aki

"Not at all. If you'd like, the bakery down the street is open. Do you want something?" His pace has slowed a bit, as if he knows your exhaustion is kicking in.

"Maybe next time. I just want to take a nice hot bath and go to sleep."

"What about dinner?" Always the practical thinker. You hum as you debate the contents of the fridge, and what will take the least effort.

"Nevermind that, I'll take care of while you're in the bath. Perhaps we'll eat in bed tonight...just this once, of course." He smiles at you as if the two of you are partaking in some grand act of rebellion. You press a kiss to his lips, relishing in his confused yet satisfied blinks.

"Well then, we better hurry on home!"

Valko - would you sit and keep me company?

"Will you sit with me?"

Valko pauses whatever he's typing, glancing over at you with an amused smile. You almost expect him to comment, to tease you a little, but he simply shuts his laptop.

"Of course." Despite his sharp canines, his smile is soft, settling next to you on the couch and wrapping an arm around you. His body is warm, and just the weight of his arm calms you.

"Good?" He whispers, as if not to disturb your peace. You hum, not quite in the mood for speaking.

His face buries into your shoulder, tugging you a little closer. You sink into it, instantly relaxing once his cologne envelops you. Valko had a way of doing that, of making you feel so comfortable, so yourself.

"I love you." You murmur quietly. It's not the first time you've said it, but he always smiles like it is.

"I love you too." He presses kisses all over your face, until you break out into laughter and find yourself tumbling to the floor, Valko underneath you.

"Any particular reason tonight? Do I look strikingly handsome today?" His teasing tone carries a hint of genuine curiosity. You're quiet for a while, adjusting his glasses so they don't sit crooked on his nose.

"I just...love being around you. Is that so wrong?" Your smile probably doesn't come off very carefree, hence why his face softens and his arms tighten around you.

"I love being around you too." He rests his cheek on the top of your head, squeezing you twice as if to really solidify his sincerity.

"Do you think we could just...spend the rest of the night like this?"

"I don't see why not! But...can I grab some chocolate milk first?"

Sylus - i'm not scared, I just reach and you’re right there

Your eyes fly open, heart seized in a panic. Blood is rushing through your ears, but everything slows down the moment your hand finds a warm arm.

Sylus is asleep, but he stirs almost immediately at your movements. He catches your hand, squeezing it gently.

"Everything alright?" His voice is husky from sleep, though no less caring. Your anxiety loosens as you lay back down, sinking into his hold.

"It was just a nightmare." You whisper. Sylus hums in response, his arms tight around you.

"Want to talk about it?" He pulls back to study your face, as if to make sure you aren't hiding how you truly feel. When you smile a little at his inquisitive gaze, he smirks, taking the opportunity to bite the tip of your nose.

"Ow! What was that for?" You swat at him, laughing as you rub your nose despite the fact it doesn't really hurt.

"I enjoy taking bites out of you, didn't you know?" He kisses your nose in a mock apology, really just an excuse to get closer to you.

"Are you feeling better?"

Sylus can read you like a book. Despite what seemed like an attempt to change the subject, you know it was a ploy to make you smile. Now, in the lighter air, he checks in.

"Mhm. I don't normally have nightmares. Well, not when I'm here at least."

"And why is that?" He's genuinely asking, which makes you smile. Such a smart man, and yet your feelings sometimes slip through his fingers.

"Because I'm with you. And I know that nothing can hurt me if I have you by my side."

they just can't reach that perfect spot, the one that makes your vision blur and your toes curl.

your pussy clenches around nothing substantial, aching for more, dripping onto the sheets in pathetic little puddles.

you whine softly, hips bucking up into your palm, but frustration builds instead of release. your mind wanders to shouta—your boyfriend, older, broader, with those long, slender fingers that seem made for unraveling you.

his hands dwarf yours completely; your tiny palms barely cover his knuckles when you hold hands, and god, the way his fingers stretch you open, curling just right… you've seen stars from them alone.

the age gap between you never bothered you—his experience, his quiet dominance, it all makes you throb harder. but tonight, he's in the study, buried in paperwork from his hero work, probably half-asleep at the desk.

your clit pulses under your thumb, swollen and needy, but your fingers tire, slipping uselessly. "fuck," you mutter, tears pricking your eyes from the edge you're teetering on but can't cross.

you've tried everything—toys that don't hit right, humping your pillow like a desperate animal—but nothing compares to him. your body craves his touch, that size difference making every intrusion feel impossibly deep.

finally, you can't take it anymore. you slide off the bed on shaky legs, arousal slicking your inner thighs, and grab his oversized shirt from the floor. it swallows you whole, hanging to mid-thigh, your pebbled nipples poking against the thin fabric.

no panties—just your bare, glistening cunt exposed beneath.

padding barefoot down the hall, face flushed hot, you push open the study door. shouta's there, slouched in his chair, black hair messy and tied back loosely, red-rimmed eyes scanning papers under the desk lamp.

he's in his usual gray joggers and a worn black tee, looking every bit the exhausted pro hero. he glances up, eyebrow twitching slightly at your disheveled state—cheeks pink, lips bitten swollen, shirt riding up to flash your bare pussy.

