I really hope I'm not ruining it for anyone but CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE SEASON 8 FINALE YESTERDAY? Insanity. I chewed off my entire manicure, and now I am inevitably left with nubs for nails. Awesome. Anyway, after watching that, I couldn't wait to hop back into this story. Thank you to everyone who has been reading, following, favoriting and reviewing The Lightening Strike! I means so, so much to me and I am going to be updating a lot quicker now! So hopefully you'll enjoy this chapter :) and let me know what you think!

Song(s): World Spins Madly On/Gotta Have You - both by The Weepies & Ashes to Snow/As It Seems - both by Lily Kershaw (as seen in the Season 7 and 8 finales - I think she's so awesome and I love how both of her songs have now ended the past two CM seasons!)

Of all the hardships a person had to face none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting in solitude. Aaron had never been good at waiting, at patience of any kind. Time didn't follow its own schedule so much as it followed the Unit Chief's schedule. And Aaron had been waiting for this moment for too long, when he would once again feel Spencer's lips press against his own. Inviting. Familiar. Comfortable. And now, now, he held the young agent in his arms, scarcely breathing for fear that he would break the moment or spook Spencer and they would both be nothing more than two men standing in a bathroom again.

The young agent's slender fingers gently pulled at his shirt, however, closing the space between them and Aaron stilled, wanting Spencer to take the lead. But as he felt the seam of his mouth opened once more, he released a heavy breath of relief through his nose. He buried his fingers in his subordinate's silky, wet hair, tugging slightly at the strands and coaxing Spencer impossibly closer.

The towel draped over the genius's shoulders was only held in place by the fact that there was no space for it to fall between the bodies pressed together. Aaron felt his clothes dampen with stray drops of water but took no notice of the cold patches on his skin. Instead, he deepened the kiss, drawing a moan from one of them, though neither could tell whom. Spencer made a little tone, like a doorbell, but didn't push away. Instead he yielded to Aaron's demanding mouth, soft and supple, as two known gun-calloused hands stroked the planes of his cheekbones. The chief had not shaved yet and Spencer relished the roughness of a day's growth on his skin.

Just as he felt Aaron's lips move to press small kisses to the spot under his ear, the sound of the front door slammed and both agents broke apart, panting slightly.

Aaron's eyes were heated, impossibly dark, as he stared back at his former lover and Spencer could have sworn he saw something, a spark of fear perhaps, appear in them before it vanished as quickly as it had come. The genius sighed and rested his forehead to his superior's, his eyes shut. Aaron's hands returned to the gentle rubbing up and down his arms and it didn't seem quite real, what they had done.

It felt so fantastically good, almost criminal to feel, period. The room hovered around them with great uneasiness, as if the walls and the shower were withholding their weight out of sympathy for the moment and the men's sudden breakthrough in self-control.

The dulled orchestra of voices filled the hallway, growing louder as the team roamed through the house probably in search of both the agents while Jack remained downstairs, oblivious.

"Hotch? Spence? We brought lunch back!" JJ called from the bottom of the staircase, her tone not ringing without a little curiosity in it.

"Yeah, grub's up. Do I have to wrestle you out of bed, Pretty Boy?" Morgan's faint roar joined in as the agent obviously moved past the stairs on his journey to the kitchen.

"I'll be down in a second," Spencer replied weakly, licking his dry bottom lip. He returned his gaze to his superior's, looking for clues as to what to do next, he didn't really know.

"That's our cue," Aaron murmured, a hint of a reluctant smile barely curving his mouth upward. His brow flattened as he assumed his roles of stoicism and indifference once more.

He touched his fingers to Spencer's shoulder. "How does your shoulder feel?"

"It will probably bruise," the young doctor drew his lips into his mouth and quirked his eyebrow up, searching his counterpart's face for any hints of repentance or culpability.

Or, if Spencer were lucky, one of those coveted Hotshot Hotchner smirks Aaron was known to part with on occasion.

"Well, let me know if you need it looked at," came Aaron's rather odd response, for it was said with little implication that he would be the one inspecting Spencer's body. The genius straightened. He understood that they both needed time apart from one another, to register what had just occurred before going forth with anything more.

