Lawboy83

The morgue at Concordia General smelled the way every morgue you had ever worked in smelled, a mixture of formaldehyde and bleach and something colder underneath that no amount of ventilation ever quite scrubbed out, and you had long since stopped noticing it except on days like this one, when three men in the space of a week had beaten their wives to death with their bare hands and you were the one who had to explain why. You were bent over the file cabinet in the corner of your office, pulling the last of the blood work you had drawn from the third man, Teddy Vaughn, when you heard the knock on your doorframe, two knuckles against wood, polite in a way that most cops in this county had stopped bothering to be with you months ago.

You turned around and found a man standing there who did not belong in Concordia, Iowa, not with a suit that fit him like it had been tailored somewhere with better tailors and a face that looked like it belonged on a recruitment poster for a university you couldn't afford. He was tall enough that he'd had to duck slightly coming through your doorway, and he held out a leather badge wallet before you'd even asked, which told you either he was very good at his job or he had done this so many times it had become reflex.

"Agent Stiles," he said. "FBI. I know it's late, I called ahead, your secretary said you'd still be here."

"My secretary is a temp who's been here two weeks and thinks every appointment ends at five, so I wouldn't put much stock in what she promised you." You set the folder down and crossed your arms. "What can I do for the Bureau tonight, Agent Stiles?"

"I'm looking into the Vaughn case. Same as the Peterson case, and the Wilkins case before that." He said the names like he'd memorized the file on the drive over, which, you'd learn later, he had. "Three men, no history of violence, no priors, and all three beat their wives to death within days of each other. That's not really an FBI pattern. That's a local nightmare. So I'm curious what brought you people down from Washington for it."

He smiled, and it was a good smile, easy, a little tired around the edges like he hadn't slept properly in longer than he'd admit to. "We go where the pattern goes. Three unrelated men, same MO, same week, same small town — that gets flagged. I heard you did the tox screens on all three."

"I did the autopsies and I drew the blood, yeah. You want to sit down? This is going to take a minute if you want it done right, and I don't do the abbreviated version for people who show up after visiting hours."

"I've got time," he said, and folded himself into the chair across from your desk like a man who meant it.

You pulled up the results on your monitor and turned the screen so he could see it too, close enough that you caught the smell of a shampoo that was too nice for a Bureau per diem. "All three men had abnormally high levels of oxytocin in their bloodstream. Way outside anything you'd see naturally, even in new parents, even in people who just had spectacular sex. We're talking levels I've only ever seen written about in academic papers about pair-bonding in voles."

"Voles."

"Prairie voles specifically. It's the classic study, oxytocin and vasopressin regulate monogamous bonding behavior in them almost exactly the way it seems to in humans, just more measurable because you can dissect a vole's brain without an ethics board getting involved." You caught yourself and huffed a short laugh. "Sorry. I default to lecture mode when I'm tired."

"No, I like it," he said, and he meant it, you could tell, because his eyebrows had gone up in real interest and not the polite kind men usually faked around you. "So high oxytocin. That's the hormone tied to love, right? Bonding, trust, all of that."

"Colloquially, sure, people call it the love hormone. Attachment hormone is more accurate. It's what surges when a mother nurses, when people cuddle, when they orgasm, when they fall for someone so hard they'd do anything for them." You tapped the screen. "These men had levels ten, twelve times higher than that. If oxytocin makes you feel bonded to somebody, whatever these three had running through their systems didn't just make them feel bonded. It made them feel like their lives depended on it."

Sam's jaw had gone tight, just slightly, the muscle working like he was chewing over something he didn't want to say out loud yet. "You said they were all married five years or less."

"You've done your homework, Agent Stiles."

"Sam," he said. "You can call me Sam. Agent Stiles makes me feel like I'm about to get audited."

"Fine. Sam." You liked the way it sat on your tongue more than you expected to. "Yeah, all three marriages under five years. All three men described by neighbors as devoted, a little intense about their wives, the kind of guys who'd cancel a work trip because their wife had a cold. And all three of them, without warning, beat the women they loved to death and then couldn't explain why when they were arrested. Wilkins actually said, and I'm quoting the police report here, 'I don't know why I did it, I just knew she didn't love me back the way I loved her, and I couldn't stand it.'"

"That's not the kind of thing normal jealousy does to a person," Sam said quietly, mostly to himself.

"No," you agreed. "It's really not."

The door swung open before either of you could say anything else, and a second man walked in without knocking, shorter than Sam, broader through the shoulders, wearing a suit that fit slightly worse and an expression that shifted the second he clocked how close together you and Sam were sitting.

