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Granted, this doesn’t apply universally. You can’t exactly sham shock when you walk into your very first lecture in behavioral science hosted by none other than FBI (that word should’ve rung a bell) legend J. (as in Jason) Gideon and suddenly clock the ratio.

You may have misled yourself with the word behavioral. So much psychology. So little pew-pew guns. Which implied, naively, that actual brain usage would be required to succeed. And since consistent brain deployment is not exactly a statistically dominant trait among male specimens, the probability of a sausage party should’ve been low.

And yet. Hope is a powerful delusion.

Nothing screams sausage party quite like the good old FBI Academy in Quantico. Three versus twenty-four is… not ideal. It could be worse, sure - but it’s bad enough that the three of you instinctively sit next to each other. Out of solidarity? Perhaps. Survival feels much more accurate, though.

You’re still settling in when you overhear the murmur in front of you.

“Agent Cavenaugh transferred from the BAU to lead a team in ViCAP. The BAU’s running one agent short now,” says Unidentified Sausage #1 to Sausage #2.

“Agent Who?” Sausage #2 asks.

A third sausage chimes in. This one is sporting such an exemplary bowl cut that you consider submitting his headshot to Webster’s as the official visual definition.

“SSA Matthew Cavenaugh was the very first agent Rossi and Professor Gideon added after founding the unit. Specializes in sex crimes. He’s the one who caught the Daytona Rapist in under forty-eight hours-”

You don’t even have to look to know he leaned forward without being invited. The micro-tension in the other two’s jaws says it all. Apparently, no one likes a know-it-all sausage. Not even other sausages.

“He identified the unsub through victim pattern clustering and-” Yes, yes. Applause and confetti to this one Agent Cavenaugh for solving something in under forty-eight hours… boring!

And while we’re on terminology - can this even be called a sausage party if it’s just twenty-four sausages and minimal garnish?

Meaning - there’s something strange in the air. Electricity. Maybe an actual loose wire sparking somewhere behind the walls. Or maybe it’s just the collective voltage of concentrated male ego trapped in an enclosed academic space with poor ventilation and worse self-awareness.

Rumor has it Gideon is… particular.

Which, for people who did not accidentally stumble into the last ten minutes of one of his conferences last year and decide on the spot to reorient their entire professional trajectory, may be discouraging. Not everyone hears “temperamental genius” and thinks sign me up. So yes, perhaps the whispers filtered out a few of the faint-hearted.

Still. With all due respect, this course has fewer attendees than the excruciatingly dull crisis negotiation crash course you endure on Wednesdays. And that’s what’s strange. You can’t quite articulate it, but something just feels off.

“Good morning-”

Everyone instinctively double-checks their posture the second the door swings open and Jason Gideon strides in looking like a man who remembered he had a class approximately thirty seconds ago. He’s already halfway to the board before the door finishes swinging behind him.

Gideon doesn’t even apologize when the door nearly takes out the poor unfortunate soul trailing him.

The man sidesteps just in time to avoid being flattened and then - as if nothing unusual has happened, or more accurately as if nothing could have happened - takes up position beside the desk with the rigid composure of a Swiss Guard assigned to guard the Pope.

After approximately three seconds of observation, you have no doubt that this man has never experienced joy a single day in his life.

You’re not sure what’s more concerning - the complete absence of visible personality, or the fact that the only identifiable traits he seems to have are being tall and relentlessly committed to his job. He is, frankly, a little (very) terrifying.

He’s conventionally attractive, sure. But you’re not entirely convinced how anyone is supposed to cope if he brings that exact same constipated expression into the bedroom.

Gideon, on the other hand-

He’s… striking. In a way that feels hostilely out of place in an academic setting.

Even standing next to what you assume is his assistant - a much younger man (sausage number… you’ve lost count) with raven hair shellacked into place with an excessive amount of gel, dressed in the crispest black suit you’ve ever seen, tie included, for a class that technically starts at eight in the morning - Gideon still looks like he got dressed while thinking about something infinitely more important than impressing a room full of rookies.

Civilian clothes. Slightly rumpled, too. Oddly, it makes the whole thing feel more… intimate.

“I don’t know what terrible things you’ve done in your lives that resulted in you wanting to be seated in this room… but you’re here. Which already separates you from several hundred others who are not.”

It’s remarkable how Gideon manages to sound vaguely insulting while his body language remains ever so casual, like he’s chatting with friends over a beer.

“My name is Jason Gideon. This is Behavioral Analysis.” (As if anyone in this room didn’t already know that.) “Unlike many of my colleagues at this Academy, I’m not particularly interested in teaching large groups of people who will never use what they’re being taught. So before this course was announced, we reviewed your files.”

His gaze sweeps the room. The authority Agent Gideon carries is so destabilizing that even in the fraction of a second his gaze lands on you, it’s capable of both drying up your throat and setting your face on fire before he’s already moved on to dissect the next person.

“This room is what remained. So… congratulations. At some point in your very short professional lives, each of you managed to do something that suggested you might be capable of thinking. But the bad news is that behavioral analysis has very little to do with what most of you think profiling is.”

At that point, Gideon casually reaches over, grabs his assistant by the arm, and physically steers him away from where he’d been standing beside the desk. Surprisingly, the assistant allows this public manhandling with the resigned expression of a man who has clearly endured this maneuver before.

Gideon positions him in front of the class and gives him a single approving pat on the shoulder. The man looks… unexpressively elated.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, this is SSA Hotchner.”

Hotchner gives a brief nod to the room.

Gideon leans in and mutters something close to his face. You reconsider what you once believed were perfectly respectable lip-reading skills, because all you manage to catch is the beginning of an “Aaron-”, and only because he doesn’t lower his voice quite fast enough.

Hotchner responds with… yet another nod.

Apparently, his conversational style consists entirely of silent acknowledgments delivered in increasingly microscopic increments, since the man has yet to open his mouth even once. Either that, or if he does open it, the only thing that will come out is a bark. (Woof.)

Still, this line of inquiry becomes far less interesting when Gideon abruptly exits the classroom without warning, leaving the untalkative assistant (now the professor) behind to take the room hostage. Woah.

The only thing that feels certain now is that Coconut-Head Sausage is about to burst into flames if Agent Hotchner keeps openly squaring him like that. You didn’t even know swallowing could be audible, but evidently sausages do produce a remarkably distinct gulping sound under pressure.

“Unlike many of your other instructors at this Academy,” Agent Hotchner begins (so he can speak) “the Behavioral Science course is not designed to familiarize you with the theoretical frameworks of criminal psychology. We already expect you to be familiar with the foundational concepts. That knowledge is the minimum requirement to succeed in this class - and to participate in it.”

You already preferred him when he wasn’t talking.

Sausage #1 raises his hand… or rather, lifts it halfway and immediately starts talking, because apparently being a man comes with the optional feature of waiting for permission switched off.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa-” Ah. The animalistic register. Astounding. “Isn’t this a beginner course? You’re not gonna, like, teach us the types of serial killers and stuff like that?”

Agent Hotchner makes the face of a man who has just realized that the saying there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers is, in fact, complete bullshit. Still, he somehow keeps his expression composed enough.

“Agent Gideon and I introduced several modifications to the course this year,” he replies evenly, “with the objective of providing you with a more extensive understanding of both advanced theory and - more importantly, as Agent Gideon would argue - practical application. Not every unsub - that is, unknown subject - is a serial offender. However, every serial offender begins as an unknown subject.”

Ouch. A clean, surgical correction of Sausage #1’s terminology.

“- and every offender we study,” Hotchner continues, “will present a distinct behavioral structure.”

Coconut-head sausage in the very front row raises his hand. Unfortunately for him, Sausage #1 is operating under the assumption that manners are for lesser men.

“What do you mean?”

At least he hasn’t asked why it takes an extra thirty seconds to decode whatever Agent Hotchner is trying to say. The man speaks in such an aggressively formal register it sounds like he rehearsed the whole thing in front of a mirror beforehand like a fucking loser.

“I mean-” he repeats, probably on purpose. (You wonder whether, while selecting which tie best suited the occasion this morning, he also factored in the level of stress a room full of rookies would inevitably inflict on him) “each week you will be presented with either an active BAU investigation or a previously adjudicated case. You will be provided with the relevant materials, which you will analyze in order to formulate a working offender profile. If called upon, you will then defend your reasoning in discussion with us.”

Us. Will Agent Gideon actually be present for any of these discussions? Or was that dramatic appearance his entire teaching contribution for the semester? Why isn’t he here now?

Coconut Head raises his long, skeletal arm again, waiting to be acknowledged. This time Agent Hotchner allows it.

“Would the level of participation - and the accuracy of the conclusions we present - affect the final evaluation determining whether we pass the course?”

Oh. Someone has clearly been studying Hotchner’s linguistic operating system.

“Good question, Agent Reid.” Woah. So Agent Hotchner really did read everyone’s files if he already knows Coconut-Head’s name. That wasn’t just an intimidation tactic. “Yes, continuous performance will factor heavily into your evaluation. Additionally, this year the highest-performing trainee in this class will be offered the opportunity to work with the BAU. We are currently operating one agent short on the team. As you-”

But whatever clarification follows is immediately swallowed by the room detonating. (Figuratively, unfortunately.)

The collective reaction of twenty-four sausages discovering that their wildest professional fantasy might materialize two years ahead of schedule produces a level of noise that renders the rest of poor Agent Hotchner’s sentence completely unintelligible.

“…Cavenaugh-”

“…they’re replacing-”

“…that Daytona case agent-”

Somehow, it’s only thanks to the immediate explosion of sausage chatter around the room that you manage to piece together what he actually said. (Sausages can be useful sometimes… who would’ve thought.)

The competitive tension in the room begins thickening almost immediately. You’d bet Agent Hotchner’s perfectly sculpted hair this is about to devolve into one spectacularly unhealthy environment, and you are not thrilled about spending the next several months watching grown adults regress into elementary school tactics.

Starting with the way Agent Hotchner manages to silence an entire pandemonium with nothing more than a controlled gesture of his hand.

“During the semester,” he says, “you will also rotate through observational assignments with the BAU, based on your performance record. Consider those opportunities to demonstrate your capabilities.”

Like… real cases? With real agents?

“But remember this: in the field, you will not be solving theoretical exercises. You will be dealing with someone’s life. I would strongly encourage you to keep that as your priority - rather than impressing us. That, is what will make you a good agent.”

That’s a very noble sentiment. Because announcing that one person in this room gets a golden ticket to the BAU and then asking everyone not to compete for it is obviously going to work. That’s like handing someone a winning lottery ticket and saying, “Now remember: money isn’t everything.”

Sure thing, Agent Hotchner. We all live in a beautiful, ethical utopia where humans are famously immune to ambition. You almost envy that level of optimism.

Life must be incredibly peaceful when you believe things like that.

There’s an old saying (actually old this time) that goes: never meet your heroes.

You’d like to add a footnote: especially not when they come accompanied by a suited-up assistant with terrifying eyebrows who can somehow turn one perfectly innocent question from the teacher’s pet (or assistant’s pet, since Gideon has been mysteriously absent for the past hour and a half) into a thirty-minute legal dissertation on every statute Ted Bundy managed to violate on the night of his arrest.

You’re just that lucky… the exact moment your brain finally starts surrendering to the sweet, merciful pull of unconsciousness, Gideon materializes again in the projector beam.

“Everybody,” he says, as if he never left, “conference room in ten.”

That’s it. A man of very few words, apparently, because before anyone can attempt the radical concept of asking for clarification, he vanishes again. Hotchner follows him out immediately, just as silent. How riveting.

Also worth noting: there are, conservatively speaking, about twenty conference rooms in this building complex. Surely it would have been unreasonable to specify which one out of the two dozen we’re supposed to meet in.

And of course, given the delightfully competitive atmosphere Gideon and Hotchner have so thoughtfully cultivated, teamwork is clearly not an option. No one even considers coordinating, so all you can do is… take a guess.

Instinct (common sense) tells you Gideon probably doesn’t mean one of the Academy lecture halls. The man already seems to have forgotten he was teaching this class once today, so there’s no reason to believe he suddenly developed the organizational discipline required to reserve a room in advance for a group of trainees he clearly does not give a shit about. Much more likely, he meant the actual BAU conference room.

Perfect. Problem one solved.

Problem two: you have no fucking idea where the hell it actually is, other than somewhere in the impossibly sprawling Federal Towers on the opposite side of where you currently are at the Academy. And time is not on your side.

You’re slightly (generously speaking) hoarse from running through a maze of entrances, being redirected by a series of equally unhelpful people who have all, somehow, pointed you in completely different directions before funneling you… here. By the time you reach the right lobby, you’re running on fumes.

In a rush, you shove your name at the secretary just long enough for her to slap a visitor badge onto your chest, gesture ambiguously (is she… is she fisting…?) toward the elevators, and dismiss you without a single word, not even a hint of which elevator you’re supposed to take. Good enough?

You pick one at random. There isn’t enough time to rely on the Tibetan method. The building is far too sprawling for logic to be useful, which leaves luck as the only operational strategy.

The elevator stops at six consecutive floors. Every time the doors open you lean halfway out to check whether you’ve accidentally arrived at Accounting, Counterterrorism, IT...

Finally, the doors slide open onto the BAU floor. You step out just in time. Only about half the class made it.

If the behavioral science class qualifies as a sausage party, then the BAU, at first glance, operates on an entirely different scale of sausage production. This is industrial level. A full processing facility.

Agents - all of whom somehow look and dress suspiciously like Agent Hotchner to the point you begin to wonder if this is actually a family business - move everywhere in very expensive dress shoes. There are so many of them cutting across the floor at once that you and the other trainees end up squeezed into a corner near the parapet, safely out of the traffic pattern.

Papers move constantly from desk to desk, to printer and back again. The combined cacophony of keyboards and mouse clicks firing off in every direction is already making you consider forcing every single agent into a constricting shirt, one by one, just to make it stop. Even your internal monologue is struggling to compete.

This place has a way of stripping you of your individuality and blending you into the average of the rest of the sausages.

All it takes is one quick glance into those vacant eyes to realize every trainee standing beside you is imagining the exact same thing at the exact same time: which one of these desks might someday - hopefully very soon - become theirs.

Which one out of the horde of messy corner desks clustered in the middle of the open floor plan will eventually hold their stationery, their photographs, their case files. Small attempts to reclaim some personality from the slow bureaucratic suction the Bureau seems determined to apply to every last one of you. At least, that appears to be how most agents here cope.

Except for one.

The desk on your far right looks like it belongs in an entirely different building.

Immaculately clean. So aggressively clean, in fact, that the gigantic framed picture of the American flag with a bald eagle becomes agonizingly visible to your sleep deprived eyes. As if this place needed any additional reinforcement of nationalism.

Does anyone here truly benefit from having an extra American flag within arm's reach at all times?

If this man (it has to be a sausage, because no woman alive would willingly decorate a desk this bleakly) were not obnoxious enough already, there is also a glass paperweight with the White House trapped inside it. Why.

But the real offense sits neatly arranged along one edge of the desk, positioned so that every single one of them is visible while still occupying the absolute minimum amount of space possible. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Seven trophies. Seven trophies and not even a picture. Ouch.

“Out of all these guys, who do you think is the loser overcompensating for having no friends with official validation from the Bureau?” you ask the bright-eyed assistant’s pet. (You forgot his name already. Coconut-head sausage.)

“That would be me.”

The voice comes from directly behind you, from a sausage standing exactly where your back has been comfortably leaning against the parapet.

You would have to be spectacularly obtuse not to recognize it after spending the better part of the day hoping it would choke on its own legal jargon while explaining statutes and procedural bullshit. You suddenly feel a profound reluctance to turn around.

Unfortunately, you have to.

The terrifying lack of space between Agent Hotchner’s thick eyebrows and his eyes makes you seriously consider employing the classic prey strategy of playing dead in the hope that the predator will lose interest and wander off. Although, admittedly, it may already be too late for that.

Realistically speaking, on a scale from one to ten, how hopeless are your chances of winning the grand prize of working here if you’ve already managed to land yourself on the professor’s assistant’s kill list on day one? Especially factoring in the teeny tiny detail that this is also the very first impression he has of you.

“Where’s the rest of the class?” he asks in that particular annoyed tone that implies everyone in the room already owes him something.

A verbal response is somewhat out of the question at the moment, so you lift one shoulder in the universal gesture for I have absolutely no fucking idea, while his terrifying eyes remain fixed on you, patiently waiting for a satisfactory answer that, unfortunately, does not exist.

He sighs, disappointed, as if you are personally responsible for wasting precious time he could have maybe spent polishing his seven already spotless trophies. He pulls out his phone and calls someone, about something you are far too deep in survival mode to even attempt to overhear.

Agent Hotchner’s eyes stay locked on you for the entire duration of the phone call. (Play dead. Play dead.)

“While we wait for the rest of your colleagues to catch up, I could walk you through the BAU and show you around,” he says, projecting his voice.

There must be a glitch in the matrix, because you just witnessed Agent Hotchner raise the slightest corner of his mouth. You suddenly understand why he never does it. The deep dimples carved into his cheeks soften his face so much he ends up looking disorientingly approachable. Too bad the gay (as in joyful. Allegedly.) expression disappears the second his eyes land back on you.

You are so fucked.

Still, you can take a small amount of comfort in the fact that if your assessment of Agent Hotchner’s trophies had been wrong, he probably would’ve corrected you, right?

There are three different clocks on the wall opposite where you are sitting in the conference room. If Agent Hotchner hadn’t positioned himself directly beside you at the side table, you could at least enjoy the small comfort of verifying with physical evidence that Gideon is, in fact, late across all three time zones: DC, London, and Tokyo.

You have to admit, that takes a special kind of talent. It’s a shame the whole thing is just an adynaton.

“The case we’ll begin with today is an unsolved series of homicides that occurred in San Francisco between 1974 and 1975,” Gideon says, switching on the TV of the conference room.

You cannot decide whether it is more uncomfortable taking notes while standing or doing it with Agent Hotchner’s cold breath hovering somewhere near the side of your neck. You attempt a cautious glance in his direction from the corner of your eye, but your gaze ends up meeting his.

Shit.

Luckily, it seems you both arrive at the same silent agreement to pretend that never happened, judging by the way you simultaneously snap your attention back to Gideon at the exact same moment.

Still. Is a person not entitled to take their own notes in peace, free from judgment, especially while representing the federal government of the so-called free world? Is that truly too much to ask? These are American values, Agent Hotchner. He, of all people, should be the first to respect and defend them.

(Hopefully… perhaps the bald eagle was a façade all along.)

“Five confirmed homicide victims. Possibly more we’re unaware of. All male. All between the ages of twenty-five and forty-two.” (Okay Gideon, could you please slow the fuck down. You are not a typewriter.) “All connected to San Francisco's gay community in the mid-1970s. Each victim was stabbed multiple times, between-”

(Slow. The Fuck. Down.)

The sudden weight of a single thick, very hairy finger pressing lightly on your notepad makes your pen wobble across the page.

What the fuck does this man want from you now.

“The title is victimology, not victims,” Agent Hotchner murmurs. You stare down at the page, where his middle finger (is he flipping you off?) is currently pointing at your hastily scribbled heading.

You decide not to dignify the correction with a response, mostly because something tells you he would not appreciate the very sincere “fuck you” you are wholeheartedly reserving for him.

“The first body was found in a secluded area around 2 a.m. near Ocean Beach, a well-known hookup spot within the queer community at the time. No identification on him, but fingerprints later identified the victim as Gerald Cavenaugh.”

If you had a penny for every time that last name had surfaced today, you would have two pennies.

Which is not a lot, but it is still enough to make ex-BAU poster boy Agent Cavenaugh personally responsible for the minor cardiac event you experience every time Agent Hotchner's breathing pattern changes slightly behind you while you write something he might not agree with.

“The caller who reported the body to 911 gave no name.”

You underline the detail.

In some cases, offenders may initiate contact with law enforcement following the crime. Indeed, the call can serve multiple functions: facilitating the discovery of the body, asserting a degree of control over the sequence of events, and reinforcing the offender’s internal perception of dominance within the narrative.

Your stomach churns.

You hate that you are starting to second-guess your own reasoning, purely because the simple act of underlining something in your notes seems to trigger a full butterfly-effect cascade, set off by nothing more than the shift of air beside you when, out of the corner of your eye, you catch Agent Hotchner raising a single eyebrow at the page.

Maybe he thinks your reasoning is stupid. (Maybe it really is?)

Or maybe the caller just did not want to identify himself because being seen at a queer hookup spot at two in the morning in the 1970s carried consequences far worse than being considered a witness (or even a suspect) in a homicide.

You write down context, just to make sure you do not forget it.

“The second victim was twenty-seven-year-old Joseph Stevens, known as Jay, a drag performer. Before he was identified, police treated the case as a mugging because his wallet was missing from the scene. His body was found in a dark alley roughly an hour’s walk from North Beach, where his car had been left outside the bar where he worked, which now suggests he may have left willingly with the offender. At the time, however, investigators did not consider the murder connected to the first case.”

“Even in San Francisco, in 1974, the police did not treat everyone equally,” Agent Hotchner mutters under his breath. Groundbreaking. A sausage recognizing systemic inequality. (So lame.)

“No kidding,” you murmur back.

You lose a good portion of whatever Gideon says next thanks to this unexpected Hotchner allyship. You wish you had the institutional authority to stab his large hand with your pen just to discourage further collaboration.

“…the third victim escalated into significantly more overkill. The crime scene was reported to be so bloody it approached near decapitation. Then a cooling-off period of nearly a year. In 1975, another body was recovered on the beach-”

“Is this the cold case of the San Francisco Doodler?” Coconut-head sausage cuts in. (There we go.)

Gideon turns to him with a proud little smile (you hate it here), then follows it with a quick glance toward Hotchner, his expressive brows lifting ever so slightly. The exchange might be silent, but it is by no means subtle.

You swear there is an entire conversation happening in that look. Using girl code in a room full of sausages would have been a brilliant strategy… if only it were actually just sausages sitting here.

It is all there, in the very specific way Agent Hotchner’s mouth pulls into that obnoxiously restrained smirk. The kind of expression a man only allows himself when he gets to say I told you so without actually saying it. Maybe what he is really saying is, ‘Look. I told you he would be impressive.’

“‘Yes, Agent Reid, you are correct.” You can hear the smile in Hotchner’s voice. You see green.

Was everyone supposed to recognize this case on sight? Are you the only idiot in the room who did not walk in with a pre-installed encyclopedic knowledge of obscure 1970s homicide investigations?

“It’s interesting that they only form a task force at this point,” Reid continues, visibly energized, which is… maybe a little tone-deaf. “Up until then, the cases of SFPD were worked by shift. Investigators would handle whatever came in and then pass it along, so information became fragmented across reports with no continuity. That structure makes pattern recognition extremely difficult. Once this body is found and the similarities become undeniable, SFPD consolidates the cases into a single investigation and assigns a dedicated task force, identifying the presence of a serial offender only at that stage.”

#WhoCares (It is actually interesting. You just did not know that. Still.)

#DoYouWantACookie

#YourHopesToWorkHereAreGone because Gideon is nodding along the entire time, not even attempting to conceal that proud smile. Please. You’re not sure it’s even worth the effort to continue listening as attentively to the rest.

“The next victim was a nurse. The body was found on the same beach where the first victim was recovered, but in a different location. There were signs of a struggle, which may explain the increased blood at the scene. Like the previous victim, he had been seen at a gay bar prior to his death. The same bar. There were also reports of a man lingering outside the establishment, sketching patrons as they entered and exited.”

Oh… so that is why the press called him the Doodler. You have to admit, it is possibly the least intimidating nickname a serial killer has ever been given.

“By the time police began focusing on this individual, there was another victim. June 1975. Male. Severely decomposed. The body was almost mummified, which meant no usable fingerprints. The medical examiner estimated the body had been left in shrubbery between ten days and a month.”

You pause over your notes. The so-called cooling-off period suddenly feels… questionable. Was it really a year? Or was it just a year before anyone bothered to connect the dots? High control, or just low attention? This investigation looks sloppy as hell.

“The most interesting aspect of this case, in my opinion, is that more than one victim survived,” Gideon says.

You cannot help but notice Agent Reid nodding along like this is the most obvious thing in the world. He does not even need to take notes.

“The first survivor arrived at the ER stabbed and covered in blood. He refused to file a report. Refused to cooperate if his name would be attached to the case. He was a European diplomat.”

High-profile job, higher risk of being outed. Once again, context doing half of the unsub’s job for him.

“He stated he met the offender around two in the morning after eating at a diner near the same bar where the suspect had been seen sketching. The offender accompanied him back to his apartment, spent an unusual amount of time in the bathroom, and when the victim approached the door, he was stabbed in the back with a steak knife. During the attack, the offender said, ‘All you guys are alike.’”

Every single sausage perks up. Finally, something they can take apart: motive + projection. Clean labels they can assemble into a profile in seconds. You are certain half the room already has theirs ready.

You would bet twenty dollars on it with Agent Hotchner, if only he were even remotely capable of fun. He is probably wondering why you have written down one single sentence and are not scribbling furiously like everyone else.

“The same statement was later reported by another surviving victim, who lived in the same apartment building as the diplomat and also remained anonymous. Police linked the attacks through that phrase. A third surviving victim later emerged, a public figure, an actor, who ended the encounter early after noticing a knife in the offender’s pocket. He would not come forward publicly either.”

Of course he would not. Because why would anyone, in this context.

“A suspect was eventually brought in following a tip from the secretary of a psychiatric doctor. He had been treated in the psychiatric department of the same hospital where two of the surviving victims were treated. According to the tip, during sessions, the suspect confessed to the murders.”

You are not a prosecutor, but you still jot down ‘doctor-patient privilege -> cannot be used to incriminate’ out of instinct more than anything. Out of the corner of your eye, you feel Hotchner shift slightly.

Is he still reading your notes? For fuck’s sake.

He mutters something that is completely incomprehensible.

“What?” you say. (As in what the fuck are you saying, but streamlined for public consumption.)

He glances toward Gideon, still talking, then back down at your notebook with that terrifying glare. One slow exhale through his nose (neuron activated), and suddenly your notebook is no longer in your hand.

You’re left fuddled by how quickly it happens. The fleeting warmth of his fingers brushing yours barely registers against your skin as he confiscates your property, and somehow, you end up meeting his gaze.

For a split second, he looks almost human. The words get stuck in your throat, and not just because, for once, your self-preservation instincts are doing their job and reminding you not to mouth off to someone who outranks you in every conceivable way.

Agent Hotchner pulls out his own penisfrom his jacket. A nearly dead black ballpoint. Which is… something, considering the Rolex on his wrist.

For some reason, you find yourself smiling at the realization that, from this one tiny detail, you now know his jackets - and probably his pants too, because go big or go home, right - are custom-made just to accommodate the fact that he’s left-handed.

Which immediately makes you wonder what other microscopic adjustments he insists on controlling, far beyond just inner pockets.

He writes quickly. You spot an asterisk appear next to your note, but then his hand is too broad, covering whatever War and Peace footnote he’s adding underneath. When he hands the notebook back, it almost looks like he makes a deliberate effort to grip it by the short edge this time, ensuring there is absolutely no repeat of the accidental finger contact.

He lifts his brows, gives a small nod. Look. Not a single word is exchanged.  And you are simply respecting his very real aversion to interrupting Gideon’s dissertation with something as offensively mundane as small talk.

There is an entire science behind handwriting that you wish you knew, if only to explain why Agent Hotchner writes like a girl.

Annoyingly pretty cursive. No hearts over the i’s, unfortunately. Tucked neatly under your line, like an actual footnote, taking up the least amount of space possible, he has written:

Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 1976, California Supreme Court. Communications made in therapy are generally protected under doctor-patient privilege and cannot be subpoenaed as evidence. However, if a patient poses a serious and imminent (underlined) threat to an identifiable (underlined) victim, the clinician has a duty to warn or protect, and confidentiality may be breached in that context. Outside of that exception, the records remain privileged.

Oh! You drag your pen over the parts he underlined. “So the reason they couldn’t arrest him, and the case went cold, is because they couldn’t identify another victim? Like… a specific person. A name?”

Agent Hotchner’s smile (with a sliver of actual teeth… he looks so stupid) tells you you’ve landed exactly where he wanted you to go.

When his eyes catch the light, unobstructed for once by those permanently disapproving eyebrows, they are a surprisingly warm hazel. It almost distracts you from the fact that this entire legal framework might have helped a serial offender stay free.

A light tap of his index finger against your notebook. Pay attention. Okay, just say you’re boring next time, Agent Hotchner.

“He had originally sought treatment because of his attraction to men,” Gideon continues, reading from the file. “During police interrogation, he denied being the killer… but not everything. He claimed he had been ‘reformed.’ Said he had struggled with same-sex attraction since he was thirteen. Said therapy had cured him.”

Gideon closes the file. Not a good sign. “Now build me a profile of the unsub.”

Oh, like this? Without even taking you to dinner first?

“The unknown subject is organized. Probably above-average intelligence, since he is comfortable approaching strangers in public,” says Unidentified Sausage #1.

Gideon tilts his head, unimpressed. Next.

“Sexually conflicted,” offers another voice from somewhere in the back. “He targets men because he hates that he’s attracted to them.”

You wince at the phrasing. Gideon does not look impressed either.

“Mission-oriented, since he used the word cured when he was interrogated” says another sausage.

“No,” Agent Reid cuts in, “actually, the variation in the presentation of the victims suggests an emotional escalation - or, more accurately, a devolution - rather than a real consistent ideological mission. The increasing level of overkill indicates affective dysregulation, most likely tied to some sort of unresolved internal conflict. It could be interpreted as a kind of behavioral rehearsal, like an attempt to destroy a part of himself he’s unable to either reconcile or integrate.”

That one lands much better, as Gideon’s expression is no longer bordering on disgust… he’s actually nodding along.

“Yes. We’re on the right track.”

They keep going. Intelligent. Repressed. Ashamed. Organized. Socially competent. White-collar. Possibly religious. Probably from a strict background. Hates effeminacy because he associates it with his own desires. Targets gay men as symbolic stand-ins for himself. And none of it is wrong.

“Hotch, want to give it a try and tell them what they’re missing?” Gideon asks. (Wait. Does Agent Hotchner actually let people call him Hotch, or is that some bizarre little pet name that exists exclusively between the two of them?)

Hotchner shakes his head first, like he’s trying to play it cool, but being this close to him lets you catch the small glint in his eyes that betrays how badly he wants this.

“The offender is organized enough to approach victims without raising suspicion, but once the violence starts, he loses control. That suggests he’s not fully directing what’s happening in the moment. It’s more likely he’s acting out something that’s been building internally for a long time, and once it starts, it overrides everything else.”

Yeah… figures. Nobody is truly shy if they clear their throat before beginning the sermon. And he keeps going.

“The level of overkill points to that loss of control. Each stab is releasing tension. It regulates him, at least temporarily, and gives him an ephemeral sense of control he doesn’t otherwise have. This is why he presents as a power-control offender with sadistic features, rather than a classic hedonistic sadist.”

Woah. Okay. Show-off Agent Hotchner. With a mind like that, it makes sense why he is the way he is (an obnoxious cocksucker? Just… unfortunately justified.)

And judging by the way every sausage in the room suddenly looks like they’re collectively reconsidering their entire sexuality for the first time in their lives… well. What is that even called? What do you even call that feeling? That kind of humbling admiration you get when someone is so undeniably good at what they do that being completely outmatched starts to feel… a little attractive?

“If the victims operate as symbolic proxies, the violence becomes an attempted psychic eradication of something in himself he can’t tolerate. Desire is experienced as destabilizing or humiliating; gratification is followed by dysphoria, and the violence is his way of restoring balance. That also explains the nature of the attack. The penetrative violence may be compensatory - a way of addressing perceived inadequacy, whether psychological or sexual. And as we’ve seen with this type of offender, it can also function as a physical substitute for release-“

“Intelligence level?” Gideon cuts Hotchner off in the middle of everyone practically drooling over their notes. (You’ve jotted down a few terms too… proxies, dysphoria. Look at you. Sounding like you actually know your shit.)

“Well, his social presentation appears constructed. He relies on observation and the mirroring of others’ behavior to pass as socially competent, which requires strong pattern recognition and adaptive learning. If he can read interactional cues well enough to appear safe - even disarming - and persuade victims to bring him into their own homes, his functional social intelligence is likely above average, possibly high.”

You… don’t know. You’re not convinced he has to be a genius when the police themselves were enforcing moral codes in San Francisco at the time.

Gideon nods once. “Everyone agrees with Agent Hotchner?”

A wave of collective nodding.

Really? Maybe they just don’t have the balls to disagree with someone who has seen more than all of you combined. Maybe you’re wrong. Gideon somehow keeps scanning the room anyways, face by face, until he gets to you.

“You don’t seem convinced.”

Your throat dries instantly. Oh. Oh no. Is he talking to you? Directly? Your eyes feel like they are about to drop out and do a flip.

“Um. Yeah, I-”

Gideon raises an eyebrow, like that is some kind of behavioral green light for you to keep going. And of course, Agent Hotchner turns toward you at that exact moment. You can feel the heat radiating off his suit, which is not helping you think straight in the slightest. What if you really play dead? Also… why does Agent Hotchner smell so nice now that he is this close?

What do you even say?

How do you politely disagree with someone who is infinitely more experienced than you, in proper English (optional), while also acknowledging that the very fact you disagree probably means you’re the one who’s wrong?

“I… disagree.” Whoops. It even comes out sounding more like a question. Great. You immediately drop your gaze to your notes. There is absolutely no universe in which you are making eye contact with a room full of people currently holding metaphorical pitchforks. One word does stare back at you, though.

Context?

Ocean Beach. North Beach. Same bar. Same reluctance to report. Same police force that did not care until the body count became a little too inhumane to ignore.

“I don’t think he’s smart,” you say. Shit, that sounds even worse out loud. “The unsub. Not Agent Hotchner.”

A chuckle from Gideon. You can practically feel Agent Hotchner’s gaze spear straight through your skull.

…too late to play dead?

“I think we’re profiling him as if he’s operating in a vacuum. He’s not… not really. The social context is doing part of the work for him, since his victims are already conditioned not to report, not to identify themselves, not to trust the police, to the point that they would rather bleed out than come forward. That definitely lowers the risk of the crime.”

“Can you tell me the definition of a low-risk and high-risk crime?” Hotch cuts in out of nowhere, turning sharply to lock his eyes onto yours. (Is this his way of dismantling your entire point just because you didn’t fully agree with him?)

You swallow. You really wish they had covered the basics first, like any normal course, instead of throwing you into this golden-ticket, performative guesswork with no theoretical foundation to stand on.

“It’s… about exposure, I think… like… how likely it is that the offender gets seen or interrupted. So a high-risk crime would be more public, or involve victims who are reported quickly. More witnesses… more chances something goes wrong.”

You hate the way Agent Hotchner is looking at you. You can practically read not good enough spelled out in those shadowed pupils.

You’re sure the concept is there. You have it. But the certainty starts slipping the moment you catch fragments of Reid’s perfectly polished, textbook answer being muttered under his breath, like the question had always been meant for him.

“And low-risk is the opposite,” you push on. “More controlled, less visible… victims who maybe aren’t reported immediately or aren’t taken as seriously - like in this case - so there’s less pressure on the offender.”

You have never wanted a room to detonate as badly as you do right now. Is there a window nearby? Something structurally unsound you can quietly launch yourself through?

“Partially.” The way he says it somehow sounds a lot like you suck. “You’re describing the outcome. Be careful to define the mechanism.” (What in the corporate bullshit is this?)

And then he proceeds to say something that, to you, sounds exactly like what you just said… only dressed up in much fancier language… except that this time everyone and their mothers are nodding along. If there’s some nuanced, groundbreaking distinction in whatever he’s saying, you are clearly not getting it.

“You should watch the words you use, they can shift the meaning entirely. Even earlier, you phrased your point in a way that made it sound like you were attributing his success to a passive set of circumstances, rather than to his skills and his active exploitation of the context he’s operating in.”

Bitch-

“No, I mean - yeah, he understands the system. He knows where to go, how to approach, how to use those environments to his advantage. He’s not just stumbling into it or something… but that doesn’t automatically make him highly intelligent. He’s choosing victims who are deprioritized from the start in police investigations, and that lowers the risk before he even does anything.”

You can hear yourself looping. Same point, slightly rearranged, again and again, and he still looks unconvinced.

“The point is…” you try one last time, “the system is already doing half the work for him. Does that make sense?”

“It does to me.” (THANK YOU, DADDY GIDEON, THANK YOU) “I was waiting for that. Thank you.” J. - as in Jason Gideon, one of the founding fathers of behavioral science, the man who practically coined the concept of the ‘serial killer’ - is thanking you?

It feels electric… even if he barely spares you a glance before turning back to the class.

“Everyone sees the elephant so clearly that they start describing it in such detail they forget it is standing in a room to begin with.”

(What the hell does that even mean.)

“The reason we start with victimology, and with contextual and situational analysis, is to keep ourselves from jumping to conclusions and overcomplicating things just to sound clever. You all want to talk about high IQ, intricate planning, sophistication? Fine. Keep going and you’ll end up nowhere while putting more innocent lives at risk.”

You don’t miss the way Gideon’s gaze keeps flicking toward Hotchner. At this point, there’s no mistaking it. He is, in fact, calling his own assistant/protégé/puppy/whatever an idiot without ever actually saying the word, and doing it in front of the entire class like it’s nothing.

So the rumors about Gideon were true.

“I’m looking at a moron who got lucky and keeps getting away with it because his victims are low risk in the eyes of the system. You’re all so busy building him into something impressive that you’re missing what’s right in front of you.”

You almost feel sorry for Agent Hotchner. None of this is technically your fault, but there is absolutely no universe in which you’re turning around to look him in the eye right after he just got publicly dismantled.

He’s already terrifying under normal circumstances. You have no interest in discovering what he looks like when he’s actually enraged.

Safe to say, you are no longer factoring in his endorsement for your future employment here. (Possibly ever since… the desk comment.)

You viciously envy every princess who ever spent years locked away in a tower by their evil stepmother.

At least they had the luxury of solitude. None of them had to endure it in the company of two frat boys, trapped in a forgotten, dusty room in the Federal Tower, sentenced to paperwork duty by the ever-charitable Agent Hotchner, while Gideon is… somewhere (which raises the real question: does Gideon even know where Gideon is?)

If surprise is the path to knowledge, then at this point you should be smarter than Gideon’s favorite golden boy, Agent Reid.

Because you never expected to become more knowledgeable about what a frat party looks like (without ever having set foot in one), thanks to Agents Millstone and Kepler, who have been excessively, relentlessly proving they peaked in a house that smelled like sweaty balls twenty-four hours a day…

…than you are about whether any of the metaphorical mental sweat you’re pouring into these consultation profiles - that may or may not ever be read by anyone who matters - is actually worth anyone’s time or resources.

Actually, correction. In this situation, you are the resource sitting behind the (modest) pile of case files on your desk, already four rounds of rejection deep.

First, they’re the cases Agent Hotchner doesn’t deem worthy of BAU field supervision, so they get passed down to the senior agents in the bullpen. Rejected. Then to the office agents. Rejected again. Then to the interns. Rejected again. And finally, to you and the two frat-boy sausages ergo, Student Agents on Office Duty. (S.A.O.D. but the O is silent.)

Apparently, this is a privilege reserved for the students on Gideon’s radar. A chance to apply theory neither Gideon nor Hotchner - devout believers in innate genius - ever bothered to teach. The profiles you work on are allegedly taken into account for the final evaluation, which, considering the semester is almost over, should be reassuring.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. (It is not.) It started smelling like sweaty balls in here too the moment you first realized - thankfully weeks ago - that none of this is actually being tracked.

 The consultation files you’re working on don’t carry any identifying number - nothing that links a profile back to its author, since none of you technically works at the BAU. (Oh, and at the end of each shift, everything gets also dumped into a single pile by some designated intern. #Yay.)

Not that anyone cares enough to fix it. No one has the time to follow how many cases you’ve worked, whether your profiles were accurate, or if you’re improving. And even if they did, these cases are simply not worth the effort.

You could be brilliant. You could be completely wrong. You could be reworking the same case file you already touched days ago by accident because someone messed up the piles again - which would not even be the first time.

Functionally, it makes no difference.

In the grand scheme of things, you are indistinguishable from Agent Kepler, still the reigning ASU keg-stand champion to this day, and at the exact same time, you are still four degrees of separation away from Agent Reid, who has been out in the field with Gideon since week one.

There has to be a silver lining. In your case, it’s small.

You always pick the desk with its back against the wall separating you from an even dustier storage room filled with what look like untouched relics from the 70s, where – supposedly - the original interrogation tapes that kickstarted the BAU, conducted by Gideon and Rossi, are kept.

(Rumor has it there’s even one on Charles Manson… too bad no one is cleared to get in there).

Anyways. Everyone knows all archives are haunted. You don’t know what, exactly, inhabits this one, but you decide to take your chances. With the heel of your foot, you start tapping against the wall in semblances of Morse code.

HELP ME. ANYONE? (You keep tapping. Again. And again. Okay, maybe too many times. At this point it’s less about expecting a response and more about needing something to hold on to.)

So much so that you’re halfway convinced you’ve finally gone coocoo-bananas - somewhere between Agent Millstone saying the word “chick” for the thirty-sixth time and the slow, irreversible erosion of your will to live - when something taps back.

WHATS (You’re almost sure that last one was an S.) WRONG?

You’ve hit the jackpot.

There’s a very real possibility that one of the janitors is in there. Earlier, you saw Mr. Specter on duty in the south wing (which, honestly, feels thematically appropriate given the ghost situation). He’s a big Madonna fan. Solid guy. If there’s anyone who can get you out of here, it’s him.

You are so excited you rush through it, hoping it still makes sense-

FRAT BOYS.

The prince of your story is finally coming to rescue you from your exile, armed with his trusty mopping cart and - he did promise he’d show you once he got it done - a brand-new tattoo of Madonna’s face inked onto his strong, double-jointed (!) forearm.

At last. Salvation. Natural light from the full-height windows in the corridor spills through the narrow crack of the door, cutting into the darkness and outlining your rescuer from behind-

…in a custom-tailored suit?

Wait. No. No. Go back. You’ve successfully avoided him for months, and now-

“Agent-” You despise the way he says your name, so monotone. “I need you.” 

Talk about a double meaning… although, if he sounds this deadpan even on his 2 a.m. calls, you doubt it’s ever convinced anyone to sleep with him.

“Grab your go-bag and meet me in the lobby as soon as you can.”

“Yes, sir.” 

It sounds like an invitation. Badly phrased, sure - low effort, even lower enthusiasm - but still. An invitation to the grand royal ball is still an invitation to the grand royal ball.

Field work! Actual field work! Finally, after months of exile in the administrative oubliette, you’re being presented to court, summoned, no less, by the highest order of behavioral aristocracy (Gideon? It has to be Gideon.)

Agent Hotchner does not strike you as someone who hands out opportunities for personal growth, and even if he did, you’re fairly certain you’d be last on the list. If you made it onto it at all.

“Be quick,” he deadpans. Ah yes. The carriage awaits. He looks… faintly disgusted. Incredible. The only redeeming quality you’ve managed to identify in Agent Hotchner is his remarkable consistency in proving you right.

Farewell, frat boys. Hello, Supervisory Special Agent Aaron “still bitter about your day-one comment that got him indirectly embarrassed by Gideon in front of the entire class” Hotchner. What a gentle reminder that rock bottom always has a basement!

Because there is absolutely no universe in which Agents Millstone and Kepler would have greeted you by checking the time on an expensive Rolex, as if you’d taken an eternity to reach the lobby, with that same restrained disappointment already settling on their faces.

(What now.)

“It’s going to be a two-hour drive…” So the basement of rock bottom also has a basement. “And we’re already running late, so I grabbed dinner for you from the cafeteria. We won’t be making any stops.”

You offer him a strained smile. He doesn’t even bother to return it. Instead, he just hands you the bag with the incriminating items. You peek inside. A sandwich. A water bottle. And… some nuts. Wow. Dazzling.

“Thank you-” There’s an incidental, teeny-tiny brush of fingers as he pulls his hand back.

“I’m good right now,” you add quickly. It’s also something-past five in the afternoon, but his eye contact always feels so accusatory that it keeps shaping more words out of your tongue whether you like it or not. “Maybe later. Thank you, though.”

“No food inside my car.” (Then why the fuck did he even-)

You don’t say it lightly when the only viable survival strategy left is to shove a handful of nuts into your mouth and hope for the best - as in, basic sustenance - while he keeps walking at least one foot ahead of you like you’re being escorted to trial. 

He reaches the car first and lifts the trunk open with one hand, letting out a small, offended grunt of effort, only to immediately steal your go-bag from your hand - an involuntary brush of fingers - and place it inside alongside his. His eyes flick to the goodie bag still in your hand (maybe stare less and talk more next time, Agent Hotchner.) 

“Want some nuts?” you offer.

He shakes his head, already rummaging through his own bag for files, completely uninterested. You feel the very strong feminine urge to poke at whatever remains of his emotional range.

“Why, you don’t like nuts?”

Nothing. You’re not even sure how to interpret the expression on his face - disappointment? Disgust? - because he doesn’t give you enough to work with. The most you get is an exhale through his nose as he stares at the bag like he’s actively solving the trolley problem.

“You can keep the water,” he decides, extending it toward you. Wow. They should really start calling him Aaron Philanthropist Hotchner, the way he’s graciously granting you permission to consume beverages in his vehicle. Your fingers brush his again. 

“Watch your head,” he adds, closing the trunk - despite you being very clearly outside of guillotine range.

He walks all the way around to the passenger side and opens the door for you…

Not to be mistaken for gallantry, of course. There is no soft, romcom-type eye contact (honestly, you’re not even sure he’s capable of that) just a very deliberate avoidance of your existence as he stares, visibly pissed off, somewhere into the void while you get in.

(Don’t worry, Hotchner. The feeling is mutual. You don’t want to spend two hours locked in a vehicle with him either.)