"shouta," you whimper, voice small and needy, tiny hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "i… i can't…"

he sighs, heavy and tired, setting his pen down but not fully turning from his work. "it's late. go to bed." his voice is gravelly, sleepy, like he's fighting off a yawn, but his dark eyes linger on your thighs, the shine of your arousal catching the light.

"please," you whine, stepping closer, small hands reaching for his arm. your fingers look ridiculous against his forearm—dainty, barely wrapping around the muscle. "my fingers aren't… they're too small. i need you. need your hands." you shift, thighs rubbing together, a fresh bead of slick trickling down.

he rubs his eyes, stubble shadowing his jaw, the age lines around his mouth deepening as he exhales. "kitten, i'm in the middle of this." but even as he grumbles, his gaze drops to your chest, nipples hard and begging through the shirt, then lower to your soaked folds.

his cock twitches visibly in his joggers, the fat outline straining against the fabric. he shifts in his chair, but doesn't push you away.

you don't wait for more invitation. climbing onto his lap, you straddle one thick thigh, your tiny body settling against him easily—size difference making you feel so small, so fragile on his broad frame. his hands come up instinctively, one large palm cupping your ass, the other hovering near his papers.

"shouta, please," you beg, grinding your dripping pussy against his thigh, leaving a wet streak on his joggers. your small hands clutch his shoulders, fingers splaying wide but still not covering much.

he mutters something under his breath, sounding annoyed, but his free hand—the one not holding papers—slides between your legs without hesitation. those long, slender fingers brush your slick folds, and you gasp, hips jerking.

"so messy already," he rasps, voice low and rough, dipping one finger in easily. your pussy sucks it greedily, walls fluttering around the length that your own tiny digits could never match. "can't even get yourself off, huh? need my fingers to do it for you."

"yes," you whimper, nodding frantically, face buried in his neck. his scent—musk and faint soap—makes you clench harder. he doesn't rush, sleepy pace deliberate as he adds a second finger, stretching your tight hole.

the contrast hits you hard: his fingers are so much longer, thicker together than three of yours, knuckles brushing your entrance while the tips curl inside. he scissors them slowly, opening you up, his thumb grazing your clit incidentally.

meanwhile, his other hand flips a page, pen scratching notes like this is just another task. but his cock—god, that fat cock—strains harder against his joggers, the thick ridge brushing your outer thigh with every subtle shift.

you feel it throb, hot and insistent, pre-cum probably darkening the fabric. "shouta… feels s'good," you whine, rocking into his hand, your small fingers digging into his tee.

"quiet," he murmurs, but there's praise laced in, gruff and understated. "good girl, taking my fingers like this. so tight around them."

he pumps deeper now, the wet squelch filling the room obscenely, your arousal coating his palm. his fingers twist, finding that spot effortlessly—long enough to drag against it with every thrust. stars burst behind your eyelids, body arching as you keen high and desperate.

he works you methodically, sleepy eyes half-lidded but attentive, watching your face twist in pleasure. three fingers now, stretching you wide, the girth making your pussy burn sweetly.

your tiny hands clutch his wrist, feeling the veins bulge under your palms—so much bigger than you. "look at that," he growls softly, free hand pausing paperwork to tilt your chin up. "your little pussy's swallowing my whole hand almost."

"n-no," you sob, tears spilling, hips grinding down sloppy. his thumb circles your clit firmly now, fingers fucking in and out messily, arousal splashing. his cock nudges your thigh again, harder, the head outlined clearly, begging for attention he ignores.

"shouta, please, more—"

"patience, kitten," he praises, voice a low rumble. "i know exactly what you need." he curls his fingers relentlessly on that spot, palm grinding your clit, building you higher. your whines turn to whimpers, body trembling on his thigh, small frame shaking against his solid one.

the coil snaps suddenly—your pussy gushes around his fingers, squirting clear and hot over his hand, wrist, even dripping onto his joggers. "fuck—sho'!" you cry, convulsing, walls pulsing wildly.

he doesn't stop, fucking your cum back into you with deep, firm thrusts, his long fingers scooping the mess inside, prolonging the orgasm until you're a babbling, whimpering wreck.