"Sam. There you are. You weren't answering your phone." His eyes flicked to you, then back to his partner, doing the math out loud without saying a word of it. "Agent Murdock, FBI. And you'd be the coroner."

"Medical examiner," you corrected, "but close enough for government work. You two want to compare notes, or is this a tag-team interrogation?"

"Dean," Sam said, standing, "she was just walking me through the tox screens. All three men had oxytocin levels off the charts."

"Huh." Dean's mouth curled into something that was trying very hard to look casual. "So we've got a case that involves husbands going psycho in love and — didn't dispatch also mention something about strippers?"

"That's a different case file, Dean."

"Same case, I bet you money. This town's got a real theme going." Dean clapped Sam on the shoulder, hard enough that it was half a warning. "You about done here, Agent Stiles? I think we've got a stakeout to plan and I hear the local gentlemen's club does two-for-one on Tuesdays."

"We're not going to the club for the coupons, Dean."

"No, we're going for the science."

You watched the two of them bicker their way toward the door with the specific, worn-in rhythm of people who had been doing this exact routine for years, and something about it made you like Sam more rather than less, the way he rolled his eyes instead of getting embarrassed, the way his partner's teasing didn't land anywhere close to a nerve. Sam paused in the doorway and looked back at you.

"Can I call you if I have follow-up questions? About the blood work?"

"You have my number already, Agent Stiles, it's on the report you're holding." You allowed yourself the smallest smile. "But sure. Call anytime."

He called two days later, which was faster than you expected and slower than you'd hoped, though you would not have admitted that second part to anyone, least of all yourself. His voice on the phone was tight in a way it hadn't been in your office, clipped and urgent.

"I need those blood samples again. All three of them, if you've still got them stored."

"They're in the lab fridge, same as always, why —"

"Just — can you meet me there? Tonight?"

You met him in the hospital's basement lab an hour later, the fluorescent lights humming overhead the way they always did after visiting hours, and the two of you stood in front of an open refrigerator unit that should have held three sealed vials and instead held nothing but three empty slots and a faint smear of condensation where the labels had been.

"They're gone," you said, mostly to hear yourself say it, like saying it out loud might make it less true. "I logged them in myself. Nobody signs out samples from this lab without going through me or Deb at the front desk, and Deb's out sick."

"Cameras," Sam said, already moving toward the security office down the hall, and you followed him because there was nothing else productive to do, because your hands had started to feel cold in a way that had nothing to do with the refrigeration units around you.

The security guard, a heavyset man named Curtis who you'd shared exactly four conversations with in the eleven months he'd worked there, cued up the footage from the lab hallway without much protest once Sam flashed the badge again. You leaned in over Sam's shoulder to watch the grainy black-and-white feed, the timestamp ticking forward in the corner, the lab door sitting perfectly still and undisturbed for hour after hour after hour.

"There's nothing here," you said. "The door never opens. Nobody comes in or out all night."

"Rewind it again," Sam said, and Curtis did, and the two of you watched it a second time, and a third, and each time the door simply sat there, closed, untouched, while somehow the vials inside had vanished like they'd never existed at all.

"That's not possible," you said, and you heard how thin your own voice sounded saying it. "Sam, that door has one working camera and one card-swipe lock, and both of them say nobody was ever here."

"I know," he said, and something about the way he said it, careful and not remotely as surprised as a person should be, made you look at him a little differently than you had in your office two days before.

You walked back to your office in silence, the kind that wasn't uncomfortable so much as it was full, both of you turning something over that neither of you had said out loud yet. Once you were behind your closed door again you dropped into your chair and exhaled hard enough to blow a strand of hair off your face.

"Okay," you said. "I'm going to ask you something and I want an actual answer, not the FBI answer. What do you think is going on with these men?"

Sam hesitated, and you watched him decide something, watched the careful math of it cross his face before he spoke. "I think somebody drugged them. Something that could spike oxytocin that high, artificially, something that doesn't show up as a standard toxin because nobody's looking for it. I think whoever did it wanted them out of their minds in love, past the point where they could think straight, and I think whoever did it took those samples tonight because they didn't want anyone finding out what it was."

"That's insane," you said, "and it's also the only theory that fits, which honestly is the worst part of my week so far." You pulled two glasses and a half-full bottle of bourbon out of your bottom desk drawer, poured without asking if he wanted any, and slid one across to him. "You look like a man who could use a drink after that."

"You keep bourbon in your desk?"

