Title: The Years Ahead
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: PG-13
Table: 3, 20_est_relships
Prompt: 12, Anniversary
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Aaron Hotchner or Spencer Reid, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Fall was always a nice time of the year, Spencer thought, glancing out of the kitchen window as he closed the door of the dishwasher and turned it on. The leaves were changing, there was a nip in the air, and the stars somehow seemed closer than at any other time.

So it really wasn't strange that Aaron wanted to go outside to look up at the sky, was it? Spencer frowned as he made his way through the house, heading for the door that led out into the back yard, wondering why his boyfriend had been out there for so long.

It really was beautiful here, Spencer thought, looking around him at the trees in the back yard that were starting to shed their leaves. Red and yellow and orange -- all of the panorama of a fall day, with the sky just beginning to shade into twilight.

Aaron was standing with one hand on the edge of Jack's jungle gym, his gaze focused on the sky as if he could see something there that no one else had yet caught sight of. Spencer moved to stand beside him, looking up and wondering what had caught the other man's attention.

"Do you realize what today is?" Aaron asked him quietly, his voice so soft that Spencer almost had to strain to hear him. "I don't blame you if you don't -- it's not something that most people would remember. But it's a day that's always stuck in my mind."

Spencer searched his memory for what Aaron could be referring to, but nothing sprang to his mind. He was only good with dates when they were something important in history; when they referred to his own life or that of the people around him, they generally passed him by.

"I'm sorry, Aaron," he finally had to say, feeling that he was making a fool of himself by admitting his own shortcomings with his memory. "I don't remember what today is. If it's something that's important to you, I'm sorry. I'll remember it from now on."

"Today is the anniversary of the day that you first joined the BAU," Aaron told him, his voice soft and faraway. "It was the first time I'd met you in person. I'd seen your picture, but I had never talked to you face to face before. It was .... a revelation."

"It was?" Spencer was surprised by his boyfriend's words; he'd known that he and Aaron had a special camaraderie between them, but he hadn't realized that the other man had felt it from the very first day he'd been a member of the BAU team.

"I hadn't admitted to myself then that I could be attracted to another man," Aaron told him, still not looking directly at Spencer, his gaze focused on the sky and the stars that were beginning to twinkle in the velvety indigo. "But when I looked at you, I knew that I was."

"I thought you were great looking when I first saw you," Spencer said softly, wondering how best to put his own feelings at the time into words. It was hard to do; he had tried to push those feelings down, thinking that they could never possibly be returned.

"I just kept telling myself that you were married, and that there was no way you'd be interested in me," he finally said with a soft sigh. "I knew I was attracted to you, but I thought we'd never be anything more than friends, so I told myself I was lucky to have that."

"What would you have done if I'd told you how I felt?" Aaron asked, finally looking at him with a smile. "I think you'd have been shocked. No one would have guessed that the devoted husband and family man could possibly be interested in a younger man."

"I'd have been shocked, yeah," Spencer admitted with a rueful laugh. "You'd have been the last person I'd have thought would feel like that about me. But the more we got to know each other, the more I felt that there was an attraction."

"It all came to a head with Hankel," Aaron said softly, reaching out to take Spencer's hand. "I knew then that you meant more to me than just a team member, Spencer. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep my real feelings from you forever."

"Even though you were still with Haley at the time?" Spencer asked, unable to stop the words before they came tumbling out. He hadn't meant to say them; but he and Aaron had never talked about how Aaron had felt about him before the separation from his former wife.

"That was a problem," Aaron admitted with a heavy sigh. "I still loved her -- but I knew that I was falling in love with you, too. I was pulled in two different directions -- and at the time, I didn't know which was the right one for me to take."

Spencer nodded, his throat tightening. He hadn't known that Aaron had returned his feelings all that time; he'd merely thought that there was no more than friendship between them, and that anything else could never be. How wrong he'd been!

"Once she left me, I knew which path was the right one," Aaron continued, taking a deep breath before he spoke again. "I knew that I wanted to be with you. It just took me a while to face up to that fact -- and to have the nerve to tell you how I felt."

Spencer couldn't hold back a smile at the memory of that conversation. It had been awkward -- but it had also been the most amazing moment of his life to realize that Aaron did indeed return his feelings, and that the man he was falling in love with could be his.

"That was so awkward, that moment when you told me how you felt and I didn't know what to say," he murmured, feeling shy with Aaron all over again. It was almost as though they'd reverted back to that first moment of discovery, the first time their feelings had been expressed.

"I wanted to kiss you that night -- but I didn't have the nerve to," Aaron told him his voice soft and husky. "It's been a year, Spencer. A year today since I first told you that I was falling in love with you. And this time, I don't want to hold back."

With those words, he turned to Spencer, sliding one arm around the young man's waist and pulling him close. Spencer leaned in close to Aaron; his own arms sliding around the other man's neck, eyes closing as they leaned in towards each other.

When their lips met, Spencer could swear that he heard the proverbial explosions, that he saw skyrockets shoot towards the heavens and explode in a shower of sparks. Those rockets and bright lights might only be there in his mind, but for him, they were very real.

The kiss seemed to go on forever, but when they finally pulled away from each other, Spencer felt as if he was spiraling back down towards the ground from a dizzying height; he was breathless, disoriented, his heart hammering in his chest.

"If that's how you're going to kiss me on our anniversary, I hope we have a lot more of them ahead of us," he whispered. If this was how Aaron kissed him on the anniversary of the day they'd confessed their feelings for each other, what would other, more important anniversary kisses be like?

Would they make it to other kisses, other anniversaries? Yes, they would, Spencer told himself firmly. He was living here now; he was a permanent part of Aaron's life. Their relationship was growing, getting stronger with time. Slow and steady.

They hadn't jumped into the whole idea of moving in together; they'd taken their time, and Aaron had waited until he was comfortable with it. Their relationship would keep progressing along those lines -- and he was perfectly content with the direction they were proceeding in.

"Happy anniversary, Spencer," Aaron said softly, his arms tightening around the young man's waist. "I didn't get you anything -- but I hope that both of us being here, being together, and knowing that we're going to spend the rest of our live together, is enough of a present."

"It's more than enough," Spencer told him, his throat tightening. He had to swallow hard against the lump that had suddenly formed there; his emotions didn't usually get the better of him, but Aaron had a way of bringing them right to the surface.

"We'll have a lot more anniversaries in the years ahead of us," Aaron said, smiling as he raised a hand to brush a few errant strands of hair back from Spencer's face. "And I'll definitely be showering you with gifts then. But this time, I'll have to owe you one."

"There'll be a lot of anniversaries in our future," Spencer told him, his voice soft and husky. "And we'll spend them all together." He brushed another gentle kiss against his boyfriend's cheek, whispering in his ear. "And I'll owe you one, too."

"So, how do you want to spend our anniversary?" Aaron asked him, turning back towards the house with a smile. "We can watch a movie, order Chinese takeout .... or go to bed early and cuddle. Whatever you want to do. I'm giving you carte blanche."

"I just want to be with you," Spencer answered simply, sliding an arm around his boyfriend's waist as they went back into the house. He didn't really care what they ended up doing; as long as they were together, it would be a perfect way to spend this anniversary, and every other one in their future.

***