“We’re going to Yorktown, here in Virginia.” Hotchner hands you the generous gift of two thick case files as he starts the car. “There’s a stretch of road called Hemlock Trace. It’s a heritage drive with old logging paths-”

He reaches behind your headrest to reverse out of the parking space. The warm note of tonka bean - something he must’ve put on his wrist - finally comes alive this close, the saccharinity drawn out by the heat of his skin, leaving the lingering ghost of a touch just behind your neck.

“So… isolated, no lighting and all that?” you blurt, as if rushing him might make him get back to a normal, respectable distance faster. What an annoyingly inviting scent for such an uninviting man.

He’s taking up entirely too much space. All you’re left with is the sharp line of his profile - the prominent nose, the furrow between his brows, the way his lips press into a thin line as he concentrates - while he maneuvers the car effortlessly.

You can’t help but wonder how many people he’s managed to fool with his looks into overlooking the fact that he’s a complete dickhead.

“Exactly,” he says. “It’s heavily frequented during the day, but at night it becomes very secluded. Every mile or so there are gravel pull-offs - during the day they’re used by hikers, fishermen. At night…”

“They’re a great hookup spot,” you finish. You catch the way his eyes flick to you in the rearview mirror. (What? Is hookup a restricted term now?)

“And I’m guessing it’s a damn jurisdictional nightmare,” you add, quickly going through the file. “Northern stretch falls under the Williamsburg Historical Greenway Authority, so park rangers… then Yorktown County, then East Jamestown, then it skirts the county line before jumping back to state near the dam… and some sections are state patrol too?”

You glance up, catch Agent Hotchner’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Just for a moment. He meets your eyes for half a second, then returns to the road.

You exhale. “That’s a mess. Who the hell even responds when something happens out there?”

Hotchner cuts you a sideways look, eyebrows already pulling into that unfortunately familiar disapproving line.

“If you keep reading like that for three hours, you’ll get carsick,” he says. “I can walk you through the case. No need to dig into the file until we get to the crime scene photos.”

Maybe you should turn this into a drinking game… with water. Take a shot every time Agent Hotchner is a condescending piece of shit, or quizzes you on entry-level theory like he’s still not entirely convinced you belong here. At least that might be marginally more entertaining than whatever the hell this is.

He flicks another glance at you. Probably annoyed you haven’t granted him the basic courtesy of a response. Too bad.

Then he launches into a tangent - something about historical jurisdictional boundaries and how they evolved, which, sure (not so sure), fascinating (at best), if you had signed up for a lecture and not… whatever this passive-aggressive road trip is.

You tune in and out. Hemlock Trace is a grey zone. That’s the headline. The rest is him connecting dots across decades because he’s personally stung by poorly drawn county lines. Honestly, as long as he’s got it figured out, you’re comfortable outsourcing the entire problem to him. Afterall, if he can get this worked up over something this minor, he probably knows what he’s talking about.

#Trust4AgentHotchner

#YouRefuseToSpendThatMuchEnergy

From what you do catch, though, the gist is… bad. If a call comes in vague - “on the Trace,” “near the river,” “past the cemetery,” “one of the overlooks” - dispatch can burn precious minutes just figuring out who the hell is supposed to respond.

“The first victims are from October of last year. Mara Vale and Elise Hargrove. Found three days after their disappearance near Briar Bend Overlook.” Agent Hotchner keeps his eyes on the road as he reaches across your seat to tap the file in your lap. You feel the weight of his thick middle finger against your upper thigh. “If you look at the map, it’s a turnout near the south river embankment. And from the photos, the vehicle hasn’t fully gone over.”

You glance down. His finger is still there. It looks… deliberately positioned (the vehicle… it could never be the finger), guided into place with just enough care to nearly vanish, but not quite?

“Mara was forced into the rear cargo area. Elise remained in the back seat. No obvious signs of sexual assault. Both were strangled and have incised wounds to the throat, deep enough to nearly decapitate them, but there’s minimal blood in the car.”

“So that was done post-mortem?” you ask.

“Or the bodies were staged back into the vehicle. Also, their personal effects were still inside. The interior had been doused in diesel fuel, but… there was no ignition.”

“Wait. If the unsub wanted to destroy the evidence, why didn’t he actually set it on fire? If he only wanted the police to think he meant to, why go through all that trouble just to… what, fake it?”

“You should be able to answer that yourself.” (Well, you should be able to shove your head up your ass, Agent Hotchner.) He cuts a glance sideways, one brow lifting. “So?”

Oh, he’s serious. “Panic?”

“Was that a question or an answer?”

You almost roll your eyes. Unfortunately, this condescending asshole is currently your best shot at a golden ticket. “Panic,” you repeat. “Maybe.”

“You can do better.” He tuts. (Water shot number… what, six?) “Besides, someone who maintains control over two victims long enough to strangle both of them successfully doesn’t suddenly panic. Does that scene look panicked to you?”

“…Yeah. Okay. Fair.” You glance back down at the photo. “Maybe I’m overthinking it… but you’re saying that with years of experience. If it reads as disorganized to me, it could read that way to local law enforcement too. Especially if they don’t look past the surface.”

“That’s not how I’d phrase it, but you’re circling it.” God, you hate this game. You can feel him evaluating you. “So, assuming he’s organized… why do it?”

“Contamination,” you say, making a conscious effort not to let it sound like a question. You’re not in the mood to hear him grumble again. “He used strangulation, so there’s a higher chance of leaving fibers, trace - more physical evidence than if he’d used something like a gun-”

“Staging,” Hotchner cuts in. “You’re not wrong about contamination, but if that were the primary goal, he would’ve followed through with the fire.”

“But if he had set it on fire, it would’ve drawn a lot more attention… more resources, more pressure, maybe even federal involvement earlier instead of local police treating it like an isolated case.” You glance at him. Agent Hotchner looks back in a way that suggests he’s used to people folding (#:D) and agreeing with him before he even has to argue. “So… it kind of makes sense he left it like that. He still messes with the evidence, but without making it… obvious.”

“What you’re describing is what we call staging. In standard police training it refers to the act itself, but in behavioral analysis we also factor in the-”

“Behavioral analysis?” you cut in, chuckling. Although, judging by the glare you get back, he probably doesn’t find it funny… God forbid anything resembling a joke be uttered in this moving metal box.

He exhales through his nose. “Agent Reid also noted the driver’s seat had been pushed farther back than Mara would have needed-”

“Agent Reid?” It’s out before you can catch it.

“Reid and Gideon came in earlier this morning. They requested additional support and-” He cuts himself off. Right. So he’s not exactly eager to explain why you are part of that equation. Good to know. Still, on the upside, that means there’s now a very real, very terrifying chance you might end up in front of Gideon in the field.

#NoPressure.

Agent Hotchner’s hand misses and lands briefly on your knee. He mutters something that unclearly passes for a sorry, then shifts back to the photo - a truly fucked-up, low-quality excuse for an image that, with enough imagination, might be the car interior. His finger ends up on your lap again (man…).

You focus on the image. Someone should really fix the fax machine settings.

“You should’ve noticed that Elise’s wallet had been pulled from her bag and left open on the front passenger floorboard,” he says, “and the driver’s side window is partially open.” (If he can see all that in this visual crime against humanity…)

“Why are you saying I should’ve?” you cut in. “The quality su-”

“Because Agent Reid did.”

You catch Hotchner’s smirk in the rearview mirror. Fucking bastard. This is his version of entertainment, isn’t it? Too dignified to sit down and watch reality TV like a normal person. (Though, to be fair, you’d love to discover he secretly watches Jersey Shore. Realistically, however, he’d probably prefer something more crowd-pleasing, like Survivor.)

So instead he manufactures his own. You (underdog? generously speaking), thrown into a one-sided competition against the fan favorite (i.e., Gideon’s favorite), Agent Reid.

And while we’re apparently handing out observations like points on a scoreboard… can Agent Reid also deduce the fact that Agent Hotchner isn’t wearing an undershirt? Because you can. (You refuse to elaborate.)

(Nice D cup, by the way.)

“Wait… if that’s what you’re seeing in the picture,” you say, dragging your focus back where it belongs, “couldn’t the open driver’s window suggest she was asked to pull out her wallet by someone in a position of authority? Like an officer or park patrol?”

“Maybe,” Hotchner replies. “Or it was staged to look that way. Remember, the seat was repositioned. It’s more likely someone trying to imitate law enforcement than-”

Yeah, okay, okay, you got it. (How much would those jugs bounce if he went over a very big bump?)

Again, you don’t even watch that much Survivor, but you’re pretty convinced that in any respectable competition, if people are supposed to compete, they should at least be facing the same challenges.

So how is it that Agent Reid gets to accompany Gideon to the medical examiner - after they finally recover victim set #6, Jenna Sloane and Luke Danner - while you’re stuck at the precinct with Agent Hotchner, building a geographical profile?

(Easy. What happens if you just… drop the two Gs from rigged and say what’s left out loud? Yeah. Exactly.)

Of course, if you actually want an answer from Agent Hotchner that contains anything resembling useful information on why the fuck you’ve never assisted Gideon on a case alone while Reid has, multiple times (aside from the very obvious producer bias toward certain contestants), you have to wordsmith all the fun out of the question.

Absolutely no visible jealousy toward a genius with an eidetic memory.

“Agent Reid has a doctorate in chemistry. He’s more useful in that setting, especially if the local examiner overlooks something given the degraded evidence and he’s already .”

With hands that big, it’s no wonder Agent Hotchner excels at grasping at straws… an impressive amount of bullshit, no less.

“They’ll fax the medical report over shortly, if that’s your concern,” he adds.

“Yeah… sure.” From his tone alone, you know he’s already clocked that your concern has absolutely nothing to do with the efficiency of a fax machine. So really, what’s the point of holding back? “Do you think Gideon will ever bring me along for something? Next time?”

“I think you should focus on the geographical profile,” Agent Hotchner barks back (woof woof.)

Man. Sorry for asking a perfectly reasonable question.

Ants crawl up the tips of your fingers when he steps closer and settles on the edge of the desk, just inches behind you. You catch how the longer lace of his polished leather shoe (tied three times, fucking overachiever) just happens to rest squarely on top of your foot as Agent Hotchner just… looks at the map. Takes it apart without touching a single pin.

You don’t think you’ll ever get used to how loud his silences are.

“Don’t you feel you’re missing something?” he asks.

“I-”

Agent Hotchner shrugs off his jacket, casual as anything. Time stretches and wraps around the movement with the fabric that pulls and tightens along the very noticeable lines of his arms. Your heartbeat knocks the words loose in your throat.

“I- wait… we’ve got the first victims, Vale and Hargrove, found in their car at Briar Bend Overlook on Hemlock Trace, near the York River to the north…”

You point at the map, tracing the route as you speak. Maybe walking him through it will make it click. If there is something you’re missing.

(There is. There has to be. He wouldn’t just stand there like that otherwise… would he really be that much of a bitch to let you waste time second-guessing yourself when there could be actual victims out there?)

“Then, further down, the fourth set - Halpern and Whitely - their bodies are still the only ones missing. They were last seen on cameras along Route 17 near the James River, but the car turned up all the way back at Kingfisher Overlook on Hemlock Trace - again, slightly southeast, past the York River…”

Hotchner crosses his arms. You seriously doubt that that seemingly oversized shirt allows for full range of motion where it actually matters. You can clearly see his-

“So… I think these are the primary anchor points - Briar Bend and Kingfisher. Both overlooks directly on Hemlock Trace, vehicles left in place…”

“You’re approaching the cases as a geographical cluster rather than a series of isolated scenes,” he says. Duh? Is he dumb?

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t a question.” His arms tighten where they’re crossed, an elusive shift that probably indicates irritation - unearned, as far as you’re concerned - but all you can really register is how much more tolerable he’d be if he leaned into that whole… endowed cleavage situation a little more often. “That’s your premise. You should’ve stated it from the start. Otherwise, ‘anchor points’ doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah… I mean, it’s obvious they’re correlated, or what’s the point of doing a geographical profile, right?”

“Not everyone you’ll present your work to will have the same skill set you do,” he replies. “It’s good practice not to take anything for granted, especially in smaller counties where local law enforcement isn’t used to collaborating with the FBI.”

“Okay, but I’m saying it to you right now, so why do I have to spell it out…?”

“Can you just move on?” he pinches the bridge of his aquiline nose, the motion pulling his tie taut, swallowed right between his chest in a way that is…

Tie : tits = G-string : butt cheeks? The tie is Agent Hotchner’s tits’ G-string.

“The other sets deviate from Hemlock Trace, but the second, third, and fifth all cluster along the James River delta. It’s like his hunting ground shifts south.”

You gesture across the map, tracing the coastline instead of the roads.

“Take the second set, Mercer and Beck. They were found washed ashore about a hundred feet apart on the James, near Crescent Marsh Overlook. That’s… roughly twenty-five minutes from the Trace, but it’s still part of the same river system, just one county over.”

His sharp eyes latch onto every word you say, and still, he hasn’t told you what you’re missing. You even try to give him space to step in on purpose (pretending oxygen is actually reaching your brain by doing what normal people do, like… you know, taking a breath), but… nope, he doesn’t take it. Agent Hotchner just keeps watching you. Impassive.

In the radio silence, you notice Detective Bush (also known as Detective “nice to work with you - and no, before you ask, I’m not related to the President, do you really think I’d be stuck here busting my ass catching these motherfuckers if I were?” Bush) step in beside the desk, step in beside the desk, just inside the outer orbit of Hotchner’s personal gravitational field.

He’s immediately greeted with the full Hotchner experience: a quick, irritated glare… and then straight back to the map. Charming.

It’s already rare enough for the FBI to be welcomed into a case like this in a town like this. It’s even rarer that someone like Bush has been so consistently helpful, actually nice, during your days stuck here at the precinct while Agent Reid and Gideon go off doing cowboy shit, occasionally letting Hotchner tag along for what increasingly feels like a VIP sausage party.

Bush shoots you a smile. Aw. He’s so nice!

He’s brought coffee, without you even asking. Two cups, actually - one for you and, technically, one for Hotchner - but the difference is… telling. He knows your order. As for Hotchner… eh. You’re not entirely convinced Agent Hotchner has ever acknowledged his existence long enough for that to even be possible.

(You have, unfortunately. Dark as a moonless night. In one word: stale.)

Indeed, that’s the impression you get when Bush carefully barricades the drinks between himself and the human embodiment of constipation that is Agent Hotchner. A tactical retreat. Understandable.

“There are also a bunch of donuts in the staff lounge if you-”

“Maybe later,” Hotchner cuts in, that same clipped, dismissive tone. For some reason, he keeps his eyes on you, not even bothering to look at the man he just interrupted.

“You guys onto something?” Bush asks gleefully, pointing at the map.

You open your mouth to answer, but Hotchner beats you to it with the most aggressively monosyllabic response possible.

“Geographical profile.” (An impressive feat, considering it has seven syllables.) He turns just enough toward Bush, like he’s expecting him to take the hint and disappear on his own. This is fucking embarrassing.

“Um… I was saying…” you clear your throat, trying to intercept before Hotchner decides to piss all over the place to mark his territory in the precinct, “that, if we factor in the other victims who weren’t killed in pairs - Grant and McClain - the pattern of the unsub still kind of holds. Sure, in both cases their vehicles were left off Mercury Boulevard, but what matters is that both bodies were recovered from the James. Even McClain, whose car was farther from the riverbank.”

You gesture toward the map again. “So… from that, it looks like even when he moves away from the main route, his comfort zone still pulls back to the river system-”

“…he keeps dumping the victims in the river post-mortem, most likely using his own vehicle, and choosing locations that offer both seclusion and controlled access to the water. The lack of trace evidence in the victims’ cars after the first homicide suggests he adjusted early, he’s no longer risking transfer at the initial scene.”

Hotchner cuts in as he pushes off the desk and steps in beside you. There’s barely a hair’s breadth of air between the cuff of his suit and your arm. #Yay.

“But even then,” he continues, “he attempted to submerge the vehicle. And in the fourth set, K9s picked up a trail that extended into the water, which suggests he used a boat. There were no rental records for that time frame, so it’s likely he owns one-”

“Fishing, boat maintenance… anything that would justify repeated access to those sites and that level of familiarity…” you cut in. You know. Because you were supposed to say all that, not him.

Agent Hotchner’s hand lands briefly on your shoulder as he reaches past you, stealing the marker you were just about to use to map out the triangulation. His dry-ass pinkie grazes yours.

“…which suggests he’s local and operating within a defined comfort zone,” he finishes.

You’d call it cute, the way you’re apparently finishing each other’s sentences after working this closely for days… but it’s less teamwork or chemistry, and more that you’re certain he just doesn’t trust you to get there on your own.

He grabs the oversized ruler (your ruler, the one you had to specifically ask Bush to track down) and draws a clean triangle across the map and shades the area in. “Latest set: Sloane and Danner. Down to Mercer and Beck along the western shore of the James. Then across to McClain on Mercury Boulevard.”

“Clustered activity within a defined geographic comfort zone… somewhere in here.” He hands the marker back, a brief, cautious pat on your shoulder as he looks past you at his Kandinsky knockoff on the map. “That’s what you were missing.”

“If you’d let me get there, I was about to triangulate-” you bite your tongue before it gets professionally suicidal. (Not that it matters. At this point you might just be delusional.) You don’t get why he suddenly decided to get impatient and bulldoze right through what was supposed to be your practice.

“Triangulation is the only tangible product of a geographical profile,” he cuts in. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Also, the area he just boxed in is what, two hundred square miles? Completely unmanageable. No one’s coordinating a search zone that size and calling it actionable, so what the fuck-

“Without it, it’s just words thrown in the air,” he adds, condescending.

Bro.

“Man, behavioral profiling is basically just words thrown in the air and hoping for the best-”

Your blood is already boiling too much to be intimidated by the killer glare he shoots your way.

“So it means the killer lives in that area of the triangle?” Detective Bush ambushes from directly behind the two of you.

“Yes,” you turn toward Bush. “Also, maybe we can narrow it-”

“No,” Hotchner cuts in at the exact same time. “It means the unsub operates within that area. That’s different.” (Does he even hear himself?)

“But you just said the unsub’s a local,” you huff. “If he operates there, he has to live there. You know… definition of local.”

“Not necessarily. You still need to define the circumference through those points before you can narrow it down. The primary search radius would be five to ten miles from the center of that circle.”

Oof… boring! They did not do all of this in Law & Order.

He tilts his head toward the marker in your hand - an invitation, which in his language translates directly to an order - for you to do it yourself.

“If he lives within that area, it’s likely within a short driving distance of the centroid, but not necessarily at its center. Most organized offenders maintain a buffer zone.” Yada, yada, yada. Tracing a circle. Real profiler shit.

The fundamental theorem of Euclidean geometry says that through three distinct, non-collinear points, there passes one, and only one, circle. Given those three points (i.e., the three crime scenes Hotch just picked out on the map), you’re supposed to find the center of that imaginary circumference first, using some geometry trick you absolutely learned at some point and have since… well... whoops.

So… admit defeat?

You nudge the marker sneakily slow (if you move slow enough, the predator won’t eat you?) toward his hand. He’s very hot. His hand is very hot. The confused and hazily sympathetic microexpression that crosses his face does absolutely nothing to help.

“You don’t remember the construction?” he asks, beating you to it.

His tone is… sweet. Almost honeyed, if that’s even possible. It pulls you straight back to that first day, when he scribbled Tara-something at the bottom of your notebook and, for a fleeting moment, seemed… not a complete bitch. You don’t think you’ve heard this version of him since.

It’s beguiling enough that, for a single tick of his very silent (because it is very expensive) Rolex, neither of you lets go of the marker. Awkwardly sandwiched between your hands. Not quite as awkward as the way his smile softens his features, in a way that reads almost… fond? Like your complete lack of geometrical competence is somehow endearing to him.

(Aw. You don’t know shit a first grader would. Cute. Give me a second, I’ll call Gideon so I can finally get rid of you, xoxo.)

“The center of the circle is the intersection of the perpendicular bisectors of the triangle’s sides,” Bush chimes in, punctuating it with an enthusiastically loud, double bro-smack to Hotchner’s shoulder.

Safe to say Hotchner did not expect that. He jerks (he hates physical contact that much?) but then immediately snaps back at the poor detective into his usual homicidal expression. Spell broken. Midnight strikes. Hotchnerella exits the ball, probably drops his FBI badge instead of a glass slipper, because to him efficiency matters more than mystery.

Beneath the pure terror in the glance Bush flicks your way, you catch the quick did I do something wrong? in his eyes… but you don’t get the chance to answer. Hotchner calls your name.

“A word.”

Can Agent Hotchner count? Just asking.

Because “I hope you’re aware there’s a very high probability - given that the unsub targets locations along county lines, across different jurisdictions and park services, and consistently leaves the victims’ wallets in the car - that we could be looking at someone in law enforcement”…

…is definitely more than one word. He is so confusing.

“I thought we ruled that theory out on day one,” you say. And also - if it has to be someone - Detective Bush is the last person it could be.

Did he forget you’re the one juggling York County, James City County, Gloucester County, Williamsburg, the National Park Service, Virginia State Police, and every fucking local department in a fifty-mile radius? (Likely. Considering he handed you this mess, he probably did forget how much coordination it actually takes just to figure out who even responds to a call out here.)

What exactly makes him think that, out of all the cop sausages working this area, it’s Bush?

“I’d discourage you from engaging with him as much as you have been,” he says. Is that his business? “We need their cooperation, but you should limit what you share until we have an official profile to present.”

“Cooperation isn’t one-sided,” you huff.

“If we’re called in, it’s our case. We set the parameters. We don’t owe them full disclosure before we’re ready.” His face softens all of a sudden (has he finally heard himself?) His broad hands settle on either side of your arms, like he’s trying to reassure you. (Reassuring what, exactly?)

“Look, I’m not suggesting we mislead them. Just… hold back a portion of our working theory until it’s confirmed. It helps avoid misunderstandings… besides, you can never be too sure.”

Your spidey senses are screaming there’s a subtext here he’s politely refusing to spell out.

“I do think your read on him moving south is solid,” he adds.  (Oh, wow. Actual praise from Agent Hotchner that is not wrapped in legalese nor buried under ten layers of condescension? Someone check the fucking temperature in here.) “I’d prioritize narrowing search areas along the southern stretch of Hemlock Trace, especially along the riverbanks, even if the latest victims turned up further north.”

You nod. “Cool.” (You are the opposite of cool. You are thriving.)

His hand lingers, again, at the side of your arm.

“Good job,” he says, almost like an afterthought, then he’s already stepping away.

Bro.

You’re grinning like an idiot. You would, theoretically, be doing backflips in the middle of the precinct - if a) it weren’t full of people, b) you knew how to do a backflip in the first place, and c) you hadn’t just spotted Gideon and Reid’s SUV pulling back in outside the window.

And the fact that Reid already has the front pieces of his bowl cut tucked behind his ears (his go-to coping mechanism) tells you everything you need to know. Not good.

“So?” you ambush Agent Rigged the second he drifts toward the water dispenser. You glance past him, Gideon and Hotchner are already talking behind the glass door. “How did it go?”

Reid sighs. “The bodies were already in the process of skeletonization, and it’s been less than two months since they were left out in the woods. The examiner couldn’t determine a definitive cause of death… I think I saw trace marks consistent with stabbing on the female victim, but it could also be postmortem damage from scavenging animals.”

Basically, the fucker you’re looking for didn’t even bother burying them - just covered them with an electric blanket from the victim’s car and left them out in the open. Which means he was confident no one would stumble across them, and comfortable enough with the area to pick a spot two miles deep in the woods, just off a busy Interstate 64.

Overconfident, local, comfortable in the area... nothing new.All you can really contribute to Reid’s beautifully structured monologue is:

“Man, that sucks…” You’d pat him on the shoulder, if only he didn’t despise physical contact even more than Agent Hotchner. And unlike a certain someone, you actually respect your peers’ boundaries. #DreamTeammate

No, but really… it does suck. A killer’s still out there, and it means you’re stuck here longer than you ever signed up for.

“There are donuts in the staff room, by the way,” you add.

Nothing boosts morale quite like Agent Bush’s entire table’s worth of donuts. Very generous of you, really, sharing something that isn’t even yours. (You desperately need the good karma.)

Also… if - hypothetically - you just happened, completely innocently, to deliver one of those cop delicacies straight into Gideon’s hands so he could personally witness how amazing you are… and if that involved strategically leveraging a man’s sacred bond with a custard and strawberry jam-filled long donut (he seems like a classic, old-man-flavors kind of guy)… who’s to say that wouldn’t translate into solo field opportunities with the Jedi Master himself?

“Do you think Gideon likes donuts?” you ask, trying to make it sound like an afterthought.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat,” Reid shrugs.

…Not as helpful as you’d hoped.

Through the glass, Hotchner’s eyes magnetically entangle with yours, then slip right back to Gideon the second you notice. Cool. So he’s definitely talking about you.

You just hope he does you the basic human courtesy of leaving out the whole geometrical-construction humiliation. Then again, you don’t even know why you’re still holding onto the idea of making the cut when Agent Reid exists.

You’re losing so much of your training just by being here…

“Williamsburg brought in a suspect.” Ah. Gideon. Always the bearer of good news. “From what they told me, he had contact with the solo male victim - Grant - the night of the murder. I don’t think he’s our guy, but he lives within the area Hotch and…”

He’s staring at you. The same man who will correct anyone within a five-mile radius for calling his golden boy Agent instead of Doctor Reid, and yet -  not to play the victim - you have the vague suspicion he still hasn’t memorized your name.

“…you traced on the geographical profile today, so it’s worth a try. I told them to hold him until we get there.”

Reid tucks his hair behind his ear. He does it again on the other side. He’s nervous about the interrogation.

You know it because you’ve seen what happens when he’s put in that position. The last time local PD brought in a suspect and he had to assist Detective Bush without Gideon or Hotchner there, his hands were already trembling before it even started, and he spent the entire interrogation tripping over his own words.

…Safe to say it didn’t go well.

He does have one thing going for him, though - excellent timing. No one who actually matters was there to see it. (And yeah, sure, the guy they brought in turned out to be innocent. Minor detail. Almost beside the point, really.)

Still, failures that go unwitnessed don’t exactly count against you. Which must be nice.

Gideon notices it too. His gaze flicks to Reid, then, unescapably, lands on you. It feels less like he’s seeing Reid and more like he’s seeing you seeing Reid, which is…one hell of a mouthful.

You don’t know whether to feel included or exposed. For all it’s worth, he’s finally noticing you - just… not independently of someone else. You almost preferred it when he corrected people for calling Reid “Agent” instead of “Doctor”, while still not remembering your name.

“Hotch also found a case in the cold files out of Henrico that matches our unsub’s modus operandi,” Gideon says. “Vehicle left in the woods with keys still in the ignition. Bodies located by following a blood trail from the car, hidden under a blanket. Same as our latest victims.”

“The case is from August 2000,” Hotchner - Hotch - adds. “Could be our unsub’s first victims.”

“A road trip, then,” Gideon nods. “Henrico County should have more documentation on the case. We’re still working with limited data, but this could give us direction. We need to go through those files as quickly as possible and minimize the window before he strikes again.”

And who, in this room, just so happens to read at an inhuman speed of twenty thousand words per minute while the rest of you peasants struggle through two hundred?

Reid already looks like he’s won the lottery. Win-win. He gets to disappear into a pile of old, fucked-up case files and spend quality time with Agent Hotchner, completely free of interrogation pressure or performance anxiety. Meanwhile, you-

Gideon flicks his hand vaguely in your direction. “You-” Oh, this is painful. He’s trying. He’s really trying to remember your name. He just… can’t. “…you go with Hotch.”

Son of a-

“Oh, and Aaron- if it gets too late, you were a prosecutor do… something.” He does that thing with his hands. The mystical wave that translates to figure it out I do not have the time (but I trust you.) “Convince them to hand over the files… tell them we’ll bring them back. I don’t know. Improvise.”

And so great is the folly of mortals that, when they obtain things that are of little importance and low value - certainly recoverable - they accept that these be charged to them; yet no one who has received time considers themselves indebted in any way, even though it is the one thing that not even a grateful person can ever repay.

Damn. You have to give it to Aaron Hotchner… his stupid no music in the car rule does have one very specific effect.

Not even five minutes into the drive back from Henrico, the silence catapults you into a full-blown moment of existential clarity, where you start auditing every decision you’ve ever made and realize that, at every possible intersection, you somehow took the wrong turn.

You should’ve skipped the shower this morning and gone straight to breakfast early, caught Gideon alone before the line formed instead of showing up late and getting swallowed by the crowd.

Yesterday, you should’ve used that extra hour to keep up with your linguistics class instead of obsessing over the casefiles, hoping for some miraculous epiphany that would finally impress him.

Maybe you should’ve applied to a different course altogether instead of being stubborn enough to choose behavioral science in the first place - or at the very least, on day one, you should’ve just agreed with Agent Hotchner when Gideon asked, even if it wasn’t true.

Maybe then, every time Gideon paired you with him on this case, it wouldn’t feel like walking on thin ice. Maybe you’d even be allowed to play some music.

And to think, when you first started, you were euphoric at the mere possibility of getting out on a real case earlier than expected.

Blessed be those who keep fighting a losing battle. Condemned be those who refuse to fight at all.

But what’s the point of fighting, of pushing yourself to be the “best version” of yourself, when you already know that version still won’t measure up? Are you any less for recognizing your limitations? Or are you only less for not having recognized them - and surrendered - much earlier?

“Are you alright?” Hotchner asks.

Not now. You can’t believe you’re so fucked up that even his most monotone delivery imaginable manages to siphon all the oxygen out of the car. You need to calm down. And you need to do it quietly, so he doesn’t notice (that would be so humiliating.)

You can feel the lump in your throat.

“Yeah.” Your eyes start to tickle. Why the fuck is this igniting a crying response? He doesn’t even care.

“So?”

“So what?” You bite the inside of your lip, turning your face up toward the window so your eyes won’t give you away.

He exhales sharply through his nose… is he mad at something? “What’s the difference between theories of criminality and theories of crime?”

Oh. You must’ve missed that. You shrug. Who cares.

“I don’t know.” Your voice sounds brittle. You can’t help it, you keep fucking up. You’re not even strong enough to stop your stupid lips from trembling like a fucking child. “Does it matter?”

You’d love to evanesce into the line of loblolly pines outside if only to escape the reflex of checking him in the side mirror anyway. There’s something about his eyes that midwives the truth out of you, forces air back into your lungs whether you want it or not.

“I really try, you know. I study in whatever spare time we have, I try to keep up with everything else, I try to-” you swallow. You want to carve out your eyes from your skull. “-to not fall behind because you and Gideon just… assume we already know everything, and I try to balance it with everything else I’m supposed to keep up with.”

You choke on your own laugh. Why are you even laughing?

“But does it even matter? Any of it? The rushing, the effort, the constant catching up - if Gideon’s already decided who he wants? Why do you keep doing this? With these stupid questions. Every single time. Just to me.” stupid, stupid hiccups. “Not to Reid.” can you at least have control of your own body? You sound so stupid like this. “And I’m never enough. It just-” again? “-it just makes me feel so stupid.”

Ouch. You can already tell this is going to become part of the nightly ritual - replayed on a loop right before sleep, with full-body, teeth-clenching secondhand embarrassment. Great. Another flawless wrong turn.

“And nobody cares when Reid’s wrong. Or if he can’t even handle a gun. Or if he falls apart in an interrogation. He still gets picked. Hic. Every time. Hic. Oh, fuck this. Because Gideon wants him. Because he actually cares about his growth - and no one else’s. Hic. And I’m sorry you have to deal with me every fucking time, because I fucking suck at this. Sorry for being so pathetic right now-”

Hotchner glances at you every few seconds, but only through the rearview mirror. He’s so visibly uncomfortable at this whole thing it would almost be funny, if you weren’t busy choking on your own breathing.

“I swear I don’t even know why I’m saying any of this. I can’t do one fucking thing right. I don’t usually cry in a superior’s car like a fucking child.”

He looks like he’s never been issued a single guideline on how to handle a situation like this in a Bureau-approved way, so he defaults to… nothing. Impassively stares at the road. (God forbid the U.S. government finds out he’s capable of empathy. Or, you know, any human emotion at all.)

“Sorry, but you’re so bad at this,” you let out a broken laugh.

Still, he doesn’t look at you. He doesn’t even usually drive with both hands on the wheel, but he is now… probably because he has no idea where else to put them. (Up his ass, maybe.)

“Really, it looks like you don’t even know what to do.”

He lets the silence stretch, before flicking a quick glance at you in the rearview mirror, like he’s checking whether you’re actually done with the bitching and moaning.

“I wish I could help you with that,” he says. “But it’s not my call to make those decisions.”

Useless and humiliating. This is exactly why you shouldn’t have broken down in front of Agent Hotchner. What the hell were you even thinking?

“Yeah, I know… sorry-”

“There are tissues in the compartment to your side.” (…) He reaches for his phone. It’s almost impressive how quickly he dials, considering the size of his thumbs versus the microscopic keyboard.

“How much do you need?” he murmurs, his voice so low it’s almost not there at all as the line begins to ring.

“What do you mean?” (What is this, are you on a quota now? Limited tissues per emotional breakdown?)

“Hey, Jason,” Fuuuuuuuuuuck.“I’m seeing some traffic on I-64 near Richmond.”

You turn to him immediately - what? there’s no traffic - you mouth. He cuts you off with a quick lift of his hand.

“That’ll slow us down, thirty minutes, more or less…” he adds, already steering toward a rest stop sign. “Sure. Keep me posted.” And he hangs up. “If you need more time, just tell me… I can probably stretch it to an hour.”

“I-” you genuinely don’t know what to do with that. He wouldn’t lie to a superior. He definitely wouldn’t lie for you. And yet. “I’m fine… you didn’t have to lie… what if- what if Gideon finds out?”

He shrugs. The dildo of consequences never arrives lubed, and yet Agent Hotchner seems completely unbothered by this particular development - so unbothered, in fact, that he breaks his own no food in the car rule without what appears to be a second thought when he silently pulls into a rest stop and refuses to acknowledge any of your increasingly mortified apologies.

He comes back with water (extra electrolytes… exactly the kind of thing you’d expect him to buy for someone who just cried out half their internal fluids) and silently invites you to take from the very precariously wedged bag of chips he’s balanced between the cup holder and the emergency brake. Structurally speaking, it’s a crumb disaster waiting to happen. It’s so out of character you suspect this is somehow another one of his psychological tests.

“I’m sorry for… you know. My whole pity party.”

You’ve probably apologized a thousand times already, but how does it go? Better sorry when you can’t be safe. Or something like that. (:P)

“It’s okay,” he soothes you, as if he’s afraid the cars passing behind might hear him. And that’s it. Still no defense or commentary on the - admittedly lame - accusations you threw at him.

You both stare out through the windshield.

The James River cuts somewhere beyond the line of trees, one of the unsub’s two preferred hunting grounds. This rest stop sits right on that exedra where I-64 pulls away from the river by barely a mile, and the towering loblolly pines give way to rows of cars and massive parked trucks, some stacked with stripped trunks.

There has to be a sawmill nearby.

Your face is starting to feel crunchy now that the breeze has dried the tears, but the air here still sits eerily against your skin. Even with all of downtown Richmond between you and the water, the river refuses to be ignored. It invades everything, dampening the air. You’d know it was there even if no one told you.

Thirty miles east, along this same stretch of I-64, is where Sloane and Danner were found, the same bodies Gideon and Reid went to see today, hoping to find something and coming back with just a hole in the water.

That probably explains the knot in your stomach.

“Can I be frank with you?” Hotchner asks, out of nowhere.

“Shoot.” Your eyes drift to the line of parked cars. What are the odds one of them belongs to him? Reid would probably have a number ready.

“For what it’s worth, I think you have good instincts… and that’s not something anyone can teach. You either have it or you don’t.” He reaches into the bag of chips like this is just… a casual conversation you’d have with someone who isn’t built like a closed door.

“But you’re severely lacking on the theoretical side. Same as most of your peers,” he adds, slightly muffled, because apparently Agent Hotchner does talk while eating. That’s… disorienting new. Like he’s letting you see a part of him that feels… intentionally unpolished.

At least he covers his mouth.

“Because you don’t trust your own process. A solid theoretical backbone would give you something to anchor to.” he adds. A dig, delivered between bites of chips - almost funny, if it didn’t still sting exactly like one.

“I would study the theory if you actually gave us the time to do it… like any other course.” You emphasize it by reaching into the bag yourself. He immediately warns you to keep the crumbs to a minimum (old habits die hard…)

“Instead of all this extra office work and ‘practice’ - which, yeah, it’s useful, I’m not saying it’s not - but it creates this… divide where the whole competition aspect makes it impossible for anyone to admit they don’t know something. No one’s going to ask for help if that automatically puts them out of the running… that’s not an excuse but-”

You reach for the bag at the exact same time he does. You’re not even looking until your fingers almost close around his wrist. You stop short.

“…but?” he prompts.

“I-” you clear your throat, staring anywhere but at him… or his hands. “I forgot.” The veins on his hands are so prominent…

Trying to bond with Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner comes with its own… very specific set of difficulties. Especially when he seems completely unbothered by saying things like-

“You’re capable of getting to the right place. You just don’t always know why you got there. So you keep going, stacking more questions on top of it - questions that come from insecurity - until you end up somewhere else entirely. And when you don’t get immediate validation, you keep every option open instead of committing to the one that was already right.”

He keeps glancing at you every time he reaches for the chips, like he’s making sure you won’t go in at the same time. There’s something almost endearing about it - when your eyes meet, his lips (now dusted with a few salt crystals) press into a thin line, and he gives a quick, restrained nod, like he’s quietly thanking you for letting him go.

His dimples are kind of adorable.

“You won’t always have someone there to confirm you’re right. On the job, you make the call. You have to be sure… and precise. That’s why I’m pushing you.” He gives you the smallest smile at the end, stingy with it, as if he’s either being earnest or refusing to overindulge.

He starts licking the salt off his thick fingers. Your eyes are drawn to the reflection of the quick gesture in the rearview mirror. There’s something about the ease of it, the complete lack of self-consciousness when his tongue flicks over the top of each digit, that gets under your skin a little. Like he has no idea how that reads from the outside.

And then, as if none of that just happened, he opens the door and steps out of the car without so much as a glance back. He’s so profoundly puzzling it’s starting to feel organised.

The more you replay his silence from earlier, the way he let you talk without interrupting, the more you realise that you were wrong. He’s not bad at this at all. If anything, he’s too good. Like letting you unravel first was intentional.

And for someone who operates with that kind of control, how does he not lose it in a job like this? It would be nice to know. But your gut tells you the control might just be the façade.

“I have something for you.”

He’s back before you can overthink it further, a worn tin box in his hands - the same one you’ve always seen tucked into his briefcase. The metal creaks softly as he forces it open, the veins in his hands standing out with the effort. He’s wearing the proudest, most idiotic smile.

Inside, two thick stacks of flashcards in plastic cases, so overstuffed they nearly spill out the moment the lid lifts. At first glance, they look like they’re all in his handwriting.

“Not to brag,” he says, which is exactly what someone says when they are absolutely about to brag, “but I was pretty well known for these when I was a trainee. Some of them are still circulating.”

How humble. He goes on to name-drop some apparently legendary agent – YouHaveNoIdeaWhoThatIsButYouNodAnyway - who, according to him, got top marks in behavioral science thanks to these exact cards.

“Wow, you’re…” such a dork. “…so cool.”

“My advice,” he says, keeping his head down… probably hoping you won’t notice the way the apple of his cheeks have gone bright pink right after being called cool. (He’s actually being nice. You cannot laugh in his face.) “is to shuffle them and go through every single one at least three times a day. Don’t make copies because I will find out. And most importantly, keep your hands clean when you use them. Put them back in the tin when you’re done. No food or drinks nearby. And never - ever - take them out of the plastic sleeves.”

So… basically, wrap it before you tap it. “…Are you trying to pass these down to your firstborn?” you joke.

“I would be honored if my son decided to follow in my footsteps-”

Why is he such a loser? “Do you even have someone to have a son with?”

He glares at you. Safe to say, you did not think that through. “Don’t get too comfortable.”

That’s because he doesn’t want to admit he has no bitches. Who would hit that?

When, exactly, is the appropriate moment to inform Agent Hotchner that your insistence on pushing for a stakeout today (despite fully expecting Agent Reid and Gideon to take the glory and go themselves) is based primarily on a dream? Which may or may not have occurred while you were briefly unconscious on top of the case files (forty-five minutes to an hour, so technically a nap).

A dream involving a gigantic, electric-blue trout with Belgian waffles for tires and suspiciously large hands, knocking on a willow tree. Behind which, Agent Hotchner was hiding, wearing a voluminous curly wig with a full blowout and a like a virgin bridal ensemble, complete with the boy toy belt.

It’s not in any FBI manual you’re aware of, but if you interpret it - suspend all prejudice, given you are, admittedly, clueless - the knocking could tie into the preliminary profile. An unsub with voyeuristic tendencies, approaching victims while they’re inside their vehicles, possibly initiating contact.

So. Knocking (on windows?)

Then you add the whole “knock on wood” thing. Luck. Which, considering the situation (and the very real possibility that Agent Hotchner might not appreciate your… oneiric genius), you’re probably going to need.

Put the two together, and it almost (barely) reads like an omen that this might be the right moment to act. You’re still not entirely sure how the electric-blue trout or Agent Hotchner in a Madonna costume fit into any of that, though.

Maybe some things simply aren’t meant to be profiled. Like how you’re not meant for stakeouts.

“Has it been three hours yet?” you ask Agent Hotchner. You’re staring so hard at the dashboard just to stay awake you’re pretty sure you could triangulate every single speck of dust in this car… which is concerning, considering when you first got in you would’ve sworn it was spotless.

He checks his Rolex. “Almost an hour.”

Almost an hour. You can feel your inhibitory brakes already gone. You choose to blame it on the psychological whiplash of discovering that Agent Hotchner wears prescription glasses - and, worse, that he chose tonight to ambush you with them.

Dainty, rounded silver frames - completely dissonant with the rest of him - soften the defined lines of his face, suggesting a version of him that might, theoretically, exist off-duty if you squint hard enough and indulge in a little wishful thinking. They look really good on him. But this is not where you wanted to go.

“Don’t you think the Rolex is a bit… out of character for-”

For pretending you’re a horny couple parked out here to have sex in his hunting ground.

But because you are, clearly, the ideal stakeout partner anyone could ever hope for - the kind the BAU should be fighting over, the obvious superior choice over Agent Reid for a permanent position and lifelong stakeout companionship with the delightful human being that is Agent Hotchner - you stop yourself from proceeding any further.

Out of sheer, unparalleled generosity, you spare him. You’re convinced that if you actually say the word sex out loud, Hotchner might have a stroke. (And, given the complete lack of signal out here, you’d be the one stuck performing CPR and then explaining to emergency services how exactly that happened. Hard pass.)

“-this situation?”

You have to remind yourself that everything that happens tonight will need to be documented in an official report and may be subject to review.

“You mean it’s too obnoxious?” he asks, completely serious. You do, in fact, think it’s obnoxious in general to have something on your wrist that costs more than a car, but-

“Yeah… I mean, a man wearing a Rolex isn’t exactly the type who ends up in a parked car-” having sex. But again: stroke. Best not to risk it. “-because he ran out of better options.”

“What if my character-” (Aw. My character. What is this, did scary Agent Hotchner used to run DnD campaigns in a past life, or did boredom get him shit-talking too?) “-likes the risk of breaking the law?”

His argument is full of holes. And sure, every hole is a goal, but…

The fact that his brain immediately jumps to breaking the law instead of just saying having sex in public tells you everything you need to know. He’s probably one sentence away from citing the exact statute, subsection, and every possible penalty attached to it.

“I hope you’re a good actor,” you shrug.

He cuts you a sideways look. The scary tightening between his brows - even if softened by the warm yellow light catching on the frames - is enough to tell you you’ve offended him. Damn it. What a pussy delicate ecosystem. Makes you wonder how much of you he could take. (You are bored.)

“Because even if my character were desperate for some dick-” Quick check: his face doesn’t look like it’s drooping on one side yet. Good. Still alive. “- and willing to overlook her partner’s complete lack of fashion sense, no one is choosing that orange sweater if they’re trying to look sexy.”

“It’s burgundy,” he deadpans.

“No, man. You must be colorblind. That is clearly orange.”

“The color looks warmer because of the yellow light in the car,” he defends his infallible thesis. “And it fits the situation.”

Still not saying sex. Incredible. Wait! Is that why, in your dream, he was dressed in full Like a Virgin bridal drag? Because he’s actually-

“It’s… put together. Not trying too hard,” he adds, gesturing at himself (the fact that his hands hovers around his knockers confuses you for a second), then the car.

He’s lucky you’re fluent in whatever the hell this cryptic, repressed dialect is supposed to be. Car sex equals casual outfit. Casual hookup. Low effort, no need to impress. As opposed to, apparently, the formalwear required for sex in an actual bed.

“Is that your college T-shirt under the sweatshirt?” you’re proving your point. You had to buy a whole miniskirt to commit to this bit (currently regretting it, given the way the leather seat is sticking to your skin), and he shows up dressed for Sunday service? “Because I’m not convinced anyone’s buying this. Who even has sex wearing that many layers?”

“If you profiled criminals with the same accuracy you apply to this… petty analysis, you wouldn’t need any of my notes.”

“So I’m the petty one?” you ask, unable to stop the smile tugging at your mouth. You’re unsure whether more offended or impressed by this side of him.

“You started it,” he shrugs, his gaze nailed to the road ahead - on the complete nothingness of the black mass of the trees swallowing even the moonlight.

You catch the fractional delay before he looks back at you, as if that might absolve him - as though you wouldn’t still be looking at him, that telltale smile already ghosting across his face. He doesn’t even attempt to retreat into his usual austere composure… probably because he knows he’s been made.

It’s too much. You can’t stand looking at him for too long, so you lean forward and - completely unauthorized - pry open the glove compartment.

“What are you doing.” Hotchner doesn’t even bother to shape it into a question.

“If we’re trying to attract a maniac - or at the very least not look more suspicious than we already do - we need music.”

You sift through the contents. His glove compartment is so meticulously organized it takes almost no effort to retrieve the entire collection: one, two, three CDs. And if there’s one song threading through your head right now, it’s Like a Virgin by Madonna - the association growing less metaphorical by the second, given what you’re holding.

