Zosius *ੈ✩‧₊˚

Nights spent pacing the garden of Smurf’s house, bare feet on the cold ground, counting his steps to keep his mind occupied. It never did. He tried to outrun the memories of his actions, to drown his pain at the bottom of the pool. But on those nights, his torment wore the faces of his ghosts.

First there was Julia, then Cath, quickly followed by Baz. And Smurf. Always Smurf. A cycle of misery that makes his ribcage feel as though it might collapse under the violent pounding of his heart.

Some days, seated at a table with his family, Andrew had felt he could scream until his throat gave out, and no one would have heard. He imagined falling into the pool, slipping under the surface, water closing over his head and staying there, lungs burning just long enough for the noise to finally fucking stop, no one coming to pull him out because nobody would have noticed he disappeared.

There were moments when the thought settled heavy in his bones: he would not survive another day in his family, he didn’t want to. He kept straining toward a bond that no longer reached his end…if it ever did.

Over the years, Andrew had grown accustomed to his role. Weird Pope, Creepy Pope, the family’s guard dog: asking for nothing, obeying to the beatings, the killings and never, never, mentioning the ghosts hunting the corner of his eyes each night.

He remembered Smurf’s voice, years ago. “Pop him a few pills and he’ll follow your commands, baby.” She said it to Baz like it was nothing, like he was nothing. This was before prison, before Andrew felt deep in his bones that the other half of his soul left this merciless Earth without him.

Sometimes he let himself think about Julia, since no one else did. He hoped that at least one of them had finally found peace.

Then, you happened.

And Andrew can’t make sense of it, no matter how much he turns it over in his head, how a girl like you ends up being friends with Craig and therefore, near the Cody brothers: you are sweet, kind, nothing but soft edges, and innocent. Almost like the world has spared you the knowledge of what men like him are capable of.

Whenever you are in the house, his gaze follows you from room to room. He tells himself that it’s vigilance and habit that pushes him to act like that. Except he doesn’t need to memorize the way you tuck your hair behind your ear, or how he can recognize the distinct sound of your footsteps in a heartbeat.

He learns and catalogues each of your reactions: the faint frown of your nose at the smell of a particular brand of coffee (gone from the house and replaced before sunset), the soft curl of your lips whenever you are kindly refusing his offer to make you a sandwich.

(He wouldn’t be bothered if you took a bite of his.)

To see you is a special kind of hell and an indescribable heaven, like pressing on a bruise just to make sure it still hurts.

Lately, you shift the air of the house by simply existing in it. Your laugh, in the rooms where Smurf had once lived, seems to almost cleanse the walls of her memory.  And Andrew knows. He knows that’s why Craig is friends with you. Because each day, the sun seems to finally be able to reach the house, even his own room.

It frightens him.

His body instinctively adjusts around your presence, his mind reassessing new rules (the glasses on the bottom shelf so you can have access to them, checking how many drinks you have at Deran’s bar). He memorizes your schedule, notes which books you are bringing with you in your bag, times how long it takes you to get home, parks far enough that you can’t notice his truck but close enough that he can reach you if something goes wrong.

All his life, Andrew had survived by wanting nothing. By hollowing himself out until the obedience Smurf wanted from him fitted neatly inside his ribs, because wanting had always been a liability, a weakness someone could press a knife into.

But now…now that life seems finally good and breathable, that he has the skatepark and his siblings and an almost regular life (if one exists for men like him) without Smurf’s claws on his throat, Andrew finds himself cornered by a simple, terrifying truth: he wants you.

He swallows it. Buries it deep inside, trying to drown it with numbness and even more repetitive actions when you are near: chopping, tidying the house, scrubbing counters that are already clean, fixing hinges that doesn’t squeak… Anything to keep his hands busy so they don’t reach for you.

No, Andrew Cody has never been able to sleep properly.

──────────

You remember telling yourself that the house felt wrong before you ever understood why.

Craig had asked you to come meet his brothers and from his tone alone, you knew it was a big deal. That something was at stake.

You showed up at four sharp, even if he hadn’t given you a specific time (something you would soon realize was typical of Craig), a paper bag pressed to your chest, palms already sweaty. You stood outside for a full minute before knocking, taking a few deep breaths, and stepping over the threshold with a smile as he wrapped you in a hug with his tall frame before dragging you straight into the kitchen.

That’s when you saw him.

Broad shoulders, dark curls on a face held tight, back straight and hands braced on his thighs, his posture so still you almost thought he was a mannequin.

“My brother Pope,” Craig said. “Don’t mind him, he almost doesn’t bite.”

His gaze was already on you, unblinking, steady in a quiet unnerving way, like he was committing every detail to memory, a look so intense it coaxed words out of you before you could stop them.

“H-Hi,” you stuttered, giving your name as you tried to stay composed. You extended your hand toward him, and he stared at it for a moment. The pause stretched long enough for doubt to creep up your spine (maybe he didn’t shake hands? maybe you had already broken some invisible rule?).

You swallowed, blood rising to your cheeks, drawing your hand back to clutch the paper bag as you tried not to stammer on your words. “I brought pastries. I didn’t know what you all would like so…I kind of…guessed,” you hated how small your voice sounded.

He stayed silent, brows faintly furrowed, as if he was processing what you had just said. Then he nodded. “Thank you.”

His tone was quiet, almost a hum, pulled from the depth of his chest, the sound settling low in your stomach, warm and heavy, and your first thought (unwelcome and strange) was how that vibration would feel beneath your palm.

Craig sighed with desperation at the conversation with a quiet “Stop being weird, bro!” while his other younger brother, unbothered, simply ignored the awkwardness, nodded as an introduction and handed beers around.

It was a welcome distraction, the cold liquid sliding down your throat, and buying you time to think on what to say next, but the youngest, Deran, beat you to it, asking you about your job and how good a surfer you were.

“You fuckin’ with me? You live in Oceanside and can’t stand on a board?” he laughed and couldn’t stop the slight condescending tone from his voice. “No worry, me or mister El Craigo here will introduce you to it. You’ll only swallow, like…a gallon of water before you get it.”

“Oh, um…I don’t think…”  you tried to say, though it was mostly ignored.

Pope hadn’t looked away once, hand gripping tightly enough on the beer that you could see his knuckles whitening. There was something careful about the way he held himself: still, contained.

Your eyes met his again and you smiled tentatively.

“Um…Pope,” you started, uncertain, the name tasting strange on your tongue. “Can I ask you…”

“Andrew.” He interrupted, the tone firm enough to stop you mid-breath.

You suddenly became aware of your heartbeat, your chest lifting as it rattled against your ribs. Your gaze dropped at the intensity. Had you done something wrong? You suddenly felt foolish for the pastries, for the outstretched hand, for trying so hard, and an absurd urge to apologize rose in your throat, even if you didn’t know what for.

When you looked up, he was already halfway out of the kitchen.

You never finished your question.

Later that night, when you slipped into your bed, the sheets cold but familiar in their welcoming loneliness, you turned from one side to the other, eyes pinched shut without any release to exhaustion, realizing that you couldn’t remember what you had meant to ask.

Only that you wanted to hear his voice, just one more time.

──────────

The house is too loud. It always is when there are people over.

It reminds him of being a kid, hiding with Julia, hands intertwined, avoiding the drunk and high grown-ups. Whispering that everything would be alright. That no one would find them. Not even Smu-

(Bad thought. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the dents on the kitchen counter.)

The volume of the music is pushed too high for his comfort, a constant buzz under the conversations in the house and near the pool while Andrew stands in the kitchen, hands deep in soapy water, scrubbing a glass that is already clean.

He finished the dishes ten minutes ago, but he is still washing, still drying, rearranging things that don’t need rearranging because it gives him somewhere to put his hands, to put his eyes. Because the alternative is the living room. And you.

(You, in that white dress. He has the stupid thought that you look like an angel and immediately hates himself for it. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the droplets dripping from his fingertips.)

He tells himself that he is staying in the kitchen because it lets him see everything in the house, because parties mean unlocked doors, strangers who could wander into rooms they shouldn’t be in. And there are the habits he can’t shake off: watching the exits, the unfamiliar faces, counting heads (Deran, Craig, you), noting who is drinking too much, who is getting loud, who might break something.

He dries the same plate twice in a row before setting it down on the kitchen counter and looking up without meaning to.

You are by the couch, perched on the armrest while Craig, bare chest and shameless about it, tells you the story about the time he smuggled a burrito full of drugs across the Mexico border, story he knew you heard a dozen times these past three months. But still, you are laughing, head tipped back, hair falling down your spine (he wonders what they would feel like underneath his fingertips), one hand wrapped around a bottle you haven’t drunk from in a while, like it has more to do with keeping your hands busy while you are listening.

Andrew noticed it the first week he met you.

But the moment your lips wrap around the drink, he looks away and goes back to washing clean and dried plates, hands in the ice water, soap stinging the small cut on his knuckle.

(Good. Something sharp. Something real. Better than counting for now.)

“I bought you a new pair of gloves.”

Your voice is closer than he expected and his head snaps towards you before he can stop it. You are standing at the edge of the counter, smiling, so close that he can smell your shampoo despite the soap and the lingering smell of weed (it’s so clean, so soft, he wants to drown himself in it).

 “Why?” He asks, his nostrils flaring at his own bluntness.

You shrug, small. “I know Craig threw your pair away yesterday. And, um… I know you like wearing them when you clean.”

“Why?” his voice repeats, breaking at the word.

Of course, you ignore his question, and he can’t help but spiral (why did you do that? do you realize how much the gesture is affecting him? no one ever cared about his gloves. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the freckles on your nose.).

“I got the good ones,” you add, beaming. “So the soap doesn’t mess up your hands.”

While your eyes drop to his hands, his are still enraptured on your face, studying every single feature (you really do look like an angel. and you act like one too. maybe you are his salvation. stop, he needs to fucking stop but he no longer knows what to count.).

Andrew swallows what feels like an anchor in his throat because you look like you worry about him (you have done that for a while now, which still baffles him). Nobody worries about him: they worry about what he might do, not whether he is hurt.

“’m fine.” He mutters, not convincingly enough, judging by the look on your face.

You are still looking at his bruised hands and your fingers twitch on the counter like you had the sudden urge to reach for him, like you might take his hand to look at it.

(He has the overwhelming need to know what you would do with his hands in yours. Hold them? Kiss them better? One. Two. Three- would you let his hands run along your hair? He knows what it’s like to touch you when you need help, but he feels that this would be very different.)

“They are under the sink,” you say above the music and Andrew can’t do anything else but stare, not trusting his own voice.

You linger for a moment at the counter and Andrew wants to ask you to stay (in the kitchen, in his life, doesn’t matter), but Craig shouts your name from the living room and suddenly he has some homicidal thoughts. You glance over your shoulder, then back at Andrew, and you look…reluctant.

“I’ll…”

“Yeah.”

You don’t move. Neither does he.

“Thanks.” He finally says, his gaze still tracking every shift of your expressions, trying to burn your smile in his retina, hoping one blink would not be enough to erase it.

“Of course, Andrew.”

Andrew. For you, he is Andrew and that’s all that matters because you are the only one calling him by this name and you make it sound like it belongs to you ever since you first said it by the pool.

With one last little smile, you walk away and his eyes follow you until he knows you have reached Craig but even then, he doesn’t look away, afraid you might disappear, just like every good thing always did.

And Andrew learned, a long time ago, that if you wanted something to stay alive and safe, you watched it. Guarded it. Didn’t blink.

Andrew didn’t blink.

──────────

You stepped outside because the house had started to feel too small, suffocating all at once, Craig and Deran’s voices stacking over each other in the open kitchen, arguing about a job - a part of the Cody brothers’ lives you knew existed but mostly chose not to look at too closely.

You told yourself you only needed a second of quiet, just enough space to breathe properly again after a long day at work full of aggravating customers, meager tips and a coffee spilt by a coworker on your bare legs.

The noise softened once the door closed, letting you draw in a deep breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“Fucking hell.” You muttered, exhausted by the shouting.

You hadn’t noticed him at first, too busy staring at the pool and ignoring your inner voice telling you to jump straight in the pool fully clothed, a thought that you were soon pulled out of when you heard a sound that didn’t belong to the wind or the trees.

That’s when you saw him, seated at the edge of a lounge chair, head bowed, a skateboard turned upside down across his thighs, one hand spinning a wheel while the other oiled it with slow, precise movements.

“Not a fan of the shouting matches?” you asked, trying not to startle him.

He glanced up, shook his head before going back to the board. “No.”

“So…not keen on loud noises either?”

“No.”

For a moment, you simply watched him, struck by how different he looked when he was doing something he seemed to…enjoy. Less folded into himself, the usual tightness of his posture easing (was it because of the board? the sound of the pool? the absence of his brothers? whatever it is, the view looked precious enough for you to want to capture it).

You lowered yourself onto the warm concrete next to him, your back resting against the lounge chair, knees pulled to your chest, neither of you speaking for a while.

That’s when you noticed his hands: knuckles swollen and red, the skin split near the thumb, a faint line of blood reopening every time the skin stretched.

“They look like they hurt. Y-Your hands, I mean.”

He shrugged without looking at you. “They’re fine.”

Your eyes drifted from them to his profile: from his hazel eyes fully focused on the board to the tight set of his mouth and you caught yourself distracted by his lips for a second too long before forcing your eyes back to the floor, warmth creeping up your neck (don’t think about that, don’t think about that).

“Andrew?”

The wheel immediately stopped spinning. Not gradually, just…stopped.

The entire yard suddenly became too quiet as his face snapped towards you, something unreadable flickering across his face and vanishing just as quickly, and you felt the realization settle in slowly that you had finally said his name after almost a month of avoiding it.

“Do you think I could learn how to skateboard? I…” the words got stuck between your throat and your lips while you searched for the courage to finish your sentence without tripping over yourself. “I mean…I wanted to know if you could help me. Learn it, I mean. If you wanted to. You don’t have to, I just…” (fuck. why? why were you so weird?)

Your fingers picked at the hem of your skirt and pulled on a thread to busy your hands, and from the corner of your vision you caught his brief smile, and the warmth that spread was so shamefully immediate that you bit your tongue until you tasted metal just to keep from blurting out something along the lines of ‘i really, really, fucking love your smile, please do it again so my day goes from moderately shitty to embarrassingly close to perfection.’

“Give me your phone.” he said, and you didn’t hesitate, fishing it out from your pocket, and placing it in his palm.

“There’s no password on your phone.”

“Yeah…I know.”

“It’s dangerous.” His thumb hovered over the screen, nose flaring. “Anyone could get into it. Your photos. Your messages. Your address. Everything is in there.”

You barely heard the end of it, too focused on the pull in your chest as his words kept coming, just for you.

“I haven’t thought about that.” You murmured, feeling foolish while he muttered to himself something that definitely sounded like ‘I did.’

He tapped his number in before going through the settings while you were still struck by his intensity and that he was doing this for you without being asked.

“Six digits. Not birthdates and not something simple like six zeros.” He handed your phone back, his fingers lingering for a second too long before pulling away. “Put one.”

This time you knew it was an order and you didn’t hesitate a second as you followed it, typing something in, suddenly hyperaware of how close he was standing, your shoulder almost brushing his calf, your pulse loud in your ears and a slow, humiliating heat pooling low in your stomach that you refused to think about at the moment.

“Good.” He said after you saved the password. “Text me your work hours.”

“So, it’s a yes? Really?”

He grunted and whether the dusting of crimson over his freckles was real or something you imagined, you couldn’t tell, you were too busy feeling as light as a leaf.

“Yes. And…”

His words were cut off by the screen door banging open, leaning back abruptly just as Craig made his way toward you both with a grin that meant whatever the fight with Deran had been about, he had won.

“Deran agrees for Friday night. And you,” he tapped your forehead. “didn’t hear shit.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s my girl. Now get your ass in the pool.”

Craig was already running to the pool before you could respond, clothes coming off mid-step.

“I can’t believe this man has a kid. Has you brother always been a shameless nudist?”

 “Unfortunately…yes.”

You snorted before murmuring. “Thanks, by the way. For the password thing. And for agreeing to teach me. I promise I’ll only be like…average terrible.”

“You’ll be fine,” he shrugged. Then, quieter, “I’ll make sure.”

His gaze dipped briefly to your mouth when he said it, before snapping back up, and something in your stomach turned warm and gooey, a reckless part of you hoping he might add something else. Or step closer again. But he didn’t, just nodded once, before muttering. “Go.”

“Okay, I’ll leave you to your board, Andrew.”

You made it halfway to the pool before you glanced back. He was still watching, not even pretending not to, looking like a leopard ready to jump. Like if you slipped, he would already be moving.

And lying awake that night, window cracked open and the ocean humming somewhere in the dark, you muffled his name into your pillow, trying to quiet yourself, imagining his hands instead of yours. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.

──────────

Andrew is used to ending his nights alone because wanting people to stay never goes well for him.

So, when the party finally ends at four in the morning, he does what he knows best: throwing the bottles into the trash, making sure no one is passed out in the backyard or asleep in one of the bedrooms and…cleaning.

First the diving board, even if Craig is still making out on one of the lounge chairs with a girl whose name Andrew can’t remember and doesn’t try to (he knows best). Next, the counter, twice in a row for good measure. Then the sink, while Deran claps a hand on his shoulder with a “Don’t stay up too late, okay?” before heading out.

(One. Two. Three. Four. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. He counts the second you spend in the bathroom.)

He stands in the kitchen for a moment before realizing it might look strange and make you uncomfortable. That’s the last thing he wants.

He rushes back to his room (he wouldn’t exactly call it ‘sprinting’. sprinting would mean he is trying to avoid you. which he is not. not at all.).

He doesn’t bother turning on the light when he decides to lie on top of the covers, fully dressed, staring at the ceiling because he knows that sleep won’t come. It never does.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the cracks.)

Every time he closes his eyes, something crawls up from beneath his ribs and he is once again plagued by his ghost: Julia’s voice, Cath’s smile, Baz’s forgiveness. Smurf’s words cutting straight through him.

He thinks about the pool and how easy it would be to let the water close over his head. How all the voices would finally be silent forever, his own included.

(Bad thoughts. One. Two. Three. Four. He recites the number of cameras in the bank for the incoming job.)

He forces himself to think of something else.

Of you, earlier, laughing at Craig’s story (and the immediate, unwelcome ache in his chest as he wonders if there’s something between the two of you, if this will end the way things always seem to, if you’ll be another Cath: close to him before preferring his brother).

Then he thinks about the way he made you laugh on your first skateboard lesson, all because he wanted to make you feel safe and seen, how the simple feel of your waist had nearly made him press his forehead to your shoulder and beg for you to stay and keep looking at him like that.

He thinks about that night when you called him for help, and how he didn’t hesitate for even a second when reaching for his keys, truck already running before you even finished explaining because the simple thought of you alone somewhere in the dark, waiting and frightened, had felt like acid running through his veins, the kind of fear that made him beg to the sky “Not here, not her, not again. I won’t fail her”.  

He presses his palms against his eyes until he sees bursts of purple light.

(Breathe. One. Tw-)

A faint knock against the door makes him freeze.

Nobody knocks in this house, his brothers just…barge in.

He is already on his feet before he realizes it, his hand finding the handle before he opens to find you there.

Barefoot, hair loose and messy, the mascara smudged at the corners of your eyes and the dress wrinkled. Earlier, Andrew thought you looked like an ethereal angel, something untouchable and holy.

But now…now you just look human, real and warm, which is worse because real things like you can stay as well as leave.

“Hey.” You murmur, leaning against the doorframe.

He grips the handle tightly to steady himself.

“Something wrong?”

“I was supposed to sleep on the couch,” you begin, talking with your hands the way you always do when you try to explain a situation, “but signor El Craigo has decided that it’s now his new make out spot with Sam and I really don’t need that image burned into my brain. And of course, I thought about taking his room in retaliation, but I don’t trust his conception of hygiene,”

That makes him huff.

“So…” you add, rubbing your arm, almost shy which doesn’t make sense in his mind because you haven’t been shy with him in a long time with the skatepark lessons or with the ‘hallway accident’ you both had together, “Can I stay here tonight?”

You don’t say ‘with you’ nor ‘in your bed’, but Andrew understands and he is pretty sure his brain short circuits for a second or two.

You didn’t text Deran or try to Uber home. You just came to him. Because you trusted him.

“Yes.” He replies too fast, stepping back from the door.

“You sure?”

He nods to avoid confessing that he would give you the bed. The room. The house. The air in his lungs.

You slip past him into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed before looking back at him and asking gently, “You’re not sleeping, right?”.

“No. Not…not really.”

“Yeah, figured.”

You lie down beneath the covers first, curling onto the side of the bed closest to the wall, leaving him space.

“Don’t think about staying on top of the covers, Andrew.”

The warning in your tone almost makes him laugh so he complies, lying down beside you, fully clothed and aware of every inch separating the two of you.

He stares at the ceiling again.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your breathing.)

The mattress shifts while you slowly roll onto your back before turning fully toward him, your shoulder brushing his arm.

“Sorry,” you mumble sleepily. “’m cold.”

“It’s fine.” He says it like the ghost of your breathing over his collarbone didn’t just set every of his nerves on fire, like he was not terrified to shift even an inch.

After a few minutes, you drift closer in your sleep, chasing warmth without thinking, your knee pressing against his thigh, your hand sliding across the sheets until your fingers come to rest on the fabric of his shirt, right over his heartbeat and for a moment he genuinely forgets how to breathe.

Your palm is so warm, and he is painfully aware that you can probably feel how hard his heart is pounding.

Nobody has ever touched him like this, like he is something safe and out of everything that has happened to him: the underground fights, the prison, the jobs…none of that ever made him feel this defenseless.

His eyes suddenly burn because he wants to turn so much to see your peaceful face, tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, pull you closer to know just once in his life what it’s like to hold something good without destroying it, to press his face into your hair and breathe until the ghosts quiet down, but he doesn’t.

He stays exactly as he is, lying in the dark, eyes wide open, staring at nothing.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your breaths again. Then the seconds between them. He thinks about the fact that you’re here and the miracle of it.)

Sleep doesn’t come, but for the first time in years, the night doesn’t feel empty. Because you’re here. Warm. Alive. Trusting him.

So, Andrew stays awake until morning, guarding the only good thing that ever chose him.

──────────

You were so, so late.

You had told Andrew on the phone that you would be at his skatepark at 5:15 sharp after work, and it was now 5:42 and you were sprinting the half mile that separated the coffee shop from there, bag smacking against your hip, your lungs burning, already sweaty before you even reached the entrance, trying to slow your breathing with a few useless deep inhales, hands braced on your knees, pretending that you were not seconds away from passing out.

(First lesson and you were already late and a disaster. Great. Very impressive.)

You straightened, wiped your forehead, and stepped inside, scanning the park before finding Andrew, board tucked under one arm, sleeves riding up his biceps, curls messy from the wind and sweat and you were now positively sure that you had some drool at the corner of your mouth (the universe had decided to sabotage you and that was fucking unfair.)

You watched the tiny smile he had as a girl showed him her board, proud and beaming at him like he had personally hung the sun in the sky (no, you didn’t need to think about him being good with kids. you didn’t need to picture him with kids, him gentle, him…stop. shut up.).

The second his head lifted and locked eyes with you, you were pretty much done for. It was ridiculous, really, how one look from him could short-circuit every coherent thought in your brain, how your feet just…moved, carrying you toward him instinctively, dropping your bag by the fence without breaking your stride as he met you halfway.

His gaze dragged over you once: your face, your hair, your chest.

“You ran here?”

“Yes. And I’m sweating…a lot. Please don’t judge me.”

He took a few seconds, a storm passing through his eyes before he added.

“You’re late.”

“I know,” you rushed, your hands quickly moving and your words tumbling over each other like they always did when you got flustered around him. “but a guy ordered for his whole ‘cheaper by the dozen’ family like three minutes before we closed. I’m probably sure he sensed my despair and fed on it.”

A small huff escaped him. “You didn’t have to run.”

You shrugged, eyes to the ground. “Didn’t want you to think I bailed on you.”

You felt it, his head tilting down just enough to catch your gaze again, stubborn about it.

“I wouldn’t. Now you ready?”

“Born ready.” You lied through your teeth.

“You look terrified.”

“I can do both, you know,” you shot back quickly. “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

There was the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Okay, Whitman.”

“Y-You know Whitman?”

A pause.

“I mean…not that I don’t believe you or think you can’t read poetry or anything…that’s actually super hot, so good job!” you gave him a thumbs-up, aware you had just lost every ounce of dignity you had ever possessed. “It’s just that last week Craig asked me if ‘Pride and Peace’ was a good book to impress a girl, so…my bar was very low.”

Andrew stared at you for a moment. “Pride and Peace.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not…”

“I know, I know. But don’t worry, I did a good deed for society and told him not to mention any book ever. You and Deran are safe from now on. You’re welcome.”

And there it was again: that quiet amusement on his lips, the roll of his eyes like he couldn’t help himself, making you feel the stupid and dangerous need to continue to jest (keep talking, say anything, make him do it again).

He shook his head once. “C’mon Whitman. Let’s see what you got.”

You trailed after him without thinking and the first few attempts were…humiliating to say the least: your balance was nonexistent, your feet refused to cooperate, your arms stood uselessly at your sides, and you had absolutely no idea where you were supposed to look while Andrew hovered nearby like he was ready to intervene at any moment.

“I look stupid!” you complained.

“You’re fine.”

“I’m not fine! This is deeply humiliating. I can barely stay upright and there are twelve-year-olds doing tricks behind me! Tricks, Andrew!”

“You’re doing good.”

“I almost died.”

“You didn’t.”

“Socially, I assure you I did.”

Your heart did a stupid little skip when a tiny, amused sound escaped him.

(You could bottle that sound and live off it. You were now pretty sure you would commit crimes for it.)

“Makes sense you’re friends with Craig,” he muttered. “Dramatic.”

You gasped, unable to contain your grin. “Excuse you mister Cody, but I am layered! I am complex!”

He looked unimpressed and repeated “Dramatic.”

You opened your mouth to argue before your foot slipped, the board shooting forward, and for one horrible second you thought that worse than falling off in front of children was falling off in front of the guy you had a crush on.

But you never got to know the feeling before his hands were suddenly there, at your waist, catching you fast and steadying you while you became acutely aware of every nerve under his palms, of his thumbs grazing your hipbones, of his breath brushing your cheek as heat pooled between your legs.

He moved behind your back, still holding your waist before murmuring “Don’t lean and bend your knees.”

(You were starting to suspect he was fucking with you on purpose.)

But still, he adjusted you gently, palms rotating your hips and guiding your stance before kneeling to help place your legs on the board and you couldn’t stop yourself from blurting:

“I haven’t shaved my legs. Sorry.”

“Me neither.” He huffed, his breath warm on your calf and the faintest hint of amusement threading through his voice.

(Was that…a joke? Was he joking? Since when was he doing that? You liked that. You wanted that.)

Andrew pushed himself back on his feet, stepping away just enough for you to feel the sudden absence of his body, leaving you oddly cold, like you had stepped out of the sunlight.

“Try again.”

You nodded, realizing that his joke had somehow shaken the worst of your nerves away, before pushing off, your knees bent like he had shown you, your weight centered and the board rolled.

“Oh my God, I’m doing it! Andrew, I’m really doing it!” you exclaimed happily.

“You are.”

You risked a glance over your shoulder, and he was watching you with his usual careful intensity, hands half-raised and prepared to catch you, like protecting you was the only thing on his list right now.

So (naturally), you did the dumbest thing possible and tested him. Just a little bit. Just to know.

You leaned and let your weight tip forward just enough to know if…

His hands immediately caught you, his hands on your ribs, scanning up and down if you had been hurt, “You okay?”

You swallowed, realizing that you had never doubted a second he would be there. And that settled something warm and terrifying in your chest.

It was not a silly crush, not your friend’s brother that you thought was hot and interesting, no. It was falling. Headfirst, no parachute.

And judging by the way his hands hadn’t moved from your waist yet, you weren’t entirely sure he wasn’t falling a little too.

──────────

You are screaming and he is too late.

He is always too late.

Your voice breaks into something small and terrified, the kind of sound that doesn’t even feel human anymore, and he is running but his legs don’t cooperate, move in slow-motion, the floor stretching longer and longer beneath him and the house smells like chlorine, metal and something sour he recognizes too fast.

You’re in the pool, face down and the water is red. And you are so, so still. He tries to move, to drag you out, but he can’t.

You turn toward him, eyes open and your mouth spilling blood.

“You were supposed to be there, Andrew. Why weren’t you there?”

He jerks awake, his whole body snapping upright while air refuses to enter his lungs, a pain in his ribcage so intense he thinks it might split him open from the inside out.

He doesn’t understand why at first: why his pillow feels cold and damp to the touch, why his throat burns, until he drags a shaky hand across his face and touches something wet, the realization feeling nauseating.

He has been crying in his sleep for God knows how long.

He presses his palms hard into his eyes like maybe the pain will help him, like maybe if he suffers enough the images will disappear. That you won’t be floating face down in the pool, covered in blood, your blood, your voice joining all the others, the same disappointed tone he’s memorized over the years with his ghosts.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He tries to count but it doesn’t work.)

The house is quiet for once, too quiet, and Andrew has this awful, crawling sensation lodged under his sternum, something cold and irrational that he can’t help but spiral into.

(What if…No.)

He is already moving, because lying back down would mean closing his eyes again and he can’t, he fucking can’t risk seeing you like that again, can’t hear the sound of your voice pleading and begging for him to save you when you are already gone, can’t add you to the long list of ghosts that wait for him every night.

Halfway down the hall, he gets as quiet as he can manage, moving through the house like he is on a job, because it feels the same: this sick, urgent need to verify something, to be sure that you are here, that you are safe.

The living room is glowing faintly blue before he even steps in, the light spilling on the floor and he hears it: a narrator speaking about sharks and the distant sound of recorded waves.

You always pick sea life documentaries when you stay over.

He doesn’t know when you figured out he liked them.

He stops at the threshold and sees you: curled on the couch, hidden beneath a blanket and alive.

(Your chest rises. Then falls. Rises. Falls. You’re not floating. You’re not gone.)

His lungs finally unlock and he breathes sharply, the sound loud enough that you look up immediately, like you sensed him there, like you are now tuned to him in a way he doesn’t understand, and your expression softens the second you see his face.

“Hey,” you say, voice thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”

He nods automatically but knows that he can’t bullshit you.

“You don’t look okay.”

“I’m fine,” he manages, but the words come out wrecked and dragged through his throat.

Your eyes examine him slowly and it clicks behind them. “Nightmare?”

(Oh, he hates this word. Hates how small it makes him feel. Hates how childish it sounds. Hates how accurate it is.)

His jaw locks so hard it aches and he can’t force out anything more than a stiff, miserable nod, his nails digging crescent moons in his palms as he braces himself for questions, for having to justify why he is standing there at three in the morning, shaking over a bad dream. But you don’t push.

You just scrub a hand over your tired face before moving your legs and lifting the blanket, creating space beside you.

“Come here.” You mumble, looking at him, patient.

He crosses the room slowly, the couch dipping under his weight as he lowers himself beside you, hyperaware of every inch of distance, of your arm brushing his, of the warmth bleeding through the thin fabric of your shirt, of how close your knee is to his thigh and how easy it would be to accidentally touch.

Your hand bumps his and even if he should pull away, he doesn’t. The contact is small, just skin against skin but for Andrew, it’s the closest to heaven he’s ever been.

Your fingers linger, uncertain, like you’re giving him time to decide, like he is allowed to decide. His thumb moves before he can stop it, brushing lightly over your knuckles, slowly, reverently, like he needs to make sure you are solid and not a trick of his mind. You feel warmer than him.

(Alive warm. Not water cold. Not bloody and floating. Not like in the pool.)

The memory hits so hard it hurts.

He jerks his hand back abruptly, his breathing going wrong again, shame creeping hot and fast because for a moment he wanted something and asked for it, letting the walls go down.

But you don’t comment, don’t tease and don’t pull away in response to his neediness and instead, you shift closer and you help settling the blanket over both of you, your arm following, tugging him in gently, like there has never been a version of this world where he wasn’t permitted to be here.

He stiffens when your hand finds the back of his neck and he wants to reassure you that it’s not because he wants it to stop but because he wants it too much, and he doesn’t deserve it. But your fingers brush his scalp, and suddenly he is nothing but starving for it, leaning toward it instinctively.

You guide him down gently, so gently and he can’t win this fight tonight, his ear pressing against your chest.

(Your heartbeat. Steady. There. One. Two. Three. Four. It’s there. You’re alive.)

The documentary keeps whispering about tides and sharks, but he barely hears it now because all he can focus on is the rhythm under his cheek and the way your fingers keep caressing his curls in slow strokes like you were calming a frightened wild animal.

He wants to move. To slide his arm around your waist. To press his face into your shirt and breathe you. To hold you tight enough so nothing could ever take you away.

But he stays still, terrified of ruining it and breaking something with the weight of his want.

Your fingers drift lower to cradle the back of his head while your other arm tightens around him and pull him fully into you, closing the remaining space between your two bodies. His relief is immediate and overwhelming, pulling a whimper out of him, emptying him of his thoughts.

His chest caves inward on a shaky exhale, his hand finally moving hesitantly until it rests lightly on your waist, barely touching and giving you room to pull away if you want to, but you don’t. You tuck him closer, your chin brushing his hair.

 “I’ve got you. You’re okay, Andrew, I promise. I’m here.”

The words land deep and it takes him a moment to realize he is sobbing in your arms, the tears soaking your shirt while he presses his forehead closer to your chest, just to confirm that the heartbeat under him is real.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your heart now.)

“Shh…It’s going to be okay, Andrew.”

The storm in his head – the ghosts, the pool, your voice – slowly quiets for the first time all night, dissolving under the simple, undeniable fact that you are here and breathing under his cheek, speaking to him, comforting him.

And somewhere, between one beat and the next, his body finally gives up the fight, his sobs stop, exhaustion dragging him under gently this time, no drowning, no screaming, just the steady rhythm of you and your quiet voice drifting above him.

“I’m not leaving Andrew.”

He knows that for tonight at least, no nightmare will come at him.

You promised.

──────────

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.”

Craig was the worst and you were absolutely going to kill him. Not even metaphorically, but in the sense where you would pick up the nearest heavy object and aim for his head the next time you saw him, if only you were able to find him right now instead of wandering through a house you didn’t know that smelled aggressively of weed and alcohol.

Deran and Andrew would forgive you, you were sure of it, if you murdered their brother under these circumstances. Hell, they might even help you bury the body. Because you could have had a regular evening at home, watching for the hundredth time Shawshank Redemption but no, you had to be alone in a stranger’s kitchen, trying not to panic.

The party had shifted, you felt it about twenty minutes ago.

It had stopped being loud fun and started being loud wrong when little bags started to be passed around, people disappearing in rooms and coming back with pupils blown wide and white powder on their nostrils.

You had looked for Craig. Texted him. Called. Nothing.

You had found someone who vaguely resembled one of the friends he introduced you to earlier, and when you asked if they had seen him, they laughed and replied something about “upstairs with Renn so it might take a while, Sweetheart,” and you stood there for a second, scared. Really scared.

Because you didn’t know anyone there, not really. And you were now surrounded by idiots who were snorting cocaine.

(Okay. Calm down. Breathe. Don’t cry. It doesn’t help your situation at all.)

A guy you didn’t recognize slid a drink toward you with a grin that lingered too long, and the fact that your very first thought was ‘I wonder if he put something in that’ made your decision for you: you were leaving. Immediately. Whatever Craig was doing upstairs with Renn was officially no longer your problem.

The night air hit your face, making you regret for the lack of jacket.

You stood on a sidewalk for a moment, trying to calculate the distance back to your apartment. You were too far, with no car and a phone at nine percent.

“Craig is dead. He is fucking dead. I will kill him myself,” you muttered under your breath as you started walking anyway, heels dangling in your hand, bare feet against the cold concrete, just to put some distance between you and the house.

But the further you got, the louder your heartbeat became, pounding in your ears, the fear crawling up your spine.

Still, you kept walking, arms wrapped tightly around yourself, repeating ‘You’ll be fine,’ over and over to your brain.

(You were not fine. You were alone. In the middle of the night. Walking barefoot down a street you didn’t know. Why were you like this? Why didn’t you just stay? Why didn’t you drag Craig out by his stupid hair to drive you back home?)

You didn’t want to try to call Craig again and waste your last percentage of battery on someone who would not answer.

And before you could talk yourself out of it, before you could rationalize or be embarrassed…your thumb was already pressing Andrew’s name.

(If you called him, he would come. He wouldn’t hesitate. You knew it.)

The phone only rang once before he picked up.

“Yes?”

That was all it took for you: the sound of his steady and low voice to make something inside your chest collapse, the fragile composure you had been clinging to dissolving instantly as you let out a shaky exhale, thanking all the Gods above for Andrew Cody’s existence.

“Andrew,” you said, your voice betraying you immediately with a crack right through the middle of his name. “I-I’m sorry. It’s late, I know. I just…”

“What happened.”

You swallowed, trying to force the tears to back down. “I’m at this party and…and Craig left. I mean…he is upstairs with Renn doing I don’t know what and he won’t answer me. I left the house because it got weird there and I’m trying to walk home but I think that was a stupid idea and I just…”

(You hated how your voice wobbled. How small it sounded. You should have bought pepper spray.)

“I’m so scared.”

In the background, you could hear keys jangling, a door closing and his truck starting.

“Where are you?”

No ‘why’, no ‘what were you thinking’. Just that.

You gave him the street name and the closest intersection you could see, wiping your face with the back of your hand and trying to steady your breathing so you didn’t sound like you were seconds away from a breakdown.

“I’ll be there in five.”

You let out a weak, disbelieving laugh. “It’s at least ten.”

“Five.”

The line went dead before you could argue, the call cutting off abruptly as your screen went black. Dead battery.

You stared at your reflection for half a second on the dark screen, heart hammering while you counted the seconds in your head, hoping that somehow it would summon him faster.

It took less than three hundred for you to see headlights cut around the corner of the street faster than the required speed limit, relief crashing into you. He didn’t even fully stop before the driver’s door was already swinging open, crossing the distance to you in three long strides, eyes sweeping over you from head to toe then past you to the houses.

“You okay?”

You nodded too quickly and he stared at you, jaw locked so hard you could see the muscles twitching. He looked furious.

“Get in,” he said, opening the passenger door, one hand braced on the roof as he helped you climb up into the seat, taking your shoes to put them in the back seat.

You stayed silent, not wanting to know to whom his anger was directed at. It was only once you were down the street that he finally spoke again, eyes flicking between the road and you.

“Did anyone hurt you?”

You blinked at him. “No.”

“Touch you?”

“No.”

“Follow you?”

You shook your head, watching his knuckles tightening around the steering wheel.

“Say anything to you?”

“Just…offered me stuff,” you admitted quietly, wrapping your arms around yourself again. “But I said no. I would never do that. You know I would not.”

You weren’t sure why you felt the need to add that, why you wanted him to understand that you hadn’t been reckless. That hanging out with Craig didn’t mean being like him. That you wouldn’t caught yourself in drugs. You knew better.

The streetlight caught the side of his face and for a split second you saw something raw there before it slipped behind his mask of control. The silence continued to stretch, heavy.

“Are you angry at me?”

The truck slowed to a stop at a red light, allowing him to turn his head toward you fully, eyes dark and intense in a way that made your whole body pulse in response, not from fear but from the weight of being seen.

“I’m not angry at you,” he said, holding your gaze. “I’m angry you were there alone. Angry that my stupid brother left you. Angry that I wasn’t there sooner. But not at you.”

The light shifted to green, but he didn’t move right away. His eyes remained locked on yours, unblinking, making sure you understood the distinction.

“You call me,” he added quietly. “The second you have a problem, you always call me. Okay?”

You nodded, fingers twisting in the fabric of your dress. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You don’t.”

And there was something in the way he said it, like he was wounded at the idea you thought you might ever be an inconvenience to him, that made you blush.

The truck finally rolled forward, but the air between you felt different, heavier in a way that you’ll only be to shake off with a cold shower.

You watched the way his shoulders remained tense all the way to your home and understood then that he had come because he had been frightened, that the thought of you alone in the dark had unsettled something in him, and that he had needed to fix it.

And the scariest part was that something warm and traitorous inside your chest responded to that.

You liked that he had been scared.

You liked that he came in less than three hundred seconds.

