effect. He was being ridiculous. He had nothing to fear. He rolled back his shoulders and stood suddenly, startling the figures that had not noticed his presence.

"Aaron," Spencer noted, surprise in his tone. He had surely thought returning at six in the morning would have saved him a painful encounter. Even after a year, the waves of anger still roiled through his body at inconsistent intervals though now they had mostly settled and the two men were polite to each other at best.

The genius eyed his former lover, profiling every inch and noting the crisp navy trousers and clean white shirt. The blood red tie was a signature as were the sterling silver cufflinks. His gun was holstered at his trim hip, the symbol of his officer status displayed as blatant as a sign to his new boyfriend. He might as well have dumped a bottle of testosterone all over himself.

Aaron flicked his eyes to Macbeth, finding himself staring into two luminous moons of yellow for eyes, framed by thick dark lashes. The man bore a striking resemblance to Christian Bale circa The Dark Knight. He was unremarkable looking and at the same time Aaron couldn't keep his eyes off of him. Handsome, that was for sure, and the Unit Chief cemented that Spencer definitely had a type.

Tall. Dark. Handsome. Older. Alpha Male.

A straight nose complimented a pointed chin and pursed lips, the face a tan caramel and the hair and eyes a soft espresso. The hair, Aaron noticed with jealous scrutiny, was swept softly to the side and seemed to stay there unlike Aaron's, who usually used a stiff gel to keep his sweep in place. His brow was drawn in what was neither a scowl nor a frown but a series of deep creases caused by the erosion of chronic pressure and tension.

"Mark. Graff." The stranger smiled warmly, holding out his hand. Aaron met the grip crushingly, wishing he would spin the man into the ground and put a bullet through his brain.

He didn't look like he had dull sex. He looked like he had wild sex.

Mark Graff.

Why did that name sound familiar?

Aaron eyed him subtly once more as Mark had turned to Spencer to hand him back his jacket and scarf. His profiler instincts had rotated into a driving pace and he quickly evaluated what was in front of him.

The hairs of the back of Aaron's neck suddenly flared up as he realized the weight of the name presented to him.

Graff.

As in Graff Diamonds. As in the heir to one of the wealthiest jewelry empires in the world. Aaron recalled reading an article attached to the monthly Bureau newsletter on an idle Wednesday a few years back on a Mark Graff. It had been a profile on "One to Watch in Law Enforcement." Parents killed in 9/11. Political advisor to the California governor turned CIA agent. CIA agent who had single-handedly collapsed the core of an illustrious Middle East banker's plan to detonate a secondary series of bombs in London after a few had exploded on buses and in tube stations on 7/7.

Fuck.

Fuck.

And here Aaron had hoped the squirrel worked for something hopelessly boring like an insurance company...or a grocery store as a bag boy.

Oh no. The fucker had to go and leave his comfortable world of luxury to serve justice to the men who had killed his parents and then go save the world. He was more of a legend at the FBI than Rossi was - and the kid didn't even work there. Mueller had been trying to pilfer him from the CIA for years with no luck. Little shithead, Aaron balled his fists as the pure liquid fire of jealously was doused over his head. That explained the new Swiss watch on Reid's wrist and the Audi R8 whose engine Aaron could hear purring downstairs. He knew the various sounds of foreign cars.

CIA? The guy was probably an assassin.

"Camp Peary," Aaron nodded solemnly, feeling very much like a father appraising a daughter's date though Mark couldn't have been that much younger than the agent himself. Maybe 42. 44. Or maybe he had some sort of Benjamin Button fungus and was really 14. Oh boy would that blow Spencer's rocket.

Spencer continued to study the two men from the corner of the hallway, biting his nails. Both of them stood uncannily similar. Shoulders drawn back, mouths in firm lines, the slight lean of their calves both causing them to appear taller than they were. The genius wondered briefly if both of them intended to start a brawl or pee all around Spencer to mark their territory.

An Alpha CIA agent versus an Alpha FBI agent in an act of reckless passion for a skinny, odd-looking genius. It was the stuff of legends.

But Mark still kept the open expression on his chiseled face as though he were leisurely secure in his position in Spencer's life and it reminded the young profiler of a Labrador puppy. Which would in turn make Hotch a guarded German Sheppard, unwilling to share his chew toy.

Mark nodded, suddenly looking uncomfortable, but that was the CIA, Aaron thought. Paranoid. Untrustworthy. Unwilling to talk about anything except the weather.

The Unit Chief wondered why the hell the intelligence agency didn't hire him. The FBI was too virtuous for him after the stunt he pulled in June.

"Nice to meet you Aaron." Mark smiled a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'll see you later, babe?" He turned his attention to Spencer, who had been hovering between the two men like a nervous hummingbird, studying the interaction of his new lover and former lover with the dedication of a scientist.

Aaron was subtle enough to know to dismiss himself. He nodded threateningly at Mark and then all but fled like a wreck down the hallway, blocking out the whispers that followed his retreat.

"I'll be back from Colorado in a few days," he could hear Mark promise and the sound of he and Spencer demurely kissing goodnight...good morning really...was too much to bear.

"You'll call?" Spencer whispered quietly and Aaron imagined him looking at the yellow eyes with his own gold eyes, filled with uncertainty.

"I'll call."

Aaron backed himself into his bedroom, eventually showering and scrubbing his teeth viciously to rid his gums of the bourbon stink. He heard the front door close but did not feel the comfort of having Mark gone from his apartment. Having Mark gone meant Spencer would be turning in for a few hours of sleep, despite the early morning time. It meant Aaron would also have to consider the allure of a quick slumber.

It also meant the two men sharing the bed where they had been spending the past months ignoring each other and ignoring the memories of love and lust that lay embedded in the pillows and blankets.

Aaron sighed as he undressed.

Another lightening strike whipped the sky in wicked scorn.

Well, I hoped you liked the beginning of The Lightening Strike! :) Please review! Let me know what you think about the start of all of this!