"that's it," he murmurs, thumb rubbing your oversensitive clit. "gush all over me, good girl. so wet for me." only when you slump, panting, does he pull out, fingers glistening with your release. he brings them to your mouth without a word. "clean them. taste how good you cum for me."

you obey eagerly, tiny mouth stretching around three long fingers, tongue lapping your tangy cum. you suck messily, hollowing cheeks, eyes locked on his as his cock twitches against your thigh, straining painfully now. "so pretty," he praises, free hand stroking your hair. "your little hands could never."

but he's not done. with a sleepy grunt, he lifts you off his lap like you weigh nothing—size difference stark—and sets you on the desk, papers shoved aside. your legs dangle, pussy exposed and puffy. he drops to his knees between your thighs, stubble scraping inner skin as he spreads you wide with those massive hands. your small fingers tangle in his hair, tugging weakly.

"shouta—oh god," you whimper as his hot mouth descends. his tongue flattens over your slit, lapping up the mess you made, long and thorough. he sucks your folds into his mouth, humming low, the vibration making you jolt. his nose bumps your clit, fingers digging into your thighs to hold you open. he eats you out like a man starved, despite his sleepy demeanor—tongue spearing inside, curling deep where his fingers were, fucking you sloppily.

you whine nonstop, hips bucking into his face, his shirt riding up to expose your tits. he glances up, eyes dark, and latches onto your clit—sucking hard, teeth grazing just enough to make you scream. "too much—shouta, please!" but he growls against you, one hand sliding up to pinch a nipple through the shirt, the other bracing your hip.

his tongue works relentlessly, dipping into your hole, circling your clit, lips smacking wetly. your second orgasm builds fast, his experience knowing every twitch, every gasp. "cum again," he rasps against your pussy, breath hot. "drench my face, sweetie. show me how much you need this."

you shatter, gushing onto his tongue, thighs clamping his head as you sob his name. he drinks it all, licking until you're twitching oversensitive. finally, he rises, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand—still slick from earlier. "suck," he orders, pushing those long fingers back into your mouth.

you do, moaning around them, tasting yourself mixed with his spit. his cock presses insistent against your thigh now, fat and leaking, but he just watches you with that sleepy, satisfied gaze. "that's my girl," he murmurs. "only i can make you cum like this. remember that next time you try those tiny fingers."

he pulls you into his chest then, cock still straining untouched, but holding you close as you whimper softly, spent and sated in his arms.

2026 ── 𝓦𝐎𝐑𝐊 𝐎𝐅 @atelphobist 𝜗ৎ

ᥫ᭡ | © 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘳. 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥. 𝘯𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘪.

“Yeah?” His voice is gruff and hoarse, almost like he’s keeping a whimper tight in his throat. His leg bounces as fast as his heart pounds his chest. You’re so pretty, with your pretty parted lips, and how your saliva keeps it just wet enough to shine in the warm lamp light. So plump for him to kiss and bite—

“As I was saying,” You pull your hand away, not hearing the small whine that leaves him from the lack of contact. “We need to make sure you’re comfortable for the next few hours. You said you can get agitated when there’s full moons, right?”

“Mmh.” Better a grunt than a moan. You brush it off assuming the effects of the celestial event are starting to mess with him internally.

Of course, you’re well aware that he’s got an extra pair of fluffy scratchable ears on the top of his head, an even fluffier tail protruding from the base of his spine, and sharper canines. You’re not ignorant. 

What you don’t know is that he’s much more prone to getting heated in these hours. Especially in the presence of someone who his body, mind, and soul are attuned to completely. It’s you. You're that someone.

But he has to behave for your sake. He can’t be bad, he can’t be too rash and aggressive or he might scare you off. You might not like it. But he wants you so damn bad, he can’t even hide it anymore. 

You’re rattling about restraints, something to tie him to incase he goes berserk.

Restraints. Belts. Muzzle. Chair. Tie him to a chair. He wants you to tie him to a chair.

He wants you to restrain him. He wants you to sit on his lap and feel how hard his cock is for you, feel it throb just below your cunt, grind his hips up to you still so retrained and held back that he has to beg you to ride him. He might as well ask for it. 

“…unless that’s too extreme.” You mutter, expecting a response. Nothing. Did he zone out again? What’s going on with Valko to be so distracted? He wasn’t like this last month. “Look, I know the full moon can be a messy time for you, and now that it’s a supermoon it could be worse, but I’d prefer you to actually respond— oh.”

Valko is drooling. Valko’s eyes are glazed over. Valko is blushing beyond relief. And Valko is sporting a rock hard boner.

