Summary: Aaron Hotchner's first job after law school is as a member of the legal team on the first season of MTV's The Real World, and his job is simply to keep the show on the air. Derek Morgan, the show's most popular wild child, is making that nearly impossible.
Warnings: None
Pairings: Hotch/Morgan
Words: 3k
Notes: This is for Hotch Appreciation Week Day 6 - AU, skipping Comfortember today to really just indulge this AWFUL cheese fest. @hotchappreciationweek (Title comes from Janet Jackson's "That's The Way Love Goes") This isn't really a coherent story...I don't know what it is. Just me being a gigantic dork, probably. Put on some C&C Music Factory or Extreme and embrace it. Honestly, I might revisit this AU because...I really like them here. You even get a really fucking terrible 90s style graphic to go with today!
**
“Mother,” Aaron says, wrapping the phone cord around his wrist mindlessly. “Yes, I know I went to law school, this is just a job...it's a stepping stone.”
“It's beneath you,” she says, and though her words are pointed he can tell she's otherwise occupied. A floral arrangement, perhaps, something far more important than her son. “You should be looking for a practice to join, not some raunchy television program.”
“I won't be on the program, mother,” he says, and she's already not listening so he continues if for no other reason than to, once more, reassure himself that what he's doing is smart. That it isn't career suicide before he's even established himself. “I'm on the legal team. I will be behind the scenes making sure that everything is good, that we aren't committing FCC violations, that MTV remains in good standing. This program could be groundbreaking.” Even he doesn't believe that, but he's looking at the photos of each of the people who are going to be moving into the house and the task feels daunting at best. Some of them look like they'll be well-behaved, stay in line, and then a few others...he's going to have his work cut out for him.
The house is not a house, not really. It's all movie magic, something he's not accustomed to. MTV is calling it a loft, but it's just more of a whole floor of a warehouse made to look like a hip Manhattan loft. There are makeshift apartments on the lower levels for staff, like Aaron, who will be required to be on call twenty for hours a day and available on little to no notice. He would have no social life for the next six months. None of the people moving in, himself included, could have even afforded the realtor to look at a place like this. He's watching them file in while he sorts through their contracts, makes sure they've signed their lives away on the proper lines, tries to ignore the noise as the cameras are installed and the wall of television monitors flickers to life. It's all a bit much. He's overwhelmed and it isn't even officially Day One.
By Day Five he's at his wits end. Out of the seven “strangers” who are more like mortal enemies at this point, only two of them cause him no problems and they are, by nature, the least popular in the target demographic which means they don't get much screen time. The other five took the show's tag line, to stop being polite and start being real, a little too seriously. He's had a migraine for two days and it isn't looking like it's going to let up any time soon. They have him pulling out his hair day and night, either by trying to figure out how many swear words are too many for a cable television show, or by trying to take off all of their clothes for literally anyone at any time. Four of them have already taken each other to bed and are now at war. One is threatening to move out.
The favorite, by far, is Derek Morgan. Fan mail pours in by the droves, and Aaron has to look at each letter before it can be delivered, make sure there isn't anything inside that might violate his contract – he's weeded out all sorts of propositions, sales pitches, things the man is probably enough of an idiot to accept. He rolls his eyes as he chucks an envelope full of naked photos into the pile to give to him. Men, women, they're all desperate for his attention and they love when he goes through fan mail on the air – it's the most popular segment. Aaron simply cannot figure out the appeal.
Sure, he's handsome - gorgeous, even, but near as Aaron can tell he's completely brain dead. He'll take any bet, put anything in his mouth, he has, so far, no limits. Quickly, he's become the face of the show.
By Day 13 Aaron is ready to quit. Derek has decided that it is now his goal in life to make Aaron miserable. He now refers to the stabbing pain behind his left eye as Derek, and at the end of the last two days he's thought perhaps he was already following in his father's footsteps and having a massive heart attack. His fingers tingle, his chest is tight, but his doctor assures him it's just stress and he needs to find a way to relax. He can't relax when his job is to babysit Derek Morgan. He's saying things he knows he can't while staring directly into the camera, breaking the fourth wall like he's staring directly at the legal team and daring them to stop him. They don't, no matter how Aaron tries. “Deal with it,” they tell him as the money rolls in. “They're eating him up.” The FCC fines can't compare to the number of viewers ready to throw money at merch, at meet-ups, at club parties. He's a cash cow, an overnight sensation.
On Day 17 Derek ends up in the hospital waiting for stitches after getting into a fight in FAO Schwartz. Apparently dads don't take kindly to full grown men antagonizing their children on the giant keyboard. Aaron sits in the ER with him fuming silently.