"I'm a medical examiner in a county with a population of eleven thousand people and three unsolved murders in one week. I keep a lot of things in this desk." You raised your glass an inch. "To whatever the hell is happening in this town."

He clinked his glass against yours, and the smile he gave you then was different from the one in the doorway two days ago, less careful, more real, and you found yourself leaning back in your chair to actually look at him properly for the first time since he'd walked in.

"Can I ask you something?" you said. "And you don't have to answer if it's too personal for federal business hours."

"Go ahead."

"A guy like you — smart, easy to talk to, actually listens when someone explains hormone receptor binding instead of glazing over — how are you not married? Not engaged, not even seeing anybody, unless I'm wrong."

Something crossed his face, quick and complicated, gone before you could fully read it. "It's — complicated. The job doesn't really leave room for it. People I've been with, it never really — it doesn't end well. Usually it ends really badly, actually."

"That's a very specific kind of bad you're not elaborating on."

"Trust me, you don't want the details." But he said it with a small, rueful laugh instead of the flat deflection you expected, and something about the honesty underneath the joke made you want to keep pulling at the thread.

"Fair enough. What about you," he said. "Doctor, works nights in a morgue in the middle of Iowa, keeps bourbon in her desk for exactly this kind of night. I'm guessing there's not a line of men handling that well."

"You'd be surprised how few men want to hear about liver mottling over dinner," you said, and he laughed, actually laughed, low and warm, and the sound of it did something to the room that the bourbon hadn't managed on its own. "It's fine. I like the work. I like being good at something that matters, even if it means going home to an empty apartment most nights. I stopped waiting around for it to look like anybody else's life a long time ago."

"That's not a bad way to live," Sam said, quieter now, "figuring out what you actually want instead of what you're supposed to want."

"You sound like you've had that conversation with yourself a few times."

"More than a few." He looked down at his glass, then back up at you, and the air in the office had shifted into something denser, something with weight to it, the kind of silence that exists right before somebody says the thing they've been holding back all night.

His phone buzzed against the desk, the screen lighting up with a name — Dean — and he glanced at it, and then, very deliberately, turned it face-down without answering.

"You're not going to get that?"

"No," Sam said, and he did not look away from you when he said it. "I don't think I am."

The sterile, sharp scent of antiseptic in the office fades, replaced by the intoxicating musk of Sam's cologne and the heat pouring off his body. You close the distance between you, the low hum of the hospital's ventilation system seems to fade into the background, leaving only the sound of your own quickening heartbeat.

When you confess that parts of him— his lips have been a distraction, you see a spark ignite in Sam's hazel eyes something raw and hungry that contradicts his usual gentle demeanor.

"Just parts?" he echoes, his voice dropping an octave, rougher than before. A crooked, almost shy smile tugs at the corner of his mouth before it vanishes entirely. When you admit you can't stop thinking about kissing him, Sam doesn't hesitate. He closes the remaining space between you, his large hands finding your waist with surprising urgency. His touch is warm through your clothes, grounding you even as your head begins to swim.

The world blurs as he presses you back against the cool glass of the office window. The contrast between the chilled pane against your spine and the furnace like heat of Sam's chest makes you gasp. His mouth crashes against yours, not with the hesitant tenderness of a first kiss, but with a desperate, claiming hunger. You find yourself tangling your fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, needing to erase every millimeter of air separating your bodies.

"Fuck," Sam breathes against your lips, the curse muffled by another kiss. His hands slide down to grip your thighs, lifting you effortlessly to meet his rhythm. As you navigate the frantic undressing, it leaves only the friction of skin on skin and the intoxicating reality of Sam's weight pressing you against the window.

The cool glass of the window bites into your back as Sam's weight presses you flush against it, but you barely notice the chill. Your mind is a whirlwind of adrenaline and desire, the stolen moment feeling dangerously illicit. Between ragged breaths and the wet sounds of your mouths connecting, you manage to find your voice, though it comes out as a breathless, frustrated murmur against his jaw.

"Fuck Agent Stiles," you tell him, the words tumbling out in a rush of pent up tension. "So impatient..."

Sam lets out a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrates through your chest, his lips dragging along the sensitive column of your throat. "Tell me about it," he murmurs, his breath hot against your skin. "But right now? I don't give a shit about anyone else." His hands, large and calloused, slide upward from your thighs to cup your face, forcing you to meet his gaze. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide with a hunger that makes your stomach flip.

The impatience you feel isn't just about the external chaos; it's the way your own body is demanding satisfaction, aching for the friction of him. Sam seems to read you perfectly. The fbi agent who was sharing drinks with you moments ago has been replaced by something far more primal. He nips at your earlobe, a sharp sting that sends electricity shooting straight down to your core, before his teeth graze the shell of your ear.