The silence that stretches between you would have been uncomfortable, it should have been. But you seem to enjoy the rough pants that escape his lips, how his hands are balled into fists to keep himself at bay. How the veins on his neck are far more prominent now. 

You sink your teeth into your lower lip, hoping you won’t say anything foolish. 

“Don’t laugh.” Valko grits, his fluffy ears drooping a little. 

“I wasn’t going to.” You say, trying to ignore the fact that your lips are twitching into a smile.

You glance down from his agitated golden eyes to his neck, to his large muscular chest covered by the black tank you always find so attractive on him, to the taper of his waist, to the pulsing print of his cock bulging against his pants.

Now that you think of it, you two haven’t shared the bed recently. You’ve both been so busy with work that neither of you have had time for each other. And you’ve been very wound up these last few days.

“I think we should figure out what restraints will be good for you.” A purr follows your words as you rest your hands on his chest. Muscular, warm, huge chest that you love to sleep on. You’re making this much, much worse and you know it. You can hear it in the groan that rumbles in his chest. 

“Oh, is it getting worse?” You play an aloof demeanour, reaching to caress the soft ears on his head, making sure to rub on that sensitive spot where his hair is its softest. A soft moan escapes Valko’s lips as his golden eyes flutter closed.

“Please…”

“What do you need me to do, my love?” Your lips ghost the shell of his fleshy ear, tongue peeking out to trace the shell. He shudders, head lowering to give you more access, hips rocking towards you so you can feel just what you need to do. 

You don’t want that, though. He has to say it.

“I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”

A pained moan rushes right into your ear as he drops a part of his weight on you. Valko doesn’t want to say it but he also wants to say it. It doesn’t make sense. This heated state is driving him insane, and you’re giving him such a clear path to relief. But what he wants is different from what you usually do… will you agree?

With a shaky breath, Valko nuzzles the side of your neck, mustering the will to confess his desire. “You have to tell me no if you can’t do it.”

“I will.” You reassure him, stroking his soft hair. His arms wrap tight around you, grounding himself in your presence as the words unknot themselves to flow out.

“If you’re grossed out—“

“I won’t be grossed out, Val.” You softly say, rubbing circles into his lower back. “Nothing about you grosses me out. I trust you, so you need to trust that I’ll handle whatever you need and that I’ll tell you if I can’t. Outside of cannibalism, I'm not doing that.”

That makes him chuckle. “You’ll tell me the second you’re uncomfortable?”

“The millisecond.”

His next request comes out more sheepishly. “You’ll tell me I’m doing good?”

“I’ll put a poet to shame.”

“Pull my hair?”

“Put a collar on you too if you’re feeling feisty.”

A sigh of relief escapes Valko’s lips. Oh, he loves you. Finally, he pulls his face away from your neck to level your gaze with fresh determination on his face. “I want you to tie me to the chair, and ride the shit outta me.”

Ask and ye shall receive, as you hear them say.

It was easy to put Valko on a chair especially when he's drunk on your kisses, hungrily biting marks into your bare chest and stomach, gripping your hips so tight you’d think he’s terrified that you’ll run. It was easier to get soaked just from watching him strip for you— that, and having his fingers curl so good inside your cunt as he slurped and lapped at your clit.

The only ‘difficult’ part was restraining him to the chair, legs, arms, and torso roped tight, and that’s just because he’s antsy whenever the full moon happens. 

But something about this supermoon has got him more riled up than usual. Why, you ask?

You’ve been bouncing on the man’s cock for two hours. 

You’re not complaining, you love every second of this. Your walls are fluttering around him as he slides in and out of you so easily, caught by you keeping his fat tip inside leaking all that sticky, hot precum before you drop into his lap again and again and again. 

“Val— ooh, fuck!” Your praise has otherwise become mush, slurred moans of his name and whatever adulation could come to mind. Valko doesn’t mind since he isn't doing any better. If anything, he’s lost the need to think.

“S-So good,” His throat is torn from how loud he’s been, his hips jutting into you even with his thick, corded thighs roped down to the chair. His tail is slapping the floor, his fluffy ears are twitching. He can barely move, limbs strapped down and a collar wrapped around his neck at his own request. And he loves it.

He wants to cum so bad. But then he’d end up swelling so much that he’d be stuck for hours, just grinding and grinding and plugging his seed inside instead of feeling you slap down on him with each rise and fall of your full hips. He wouldn’t have your soft breasts bouncing in his face, or feel your hands scratch his undercut and pull his hair, or hear the hiccups in your voice or the ragged moans in his own.