That he didn’t even hesitate when you admitted you were frightened, he simply moved.

And you liked the way he refused to let you walk barefoot to your apartment, carrying you, as if the idea of your skin touching the cold pavement was something he would not allow.

He didn’t put you down immediately. No, he held you all the way from his truck to your doorway, one arm firm beneath your legs and the other steady at your back, your shoes dangling loosely from his fingers, your body tucked close enough to feel his breathing through his shirt, making you aware of how easily you fit there.

When he finally set you down at your threshold, his hands lingered at your waist a second longer than necessary.

“You’ll be good?” he asked quietly, handing you your shoes, your fingers brushing his in the exchange.

You nodded, incapable of trusting your own voice, because if you opened your mouth, you were fairly certain that something reckless would fall out, something dangerously close to ‘stay’ and you were overwhelmed enough by the urge to step over, to reach for him and press your forehead against his chest just to see if his heart was still beating as fast as yours.

He was still staring at you, something unspoken passing like electricity.

“Good night,” he whispered, the softness of it almost undoing you.

“Good night, Andrew.”

You closed your door slowly, pressing your back against it, listening to his boots on the pavement, realizing that he hadn’t moved until he heard the lock click.

Only then did he walk back to his truck.

You would maybe not murder Craig after all.

──────────

Andrew spends the entire day watching for the moment you are going to change your mind and run from him.

And you don’t act differently when you wake up: you drink coffee while humming along to the songs on the radio, trying to coax a laugh out of him, but he keeps waiting for it anyway: the flicker in your eyes that says you’ve seen too much of him now, that holding him while he sobbed was enough to scare you off for good.

He replays the night while you are in the shower. How he cried in your arms. How your fingers combed through his curls. How you held him pressed against your chest. How he let himself need you.

He wonders if he should apologize, or explain, or at least even just…acknowledge that you saw him at his weakest and that he was thankful it was you.

Instead, he washes the dishes twice in a row to calm his brain, avoiding looking directly at your body when you step back into the kitchen in your coffee shop uniform, hair damp.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the dents on his mug.)

You ask him if he is still taking you to the skatepark after your shift, and he wants to say no. The word sits right there on his tongue, ready to spill, because the park means proximity and proximity means touch and desire which always ends with something being taken away from him.

But you smile at him in such an open and easy way, and if it was something you really wanted to do, far be it from him to deny you after last night when you held him like he was something that could be saved, that was worth saving.

So, he nods and the way your whole face lights up makes him think, not for the first time, that he would probably give you anything you asked for.

That is the part of himself that scares him.

And now that he is finally at the skatepark with you on this late afternoon, he knows that he should be tracking your stance and foot placement the way he always does, but today he notices different things about you instead: how you are not pulling away from him, not avoiding him, how you stand close when you talk, lean into his space without hesitation.

And somehow that unsettles him more than distance would have. Because, if you are not afraid of him, if you are not stepping back after seeing what he is like during his worst nights, then what does that mean?

You sway on the board.

He sees it, but his brain is still half-caught in the memory of your heartbeat under his ear, still waiting for the recoil that doesn’t come and by the time his body reacts, you’re already too far from his reach.

You hit the concrete hands first, palms slamming down on instinct before your knees follow, the skin scraping on the ground with a sound that makes his stomach drop. The impact steals the air from your lungs and for a fraction of a second you manage to hold yourself up before your face strikes the ground with a sickening thud.

Andrew is already moving before you even understand what happened, the board rolling behind you while he drops to his knees so fast, he doesn’t register the sting tearing through his own skin, doesn’t feel the way his jeans split at the knee or how his knuckles scratch raw when he catches himself, because none of it matters to him. He is scanning, assessing and cataloguing the damage, forcing his mind to clear before he dares to touch you.

Your palms and knees are damaged through the torn denim, but it’s the blood beginning to run from your eyebrow that makes him feel abruptly cold. It gathers at the edge of your lashes and runs along the curve of your nose, bright red against your skin, and for a second, the world tilts.

(Blood. So much blood. He knows blood. Knows how to stop it. How to clean it. How to stitch it close. Pope is good with blood.)

The thought lands with cold precision, and even if he hates the name, even if it sounds wrong in his own head, he can’t afford to hate the part of himself that steps forward first right now - efficient Pope, steady Pope, the one who does not panic.

“I’ve got you,” he says, and his voice is low, measured, trying to reassure you the way you reassured him last night while he broke apart against your chest, even though his heart is hammering through his ribs.

Your eyes flutter, dazed, before you try to sit up, but he is already there, placing one hand at the back of your neck and the other on your shoulder to help you.

“It’s okay sweetheart, I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs, and there is something almost pleading behind his words that has less to do with your eyebrow and more to do with the memory of the pool and your voice accusing him of being too late.

He swipes his thumb gently beneath the cut to assess its depth, his other hand moving to brace your jaw so you don’t move, and when fresh blood coats the pad of his finger, he feels the familiar switch inside him flips into place.

(His breathing slows. His hands stop shaking. This he understands. This he can control.)

“It’s not deep,” he says after his inspection, even though he knows you’ll need stitches. “You still with me?”

Your hand lifts and finds his wrist, fingers curling around it, and the contact sends something through him that is not adrenaline and not fear but softer that frightens him more because it makes him aware of how much he needs you to be okay.

“I’m fine,” you whisper, though your voice is small.

He shakes his head once, tearing a strip from the hem of his shirt. “Let’s get you home so I can clean this properly, okay? Keep pressure there,” he instructs, guiding your hand back to your eyebrow and pressing it into place.

You nod, and that’s enough for him.

He slides one arm behind your back, his broad palm spanning the length of your shoulder blades, the other slipping beneath your knees to lift you, ignoring the sting of his knees and the sticky blood drying across his knuckles because none of it is important compared to the steady rhythm of your breath brushing his collarbone.

He carries you toward the truck, opening the door and lowering you carefully into the passenger seat, one hand coming up to your jaw, his thumb resting lightly on your cheekbone to make sure your eyes focus on him.

“Stay with me,” he says softly.

Your lips twitch despite the pain. “Bossy.”

He goes to buckle your seatbelt, adjusting the strap and closing the door gently before circling the truck, wiping his bloody hand against his jeans.

While driving back to your apartment, his eyes keep darting to you every few seconds.

“Talk to me,” he says after a moment.

“About what?”

“Anything.”

You take a moment before starting to talk about your day at the coffee shop, just mindless little moments. He doesn’t interrupt, he listens and nods at the right moments. You are grounding him on purpose, he realizes, dragging his thoughts back to something ordinary, something alive.

(You are not in the pool. You are breathing. You are not telling him he failed you. He counts your breaths.)

Inside your place, he works methodically, like he always does when someone comes back from a job hurt and bleeding – controlled, shutting everything else out. He lays out all your medical supplies on your desk with a precise spacing: first gauze then antiseptic, needle, sewing thread…The order is important. Order means control.

 You sit on the edge of your bed, looking at him and continuing the pressure of the piece of his shirt against your eyebrow.

“Alright,” he says quietly, stepping between your knees so he can reach your face properly. “Hold still.”

He cleans your palms first, his concentration absolute because his entire world has narrowed down to the square inch of skin beneath his fingers.

“I should have caught you.”

“It’s not your fault, Andrew. Don’t punish yourself for it, okay? I’m fine, I promise I’m fine.”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t trust himself to.

Instead, he goes silent and returns to the work in front of him, bandaging thoroughly your hands before taking off your pants and doing the same with your knees, making sure everything stays in place.

Finally, he allows himself to look fully at your face again, examining the cut on your eyebrow and tilting your chin upward with two fingers, feeling your breath ghosting on his lips in the small space between you.

“You’re going to need stitches,” he murmurs.

You study him for a second. “You’re very serious about this.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not dying, Andrew.”

“I know.”

“You look at me like I am.”

His jaw tightens and for a moment, he almost says it. Almost tells you that in his head, he’s already seen that version of you, floating and gone, but he swallows it back.

“Hold still,” he says instead.

He cleans the wound carefully by dabbing away the dried blood, and when you flinch, his free hand comes up automatically to steady the side of your head, thumb resting near your temple, not commenting on the way you lean into that touch.

The first puncture makes you inhale sharply.

“Breathe,” he says low, “Just breathe slow for me.”

You obey, focusing on him rather than the pull of the thread, your eyes locking on his face. He works carefully, tying each stitch with precision, trying not to falter at your gaze and even less at the reckless, intrusive thought about pressing his mouth to your brow to undo the wound.

When he finishes, he doesn’t move right away. He studies the line of the sutures, checks for tension, checks for bleeding or anything he might have missed before studying you.

“You’re okay,” he says, trying to convince himself.

You give him a small, tired smile. “I told you. I’m tougher than I look,” you say before your gaze drops, narrowing as you notice what he has been deliberately ignoring. “Andrew.”

“What?”

“You’re bleeding.”

He shrugs, dismissive, trying to pull his hand back so you can’t look too closely. “It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing,” you murmur, reaching for him before he can retreat, your fingers tracing carefully over his knuckles, making him go still. “You can’t patch me up and ignore yourself.”

He swallows, and before he can argue, you’re already reaching for the antiseptic with your bandaged hand, fumbling slightly. He catches the bottle before you drop it, his other hand covering your instinctively.

“You shouldn’t…”

“None of that,” you interrupt, and there is a flicker of stubbornness there that makes his mouth twitch despite himself.

You tug his hand toward you, and this time he lets you clean the scrape on his hands. He doesn’t look at the wound. He looks at you.

At the crease between your brows as you concentrate. At the way your lips press together. At the way you treat his injuries as if they matter. No one ever does.

Your fingers tie the bandage clumsily but securely, and when you finish, you don’t let go right away. Your thumb lingers, stroking slowly over the back of his hand. He is not sure how to breathe. The room feels so much smaller now. Quieter?

You lift your eyes up to him and whisper. “Can you stay? Just for a bit. So…we can check on each other.”

He could tell you it’s starting to get late and he was supposed to meet Deran and Craig for their next job. He could tell you he’ll call you tonight to see how you feel.

But there is nothing in him that wants to leave this room.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I can stay.”

He helps you shift properly onto the bed, careful of your knees. When you lie back against the pillows, you reach for him, fingers curling into the front of his shirt.

It takes him a second of hesitation before lying down beside you, stiff at first, but you roll toward him, your bandaged hands pressing against his chest as you settle close, your head finding the space beneath his chin.

He exhales through his nose before lifting his arms and resting them around you.

After a few minutes of silence, when he thinks you might already be drifting, you murmur. “I like it when you called me sweetheart.”

He presses his mouth lightly into your hair.

“Go to sleep now.”

You nod, your body going slack after a few minutes while he stays wide awake, his hands moving slowly along your spine.

“You scared me,” he whispers into the quiet, once he is sure you’re gone.

His fingers move to brush lightly just above the stitches of your brow.

“I can’t lose you,” he breathes, pressing his forehead gently against yours.

(He counts your breathing. One. Two. Three. Four. Not because he is afraid. But because he simply likes knowing the rhythm.)

When sleep finally comes at him, he knows there won’t be any nightmare.

Because you’re there.

──────────

You did not mean to end up alone with Deran.

In fact, if you were being completely honest with yourself, you had carefully avoided being alone with him since you met, not because he had been hostile to you, but because he seemed to have this unnerving habit of seeing through people and you were not a fan of subjecting yourself to that.

Craig had dragged you to the bar “just for a bit,” (which in Craig language meant ‘indefinitely’) before promptly disappearing with a girl, leaving you at the counter, nursing a soda because you had work in the morning.

Deran was wiping down the bar in front of you.

“El Craigo has already left?” he asked without looking up.

“’Flee’ would be a better word to describe what happened.”

“And so now you’re just…” he gestured vaguely toward you with the cloth, “…miserably contemplating on drowning yourself in your drink?”

“It’s a soda.”

“You know what? That’s so much sadder.”

You exhaled, dragging a hand over your face before saying, “Can I ask you something without you telling Craig?”

That caught his attention immediately, making him glance up.

“Depends how embarrassing it is.”

“It’s not embarrassing,” you protested automatically, then faltered. “Fine. It’s…a little embarrassing.”

“A little?”

“A lot,” you admitted.

He huffed once, almost amused, tossing the cloth over his shoulder. “Fine. What?”

You took a breath, suddenly aware of how absurd this was and how you were feeling like you were sixteen instead of twenty-nine. “It’s…” you cleared your throat. “It’s about Andrew.”

(Fuck. This was so deeply humiliating. But Craig was not an option. He would weaponize the information and never let you live it down.)

Deran blinked once before leaning his forearms on the counter, a smirk spreading on his lips. “Oh, I see.”

You groaned immediately. “Oh, please, can you not react like that? You’re making this worse.”

“I haven’t reacted! I’m just…not quite surprised about this discussion. Come on.” he waved a hand. “What’s your question?”

“It’s just…” you stopped. “I don’t know how to tell if he…”

(Oh my God. You had faced worst things than this. You could finish a sentence.)

Deran tilted his face slightly, with a shit-eating grin that you absolutely hated. “If he…what?”

“If he likes me,” you blurted out in one breath.

The silence fell for exactly two seconds before he let out a short, incredulous laugh.

“You’re fucking with me. Right?”

Your face burned instantly. “Okay, great. Never mind, I’m just gonna dig my gra-”

“Easy tiger. Don’t get your panties in a twist. He’s obsessed with you.”

You stopped, your stomach flipping violently.

“That’s not true.”

“It is deeply true,” Deran replied flatly. “He reorganized the shelves in the kitchen.”

You blinked. “Well…I thought he just liked order.”

“Oh yeah, he does. Trust me, he fucking does. But…not that much.”

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“Surely that doesn’t mean…”

“He drove across town at three in the morning to get you out of a party,” Deran continued, counting off on his fingers now. “He cancels family meetings to go to the skatepark with you. He did his ‘scary stare’ to me the last time I drank in your mug.”

Heat crept up your cheeks as you stammered, throat dry. “B-But he doesn’t…He doesn’t say anything.”

Deran snorted. “Yeah, that’s Andrew.”

“It’s just...sometimes I don’t even know what he’s thinking.”

“Neither do we,” he deadpanned. “Welcome to the family.”

You exhaled, frustration spilling over. “So, what am I supposed to do now?”

Deran considered you for a moment. “Just…let him try to go at his own pace here. He is not good at the whole…relationship thing.” he said, his voice stripped of its usual sarcasm before adding. “And for the record, the way you look at him? Not subtle. Like, at all.”

You nearly choked on your own spit. “I am subtle!”

“I mean, yes,” he conceded dryly. “You are subtle…for Andrew and Craig. So don’t be proud about it. That’s the lowest level of subtility possible.”

“I hate you, Deran.”

“Yeah?” he replied with an amused smile. “Well, get in line.”

There was a pause before he said quietly. “You’re good for him. Just…don’t screw it up. You’re in the tribe now. Which means I have to tell you this…”

You straightened slightly.

“…if you’re not sure about this, about yourself, you go now. Not in a few months. Not after he lets himself think this might be real. You don’t get to backpedal if it gets complicated. He wouldn’t recover from it.”

You shook your head immediately. “I swear, I won’t hurt him. He’s…he’s-”

You stopped, because the word felt too large to say aloud. But Deran looked at you intensely enough for you to finish.

“He’s important. To me. I don’t want to fix him, because I don’t think he’s broken. I like him the way he is. I...I think I wouldn’t recover from losing him too.”

Deran held your gaze for a long moment. “Alright.”

You tilted your head. “Alright?”

“Alright,” he repeated. “You pass.”

“Was-Was it an interview? Are you serious?”

“Yep. And congrats, you got the job.”

You rolled your eyes, but your chest felt lighter than it had in quite some time while Deran smiled, a real full grin, almost boyish, making it easier to see the younger brother under his usual cryptic attitude.

“I forgot what it was like,” he said after a beat.

“What?” you asked.

“Having a sister you can annoy.”

“That’s…extremely sweet of you.”

“Don’t ruin it,” he warned, pointing the towel at you. “I will absolutely deny this conversation ever happened if you mention it to my brothers.”

You laughed despite yourself, shaking your head.

Then, he leaned forward and whispered to you. “And if you hurt him, I’m stealing your car and slashing your tires.”

“O-Okay.”

He had a little smile before straightening up. “Welcome into the family.”

──────────

He has not told you.

No one has told you about the job.

Craig said it wasn’t necessary, that you would make a big deal out of it. Deran said it was cleaner that way, the less people know, the less risk and Andrew didn’t argue, telling himself it was better if you didn’t know the details, better if you didn’t have to sit there, waiting for them to come back and spiraling about what could be happening to them.

He told himself that ignorance would keep you safe.

The screen door slams and your voice, sharper than he has ever heard it is rising against Craig, who’s following you in the backyard like a kicked puppy.

Andrew doesn’t turn immediately from his spot, staring at the water of the pool. He closes his eyes, preparing himself for the loud noises.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the tiles of the pool.)

“You asked me to babysit Nick,” you’re saying, your voice shaking like you are about to start crying, “and you made it sound like it was for a date or something stupid! You didn’t say it was because you were going to fucking rob a jewelry store!”

“Jesus, lower your voice.”

“Lower my voice? How about you shut your mouth you liar!”

It isn’t only outrage in your voice, Andrew feels it. It’s fear. A raw, unfiltered fear for them. For him. And he doesn’t know what to do with that because no one has ever been afraid of losing him. When he went to prison years ago, his family moved on, sold his place and went on with their lives. For them, it was an inconvenience, for him, it was three years in Folsom.

Andrew turns then.

You’re standing a few feet from Craig, hands still bandaged, the thin line of stitches above your eyebrow visible, pointing a finger at Craig angrily while he tries to stay calm, running a hand through his hair.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re breaking into a jewelry store, Craig. That’s not exactly Disneyland.”

“We’ve done jobs for years,” he snaps. “We’re good at it.”

Andrew watches the way your shoulders rise and fall too fast with your breath, the way your fingers flex like you’re resisting the urge to grab something and throw it at Craig.

“You know what happens if you get caught, right? You know what that would do to Nick?”

Craig’s jaw tightens. “We don’t get caught.”

You let out a bitter sound that is half a laugh, half a sob.

“Repeat this in the eyes of your brother, I fucking dare you. That’s not how life works, and you know it. You can get caught.”

Andrew feels the words hit him in the chest and rip something out of him. He doesn’t know when you learn about it. Doesn’t know who told you or the extent of your knowledge about those three years of fights and isolation.

If you know – truly know - why aren’t you running away? Why are you still here?

(He doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. It’s too much. It’s too little. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the cracks on the floor.)

“We’re not idiots, just trust us, okay?” Craig argues, rolling his eyes.

“You left me alone at a party in a house full of people doing coke,” you fire back, your finger jabbing hard against his chest. “You are the exact definition of an idiot, Craig.”

Craig winces. “We don’t have to do this right now, okay? I already told you I was sorry about it. Pope, back me up.”

Both of you turn toward him at once, the weight of the fight landing on his shoulders. He doesn’t move immediately. Doesn’t speak either. Andrew has never been good at splitting himself in two, at giving his opinion. He was raised to follow orders.

Craig gestures toward you. “She’s acting like we’re amateurs.”

You slap his arm, wincing, forgetting for a moment about your bandage. “Fuck.”

Andrew walks up to you, checking your hand while you keep repeating him. “I’m okay, Andrew. I promise.”

He lifts his eyes to yours, angling his head to catch them, and when your gaze finally locks with his, he holds it, stubborn and unblinking. Your eyes shine brighter tonight than they usually do, so he doesn’t give himself permission to look away.

(You’re about to cry. It’s his fault. It must be his fault. He should have been better. But the voices are too loud. He doesn’t like when it’s too loud. One. Two. Three. Four. He remembers your breaths when you sleep.)

“I just…I thought you all trusted me,” you say, your voice breaking halfway through, fighting back tears of frustration.

Craig’s shoulders drop while Andrew’s thumb strokes over the back of your hand, grounding himself.

“We do,” Craig says, less combative now. “That’s why I asked you to watch Nick.”

“That’s not making me feel like you trust me. It’s making me feel like I’m a convenience.”

The word hangs there, making Andrew feel like he failed something. He has never wanted you to feel like this. He wanted you to be protected.

His gaze doesn’t waver as he keeps your hand in his, stroking over the bandage.

Craig looks between the two of you, seeing the hand, the closeness and mutters, “Jesus, bro, this is the worst time,” under his breath.

“Okay,” he exhales finally, turning fully toward you. “I fucked up. Massively. About the party. About not telling you. About…probably a million other things. I didn’t mean for you to feel unsafe.”

You don’t look convinced.

“Trust me,” Craig adds quickly, throwing Andrew a sideways glance, “I got my ass kicked enough by Pope to regret this party for the rest of my life.”

Your lips twitch a little, trying to keep it contain.

“Now, if you could hand me back my brother, I would be very grateful because we have a job to do, and you have a kid to entertain,” Craig says, rolling his eyes and retreating inside the house.

Andrew doesn’t let go of your hand, refusing to blink and terrified of losing a moment of you. He has the irrational feeling that if he does, something will waver on your face, the moment when you realize what this life looks like and he won’t be able to see his failure in time.

 “We’ve planned it,” he murmurs finally.

You hold his gaze. “And if something goes wrong?”

He doesn’t answer right away because he knows the answer to this, and he is certain you don’t want to hear it.

(If something goes wrong, he goes down first. He makes sure Deran and Craig are safe. He doesn’t come home because he won’t ever go back to prison. He prefers to die trying to escape than go back in a cell. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your eyelashes.)

You are still waiting, searching his face.

“Then I handle it,” he says quietly.

You shake your head, your jaw working as if you’re trying to physically hold yourself together. “Promise me to come back safe.”

His hand lifts before he can stop himself to settle against the side of your face, his thumb resting just beneath your eye, making you go very still, waiting for what he will do next.

His thumb caresses your cheekbone once, just enough to fill his mind with the memory of your skin.

“I won’t let anything happen to me,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know if it’s meant as a vow or a lie he’s trying to force into becoming true. “I promise,” and before he allows himself to overthink it, he presses a careful kiss to your forehead, his lips brushing just above the line of stitches.

He can hear you catch your breath and it makes him pull back, his lips tingling at the contact. He knows it now: if he stays longer, if he lets himself feel the warmth of you, he might not leave at all.

He memorizes the sight of you like this: looking like losing him would break you and it does something unfamiliar to his chest. No one has ever been scared at the thought of him disappearing. No one has ever demanded that he come back.

He turns quickly, putting distance between the two of you before he changes his mind, the promise he made echoing in his head.

He hears it when Deran cuts the alarms. Promise me to come back safe. When he cuts through the back entrance. Promise me. And when Craig tries to improvise. Promise. He is not one to do reckless things but tonight, he is particularly unyielding each time the job almost goes sideways.

He knows you are in the house with Nick, probably pacing the kitchen and waiting to see the outcome of his word. So, when he finally reaches the main display room, he is quick to reach for the highest value pieces that will be cut down and reshaped. No traces or evidence will be left, they have done this long enough to know how to make everything disappear completely.

Andrew’s hand hovers for half a second over a particular velvet cushion before picking up the thin gold chain, a small heart-shaped pendant set in the center. It’s delicate and quiet, reminding him how it feels to bask in your light. He turns it between his fingers once, twice, imagining it resting just below the hollow of your throat, his thumb brushing over it absentmindedly while you are both sitting on the couch and watching a documentary.

He slips it securely into the inner pocket of his jacket, pressing it flat against his chest for a brief second before stepping back into motion and leaving with his brothers without any alarms or police sirens cutting through the night.

And when they get at the warehouse to stash the duffel bags, Andrew doesn’t stay like he usually would to make sure about getting his fair cut of the job. He nods once, quiet, ignoring their snickers and comments about him being ‘down bad’ all the way to his truck.

The house is dim when he enters, a soft glow coming from Craig’s bedroom and before he sees you, he hears your voice. It’s so soft.

“And baby whale swam all the way across the ocean to find mama whale,” you murmur.

He quietly walks up to the threshold to see you sitting on the bed with Nick lying, his eyes dropping with sleep, his thumb in his mouth and clutching to his monkey plushie. You slowly close the illustrated book before pressing a kiss onto the his hair and something expands in Andrew’s.

(You would be good at this. At building something steady. He can picture you pregnant, swelling with a child. His curls and your smile on a being that would never know the kind of hurt he had to go through.)

You stand up from the bed and see him, the relief crossing your face so achingly tender it nearly knocks the breath from his lungs.

“Andrew.”

He nods once, trying to convey his feelings, “I came back.”

You smile, closing the bedroom door behind you and stepping close to him, scanning for injuries the way he did for you at the skatepark. He lifts his hands, showing you his palms.

“I’m fine. I promised you I would.”

Your shoulders drop in a way that tells him you’ve been holding yourself rigid for hours, managing a barely audible, “Thank God.”

His lips tilt upward before reaching into his jacket’s pocket, “Turn around,” before adding a quiet, “Please.”

“Bossy,” you reply, amused, before turning your back to him.

He closes the one last step between you, pulling out the necklace from his pocket, careful not to let his hands shake as he lifts your hair to expose the back on your neck. He fastens the chain, the clasp clicking softly into place and for a second he doesn’t step away, the pad of his thumb grazing at the nape of your neck.

“Andrew,” you whisper, turning back toward him, your fingers lifting to trace it. “It’s…It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

He keeps staring at the pendant who rests exactly where he imagined it would be, then at your mouth before quickly going back to your eyes. You are close enough that he can feel your breath on his face, the world narrowing to the space between you.

He wants to close the distance, to press his mouth to yours.

Instead, he rests his forehead gently against yours, grounding himself with your scent, refusing to close his eyes.

“You should sleep,” he murmurs.

You smile softly and suddenly, Andrew wonders how he can extract a memory and preserve it forever in resin.

Because this moment feels like the dawn of his existence.

──────────

When Andrew was seven years old, the house was already too loud.

Somewhere down the hall a door slammed hard enough to be heard from the bedroom he shared with Julia, who was sitting on the floor with a deck of cards spread between them while he lined them into exact rows instead of playing War.

He liked the rows and the symmetry of it. It calmed him each time the edges were precisely following the pattern of the carpet. With this, he didn’t need to count.

In the backyard, someone shouted about money, making the twins flinch in fear. Julia reached for his hand, and they sat like that for a long time: her fingers curled tightly around his, his eyes fixed on the the cards. (Hearts. Diamonds. Clubs. Spades. Everything will be all right.)

Smurf emerged in the doorway with her bright smile, eight months pregnant with their little brother, tilting her head, “My baby is a strange one,” she whispers to his new stepfather, “But useful.”

Andrew heard it. He didn’t know what strange meant exactly, but he knew it was something you said when you didn’t want to say wrong.

At school, boys kept snatching his skateboard, tossing it across the asphalt because he rode the same loop over and over during recess, memorizing how many pushes it took to reach the fence.

(Fourteen. Fourteen every time. An even number. He liked them. That’s why he always counted till four.)

The first time a boy shoved him and called him a freak, Andrew didn’t respond. Just took back the board and kept doing his loops. The second time, when the board got kicked away and Julia was not there to held his hand, Andrew swung without warning. He couldn’t remember deciding to, just the sound of the impact and how the noise inside him went blissfully silent.

After that, teachers called him difficult, the kids stopped approaching him and Smurf congratulated him with a kiss on his mouth.

At night, when Julia was asleep beside him, Andrew kept staring at the ceiling, wondering something he couldn’t say out loud to his mother or his sister: would anyone ever see that he was trying? Trying to keep himself together so he didn’t explode? Trying to be good? Trying to stop the noises in his head?

-

When you were seven years old, the house smelled like warm cookies.

You were sitting on the couch, your small arms cradling your cousin, afraid to drop her. You didn’t know how to act with a baby. Your parents had sat you down a few months ago at the kitchen table and told you that you were their little miracle, that Santa sometimes forgot things and that maybe it would always just be the three of you – which sounded a little sad until your father had squeezed your hand and told you that three was already perfect.

But it was alright, because now, you had your cousin’s fingers clutching onto your hair, “She’s holding me!” you squealed, delighted and in awe because here, in this house, you were allowed to be amazed and to grow at your own pace.

The day you scraped your knee on the sidewalk, trying to teach yourself how to roller skate, you cried for less than a minute before your mother knelt in front of you, cleaning the wound and kissing the sting away. “You’re gonna be okay,” she said, and you believed her.

At school, you had a best friend who whispered to you how babies were made, and that made you giggle all day, the teacher shaking his head and calling you incorrigible, even though you had no idea what that meant and decided it must be something wonderful if it made you laugh that hard.

And the day you asked what you could be when you grew up, no one laughed. “You can be anything my little monkey,” your father had told you, and you thought about it for the whole day. Because anything was a lot for your brain: a teacher, a vet, a marine biologist. You always circled back to the same answer: something to help people.

And at night, as you looked at your glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling, you wondered about other things: would someone look at you the way your father looked at your mother when she was singing in the kitchen, with that love that said I am home?

──────────

Deran’s bar is louder than usual tonight, crowded by sports fans watching a game between Los Angeles and Atlanta. Craig has tried to tell him why it was so important to win at least five times since their arrival, but Andrew’s attention remains elsewhere entirely, watching you from across the room the way he has been watching you for four months now: trying to read something in your posture or in the tilt of your head that could give him an answer.

Because the truth is…he doesn’t know what you are after last night and if what happened in the hallway, or every night you’ve spent wrapped together, mean the same thing to you that they mean to him. He wants to ask, to spill the question out before it eats him alive: what are we?

Andrew hates not knowing. On a job, he knows every camera, every blind spot, every possible way things can go wrong but with you, there’s no map. And he hates that he can’t predict your next move.

You are standing at the bar, ordering a drink, your back half-turned to him and wearing a dress that shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public. It makes his pants grow tighter and has him readjusting on the stool, trying to pretend he isn’t affected while his brother sits three feet away and would never let him live it down if he knew.

And he knows he shouldn’t be staring, but you keep touching absentmindedly the necklace, your fingers tracing the pendant as it moves with your breathing, and before he can stop himself, he’s counting it.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

You had said thank you last night in a way that felt like you meant something more, had let him secure the necklace around your neck and had met his eyes when you called it beautiful as if you were promising you would always wear it.

Always.

(Oh, how he doesn’t trust that word. Doesn’t trust anything that implies staying. He knows better. He should know better.)

And yet, there you are, wearing it for everyone to see, which does nothing to steady his accelerated pulse, and leaning across the counter to collect your cocktail from Deran. The movement doesn’t reveal much more of your skin, but it still sets ablaze Andrew’s brain, his lips going dry as he tries to resist the urge to walk up to you and beg for you to tell him that he isn’t the only one picturing rings, and a cradle in a quiet house and your head on his chest until he is old and grey.

“You’re not being subtle, you know that?” Craig says, cutting through the haze of his thoughts.

“Don’t start.”

Craig raises his hands innocently. “Jesus, relax.” He immediately reaches for the bowl of peanuts on the table, and Andrew feels his jaw tighten at the thought of how many unwashed hands have touched that bowl already. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you tonight?”

What’s wrong is that he just stole diamonds worth more than all of the jobs he did last year and it doesn’t compete to the way you look with the chain resting against your collarbone.

What’s wrong is that he would give back every dollar from last night if it meant waking up beside you for the next fifty years.

What’s wrong is that he is one second away from walking across that bar and lowering himself at your feet for your hands to baptize him clean, as if loving you were the only absolution worth asking for because whatever heaven exists for a man like him begins and ends with you.

And what’s wrong right now is that a man slides into the empty space beside you, leaning too close and touching your arm to get your attention. You turn toward him politely, your lips curving into the small smile you once called your ‘customer smile’.  You had explained it to his brothers and him: that you always kept the worst-case scenario in the back of your mind and that a smile felt safer than a hard no since it could mean the difference between walking away or not.

(Andrew doesn’t know the names or the faces of those who made you feel like that but he wants to find them. He wants to press them on the ground and feel their pulse panic under his thumbs. He wants them to understand what fear tastes like when it turns metallic into the mouth. He wants the air stolen from their lungs the way it must have been stolen from yours when you felt scared. He no longer wants to count. He wants to hurt. To see this man’s blood on the bar.)

Andrew starts walking towards you before he even formulates the thought, shoulders squared, already calculating how much force it would require to grab the stranger by the collar and steer him outside of the bar.

His vision narrows as he sees the stranger laughing, his hand lifting to linger near your elbow as if he was testing whether he can push for more and that makes Andrew’s vision blur at the edges. He is three steps away. Two.

Your eyes find his instantly, and something shifts in your expression. Your hand leaves the cocktail and you smile at him. It’s not the customer smile. No, it’s the real one that unravels him each time.

“Hey, honey,” you say brightly as your arm wraps around his neck and you press a kiss to his cheek, your hand traveling down his side before sliding into the back pocket of his pants, settling against him.

Andrew is almost sure he died at some point on the way there because he is pressed against you and now, he is no longer Andrew or Pope. For a brief moment, he gets to just be honey, and the word makes him happier than any name ever has.

The stranger glances between you. “Oh. I didn’t realize…”

“My boyfriend,” you cut him off with a smile, looking up at Andrew’s face.

His eyes were already on yours, searching for the smallest flicker of fear. Because if the man has dared put some in them, Andrew would dig an unmarked grave without blinking. When he finds none, his hand comes to your waist, his thumb strolling along your hip as he dips his head and presses his mouth above the faint line of stitches on your forehead.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmurs, low enough that the word belongs only to you.

He feels your breath hitch against his skin before turning to the man and saying lightly. “No worries, he always gets a little intense about men crowding me,” you tilt your head, thoughtful. “Not sure if it’s the boxing or the prison time. But don’t mind him…he almost doesn’t bite.”

The stranger’s smile falters just enough to satisfy something dark in Andrew’s chest. “Oh, um…yeah. Sorry man, I didn’t know she was taken.”

Andrew doesn’t raise his voice or move, he just stands there with your hand in his pocket, letting the silence stretch until it feels suffocating. “She is.”

“Right. I’ll go back to…the match.”

Andrew doesn’t blink and keeps track of the man’s back until he is laughing again at his friends’ table like nothing happened and only then does he let his focus shift back to you. You, who’s still close and warm, holding onto him like you have no intention of letting go.

His hand remains at your waist as he turns toward you, the movement bringing your faces close enough that your noses almost brush and your breaths mix between you. He lowers his head slightly, almost enough to kiss you.

“You okay?” he murmurs while his thumb keeps its slow movement on your hip.

You nod, your mouth curving up in that smile he loves. The real one. The one that you have at the skatepark each time you manage to stay upright a little longer than the day before: proud, bright and stubbornly pleased of yourself. And he can’t help but think about those lips and the way they said ‘honey’.

(He wants to hear it again. Wants to hear it softly. Wants to hear it moaned in the dark and against his mouth. He wants to kiss them every day for the rest of his life. To learn them. To know how they would part as he pounds into you. Stop. He has to stop.)

He blinks twice, grounding himself in the feel of your waist.

“Andrew. I’m good, I promise,” you murmur, sliding your hand out of his pocket and lace your fingers with his instead, interlocking them. “Let’s get out of here, please. It’s too loud.”

He doesn’t say it out loud, but relief settles at your suggestion. The bar feels too loud, too crowded and the idea of how many unwashed hands like Craig’s have been over the counters keeps coming back at him. So, when you tug gently at his hand and turn toward the door, he follows without hesitation, grateful that you were the one saying it.

The door swings shut behind you and the noise from the bar dulls instantly, reduced to a muted thud. The air is cooler than inside, smelling like the salt of the ocean mixed with your shampoo and he doesn’t understand how he gets to still have your hand in his and your thumb moving across his knuckles.

It’s only when you stop beside the truck and turn toward him that his eyes drop to the thin gold chain resting around your neck. His free hand lifts carefully to brush the chain first, following it down until the pad of his thumb rests over the pendant itself, flattening it against your skin.

“Still got it on,” he murmurs, tracing the outline of the pendant.

(He imagines doing this, years from now. In the kitchen. In bed. In the shower. Adjusting it before you leave the house. Brushing it aside before he kisses the curve of your throat. Seeing it against your skin when you are carrying his child.)

“Looks better on you than it did in the store,” he adds.

Your fingers slide slowly between his, guiding his hand so it settles flat over your heartbeat. He can feel it beating loud and fast under his palm, matching his own.

You tilt your face enough to find his eyes back. “Thank you for what happened in there, Andrew. You were good.”

His eyes slip shut for half a second because he doesn’t trust himself to survive the way you are looking at him, smiling at him with such warmth he shivers of pleasure.

(Good. You think he is good. If that’s what you want, he can be good. He can kneel. He can find how to rebuild himself from the bones if it means you keep calling him good.)

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” he says under his breath.

“Why?”

“Because I’d do anything if you asked.”

Your fingers start to caress the back of his hand. “Anything?”

He nods, his gaze unwaveringly focused on your eyes. “If you told me to walk away from the jobs, I would.”

Your hand pauses against his.

“Andrew…” you murmur, but there’s no panic in it, no immediate rejection. “You know why I wanted to reject him, right?”

He doesn’t answer, too scared of startling the moment with another word.

“You know why I’d reject any other guy in that bar and why I wanted him to know?”

“Know what?”

“That I’m not available.”

“You’re not?” he asks, as his mind races.

“I don’t know,” you say softly. “Are you?”

The question hangs there, in the small space between your bodies, his mind fumbling with a thousand overlapping questions.

(Are you with him? Calling him yours? Defining what this was? Finally answering the question that has been rattling his brain for weeks?)

“Are you available Andrew?” you repeat gently, your hand lifting up to cup his face.

He exhales slowly, trying not to whimper at the contact, shaking his head.

You lean closer, your nose brushing his and your voice dropping lower. “No?”

“No.”

Your thumb traces patterns along his cheekbone and it takes him a few moments to realize that you were mapping his freckles. “How long?” you whisper.

He feels too weak to reply, overwhelmed by the tenderness of your touch. If his heart had not been already yours, he would lay it at your feet right there, so long as you promise to treat him with this gentleness and care for the rest of his life.

“Before the party? When I called you to help me?” he nods. “Before our night on the couch?” another nod. “Before our first skateboard le-?”

 “When we met. And you brought pastries,” he replies, on the verge of a sob, shameful to confess that he keeps thinking about you on top of him, under him, any way you want it as long as he could disappear into your light and be drown whole by your grace to wipe out every horror he has ever seen or done for the sake of others.

“Andrew. Honey. Please, look at me.”

He keeps his gaze darted to the ground, like looking anywhere but you might prevent him from saying anything more revealing about the depth of his feelings, before his eyes close on their own instinctively, only realizing a heartbeat later that it’s because your lips found his.

And for the first time in Andrew’s life, that deep pit of misery in his heart goes completely silent, frozen for a flash before kissing you back.

Your lips are warm and a little reckless, tasting like mint and something entirely yours that he knows he will crave for the rest of his life. Your fingers thread into his curls, pulling a groan he can’t control out of him. He moves closer without thinking, his hand sliding along your waist until your back meets the metal of the truck door.

The second he registers the force of it, he pulls back just enough to search your face, to scan for any sign that he has gone too far, but the pause barely lasts a breath before your fingers tighten in his hair, guiding him back down as your body arched into his, slipping his tongue past your parted lips.

You are an oasis and he is nothing but a thirsty man wandering in the dark who gets to finally know what it’s like to drink every drop of it. You taste dizzy and intoxicating and he knows that he has been feeding on scraps of affection all his life and now…now he understands what it means to be full.

He is about to tell you how much sweeter you taste than in his fantasies before you bite down on his lower lip, drawing another sound of his throat.

You tilt your head, your arms wrapping fully around his neck as his drop to your hips, steady and sure, to raise you higher against the door, a gasp spilling out of you that he swallows eagerly and your dress hiking up as your legs wrap around him, denying any space between your bodies.

He feels you pull away for air by an inch or two, making him whine at the loss of contact, but he quickly recovers as he sees the flushed smile on your kiss-swollen lips. “Show off.”

“Yeah?” he asks while one of his arms tightens under you, anchoring your body to the door while the other frees itself to trail up your body and adding a smug, “Yeah,” skimming your inner thigh and marveling at how many sounds he can coax out of you, wondering how much more he’d pull if he could trace his thumb along your heat. But instead, he cups again your cheek, tracing slowly the bow of your lips.

“Dimples,” you murmur.

“What?”

“Dimples, Andrew,” you repeat, delighted, like you’ve just discovered something rare. “I didn’t know you had them.”