From left to right: The Beatles Anthology 1, Etta James’ At Last (the album - unfortunately, it is not at last for these choices), and 80s Greatest Hits.

You would pay good money to hear the story behind any of these.

“Go on, which one of these is your sex playlist?” you ask, fanning them out. You generously give him the dignity of choosing his own humiliation. It’s so bleak you don’t even want to guess this time.

“We’re in a public spot in the middle of the night… if we were to have sex, the priority would be not drawing attention from patrol units… music is the last thing you’d want to play unless you want to be arrested for public indecency.”

Right… he reroutes the entire conversation into logistics… which can only mean two things: he’s either deliberately dodging the question, or he’s never had sex in a car.

You give him the benefit of the doubt. “You don’t strike me as the type to raw dog whatever the radio decides to throw at you at night. So one of these has to be your sex playlist.”

You watch him, weighing your options. What’s worse? Getting pounded to Yellow Submarine, IIIIII WANT A … Sunday kind of love, or Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Is anyone actually sure Agent Hotchner is capable of having fun?)?

You catch his eyes flicking - more than once, and not as subtle as he probably thinks - toward the CD in the middle. Well… you would’ve never pegged (… #:D) Agent Hotchner as the hopeless-romantic type.

He shifts forward all of a sudden, leaning across your side of the passenger seat to dig back into the glove compartment. And that’s… very close. All you get is a distracted, almost too-formal “excuse me” from him. All you can see is the back of his head. All you can feel is the weight of his broad hand pressing into the soft part of your bare upper thigh as he steadies himself.

Absolutely nothing to unpack there. You stare straight ahead, very deliberately not reacting, because acknowledging it would mean thinking about it, and thinking about it feels like… something? Nothing?

He sits back upright a second later with… a cassette. A Walkman. And a pair of earphones. He nudges his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with one broad finger.

“Oh. So you’re old - oooold school.”

No, seriously, what is this? Is he one of those music snobs who insists every occasion demands a specific analog format? Like sex somehow requires the gritty authenticity of a cassette? Is this a generational heirloom? Passed down from one Hotchner to the next?

What worries you is that he doesn’t even answer. He just glances up at you with a smirk as he slides the cassette into the Walkman. You… don’t like that. That, or the way his dimples sit at the corners of his mouth. Mischievous does not belong on Agent Hotchner’s face. It looks wrong. Unsettling.

Because what, exactly, does someone like him have to be mischievous about? (You can’t tell.) His hand is too big, covering most of the cassette, but you catch a glimpse of the label as it disappears into the player. Brudos.

He abruptly reclines his seat all the way back.

“What the fuck are you-” You don’t even make it to the end of the sentence.

“Do you want to be productive and learn something while we wait,” he says, propping himself up slightly on his elbows, “or do you want to keep asking questions I’m not going to answer?”

You just stare at him. There are… several things happening right now. You’re not entirely sure which one deserves priority.

Agent Hotchner slides one side of the earphones into his right ear. “This is the original interview Agent Gideon and Rossi conducted in ’89 with Jeff Brudos,” he continues.

(What the-)

“The Lust Killer,” he adds, like you might need clarification. Of all the things you’re confused about right now, that is not one of them.

“Yes, I know who he is… how did you even get that?” you ask. But from the look he gives you, you can already tell this is one of the questions he’s not going to answer. Fine.

You have to play his game. You recline your seat all the way down too, matching him, letting him make the next move.

It’s just that - horizontal (…) - he suddenly feels closer. And hotter. Objectively hotter. Thermodynamically speaking, of course (you know… heat transfer, science, behavioral science, tomato-tomahto.) Nothing weird.

Now that he’s away from the direct light of the rearview mirror and feels like a brawny fallen tree among the dark pines towering above you, you can see that his sweater is, in fact, exactly as he said - burgundy, not orange. (Whoops. Point for Hotchner.)

Proximity makes you notice things you couldn’t bring yourself to before.

The corner of his mouth lifts, like he’s pleased with himself, as he hands you the other earphone. Your fingers brush. Which is… entirely explainable given how thin the cord is. The eye contact, however, is rather less so.

“See?” he says absentmindedly. “I’ve always said you’re more perceptive than anyone else in the class. More than some of our agents.” (Whore.)

“When?” (He is 100% shitting you.)

“More like to whom would be the appropriate question.” (Your mom?) No shit. Wait.

“…Gideon?” you ask, a little too quickly. No, really. There’s no way. He has to be fucking with you.

“Don’t let it get to your head…” he deadpans. And then he presses play. But he does that thing again. That small pause before turning his head back toward you, that selcouth private smile still sitting there.

(But hey! Gideon knows you’re perceptive.)

“…and I advise you to take notes. These recordings stay with me.” He winks.

This is going to be fun.

This is not fun.

Mainly because there are, in fact, no words - none of the hundreds of thousands available in the English language - that adequately capture the experience of lying inches away from Agent Hotchner while attempting to take notes on one of the most infamous serial killers who also has a foot fetish… especially when he pauses the recording and asks:

“What’s the most notable thing here?”

You really thought you were past the pop quizzes. It’s just… difficult to snap back into place when the truth is that the most notable thing is the fact that, when he turns to look at you, the distance shrinks even further, and you can’t take your eyes off even his most meaningless details. The single delicate white eyelash on his left eye. The wear along the edge of his glasses.

The longer you stay this close, the more intoxicating whatever the hell he decided to put on today becomes. He must’ve changed it. It’s not his usual. There’s something warmer about it now - the smoothest, buttery oud with a vanilla dry-down - that makes you a little stupid.

You wonder if this is what he wears after dark and you’re only noticing it now, or if it’s one of those calculated “what would my character wear” decisions. Maybe it’s always been like this, and you’ve only just started to pay attention.

You shake your head.

“The third-person tactic Gideon uses with Brudos is pretty smart… at one point, instead of asking, ‘Why did you kill them?’ - which already shut him down when Rossi tried it - he reframes the question so Brudos isn’t forced to own the acts directly. I believe he said something like, ‘Do you think the killer planned his attacks?’ So it feels like Brudos is helping the FBI build a case against someone else… but by speculating, he starts talking about planning, fantasies, decisions, escalation… he’s really just describing his own process.”

“Yes, it’s projection… good catch.” He smiles at you. It almost makes you want to keep being right. “After studying Brudos, I’d say the real reason he responds to that isn’t about appearing as the ‘good samaritan,’ but about preserving his ego. Externalizing the behavior allows him to maintain distance.”

It’s nice to listen to him talk. And somehow, when he does, he lowers his voice down, as if he won’t risk being overheard by the moon while discussing classified material. It’s just you and him, but in this car, it’s his parish.

“His crimes are tied to fantasy and fetish, and his sense of self depends on not fully integrating those acts into his identity. So, when you structure the interview that way, you bypass that resistance - and that’s when you get the most information… why am I not seeing you write this down?”

Stop bitching. You’re not taking notes because the logistics are completely fucked. One set of earphones (clearly designed for a single human head) split between two people means any attempt to move even half an inch in the name of comfort or legible handwriting goes straight into the pit.

So, without really thinking about it, you inevitably end up turning onto your left side because, truly, entirely by accident, the only stable surface still within reach for your notebook becomes… Agent Hotchner’s bicep. What a terrible, terrible inconvenience.

He doesn’t even seem to mind.

“Do you think we’ll have to use that third-person strategy with our unsub too?” you ask, mostly to make this situation feel less awkward. “Or is he going to be more like… Kemper, who couldn’t shut up about his murders?”

The warmth of his breath brushes your space as he turns his head. You can see the sculptural lines of his neck tightening as his bewildered glance peeks over his shoulder at you.

Nothing. He must not have heard you.

“Hotchner?” you prompt.

He gives a quick nod, as if you’ve just caught him in something. “You tell me… also, you can call me Hotch. I’ve told you,” he adds. The words slip out his tongue in a low susurrus.

Whatever makes you comfortable, Crotch.

“I just want to know what you think, Hotch.” It really doesn’t roll off the tongue well. You tilt your head up at him. Happy now?

Hotch looks down at you. His gaze drifts over your face for a moment, before settling back on your eyes.

“What I think doesn’t matter.” He glances down vacantly, shaking his head. He must’ve used less product tonight, because the raven strands he’s been absentmindedly pushing back all evening fall perfectly loose across his forehead again. He’s sort of pretty like this.

“God, you’re so lame,” you deflect.

His head snaps back up, one brow arched in disapproval. “Try that again.”

He glares at you - dead serious, except for the glint in his eyes behind the lenses that betrays he’s not entirely serious. Pussy. Exactly like that, he breaks into a single chuckle, looking back down with a soft smile. (Agent Hotchner has a sense of humor?!)

He hastily resumes the interview. (What a party pooper… but maybe for the best this time. It was starting to feel buzzy.) The problem is you can’t really escape him. Every time you try to write something, you’re doing it on his arm.

It’s a universal law, right? The harder your prefrontal cortex goes don’t go there, the faster your limbic system ignores it, the amygdala flags it as alarmingly relevant, the reward circuitry lights up, dopamine does its thing, and suddenly your entire operating system downgrades to: huh. That’s… firm.

You want to touch it, see how beefy he really is. Especially when he’s so nosy he keeps leaning in a little too close to check what you’re writing, like it’s stronger than him - and he gets so focused he ends up catching his bottom lip between his teeth without probably even realizing it.

Anyways.

Brudos - the lust killer - is a difficult subject to interview, mostly because of how evasive he is. He lies constantly to protect his ego. He tells Gideon the cuts on his wrists are from a jealous girlfriend chasing him with a knife for sleeping around with college girls, instead of admitting they’re fresh from being jumped in prison.

And sure, every subject they’ve interviewed over the years has their own way of responding - truth, lies, silence - and those patterns are what eventually shape the categories of offenders. But with someone like Brudos, getting him to talk about anything real - especially the parts that threaten his sense of masculinity - is a different kind of challenge.

The cross-dressing. Stealing clothes off neighbors’ lines. The fetishes that fed into the killings. The hundreds of size-16 shoes in his garage that he insists belong to his “shopaholic wife.” He won’t go near any of it. To get him to open up, to actually push past the surface and into his psyche, there’s a moment in the recording where Rossi and Gideon shift tactics. Out of nowhere, they bring out a shoebox.

You can hear it immediately. The way the tone of his voice loosens up, how he starts offering more gore details without being pushed as much as before. It’s like the object unlocks something in him - like he’s drawn to it, hypnotized, and in that state he forgets to hold back.

It makes you wonder what that would look like on video - whether he’d keep talking while his eyes stayed fixed on it, locked onto his own object of desire, like everything else in the room had just… dropped away, but also, most importantly-

“Is that why Gideon always says everyone has their own shoe?”

“Here I’ve been thinking he was just passionate about footwear for the past seven years,” he shoots back.

His crow’s feet crinkle when he chuckles. Your gazes meet somewhere in the middle, both of you turning at the same time. You’re kind of incapable of looking away. His mouth parts a touch, softening the line of it, before he gives you a small smile and tips his head back against the seat. His eyes drift up to the ceiling of the car.

“Sometimes I don’t understand what Gideon says,” he adds, idly, as he pulls out his earphone and, just as casually, starts peeling off his burgundy sweater over his head.

The fabric drags on the way up - some obnoxiously expensive wool-cashmere blend that probably does wonders for insulation but absolutely nothing to tame the static, clinging like it’s in no rush to let go as it hauls the shirt underneath with it, riding it up almost to his sternum.

It exposes the soft, flushed creases of his stomach as he shifts upright. His lower belly tips perfectly halfway over his belt buckle. You shamelessly follow the dark, curled trail of hair that starts there, spreading along the defined cut of his V-line before slipping out of sight below-

“Do you think we’re the unsub’s shoe tonight…?” You swallow. The yellow overhead lighting of the car casts a baroque play of light and shadow over his veined arms. Woah. The slut show is only barely toned down by the fact that his glasses have climbed up clumsily and now rest endearingly crooked on his forehead. “You know… I mean… that thing he desires so much that it makes him reveal his true self without even realizing it.”

The dopamine hit of having been right about him wearing his Georgetown Law University (since 1789) shirt under the sweater is ephemeral. Your eyes immediately latch onto an opaque patch on the side of his biceps. Is that…

Hotch folds the sweater and places it under his head like a pillow. He lets out a breathy sigh of relief when his neck finally sinks back against the seat. “What makes you so sure he wasn’t aware of revealing himself, and not that he chose to? That he accepted giving parts of himself away because it got him what he wanted? And that the repression, the lies he built to protect what he didn’t want seen, is exactly what ends up making him obvious?”

You roll your eyes. He really can’t help himself. Peacocking 24/7 or he’ll die.

“Yeah, okay, okay. You’re good.” Your gaze doesn’t move. You’re very aware you’re staring at the patch on his bicep. And you’re even more aware that he knows you are.

“You’re going to be great too, if you give yourself more time,” he says, almost reprimanding, but it softens at the end with a small smile. (You figure, at some point, you’ll build immunity to whatever that does to you.) “And I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t agree with your theory about the unsub circling back to his original hunting ground, now that the press is calling him the Hemlock Trace Murderer.”

How generous of him. And while anything remotely resembling praise from him still sends an embarrassing flutter through your chest, it’s… somewhat undermined by the fact that your eyes keep flicking from his face right back down to the patch on his arm with a kind of embarrassingly childish fixation you should’ve outgrown years ago.

He sighs. “Nicotine patch… I’ve got another one here.” He taps his right trapezius with the opposite hand. (You really shouldn’t be watching that as closely as you are.)

“…Aren’t you supposed to just use one at a time?”

It’s a strangely mundane thought, all things considered. But then again, the real shock isn’t that SSA Aaron Hotchner - future-FBI-director-in-the-making - is, apparently, at the mercy of something as ordinary as nicotine. It’s why he gives it away.

Why he tells you about the second patch, about the fact that his addiction is worse than it looks, when you never would’ve noticed in the first place. If anything, you’d expect him to minimize it, not… casually make it worse.

He could’ve easily kept that entirely to himself and preserved the illusion.

He’s always been very good at that. Up until now. Because this isn’t him. Not the man who’s always trying to make himself smaller - now leaning back and lacing his hands behind his head, taking up as much space as possible, like he’s finally allowing himself to.

The swell of his bicep, the tease of hair at the cuffs of his shirt, the thick vein running along his arm - he looks statuesque. Always so composed and immovable, even in the way he relaxes. He’s the one who trained you not to miss, to account for every signal before forming a judgment.

Which is exactly why you don’t miss the way his eyes drop to your bare legs every time you shift, uncross them, or adjust how you’re sitting. The way his gaze latches where your skin starts to feel warm and sticky. How it lingers before he recalibrates and pulls himself back. Like he’s aware of it, choosing not to linger when he can feel his control starting to slip through his fingers.

Too bad he keeps falling for it. It’s embarrassing how predictable it’s become.

He’s the one who’s been drilling it into you from day one - choose your path, leave no room for hesitation or doubt. Say it clearly. Some other pretentious bullshit. And make sure anyone listening understands exactly where you stand.

Anyway, Agent Hotchner must be proud of you when you deliver your conclusion directly on his lips. For once, he’s got nothing to correct you about.

His mouth tastes like he’s been wanting you for a long time but is still trying, stubbornly, to take it slow, to keep himself from showing you just how much. He’s giving you mixed signals - except for the way one broad hand steadily cradles your face, not letting you go.

You can feel the grit of the calluses he’s grown over the years from gripping a gun too often dragging lightly against your heated skin. You wonder if he can feel your own hands learning that same language against his neck.

He rests his forehead against yours, brushing the tip of his nose against yours to catch a breath.

“What are we even doing?” he murmurs. He bashfully ducks his head to chuckle. His laugh shouldn’t sound like a siren call that makes you wish you’d claimed him sooner.

“I don’t know,” you laugh. (Old habits die hard.)

“I swear, I usually don’t do this-”

Oh. Shut the fuck up already. You move before you can think better of it, climbing into his lap. Your skirt rides up your thighs as you  straddle him, and you rush back to his mouth, kissing him just to shut him up, because you know where he’s going with this.

One more word about how principled he is - how he’s not that kind of man, how he’s never crossed that line with a trainee because he’s too respectful - and you’re going to fuck him just to wear him down, even in the most underwhelming pair of underwear you own.

Now that doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all…

He turns the kiss unexpectedly tender, far too tender for the way his hands dig into the flesh of your thighs, pushing you further onto his lap. You feel your eyes roll all the way up toward the starry sky as the movement makes the cold metal of his belt buckle brush against your pussy.

You bite your lip to keep from making a sound too soon, but you can’t stop yourself from instinctively chasing the ecstatic coil of pleasure again, canting your hips against it. There’s something about the difference in temperature that knocks the air out of your lungs; it’s so good it’s almost painful.

He’s so… wow. Your hands don’t know where to settle, overwhelmed by how much of him there is beneath you. They roam greedily - over the softness of his stomach, up to the solid breadth of his endowed knockers chest, down the curve of his bicep, and along as much of the tense muscle of his back as you can reach (you’re almost certain you’ve found that second nicotine patch exactly where he tapped it earlier).

You can’t seem to choose one place, can’t seem to get enough, when you’re already riding white-hot waves of pleasure just from imagining how the hard line of his dick, skimming against your inner thigh, might feel where you admittedly, desperately want him - fantasizing about the way he could stretch your pussy so, so, so well.

Agent Hotchner - no, Hotch – absolutely terrifying, Aaron? (Woah, woah, woah. Are you even allowed to call him that?) The male specimen deepens the kiss, and something breathless slips out of you the second his tongue finds your mouth. It’s that sound - yours - that does it. His hips jerk up into you, unguarded, (casually?) hitting your clit just right, like his body moved to his own accord. Another moan slips out of you.

You only manage to catch your breath when his mouth leaves yours, tracing a fiery, wet path down the length of your neck before finding that one spot that turns your back into a bow, while your fingers tangle tighter in the coarse hair at the nape of his neck, scratching - anything to keep him right there.

And still, it’s not enough. It’s never enough. He’s the only person who can make your blood boil with irritation even while you can feel how soaked your panties are for him, slick dripping down your thighs, while he’s still playing careful and keeping those damn hands laced in a God-honoring way around your waist like he’s afraid to take more.

Does he fucking need a diagram of the erogenous zones of a woman?

Perhaps he needs a little guidance.

You grab his hand - trying very hard not to dwell on the fact that it’s so much bigger than yours, rough with calluses (seriously, someone in the Bureau needs to get this man some hand cream), yet unexpectedly softer along the back, where a faint scatter of hair does something mildly distracting to your brain - and drag it, impatiently, up over your ribs.

Your breath hitches when you finally press his palm where you’ve been wanting it, molding it over the curve of your breast like - there, see? Not that hard.

A muffled laugh ghosts against your neck where his mouth is still busy. “I was just trying to be respectful.” (Just trying to be a virg- no. Better to keep that one to yourself.)

He pulls back, propping himself up on his elbows, a little short of breath (is he the kind of man who waits until marriage or-?). His glasses are completely fogged up, hazed over with the same warmth clouding the inside of the car. A genuine (underline genuine - you’d never laugh in his face…) snort slips out of you at the sight.

“Can you not?” he frowns, reaching for them, but you slap his hand away before he can even try.

“Nope.” You really lean into the p. You take the glasses yourself, lifting the hem of his T-shirt to wipe the lenses clean, far more thoroughly than necessary, merely to stretch the time. The brush of hair along his stomach keeps tickling your hand.

He’s smiling like an idiot, holding your gaze (like a whore) while you settle the glasses back onto his face, lightly brushing the hair at his temples back. A few strands of white are starting to show here and there.

He mutters the smallest “thank you.”

You don’t think you’ve ever heard him say it like that… but you also can’t help the soft, gooey feeling settling in your limbs at how cute (is that appropriate?) - pretty (better?) something along those lines - he looks.

His mouth is a little wet and pouty from the kissing, his cheeks warm and rosy, his hair completely messed up from your hands. There’s a piece at the top sticking straight up like an antenna. He looks… kind of ridiculous. And yet you can’t look away.

It could be twenty seconds or twenty full minutes - time does that strange, elastic thing - where you’re just there, sitting on his lap, staring at each other while his hands move slowly up and down your thighs. He’s so grounding.

“There are patrols at every entrance to Hemlock Trace… right?” you ask. You don’t want to fuck this up. Would acknowledging it turn him closed off all over again?

He hums back, lazily. He needily tilts his chin up, like he needs you back, silently urging you to keep kissing him. He’s so starry-eyed when you cave in and lean down to press your lips to his.

“If they see anybody come in,” he props himself up for another chaste kiss, “they’ll tell us, like we’ve planned.” Another kiss. “The radio signal is the only thing that works here.”

The warmth of his fingers keeps moving farther and farther inward along your upper thigh. You’re surprisingly squirmy as you feel his thick digits press against your cunt.

“Even if the unsub stole a police radio to keep up with us, he’d still have to find his way in here,” he says.

The fabric of your panties clings to your skin more than his fingers ever could as he starts spreading the honeydew up and down your folds, teasing you with more pressure every time he comes across your core. He can still draw sounds out of you even while avoiding your clit.

“And if someone gets close, we’d hear the noise of the car,” you add. You’re both trying to convince yourselves it’s going to be okay. “So…”

“Only if you want.”

So this is what it comes down to.

You’ve just discovered that the fastest way to stop second-guessing yourself - to pick one path and not spiral into a thousand competing theories - is thinking with your pussy. A sort of speed-dial Occam’s razor. Questionable margins of error. Still, technically consistent with the holistic idea: when faced with competing hypotheses, choose the one that requires the fewest assumptions.

It all holds up beautifully until a National Park Service guard starts sweeping a flashlight toward the car and you’re reminded that 14th-century logic only works if your hypotheses are actually… you know, thought through.

“Did you remember to redirect the National Park Service to New Kent County tonight and reassign Virginia State Police to Hemlock Trace?” he asks, not quite looking at you, warm hazel eyes tracking the beam of light instead. There’s a sheen of sweat at his temples.

Old habits die hard with Aaron Hotchner. Second-guessing you is basically foreplay at this point.

“Of course I did,” you mutter. “Right after you and Gideon delivered the profile… there’s no way National Park Police should be here unless-”

Oh. In the mild haze of almost getting laid, you may have both overlooked one very small, very critical detail: the unsub could already be inside the perimeter - or on foot - in which case, no, you wouldn’t hear a damn thing coming.

The beam of light vanishes. Moonlight bleeds back in, catching on something beyond your peripheral vision. Golden, shoulder-length hair concealed beneath the brim of a beige Stratton hat, refract the pale light in ruptured winks that never quite let you see him whole. He raps his knuckles against the driver’s window, but the sound lands as if it’s right beside your head.

“Are you two having fun in there?” comes a muffled voice from outside.

“Don’t even try to start-” Hotchner warns you.

If Midas turned everything he touched to gold, your touch makes things rot. Gold, famously, doesn’t. And yet, you’ve managed to corrupt even the FBI’s golden boy.

Aaron Hotchner - the man who keeps his academy notes like heirlooms for a hypothetical inexistent son who might one day follow in his footsteps, the man with a career and an actual future to lose - just ripped the arrest report out of your very replaceable rookie hands and put himself on the line for up to five years in prison to falsify it.

All to cover what the two of you were doing in that car. The same thing that got the unsub close enough to matter in the first place. For you. When you have… what, exactly, to lose?

“But I started-”

“Go help Reid with the chain of custody paperwork,” he barks - not even looking up, eyes locked on the form. (Woof.)

Ten minutes.

That’s all that’s left before Wade Miller - the motherfucker - is done with the polygraph Gideon insisted on. Ten minutes until Gideon walks out of that interview room, and his face alone will tell you everything: whether Miller’s heartbeat finally betrayed him over the twelve people he killed… or whether he saw you and Agent Hotchner violating several extremely clear HR policies the night of the arrest, and your future is about to become prosecutable.

“Do you think it means anything that Miller has a Virginia license plate reading E-M-R-A-W?” Reid asks.

You’re not really listening. Your eyes keep drifting toward the desk across the room, where Hotchner sits as composed as ever, looking completely unbothered while doing something you genuinely never thought you’d witness him do.

“EM-RAW?” you echo absently. “As in… eat them raw?”

“…Yeah. Now it makes sense.”

Nine minutes.

Agent Hotchner lifts his eyes from the file. He scans the room like he’s searching for the source of a disturbance before inevitably landing on you. Even from across the room, you can feel the disappointment - the flare of his nostrils, the tilt of his head silently telling you to focus.

(What are you even supposed to be focusing on anymore?)

Oh. Right. You’re supposed to be working. You log into the laptop. Your fingers hammer uselessly against the keyboard, though you can barely feel the keys over the lingering memory of the rough stubble along Hotchner’s jaw.

“I asked the technical analyst to dig into Miller,” you begin. “Married for eight years, but apparently his wife suddenly left with their two-year-old son and never came back. Happened around two months before the murders of Vale and Hargrove on Hemlock Trace.”

Detective Bush appears beside Hotch’s desk carrying a paper cup you assume is coffee and gives him an easy pat on the shoulder before walking off.

“That would fit as a primary stressor,” Reid nods. “If she’d filed for divorce officially, we probably would’ve flagged him sooner.”

You catch the quiet “thank you” slipping from Hotch’s mouth before he blows across the surface of the drink. Your eyes follow the large hand wrapped around the cup, every movement suddenly slowed by the simple fact that he’s under your scrutiny.

“Bummer,” you mutter. “I’m sure there are, what, like… three divorced fishermen in all of Virginia. Should narrow it down nicely.”

“Statistically, approximately 17,000 licensed commercial and independent fishermen operate in Virginia’s coastal regions,” Reid replies immediately. “Based on state divorce rates-”

The data isn’t nearly as crucial as latching onto the way Hotchner’s Adam’s apple works when he swallows. The way his shoulders loosen afterward, the visible exhale leaving him like a man finally getting his fix after hours of withdrawal. The way his tongue flicks discreetly across his upper lip - like even that tiny act would violate some etiquette manual he’s sworn allegiance to - catching the trace of coffee there.

Something ugly twists in your stomach at the thought that maybe you’d gotten a little too attached to the ephemeral idea of that mouth being yours too.

“I just hope the saliva DNA they pulled from the Belgian waffles he was eating in the car matches the partial profile we found on the victims,” Reid sighs.

Ew. You really didn’t need the mental image of Wade Miller’s syrup-slick fingers while you were trying to handcuff him.

“Yeah,” you mutter, “but it still won’t be enough. We never recovered a full print. And even if the marine rope in Miller’s truck matches the fibers from the first pair of victims, it’s still circumstantial. Same as everything else we’ve got. If we actually want to keep him, we need a confession, otherwise he’s just gonna walk right back out of here in less than twenty-four hours.”

“Technically, law enforcement can usually hold a suspect for up to forty-eight hours before they have to formally charge or release him. Virginia follows the constitutional standard established in County of Riverside v. McLaughlin in 1991, which set that general probable-cause window after a warrantless arrest.”

If you close your eyes, either Hotchner has consumed your psyche down to the cellular level or Reid’s cadence is genuinely starting to sound like his whenever he slips into one of those dense legalese monologues. (Reid doesn’t irk you nearly as much, of course.)

That’s beside the point. What’s really sitting glacial at the base of your spine is the realization that Wade Miller - who barely existed a few hours ago outside of a hypothetical profile - has already become someone you know more intimately than Agent Hotchner.

You know Miller’s divorce timeline. His fishing routes. His eating habits (the fucker desperately needs to incorporate more fiber.) His preferred brand of marine rope (which is objectively pathetic, though maybe still less pathetic than keeping exactly three CDs rattling around in his car). The contents of his electric blue truck down to the smell. You know he picked up a second job at a sawmill, which explains why he felt just as comfortable navigating deep wooded areas as he did the riverbanks you originally believed were his primary hunting grounds.

Hotchner remains vexingly evasive about anything that isn’t related to work.

Is he avoiding the… um… subject because it meant nothing and there’s nothing to say? Or because it meant enough that he doesn’t trust himself to talk about it at all?

Is it even your place to ask? You’re still on the clock. 5 minutes. Your job is to understand men like Miller. Not to sit here trying to profile the exact emotional significance of Agent Hotchner letting you kiss him. And then kiss him back. And then…

You grip the computer mouse hard enough that you’re sure you could crack the plastic if you really committed to it. The burnt office coffee hanging in the air doesn’t stand a chance against the warm, saccharine smell of him hovering over your shoulder, intoxicating you like the most addictive narcotic.

“What are you two talking about,” Hotchner asks, “that’s preventing you from keeping up with your work?”

Always a dick.

“I was just saying that putting Miller on a polygraph before even attempting a proper interrogation is a stupid idea.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Reid turning toward you looking absolutely blanched by the statement. Which cannot possibly be low blood sugar - you literally just watched him ingest a coffee containing roughly four tablespoons of sugar).

Jeez. You’ve long suspected Gideon’s preferred teaching method involves psychologically conditioning his protégés into a permanent state of sacred improv-rule “yes, and” obedience, whereas your dynamic with Agent Hotchner has somehow evolved into the oxymoronic “no, wait” or, on particularly inspired occasions, “absolutely the fuck not” (the “the fuck” being more spiritual than grammatical).

But seeing Reid’s complete inability to openly disagree with a superior for the first time makes you a lot less jealous that you never got the chance to spend that much time under Gideon. (Literally…)

(Sure, Hotchner looks fully capable of vaporizing a person when he frowns like that, but so far he hasn’t actually done it. Statistically, your odds remain decent.)

“Why?” Hotchner asks. Oh, come on. Is that not so fucking obvious?

“There’s a high chance the results come back inconclusive if Miller’s a sociopath,” you reply.

“We don’t have enough evidence to conclude that.” Always so calm.

He’s annoying. (You want to rip his expensive clothes off with your teeth.) But you can also tell by the way the dimples carve into his otherwise composed face that he’s provoking you on purpose. (Doesn’t he have anything more important to do than psychologically tormenting you during working hours?)

“No one’s ever needed a formal diagnosis to acknowledge the possibility,” you shoot back. “If he’s emotionally detached enough - or genuinely believes his own delusions - the test not only becomes completely useless, but we also waste hours telling a potential serial offender exactly which questions we care about. You know that.”

“All throughout my career, I’ve seen people confess before the machine was even attached, more often than you’d think. The process itself creates pressure. We made him wait all night, too - I saw it myself, he’s becoming more susceptible. And Gideon clearly knows what he’s doing.”

His voice is so soothing it almost works, but he still doesn’t seem to understand what you actually mean. (Then again, even Aaron Hotchner is a sausage first and foremost.)

It’s not really about whether Miller is a sociopath. Or whether Gideon’s strategy technically makes sense. It’s the fact that the deeper you get into behavioral science, the more you start realizing there’s significantly less science involved than people like to pretend and a far more alarming amount of luck instead.

Everybody in this field talks about profiles and probabilities with such absolute certainty that eventually you’re expected to stop noticing how often the outcome still boils down to whether another human being arbitrarily decides to crack or not, and there’s absolutely nothing you can really do to control any of it except sit here hoping the odds land in your favor this time.

Cool. Apparently that’s just how this works. But if that’s the case, then why the hell wouldn’t you choose the option that gives you the highest possible chance of success?

“You believe interrogating him first would’ve been the better move?” Hotchner asks, softly resting a hand on your shoulder. In public?

“Yes!” His hand is still there.

“Based on?”

Oh, so he’s choosing to be a dick while simultaneously, and very out of characterly, transmitting body heat through that huge broad hand resting on your shoulder.

“He’s an attention whore.” (Wade Miller might not currently be the only man in the room with that particular affliction.)

Okay. You might actually be completely fucked up, because there is no conceivable reason you should find only Aaron’s - ew. Absolutely not. Back to proper nouns. Agent Hotchner’s - discomfort around swear words this endearing.

(Sorry, Reid. He’s technically the first person in the room to visibly regret the sentence, but unfortunately his reactions simply do not hit the same.)

Must be something about the addictive restrained disapproval of it all.

The way Hotchner instinctively crosses his arms - thank you, freedom, finally, though you admittedly already miss the weight of his hand on your shoulder - like physically containing his reaction is the only thing preventing him from acknowledging what you just said out loud.

Dayum. The Bureau ought to sanction all of his fitted dress shirts in the interest of workplace functionality because it is objectively difficult to maintain a professional disagreement under these conditions. (You should’ve fondled those knockers when you had the chance.)

Then there’s the eyebrow raise. That silent paternalistic look telling you to elaborate. The fact that you somehow understand exactly where the line is with him and keep dancing one inch from it anyway.

“The press starts calling him the Hemlock Trace Killer, every patrol unit in the state is crawling all over the Trace even though we’ve repeatedly said his actual hunting grounds were more likely riverbanks and deep wooded areas, and instead of choosing literally any other isolated stretch off the James that would’ve been safer, that dude goes right back to the exact road attached to his name.”

Hotchner doesn’t comment on it, nor does he counter with one of his usual Socratic follow-up questions. The absence of a reaction prickles under your skin so badly that you get the physical need to push further purely for the satisfaction of provoking one.

“I don’t know about you, but that’s sounding a lot like this revolutionary little concept introduced around 1900 by an Austrian psychologist named Freud called ego.” You shoot him a cheeky smile and nearly get drunk on the irritated huff of air that leaves his nose.

“Freud didn’t formally introduce the structural model involving the ego until 1923,” Reid cuts in.

You hope he’s doing this because he feels comfortable enough around you to interrupt your bullshit and not because being trapped between you and Hotchner has triggered some kind of intellectualized third-wheel trauma response. (Sorry, Reid. Spencer. Whichever level of acquaintance currently permits him to publicly fact-check you.)

“…In The Ego and the Id. And the philosophical concept of the ego predates Freud by… quite a lot, actually. Freud didn’t invent the concept, he was inspired by-”

The only thing apparently capable of stopping Reid in the middle of an academic deep dive comes striding into the room roughly two minutes - practically unheard of for a man who treats punctuality like an optional social construct - before anyone would’ve expected him back from the interrogation room.

Gideon.

Without preamble, he starts sweeping case files off the desk and shoving them into Hotchner’s briefcase. (Gideon, famously opposed to earthly possessions. Or at the very least to carrying his own.)

“Pack everything. We’re done here.”

What?

“What about Miller’s polygraph?” Hotchner looks pissed. He fixes Gideon with a stare so intense that you’re the one getting goosebumps. You keep forgetting how genuinely terrifying Hotchner can look when he’s angry (probably because, completely absentmindedly, he’s also pushing his jacket back to plant one broad hand on his hip.)

(Whor-)

“Inconclusive.”

The disgust that flashes across Hotchner’s face is ineffable.

“So Miller walks out of here with no charges?” You can hear the strain underneath Hotchner’s voice from the raw effort of trying to force Gideon into giving one concrete answer for once in his life. You don’t know how he manages not to lose his temper with him. How he keeps all of that frustration leashed so cleanly beneath the surface. Always so mighty, Agent Hotchner.

“Most likely.”

Hotchner follows him toward the victim board. “Jason… it’s him. We can’t just let it-”

“They’ve got it from here, Aaron. We’ve done everything we could.” The absent pat he gives Hotchner’s shoulder afterward feels as intimate as Judas’ kiss.

One by one, the notes disappear from the board. Your handwriting. Reid’s annotations. The overlapping circles. The highlighted river access points. Hours of profiling. Then the map itself.

Nothing but bare cork.

There are moments when you get so busy dissecting how fucked up Wade Miller is that you forget he came out of a fucked up system to begin with.

You’re going to miss the breeze of the loblolly pines drying your cheeks. The distant smell of burnt coffee. The steady sound of Agent Hotchner’s dress shoes getting closer across the concrete.

He brushes dust and dirt off the outdoor step with one hand before sitting down beside you.

“I haven’t seen you drink anything all day,” he says, lowering his voice to a quiet susurrus.

“Thanks.” It’s all you can manage while waiting for your words to return to you.

If only he knew how terrible caffeine is for hydration… but you like the warmth of the cup against your fingers. You rotate it in your palms, waiting for it to cool enough to drink, and a strangled huff slips from your nose when you realize he gave you his own mug. The obnoxious FBI logo stamped across it is something only Aaron Hotchner could consume from sincerely.

He tilts his head toward the mug. “They give a bunch of these out every year at the anniversary event… they also have caps, if you’re interested.”

He says it with such dead seriousness that it makes you laugh.

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure? Rumor has it they’re doing lunchboxes this year too…”

You can tell by the woebegone little smile tugging at his mouth that he’s only leaning into the joke to distract you from… all of this. It’s nice nonetheless. Even if it’s fabricated. Unlike the angle of his hand resting respectfully against the concrete beside him, pointed unconsciously toward your thigh like it doesn’t know what it’s allowed to do.

You wish you could turn off your ability to read microexpressions and body language for, like, five consecutive minutes. Especially when it comes to him.

“Did you pack everything?” he asks.

“Yeah… I was just out here for some air. I was about to head back-”

“There’s still time. It’s okay… that’s why I’m here too.” He exhales softly. “They’re putting surveillance on Miller around the clock. He won’t be able to hurt anyone, you know?” The only thing reassuring is how much his voice is mending you from the inside out.

“And that’s okay for you?”

“Fuck no…” He chuckles.

He pulls a pack of lame-ass Marlboro Reds from his jacket pocket. Not a fresh pack either, judging by the worn paint along the corners and the softened cardboard from repeated use. He taps the top absentmindedly with his index finger. Like a clock ticking. It looks so small in his hands.

“You can smoke, don’t worry, I’m totally cool-”

The ease with which he flips the pack open using only his thumb makes it so obvious he’s been a smoker for a very long time.

“God, I wish…” He tilts the box toward you with a laugh. There are no cigarettes inside, just a nearly finished stash of nicotine gum.

The vein running along his hand flexes with the effort of his much larger thumb pushing one piece free from the foil. Every trick in the book to fool his brain into thinking it’s still getting what it wants, apparently. Coming outside to chew them probably helps too. Easier to satisfy the ritual without other people noticing the weakness attached to it.

Except he keeps choosing to let you see it every single time he gets the chance.

And he’s right - there’s still something uncanny about watching someone as tightly controlled as Aaron Hotchner reduced to bargaining with himself that makes it impossible to stop staring at him. There’s something so ineffable in the way his features seem to rise toward the idea of Beauty itself when he lets the restraint slip for even a second.

You’re going to miss this too.

You swallow and tighten your grip around his mug, clinging to the warmth of it more than anything else. “Would you sign my references for internships? I know I’m not getting the spot here, so… probably better to try my luck somewhere else.”

“You’re not doing your internship with the BAU?” Genuine surprise slips into his voice. “You can get fieldwork even during your first year as an office agent. It’s not nearly as paperwork-heavy as people think-”

“Honestly, I don’t know if I can after this one,” you cut him off, instinctively placing your hand over his fingers to stop him.

His head lowers at the contact. Slowly and uncertainly, he parts his fingers until his ring finger hooks clumsily over your hand. His thumb brushes softly along the side of it, ever so tenderly.

“You keep proving to me every day why I couldn’t have made a better choice picking your file for the course,” he says, gently. “More than I even expected.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Gideon lets me select one trainee every year,” he smiles. Why is he so handsome? “I’m the one who reads the applications, afterall.”

“Really?” Oh no. Oh, fucking shit. Why is that so embarrassing?

He nods. “I still remember your CODIS section. You wrote about expanding DNA indexing to include deceased offenders whenever possible in order to identify links to unsolved homicides. You argued that even decades later, families still deserve the chance for closure.”

“That part was barely even about behavioral science,” you mutter weakly. Your whole face feels hot in the uniquely violating way it probably would if he’d somehow gotten access to your diary from when you were twelve.

“And that’s exactly why it stood out to me,” he says, still caressing the side of your hand. “Most people can talk about behavioral science. But usually when someone mentions CODIS, they only focus on the scientific value of it. You were thinking about what it meant for the families afterward. So I hope you believe me when I tell you that you already have everything we need. And I’m not saying that because you and I- because we-”

His eyes drop to your joined hands. He shakes his head once with a disbelieving chuckle, but he still doesn’t let go.

“I, uh- yeah,” you mumble. “I got it.”

You watch color immediately rise across his cheeks, bright pink climbing all the way up to his ears.

“Besides-” he clears his throat, “Gideon just got called onto a bombing case in Boston. That’s why we’re leaving.”

“You’re not going with him?”

“He asked me to stay behind and coordinate while he’s gone. He said it could take a couple of weeks… which technically leaves us one extra agent short.”

Then, before you can fully process what’s happening, he leans down and presses a quick kiss against the side of your head as he rises to his feet.

“I expect your internship curriculum on my desk by the time we’re back in Quantico,” he says. “And don’t forget my notes.”

The grin he gives you afterward looks so unexpectedly boyish that you consider the logistical feasibility of biting him. (Respectfully.)

“Can I keep your flashcards for another week?” you ask. “I still can’t get the legal section into my head.”

“Five days. And I can help you go through it on the drive back.”

Oh. The drive back.You don’t think you’ve ever been this happy about the prospect of getting into a car with Agent Hotchner.

“I hope your excitement is for the tutoring,” he deadpans, stepping backward toward the precinct doors, “because if it’s for anything else, I believe you’d be very disappointed.”

He’s right.

You do need tutoring from him, because you still have absolutely no idea how to legally interpret the wink he gives you before disappearing back inside.

Maybe change into your nicer pair of panties this time. You know. As a precautionary measure.

taglist: @aria-chikage ; @beata1108 ; @c-losur3 ; @crying-ang3l ; @domitaylorsversion ; @decadentcatcrusade ; @donttrustlove ; @fangirlunknown ; @fox-saturn ; @goorgeousz ; @hayleym1234 ; @heartofthebeach ; @ignoreeeeeee ; @justyourusualash ; @khxna ; @kiwriteswords ; @kyrathekiller ; @littlemisskavities ; @lostinwonderland314 ; @mmmunson ; @msfreedom ; @mxblobby ; @nikt-wazny-y ; @outofstyles3 ; @pastelpinkflowerlife ; @percysley ; @person-005 ; @poseidons-lovechild ; @prettybaby-reid ; @purechaosss ; @reidfile ; @royalestrellas ; @ssa-callahan ; @softtdaisy ; @softestqueeen ; @thatkidofwarandpeace ; @theseerbetweenus ; @thiswildandpreciouslife ; @todorokishoe24 ; @who-needs-to-sleep

SUPER GIGA MEGA HUGE BIGGEST thanks to my beloveds @hotchology and @sweetheartsocks for helping me and putting up with my wips throughout this journey... I tried to be as secretive as possible and not spoil too much, but I believe you’ve already read 80% of the fic... sorry, my loves

If you want to know more about the real case that inspired this fic, I strongly recommend reading this incredibly detailed wiki article (it’s also where I got the maps from!)

Reid hums as he glances back down at his book. “Interesting how your clothing choices become statistically less practical in direct correlation to Hotch’s proximity.”

Your stomach flips. “Spence.”

He lifts one shoulder. “What? He’s not listening.”

You glance back at Morgan, whose eyes are glued to his phone, brow furrowed just slightly as he waits for the whirring coffee machine to fill his cup.

“That’s not the point, Spencer,” you mutter, turning back to him. “You need to—”

The conference room door swings open again and Hotch walks in—files tucked under one arm, the rest of the team trailing behind him.

“Morning,” he says, dropping the files on the table. “Hope everyone had a good weekend.”

Morgan snorts. “What weekend?”

“Yeah,” Prentiss mutters, dropping into the seat beside Reid. “I was here until five on Saturday finishing geographical profiles.”

“That’s because you alphabetise your paperwork,” you point out.

She gives you a look. “I enjoy being proficient.”

“Well,” you say lightly, leaning back in your chair “some of us managed to finish our paperwork on Friday and still have a very enjoyable weekend.”

Garcia gasps dramatically as she falls into the last empty chair, coffee in hand. “Ooh, look at you. Was there a man involved?”

You shrug one shoulder, biting back a smile. “I’m choosing to plead the fifth.”

Morgan points across the table. “That means yes.”

“Or,” Reid says without looking up from his book, “it means she enjoys making people speculate.”

“Aw, Spence,” you tease. “Don’t sound so bitter.”

He finally looks up from his book and fixes you with a look so flat it borders on threatening—because he knows what you’re doing. It’s what you always do. It’s how you manipulate their perception. How you keep your secret.

You perform.

You scroll through dating profiles, talk about men, brag about your weekends without ever being too specific. You flirt with almost everyone on the team—Reid more than the rest, because he’s your scapegoat... and your best friend.

He’s the only one who can see through the charade. Not because he’s emotionally perceptive, but because he did the math. He noticed the pattern. He realised very quickly that every time Hotch walks into a room or says your name, you react in a way that can only mean one thing:

Hotch is the secret you’re trying so hard to hide.

Because if you give a team of profilers an easy explanation—harmless flirting with a messy dating life and a weakness for attention—they won’t notice the way your entire body betrays you whenever your infuriatingly gorgeous boss gets too close.

Hotch clears his throat. “Well, lucky for all of you, it’s a quiet week.”

Reid shuts his book and sets it on the table.

“No active cases as of this morning,” Hotch continues. “Which means we’ll be catching up on consults, court reports, and the mountain of paperwork everyone’s apparently been neglecting.”

His eyes meet yours for the briefest second, and your pulse skitters.

“I’m bored already,” Morgan sighs, leaning back in his chair.

Hotch ignores him. “We’ve got two local consult requests from Fairfax County and a follow-up review from the Richardson case. Dave, I’ll need your notes finalised by this afternoon.”

Rossi nods once. “You’ll have them.”

“Garcia,” Hotch continues, “the Milwaukee office wants that digital forensic review by Wednesday.”

Garcia gasps softly, pressing a hand to her chest. “But I already colour-coded my entire week. That review wasn’t supposed to be due for another fortnight.”

Morgan blinks. “You colour-code your schedule?”

“Obviously,” Garcia says. “How else would I maintain my sparkling personality under crushing institutional pressure?”

Reid straightens. “Technically, organising information activates the same reward pathways as—”

“Don’t,” Prentiss says immediately.

Reid frowns slightly. “I was just going to say gambling.”

You snort softly before you can stop yourself, covering it quickly with your hand. Reid shoots you a look. Prentiss just shakes her head. And when your eyes finally flick back to the front of the room, Hotch is already watching you.