Why make this pleasure so short-lived when he can prolong it? 

His cock is leaking like a faucet, keeping him smooth and wet for you to use him as you please, pulsing with the desire to just release. His sacks are drawn up tight, literally clenching with enough cum to repopulate a country, and yet he still won’t give in.

Valko drags his tongue up your jaw all the way to your cheekbone. “ ‘m I fuckin’ you good?”

“Hah— mhm. Such a good boy.” You ramble into his lips as you kiss him, slipping your tongue inside to taste him as if he isn’t all that you can sense. “So big and thick and hot… so— Valko— so full ‘f you, want you deeper, you’re so good!”

You’re on orgasm number five by now, gripping onto Valko’s strong shoulders for dear life, back arched, tugging his hair like you want to rip his red locks off. It’s the supermoon, you tell yourself, it must be shooting his stamina through the roof.

It fucking has to be if he’s been rutting into you like a bullet train without cumming even once. His girth twitches with every rock of your plush hips, it leaks and weeps inside you every time you squeeze him hard enough to cut off his blood flow. It has to hurt, prolonging his climax for this long.

Valko likes it that way. He likes the hurt. He likes the way his body just responds to you so well, like you’re made for each other. You have to be.

Your knees are starting to ache. Your thighs are burning from the constant bouncing up and down his thick length but the feeling of him dragging through your walls with each vein pressing against your walls is too good. The overwhelming bump of his cockhead kissing your cervix may just tip you over the edge again. The fucking curve of his cock and the angle just lets him reach the sensitive nerves of your g-spot so good every damn time!

You love these fucking supermoons.

“Valko,” You hum, licking his lips then his chin and jaw, your breath heavy as you maintain your pace. Just a few more and you’ll be in pure bliss. But you need him there with you. “I’m close. I’m so close. Hnn, need you— cum with me.”

“You— oh, you sure?” He whimpers, nuzzling you as you lick the tears off his cheeks. “I’ll—“

“Knot me, mhm.” You nod, rubbing your nose into his cheek, inhaling his scent. This man’s frenzied behaviour has been rubbing off on you too much, not that there’s reason to complain. “You’re gonna swell up so fuckin’ thick, yeah?”

He nods. “Gonna plug all that cum in me, keep it warm inside while you grind ’n rut into me?”

“Yeah,” He affirms, his arms pulling against the restraints. Is this what you want? You want him to bond with you to that much of an intimate extent? You must truly love him. “ ’m gonna stay in you the whole night, snug inside. But I like when you ride me.” You can feel him pouting as he pecks your skin. So cute.

“Then you’ll be a good boy, right?” You coo, your hands cupping his face as you press your thumbs on his lower lip. “Cum with me, and stay inside all night.” You fight every urge to give in to the pleasure when he bites your fingers.

You suck his upper lip, letting your moans vibrate into his. “Can you do that for me?”

Valko’s a simple man. You ask for something and he’ll give it to you with a smile. Like he is now, canines bared, tongue lapping at your fingers before he attacks your lips with a bruising, hot kiss. He pulls away just for a second to mutter against your mouth, “I love you.”

“I know, baby.” You huff, smiling into the kiss as you scratch his fluffy ears. Valko’s hips rut up faster and you can feel his cock swell at the base, almost ready to be plugged into you. Oh, he is so going to eat his cum out of you once he’s soft. “Now be good and cum with me.” 

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

Your stomach flips. “Spence.”

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

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

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

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

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

Morgan snorts. “What weekend?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You perform.

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

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

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

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

Hotch clears his throat. “Well, lucky for all of you, it’s a quiet week.”

Reid shuts his book and sets it on the table.

“No active cases as of this morning,” Hotch continues. “Which means we’ll be catching up on consults, court reports, and the mountain of paperwork everyone’s apparently been neglecting.”

His eyes meet yours for the briefest second, and your pulse skitters.

“I’m bored already,” Morgan sighs, leaning back in his chair.

Hotch ignores him. “We’ve got two local consult requests from Fairfax County and a follow-up review from the Richardson case. Dave, I’ll need your notes finalised by this afternoon.”

Rossi nods once. “You’ll have them.”

“Garcia,” Hotch continues, “the Milwaukee office wants that digital forensic review by Wednesday.”

Garcia gasps softly, pressing a hand to her chest. “But I already colour-coded my entire week. That review wasn’t supposed to be due for another fortnight.”

Morgan blinks. “You colour-code your schedule?”

“Obviously,” Garcia says. “How else would I maintain my sparkling personality under crushing institutional pressure?”

Reid straightens. “Technically, organising information activates the same reward pathways as—”

“Don’t,” Prentiss says immediately.