Spencer would seek solitude to contemplate his feelings, inevitably weighing pros and cons yet their kiss was looking a lot like a leading pro. And Aaron would do just the same, assuring himself control of the situation and then waiting for Spencer to proceed.

"I'll, um, see you downstairs then," Spencer replied quietly, drawing the corners of the towel close around his delicate frame.

He paused, as if waiting for something to happen again, and meeting Aaron's unreadable expression once more, he closed his eyes as he felt a featherweight kiss on the crown of his head and a tender squeeze to his hand.

"See you downstairs."

Aaron closed the bathroom door soundly, and Spencer sighed, tightening the towel around his slender frame. His fingers appeared to act on their own accord, rising to his jaw, and he ran his fingertips over his swollen, slightly pouted lips that were still parted in awe. He swallowed, running his tongue over his teeth where he swore he could still taste his superior's wanton mouth against his.

He smiled momentarily, before feeling his stomach drop. Kissing Aaron again was like picking at an open wound that hadn't healed all the way. For the young doctor, it had hurt to not be with his lover, but he didn't know if, on the other side, the pain would be any more eased. Would it feel better to leave the wound, perhaps let someone fill it up, with good and with bad, and get on that way? Or was it better to leave it open, maybe long enough to heal, maybe too long, picking at it now and then so it doesn't heal all the way and maybe never?

Spencer sunk his teeth into his bottom lip, unsure as to why he felt like he had just fallen from somewhere high up, only to break in half and leave only one person with the secret to the puzzle of putting him back together. And only with time would he know where he and Aaron were now spinning.

Of all the hardships a person had to face none was more punishing then the simple act of waiting in solitude.

Aaron stroked a hand over his beard as he made his return to his guest room. Never one to hold a fondness for uncertainty, the Unit Chief felt as if he had just fallen head first into its grinning face. Never one known to be at a loss for words, Aaron also felt as though he might as well quit the Bureau and sign up for his first mime class.

He hadn't anticipated kissing Spencer. When he had burst through the bathroom door, he had prepared himself to face his subordinate hanging out of the window and clinging to his towel, providing a midmorning peep show to Vail's affluent patrons. He had been so wrong. And in a way, dealing with the aftermath of a kiss, the adrenaline rush of pressing his lips to a familiar mouth that was so easily pliable and inviting, was almost more difficult than having to rescue a copper-headed damsel in distress.

What the hell, Aaron? He thought to himself.

The agent gritted his teeth together, denying himself the urge to fly back into the bathroom and push Spencer against the door to hungrily welcome himself to those full lips again. Instead, he opened his closet door and stared at the clothes he had hung up the night before: three tailored shirts, two pairs of fine wool trousers, a pair of dark jeans, a heavy jacket for skiing and his lighter North Face, a navy cotton shirt he didn't remember packing, and three ties in various shades of red.

Disenchanted, he undressed swiftly and pulled on a faded, long-sleeved District of Columbia Fire Rescue T-shirt that, at some point, must have been blue but now had more of a grayish tint to it. He grabbed the jeans off their hanger, shoved both legs into their appropriate holes, and then closed the door to the bedroom. He winced as he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, all too aware that he had probably pulled a few muscles from falling in the bathroom.

As he reached the landing of the hallway, he realized that, like two mismatched bookends, Rossi and Penelope had installed themselves at the foot of the stairwell, both awaiting Spencer and Aaron's mutual descent from upstairs; the two dates for the two beautiful debutantes that weren't.

Aaron resisted sighing once more. With one last peek at the bathroom door where Spencer remained, he took his time on each step of the staircase. He schooled his face into the impassive mask he enjoyed employing so frequently at work. With each pace closer downstairs, he and Spencer's kiss played faster in his mind, like a film reel caught in suspension. He relayed the moment again and again, knowing that he would be thinking about kissing the agent later tonight, tomorrow and the days after that. He would think about kissing him slowly, tracing his fingers along his lips as their bodies unfolded together just the way they were before, and now kissing no one else but Spencer.

I would love it if you left a review :) And thanks for reading!