Not the team. You.

Your stomach twists.

That signature Hotchner scowl should not be as hot as it is. It shouldn’t make you cross your legs a little tighter or make your heart race the way it does. You should be used to that scowl by now. You’re on the receiving end of it often enough—whenever you crack a poorly timed joke or flirt a little too hard with Morgan.

Yet somehow, you still feel like you can’t breathe until his gaze finally shifts.

“Moving on,” he says evenly, “JJ will forward the consult details after the meeting.”

He spends the next thirty minutes briefing the team on consults and court appearances while you do your best to stay focused—but it’s hard. It’s hard because every time you look at him, your gaze drops to his mouth and your mind fills with all sorts of filthy ideas. Then he starts moving his hands as he explains something and you can’t help but wonder what they might feel like wrapped around your waist, your thighs, your throat.

His voice is a low rumble at the back of your mind, warm and firm, but you have no idea what he’s actually saying. All you can do is think about how that voice might sound, wrecked and rough, telling you how pretty you look when you—

“The briefing ended three minutes ago,” Reid says.

You blink hard. “What?”

He closes his notebook with a sigh. “The meeting’s over. You can stop internally monologuing now.”

You frown. “I’m not—”

He gives you a look.

“Ugh,” you groan. “You’re so annoying.”

You push up from your chair and walk out of the conference room without waiting for him, but you’re not surprised that he’s right behind you by the time you reach the bullpen. You drop down at your desk with another indignant huff, watching Reid do the same from the corner of your eye.

Everyone else is already settled at their desks—keyboards clicking, pens scribbling—and there’s a fresh stack of files next to your computer with a sticky note on top that reads: Fairfax files. Prioritize pages 12–18. – Hotch.

You want to laugh at the little sign-off, as if anyone else would have put these files on your desk. Your fingers trace over the note once before you peel it off and stick it to the bottom corner of your computer screen.

Reid snorts. “You know most people throw those away, right?”

You glance sideways at him. “I don’t want to forget the page numbers.”

He hums. “Sure.”

“You know,” you say, turning your chair to properly face him, “you’re being particularly judgemental today. What’s your problem?”

He stares at you for a moment, then glances back at the sticky note still attached to your monitor.

“I’m experiencing prolonged second-hand embarrassment,” he says plainly. “And repeated exposure tends to increase irritability.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well—you’re increasing my irritability.”

He nods. “Good.”

You frown.

“I’m attempting corrective behavioural conditioning.”

Your eyes narrow. “By being annoying?”

“Exactly,” he says, already turning back to his computer.

You glare at the side of his head for a long moment, searching for a comeback—but your mind is completely blank. So with another irritated sigh, you turn back to your own screen, scoot your chair into the desk a little harder than necessary, and settle in for what’s shaping up to be a very boring Monday.

The next two hours pass by in a blur of interview transcripts, witness statements, and crime scene photos. The Fairfax County PD files detail the death of a woman in her late thirties who accidentally overdosed in her Reston home early last week. No prior history of substance abuse, financial instability, or high-risk behaviour—until forty-eight hours before her death.

In just two days, she withdrew a large amount of money, missed work without explanation, visited several bars she’d never been to before, and bought herself thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive jewellery and lingerie.

To anyone else, it might look like some sort of breakdown—an impulsive spiral that led to the kind of recklessness you can’t come back from. But to you, the behaviour feels too... artificial. As if someone is trying to construct the narrative of a troubled woman—checking all the right boxes to give investigators an easy explanation for a tragic overdose.

Only there isn’t enough concrete evidence to support your instinct. No stalker. No ex. No clear unsub who could have orchestrated this kind of ruse to cover what might actually be homicide.

You sigh. “Reid.”

“Hm?”

“Tell me if I’m overthinking this.”

Reid pushes back from his desk and scoots across the narrow stretch of carpet between your workstations. He doesn’t stop until his chair bumps the side of your desk, causing your pen cup to topple over and spill across the files you’ve got carefully laid out.

“Oops,” he says absently, pushing the pens aside.

You roll your eyes and start gathering them while he scans the files.

“The behavioural shift feels manufactured,” you say, dropping the pens back into their cup. “But there’s enough legitimate stressors here that I can’t tell if I’m forcing a pattern because it’s too clean.”

Reid examines the highlighted timeline for another few seconds.

“You’re focusing too much on the existence of the stressors,” he says. “Stress explains escalation. It doesn’t explain inconsistency.”

You frown slightly.

“She suddenly becomes impulsive socially, financially, and sexually, but her organisational habits never change.” He taps the timeline. “She still pays bills early. Still meal preps. Still attends a dentist appointment two days before her death. Real behavioural deterioration isn’t usually selective.”

Your brows lift. “So, I’m right?”

Reid nods, leaning back in his chair. “You’re right.”

“What’s she right about?”

You nearly jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice—low and even, a little rough around the edges in that way that always makes your stomach tighten.

“She thinks the behavioural shift is staged,” Reid says. “And I agree.”

He scoots back slightly as Hotch leans in, one hand braced on the back of your chair while the other pulls the file closer so he can read it properly. His tie falls forward, brushing lightly against your thigh—and suddenly, you can’t breathe.

He’s close. Way too close. You can feel the heat of his breath on your skin. Smell the bitterness of coffee beneath his cologne. Hear the quiet creak of leather from his belt as he leans in further.

“It’s too compartmentalised,” Reid says, his voice more distant than it was just a second ago. “Real behavioural spirals usually bleed into every aspect of a person’s routine. Sleep disruption, missed payments, changes in grooming habits, social withdrawal—something.”

Hotch lifts his hand off the desk and presses his thumb to the tip of his tongue—then flips the page.

Your pulse jumps so hard it almost hurts. Heat crawls up the back of your neck. Your whole body feels too hot, your clothes suddenly too tight, the bullpen too small—but you can’t move. Not with Hotch’s hand still on the back of your chair.

“But this is curated,” Reid goes on, tapping the timeline with the end of his pen. “The impulsive behaviour escalates while the foundational routines stay completely intact, which suggests intentional narrative construction.”

Hotch turns his head just slightly, dark eyes finding yours. “You caught that?”

You clear your throat. “I just... thought the escalation pattern felt off.”

“Her behavioural analysis is spot on, actually,” Reid says. “I can’t find a flaw in it.”

Hotch hums quietly as his eyes move back over the file.

“Good girl,” he says absently.

Your entire nervous system short-circuits.

“Keep it up,” he adds, smoothing his tie as he straightens.

You don’t say anything as he turns and walks away. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.

Reid just sits there, hands folded in his lap as he watches Hotch disappear into his office before slowly turning back toward you.

“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “the age-gap preference is actually more interesting than the authority fixation.”

You finally blink. “What?”

“Because the authority thing makes perfect sense. High-pressure careers tend to reinforce attraction to competence, decisiveness, emotional restraint—especially in workplace environments where leadership qualities become psychologically linked with safety and stability over long periods of exposure.”

You frown. “What are you—”

“But the older man preference is statistically more complicated because you don’t actually display the attachment markers usually associated with paternal absence or instability.”

Your eyes go wide. “Spencer—”

“You have a healthy relationship with your father, no documented authority issues, and relatively secure interpersonal attachment patterns, which suggests the preference is less psychologically compensatory and more rooted in behavioural reinforcement.”

“Reid.”

“For example,” he goes on, ignoring you completely, “you spent your formative professional years surrounded almost exclusively by older men in positions of intellectual and behavioural authority. Gideon, Rossi, Hotch—which likely created a reinforcement pattern where emotional competence became unconsciously associated with attraction, arousal, and sexual interest.”

You freeze. “Reid, I swear to—”

“You don’t react this strongly to older men generally,” he continues. “You react strongly to Hotch because he’s emotionally controlled, professionally authoritative, intellectually intimidating, and—”

He pauses, tilting his head.

“Very obviously your type.”

You glance frantically around the bullpen, scanning the desks for the rest of your team.

Morgan has his headphones on, completely focused on whatever report he’s typing. JJ’s desk is empty, as usual—she’s probably with Garcia. And Prentiss is only halfway back from the kitchen, still stirring her fresh cup of coffee.

Your gaze cuts back to Reid. “You are so lucky no one heard that, Spencer.”

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t matter if they did.”

Your brows pull together. “What’s that mean?”

“You’re good at redirecting attention,” he says, slowly pushing his chair back toward his desk. “You’re less good at hiding physiological responses.”

Your hand flies up to your cheek, palm pressing flat against the burning skin.

“Whatever,” you mutter. “It’s warm in here.”

Reid glances around the bullpen. “It’s sixty-eight degrees.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

You shoot him one last glare before turning back toward your computer, aggressively waking up the monitor with your mouse.

You stay chained to your desk for the next few hours, finishing up the victimology report for the Fairfax files before taking them to Rossi for final review. Then you head out with JJ to grab a late lunch from the deli down the street, and when you get back, there’s a brand-new stack of files on your desk—only this time, with a tall takeaway cup of coffee set on top.

“Hotch got dragged into some last-minute Section Chief meeting across town,” Morgan says, pushing his headphones down. “Said he needs those cross-referenced before tomorrow morning.”

“Great,” you mutter, dropping into your chair.

Morgan chuckles softly as he pulls his headphones back up, turning back to his own pile of reports.

You grab the coffee from the top of the files and find a sticky note stuck beneath it—written quickly but still in his unmistakable handwriting: I owe you one. – Hotch.

Your stomach flips.

God. That’s pathetic.

You peel the note off and drop it into the top drawer of your desk, not wanting another psychoanalytic lecture from Reid if he were to spot that note stuck to your monitor.

The rest of the day passes the way every other caseless Monday afternoon does. JJ’s the first to head out—not long after five—taking advantage of the slow week to spend a little extra time with Henry. Rossi leaves about an hour later, announcing to the bullpen that he’s got a date with a bottle of wine and reruns of his favourite medical drama. Morgan manages to clear the files on his desk before seven, finally putting his headphones away before bidding the rest of the team farewell.

Prentiss and Reid linger until nearly nine, and only when the motion sensor lights blink out does Prentiss finally glance up, realising how late it is. She gathers her things and nudges Reid, who’s been firmly stuck in hyperfocus mode despite the rest of the world quietly slowing down around him.

“You coming?” he asks, adjusting the strap of his satchel.

You look up slowly, your brain buffering as it untangles itself from the files spread across your desk.

“Not yet,” you reply, blinking tiredly. “Hotch needs these by morning.”

Reid tilts his head. “Want me to wait?”

You wave a hand. “Nah, go ahead. I’ll get security to walk me to my car.”

“Alright,” he says, already turning away. “Just remember that positive reinforcement loses effectiveness when the subject becomes emotionally dependent on it.”

You glare at his back. “I’m reporting you to HR.”

“You’d have to explain the context,” he calls over his shoulder.

You roll your eyes as you turn back to the last file on your desk, taking a deep breath and flipping it open.

With the bullpen almost completely silent and the promise of sleep so close you can taste it, you manage to get through it in record time. You even give it a quick second pass to make sure you didn’t miss anything glaringly obvious in your tired state—but you’re used to working through sleep deprivation, and by ten p.m., you finally start packing up.

You organise the files back into a neat pile, then open the top drawer of your desk for Hotch’s note. You stick it to the top file and grab a pen, scribbling just below the words he wrote: Dangerous thing to promise me.

And, just as he did, you sign off with your name.

Then you gather the whole stack in your arms and cross the bullpen toward his office. Unlocked, as usual. You nudge the door open with your foot, warm lamplight casting an orange glow over the quiet space. It smells faintly like coffee and his cologne—enough to make your heart start racing the second you step inside.

You set the files neatly on his desk, trying not to linger on the quiet traces of him scattered throughout the room.

There’s still half a mug of cold coffee abandoned beside some paperwork, and the cashmere sweater he’d been wearing beneath his jacket this morning is draped haphazardly over the back of his chair. Quiet evidence of just how suddenly he’d been called away.

It makes you feel a little better knowing you really have helped him out.

You adjust the files until they’re perfectly straight, then take the sweater from the back of his chair and fold it neatly before setting it on the chest of drawers beside his desk. You hesitate for just a second before grabbing the mug of cold coffee and heading out of his office, straight for the break room. You empty it, wash it, dry it, then return to his office, placing it back on his desk exactly where you found it. Then you switch the lamp off on your way out, pulling the door most of the way shut behind you—the way it’d been before you stepped inside.

It doesn’t take long for you to gather your things, head down to security, and badge out. One of the guards escorts you to the parking garage, waiting until you’re safely inside your car with the engine running before he takes the elevator back up.

Once home, you quickly feed the yowling Leia—your cat, who’s very unimpressed by your late arrival—take a quick shower, change into your comfiest, threadbare sleep shirt, then crawl into bed with your laptop balanced on your knees. You know you should just try to get some sleep, but you’ve been ignoring a few personal messages and emails for a couple days now, and you know that if you don’t get to them soon, you’ll start to feel guilty.

You open your emails, reply to a couple, then pull up a new browser tab and type in the login address for the dating site Garcia set you up for. Not that you couldn’t have set up your own profile if you’d really wanted to.

No—this profile is just the unintentional byproduct of your ongoing attempt to redirect attention.

One slow Thursday evening in the bullpen, while you’d been loudly complaining about how impossible it was to meet men with a job like yours, Morgan had the brilliant idea of making you a dating profile. Garcia immediately lit up at the idea, pulling the site up on her computer while Reid launched into a rambling statistical analysis about the probability of finding genuine compatibility online.

Hotch hadn’t contributed to the conversation, but you’d known he was listening.

That had been the whole point. You always perform a little harder when Hotch can hear.

The site finally loads and you type in your credentials, waiting a few seconds for your profile to pop up.

Twelve notifications.

You click on the ‘messages’ tab and start scrolling. There are a few old conversations that fizzled out and you’ve long since decided not to reply to. There are a couple of messages from people you never intend on starting a conversation with. Then there are two new messages—ones you’d seen pop up on your phone but couldn’t be bothered to engage with over the weekend.

After all, you’re not actually looking to date anyone.

But one of the messages catches your eye.

DCRunner00: You seem like the kind of person who’s either very funny or very mean. I’m willing to risk it.

You snort, then type out a reply.

You: Unfortunately for you, those traits aren’t mutually exclusive.

Just as you hit enter, Leia leaps up onto the bed.

“Hey, sassy girl,” you coo, moving your laptop to reach for her.

Your fingers graze her soft coat, and she gives you an incredibly disapproving look.

You roll your eyes. “Alright. Sorry for loving you.”

You settle back against the pillows as she makes her way to the other side of the bed, curling up as far as she can possibly get from you.

Ping! Ping! Two more messages pop up.

DCRunner00: That’s probably the best possible answer you could’ve given. DCRunner00: So what’s your worst personality trait? I feel like that’s more interesting than hobbies.

That answer comes a little too easily.

You: Workaholic. You? DCRunner00: I get bored easily. DCRunner00: Which usually means I either start running or annoying people for entertainment. You: Sounds like a public safety issue. DCRunner00: Depends who you ask. DCRunner00: You should probably get some sleep, Workaholic. It’s late.

You glance over at Leia as she rolls onto her side, stretching her front legs, and only then do you realise you were actually smiling at your screen.

You shake your head, typing quickly.

You: Yeah, I should. You: Night, Running Man.

Then you shut your laptop before he can send another message.

TUESDAY 9:50AM

“Morgan, you’re with me at district court this afternoon,” Hotch says, closing the file in front of him. “The defence attorney’s pushing back on the Richardson testimony, so we’ll need to review our timeline before the hearing.”

He’s wearing a grey suit today.

You can never think straight when he’s wearing a grey suit.

Morgan sighs dramatically. “Nothing says excitement like four hours in a courthouse basement.”

Hotch ignores him completely.

“JJ, I want the media requests filtered through Strauss’s office before lunch. Reid, finish the geographic overlays from the Fairfax case and send them to Rossi when you’re done.”

He glances once around the table.

“If anything urgent comes in, you’ll be notified. Otherwise, continue using this downtime to catch up on reports.”

Then he gathers the files into a neat stack and stands, turning toward the door.

The rest of the room starts moving slowly. Morgan mutters something to JJ about the court hearing, Prentiss turns to Reid, asking something about a case you don’t quite catch, and Garcia is already explaining something on her laptop to Rossi, who’s watching the screen with quiet concentration.

Which leaves you to shamelessly stare at your boss’ ass as he walks out of the room.

“You should probably blink.”

Your head snaps toward Reid, frown already forming. “I’ll blink when I want to blink.”

He presses his lips together to keep from laughing, and you know he’s fighting the urge to launch into some deeply unwanted psychoanalysis of your behaviour—but thankfully, the rest of the team is still too close for him to risk it.

Eventually, everyone starts filing out of the conference room and back into the bullpen. You end up being the last to leave, behind Reid and Garcia who are chatting animatedly about some new phone app they’re both obsessed with.

You’re just about to pass Hotch’s office door when—you hear your name.

You turn your head, and he gestures for you to come in.

Reid glances briefly over his shoulder, an irritatingly knowing look on his face as you turn and step into Hotch’s office.

You clear your throat, stopping a few feet from the desk. “Sir?”

“How late were you here last night?” he asks.

You lift a shoulder. “About ten.”

His jaw shifts as he leans back in his chair. “That’s late.”

“Morgan said you needed them done by the morning.”

“I didn’t mean first thing,” he says, smoothing the end of his tie. “You could’ve finished the rest before lunch.”

You blink. “Oh.”

His gaze holds yours for a second too long.

“You don’t need to stay late to impress me.”

Your eyes widen slightly before you force out a small, awkward laugh. “Oh—uh—good to know.”

He glances briefly at the navy-blue cashmere sweater still folded neatly on the chest of drawers.

“Still,” he says, lower this time. “I appreciated it. The files, and… everything else.”

Your breath catches softly in your throat.

“Anytime, sir,” you manage.

He nods once, then drops his gaze back to the paperwork on his desk.

You don’t need any more of a dismissal than that, so you turn quickly and step out, pulling the door shut behind you. He prefers it closed, even if he won’t admit it because he doesn’t want the team to think he’s shutting them out. He’s just more comfortable in private—it helps him focus.

By the time you get back to your desk, everyone else is already settled and working quietly. Not even Reid glances up or offers a teasing remark.

You drop into your chair and wriggle your mouse, grabbing your phone while you wait for the screen to wake up.

Two new messages from DCRunner00.

DCRunner00: Running Man? DCRunner00: Great book. Slightly concerning nickname, though.

You can’t help yourself, so you type out a quick reply.

You: Better than ‘Workaholic’. You: You read Stephen King?

“Hey, you busy?”

You glance over at Reid. “Aren’t we all?”

He tilts his head. “You’re on your phone.”

“I could be working.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Good,” he says, shuffling the files on his desk. “Hotch wants us to prep the full geographic and timeline package for the Fairfax files in case it turns into an active investigation.”

You sigh, already pushing back from your desk. “And by ‘us’ you mean...?”

“I could use your help.”

“Fine,” you mutter, setting your phone down.

He scoots over as you roll your chair toward his desk, settling in beside him. The files are all laid out, including your victimology report with Rossi’s few annotations. There are crime scene reports, autopsy summaries, witness statements, geographic overlays, and maps—everything needed to justify escalating the case into a full BAU investigation.

“Where do you want to start?”

“I’m trying to rebuild the geographic timeline digitally,” he says, “but half the field reports were logged out of sequence and now the movement patterns don’t align.”

You nod. “Okay, walk me through where it stops making sense.”

Three hours later, you feel like your eyeballs are bleeding. You’ve read the same witness statement at least twenty times now, but with every pass it only makes less sense. How could Annabelle Hutton possibly be placed in two different counties less than forty minutes apart?

“It’s physically impossible,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes.

Reid hums quietly beside you. “Not necessarily.”

You stare at him. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well, depending on traffic conditions, inaccurate timestamp reporting, and the reliability of eyewitness memory retention, there are at least four scenarios where the timeline could still technically work.”

You sigh, leaning back in your chair and staring up at the ceiling. “If you know so much, then why can’t you figure this out?”

He still doesn’t turn away from his screen. “I will. Eventually.”

You groan softly, dragging both hands down your face just as a familiar voice cuts through the quiet bullpen.

“No, listen to me carefully.”

Both you and Reid glance up automatically.

Hotch is walking slowly past the desks with his phone pressed to his ear, expression calm but impossibly stern in a way that immediately makes heat crawl beneath your skin.

“You don’t need to explain the problem again,” he says evenly. “You need to tell me how you’re fixing it.”

He pauses briefly beside Reid’s desk, listening.

“Then prioritise the transfer first,” he says. “If the paperwork isn’t filed before opposing counsel reviews discovery, the timeline becomes vulnerable and the entire testimony gets picked apart.”

He rests a hand on the partition between the desks, gaze fixed somewhere distant as he listens to the person on the other end.

“No,” he says after a moment, voice lower now. “I’m not asking you to stay late. I’m telling you this needs to be finished tonight.”

Your stomach flips.

This absolutely should not be as hot as it is.

“Good,” he says calmly into the phone, straightening again. “Call me when it’s done.”

Then he keeps walking, cutting through the bullpen before turning sharply toward his office.

You stare after him, the thought slipping out before you can stop it. “Do you think he talks you through it?”

“Probably,” Reid says, turning back to his screen. “High-control personalities usually prefer maintaining verbal direction in intimate situations because it reinforces predictability and compliance dynamics.”

You go still. You hadn’t actually expected an answer.

“Someone like Hotch would probably place a pretty high psychological value on responsiveness,” Reid continues. “The immediate compliance aspect reinforces authority, which means verbal direction would likely become part of the overall intimacy dynamic rather than just communication.”

Your face heats.

“Especially because he’s not impulsive enough to rely on unpredictability. He’d want constant awareness of how the other person is responding emotionally and physically, so talking them through things would help maintain control of the situation while also reinforcing trust.”

Oh my God.

“And honestly,” Reid goes on, “people with highly structured leadership personalities usually develop pretty strong positive associations with obedience because it confirms stability, attentiveness, emotional investment—” He pauses briefly. “Which means he’d probably find it disproportionately attractive when someone follows instructions immediately or responds well to praise because it validates both the authority dynamic and the emotional trust beneath it, so statistically speaking he’d—”

He stops.

Then slowly turns toward you.

“...I crossed a social boundary somewhere in there, didn’t I?”

You nod slowly, your voice coming out unnaturally high. “Just a couple.”

He sighs, dropping his chin slightly as he turns back to his screen.

You huff out a breathless laugh and lean back in your chair again. You need a minute to recover from that, because now you’re hot all over and the only thing you can think about is your boss hovering over you, praising you in that low, steady voice while his hand settles around your throat—

Fortunately, it doesn’t take Reid long to start rambling about geographic overlays again. You do your best to focus on what he’s saying, but after another hour of scrutinising the timeline inconsistencies, you decide you need an actual break.

You grab your phone and your jacket and head out of the office, sending a quick text to the team chat asking if anyone else would like a coffee from the cafe down the road. It’s a thousand times better than break room coffee.

When you step out of the elevator on the ground floor, you bring up your messages with DCRunner00. You’re not sure why, because normally you only check your profile when you feel like you need to keep up the act, but something about this guy keeps making you want to reply.

DCRunner00: I’ve read a few. DCRunner00: What does a workaholic do for fun?

You type your reply as you step out of the building.

You: Work, mostly. You: And sleep.

By the time you return to the office with a tray of four coffees, you have two new messages—but you can’t reply to them until you set the tray down at your desk.

“Thanks, pretty girl,” Morgan says as he takes one, flashing you a grin.

You smile back. “Anything for you, gorgeous.”

Then you pull your phone out of your pocket and bring up the message thread.

DCRunner00: What’s your schedule even like? DCRunner00: You strike me as an “answers emails at midnight” type of person. You: Nah. That’s my boss. You: My schedule is chaos, though.

“Thanks,” Reid says as he takes his coffee, leaving only two.

You set your phone down and take the last two coffees out of the tray, leaving one at your desk before taking the other to Hotch’s office. You can see through the window that he’s not on the phone—for once—so you knock twice on the slightly ajar door before stepping inside.

He glances up, his brows pulling together slightly. “I didn’t ask for coffee.”

“I know,” you say quickly. “But it’s almost three, and you always need another coffee around three, and I figured you probably didn’t answer the team message because you still feel bad about me staying so late last night, which you shouldn’t, by the way.”

He straightens, brows drawing tighter.

“And I know you’ve got court with Morgan this afternoon, and you’re going to try to leave early, but someone’s definitely going to call at the last second and derail that plan, so you’ll only have enough time to get to the courthouse—not enough time to stop for coffee.”

You set the cup down in front of him.

“So,” you tilt your head, “coffee.”

He leans back in his chair, studying you for a second.

“That’s some pretty solid profiling, Agent.”

Your face heats instantly.

“Well,” you say, backing slowly toward the door, “maybe now you owe me two.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly, but it’s enough for the butterflies in your stomach to explode. You can’t help but grin as you turn away, slipping quickly out the door before your lungs forget how to work entirely.

You spend the rest of the day at Reid’s desk, finishing the case package for the Fairfax files and complaining about unreliable witnesses. Hotch and Morgan head off to court just after three, announcing to the rest of the team that they won’t be back. JJ is the first to head home again around five, followed by Prentiss, then Rossi—then you and Reid finally decide to call it a day just after six.

Which is also when you finally check your messages again.

DCRunner00: Chaos how?

You type a quick reply while you wait for your car’s AC to warm up.

You: Long hours. You: Weird hours. You: And a deeply unhealthy relationship with caffeine.

Then you tuck your phone away and head out of the parking garage.

Leia is already yowling by the time you step through your apartment door. She’s always hungry, even though she has an automatic feeder for dry food—but apparently that isn’t good enough. She prefers the wet stuff.

You quickly peel open a packet of fishy-smelling chicken jelly sludge and drop it into her bowl before washing your hands and moving into your bedroom. You flip the ensuite light on and start the shower, pulling your phone out of your pocket while you wait for the water to warm.

DCRunner00: Ah. So you’re one of those people. You: Rude.

He replies almost immediately.

DCRunner00: Accurate, though? You: Unfortunately.

You drop your phone on the bed and start undressing.

Ping!

DCRunner00: What do you actually do?

You hesitate. It’s not like you can just say you’re in the FBI. Contrary to what some people might think, real FBI agents can’t just go around bragging about their highly classified work status. It’s dangerous.

You: Mostly admin. You: Governmental stuff.

You toss your phone back onto the bed and turn into the steamy ensuite. You shower quickly, dry off, run product through your damp hair, then pull on a shirt and a pair of sweatpants before heading back out into the kitchen.

You’re not in the mood to cook tonight, so you grab a protein bar out of the cupboard and start boiling the kettle while you check your phone for what feels like the hundredth time.

DCRunner00: Sounds boring. DCRunner00: Do you get days off, though?

You drop a teabag into your mug before typing out a reply.

You: Sort of. You: But if my boss calls, I answer.

He replies instantly again.

DCRunner00: I’m starting to think you secretly enjoy being overworked. You: I think I’d get bored otherwise.

You pour the boiling water into your mug and watch his next reply pop up.

DCRunner00: That sounds suspiciously unhealthy. You: Probably. What about you? What do you do?

You tuck your phone into your pocket, then grab your tea and protein bar and head to the couch. There’s nothing you’re really interested in watching—since you don’t usually have the time to keep up with any shows—so you turn on the nightly news before grabbing your laptop and pulling up a new browser.

He’s already replied by the time you log in.

DCRunner00: Run. DCRunner00: Read. DCRunner00: Annoy people professionally. You: That sounds made up.

You open your protein bar.

DCRunner00: It mostly is. DCRunner00: So your boss actually calls you outside work hours?

You hesitate at the sudden redirection. Most men on dating apps prefer talking about themselves. Their jobs, hobbies, gym routines, childhood dogs—whatever makes them seem interesting—but this guy seems far more interested in observing than being observed.

You type out a vague response.

You: Sometimes. You: Occupational hazard, I guess. DCRunner00: And you always answer? You: Pretty much. You: He’d only call if it mattered.

His next reply takes almost two minutes to come through.

DCRunner00: Hm. DCRunner00: I’m starting to think your boss gets more attention than I do.

You almost choke on your tea.

That’s... weird.

Maybe you have mentioned your boss a little more than strictly necessary, but he’s the one asking all the questions about your job. It’s a little hard not to mention your boss when your life practically revolves around him—in more ways than you care to admit.

You: Jealous already, Running Man? DCRunner00: Should I be?

You sit up straighter, suddenly a little nauseous.

You: I think you’re spending too much time talking to strangers online. DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: You still replied, though.

“Okay,” you say, startling Leia who was half-asleep on the other end of the couch. “That’s enough.”

You: I’m going to sleep. You: Try not to spiral while I’m gone.

His last message pops up just before you shut your laptop.

DCRunner00: No promises.

WEDNESDAY 8:10AM

“Come on,” you mutter, mashing the elevator button for the doors to close.

You’re a whole thirty minutes earlier than usual this morning. You didn’t even make a coffee in your travel mug before running out the door. You just woke up, brushed your teeth, checked your messages—and decided you needed to talk to Garcia immediately.

“Hey—woah.” Reid steps out of your way as you rush into the bullpen. “You’re early.”

You drop your bag on your desk and quickly shrug off your jacket.

“Is Garcia in yet?”

He frowns slightly. “I think so. Why?”

You pull your laptop out of your bag.

“I just—I need her.”

You’re already walking away before he can press any further, moving back through the bullpen with your laptop hugged against your chest. You’re just about to round the corner toward the elevators when—

“Hey—” Hotch stops short just as you nearly run into him. “Slow down. You alright?”

His hand is hovering near your waist—not quite touching, but close enough for you to feel its warmth.

You blink up at him. “Sorry. Yeah. Uh—totally fine. Just going to see Garcia about... a case.”

His brows pull together slightly.

“Alright, well, Garcia’s not going anywhere,” he says evenly. “Take a breath.”

You nod slowly, already stepping around him.

“Right,” you mutter. “Breathing. Got it. Sorry, sir.”

You can almost swear you see the corner of his mouth lift—but then the elevator dings behind you, and you have to hurry to slip through the doors before they slide shut.

It feels like an eternity before they finally open again, but once they do you practically sprint down the hall to Garcia’s lair and burst through the door without warning.

She startles so hard she nearly drops her coffee. “Sweet mother of encryption, knock first!”

“Sorry,” you say, breathless. “I need you.”

“Well, obviously,” she mutters, checking her shirt for any spills. “I’m the backbone of this entire operation.”

You drop down into the spare chair and open your laptop, setting it on her desk.

“You cannot judge me for what I’m about to show you.”

She glances up, brows lifting. “Oh. So this is serious?”

You grimace. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Slightly less reassuring than I was hoping for. Tell me what’s happened.”

You take a deep breath, then let it out in a rush.

“You remember the dating profile you set up for me?”

She nods.

“Alright, so, I won’t lie, I haven’t really met anyone on there yet, but I check the messages occasionally. When I’ve got time, you know? And I don’t have a whole lot of ongoing conversations, but this one guy sent me something that was kind of funny, so I responded, and the conversation was pretty normal for the most part. I couldn’t reply all that quickly, but he didn’t seem to mind.”

You shift awkwardly, scooting your chair closer to her desk.

“Nothing really felt out of place until—well, he wouldn’t talk about himself much, which is strange because most people on dating apps are usually more interested in presenting themselves than gathering information. He kept asking questions about my job, actually. Not that my job is on my profile, but he was really curious about my schedule, or—I guess—lack of schedule.”

You wince.

“So now that I think about it, that was probably the second sign something might be off. Or maybe he just wanted to meet up, I don’t know.”

You hesitate.

“But then he sent me this message at like... two a.m.”

She squints at the screen.

DCRunner00: Bet you answer your boss faster than you answer anyone else.

“Mmm. Nope. Don’t love that,” she says, shaking her head. “That is not a normal amount of emotional investment for a stranger.”

You sink back in your chair. “That’s what I thought.”

She starts scrolling back through the messages.

“Have you told Hotch?”

“Nope.”

She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “You answered way too fast for that to be a normal response.”

“Because the answer is no,” you say firmly, leaning forward again.

“Mm-hm.” She keeps scrolling. “Okay, well... technically this could still be nothing. He could just be some lonely basement cryptid with Wi-Fi and poor social skills.”

You groan, dragging both hands over your face.

“You do mention Hotch kind of a lot.”

Your head snaps up. “He’s my boss.”

Garcia gives you a long look.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Sure.”

“Garcia.”

“I’m just saying, if a man talked about a woman this much online, we’d all be making faces.”

You point at the screen. “Focus.”

“Right. Yes. Creepy internet man. Sorry.”

Her expression settles into something more focused as she turns back toward her array of monitors.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Don’t block him yet.”

You sigh. “I don’t love that idea.”

“Neither do I, babycakes, but if he’s routing through the website normally, I might be able to pull connection data if we keep him talking long enough.”

You frown. “In English?”

She gives you another look. “Timestamps, login patterns, regional pings, possible VPN usage, device signatures if he slips up—basic digital stalking fun.”

“Oh, of course,” you say sarcastically. “Normal stuff.”

“For me, it is normal.” She points toward the laptop. “Now reply to him. Something casual. I want to see if he responds immediately again.”

Your fingers hover over the keys for a second before you type out your reply.

You: I thought I told you not to spiral.

He replies so fast that even Garcia flinches.

DCRunner00: Relax. It was a joke. DCRunner00: Mostly.

She stares at the screen. “Okay, I officially don’t like him.”

You lean back in your chair again, nausea twisting low in your gut. “I feel sick.”

Garcia’s expression softens slightly. “Maybe you should tell—”

“No.”

She sighs quietly. “Okay. Fine. Can you keep replying from your phone?”

You nod.

“Good. Don’t overdo it, just enough to keep him engaged.” Her fingers start flying across the keyboard. “I’ll work my magic down here and call you if I find anything.”

You push yourself out of the chair, clutching your phone a little tighter.

“You’re the best, Pen.”

“I know.” She waves a hand without looking away from her screens. “Now go pretend to be emotionally stable upstairs.”

By the time you get back to your desk, almost everyone is already in the conference room ready for the morning briefing. You drop your phone beside your keyboard—too anxious to have it with you during the meeting—then quickly unpack your things and grab a notebook before making your way up.

Reid nods at you from his usual seat, gesturing to the empty one beside him.

“Hey,” you mutter as you drop down next to him.

His brows pull together. “Everything alright?”

You nod. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll explain later.”

Hotch keeps the morning briefing quick. He goes over yesterday’s court hearing, outlines the Fairfax briefing package in case it escalates into an active investigation, then gets JJ to run through the highest priority consultation requests.

You spend most of it toying with a loose thread on the cuff of your blouse. You’re pretty sure it’s the first briefing in years where you haven’t spent at least part of it staring at Hotch instead of your notes—and when the room finally relaxes and everyone starts to filter out, Reid turns to you.

“Okay, now I’m concerned,” he says.

You glance at him. “Why?”

“You didn’t look at Hotch once during that entire meeting.”

You roll your eyes. “Spence—”

“Something must be seriously wrong.”

You let out a long exhale, glancing briefly around the almost empty room. Only Morgan and Rossi are left, halfway to the door, deep in discussion about something that happened at the court hearing yesterday afternoon.

“Okay,” you say quietly, turning back to Reid. “I’m having some... trouble, I guess, with a guy.”

His brows shoot up. “A guy—”

“Online,” you add quickly.

He tilts his head. “I’m confused again.”

You sigh. “Remember that dating profile Garcia set up for me?”

“You mean the profile you allowed Garcia to create as part of your increasingly unsustainable performative dating strategy?”

You glare at him. “Yes. That one.”

“Then yes, I remember it very clearly.”

“Well,” you mutter, pinching the bridge of your nose, “I had this guy message me a couple days ago. It was normal at first but now it’s gotten... weird. So, I’m getting Garcia to look into it.”

His forehead creases. “Have you told—”

“No.”

“Maybe you should—”

“I said no.”

“Alright.” He raises both hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m dropping it. It’s just…”

You narrow your eyes at him.

“Well, statistically speaking, the majority of uncomfortable online interactions don’t escalate into actual stalking behaviour. Most people displaying premature emotional fixation online are socially isolated rather than violent.”

You lift a brow, waiting for the punchline.

“However,” he adds, “cyberstalking offenders also tend to develop parasocial attachments disproportionately quickly because the perceived emotional intimacy bypasses a lot of normal social barriers, which means escalation patterns can become highly personalised in a very short period of time.”

You stare at him.

“In cases where the fixation becomes grievance-oriented, the offender is usually highly organised rather than impulsive, so the behaviour tends to be significantly more deliberate and psychologically targeted.”

He pauses, frowning faintly.

“That was supposed to be reassuring.”

“…Thanks, Reid,” you mutter, turning away from him slowly. “Now I feel so much better.”

When you get back to your desk, you decide it’s time to reply again. You grab your phone and bring up the messages, taking a minute to think about what to type—knowing Garcia will be seeing the conversation too.

You type out the only mildly casual response you can think of.

You: You’re weird.

He replies just as fast as usual.

DCRunner00: You disappear a lot. You: Workaholic, remember. You: I told you my schedule was chaos.

You’re about to turn your phone over on your desk when a different notification pops up—from Garcia.

Garcia: If this is your version of flirting, baby girl, I think I just figured out why you’re still single.

You snort softly, typing out a quick reply.

You: Trust me, that’s not the reason. Garcia: So there IS a reason? You: Shh. I’m working. Garcia: Boo!

You huff another quiet laugh as you turn your phone over, nudging it toward the edge of your desk in the hopes that you might be able to focus on work rather than creepy internet man for at least a few hours.

It doesn’t work.

Barely half an hour later, you lift your phone to check for another notification—but there’s nothing there. You pull up the message thread again and scroll up, checking the timestamps to see if he’s ever gone quiet on you before—but he hasn’t. Not really. So you type another message.

You: You went quiet. Should I be concerned?

It’s a calculated move. If he’s paying attention to response patterns—and at this point you’re pretty sure he is—then following up first helps maintain the illusion that nothing has changed. No sudden distance. No obvious discomfort. No reason for him to think you’re pulling away.

If he is dangerous, the last thing you want is for him to feel rejected.

An hour later, Rossi drops a legal pad onto your desk, asking you to take another look at a witness timeline that doesn’t feel right—which keeps you occupied for a good forty-five minutes. Then Morgan leans over the partition between your desks, asking if you can translate Reid into English. That takes up another hour of your day, and by the time you grab your first afternoon coffee, you’ve got three notifications.

One is a missed call from Garcia. The other two are from creepy internet man.

DCRunner00: Depends. Are you worried about me? DCRunner00: Blue looks good on you, by the way.

Your stomach drops. “Oh my God.”

You immediately call Garcia back.

She answers on half a ring. “Are you wearing blue?”

“You saw me this morning.”

“I can’t remember,” she says. “Are you?”

You drag a hand through your hair. “Yes.”

“Holy shit,” she whispers. “You’ve got to tell—”

“No.”

“Are you insane?”

“Maybe, but—” You squeeze your eyes shut for a second. “Okay, just—hear me out. Blue is a statistically safe guess. It’s a neutral professional colour with high frequency in workplace attire, especially in government buildings.”

Garcia goes quiet for a second.

“And does this unsub know you work in a government building?”

“Don’t call him that,” you snap. “And—well, kind of. I didn’t tell him exactly, but I said... government adjacent.”

“I swear to God,” she mutters, “if I have to identify your body next week, I’m going to kill you.”

You press your free hand against your forehead.

“You won’t,” you say firmly. “Alright? We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

Garcia scoffs loudly.

“Seriously,” you insist. “It could still be nothing. A weird coincidence, maybe an awkward guy with boundary issues and too much free time. We deal with actual predators every day. I can handle a few creepy messages.”

The line goes quiet again—then she sighs.

“Why are you so against telling Hotch?”

“Because I don’t want to bother him,” you say quickly. “We’ve got a quiet week, he finally seems slightly less stressed, and I don’t want to cause a whole fuss over something that might turn out to be nothing.”

She sighs again, louder this time. “Fine. I won’t go to Hotch.”

Your shoulders sag. “Thank you.”

“On one condition,” she adds. “I’m sleeping over tonight.”

You nearly choke. “What?”

“Non-negotiable.”

“Penelope, that’s insane.”

“No,” Garcia says firmly, “what’s insane is you trying to casually explain away potential stalking behaviour while actively refusing to inform your unit chief.”

“He is not stalking me,” you protest, keeping your voice low.

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“And yet,” Garcia says, “if you die, I become morally complicit because I knew about creepy internet man and failed to intervene.”

You frown. “…Morally complicit?”

“Accessory to murder-adjacent,” she corrects. “And my guilty conscience requires eight hours of sleep minimum, so congratulations. We’re having a slumber party.”

You let out a long sigh. “Okay. Fine.”

She hums, satisfied.

“I need to reply to him again.”

“Well, don’t ask me,” she mutters. “You’re the one who’s apparently fluent in creepy internet freak.”

You laugh despite yourself. “Thanks, Pen.”

“Mm-hm. And just so we’re clear, tonight we are watching wholesome romantic comedies and eating enough sugar to kill a Victorian child.”

“I was actually thinking psychological thriller marathon.”

“Absolutely not.”

You smile faintly, leaning back in your chair. “Fine. Romantic comedies it is.”

“Good,” Garcia says firmly. “Now hang up before I change my mind and march upstairs to Hotch’s office myself.”

You roll your eyes as you hang up, then open the message thread again. You don’t have to think too hard about what to type. You don’t want to escalate or accuse him, but you need him to stay engaged. You want him to explain himself to see how he reframes the behaviour.

You: Lucky guess.

The next few hours slip by in a strange blur of routine tasks and fragmented conversations.

At about three o’clock, Prentiss drops a file on your desk and asks if you can double-check a victim timeline while she’s stuck on the phone with Chicago. Then Rossi calls you into his office to sanity-check a profile theory he’s working through out loud—which means fifteen minutes of listening to him argue with himself while you sit there trying not to focus on Hotch’s voice through the wall.

When you finally get back to your desk, Reid spends twenty minutes walking you through a probability model nobody asked for but everyone somehow ends up listening to anyway. He only stops when Hotch appears, carrying a stack of files from the Richardson case he wants Morgan to look over before he signs them off—and for the first time in God knows how long, you don’t stare shamelessly at his ass as he walks out of the bullpen.

By six p.m., JJ and Rossi are gone, Prentiss is helping Morgan with the Richardson files, and Reid is building a tiny tower out of paperclips while he reads over a file Rossi dropped on his desk before he left.

At exactly six-fifteen, your desk phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Pack your things, baby girl. Your government-issued sleepover is about to begin.”

You snort softly. “Alright. I’ll see you soon.”

You hang up the phone and start clearing your desk, organising paperwork into piles and packing away stationery while you wait for your computer to shut down.

“See who soon?” Reid asks.

You glance at him. “Garcia.”

He tilts his head.

“She’s staying over tonight.”

His brows lift. “Because of your stalk—”

“Girl’s night,” you interrupt, eyes widening. “That’s all.”

His gaze narrows. “Should I be worried?”

You scoff. “About me? Never.”

You slide your arms into your jacket then finally pick up your phone, finding two new notifications from creepy internet man waiting for you.

“Really?” Reid asks, turning his chair to face you. “Because you’ve spent most of the day staring at your phone like it’s a bomb, you spent most of Rossi’s profile discussion peeling the label off your water bottle instead of contributing, and you reorganised the same stack of paperwork three separate times.”

You pause mid-motion.

“Also,” he continues, “you usually correct Morgan when he misquotes case statistics and today you let him do it twice, which honestly might be the most concerning—”

“Okay!” you cut in quickly, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Good talk. Love the observational skills. Bye.”

He doesn’t say anything else as you walk away, murmuring goodbyes to Morgan and Prentiss as you pass, but you can still feel him watching you. You’re just about to press the button for the elevator when—

“Agent.”

You stop automatically, turning to find Hotch with a file tucked under one arm and that signature frown etched between his brows. Only this time it isn’t frustrated or disapproving—it’s curious.

You force a small smile. “Sir.”

His eyes move over your face briefly. “You alright?”

You nod once. “Of course.”

He takes a step forward, his voice dropping lower. “You sure?”

Your breath catches.

He’s close now. Too close. You have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. You can smell his cologne, feel his warmth, count the beauty marks dotted across his cheek.

“You’ve seemed distracted today,” he says.

You swallow hard. “Uh—no. No. Sorry, I just—I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

His brows draw a little tighter, and he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else—press harder, maybe—but then seems to think better of it.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “Get some rest tonight.”

Then he nods once and steps back, his jaw tightening for just a second before he turns away.

You don’t move immediately. You can’t. Your mind is reeling, your pulse is still hammering, and your breath is caught somewhere between your ribs while your lungs try to remember how to work.

“Hello?” Garcia calls from behind you. “I cannot hold these doors forever, babycakes.”

You shake your head. “Shit. Sorry.”

You turn and hurry into the elevator, slipping in beside her just before the doors slide shut.

For a moment, neither of you says anything.

Then—

“So, that thing you said earlier about there being a reason you’re still single…”

You shut your eyes. “Penelope.”

“I’m just saying,” she continues lightly, “unless I hallucinated whatever just happened in that hallway, I’m starting to develop theories.”

You ignore her, watching the numbers on the elevator slowly descend like counting down the days you have before the entire team figures out your secret. Because if this guy really is a creep, if you do have to tell Hotch, then it’s only a matter of time before the BAU are dissecting your dating life and realising what a ruse it really is.

And you know better than anyone that once these profilers start looking too closely at something, they rarely stop until they’ve pulled it apart completely.

The second you step through the door to your apartment, Garcia rushes past you to sweep the place. Leia startles almost immediately, running from the couch to your bedroom while Garcia complains about the fact that Leia is the only cat she’s ever met that doesn’t like her.

“Leia hates everyone,” you tell her, kicking your shoes off by the door. “Even me.”

Garcia just rolls her eyes, continuing from room to room to check the window locks and balcony doors.

Once she’s satisfied that everything is secure, she sets her laptop up on your kitchen counter and starts running a program that looks like hieroglyphics to you.

“Have you seen his latest messages?” she asks.

You shake your head, setting your phone on the counter. “No.”