Reid frowns slightly. “I was just going to say gambling.”

You snort softly before you can stop yourself, covering it quickly with your hand. Reid shoots you a look. Prentiss just shakes her head. And when your eyes finally flick back to the front of the room, Hotch is already watching you.

Not the team. You.

Your stomach twists.

That signature Hotchner scowl should not be as hot as it is. It shouldn’t make you cross your legs a little tighter or make your heart race the way it does. You should be used to that scowl by now. You’re on the receiving end of it often enough—whenever you crack a poorly timed joke or flirt a little too hard with Morgan.

Yet somehow, you still feel like you can’t breathe until his gaze finally shifts.

“Moving on,” he says evenly, “JJ will forward the consult details after the meeting.”

He spends the next thirty minutes briefing the team on consults and court appearances while you do your best to stay focused—but it’s hard. It’s hard because every time you look at him, your gaze drops to his mouth and your mind fills with all sorts of filthy ideas. Then he starts moving his hands as he explains something and you can’t help but wonder what they might feel like wrapped around your waist, your thighs, your throat.

His voice is a low rumble at the back of your mind, warm and firm, but you have no idea what he’s actually saying. All you can do is think about how that voice might sound, wrecked and rough, telling you how pretty you look when you—

“The briefing ended three minutes ago,” Reid says.

You blink hard. “What?”

He closes his notebook with a sigh. “The meeting’s over. You can stop internally monologuing now.”

You frown. “I’m not—”

He gives you a look.

“Ugh,” you groan. “You’re so annoying.”

You push up from your chair and walk out of the conference room without waiting for him, but you’re not surprised that he’s right behind you by the time you reach the bullpen. You drop down at your desk with another indignant huff, watching Reid do the same from the corner of your eye.

Everyone else is already settled at their desks—keyboards clicking, pens scribbling—and there’s a fresh stack of files next to your computer with a sticky note on top that reads: Fairfax files. Prioritize pages 12–18. – Hotch.

You want to laugh at the little sign-off, as if anyone else would have put these files on your desk. Your fingers trace over the note once before you peel it off and stick it to the bottom corner of your computer screen.

Reid snorts. “You know most people throw those away, right?”

You glance sideways at him. “I don’t want to forget the page numbers.”

He hums. “Sure.”

“You know,” you say, turning your chair to properly face him, “you’re being particularly judgemental today. What’s your problem?”

He stares at you for a moment, then glances back at the sticky note still attached to your monitor.

“I’m experiencing prolonged second-hand embarrassment,” he says plainly. “And repeated exposure tends to increase irritability.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well—you’re increasing my irritability.”

He nods. “Good.”

You frown.

“I’m attempting corrective behavioural conditioning.”

Your eyes narrow. “By being annoying?”

“Exactly,” he says, already turning back to his computer.

You glare at the side of his head for a long moment, searching for a comeback—but your mind is completely blank. So with another irritated sigh, you turn back to your own screen, scoot your chair into the desk a little harder than necessary, and settle in for what’s shaping up to be a very boring Monday.

The next two hours pass by in a blur of interview transcripts, witness statements, and crime scene photos. The Fairfax County PD files detail the death of a woman in her late thirties who accidentally overdosed in her Reston home early last week. No prior history of substance abuse, financial instability, or high-risk behaviour—until forty-eight hours before her death.

In just two days, she withdrew a large amount of money, missed work without explanation, visited several bars she’d never been to before, and bought herself thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive jewellery and lingerie.

To anyone else, it might look like some sort of breakdown—an impulsive spiral that led to the kind of recklessness you can’t come back from. But to you, the behaviour feels too... artificial. As if someone is trying to construct the narrative of a troubled woman—checking all the right boxes to give investigators an easy explanation for a tragic overdose.

Only there isn’t enough concrete evidence to support your instinct. No stalker. No ex. No clear unsub who could have orchestrated this kind of ruse to cover what might actually be homicide.

You sigh. “Reid.”

“Hm?”

“Tell me if I’m overthinking this.”

Reid pushes back from his desk and scoots across the narrow stretch of carpet between your workstations. He doesn’t stop until his chair bumps the side of your desk, causing your pen cup to topple over and spill across the files you’ve got carefully laid out.

“Oops,” he says absently, pushing the pens aside.

You roll your eyes and start gathering them while he scans the files.

“The behavioural shift feels manufactured,” you say, dropping the pens back into their cup. “But there’s enough legitimate stressors here that I can’t tell if I’m forcing a pattern because it’s too clean.”

Reid examines the highlighted timeline for another few seconds.