(Oh. Of course. You can see them because he is smiling. For real. A real one. Not the tight, guarded version. Not the twitchy one. A full unguarded smile. When was the last time he did that?)

“I do,” he says, trying and failing to smooth it away. “So do you.”

Your eyebrows lift. “I do not.”

“You do,” he insists quietly, shifting his hold slightly to keep his arm secure around you, his thumb pressing gently at the corner of your mouth. “Right there…”

Inside the bar, the crowd erupts in a wave of shouting, making you glance at the door before erupting in laughter, eyes wide.

“Oh, fuck,” you whisper, incapable of stopping your giggles. “I forgot.”

Andrew exhales through his nose, trying to calm the blood pumping hard all the way down his length. He knows that you’ve been feeling him against you the whole time, your hips still rubbing together, and for once in his life, he doesn’t want to excuse himself or feel ashamed of his desires, of how much he wants. He has spent too many nights thinking about how you’d taste, how you’d moan. Too many cold showers to try get rid of his hard-on whenever he was picturing you.

“Maybe…” you murmur against his mouth, pecking soft kisses along his jaw. “Maybe we should relocate.”

He looks at you, at the way your lips are still swollen and glistening from kissing, at your panting and the tremors of your legs.

He nods, lowering you carefully back onto your feet, his hands still trailing along your sides to still have some ways of being connected to you before reaching for the door handle of the passenger seat and helping you in.

He feels, walking around to the driver’s side, that he is still smiling. Dimples and all.

──────────

“Maybe…” you sigh, struggling to keep your composure and pressing kisses along the freckles dusting his jaw. “Maybe we should relocate.”

The intensity of his eyes on you, trailing along your body and taking in your rampant arousal, feels like he is on the verge of taking you against the door. You are pretty sure that if he’d ask you for permission, you’d grant it promptly. You want him. You want to know how long it would take for his unwavering hazel eyes to become pleading wet just by your lips telling how good he is to you.

But he just nods, jaw tight before lowering you carefully back onto your feet, making you bite down a protest at the loss of contact, like even the air feels like too much distance, until you feel his fingertips dragging over your waist.

He opens the door for you and not so long ago, you would have described his current behavior as controlled and cold, but now that you know him…you recognize a man who’s trying to contain himself, like a wild animal finally freed.

(Devour. You want him to devour you. To ruin you. Four months of trying – miserably – to have a date with him and it took only a gross man and a ‘honey’ to get him to kiss you like that and tell you he would quit everything?  Fuck. Focus.)

He starts the engine, snapping you out of your thoughts, before pulling out of the parking lot, still smiling. You stare at his profile: the line of his jaw that has now faint traces of your lipstick, the way his tongue briefly drags across his lower lips like he can still taste you and his hand on the gear shift that slowly drifts to your thigh.

Your breath stutters the moment his palm settles just above your knee, the pads of his fingers tracing patterns over it while he keeps his eyes on the road. That definitely doesn’t help your craving for more.

(How much can be a fine for having sex in a car anyway? Andrew has money. Plenty from what you understand so…that would just be a drop in a bucket, right?)

You slide your fingers over his, intertwining them on your lap and stilling his slow, absent movements. He glances at you immediately, probably to understand why you stopped him. But the look you give him is enough to answer his question.

His eyes trail your face a fraction too long before looking back to the road, purposefully, the streetlights passing by a little faster.

“We’ll be there in five,” he declares without looking at you.

“Andrew, it’s at least ten minutes away,” you say, with a barely contained smile.

“Five.”

“I’m timing you, you know,” you smirked, pointing at the car clock.

The truck moves through an intersection just as the light turns yellow - once, then again at the next block – while Andrew doesn’t do so much as blink.

“See?” he says, the hint of a smug smile on his face when the car finally parks home.

You check the dashboard clock. Four minutes.

You shake your head, laughing as you both unbuckle your seatbelts. “Show off.”

Of course, you should know better now, he is not a man to stop there. So, when he opens the door for you before you even reach for the handle, and offers his hand, you should see it coming.

He helps you down carefully and for half a breath you think that maybe this time he’s not going to do it. No, you definitely should know better cause the moment your feet hit the ground, his arm slides behind your knees, sweeping you off while the other moves behind your back.

A breathless gasp escapes your mouth. “Andrew!”

(God you are so fucking gone for him. Is this what it would feel like? Crossing a threshold with him as a young bride? Completely besotted in a white dress? No. Not would. Will.)

He shuts the door with his hip, adjusting you against his chest as your arms loop around his neck automatically, your body relishing his touch as the thought slips out before you can stop it: “I feel like your bride right now.”

His steps slow on his way to the door, just enough for you to notice and wonder if you should just tell him to brush off your stupid words. That you are just drunk (you barely had the time to drink a sip of your cocktail earlier) and tired (you just spent two nights in a row sleeping like a baby in his arms).

The garage light flickers as he reaches the front door. “You are.”

He carries you inside like he’s done it in a million other lifetimes while you are still gaping, mouth wide open at his words. You shake your head a bit wobbly before moving your hand from the nape of his neck to the place on his cheek where you know a dimple is hiding.

“Careful,” you murmur, smiling softly. “Keep talking like that and I might start looking for a dress rea-”

Your words are being cut off by his mouth, kissing you like he is trying to drown in the sensation, tilting his head to fit you better, to take more of you, and you can’t stop the moan passing your lips. It feels like stepping into the fire and realizing you don’t ever want to be pulled out.

Your feet carefully find back the ground as his hands slide along your backbone, fingers spreading between your shoulder blades. His lips part yours with the same confidence he has when he catches you at the skatepark. You feel him everywhere and you still want more.

(Is it ever going to stop? This feeling? This whole tremor that dances under your skin every time he touches you? Every time he kisses you like he means forever?)

He pulls away just enough, heavy breath mingling with yours, hazel eyes half-lidded in pleasure and his nose brushing yours softly with your foreheads pressed together, “We can just kiss. If that’s what you want. I don’t need more. Just you,” he murmured in a broken voice.

The words settle deep in your chest, heavy and large as if they have roots. It makes you want to answer him with your mouth, to kiss him until his doubts leave his bones entirely. You bring your fingers to the bow of his lips and he kisses them gently, one after the other, the softness of it making you tremble.

“Andrew,” you say quietly, smiling despite your racing pulse. “Take me to bed.”

He regards you for a long moment, his eyes moving slowly over your face as though he is searching for hesitation and when he finds none, a smile begins at the corner of his mouth, enough to carve that rare, gorgeous dimple into his cheek. “Bossy,” he smirks before lifting you back by the waist so your legs can wrap up around his waist, walking around the house guided only by his memory since his lips are too busy coaxing moans out of you.

You are almost blacking out from the lack of oxygen when the kiss suddenly breaks. In the soft lighting of his bedroom, you distinguish most of his expression: lustful and bewildered that this is finally happening.

“I want to taste you. Please,” he breaths and you nod, not trusting yourself to reply.

The look that passes through his hazel eyes is hazy, fingers finding the hem of your dress and carefully pulling it up.

“Don’t want to mess it,” he says, folding it neatly on his chair. “You look pretty in that.”

You sit on the edge of the bed, trying not to feel too self-conscious about being only in your underwear, braless as he kneels down to the floor, still fully clothed and face a few inches lower than yours, prying your legs apart.

“Andrew,”

He doesn’t respond, pressing his lips to the inner corner of your thigh and moving further up between your legs.

“You don’t have to Andrew.”

He only lifts his gaze up to yours, unwavering as he continues his kisses, “You don’t want it?”

“I…I’m not saying that. I just…I don’t want you to feel obligated to it. I know it’s not…what men like the most,” you gasp, your hand finding his curls and twisting them around your fingers, making him grunt.

“It’s what I want to do the most, right now,” he says with a sinful gaze. “Can I?”

“Yes. Okay. Sure,” you choke, closing your eyes and lying down as he continues his torturous path, his hands slowly tugging the last piece between him and your pussy.

You don’t think you have ever been this wet with a man. Or a woman. Or anyone at all. Normally, you feel a bit uncomfortable with men going down on you cause they never seem to know what they are doing or are too impatient of having ‘real sex’ to let you finish. But here with Andrew, you are nothing but pleasure, his lips fiddling with you like you are an instrument that he is tuning to his own harmony.

You gasp as his tongue finally probes your folds stopping just underneath your clit, earning from him a low whimper.

“You taste delicious,” he goes, coming up for air by an inch. “Just like how I dreamt,” he adds, making you feel close to delirious.

He lowers his face again, tongue working its way up your pussy again, finally reaching for your clit and rolling over it, making you shudder and writhe on the bed, incapable of keeping your moans down and your hands running through his scalp.

“Andrew, please. Just like that. It’s perfect,” you praise him, feeling how it makes him pick up the pace.

Your last straw is the sight of his face between your legs, eyes burning with nothing but want, his hands used to stealing and hurting now holding onto your legs to keep them open and making you come with a hoarse cry. If there’s a heaven on Earth, you know now that it must only exist in this man. In his hands, his chest, his mouth, his eyes. He is nothing but your sanctuary, your promised land and your altar.

When your orgasm subsides, you feel Andrew crawling over you and pressing his lips against you, making you taste yourself on his mouth as you slip your tongue in it. The small noise of pleasure from the back of his throat is the most delicious sound you’ve ever heard.

“You,” you breathe against him, your lips brushing his, pupils probably wide. “I want you. Like right now. So please…take off those clothes. I love them. Really. But take them off.”

His lips twitches again to the side, “Anything.” as he starts to undress, folding them before going above you, his hard cock pressing against your heat.

His eyes keep searching your face, looking for an ounce of backtrack in your eyes before slowly entering you. That’s when you realize how grateful you are for the previous climax because in any other situation, you would have probably wince at his thickness. Thankfully, he seems to catch on with it - probably due to his gaze not leaving your face and refusing to blink – and takes his time to be fully inside you.

For a couple of minutes, the two of you don’t move, give you the time to marvel at how good he feels inside of you. You know now that you’ll have other days and nights to ask him to stay like this for hours, just to be one.

Andrew presses his forehead against yours, lips brushing yours as he whispers. “I love you.”

The word hums through your body. Love. Love. Love. Andrew loves someone and it’s you. From your scalp to your toes, you can feel it resonating through you. Love. Love. Love.

“I love you, Andrew. My Andrew,” you murmur happily, moving a drenched curl from his forehead. “So good to me.”

His face ends up in your neck, trying to cover his reaction to your words. “You really think I’m good?”

“Of course you are. Look at me, honey,” you say, holding onto his chin to bring back his face close to yours as your legs wrap around his waist. “You are good. You are kind. You keep making me feel safe. And…I’m so lucky to have you,” you add, rolling your hips and making him shiver.

You drink in the sight of him: his sweaty hair sticking to his head, curls messy from where your fingers had run through, the freckles dusting his chest and the traces of old wounds that you’ll ask about one day. But the most important of all is the way he is looking at you – as if he loves you. Because he does. He said it. I love you. I love you. I love you.

You keep whispering sweet nothings into his ear, just to see the flush spreading on his cheeks, his ears, his chest and encouraging his thrusts to go harder, deeper. Soon enough, you are quivering around him, your nails digging in his skin as you bite on his lower lip in retaliation for making you wait so long for this moment.

He lets out a desperate moan. “I won’t…last long. ‘m sorry. You feel so…”

“It’s okay,” you encourage him. “I want you to come.”

He slams his cock one more time and goes. “Wh-Where?”

“In me,” you beg, and you know you have hit the right nerve from the way his whole body trembles.

“Really?” he breathes.

“Please.”

The sight of his body, eyes fighting to not shut tight from the pleasure, mouth pursuing yours, mixed with how good he is making you feel, is too much. Your back arches as you reach your second climax tonight, quickly followed by Andrew, clinging to you as his warm load fills you up. Both of you are gasping for one another, time almost freezing as your eyes are sharing the same thought. I love you. I love you. I love you.

After a couple of minutes, Andrew slips out of you and lays most of his body against your side, putting his head above your breasts, on your heartbeat, intertwining your hands together.

“Tomorrow,” he says.

You brush a kiss on top of his head. “What?”

He sat back down on the edge of the bed, eyes still sewn to the books before tearing them away and leaning down to kiss you on the forehead, ‘Good morning, angel.’

‘Good morning,’ you whispered back, maintaining the quiet sacredness of the early morning and taking your coffee from his hand. You sat for a few more moments in the dim light of the bedroom, sipping your coffee in silence. You could tell Spencer’s attention was still fixed on the ever-present stack of novels at his bedside.

‘Honey?’

‘There’s a copy of Ariel underneath my Dostoevsky collection,’ he murmured, his gaze falling to the books once more. You recognized the book in question, it was one of your favourite poetry collections. You’d read it time and time again, blackening the margins with notes, shading under the lines that spoke to you the most; but you thought you’d lost it in the move. Clearly, it just got lost amongst your boyfriend’s library of books. 

‘I’ve never read any Plath,’ he added, turning back to look you in the eye. There was a sleepy sense of confusion woven into his brows, half covered by his sleep-mused curls falling on his forehead. You were beginning to get a little confused now. If he was disappointed he'd never read the poetry of one 1950s author you were certain he could read her entire collection before you even finished your coffee. 

‘You can borrow it, if you like,’ you replied, hoping he’d offer you any clues as to what was going on inside his mind. 

‘It’s your book? Your book is on my nightstand,’ he paused for a moment, your response finally catching up with him, ‘Uh, yes, okay. Thank you. I’ll read it.’

He smiled softly, moving to sit back against the headboard next to you. Dropping your head onto his shoulder and letting your hand come to rest on his thigh, you could tell his mind was still buzzing. 

‘Spence?’

He hummed in question. 

‘I can move the book,’ you offered, ‘Sorry I left it with your stuff. Honestly I thought I lost it when we moved in here.’

You felt his head turn slowly to look down at you, and you angled your face up to look him in the eyes, ‘You thought I was mad that your book was with my stuff?’

Humming non-commitally, you tilted your head softly and replied, ‘You're not giving me many clues as to what's going on in that beautiful mind of yours, Spence.’

He paused to think. He wasn’t mad, not even close, he knew that much. Yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was he felt. Hundreds of books read, seven languages learnt and somehow there didn’t seem to be a word for this feeling. This realization. He’d been noticing it in brief moments ever since the two of you had moved in together. The way your teabags sat next to his coffee in the kitchen cupboards, how your work shoes were lined up neatly next to his converse and photographs of both your families dot his bookshelves. And your copy of Ariel sitting on his nightstand atop his battered paperback of Crime and Punishment. There just didn’t seem to be a word for this. This bleeding of both your lives into the space that once existed between them, this gentle weaving of your life into his. 

‘I just,’ he paused, like he was carefully selecting each word, ‘I didn’t think I’d get to have this.’

‘This?’

‘Yeah, um, like your books on my nightstand and, and your shirts ending up on my side of the closet, and both our stuff getting mixed up in the laundry,’ he turned to look down at you with a soft smile, 'I didn't think I'd ever get close enough to someone for our lives to become so interconnected.'

‘I can move the shirts if they're getting in the way,’ you whispered, worried your voice may crack if you raised it any louder, with a gentle laugh that was dangerously close to becoming tearful.

He let out a soft chuckle and pressed his lips to the crown of your head, ‘Don’t move them,’ he said into your hair, ‘don’t move anything. Ever.’

Humming softly, you tucked yourself further into his side, ‘Don’t worry, I don’t plan on it.’

thank you for reading, remember to like and reblog if you enjoyed xx

"Ms. L/N," he stops in front of you. You can already sense that Gideon is a warm person from the cadence of his voice. "Welcome to the team." He extends his hand, and you shake it—it's the kind of handshake that speaks louder than words and says 'I already trust you to keep up'.

"Follow me." And so you do, crossing the bullpen until you reach an empty desk across from a dark-haired agent, hunched over a file and surrounded by several more. His tie is barely loosened, sleeves rolled up, and hair slightly tousled as if he has been running his hands through it in frustration. "That's Agent Hotchner," Gideon says. "He joined us last year. Good man, and the best ex-prosecutor we've managed to steal from the field office in Seattle. You'll be desk neighbors for the foreseeable future."

Agent Hotchner looks up from his file at the introduction and offers you a polite smile before he stands up and extends his hand. "Hotch. Welcome to the unit." He greets.

You shake his hand, wow, his grip is firm, and his hand is warm, you note at the back of your head as you introduce yourself. Gideon's smirk is almost imperceptible as he leaves the two of you, standing at the juncture where your desks connect, hands clasped longer than strictly necessary.

You quickly learn that he's thirty-five, joined the Bureau in '95 after he figured out that he'd rather be catching the killers than prosecuting them for the rest of his life. He's ambitious and plans to one day make director if everything goes to plan, methodical, the kind of guy who color-codes his case notes by the severity of the case, who never leaves a form half-finished, or leaves the office in the middle of writing a report.

And rumor has it that the director is already eyeing him for a leadership role in another unit, despite his current lag of seniority with the Bureau.

And you, your ambitions? Right now, you're just the new kid, hungry to learn and to prove you belong with the travelling profile team, and not just behind your desk from 9-5, scratching notes in the margins of old case files as you study the serial killers the team has already caught.

Neither of you knows it yet, but the rest of your lives just started.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The first few weeks end up being a blur of consultations, training files and videos, observing and learning the rhythm of the unit. The way they speak, the way they move, how they work, basically studying their behaviour to the best of your current training.

Gideon leads the team quietly, mostly keeping to himself in his office and letting his agents run on their own. But he's always willing to lend an ear, or answer a question in a way that is so cryptic and so provocative that it leaves you no other option but to rework your theories and learn even more about the ubsubs. AND YOU LOVE IT.

And then there's you and Hotch, trading polite 'Good mornings', first thing, bringing each other a new cup of coffee from the kitchen if either of you were getting up, and occasionally asking the other for a second pair of eyes on a particularly annoying case file.

It doesn't take long for you to realize that you're both night owls when it comes to work. Cases pile up quickly around here, and not just on your desk, but every desk around the bullpen has a minimum of ten files stacked in the inbox at all times. And while the other agents head home by no later than eight, you and Hotch linger.

You don't plan it at first. It just sort of... happens.

On a late night in October—Gideon has finally deemed you ready to climb a step higher on your case clearances—you're working on your first active serial killer case, a serial arsonist from Oregon, trying to get to the bottom of his MO, reviewing victim statements, mapping timelines, trying to get inside the unsub's head before time runs out and he kills again.

It's not until you finally look up that you realize that the bullpen is empty except for the two of you. It's past midnight, and time has completely run away from you. You rub your eyes, feeling them get heavier and heavier the longer you're looking away from the file in front of you.

Hotch leans back across from you, pulls his arms over his head, and stretches himself as far back as he can. His back is stiff and protesting the many long hours hunched over his desk.

"You know you can go home, right?" He questions, cocking his brow at you. "Gideon's not keeping score about who's here the longest."

"Right, why are you still here then? Don't you have a girlfriend at home?" You retort, you know he can take your push back.

"Touché." He chuckles with a slight huff. Hotch's eyes quickly avert, glancing up at the clock. It's already 12:47 a.m., Haley is asleep by now, and there's no use in him rushing home with a bouquet from the nearest bodega open at this hour. She's used to it by now, it'll be okay, he tells himself.

So, you both keep working. The clock keeps ticking: 1:15, 1:44, 2:13. And finally, 2:30 a.m., you yawn so hard your jaw pops, you can't help but smile as you look over at Hotch, his lips slightly upturned as he tries not to giggle at your sudden burst of noisiness.

"Fine." You mutter in defeat, shutting the Bureau-stamped manila folder. "You win tonight."

"Win?" He looks up from his own file, almost looking confused.

"Yeah! You stayed later tonight. Tomorrow the loser buys coffee—aka me." You stand up from your chair, grab your bag from its usual spot on the floor under your desk, and head for the elevator with a small 'Goodnight, Hotch' as you try to hide the grin currently inhabiting your face.

The next morning, you show up at 7:45 with two coffees in a take-out tray—how you're up and awake after getting less than four hours of sleep, is beyond your knowledge. You place his cup in front of him, black and light roast, you noticed how he took it last week. And yours, almost identical, but with a slash of milk.

"And this is the loser buying?" He raises his brow at you, clearly finding your follow-through amusing.

"Rules are rules, Agent Hotchner."

"Call me Aaron." A small smile tugs at his lips; it's truly the first real one you've seen from him since you joined the BAU.

"Okay, Aaron." You smile back at him.

That night, the game starts, and from that point on, it's on.

The bullpen becomes your battlefield, quiet battlefield that is. No one notices your harmless competition at first. Gideon leaves at five if he can, always with a 'Don't stay too late, kids' on his way past your desks. Anderson waves goodbye around six, and the rest of the agents disappear sporadically sometime between the two, leaving the two of you alone, again.

But you and Hotch? You trade glances across the desks as the team leaves, already trying to figure out which of you will cave first.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

You're working on a case from Billings: three children kidnapped in the past nine weeks, all under ten, all taken from public parks between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. on weekdays, indicating that the unsub(s?) works a regular 9-5 job. No bodies yet, no ransom demands, no fingerprints, no witnesses who saw more than a dark sedan idling in the parking lot on all three occasions, and a single fresh bootprint near the swings from victim number two's abduction that doesn't match any of the visitors to the park during that time frame.

The photos in the file are the kind that make you feel completely hollowed out as you stare at cheerful, gap-toothed school portraits, birthday parties, one little boy in a Spider-Man costume holding his mother's hand as they went trick or treating last Halloween. And every time you look away, you feel like their eyes follow you, screaming at you, asking why you haven't found them yet.

You've been staring at the timeline from the first victim for forty minutes now, highlighter hovering slightly over the copy you made of the original, trying to force the unsub's pattern to reveal itself to you.

Your chest feels like someone parked their car on it.

It's around 11:30 p.m. when you finally blink away from the case—unable to take another glance at a freckled face with a snotty nose—you realize that Hotch hasn't turned a page in a while. He's watching you instead, elbows resting on his desk, chin resting on his steepled fingers.

He's looking at you, barely containing the fact that he's concerned about you. His eyes are soft, carefully trying to study you, find a clue, anything that can lead him to figure out what's bothering you.

"You okay?" He finally asks, coming to terms with not being able to profile you, yet.

"Just... I hate these ones." You swallow the lump in your throat, not realizing how dry your mouth has become.

Hotch nods once, slowly, understanding you perfectly. "Me too." A moment passes. "Do you want to talk through it, together?"

You do. God! Yes, you do.

You nod.

Hotch rolls his chair around the corner of the desks and straight into your space, stopping so close that your knees nearly touch under the desk. He starts spreading the evidence across the desk, moving pictures, reports, and interview logs into three distinct areas based on which victim the evidence is connected to.

"Okay," he starts, tapping the map in the middle of the desk. "All three abduction zones overlap, here." He circles the elementary school in the middle of the three parks, all exactly six miles away from it. "He has to be local."

"But the presumed comfort zone has a twenty-mile radius out from the school in each direction based on other similar cases," you counter, searching for the ruler, you know it's around here somewhere. Hotch hands it to you. You put it on the map and trace a straight line out from the school and circle the perimeter with a compass. "He's risking a lot of travel time with a live child in the car." You state, staring at the now visual preliminary comfort zone.

"Which means he's either extremely confident, or doesn't fit the regular profile for these types of cases. He most likely has a location nearby, where he holds the kids first." Hotch reaches for the highlighter at the same moment you do. You both freeze, then laugh.

"Sorry," he chuckles, but doesn't move his hand away, letting it linger for a moment as your thumbs and pointer fingers stay slightly interlocked with each other.

"By all means, Mr. Unit Chief-in-training," you tease him, letting him take the highlighter. Hotch told you last night, over a fairly sad and beige plate of leftover canteen food, that the director had approached him about becoming Unit chief of the National Security Branch. Which he had declined, arguing that, for one, he didn't feel that his time with the BAU was a closed chapter yet, and two, the commute to DC during morning rush hour was terrible, and he'd be seeing Haley even less than he already did.

Instead, the director had "offered" Hotch training courses in what it takes to be a Unit Chief—in Hotch's own words, it was more of a 'take the offer, or you're fired' kind of negotiation in the end.

"Not for years, hopefully." He snorts. Leaving it at that.

For the next two hours, the bullpen shrinks down to a tiny desk island, current inhabitants: 2.

You argue about possible stressors—job loss? Divorce? Death? It's hard to tell when a body hasn't shown up yet. You discuss whether the lack of a body could indicate that the unsub is sexually assaulting these kids, if he could be impotent, or simply isn't motivated by traditional dominance and "need" the kids for a bigger purpose—potentially trafficking.

You map possible locations within the perimeter, abandoned farms, storage unit facilities, and closed-down gyms on the edge of town, but quickly scrap those ideas, recognizing that most likely, he's keeping them trapped in a basement somewhere—or something similar.

Every time one of you hits a wall, the other is already there, ready to take over with a new angle.

At one point, you're both leaning over the same photograph of the third victim, missing for six days now, and despite your shoulders pressing together, neither of you does or seems to want to shift away from the other.

"Do you think she's still alive?" You ask, turning your head to look at him, the tips of your noses merely inches away from each other.

"I'll believe that, yes. Until we have a body, we'll keep searching for them all."

The clock on the wall ticks past 2:00 a.m. Your eyes are burning, but the fog around the profile is finally lifting, taking shape, teaching you more and more about what might drive this unsub to abduct children under ten.

You lean back in your chair, rolling your neck until it cracks.

"I can't, not tonight," you admit, mostly to yourself. "My brain's turning to mush, and I fear we're minutes away from me babbling pure nonsense." You smile at him.

Hotch looks at you for a moment, taking in the cloudy look in your eyes, the way you yawn every few minutes, the way you fiddle with the pen in your left hand, trying to keep yourself busy and awake.

He says your name softly. "You win this round." He leans back, looking exhausted, yet amused at the confusion slowly spreading across your face. "Coffee, tomorrow, on me. You take it black with a splash of milk still, right?" He questions.

You blink at him. You never told him that. And he certainly never has had to buy you coffee before.

"I pay attention." He winks before rolling back around to his own desk.

And as you get up to grab your coat, you can't help but glance back at him, still sitting at his desk, but instead of being nose deep in his own files, he's watching you as you leave, with an expression you can't quite place, but all you know, is that currently, a very taken man is making your chest feel full.

You have no idea that twenty-five years from now, this night, is still one of those you look back at with fond memories, realizing that it was the first time you let him see you vulnerable due to a case and the first time—of many—he rolled his chair over, just because you needed him close.

All you know for now is that the case still feels like it has no ending, that three children are still out there somewhere, waiting to be rescued. And for the first time all week, you finally believe that you'll bring these kids home, one way or another.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The competition between you becomes your thing. Unspoken and at times a little ridiculous, but nonetheless perfect in its own sleep-deprived kind of way.

Some nights you win—or as you've come to believe, he lets you win—he trudges in the next morning with two coffees in hand, but is met by a steaming latte waiting on his desk, with a pink sticky note stuck to it saying "Loser" in thick, sharpie lines. On those days, Hotch just huffs, raises his brows, and tries to contain his giggles as he shakes his head at you.

Most nights, he wins, and you return every single time with a black coffee, trying all the different shops along your commute until you find the one you swear you hear him slightly moan at when he takes the first sip.

On his winning days, Hotch somehow always ends up bringing you breakfast, because he knows by now that you would rather sleep thirty more minutes than get up and eat.

The 'Good mornings' no longer feel like necessary politeness, but rather like two friends greeting each other for another, looong, day at work.

The nights become yours entirely along the way, the bullpen giving way to real conversations after midnight, that aren't just: can you take a look at this? Or, do you want anything to drink?

It starts innocently enough one evening when you're both nursing the terrible vending-machine coffee, which is sour, most likely because the machine hasn't been cleaned since the day it was installed in the corridor.

The bullpen is down to the two of you again, the floor dark except for the soft glow from each of your desk lamps.

You're working together on a case for Gideon, something about his two brightest agents working together on something important, or... something ;). You're both running on empty as you keep going through crime scene statements from the field office in Oregon.

Hotch's gaze drifts up from the legal pad he's been scratching notes on all evening as you rub your temples. You hope that you somehow, within the past hour, gained the ability to massage new knowledge into your brain. Because this case feels like you're looking for a needle in a needle stack.

His eyes don't stay on you for long; instead, they glide toward the corner of your desk. And there, half-buried under a stack of fabric analysis reports, lay your battered paperback of Persuasion.

The cover is soft from years and years of rereading, the spine cracked in all the places you love most.

He reaches over without asking and carefully pries it out of the stack. Hotch turns it over in his hands, like he's weighing a pound of meat in the grocery store.

"Jane Austen? In the middle of researching a firebug?" He says, voice low and a little rough from the many long nights and too little sleep. Although his words come as questions, you don't feel like he's judging you for your choice. "That's a new one."

You lean slightly back in your chair, rolling your shoulders until they pop. You look at him, trying to figure out where his sudden fascination with your reading material comes from.

"She's my reset button," you finally say, giving in to his questions. "When everything else feels like chaos, Jane somehow manages to put the world back in order."

He nods.

"I've read this one," Hotch admits, and it almost sounds like he's surprised at his own statement. He quickly glances up at you, waiting for a reaction, before flipping it open carefully, his thumb brushing the edge of a page you've clearly read a hundred times. It's annotated with several different pens and colors, indicating each time you returned to the story.

"You've read Persuasion?" You raise a brow at him.

He nods once, slowly. "Third year of law school. I couldn't turn my brain off after a criminal law final. So, I went to the library, found the most boring-looking book I could on the shelves at two in the morning." Hotch's lips pull slightly up as he sees the—fake—disgust/hurt crossing your features as he messes with you. "I started reading it to bore myself to sleep. Ended up finishing it at sunrise instead."

You stare at him for a moment, trying to picture a younger Aaron Hotchner, tired eyes, ruffled hair, college shirt, and maybe even sweatpants, curled up in his awful dorm room bed with a two-hundred-year-old love story.

The image is so unexpectedly soft and fuzzy that it makes something warm spread through your chest.

"So the stoic prosecutor is secretly a softie for second-chance romance." You try to tease him, but your voice ends up coming out softer than you meant to. In the end, you don't really want to tease him about it, because you're in awe of the fact that a man, yes, a man‚ read a "girly" classic, without complaining.

It doesn't take long for Hotch to huff out a quiet laugh and place the book back down. He doesn't push it back across the desk right away, just gently keeps his fingers curled around the edges.

"It's not the romance," he says, eyeing the cover. "It's the waiting. The way someone can walk away and still come back when the timing finally lines up. The idea that some things are worth the years in between."

There's something in the way he speaks about the story that changes the air between you, thickens it, makes it feel like the exact moment the wind stops blowing after a storm, the exact moment the sun peaks out after the rain. The exact moment you realize that you might be catching feelings for an unavailable man.

"Yeah," you manage, swallowing the lump in your throat. "That part always gets me, too."

Hotch looks up, meets your eyes, case files forgotten, no profile, no pretense. Just the two of you and the quiet that follows as you stare into each other's eyes.

"Some people are worth the wait," he smiles, so quietly you almost miss it entirely.

Your breath catches in your throat for a split second. You don't answer him, you don't have to, not now, maybe never, but the look in his eyes tells you everything you need to know, for now.

He finally slides the book back to you, fingers brushing yours for the briefest second as you reach out to tug it fully over the line between your desks. You curl your hand around the cover, feeling the contact buzzing in your fingertips.

Neither of you opens another file for a long time.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

It's no less than a week later. The bullpen smells like soy sauce and noodles. You're sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite each other, with your backs leaning against your desk's leg and whoever owns the desk next to you. Various boxes of—none authentic—Chinese takeaway surround you, everything from deep-fried meats, rice with curry sauce, noodles with some sort of sweet and sour sauce, and so on.

The food isn't exactly the greatest, but it was the best option at this hour of the night.

The conversation has drifted from case theories to anything but.

You nudge the carton of rice toward him with your chopsticks, hoping that he will eat the last of it, because it is actually awful and you don't want to punish your taste buds with it even more than you've already done. "Come on, Hotchner. You can't hold out on me forever. Worst first date. Go!"

Hotch groans and leans his head back against the desk. He closes his eyes for a split second, praying for strength, cause he knows you won't rest the case until he has told you exactly what went down. "Fine. It's Seattle ´95. I just joined the bureau, and Haley and I decided to take a break to test our relationship. A friend of a friend swore he'd found a perfect match for me. She shows up with a three-ring binder full of pictures. Not of her, but of her cat. Mr. Whiskers—"

"—No way!" You interject.

"Yes way!! Anyway, the binder starts with kitten pictures, then moves to vacation shots from a trip to the French countryside, then..." Hotch drags a hand down his face. "She proceeded to spend forty-five minutes describing the colonoscopy he had a week prior. In detail. I'm talking diagrams, recovery timelines, medication, specialty diet he went on afterward, vet notes. Everything! I ended up timing how long I could go without making eye contact with the waiter. The record was eleven minutes."

"Stop! Please! I can't breathe." You wheeze out, trying to compose yourself, but it's to no avail, so you press your forehead to your knees, trying to quiet your laughs down.

Hotch peeks at you through his fingers, grinning, hands covering his face. "Your turn! Don't think you can get out of telling your worst one!"

"Okay, Okay!" You wipe your eyes, "It's a bar here in Quantico, two years ago. Guy says he's a 'trekkie with a capital T.' He shows up in the red command uniform. Shirt, phaser, badge, the works. Greets me with a Vulcan salute and asks if I'd like to 'boldly go where no man has ever gone before...' to Denny's at 3 in the morning. Then he tries to pay for my coffee with replicator credits he printed in his mom's basement."

Hotch drops his head and laughs. "You wine," he manages through uncontrained bursts of giggles. "At least Mr. Whiskers had personality."

"Mr. Whiskers had detailed medical records," you counter. "It's safe to say that you win this one with crazy Ms. catlady."

"Let's never speak of replicator credits or catladies ever again." Hotch points his chopstick at you before he leans over and steals the last few noodles, emptying another box.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The child-abduction case from Billings, finally, finally, is blessedly closed. All three children were found curled up in the crawl space of the unsub's garage, dehydrated, in various states, but alive—all of them are alive. You sighed loudly and extremely heavily the second the news hit your inbox.

You've spent most of the time since the news broke searching up articles, watching videos of the police and field office agents breaking down the unsub's door, and several different news coverages, everything you can find on the ending of your first nightmare case.

It feels like the first real deep breath you've been able to take in the past two weeks.

You sit on top of your desk, cross-legged, one elbow on your knee, with your head resting in your palm, while the other hand stirs a cube of sugar into the cup of tea you're making.

Your shoes are kicked off somewhere under your desk—because you're a civilised person who doesn't put dirty footwear on the furniture.

Hotch sits across from you in his usual spot, leaning back in his chair, his head tipped back, and his eyes closed—it's been a long day.

His tie is wrapped around your head, something that happened around hour five after the team left, when you both had a sudden burst of insanity. The top button on his shirt is undone, and his sleeves are rolled as far up as he allows himself—which is to the elbow, like a normal person.

Hotch opens his eyes slightly, watching you as you lift your mug and take the first sip, burning your tongue in the process.

"They're really okay," you say, voice small and quiet in the massive expanse of the bullpen. "I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop." You admit.

He leans forward, now resting his elbows on the edge of his desk, and puts his head in his hands, looking at you. "They're okay, because we didn't stop," he says. "Because you didn't forget them, because you didn't stop."

You place the mug back down and slowly slide off the desk. It's almost as if you're thinking the same thing, because he stands up too, and you meet at the line where your desks meet and embrace each other. Needing the reassurance. Your arms wrap around his waist as his chin comes to rest on the crown of your head.

For a long time, neither of you speaks, you just stand there. Embraced.

"Thank you," you finally whisper, pulling your head out from under his chin to look up at him. "For not letting me fall apart on this one."

"You were never falling apart," his arms tighten slightly. "Everyone has that type of case that gets to them more often than not. And you tend to... feel everything. Mine are the ones about fathers and sons."

"Will you tell me about it one day?" You ask, sensing that there's something buried deep within his person, something he wants to talk about, but also something he fears will change the way people view him.

He nods. "Maybe someday."

It's not until an hour later, when you're packing up to leave, that you finally speak again.

"Why'd you really join?" You ask, unprompted.

"My dad was a lawyer," he states, stuffing the last of his things into his bag. "Old-school, 'justice is blind' type. Expected me and my brother Sean to follow him into corporate law, make partner by thirty-five, marry well, die respected." His mouth turns into a frown. "Then I watched a serial rapist walk away because his dad played golf with the judge. I was twenty-seven. Decided I wanted to stop them instead of arguing about whether they were guilty or not. That's the gist of it." He waves his hand in the air at the last part. "Your turn."

"My mom moved us to Ohio when I was a kid because her dream was to open a diner off the I-70," you pick at the label on your water bottle before packing it into your bag. "Open 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, no fail except on Christmas and Thanksgiving. I saw and observed my fair share of truckers, cops, runaway teens, cheating husbands, and plotting wives, you know the works. I started waiting tables when I was twelve. Learned to read people before I even knew what algebra meant. The regulars had patterns: the way Mr. Henderson always ordered decaf after church, how Tammy, the night cook, flinched when men raised their voices. I figured out who was lying over time, who was running from something, who was one bad day away from becoming one of the very people we hunt. I thought... if I could understand why people turn into monsters, that maybe I could keep someone else from becoming the next scared person hiding in a diner bathroom, because their abuser tracked them down." You shrug, a little embarrassed. "I don't know, it sounds a little stupid when I say it out loud."

"It doesn't," he says. "It sounds like the reason we're both still here on a Thursday at 2 a.m."

Over time, you learn more and more about each other.

He tells you about summers on the James River, catching catfish with his little brother Sean, his mother's gardenias that smelled exactly like church on Sunday mornings.

You tell him about your mom teaching you to make pie crust with vodka, because it keeps it tender apparently, about the jukebox that only played Springsteen and The Beatles, because it was broken and you couldn't afford to have it fixed. About the night you caught a line cook stealing from the register and talked him into turning himself in instead of telling your mom and calling the cops.

You learn that he hates peas, but will eat them if they're hidden in a pie or casserole dish. He learns you secretly love cheesy 80's ballads and sing them in the shower like nobody's watching, cause they aren't obviously. You learn that he still has a worn copy of 'The Federalist Papers', which his father gave him when he was accepted into law school, even though they barely spoke before he died. He learns that you lost your mom in a car crash during college, but that she would send you care packages every month with your favorite homemade dishes and a note that always read: "Don't let the bastards get you down, honey."

Piece by piece, you trade small, sacred details of your lives over burnt coffee, like kids swapping baseball cards in the school yard, only these feel like they matter more.

Neither of you wants to admit it out loud, but somewhere between the midnight house, laughter, and brutal cases, your desks stop feeling like two separate entities and start feeling like shared territory.

It's not about who stays the latest anymore.

It's about who you want to stay the latest with.

By mid-December, you're both pretending to read your reports through before delivering them to Gideon's inbox and heading home, but really, you're talking about everything and nothing at all. The best pizza places in the D.C. area, whether aliens would be evil and turn into unsubs, and his terrible attempt at baking cookies last Christmas as an apology to Haley for not being home enough.

"I should go." You yawn, barely able to keep your eyes open.

He looks up. "Yeah. Me too."

Neither of you moves, neither of you wants to move.

"Truce?" You finally laugh, figuring your little competition was having a flare again.

Hotch just smiles and closes his eyes. "Truce. Coffee's on me tomorrow, though. No loser this time."

"Deal, Aaron." You grab your coat from the back of your chair and start heading home.

You've nearly made it through the first six months of your first year now.

The bullpen is once again dead quiet, and half the lights are off except for your two desk lamps that burn like two tiny campfires in the dark.

You're both still here, as usual, finishing a couple of overdue reports and sometimes even pretending to work before the silence turns into silly conversations.

You've won the last three nights in a row, meaning Hotch has shown up every morning with a coffee, exactly how you like it. But there's something about the past couple of days that has been feeling off about him. You don't know what it is, but it's not like him to leave work before 8 p.m.

Tonight, though, something's definitely off. He's been staring at the same page for twenty minutes now. Pen hasn't moved, not even jotting a tiny dot down on his pad by accident. His shoulders are rigid, and his jaw clenched like he's biting words back he doesn't want nor know how to say.

"Aaron." You say as you close your file.

He blinks, looks up from his own file, like he forgot you were there. "Yeah?"