She opens your laptop and logs into the dating site—because apparently she knows your password now.

DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: Or maybe you’re just easier to read than you think.

You type out the first response you can think of, not wanting to seem like you’re overanalysing this.

You: Or maybe I’m just not trying so hard to be mysterious.

Garcia then spends the next ten minutes trying to explain her process to you in terms that almost make sense. So far she’s managed to narrow him down to a general region through login patterns and routing behaviour, but she still can’t lock onto a direct IP address. Not because she can’t—apparently that part would actually be pretty easy—but because doing it properly would mean running requests through systems that leave a trail. And right now, this definitely isn’t an official investigation.

“The second I start pulling the fun federal strings,” Garcia says, typing furiously, “there’s paperwork, access logs, oversight, and approximately twelve thousand ways for this to become a whole thing.”

You lean against the counter. “We don’t want that.”

“Not yet.” Her expression sharpens slightly. “Also, if creepy internet man is more sophisticated than he seems, there’s always a chance he’s monitoring for targeted tracing attempts. If he realises someone’s looking too closely at him before we know who he is, he could disappear completely.”

Your stomach twists. “Or escalate.”

You spend the next couple of hours keeping creepy internet man engaged while Garcia rambles tech jargon that makes less sense the longer the night wears on. At some point, you order pizza, then you migrate to the couch, and eventually you both end up sitting through the credits of Two Weeks Notice while waiting for one last reply in the hopes that he might finally answer something about himself.

DCRunner00: Refreshing DCRunner00: Most people hide too much. You: Depends what they’re trying to hide. DCRunner00: What are you trying to hide? You: Besides the fact that I’m exhausted? Nothing. DCRunner00: You seem distracted tonight. You: Long day. DCRunner00: I noticed. You: How was yours?

You wait until almost midnight before finally deciding to call it a night.

Garcia checks all the windows and doors again while you brush your teeth and change into pyjamas. When you step back out of your bedroom to say goodnight, Garcia is trying her hardest to lure Leia onto the couch with her, but Leia is very stubbornly curled up beneath the TV unit.

“Night, Pen,” you murmur, rubbing your eyes. “Thanks again... for everything.”

“Night, gorgeous,” she calls, peering over the back of the couch. “Wake me up if you hear literally anything suspicious. Or if Leia finally decides it’s my time.”

You laugh softly, blinking slowly as you turn back into your room and fall face first into bed.

THURSDAY 6:45AM

You’re not sure whether to be relieved or concerned when you wake up to no new messages from creepy internet man. He hasn’t gone quiet for this long before—but if he is just a normal, slightly awkward guy with boundary issues and an internet connection, well... it’s not that hard to believe he might just be sleeping.

Garcia is already up making coffee by the time you step out of your room, trying to bribe Leia out from under the couch with a tube of tuna paste.

The second she sees you, she jumps up and launches into another long-winded explanation about login activity and movement patterns across different access points. Apparently, creepy internet man logged in from three different geographical locations over the course of a few hours last night—which is normal, right? That means he was out doing normal human things, not just lurking in his mother’s basement, stalking women online.

Garcia isn’t entirely convinced that him moving locations is enough to get him off the hook as the BAU’s next unsub, but it at least shuts her up until you’re both back at the office.

“Hey,” Reid says as soon as you walk into the bullpen. “You haven’t been murdered.”

You frown slightly. “Good morning to you too, Spence.”

Morgan glances up from the file on his desk. “Uh—why are we getting murdered?”

Reid gestures vaguely in your direction. “Because she’s potentially being cyberstalked by a—”

“Oh, wow, look at the time,” you interrupt, glaring at Reid. “Wouldn’t it be such a shame if we all started minding our own business right about now.”

Prentiss turns in her chair, brows raised. “Cyberstalked?”

“Nobody is cyberstalking anybody,” you say as you drop into your chair. “And nobody’s getting murdered—but great start to the morning, everyone. Love the energy. Now leave me alone.”

Morgan chuckles quietly. “Damn. Thought you said you got laid last weekend.”

Your hands slip off the desk as you try to pull yourself closer.

“Technically,” Reid says, “she only implied it by refusing to answer Garcia’s question during Monday morning’s briefing.”

“Ah.” Morgan leans back in his chair. “I knew this was a drought issue.”

You scowl at him. “A drought issue?”

“Statistically speaking,” Reid adds, “people experiencing prolonged romantic or sexual dissatisfaction often display lower frustration tolerance and increased agitation in familiar social environments.”

Morgan looks at him. “Man, just say she needs to get laid.”

“Oh my God,” you snap. “I do not need to get laid. I am having a completely normal amount of sex already, thank you very much—and frankly I think it’s deeply inappropriate that you’re all this invested in whether or not I’m orgasming regularly.”

Reid tilts his head. “You’re having sex?”

Morgan’s brows shoot up, Prentiss chokes on her coffee, and you open your mouth to fire back at him when—

Someone clears their throat behind you.

Heat crawls violently up your neck—but you don’t turn around. You can’t.

“Briefing room. Five minutes,” Hotch says, his voice dangerously even. “JJ’s got an update on the custodial interview with Wallace.”

Morgan presses a fist against his mouth, trying—and failing—to smother the strangled sound of laughter.

Very slowly, you turn in your chair.

Hotch is standing at the edge of the bullpen with a coffee in one hand and a file in the other. His expression is almost perfectly composed, but there’s something dangerous lurking beneath it—something suspiciously close to amusement in the tightness of his mouth.

“Be right there, sir,” you blurt, lifting two fingers to your forehead in the most ill-timed attempt at a salute the FBI has ever seen.

Hotch just looks at you, the muscle in his jaw jumping once before he turns away.

You want to die.

The second his office door clicks shut behind him, Morgan drops his fist and smacks his palm flat against the desk with a choked laugh.

“Oh, you are never recovering from that,” Prentiss mutters, smirking behind her coffee cup.

Morgan leans back in his chair, grinning. “Baby girl, that was painful to watch.”

You drop your head into your hands.

“You somehow escalated the situation at every possible opportunity,” Reid says thoughtfully.

“I hate you all,” you mumble into your palms.

You spend the next half hour with your nose buried in your notebook, avoiding eye contact with the entire team while JJ explains the month-long back-and-forth that it took to finally get approval for the Wallace interview.

Apparently, the prison is limiting the interview to a single hour and reserving the right to terminate it early if the inmate becomes uncooperative—which Rossi thinks is less about policy and more about Wallace trying to dictate the terms of the interaction.

It’s not ideal, especially considering you were the one who convinced Hotch to push for the interview before Wallace is transferred to death row. His case was one of the first you ever studied during the BAU training programme, and there isn’t much you wouldn’t give to pick the sociopath’s brains. One hour with him feels dangerously short—that is, assuming Hotch actually picks you to be in the interview with him.

“We don’t have enough time to waste managing personalities in the room,” Hotch says, gathering the files in front of him. “I’ll decide on a second agent and send out the interview schedule later today.”

Chairs start scraping back almost immediately, files and notebooks snapping shut as everyone gathers their things and starts filtering out of the room—but you don’t move. You stay firmly planted in your seat, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of your cheek while you debate whether to follow Hotch into his office and ask to be part of the interview. You don’t even have to be asking the questions, you just want to be there. You were the one pushing for it in the first place.

But then your brain very helpfully reminds you that Aaron Hotchner heard you say the word orgasming less than an hour ago and suddenly, being on death row yourself feels infinitely preferable to making eye contact with your unit chief.

“You alright?” Reid asks, lingering beside you.

You sigh heavily, finally closing your notebook. “Yep. Just thinking about how I’ll probably have to fake my own death and change my name after this morning.”

He shrugs. “Hotch probably isn’t even thinking about it anymore.”

You glance up at him hopefully.

“Morgan definitely is, though.”

You roll your eyes, letting out another resigned sigh as you stand up and follow him out of the briefing room.

The rest of the morning manages to pass without incident. You stay chained to your desk, reviewing reports and processing any files that come your way while very deliberately not glancing up any time Hotch steps out of his office. At around eleven, Morgan and JJ head out to the cafe down the street and come back with coffees for the whole team. Then there’s a printer jam that gives the rest of the office a rare glimpse at just how angry Emily Prentiss can get when frustrated.

It isn’t until just before midday that you finally get up to go to the bathroom, and when you return to your desk, there’s one new notification in your inbox.

From: Aaron Hotchner Subject: Wallace Interview You’re with me next Thursday. We leave at 0700.

Your stomach flips.

“Wow,” Reid says, suddenly standing right beside your desk. “He picked you pretty quickly.”

You shoot him a warning look. “Spence.”

“I’m just saying, he usually deliberates longer.”

You glance back at the screen, rereading the first five words that make your pulse skip a little faster.

“You and Hotch do work unusually well together in confined conversational environments,” Reid adds.

You turn back to him, frowning.

He tilts his head. “That sounded more suggestive than I intended.”

You open your mouth to tell him how deeply unhelpful he’s being when your phone buzzes twice against your desk—like it does several times a day, but something about it feels different this time. Wrong.

You reach for it slowly, your stomach twisting tighter as you turn it over.

Two new notifications from creepy internet man. The first since last night.

You open the message thread—and your stomach drops.

DCRunner00: [Image attachment] DCRunner00: Did you and your friend have fun last night?

The image is of your apartment building. It’s grainy, slightly crooked, clearly taken from somewhere across the street—but your living room windows are unmistakable. Warm light glowing through the glass. The blurred silhouette of someone inside.

Ice floods your bloodstream.

You stop breathing.

“Is that... your apartment?” Reid asks, leaning over your shoulder.

You don’t answer him. You can’t.

The bullpen dissolves into white noise around you.

Until—

“I’m done!” Garcia’s voice cuts through the static. “I can’t do this anymore!”

She’s marching right toward you, your laptop—that she’d still been monitoring—tucked under one arm.

Reid gasps. “Wait. Is that—”

Morgan straightens in his chair. “What’s happening?”

“Hotch’s office,” Garcia says, her expression dangerously stern as she stops beside your desk. “Now.”

You nod slowly, your shoes almost slipping against the carpet as you push your chair back. Reid steps aside just enough to let you stand, but before he can get too far, you reach out and wrap your fingers around his wrist, silently dragging him with you as you follow Garcia back through the bullpen.

Hotch glances up the second Garcia pushes open his office door.

“What’s going on?”

His tone is calm, automatic, already slipping into that low, calculated cadence he uses when he’s trying to talk someone down from the ledge. His gaze moves from her to you—and something in his expression shifts. Hardens. That muscle in his jaw ticking just once before he turns back to Garcia.

“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.

Garcia crosses the room quickly, opening your laptop and sitting it on his desk while you hover uselessly in the doorway with Reid still caught in your grip.

Hotch glances at the screen, his eyes flicking through the messages.

Then he looks back up—right at you—and something unreadable settles across his face. Something dangerous.

“Who sent this?”

Garcia spends the next five minutes explaining the entire situation at hyper speed while you just... stand there, leaning slightly against Reid like the whole world has tilted on its axis.

It’s funny how you can spend years building a career around finding bad people. Thinking like them. Predicting them. Profiling them. But the moment something happens to you—something real—that’s when all the theory suddenly stops feeling theoretical. And maybe it’s because you know exactly what people like this are capable of, or how quickly situations like this can escalate once someone decides they’re emotionally invested in you.

Or maybe it’s just the horrifying realisation that some part of you knew where this was heading all along. And you still didn’t do anything about it until now. Not until you put yourself—and your friend—in danger.

“Get everyone in the briefing room,” Hotch says the second Garcia finishes. “Now.”

Garcia nods once before slipping back out the door, and only then do you finally let go of Reid’s wrist—making a mental note to apologise later for the excessive physical contact.

Hotch’s eyes drop down briefly, following the movement almost automatically. Something tightens in his expression for half a second before his attention snaps back to the laptop still open in front of him.

“Reid,” he says. “Print the entire message history and document everything. Full timeline, screenshots, attachments—all of it. I want copies ready for the team in ten.”

You swallow hard. “The—the entire message history?”

“Yes,” Hotch says simply. “Every message.”

Could this day get any worse?

Fifteen minutes later, you’re back in the briefing room with the entire team flipping through printed copies of your dating profile and messages. It almost feels like an out-of-body experience. Like one of those mortifying dreams where you watch everything unfold from above without any real ability to stop it.

“Okay,” Prentiss says. “Where do we start?”

“Victimology,” Morgan answers immediately—then he glances at you. “Sorry, baby girl.”

You wave him off. “Reid’s been profiling me all week. Go for it.”

There’s a quiet ripple of laughter around the table, but Hotch barely blinks. He’s sitting on the opposite side, between Prentiss and JJ, with his arms folded tightly across his chest and gaze fixed on the copies spread out in front of him like he’s trying very hard not to look directly at you.

“We need to be careful building a victimology this early,” he says evenly. “Especially considering how well we know the victim. Personal familiarity creates bias.”

Reid tilts his head. “Normally, yes. But stalking crimes are often highly individualised.” He starts flipping through the printed messages as he talks. “Statistically speaking, stalking victims are usually targeted for a very specific reason. The motivation is generally rooted in either resentment, fixation, revenge, or romantic obsession.”

You grimace. “Fantastic.”

“Most victims also know their stalkers,” Reid continues. “Approximately seventy-five percent of stalking cases involve some form of prior relationship or perceived emotional connection.”

“Okay,” JJ says carefully, looking toward you. “Is there anyone you can think of who might hold a grudge against you? Someone you arrested, rejected, testified against—anything like that?”

You snort quietly. “Does every criminal I’ve ever interviewed count?”

The room goes still for half a second.

“Wait,” Prentiss says, sitting forward slightly. “Actually, that makes sense.”

Hotch’s eyes flick up as Prentiss pushes one of the printouts into the middle of the table, tapping the page.

“This escalation happened fast. Less than a week. That’s not somebody slowly building emotional trust from scratch—that’s somebody who already came into this interaction emotionally invested.”

“Or angry,” Morgan adds.

“Exactly,” Prentiss says. “He doesn’t lash out until she has Garcia over. That’s jealousy. Possessiveness.”

You sink lower in your chair.

“And he starts reacting every time she brings up her boss,” Rossi says, flipping through the printouts. “That’s territorial behaviour. He’s fixating on a prominent male figure in her life.”

“Not the only one fixating on him,” Reid murmurs beside you.

You elbow him immediately.

“Ow.”

Hotch glances up sharply. “Something to add, Reid?”

Reid straightens. “Uh—no. No, I think Rossi covered it.”

Hotch’s eyes narrow slightly, like he knows there’s something he’s missing, but he lets it go.

“Garcia,” he says instead, “tell me you found something useful.”

“Oh, I found things,” Garcia says immediately, the rapid clacking of her keyboard echoing loudly through the conference room speaker. “Deeply unsettling things. Our creepy little internet goblin has been very busy.”

Prentiss frowns slightly, mouthing ‘internet goblin’ across the table to JJ.

“Okay, so—profile was created nine days ago using a burner email and a VPN bouncing between three different states, which normally would make me want to set my computer on fire, but our boy got sloppy.”

Hotch leans forward slightly. “How sloppy?”

“Sloppy enough that one login pinged off a public Wi-Fi network less than six blocks from her apartment last night,” she says. “And before anybody asks, yes, I’m already pulling traffic cams.”

Hotch nods once, already shifting into command mode.

“Morgan, Prentiss—start canvassing within a ten-block radius of her apartment. Garcia will feed you anything useful from the traffic cams. JJ, coordinate with local PD and see if there’ve been any complaints of suspicious activity in the area. Peeping, prowlers, stalking complaints—anything that fits this escalation pattern. Rossi, start pulling names from old cases. Anybody with a history of fixation, stalking behaviour, or inappropriate attachment to investigators. Garcia, keep digging and keep me posted.”

Everyone starts moving immediately, papers shuffling and chairs scraping back as the room shifts into motion.

“I want to help,” you say suddenly. “This is my mess, let me fix it.”

“You can help,” he says evenly, “by going home, locking your doors, and staying there until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

You open your mouth to argue.

“I mean it,” he adds, voice low.

“I’ll take her,” Reid offers immediately.

“No,” Hotch says, gathering the printouts into one neat pile. “You go with Morgan and Prentiss.”

Then his eyes flick up, meeting yours.

“I’m taking her home.”

The next hour is one of the strangest of your life.

Hotch tells you to take your laptop back down to Garcia, who’s already in full FBI investigation mode—her screens covered in maps, metadata, CCTV stills, and enlarged screenshots of your own dating profile staring back at you in horrifying definition. When you finally make it back to your desk, Rossi spends twenty straight minutes walking you through every violent offender you’ve interviewed in the last three years, forcing you to revisit dozens of interactions you’d long since filed away as routine.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Morgan drops a schematic of your apartment building onto your desk and starts questioning you about entrances, exits, blind spots, and security cameras while Reid quietly replaces the coffee you forgot existed an hour ago. It isn’t until Morgan leaves and JJ immediately takes his place beside you that you realise nobody has let you out of their sight for more than a few minutes at a time.

Then, finally, Hotch steps out of his office—files in one hand and his go-bag in the other, like he fully intends on staying the night if necessary.

“Ready?” he asks, stopping beside your desk.

You stare at the go-bag for one long, deeply horrified second.

“Yep,” you manage, voice tight as you slowly push out of your chair.

Hotch drives. You don’t even try to argue. You just sit in the passenger seat with your knees pressed together and your heart beating out of your chest. It’s not like you haven’t been in the car with him before. You have, plenty of times. This just feels... different.

Neither of you speak until he cuts the engine in the parking garage of your building, and you have to try very hard not to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t asked for directions the whole way here.

“Wait,” he mutters before climbing out of the car.

He grabs his bag from the back, then moves around the car and opens your door.

It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to unbuckle your seatbelt—your hands are shaking and your pulse is still pounding hard enough to make you dizzy—but once you finally do, you slip out of the car and lead him toward the fire stairs.

He never leaves more than a foot of distance between you. Never checks his phone. Never glances down. He stays glued to your side like a real protection detail. And thanks to your avid and wildly inappropriate imagination, you’ve already mentally written an entire bodyguard romance plot starring Aaron Hotchner and yours truly by the time you finally reach your apartment door.

“I—uh—wasn’t really expecting company,” you say as you push the door open. “Sorry.”

The second you step inside, Leia leaps off the couch with a loud, rumbling trill—probably wondering why you’re home before dark for the first time in years.

Hotch pauses, his brow furrowing slightly. “You have a cat.”

You glance back at him as you kick your shoes off and nudge them out of the way. “Is that really the most surprising thing you’ve learned about me today?”

He watches Leia for another second before glancing back at you. “It’s unexpected.”

You roll your eyes, trying to ignore the way your heart skips when he quietly toes off his shoes beside the door without even asking. Like he already expects to stay awhile.

Leia chirrups again as she pads through the living room toward you, no doubt about to demand an early dinner—until she catches sight of Hotch and abruptly stops short. Her ears flicker, her tail waving from side to side as she assesses the new man in her apartment.

Hotch crouches slightly, holding one hand out toward her.

“Oh, she doesn’t really like people,” you say quickly. “So don’t take it personally if she—”

Leia immediately walks straight up to him. She sniffs his hand once before pressing directly into his palm with a loud purr rumbling through her entire body.

Your eyes go wide.

Traitor.

Hotch’s mouth twitches faintly as Leia leans harder into his hand.

Oh my God. Are you jealous of your cat right now?

He gives Leia one final scratch behind the ears before straightening, the softness in his expression fading almost immediately as he slips back into work mode. He scans the apartment briefly before setting the files down on your tiny dining table and shrugging his jacket off, draping it over the back of a chair.

You stand there for a second longer than you probably should, watching him move through your apartment with the same calm focus he brings to crime scenes and briefing rooms and interrogation tables. He checks the windows, the balcony doors, glances briefly—thank God—into your bedroom, then double-checks the locks on the front door.

The whole thing feels weirdly surreal. You’ve imagined Aaron Hotchner inside your apartment a thousand times in a thousand different ways—just not like this. And nothing you imagined could have possibly prepared you for the reality of it. The way everything feels so much smaller. Warmer. More exposed.

Every object in every room suddenly feels mortifyingly personal.

If he lingers long enough in your kitchen, he’s going to notice the unusually empty trash can and realise you survive almost entirely on caffeine and convenience. If he looks too closely at your bookshelf, he’s going to find an unhealthy collection of romance novels with more trigger warnings than plot points. And if he looks into your bedroom again and turns his head just a little more to the right, he’s going to see your vibrator sitting on the nightstand—and then you’ll actually have to fake your own death.

Because you’ve spent years carefully curating a version of yourself that keeps people from looking too closely. Flirty. Casual. Detached enough to joke about bad dates and hookups and sex without anybody ever realising that none of it means anything. It’s easier that way. Easier to let everyone assume your attention is scattered in every direction instead of fixed very specifically on the one person you absolutely cannot have.

But this?

This feels dangerously close to being found out.

The next couple of hours pass in strange, uneven waves of normalcy and low-grade psychological torture.

Hotch sits at your tiny dining table without complaint, dwarfing it as he hunches over files and asks careful questions about your routines, your neighbours, and whether anyone in the building has seemed overly interested in you recently. His phone rings a lot, which isn’t unusual, and every time he answers it you spend almost the entire conversation staring unashamed at the way his shirt pulls tight across his back when he reaches for another printout.

Which is wildly inappropriate considering the circumstances, but you can’t really help it. You’re strung out, on edge, and, as Morgan so helpfully pointed out this morning, severely under-fucked.

And Leia, unfortunately—but not unsurprisingly—remains no help whatsoever.

By seven o’clock she’s fully abandoned you in favour of draping herself across Hotch’s lap while he reviews new data from Garcia, completely oblivious to the fact that you haven’t been able to breathe normally since he walked through the door.

“Are you hungry?” you ask eventually, moving back into the kitchen as if you have anything in there to offer.

Hotch glances up from his laptop, one hand resting absently against Leia’s back while she purrs in his lap.

“I’m fine.”

You lean a hip against the kitchen counter, folding your arms tightly across your chest. “Any updates?”

He glances back down at his screen. “Garcia narrowed the traffic footage down to three vehicles that stayed in the area longer than they should have—Morgan and Prentiss are running the plates now. And Rossi’s pulling relatives connected to your previous cases. Family members who attended trials, sentencing hearings, interviews. Anyone who might’ve had access to your name outside the official reports.”

You nod slowly, silence settling again for a moment before you exhale sharply.

“Are you sure sitting here doing absolutely nothing is really the best use of me right now?”

His eyes flick back up, that signature Hotchner scowl set between his brows.

“You think this is nothing?”

His voice stays calm, but there’s something firmer underneath it now.

“You’ve spent the last four days being threatened, surveilled, and followed by someone we still haven’t identified,” he says. “Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid are out chasing leads because somebody targeted you. Rossi’s pulling case files because somebody targeted you. Garcia’s been at her desk for six straight hours because somebody targeted you.”

His jaw tightens slightly.

“My job right now is making sure nothing happens to you,” he says quietly. “Let me do that.”

Your breath catches, something warm and uncomfortably familiar twisting in your chest as Aaron Hotchner just sits there watching you like he hasn’t said anything unusual at all.

Which, to him, maybe he hasn’t.

He’s just doing his job. Looking out for his team. He’s not here because he wants to be. He’s here because someone threatened one of his agents.

That’s all.

You clear your throat, pushing away from the counter before the silence stretches too long. “I’m—uh—I’m just going to shower quickly. If that’s alright.”

He nods once. “Want me to clear the—”

“No,” you say immediately. “God, no. No. It’s fine. Totally fine.”

His brows pull together slightly, confusion flickering briefly across his face before you turn and hurry into your bedroom, shutting the door a little harder than necessary behind you.

Then you take the longest shower known to mankind. You stand beneath the scalding spray for at least ten minutes before even touching anything. Then you scrub, exfoliate, shave, condition, rinse twice, and stand there for just a little longer before finally gathering the courage to step out. All the while trying desperately not to think about the fact that your unit chief is only two thin walls away while you’re dripping wet and completely naked.

You rummage through your dresser until you find an oversized sweater that isn’t totally threadbare and a clean pair of pyjama shorts. Technically, they’re just striped flannel pants you cut into shorts, but at least they’re not as short as the rest of your pyjama collection that definitely needs replacing.

If only you actually had time for things like shopping... and emotional stability.

“No, wait for Morgan before you approach,” Hotch says as you step quietly back into the living room, phone pressed against his ear while he paces slowly beside the dining table. “If the registration’s fake, I don’t want you making contact until we know exactly who’s inside.”

He pauses, expression sharpening slightly.

“Alright. Keep me updated.”

He lowers the phone slowly before looking over at you for the first time since you re-emerged—and for half a second, he visibly loses his train of thought. It’s only tiny. Barely there. Just a brief pause before his expression shutters back into place.

“Garcia tracked one of the vehicles from the traffic footage to a motel outside Arlington,” he says, glancing back down at the files scattered across the table. “The driver’s been masking his activity through multiple VPNs, so she couldn’t pull a clean trace from the motel Wi-Fi, but only one room in the motel was actively using the network.”

Your stomach tightens.

“The name on the reservation was fake,” he continues, “but the room was paid for using a credit card belonging to Daniel Mercer.”

The name hits you immediately.

“Ethan Mercer’s brother,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods. “Rossi confirmed it about twenty minutes ago. Morgan and Prentiss are waiting for local PD before they move in.”

You nod slowly, your pulse fluttering anxiously in your throat as you move toward the kitchen. Not because you actually need anything in there, but because standing still feels almost impossible right now.

“Ethan barely spoke during the trial,” you murmur, folding your arms as you lean back against the counter. “I don’t think I ever even met his brother.”

“You wouldn’t need to,” Hotch says, already gathering the files into a neat pile. “People build attachments to investigators without ever interacting directly. Especially when they’re looking for someone to blame.”

Your skin prickles. “You really think it’s him?”

“It fits,” Hotch replies evenly. “Established emotional investment, personal motive, no prior record. Which explains the inconsistency. The escalation without follow-through. The long gaps between contact attempts. He knows enough to be cautious, but not enough to stay controlled.”

He straightens, turning back toward you—and for the briefest second, his eyes drop to your bare legs before snapping back up to your face almost immediately.

He clears his throat. “This probably isn’t something he’s done before. But his brother has.”

The apartment falls quiet again after that. Hotch returns to collecting files while you stare absently toward the dark balcony doors, your pulse still refusing to settle beneath your skin.

“Well,” you mutter eventually, gripping the edge of the counter to hoist yourself up. “On the bright side, I still think I’ve dated worse.”

The joke leaves your lips lightly enough, the same way they always do—easy, detached, halfway between genuine and ironic so nobody ever pauses long enough to look too closely.

Except this time Hotch does pause.

“Why do you do that?”

You frown. “Do what?”

“Deflect.” He straightens again, one hand still holding a stack of printouts. “Every time something gets too serious, you make a joke. Or you flirt. Or you say something just inappropriate enough to throw people off balance.”

You lift a shoulder. “Maybe I’m just charming.”

“No.” His eyes narrow slightly, brows pulling together. “No, because it changes depending on the situation.”

Your pulse stutters.

“With Morgan it’s competitive,” he continues, setting the papers back on the table. “You tease him because he pushes back and it keeps conversations superficial. Garcia gets exaggerated stories because she responds emotionally instead of analytically. Half the things you say to Reid are specifically designed to make him flustered enough to stop examining what you actually mean.”

“Wow,” you murmur, shifting your weight against the countertop. “Starting to feel a little attacked here.”

But Hotch doesn’t seem to hear you.

“The dating profile doesn’t fit,” he says, almost to himself. “Neither does the apartment.”

Your stomach twists as his gaze moves briefly across the room. The bookshelves. The carefully organised clutter. Leia now curled up asleep on the couch.

“You project someone impulsive. Social. Sexually confident. But nothing in here supports that.” His eyes flick back toward you again. “You live like someone who protects their space carefully. Even the cat.”

“Leave Leia out of this.”

“She doesn’t like strangers.”

“She likes you.”

The words slip out too quickly, and something in his expression shifts.

“You keep people at a distance,” he continues slowly, close enough now that you can hear the quiet rasp beneath his voice. “Even the team. You let people think they know you because it keeps them from looking closer.” He hesitates, brow furrowing. “Except Reid.”

Your fingers tighten instinctively around the edge of the counter.

“You trust him,” Hotch says. “Not just socially. Behaviourally. You anchor yourself to him when you’re stressed. Physical proximity. Eye contact. Redirecting conversations through him.” He pauses, watching you carefully now. “And earlier you said he’d been profiling you all week.”

Oh God.

“Which means Reid already noticed the pattern.”

He goes quiet for a moment, his expression tightening almost imperceptibly as he looks back over the last few months—years—in real time. You can practically see it happening behind his eyes. Every interaction. Every joke. Every look you thought you’d hidden quickly enough.

“You track me.”

The words come quieter now. Less certain. Like he’s still realising them.

“You know my routines,” he continues slowly. “You anticipate questions before I ask them. You look up when you hear my office door open even when you can’t see me.” He steps closer again. “You know when I need coffee before I do. You watch my reactions before anyone else in the room.”

Your breath stutters.

And Hotch notices immediately.

His expression shifts slightly as his eyes flick across your face, your posture, your hands still locked around the edge of the counter hard enough that your knuckles have gone pale beneath the kitchen lights.

“Your breathing changes when I get too close to you,” he says quietly.

He takes another slow step forward, close enough now that you have to tilt your head back slightly to keep looking at him.

“You stop fidgeting,” he continues. “You go completely still.” His gaze drops briefly to your hands before lifting again. “Like you’re afraid movement alone is going to give you away.”

Your heart is beating so hard now you’re half-convinced he can hear it.

“You lose verbal fluency,” he says, voice lower now. “You trip over words you normally wouldn’t. Your pupils dilate. Your heart rate increases. And every single time I get close to noticing it—”

His eyes lock onto yours.

“You redirect.”

You can barely breathe now.

He’s standing right in front of you, close enough that the heat rolling off him sinks straight into your skin, close enough that one more step would put him between your knees where you’re perched on the counter.

And somehow the worst part is that he still sounds calm. Thoughtful. Like Aaron Hotchner is profiling you with the same careful focus he’d bring to an unsub—except this time the thing he’s slowly uncovering is the fact that you’ve been hopelessly in love with him this entire time.

You swallow hard, your gaze catching just briefly on his mouth before you drag it back up to his eyes, pulse hammering so hard you can barely think straight.

“Figured it out yet, Agent Hotchner?” you ask softly.

He goes still for half a second, something unreadable flickering across his face as his eyes drop to your mouth before lifting back to your eyes again.

The apartment suddenly feels oppressively quiet.

His throat shifts slightly.

And then—

His phone rings.

He steps back immediately, his expression shuttering back into something careful and unreadable.

“Hotchner,” he says, pressing his phone against his ear.

You don’t hear much after that. Not really. You recognise Morgan’s muffled voice, but you can’t quite hear what he’s saying. Not while Hotch slowly paces your living room. You catch fragments of the conversation. Questions. Short answers. The low, steady cadence of his voice slipping effortlessly back into work mode while your own nervous system continues actively collapsing in on itself.

Because holy fuck.

Holy fuck.

What the hell just happened?

“They got him.”

Your head snaps up. “They what?”

Hotch moves back to the dining table and starts gathering his things.

“It was him. Daniel Mercer,” he says. “Morgan and Prentiss found him in the motel room with multiple burner phones, printed screenshots from the dating profile, and enough surveillance material to establish intent.”

“Oh.”

“Local PD recovered notebooks too,” he continues. “Names, schedules, work addresses. Everyone connected to Ethan Mercer’s conviction. Judges, prosecutors, witnesses. You were first because you were the arresting agent.”

A cold shiver slips down your spine.

“Garcia also confirmed the motel Wi-Fi matched the same VPN chain used to access the dating profile,” Hotch adds. “Once Mercer realised the Bureau was involved, the direct contact stopped. After that he shifted to surveillance. Morgan said the room was covered in trial material. Photos. Notes. Newspaper clippings. He’d been building the grievance for months.”

He pauses, then looks at you.

“But they got him.”

“Good,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods once before turning back to the dining table, slipping his laptop into his bag with careful efficiency before gathering every file and printout into one neat pile.

“Local PD will hold Mercer overnight until federal transport clears,” he says, sliding the papers into his bag. “Garcia’s already started coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You’ll need to give an additional statement tomorrow regarding the dating profile.”

You nod. “Okay.”

Hotch reaches for his jacket, draping it over one arm.

“There’ll still be additional officers patrolling the area tonight,” he says. “And if you don’t want to be alone, I can have Reid or Garcia stay here.”

“I’ll be fine,” you mutter, glancing down at the kitchen tiles. “You can stop babysitting me now.”

Hotch stills.

Then slowly, deliberately, sets his jacket on the table.

“Babysitting?” he repeats.

“You know what I mean.”

He steps toward you, brows drawn. “I don’t think I do.”

“You solved the case,” you mutter, heat crawling up the back of your neck. “You profiled me. Thoroughly. So congratulations, I guess. You figured out the whole sad little secret, the weird avoidance issues, the entire personality disorder cocktail—” You let out a short, humourless laugh. “You can go back to pretending none of this ever happened now.”

He closes the distance between you before you even fully realise he’s moving, stopping directly in front of the counter again. Exactly where he’d been when you asked him if he’d figured it out. Close enough that you can feel his warmth. Close enough that you can see the day-old shadow of stubble lining his jaw.

“You’re being deliberately provocative now because you’re embarrassed,” he says. “But embarrassment isn’t actually your primary response here.”

His gaze drops to your mouth again, and your pulse stumbles.

“If it was,” he adds quietly, “you wouldn’t still be looking at me like that.”

Your breath catches in your throat.

You want to say something. Anything. Another joke. Another deflection. Something sharp enough to cut through the tension in the air and stop him looking at you like this. Exposing you like this.

But you can’t.

All you can do is stare at him. At the steady intensity in his eyes. At the way his tie has loosened slightly over the course of the night. At the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the white shirt you’ve spent an embarrassing number of years picturing on your bedroom floor.

You swallow hard, and he notices. Of course he does.

Something shifts in his expression then. Something softer. Less guarded.

His hand comes up beneath your jaw, his thumb pressing gently into your chin as he pulls you closer. You fall forward without hesitation, and he leans in, dark eyes still searching yours as if he isn’t entirely sure he has permission yet.

Then he kisses you.

It’s not rushed. Not messy. If anything, the first press of his mouth against yours feels almost unbearably controlled, like he’s still holding himself back even now.

But the restraint doesn’t last long.

Your hand catches his tie, tugging him closer, and something rough slips from the back of his throat as he steps in, his hips slotting between your thighs. His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers tightening just enough to tilt your head back exactly as far as he wants it.

Your lips part against his with a broken sound, and he deepens it slowly, his tongue moving against yours like he has all the time in the world. Tasting you. Learning you. Mapping every small sound and ragged exhale with the same focused intensity he brings to everything—and somehow that’s what undoes you the most. Not urgency. Attention.

His breath mingles with yours, hot and uneven, and when his teeth catch your bottom lip it’s deliberate, measured—a sharp little spark shooting straight through your spine. Your hips roll toward him without permission, and his answering groan rumbles through his chest, vibrating beneath your palm and making you ache everywhere you’ve been starving for him.

Then he pulls back just enough to look at you properly again. His hand still tangled in your hair. Thumb dragging once across your jaw. His eyes move over your face with the same intensity he uses in every debrief, every case, every crisis, except right now you are the thing he’s making sure of.

Like he needs to be absolutely certain this is real.

“Aaron—”

“Bedroom,” he says immediately, voice low and rough enough to send heat crashing straight through you. “Now.”

FRIDAY 6:15AM

Your alarm blares somewhere beside the bed, startling you awake hard enough that your heart immediately starts pounding. You reach for it blindly, determined to silence it before it wakes—

Oh God.

The second your hand hits the snooze button, you freeze.

Your heart is beating faster now, your pulse thrumming in your throat as you turn slowly—so slowly—toward the other side of the bed, where Aaron fucking Hotchner stirs sleepily.

Your stomach swoops.

You slept with your boss last night.

With a shallow, shaky breath, you carefully start to move. His arm is heavy at your waist, but you manage to slip out from underneath it without fully waking him. You shove the covers off and shiver at the sudden exposure, leaning over the side of the bed to find your discarded sweater. You pull it over your head before quietly padding toward the ensuite, refusing to glance back at your very hot, very naked unit chief still tangled in your sheets.

You only just make it around the other side of the bed before something tugs at the back of your sweater. You stop, glancing back to find Hotch half-awake, eyes half-lidded with one hand caught at the hem of your sweater.

“Do you really get up this early?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Most days.”

His brows pull together slightly. “Why?”

You let out a small, breathless laugh. “Because my boss is kind of a hard ass about punctuality.”

Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face.

“Sounds like a terrible boss,” he murmurs.

Then he tugs on your sweater again—hard enough this time that you let out a startled laugh as you stumble backward onto the mattress and into him. He catches you easily, one arm wrapping around your waist before you can even fully recover, pulling you back against the warmth of his chest.

“Yeah,” you murmur, laughing softly as his mouth brushes beneath your ear. “He’s awful. Very demanding.”

He hums, breath warm against your skin.

“He’s really hot, though,” you add, smiling despite yourself. “So I like having time to put in a little effort, you know? Hope he notices.”

“Oh, he notices.”

Your stomach flips. “Really?”

“Mhm.”

His arm tightens around your waist. “He notices the skirts.”

Heat floods your face. “Aaron—”

“He notices the tights.” His mouth brushes against the nape of your neck. “The ones with the seam up the back.”

“Oh my God.”

You try to turn your face into the pillow, but he just holds you tighter, pressing his lips firm against your neck.

“And the red bra,” he murmurs.

Your breath catches.

“Noticed that so much I had to wait until everyone left the conference room before I could get up.”

You let out a strangled sound, squirming in his arms, but it’s no use. His chest vibrates against your back, something suspiciously close to laughter.

“My washing machine broke that week,” you whine. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mm, sure.”

You twist around immediately. “I’m not lying.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, like he doesn’t quite believe you, but before you can protest again—he kisses you. Warm, slow, sleep-soft. His mouth moves against yours almost lazily, his hand tightening slightly at your waist when a pathetic little whimper slips out before you can stop it.

“Careful,” you murmur, breathless against his mouth. “Don’t want to be late.”

You feel his lips curve.

“Good thing I’m the boss.”

10:35AM

You made it to work well on time. Even after three orgasms, a shower, and an awkward attempt at a ‘What Now?’ conversation—that ended in the aforementioned third orgasm. Because fortunately for your rapidly fraying nervous system, Hotch hadn’t even hesitated when you’d finally asked what happens next. In fact, he’d answered a little too quickly.

The first thing he’d asked was whether you’d be comfortable keeping things quiet for a while. Not because he’s worried about the team finding out—he trusts them. Trusts you. The concern is Strauss, and the Bureau, and keeping you in the BAU while he figures out exactly how much trouble the two of you have just created for yourselves. At some point he’d even started muttering about reporting structures and supervisory chains, half-thinking out loud while pulling on his tie. Something about possibly moving your reporting line over to Rossi. Something else about needing to review the Bureau’s fraternisation policies before making any moves.

That was when you kissed him—effectively, and very quickly, kicking off round three.

Because he’d clearly been thinking about this for a while, which means Aaron Hotchner has been noticing a lot more than just short skirts and inappropriately coloured underwear. It means that the second he decided to kiss you in your apartment last night, he’d already known exactly what he was getting himself into.

“Alright, gorgeous,” Morgan says, startling you as he raps a knuckle against your desk. “They’ll be ready for you downstairs in ten.”

You glance up at him, brows drawn—and it takes an embarrassingly long second for you to figure out what he’s talking about.

“Oh.” You blink. “Right. Yeah, I’ll head down soon. Thanks.”

Prentiss looks over from her desk. “You gonna be okay?”

You lift a shoulder. “Sure. What’s another case report?”

Morgan frowns, dropping into his chair. “It’s not exactly every day you’re the victim, baby girl.”

“Yeah, but nothing really happened.”

Morgan and Prentiss both stare at you.

“Because of the team,” you add quickly. “You guys caught him before he actually did anything. So... you know, nothing bad happened.” You plaster on a smile that feels reasonably convincing. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

Prentiss narrows her eyes, but before she can say anything else, Reid appears.

“You’re in a remarkably good mood for someone who was being actively cyberstalked twelve hours ago,” he says, stirring his second coffee of the day.

You turn back to your screen, trying to ignore the heat creeping into your cheeks. “Maybe I just have a newfound appreciation for life.”

Reid studies you for a moment, clearly unconvinced—but he doesn’t push. He just moves slowly back toward his desk, setting his coffee down with unnecessary care while the rest of the team turn away, finally deciding to mind their own business.

You force your attention back to the report in front of you, determined to at least look productive for the next ten minutes—when a familiar voice cuts through your concentration.

“Rossi’s taking Wallace with you next week,” Hotch says, setting the file down on your desk.

You blink up at him. “I thought you were leading the interview.”

“I was.”

Something in his expression tightens briefly before he lowers his voice.

“Wallace has a long history of using sex, intimidation, and emotional targeting to destabilise people during interviews,” he says. “Especially women.”

You frown. “Hotch, I—”

“And if he says something to you in that room,” he continues evenly, “or looks at you the wrong way, I need to know the agent sitting beside you is still capable of thinking objectively.”

Your stomach flips as his eyes meet yours—steady, intense, devastatingly honest.

“Right now,” he says quietly, “I’m not sure that’s me.”

Then he’s gone. Moving through the bullpen back toward his office like he hasn’t just set your pulse racing and your head spinning. You watch after him for a moment before shaking your head, glancing back at your computer screen as if you’d been focused on it at all in the first place.

“…Huh.”

You turn toward the sound and find Reid staring at you again. Not rudely. Just watching with the same focused curiosity he’d been wearing since your suspiciously cheerful comment about cyberstalking.

He tilts his head.

Then—

“Oh my God.”

You close your eyes. “Spencer… don’t.”

Reid hums as he glances back down at his book. “Interesting how your clothing choices become statistically less practical in direct correlation to Hotch’s proximity.”

Your stomach flips. “Spence.”

He lifts one shoulder. “What? He’s not listening.”

You glance back at Morgan, whose eyes are glued to his phone, brow furrowed just slightly as he waits for the whirring coffee machine to fill his cup.

“That’s not the point, Spencer,” you mutter, turning back to him. “You need to—”

The conference room door swings open again and Hotch walks in—files tucked under one arm, the rest of the team trailing behind him.

“Morning,” he says, dropping the files on the table. “Hope everyone had a good weekend.”

Morgan snorts. “What weekend?”

“Yeah,” Prentiss mutters, dropping into the seat beside Reid. “I was here until five on Saturday finishing geographical profiles.”

“That’s because you alphabetise your paperwork,” you point out.

She gives you a look. “I enjoy being proficient.”

“Well,” you say lightly, leaning back in your chair “some of us managed to finish our paperwork on Friday and still have a very enjoyable weekend.”

Garcia gasps dramatically as she falls into the last empty chair, coffee in hand. “Ooh, look at you. Was there a man involved?”

You shrug one shoulder, biting back a smile. “I’m choosing to plead the fifth.”

Morgan points across the table. “That means yes.”

“Or,” Reid says without looking up from his book, “it means she enjoys making people speculate.”

“Aw, Spence,” you tease. “Don’t sound so bitter.”

He finally looks up from his book and fixes you with a look so flat it borders on threatening—because he knows what you’re doing. It’s what you always do. It’s how you manipulate their perception. How you keep your secret.

You perform.

You scroll through dating profiles, talk about men, brag about your weekends without ever being too specific. You flirt with almost everyone on the team—Reid more than the rest, because he’s your scapegoat... and your best friend.

He’s the only one who can see through the charade. Not because he’s emotionally perceptive, but because he did the math. He noticed the pattern. He realised very quickly that every time Hotch walks into a room or says your name, you react in a way that can only mean one thing:

Hotch is the secret you’re trying so hard to hide.

Because if you give a team of profilers an easy explanation—harmless flirting with a messy dating life and a weakness for attention—they won’t notice the way your entire body betrays you whenever your infuriatingly gorgeous boss gets too close.

Hotch clears his throat. “Well, lucky for all of you, it’s a quiet week.”

Reid shuts his book and sets it on the table.

“No active cases as of this morning,” Hotch continues. “Which means we’ll be catching up on consults, court reports, and the mountain of paperwork everyone’s apparently been neglecting.”

His eyes meet yours for the briefest second, and your pulse skitters.

“I’m bored already,” Morgan sighs, leaning back in his chair.

Hotch ignores him. “We’ve got two local consult requests from Fairfax County and a follow-up review from the Richardson case. Dave, I’ll need your notes finalised by this afternoon.”

Rossi nods once. “You’ll have them.”

“Garcia,” Hotch continues, “the Milwaukee office wants that digital forensic review by Wednesday.”

Garcia gasps softly, pressing a hand to her chest. “But I already colour-coded my entire week. That review wasn’t supposed to be due for another fortnight.”

Morgan blinks. “You colour-code your schedule?”

“Obviously,” Garcia says. “How else would I maintain my sparkling personality under crushing institutional pressure?”

Reid straightens. “Technically, organising information activates the same reward pathways as—”

“Don’t,” Prentiss says immediately.

Reid frowns slightly. “I was just going to say gambling.”

You snort softly before you can stop yourself, covering it quickly with your hand. Reid shoots you a look. Prentiss just shakes her head. And when your eyes finally flick back to the front of the room, Hotch is already watching you.

Not the team. You.

Your stomach twists.

That signature Hotchner scowl should not be as hot as it is. It shouldn’t make you cross your legs a little tighter or make your heart race the way it does. You should be used to that scowl by now. You’re on the receiving end of it often enough—whenever you crack a poorly timed joke or flirt a little too hard with Morgan.

Yet somehow, you still feel like you can’t breathe until his gaze finally shifts.

“Moving on,” he says evenly, “JJ will forward the consult details after the meeting.”

He spends the next thirty minutes briefing the team on consults and court appearances while you do your best to stay focused—but it’s hard. It’s hard because every time you look at him, your gaze drops to his mouth and your mind fills with all sorts of filthy ideas. Then he starts moving his hands as he explains something and you can’t help but wonder what they might feel like wrapped around your waist, your thighs, your throat.