"You want to stop being patient?" he whispers hoarsely, his hips grinding deliberately against yours through the thin barrier of your clothes. "Because I'm done waiting."

The word tears from your throat before you can even think to restrain it, raw and unfiltered. "Fuck yes," you gasp, the words vibrating between you as you arch your back against the window, seeking more of that delicious friction. The sound of your own surrender seems to snap something final in Sam's restraint. The gentle giant of a man who had been listening to your stories is gone, replaced by someone whose movements are suddenly deliberate, heavy, and demanding.

Sam's response is immediate and physical. His hands slide from your face down to your hips, his fingers digging into your skin with enough pressure to leave marks marks you know you'll want to remember tomorrow. He kisses you again, but this time there is no hesitation, no softness. It is a bruising, possessive claim that tastes of whiskey and desperation. You can feel the heat of his breath as he moves to the crook of your neck, his teeth grazing your skin in a way that makes your toes curl against the linoleum floor.

"Good girl," he growls against your pulse point, the praise sending a fresh wave of heat crashing through you. His hands work with surprising efficiency, tugging at your clothes, desperate to remove every barrier between your bodies. The sounds of the hospital the distant squeak of rubber soles, the hum of machinery are nothing compared to the wet slap of skin and the ragged noise of your shared breathing.

As he positions you, your eyes catch the reflection in the darkened window: two silhouettes fused together against the backdrop of the sleeping town. Sam's muscles tense beneath your touch as he prepares to give you exactly what you asked for, his focus entirely consumed by the way you react to him. The world outside, the case, the missing blood samples it all ceases to exist. There is only the pressure of his body, the sting of his teeth, and the overwhelming need to lose yourself in him.

His fingers find you, slick and warm, testing to see if you're ready and when you are, he finally pushes inside, the sensation is so overwhelming you have to bite your own lip to keep from crying out loud enough to alert the entire hospital floor. Sam groans against your neck, a deep, guttural sound that vibrates through your entire frame as he settles between your thighs. He doesn't hold back; his movements are steady, powerful, and relentless, each thrust driving you harder against the glass until the window rattles faintly in its frame.

"Look at me," he pants, his voice strained with the effort of maintaining control. When you open your eyes, you find his gaze locked onto yours, intense and unblinking. He wants to see every flicker of pleasure, every moment of surrender written across your face. His hands slide up to grip yours, pinning them against the glass beside your head, forcing you to feel the full force of his strength as he picks up the pace.

The friction builds to an unbearable crescendo, a building storm of sensation that makes your vision blur. Sam's breathing becomes erratic, his teeth finding the sensitive skin where your shoulder meets your neck, nipping hard enough to make you whimper. That sharp sting only fuels the fire, sending you spiraling toward the edge. When the climax finally crashes over you, it's violent and all consuming, leaving you gasping for air as your muscles spasm around him. Seconds later, Sam follows, his body tensing as he buries his face in your hair, letting out a long, shuddering exhale as he spills into you, completely undone by the raw intensity of the moment.

The aftermath leaves you both panting, your foreheads pressed together as the adrenaline slowly ebbs away, leaving behind a pleasant, heavy ache. Sam doesn't pull away immediately; instead, he holds you close, his heartbeat thudding against your own in a steady, grounding rhythm. The cool air of the office seeps back in, but you barely feel it against your flushed skin.

"Fuck," Sam breathes out, a rough laugh escaping him as he finally unwinds from you. His usual composure is nowhere to be found his hair is a mess, his lips are swollen, and there's a dazed, satisfied look in his eyes that makes your heart flutter. "I think I owe you an apology for that... but I'm not sorry."

He steps back just enough to gather your discarded clothes, his movements surprisingly tender now that the storm has passed. The transformation back to the gentle Sam is almost jarring, but the way he glances at you with genuine warmth and a hint of something deeper tells you he hasn't forgotten the fire that just burned between you. He helps you dress, his fingers lingering on your waist as he tucks a stray strand of dark brown hair behind your ear.

"You okay?" he asks softly, his voice returning to that soothing register. "I didn't... I didn't go too rough, did I?" His concern is genuine, that empathic nature resurfacing as he searches your brown eyes for any sign of discomfort. You nod but before you can even answer with words, his phone buzzes on the desk again Dean, undoubtedly. Sam glances at it, then back at you, a small, crooked smile playing on his lips. "That's my cue."