"You've read that autopsy report four times now, and you still look like you want to set it on fire. What's going on? Talk to me." Your voice cracks slightly; you hope he didn't catch it, but you know better—he's a profiler, for Christ's sake, he notices everything.

He exhales through his nose and sets the pen down, harder than he intended to, you can tell by the slight surprise in his eyes at the sound. "I'm fine." He mutters, his words short and almost sounding clipped.

"You're the worst liar I've ever met, and we profile liars for a living, remember." You roll your chair around the corner of the desks until you're sitting beside him instead of across. Close enough to see the faint shadows under his eyes, the tension around his mouth, the stubble starting to show, which is the biggest indicator that something is definitely wrong—he never neglects his grooming habits, never. "Come on. It's me."

Hotch glances at the clock.

"No one else is here. Spill." You try again.

He rubs a hand over his face, and for a long, very long, minute you think that he's about to shut you down, to tell you to keep your nose to yourself, maybe even go as far as telling you it's none of your business—Hotch would never go that far, not with you.

Then he leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. You don't know if it's a strategic move or just his subconscious way of trying to avoid confrontation.

"Haley ended it," he says, voice so low, so dead, that you almost miss it. "Last week."

Haley's name lands between the two of you like a brick being thrown through a window. You know, Haley, you've seen the framed photo he kept on his desk—come to think of it, it recently disappeared. Why didn't he say anything?—You've met Haley.

Haley, the high-school sweetheart, Haley, the prom-queen, Haley, the future-Mrs.-Hotchner.

"I'm sorry," you finally speak, because it feels too small and too big at the same time. You don't really know how to react. You're sad for Aaron, really sad, but you also know exactly how many hours he spends in the office compared to at home. So you completely get Haley.

He gives a tight shrug, trying to seem casual, but it doesn't come off that way. "We'd been together since we were sixteen. She waited while I attended George Washington, waited through law school, waited through the Academy, through Seattle. She said that she couldn't keep waiting for a life that never really started." His voice cracks, catching on the last word; he clears his throat like it never happened. "The hours here... they're worse than in the field office. Before you started with the team, I came home around 3 a.m. and left again by seven, before she even woke up. Sometimes I'd forget to call to tell her I would be home late. She said I was married to the job." Hotch lets out a laugh. "She isn't wrong."

You don't say anything, not yet; he has more he needs to get off his chest, you can tell. You watch him pick up the pen again, roll it between his fingers like he needs something to do with his hands to keep himself focused.

"She wanted kids," he continues, this time quieter. "A house with a yard and a dog. Normal things, really. And I kept telling her soon, soon, soon, after the next case, after I make supervisor, after, after, after." He finally looks at you, his eyes glaze over in a way you've never seen before. He's always so strong; you're usually the one on the brink of tears. "Turns out 'after' never comes."

Your chest aches for you. You reach out without thinking and cover his hand with yours on the desk. He flinches, just barely, stops rolling the pen, and lets your fingers stay, your thumb gently brushing the back of his hand in a, hopefully, calming motion.

"You're allowed to be upset, Aaron."

"I'm not upset, I'm angry," he admits. "At her for giving up on us, at myself for—" he trails off, "for letting it happen. For choosing this over my partner." He gestures vaguely at the files, at the bullpen, at the life. You know he isn't referring to you, but it stings a little as he says it, knowing that you're a part of this. "I don't know how to be anything... anyone else anymore."

"You're not alone in that," you say, exhaling softly. "Half this unit is allergic to normal. Doesn't mean it makes us broken and unlovable. Just... a little complicated."

Hotch huffs out a tiny laugh; it doesn't quite reach his eyes, but at least he didn't look sad for a split second. "Complicated. Right."

Silence settles between you. Your thumb brushes a last time across the back of his hand before you pull away, rolling your chair backward toward your side of the desks.

He clears his throat, which stops you in your tracks, and sits up straighter. "Anyway. That's... that's why I've been..." He waves at his untouched—now cold—cup of coffee and the unread pages of the autopsy report.

"Thank you for telling me."

"You're easy to talk to. Dangerously easy, do you drug my coffee in the mornings or something?" He jokes, meeting your eyes, finally letting the real Aaron break through.

"Dangerous is my middle name," you deadpan before sending a quick wink in his direction. He bursts out laughing, and you follow quickly after.

When you both come back down to reality, Hotch glances at the clock. "You should go home. Get some sleep."

"So should you."

"Truce?" A asks after a beat.

"Truce," you agree.

You both start packing up, very slowly, neither of you wants to leave, not yet. When you reach the elevators, he holds the door open for you.

"Hey," you smile, turning to him as the doors slide shut. "Tomorrow, the coffee's on me."

He looks at you for a moment before softening with a grateful expression.

"I'd like that," he says.

And just like that, as the elevator starts its descent, you and Hotch leave the office before midnight for the first time since your first day sitting across from him.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

You make it all the way to the women's restroom on the fifth floor—the one no one uses and especially not after 5 p.m.—before you crack.

The door swings behind you before shutting completely—you definitely pushed it open too hard—and the fluorescent tube lights flicker once as the automatic censor turns them on.

You take the stall farthest back and lock yourself inside, hang your bag on the hook, close the seat, and crawl onto the toilet. You draw your knees to your chest, praying that if anyone actually comes in, they won't notice your hiding spot.

And that's when everything hits, all at once.

The hospice doctor's voicemail from earlier, the one you didn't get to listen to until now, two hours later, because you were in a meeting.

"We need to talk about whether your father qualifies for continuous care still... costs could increase significantly..."

The email from their accounting department lay untouched in your inbox, because you're already hemorrhaging your savings on uncovered medications and day rates on his room alone.

The consult file on your desk that's due tomorrow, but you haven't touched yet, because every time you try to read the victimology, your eyes fill and the words blur, leaving you unable to map the profile.

The way your dad didn't recognize you for a full ten minutes yesterday when you went for a visit, he just stared at the ceiling and called you "Linda,"—his sister's name, who died in 1987. Most days, he remembers you, but the days he doesn't hurt, hurt more than you want to admit.

Your chest starts hitching before you can stop it, and you press the heels of your hands into your eyes, like it's physically possible to shove the tears back in. Still, they come anyway—hot, messy, silent at first, but then end with those awful choked noises you can't swallow, the ones when you've been crying too long and can't catch your breath.

You're terrified that you're going to lose your job if anyone finds out how badly you're drowning. That you won't be able to finish another profile or report ever again.

You're terrified of losing your dad, terrified of not being there with him when it happens, terrified of being alone, orphaned. You're not ready, and you'll never be.

You're terrified that the last real thing he said to you, before he started slipping, was 'Don't spend all your savings on me, honey,' and you lied and told him you wouldn't.

You cry until your throat is raw and your sleeves are soaked and your ribs hurt from trying to keep it quiet as physically possible. You count the ceiling tiles—twenty-seven—and try those Bureau-recommended breathing exercises that were attached to your welcome package. But they don't work when the bad thing is real life, and not a case you can close and happily forget.

Eventually, the storm passes—somewhat—leaving you shaky and hollowed out, barely able to stand on your legs—Great, Bambi, it is for the rest of the day, you think. You exit the stall and splash cold water on your face. Your eyes are swollen, nose red and running. You look like you have the wildest case of seasonal allergies... or like someone who's been crying in a federal building—which is exactly what you have.

You rummage around your bag and dig concealer out, dab it under your eyes, praying it'll cover the worst of it. You tell yourself you can do this. You're a profiler—in-training. You can compartmentalize. You work with cool people, people who've stared down serial killers at gunpoint; you can survive one more day of pretending everything is fine.

You practice a smile in the mirror, but end up looking like a corpse pretending to be alive.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket as you're about to push the door open and emerge back into reality. You almost ignore it, but something feels weird, which makes you answer.

"(Y/N)? It's Dr. Singh. I'm sorry to call so late. Your father's asking for you, and I promised to relay the message. He's lucid tonight. If you can come–"

"—I'll be there in thirty." You cut her off, your voice only wobbles a little. You hike your bag further up your shoulder and head out, walking out of the bathroom, slightly hurried, but as if nothing happened.

You don't see Hotch standing at the far end of the hallway, half-hidden by the vending machines, holding two fresh—awful—coffees he came up to deliver, worried about you, when he noticed you'd been gone a little too long.

He watches the restroom door swing shut behind you, watches you swipe under your nose one last time before you enter the elevator with a spine that is entirely too straight and with a smile too bright for you to be okay.

He makes it his mission to figure out what's going on with you, the same you kept 'pestering' him about his bad day.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

A few weeks later, the hospice parking lot is still dark when you pull in. The sky is just starting to fade into that bruised-purple color it gets before sunrise.

You sit in your car for a minute, gripping the steering wheel, knuckles turning white, telling yourself you can do this. You've done this before. You've done it every morning for weeks.

One more time. You can do it one more time. You tell it to yourself every morning before work.

Inside, the night nurse gives you a small smile and waves you through as she's doing the handover to the next shift.

The hallway always smells the same—antiseptic, instant oatmeal, and something faintly sweet that you've decided is hopelessness trying to be kind to you, but is definitely spilled orange juice that died before it got mobbed up completely.

Room 214 is dim; the bedside table lamp is turned on. Your dad is awake, eyes open, staring at the ceiling like he's waiting, waiting for something you can't see.

You pull the chair next to his bed closer and take his hand in yours. It's cold. Lighter than yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Every day, you never expect how much his health has declined compared to the day before.

"Morning, Dad." You greet softly.

He turns his head slowly, and for one heartbreaking second, his eyes focus on you—really focus. Not like usual, when he's there, but not really there at all.

"There's my girl," he rasps, voice shaky and lower than a whisper. A small smile tugs at his cracked lips. "You're too pretty to be up this early, honey."

You laugh, it sounds a little wet, but thankfully, he doesn't seem to notice. "Had to beat the awful D.C traffic," you joke. "How'd you sleep?"

"Like a dead man," he says, then winces, seeing the pained expression crawl into your eyes. "Bad joke. Sorry, kiddo."

"Don't be sorry. If anything, you're allowed bad jokes, dad." You squeeze his fingers, hoping it comes off as reassuring and not pitying.

You talk about nothing important, because everything important hurts too much right now. You tell him the Reds won last night—they didn't, but he won't know, and what's a little white lie when you're putting a smile on a dying man's lips.

You tell him about the stray cat that keeps visiting the dumpster behind your apartment, the one you've considered adopting, but can't bring you to, because you're never home.

He tells you the nurses have started sneaking him extra Jell-O and that the ceiling tiles above his bed look exactly like the 1965 Mustang he and your mom still drove when you were born.

You pretend his breathing isn't getting shallower with every passing minute.

At 6:45 a.m., he starts to drift off, eyes fluttering shut, fighting to stay awake. You lean in and kiss his forehead, tasting salt and the lingering aroma of the hospice soap. "I love you, dad," you whisper, trying not to wake him up. "I'll be back tonight, okay? We'll watch that awful game show you really like."

He manages a barely there nod, already half asleep.

You stand in the doorway to his room for a moment longer, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest under the thin blanket, barely keeping him warm. Then you force yourself to turn away, needing to get to work.

Dr. Singh is waiting by the nurses' station, arms folded, expression trying to stay gentle, but you sense the seriousness in her stance. She touches your elbow as you pass. "Can we talk for a minute?"

Your heart drops straight through the floor. You already know what's coming, but you follow her into the family room anyway—the one with the faded couch and the box of tissues that never seems to empty.

She closes the door behind her and sits down in a chair opposite you. "I'm sorry to do this when you're on your way out."

"It's okay," you lie.

She's close enough that you can smell the coffee on her breath and the hand sanitizer she reapplies after every patient she visits. "The latest labs came back overnight," she folds her hands and leans slightly forward. "His kidneys are failing faster than we expected. The infection isn't responding to anything we have left." She pauses, lets the information settle. "Realistically, we're looking at days. Maybe three to five if we're lucky. A week would be... optimistic at best."

The words land exactly like you knew they would, but hearing them spoken out loud still knocks the air out of you.

Days.

You stare at your hands resting in your lap, watching them slightly begin to shake. You twist the silver ring he gave you when you graduated college, the one that used to belong to your mother.

"Is he... suffering?" You question, voice coming out small and on the brink of tears.

"We've increased the morphine. He's comfortable. Most of the time he's not in any pain at all—he's just... slipping away peacefully, if that makes sense to you." She reaches over and covers your hands with hers. "You've done everything right. He knows you're here; he talks about you every time he's awake." She smiles, trying to reassure you.

You nod, because speaking feels absolutely impossible. Tears blur your vision now, turning the room into watercolor streaks.

"Call anyone who needs to be here to say goodbye," she says softly. "And take care of yourself, too. You've done so much for him; you don't have to be strong every second you're here. It's okay to not be okay." She reassures.

You wipe your eyes with the tips of your fingers. "Thank you."

She walks you to the door. "We'll call if anything changes, day or night. No matter what it is."

You step out into the hallway, pull your coat tighter around you, almost as if it alone can hold you together. The morning sun is finally breaking through the windows. You stand in the hallway for a long time, breathing in the antiseptic air as you try to make the world feel solid beneath your feet once again.

Then, you take one last deep breath, square your shoulders, and walk out to your car. You start the drive to the Academy—because right now, putting one foot in front of the other is the only thing you know how to do, the only thing that seems easy to do right now.

You badge yourself in on autopilot, through the several security checkpoints, until you sit down at your desk. It feels like it takes an hour alone just to make it to the bullpen, the bullpen who's already half-alive—phones ringing, printers printing, Anderson probably running another errand for section chief Strauss... because of course he is, he's the biggest teacher's pet you've ever met.

Your desk is exactly how you left it last night, except there's a fresh coffee waiting in front of your monitor with a post-it note stuck to the to-go cup in Hotch's neat block handwriting:

Latte, two sugars, thought you could use something a little sweet. — A

You drop your back beneath your desk and sink into your chair before you wrap both hands around the cup like it's the only thing able to warm your cold, cold soul.

The coffee tastes like nothing—Which probably isn't true, but to you, you taste nothing.

Hotch looks up from his desk, eyes flick over you once, twice, cataloging everything your body language tells him: red-rimmed eyes, trembling fingers, the way you're sitting too slouched as if you've given up, like you'll shatter if anyone as much as blinks at you the wrong way.

"Morning," he says softly, tempted to ask questions, but sensing that you need time, how long he doesn't know, but you need time to just be.

"Morning." Your voice is gravel-rough.

He waits, giving you an opening to talk, giving you the opening you always take, to tell him what's going on. But you don't take it. You just open the first file in the pile stacking up in your inbox, and stare at the words. Although they refuse to form any coherent sentences in your head right now.

By eight, Gideon stops by your desk to drop off the Atlanta consult you worked on last week, asking for a few revisions to the profile with a: "Need these by noon."

You nod.

He hesitates, too, sensing that something is up. He glances at Hotch, with a subtle shrug and a look that's asking all the questions Hotch doesn't have the answers to.

Hotch just nods back, signalling that he has it under control—he doesn't. Gideon lets the two of you be.

Later in the morning, you're proofreading the same paragraph over and over when Hotch's chair rolls from his own side of the desks and into your peripheral vision.

"Hey," he whispers, keeping his voice so low that no one outside of your desk bubble had any chance of catching the conversation. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." It comes out snappier than intended, but honestly, you have very little control over your emotions lately, and Hotch is so... so comfortable to be around that you can't help it.

"You don't look fine."

"I look how I look. I'm here, I'm working. I'm fine!" You flip to the next page harder than necessary, your emotions getting the better of you.

He doesn't move. "You missed the staff meeting."

"I was in the restroom," technically true; you were hiding in a stall trying not to hyperventilate. "Is that illegal now?"

He leans his side over your desk, face popping into your field of vision. He doesn't take your hand, but you can tell he wants to, that he wants to squeeze it, to reassure you, to let you know that everything will be okay, even though he doesn't know what's going on. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about." The words come out like venom. You barely manage to soften as you turn your attention completely to your file. "I just need to get this done."

"You're shaking." He states, studying you.

You glance down, your left hand is indeer trembling around the pen. You drop it on the desk, curl your fingers into a fist, and crack your knuckles. "I said. I'm fine, Agent Hotchner." You spit at him.

His eyebrows shoot up at the use of his last name. You never call him anything but his name anymore; you rarely use Hotch, only when mentioning him around the other team members.

He lowers his voice further. "Whatever it is, you don't have to carry it alone. I'm here to lend an ear if you need it."

Something inside you snaps like a rubber band pulled too tight.

"I'm not some victim you need to profile, okay?" It comes out loud enough that the agents at the cluster of desks right next to yours glance over, confused that Batman and Robin apparently are 'fighting'.

You drop your volume but not the edge. "I don't need rescuing. I need to finish this damn consult before Gideon decides I'm useless, not cut out for the job. So please! Just. Back. Off."

The bullpen goes quieter than it has any right to at nine-thirty in the morning.

Hotch's face doesn't change, but something appears to shudder behind his eyes. He gives a single, tight nod. "Understood." He says and rolls his chair back to his desk.

He doesn't look at you again for the rest of the day.

The rest of the day is a special kind of hell. Its own kind of nightmare that you can't seem to wake from.

You power through the consult revisions, finally feeling like you're making progress—if that's what you can call it. Every keystroke feels like dragging nails across your own skin. You skip lunch, because the thought of food makes you nauseous. You drink more coffee that tastes like nothing. Answers a few emails in short, brittle sentences.

When Agent Damien asks if you want to join the afternoon run to the food trucks, you bite out "Can't" so harshly that he, for once, doesn't try to pester you into joining. He just leaves you be.

The floor has mostly cleared out by six. You, too, are packing up, movements jerky when Hotch appears again, coat draped over his arm.

"I'm heading out," he says, his tone neutral. "You need a ride?"

"I have a car." Your voice is flat.

He nods, like that was the answer he had expected. "Just... text me when you get home, please."

"I don't need a babysitter, Aaron."

"I'm not offering to babysit," his voice is concerningly calm, but there's still an edge of steel underneath it. "I'm asking you to let me know that you made it home safely, because you're clearly upset, and I don't want to read your name in the headlines tomorrow morning. Humor me, please."

You want to snap again. Instead, the fight drains out of you all at once, leaving you swaying for a bit, not really knowing what to say.

"I'm sorry," you whisper. "I didn't mean to—"

"I know." He cuts you off, steps closer, and lowers his voice so it feels more intimate. "Whatever happened this morning, whenever you're ready. I'm here. No judgement. No profiling. Just... here. But ripping my head off won't make you feel any better; it'll only delay whatever explosion you clearly need to have."

Your eyes start to burn. You nod once, faster than intended, before the tears can fall in front of him. You don't want to cry in front of him, don't want him to view you any differently.

He hesitates, then reaches out and squeezes your shoulder before walking toward the elevators.

You watch him leave, throat tight, guilt and grief tangled together so thoroughly that you can't tell which is which and which of them you're feeling the strongest right now.

You wait for a moment, then grab your bag, shut off your desk lamp, and head down to the parking lot through the back stairs.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The bullpen is a ghost town, and it's just you and Hotch once again. The case files in front of you blur into meaningless ink on paper as your thoughts drift toward your father.

You're both quieter than usual tonight, the tension from your snap three days ago still lingers like a bruise neither of you wants to touch. He hasn't pushed the matter since, and you know that he isn't holding a grudge, but you keep catching him watching you when he thinks you're not looking, trying to read you, trying to figure out what's going on.

You're not ready to tell him, tell anybody—maybe never.

Your phone vibrates under a few scattered files, and when you finally find it, the words: HOSPICE, slap you straight in the face. It feels like your heart stops, then lurches into your throat, all the while a pit is forming in your stomach.

You grab the phone and stand so fast that you nearly tip your chair over. Hotch looks up at the sudden noise.

"I'll be right back," you mutter, already halfway out the door.

Hotch just nods, eyes narrowing slightly, but he doesn't say anything.

You make it to the hallway and lean against the wall by the vending machines, the ones out of sight from the glass doors into the bullpen, before you answer with a voice you barely recognize as your own. "Hello?"

"Hi (Y/N), this is Dr. Singh." Her tone is soft, a little too soft, you think, it's the kind of soft that can only mean bad news, really, really bad news, so you brace yourself, crossing your fingers. "I'm so sorry," she starts. "Your father passed about ten minutes ago. It was very peaceful, he was sleeping and his heart just... stopped." You can tell she's trying to lessen the blow by her phrasing.

But the world still tilts, everything blurs, and it feels like you've had your skull bashed in with a sledgehammer. You slide down the wall to a crouch, phone still pressed to your ear. You hear the words, but not really processing them.

Passed. Peaceful. Stopped.

They play on loop.

"Are you there?" Dr. Singh asks gently when you don't answer her.

"Yeah," you croak out after another few silent seconds. "I... thank you for calling." You blink back tears, trying to keep yourself composed enough to get through the rest of this call.

"Do you want to come in now? We can talk about next steps—"

"—I'll... I'll call back later. I need a minute." You cut her off."

"Of course. Take your time. I'm on the night shift, so you can send me a message if you'll be stopping by tonight." She reassures.

You don't answer her, just hang up. The phone slips from your hand and clatters on the tile. You don't bother looking at your screen—it's probably cracked from the fall.

Your stomach churns, acid burning up your throat, and before you know it, you stumble to your feet and lurch toward the bathroom down the hall. You barely make it to a stall before you're retching into the bowl. Whatever comes up mostly consists of bile and the very healthy diet you've had the past twenty-four hours, of coffee, and the skins of the few grapes you managed to keep down.

Your hands shake so hard that you have to grip the porcelain to keep yourself from collapsing headfirst into the bowl.

When you finally stop, you sink back and slide to the floor, knees pulled to your chest, back against the stall wall. The sobs come fast and violent, tearing out of you like something wild.

You press your forehead to your knees, trying to muffle the sound, but it's no use. You're breaking, and there's no one here to see it, and somehow that makes it all feel ten times worse.

You don't know how long you're sitting in the stall—minutes, maybe ten, maybe twenty, maybe an hour. The tiles are cold through your slacks, cold enough that your shivers now come from the cold and not from your emotional outburst. Your throat is raw, eyes swollen shut, and burning. You don't hear the footsteps outside until there's a soft knock on the door into the bathroom.

"Hey," you hear Hotch's voice call out, low and steady, like he's cooing at a scared animal. "You in there? I saw your phone on the ground and—"

"—Go away," you sob, the words coming out muffled against your knees. "Please, Aaron. Just go."

He doesn't. The door creaks open, and you hear the click of his shoes on the tile as he comes closer and closer to the stall you're in. Then he stops. You don't look, but you know he's there, that he's standing just outside the stall, and if he were to push the door open, that he'd see you curled into yourself, face streaked with tears, shaking as if it's physically impossible for you to stop.

You don't want him to see you like this.

"Talk to me," he says quietly, so quietly it almost sounds like he's... begging? "What happened?"

"I said, go away!" It comes out half-scream, half-whimper.

Hotch ignores your request once again. You hear his palm as it touches the door, pushing it slowly open. You curse yourself for not taking the time to lock it while you were face deep in the toilet bowl. You peek at him from behind your knees as he crouches down in the opening once the door is fully open. The jacket of his suit brushes the probably filthy and germ-ridden floor. He lays his hands, palms up, on his knees, like he wants to grab your hands and hold them, but isn't sure if he should, or if he's allowed to.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says. "Not when you're in this state. Not until you tell me what's going on."

You shake your head at him, tears flowing silently down your cheeks faster and faster. "You can't fix this, Aaron."

"Maybe I don't need to try to fix it. Maybe I just want to be here, because my friend is hurt and too stubborn to ask for help."

You choke on a sob, press your hand over your mouth, trying to hold it all in. He waits, silent, patient, waiting for you to make this next move. His presence is so solid in the stall that it almost feels unbearable.

Finally, the words claw their way out.

"My dad died." Your voice breaks on the last words. "His doctor at the hospice called. He's gone.

Hotch's face softens, grief and understanding in his eyes. He doesn't say 'I'm sorry' or any of the useless things people say when you're grieving. Because in truth, it's bullshitt, and none of it works when you're in such a deep state of pain, that the only thing you feel is misery.

Instead, he shifts to sit beside you on the floor, shoulder barely touching yours, trying his best to ground you without crowding.

"Tell me," he says. "Everything or nothing at all. Just... talk, please."

And you do. It spills out like blood for a stab wound: How you've been drowning in hospice bills and the guilt of feeling like you're not visiting him enough. How you've been terrified every day this week of getting that call. How you're not ready to be alone in the world without the man who taught you how to tie your shoes and believed you could be anything you set your heart on.

You tell him about the doctor's warning three days ago, the days-to-a-week timeline, how you thought you'd have more time—prayed... begged ...for more time. You tell him you're falling apart, and you've been hiding it because you're supposed to be strong, supposed to be a profiler, not a complete mess who throws up in the bathroom stalls at work.

He listens, doesn't interrupt, doesn't flinch when your voice cracks and breaks or raises when you get angry with yourself, or when you start crying again halfway through.

When you're done, you're shaking even harder, so hard your teeth chatter.

He reaches out then, slowly, giving you time to pull away if you aren't ready yet. You don't. His hand finds yours, gently unwrapping your curled form; he's warm, and he pulls you into him. You let him, collapsing against his chest, your face pressed into his shirt as fresh sobs rip through you.

His arms come around you, one hand cradling the back of your head, pushing you closer to him, the other rubbing slow circles on your back.

"I've got you," he murmurs into the crown of your head, over and over, until the words start to sound real to you. "You're not alone. You don't have to be alone. "I've got you."

You don't know how long you stay like that, him holding you together on a bathroom floor, his tie is probably ruined from all your tears, your hands are fisted in his jacket like it's the only connection keeping you from falling apart completely.

Eventually, your breathing evens out, and the sobs slow to hiccups.

"I don't know what to do," you whisper, uncurling one of your hands to wipe your eyes.

"You don't have to know right now," he says. "You just have to let yourself grieve right now. And when you're ready, we'll figure out the next steps. Together."

You pull back, just enough to look at him. His eyes are warm, no trace of judgment. "Why are you doing this?" It comes out as a whisper.

"Because I know you'd do the same for me," he says, simple as that. "And because I care about you."

The words hit harder than they should've. You nod, wipe your face with the back of your hand on instinct, before letting him help you to your feet. You sway, dizzy from the crying. Hotch keeps a hand on your elbow and the other around your hips, steadying you.

"Do you want me to drive you to the hospice?" He asks. "You shouldn't be alone tonight."

You feel the need to argue, to tell him that you need to do it alone, that this is your war to fight, but the fight's gone out of you. "Okay."

You make your way back toward the elevators, Hotch pops into the bullpen quickly—leaving you in the hallway with a blank and emotionless stare in your eyes—he grabs your coat and bag, and slings it over his shoulder before meeting you and calling for the elevator.

The drive to the hospice is quiet, not even the radio is turned on.

Hotch keeps one hand on the wheel, while the other rests on the console between you, palm up, in case you need something to hold. You don't take it, but you steal glances at it the whole way there.

When you walk into Room 214, the lights are dimmed to almost darkness. Your father is still in his bed, sheet pulled up to his chest, and his hands folded, like he's simply resting. Someone has brushed his hair and turned his head so he's staring toward the ceiling. It feels unnatural because he always sleeps on his side.

You stop in the doorway, legs unwilling to move, to walk up to him, to acknowledge that this is, in fact, real. Hotch rests his hand gently on your shoulder, giving it the smallest of squeezes.

"Remember, I'm right here," he murmurs close to your ear.

You take the first step slowly and carefully cross the room until you reach his bedside. The chair is still pulled close to the bed from when you moved it this morning. You sink into it and reach for your dad's hand—it's so cold now, no give in his fingers as rigor mortis has started by now, and worst of all, no answering squeeze.

The reality slams into you all over again.

"Daddy," you whimper, the word breaks in half as your whole world feels like it is crumbling around you.

You fold forward, forehead pressing to the back of his hand, shoulders shaking so hard that you hear the bed rail rattling. The sobs are loud, animalistic, and nothing like the tears that flowed earlier in the bathroom.

You curl over him, like you can shield him from what's already happened, like if you hold onto him tight enough, that you can pull his soul back into his body, that you can warm him back to life again. Your tears soak the sheet, forming a small puddle where your head is resting. Your fingers clutch his like you're drowning, and he's the life ring keeping you afloat.

Hotch moves to stand behind you, one hand resting lightly on your back, letting you know that he's there. He doesn't try to hush or fix you. Doesn't tell you that you'll be okay. He just stays.

After a while—minutes, maybe even an hour—your cries turn to ragged breathing. You stay hunched over your dad, cheek against his knuckles, afraid that if you let go, he'll vanish in a puff of smoke. Instead, you turn your head and stare up at him—he looks peaceful, like he's sleeping, you think.

Dr. Singh appears in the doorway, quietly and apologetic. She grabs Hotch's attention and gestures for him to follow her into the hallways. He hesitates, looks at you, and then leans down.

"I'll be just outside the door," he says softly. "I'm not leaving."

You don't speak, just nod against your dad's hand.

In the hallway, Dr. Singh keeps her voice low. "I know this is an awful time, but there are some decisions we need tonight or first thing tomorrow morning: funeral home arrangements, whether he'll be transported, clothing, personal effects..." She glances at you through the open door to the room, still bent over the bed. "She's in no shape to handle any of this right now."

Hotch nods, throat a little tight as he too glances into the room.

"Technically protocol says next-of-kin only," Dr Singh continues, "but as her boyfriend, if you can sign for—"

Hotch's ears go hot.

"—Uh, no, we're not..." he stops and clears his throat, cheeks slightly flushing. "We're not together. Just... colleagues. Friends. Close friends."

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I assumed..." Dr. Singh's eyes widen, and she winces slightly at her mistake. "You came in together, and the way you appear to know what she needs in a time like this... I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine," Hotch says quickly, maybe a little too quickly. "Really. I'm happy to help however I can. If there's anything I'm legally allowed to sign for her tonight to take pressure off her, I will."

"Thank you! There are a few consent forms for the release of the body and property. They only need a responsible adult, not necessarily kin. After that, I can try to work around the rest until she's ready." She exhales, relieved that she doesn't have to put any more stress on you for now.

"I'll sign whatever you need."

Dr. Singh gives him a tired, but grateful smile. "You're a good man, Mr. Hotchner." Hotch knows he should've been concerned at the use of his name, but on the other hand, he did have to sign the two of you in, in the visitor's log, so perhaps the doctor just looked at his signature.

He glances back through the door. You're still folded over your dad, completely still, and he hopes that you're sleeping.

"I'm just trying to be the person she needs tonight," he says, still glancing at you.

He goes back into the room, kneels beside your chair, and rests his hand carefully on the back of the chair and the other on your thigh. "Hey," he whispers. "I'm going to take care of some paperwork so you don't have to think about it right now. Okay?"

You don't answer him, but you turn your face just enough that he can see the glassiness in your eyes. It's the smallest movement, but it's enough for him to understand that you trust him with this.

Hotch checks his clock at 2:17 a.m. and decides you no longer can stay bent over your father's body. At least not for your own sake.

Your breathing has gone slow and slightly even, forehead still pressed to his hand—he's impossibly cold now. You're not crying anymore, you're just... gone, exhausted, stuck to the vinyl chair.

Hotch crouches beside you and brushes a strand away from your damp cheek. "Hey," he whispers. "Sweetheart, we have to go." You know you should react to the nickname, and he knows he shouldn't have said it. But it felt so right.

You don't move.

He tries again, this time softer. "You need sleep. Real sleep."

A tiny, broken sound escapes you. You shake your head violently, a choked 'No' ripping out of you as you curl closer over the bed, arms locking around your dad’s still hand.

He hates this part. He's seen it done enough times on cases to know it won't go down easily. Hotch slides one arm behind your shoulder, the other under your knees, and gently starts to lift you away from the chair and bed. You start thrashing, although weak, frantic, and grief-fueled, you manage to knock your elbow against the bed rail with a metallic clang; your shoe scrapes the floor as you try to plant your feet.

“No, please, don’t make me, I’m not ready, I’m not—” The words fracture into raw sobs.

He has to use his full strength to lift you away. You fight harder than he thought possible for someone so hollowed out, fingers clawing for the sheet, legs kicking once, nearly hitting him, body arching back toward the bed with a desperate, broken cry the moment the contact breaks.

Your head lolls against his chest only because exhaustion finally wins, but you still reach a trembling hand toward your father even as Hotch pulls you fully into his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, over and over, voice cracking as he cradles you tight against him, carrying you out past the nurses’ station like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Dr. Singh meets his eyes, gives him a sad, grateful nod. Your face is buried in his neck, fists clenched in his shirt, the fight gone out of you, but the sobs still tearing free in waves.

In the parking lot, the air is cold enough to bite, although it's April and should be warming up. He settles you into the passenger seat of his car and buckles you in—it somehow feels too intimate and not intimate enough. He tucks your coat around you like a blanket, hoping it'll keep you warm. You're asleep before he even starts the engine.

When he pulls up outside your building, you stir, but don't wake up. And he's happy that you don't, because explaining how he grabbed your address from your file after he first noticed something being off with you is a lot harder than just carrying you upstairs.

He comes around and lifts you into his arms. Hotch carries you up the three flights of stairs because the elevator is still broken, despite your landlord promising all of the tenants that it would be fixed within a month—it's now month three. Your keys are in your coat pocket. He fiddles around for them, trying to keep you up with one arm, and when he finally finds them and unlocks the door, he shoulders the door open and steps inside.

The apartment is exactly what he expected, and yet it's also much, much worse.

Take-out boxes are stacked on the coffee table. Unopened mail is in teetering piles around the living room and kitchen. Laundry spilling out of the hamper, like it's trying to escape. A week's worth of coffee mugs stacked in the sink, probably on the verge of growing mold.

The air smells stale, like windows haven't been opened in over a month. It's not you, you're not like this, it's the physical evidence of someone who's been barely surviving, while fighting to keep someone else alive.

He doesn't flinch at the mess. He just carries you past it, through the living room, and into your bedroom. Hotch lays you on the bed and kneels to tug off your shoes, careful not to wake you up. You curl onto your side almost immediately, knees to your chest in a fetal position, still fully dressed.

Hotch pulls the quilt at the foot of your bed up and over you, brushes your hair back, and whispers, "Sleep." And your face smoothes into something almost peaceful.

He stands in the doorway for a long moment, observing you, watching the rise and fall of your shoulder, then closes the door halfway—so he can hear you if you wake—and turns back to the disaster zone that is the rest of your apartment.

He can't leave it like this. Not tonight.

He starts quietly by tying up the trash, placing the first bag near the door. Then he continues with the kitchen, rinses and washes the mugs, placing them on a dry tea towel to dry the rest of the way, and wipes down the counters.

He finds a laundry basket of clean clothes and folds them along with the clothes that never made it off the drying rack and stacks them on the dining table.

He opens the window a few inches to let in some air to chase out the staleness. And every so often, he pauses outside your door, listening to make sure you're still asleep.

By 4:45 a.m., the place isn’t perfect, it's far from it, but it’s livable. Trash is waiting by the door—three bags it turned into—dishes are clean and drying, and mail is in one neat pile while all the colorful advertisements are in recycling, ready to be taken out too.

The couch is clear except for a single throw blanket and a few pillows.

He sits down just to rest his eyes for a minute.

You wake slowly, the way you do when your body has forgotten how to rest properly. The room is dim, curtains still drawn, but the light that sneaks around the edges is soft and golden.

Your eyes are swollen and your throat raw from all the crying yesterday, your chest aching like someone parked a truck on it overnight.

And for one terrifying second, you forget exactly why you feel like you've been run over and then backed right back over.

Then it slams back into you, the call, the bathroom floor, your dad’s cold hand, Hotch carrying you out like you weighed nothing to him.

You sit up a little too fast, and the room starts to tilt. You’re still in yesterday’s clothes, shoes off, quilt tucked around you, but you don’t remember going to bed last night.

The apartment is quiet. A little too quiet.

You shuffle to the bedroom door and push the cracked door open further.

The first thing you notice when you emerge from the bedroom is the smell. No gross and sour take-out stench, no stale coffee. Just the faint smell of dish soap and the smell of cold air.

You step into the living room and stop dead in your tracks.

It's so... clean?

Not spotless—Hotch clearly didn't have the energy to scrub baseboards at four in the morning, but there's no doubt that he would've done it if he had. Every surface is clear, trash gone, dishes done, laundry folded with a post-it note slapped on top saying 'clean :)' in his handwriting.

Even the throw pillows are straightened.

And then you see him.

Hotch is asleep on your couch, clearly too long to lie comfortably on the two-seater. His shirt is a little rumpled, tie loosened, and half-hanging off his neck like a limp snake. One of his arms is flung over his eyes, while the other is dangling off the edge. Shoes are lined up neatly next to the couch, like he had meant to leave, but got too tired and simply couldn't. You notice the faint shadow of stubble starting to grow along his jaw as he lets out the softest snore you've ever heard.

Something warm flutters awake in your chest, right beneath the crushing weight of grief. It’s not happiness—Oh, God no. You don't know if you'll ever be happy again—but it’s close to peace.

Gratitude so sharp it almost hurts.

You stand in the doorway for a long time—just looking—blanket wrapped around your shoulders, watching him breathe. He cleaned up your chaos while you slept. He stayed when he didn’t have to. He held you together when you shattered. He's done so much for you these past twenty-four hours, and you feel like you haven't done anything in return for him at all.

The flutter grows, spreads, becomes a quiet ache behind your ribs that feels a lot like falling—slow, inevitable, and terrifyingly falling.

You pad across the room on bare feet, careful not to wake him, and crouch beside the couch. Up close, you can see the faint tear tracks dried on his own cheeks—he cried too, sometime during the night, when he thought no one would know that he too felt your pain.

You reach out for him, hesitate, then brush the back of your fingers lightly across his cheekbone. Just once, barely there, needing to feel him, to know that this man is real.

“Thank you,” you whisper to the sleeping room.

His breathing hitches, eyes fluttering but not quite opening. You stay crouched there a moment longer, memorizing the way the light falls across his face, the way safety feels when it’s shaped like Aaron Hotchner asleep on your couch after the worst night of your life.

Eventually, you stand, pull the throw blanket from the floor—you recon that he must have dropped it during the night—and drape it carefully over him. He sighs in his sleep, shifts onto his side, and settles again.

You linger another heartbeat, then head to the kitchen to start coffee—two mugs, black for him and one with a splash of milk for you, two sugars for you—because the least you can do is make sure he wakes up to something a lot nicer than how you've been treating him the past couple of weeks.

The flutter is still rooted deep in your chest, like the first tiny green thing pushing through the earth after a long and harsh winter.

By summertime, the bullpen is like a hotbox, and every time someone opens the glass doors, waves of hot air drift through, making it miserable to work.

Gideon is gone more than he's there these days, and whispers about a leave of absence are circling like smoke around the office. The team is in shambles lately, most of the travel team is suspended for misconduct during their last case, morale is down, and everyone looks like they hate their jobs.

But the work keeps coming, and the team keeps working despite everyone's lackluster enthusiasm to finish their cases in a timely manner.

You, somehow, are... lighter.

Not healed—because some holes never heal, and this one will never heal—but grief has settled from a constant jabbing pain, into a dull, manageable ache, and it gets better week by week. You feel like you can breathe without doing counting exercises. You can laugh at Anderson's terrible knock-knock jokes without feeling guilty five seconds later.

And Hotch, Hotch has been the constant you needed through it all.

He still brings you coffee every morning, even though the 'who stays latest' competition officially ended last month. You still find sticky notes on your files in his handwriting—"Victim #3's timeline is off by six hours, check page 14"—when he notices new things in M.O. and victimology, or gives you a second pair of eyes when you ask for help. Or on the mornings, when grief over your dad's death creeps too close, he simply tells you to take a moment for yourself and that he'll hold the fort down while you're gone.

He never mentions the night he cleaned your apartment, or the fact that you cried into his shirt until there was nothing left for you to cry out. He just… shows up. Every day. Without fail.

Tonight is a Thursday, almost midnight. The rest of the floor is dark. You’re both still here, because of course you are.

You’re cross-legged in your chair, hair twisted up with a pencil, eating cold lo mein straight from the carton. Hotch is across from you, jacket off, sleeves rolled high, tie abandoned hours ago. There’s a smear of highlighter on his cheek that he hasn’t noticed. And you're not planning on telling him, because he looks way too cute when he's a little messy.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” you say, waving your chopsticks at the geographic profile spread between you. “But the comfort zone is shifting north. He’s getting bolder.”