“You’re focusing too much on the existence of the stressors,” he says. “Stress explains escalation. It doesn’t explain inconsistency.”

You frown slightly.

“She suddenly becomes impulsive socially, financially, and sexually, but her organisational habits never change.” He taps the timeline. “She still pays bills early. Still meal preps. Still attends a dentist appointment two days before her death. Real behavioural deterioration isn’t usually selective.”

Your brows lift. “So, I’m right?”

Reid nods, leaning back in his chair. “You’re right.”

“What’s she right about?”

You nearly jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice—low and even, a little rough around the edges in that way that always makes your stomach tighten.

“She thinks the behavioural shift is staged,” Reid says. “And I agree.”

He scoots back slightly as Hotch leans in, one hand braced on the back of your chair while the other pulls the file closer so he can read it properly. His tie falls forward, brushing lightly against your thigh—and suddenly, you can’t breathe.

He’s close. Way too close. You can feel the heat of his breath on your skin. Smell the bitterness of coffee beneath his cologne. Hear the quiet creak of leather from his belt as he leans in further.

“It’s too compartmentalised,” Reid says, his voice more distant than it was just a second ago. “Real behavioural spirals usually bleed into every aspect of a person’s routine. Sleep disruption, missed payments, changes in grooming habits, social withdrawal—something.”

Hotch lifts his hand off the desk and presses his thumb to the tip of his tongue—then flips the page.

Your pulse jumps so hard it almost hurts. Heat crawls up the back of your neck. Your whole body feels too hot, your clothes suddenly too tight, the bullpen too small—but you can’t move. Not with Hotch’s hand still on the back of your chair.

“But this is curated,” Reid goes on, tapping the timeline with the end of his pen. “The impulsive behaviour escalates while the foundational routines stay completely intact, which suggests intentional narrative construction.”

Hotch turns his head just slightly, dark eyes finding yours. “You caught that?”

You clear your throat. “I just... thought the escalation pattern felt off.”

“Her behavioural analysis is spot on, actually,” Reid says. “I can’t find a flaw in it.”

Hotch hums quietly as his eyes move back over the file.

“Good girl,” he says absently.

Your entire nervous system short-circuits.

“Keep it up,” he adds, smoothing his tie as he straightens.

You don’t say anything as he turns and walks away. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.

Reid just sits there, hands folded in his lap as he watches Hotch disappear into his office before slowly turning back toward you.

“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “the age-gap preference is actually more interesting than the authority fixation.”

You finally blink. “What?”

“Because the authority thing makes perfect sense. High-pressure careers tend to reinforce attraction to competence, decisiveness, emotional restraint—especially in workplace environments where leadership qualities become psychologically linked with safety and stability over long periods of exposure.”

You frown. “What are you—”

“But the older man preference is statistically more complicated because you don’t actually display the attachment markers usually associated with paternal absence or instability.”

Your eyes go wide. “Spencer—”

“You have a healthy relationship with your father, no documented authority issues, and relatively secure interpersonal attachment patterns, which suggests the preference is less psychologically compensatory and more rooted in behavioural reinforcement.”

“Reid.”

“For example,” he goes on, ignoring you completely, “you spent your formative professional years surrounded almost exclusively by older men in positions of intellectual and behavioural authority. Gideon, Rossi, Hotch—which likely created a reinforcement pattern where emotional competence became unconsciously associated with attraction, arousal, and sexual interest.”

You freeze. “Reid, I swear to—”

“You don’t react this strongly to older men generally,” he continues. “You react strongly to Hotch because he’s emotionally controlled, professionally authoritative, intellectually intimidating, and—”

He pauses, tilting his head.

“Very obviously your type.”

You glance frantically around the bullpen, scanning the desks for the rest of your team.

Morgan has his headphones on, completely focused on whatever report he’s typing. JJ’s desk is empty, as usual—she’s probably with Garcia. And Prentiss is only halfway back from the kitchen, still stirring her fresh cup of coffee.

Your gaze cuts back to Reid. “You are so lucky no one heard that, Spencer.”

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t matter if they did.”

Your brows pull together. “What’s that mean?”

“You’re good at redirecting attention,” he says, slowly pushing his chair back toward his desk. “You’re less good at hiding physiological responses.”

Your hand flies up to your cheek, palm pressing flat against the burning skin.

“Whatever,” you mutter. “It’s warm in here.”

Reid glances around the bullpen. “It’s sixty-eight degrees.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

You shoot him one last glare before turning back toward your computer, aggressively waking up the monitor with your mouse.

