Chapter Text
i: filial duty
Aaron Hotchner was twelve when he started fighting back. It was no secret his father drank a bit more than his lawyer friends, and no secret that his wife was a bit quiet, and no secret that his eldest son was a troublemaker. It was no secret that Aaron lashed out and Sean behaved perfectly. Were Hotch a man of grudges, he would never return to Virginia. He would never look his hometown in the eye, because he knew he would have seen the signs. He would have seen a tiny Aaron Hotchner squaring up to his father and he would have saved him.
Aaron Hotchner was much older than he would have liked when he realised the reason. The tragic nature of adulthood is that people become the person that can save their youngest self the pain of becoming the person with the capacity to protect them, but in becoming this, run out of time to save them.
Regardless, John Hotchner grew more violent and Aaron Hotchner started swearing and smoking, anything to numb the pain to himself and take it completely from Sean. He didn't notice his mama's silence until his father passed, when she became positively vibrant. He tried not to hate his mama for not breaking up with the man beating her children. He tried not to think of it as her responsibility, and sometimes he succeeded. Their father sent him to boarding school at 14, and while Aaron began to flourish, he knew Sean was left at home.
Aaron still winced when their father's team lost the superbowl. Even two hours away, he could feel the dent of their father's ring connecting with his cheek.
Away from John, Aaron got his academics on track. Years later, he would recognise that being in fight or flight constantly at home meant he was underperforming at school, but his father loudly ascribed it to the boarding school “setting him straight.” Aaron tried to keep his rage in, but every summer, they were back to the same routine - at each others’ throats. When their dad had a heart attack, it was his mama telling him. She looked remarkably okay for a woman who might have been widowed that day, and neither Aaron nor Sean held it against her.
Their dad recovered. But, looking at his bedside, Aaron saw a mortal man who was guilty in the eyes of anyone that could see.
Aaron went back to boarding school and rented a shitty caravan with his friends when he was seventeen. He turned eighteen in the following school year, gave his brother a phone and his number and never looked back to Virginia. Sean texted about their mama, never about their dad, and never very frequently, and Aaron learned to read into what he wasn't saying more than what he was. He spent a year saving money, living in the cheapest flat he could find before he began getting his JD at Pennsylvania and never told their father for fear of his opinion. He wasn't sure if he was more scared of anger that Aaron was surpassing his father, or potential pride in John's eyes.
Their mother died in the summer when he was twenty-one. He went back to Virginia for the funeral, and hugged Sean, and ignored their father as best as he could. He stayed the night in a hotel, bought some shitty Target flowers for her grave and sobbed out apologies. Then, he wiped his tears with a handkerchief and drove himself back to his flat. He kept working hard, needing to make rent and tuition simultaneously. Sean texted him less and less. He tried not to let it bother him.
Their father died before he turned 23. Aaron knew because the hospital called him. “Is this Aaron Hotchner?” They'd asked, and upon receiving an affirmative answer, said, “Your dad's in the hospital for his lung cancer, and you're listed as his emergency contact. We think… if you want to see him, you ought to come in the next day.”
“Yeah. I'll be there.” Aaron said. He didn't scream. He didn't cry. He didn't curse the father that was dying, or the fact he didn't know. He didn't curse the abuser that listed him as the emergency contact. He called Sean, apologised, said their dad was in the hospital, and listened to the monotone of the call hanging up. He drove four hours back to Virginia. Aaron knew, without any doubt, that his father would still be alive when he got there. He knew for the same reason his father listed him as the emergency contact that John would not be able to give him the peace of arriving to a corpse. Aaron watched his father die, as he knew he would, and called Sean. Sean hung up again. Aaron still didn't blame him.
Their father's funeral was intensely quiet. It was Aaron and Sean, a couple lawyers, and a priest. The lawyers left quickly after the coffin was lowered, the funeral fit within the savings their father had made in spite of his alcoholism, and Sean and Aaron stayed only marginally longer than the priest. Aaron didn't cry at his father's grave. No flowers were laid. A lawyer clapped him on the shoulder, and Aaron's Herculean efforts stopped him from flinching. He sold all of his dad's possessions, sifted through his mama's untouched ones and took her ring and watch. Sean wanted nothing of theirs, and so Aaron took his mama's whole jewellery collection in case he changed his mind. He sold the house, gave Sean half the income, and drove back to college.
He became a prosecutor and a damn good one. He got glowing recommendations from past supervisors, and short ones from current bosses. He put away enough men that he thought he had atoned for the sins of his father, put away more than he had let walk. And then he applied to the FBI. He worked in Seattle for a while before he applied to a young Behavioral Analysis Unit.
The BAU at this point did not require agents to be SSAs before they could be inducted. It was thought of as little more than the brain child of Jason Gideon, who was unable to leave, and David Rossi, who had gone to write books. He worked with Gideon as unit chief, and, towards the end of that period, Morgan. It was Morgan, always one of the most talented profilers, who saw Aaron's response to “Agent Hotchner” and dubbed him Hotch loudly and frequently.
Maybe this, along with the fact that it wasn't his call, is how he survived Boston.