"Grief isn't a pissing contest. Just because someone has experienced more than you doesn't make your pain any less significant." - lastcrazyhorn

Chapter 1 – Bad Dreams

Waking up with an erection after having nightmares about being raped was not the way he wanted to start out his day. It was bad enough that Dave was making him stay over at his house, but now this?

And of course, he couldn't just will the damn thing to go away.

He tried to think of soft things, nice pleasant things like breasts. They were enjoyable to imagine after a night of painful memory inspired nightmares. He could see himself sucking on the nipples of one as his hands slowly moved up and down on his cock, pretending the heat was actually coming from between the legs of some imaginary woman who had yet to be wooed by him.

Sometimes that worked. Sometimes he could get off like that.

And then there were the mornings where such a daydream irrevocably ended up making him think of Haley. Mornings like this. Mornings where the only way to make it to the breakfast table was by taking a shower cold enough to leave his teeth chattering long after he was dry.

It was safe to say that today wasn't going to be a good day.

. . .

He had tried to tell Dave not to make a fuss for him. He had tried to make the man leave him alone.

Clearly, he hadn't tried hard enough, because not only was he staying at Dave's house, but his old friend was also taking time off work to spend it with him.

The really infuriating part of being around Dave was his completely unflappable nature. Hotch couldn't do a damn thing to piss the man off, regardless of what he did. He'd told the man to fuck off and Dave had left the room without a word. When Hotch had finally gotten up the nerve to apologize, he'd found Dave at his computer working on his next book, totally absorbed in the task.

He hated being on forced leave. He hated not being able to go and do what he was good at. He knew that Morgan was likely doing an excellent job at stepping in for him—especially considering how well he had done before, but that did nothing to help the small part of him that was feeling jealous towards the younger man for doing his job.

And then there was the fear. It was always there, sitting next to him, watching over his shoulder, hanging out in the back of his mind. He could feel eyes watching him when out on the street, even if he was the only one there. Irrational fear and paranoia, he could practically hear Reid's voice in his head spouting off a set of endless statistics about the subject.

So what if Michael was in jail? That hadn't stopped George Foyet, now had it?

If all of that wasn't bad enough, the tests on whether he had contracted anything from Michael had yet to come back, giving him yet another thing to worry about as he sat around and did fucking nothing.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He worked out. He read. He studied cases, kept in contact with his team—they were still his team, regardless of what fucking Strauss had to say about it—watched movies with whosever turn it was to babysit him that night. Hotch put his head in his hands. Intellectually he knew that it wasn't babysitting. He knew that they just wanted to make sure he was okay by supporting him in his time of need. He got that. He wasn't angry at them, but a lot of times it came out that way, making him feel guilty on top of everything else.

His emotions seemed to be rollercoastering up and down peaks at unusually fast speeds. Sometimes he was fine, going about his day almost normally (if he could forget about where he was supposed to be), and then out of the blue, something would hit him and he'd crumble, for lack of a better word. At those times, he'd do one of two things: Either he'd withdraw and hide out miserably in his room for the rest of the day, or he'd suck it up and talk to whomever was unlucky enough to see his breakdown. Usually it was Dave that he ended up talking with, but sometimes it was Derek, and once it had even been Spencer. He was making an effort to call them by their first names while away from the office, if only to help keep separate his emotional states—his numerous emotional states.

It was surprisingly easy to talk to Derek about the feelings and problems that came with all that he had been through, even those he wasn't actually willing to speak out loud. He knew why that was, but he had never thought about it as much as he had in the weeks after being released from the hospital.

Weeks? Well hell, now that he looked at it, he saw that it had actually been just over two months since the beginning of his forced leave.

He thought back to the bathroom where Michael had led him on that first morning following his initial rape. He tried to focus on his memories of the surroundings rather than his memories of the actual violent acts that he had been forced to endure while there. The thing that had caught his eye at the time had been the very noticeable lack of mirrors. It was this thought that his mind kept returning to now, all of this time later. At the time it had seemed odd, but now Hotch was afraid that he was developing the same problem. He had problems looking at himself for any length of time now.

Michael had wanted him for more than just his strength or his charisma. Hotch could remember all too well what it had felt like to have the other man's eyes on his body. It was the sort of memory that kept him awake at night, fingernails digging into his palms as he tried to keep from crying aloud, his anger mysteriously absent in the lonely darkness of his room.

. . .

"Aaron?" Dave said, interrupting his brooding one late night.