“Did you like the song?” he asks and Aaron groans, rolls his eyes. It's getting late and he can hear people coughing, throwing up, the emergency room is packed and they're going to be there for hours. The cameras are outside waiting, he can't stop glancing at his watch. This is his first time alone with Derek and the only thing stopping him from laying into the man is the fact that he looks like he's genuinely in pain.
“I've seen BIG, Mr. Morgan,” he grumbles. “Everyone has. All of those kids were going to play the same song. I bet every tourist that walks into that store plays it...the employees are probably all on suicide watch.” He's meaner than he needs to be, and yet it doesn't seem to deter Derek one bit.
“Yeah...but Tom Hanks didn't look half as good as I did...” and even though he's bleeding from a huge gash above his eyebrow, his eyes are twinkling and Aaron has to admit...he's not wrong. He looked good. “I coulda played something else, too, you know. I play piano.”
“No, you don't,” Aaron mutters, and he's shocked at his candor. How did he know whether Derek played piano or not? He clears his throat and glances at his watch again. Derek just smiles, holding an ice pack to his forehead.
“I do. I'll prove it to you...” He's so good natured that Aaron starts to cave, can almost see the appeal.
Day 18 finds Derek hauling a keyboard into the house. It's not clear to anyone where he got it, it just appeared one morning from out of the blue. Aaron woke up not feeling well (a fact which he would come to blame on sitting in an ER with Derek all night) and showed up late to work, trying to sleep it off. The minute Derek appeared with the keyboard Aaron's boss was calling him and telling him to get up there before it all went to hell. Derek was a wildcard, they were imagining him playing something off the wall, riddled with FCC violations, removing his clothes, the whole nine yards. In an over-sized sweatshirt, he shuffles up to The Loft and takes a seat. With his head in his hands, he listens to the show but he's barely keeping his eyes open, he's exhausted and he feels like garbage - the monitors are of no interest to him.
By the time the keyboard is hooked up to the house's surround sound system, he's nearly asleep in his seat. Reality television is not for him. He wakes to a sound check, jagged clanging on the keys, and he covers his ears briefly before the noise becomes a soft tune. Pumping through the speakers is “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” on piano, and he looks up from where he's silently dying to see Derek actually playing it. His back is turned to Aaron, but he can hear his voice and on the monitors he can see those long, lithe fingers dancing along the keys and for a minute he forgets how awful he feels, forgets his contempt for the other man. He folds his arms over his chest and listens, knowing that the fan mail is going to start pouring in at twice the speed after this. It's beautiful, touching and sweet - unlike anything they've seen out of him so far. If Derek didn't end up married to a supermodel by the end of this, he would be shocked.
Day 19, and Aaron can't get out of bed. He can't talk, throat is on fire, he's got a fever...he's a mess. Derek spends the entire day behaving like a wild man and getting away with all of it, no one there to ensure he's on his best behavior. While Aaron's boss calls non-stop, there isn't anything he's willing to do, he can't even talk, he just listens to his boss yell into the phone and wants to cry every time he swallows. A grown man reduced to tears by strep throat. He's blaming the ER visit, but he knows it could have come from anywhere...he works in a cesspool and he lives with very few boundaries in the MTV warehouse. It's a miracle he hasn't been stricken ill sooner.
An intern brings him hot and sour soup and a cup of hot tea from the Chinese restaurant down the street, his favorite place for late night take-out after a long day of filming. She won't say who it's from, just a gift from someone on set. He assumes its his boss, or someone else on the back end, trying to butter him up and get him back in there asap.
Day 24 finds him finally back at work, still not feeling great but he can almost talk normally again and he's taken all of his antibiotics. He's trailing Derek through the city streets with a camera crew, making sure he doesn't go inside of any establishments they haven't cleared. It's just supposed to be a walk to get dinner, that's what Derek says - he's been cooped up in the loft too long and he needs to get out. He's been shockingly well-behaved since Aaron got sick, and he's more than a little irritated that he's back to his usual shenanigans on his first day back. They need to keep him in line, but the first thing he does is duck into a little nightclub that isn't on the list and the cameras have to stop at the door. Aaron groans and follows, he's got to go pull him back out or ask the owners to let their cameras in. The first option sounds better once he's inside, it's a club full of throbbing dance music and black lights. He hates the way Everybody Dance Now makes his chest pound, the singer's sharp voice slicing his nerves, the way his lungs feel tight. He doesn't see Derek anywhere and he's about to storm back out the door in frustration. This might be the night he quits, admits his mother was right and then there's a hand wrapped around his and he's being pulled into a crush of people on the dance floor.