His voice is a low rumble at the back of your mind, warm and firm, but you have no idea what he’s actually saying. All you can do is think about how that voice might sound, wrecked and rough, telling you how pretty you look when you—

“The briefing ended three minutes ago,” Reid says.

You blink hard. “What?”

He closes his notebook with a sigh. “The meeting’s over. You can stop internally monologuing now.”

You frown. “I’m not—”

He gives you a look.

“Ugh,” you groan. “You’re so annoying.”

You push up from your chair and walk out of the conference room without waiting for him, but you’re not surprised that he’s right behind you by the time you reach the bullpen. You drop down at your desk with another indignant huff, watching Reid do the same from the corner of your eye.

Everyone else is already settled at their desks—keyboards clicking, pens scribbling—and there’s a fresh stack of files next to your computer with a sticky note on top that reads: Fairfax files. Prioritize pages 12–18. – Hotch.

You want to laugh at the little sign-off, as if anyone else would have put these files on your desk. Your fingers trace over the note once before you peel it off and stick it to the bottom corner of your computer screen.

Reid snorts. “You know most people throw those away, right?”

You glance sideways at him. “I don’t want to forget the page numbers.”

He hums. “Sure.”

“You know,” you say, turning your chair to properly face him, “you’re being particularly judgemental today. What’s your problem?”

He stares at you for a moment, then glances back at the sticky note still attached to your monitor.

“I’m experiencing prolonged second-hand embarrassment,” he says plainly. “And repeated exposure tends to increase irritability.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well—you’re increasing my irritability.”

He nods. “Good.”

You frown.

“I’m attempting corrective behavioural conditioning.”

Your eyes narrow. “By being annoying?”

“Exactly,” he says, already turning back to his computer.

You glare at the side of his head for a long moment, searching for a comeback—but your mind is completely blank. So with another irritated sigh, you turn back to your own screen, scoot your chair into the desk a little harder than necessary, and settle in for what’s shaping up to be a very boring Monday.

The next two hours pass by in a blur of interview transcripts, witness statements, and crime scene photos. The Fairfax County PD files detail the death of a woman in her late thirties who accidentally overdosed in her Reston home early last week. No prior history of substance abuse, financial instability, or high-risk behaviour—until forty-eight hours before her death.

In just two days, she withdrew a large amount of money, missed work without explanation, visited several bars she’d never been to before, and bought herself thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive jewellery and lingerie.

To anyone else, it might look like some sort of breakdown—an impulsive spiral that led to the kind of recklessness you can’t come back from. But to you, the behaviour feels too... artificial. As if someone is trying to construct the narrative of a troubled woman—checking all the right boxes to give investigators an easy explanation for a tragic overdose.

Only there isn’t enough concrete evidence to support your instinct. No stalker. No ex. No clear unsub who could have orchestrated this kind of ruse to cover what might actually be homicide.

You sigh. “Reid.”

“Hm?”

“Tell me if I’m overthinking this.”

Reid pushes back from his desk and scoots across the narrow stretch of carpet between your workstations. He doesn’t stop until his chair bumps the side of your desk, causing your pen cup to topple over and spill across the files you’ve got carefully laid out.

“Oops,” he says absently, pushing the pens aside.

You roll your eyes and start gathering them while he scans the files.

“The behavioural shift feels manufactured,” you say, dropping the pens back into their cup. “But there’s enough legitimate stressors here that I can’t tell if I’m forcing a pattern because it’s too clean.”

Reid examines the highlighted timeline for another few seconds.

“You’re focusing too much on the existence of the stressors,” he says. “Stress explains escalation. It doesn’t explain inconsistency.”

You frown slightly.

“She suddenly becomes impulsive socially, financially, and sexually, but her organisational habits never change.” He taps the timeline. “She still pays bills early. Still meal preps. Still attends a dentist appointment two days before her death. Real behavioural deterioration isn’t usually selective.”

Your brows lift. “So, I’m right?”

Reid nods, leaning back in his chair. “You’re right.”

“What’s she right about?”

You nearly jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice—low and even, a little rough around the edges in that way that always makes your stomach tighten.

“She thinks the behavioural shift is staged,” Reid says. “And I agree.”

He scoots back slightly as Hotch leans in, one hand braced on the back of your chair while the other pulls the file closer so he can read it properly. His tie falls forward, brushing lightly against your thigh—and suddenly, you can’t breathe.

He’s close. Way too close. You can feel the heat of his breath on your skin. Smell the bitterness of coffee beneath his cologne. Hear the quiet creak of leather from his belt as he leans in further.

“It’s too compartmentalised,” Reid says, his voice more distant than it was just a second ago. “Real behavioural spirals usually bleed into every aspect of a person’s routine. Sleep disruption, missed payments, changes in grooming habits, social withdrawal—something.”

Hotch lifts his hand off the desk and presses his thumb to the tip of his tongue—then flips the page.

Your pulse jumps so hard it almost hurts. Heat crawls up the back of your neck. Your whole body feels too hot, your clothes suddenly too tight, the bullpen too small—but you can’t move. Not with Hotch’s hand still on the back of your chair.

“But this is curated,” Reid goes on, tapping the timeline with the end of his pen. “The impulsive behaviour escalates while the foundational routines stay completely intact, which suggests intentional narrative construction.”

Hotch turns his head just slightly, dark eyes finding yours. “You caught that?”

You clear your throat. “I just... thought the escalation pattern felt off.”

“Her behavioural analysis is spot on, actually,” Reid says. “I can’t find a flaw in it.”

Hotch hums quietly as his eyes move back over the file.

“Good girl,” he says absently.

Your entire nervous system short-circuits.

“Keep it up,” he adds, smoothing his tie as he straightens.

You don’t say anything as he turns and walks away. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.

Reid just sits there, hands folded in his lap as he watches Hotch disappear into his office before slowly turning back toward you.

“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “the age-gap preference is actually more interesting than the authority fixation.”

You finally blink. “What?”

“Because the authority thing makes perfect sense. High-pressure careers tend to reinforce attraction to competence, decisiveness, emotional restraint—especially in workplace environments where leadership qualities become psychologically linked with safety and stability over long periods of exposure.”

You frown. “What are you—”

“But the older man preference is statistically more complicated because you don’t actually display the attachment markers usually associated with paternal absence or instability.”

Your eyes go wide. “Spencer—”

“You have a healthy relationship with your father, no documented authority issues, and relatively secure interpersonal attachment patterns, which suggests the preference is less psychologically compensatory and more rooted in behavioural reinforcement.”

“Reid.”

“For example,” he goes on, ignoring you completely, “you spent your formative professional years surrounded almost exclusively by older men in positions of intellectual and behavioural authority. Gideon, Rossi, Hotch—which likely created a reinforcement pattern where emotional competence became unconsciously associated with attraction, arousal, and sexual interest.”

You freeze. “Reid, I swear to—”

“You don’t react this strongly to older men generally,” he continues. “You react strongly to Hotch because he’s emotionally controlled, professionally authoritative, intellectually intimidating, and—”

He pauses, tilting his head.

“Very obviously your type.”

You glance frantically around the bullpen, scanning the desks for the rest of your team.

Morgan has his headphones on, completely focused on whatever report he’s typing. JJ’s desk is empty, as usual—she’s probably with Garcia. And Prentiss is only halfway back from the kitchen, still stirring her fresh cup of coffee.

Your gaze cuts back to Reid. “You are so lucky no one heard that, Spencer.”

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t matter if they did.”

Your brows pull together. “What’s that mean?”

“You’re good at redirecting attention,” he says, slowly pushing his chair back toward his desk. “You’re less good at hiding physiological responses.”

Your hand flies up to your cheek, palm pressing flat against the burning skin.

“Whatever,” you mutter. “It’s warm in here.”

Reid glances around the bullpen. “It’s sixty-eight degrees.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

You shoot him one last glare before turning back toward your computer, aggressively waking up the monitor with your mouse.

You stay chained to your desk for the next few hours, finishing up the victimology report for the Fairfax files before taking them to Rossi for final review. Then you head out with JJ to grab a late lunch from the deli down the street, and when you get back, there’s a brand-new stack of files on your desk—only this time, with a tall takeaway cup of coffee set on top.

“Hotch got dragged into some last-minute Section Chief meeting across town,” Morgan says, pushing his headphones down. “Said he needs those cross-referenced before tomorrow morning.”

“Great,” you mutter, dropping into your chair.

Morgan chuckles softly as he pulls his headphones back up, turning back to his own pile of reports.

You grab the coffee from the top of the files and find a sticky note stuck beneath it—written quickly but still in his unmistakable handwriting: I owe you one. – Hotch.

Your stomach flips.

God. That’s pathetic.

You peel the note off and drop it into the top drawer of your desk, not wanting another psychoanalytic lecture from Reid if he were to spot that note stuck to your monitor.

The rest of the day passes the way every other caseless Monday afternoon does. JJ’s the first to head out—not long after five—taking advantage of the slow week to spend a little extra time with Henry. Rossi leaves about an hour later, announcing to the bullpen that he’s got a date with a bottle of wine and reruns of his favourite medical drama. Morgan manages to clear the files on his desk before seven, finally putting his headphones away before bidding the rest of the team farewell.

Prentiss and Reid linger until nearly nine, and only when the motion sensor lights blink out does Prentiss finally glance up, realising how late it is. She gathers her things and nudges Reid, who’s been firmly stuck in hyperfocus mode despite the rest of the world quietly slowing down around him.

“You coming?” he asks, adjusting the strap of his satchel.

You look up slowly, your brain buffering as it untangles itself from the files spread across your desk.

“Not yet,” you reply, blinking tiredly. “Hotch needs these by morning.”

Reid tilts his head. “Want me to wait?”

You wave a hand. “Nah, go ahead. I’ll get security to walk me to my car.”

“Alright,” he says, already turning away. “Just remember that positive reinforcement loses effectiveness when the subject becomes emotionally dependent on it.”

You glare at his back. “I’m reporting you to HR.”

“You’d have to explain the context,” he calls over his shoulder.

You roll your eyes as you turn back to the last file on your desk, taking a deep breath and flipping it open.

With the bullpen almost completely silent and the promise of sleep so close you can taste it, you manage to get through it in record time. You even give it a quick second pass to make sure you didn’t miss anything glaringly obvious in your tired state—but you’re used to working through sleep deprivation, and by ten p.m., you finally start packing up.

You organise the files back into a neat pile, then open the top drawer of your desk for Hotch’s note. You stick it to the top file and grab a pen, scribbling just below the words he wrote: Dangerous thing to promise me.

And, just as he did, you sign off with your name.

Then you gather the whole stack in your arms and cross the bullpen toward his office. Unlocked, as usual. You nudge the door open with your foot, warm lamplight casting an orange glow over the quiet space. It smells faintly like coffee and his cologne—enough to make your heart start racing the second you step inside.

You set the files neatly on his desk, trying not to linger on the quiet traces of him scattered throughout the room.

There’s still half a mug of cold coffee abandoned beside some paperwork, and the cashmere sweater he’d been wearing beneath his jacket this morning is draped haphazardly over the back of his chair. Quiet evidence of just how suddenly he’d been called away.

It makes you feel a little better knowing you really have helped him out.

You adjust the files until they’re perfectly straight, then take the sweater from the back of his chair and fold it neatly before setting it on the chest of drawers beside his desk. You hesitate for just a second before grabbing the mug of cold coffee and heading out of his office, straight for the break room. You empty it, wash it, dry it, then return to his office, placing it back on his desk exactly where you found it. Then you switch the lamp off on your way out, pulling the door most of the way shut behind you—the way it’d been before you stepped inside.

It doesn’t take long for you to gather your things, head down to security, and badge out. One of the guards escorts you to the parking garage, waiting until you’re safely inside your car with the engine running before he takes the elevator back up.

Once home, you quickly feed the yowling Leia—your cat, who’s very unimpressed by your late arrival—take a quick shower, change into your comfiest, threadbare sleep shirt, then crawl into bed with your laptop balanced on your knees. You know you should just try to get some sleep, but you’ve been ignoring a few personal messages and emails for a couple days now, and you know that if you don’t get to them soon, you’ll start to feel guilty.

You open your emails, reply to a couple, then pull up a new browser tab and type in the login address for the dating site Garcia set you up for. Not that you couldn’t have set up your own profile if you’d really wanted to.

No—this profile is just the unintentional byproduct of your ongoing attempt to redirect attention.

One slow Thursday evening in the bullpen, while you’d been loudly complaining about how impossible it was to meet men with a job like yours, Morgan had the brilliant idea of making you a dating profile. Garcia immediately lit up at the idea, pulling the site up on her computer while Reid launched into a rambling statistical analysis about the probability of finding genuine compatibility online.

Hotch hadn’t contributed to the conversation, but you’d known he was listening.

That had been the whole point. You always perform a little harder when Hotch can hear.

The site finally loads and you type in your credentials, waiting a few seconds for your profile to pop up.

Twelve notifications.

You click on the ‘messages’ tab and start scrolling. There are a few old conversations that fizzled out and you’ve long since decided not to reply to. There are a couple of messages from people you never intend on starting a conversation with. Then there are two new messages—ones you’d seen pop up on your phone but couldn’t be bothered to engage with over the weekend.

After all, you’re not actually looking to date anyone.

But one of the messages catches your eye.

DCRunner00: You seem like the kind of person who’s either very funny or very mean. I’m willing to risk it.

You snort, then type out a reply.

You: Unfortunately for you, those traits aren’t mutually exclusive.

Just as you hit enter, Leia leaps up onto the bed.

“Hey, sassy girl,” you coo, moving your laptop to reach for her.

Your fingers graze her soft coat, and she gives you an incredibly disapproving look.

You roll your eyes. “Alright. Sorry for loving you.”

You settle back against the pillows as she makes her way to the other side of the bed, curling up as far as she can possibly get from you.

Ping! Ping! Two more messages pop up.

DCRunner00: That’s probably the best possible answer you could’ve given. DCRunner00: So what’s your worst personality trait? I feel like that’s more interesting than hobbies.

That answer comes a little too easily.

You: Workaholic. You? DCRunner00: I get bored easily. DCRunner00: Which usually means I either start running or annoying people for entertainment. You: Sounds like a public safety issue. DCRunner00: Depends who you ask. DCRunner00: You should probably get some sleep, Workaholic. It’s late.

You glance over at Leia as she rolls onto her side, stretching her front legs, and only then do you realise you were actually smiling at your screen.

You shake your head, typing quickly.

You: Yeah, I should. You: Night, Running Man.

Then you shut your laptop before he can send another message.

TUESDAY 9:50AM

“Morgan, you’re with me at district court this afternoon,” Hotch says, closing the file in front of him. “The defence attorney’s pushing back on the Richardson testimony, so we’ll need to review our timeline before the hearing.”

He’s wearing a grey suit today.

You can never think straight when he’s wearing a grey suit.

Morgan sighs dramatically. “Nothing says excitement like four hours in a courthouse basement.”

Hotch ignores him completely.

“JJ, I want the media requests filtered through Strauss’s office before lunch. Reid, finish the geographic overlays from the Fairfax case and send them to Rossi when you’re done.”

He glances once around the table.

“If anything urgent comes in, you’ll be notified. Otherwise, continue using this downtime to catch up on reports.”

Then he gathers the files into a neat stack and stands, turning toward the door.

The rest of the room starts moving slowly. Morgan mutters something to JJ about the court hearing, Prentiss turns to Reid, asking something about a case you don’t quite catch, and Garcia is already explaining something on her laptop to Rossi, who’s watching the screen with quiet concentration.

Which leaves you to shamelessly stare at your boss’ ass as he walks out of the room.

“You should probably blink.”

Your head snaps toward Reid, frown already forming. “I’ll blink when I want to blink.”

He presses his lips together to keep from laughing, and you know he’s fighting the urge to launch into some deeply unwanted psychoanalysis of your behaviour—but thankfully, the rest of the team is still too close for him to risk it.

Eventually, everyone starts filing out of the conference room and back into the bullpen. You end up being the last to leave, behind Reid and Garcia who are chatting animatedly about some new phone app they’re both obsessed with.

You’re just about to pass Hotch’s office door when—you hear your name.

You turn your head, and he gestures for you to come in.

Reid glances briefly over his shoulder, an irritatingly knowing look on his face as you turn and step into Hotch’s office.

You clear your throat, stopping a few feet from the desk. “Sir?”

“How late were you here last night?” he asks.

You lift a shoulder. “About ten.”

His jaw shifts as he leans back in his chair. “That’s late.”

“Morgan said you needed them done by the morning.”

“I didn’t mean first thing,” he says, smoothing the end of his tie. “You could’ve finished the rest before lunch.”

You blink. “Oh.”

His gaze holds yours for a second too long.

“You don’t need to stay late to impress me.”

Your eyes widen slightly before you force out a small, awkward laugh. “Oh—uh—good to know.”

He glances briefly at the navy-blue cashmere sweater still folded neatly on the chest of drawers.

“Still,” he says, lower this time. “I appreciated it. The files, and… everything else.”

Your breath catches softly in your throat.

“Anytime, sir,” you manage.

He nods once, then drops his gaze back to the paperwork on his desk.

You don’t need any more of a dismissal than that, so you turn quickly and step out, pulling the door shut behind you. He prefers it closed, even if he won’t admit it because he doesn’t want the team to think he’s shutting them out. He’s just more comfortable in private—it helps him focus.

By the time you get back to your desk, everyone else is already settled and working quietly. Not even Reid glances up or offers a teasing remark.

You drop into your chair and wriggle your mouse, grabbing your phone while you wait for the screen to wake up.

Two new messages from DCRunner00.

DCRunner00: Running Man? DCRunner00: Great book. Slightly concerning nickname, though.

You can’t help yourself, so you type out a quick reply.

You: Better than ‘Workaholic’. You: You read Stephen King?

“Hey, you busy?”

You glance over at Reid. “Aren’t we all?”

He tilts his head. “You’re on your phone.”

“I could be working.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Good,” he says, shuffling the files on his desk. “Hotch wants us to prep the full geographic and timeline package for the Fairfax files in case it turns into an active investigation.”

You sigh, already pushing back from your desk. “And by ‘us’ you mean...?”

“I could use your help.”

“Fine,” you mutter, setting your phone down.

He scoots over as you roll your chair toward his desk, settling in beside him. The files are all laid out, including your victimology report with Rossi’s few annotations. There are crime scene reports, autopsy summaries, witness statements, geographic overlays, and maps—everything needed to justify escalating the case into a full BAU investigation.

“Where do you want to start?”

“I’m trying to rebuild the geographic timeline digitally,” he says, “but half the field reports were logged out of sequence and now the movement patterns don’t align.”

You nod. “Okay, walk me through where it stops making sense.”

Three hours later, you feel like your eyeballs are bleeding. You’ve read the same witness statement at least twenty times now, but with every pass it only makes less sense. How could Annabelle Hutton possibly be placed in two different counties less than forty minutes apart?

“It’s physically impossible,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes.

Reid hums quietly beside you. “Not necessarily.”

You stare at him. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well, depending on traffic conditions, inaccurate timestamp reporting, and the reliability of eyewitness memory retention, there are at least four scenarios where the timeline could still technically work.”

You sigh, leaning back in your chair and staring up at the ceiling. “If you know so much, then why can’t you figure this out?”

He still doesn’t turn away from his screen. “I will. Eventually.”

You groan softly, dragging both hands down your face just as a familiar voice cuts through the quiet bullpen.

“No, listen to me carefully.”

Both you and Reid glance up automatically.

Hotch is walking slowly past the desks with his phone pressed to his ear, expression calm but impossibly stern in a way that immediately makes heat crawl beneath your skin.

“You don’t need to explain the problem again,” he says evenly. “You need to tell me how you’re fixing it.”

He pauses briefly beside Reid’s desk, listening.

“Then prioritise the transfer first,” he says. “If the paperwork isn’t filed before opposing counsel reviews discovery, the timeline becomes vulnerable and the entire testimony gets picked apart.”

He rests a hand on the partition between the desks, gaze fixed somewhere distant as he listens to the person on the other end.

“No,” he says after a moment, voice lower now. “I’m not asking you to stay late. I’m telling you this needs to be finished tonight.”

Your stomach flips.

This absolutely should not be as hot as it is.

“Good,” he says calmly into the phone, straightening again. “Call me when it’s done.”

Then he keeps walking, cutting through the bullpen before turning sharply toward his office.

You stare after him, the thought slipping out before you can stop it. “Do you think he talks you through it?”

“Probably,” Reid says, turning back to his screen. “High-control personalities usually prefer maintaining verbal direction in intimate situations because it reinforces predictability and compliance dynamics.”

You go still. You hadn’t actually expected an answer.

“Someone like Hotch would probably place a pretty high psychological value on responsiveness,” Reid continues. “The immediate compliance aspect reinforces authority, which means verbal direction would likely become part of the overall intimacy dynamic rather than just communication.”

Your face heats.

“Especially because he’s not impulsive enough to rely on unpredictability. He’d want constant awareness of how the other person is responding emotionally and physically, so talking them through things would help maintain control of the situation while also reinforcing trust.”

Oh my God.

“And honestly,” Reid goes on, “people with highly structured leadership personalities usually develop pretty strong positive associations with obedience because it confirms stability, attentiveness, emotional investment—” He pauses briefly. “Which means he’d probably find it disproportionately attractive when someone follows instructions immediately or responds well to praise because it validates both the authority dynamic and the emotional trust beneath it, so statistically speaking he’d—”

He stops.

Then slowly turns toward you.

“...I crossed a social boundary somewhere in there, didn’t I?”

You nod slowly, your voice coming out unnaturally high. “Just a couple.”

He sighs, dropping his chin slightly as he turns back to his screen.

You huff out a breathless laugh and lean back in your chair again. You need a minute to recover from that, because now you’re hot all over and the only thing you can think about is your boss hovering over you, praising you in that low, steady voice while his hand settles around your throat—

Fortunately, it doesn’t take Reid long to start rambling about geographic overlays again. You do your best to focus on what he’s saying, but after another hour of scrutinising the timeline inconsistencies, you decide you need an actual break.

You grab your phone and your jacket and head out of the office, sending a quick text to the team chat asking if anyone else would like a coffee from the cafe down the road. It’s a thousand times better than break room coffee.

When you step out of the elevator on the ground floor, you bring up your messages with DCRunner00. You’re not sure why, because normally you only check your profile when you feel like you need to keep up the act, but something about this guy keeps making you want to reply.

DCRunner00: I’ve read a few. DCRunner00: What does a workaholic do for fun?

You type your reply as you step out of the building.

You: Work, mostly. You: And sleep.

By the time you return to the office with a tray of four coffees, you have two new messages—but you can’t reply to them until you set the tray down at your desk.

“Thanks, pretty girl,” Morgan says as he takes one, flashing you a grin.

You smile back. “Anything for you, gorgeous.”

Then you pull your phone out of your pocket and bring up the message thread.

DCRunner00: What’s your schedule even like? DCRunner00: You strike me as an “answers emails at midnight” type of person. You: Nah. That’s my boss. You: My schedule is chaos, though.

“Thanks,” Reid says as he takes his coffee, leaving only two.

You set your phone down and take the last two coffees out of the tray, leaving one at your desk before taking the other to Hotch’s office. You can see through the window that he’s not on the phone—for once—so you knock twice on the slightly ajar door before stepping inside.

He glances up, his brows pulling together slightly. “I didn’t ask for coffee.”

“I know,” you say quickly. “But it’s almost three, and you always need another coffee around three, and I figured you probably didn’t answer the team message because you still feel bad about me staying so late last night, which you shouldn’t, by the way.”

He straightens, brows drawing tighter.

“And I know you’ve got court with Morgan this afternoon, and you’re going to try to leave early, but someone’s definitely going to call at the last second and derail that plan, so you’ll only have enough time to get to the courthouse—not enough time to stop for coffee.”

You set the cup down in front of him.

“So,” you tilt your head, “coffee.”

He leans back in his chair, studying you for a second.

“That’s some pretty solid profiling, Agent.”

Your face heats instantly.

“Well,” you say, backing slowly toward the door, “maybe now you owe me two.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly, but it’s enough for the butterflies in your stomach to explode. You can’t help but grin as you turn away, slipping quickly out the door before your lungs forget how to work entirely.

You spend the rest of the day at Reid’s desk, finishing the case package for the Fairfax files and complaining about unreliable witnesses. Hotch and Morgan head off to court just after three, announcing to the rest of the team that they won’t be back. JJ is the first to head home again around five, followed by Prentiss, then Rossi—then you and Reid finally decide to call it a day just after six.

Which is also when you finally check your messages again.

DCRunner00: Chaos how?

You type a quick reply while you wait for your car’s AC to warm up.

You: Long hours. You: Weird hours. You: And a deeply unhealthy relationship with caffeine.

Then you tuck your phone away and head out of the parking garage.

Leia is already yowling by the time you step through your apartment door. She’s always hungry, even though she has an automatic feeder for dry food—but apparently that isn’t good enough. She prefers the wet stuff.

You quickly peel open a packet of fishy-smelling chicken jelly sludge and drop it into her bowl before washing your hands and moving into your bedroom. You flip the ensuite light on and start the shower, pulling your phone out of your pocket while you wait for the water to warm.

DCRunner00: Ah. So you’re one of those people. You: Rude.

He replies almost immediately.

DCRunner00: Accurate, though? You: Unfortunately.

You drop your phone on the bed and start undressing.

Ping!

DCRunner00: What do you actually do?

You hesitate. It’s not like you can just say you’re in the FBI. Contrary to what some people might think, real FBI agents can’t just go around bragging about their highly classified work status. It’s dangerous.

You: Mostly admin. You: Governmental stuff.

You toss your phone back onto the bed and turn into the steamy ensuite. You shower quickly, dry off, run product through your damp hair, then pull on a shirt and a pair of sweatpants before heading back out into the kitchen.

You’re not in the mood to cook tonight, so you grab a protein bar out of the cupboard and start boiling the kettle while you check your phone for what feels like the hundredth time.

DCRunner00: Sounds boring. DCRunner00: Do you get days off, though?

You drop a teabag into your mug before typing out a reply.

You: Sort of. You: But if my boss calls, I answer.

He replies instantly again.

DCRunner00: I’m starting to think you secretly enjoy being overworked. You: I think I’d get bored otherwise.

You pour the boiling water into your mug and watch his next reply pop up.

DCRunner00: That sounds suspiciously unhealthy. You: Probably. What about you? What do you do?

You tuck your phone into your pocket, then grab your tea and protein bar and head to the couch. There’s nothing you’re really interested in watching—since you don’t usually have the time to keep up with any shows—so you turn on the nightly news before grabbing your laptop and pulling up a new browser.

He’s already replied by the time you log in.

DCRunner00: Run. DCRunner00: Read. DCRunner00: Annoy people professionally. You: That sounds made up.

You open your protein bar.

DCRunner00: It mostly is. DCRunner00: So your boss actually calls you outside work hours?

You hesitate at the sudden redirection. Most men on dating apps prefer talking about themselves. Their jobs, hobbies, gym routines, childhood dogs—whatever makes them seem interesting—but this guy seems far more interested in observing than being observed.

You type out a vague response.

You: Sometimes. You: Occupational hazard, I guess. DCRunner00: And you always answer? You: Pretty much. You: He’d only call if it mattered.

His next reply takes almost two minutes to come through.

DCRunner00: Hm. DCRunner00: I’m starting to think your boss gets more attention than I do.

You almost choke on your tea.

That’s... weird.

Maybe you have mentioned your boss a little more than strictly necessary, but he’s the one asking all the questions about your job. It’s a little hard not to mention your boss when your life practically revolves around him—in more ways than you care to admit.

You: Jealous already, Running Man? DCRunner00: Should I be?

You sit up straighter, suddenly a little nauseous.

You: I think you’re spending too much time talking to strangers online. DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: You still replied, though.

“Okay,” you say, startling Leia who was half-asleep on the other end of the couch. “That’s enough.”

You: I’m going to sleep. You: Try not to spiral while I’m gone.

His last message pops up just before you shut your laptop.

DCRunner00: No promises.

WEDNESDAY 8:10AM

“Come on,” you mutter, mashing the elevator button for the doors to close.

You’re a whole thirty minutes earlier than usual this morning. You didn’t even make a coffee in your travel mug before running out the door. You just woke up, brushed your teeth, checked your messages—and decided you needed to talk to Garcia immediately.

“Hey—woah.” Reid steps out of your way as you rush into the bullpen. “You’re early.”

You drop your bag on your desk and quickly shrug off your jacket.

“Is Garcia in yet?”

He frowns slightly. “I think so. Why?”

You pull your laptop out of your bag.

“I just—I need her.”

You’re already walking away before he can press any further, moving back through the bullpen with your laptop hugged against your chest. You’re just about to round the corner toward the elevators when—

“Hey—” Hotch stops short just as you nearly run into him. “Slow down. You alright?”

His hand is hovering near your waist—not quite touching, but close enough for you to feel its warmth.

You blink up at him. “Sorry. Yeah. Uh—totally fine. Just going to see Garcia about... a case.”

His brows pull together slightly.

“Alright, well, Garcia’s not going anywhere,” he says evenly. “Take a breath.”

You nod slowly, already stepping around him.

“Right,” you mutter. “Breathing. Got it. Sorry, sir.”

You can almost swear you see the corner of his mouth lift—but then the elevator dings behind you, and you have to hurry to slip through the doors before they slide shut.

It feels like an eternity before they finally open again, but once they do you practically sprint down the hall to Garcia’s lair and burst through the door without warning.

She startles so hard she nearly drops her coffee. “Sweet mother of encryption, knock first!”

“Sorry,” you say, breathless. “I need you.”

“Well, obviously,” she mutters, checking her shirt for any spills. “I’m the backbone of this entire operation.”

You drop down into the spare chair and open your laptop, setting it on her desk.

“You cannot judge me for what I’m about to show you.”

She glances up, brows lifting. “Oh. So this is serious?”

You grimace. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Slightly less reassuring than I was hoping for. Tell me what’s happened.”

You take a deep breath, then let it out in a rush.

“You remember the dating profile you set up for me?”

She nods.

“Alright, so, I won’t lie, I haven’t really met anyone on there yet, but I check the messages occasionally. When I’ve got time, you know? And I don’t have a whole lot of ongoing conversations, but this one guy sent me something that was kind of funny, so I responded, and the conversation was pretty normal for the most part. I couldn’t reply all that quickly, but he didn’t seem to mind.”

You shift awkwardly, scooting your chair closer to her desk.

“Nothing really felt out of place until—well, he wouldn’t talk about himself much, which is strange because most people on dating apps are usually more interested in presenting themselves than gathering information. He kept asking questions about my job, actually. Not that my job is on my profile, but he was really curious about my schedule, or—I guess—lack of schedule.”

You wince.

“So now that I think about it, that was probably the second sign something might be off. Or maybe he just wanted to meet up, I don’t know.”

You hesitate.

“But then he sent me this message at like... two a.m.”

She squints at the screen.

DCRunner00: Bet you answer your boss faster than you answer anyone else.

“Mmm. Nope. Don’t love that,” she says, shaking her head. “That is not a normal amount of emotional investment for a stranger.”

You sink back in your chair. “That’s what I thought.”

She starts scrolling back through the messages.

“Have you told Hotch?”

“Nope.”

She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “You answered way too fast for that to be a normal response.”

“Because the answer is no,” you say firmly, leaning forward again.

“Mm-hm.” She keeps scrolling. “Okay, well... technically this could still be nothing. He could just be some lonely basement cryptid with Wi-Fi and poor social skills.”

You groan, dragging both hands over your face.

“You do mention Hotch kind of a lot.”

Your head snaps up. “He’s my boss.”

Garcia gives you a long look.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Sure.”

“Garcia.”

“I’m just saying, if a man talked about a woman this much online, we’d all be making faces.”

You point at the screen. “Focus.”

“Right. Yes. Creepy internet man. Sorry.”

Her expression settles into something more focused as she turns back toward her array of monitors.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Don’t block him yet.”

You sigh. “I don’t love that idea.”

“Neither do I, babycakes, but if he’s routing through the website normally, I might be able to pull connection data if we keep him talking long enough.”

You frown. “In English?”

She gives you another look. “Timestamps, login patterns, regional pings, possible VPN usage, device signatures if he slips up—basic digital stalking fun.”

“Oh, of course,” you say sarcastically. “Normal stuff.”

“For me, it is normal.” She points toward the laptop. “Now reply to him. Something casual. I want to see if he responds immediately again.”

Your fingers hover over the keys for a second before you type out your reply.

You: I thought I told you not to spiral.

He replies so fast that even Garcia flinches.

DCRunner00: Relax. It was a joke. DCRunner00: Mostly.

She stares at the screen. “Okay, I officially don’t like him.”

You lean back in your chair again, nausea twisting low in your gut. “I feel sick.”

Garcia’s expression softens slightly. “Maybe you should tell—”

“No.”

She sighs quietly. “Okay. Fine. Can you keep replying from your phone?”

You nod.

“Good. Don’t overdo it, just enough to keep him engaged.” Her fingers start flying across the keyboard. “I’ll work my magic down here and call you if I find anything.”

You push yourself out of the chair, clutching your phone a little tighter.

“You’re the best, Pen.”

“I know.” She waves a hand without looking away from her screens. “Now go pretend to be emotionally stable upstairs.”

By the time you get back to your desk, almost everyone is already in the conference room ready for the morning briefing. You drop your phone beside your keyboard—too anxious to have it with you during the meeting—then quickly unpack your things and grab a notebook before making your way up.

Reid nods at you from his usual seat, gesturing to the empty one beside him.

“Hey,” you mutter as you drop down next to him.

His brows pull together. “Everything alright?”

You nod. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll explain later.”

Hotch keeps the morning briefing quick. He goes over yesterday’s court hearing, outlines the Fairfax briefing package in case it escalates into an active investigation, then gets JJ to run through the highest priority consultation requests.

You spend most of it toying with a loose thread on the cuff of your blouse. You’re pretty sure it’s the first briefing in years where you haven’t spent at least part of it staring at Hotch instead of your notes—and when the room finally relaxes and everyone starts to filter out, Reid turns to you.

“Okay, now I’m concerned,” he says.

You glance at him. “Why?”

“You didn’t look at Hotch once during that entire meeting.”

You roll your eyes. “Spence—”

“Something must be seriously wrong.”

You let out a long exhale, glancing briefly around the almost empty room. Only Morgan and Rossi are left, halfway to the door, deep in discussion about something that happened at the court hearing yesterday afternoon.

“Okay,” you say quietly, turning back to Reid. “I’m having some... trouble, I guess, with a guy.”

His brows shoot up. “A guy—”

“Online,” you add quickly.

He tilts his head. “I’m confused again.”

You sigh. “Remember that dating profile Garcia set up for me?”

“You mean the profile you allowed Garcia to create as part of your increasingly unsustainable performative dating strategy?”

You glare at him. “Yes. That one.”

“Then yes, I remember it very clearly.”

“Well,” you mutter, pinching the bridge of your nose, “I had this guy message me a couple days ago. It was normal at first but now it’s gotten... weird. So, I’m getting Garcia to look into it.”

His forehead creases. “Have you told—”

“No.”

“Maybe you should—”

“I said no.”

“Alright.” He raises both hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m dropping it. It’s just…”

You narrow your eyes at him.

“Well, statistically speaking, the majority of uncomfortable online interactions don’t escalate into actual stalking behaviour. Most people displaying premature emotional fixation online are socially isolated rather than violent.”

You lift a brow, waiting for the punchline.

“However,” he adds, “cyberstalking offenders also tend to develop parasocial attachments disproportionately quickly because the perceived emotional intimacy bypasses a lot of normal social barriers, which means escalation patterns can become highly personalised in a very short period of time.”

You stare at him.

“In cases where the fixation becomes grievance-oriented, the offender is usually highly organised rather than impulsive, so the behaviour tends to be significantly more deliberate and psychologically targeted.”

He pauses, frowning faintly.

“That was supposed to be reassuring.”

“…Thanks, Reid,” you mutter, turning away from him slowly. “Now I feel so much better.”

When you get back to your desk, you decide it’s time to reply again. You grab your phone and bring up the messages, taking a minute to think about what to type—knowing Garcia will be seeing the conversation too.

You type out the only mildly casual response you can think of.

You: You’re weird.

He replies just as fast as usual.

DCRunner00: You disappear a lot. You: Workaholic, remember. You: I told you my schedule was chaos.

You’re about to turn your phone over on your desk when a different notification pops up—from Garcia.

Garcia: If this is your version of flirting, baby girl, I think I just figured out why you’re still single.

You snort softly, typing out a quick reply.

You: Trust me, that’s not the reason. Garcia: So there IS a reason? You: Shh. I’m working. Garcia: Boo!

You huff another quiet laugh as you turn your phone over, nudging it toward the edge of your desk in the hopes that you might be able to focus on work rather than creepy internet man for at least a few hours.

It doesn’t work.

Barely half an hour later, you lift your phone to check for another notification—but there’s nothing there. You pull up the message thread again and scroll up, checking the timestamps to see if he’s ever gone quiet on you before—but he hasn’t. Not really. So you type another message.

You: You went quiet. Should I be concerned?

It’s a calculated move. If he’s paying attention to response patterns—and at this point you’re pretty sure he is—then following up first helps maintain the illusion that nothing has changed. No sudden distance. No obvious discomfort. No reason for him to think you’re pulling away.

If he is dangerous, the last thing you want is for him to feel rejected.

An hour later, Rossi drops a legal pad onto your desk, asking you to take another look at a witness timeline that doesn’t feel right—which keeps you occupied for a good forty-five minutes. Then Morgan leans over the partition between your desks, asking if you can translate Reid into English. That takes up another hour of your day, and by the time you grab your first afternoon coffee, you’ve got three notifications.

One is a missed call from Garcia. The other two are from creepy internet man.

DCRunner00: Depends. Are you worried about me? DCRunner00: Blue looks good on you, by the way.

Your stomach drops. “Oh my God.”

You immediately call Garcia back.

She answers on half a ring. “Are you wearing blue?”

“You saw me this morning.”

“I can’t remember,” she says. “Are you?”

You drag a hand through your hair. “Yes.”

“Holy shit,” she whispers. “You’ve got to tell—”

“No.”

“Are you insane?”

“Maybe, but—” You squeeze your eyes shut for a second. “Okay, just—hear me out. Blue is a statistically safe guess. It’s a neutral professional colour with high frequency in workplace attire, especially in government buildings.”

Garcia goes quiet for a second.

“And does this unsub know you work in a government building?”

“Don’t call him that,” you snap. “And—well, kind of. I didn’t tell him exactly, but I said... government adjacent.”

“I swear to God,” she mutters, “if I have to identify your body next week, I’m going to kill you.”

You press your free hand against your forehead.

“You won’t,” you say firmly. “Alright? We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

Garcia scoffs loudly.

“Seriously,” you insist. “It could still be nothing. A weird coincidence, maybe an awkward guy with boundary issues and too much free time. We deal with actual predators every day. I can handle a few creepy messages.”

The line goes quiet again—then she sighs.

“Why are you so against telling Hotch?”

“Because I don’t want to bother him,” you say quickly. “We’ve got a quiet week, he finally seems slightly less stressed, and I don’t want to cause a whole fuss over something that might turn out to be nothing.”

She sighs again, louder this time. “Fine. I won’t go to Hotch.”

Your shoulders sag. “Thank you.”

“On one condition,” she adds. “I’m sleeping over tonight.”

You nearly choke. “What?”

“Non-negotiable.”

“Penelope, that’s insane.”

“No,” Garcia says firmly, “what’s insane is you trying to casually explain away potential stalking behaviour while actively refusing to inform your unit chief.”

“He is not stalking me,” you protest, keeping your voice low.

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“And yet,” Garcia says, “if you die, I become morally complicit because I knew about creepy internet man and failed to intervene.”

You frown. “…Morally complicit?”

“Accessory to murder-adjacent,” she corrects. “And my guilty conscience requires eight hours of sleep minimum, so congratulations. We’re having a slumber party.”

You let out a long sigh. “Okay. Fine.”

She hums, satisfied.

“I need to reply to him again.”

“Well, don’t ask me,” she mutters. “You’re the one who’s apparently fluent in creepy internet freak.”

You laugh despite yourself. “Thanks, Pen.”

“Mm-hm. And just so we’re clear, tonight we are watching wholesome romantic comedies and eating enough sugar to kill a Victorian child.”

“I was actually thinking psychological thriller marathon.”

“Absolutely not.”

You smile faintly, leaning back in your chair. “Fine. Romantic comedies it is.”

“Good,” Garcia says firmly. “Now hang up before I change my mind and march upstairs to Hotch’s office myself.”

You roll your eyes as you hang up, then open the message thread again. You don’t have to think too hard about what to type. You don’t want to escalate or accuse him, but you need him to stay engaged. You want him to explain himself to see how he reframes the behaviour.

You: Lucky guess.

The next few hours slip by in a strange blur of routine tasks and fragmented conversations.

At about three o’clock, Prentiss drops a file on your desk and asks if you can double-check a victim timeline while she’s stuck on the phone with Chicago. Then Rossi calls you into his office to sanity-check a profile theory he’s working through out loud—which means fifteen minutes of listening to him argue with himself while you sit there trying not to focus on Hotch’s voice through the wall.

When you finally get back to your desk, Reid spends twenty minutes walking you through a probability model nobody asked for but everyone somehow ends up listening to anyway. He only stops when Hotch appears, carrying a stack of files from the Richardson case he wants Morgan to look over before he signs them off—and for the first time in God knows how long, you don’t stare shamelessly at his ass as he walks out of the bullpen.

By six p.m., JJ and Rossi are gone, Prentiss is helping Morgan with the Richardson files, and Reid is building a tiny tower out of paperclips while he reads over a file Rossi dropped on his desk before he left.

At exactly six-fifteen, your desk phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Pack your things, baby girl. Your government-issued sleepover is about to begin.”

You snort softly. “Alright. I’ll see you soon.”

You hang up the phone and start clearing your desk, organising paperwork into piles and packing away stationery while you wait for your computer to shut down.

“See who soon?” Reid asks.

You glance at him. “Garcia.”

He tilts his head.

“She’s staying over tonight.”

His brows lift. “Because of your stalk—”

“Girl’s night,” you interrupt, eyes widening. “That’s all.”

His gaze narrows. “Should I be worried?”

You scoff. “About me? Never.”

You slide your arms into your jacket then finally pick up your phone, finding two new notifications from creepy internet man waiting for you.

“Really?” Reid asks, turning his chair to face you. “Because you’ve spent most of the day staring at your phone like it’s a bomb, you spent most of Rossi’s profile discussion peeling the label off your water bottle instead of contributing, and you reorganised the same stack of paperwork three separate times.”

You pause mid-motion.

“Also,” he continues, “you usually correct Morgan when he misquotes case statistics and today you let him do it twice, which honestly might be the most concerning—”

“Okay!” you cut in quickly, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Good talk. Love the observational skills. Bye.”

He doesn’t say anything else as you walk away, murmuring goodbyes to Morgan and Prentiss as you pass, but you can still feel him watching you. You’re just about to press the button for the elevator when—

“Agent.”

You stop automatically, turning to find Hotch with a file tucked under one arm and that signature frown etched between his brows. Only this time it isn’t frustrated or disapproving—it’s curious.

You force a small smile. “Sir.”

His eyes move over your face briefly. “You alright?”

You nod once. “Of course.”

He takes a step forward, his voice dropping lower. “You sure?”

Your breath catches.

He’s close now. Too close. You have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. You can smell his cologne, feel his warmth, count the beauty marks dotted across his cheek.

“You’ve seemed distracted today,” he says.

You swallow hard. “Uh—no. No. Sorry, I just—I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

His brows draw a little tighter, and he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else—press harder, maybe—but then seems to think better of it.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “Get some rest tonight.”

Then he nods once and steps back, his jaw tightening for just a second before he turns away.

You don’t move immediately. You can’t. Your mind is reeling, your pulse is still hammering, and your breath is caught somewhere between your ribs while your lungs try to remember how to work.

“Hello?” Garcia calls from behind you. “I cannot hold these doors forever, babycakes.”

You shake your head. “Shit. Sorry.”

You turn and hurry into the elevator, slipping in beside her just before the doors slide shut.

For a moment, neither of you says anything.

Then—

“So, that thing you said earlier about there being a reason you’re still single…”

You shut your eyes. “Penelope.”

“I’m just saying,” she continues lightly, “unless I hallucinated whatever just happened in that hallway, I’m starting to develop theories.”

You ignore her, watching the numbers on the elevator slowly descend like counting down the days you have before the entire team figures out your secret. Because if this guy really is a creep, if you do have to tell Hotch, then it’s only a matter of time before the BAU are dissecting your dating life and realising what a ruse it really is.

And you know better than anyone that once these profilers start looking too closely at something, they rarely stop until they’ve pulled it apart completely.

The second you step through the door to your apartment, Garcia rushes past you to sweep the place. Leia startles almost immediately, running from the couch to your bedroom while Garcia complains about the fact that Leia is the only cat she’s ever met that doesn’t like her.

“Leia hates everyone,” you tell her, kicking your shoes off by the door. “Even me.”

Garcia just rolls her eyes, continuing from room to room to check the window locks and balcony doors.

Once she’s satisfied that everything is secure, she sets her laptop up on your kitchen counter and starts running a program that looks like hieroglyphics to you.

“Have you seen his latest messages?” she asks.

You shake your head, setting your phone on the counter. “No.”

She opens your laptop and logs into the dating site—because apparently she knows your password now.

DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: Or maybe you’re just easier to read than you think.

You type out the first response you can think of, not wanting to seem like you’re overanalysing this.

You: Or maybe I’m just not trying so hard to be mysterious.

Garcia then spends the next ten minutes trying to explain her process to you in terms that almost make sense. So far she’s managed to narrow him down to a general region through login patterns and routing behaviour, but she still can’t lock onto a direct IP address. Not because she can’t—apparently that part would actually be pretty easy—but because doing it properly would mean running requests through systems that leave a trail. And right now, this definitely isn’t an official investigation.

“The second I start pulling the fun federal strings,” Garcia says, typing furiously, “there’s paperwork, access logs, oversight, and approximately twelve thousand ways for this to become a whole thing.”