He leans forward, elbows on his desk, studying the map like it owes him money. “You’re not wrong. Look at the dump-site-to-victim-residence distance. First two were under four miles apart. Last one was eight. Either he’s escalating, or he moved.”

“Or both,” you say, mouth half-full. You're not exactly charming, and your mother would roll over in her grave if she heard you speak with food in your mouth. But he looks up and smiles, before he reaches over, plucking the carton from your hand to steal a bite.

You let him.

You always let him now. Sharing food feels like nothing after he had to wrangle you off a dead body like one of those working dogs resource guarding their dead handlers.

Somewhere in the last few months, the boundaries blurred between you. You touch his arm when you pass him files. He brushes imaginary lint off your shoulder during briefings when you sit next to each other. You hang out together on days off, fall asleep on each other's couches after working on cases together at home, and wake up with blankets draped over you.

He keeps a spare toothbrush in your bathroom 'just in case,' and you keep one in his. You have an extra tie of his folded in your desk drawer because he spilled coffee on his favorite one during a stakeout, and forgot it in your car when you drove him home.

No one in the unit has said anything yet, but everyone's eyebrows climb into their hairlines on a near-daily basis as they observe your desk island.

Tonight, the air conditioning is struggling, badly. You fan yourself with a case folder. “It’s a million degrees in here.” You complain

Hotch stands, stretches, and shrugs out of his jacket. “Rooftop?”

You’re already moving as the words leave his mouth.

The rooftop door sticks—it always does—and he has to shoulder it open for you.

The evening air is warm but better than the stale office. D.C. glitters slightly in the distance, barely visible, but there. You both lean against the ledge, shoulders almost, but not quite touching.

For a while, you just breathe. Enjoying the faint chirping of crickets, the wind rustling, and natural silence.

“Thank you,” you finally say quietly.

He glances over. “For what?”

“For the last three months. For… everything.” You pick at the label on your water bottle. “I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t—”

“—Hey.” He bumps your shoulder with his, gently. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Your heart does a slow, traitorous flip. You tell yourself it’s just gratitude, gratitude that he helped you through the worst time in your life, gratitude that you have a friend to turn to when in need—despite being an asshole about it in the beginning (but let's not talk about that).

He keeps talking. “Besides, you’ve been pulling me out of my own head since the day you beat me three nights in a row last November. Fair’s fair.”

You laugh, softly. “I still say you let me win night two. Ain't no way your brother called you for help at nine p.m. to move an antique wardrobe he found in the newspaper.”

“I absolutely did not,” he says, mock-offended, but he’s smiling that full smile now—the one that reaches his eyes and makes tiny lines appear at the corners. You’ve started cataloging those smiles like they're evidence in an unsolved case—which technically they are, because you still haven't locked down the answer to why Aaron Hotchner rarely smiles.

Silence settles between you; it feels comfortable and familiar.

Fireflies blink lazily over the parking lot below. You shiver a little in the breeze. And without a word, he shrugs out of his suit jacket and drapes it over your shoulders.

It smells like him. You love the smell of him.

You pull it tighter. “You’re going to freeze.”

“I run hot,” he says, and the way he says it—quiet, matter-of-fact, eyes on the skyline as if it's no big deal—makes heat pool low in your stomach for reasons you refuse to examine.

You stand there like that for a long time, city lights flickering, his jacket warm around you, the space between your bodies shrinking inch by inch until your pinky brushes his against the railing.

Neither of you moves away.

Neither of you names it yet.

But something tender and inevitable is growing in the quiet spaces. In the way he always saves you the last sip of coffee in the pot, in the way you know exactly how he takes his tea when he’s sick, in the way your hands find excuses to touch and linger.

It’s still just friendship, you both tell yourselves.

For now.

You've been with the BAU for nearly a year now.

The bullpen is almost empty, save for a few agents still complaining about paperwork due that they could've finished hours ago if they didn't stand at the damn coffee machine and chat all day. But they quickly leave.

Gideon has been locked in his office all evening, door cracked just enough for the occasional frustrated sigh to leak out.

You and Hotch are the last ones standing—as usual.

You’re both on the floor now, backs against the front of your desks, case files spread around you like a thick crime-scene carpet. You’ve been arguing good-naturedly for forty minutes about whether the unsub is devolving or just getting sloppy.

“He’s devolving,” you insist, flicking a photograph toward Hotch. “Look at the overkill on the last victim. That’s rage, not control, in the way we saw on victims one through five.” You point out, gesturing at the pictures of the other victims lying in a half circle in front of you.

Hotch catches the photo mid-air and sets it down carefully next to the other victims. “Rage can be controlled. He staged the body perfectly. That takes discipline.”

His knee is touching yours. Has been for the last twenty minutes. Neither of you has moved away.

You reach for the same file at the same moment. Your fingers collide, stay there, overlapping on the manila folder. The air between you goes suddenly, electrically still.

He doesn’t pull back. You don’t either.

You’re close enough to count the flecks of gold in his irises, close enough to see the tiny scar on his upper lip you’ve never noticed before. His gaze drops to your mouth for half a heartbeat—so fast you almost miss it—then flicks back up, something unreadable flaring behind his eyes.

Your breath catches.

The moment stretches, until the door to Gideon’s office bangs open so hard the hinges bounce it back off the wall.

Gideon strides out, coat half-on, briefcase in hand, clearly intending to leave without a word. He stops dead when he sees the two of you on the floor, hands still touching, faces inches apart, the entire room vibrating with something neither of you has said out loud yet.

He stares for three full seconds.

Then he throws his head back and groans like a man who has reached the end of his patience with the entire universe.

“Oh, for the love of God, just kiss already!”

You jerk apart like teenagers caught behind the bleachers. Hotch's ears go scarlet, and you feel your own face ignite.

Gideon points a finger between the two of you, coat flapping dramatically. “I have watched you two moon over each other for months. Months! I am old. I am tired. I have unsubs writing manifestos in blood, and I do not have time for this level of sexual tension in my bullpen. Kiss, date, do whatever it is you children do these days... just stop making it everyone else’s problem!”

He doesn’t wait for a response. Just spins on his heel, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “finally” under his breath, and storms out.

The glass doors swing shut behind him, and you hear the ding of the elevator.

Then... silence.

You risk a glance at Hotch. He’s staring at the floor, jaw working like he’s trying to decide whether to laugh or die of embarrassment. His hand is still halfway reaching for the file you both abandoned.

You start laughing first, mortified and unstoppable. He follows half a second later, the low, surprised sound he makes when something actually catches him off-guard.

“Oh my God,” you wheeze, pressing both hands over your burning face. “He did not just—”

“He absolutely did,” Hotch smiles, voice strangled.

You peek through your fingers. He’s looking at you now, something soft and stunned and hopeful in his expression.

The laughter fades, but the air stays as charged as ever.

You swallow. “So… Gideon’s not subtle.”

“No,” Hotch agrees, quieter. “He really isn’t.”

Another beat. Your heart is hammering so loud you’re sure he can hear it.

He shifts, just slightly, closing the small distance Gideon’s outburst created. His voice drops to almost a whisper.

“Would it be… completely inappropriate if I took his advice?”

Your breath stalls. The world narrows to the few inches between you, the warmth radiating off him, the way his eyes search yours for permission.

You manage the tiniest shake, giving him the go-ahead.

He leans in slowly and carefully, giving you every possible second to change your mind.

You don’t.

The first brush of his lips is barely there, warm, trembling just enough for you to feel it against your lips.

He smells faintly of coffee and the soap he always uses.

The second is surer, his lips settling over yours with certainty, the softest pressure that makes your breath catch in your throat. You taste the lingering trace of peppermint on his tongue when your mouth parts under his, feel the faint rasp of growing stubble along your upper lip, the warmth of his exhale mingling with yours.

His hand cups your cheek, thumb sweeping slowly across your skin, calloused thumb stroking once along your cheekbone; his other hand threads into your hair, fingers spreading at the nape of your neck like he’s anchoring himself to you. The kiss deepens just enough for the world to tilt, your pulse roaring in your ears, your toes curling hard inside your shoes, every nerve lighting up at the gentle, deliberate slide of his mouth against yours.

When you ease apart, it’s only a breath. Foreheads still pressed together, noses brushing, the air between you warm and a little shaky. The lines are definitely blurred beyond return.

When you open your eyes, he’s smiling, happier than you’ve ever seen him.

“Hi,” he whispers, voice rough.

“Hi,” you whisper back, grinning like a complete idiot.

From somewhere down the hallway, you’re both almost certain you hear Gideon’s ghost mutter 'about damn time'.

You start laughing again, muffled against Hotch's shoulder this time as you lean forward into his chest, and he laughs too, arms wrapping fully around you, holding you close on the bullpen floor like he never wants to let go.

And he doesn’t.  

Not for a very long time.

That first kiss doesn’t fix anything, but it changes everything.

After Gideon’s dramatic exit, you and Hotch ended up staying on the bullpen floor another hour, kissing slowly and carefully like teenagers who’ve just discovered the concept, talking in whispers, laughing every time one of you remembers Gideon’s exact phrasing. When you finally stand up, knees stiff, files forgotten, he walks you to your car with his hand at the small of your back like it always belonged there.

You date quietly at first, almost secretly, because neither of you trusts the Bureau rumor mill and because the newness feels too precious to share with anyone but the two of you.

He picks you up on Saturdays when you’re both off rotation. You go to tiny diners outside the Beltway where no one knows your names, or to the Smithsonian after closing because one of the night guards owes him a favor from back in his prosecutor days.

You sit on benches in front of the Hope Diamond and argue about whether it’s cursed. He brings you coffee in bed on Sunday mornings and reads the parts of the newspaper aloud while you steal the comics section and draw little hearts in the margins next to his name when he’s mentioned in an article.

You learn the small, sacred things about him:

He hates surprises but loves planning them for you.

He keeps a spare tie in your glove compartment now—officially 'in case of emergencies'.

When he’s exhausted, he falls asleep with his head on your chest and one arm locked around your waist like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.

He says your name differently when you’re alone, much softer, almost like a whimper.

December brings the first snow, and the first time he says “I love you.”

You’re in his apartment, stringing popcorn for a tiny, lopsided Christmas tree because neither of you had time to get one before all but the small apartment-friendly ones were the only option left.

You’re on the couch, legs tangled, the Muppet Christmas carol crooning in the background.

You prick your finger on a needle and mutter a curse. He takes your hand, kisses the tiny drop of blood away, and just says it, as natural as breathing: “I love you.”

You freeze, popcorn garland half-finished in your lap. He looks suddenly terrified, like he’s broken some unspoken rule in the relationship guide.

You tug the garland carefully aside, crawl into his lap, and kiss him until neither of you can breathe.

“I love you too,” you whisper against his mouth. “So much it scares me.”

He exhales like he’s been holding that fear in for months and tightens his arms around you. “Good. We can be scared together then.”

January of 2002 is brutal, back-to-back cases, forty-eight-hour consult marathons, but you survive it the way you survive everything now: together.

You fall asleep on each other more often than not, steal kisses in the elevator when no one’s looking, and leave each other notes in case files.

“Meet me on the rooftop at midnight. Bring the good coffee. –A”

“Only if you bring the blanket. –Y/N”

Valentine's Day falls on a Thursday. You both have to work, but he leaves a single red rose on your desk with a sticky note: Dinner. 8 p.m. Wear the black dress. Trust me.

You do.

He takes you to a hole-in-the-wall Italian place in Alexandria you’ve never noticed before. Halfway through tiramisu, he slides a small velvet box across the table.

Your heart stops, and you panic slightly.

He sees your face and actually laughs a tiny chuckle. “Relax. It’s not that. Yet.”

Inside is a delicate silver key.

“To my place,” he says quietly. “I want you to have it. I want… I want this to be official. You and me. No more pretending we’re just really good friends who occasionally make out in the parking garage and have sex in our time off.”

You stare at the key like it’s made of large sparkly diamonds.

“Aaron…”

“If it’s too fast—”

“—It’s not,” you cut in, voice cracking. You lean across the tiny table and kiss him in front of the entire restaurant. “Yes. A thousand times, yes.”

He smiles against your mouth, relieved and giddy and so in love it shows on every line of his face.

Later, back at his apartment—well, kind of your apartment now, too, in every way that matters at least—you hang your coat next to his on the rack, put your hairbrush next to the comb in the drawer, and fall asleep tangled together under the same blanket that used to live on your couch, the one he slept with the first night he saw your apartment.

Outside, snow falls softly and quietly over Virginia, covering the city in a hush that feels like the world permitting you to finally be happy again.

You are a couple now—no, almosts, no, hesitations.

Just you and Hotch against the world, desk neighbors turned lovers, building something together.

And you both start to feel like coming home at night isn't something so terrible to do at all.

The years blur in the best way possible.

September 2002  

The inn’s garden is small and perfect, and the late-summer roses still cling to the trellises; the air is warm enough to carry the scent of honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass.

Forty white chairs are set in uneven rows on the lawn; fairy lights are already strung even though the sun won’t set for hours. Someone’s old jazz standard drifts from hidden speakers; it’s Ella Fitzgerald, the song you and Hotch danced to in his apartment the first night you ended up admitting you were in love.

You wait in the bridal suite upstairs, heart hammering so hard you’re sure it’s visible through the lace bodice of your dress. Your mother’s veil—now shortened—falls in soft waves over your shoulders.

And when you catch your reflection, you almost don’t recognize yourself: eyes bright and cheeks flushed. You look so... happy.

Downstairs, Hotch stands beneath the arbor in a charcoal suit that fits him like it was invented for his shoulders (A/N: to the people who get this reference, I love you).

His hands are clasped behind his back to hide the slight tremor, but you can see it from the window, the way he keeps rocking forward on the balls of his feet, the way he can’t stop staring at the inn door like the moment you appear might be a dream he’s terrified of waking from.

Gideon—wearing an actual suit and tie for once—clears his throat at the head of the aisle, after your walk, and begins.

His voice is steadier than anyone expected until Hotch repeats “in sickness and in health,” and it cracks on the last word. Gideon’s eyes go glassy instantly; he has to pause, press his lips together, and fan himself with the printed vows like a southern belle.

A ripple of soft laughter moves through the guests, but no one’s eyes are left dry.

You reach for Hotch, and he takes your hands like they’re made of glass. His palms are warm, trembling just slightly, and the stunned, luminous smile never leaves his face during the entire night.

When Gideon finally says, 'You may kiss your bride,' Hotch doesn’t wait for the words to finish. He cups your face with both hands, rushing closer, thumbs brushing the corners of your mouth, and kisses you like he’s been starving for it.

It goes on long enough that his friend Rossi—you've met him once and heard the stories of the few cases the two had together before Rossi retired from the BAU—lets out a low, appreciative whistle.

And Andi Swan, the newest BAU agent, fans herself dramatically with her program, and Gideon throws his hands in the air with a triumphant “I told them to kiss eighteen months ago! You’re welcome, people!” And you know that that will be his go-to line when it comes to tales about the relationship he 'basically made possible'.

Hotch finally pulls back, but only far enough to rest his forehead against yours. His eyes are shining.

“Hi, Mrs. Hotchner," he whispers against your lips.

"Hi, Mr. Hotchner," you whisper back, and the grin that breaks across his face is the same one he’ll wear in every photograph for the rest of your lives.

Behind you, forty people cheer, Ella keeps singing, and the mountains hold their breath, and you know—without a single doubt—that this is the moment every late-night bullpen, every shared highlighter, every quiet 'I’ve got you' was leading to all along.

You’re married.  

And Aaron still looks like he can’t quite believe you said yes to him when he proposed.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2003

Fairfax, Virginia

The search takes four months, forty-three open houses, and one near-breakup—not really, you were both being dramatic—over whether 'good bones' is real-estate speak for 'you’ll be sanding floors until you’re sixty.'

You’re both stubborn, both exhausted from cases—both promoted to the travel team one month apart—and both secretly terrified of choosing wrong, because this will be your sanctuary away from serial killers and psychopaths.

Then the realtor unlocks the gate at 127 Oakridge Lane, and you know the second the gravel crunches under your shoes, that this is it.

It’s a 1930s red-brick colonial set back from the street, white trim peeling just enough to feel loved instead of neglected. The wrap-around porch creaks under your weight in the most comforting way; a massive, hundred-year-old oak spreads its branches over the front yard like it’s been waiting for children who haven’t been born, yet.

Inside, the hardwood floors glow honey-gold in the late-afternoon, the fireplace still smells faintly of the last family’s Christmases, and the kitchen—God, the kitchen—has windows on three sides that turn the whole room into a sunlit heaven every morning.

You stand at the farmhouse sink—hands braced on the porcelain as you look into the backyard, imagining growing old here—when Hotch comes up behind you, arms sliding around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder.

“This one?” he asks quietly, like he’s afraid to jinx it.

You nod, throat tight. “This one.”

You close on a Thursday in May, sky so blue it hurts to look at. The moving truck is late, so the house is mostly echoing emptiness and stacked boxes labeled in Hotch's neat block letters and your chaotic scrawl.

Sunlight pours through the bare windows of your now-empty apartment, dust motes dancing like confetti.

Hotch scoops you up without warning, one arm under your knees, the other behind your back, and carries you over the threshold bridal style, even though your jeans are streaked with paint, and you’re both laughing too hard for it to be dignified.

The front door swings shut behind you with a solid, final click that feels like the house exhaling in welcome.

You don’t make it past the foyer before he’s kissing you against the wall, hands already tugging at the hem of your T-shirt, your legs wrapping around his waist like muscle memory.

Boxes topple somewhere down the hall; neither of you cares.

That night, you christen the kitchen island while the pizza you ordered goes cold on the porch, because you "forgot" to open the door when the delivery guy knocked.

The next morning, the sun wakes you in the master bedroom, pouring through east-facing windows you didn’t bother to curtain yet, and you make love on your mattress on the hardwood floor because the bed frame is still in pieces.

By Sunday, you’ve claimed the wide-plank stairs... twice, the claw-foot tub, the window seat in the library that overlooks the oak, and the backporch swing that squeaks in the most perfect rhythm.

Somewhere between the third and fourth room, Hotch starts laughing into your neck, breathless and delirious. “We’re going to need to buy furniture eventually,” he gasps.

You bite his shoulder, grinning. “Later. Much, much later.”

By the end of the first week, the house smells like coffee, fresh paint, and sex; every corner holds the echo of laughter and the imprint of two people finally, finally being home.

The oak tree shades the front yard like it’s keeping your secret, and every morning the kitchen windows flood the room with light.

You hang your mother’s lace curtains in the dining room first, just so the house knows it’s loved.

And every night, when Hotch pulls you into his chest in whatever room you’ve ended up in, he whispers the same thing against your hair:

“Welcome home, Mrs. Hotchner.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2004 - 2005

The BAU is still small enough that every new face feels like it rearranges the gravity in the room.

Derek Morgan arrives first, in the spring of 2004, all swagger and leather jacket, straight from the Chicago PD. He shakes Hotch's hand a little too hard, like he’s testing whether the stories about the grumpy agent are true.

Gideon waits exactly one week before dragging him to the coffee station and launching into the tale of how he's the reason you're married today: the empty bullpen, the unbearable tension, the night he finally lost patience and bellowed, “Just kiss already.” And after that day, Morgan’s go-to greeting becomes a cheeky “Morning, Mama Hotch,” usually followed by him ducking whatever office supply you lob at the rascal's head.

Penelope Garcia blows in that summer like a glitter bomb, pink boa trailing behind her after Hotch manages to snatch the black queen away from the web of hackers interfering with government websites, and onto the team. Gideon barely lets her set down her bedazzled laptop in her tech cave before he’s steering her toward the round-table room, eyes gleaming.

Ten minutes later, she bursts out, finds you at your desk, and squeals so loudly the windows nearly rattle. “You’re the desk-neighbor soulmates! The sacred ‘kiss already’ origin story! I have shipped you since the academy rumor mill got to me a few weeks ago!” She throws her arms around you, then, without hesitation, around Hotch too, who's emerged from his—new—office next to Gideon's. He freezes mid-sentence, arms half-raised, before awkwardly patting her sequined shoulder. From that day on, she declares herself your joint fairy godmother and threatens to make couple T-shirts if she doesn't see you kiss, just once, before the year is over.

Thankfully, she does—although it's by hacking into the bullpen cameras and watching tape from the night before when you were both staying late, again.

Fall brings Spencer Reid and Jennifer Jareau within weeks of each other. Spencer is drowning in a cardigan two sizes too big, clutching three PhDs and the conviction that Gideon can read minds.

JJ is calm on the outside and vibrating on the inside, terrified of choosing the wrong photograph for the press packet. Gideon corners them together in the hallway on their very first day, blocking escape with his whole body, and delivers the performance of his life: sweeping gestures, pregnant pauses, the whole thing.

Spencer turns the color of a ripe tomato and starts reciting workplace-romance statistics under his breath. JJ just laughs, delighted, and by the end of the month, she’s slipping you lists of baby names “for future reference” with a perfectly straight face, because to her, babies are the most wonderful thing in the world.

Elle Greenaway is last, late 2005, striding in like she already owns the bullpen and everyone in it after helping the team on the Seattle strangler case. Gideon waits until she’s halfway through her first official BAU case file, then plants himself on the edge of her desk and launches into the now-legendary retelling—complete with slow-motion reenactment of his dramatic exit and a claim that the overhead lights flickered for cinematic effect.

Elle listens with one eyebrow arched, arms folded, then looks across the room at you and Hotch—who are pretending, very badly, not to hear any of this—and deadpans, “So your entire marriage is because an old man lost his patience?” Hotch mutters “Don’t encourage him” into his coffee, but the corner of his mouth betrays him.

By the third round, with every new hire, the story has grown mythic: wind machines that definitely do not exist, a single heroic tear rolling down Gideon’s cheek, the faint sound of angels singing when your lips finally met.

Each time he tells it, you and Hotch trade the same long-suffering glance across wherever you're standing together—the one that says we will never live this down and we don’t actually mind. Gideon catches the look every single time, grins like a proud, meddling father who knows exactly what he did, and keeps talking anyway.

Because the day he stops telling the story is the day he admits the team has outgrown him, and none of you—no one—is ready for that yet.

So you let him have it. You let them all have it. The whistles, the teasing, the running slideshow Garcia keeps threatening to present at the next holiday party.

You and Hotch just reach for the same highlighter—on purpose—like you’ve done for years, fingers brushing, and smile the tiny, secret smile of two people who know the real story is quieter, slower, and infinitely better than any legend Gideon could invent.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

September 2006  

Exactly six years after you join the BAU. You’re both still raw from Oregon, a case that ended with a twelve-year-old girl alive and a father who will never come home.

You come back to your home hollow-eyed and quiet, sleeping in snatches, waking from nightmares you don’t talk about.

Two weeks later, you’re late. Not just late; late enough that your body feels foreign, breasts tender, exhaustion bone-deep in a way no case has ever managed.

You buy the test on your lunch break, hide it in your purse like contraband, and take it in the restroom on the third floor because you can’t wait the fifteen minutes to get home.

You sit on the closed toilet lid, timer on your phone ticking down three endless minutes, and when the second pink line appears, and you feel the world tilt sideways.

You drive home in a daze. Hotch is already there. He took the afternoon off after you texted, “Can you be home early?” with no explanation, worried that something was terribly wrong.

He’s in the kitchen in sweatpants and an old T-shirt, hair still damp from the shower, making coffee like it’s any other Tuesday.

You walk straight into his arms without a word. He stiffens for half a second, sensing the tremor in you, then folds you in tight.

“What is it?” he asks against your hair, voice low and treading carefully.

You pull the test from your pocket and press it into his hand.

He looks down. The little plastic window is face-up, two unmistakable lines staring back at him. His breath stops. You watch the color drain from his face, then flood back in a rush. He stares so long you start to worry.

“Aaron?”

He drops slowly, like someone cut his strings. One knee hits the tile, then the other, until he’s kneeling in front of you. His hands find your hips, tentative, reverent, and he presses his forehead to your stomach. The first sound he makes is half-laugh, half-sob, muffled against your shirt. Then the tears come, the same tears you saw the night he asked you to marry him, and the morning you said “I do.” He wraps his arms fully around your waist and holds on like you’re the only solid thing in the universe.

“We’re having a baby,” he whispers, voice cracking on every word. “We’re… God, we’re having a baby.”

You thread your fingers through his hair and let your own tears fall into it.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

May 23, 2007, 3:14 a.m.  

Thirty-one hours of labor, twenty-eight of them back labor that leaves you sobbing into Hotch's shoulder, certain you can’t do this. He never leaves your side, phone turned off so the world can't disturb this perfect moment in his life, and never stops whispering “You’re so strong, I’ve got you, just one more,” even when his voice is hoarse, and his shirt is soaked with your sweat and tears.

At 2:56, the doctor says, “One more big push,” and you find strength you didn’t know you had. And Grace Hotchner comes out screaming, red-faced and perfect, a shock of dark hair plastered to her tiny head, your nose already visible in miniature form.

The nurse lifts her onto your chest, and Hotch's hands shake so violently that he almost can’t hold the scissors. When he finally cuts the cord, the snip sounds like the loudest thing in the world.

They place her on your chest; she's so, so small. She stops crying the instant she hears your heartbeat, tiny fist curling against your skin with a grip the nurse actually gasps at. “That’s the strongest newborn grasp I’ve ever felt,” she laughs, a little teary-eyed herself.

Hotch is crying openly now, leaning over the bed rail, one hand cradling your head, the other resting on Grace’s back like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he lets go. His forehead presses to yours, tears mingling with yours.

“Hi, Gracie,” he whispers, voice raw. “Hi, baby girl.”

She blinks up at him with unfocused eyes and squeezes his index finger with that iron grip. Something in his face breaks open—wonder, terror, love, you can't pinpoint which it is, or if it's all at once. All you know is that you feel the exact same.

He doesn’t let go of either of you for the next forty-eight hours. He sleeps in the vinyl chair with Grace on his bare chest, skin-to-skin, her tiny breaths syncing with his.

When the nurses try to take her for routine checks, he follows, hovering like a Secret Service agent. He changes the first diaper with the concentration of someone who only just learned what a diaper is and cries again when she falls asleep on him mid-burp, mouth open, one fist tangled in his collar.

You watch them from the bed, exhausted and euphoric, and think: this is what the Oregon case took from that little girl’s father, and this is what we get to keep.

Grace Hotchner, eight pounds three ounces, the strongest grip in Fairfax County, and already wrapped impossibly tight around both your hearts.

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2010  

You’re thirty-eight, and Hotch is forty-five. Grace is two weeks shy of three, obsessed with dinosaurs and convinced she’s going to be a paleontologist-slash-princess when she grows up.

One Sunday night, you’re both in the kitchen cleaning after she's been put to bed, you washing sippy cups, Hotch drying, the house quiet except for the soft hum of the dishwasher.

You catch him watching you over the rim of his coffee mug, as he pauses to take a sip, that familiar, thoughtful look in his eyes.

“We should give her a sibling,” you say, before you lose your nerve.

He sets the mug down very carefully. “You sure?”

“I’m sure I don’t want her to be an only child. And I’m sure I want another one who looks like you.”  

He crosses the kitchen in two strides, cups your face, and kisses you like the conversation is already settled.

It is.

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In late 2010, labor starts... politely... at least for the first twelve hours, then turns vicious.

Contractions come hard and all over the place, and progress stalls at seven centimeters.

Grace had been fast; this baby is stubborn as hell. Thirty hours in, your blood pressure spikes, the fetal heart monitor starts its frantic dance on the monitor, and the room fills with quiet and urgent voices.

The OB says the words no one wants to hear: emergency C-section.

They wheel you down the hall under the bright hospital lights that make your head spin. Hotch walks beside the gurney in paper scrubs, one hand wrapped around yours so tightly your fingers go numb.

His face is pale, jaw locked, but his voice never wavers as he keeps reassuring you, even though you can tell he's terrified. “You’re doing so well, sweetheart. I’ve got you. We’re almost there.” He chants it over and over, like a prayer.

In the OR, the spinal takes forever to kick in; you’re shaking, terrified, tears leaking sideways into your hair. Hotch sits by your head, forehead pressed to yours behind the drape, still whispering the same words against your temple.

When the pressure starts, it feels strange, impersonal, like someone rummaging in your insides, without you feeling anything at all. His grip tightens, and he counts every second out loud with the anesthesiologist.

At 3:19 a.m., you hear it: the thin, furious wail of a newborn who is deeply offended by the cold sterility of the OR. The doctor lifts him over the curtain. He's tiny, red, fists pumping like he’s ready to fight the world already.

Benjamin Hotchner, seven pounds eleven ounces, a shock of black hair sticking straight up, just like his sister, and lungs that clearly work perfectly.

They clean him, swaddle him, and place him on your chest while they’re still stitching you up. He’s warm and a little slippery.

His eyes blink open and fix on you with startling intensity—just like his dad staring down an unsub, you think to yourself.

You start crying so hard that the nurse has to steady him in your arms.

Hotch leans over both of you, taking over for the nurse standing beside you, one big hand cradling Ben’s entire back, the other stroking your hair. His voice is wrecked. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known,” he whispers against your temple, lips brushing the skin there again and again as he kisses you, like he can’t stop. “Thank you. God, thank you. For giving me so much!”

In the afternoon, the hospital room is quiet except for the soft beep of monitors and the squeak of your bed when you shift. Hotch is asleep in the recliner pulled up next to your bedside, still in his scrubs, Ben is asleep on your chest under the hospital blanket, tiny fist curled around the necklace Hotch gifted you after Grace was born—You kept telling him that he didn't have to, that it was way too expensive, but he had insisted that not even diamonds could do justice telling you just how much he loves you.

The door creaks open slowly. Grace pads in, wearing her dinosaur pajamas and light-up sneakers with Garcia in tow, hair a wild halo from hanging out with the entire team, and most likely sleeping, flopped against them like a lazy little cat.

She climbs up the bed rail like a monkey, eyes huge.

You brace for jealousy, for tears, for anything, not knowing how a child should react to no longer being an only child.

Instead, she leans over, studies her brother with grave three-year-old seriousness, then looks at you.

“He’s cute,” she announces in her bossiest big-sister voice. “Can we keep him?”

Hotch wakes at the sound, and his daughter bracing her feet on his thigh to lean even further over the bedside. His eyes are bleary and soft as he comes to.

You meet his gaze over Grace’s head, both of you starting to laugh, tears streaming again because the relief is too big to fit inside normal emotions.

“Yeah, baby,” Hotch says, voice thick from sleep. He reaches out with the arm closest to Grace and pulls her into his arms. “We’re keeping him.”

Grace lays her head on his shoulder, sticks her—slightly sticky, you never get used to how quickly kids get sticky—hand out for you while curled into her dad's side. You take it at the same time as Ben stretches his tiny arms with a yawn too big for a newborn body.

And just like that, your family of three becomes four. One exhausted, stitched-up mom, one slightly stunned and besotted dad, one very proud big sister, and one brand-new human who already has all of you wrapped around his perfect, furious little fist.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Life settles into a rhythm, as the kids grow older, so steady it almost feels unreal.

5:45 a.m.

The alarm never gets the chance to go off. Hotch is already sliding out of bed, careful not to jostle you, pressing a kiss to your temple, forehead, whatever part of your face is closest to his lips as he wakes.

He’s done it every morning without fail since Grace was born.

You hear the soft pad of his feet down the hall, the creak of the third stair, the low hiss of the coffee maker starting, before he comes back upstairs to get dressed. Ten minutes later, the scent of coffee drifts upstairs, and you smile into the pillow because it means the day has officially begun, and he’s still taking care of you first.

6:30 a.m.  

The peace lasts exactly forty-five minutes. Then the thundering of small feet announces Hurricane Grace. She bursts through the bedroom door like her only mission is to create a Grace-shaped hole in the middle, hair wild from sleep, wearing mismatched princess pajamas—because she can never decide which pair to wear.

“MOM!!!!! I need triceratops pancakes, and I need them NOW.” Ben is half a step behind, dragging his—once blue—stuffed elephant that Auntie JJ gave him, it's now gray and threadbare by one ear, rubbing his eyes with a chubby fist.

Hotch emerges from the hallway and scoops them both up in one motion, one under each arm, and carries them downstairs, pretending to be a caveman who just found his next meal, while they squeal and kick.

You follow more slowly, tying your robe, already smiling at the chaos.

The kitchen is pure chaos.

Hotch is at the stove, flipping dinosaur-shaped pancakes you once made the mistake of buying from the frozen aisle in the grocery store, and now is the only breakfast food the kids will eat.

Grace is perched on the counter, “helping” by pouring half a bag of chocolate chips directly onto the pan—she's chocolate coating them, if you ask her.

Ben stands on a chair, banging the spatula like it’s a drum solo in between Hotch needing it to flip the pancakes. There are banana chunks on the floor. There’s syrup in someone’s hair. And Hotch meets your eyes over the chaos and mouths 'coffee' or 'Help me'; somehow, the two look dangerously similar when mouthed from afar.

You hand him a mug with one hand and steal a kiss with the other.

7:15 a.m.  

Shoes, backpacks, lunchboxes, the eternal hunt for the left sparkly sneaker.

You and Hotch move like a well-oiled SWAT team. He buckles Ben into the car seat while you braid Grace’s hair in the driveway, both of you trading kids mid-sentence:

'Don’t forget show-and-tell!'

'He has swim diapers in the blue bag!'.

Drop-offs are a blur. Grace sprints into school, shouting goodbye without looking back; Ben clings to Hotch's leg until the preschool teacher peels him off with promises of play-dough.

You watch Hotch crouch to Ben’s level, smooth his hair, kiss the top of his head, and something in your chest still flips every single time.

Then it’s the two of you in the car, Quantico-bound, hands linked over the console, debriefing the morning like it’s your version of foreplay now—which honestly, it's starting to be.

Who has the 9:00 a.m. consult, who’s picking up dry cleaning, whether Garcia can babysit Friday night so you can finally have some mommy and daddy time.

He still traces idle circles on the inside of your wrist at red lights.

You still feel it everywhere.

Evenings  

Soccer fields, dance studios, and the occasional emergency room visit for split chins or swallowed Lego pieces.

You sit shoulder-to-shoulder on tiny bleachers as often as you can—which is nearly a perfect score still, except for one game where you were on a case.

Hotch's arm drapes along the back of your seat, fingers playing with the ends of your hair while Grace scores her first goal and Ben cheers so loud he falls off the bottom row.

Recitals mean Hotch in a suit outside of work with glitter in his hair because Grace insisted on doing his makeup backstage. You keep the photo on your desk forever.

The kids love every time he's "forced" to wear a suit outside of work, because he looks so sad, they once told you. Which, first of all... evil. And second, you love, because the tiny demons don't know that he's pretending to be miserable and secretly loves dressing up for stuff with them.

After bedtime—two stories, three drinks of water, one monster check under the bed—the house finally quiets. You spread case files across the kitchen table like you once spread them across bullpen desks and floors, only now there are crayon drawings mixed in with crime-scene photos and a half-eaten dinosaur pancake on a plate nearby.

Hotch sits beside you, tie gone, sleeves rolled, reading glasses low on his nose. His hand finds your knee under the table, the same way it has since 2001.

Sometimes you work until 2 a.m.; sometimes you abandon the files entirely and end up slow-dancing in sock feet to whatever’s playing in the radio, foreheads pressed together, swaying more than dancing.

The team folds into your life like they were always meant to be there.

Penelope shows up on Saturday mornings with rainbow sprinkles and her laptop, teaching eight-year-old Grace how to code her own choose-your-own-adventure game while you and Hotch sneak a nap on the couch.

Morgan spends an entire blistering July weekend in your backyard building Ben the most elaborate treehouse known to man—complete with a tire swing and a rope ladder.

He teaches Ben to throw a perfect spiral, and you later try to teach him to stop aiming at Morgan’s head.

Reid reads bedtime stories in English, Spanish, and—once, memorably—Latin, when Ben requests “the dragon one with the big words.”

He still blushes every Thanksgiving when Gideon—retired now, but omnipresent in your lives—launches into the “kiss already” saga with new embellishments like a crazy old man; lightning flashes, swelling orchestral music, the whole works.

Reid hides behind his pie; Grace and Ben chant “Tell it again, Grandpa Gideon!” until Hotch threatens to revoke pie privileges for the entire table.

Years later, when the kids are old enough to ask why Uncle Spencer turns red every holiday, you’ll just smile and say, “Ask your father—he was there.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2015

Mateo Cruz accepts the Deputy Director position on a Wednesday. By Friday afternoon, the Director’s office has made it official: you’re the new Section Chief.

The announcement email goes out at 4:17 p.m.; the bullpen erupts in cheers loud enough to rattle the windows. Hotch pretends to scowl from his office doorway, arms folded, muttering, 'Great, now I have to salute my own wife,' but the corner of his mouth keeps betraying him, because he couldn't be prouder of you.

You stay late for the ceremonial handover, shaking hands, signing the last of the paperwork that makes it real. And when you finally pull the car into the garage, it’s past 10:00 p.m., the house is dark except for the porch light, which Grace still insists on leaving for the 'porch fairies'—you'd hoped she would outgrow it by not, because it brings the electrical bill up by unnecessary amounts.

Hotch is waiting just inside the mudroom door, jacket off, sleeves rolled high, tie already loosened like he’s been pacing, not caring to change out of his work clothes yet.

The second the door clicks shut behind you, he’s on you.

One step, two, a lot of steps, and your back meets the bedroom door before you even realize you made it upstairs.

The new brass nameplate on your credentials folder digs into your palm; he plucks it from your fingers and tosses it onto the dresser without looking.

His hands slide up your sides, under your blazer, pushing it off your shoulders and letting it drop to the floor.

“Section Chief Hotchner,” he says, voice low and rough, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to say that?”

You start to laugh, but it turns into a gasp when he presses you harder against the door, mouth finding the spot just below your jaw that still makes your knees weak after all these years.

His stubble scrapes; his fingers thread into your hair, tilting your head back so he can kiss down the column of your throat he’s mapped a thousand times and somehow never gets tired of.

“Aaron... the kids—”

"They're with Will and JJ," he quickly answers before he continues. "My boss,” he growls against your pulse point, and the possessive, reverent way he says it sends heat flooding straight through you. “Say it.”

You’re already breathless. “I outrank you now, Unit Chief.”

He makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-groan and kisses you properly then. His tongue slides against yours like he’s been thinking about this all day. One hand splays across the small of your back, the other cups your jaw, thumb stroking over your cheekbone with that same stunned tenderness he had the night he proposed.

You fist your hands in his shirt, pulling him closer until there’s no space left, until the only thing in the universe is the heat of his body and the way he keeps murmuring “my boss, my boss” like a prayer between kisses.

When you finally break apart, you’re both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, noses brushing. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, lips swollen and curved in a grin that’s pure mischief and pride.

“Bed! Section Chief,” he says, voice gravel-rough. “That’s an order from your subordinate.”

You laugh and let him push you down on the bed.

Turns out outranking one Agent Hotchner has some very compelling perks.  

And he spends the entire night proving he’s more than happy to follow your orders.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The team has made it official without ever actually voting.

You are Mom.  

Hotch is Dad.  

There is no escaping it.

It starts small.

Penelope bursts into the bullpen at 2 a.m. with new surveillance footage and yells, “Mom, Dad, you’re gonna want to see this!” She freezes, horrified, but you and Hotch are too tired to correct her, so you just wave her over.

From that day on, the nicknames stuck.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Grace is thirteen, all long limbs and sarcasm and her father’s intense eyes. Ben is ten, fearless, missing two front teeth, and convinced Uncle Spencer can actually talk to aliens.

The house is loud and messy and perfect: drawings taped to the fridge next to family photos, Hotch's running shoes by the door next to Grace’s cleats, your wedding photo on the mantel between Ben’s first-grade portrait and a framed newspaper clipping of your promotion with the headline “BAU Power Couple Still Unstoppable.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Reid skids into your office holding two mugs. “Mom, I made you coffee exactly the way you like it because Dad said if I didn’t, he’d make me redo all the geographic profiles from the last ten cases.”

You take the coffee without looking up from the budget report you’re murdering. “Tell Dad his threat worked.”

JJ corners Hotch in the hallway. “Dad, Grace texted me—she got accepted early decision to Georgetown. She wanted you to hear it from family first.” Hotch's eyes instantly go soft and watery; JJ pats his arm like she’s done this a hundred times—she has.

