ALEX | a. hotchner (sequel to BLAKE)

13

A/n: listen to the song with headphones, you won't be sorry!

The case was finally over and we were leaving first thing in the morning. Everyone was exhausted when we arrived at the hotel. I was laying in my bed, trying to sleep, but my thoughts kept wandering.

I hadn't been back in Boston since Rose died, every time I came back, it ended badly. It was in Boston that both Maya and Rose were killed, where we buried Maya. The guilt seeped into my skin, I hadn't thought about Maya for a long time, and I felt awful. But maybe it was easier to think about her at a cemetery, where she had never been anything but dead, than to think about her at all the places where she was alive.

I couldn't stay in bed, I had to get up. I kept replaying the night in my head. Beth and I are engaged. I suddenly felt the urge to throw up. He was getting married, and it wasn't to me. I saw them together in my head, all the time, and I died inside, over and over again. My heart broke as I imagined him getting down on one knee for her.

I was out of my room before I could think, a t-shirt and sweatpants clinging to my body. I knocked on his door before I could change my mind, before I could think about it rationally. His hair was messy and he was in a white t-shirt, but still wearing his dress pants. His eyebrows were furrowed and mouth slightly ajar.

"Blake?" He breathed.

"I just want to know one thing," I said as I pushed past him.

He closed the door and walked to stand on the other side of the room, "go on."

"Why?" I turned to face him, "why are you being an asshole?"

"You have no right to speak to me like that," Aaron said and crossed his arms over his chest, "you might not agree with me, but you do have to respect me."

"You know what, Aaron?" I snapped, "I am so sick and tired of your hot and cold attitude."

He rolled his eyes. "You're acting childish," he muttered.

I scoffed, "oh, am I?"

"You are just as reckless as you were five years ago, I don't know why I had expected you to ever change," Aaron sneered and then he looked me over, one quick up and down motion with his eyes. "What? Are you going to cry now?" He raised one eyebrow, like he was challenging me.

That small comment stirred a hurricane in me, it burned so bad like fire lacing my veins. All I could feel was desire; desire to hate. And I knew he felt it, too, desire to send each word full speed ahead to shatter the other's soul into a million pieces.

"Fuck you," I spat.

Aaron's face brightened, just a tone lighter than my own crimson. There was no going back now. Blood was bound to be spilled, feelings hurt. We were never that strong to begin with, and now we would never be as strong as we once were.

"Fuck you for always putting me down, for always making me feel like shit," I wiped away one angry tear that had escaped my eye. "So what if I cry? At least I know I have the ability."

"You can't talk to me like that, Agent," he took one big step forward, the arms crossed over his chest almost touching me, almost.

"But what? You think you can get away with insulting me?" I almost laughed in his face, almost. "You're a bully," I spat and narrowed my eyes in his, "and no job, no position, no badge, will ever change that."

The arguing had a dull exhaustion to it, like we'd been over the same bitterness too many times before. Aaron had a sneer in his voice that extended to his eyes and I spat every sentence. If the words were visible they'd be reaching over the air, strangling the life from us.