You lean against the counter. “We don’t want that.”

“Not yet.” Her expression sharpens slightly. “Also, if creepy internet man is more sophisticated than he seems, there’s always a chance he’s monitoring for targeted tracing attempts. If he realises someone’s looking too closely at him before we know who he is, he could disappear completely.”

Your stomach twists. “Or escalate.”

You spend the next couple of hours keeping creepy internet man engaged while Garcia rambles tech jargon that makes less sense the longer the night wears on. At some point, you order pizza, then you migrate to the couch, and eventually you both end up sitting through the credits of Two Weeks Notice while waiting for one last reply in the hopes that he might finally answer something about himself.

DCRunner00: Refreshing DCRunner00: Most people hide too much. You: Depends what they’re trying to hide. DCRunner00: What are you trying to hide? You: Besides the fact that I’m exhausted? Nothing. DCRunner00: You seem distracted tonight. You: Long day. DCRunner00: I noticed. You: How was yours?

You wait until almost midnight before finally deciding to call it a night.

Garcia checks all the windows and doors again while you brush your teeth and change into pyjamas. When you step back out of your bedroom to say goodnight, Garcia is trying her hardest to lure Leia onto the couch with her, but Leia is very stubbornly curled up beneath the TV unit.

“Night, Pen,” you murmur, rubbing your eyes. “Thanks again... for everything.”

“Night, gorgeous,” she calls, peering over the back of the couch. “Wake me up if you hear literally anything suspicious. Or if Leia finally decides it’s my time.”

You laugh softly, blinking slowly as you turn back into your room and fall face first into bed.

THURSDAY 6:45AM

You’re not sure whether to be relieved or concerned when you wake up to no new messages from creepy internet man. He hasn’t gone quiet for this long before—but if he is just a normal, slightly awkward guy with boundary issues and an internet connection, well... it’s not that hard to believe he might just be sleeping.

Garcia is already up making coffee by the time you step out of your room, trying to bribe Leia out from under the couch with a tube of tuna paste.

The second she sees you, she jumps up and launches into another long-winded explanation about login activity and movement patterns across different access points. Apparently, creepy internet man logged in from three different geographical locations over the course of a few hours last night—which is normal, right? That means he was out doing normal human things, not just lurking in his mother’s basement, stalking women online.

Garcia isn’t entirely convinced that him moving locations is enough to get him off the hook as the BAU’s next unsub, but it at least shuts her up until you’re both back at the office.

“Hey,” Reid says as soon as you walk into the bullpen. “You haven’t been murdered.”

You frown slightly. “Good morning to you too, Spence.”

Morgan glances up from the file on his desk. “Uh—why are we getting murdered?”

Reid gestures vaguely in your direction. “Because she’s potentially being cyberstalked by a—”

“Oh, wow, look at the time,” you interrupt, glaring at Reid. “Wouldn’t it be such a shame if we all started minding our own business right about now.”

Prentiss turns in her chair, brows raised. “Cyberstalked?”

“Nobody is cyberstalking anybody,” you say as you drop into your chair. “And nobody’s getting murdered—but great start to the morning, everyone. Love the energy. Now leave me alone.”

Morgan chuckles quietly. “Damn. Thought you said you got laid last weekend.”

Your hands slip off the desk as you try to pull yourself closer.

“Technically,” Reid says, “she only implied it by refusing to answer Garcia’s question during Monday morning’s briefing.”

“Ah.” Morgan leans back in his chair. “I knew this was a drought issue.”

You scowl at him. “A drought issue?”

“Statistically speaking,” Reid adds, “people experiencing prolonged romantic or sexual dissatisfaction often display lower frustration tolerance and increased agitation in familiar social environments.”

Morgan looks at him. “Man, just say she needs to get laid.”

“Oh my God,” you snap. “I do not need to get laid. I am having a completely normal amount of sex already, thank you very much—and frankly I think it’s deeply inappropriate that you’re all this invested in whether or not I’m orgasming regularly.”

Reid tilts his head. “You’re having sex?”

Morgan’s brows shoot up, Prentiss chokes on her coffee, and you open your mouth to fire back at him when—

Someone clears their throat behind you.

Heat crawls violently up your neck—but you don’t turn around. You can’t.

“Briefing room. Five minutes,” Hotch says, his voice dangerously even. “JJ’s got an update on the custodial interview with Wallace.”

Morgan presses a fist against his mouth, trying—and failing—to smother the strangled sound of laughter.

Very slowly, you turn in your chair.

Hotch is standing at the edge of the bullpen with a coffee in one hand and a file in the other. His expression is almost perfectly composed, but there’s something dangerous lurking beneath it—something suspiciously close to amusement in the tightness of his mouth.

“Be right there, sir,” you blurt, lifting two fingers to your forehead in the most ill-timed attempt at a salute the FBI has ever seen.

Hotch just looks at you, the muscle in his jaw jumping once before he turns away.

You want to die.

The second his office door clicks shut behind him, Morgan drops his fist and smacks his palm flat against the desk with a choked laugh.

“Oh, you are never recovering from that,” Prentiss mutters, smirking behind her coffee cup.

Morgan leans back in his chair, grinning. “Baby girl, that was painful to watch.”

You drop your head into your hands.

“You somehow escalated the situation at every possible opportunity,” Reid says thoughtfully.

“I hate you all,” you mumble into your palms.

You spend the next half hour with your nose buried in your notebook, avoiding eye contact with the entire team while JJ explains the month-long back-and-forth that it took to finally get approval for the Wallace interview.

Apparently, the prison is limiting the interview to a single hour and reserving the right to terminate it early if the inmate becomes uncooperative—which Rossi thinks is less about policy and more about Wallace trying to dictate the terms of the interaction.

It’s not ideal, especially considering you were the one who convinced Hotch to push for the interview before Wallace is transferred to death row. His case was one of the first you ever studied during the BAU training programme, and there isn’t much you wouldn’t give to pick the sociopath’s brains. One hour with him feels dangerously short—that is, assuming Hotch actually picks you to be in the interview with him.

“We don’t have enough time to waste managing personalities in the room,” Hotch says, gathering the files in front of him. “I’ll decide on a second agent and send out the interview schedule later today.”

Chairs start scraping back almost immediately, files and notebooks snapping shut as everyone gathers their things and starts filtering out of the room—but you don’t move. You stay firmly planted in your seat, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of your cheek while you debate whether to follow Hotch into his office and ask to be part of the interview. You don’t even have to be asking the questions, you just want to be there. You were the one pushing for it in the first place.

But then your brain very helpfully reminds you that Aaron Hotchner heard you say the word orgasming less than an hour ago and suddenly, being on death row yourself feels infinitely preferable to making eye contact with your unit chief.

“You alright?” Reid asks, lingering beside you.

You sigh heavily, finally closing your notebook. “Yep. Just thinking about how I’ll probably have to fake my own death and change my name after this morning.”

He shrugs. “Hotch probably isn’t even thinking about it anymore.”

You glance up at him hopefully.

“Morgan definitely is, though.”

You roll your eyes, letting out another resigned sigh as you stand up and follow him out of the briefing room.

The rest of the morning manages to pass without incident. You stay chained to your desk, reviewing reports and processing any files that come your way while very deliberately not glancing up any time Hotch steps out of his office. At around eleven, Morgan and JJ head out to the cafe down the street and come back with coffees for the whole team. Then there’s a printer jam that gives the rest of the office a rare glimpse at just how angry Emily Prentiss can get when frustrated.

It isn’t until just before midday that you finally get up to go to the bathroom, and when you return to your desk, there’s one new notification in your inbox.

From: Aaron Hotchner Subject: Wallace Interview You’re with me next Thursday. We leave at 0700.

Your stomach flips.

“Wow,” Reid says, suddenly standing right beside your desk. “He picked you pretty quickly.”

You shoot him a warning look. “Spence.”

“I’m just saying, he usually deliberates longer.”

You glance back at the screen, rereading the first five words that make your pulse skip a little faster.

“You and Hotch do work unusually well together in confined conversational environments,” Reid adds.

You turn back to him, frowning.

He tilts his head. “That sounded more suggestive than I intended.”

You open your mouth to tell him how deeply unhelpful he’s being when your phone buzzes twice against your desk—like it does several times a day, but something about it feels different this time. Wrong.

You reach for it slowly, your stomach twisting tighter as you turn it over.

Two new notifications from creepy internet man. The first since last night.

You open the message thread—and your stomach drops.

DCRunner00: [Image attachment] DCRunner00: Did you and your friend have fun last night?

The image is of your apartment building. It’s grainy, slightly crooked, clearly taken from somewhere across the street—but your living room windows are unmistakable. Warm light glowing through the glass. The blurred silhouette of someone inside.

Ice floods your bloodstream.

You stop breathing.

“Is that... your apartment?” Reid asks, leaning over your shoulder.

You don’t answer him. You can’t.

The bullpen dissolves into white noise around you.

Until—

“I’m done!” Garcia’s voice cuts through the static. “I can’t do this anymore!”

She’s marching right toward you, your laptop—that she’d still been monitoring—tucked under one arm.

Reid gasps. “Wait. Is that—”

Morgan straightens in his chair. “What’s happening?”

“Hotch’s office,” Garcia says, her expression dangerously stern as she stops beside your desk. “Now.”

You nod slowly, your shoes almost slipping against the carpet as you push your chair back. Reid steps aside just enough to let you stand, but before he can get too far, you reach out and wrap your fingers around his wrist, silently dragging him with you as you follow Garcia back through the bullpen.

Hotch glances up the second Garcia pushes open his office door.

“What’s going on?”

His tone is calm, automatic, already slipping into that low, calculated cadence he uses when he’s trying to talk someone down from the ledge. His gaze moves from her to you—and something in his expression shifts. Hardens. That muscle in his jaw ticking just once before he turns back to Garcia.

“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.

Garcia crosses the room quickly, opening your laptop and sitting it on his desk while you hover uselessly in the doorway with Reid still caught in your grip.

Hotch glances at the screen, his eyes flicking through the messages.

Then he looks back up—right at you—and something unreadable settles across his face. Something dangerous.

“Who sent this?”

Garcia spends the next five minutes explaining the entire situation at hyper speed while you just... stand there, leaning slightly against Reid like the whole world has tilted on its axis.

It’s funny how you can spend years building a career around finding bad people. Thinking like them. Predicting them. Profiling them. But the moment something happens to you—something real—that’s when all the theory suddenly stops feeling theoretical. And maybe it’s because you know exactly what people like this are capable of, or how quickly situations like this can escalate once someone decides they’re emotionally invested in you.

Or maybe it’s just the horrifying realisation that some part of you knew where this was heading all along. And you still didn’t do anything about it until now. Not until you put yourself—and your friend—in danger.

“Get everyone in the briefing room,” Hotch says the second Garcia finishes. “Now.”

Garcia nods once before slipping back out the door, and only then do you finally let go of Reid’s wrist—making a mental note to apologise later for the excessive physical contact.

Hotch’s eyes drop down briefly, following the movement almost automatically. Something tightens in his expression for half a second before his attention snaps back to the laptop still open in front of him.

“Reid,” he says. “Print the entire message history and document everything. Full timeline, screenshots, attachments—all of it. I want copies ready for the team in ten.”

You swallow hard. “The—the entire message history?”

“Yes,” Hotch says simply. “Every message.”

Could this day get any worse?

Fifteen minutes later, you’re back in the briefing room with the entire team flipping through printed copies of your dating profile and messages. It almost feels like an out-of-body experience. Like one of those mortifying dreams where you watch everything unfold from above without any real ability to stop it.

“Okay,” Prentiss says. “Where do we start?”

“Victimology,” Morgan answers immediately—then he glances at you. “Sorry, baby girl.”

You wave him off. “Reid’s been profiling me all week. Go for it.”

There’s a quiet ripple of laughter around the table, but Hotch barely blinks. He’s sitting on the opposite side, between Prentiss and JJ, with his arms folded tightly across his chest and gaze fixed on the copies spread out in front of him like he’s trying very hard not to look directly at you.

“We need to be careful building a victimology this early,” he says evenly. “Especially considering how well we know the victim. Personal familiarity creates bias.”

Reid tilts his head. “Normally, yes. But stalking crimes are often highly individualised.” He starts flipping through the printed messages as he talks. “Statistically speaking, stalking victims are usually targeted for a very specific reason. The motivation is generally rooted in either resentment, fixation, revenge, or romantic obsession.”

You grimace. “Fantastic.”

“Most victims also know their stalkers,” Reid continues. “Approximately seventy-five percent of stalking cases involve some form of prior relationship or perceived emotional connection.”

“Okay,” JJ says carefully, looking toward you. “Is there anyone you can think of who might hold a grudge against you? Someone you arrested, rejected, testified against—anything like that?”

You snort quietly. “Does every criminal I’ve ever interviewed count?”

The room goes still for half a second.

“Wait,” Prentiss says, sitting forward slightly. “Actually, that makes sense.”

Hotch’s eyes flick up as Prentiss pushes one of the printouts into the middle of the table, tapping the page.

“This escalation happened fast. Less than a week. That’s not somebody slowly building emotional trust from scratch—that’s somebody who already came into this interaction emotionally invested.”

“Or angry,” Morgan adds.

“Exactly,” Prentiss says. “He doesn’t lash out until she has Garcia over. That’s jealousy. Possessiveness.”

You sink lower in your chair.

“And he starts reacting every time she brings up her boss,” Rossi says, flipping through the printouts. “That’s territorial behaviour. He’s fixating on a prominent male figure in her life.”

“Not the only one fixating on him,” Reid murmurs beside you.

You elbow him immediately.

“Ow.”

Hotch glances up sharply. “Something to add, Reid?”

Reid straightens. “Uh—no. No, I think Rossi covered it.”

Hotch’s eyes narrow slightly, like he knows there’s something he’s missing, but he lets it go.

“Garcia,” he says instead, “tell me you found something useful.”

“Oh, I found things,” Garcia says immediately, the rapid clacking of her keyboard echoing loudly through the conference room speaker. “Deeply unsettling things. Our creepy little internet goblin has been very busy.”

Prentiss frowns slightly, mouthing ‘internet goblin’ across the table to JJ.

“Okay, so—profile was created nine days ago using a burner email and a VPN bouncing between three different states, which normally would make me want to set my computer on fire, but our boy got sloppy.”

Hotch leans forward slightly. “How sloppy?”

“Sloppy enough that one login pinged off a public Wi-Fi network less than six blocks from her apartment last night,” she says. “And before anybody asks, yes, I’m already pulling traffic cams.”

Hotch nods once, already shifting into command mode.

“Morgan, Prentiss—start canvassing within a ten-block radius of her apartment. Garcia will feed you anything useful from the traffic cams. JJ, coordinate with local PD and see if there’ve been any complaints of suspicious activity in the area. Peeping, prowlers, stalking complaints—anything that fits this escalation pattern. Rossi, start pulling names from old cases. Anybody with a history of fixation, stalking behaviour, or inappropriate attachment to investigators. Garcia, keep digging and keep me posted.”

Everyone starts moving immediately, papers shuffling and chairs scraping back as the room shifts into motion.

“I want to help,” you say suddenly. “This is my mess, let me fix it.”

“You can help,” he says evenly, “by going home, locking your doors, and staying there until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

You open your mouth to argue.

“I mean it,” he adds, voice low.

“I’ll take her,” Reid offers immediately.

“No,” Hotch says, gathering the printouts into one neat pile. “You go with Morgan and Prentiss.”

Then his eyes flick up, meeting yours.

“I’m taking her home.”

The next hour is one of the strangest of your life.

Hotch tells you to take your laptop back down to Garcia, who’s already in full FBI investigation mode—her screens covered in maps, metadata, CCTV stills, and enlarged screenshots of your own dating profile staring back at you in horrifying definition. When you finally make it back to your desk, Rossi spends twenty straight minutes walking you through every violent offender you’ve interviewed in the last three years, forcing you to revisit dozens of interactions you’d long since filed away as routine.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Morgan drops a schematic of your apartment building onto your desk and starts questioning you about entrances, exits, blind spots, and security cameras while Reid quietly replaces the coffee you forgot existed an hour ago. It isn’t until Morgan leaves and JJ immediately takes his place beside you that you realise nobody has let you out of their sight for more than a few minutes at a time.

Then, finally, Hotch steps out of his office—files in one hand and his go-bag in the other, like he fully intends on staying the night if necessary.

“Ready?” he asks, stopping beside your desk.

You stare at the go-bag for one long, deeply horrified second.

“Yep,” you manage, voice tight as you slowly push out of your chair.

Hotch drives. You don’t even try to argue. You just sit in the passenger seat with your knees pressed together and your heart beating out of your chest. It’s not like you haven’t been in the car with him before. You have, plenty of times. This just feels... different.

Neither of you speak until he cuts the engine in the parking garage of your building, and you have to try very hard not to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t asked for directions the whole way here.

“Wait,” he mutters before climbing out of the car.

He grabs his bag from the back, then moves around the car and opens your door.

It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to unbuckle your seatbelt—your hands are shaking and your pulse is still pounding hard enough to make you dizzy—but once you finally do, you slip out of the car and lead him toward the fire stairs.

He never leaves more than a foot of distance between you. Never checks his phone. Never glances down. He stays glued to your side like a real protection detail. And thanks to your avid and wildly inappropriate imagination, you’ve already mentally written an entire bodyguard romance plot starring Aaron Hotchner and yours truly by the time you finally reach your apartment door.

“I—uh—wasn’t really expecting company,” you say as you push the door open. “Sorry.”

The second you step inside, Leia leaps off the couch with a loud, rumbling trill—probably wondering why you’re home before dark for the first time in years.

Hotch pauses, his brow furrowing slightly. “You have a cat.”

You glance back at him as you kick your shoes off and nudge them out of the way. “Is that really the most surprising thing you’ve learned about me today?”

He watches Leia for another second before glancing back at you. “It’s unexpected.”

You roll your eyes, trying to ignore the way your heart skips when he quietly toes off his shoes beside the door without even asking. Like he already expects to stay awhile.

Leia chirrups again as she pads through the living room toward you, no doubt about to demand an early dinner—until she catches sight of Hotch and abruptly stops short. Her ears flicker, her tail waving from side to side as she assesses the new man in her apartment.

Hotch crouches slightly, holding one hand out toward her.

“Oh, she doesn’t really like people,” you say quickly. “So don’t take it personally if she—”

Leia immediately walks straight up to him. She sniffs his hand once before pressing directly into his palm with a loud purr rumbling through her entire body.

Your eyes go wide.

Traitor.

Hotch’s mouth twitches faintly as Leia leans harder into his hand.

Oh my God. Are you jealous of your cat right now?

He gives Leia one final scratch behind the ears before straightening, the softness in his expression fading almost immediately as he slips back into work mode. He scans the apartment briefly before setting the files down on your tiny dining table and shrugging his jacket off, draping it over the back of a chair.

You stand there for a second longer than you probably should, watching him move through your apartment with the same calm focus he brings to crime scenes and briefing rooms and interrogation tables. He checks the windows, the balcony doors, glances briefly—thank God—into your bedroom, then double-checks the locks on the front door.

The whole thing feels weirdly surreal. You’ve imagined Aaron Hotchner inside your apartment a thousand times in a thousand different ways—just not like this. And nothing you imagined could have possibly prepared you for the reality of it. The way everything feels so much smaller. Warmer. More exposed.

Every object in every room suddenly feels mortifyingly personal.

If he lingers long enough in your kitchen, he’s going to notice the unusually empty trash can and realise you survive almost entirely on caffeine and convenience. If he looks too closely at your bookshelf, he’s going to find an unhealthy collection of romance novels with more trigger warnings than plot points. And if he looks into your bedroom again and turns his head just a little more to the right, he’s going to see your vibrator sitting on the nightstand—and then you’ll actually have to fake your own death.

Because you’ve spent years carefully curating a version of yourself that keeps people from looking too closely. Flirty. Casual. Detached enough to joke about bad dates and hookups and sex without anybody ever realising that none of it means anything. It’s easier that way. Easier to let everyone assume your attention is scattered in every direction instead of fixed very specifically on the one person you absolutely cannot have.

But this?

This feels dangerously close to being found out.

The next couple of hours pass in strange, uneven waves of normalcy and low-grade psychological torture.

Hotch sits at your tiny dining table without complaint, dwarfing it as he hunches over files and asks careful questions about your routines, your neighbours, and whether anyone in the building has seemed overly interested in you recently. His phone rings a lot, which isn’t unusual, and every time he answers it you spend almost the entire conversation staring unashamed at the way his shirt pulls tight across his back when he reaches for another printout.

Which is wildly inappropriate considering the circumstances, but you can’t really help it. You’re strung out, on edge, and, as Morgan so helpfully pointed out this morning, severely under-fucked.

And Leia, unfortunately—but not unsurprisingly—remains no help whatsoever.

By seven o’clock she’s fully abandoned you in favour of draping herself across Hotch’s lap while he reviews new data from Garcia, completely oblivious to the fact that you haven’t been able to breathe normally since he walked through the door.

“Are you hungry?” you ask eventually, moving back into the kitchen as if you have anything in there to offer.

Hotch glances up from his laptop, one hand resting absently against Leia’s back while she purrs in his lap.

“I’m fine.”

You lean a hip against the kitchen counter, folding your arms tightly across your chest. “Any updates?”

He glances back down at his screen. “Garcia narrowed the traffic footage down to three vehicles that stayed in the area longer than they should have—Morgan and Prentiss are running the plates now. And Rossi’s pulling relatives connected to your previous cases. Family members who attended trials, sentencing hearings, interviews. Anyone who might’ve had access to your name outside the official reports.”

You nod slowly, silence settling again for a moment before you exhale sharply.

“Are you sure sitting here doing absolutely nothing is really the best use of me right now?”

His eyes flick back up, that signature Hotchner scowl set between his brows.

“You think this is nothing?”

His voice stays calm, but there’s something firmer underneath it now.

“You’ve spent the last four days being threatened, surveilled, and followed by someone we still haven’t identified,” he says. “Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid are out chasing leads because somebody targeted you. Rossi’s pulling case files because somebody targeted you. Garcia’s been at her desk for six straight hours because somebody targeted you.”

His jaw tightens slightly.

“My job right now is making sure nothing happens to you,” he says quietly. “Let me do that.”

Your breath catches, something warm and uncomfortably familiar twisting in your chest as Aaron Hotchner just sits there watching you like he hasn’t said anything unusual at all.

Which, to him, maybe he hasn’t.

He’s just doing his job. Looking out for his team. He’s not here because he wants to be. He’s here because someone threatened one of his agents.

That’s all.

You clear your throat, pushing away from the counter before the silence stretches too long. “I’m—uh—I’m just going to shower quickly. If that’s alright.”

He nods once. “Want me to clear the—”

“No,” you say immediately. “God, no. No. It’s fine. Totally fine.”

His brows pull together slightly, confusion flickering briefly across his face before you turn and hurry into your bedroom, shutting the door a little harder than necessary behind you.

Then you take the longest shower known to mankind. You stand beneath the scalding spray for at least ten minutes before even touching anything. Then you scrub, exfoliate, shave, condition, rinse twice, and stand there for just a little longer before finally gathering the courage to step out. All the while trying desperately not to think about the fact that your unit chief is only two thin walls away while you’re dripping wet and completely naked.

You rummage through your dresser until you find an oversized sweater that isn’t totally threadbare and a clean pair of pyjama shorts. Technically, they’re just striped flannel pants you cut into shorts, but at least they’re not as short as the rest of your pyjama collection that definitely needs replacing.

If only you actually had time for things like shopping... and emotional stability.

“No, wait for Morgan before you approach,” Hotch says as you step quietly back into the living room, phone pressed against his ear while he paces slowly beside the dining table. “If the registration’s fake, I don’t want you making contact until we know exactly who’s inside.”

He pauses, expression sharpening slightly.

“Alright. Keep me updated.”

He lowers the phone slowly before looking over at you for the first time since you re-emerged—and for half a second, he visibly loses his train of thought. It’s only tiny. Barely there. Just a brief pause before his expression shutters back into place.

“Garcia tracked one of the vehicles from the traffic footage to a motel outside Arlington,” he says, glancing back down at the files scattered across the table. “The driver’s been masking his activity through multiple VPNs, so she couldn’t pull a clean trace from the motel Wi-Fi, but only one room in the motel was actively using the network.”

Your stomach tightens.

“The name on the reservation was fake,” he continues, “but the room was paid for using a credit card belonging to Daniel Mercer.”

The name hits you immediately.

“Ethan Mercer’s brother,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods. “Rossi confirmed it about twenty minutes ago. Morgan and Prentiss are waiting for local PD before they move in.”

You nod slowly, your pulse fluttering anxiously in your throat as you move toward the kitchen. Not because you actually need anything in there, but because standing still feels almost impossible right now.

“Ethan barely spoke during the trial,” you murmur, folding your arms as you lean back against the counter. “I don’t think I ever even met his brother.”

“You wouldn’t need to,” Hotch says, already gathering the files into a neat pile. “People build attachments to investigators without ever interacting directly. Especially when they’re looking for someone to blame.”

Your skin prickles. “You really think it’s him?”

“It fits,” Hotch replies evenly. “Established emotional investment, personal motive, no prior record. Which explains the inconsistency. The escalation without follow-through. The long gaps between contact attempts. He knows enough to be cautious, but not enough to stay controlled.”

He straightens, turning back toward you—and for the briefest second, his eyes drop to your bare legs before snapping back up to your face almost immediately.

He clears his throat. “This probably isn’t something he’s done before. But his brother has.”

The apartment falls quiet again after that. Hotch returns to collecting files while you stare absently toward the dark balcony doors, your pulse still refusing to settle beneath your skin.

“Well,” you mutter eventually, gripping the edge of the counter to hoist yourself up. “On the bright side, I still think I’ve dated worse.”

The joke leaves your lips lightly enough, the same way they always do—easy, detached, halfway between genuine and ironic so nobody ever pauses long enough to look too closely.

Except this time Hotch does pause.

“Why do you do that?”

You frown. “Do what?”

“Deflect.” He straightens again, one hand still holding a stack of printouts. “Every time something gets too serious, you make a joke. Or you flirt. Or you say something just inappropriate enough to throw people off balance.”

You lift a shoulder. “Maybe I’m just charming.”

“No.” His eyes narrow slightly, brows pulling together. “No, because it changes depending on the situation.”

Your pulse stutters.

“With Morgan it’s competitive,” he continues, setting the papers back on the table. “You tease him because he pushes back and it keeps conversations superficial. Garcia gets exaggerated stories because she responds emotionally instead of analytically. Half the things you say to Reid are specifically designed to make him flustered enough to stop examining what you actually mean.”

“Wow,” you murmur, shifting your weight against the countertop. “Starting to feel a little attacked here.”

But Hotch doesn’t seem to hear you.

“The dating profile doesn’t fit,” he says, almost to himself. “Neither does the apartment.”

Your stomach twists as his gaze moves briefly across the room. The bookshelves. The carefully organised clutter. Leia now curled up asleep on the couch.

“You project someone impulsive. Social. Sexually confident. But nothing in here supports that.” His eyes flick back toward you again. “You live like someone who protects their space carefully. Even the cat.”

“Leave Leia out of this.”

“She doesn’t like strangers.”

“She likes you.”

The words slip out too quickly, and something in his expression shifts.

“You keep people at a distance,” he continues slowly, close enough now that you can hear the quiet rasp beneath his voice. “Even the team. You let people think they know you because it keeps them from looking closer.” He hesitates, brow furrowing. “Except Reid.”

Your fingers tighten instinctively around the edge of the counter.

“You trust him,” Hotch says. “Not just socially. Behaviourally. You anchor yourself to him when you’re stressed. Physical proximity. Eye contact. Redirecting conversations through him.” He pauses, watching you carefully now. “And earlier you said he’d been profiling you all week.”

Oh God.

“Which means Reid already noticed the pattern.”

He goes quiet for a moment, his expression tightening almost imperceptibly as he looks back over the last few months—years—in real time. You can practically see it happening behind his eyes. Every interaction. Every joke. Every look you thought you’d hidden quickly enough.

“You track me.”

The words come quieter now. Less certain. Like he’s still realising them.

“You know my routines,” he continues slowly. “You anticipate questions before I ask them. You look up when you hear my office door open even when you can’t see me.” He steps closer again. “You know when I need coffee before I do. You watch my reactions before anyone else in the room.”

Your breath stutters.

And Hotch notices immediately.

His expression shifts slightly as his eyes flick across your face, your posture, your hands still locked around the edge of the counter hard enough that your knuckles have gone pale beneath the kitchen lights.

“Your breathing changes when I get too close to you,” he says quietly.

He takes another slow step forward, close enough now that you have to tilt your head back slightly to keep looking at him.

“You stop fidgeting,” he continues. “You go completely still.” His gaze drops briefly to your hands before lifting again. “Like you’re afraid movement alone is going to give you away.”

Your heart is beating so hard now you’re half-convinced he can hear it.

“You lose verbal fluency,” he says, voice lower now. “You trip over words you normally wouldn’t. Your pupils dilate. Your heart rate increases. And every single time I get close to noticing it—”

His eyes lock onto yours.

“You redirect.”

You can barely breathe now.

He’s standing right in front of you, close enough that the heat rolling off him sinks straight into your skin, close enough that one more step would put him between your knees where you’re perched on the counter.

And somehow the worst part is that he still sounds calm. Thoughtful. Like Aaron Hotchner is profiling you with the same careful focus he’d bring to an unsub—except this time the thing he’s slowly uncovering is the fact that you’ve been hopelessly in love with him this entire time.

You swallow hard, your gaze catching just briefly on his mouth before you drag it back up to his eyes, pulse hammering so hard you can barely think straight.

“Figured it out yet, Agent Hotchner?” you ask softly.

He goes still for half a second, something unreadable flickering across his face as his eyes drop to your mouth before lifting back to your eyes again.

The apartment suddenly feels oppressively quiet.

His throat shifts slightly.

And then—

His phone rings.

He steps back immediately, his expression shuttering back into something careful and unreadable.

“Hotchner,” he says, pressing his phone against his ear.

You don’t hear much after that. Not really. You recognise Morgan’s muffled voice, but you can’t quite hear what he’s saying. Not while Hotch slowly paces your living room. You catch fragments of the conversation. Questions. Short answers. The low, steady cadence of his voice slipping effortlessly back into work mode while your own nervous system continues actively collapsing in on itself.

Because holy fuck.

Holy fuck.

What the hell just happened?

“They got him.”

Your head snaps up. “They what?”

Hotch moves back to the dining table and starts gathering his things.

“It was him. Daniel Mercer,” he says. “Morgan and Prentiss found him in the motel room with multiple burner phones, printed screenshots from the dating profile, and enough surveillance material to establish intent.”

“Oh.”

“Local PD recovered notebooks too,” he continues. “Names, schedules, work addresses. Everyone connected to Ethan Mercer’s conviction. Judges, prosecutors, witnesses. You were first because you were the arresting agent.”

A cold shiver slips down your spine.

“Garcia also confirmed the motel Wi-Fi matched the same VPN chain used to access the dating profile,” Hotch adds. “Once Mercer realised the Bureau was involved, the direct contact stopped. After that he shifted to surveillance. Morgan said the room was covered in trial material. Photos. Notes. Newspaper clippings. He’d been building the grievance for months.”

He pauses, then looks at you.

“But they got him.”

“Good,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods once before turning back to the dining table, slipping his laptop into his bag with careful efficiency before gathering every file and printout into one neat pile.

“Local PD will hold Mercer overnight until federal transport clears,” he says, sliding the papers into his bag. “Garcia’s already started coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You’ll need to give an additional statement tomorrow regarding the dating profile.”

You nod. “Okay.”

Hotch reaches for his jacket, draping it over one arm.

“There’ll still be additional officers patrolling the area tonight,” he says. “And if you don’t want to be alone, I can have Reid or Garcia stay here.”

“I’ll be fine,” you mutter, glancing down at the kitchen tiles. “You can stop babysitting me now.”

Hotch stills.

Then slowly, deliberately, sets his jacket on the table.

“Babysitting?” he repeats.

“You know what I mean.”

He steps toward you, brows drawn. “I don’t think I do.”

“You solved the case,” you mutter, heat crawling up the back of your neck. “You profiled me. Thoroughly. So congratulations, I guess. You figured out the whole sad little secret, the weird avoidance issues, the entire personality disorder cocktail—” You let out a short, humourless laugh. “You can go back to pretending none of this ever happened now.”

He closes the distance between you before you even fully realise he’s moving, stopping directly in front of the counter again. Exactly where he’d been when you asked him if he’d figured it out. Close enough that you can feel his warmth. Close enough that you can see the day-old shadow of stubble lining his jaw.

“You’re being deliberately provocative now because you’re embarrassed,” he says. “But embarrassment isn’t actually your primary response here.”

His gaze drops to your mouth again, and your pulse stumbles.

“If it was,” he adds quietly, “you wouldn’t still be looking at me like that.”

Your breath catches in your throat.

You want to say something. Anything. Another joke. Another deflection. Something sharp enough to cut through the tension in the air and stop him looking at you like this. Exposing you like this.

But you can’t.

All you can do is stare at him. At the steady intensity in his eyes. At the way his tie has loosened slightly over the course of the night. At the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the white shirt you’ve spent an embarrassing number of years picturing on your bedroom floor.

You swallow hard, and he notices. Of course he does.

Something shifts in his expression then. Something softer. Less guarded.

His hand comes up beneath your jaw, his thumb pressing gently into your chin as he pulls you closer. You fall forward without hesitation, and he leans in, dark eyes still searching yours as if he isn’t entirely sure he has permission yet.

Then he kisses you.

It’s not rushed. Not messy. If anything, the first press of his mouth against yours feels almost unbearably controlled, like he’s still holding himself back even now.

But the restraint doesn’t last long.

Your hand catches his tie, tugging him closer, and something rough slips from the back of his throat as he steps in, his hips slotting between your thighs. His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers tightening just enough to tilt your head back exactly as far as he wants it.

Your lips part against his with a broken sound, and he deepens it slowly, his tongue moving against yours like he has all the time in the world. Tasting you. Learning you. Mapping every small sound and ragged exhale with the same focused intensity he brings to everything—and somehow that’s what undoes you the most. Not urgency. Attention.

His breath mingles with yours, hot and uneven, and when his teeth catch your bottom lip it’s deliberate, measured—a sharp little spark shooting straight through your spine. Your hips roll toward him without permission, and his answering groan rumbles through his chest, vibrating beneath your palm and making you ache everywhere you’ve been starving for him.

Then he pulls back just enough to look at you properly again. His hand still tangled in your hair. Thumb dragging once across your jaw. His eyes move over your face with the same intensity he uses in every debrief, every case, every crisis, except right now you are the thing he’s making sure of.

Like he needs to be absolutely certain this is real.

“Aaron—”

“Bedroom,” he says immediately, voice low and rough enough to send heat crashing straight through you. “Now.”

FRIDAY 6:15AM

Your alarm blares somewhere beside the bed, startling you awake hard enough that your heart immediately starts pounding. You reach for it blindly, determined to silence it before it wakes—

Oh God.

The second your hand hits the snooze button, you freeze.

Your heart is beating faster now, your pulse thrumming in your throat as you turn slowly—so slowly—toward the other side of the bed, where Aaron fucking Hotchner stirs sleepily.

Your stomach swoops.

You slept with your boss last night.

With a shallow, shaky breath, you carefully start to move. His arm is heavy at your waist, but you manage to slip out from underneath it without fully waking him. You shove the covers off and shiver at the sudden exposure, leaning over the side of the bed to find your discarded sweater. You pull it over your head before quietly padding toward the ensuite, refusing to glance back at your very hot, very naked unit chief still tangled in your sheets.

You only just make it around the other side of the bed before something tugs at the back of your sweater. You stop, glancing back to find Hotch half-awake, eyes half-lidded with one hand caught at the hem of your sweater.

“Do you really get up this early?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Most days.”

His brows pull together slightly. “Why?”

You let out a small, breathless laugh. “Because my boss is kind of a hard ass about punctuality.”

Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face.

“Sounds like a terrible boss,” he murmurs.

Then he tugs on your sweater again—hard enough this time that you let out a startled laugh as you stumble backward onto the mattress and into him. He catches you easily, one arm wrapping around your waist before you can even fully recover, pulling you back against the warmth of his chest.

“Yeah,” you murmur, laughing softly as his mouth brushes beneath your ear. “He’s awful. Very demanding.”

He hums, breath warm against your skin.

“He’s really hot, though,” you add, smiling despite yourself. “So I like having time to put in a little effort, you know? Hope he notices.”

“Oh, he notices.”

Your stomach flips. “Really?”

“Mhm.”

His arm tightens around your waist. “He notices the skirts.”

Heat floods your face. “Aaron—”

“He notices the tights.” His mouth brushes against the nape of your neck. “The ones with the seam up the back.”

“Oh my God.”

You try to turn your face into the pillow, but he just holds you tighter, pressing his lips firm against your neck.

“And the red bra,” he murmurs.

Your breath catches.

“Noticed that so much I had to wait until everyone left the conference room before I could get up.”

You let out a strangled sound, squirming in his arms, but it’s no use. His chest vibrates against your back, something suspiciously close to laughter.

“My washing machine broke that week,” you whine. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mm, sure.”

You twist around immediately. “I’m not lying.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, like he doesn’t quite believe you, but before you can protest again—he kisses you. Warm, slow, sleep-soft. His mouth moves against yours almost lazily, his hand tightening slightly at your waist when a pathetic little whimper slips out before you can stop it.

“Careful,” you murmur, breathless against his mouth. “Don’t want to be late.”

You feel his lips curve.

“Good thing I’m the boss.”

10:35AM

You made it to work well on time. Even after three orgasms, a shower, and an awkward attempt at a ‘What Now?’ conversation—that ended in the aforementioned third orgasm. Because fortunately for your rapidly fraying nervous system, Hotch hadn’t even hesitated when you’d finally asked what happens next. In fact, he’d answered a little too quickly.

The first thing he’d asked was whether you’d be comfortable keeping things quiet for a while. Not because he’s worried about the team finding out—he trusts them. Trusts you. The concern is Strauss, and the Bureau, and keeping you in the BAU while he figures out exactly how much trouble the two of you have just created for yourselves. At some point he’d even started muttering about reporting structures and supervisory chains, half-thinking out loud while pulling on his tie. Something about possibly moving your reporting line over to Rossi. Something else about needing to review the Bureau’s fraternisation policies before making any moves.

That was when you kissed him—effectively, and very quickly, kicking off round three.

Because he’d clearly been thinking about this for a while, which means Aaron Hotchner has been noticing a lot more than just short skirts and inappropriately coloured underwear. It means that the second he decided to kiss you in your apartment last night, he’d already known exactly what he was getting himself into.

“Alright, gorgeous,” Morgan says, startling you as he raps a knuckle against your desk. “They’ll be ready for you downstairs in ten.”

You glance up at him, brows drawn—and it takes an embarrassingly long second for you to figure out what he’s talking about.

“Oh.” You blink. “Right. Yeah, I’ll head down soon. Thanks.”

Prentiss looks over from her desk. “You gonna be okay?”

You lift a shoulder. “Sure. What’s another case report?”

Morgan frowns, dropping into his chair. “It’s not exactly every day you’re the victim, baby girl.”

“Yeah, but nothing really happened.”

Morgan and Prentiss both stare at you.

“Because of the team,” you add quickly. “You guys caught him before he actually did anything. So... you know, nothing bad happened.” You plaster on a smile that feels reasonably convincing. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

Prentiss narrows her eyes, but before she can say anything else, Reid appears.

“You’re in a remarkably good mood for someone who was being actively cyberstalked twelve hours ago,” he says, stirring his second coffee of the day.

You turn back to your screen, trying to ignore the heat creeping into your cheeks. “Maybe I just have a newfound appreciation for life.”

Reid studies you for a moment, clearly unconvinced—but he doesn’t push. He just moves slowly back toward his desk, setting his coffee down with unnecessary care while the rest of the team turn away, finally deciding to mind their own business.

You force your attention back to the report in front of you, determined to at least look productive for the next ten minutes—when a familiar voice cuts through your concentration.

“Rossi’s taking Wallace with you next week,” Hotch says, setting the file down on your desk.

You blink up at him. “I thought you were leading the interview.”

“I was.”

Something in his expression tightens briefly before he lowers his voice.

“Wallace has a long history of using sex, intimidation, and emotional targeting to destabilise people during interviews,” he says. “Especially women.”

You frown. “Hotch, I—”

“And if he says something to you in that room,” he continues evenly, “or looks at you the wrong way, I need to know the agent sitting beside you is still capable of thinking objectively.”

Your stomach flips as his eyes meet yours—steady, intense, devastatingly honest.

“Right now,” he says quietly, “I’m not sure that’s me.”

Then he’s gone. Moving through the bullpen back toward his office like he hasn’t just set your pulse racing and your head spinning. You watch after him for a moment before shaking your head, glancing back at your computer screen as if you’d been focused on it at all in the first place.

“…Huh.”

You turn toward the sound and find Reid staring at you again. Not rudely. Just watching with the same focused curiosity he’d been wearing since your suspiciously cheerful comment about cyberstalking.

He tilts his head.

Then—

“Oh my God.”

You close your eyes. “Spencer… don’t.”

“Don’t ever sell yourself short like that, kid,” Derek warned, his finger pointed at you. “If anything, Hotch is lucky that you’re looking at him.” 

“Hear, hear,” Emily agreed. “You are a bombshell, and he’s,” Emily looked towards Hotch, “just a man.” 

“You’re the best thing for him,” Derek said softly. “I’ve never seen him this happy.” 

You smiled at the kind words thrown by them, it was nice to have it wash over you until you looked over to the cause of your pain. She was touching his arm now, practically on top of him. He never allowed the team to touch him, minus you. 

“I’m gonna head out to lunch before everyone takes the brisket again,” you removed yourself from the group and heading towards the cafeteria. 

You were too in your head that you didn’t realise that Spencer called out your name, pouting slightly when you didn’t respond. “Don’t take it personally, kid,” Derek clapped his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “She thinks that Hotch is in love with the new recruit.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” Spencer replied, confusion in his tone. “Everyone knows that Hotch is in love with her.” 

“Well,” Derek stretched out the word and looked at Hotch and Madeleine. “Can you blame her though?” 

“It’s probably not what it looks like,” Spencer frowned. “Maybe she just has daddy issues and Hotch is fulfilling that role.” 

Derek barked out a laugh, while Emily grinned in amusement. “Don’t think that helps the scene, kid.” 

The conversation naturally died down as Hotch approached the table, Madeleine in tow. Emily couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Sure, Canavan was a nice kid. A bit too nice for Emily’s liking, a bit too fake and green-eyed, but maybe she was biased. She was fond of you afterall. 

“She’s gone,” Emily provided, not looking up from her book and before Hotch could ask the question. “To lunch.” 

All she received was a frown from Hotch. Taking out his phone, he looked at the screen before humming and excused himself before leaving in the same direction that you did. 

“Oh no, kid, don’t even think about it,” Derek stopped Madeleine from following Hotch. “That’s their time. I would not interrupt that. And I would not get in between them.”  

“Yeah, one time I did and not that Hotch would ever admit it, but I think he hated me at that moment,” Spencer smiled tightly, looking at Madeleine. 

“Are they together?” 

“Worse.” 

“Worse?” She repeated, not quite getting the obvious inside joke between the team. 

“They’re practically in love but too them to say anything,” Emily snarked, looking at the girl in front of her. Narrowing her eyes briefly, she saw the despondent look on the other girl’s face. 

“Oh.” 

“So, don’t think about it,” Derek warned. “As nice as you are, those two only ever revolve around each other.” 

-

“There you are,” Hotch said, a smile appearing on his face as he saw you. “Brisket?” He nodded towards the food in your hand. 

Grinning you nodded, “Finally managed to grab some before DT grabbed everything. Got you some,” you tapped the tupperware next to you. 

“Thank you, honey,” placing a soft kiss on your head, he sat down next to you. “Are you okay?” 

You took a beat to say anything, just chewing your food and thinking. Maybe now was the right time to bring it up, everything that you were feeling. The insecurity and jealousy that’s been brewing inside of you. That for the first time since this started between you and Hotch, you felt that you were on unsteady ground. That you didn’t know where you fit into his life. 

However, as you looked around, you realised that bringing this up during work was not something you could do. 

And if Hotch said the worst things that your brain could conjure up, there’s no place to run or hide from him. You still had a good six hours until you clocked off. Plus, the embarrassment, there was no way you were getting embarrassed at work due to a man. 

“Just tired,” you eventually landed on. Which wasn’t a lie, technically. But you still needed a few days to figure out what you were going to say to him. 

Hotch looked at you, and as much as he didn’t want unprofessional feelings in the workplace, he couldn’t help it. You were mesmerising. Everything you did managed to leave him in awe. As if whatever you were doing was the first time he was seeing it. 

“Do I have sauce on my face?” You asked, your free hand tapping your face softly. 

Hotch shook his head, a small fond smile on his face, “You’re beautiful.” 

You softened, your foot tapping his, “I know.” 

Chuckling he couldn’t help but lean and kiss your forehead again. 

-

You watched, arms crossed as Hotch delegated the tasks, eyes flicking towards you every now and then. You gave him an encouraging nod as he began to shift his attention to the local police department. 

You waited for the orders, everyone pairing off. You perked up as you heard your name, and his, along with two others. Clenching your jaw as you saw her bound up to Hotch, too happy in this context, you turned your head to search for the other person in your little team. 

“Price,” the man held out his hand which you gladly took. It was rare that the local pd respected any of you, let alone the women. Introducing yourself, you both began to exchange information. 

Hotch and Canavan moved to where the two of you were, heads bent together as you discussed the different entrances that the warehouse had. “I’ve got your back, if you have mine,” Price looked to you, and for a moment you were lost in his blue eyes. 

If you met him two years ago, maybe you would have taken him out for a drink after the case, maybe you would have exchanged numbers. However, it was now, and a gentle hand on your back brought you out of your reverie, you looked towards the culprit who barely acknowledged his tender touch. 

“‘Course, Price,” you gave him a soft smile. 