Tara is presenting when Luke raises his hand.  

“Question for Mom: Can we get approval for the extra surveillance hours?”  

You don’t even blink anymore. “Ask Dad, he controls the budget this quarter.”  

Hotch, without looking up from his tablet: “Approved, but only if you two stop calling us that in front of the Director.”

Everyone, in perfect unison: “Yes, Dad.”

Emily—who swore she would never—slips once on a case in Kansas City: “Dad, the ME’s office is stonewalling us.”

Aaron just sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I will call them. Again.”

Garcia over comms during a tense takedown: “Be careful, children, Mom and Dad are watching, and we do NOT want the lecture if someone gets shot.”  

You and Hotch exchange the weary, fond look of parents whose kids just said “shit” in front of the neighbors.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Some nights, when the kids are asleep and the house is quiet, you and Hotch sit on the porch swing you installed the year Ben was born. He wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulls you into his side, and you watch the stars come out over the same oak tree that shaded your first family photos.

“Still think Gideon was right to yell at us?” you ask, tracing the wedding ring you’ve worn for eighteen years now.

Hotch laughs and presses a kiss to your temple.

“Best thing he ever did.”

And you sit there, two kids asleep inside, careers that have saved lives countless of times and broken your hearts in equal measure, a house that always smells faintly of coffee and children, and you know—without doubt, without hesitation—that every late night, every loss, every terrifying leap brought you exactly here.

Home.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Grace and Ben think the whole mom and dad thing is hilarious.  

Grace, now eighteen, texts the BAU group chat from college: “Tell Dad that Grandpa Rossi's carbonara recipe is trending on TikTok and people are calling Dad the ‘Hot FBI Dad’.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The team is sprawled across their desks after closing another case, this one a little too brutal, even for them.

You and Hotch are the last to pack up, as always.

Penelope yawns, slings her bag over her shoulder, and calls out: “Night, Mom. Night, Dad. Don’t stay too late making out on the conference table.”

Morgan, Reid, Tara, Luke, and JJ chorus “Night, Mom and Dad!” as they file out.

Hotch waits until the elevator doors close, then looks over at you, deadpan.  

“We’re never living this down, are we?”

You hook your arm through his, lean your head on his shoulder as you walk toward the elevators.  

“Nope. And honestly? I kinda love it.”

He presses the down button, then drops a kiss to the top of your head.  

“Me too... Mom.”

You elbow him in the ribs. He laughs and pulls you into the elevator.

The doors close on the two of you, Section Chief and Unit Chief, Mom and Dad, twenty-four years after Gideon yelled at you to kiss already, still stupidly and perfectly in love.

"Ms. L/N," he stops in front of you. You can already sense that Gideon is a warm person from the cadence of his voice. "Welcome to the team." He extends his hand, and you shake it—it's the kind of handshake that speaks louder than words and says 'I already trust you to keep up'.

"Follow me." And so you do, crossing the bullpen until you reach an empty desk across from a dark-haired agent, hunched over a file and surrounded by several more. His tie is barely loosened, sleeves rolled up, and hair slightly tousled as if he has been running his hands through it in frustration. "That's Agent Hotchner," Gideon says. "He joined us last year. Good man, and the best ex-prosecutor we've managed to steal from the field office in Seattle. You'll be desk neighbors for the foreseeable future."

Agent Hotchner looks up from his file at the introduction and offers you a polite smile before he stands up and extends his hand. "Hotch. Welcome to the unit." He greets.

You shake his hand, wow, his grip is firm, and his hand is warm, you note at the back of your head as you introduce yourself. Gideon's smirk is almost imperceptible as he leaves the two of you, standing at the juncture where your desks connect, hands clasped longer than strictly necessary.

You quickly learn that he's thirty-five, joined the Bureau in '95 after he figured out that he'd rather be catching the killers than prosecuting them for the rest of his life. He's ambitious and plans to one day make director if everything goes to plan, methodical, the kind of guy who color-codes his case notes by the severity of the case, who never leaves a form half-finished, or leaves the office in the middle of writing a report.

And rumor has it that the director is already eyeing him for a leadership role in another unit, despite his current lag of seniority with the Bureau.

And you, your ambitions? Right now, you're just the new kid, hungry to learn and to prove you belong with the travelling profile team, and not just behind your desk from 9-5, scratching notes in the margins of old case files as you study the serial killers the team has already caught.

Neither of you knows it yet, but the rest of your lives just started.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The first few weeks end up being a blur of consultations, training files and videos, observing and learning the rhythm of the unit. The way they speak, the way they move, how they work, basically studying their behaviour to the best of your current training.

Gideon leads the team quietly, mostly keeping to himself in his office and letting his agents run on their own. But he's always willing to lend an ear, or answer a question in a way that is so cryptic and so provocative that it leaves you no other option but to rework your theories and learn even more about the ubsubs. AND YOU LOVE IT.

And then there's you and Hotch, trading polite 'Good mornings', first thing, bringing each other a new cup of coffee from the kitchen if either of you were getting up, and occasionally asking the other for a second pair of eyes on a particularly annoying case file.

It doesn't take long for you to realize that you're both night owls when it comes to work. Cases pile up quickly around here, and not just on your desk, but every desk around the bullpen has a minimum of ten files stacked in the inbox at all times. And while the other agents head home by no later than eight, you and Hotch linger.

You don't plan it at first. It just sort of... happens.

On a late night in October—Gideon has finally deemed you ready to climb a step higher on your case clearances—you're working on your first active serial killer case, a serial arsonist from Oregon, trying to get to the bottom of his MO, reviewing victim statements, mapping timelines, trying to get inside the unsub's head before time runs out and he kills again.

It's not until you finally look up that you realize that the bullpen is empty except for the two of you. It's past midnight, and time has completely run away from you. You rub your eyes, feeling them get heavier and heavier the longer you're looking away from the file in front of you.

Hotch leans back across from you, pulls his arms over his head, and stretches himself as far back as he can. His back is stiff and protesting the many long hours hunched over his desk.

"You know you can go home, right?" He questions, cocking his brow at you. "Gideon's not keeping score about who's here the longest."

"Right, why are you still here then? Don't you have a girlfriend at home?" You retort, you know he can take your push back.

"Touché." He chuckles with a slight huff. Hotch's eyes quickly avert, glancing up at the clock. It's already 12:47 a.m., Haley is asleep by now, and there's no use in him rushing home with a bouquet from the nearest bodega open at this hour. She's used to it by now, it'll be okay, he tells himself.

So, you both keep working. The clock keeps ticking: 1:15, 1:44, 2:13. And finally, 2:30 a.m., you yawn so hard your jaw pops, you can't help but smile as you look over at Hotch, his lips slightly upturned as he tries not to giggle at your sudden burst of noisiness.

"Fine." You mutter in defeat, shutting the Bureau-stamped manila folder. "You win tonight."

"Win?" He looks up from his own file, almost looking confused.

"Yeah! You stayed later tonight. Tomorrow the loser buys coffee—aka me." You stand up from your chair, grab your bag from its usual spot on the floor under your desk, and head for the elevator with a small 'Goodnight, Hotch' as you try to hide the grin currently inhabiting your face.

The next morning, you show up at 7:45 with two coffees in a take-out tray—how you're up and awake after getting less than four hours of sleep, is beyond your knowledge. You place his cup in front of him, black and light roast, you noticed how he took it last week. And yours, almost identical, but with a slash of milk.

"And this is the loser buying?" He raises his brow at you, clearly finding your follow-through amusing.

"Rules are rules, Agent Hotchner."

"Call me Aaron." A small smile tugs at his lips; it's truly the first real one you've seen from him since you joined the BAU.

"Okay, Aaron." You smile back at him.

That night, the game starts, and from that point on, it's on.

The bullpen becomes your battlefield, quiet battlefield that is. No one notices your harmless competition at first. Gideon leaves at five if he can, always with a 'Don't stay too late, kids' on his way past your desks. Anderson waves goodbye around six, and the rest of the agents disappear sporadically sometime between the two, leaving the two of you alone, again.

But you and Hotch? You trade glances across the desks as the team leaves, already trying to figure out which of you will cave first.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

You're working on a case from Billings: three children kidnapped in the past nine weeks, all under ten, all taken from public parks between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. on weekdays, indicating that the unsub(s?) works a regular 9-5 job. No bodies yet, no ransom demands, no fingerprints, no witnesses who saw more than a dark sedan idling in the parking lot on all three occasions, and a single fresh bootprint near the swings from victim number two's abduction that doesn't match any of the visitors to the park during that time frame.

The photos in the file are the kind that make you feel completely hollowed out as you stare at cheerful, gap-toothed school portraits, birthday parties, one little boy in a Spider-Man costume holding his mother's hand as they went trick or treating last Halloween. And every time you look away, you feel like their eyes follow you, screaming at you, asking why you haven't found them yet.

You've been staring at the timeline from the first victim for forty minutes now, highlighter hovering slightly over the copy you made of the original, trying to force the unsub's pattern to reveal itself to you.

Your chest feels like someone parked their car on it.

It's around 11:30 p.m. when you finally blink away from the case—unable to take another glance at a freckled face with a snotty nose—you realize that Hotch hasn't turned a page in a while. He's watching you instead, elbows resting on his desk, chin resting on his steepled fingers.

He's looking at you, barely containing the fact that he's concerned about you. His eyes are soft, carefully trying to study you, find a clue, anything that can lead him to figure out what's bothering you.

"You okay?" He finally asks, coming to terms with not being able to profile you, yet.

"Just... I hate these ones." You swallow the lump in your throat, not realizing how dry your mouth has become.

Hotch nods once, slowly, understanding you perfectly. "Me too." A moment passes. "Do you want to talk through it, together?"

You do. God! Yes, you do.

You nod.

Hotch rolls his chair around the corner of the desks and straight into your space, stopping so close that your knees nearly touch under the desk. He starts spreading the evidence across the desk, moving pictures, reports, and interview logs into three distinct areas based on which victim the evidence is connected to.

"Okay," he starts, tapping the map in the middle of the desk. "All three abduction zones overlap, here." He circles the elementary school in the middle of the three parks, all exactly six miles away from it. "He has to be local."

"But the presumed comfort zone has a twenty-mile radius out from the school in each direction based on other similar cases," you counter, searching for the ruler, you know it's around here somewhere. Hotch hands it to you. You put it on the map and trace a straight line out from the school and circle the perimeter with a compass. "He's risking a lot of travel time with a live child in the car." You state, staring at the now visual preliminary comfort zone.

"Which means he's either extremely confident, or doesn't fit the regular profile for these types of cases. He most likely has a location nearby, where he holds the kids first." Hotch reaches for the highlighter at the same moment you do. You both freeze, then laugh.

"Sorry," he chuckles, but doesn't move his hand away, letting it linger for a moment as your thumbs and pointer fingers stay slightly interlocked with each other.

"By all means, Mr. Unit Chief-in-training," you tease him, letting him take the highlighter. Hotch told you last night, over a fairly sad and beige plate of leftover canteen food, that the director had approached him about becoming Unit chief of the National Security Branch. Which he had declined, arguing that, for one, he didn't feel that his time with the BAU was a closed chapter yet, and two, the commute to DC during morning rush hour was terrible, and he'd be seeing Haley even less than he already did.

Instead, the director had "offered" Hotch training courses in what it takes to be a Unit Chief—in Hotch's own words, it was more of a 'take the offer, or you're fired' kind of negotiation in the end.

"Not for years, hopefully." He snorts. Leaving it at that.

For the next two hours, the bullpen shrinks down to a tiny desk island, current inhabitants: 2.

You argue about possible stressors—job loss? Divorce? Death? It's hard to tell when a body hasn't shown up yet. You discuss whether the lack of a body could indicate that the unsub is sexually assaulting these kids, if he could be impotent, or simply isn't motivated by traditional dominance and "need" the kids for a bigger purpose—potentially trafficking.

You map possible locations within the perimeter, abandoned farms, storage unit facilities, and closed-down gyms on the edge of town, but quickly scrap those ideas, recognizing that most likely, he's keeping them trapped in a basement somewhere—or something similar.

Every time one of you hits a wall, the other is already there, ready to take over with a new angle.

At one point, you're both leaning over the same photograph of the third victim, missing for six days now, and despite your shoulders pressing together, neither of you does or seems to want to shift away from the other.

"Do you think she's still alive?" You ask, turning your head to look at him, the tips of your noses merely inches away from each other.

"I'll believe that, yes. Until we have a body, we'll keep searching for them all."

The clock on the wall ticks past 2:00 a.m. Your eyes are burning, but the fog around the profile is finally lifting, taking shape, teaching you more and more about what might drive this unsub to abduct children under ten.

You lean back in your chair, rolling your neck until it cracks.

"I can't, not tonight," you admit, mostly to yourself. "My brain's turning to mush, and I fear we're minutes away from me babbling pure nonsense." You smile at him.

Hotch looks at you for a moment, taking in the cloudy look in your eyes, the way you yawn every few minutes, the way you fiddle with the pen in your left hand, trying to keep yourself busy and awake.

He says your name softly. "You win this round." He leans back, looking exhausted, yet amused at the confusion slowly spreading across your face. "Coffee, tomorrow, on me. You take it black with a splash of milk still, right?" He questions.

You blink at him. You never told him that. And he certainly never has had to buy you coffee before.

"I pay attention." He winks before rolling back around to his own desk.

And as you get up to grab your coat, you can't help but glance back at him, still sitting at his desk, but instead of being nose deep in his own files, he's watching you as you leave, with an expression you can't quite place, but all you know, is that currently, a very taken man is making your chest feel full.

You have no idea that twenty-five years from now, this night, is still one of those you look back at with fond memories, realizing that it was the first time you let him see you vulnerable due to a case and the first time—of many—he rolled his chair over, just because you needed him close.

All you know for now is that the case still feels like it has no ending, that three children are still out there somewhere, waiting to be rescued. And for the first time all week, you finally believe that you'll bring these kids home, one way or another.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The competition between you becomes your thing. Unspoken and at times a little ridiculous, but nonetheless perfect in its own sleep-deprived kind of way.

Some nights you win—or as you've come to believe, he lets you win—he trudges in the next morning with two coffees in hand, but is met by a steaming latte waiting on his desk, with a pink sticky note stuck to it saying "Loser" in thick, sharpie lines. On those days, Hotch just huffs, raises his brows, and tries to contain his giggles as he shakes his head at you.

Most nights, he wins, and you return every single time with a black coffee, trying all the different shops along your commute until you find the one you swear you hear him slightly moan at when he takes the first sip.

On his winning days, Hotch somehow always ends up bringing you breakfast, because he knows by now that you would rather sleep thirty more minutes than get up and eat.

The 'Good mornings' no longer feel like necessary politeness, but rather like two friends greeting each other for another, looong, day at work.

The nights become yours entirely along the way, the bullpen giving way to real conversations after midnight, that aren't just: can you take a look at this? Or, do you want anything to drink?

It starts innocently enough one evening when you're both nursing the terrible vending-machine coffee, which is sour, most likely because the machine hasn't been cleaned since the day it was installed in the corridor.

The bullpen is down to the two of you again, the floor dark except for the soft glow from each of your desk lamps.

You're working together on a case for Gideon, something about his two brightest agents working together on something important, or... something ;). You're both running on empty as you keep going through crime scene statements from the field office in Oregon.

Hotch's gaze drifts up from the legal pad he's been scratching notes on all evening as you rub your temples. You hope that you somehow, within the past hour, gained the ability to massage new knowledge into your brain. Because this case feels like you're looking for a needle in a needle stack.

His eyes don't stay on you for long; instead, they glide toward the corner of your desk. And there, half-buried under a stack of fabric analysis reports, lay your battered paperback of Persuasion.

The cover is soft from years and years of rereading, the spine cracked in all the places you love most.

He reaches over without asking and carefully pries it out of the stack. Hotch turns it over in his hands, like he's weighing a pound of meat in the grocery store.

"Jane Austen? In the middle of researching a firebug?" He says, voice low and a little rough from the many long nights and too little sleep. Although his words come as questions, you don't feel like he's judging you for your choice. "That's a new one."

You lean slightly back in your chair, rolling your shoulders until they pop. You look at him, trying to figure out where his sudden fascination with your reading material comes from.

"She's my reset button," you finally say, giving in to his questions. "When everything else feels like chaos, Jane somehow manages to put the world back in order."

He nods.

"I've read this one," Hotch admits, and it almost sounds like he's surprised at his own statement. He quickly glances up at you, waiting for a reaction, before flipping it open carefully, his thumb brushing the edge of a page you've clearly read a hundred times. It's annotated with several different pens and colors, indicating each time you returned to the story.

"You've read Persuasion?" You raise a brow at him.

He nods once, slowly. "Third year of law school. I couldn't turn my brain off after a criminal law final. So, I went to the library, found the most boring-looking book I could on the shelves at two in the morning." Hotch's lips pull slightly up as he sees the—fake—disgust/hurt crossing your features as he messes with you. "I started reading it to bore myself to sleep. Ended up finishing it at sunrise instead."

You stare at him for a moment, trying to picture a younger Aaron Hotchner, tired eyes, ruffled hair, college shirt, and maybe even sweatpants, curled up in his awful dorm room bed with a two-hundred-year-old love story.

The image is so unexpectedly soft and fuzzy that it makes something warm spread through your chest.

"So the stoic prosecutor is secretly a softie for second-chance romance." You try to tease him, but your voice ends up coming out softer than you meant to. In the end, you don't really want to tease him about it, because you're in awe of the fact that a man, yes, a man‚ read a "girly" classic, without complaining.

It doesn't take long for Hotch to huff out a quiet laugh and place the book back down. He doesn't push it back across the desk right away, just gently keeps his fingers curled around the edges.

"It's not the romance," he says, eyeing the cover. "It's the waiting. The way someone can walk away and still come back when the timing finally lines up. The idea that some things are worth the years in between."

There's something in the way he speaks about the story that changes the air between you, thickens it, makes it feel like the exact moment the wind stops blowing after a storm, the exact moment the sun peaks out after the rain. The exact moment you realize that you might be catching feelings for an unavailable man.

"Yeah," you manage, swallowing the lump in your throat. "That part always gets me, too."

Hotch looks up, meets your eyes, case files forgotten, no profile, no pretense. Just the two of you and the quiet that follows as you stare into each other's eyes.

"Some people are worth the wait," he smiles, so quietly you almost miss it entirely.

Your breath catches in your throat for a split second. You don't answer him, you don't have to, not now, maybe never, but the look in his eyes tells you everything you need to know, for now.

He finally slides the book back to you, fingers brushing yours for the briefest second as you reach out to tug it fully over the line between your desks. You curl your hand around the cover, feeling the contact buzzing in your fingertips.

Neither of you opens another file for a long time.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

It's no less than a week later. The bullpen smells like soy sauce and noodles. You're sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite each other, with your backs leaning against your desk's leg and whoever owns the desk next to you. Various boxes of—none authentic—Chinese takeaway surround you, everything from deep-fried meats, rice with curry sauce, noodles with some sort of sweet and sour sauce, and so on.

The food isn't exactly the greatest, but it was the best option at this hour of the night.

The conversation has drifted from case theories to anything but.

You nudge the carton of rice toward him with your chopsticks, hoping that he will eat the last of it, because it is actually awful and you don't want to punish your taste buds with it even more than you've already done. "Come on, Hotchner. You can't hold out on me forever. Worst first date. Go!"

Hotch groans and leans his head back against the desk. He closes his eyes for a split second, praying for strength, cause he knows you won't rest the case until he has told you exactly what went down. "Fine. It's Seattle ´95. I just joined the bureau, and Haley and I decided to take a break to test our relationship. A friend of a friend swore he'd found a perfect match for me. She shows up with a three-ring binder full of pictures. Not of her, but of her cat. Mr. Whiskers—"

"—No way!" You interject.

"Yes way!! Anyway, the binder starts with kitten pictures, then moves to vacation shots from a trip to the French countryside, then..." Hotch drags a hand down his face. "She proceeded to spend forty-five minutes describing the colonoscopy he had a week prior. In detail. I'm talking diagrams, recovery timelines, medication, specialty diet he went on afterward, vet notes. Everything! I ended up timing how long I could go without making eye contact with the waiter. The record was eleven minutes."

"Stop! Please! I can't breathe." You wheeze out, trying to compose yourself, but it's to no avail, so you press your forehead to your knees, trying to quiet your laughs down.

Hotch peeks at you through his fingers, grinning, hands covering his face. "Your turn! Don't think you can get out of telling your worst one!"

"Okay, Okay!" You wipe your eyes, "It's a bar here in Quantico, two years ago. Guy says he's a 'trekkie with a capital T.' He shows up in the red command uniform. Shirt, phaser, badge, the works. Greets me with a Vulcan salute and asks if I'd like to 'boldly go where no man has ever gone before...' to Denny's at 3 in the morning. Then he tries to pay for my coffee with replicator credits he printed in his mom's basement."

Hotch drops his head and laughs. "You wine," he manages through uncontrained bursts of giggles. "At least Mr. Whiskers had personality."

"Mr. Whiskers had detailed medical records," you counter. "It's safe to say that you win this one with crazy Ms. catlady."

"Let's never speak of replicator credits or catladies ever again." Hotch points his chopstick at you before he leans over and steals the last few noodles, emptying another box.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The child-abduction case from Billings, finally, finally, is blessedly closed. All three children were found curled up in the crawl space of the unsub's garage, dehydrated, in various states, but alive—all of them are alive. You sighed loudly and extremely heavily the second the news hit your inbox.

You've spent most of the time since the news broke searching up articles, watching videos of the police and field office agents breaking down the unsub's door, and several different news coverages, everything you can find on the ending of your first nightmare case.

It feels like the first real deep breath you've been able to take in the past two weeks.

You sit on top of your desk, cross-legged, one elbow on your knee, with your head resting in your palm, while the other hand stirs a cube of sugar into the cup of tea you're making.

Your shoes are kicked off somewhere under your desk—because you're a civilised person who doesn't put dirty footwear on the furniture.

Hotch sits across from you in his usual spot, leaning back in his chair, his head tipped back, and his eyes closed—it's been a long day.

His tie is wrapped around your head, something that happened around hour five after the team left, when you both had a sudden burst of insanity. The top button on his shirt is undone, and his sleeves are rolled as far up as he allows himself—which is to the elbow, like a normal person.

Hotch opens his eyes slightly, watching you as you lift your mug and take the first sip, burning your tongue in the process.

"They're really okay," you say, voice small and quiet in the massive expanse of the bullpen. "I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop." You admit.

He leans forward, now resting his elbows on the edge of his desk, and puts his head in his hands, looking at you. "They're okay, because we didn't stop," he says. "Because you didn't forget them, because you didn't stop."

You place the mug back down and slowly slide off the desk. It's almost as if you're thinking the same thing, because he stands up too, and you meet at the line where your desks meet and embrace each other. Needing the reassurance. Your arms wrap around his waist as his chin comes to rest on the crown of your head.

For a long time, neither of you speaks, you just stand there. Embraced.

"Thank you," you finally whisper, pulling your head out from under his chin to look up at him. "For not letting me fall apart on this one."

"You were never falling apart," his arms tighten slightly. "Everyone has that type of case that gets to them more often than not. And you tend to... feel everything. Mine are the ones about fathers and sons."

"Will you tell me about it one day?" You ask, sensing that there's something buried deep within his person, something he wants to talk about, but also something he fears will change the way people view him.

He nods. "Maybe someday."

It's not until an hour later, when you're packing up to leave, that you finally speak again.

"Why'd you really join?" You ask, unprompted.

"My dad was a lawyer," he states, stuffing the last of his things into his bag. "Old-school, 'justice is blind' type. Expected me and my brother Sean to follow him into corporate law, make partner by thirty-five, marry well, die respected." His mouth turns into a frown. "Then I watched a serial rapist walk away because his dad played golf with the judge. I was twenty-seven. Decided I wanted to stop them instead of arguing about whether they were guilty or not. That's the gist of it." He waves his hand in the air at the last part. "Your turn."

"My mom moved us to Ohio when I was a kid because her dream was to open a diner off the I-70," you pick at the label on your water bottle before packing it into your bag. "Open 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, no fail except on Christmas and Thanksgiving. I saw and observed my fair share of truckers, cops, runaway teens, cheating husbands, and plotting wives, you know the works. I started waiting tables when I was twelve. Learned to read people before I even knew what algebra meant. The regulars had patterns: the way Mr. Henderson always ordered decaf after church, how Tammy, the night cook, flinched when men raised their voices. I figured out who was lying over time, who was running from something, who was one bad day away from becoming one of the very people we hunt. I thought... if I could understand why people turn into monsters, that maybe I could keep someone else from becoming the next scared person hiding in a diner bathroom, because their abuser tracked them down." You shrug, a little embarrassed. "I don't know, it sounds a little stupid when I say it out loud."

"It doesn't," he says. "It sounds like the reason we're both still here on a Thursday at 2 a.m."

Over time, you learn more and more about each other.

He tells you about summers on the James River, catching catfish with his little brother Sean, his mother's gardenias that smelled exactly like church on Sunday mornings.

You tell him about your mom teaching you to make pie crust with vodka, because it keeps it tender apparently, about the jukebox that only played Springsteen and The Beatles, because it was broken and you couldn't afford to have it fixed. About the night you caught a line cook stealing from the register and talked him into turning himself in instead of telling your mom and calling the cops.

You learn that he hates peas, but will eat them if they're hidden in a pie or casserole dish. He learns you secretly love cheesy 80's ballads and sing them in the shower like nobody's watching, cause they aren't obviously. You learn that he still has a worn copy of 'The Federalist Papers', which his father gave him when he was accepted into law school, even though they barely spoke before he died. He learns that you lost your mom in a car crash during college, but that she would send you care packages every month with your favorite homemade dishes and a note that always read: "Don't let the bastards get you down, honey."

Piece by piece, you trade small, sacred details of your lives over burnt coffee, like kids swapping baseball cards in the school yard, only these feel like they matter more.

Neither of you wants to admit it out loud, but somewhere between the midnight house, laughter, and brutal cases, your desks stop feeling like two separate entities and start feeling like shared territory.

It's not about who stays the latest anymore.

It's about who you want to stay the latest with.

By mid-December, you're both pretending to read your reports through before delivering them to Gideon's inbox and heading home, but really, you're talking about everything and nothing at all. The best pizza places in the D.C. area, whether aliens would be evil and turn into unsubs, and his terrible attempt at baking cookies last Christmas as an apology to Haley for not being home enough.

"I should go." You yawn, barely able to keep your eyes open.

He looks up. "Yeah. Me too."

Neither of you moves, neither of you wants to move.

"Truce?" You finally laugh, figuring your little competition was having a flare again.

Hotch just smiles and closes his eyes. "Truce. Coffee's on me tomorrow, though. No loser this time."

"Deal, Aaron." You grab your coat from the back of your chair and start heading home.

You've nearly made it through the first six months of your first year now.

The bullpen is once again dead quiet, and half the lights are off except for your two desk lamps that burn like two tiny campfires in the dark.

You're both still here, as usual, finishing a couple of overdue reports and sometimes even pretending to work before the silence turns into silly conversations.

You've won the last three nights in a row, meaning Hotch has shown up every morning with a coffee, exactly how you like it. But there's something about the past couple of days that has been feeling off about him. You don't know what it is, but it's not like him to leave work before 8 p.m.

Tonight, though, something's definitely off. He's been staring at the same page for twenty minutes now. Pen hasn't moved, not even jotting a tiny dot down on his pad by accident. His shoulders are rigid, and his jaw clenched like he's biting words back he doesn't want nor know how to say.

"Aaron." You say as you close your file.

He blinks, looks up from his own file, like he forgot you were there. "Yeah?"

"You've read that autopsy report four times now, and you still look like you want to set it on fire. What's going on? Talk to me." Your voice cracks slightly; you hope he didn't catch it, but you know better—he's a profiler, for Christ's sake, he notices everything.

He exhales through his nose and sets the pen down, harder than he intended to, you can tell by the slight surprise in his eyes at the sound. "I'm fine." He mutters, his words short and almost sounding clipped.

"You're the worst liar I've ever met, and we profile liars for a living, remember." You roll your chair around the corner of the desks until you're sitting beside him instead of across. Close enough to see the faint shadows under his eyes, the tension around his mouth, the stubble starting to show, which is the biggest indicator that something is definitely wrong—he never neglects his grooming habits, never. "Come on. It's me."

Hotch glances at the clock.

"No one else is here. Spill." You try again.

He rubs a hand over his face, and for a long, very long, minute you think that he's about to shut you down, to tell you to keep your nose to yourself, maybe even go as far as telling you it's none of your business—Hotch would never go that far, not with you.

Then he leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. You don't know if it's a strategic move or just his subconscious way of trying to avoid confrontation.

"Haley ended it," he says, voice so low, so dead, that you almost miss it. "Last week."

Haley's name lands between the two of you like a brick being thrown through a window. You know, Haley, you've seen the framed photo he kept on his desk—come to think of it, it recently disappeared. Why didn't he say anything?—You've met Haley.

Haley, the high-school sweetheart, Haley, the prom-queen, Haley, the future-Mrs.-Hotchner.

"I'm sorry," you finally speak, because it feels too small and too big at the same time. You don't really know how to react. You're sad for Aaron, really sad, but you also know exactly how many hours he spends in the office compared to at home. So you completely get Haley.

He gives a tight shrug, trying to seem casual, but it doesn't come off that way. "We'd been together since we were sixteen. She waited while I attended George Washington, waited through law school, waited through the Academy, through Seattle. She said that she couldn't keep waiting for a life that never really started." His voice cracks, catching on the last word; he clears his throat like it never happened. "The hours here... they're worse than in the field office. Before you started with the team, I came home around 3 a.m. and left again by seven, before she even woke up. Sometimes I'd forget to call to tell her I would be home late. She said I was married to the job." Hotch lets out a laugh. "She isn't wrong."

You don't say anything, not yet; he has more he needs to get off his chest, you can tell. You watch him pick up the pen again, roll it between his fingers like he needs something to do with his hands to keep himself focused.

"She wanted kids," he continues, this time quieter. "A house with a yard and a dog. Normal things, really. And I kept telling her soon, soon, soon, after the next case, after I make supervisor, after, after, after." He finally looks at you, his eyes glaze over in a way you've never seen before. He's always so strong; you're usually the one on the brink of tears. "Turns out 'after' never comes."

Your chest aches for you. You reach out without thinking and cover his hand with yours on the desk. He flinches, just barely, stops rolling the pen, and lets your fingers stay, your thumb gently brushing the back of his hand in a, hopefully, calming motion.

"You're allowed to be upset, Aaron."

"I'm not upset, I'm angry," he admits. "At her for giving up on us, at myself for—" he trails off, "for letting it happen. For choosing this over my partner." He gestures vaguely at the files, at the bullpen, at the life. You know he isn't referring to you, but it stings a little as he says it, knowing that you're a part of this. "I don't know how to be anything... anyone else anymore."

"You're not alone in that," you say, exhaling softly. "Half this unit is allergic to normal. Doesn't mean it makes us broken and unlovable. Just... a little complicated."

Hotch huffs out a tiny laugh; it doesn't quite reach his eyes, but at least he didn't look sad for a split second. "Complicated. Right."

Silence settles between you. Your thumb brushes a last time across the back of his hand before you pull away, rolling your chair backward toward your side of the desks.

He clears his throat, which stops you in your tracks, and sits up straighter. "Anyway. That's... that's why I've been..." He waves at his untouched—now cold—cup of coffee and the unread pages of the autopsy report.

"Thank you for telling me."

"You're easy to talk to. Dangerously easy, do you drug my coffee in the mornings or something?" He jokes, meeting your eyes, finally letting the real Aaron break through.

"Dangerous is my middle name," you deadpan before sending a quick wink in his direction. He bursts out laughing, and you follow quickly after.

When you both come back down to reality, Hotch glances at the clock. "You should go home. Get some sleep."

"So should you."

"Truce?" A asks after a beat.

"Truce," you agree.

You both start packing up, very slowly, neither of you wants to leave, not yet. When you reach the elevators, he holds the door open for you.

"Hey," you smile, turning to him as the doors slide shut. "Tomorrow, the coffee's on me."

He looks at you for a moment before softening with a grateful expression.

"I'd like that," he says.

And just like that, as the elevator starts its descent, you and Hotch leave the office before midnight for the first time since your first day sitting across from him.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

You make it all the way to the women's restroom on the fifth floor—the one no one uses and especially not after 5 p.m.—before you crack.

The door swings behind you before shutting completely—you definitely pushed it open too hard—and the fluorescent tube lights flicker once as the automatic censor turns them on.

You take the stall farthest back and lock yourself inside, hang your bag on the hook, close the seat, and crawl onto the toilet. You draw your knees to your chest, praying that if anyone actually comes in, they won't notice your hiding spot.

And that's when everything hits, all at once.

The hospice doctor's voicemail from earlier, the one you didn't get to listen to until now, two hours later, because you were in a meeting.

"We need to talk about whether your father qualifies for continuous care still... costs could increase significantly..."

The email from their accounting department lay untouched in your inbox, because you're already hemorrhaging your savings on uncovered medications and day rates on his room alone.

The consult file on your desk that's due tomorrow, but you haven't touched yet, because every time you try to read the victimology, your eyes fill and the words blur, leaving you unable to map the profile.

The way your dad didn't recognize you for a full ten minutes yesterday when you went for a visit, he just stared at the ceiling and called you "Linda,"—his sister's name, who died in 1987. Most days, he remembers you, but the days he doesn't hurt, hurt more than you want to admit.

Your chest starts hitching before you can stop it, and you press the heels of your hands into your eyes, like it's physically possible to shove the tears back in. Still, they come anyway—hot, messy, silent at first, but then end with those awful choked noises you can't swallow, the ones when you've been crying too long and can't catch your breath.

You're terrified that you're going to lose your job if anyone finds out how badly you're drowning. That you won't be able to finish another profile or report ever again.

You're terrified of losing your dad, terrified of not being there with him when it happens, terrified of being alone, orphaned. You're not ready, and you'll never be.

You're terrified that the last real thing he said to you, before he started slipping, was 'Don't spend all your savings on me, honey,' and you lied and told him you wouldn't.

You cry until your throat is raw and your sleeves are soaked and your ribs hurt from trying to keep it quiet as physically possible. You count the ceiling tiles—twenty-seven—and try those Bureau-recommended breathing exercises that were attached to your welcome package. But they don't work when the bad thing is real life, and not a case you can close and happily forget.

Eventually, the storm passes—somewhat—leaving you shaky and hollowed out, barely able to stand on your legs—Great, Bambi, it is for the rest of the day, you think. You exit the stall and splash cold water on your face. Your eyes are swollen, nose red and running. You look like you have the wildest case of seasonal allergies... or like someone who's been crying in a federal building—which is exactly what you have.

You rummage around your bag and dig concealer out, dab it under your eyes, praying it'll cover the worst of it. You tell yourself you can do this. You're a profiler—in-training. You can compartmentalize. You work with cool people, people who've stared down serial killers at gunpoint; you can survive one more day of pretending everything is fine.

You practice a smile in the mirror, but end up looking like a corpse pretending to be alive.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket as you're about to push the door open and emerge back into reality. You almost ignore it, but something feels weird, which makes you answer.

"(Y/N)? It's Dr. Singh. I'm sorry to call so late. Your father's asking for you, and I promised to relay the message. He's lucid tonight. If you can come–"

"—I'll be there in thirty." You cut her off, your voice only wobbles a little. You hike your bag further up your shoulder and head out, walking out of the bathroom, slightly hurried, but as if nothing happened.

You don't see Hotch standing at the far end of the hallway, half-hidden by the vending machines, holding two fresh—awful—coffees he came up to deliver, worried about you, when he noticed you'd been gone a little too long.

He watches the restroom door swing shut behind you, watches you swipe under your nose one last time before you enter the elevator with a spine that is entirely too straight and with a smile too bright for you to be okay.

He makes it his mission to figure out what's going on with you, the same you kept 'pestering' him about his bad day.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

A few weeks later, the hospice parking lot is still dark when you pull in. The sky is just starting to fade into that bruised-purple color it gets before sunrise.

You sit in your car for a minute, gripping the steering wheel, knuckles turning white, telling yourself you can do this. You've done this before. You've done it every morning for weeks.

One more time. You can do it one more time. You tell it to yourself every morning before work.

Inside, the night nurse gives you a small smile and waves you through as she's doing the handover to the next shift.

The hallway always smells the same—antiseptic, instant oatmeal, and something faintly sweet that you've decided is hopelessness trying to be kind to you, but is definitely spilled orange juice that died before it got mobbed up completely.

Room 214 is dim; the bedside table lamp is turned on. Your dad is awake, eyes open, staring at the ceiling like he's waiting, waiting for something you can't see.

You pull the chair next to his bed closer and take his hand in yours. It's cold. Lighter than yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Every day, you never expect how much his health has declined compared to the day before.

"Morning, Dad." You greet softly.

He turns his head slowly, and for one heartbreaking second, his eyes focus on you—really focus. Not like usual, when he's there, but not really there at all.

"There's my girl," he rasps, voice shaky and lower than a whisper. A small smile tugs at his cracked lips. "You're too pretty to be up this early, honey."

You laugh, it sounds a little wet, but thankfully, he doesn't seem to notice. "Had to beat the awful D.C traffic," you joke. "How'd you sleep?"

"Like a dead man," he says, then winces, seeing the pained expression crawl into your eyes. "Bad joke. Sorry, kiddo."

"Don't be sorry. If anything, you're allowed bad jokes, dad." You squeeze his fingers, hoping it comes off as reassuring and not pitying.

You talk about nothing important, because everything important hurts too much right now. You tell him the Reds won last night—they didn't, but he won't know, and what's a little white lie when you're putting a smile on a dying man's lips.

You tell him about the stray cat that keeps visiting the dumpster behind your apartment, the one you've considered adopting, but can't bring you to, because you're never home.

He tells you the nurses have started sneaking him extra Jell-O and that the ceiling tiles above his bed look exactly like the 1965 Mustang he and your mom still drove when you were born.

You pretend his breathing isn't getting shallower with every passing minute.

At 6:45 a.m., he starts to drift off, eyes fluttering shut, fighting to stay awake. You lean in and kiss his forehead, tasting salt and the lingering aroma of the hospice soap. "I love you, dad," you whisper, trying not to wake him up. "I'll be back tonight, okay? We'll watch that awful game show you really like."

He manages a barely there nod, already half asleep.

You stand in the doorway to his room for a moment longer, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest under the thin blanket, barely keeping him warm. Then you force yourself to turn away, needing to get to work.

Dr. Singh is waiting by the nurses' station, arms folded, expression trying to stay gentle, but you sense the seriousness in her stance. She touches your elbow as you pass. "Can we talk for a minute?"

Your heart drops straight through the floor. You already know what's coming, but you follow her into the family room anyway—the one with the faded couch and the box of tissues that never seems to empty.

She closes the door behind her and sits down in a chair opposite you. "I'm sorry to do this when you're on your way out."

"It's okay," you lie.

She's close enough that you can smell the coffee on her breath and the hand sanitizer she reapplies after every patient she visits. "The latest labs came back overnight," she folds her hands and leans slightly forward. "His kidneys are failing faster than we expected. The infection isn't responding to anything we have left." She pauses, lets the information settle. "Realistically, we're looking at days. Maybe three to five if we're lucky. A week would be... optimistic at best."

The words land exactly like you knew they would, but hearing them spoken out loud still knocks the air out of you.

Days.

You stare at your hands resting in your lap, watching them slightly begin to shake. You twist the silver ring he gave you when you graduated college, the one that used to belong to your mother.

"Is he... suffering?" You question, voice coming out small and on the brink of tears.

"We've increased the morphine. He's comfortable. Most of the time he's not in any pain at all—he's just... slipping away peacefully, if that makes sense to you." She reaches over and covers your hands with hers. "You've done everything right. He knows you're here; he talks about you every time he's awake." She smiles, trying to reassure you.

You nod, because speaking feels absolutely impossible. Tears blur your vision now, turning the room into watercolor streaks.

"Call anyone who needs to be here to say goodbye," she says softly. "And take care of yourself, too. You've done so much for him; you don't have to be strong every second you're here. It's okay to not be okay." She reassures.

You wipe your eyes with the tips of your fingers. "Thank you."

She walks you to the door. "We'll call if anything changes, day or night. No matter what it is."