“Finally,” Derek says, wrapping his arms around Aaron so he can't leave. “Five minutes. That's all I need.” Aaron is confused, but he's not trying to break free, he was trying to find Derek after all so really, Derek just made his job a lot easier. His senses are overloaded and Derek is staring at him hungrily. People are bumping into him, elbows in his sides, and he's swerving to try and stay upright in the crowd.
“Five minutes for what?” He's blaming his sickness, he's still not feeling all better, his head is pounding with the intensity of the music.
“Alone with you...” Derek replies, so casually. His body is swaying with the music that has changed from thumping beats to something slow and syrupy that Aaron can't make out. It's loud, overwhelming, the lights go down and the sea of people sways in unison. “Oh come on, you can't be that oblivious.”
Aaron stares, blinks stupidly a few times and Derek backs up, hands releasing their hold.
“Wait...” Derek says, and he pulls Aaron off of the dance floor, ducks them into a dark corner near the bar where Aaron can relax a little, it's not so loud over here. “You really don't know?”
“I know that we need to get back out there before they send in reinforcements...” he says but he's breathless, still not sure what's going on. He can't let himself dive too far into the reality of the situation.
“I thought you came along today...” and suddenly, Aaron is surprised, Derek looks crushed and he's never had trouble with confidence before. The sheer number of people who would give anything for this moment and Aaron blinks like a deer in headlights. “I thought you knew. I'm sorry, we can go get dinner.”
“You know, you've been spitting out an awful lot of words to say nothing. Are you telling me you wanted to get me alone because you like me?” It sounds stupid, just saying it out loud.
“In less clinical terms, yes.”
“You could have just asked me out, you didn't need to trick me.”
“When?” Derek asks, and Aaron has to admit, it's a good point. They aren't exactly supposed to talk. “I played that song for you...I sent you soup...I don't know how much more obvious I could have been without being able to just talk to you.”
“Listen, they could cite you in direct violation of your contract for coming in here when you...”
“Aren't cleared to have cameras inside of an establishment that hasn't given written permission and I'm supposed to be on camera at all times except for when I am in the bathroom? I know...”
“If...wait...you read your contract? You...then why...”
“How else was I going to get you to notice me?” Aaron leans hard against the wall, feels the pulsing of the beat from the floor up into his legs.
“Derek,” Aaron says, clearly exasperated. It isn't that he's not interested, he's just flustered. “I watch your show EVERY DAY. I have nightmares every single night about it. Believe me, I notice you...”
“That's not what I mean. You watch the show for all of us, to smooth over shit we did that the network isn't going to like...I wanted you to notice ME.”
“Well...” Aaron mutters, pushing his mop of hair out of his eyes. “We have a few minutes...” And Derek grins. They don't move back to the dance floor, but they do crowd together in the corner and find that they both very, very much enjoy eachother's company...and lips.
On Day 34, Derek has been using the bathroom window to sneak down to Aaron's loft after hours for a week, climbing down the fire escape and staying until he can barely keep his eyes open. Aaron was surprised to find out that Derek, too, had gone to law school and even though they come from pretty different backgrounds they have a lot in common. Sheepishly, he admitted that he hadn't bothered to read the bios MTV had provided him with, he really couldn't imagine being interested in any of these people beyond just making sure they didn't sink the ship.
Day 45 has Aaron accidentally on camera, they have to blur out his face because he refuses to consent to his likeness on screen. The fans go wild trying to figure out who Derek is seen holding hands with, and kissing, outside of a sandwich shop. The fan mail doubles with desperation.
Day 54 brings a death threat, and Aaron is beside himself. It's written for him, and now the legal team is telling him he's got to stay away from Derek to keep them all safe. What the showrunners had originally thought would make them edgy and hip is now putting people in danger, they've got to pull back. They're beefing up security, and Derek has to do damage control by being seen with a number of different people, each time breaking Aaron's heart. He understands, he even recommended it, but that doesn't make it any easier.
By the end of the six months, MTV is begging Derek to take a job as a VeeJay, and he says yes because it means he gets to stay close to Aaron who has been given a promotion to the channel's legal team, unattached to a specific show. His mother is having a fit.
"What will I tell people? Your father is rolling over in his grave..."
"Let him."
Derek's first week hosting Yo! MTV Raps! is a success, and he's the most popular he's been. He's the face of MTV, and Aaron has his hands just as full - just because they're living together now doesn't mean he's given up on his antics. Aaron eats Tums by the handful and deals with it. Derek likes when he picks the tropical flavors better than mint, the kisses taste like candy.
“What did I do to deserve this kind of punishment?” he moans watching footage from the day, but he's in Derek's arms and he's smiling. So long as Derek works for MTV, Aaron has what he likes to call job security - his hands are full at all hours of the day keeping the station protected from his partner's antics. The job on The Real World was a stepping stone, he was right, he just hadn't seen where the path would lead him.