“Officer Price,” Hotch interrupted your conversation, “if you could show Agent Canavan the layout of the warehouse,” he nodded to the woman standing next to him, looking a bit distraught as he sent her off. 

“He’s awfully happy to be partnered with you,” Hotch stated as he kept the man in his line of sight, his hand still on the small of your back, absentmindedly rubbing small circles.  

“You partnered us, remember?” You quipped back. “Price and I can take the inside of the warehouse, if you and Canavan want to go around the perimeter,” you suggested, already forming a plan in your head. That would be the easiest and most logical. 

“I’ll go with Price, stay with Maddy,” Hotch amended. “It would do her well to be with someone like you. I trust you to keep her safe.” 

“Maddy,” you mocked quietly, but not quiet enough as Hotch heard you. At his questioning look, “Nicknames, already?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Gonna start calling her honey as well?” You accused, envy embedding itself in every nerve you had. You stepped out of his hold and you watched as his hand stayed in the air for a moment, and then dropping to his side, a small clench of his fist. 

It was a standstill for a moment between the two of you, you too in your head that you didn’t notice the way that Hotch was studying you. The concentrated look that he only ever has when he’s trying to piece together a particularly frustrating puzzle. 

“As much as I want to listen to this telenovela, we have a case,” Rossi interrupted as he looked between the two of you. “Lives are at stake, remember?” 

You nodded, ashamed in your brief outburst. Rossi was right. This was an active case. People were dead and will die if you didn’t stop acting like a jealous, hormonal teenager. 

Hotch watched you leave as Rossi studied him, a knowing look on his face. “What, Dave?” Hotch exhaled. 

“Do you seriously not see it?” 

“See what?” 

Rossi made a noise and smiled tightly at him, “You know, for a brilliant profiler, you’re very stupid.” At Hotch’s glare, Rossi held up his hands. “All I’m saying is, how do you not realise why (Y/N) is mad at you.”  

--

“Canavan, stay back!” You ordered, shoving your hand in front of her. “Fucking, don’t go charging in there, we know he’s armed and he has accomplices, that may or may not be in there with him. So stay the fuck back.” 

“They have the victims in there!” She pointed to the room at the end of the hall. 

“We wait for back-up,” you commanded. “We don’t know if they have the victims in there, and again we don’t know if he’s alone.” 

“The victims are in there,” she all but growled, finding the strength to kick your leg and push you out of the way. 

“Son of a fucking bitch,” you angrily followed her, gun held to your side. “Canavan,” you whispered angrily, trying to keep up with her. “Fuck, Canavan!” You saw her getting yanked inside, screaming as she went. 

Without another thought, you ran towards her, from your memory, this was a big room. There were plenty of craters that you could hide behind, but it was far too dark to really see anything. If shots were fired and you didn’t know where it came from, you were screwed. But you had to try. 

As best as you could, you hid yourself behind a crater, as vicious as the unsubs were, they were stupid. Ego the gods could envy, they didn’t bother hiding when they were trying to shoot. 

Seeing your chance, you quickly straightened, once your eyes were on him, you shot two bullets into his chest. Running quickly, you took his gun and confirmed that he was dead. Suddenly you felt yourself being shoved into the wall, your head banging harshly against the concrete. Fumbling with your knife, you quickly pulled it out and lodged it in his ribs causing the unsub to groan and throw another punch at your face. 

Twisting the knife as much as you could, the man screamed in agony as he swayed back away from you, allowing yourself to stand up. Grabbing the metal, you tried to swing down at the man when he came up, grabbing it and directing a punch underneath your rib, causing you to drop to the ground. Taking the pipe from your hand, you saw the man grin as he raised it up, poised to hit you until you heard two gunshots. 

“Unsub down,” you could hear Derek tell the walkie talkie. “There were two,” you could vaguely hear Derek describe the scene, the ground in front of you suddenly the most appealing thing to look at. 

You could hear voices in your earpiece, vaguely hearing your last name, then your name, each call getting more panicked when you didn’t answer. 

“Shit, Hotch,” Derek ran over to you, “she’s down, unsub hit her.” 

“Canavan,” you muttered, trying to point to where you saw her last. “Knocked out.” 

Derek looked towards the girl, conscious and now slouched over by the corner of the room. Briefly glancing at her and seeing no visible injuries, he turned his attention back to you. “Alright, mama,” helping you up, Derek looked at your wounds. 

You saw the rest of the team run in, Hotch at the helm. He partially looked at Canavan, then nodded to Emily and headed straight to you. 

“What were you thinking?” Hotch started as he looked at you. The words coming out sharper than he intended as he saw the state of your injuries. 

“Hotch, man, back off,” Derek stood between the two of you. “We all heard that it was Canavan that came charging in. If there was anyone at fault,” he looked towards the girl who was now in Emily’s arms, eyes trained on Hotch. 

“Shit,” you wiped the blood from your nose and grimaced as you felt more blood gush down. The throbbing in your head escalated as the room became louder. You felt overstimulated as everyone gathered in the room, lights suddenly on and you felt like throwing up. 

You slapped his hand away, “I’m fucking fine, Hotch,” you groaned as you stood up. “Derek,” you handed off the unsubs gun, and he took it with a nod. Holstering your own gun, you began walking to the medic. 

“Where are you going?” Hotch walked with you, the team forgotten behind. 

“Medic,” was all you said. Gritting your teeth as you felt the throbbing underneath your ribs. 

“I thought you said you were fine,” Hotch commented, a worrying frown on his face as he took notice of you holding your ribs. He ignored the woman who called his name, his attention all on you. 

“Yeah, well, I know it’s going to cause a shitstorm if I don’t get it checked out,” you clenched your jaw as pain shot through your body due to the uneven ground. “Fucking,” you cursed under your breath as you felt Hotch catch your body, causing you tense momentarily. 

“Easy,” Hotch mumbled softly.

“I’m fine,” you tried your best to shove yourself off him, you could see the ambulances now, just a few feet away. “Fuck off,” you cursed at him. 

“What is going on with you?” Hotch narrowed his eyes, refusing to abandon you. 

You turned back to him, and you didn’t know if it was the frustration that’s been building up, your new injuries or the fact that everything was just too loud and too bright, you exploded. “Why don’t you go back to your girlfriend?” You spat the word out as if it offended you personally. As if it wasn’t what you’ve been wanting from him. 

Hotch briefly took a step back as if you’ve just slapped him, your eyes instantly zeroing on the hurt that flashed across his face. “What are you talking about?” 

Opening your mouth, you gritted your teeth as pain began to worsen in your head.

“Forget about it,” grumbling, you walked away from Hotch, slowly making your way to the ambulances. 

--

“She has some injuries, but you’re fine, well as much as you can be,” the medic finished taping up your wound. “She shouldn’t be alone, just in case.” 

“She’ll stay with me,” Hotch announced, eyes trained intently on you. 

“Jesus Christ, give me a break,” you mumbled under your breath, earning a breathy laugh from the medic beside you, which quickly stopped as he saw the look that Hotch gave him. 

“Thanks,” nodding to the medic, you slowly jumped off the edge and began walking to the team that was now outside. 

“Morgan!” You called out, “Need someone to supervise me tonight.” 

Grabbing your elbow lightly, Hotch pulled you towards him, “She’s fine, Morgan. I’m looking after her.” 

Whatever smartass comment Derek wanted to say was stopped by the stern look on Hotch’s faces, and the grip he had on you. Moving you towards the car, he helped you up and placed your seatbelt. “I’m not a child,” you frowned, yanking the seatbelt from him and clicking it yourself. All you got was an exhausted huff. 

“Are we going to talk about this now or are you going to wait until we get back to the room?” Hotch asked, as he got into the car, and when you didn’t respond, he let out a sigh and began driving. 

--

“Why are you being so stubborn?” Hotch asked as the two of you walked into his hotel room. “I can get your stuff or you can wear mine, I know that you feel more comfortable in them sometimes.” 

Ignoring his question, you rolled your eyes, tired from the night, from the case, from the situation that you found yourself in with Hotch and the trainee. You were a grown woman, and here you were feeling the same things and doing the same things you were doing when you were sixteen. 

“Why are you here?” 

“This is my room,” Hotch stated dumbly, and for the umpteenth time that night, you rolled your eyes. 

Exhausted, you stared at him, and exhaled loudly. “I mean why are you here with me, when your precious Canavan is also injured and needing to be looked after.” 

“I want to make sure you’re okay,” Hotch said softly, taking a step forward but stopping when he saw you taking one back. “I frankly don’t care about her right now.” 

“That’s not a very Unit Chief thing to say,” you quipped, removing your jacket, wincing as you stretched your arm too much. 

“Honey,” Hotch started, moving towards you, hands out ready to help. 

“Don’t,” you snapped, finally removing your jacket. You moved towards his bathroom, intending to shower until you heard him shuffle behind you. 

You exhaled loudly, turning to face him, exhaustion on your face, “What do you want, Hotch and if you say it’s because you want to make sure I’m fine, I’m going to castrate you in your sleep.” 

Hotch couldn’t help but chuckle at your retort, even when you were injured and in pain, you still managed to be so you. 

“You heard the medic, I just need some rest,” you waved him off and began to remove your trousers. “If that’s all,” you gestured to the bathroom door. 

“That isn’t all.” You looked at him expectantly, “You’ve been ignoring me.” 

Scoffing you paused your movements and ran your hand through your hair, “And? In case you haven’t noticed we’ve been on a case.” 

“Don’t be naive,” Hotch chided. “We’ve been different,” at the solemn look on his face, a small part of you softened. “We have been for a while,” Hotch confessed softly. What he won’t tell you was he was racking his brain, trying to think of anything that he could have possibly done to make you drift away from him. 

Did you finally realise that you were too good for him? That he was a damaged old man and you deserved someone who could keep up with you? That you deserve someone good?

“I wonder why that is,” you commented under your breath.

“What?” 

You scoffed, exasperated by everything and especially at the man in front of you. “Hotch, why don’t you just do us both a favour and just go relieve Morgan from his duty of taking care of Canavan. We both know you want to be in her room anyway,” you moved to close the bathroom door, a growl practically escaping you when he moved to block it. 

“Why would I go into her room?” By the narrowness of Hotch’s eyes and animosity in his voice, you knew that you had to tread carefully. 

“I’m sure she needs the big boss to comfort her after the big night she had,” you mocked and you felt like a bitch. Again, you wouldn’t feel this way, you normally wouldn’t say things like this, if it wasn’t for everything. You knew she was probably scared, it was one of her first times on the field and she got attacked. You closed your eyes at the guilt you felt. 

“What the fuck?” It wasn’t the first time you heard Hotch curse, you were one of the few he allowed to hear him like that, but the tone severity of his tone took you back. “Why would I go into her room?” He repeated again, this time enclosing in your space. “Why do you keep bringing her up when I don’t care about her outside of work?” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you and her not eye fucking the entire case?” You laughed bitterly. “For weeks, ever since I came back, all I can see are the two of you practically humping each other whenever you were in the same vicinity. I had to watch you laugh with her, Hotch!” 

“Is this why you’ve been such a pain the last few weeks?” Hotch frowned, but there was an underlying tone of teasing that you didn’t like. 

“Fuck you,” you spat at him, you shoved him from your space and stomped back to the bedroom. “Guess since I’m not the youngest, I lost my shine, eh?” You mockingly winked at him, venom in your tone. “She’s new, young, probably your type. Like I was once upon a time,” you almost regretted the words as soon as they left your mouth. You bravely stared at Hotch, ignoring the fluttering in your chest and the churn of your stomach. 

Hotch hissed your name in warning. “Do not,” Hotch warned. “Look at me,” he directed you.

There was something in his tone and his demeanor that made you keep your eyes on him. He was breathing heavier, his face flushed in anger. At you? At the situation? You didn’t know. 

“I’m in love with you,” Hotch said seriously, his eyes never leaving yours. “I’ve been in love with you since the first day that I saw you, and I fall in love more every single day I talk to you.” 

Standing there in shock at the confession, you didn’t know what to say. It was the first time that either of you put anything to what you were feeling. What this was between the two of you. Your shoulders sagged a bit, a small bit of the fight leaving you, but a big part of you who’s been on the edge of crashing out needed this fight. 

“You never did anything to tell her that you were taken!” 

“What did you want me to do? We’ve never talked about this!” Hotch raised his voice, eyebrows to his hairline. “I didn’t want to put words into your mouth in case you didn’t feel the same way.” 

Never felt the same way? You thought bitterly. Is he an idiot? 

“You never stopped her! You instigated things, Hotch. Don’t think I don’t have eyes,” you bit out. “Is it because I was away for a week? That suddenly you forgot me and she appeared.” 

“Do not insult me with the thought that my feelings are that fickle,” Hotch snapped. “That all it takes to forget my love for you is some woman throwing herself at me,” walking towards you, Hotch kept his gaze on you. Every step, every word was deliberate. “I didn’t realise what you saw, what you perceived was me eye fucking her, or practically humping her, when those actions are only ever reserved for you.” 

“I was being nice, I’m her boss,” he explained, more gently this time but still a firmness in his tone that isn’t usually directed to you. “This job is already hard, you’ve told me plenty of times that I need to be kinder, put myself in their shoes, to not be a hardass,” at that you couldn’t help but chuckle, Hotch mirrored it with his own smile. “I want to be kinder for you. You make me want to do that.” 

“I’m sorry for not stopping it, I’m sorry for allowing her to think that there was ever a possibility of me being into her when all I think of is you,” he moved forward now, internally elated when he saw you stay put. “I’m sorry for making you believe that I don’t live for you.” 

Hotch was frustrated to say the least, not at you but at himself. For not seeing what Canavan was trying to do. The hurt that you felt all because of him, because he was being an idiot. All he could do was hope that you gave him a fighting chance. That he wouldn’t lose you because of this stupid, careless misunderstanding. 

You briefly looked at him, you knew that he wasn’t lying. If there was one thing that Hotch would never do to you, it was to lie. You watched as he went through the different emotions, eventually landing on something that he only wore around you. 

Walking towards you, he took the risk of gently placing his hands on your neck, “I’m in love with you and I’m sorry. You are the only thing that makes me sane, the one that actually makes me want to come to work because I can see you,” he admitted. “Please don’t let me not know what it’s like to see you first thing in the morning, or what kind of furniture you want for our home.” 

And you wanted that. You wanted that with him. You wanted everything with Hotch, the good, the bad and the ugly. You wanted to know what kind of pots he preferred, if he liked multiple blankets on the bed. You wanted the laughs, the fights and bickering. You didn’t want that with anyone else. 

“You let her touch you,” was all you could say. Thoughts running a mile per minute. You cringed inwardly as your behaviour from the past couple of weeks bombarded your brain. Were you really that petulant? That juvenile? You could feel the tears of embarrassment line your lashes. “And you’re an idiot for not seeing that she wanted to jump you.”

“And for that I’m sorry. I promise that you’ll be the only one that gets to touch me.”

“Good,” you said defiantly, and you watched as the left side of his lips tilted up. Raising your hands, you placed them on his chest. “Because I swear, if that ever happens again, Aaron,” you threatened. 

“I know, honey,” Aaron nodded solemnly. He knew that if anything like this happened, you would be gone. Whatever future he wanted with you would be gone. 

“You know though right?” You said softly, hoping to convey what was caught in your throat. You followed Hotch as he sat down on the bed and pulled you to him. 

“Know what?” He teased, wrapping his hands around your waist. 

“You’re being annoying and I’m injured,” you whined, your arms slowly falling to his shoulders. “You’re annoying,” you spoke as you slowly sat down in his lap. 

“Baby, say it,” he hovered his hands around your waist, being extra careful of your injured side. 

“I’m kinda in love with you,” you rolled your eyes playfully, “and baby? Really?” You arched a brow. 

“Kind of?” Aaron smiled up at you. “I wanted to try something new,” he shrugged. “Weird?” 

“No,” you shook your head. “Just different. I love it.” 

“Oh, so you love that, but you’re kind of in love with me,” Hotch teased, fingers drumming against your waist. 

“It’s because you’re being annoying,” you supplied. “But ask me tomorrow morning and it may change.” Leaning down, you smiled at him, the tension and anger washing away as you looked down into his eyes. “Now kiss,” you pouted and bent down, slotting your lips slowly to his. 

It was soft and slow, like you had all the time in the world, and for the moment, you did. You grinned as you felt his stubble graze your skin. Placing one hand on the small of your back and the other on your thigh, Aaron pushed you closer to him, opening his mouth to allow your tongue to slide in. 

Tracing the inside of his mouth, you felt his tongue slowly try to dominate yours, allowing him, you let out a moan as you felt Aaron’s hand drift down to your ass. He squeezed once, eliciting another moan into his mouth as you pushed yourself closer, hips flushed together.

“You’re beautiful,” Aaron whispered against your lips, as he pulled away from you. “My beautiful girl.” And there was no lie in what he said. You are beautiful, on top of him, slightly panting and face flushed. “I love you.” 

“I’m kinda in love with you, Aaron Hotchner,” you grinned before kissing him again. Pushing him down, you began to slowly grind against him, hands grasping his shirt. 

“Honey, you’re injured,” Hotch smiled against your cheek, as he sat up. Kissing from your cheek to the path to your ear, Aaron gave your lobe a kiss before he whispered, “Once you’ve got the all clear from your doctor-,” 

“Pound town?” You finished for him, arching one brow. You flinched a bit as a bellowed laugh came out of Aaron. 

Smiling largely at you, you couldn’t help but be entranced by the dimples of his cheeks and the light in his eyes. “Yes, honey. Pound town.” 

--

You woke up to someone shuffling around the room, grimacing as you felt the telltale of a headache. “You okay, honey?” You felt the bed dip next to you. Opening your eyes, you were met with the beautiful sight of one Aaron Hotchner, wet hair and a towel wrapped around his hips. Before you could even truly appreciate the scene, a stabbing pain erupted behind your eye. 

“Headache,” you groaned and closed your eyes. 

Aaron tutted and moved around the room, opening his bag and running the tap. “Here, honey.” 

“Thanks, love you,” you automatically said Aaron handed over some meds and water. 

You didn’t see the lovestruck look on Aaron’s face, “Kinda in love with me or love me love me?” 

“You’re more annoying in the morning,” you chided, handing him over the empty glass. “But love you, love you.” 

Leaning down, he kissed you lightly, “Once this headache is gone, prepare for some serious smoochin’,” you warned. “Now come back, we have two more hours before we meet the others.” 

“You want breakfast?” He asked as he climbed into bed with you, towel forgotten on the floor. “Fruit might help you with your headache.” 

“Do you think they have scones?” You wrapped yourself around him, enjoying the warmth his body brought. “You smell good,” you placed a kiss on his neck, hand slowly drifting down. 

“Honey,” he warned. “You’re injured, I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“I’m not going to do anything strenuous,” you rolled your eyes, “yet,” cuddling closer to him, you couldn’t help the noise of content you let out. “I have three weeks of touching you to make up for, Aaron Hotchner.”

--

“What’s gonna happen to Canavan?” You asked as you traced nonsensical patterns on his forearm. Breakfast in front of the two of you, and Hotch was right (not that you’d ever say it) about the fruit helping with your headache. 

Hotch made a noise above you, shifting a bit to allow his back to be more comfortable. “Discipline from the board, I assume. Then they’ll have to look at her files, she may get kicked out of the academy if they deem her unsuitable. She’s out of the BAU, though,” Hotch commented. He didn’t wish any harm on people, but he came very close when he found out she was the reason you went into that room. The reason why you got injured. 

“She’s a good kid,” you muttered.

“I thought you hated her,” Hotch asked, leaning your body so he could look at you. 

“I hated how she made me feel but I don’t hate her. I’m pretty sure that I would have done the exact same thing when I was her age,” you shrugged. “But she’s a good agent. Maybe not for the BAU, but somewhere else.” 

It was silent for a little while, too long for your liking so you turned your head and realised that Aaron had been staring at you. “What? Did I say something wrong?” 

“You’re something, you know that?” Hotch said quietly. “You’re wonderful and I love you.” 

--

“Finally!” Spencer exclaimed as he saw the two of you walk into the jet. He grinned as he saw Hotch’s arm around you. “I knew it!” 

“Reid, please try to keep it down,” Aaron cautioned, as his grip tightened on you. 

“So it only takes for (Y/L/N) to get beat up for you to confess you’re in love with each other,” JJ teased as she gave you a hug and once over to make sure you’re okay.

“You guys couldn’t have become a couple like normal people?” Emily asked, as she raided her wallet and handed Rossi a fifty. 

“I told you,” Rossi waved his money and winked at the two of you. 

“Come on, honey,” Hotch guided you to your usual seat, hand drifting down too close to your ass. 

“Honey!” Derek chortled as he and Emily shared a look. 

“I’m sorry that you only have your hand to go home to, Derek,” you sniped, a grin on your face. Derek rolled his eyes as Hotch followed you with a knowing smile. 

“I booked my appointment with Doctor Mohan,” you told Hotch, as you put your phone on top of the table. “She should give me the all clear today, if we land on time.” 

“Not today,” Hotch chuckled lightly, his hand landing on your thigh and giving it a squeeze. 

“You said, and I quote, ‘once you’ve got the all clear from your doctor’,” you stared Aaron down. “Don’t tell me you’re a liar.” 

The rest of the team, minus Canavan, who was holed up in her own seat, watched as the two of you bickered. 

“So, kid, how long do you think they’ll take before he pops the question,” Derek questioned, opening up his notepad. 

“Six months,” Rossi instantly piped up. 

“You say that as if you know something,” JJ looked at Rossi who all but shrugged. 

Not when it matters.

Not when it’s least convenient for your nervous system.

…The irony.

All it took was one stupid text. A momentary lapse in dignity. Something he’d probably refer to as “compromised judgment.”

do you happen to know a very cheap lawyer asking for a friend

And instead of his usual three-to-five-business-days reply time, he hits you with:

aaron hotchner (work, no nudes): Are you at home now? – A.H.

And now you’re just a bit overthinking… because how does he know that?

Did the FBI install a secret camera in your pothos plant? Does he have access to some satellite heat map of your apartment? Has he been watching your window? A camera in the air vent?

(Has he seen you trying out that new clear dildo in front of the mirror for “science”?)

(The one time you tried doing yoga and got stuck in child's pose for 40 minutes?)

You don’t know. You don’t want to know.

All you do know is that you are currently fully naked, shaving for a man who:

Has no idea he’s being shaved for, while you’re on speakerphone with him, as he gets closer and closer to your building block because he invited himself into your private space and-

Would absolutely turn around and disappear if he ever caught even a hint of cucumber-scented shaving cream (you borrowed from your roommate) and realized you'd… prepared for him.

Because your “just in case” implies premeditation. And premeditation implies intention. And intention? Intention is basically foreplay.

And foreplay is strictly prohibited outside the sanctity of marriage, a psychological clearance form, and at least three signed affidavits from HR.

He would enter WITSEC on the spot. Change his name. Grow a beard.

(Hot.)

“What’s happening? Are you alright?”

He concernedly asks over the phone - totally unaware (definitely unaware) that every time he checks in on you, he’s poking your very well-buried, very latent daddy issues with a stick.

(Or maybe he keeps asking because he’s the one with daddy issues. Very obvious ones. That classic parented-child energy. Raised himself on black coffee, moral obligation and emotional regret.)

What a match, really. You get off on being cared for, and he gets off on taking care of people he’ll never emotionally open up to.

Soulmates.

Anyway-

“So… my landlord is an asshole and I really hope he gets some very painful hemor-”

Mr. FBI has the audacity to call you by your full legal name before cutting you off with, “This call is being recorded. I’d appreciate it if you refrained from making…” he even pauses, searching for the most delicate phrasing. Because God forbid he doesn’t sound like a morally burdened Disney princess. “explicit threats.”

Oh, you’d appreciate a few things too. Like having his actual number and not the one issued by the United States Government - so you wouldn’t have to worry about scandalizing some poor technical analyst who’ll be forced to transcribe this call word-for-word the second they find his body in a ditch and trace it back to you.

(“Exhibit B: She said, quote, ‘I hope he gets some very painful hemor.’”)

…But you’re not as childish as him to complain about that.

“My bad.”

“It’s alright.” (Can he please stop talking like this?)

“Yeah… I-” Your voice trips. Your face is hot. Your entire body is hotter. “The thing is-”

“I’m listening.” Oh, fuck him. (Please.)

“In short: the building’s falling apart. We’ve been emailing the guy for weeks, complaining, begging, threatening – nicely - and either he forgets to reply or says he’ll fix it and then doesn’t. It’s been an eternity and he still hasn’t done a single fuc-”

Recorded line. Recorded line. God forbid the man has a seizure because of you. “-thing.”

You hear a chuckle on the other end.

You hate phone calls.

You’d choke him if he weren’t safely boxed inside a moving vehicle.

“I said threats. You can curse. I’m not ten.” Oh, he’s smiling. You can hear it. The smug bastard.

“Oh, that I noticed.”

You love phone calls.

If he were here, he would've already hit you with one of those signature stares - intended to intimidate, but really just making you want to lick the corner of his mouth out of pure spite.

But look at you. Free. Untouchable. Doing amazing.

“The thing is, I didn’t pay rent this month. Because they’re still ignoring the repairs. And now they’re threatening to evict me if I don’t pay.”

“That’s retaliatory. It’s illegal.”

“Wait… you’re telling me I’m not screwed?”

“No, they are. You withheld payment due to unaddressed health and safety violations. That’s protected under landlord-tenant statutes,” he says, suddenly shifting into full legalese, something-something code 572, subsection blah-blah, tenant rights, lease clauses-

You don’t hear any of it. Actually, the very second he started speaking fluent Law Daddy, , your brain slammed the emergency brake to focus on the real crisis:

What the fuck are you going to wear.

“Document everything-“

Lace? Bold choice, but post-shave? Masochism. Granny cotton briefs? He’ll never look at you again.

“Photos.”

Tight top, no bra? Risky.

What if he hugs you and feels how obnoxiously hard your nipples are?

(He’s not a hugger. He doesn’t seem like a hugger. Right?)

(Right??)

(But what if he is today?)

(What if he walks in, sees you - top clinging, no heating - and suddenly decides: You know what? Now’s the time. Now’s the moment I become a hugger. Just for her. Just this once. Just to pull her in close, pretend it’s chaste, press his palm between her shoulder blades and - oh fuck - realize it’s not.)

(What if he hugs you and feels it?)

(What if he hugs you and keeps hugging you?)

(What if he grips tighter, his hand slides just a little lower, and his voice does too, right by your ear - “You’re not wearing a bra.”)

(“Neither are you, sir.”)

(And what if that hug turns into a grind, into his thigh between your legs, into lift me onto the kitchen counter and show me what else you know about tenancy law.)

“Emails.”

Loose top, skimpy bottoms? Slutty. Strategic. Respectable slutty. He’d stare at your legs all night.

(He wouldn’t. But you’d know. Which is worse.)

You should lather in coconut oil, just in case.

You should lather in coconut oil anyway – hydration is important to avoid ingrowns (and yes, to smell edible too.)

“Timestamps.”

Tight top, no bra, skimpy bottoms? Too much? Too “I can’t pay the plumber, but maybe I can offer something else...”

(Not that you’ve watched those. Obviously. You’re just… aware of the trope.)

(Not because you spent 30 minutes the other night trying to find the perfect one. And then another 10 skipping the plot because it was too unrealistic, there’s no way the plumber just happens to have lube.)

(Not that you wouldn’t do it for him. But you’re also not going to lower yourself to being a badly lit, lazily scripted fantasy for the male gaze.)

“…If you haven’t already, I’d recommend drafting a written complaint.”

“…Aaron, I don’t even know where to start,” you mutter. “That’s why I asked if you knew a very cheap lawyer.”

“I’m the very cheap lawyer.” For some reason he chuckles, probably it’s because of his own joke, “Don’t worry, we’ll do it together, I’ll be there in fifteen.”

He is not there in fifteen.

He’s “there” after fourty-eight minutes - flustered, apologizing, muttering something about I-395 and a jackknifed delivery truck, which is just adorable, really, coming from a man who’s clearly never taken the bus in heels while bleeding through his jeans, juggling three leaking Trader Joe’s bags, and re-evaluating every life decision since birth.

He’s grumbling about “infrastructure,” all furrowed brows and moral outrage. How sweet.

You, meanwhile, are Frenching the entire Department of Transportation.

You are giving gridlock the kind of wet, eye-contact blowjob that wins awards - because, for once in your adult life, the universe delayed a man just long enough for you to become a person.

Thirty-eight glorious minutes to shave, moisturize, hide the evidence of your emotional instability, light a candle, panic about the candle (too much?), blow it out, light it again (fuck it), rearrange your throw pillows, Febreze your loveseat, and clean your floors so well you briefly consider serving dinner off them - or yourself.

(Also enough time to change outfits four times, reject each one violently, and land on something that screams “Oh, this? Just threw it on,” while whispering: “I shaved everything.”)

You’ve never been more grateful for civic failure.

You look good. Your apartment looks good. You know it smells amazing in here. You know it. You can feel the Pine-Sol particles sparkling off the hardwood.

Any second now, he’s going to say something about it.

He’s going to inhale – deeply - and ask what detergent you use. Compliment your lavender baseboards.

You can feel it coming. You’re ready. You smile. You bask.

Aaron sets down his bag. Unclips it. Opens it. Looks up.

“I printed out the tenancy statutes,” he says, already pulling out an aggressively highlighted stack of documents from the briefcase.

And this would be impressive - should be impressive - if he weren’t wearing a plain black T-shirt that is doing things to his arms. And the khakis. Fucking khakis.

The most indecently decent pants in the entire male wardrobe.

They whisper "suburban dad," but scream "accidental bulge in soft daylight."

Speaking of which, unfortunately, your apartment lighting has never worked harder - midday golden-hour haze bouncing off every freshly scrubbed surface, casting soft shadows and sensual gleam until finally it settles on The Situation.

…Shit.

(Do not look at it.)

(Do not acknowledge it.)

(Do not mentally calculate whether that’s just the way his pants fold or if that’s his dick pressed against the zipper like it also has a clause to deliver.)

(Do notice, however, that he still hasn’t said a single word about how nice your apartment looks. Rude.)

“I flagged the key violations and I added notes on a recent amendment that strengthens your case - you can reference it in your response letter.” His eyes scan the room clearing it for hostiles - except all he really sees is your loveseat. Small. Soft. Close.

And you, in a tank top.

He clears his throat. Adjusts the folder. His gaze flicks back to you – quick, sharp, and immediately redirected to something safer, like the floor.

“Where… should we get set up?” he asks, like he hasn’t already mentally measured the loveseat twice, logged its exact dimensions in his brain, and is currently laser-eyeing the very cushion he’s dying – dreading - to sit on.

“Oh, I don’t know… wherever you’re comfortable.”

He nods - just a touch too seriously - then hesitates. Again. Checks one more time, with those painfully polite eyes: Can I...? Is it alright if...?

(…As if you might suddenly revoke loveseat privileges.)

Then, slowly, he lowers himself onto the cushion. Perches. Occupies the absolute minimum amount of space humanly possible.

If he still had the joint mobility of his youth, you’re convinced he’d just origami himself into a respectful little one-inch cube and tuck into the far corner.

You glance at his shoulders - very broad, deliciously broad, yes - tense, but more at how hard he’s trying not to brush them against yours. What a funny man.

Especially funny because while he's typing up your official letter - like a good little lawyer - he's also letting the conversation drift into a completely unrelated side street.

Unrelated except for the fact that it's all about you.

Like how he “casually” mentions he hasn’t seen you at the pool lately.

The one where he trains and you sit in a cracked plastic cafeteria chair pretending to wait for your friend’s aquatic therapy - when really, you’re mourning every second you’re not legally tethered to the hot dad at swim practice. The hot dad who doesn’t even know he’s the hot dad. (Him. Obviously.)

You go for your friend. Technically.

Spoiler: she’s got two weeks left.

Which means once her sessions are over, you and Aaron will have absolutely no logical reason to ever speak again. No built-in excuse. No default setting.

And now there’s a looming, mutual thing neither of you are acknowledging.

You’re sure there’s a term for this. Something about large mammals afraid of mice and metaphor.

“Yeah, I was in the lane next to your friend’s the other day…” he starts.

“Really?” You pretend you didn’t get fourteen missed calls from said friend, who - when you finally called her back - didn’t even say hi. Just launched straight into: “Burgundy swim cap guy looked up at your seat three times. Three. He looked so sad you weren’t there I had to explain where you were so he wouldn’t drown in longing.”

“Yes… we talked for a bit. She seems very nice…”

Ah.

Interesting choice of words, considering she told you – verbatim - “I can’t believe someone built like a brick shithouse could be that pathetic.”

(She has yet to understand that that is the whole appeal. Him. And that exact contradiction. Him and that-)

“So… how did… your date go?” he asks, pretending to be casual. He’s polishing his glasses against the hem of his shirt, even though they’re already spotless. (You weren’t even aware he needed glasses. Probably neither is the rest of the planet.)

He keeps at it. Rubs one lens. Then the other. Then back again.

You wonder if he’s trying to distract himself. From the question. From the answer.

Your date.

The one that made you miss your friend's call. The one you actually went on. The one that-

“It went well, actually.” It did. Way too well. And that’s the problem.

Because you keep chasing Aaron.

Despite the very obvious fact that nothing will ever happen between you. Because he’s… well, him. And you’re…

A little too young. A little too broke. A little too you.

(And technically if you do the math, you’re closer to his son’s age than his. Just by a few years, sure, but still. Still enough to justify it to yourself out loud, then say it again. And again. Until it starts sounding like a fact.)

It’s just a harmless crush. A stupid little thing. A flicker. A fantasy. A hobby, really.

You have so many of those - men. Smart, emotionally unavailable, vaguely haunted. You collect them like parking tickets: Useless. Repetitive. Always showing up when you least need them. But you keep them. Stack them in a drawer somewhere in your head.

Just in case.

Still, there’s something about this one.

About him.

Aaron.

Aaron in wireframe glasses, almost making you believe in the higher powers he believes in too. (Hopefully not the United States government.)

Aaron with that voice, that jaw, that posture.

Aaron, who says things like “landlord-tenant statute” and somehow makes it sound better than the poetry in those overpriced, niche little books you only buy for the cover, the ones where the author hits enter every four words so it tricks you into thinking they mean something.

And maybe – deep, deep down – it’s because you want to be proven wrong. That someone like him could find goodness in parts of you you’ve already declared a lost cause. That he could look at all the rot and still see something worth saving. Or maybe it’s just easier. Easier to chase something you’ll never catch than turn around and face the things already standing still, arms open, waiting to love you back.

“I’m glad to hear that,” says Deliciously Four-Eyed Aaron, just a little too tight. Tighter than his khakis, which shift and pull every time he readjusts to keep from getting a flat ass on your loveseat.

(What’s wrong, Agent Hotchner? Not expecting it to actually go well? God, you hope that’s why his jaw looks like it’s about to file for divorce from the rest of his face.)

“I don’t know him well,” he adds, clinically. “But… he seems like a nice guy. He’s good at his job.”

Right. Which is rich, coming from the man who literally handed you the guy’s number. And now he’s playing coy?

So what was that, then? A random act of kindness? A stroke of pity? Was it projection? Was it a fever dream?

Did he just reach into the FBI rolodex and go: “Hmm. You’re not under disciplinary review, you own slacks, and your blood pressure is normal. Here, date this emotionally volatile woman I know and I think you might like - she has opinions and abandonment issues, enjoy!

Because Aaron doesn’t do spontaneous. Aaron does strategic. Aaron does 48-hour surveillance and triple-signed documents.

He’s not the guy who improvises. He’s the guy who rehearses his improvisation.

So forgive you if you’re just a little confused by Mr. Times New Roman over here, trying to mentally trace the logic that gets you from “I barely know him” to “you should definitely let him finger you. Only after marriage, though.”

It’s weird. And yet, somehow, that’s not even the most annoying part.

“Good at his job?” you echo, with a laugh that sounds way too close to a cry for help. (Of course. Of course that’s Special Supervising Whatever-the-Fuck Hotchner’s metric for male compatibility. Not empathy. Not emotional availability. Not even basic social literacy. No, job performance. What a catch.) “What are you going to say next, that he’s a good person because he clocks in early and doesn’t steal breakroom coffee?”

“Well,” he says, adjusting his glasses that did not need adjusting, “I can’t vouch for the coffee. But I do see him arrive on time. From my office. If that’s what’s concerning you.”

…Oh. So that’s what this is. We’re flexing now.

Mr. I Have A Window. Mr. I Oversee The Peasants. Mr. Private Office While Everyone Else Plays Hot-Desk Musical Chairs. Mr. Title, Tenure, and a Chair That Supports Both His Spine and His Reluctance to Feel. Mr. I Deserve This Square Footage Because I Ruined My Marriage for the Federal Government.

(You could go on. And on. And on. You won’t. But you could.)

And it’s not even clear who he’s trying to one-up here. The guy he set you up with? Or… you? Both?

Like, “Yes, he’s punctual. Yes, he’s nice. Yes, he’s good at his job. But I define what good is. I’m his boss. Be impressed by me instead. Please. I beg you.”

Okay. Breathe. Relax.

No one invited him to a pissing contest and yet here he is, unzipping his intellectual fly right in the middle of your living room. (Not the fly you wanted unzipped, unfortunately.)

You squint at him. “So what, you show up before everyone else just to watch your little ducklings waddle in behind you? Mother Goose clocking in before sunrise to lead by example and assert dominance?”

He turns toward you. Tilts his head. Makes that face. The one you’ve been craving since the second he walked in.

Eyebrows drawn, mouth slightly open - just enough to spot that one crooked tooth, bless it - an expression that says concerned, confused, and disappointed in your tone, all in one.

“It’s none of that,” he’s dead serious, even if he’s visibly smiling… marvelous. “It’s just respectful to be on time.”

Sure, Agent Hotchner. Tell yourself that while polishing your Employee of the Decade plaque.

“I barely even see my boss at the café. Twice a week, tops. And only after we open.”

Aaron lifts his eyebrows. Shrugs. “I’m not an asshole.”

Then he goes back to typing, pretending he’s not biting the inside of his cheek like the whole thing didn’t get to him.

Like he’s completely unbothered by the idea of some man buying you coffee and making you laugh for two full hours.

Like his knuckles aren’t just a little too tight around that trackpad.

“You know, for someone who just said he’s not an asshole, you sure spend a lot of time trying to prove how much better you are than other men.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything,” he says, softly. Too softly. Like he knows volume would give him away.

And fuck, those eyes.

You can’t look at them too long. You bounce between his face and anything else - your coffee table, the printout, his lap (unfortunately) - because those glasses are giving him four eyes now, and all of them are aimed at your skull, dissecting every micro-expression.

He's a bit suffocating.

“I think what really bothers you,” he says, measured, "is that you’re used to being misread."

You scoff. “Excuse me?” (Bitch.)

"You act like you want to be chased, but only if it feels reluctant. If it's earned. You push people to see if they’ll push back. You turn it into a game because it’s safer that way. If it’s a game, you can pretend you were never serious when they walk away."

Well. Okay. First of all: Rude.

Second of all: Accurate. Horribly accurate.

But also: How dare he.

"And if they don't... if they try to meet you where you are... you push them away first. Just to prove you were right to be afraid" he says - and the bastard even smiles. (Fuck his dimples. Really. Pretentious as hell.) "You punish them for it… and you punish the ones who don’t play, too. Because deep down, you still don’t know which would hurt more."

"Wow," you never thought you'd actually be speechless, and yet - here you are, scrambling for a comeback. Great. "Good thing you said you weren’t trying to prove anything. Otherwise I might’ve gotten confused and assumed you were just showing off." (Good enough. You’ll take it.)

Smarty-pants chuckles under his breath then leans back against your very professional, very structurally unsound loveseat. His knee brushes yours.

You pretend not to notice. He pretends he doesn’t notice you noticing.

"Not showing off, just telling you what you already know."

"Oh, right, because you’re such an expert on me."

"I’m just observant."

"And arrogant." And a fucking hypocrite too.

"And you still looked at my mouth twice." What a who-

Somewhere between your brain screaming full bitch slap, full bitch slap and your hand almost twitching to deliver it… you miscalculate.

You lean in. And instead of bruising his cheekbone, you crash your mouth against his.

Pride - and the stack of feminist books judging you from the bookshelf - insist it’s you who moves first. You believe them. You have to.

Even though his hands are already there - rough and steady, drowning your face in their grip - before you even finish breathing in your half-ounce of courage. Before you really even choose anything at all.

(But sure. Go ahead. Call it empowerment. You’re totally running the show. Girlboss shit.)

You want to bite him. Sink your teeth into that smug, diagnosing mouth. Split his lip. Make him bleed all over the living room he still hasn’t bothered to compliment the smell of. (You’re not petty about it… it’s just an observation.)

But it’s slower instead.

You taste his nerve first, his fear right after.

He’s already halfway to pulling back even as he keeps kissing you - trying to have it both ways - and for a second, you do break apart.

Both pretending you could still undo this. (And also undo all the bullshit he said earlier, profiling you so hard he didn’t even realize he was accidentally outing himself too.)

It doesn’t last.

You crash back into him, sloppier, mouths dragging, missing, gasping, half-kissing, half-clawing at each other as you’re both a little too desperate to land properly.

For a split second, the kiss turns... almost sweet. Tender. Romantic, even.

You could say he’s a good kisser.

You could say he’s a great kisser.

You could say he’s the only man alive who could kiss you stupid and still find a way to remind you to breathe through your nose.

(Like when he notices you getting lightheaded and somehow fixes it without even pulling away... which, not gonna lie, is a little humbling.)

But there’s no time for critical analysis. You’re already shoving him flat onto the loveseat, pinning him down, while he blinks up at you - wide-eyed, flushed, so beautiful it makes your chest hurt.

(And he looks so... concerned. As if he’s realizing just now that there’s absolutely no dignified way to get out of this alive.)

(Good. He shouldn’t.)

There’s tongue.

There’s teeth.

There’s his hands – everywhere - gripping your waist, sliding under your shirt, squeezing the backs of your thighs, pushing your leg higher over him until you can feel - Oh. Oh, he’s hard. He’s so fucking hard.

There’s a muffled noise from the back of his throat that sounds suspiciously like please and you are not thinking about that right now.

And it’s-

God.

It’s filthy. It’s great.

You grind down hard, whimpering shamelessly into his mouth, and he bucks up into you, meeting you halfway with both hands locked around your ass, squeezing so rough you’ll be wearing fingerprints by tomorrow.

(You hope so.)

(You really fucking hope so.)

He helps you move –

Up.

Down.

Slower.

Harder.

Guiding your hips with just enough pressure to make it feel like it’s your idea, finding the rhythm you didn’t know you needed until he gives it to you, forcing you to ride the thick, hard shape straining against his pants-

Just the right angle. Just the right friction.

So perfect it catches your clit every single time, knocks a gasp right out of your throat, straight into his mouth.

You’re soaking through your panties. You’re shaking with it. And it clearly gets to him - God, it wrecks him.

You can feel it - the way he tenses under you, the way his hands clutch harder at your ass, the way his cock throbs against you through the fabric like he’s just barely holding on.

He bites down on your bottom lip, rougher than you expect. Too rough for a man who apologizes when he says fuck.

He holds it between his teeth, sucks it – hard - humming low and filthy against your mouth, so obscene it makes your hips stutter.

Drop.

Just enough to let your soaked cunt drag across the swollen head of his cock.

And when you grind back, slower, tracing right along the thick ridge straining against his zipper, he chokes on a breath.

“God, fuck-”

It tears out of him, raw, as if he’s almost embarrassed by how much pleasure is tangled in it, by how stupidly sincere it comes out of his mouth.

(Also, thank God he didn’t reverse it. If he’d said “fuck, God,” instead, you’re pretty sure he would’ve stopped everything, dropped to his knees, and asked you to drive him to a confessional. Not even a metaphor - actual church. Actual guilt. Actual “forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”)

He tilts his head back, groaning, neck arching against the pillow - exposed, gorgeous - and you completely lose it.

Your tongue drags over his throat, chasing the pulse hammering under his skin, tracing your way back up to his mouth.

He’s so hot. He’s so good. He’s-

…terrified.

"I'm so sorry," he breathes, suddenly sitting up on his elbows. “I-” 

He fumbles. He panics. He stands. Backs away from the couch. From you. Visibly blushing. Visibly mortified.

“I didn’t mean-“

He doesn’t finish the sentence...

…Because he finished in his pants instead.

Poor thing.

You should be a little cruel about it - he was an asshole earlier, after all - but you’re not quite mean enough to kick a wounded 6’2” puppy when he’s already limping. (No pun intended… or maybe-)

"Hey," you murmur, reaching out, curling your fingers around his wrist so he can’t backpedal any further. He flinches. (Not much. Just enough to make you want to kiss him again. Harder this time. Until he flinches worse.)

"It’s okay. It’s-" You almost say sweet - catch yourself just in time, because you’re not trying to get murdered tonight.

"It’s normal," you settle on instead. "It’s flattering. Honestly.” (Also kind of hot. But you’ll take that particular confession to your grave.) “You didn’t... ruin anything."

He still doesn’t look convinced. At all. In fact, he looks like he might apologize again, maybe even draft a formal statement and notarize it.

You scramble. “It’s not a big deal, seriously. Who cares if it was-” (You hesitate for half a second, fatal mistake.) "-like, 30 seconds? Could've been 29, right?!”

…Right.

taglist: @beata1108 ; @c-losur3 ; @fangirlunknown ; @goorgeousz ; @hayleym1234 ; @ignoreeeeeee ; @justyourusualash ; @khxna ; @kyrathekiller ; @littlemisskavities ; @lostinwonderland314 ; @mmmunson ; @mxblobby ; @nikt-wazny-y ; @oxforce ; @percysley ; @person-005 ; @prettybaby-reid ; @reidfile ; @royalestrellas ; @ssa-callahan ; @softtdaisy ; @softestqueeen ; @thatkidofwarandpeace ; @theseerbetweenus ; @todorokishoe24 ; @who-needs-to-sleep

(I might've missed someone this time, pls tell me in the comments if your name got lost AAAA sorry in advance)

Little reminder that the requests for fleabag!reader are open!! Ok.. I'll go now. Bye.

- second son

- for the night

- life

- not like this

- happy

- once

- blessing