You step out into the hallway, pull your coat tighter around you, almost as if it alone can hold you together. The morning sun is finally breaking through the windows. You stand in the hallway for a long time, breathing in the antiseptic air as you try to make the world feel solid beneath your feet once again.

Then, you take one last deep breath, square your shoulders, and walk out to your car. You start the drive to the Academy—because right now, putting one foot in front of the other is the only thing you know how to do, the only thing that seems easy to do right now.

You badge yourself in on autopilot, through the several security checkpoints, until you sit down at your desk. It feels like it takes an hour alone just to make it to the bullpen, the bullpen who's already half-alive—phones ringing, printers printing, Anderson probably running another errand for section chief Strauss... because of course he is, he's the biggest teacher's pet you've ever met.

Your desk is exactly how you left it last night, except there's a fresh coffee waiting in front of your monitor with a post-it note stuck to the to-go cup in Hotch's neat block handwriting:

Latte, two sugars, thought you could use something a little sweet. — A

You drop your back beneath your desk and sink into your chair before you wrap both hands around the cup like it's the only thing able to warm your cold, cold soul.

The coffee tastes like nothing—Which probably isn't true, but to you, you taste nothing.

Hotch looks up from his desk, eyes flick over you once, twice, cataloging everything your body language tells him: red-rimmed eyes, trembling fingers, the way you're sitting too slouched as if you've given up, like you'll shatter if anyone as much as blinks at you the wrong way.

"Morning," he says softly, tempted to ask questions, but sensing that you need time, how long he doesn't know, but you need time to just be.

"Morning." Your voice is gravel-rough.

He waits, giving you an opening to talk, giving you the opening you always take, to tell him what's going on. But you don't take it. You just open the first file in the pile stacking up in your inbox, and stare at the words. Although they refuse to form any coherent sentences in your head right now.

By eight, Gideon stops by your desk to drop off the Atlanta consult you worked on last week, asking for a few revisions to the profile with a: "Need these by noon."

You nod.

He hesitates, too, sensing that something is up. He glances at Hotch, with a subtle shrug and a look that's asking all the questions Hotch doesn't have the answers to.

Hotch just nods back, signalling that he has it under control—he doesn't. Gideon lets the two of you be.

Later in the morning, you're proofreading the same paragraph over and over when Hotch's chair rolls from his own side of the desks and into your peripheral vision.

"Hey," he whispers, keeping his voice so low that no one outside of your desk bubble had any chance of catching the conversation. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." It comes out snappier than intended, but honestly, you have very little control over your emotions lately, and Hotch is so... so comfortable to be around that you can't help it.

"You don't look fine."

"I look how I look. I'm here, I'm working. I'm fine!" You flip to the next page harder than necessary, your emotions getting the better of you.

He doesn't move. "You missed the staff meeting."

"I was in the restroom," technically true; you were hiding in a stall trying not to hyperventilate. "Is that illegal now?"

He leans his side over your desk, face popping into your field of vision. He doesn't take your hand, but you can tell he wants to, that he wants to squeeze it, to reassure you, to let you know that everything will be okay, even though he doesn't know what's going on. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about." The words come out like venom. You barely manage to soften as you turn your attention completely to your file. "I just need to get this done."

"You're shaking." He states, studying you.

You glance down, your left hand is indeer trembling around the pen. You drop it on the desk, curl your fingers into a fist, and crack your knuckles. "I said. I'm fine, Agent Hotchner." You spit at him.

His eyebrows shoot up at the use of his last name. You never call him anything but his name anymore; you rarely use Hotch, only when mentioning him around the other team members.

He lowers his voice further. "Whatever it is, you don't have to carry it alone. I'm here to lend an ear if you need it."

Something inside you snaps like a rubber band pulled too tight.

"I'm not some victim you need to profile, okay?" It comes out loud enough that the agents at the cluster of desks right next to yours glance over, confused that Batman and Robin apparently are 'fighting'.

You drop your volume but not the edge. "I don't need rescuing. I need to finish this damn consult before Gideon decides I'm useless, not cut out for the job. So please! Just. Back. Off."

The bullpen goes quieter than it has any right to at nine-thirty in the morning.

Hotch's face doesn't change, but something appears to shudder behind his eyes. He gives a single, tight nod. "Understood." He says and rolls his chair back to his desk.

He doesn't look at you again for the rest of the day.

The rest of the day is a special kind of hell. Its own kind of nightmare that you can't seem to wake from.

You power through the consult revisions, finally feeling like you're making progress—if that's what you can call it. Every keystroke feels like dragging nails across your own skin. You skip lunch, because the thought of food makes you nauseous. You drink more coffee that tastes like nothing. Answers a few emails in short, brittle sentences.

When Agent Damien asks if you want to join the afternoon run to the food trucks, you bite out "Can't" so harshly that he, for once, doesn't try to pester you into joining. He just leaves you be.

The floor has mostly cleared out by six. You, too, are packing up, movements jerky when Hotch appears again, coat draped over his arm.

"I'm heading out," he says, his tone neutral. "You need a ride?"

"I have a car." Your voice is flat.

He nods, like that was the answer he had expected. "Just... text me when you get home, please."

"I don't need a babysitter, Aaron."

"I'm not offering to babysit," his voice is concerningly calm, but there's still an edge of steel underneath it. "I'm asking you to let me know that you made it home safely, because you're clearly upset, and I don't want to read your name in the headlines tomorrow morning. Humor me, please."

You want to snap again. Instead, the fight drains out of you all at once, leaving you swaying for a bit, not really knowing what to say.

"I'm sorry," you whisper. "I didn't mean to—"

"I know." He cuts you off, steps closer, and lowers his voice so it feels more intimate. "Whatever happened this morning, whenever you're ready. I'm here. No judgement. No profiling. Just... here. But ripping my head off won't make you feel any better; it'll only delay whatever explosion you clearly need to have."

Your eyes start to burn. You nod once, faster than intended, before the tears can fall in front of him. You don't want to cry in front of him, don't want him to view you any differently.

He hesitates, then reaches out and squeezes your shoulder before walking toward the elevators.

You watch him leave, throat tight, guilt and grief tangled together so thoroughly that you can't tell which is which and which of them you're feeling the strongest right now.

You wait for a moment, then grab your bag, shut off your desk lamp, and head down to the parking lot through the back stairs.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The bullpen is a ghost town, and it's just you and Hotch once again. The case files in front of you blur into meaningless ink on paper as your thoughts drift toward your father.

You're both quieter than usual tonight, the tension from your snap three days ago still lingers like a bruise neither of you wants to touch. He hasn't pushed the matter since, and you know that he isn't holding a grudge, but you keep catching him watching you when he thinks you're not looking, trying to read you, trying to figure out what's going on.

You're not ready to tell him, tell anybody—maybe never.

Your phone vibrates under a few scattered files, and when you finally find it, the words: HOSPICE, slap you straight in the face. It feels like your heart stops, then lurches into your throat, all the while a pit is forming in your stomach.

You grab the phone and stand so fast that you nearly tip your chair over. Hotch looks up at the sudden noise.

"I'll be right back," you mutter, already halfway out the door.

Hotch just nods, eyes narrowing slightly, but he doesn't say anything.

You make it to the hallway and lean against the wall by the vending machines, the ones out of sight from the glass doors into the bullpen, before you answer with a voice you barely recognize as your own. "Hello?"

"Hi (Y/N), this is Dr. Singh." Her tone is soft, a little too soft, you think, it's the kind of soft that can only mean bad news, really, really bad news, so you brace yourself, crossing your fingers. "I'm so sorry," she starts. "Your father passed about ten minutes ago. It was very peaceful, he was sleeping and his heart just... stopped." You can tell she's trying to lessen the blow by her phrasing.

But the world still tilts, everything blurs, and it feels like you've had your skull bashed in with a sledgehammer. You slide down the wall to a crouch, phone still pressed to your ear. You hear the words, but not really processing them.

Passed. Peaceful. Stopped.

They play on loop.

"Are you there?" Dr. Singh asks gently when you don't answer her.

"Yeah," you croak out after another few silent seconds. "I... thank you for calling." You blink back tears, trying to keep yourself composed enough to get through the rest of this call.

"Do you want to come in now? We can talk about next steps—"

"—I'll... I'll call back later. I need a minute." You cut her off."

"Of course. Take your time. I'm on the night shift, so you can send me a message if you'll be stopping by tonight." She reassures.

You don't answer her, just hang up. The phone slips from your hand and clatters on the tile. You don't bother looking at your screen—it's probably cracked from the fall.

Your stomach churns, acid burning up your throat, and before you know it, you stumble to your feet and lurch toward the bathroom down the hall. You barely make it to a stall before you're retching into the bowl. Whatever comes up mostly consists of bile and the very healthy diet you've had the past twenty-four hours, of coffee, and the skins of the few grapes you managed to keep down.

Your hands shake so hard that you have to grip the porcelain to keep yourself from collapsing headfirst into the bowl.

When you finally stop, you sink back and slide to the floor, knees pulled to your chest, back against the stall wall. The sobs come fast and violent, tearing out of you like something wild.

You press your forehead to your knees, trying to muffle the sound, but it's no use. You're breaking, and there's no one here to see it, and somehow that makes it all feel ten times worse.

You don't know how long you're sitting in the stall—minutes, maybe ten, maybe twenty, maybe an hour. The tiles are cold through your slacks, cold enough that your shivers now come from the cold and not from your emotional outburst. Your throat is raw, eyes swollen shut, and burning. You don't hear the footsteps outside until there's a soft knock on the door into the bathroom.

"Hey," you hear Hotch's voice call out, low and steady, like he's cooing at a scared animal. "You in there? I saw your phone on the ground and—"

"—Go away," you sob, the words coming out muffled against your knees. "Please, Aaron. Just go."

He doesn't. The door creaks open, and you hear the click of his shoes on the tile as he comes closer and closer to the stall you're in. Then he stops. You don't look, but you know he's there, that he's standing just outside the stall, and if he were to push the door open, that he'd see you curled into yourself, face streaked with tears, shaking as if it's physically impossible for you to stop.

You don't want him to see you like this.

"Talk to me," he says quietly, so quietly it almost sounds like he's... begging? "What happened?"

"I said, go away!" It comes out half-scream, half-whimper.

Hotch ignores your request once again. You hear his palm as it touches the door, pushing it slowly open. You curse yourself for not taking the time to lock it while you were face deep in the toilet bowl. You peek at him from behind your knees as he crouches down in the opening once the door is fully open. The jacket of his suit brushes the probably filthy and germ-ridden floor. He lays his hands, palms up, on his knees, like he wants to grab your hands and hold them, but isn't sure if he should, or if he's allowed to.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says. "Not when you're in this state. Not until you tell me what's going on."

You shake your head at him, tears flowing silently down your cheeks faster and faster. "You can't fix this, Aaron."

"Maybe I don't need to try to fix it. Maybe I just want to be here, because my friend is hurt and too stubborn to ask for help."

You choke on a sob, press your hand over your mouth, trying to hold it all in. He waits, silent, patient, waiting for you to make this next move. His presence is so solid in the stall that it almost feels unbearable.

Finally, the words claw their way out.

"My dad died." Your voice breaks on the last words. "His doctor at the hospice called. He's gone.

Hotch's face softens, grief and understanding in his eyes. He doesn't say 'I'm sorry' or any of the useless things people say when you're grieving. Because in truth, it's bullshitt, and none of it works when you're in such a deep state of pain, that the only thing you feel is misery.

Instead, he shifts to sit beside you on the floor, shoulder barely touching yours, trying his best to ground you without crowding.

"Tell me," he says. "Everything or nothing at all. Just... talk, please."

And you do. It spills out like blood for a stab wound: How you've been drowning in hospice bills and the guilt of feeling like you're not visiting him enough. How you've been terrified every day this week of getting that call. How you're not ready to be alone in the world without the man who taught you how to tie your shoes and believed you could be anything you set your heart on.

You tell him about the doctor's warning three days ago, the days-to-a-week timeline, how you thought you'd have more time—prayed... begged ...for more time. You tell him you're falling apart, and you've been hiding it because you're supposed to be strong, supposed to be a profiler, not a complete mess who throws up in the bathroom stalls at work.

He listens, doesn't interrupt, doesn't flinch when your voice cracks and breaks or raises when you get angry with yourself, or when you start crying again halfway through.

When you're done, you're shaking even harder, so hard your teeth chatter.

He reaches out then, slowly, giving you time to pull away if you aren't ready yet. You don't. His hand finds yours, gently unwrapping your curled form; he's warm, and he pulls you into him. You let him, collapsing against his chest, your face pressed into his shirt as fresh sobs rip through you.

His arms come around you, one hand cradling the back of your head, pushing you closer to him, the other rubbing slow circles on your back.

"I've got you," he murmurs into the crown of your head, over and over, until the words start to sound real to you. "You're not alone. You don't have to be alone. "I've got you."

You don't know how long you stay like that, him holding you together on a bathroom floor, his tie is probably ruined from all your tears, your hands are fisted in his jacket like it's the only connection keeping you from falling apart completely.

Eventually, your breathing evens out, and the sobs slow to hiccups.

"I don't know what to do," you whisper, uncurling one of your hands to wipe your eyes.

"You don't have to know right now," he says. "You just have to let yourself grieve right now. And when you're ready, we'll figure out the next steps. Together."

You pull back, just enough to look at him. His eyes are warm, no trace of judgment. "Why are you doing this?" It comes out as a whisper.

"Because I know you'd do the same for me," he says, simple as that. "And because I care about you."

The words hit harder than they should've. You nod, wipe your face with the back of your hand on instinct, before letting him help you to your feet. You sway, dizzy from the crying. Hotch keeps a hand on your elbow and the other around your hips, steadying you.

"Do you want me to drive you to the hospice?" He asks. "You shouldn't be alone tonight."

You feel the need to argue, to tell him that you need to do it alone, that this is your war to fight, but the fight's gone out of you. "Okay."

You make your way back toward the elevators, Hotch pops into the bullpen quickly—leaving you in the hallway with a blank and emotionless stare in your eyes—he grabs your coat and bag, and slings it over his shoulder before meeting you and calling for the elevator.

The drive to the hospice is quiet, not even the radio is turned on.

Hotch keeps one hand on the wheel, while the other rests on the console between you, palm up, in case you need something to hold. You don't take it, but you steal glances at it the whole way there.

When you walk into Room 214, the lights are dimmed to almost darkness. Your father is still in his bed, sheet pulled up to his chest, and his hands folded, like he's simply resting. Someone has brushed his hair and turned his head so he's staring toward the ceiling. It feels unnatural because he always sleeps on his side.

You stop in the doorway, legs unwilling to move, to walk up to him, to acknowledge that this is, in fact, real. Hotch rests his hand gently on your shoulder, giving it the smallest of squeezes.

"Remember, I'm right here," he murmurs close to your ear.

You take the first step slowly and carefully cross the room until you reach his bedside. The chair is still pulled close to the bed from when you moved it this morning. You sink into it and reach for your dad's hand—it's so cold now, no give in his fingers as rigor mortis has started by now, and worst of all, no answering squeeze.

The reality slams into you all over again.

"Daddy," you whimper, the word breaks in half as your whole world feels like it is crumbling around you.

You fold forward, forehead pressing to the back of his hand, shoulders shaking so hard that you hear the bed rail rattling. The sobs are loud, animalistic, and nothing like the tears that flowed earlier in the bathroom.

You curl over him, like you can shield him from what's already happened, like if you hold onto him tight enough, that you can pull his soul back into his body, that you can warm him back to life again. Your tears soak the sheet, forming a small puddle where your head is resting. Your fingers clutch his like you're drowning, and he's the life ring keeping you afloat.

Hotch moves to stand behind you, one hand resting lightly on your back, letting you know that he's there. He doesn't try to hush or fix you. Doesn't tell you that you'll be okay. He just stays.

After a while—minutes, maybe even an hour—your cries turn to ragged breathing. You stay hunched over your dad, cheek against his knuckles, afraid that if you let go, he'll vanish in a puff of smoke. Instead, you turn your head and stare up at him—he looks peaceful, like he's sleeping, you think.

Dr. Singh appears in the doorway, quietly and apologetic. She grabs Hotch's attention and gestures for him to follow her into the hallways. He hesitates, looks at you, and then leans down.

"I'll be just outside the door," he says softly. "I'm not leaving."

You don't speak, just nod against your dad's hand.

In the hallway, Dr. Singh keeps her voice low. "I know this is an awful time, but there are some decisions we need tonight or first thing tomorrow morning: funeral home arrangements, whether he'll be transported, clothing, personal effects..." She glances at you through the open door to the room, still bent over the bed. "She's in no shape to handle any of this right now."

Hotch nods, throat a little tight as he too glances into the room.

"Technically protocol says next-of-kin only," Dr Singh continues, "but as her boyfriend, if you can sign for—"

Hotch's ears go hot.

"—Uh, no, we're not..." he stops and clears his throat, cheeks slightly flushing. "We're not together. Just... colleagues. Friends. Close friends."

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I assumed..." Dr. Singh's eyes widen, and she winces slightly at her mistake. "You came in together, and the way you appear to know what she needs in a time like this... I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine," Hotch says quickly, maybe a little too quickly. "Really. I'm happy to help however I can. If there's anything I'm legally allowed to sign for her tonight to take pressure off her, I will."

"Thank you! There are a few consent forms for the release of the body and property. They only need a responsible adult, not necessarily kin. After that, I can try to work around the rest until she's ready." She exhales, relieved that she doesn't have to put any more stress on you for now.

"I'll sign whatever you need."

Dr. Singh gives him a tired, but grateful smile. "You're a good man, Mr. Hotchner." Hotch knows he should've been concerned at the use of his name, but on the other hand, he did have to sign the two of you in, in the visitor's log, so perhaps the doctor just looked at his signature.

He glances back through the door. You're still folded over your dad, completely still, and he hopes that you're sleeping.

"I'm just trying to be the person she needs tonight," he says, still glancing at you.

He goes back into the room, kneels beside your chair, and rests his hand carefully on the back of the chair and the other on your thigh. "Hey," he whispers. "I'm going to take care of some paperwork so you don't have to think about it right now. Okay?"

You don't answer him, but you turn your face just enough that he can see the glassiness in your eyes. It's the smallest movement, but it's enough for him to understand that you trust him with this.

Hotch checks his clock at 2:17 a.m. and decides you no longer can stay bent over your father's body. At least not for your own sake.

Your breathing has gone slow and slightly even, forehead still pressed to his hand—he's impossibly cold now. You're not crying anymore, you're just... gone, exhausted, stuck to the vinyl chair.

Hotch crouches beside you and brushes a strand away from your damp cheek. "Hey," he whispers. "Sweetheart, we have to go." You know you should react to the nickname, and he knows he shouldn't have said it. But it felt so right.

You don't move.

He tries again, this time softer. "You need sleep. Real sleep."

A tiny, broken sound escapes you. You shake your head violently, a choked 'No' ripping out of you as you curl closer over the bed, arms locking around your dad’s still hand.

He hates this part. He's seen it done enough times on cases to know it won't go down easily. Hotch slides one arm behind your shoulder, the other under your knees, and gently starts to lift you away from the chair and bed. You start thrashing, although weak, frantic, and grief-fueled, you manage to knock your elbow against the bed rail with a metallic clang; your shoe scrapes the floor as you try to plant your feet.

“No, please, don’t make me, I’m not ready, I’m not—” The words fracture into raw sobs.

He has to use his full strength to lift you away. You fight harder than he thought possible for someone so hollowed out, fingers clawing for the sheet, legs kicking once, nearly hitting him, body arching back toward the bed with a desperate, broken cry the moment the contact breaks.

Your head lolls against his chest only because exhaustion finally wins, but you still reach a trembling hand toward your father even as Hotch pulls you fully into his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, over and over, voice cracking as he cradles you tight against him, carrying you out past the nurses’ station like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Dr. Singh meets his eyes, gives him a sad, grateful nod. Your face is buried in his neck, fists clenched in his shirt, the fight gone out of you, but the sobs still tearing free in waves.

In the parking lot, the air is cold enough to bite, although it's April and should be warming up. He settles you into the passenger seat of his car and buckles you in—it somehow feels too intimate and not intimate enough. He tucks your coat around you like a blanket, hoping it'll keep you warm. You're asleep before he even starts the engine.

When he pulls up outside your building, you stir, but don't wake up. And he's happy that you don't, because explaining how he grabbed your address from your file after he first noticed something being off with you is a lot harder than just carrying you upstairs.

He comes around and lifts you into his arms. Hotch carries you up the three flights of stairs because the elevator is still broken, despite your landlord promising all of the tenants that it would be fixed within a month—it's now month three. Your keys are in your coat pocket. He fiddles around for them, trying to keep you up with one arm, and when he finally finds them and unlocks the door, he shoulders the door open and steps inside.

The apartment is exactly what he expected, and yet it's also much, much worse.

Take-out boxes are stacked on the coffee table. Unopened mail is in teetering piles around the living room and kitchen. Laundry spilling out of the hamper, like it's trying to escape. A week's worth of coffee mugs stacked in the sink, probably on the verge of growing mold.

The air smells stale, like windows haven't been opened in over a month. It's not you, you're not like this, it's the physical evidence of someone who's been barely surviving, while fighting to keep someone else alive.

He doesn't flinch at the mess. He just carries you past it, through the living room, and into your bedroom. Hotch lays you on the bed and kneels to tug off your shoes, careful not to wake you up. You curl onto your side almost immediately, knees to your chest in a fetal position, still fully dressed.

Hotch pulls the quilt at the foot of your bed up and over you, brushes your hair back, and whispers, "Sleep." And your face smoothes into something almost peaceful.

He stands in the doorway for a long moment, observing you, watching the rise and fall of your shoulder, then closes the door halfway—so he can hear you if you wake—and turns back to the disaster zone that is the rest of your apartment.

He can't leave it like this. Not tonight.

He starts quietly by tying up the trash, placing the first bag near the door. Then he continues with the kitchen, rinses and washes the mugs, placing them on a dry tea towel to dry the rest of the way, and wipes down the counters.

He finds a laundry basket of clean clothes and folds them along with the clothes that never made it off the drying rack and stacks them on the dining table.

He opens the window a few inches to let in some air to chase out the staleness. And every so often, he pauses outside your door, listening to make sure you're still asleep.

By 4:45 a.m., the place isn’t perfect, it's far from it, but it’s livable. Trash is waiting by the door—three bags it turned into—dishes are clean and drying, and mail is in one neat pile while all the colorful advertisements are in recycling, ready to be taken out too.

The couch is clear except for a single throw blanket and a few pillows.

He sits down just to rest his eyes for a minute.

You wake slowly, the way you do when your body has forgotten how to rest properly. The room is dim, curtains still drawn, but the light that sneaks around the edges is soft and golden.

Your eyes are swollen and your throat raw from all the crying yesterday, your chest aching like someone parked a truck on it overnight.

And for one terrifying second, you forget exactly why you feel like you've been run over and then backed right back over.

Then it slams back into you, the call, the bathroom floor, your dad’s cold hand, Hotch carrying you out like you weighed nothing to him.

You sit up a little too fast, and the room starts to tilt. You’re still in yesterday’s clothes, shoes off, quilt tucked around you, but you don’t remember going to bed last night.

The apartment is quiet. A little too quiet.

You shuffle to the bedroom door and push the cracked door open further.

The first thing you notice when you emerge from the bedroom is the smell. No gross and sour take-out stench, no stale coffee. Just the faint smell of dish soap and the smell of cold air.

You step into the living room and stop dead in your tracks.

It's so... clean?

Not spotless—Hotch clearly didn't have the energy to scrub baseboards at four in the morning, but there's no doubt that he would've done it if he had. Every surface is clear, trash gone, dishes done, laundry folded with a post-it note slapped on top saying 'clean :)' in his handwriting.

Even the throw pillows are straightened.

And then you see him.

Hotch is asleep on your couch, clearly too long to lie comfortably on the two-seater. His shirt is a little rumpled, tie loosened, and half-hanging off his neck like a limp snake. One of his arms is flung over his eyes, while the other is dangling off the edge. Shoes are lined up neatly next to the couch, like he had meant to leave, but got too tired and simply couldn't. You notice the faint shadow of stubble starting to grow along his jaw as he lets out the softest snore you've ever heard.

Something warm flutters awake in your chest, right beneath the crushing weight of grief. It’s not happiness—Oh, God no. You don't know if you'll ever be happy again—but it’s close to peace.

Gratitude so sharp it almost hurts.

You stand in the doorway for a long time—just looking—blanket wrapped around your shoulders, watching him breathe. He cleaned up your chaos while you slept. He stayed when he didn’t have to. He held you together when you shattered. He's done so much for you these past twenty-four hours, and you feel like you haven't done anything in return for him at all.

The flutter grows, spreads, becomes a quiet ache behind your ribs that feels a lot like falling—slow, inevitable, and terrifyingly falling.

You pad across the room on bare feet, careful not to wake him, and crouch beside the couch. Up close, you can see the faint tear tracks dried on his own cheeks—he cried too, sometime during the night, when he thought no one would know that he too felt your pain.

You reach out for him, hesitate, then brush the back of your fingers lightly across his cheekbone. Just once, barely there, needing to feel him, to know that this man is real.

“Thank you,” you whisper to the sleeping room.

His breathing hitches, eyes fluttering but not quite opening. You stay crouched there a moment longer, memorizing the way the light falls across his face, the way safety feels when it’s shaped like Aaron Hotchner asleep on your couch after the worst night of your life.

Eventually, you stand, pull the throw blanket from the floor—you recon that he must have dropped it during the night—and drape it carefully over him. He sighs in his sleep, shifts onto his side, and settles again.

You linger another heartbeat, then head to the kitchen to start coffee—two mugs, black for him and one with a splash of milk for you, two sugars for you—because the least you can do is make sure he wakes up to something a lot nicer than how you've been treating him the past couple of weeks.

The flutter is still rooted deep in your chest, like the first tiny green thing pushing through the earth after a long and harsh winter.

By summertime, the bullpen is like a hotbox, and every time someone opens the glass doors, waves of hot air drift through, making it miserable to work.

Gideon is gone more than he's there these days, and whispers about a leave of absence are circling like smoke around the office. The team is in shambles lately, most of the travel team is suspended for misconduct during their last case, morale is down, and everyone looks like they hate their jobs.

But the work keeps coming, and the team keeps working despite everyone's lackluster enthusiasm to finish their cases in a timely manner.

You, somehow, are... lighter.

Not healed—because some holes never heal, and this one will never heal—but grief has settled from a constant jabbing pain, into a dull, manageable ache, and it gets better week by week. You feel like you can breathe without doing counting exercises. You can laugh at Anderson's terrible knock-knock jokes without feeling guilty five seconds later.

And Hotch, Hotch has been the constant you needed through it all.

He still brings you coffee every morning, even though the 'who stays latest' competition officially ended last month. You still find sticky notes on your files in his handwriting—"Victim #3's timeline is off by six hours, check page 14"—when he notices new things in M.O. and victimology, or gives you a second pair of eyes when you ask for help. Or on the mornings, when grief over your dad's death creeps too close, he simply tells you to take a moment for yourself and that he'll hold the fort down while you're gone.

He never mentions the night he cleaned your apartment, or the fact that you cried into his shirt until there was nothing left for you to cry out. He just… shows up. Every day. Without fail.

Tonight is a Thursday, almost midnight. The rest of the floor is dark. You’re both still here, because of course you are.

You’re cross-legged in your chair, hair twisted up with a pencil, eating cold lo mein straight from the carton. Hotch is across from you, jacket off, sleeves rolled high, tie abandoned hours ago. There’s a smear of highlighter on his cheek that he hasn’t noticed. And you're not planning on telling him, because he looks way too cute when he's a little messy.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” you say, waving your chopsticks at the geographic profile spread between you. “But the comfort zone is shifting north. He’s getting bolder.”

He leans forward, elbows on his desk, studying the map like it owes him money. “You’re not wrong. Look at the dump-site-to-victim-residence distance. First two were under four miles apart. Last one was eight. Either he’s escalating, or he moved.”

“Or both,” you say, mouth half-full. You're not exactly charming, and your mother would roll over in her grave if she heard you speak with food in your mouth. But he looks up and smiles, before he reaches over, plucking the carton from your hand to steal a bite.

You let him.

You always let him now. Sharing food feels like nothing after he had to wrangle you off a dead body like one of those working dogs resource guarding their dead handlers.

Somewhere in the last few months, the boundaries blurred between you. You touch his arm when you pass him files. He brushes imaginary lint off your shoulder during briefings when you sit next to each other. You hang out together on days off, fall asleep on each other's couches after working on cases together at home, and wake up with blankets draped over you.

He keeps a spare toothbrush in your bathroom 'just in case,' and you keep one in his. You have an extra tie of his folded in your desk drawer because he spilled coffee on his favorite one during a stakeout, and forgot it in your car when you drove him home.

No one in the unit has said anything yet, but everyone's eyebrows climb into their hairlines on a near-daily basis as they observe your desk island.

Tonight, the air conditioning is struggling, badly. You fan yourself with a case folder. “It’s a million degrees in here.” You complain

Hotch stands, stretches, and shrugs out of his jacket. “Rooftop?”

You’re already moving as the words leave his mouth.

The rooftop door sticks—it always does—and he has to shoulder it open for you.

The evening air is warm but better than the stale office. D.C. glitters slightly in the distance, barely visible, but there. You both lean against the ledge, shoulders almost, but not quite touching.

For a while, you just breathe. Enjoying the faint chirping of crickets, the wind rustling, and natural silence.

“Thank you,” you finally say quietly.

He glances over. “For what?”

“For the last three months. For… everything.” You pick at the label on your water bottle. “I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t—”

“—Hey.” He bumps your shoulder with his, gently. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Your heart does a slow, traitorous flip. You tell yourself it’s just gratitude, gratitude that he helped you through the worst time in your life, gratitude that you have a friend to turn to when in need—despite being an asshole about it in the beginning (but let's not talk about that).

He keeps talking. “Besides, you’ve been pulling me out of my own head since the day you beat me three nights in a row last November. Fair’s fair.”

You laugh, softly. “I still say you let me win night two. Ain't no way your brother called you for help at nine p.m. to move an antique wardrobe he found in the newspaper.”

“I absolutely did not,” he says, mock-offended, but he’s smiling that full smile now—the one that reaches his eyes and makes tiny lines appear at the corners. You’ve started cataloging those smiles like they're evidence in an unsolved case—which technically they are, because you still haven't locked down the answer to why Aaron Hotchner rarely smiles.

Silence settles between you; it feels comfortable and familiar.

Fireflies blink lazily over the parking lot below. You shiver a little in the breeze. And without a word, he shrugs out of his suit jacket and drapes it over your shoulders.

It smells like him. You love the smell of him.

You pull it tighter. “You’re going to freeze.”

“I run hot,” he says, and the way he says it—quiet, matter-of-fact, eyes on the skyline as if it's no big deal—makes heat pool low in your stomach for reasons you refuse to examine.

You stand there like that for a long time, city lights flickering, his jacket warm around you, the space between your bodies shrinking inch by inch until your pinky brushes his against the railing.

Neither of you moves away.

Neither of you names it yet.

But something tender and inevitable is growing in the quiet spaces. In the way he always saves you the last sip of coffee in the pot, in the way you know exactly how he takes his tea when he’s sick, in the way your hands find excuses to touch and linger.

It’s still just friendship, you both tell yourselves.

For now.

You've been with the BAU for nearly a year now.

The bullpen is almost empty, save for a few agents still complaining about paperwork due that they could've finished hours ago if they didn't stand at the damn coffee machine and chat all day. But they quickly leave.

Gideon has been locked in his office all evening, door cracked just enough for the occasional frustrated sigh to leak out.

You and Hotch are the last ones standing—as usual.

You’re both on the floor now, backs against the front of your desks, case files spread around you like a thick crime-scene carpet. You’ve been arguing good-naturedly for forty minutes about whether the unsub is devolving or just getting sloppy.

“He’s devolving,” you insist, flicking a photograph toward Hotch. “Look at the overkill on the last victim. That’s rage, not control, in the way we saw on victims one through five.” You point out, gesturing at the pictures of the other victims lying in a half circle in front of you.

Hotch catches the photo mid-air and sets it down carefully next to the other victims. “Rage can be controlled. He staged the body perfectly. That takes discipline.”

His knee is touching yours. Has been for the last twenty minutes. Neither of you has moved away.

You reach for the same file at the same moment. Your fingers collide, stay there, overlapping on the manila folder. The air between you goes suddenly, electrically still.

He doesn’t pull back. You don’t either.

You’re close enough to count the flecks of gold in his irises, close enough to see the tiny scar on his upper lip you’ve never noticed before. His gaze drops to your mouth for half a heartbeat—so fast you almost miss it—then flicks back up, something unreadable flaring behind his eyes.

Your breath catches.

The moment stretches, until the door to Gideon’s office bangs open so hard the hinges bounce it back off the wall.

Gideon strides out, coat half-on, briefcase in hand, clearly intending to leave without a word. He stops dead when he sees the two of you on the floor, hands still touching, faces inches apart, the entire room vibrating with something neither of you has said out loud yet.

He stares for three full seconds.

Then he throws his head back and groans like a man who has reached the end of his patience with the entire universe.

“Oh, for the love of God, just kiss already!”

You jerk apart like teenagers caught behind the bleachers. Hotch's ears go scarlet, and you feel your own face ignite.

Gideon points a finger between the two of you, coat flapping dramatically. “I have watched you two moon over each other for months. Months! I am old. I am tired. I have unsubs writing manifestos in blood, and I do not have time for this level of sexual tension in my bullpen. Kiss, date, do whatever it is you children do these days... just stop making it everyone else’s problem!”

He doesn’t wait for a response. Just spins on his heel, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “finally” under his breath, and storms out.

The glass doors swing shut behind him, and you hear the ding of the elevator.

Then... silence.

You risk a glance at Hotch. He’s staring at the floor, jaw working like he’s trying to decide whether to laugh or die of embarrassment. His hand is still halfway reaching for the file you both abandoned.

You start laughing first, mortified and unstoppable. He follows half a second later, the low, surprised sound he makes when something actually catches him off-guard.

“Oh my God,” you wheeze, pressing both hands over your burning face. “He did not just—”

“He absolutely did,” Hotch smiles, voice strangled.

You peek through your fingers. He’s looking at you now, something soft and stunned and hopeful in his expression.

The laughter fades, but the air stays as charged as ever.

You swallow. “So… Gideon’s not subtle.”

“No,” Hotch agrees, quieter. “He really isn’t.”

Another beat. Your heart is hammering so loud you’re sure he can hear it.

He shifts, just slightly, closing the small distance Gideon’s outburst created. His voice drops to almost a whisper.

“Would it be… completely inappropriate if I took his advice?”

Your breath stalls. The world narrows to the few inches between you, the warmth radiating off him, the way his eyes search yours for permission.

You manage the tiniest shake, giving him the go-ahead.

He leans in slowly and carefully, giving you every possible second to change your mind.

You don’t.

The first brush of his lips is barely there, warm, trembling just enough for you to feel it against your lips.

He smells faintly of coffee and the soap he always uses.

The second is surer, his lips settling over yours with certainty, the softest pressure that makes your breath catch in your throat. You taste the lingering trace of peppermint on his tongue when your mouth parts under his, feel the faint rasp of growing stubble along your upper lip, the warmth of his exhale mingling with yours.

His hand cups your cheek, thumb sweeping slowly across your skin, calloused thumb stroking once along your cheekbone; his other hand threads into your hair, fingers spreading at the nape of your neck like he’s anchoring himself to you. The kiss deepens just enough for the world to tilt, your pulse roaring in your ears, your toes curling hard inside your shoes, every nerve lighting up at the gentle, deliberate slide of his mouth against yours.

When you ease apart, it’s only a breath. Foreheads still pressed together, noses brushing, the air between you warm and a little shaky. The lines are definitely blurred beyond return.

When you open your eyes, he’s smiling, happier than you’ve ever seen him.

“Hi,” he whispers, voice rough.

“Hi,” you whisper back, grinning like a complete idiot.

From somewhere down the hallway, you’re both almost certain you hear Gideon’s ghost mutter 'about damn time'.

You start laughing again, muffled against Hotch's shoulder this time as you lean forward into his chest, and he laughs too, arms wrapping fully around you, holding you close on the bullpen floor like he never wants to let go.

And he doesn’t.  

Not for a very long time.

That first kiss doesn’t fix anything, but it changes everything.

After Gideon’s dramatic exit, you and Hotch ended up staying on the bullpen floor another hour, kissing slowly and carefully like teenagers who’ve just discovered the concept, talking in whispers, laughing every time one of you remembers Gideon’s exact phrasing. When you finally stand up, knees stiff, files forgotten, he walks you to your car with his hand at the small of your back like it always belonged there.

You date quietly at first, almost secretly, because neither of you trusts the Bureau rumor mill and because the newness feels too precious to share with anyone but the two of you.

He picks you up on Saturdays when you’re both off rotation. You go to tiny diners outside the Beltway where no one knows your names, or to the Smithsonian after closing because one of the night guards owes him a favor from back in his prosecutor days.

You sit on benches in front of the Hope Diamond and argue about whether it’s cursed. He brings you coffee in bed on Sunday mornings and reads the parts of the newspaper aloud while you steal the comics section and draw little hearts in the margins next to his name when he’s mentioned in an article.

You learn the small, sacred things about him:

He hates surprises but loves planning them for you.

He keeps a spare tie in your glove compartment now—officially 'in case of emergencies'.

When he’s exhausted, he falls asleep with his head on your chest and one arm locked around your waist like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.

He says your name differently when you’re alone, much softer, almost like a whimper.

December brings the first snow, and the first time he says “I love you.”

You’re in his apartment, stringing popcorn for a tiny, lopsided Christmas tree because neither of you had time to get one before all but the small apartment-friendly ones were the only option left.

You’re on the couch, legs tangled, the Muppet Christmas carol crooning in the background.

You prick your finger on a needle and mutter a curse. He takes your hand, kisses the tiny drop of blood away, and just says it, as natural as breathing: “I love you.”

You freeze, popcorn garland half-finished in your lap. He looks suddenly terrified, like he’s broken some unspoken rule in the relationship guide.

You tug the garland carefully aside, crawl into his lap, and kiss him until neither of you can breathe.

“I love you too,” you whisper against his mouth. “So much it scares me.”

He exhales like he’s been holding that fear in for months and tightens his arms around you. “Good. We can be scared together then.”

January of 2002 is brutal, back-to-back cases, forty-eight-hour consult marathons, but you survive it the way you survive everything now: together.

You fall asleep on each other more often than not, steal kisses in the elevator when no one’s looking, and leave each other notes in case files.

“Meet me on the rooftop at midnight. Bring the good coffee. –A”

“Only if you bring the blanket. –Y/N”

Valentine's Day falls on a Thursday. You both have to work, but he leaves a single red rose on your desk with a sticky note: Dinner. 8 p.m. Wear the black dress. Trust me.

You do.

He takes you to a hole-in-the-wall Italian place in Alexandria you’ve never noticed before. Halfway through tiramisu, he slides a small velvet box across the table.

Your heart stops, and you panic slightly.

He sees your face and actually laughs a tiny chuckle. “Relax. It’s not that. Yet.”

Inside is a delicate silver key.

“To my place,” he says quietly. “I want you to have it. I want… I want this to be official. You and me. No more pretending we’re just really good friends who occasionally make out in the parking garage and have sex in our time off.”

You stare at the key like it’s made of large sparkly diamonds.

“Aaron…”

“If it’s too fast—”

“—It’s not,” you cut in, voice cracking. You lean across the tiny table and kiss him in front of the entire restaurant. “Yes. A thousand times, yes.”

He smiles against your mouth, relieved and giddy and so in love it shows on every line of his face.

Later, back at his apartment—well, kind of your apartment now, too, in every way that matters at least—you hang your coat next to his on the rack, put your hairbrush next to the comb in the drawer, and fall asleep tangled together under the same blanket that used to live on your couch, the one he slept with the first night he saw your apartment.

Outside, snow falls softly and quietly over Virginia, covering the city in a hush that feels like the world permitting you to finally be happy again.

You are a couple now—no, almosts, no, hesitations.

Just you and Hotch against the world, desk neighbors turned lovers, building something together.

And you both start to feel like coming home at night isn't something so terrible to do at all.

The years blur in the best way possible.