Inwardly he flinched at the sound of his name coming from another man's lips, but outwardly he kept his composure.

"Dave? Something wrong?"

Because I'm perfectly fine, just ducky in fact, sitting here at 3 am staring at the wall, remembering past regrets and shame that I have absolutely no way of fixing or controlling or—his thoughts were cut off when he finally noticed Dave's insistent stare.

"Not with me," his old friend said, stepping farther into his room and crossing his arms as though waiting for Hotch to reveal his innermost thoughts just like that.

"Hm." Come on Hotch; even you know that was a pathetic answer.

"You don't have to do this alone, you know," Dave said, taking a step closer to where Hotch was still propped upright in his bed.

Hotch noticed with interest that Dave asked nothing along the lines of how long he was going to keep doing this.

"This?" Dave is not obtuse Hotch!

A sigh from his friend and he suddenly felt a wave of guilt. Hotch looked down at the bedspread and saw that his hands were balled up in the covers. It took a conscious effort on his part to relax.

"Beating yourself up every night is not going to change what happened Aaron," Dave was standing right next to his bed, less than two feet away. "Mind if I sit down?"

"Sure," he waved at a spot on the side of the bed and scooted over a bit to make room for the other man.

"I mean it Aaron," Dave's face was on his level and he found himself afraid to look away from his deep searching eyes. "You're not going to get over this just by suppressing all your feelings and hoping they go away. It doesn't work that way."

"I-I know that Dave," Hotch answered slowly, suddenly having to blink hard against the well of emotion he felt surge through him with just that small admittance. Frustrated with himself, he ran a hand through his hair as he fought with himself to find a way to say what he wanted.

"I'm not going anywhere Hotch," Dave still seemed so damn calm, so composed, even though it was the middle of the night and they were both in their pajamas.

Hotch couldn't look up, couldn't hold the other man's gaze any longer.

"Remember when I was attacked by Foyet?" He wasn't aware that his voice had dropped into a near whisper, so caught up in his memories as he was.

"What about it?" Dave asked patiently.

Hotch licked his lips and chewed on the inside his mouth for a moment more before finally managing to tell his friend of the secret he had shared with none other until that moment.

"He didn't just stab me," he answered very softly. Distantly he could feel Dave's hand tentatively touching his arm, but it didn't bother him enough to say something about it. "He—," Hotch took a deep breath, wondering briefly what Dave's reaction would be. "He touched me, thr-through my slacks," he continued, unconsciously bringing his legs up to his chest as he relived the sensation of the other man's fingers on his groin, touching the shaft of his penis.

Dave's hand tightened briefly on his arm, and then somehow his friend was directly beside him, holding his hand as though they were both ten and that sort of thing was still okay.

"He molested you," Dave interpreted with a rough voice.

"He told me that he knew of the theory about people who stab because they are impotent," Hotch relayed in a slightly louder voice. "And then," he paused, taking in and letting out a few shuddery breaths. "And then he unzipped my trousers and touched his knife to m-my body, to my flesh." He looked down at his fists and was unsurprised to see that they had clenched up again. "He told me that he 'could make me more than impotent.'"

He clenched his jaw as he found himself caught up in that heart stopping moment all over again. The feel of the warm metal on his most sensitive of organs was burned forever into his brain.

"And then?" Dave had to prompt him.

"That's when I passed out from the blood loss. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital looking up at Prentiss."

"Do you ever wonder what he might have done to you after you passed out?" Dave asked him, casually voicing one of his longest held fears.

"I can't not think about it," he answered gruffly, finally looking up into his friend's face as he did.

"I don't blame you. I'd wonder the same thing."

"Y-You would?"

"Fuck yes!" Dave answered forcefully. "No one is allowed to touch me without my direct permission, especially not my dick, Aaron. The same is true for anyone, even you."

Hotch blinked at Dave's sudden vulgarity, finding himself a bit surprised by the other man's bluntness.

"I wish you could have told me about this earlier Aaron," Dave added seriously, his unflappable façade finally cracking as his emotions about what had happened to Hotch came to the fore.

"I d-didn't know how I could tell you—or anyone," he answered, dropping his voice back into a whisper.

"I know," Dave answered sadly, squeezing his shoulder lightly. "But I should have been more persistent. I know you and I know how you bottle things up. I should have just gotten you drunk and made you talk." Dave smiled a bit grimly at that and although it was hard to think about doing, Hotch found himself smiling back just a little as well.