September 2002  

The inn’s garden is small and perfect, and the late-summer roses still cling to the trellises; the air is warm enough to carry the scent of honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass.

Forty white chairs are set in uneven rows on the lawn; fairy lights are already strung even though the sun won’t set for hours. Someone’s old jazz standard drifts from hidden speakers; it’s Ella Fitzgerald, the song you and Hotch danced to in his apartment the first night you ended up admitting you were in love.

You wait in the bridal suite upstairs, heart hammering so hard you’re sure it’s visible through the lace bodice of your dress. Your mother’s veil—now shortened—falls in soft waves over your shoulders.

And when you catch your reflection, you almost don’t recognize yourself: eyes bright and cheeks flushed. You look so... happy.

Downstairs, Hotch stands beneath the arbor in a charcoal suit that fits him like it was invented for his shoulders (A/N: to the people who get this reference, I love you).

His hands are clasped behind his back to hide the slight tremor, but you can see it from the window, the way he keeps rocking forward on the balls of his feet, the way he can’t stop staring at the inn door like the moment you appear might be a dream he’s terrified of waking from.

Gideon—wearing an actual suit and tie for once—clears his throat at the head of the aisle, after your walk, and begins.

His voice is steadier than anyone expected until Hotch repeats “in sickness and in health,” and it cracks on the last word. Gideon’s eyes go glassy instantly; he has to pause, press his lips together, and fan himself with the printed vows like a southern belle.

A ripple of soft laughter moves through the guests, but no one’s eyes are left dry.

You reach for Hotch, and he takes your hands like they’re made of glass. His palms are warm, trembling just slightly, and the stunned, luminous smile never leaves his face during the entire night.

When Gideon finally says, 'You may kiss your bride,' Hotch doesn’t wait for the words to finish. He cups your face with both hands, rushing closer, thumbs brushing the corners of your mouth, and kisses you like he’s been starving for it.

It goes on long enough that his friend Rossi—you've met him once and heard the stories of the few cases the two had together before Rossi retired from the BAU—lets out a low, appreciative whistle.

And Andi Swan, the newest BAU agent, fans herself dramatically with her program, and Gideon throws his hands in the air with a triumphant “I told them to kiss eighteen months ago! You’re welcome, people!” And you know that that will be his go-to line when it comes to tales about the relationship he 'basically made possible'.

Hotch finally pulls back, but only far enough to rest his forehead against yours. His eyes are shining.

“Hi, Mrs. Hotchner," he whispers against your lips.

"Hi, Mr. Hotchner," you whisper back, and the grin that breaks across his face is the same one he’ll wear in every photograph for the rest of your lives.

Behind you, forty people cheer, Ella keeps singing, and the mountains hold their breath, and you know—without a single doubt—that this is the moment every late-night bullpen, every shared highlighter, every quiet 'I’ve got you' was leading to all along.

You’re married.  

And Aaron still looks like he can’t quite believe you said yes to him when he proposed.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2003

Fairfax, Virginia

The search takes four months, forty-three open houses, and one near-breakup—not really, you were both being dramatic—over whether 'good bones' is real-estate speak for 'you’ll be sanding floors until you’re sixty.'

You’re both stubborn, both exhausted from cases—both promoted to the travel team one month apart—and both secretly terrified of choosing wrong, because this will be your sanctuary away from serial killers and psychopaths.

Then the realtor unlocks the gate at 127 Oakridge Lane, and you know the second the gravel crunches under your shoes, that this is it.

It’s a 1930s red-brick colonial set back from the street, white trim peeling just enough to feel loved instead of neglected. The wrap-around porch creaks under your weight in the most comforting way; a massive, hundred-year-old oak spreads its branches over the front yard like it’s been waiting for children who haven’t been born, yet.

Inside, the hardwood floors glow honey-gold in the late-afternoon, the fireplace still smells faintly of the last family’s Christmases, and the kitchen—God, the kitchen—has windows on three sides that turn the whole room into a sunlit heaven every morning.

You stand at the farmhouse sink—hands braced on the porcelain as you look into the backyard, imagining growing old here—when Hotch comes up behind you, arms sliding around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder.

“This one?” he asks quietly, like he’s afraid to jinx it.

You nod, throat tight. “This one.”

You close on a Thursday in May, sky so blue it hurts to look at. The moving truck is late, so the house is mostly echoing emptiness and stacked boxes labeled in Hotch's neat block letters and your chaotic scrawl.

Sunlight pours through the bare windows of your now-empty apartment, dust motes dancing like confetti.

Hotch scoops you up without warning, one arm under your knees, the other behind your back, and carries you over the threshold bridal style, even though your jeans are streaked with paint, and you’re both laughing too hard for it to be dignified.

The front door swings shut behind you with a solid, final click that feels like the house exhaling in welcome.

You don’t make it past the foyer before he’s kissing you against the wall, hands already tugging at the hem of your T-shirt, your legs wrapping around his waist like muscle memory.

Boxes topple somewhere down the hall; neither of you cares.

That night, you christen the kitchen island while the pizza you ordered goes cold on the porch, because you "forgot" to open the door when the delivery guy knocked.

The next morning, the sun wakes you in the master bedroom, pouring through east-facing windows you didn’t bother to curtain yet, and you make love on your mattress on the hardwood floor because the bed frame is still in pieces.

By Sunday, you’ve claimed the wide-plank stairs... twice, the claw-foot tub, the window seat in the library that overlooks the oak, and the backporch swing that squeaks in the most perfect rhythm.

Somewhere between the third and fourth room, Hotch starts laughing into your neck, breathless and delirious. “We’re going to need to buy furniture eventually,” he gasps.

You bite his shoulder, grinning. “Later. Much, much later.”

By the end of the first week, the house smells like coffee, fresh paint, and sex; every corner holds the echo of laughter and the imprint of two people finally, finally being home.

The oak tree shades the front yard like it’s keeping your secret, and every morning the kitchen windows flood the room with light.

You hang your mother’s lace curtains in the dining room first, just so the house knows it’s loved.

And every night, when Hotch pulls you into his chest in whatever room you’ve ended up in, he whispers the same thing against your hair:

“Welcome home, Mrs. Hotchner.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2004 - 2005

The BAU is still small enough that every new face feels like it rearranges the gravity in the room.

Derek Morgan arrives first, in the spring of 2004, all swagger and leather jacket, straight from the Chicago PD. He shakes Hotch's hand a little too hard, like he’s testing whether the stories about the grumpy agent are true.

Gideon waits exactly one week before dragging him to the coffee station and launching into the tale of how he's the reason you're married today: the empty bullpen, the unbearable tension, the night he finally lost patience and bellowed, “Just kiss already.” And after that day, Morgan’s go-to greeting becomes a cheeky “Morning, Mama Hotch,” usually followed by him ducking whatever office supply you lob at the rascal's head.

Penelope Garcia blows in that summer like a glitter bomb, pink boa trailing behind her after Hotch manages to snatch the black queen away from the web of hackers interfering with government websites, and onto the team. Gideon barely lets her set down her bedazzled laptop in her tech cave before he’s steering her toward the round-table room, eyes gleaming.

Ten minutes later, she bursts out, finds you at your desk, and squeals so loudly the windows nearly rattle. “You’re the desk-neighbor soulmates! The sacred ‘kiss already’ origin story! I have shipped you since the academy rumor mill got to me a few weeks ago!” She throws her arms around you, then, without hesitation, around Hotch too, who's emerged from his—new—office next to Gideon's. He freezes mid-sentence, arms half-raised, before awkwardly patting her sequined shoulder. From that day on, she declares herself your joint fairy godmother and threatens to make couple T-shirts if she doesn't see you kiss, just once, before the year is over.

Thankfully, she does—although it's by hacking into the bullpen cameras and watching tape from the night before when you were both staying late, again.

Fall brings Spencer Reid and Jennifer Jareau within weeks of each other. Spencer is drowning in a cardigan two sizes too big, clutching three PhDs and the conviction that Gideon can read minds.

JJ is calm on the outside and vibrating on the inside, terrified of choosing the wrong photograph for the press packet. Gideon corners them together in the hallway on their very first day, blocking escape with his whole body, and delivers the performance of his life: sweeping gestures, pregnant pauses, the whole thing.

Spencer turns the color of a ripe tomato and starts reciting workplace-romance statistics under his breath. JJ just laughs, delighted, and by the end of the month, she’s slipping you lists of baby names “for future reference” with a perfectly straight face, because to her, babies are the most wonderful thing in the world.

Elle Greenaway is last, late 2005, striding in like she already owns the bullpen and everyone in it after helping the team on the Seattle strangler case. Gideon waits until she’s halfway through her first official BAU case file, then plants himself on the edge of her desk and launches into the now-legendary retelling—complete with slow-motion reenactment of his dramatic exit and a claim that the overhead lights flickered for cinematic effect.

Elle listens with one eyebrow arched, arms folded, then looks across the room at you and Hotch—who are pretending, very badly, not to hear any of this—and deadpans, “So your entire marriage is because an old man lost his patience?” Hotch mutters “Don’t encourage him” into his coffee, but the corner of his mouth betrays him.

By the third round, with every new hire, the story has grown mythic: wind machines that definitely do not exist, a single heroic tear rolling down Gideon’s cheek, the faint sound of angels singing when your lips finally met.

Each time he tells it, you and Hotch trade the same long-suffering glance across wherever you're standing together—the one that says we will never live this down and we don’t actually mind. Gideon catches the look every single time, grins like a proud, meddling father who knows exactly what he did, and keeps talking anyway.

Because the day he stops telling the story is the day he admits the team has outgrown him, and none of you—no one—is ready for that yet.

So you let him have it. You let them all have it. The whistles, the teasing, the running slideshow Garcia keeps threatening to present at the next holiday party.

You and Hotch just reach for the same highlighter—on purpose—like you’ve done for years, fingers brushing, and smile the tiny, secret smile of two people who know the real story is quieter, slower, and infinitely better than any legend Gideon could invent.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

September 2006  

Exactly six years after you join the BAU. You’re both still raw from Oregon, a case that ended with a twelve-year-old girl alive and a father who will never come home.

You come back to your home hollow-eyed and quiet, sleeping in snatches, waking from nightmares you don’t talk about.

Two weeks later, you’re late. Not just late; late enough that your body feels foreign, breasts tender, exhaustion bone-deep in a way no case has ever managed.

You buy the test on your lunch break, hide it in your purse like contraband, and take it in the restroom on the third floor because you can’t wait the fifteen minutes to get home.

You sit on the closed toilet lid, timer on your phone ticking down three endless minutes, and when the second pink line appears, and you feel the world tilt sideways.

You drive home in a daze. Hotch is already there. He took the afternoon off after you texted, “Can you be home early?” with no explanation, worried that something was terribly wrong.

He’s in the kitchen in sweatpants and an old T-shirt, hair still damp from the shower, making coffee like it’s any other Tuesday.

You walk straight into his arms without a word. He stiffens for half a second, sensing the tremor in you, then folds you in tight.

“What is it?” he asks against your hair, voice low and treading carefully.

You pull the test from your pocket and press it into his hand.

He looks down. The little plastic window is face-up, two unmistakable lines staring back at him. His breath stops. You watch the color drain from his face, then flood back in a rush. He stares so long you start to worry.

“Aaron?”

He drops slowly, like someone cut his strings. One knee hits the tile, then the other, until he’s kneeling in front of you. His hands find your hips, tentative, reverent, and he presses his forehead to your stomach. The first sound he makes is half-laugh, half-sob, muffled against your shirt. Then the tears come, the same tears you saw the night he asked you to marry him, and the morning you said “I do.” He wraps his arms fully around your waist and holds on like you’re the only solid thing in the universe.

“We’re having a baby,” he whispers, voice cracking on every word. “We’re… God, we’re having a baby.”

You thread your fingers through his hair and let your own tears fall into it.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

May 23, 2007, 3:14 a.m.  

Thirty-one hours of labor, twenty-eight of them back labor that leaves you sobbing into Hotch's shoulder, certain you can’t do this. He never leaves your side, phone turned off so the world can't disturb this perfect moment in his life, and never stops whispering “You’re so strong, I’ve got you, just one more,” even when his voice is hoarse, and his shirt is soaked with your sweat and tears.

At 2:56, the doctor says, “One more big push,” and you find strength you didn’t know you had. And Grace Hotchner comes out screaming, red-faced and perfect, a shock of dark hair plastered to her tiny head, your nose already visible in miniature form.

The nurse lifts her onto your chest, and Hotch's hands shake so violently that he almost can’t hold the scissors. When he finally cuts the cord, the snip sounds like the loudest thing in the world.

They place her on your chest; she's so, so small. She stops crying the instant she hears your heartbeat, tiny fist curling against your skin with a grip the nurse actually gasps at. “That’s the strongest newborn grasp I’ve ever felt,” she laughs, a little teary-eyed herself.

Hotch is crying openly now, leaning over the bed rail, one hand cradling your head, the other resting on Grace’s back like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he lets go. His forehead presses to yours, tears mingling with yours.

“Hi, Gracie,” he whispers, voice raw. “Hi, baby girl.”

She blinks up at him with unfocused eyes and squeezes his index finger with that iron grip. Something in his face breaks open—wonder, terror, love, you can't pinpoint which it is, or if it's all at once. All you know is that you feel the exact same.

He doesn’t let go of either of you for the next forty-eight hours. He sleeps in the vinyl chair with Grace on his bare chest, skin-to-skin, her tiny breaths syncing with his.

When the nurses try to take her for routine checks, he follows, hovering like a Secret Service agent. He changes the first diaper with the concentration of someone who only just learned what a diaper is and cries again when she falls asleep on him mid-burp, mouth open, one fist tangled in his collar.

You watch them from the bed, exhausted and euphoric, and think: this is what the Oregon case took from that little girl’s father, and this is what we get to keep.

Grace Hotchner, eight pounds three ounces, the strongest grip in Fairfax County, and already wrapped impossibly tight around both your hearts.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2010  

You’re thirty-eight, and Hotch is forty-five. Grace is two weeks shy of three, obsessed with dinosaurs and convinced she’s going to be a paleontologist-slash-princess when she grows up.

One Sunday night, you’re both in the kitchen cleaning after she's been put to bed, you washing sippy cups, Hotch drying, the house quiet except for the soft hum of the dishwasher.

You catch him watching you over the rim of his coffee mug, as he pauses to take a sip, that familiar, thoughtful look in his eyes.

“We should give her a sibling,” you say, before you lose your nerve.

He sets the mug down very carefully. “You sure?”

“I’m sure I don’t want her to be an only child. And I’m sure I want another one who looks like you.”  

He crosses the kitchen in two strides, cups your face, and kisses you like the conversation is already settled.

It is.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

In late 2010, labor starts... politely... at least for the first twelve hours, then turns vicious.

Contractions come hard and all over the place, and progress stalls at seven centimeters.

Grace had been fast; this baby is stubborn as hell. Thirty hours in, your blood pressure spikes, the fetal heart monitor starts its frantic dance on the monitor, and the room fills with quiet and urgent voices.

The OB says the words no one wants to hear: emergency C-section.

They wheel you down the hall under the bright hospital lights that make your head spin. Hotch walks beside the gurney in paper scrubs, one hand wrapped around yours so tightly your fingers go numb.

His face is pale, jaw locked, but his voice never wavers as he keeps reassuring you, even though you can tell he's terrified. “You’re doing so well, sweetheart. I’ve got you. We’re almost there.” He chants it over and over, like a prayer.

In the OR, the spinal takes forever to kick in; you’re shaking, terrified, tears leaking sideways into your hair. Hotch sits by your head, forehead pressed to yours behind the drape, still whispering the same words against your temple.

When the pressure starts, it feels strange, impersonal, like someone rummaging in your insides, without you feeling anything at all. His grip tightens, and he counts every second out loud with the anesthesiologist.

At 3:19 a.m., you hear it: the thin, furious wail of a newborn who is deeply offended by the cold sterility of the OR. The doctor lifts him over the curtain. He's tiny, red, fists pumping like he’s ready to fight the world already.

Benjamin Hotchner, seven pounds eleven ounces, a shock of black hair sticking straight up, just like his sister, and lungs that clearly work perfectly.

They clean him, swaddle him, and place him on your chest while they’re still stitching you up. He’s warm and a little slippery.

His eyes blink open and fix on you with startling intensity—just like his dad staring down an unsub, you think to yourself.

You start crying so hard that the nurse has to steady him in your arms.

Hotch leans over both of you, taking over for the nurse standing beside you, one big hand cradling Ben’s entire back, the other stroking your hair. His voice is wrecked. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known,” he whispers against your temple, lips brushing the skin there again and again as he kisses you, like he can’t stop. “Thank you. God, thank you. For giving me so much!”

In the afternoon, the hospital room is quiet except for the soft beep of monitors and the squeak of your bed when you shift. Hotch is asleep in the recliner pulled up next to your bedside, still in his scrubs, Ben is asleep on your chest under the hospital blanket, tiny fist curled around the necklace Hotch gifted you after Grace was born—You kept telling him that he didn't have to, that it was way too expensive, but he had insisted that not even diamonds could do justice telling you just how much he loves you.

The door creaks open slowly. Grace pads in, wearing her dinosaur pajamas and light-up sneakers with Garcia in tow, hair a wild halo from hanging out with the entire team, and most likely sleeping, flopped against them like a lazy little cat.

She climbs up the bed rail like a monkey, eyes huge.

You brace for jealousy, for tears, for anything, not knowing how a child should react to no longer being an only child.

Instead, she leans over, studies her brother with grave three-year-old seriousness, then looks at you.

“He’s cute,” she announces in her bossiest big-sister voice. “Can we keep him?”

Hotch wakes at the sound, and his daughter bracing her feet on his thigh to lean even further over the bedside. His eyes are bleary and soft as he comes to.

You meet his gaze over Grace’s head, both of you starting to laugh, tears streaming again because the relief is too big to fit inside normal emotions.

“Yeah, baby,” Hotch says, voice thick from sleep. He reaches out with the arm closest to Grace and pulls her into his arms. “We’re keeping him.”

Grace lays her head on his shoulder, sticks her—slightly sticky, you never get used to how quickly kids get sticky—hand out for you while curled into her dad's side. You take it at the same time as Ben stretches his tiny arms with a yawn too big for a newborn body.

And just like that, your family of three becomes four. One exhausted, stitched-up mom, one slightly stunned and besotted dad, one very proud big sister, and one brand-new human who already has all of you wrapped around his perfect, furious little fist.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Life settles into a rhythm, as the kids grow older, so steady it almost feels unreal.

5:45 a.m.

The alarm never gets the chance to go off. Hotch is already sliding out of bed, careful not to jostle you, pressing a kiss to your temple, forehead, whatever part of your face is closest to his lips as he wakes.

He’s done it every morning without fail since Grace was born.

You hear the soft pad of his feet down the hall, the creak of the third stair, the low hiss of the coffee maker starting, before he comes back upstairs to get dressed. Ten minutes later, the scent of coffee drifts upstairs, and you smile into the pillow because it means the day has officially begun, and he’s still taking care of you first.

6:30 a.m.  

The peace lasts exactly forty-five minutes. Then the thundering of small feet announces Hurricane Grace. She bursts through the bedroom door like her only mission is to create a Grace-shaped hole in the middle, hair wild from sleep, wearing mismatched princess pajamas—because she can never decide which pair to wear.

“MOM!!!!! I need triceratops pancakes, and I need them NOW.” Ben is half a step behind, dragging his—once blue—stuffed elephant that Auntie JJ gave him, it's now gray and threadbare by one ear, rubbing his eyes with a chubby fist.

Hotch emerges from the hallway and scoops them both up in one motion, one under each arm, and carries them downstairs, pretending to be a caveman who just found his next meal, while they squeal and kick.

You follow more slowly, tying your robe, already smiling at the chaos.

The kitchen is pure chaos.

Hotch is at the stove, flipping dinosaur-shaped pancakes you once made the mistake of buying from the frozen aisle in the grocery store, and now is the only breakfast food the kids will eat.

Grace is perched on the counter, “helping” by pouring half a bag of chocolate chips directly onto the pan—she's chocolate coating them, if you ask her.

Ben stands on a chair, banging the spatula like it’s a drum solo in between Hotch needing it to flip the pancakes. There are banana chunks on the floor. There’s syrup in someone’s hair. And Hotch meets your eyes over the chaos and mouths 'coffee' or 'Help me'; somehow, the two look dangerously similar when mouthed from afar.

You hand him a mug with one hand and steal a kiss with the other.

7:15 a.m.  

Shoes, backpacks, lunchboxes, the eternal hunt for the left sparkly sneaker.

You and Hotch move like a well-oiled SWAT team. He buckles Ben into the car seat while you braid Grace’s hair in the driveway, both of you trading kids mid-sentence:

'Don’t forget show-and-tell!'

'He has swim diapers in the blue bag!'.

Drop-offs are a blur. Grace sprints into school, shouting goodbye without looking back; Ben clings to Hotch's leg until the preschool teacher peels him off with promises of play-dough.

You watch Hotch crouch to Ben’s level, smooth his hair, kiss the top of his head, and something in your chest still flips every single time.

Then it’s the two of you in the car, Quantico-bound, hands linked over the console, debriefing the morning like it’s your version of foreplay now—which honestly, it's starting to be.

Who has the 9:00 a.m. consult, who’s picking up dry cleaning, whether Garcia can babysit Friday night so you can finally have some mommy and daddy time.

He still traces idle circles on the inside of your wrist at red lights.

You still feel it everywhere.

Evenings  

Soccer fields, dance studios, and the occasional emergency room visit for split chins or swallowed Lego pieces.

You sit shoulder-to-shoulder on tiny bleachers as often as you can—which is nearly a perfect score still, except for one game where you were on a case.

Hotch's arm drapes along the back of your seat, fingers playing with the ends of your hair while Grace scores her first goal and Ben cheers so loud he falls off the bottom row.

Recitals mean Hotch in a suit outside of work with glitter in his hair because Grace insisted on doing his makeup backstage. You keep the photo on your desk forever.

The kids love every time he's "forced" to wear a suit outside of work, because he looks so sad, they once told you. Which, first of all... evil. And second, you love, because the tiny demons don't know that he's pretending to be miserable and secretly loves dressing up for stuff with them.

After bedtime—two stories, three drinks of water, one monster check under the bed—the house finally quiets. You spread case files across the kitchen table like you once spread them across bullpen desks and floors, only now there are crayon drawings mixed in with crime-scene photos and a half-eaten dinosaur pancake on a plate nearby.

Hotch sits beside you, tie gone, sleeves rolled, reading glasses low on his nose. His hand finds your knee under the table, the same way it has since 2001.

Sometimes you work until 2 a.m.; sometimes you abandon the files entirely and end up slow-dancing in sock feet to whatever’s playing in the radio, foreheads pressed together, swaying more than dancing.

The team folds into your life like they were always meant to be there.

Penelope shows up on Saturday mornings with rainbow sprinkles and her laptop, teaching eight-year-old Grace how to code her own choose-your-own-adventure game while you and Hotch sneak a nap on the couch.

Morgan spends an entire blistering July weekend in your backyard building Ben the most elaborate treehouse known to man—complete with a tire swing and a rope ladder.

He teaches Ben to throw a perfect spiral, and you later try to teach him to stop aiming at Morgan’s head.

Reid reads bedtime stories in English, Spanish, and—once, memorably—Latin, when Ben requests “the dragon one with the big words.”

He still blushes every Thanksgiving when Gideon—retired now, but omnipresent in your lives—launches into the “kiss already” saga with new embellishments like a crazy old man; lightning flashes, swelling orchestral music, the whole works.

Reid hides behind his pie; Grace and Ben chant “Tell it again, Grandpa Gideon!” until Hotch threatens to revoke pie privileges for the entire table.

Years later, when the kids are old enough to ask why Uncle Spencer turns red every holiday, you’ll just smile and say, “Ask your father—he was there.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2015

Mateo Cruz accepts the Deputy Director position on a Wednesday. By Friday afternoon, the Director’s office has made it official: you’re the new Section Chief.

The announcement email goes out at 4:17 p.m.; the bullpen erupts in cheers loud enough to rattle the windows. Hotch pretends to scowl from his office doorway, arms folded, muttering, 'Great, now I have to salute my own wife,' but the corner of his mouth keeps betraying him, because he couldn't be prouder of you.

You stay late for the ceremonial handover, shaking hands, signing the last of the paperwork that makes it real. And when you finally pull the car into the garage, it’s past 10:00 p.m., the house is dark except for the porch light, which Grace still insists on leaving for the 'porch fairies'—you'd hoped she would outgrow it by not, because it brings the electrical bill up by unnecessary amounts.

Hotch is waiting just inside the mudroom door, jacket off, sleeves rolled high, tie already loosened like he’s been pacing, not caring to change out of his work clothes yet.

The second the door clicks shut behind you, he’s on you.

One step, two, a lot of steps, and your back meets the bedroom door before you even realize you made it upstairs.

The new brass nameplate on your credentials folder digs into your palm; he plucks it from your fingers and tosses it onto the dresser without looking.

His hands slide up your sides, under your blazer, pushing it off your shoulders and letting it drop to the floor.

“Section Chief Hotchner,” he says, voice low and rough, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to say that?”

You start to laugh, but it turns into a gasp when he presses you harder against the door, mouth finding the spot just below your jaw that still makes your knees weak after all these years.

His stubble scrapes; his fingers thread into your hair, tilting your head back so he can kiss down the column of your throat he’s mapped a thousand times and somehow never gets tired of.

“Aaron... the kids—”

"They're with Will and JJ," he quickly answers before he continues. "My boss,” he growls against your pulse point, and the possessive, reverent way he says it sends heat flooding straight through you. “Say it.”

You’re already breathless. “I outrank you now, Unit Chief.”

He makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-groan and kisses you properly then. His tongue slides against yours like he’s been thinking about this all day. One hand splays across the small of your back, the other cups your jaw, thumb stroking over your cheekbone with that same stunned tenderness he had the night he proposed.

You fist your hands in his shirt, pulling him closer until there’s no space left, until the only thing in the universe is the heat of his body and the way he keeps murmuring “my boss, my boss” like a prayer between kisses.

When you finally break apart, you’re both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, noses brushing. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, lips swollen and curved in a grin that’s pure mischief and pride.

“Bed! Section Chief,” he says, voice gravel-rough. “That’s an order from your subordinate.”

You laugh and let him push you down on the bed.

Turns out outranking one Agent Hotchner has some very compelling perks.  

And he spends the entire night proving he’s more than happy to follow your orders.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The team has made it official without ever actually voting.

You are Mom.  

Hotch is Dad.  

There is no escaping it.

It starts small.

Penelope bursts into the bullpen at 2 a.m. with new surveillance footage and yells, “Mom, Dad, you’re gonna want to see this!” She freezes, horrified, but you and Hotch are too tired to correct her, so you just wave her over.

From that day on, the nicknames stuck.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Grace is thirteen, all long limbs and sarcasm and her father’s intense eyes. Ben is ten, fearless, missing two front teeth, and convinced Uncle Spencer can actually talk to aliens.

The house is loud and messy and perfect: drawings taped to the fridge next to family photos, Hotch's running shoes by the door next to Grace’s cleats, your wedding photo on the mantel between Ben’s first-grade portrait and a framed newspaper clipping of your promotion with the headline “BAU Power Couple Still Unstoppable.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Reid skids into your office holding two mugs. “Mom, I made you coffee exactly the way you like it because Dad said if I didn’t, he’d make me redo all the geographic profiles from the last ten cases.”

You take the coffee without looking up from the budget report you’re murdering. “Tell Dad his threat worked.”

JJ corners Hotch in the hallway. “Dad, Grace texted me—she got accepted early decision to Georgetown. She wanted you to hear it from family first.” Hotch's eyes instantly go soft and watery; JJ pats his arm like she’s done this a hundred times—she has.

Tara is presenting when Luke raises his hand.  

“Question for Mom: Can we get approval for the extra surveillance hours?”  

You don’t even blink anymore. “Ask Dad, he controls the budget this quarter.”  

Hotch, without looking up from his tablet: “Approved, but only if you two stop calling us that in front of the Director.”

Everyone, in perfect unison: “Yes, Dad.”

Emily—who swore she would never—slips once on a case in Kansas City: “Dad, the ME’s office is stonewalling us.”

Aaron just sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I will call them. Again.”

Garcia over comms during a tense takedown: “Be careful, children, Mom and Dad are watching, and we do NOT want the lecture if someone gets shot.”  

You and Hotch exchange the weary, fond look of parents whose kids just said “shit” in front of the neighbors.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Some nights, when the kids are asleep and the house is quiet, you and Hotch sit on the porch swing you installed the year Ben was born. He wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulls you into his side, and you watch the stars come out over the same oak tree that shaded your first family photos.

“Still think Gideon was right to yell at us?” you ask, tracing the wedding ring you’ve worn for eighteen years now.

Hotch laughs and presses a kiss to your temple.

“Best thing he ever did.”

And you sit there, two kids asleep inside, careers that have saved lives countless of times and broken your hearts in equal measure, a house that always smells faintly of coffee and children, and you know—without doubt, without hesitation—that every late night, every loss, every terrifying leap brought you exactly here.

Home.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Grace and Ben think the whole mom and dad thing is hilarious.  

Grace, now eighteen, texts the BAU group chat from college: “Tell Dad that Grandpa Rossi's carbonara recipe is trending on TikTok and people are calling Dad the ‘Hot FBI Dad’.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The team is sprawled across their desks after closing another case, this one a little too brutal, even for them.

You and Hotch are the last to pack up, as always.

Penelope yawns, slings her bag over her shoulder, and calls out: “Night, Mom. Night, Dad. Don’t stay too late making out on the conference table.”

Morgan, Reid, Tara, Luke, and JJ chorus “Night, Mom and Dad!” as they file out.

Hotch waits until the elevator doors close, then looks over at you, deadpan.  

“We’re never living this down, are we?”

You hook your arm through his, lean your head on his shoulder as you walk toward the elevators.  

“Nope. And honestly? I kinda love it.”

He presses the down button, then drops a kiss to the top of your head.  

“Me too... Mom.”

You elbow him in the ribs. He laughs and pulls you into the elevator.

The doors close on the two of you, Section Chief and Unit Chief, Mom and Dad, twenty-four years after Gideon yelled at you to kiss already, still stupidly and perfectly in love.

The day starts ordinary enough.

Spencer’s in his usual weekend rhythm—hair still mussed from sleep, sleeves pushed up, moving around the kitchen like it’s second nature. You watch from the couch as he empties the dishwasher, humming softly under his breath. He pauses to line the mugs neatly in the cabinet, then wipes his hands on a dish towel before reaching for the coffee pot.

It’s nothing flashy. Just him being… him. Thoughtful, careful, methodical.

And yet, every small thing he does sends a slow, molten warmth through your veins.

He glances over his shoulder to ask if you want sugar and you can’t even form a coherent answer. You nod, a little too quickly.

Later, he’s in the living room, glasses sliding down his nose as he fixes the leg on the wobbly bookshelf you’ve been complaining about. His hair keeps falling into his face, and he keeps huffing it away with a puff of air, muttering to himself like an old man. You should be helping. You’re not.

You’re watching the veins in his forearm flex every time he tightens a screw.

Then it’s the laundry—him methodically folding towels, matching socks like it’s a puzzle. Then it’s him remembering to water the plant on the windowsill.

And then, Christ, it’s the way he looks at you—his eyes soft and sweet and his voice so, so gentle when he tells you to go get ready.

“For what?” you ask.

He smiles. “I’m taking you out to dinner.”

He doesn’t phrase it like a question. He’s not asking permission.

And something about that makes your knees a little weak.

You take a quick shower, throw on a pretty sundress, do your makeup and hair, and when you’re about to step into your heels, he kneels down in front of you.

His fingers brush your ankle as he buckles the strap. Then he does the other foot.

It’s so simple. But it turns you on more than you can explain.

He stands and looks at you, brushes your hair behind your ear. “You okay?”

You can tell by the look on his face—gentle, knowing, a little amused—that he knows exactly where your mind has gone. But you just smile and say, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

He says, “Okay,” and the two of you walk out to his car.

Your hands are wrapped around his elbow like it’s 1942 and he’s taking you to the dance. He opens the door for you, and you freeze.

For a second, you're glad he can't hear your thoughts. The dirty ones. The ones where he bends you over the hood of his car and fucks you in broad daylight. But he’s just standing there, waiting for you to get in the car.

Then he raises a brow at you—a bold smirk on his lips and you wonder… maybe he can hear your thoughts.

“Let’s go back inside,” he says. And you nearly melt into the ground.

You’ve been living together for a couple of months now. And he’s finding out—little by little—how unbelievably, downright, unhinged horny you are. He leads you back upstairs. And as soon as the door falls closed behind you, you’re pinned against it, his soft lips on yours.

You can taste the toothpaste on his tongue.

You’re still in your heels and sundress, and he’s fully clothed, and he’s kissing you so hard you can’t catch your breath. His hands are in your hair, tugging, pulling, and your fingers are fumbling for his belt. You think how easy it would be to undo it, unbutton his pants, let them fall. You want them to pool around his ankles; you want him to kick them away and take you right here, up against the door.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispers. And even though his tone is loving and tender, he’s also a little rough. A little commanding.

You have to tell him. He won’t move until you do.

“I want you,” you breathe.

He shakes his head. “No. Tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

“I want you to fuck me,” you whisper. “I want you to bend me over the couch. I want you to pull my hair and make me come on your cock. I want it to hurt just a little bit.”

He nods. “Good girl.”

Then he spins you around, bends you over the arm of the couch, flips your dress up, and yanks your panties down to your knees.

And for a second it's embarrassing—the idea of him seeing you like that. It’s easier when it’s dark, when you can pretend he can’t really see you.

But it’s broad daylight and you know he can see everything. The way your thighs are shaking, the wet spot on your panties, the way your body is so, so ready for him.

“Spencer,” you whisper, trying to look over your shoulder at him. But he presses a hand to your back—keeps your face and chest pinned to the cushions.

“Don't move,” he tells you. “I’m going to take care of you.”

You feel his lips brush the back of your thigh.

He kisses a path from your knee to your ass. And when he reaches the soft flesh there, he sinks his teeth in.

“Ow,” you whine, even though it doesn’t really hurt.

He soothes the skin with his tongue, and you feel his hands on your thighs, spreading you wider for him. Then his tongue is on your pussy—licking a slow stripe up your center, and you nearly whimper.

“Shh,” he tells you.

And you don’t know why you have to be quiet. The two of you are alone in the apartment. But something about the command, about him shushing you, makes you bite your lip to stay quiet. You press your cheek into the couch cushions, muffling a moan.

“Good girl,” he praises. “You look so pretty like this.”

You can feel his tongue on your clit, lapping at your slick folds, dipping into your hole. He fucks you with it, pressing it inside you as he grips your ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh.

He hums against your pussy, and the vibrations make you shiver.

“God, you’re so wet. You’re making such a pretty mess, baby.”

His words send a shockwave through you. And you wonder if this is turning him on as much as it is turning you on. If it’s possible for him to be just as gone, just as crazy for you.

You hear the sound of his belt being undone, then his zipper coming down.

And then he’s pushing inside you, so slow, so careful—like you’re fragile.

You feel every inch of him stretching you, and you let out a gasp. He’s so hard. You can feel it in the way his cock twitches inside you. In the way he hisses when he bottoms out, and his fingers dig into your ass.

He pauses for a moment, lets you adjust, and then he’s pulling out, and thrusting back in—so hard you let out a cry.

“Does it hurt?” he whispers. “Tell me if it hurts.”

You shake your head, and he thrusts again.

It hurts just a little, but it feels good, too. Feels like you’re full. Like your body is being rearranged to fit him.

And you can’t help the way your walls clench around him.

He groans.

Even though he’s being dominant—even though he’s telling you what to do, fucking you from behind—he’s still so, so loving. He mutters soft compliments, tells you how good you feel, tells you he doesn’t deserve you.

And every time he’s all the way inside you, he sits there for a second—lets you clench around him, lets you feel every inch.

“You’re taking me so well,” he purrs, fingers tangling in your hair. He yanks, and you move with him, sitting up on your elbows. “Good girl.”

He reaches around to yank your dress down, freeing your tits. And his fingers are kneading, massaging, before he’s pinching and rolling your nipples between his fingers.

You let out a whimper.

“Tell me you want it,” he hisses. “Beg me to keep fucking you.”

“Please,” you cry, pressing back against him. “Please don’t stop.”

He keeps that deep, torturous pace—keeps toying with your nipples, pulling and rolling them between his fingers.

“What got you so horny for me, baby?”

And you have to tell him. You have to say the words out loud, even though they sound so dirty, so depraved.

“It was you helping me. Fixing the bookshelf. When you emptied the dishwasher. God, I wanted to drop to my knees and blow you right then.”

He moans and fucks into you—hard and fast.

You swear you feel him hit your fucking cervix. You let out a loud moan.

Then he pulls out, and you’re empty and cold and you whimper at the loss.

"Stand up."

You do, shaky legs and trembling thighs.

He sits down, looks up at you.

“Come here, ride me.”

He doesn’t have to ask twice.

You straddle him. Your knees sink into the soft cushions, and your hands find his shoulders. You raise up on your knees and position him at your center. And slowly—oh, so slowly—you sink down on him.

You can see his face now. The way he watches you like you’re a work of art. Like you’re something to be worshipped.

And it makes you feel powerful and sexy.

You raise up again, and slam back down. He lets out a hiss and bites his lip. So you do it again.

His hands are on your hips, helping you, guiding you. And it’s not long before the two of you find a rhythm. He thrusts up to meet you, and you fuck yourself on him—slow and deep. It’s so good. He’s so good.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers. His eyes haven’t left your face. He kisses your neck, your shoulder, the curve of your breast.

Then his lips find yours again.

And it’s sweet and gentle, the way he kisses you. The way his hands hold your face, his tongue licks at yours. He sucks on your bottom lip before he bites it. And it takes your breath away. It feels like a dream—the way he’s looking at you. Like you’re the only person in the world.

Like nothing else matters.

“I love you,” he breathes. “God, I love you so much.”

His voice is so soft, so sincere, you feel a lump form in your throat.

“I love you too,” you whisper back.

And he smiles—this little boyish grin that makes him look so young. Makes him look like the world isn’t weighing him down. And you press your forehead to his, feeling his breath on your lips, and then you’re riding him again.

“Touch yourself,” he tells you.

His voice is husky, and his eyes are on you—watching the way you bounce on his cock. You reach down between your legs, playing with your clit in slow circles as you fuck yourself on him. 

He grips your hair, pulling your head back gently so he can look at you.

“I’ll always give you what you want,” he tells you softly. “Anything you ask for.”

“I love you,” you moan again.

“I love you, too.”

You’re still touching yourself like he asked you to. Like you promised. And he notices.

“Good girl,” he moans, and starts fucking up into you—harder. Faster. “My girl.”

“Spencer,” you're breathless as you say his name. “I’m gonna come.”

He’s thrusting up, hitting that spot inside you that feels so fucking good. “You feel so good, baby. So warm and tight.” He bites your neck softly, sucks the skin into his mouth.

“Please,” you whine. “Spencer, I can’t.” Your hands are gripping his shoulders, your nails are biting into his skin, and you can feel your orgasm building. “Please let me come.”

He kisses your lips—soft and gentle.

“Of course you can come, baby,” he murmurs against your lips. “Come on my cock. I want to feel it.”

You let out a moan and do exactly that. You clench around him and see white. You’re gasping for air and shaking and whimpering.

He keeps fucking you through it—slow and gentle, and it feels so good you think you might come again.

“That’s it,” he coos. “You did so good, sweetheart. You made yourself come on my cock.”

And you nod, biting your lip, still feeling the aftershocks of your orgasm as he fucks you. He’s going harder now. You know he’s close. He whispers how good you feel. How beautiful you are. And then he’s coming—groaning softly as he fills you. You can feel him pulsing inside you and you clench around him. It makes him moan and bury his face in your neck. You can feel him smiling against your skin. And the two of you sit there for a moment—him still inside you, his arms wrapped around you, holding you tight.

“You’re so pretty,” he whispers, smoothing your hair down. He pulls back to look at you and you smile. He kisses you again—so lovingly, so tenderly you melt into him.

And then you’re lying on the couch together. He’s holding you in his lap, your head on his chest. You’re tracing the lines of his chest as he strokes your hair. It’s quiet—save for the sound of your breathing.

You could fall asleep like this. With your head on his chest and his fingers in your hair.