You stay chained to your desk for the next few hours, finishing up the victimology report for the Fairfax files before taking them to Rossi for final review. Then you head out with JJ to grab a late lunch from the deli down the street, and when you get back, there’s a brand-new stack of files on your desk—only this time, with a tall takeaway cup of coffee set on top.

“Hotch got dragged into some last-minute Section Chief meeting across town,” Morgan says, pushing his headphones down. “Said he needs those cross-referenced before tomorrow morning.”

“Great,” you mutter, dropping into your chair.

Morgan chuckles softly as he pulls his headphones back up, turning back to his own pile of reports.

You grab the coffee from the top of the files and find a sticky note stuck beneath it—written quickly but still in his unmistakable handwriting: I owe you one. – Hotch.

Your stomach flips.

God. That’s pathetic.

You peel the note off and drop it into the top drawer of your desk, not wanting another psychoanalytic lecture from Reid if he were to spot that note stuck to your monitor.

The rest of the day passes the way every other caseless Monday afternoon does. JJ’s the first to head out—not long after five—taking advantage of the slow week to spend a little extra time with Henry. Rossi leaves about an hour later, announcing to the bullpen that he’s got a date with a bottle of wine and reruns of his favourite medical drama. Morgan manages to clear the files on his desk before seven, finally putting his headphones away before bidding the rest of the team farewell.

Prentiss and Reid linger until nearly nine, and only when the motion sensor lights blink out does Prentiss finally glance up, realising how late it is. She gathers her things and nudges Reid, who’s been firmly stuck in hyperfocus mode despite the rest of the world quietly slowing down around him.

“You coming?” he asks, adjusting the strap of his satchel.

You look up slowly, your brain buffering as it untangles itself from the files spread across your desk.

“Not yet,” you reply, blinking tiredly. “Hotch needs these by morning.”

Reid tilts his head. “Want me to wait?”

You wave a hand. “Nah, go ahead. I’ll get security to walk me to my car.”

“Alright,” he says, already turning away. “Just remember that positive reinforcement loses effectiveness when the subject becomes emotionally dependent on it.”

You glare at his back. “I’m reporting you to HR.”

“You’d have to explain the context,” he calls over his shoulder.

You roll your eyes as you turn back to the last file on your desk, taking a deep breath and flipping it open.

With the bullpen almost completely silent and the promise of sleep so close you can taste it, you manage to get through it in record time. You even give it a quick second pass to make sure you didn’t miss anything glaringly obvious in your tired state—but you’re used to working through sleep deprivation, and by ten p.m., you finally start packing up.

You organise the files back into a neat pile, then open the top drawer of your desk for Hotch’s note. You stick it to the top file and grab a pen, scribbling just below the words he wrote: Dangerous thing to promise me.

And, just as he did, you sign off with your name.

Then you gather the whole stack in your arms and cross the bullpen toward his office. Unlocked, as usual. You nudge the door open with your foot, warm lamplight casting an orange glow over the quiet space. It smells faintly like coffee and his cologne—enough to make your heart start racing the second you step inside.

You set the files neatly on his desk, trying not to linger on the quiet traces of him scattered throughout the room.

There’s still half a mug of cold coffee abandoned beside some paperwork, and the cashmere sweater he’d been wearing beneath his jacket this morning is draped haphazardly over the back of his chair. Quiet evidence of just how suddenly he’d been called away.

It makes you feel a little better knowing you really have helped him out.

You adjust the files until they’re perfectly straight, then take the sweater from the back of his chair and fold it neatly before setting it on the chest of drawers beside his desk. You hesitate for just a second before grabbing the mug of cold coffee and heading out of his office, straight for the break room. You empty it, wash it, dry it, then return to his office, placing it back on his desk exactly where you found it. Then you switch the lamp off on your way out, pulling the door most of the way shut behind you—the way it’d been before you stepped inside.

It doesn’t take long for you to gather your things, head down to security, and badge out. One of the guards escorts you to the parking garage, waiting until you’re safely inside your car with the engine running before he takes the elevator back up.

Once home, you quickly feed the yowling Leia—your cat, who’s very unimpressed by your late arrival—take a quick shower, change into your comfiest, threadbare sleep shirt, then crawl into bed with your laptop balanced on your knees. You know you should just try to get some sleep, but you’ve been ignoring a few personal messages and emails for a couple days now, and you know that if you don’t get to them soon, you’ll start to feel guilty.

You open your emails, reply to a couple, then pull up a new browser tab and type in the login address for the dating site Garcia set you up for. Not that you couldn’t have set up your own profile if you’d really wanted to.

No—this profile is just the unintentional byproduct of your ongoing attempt to redirect attention.

One slow Thursday evening in the bullpen, while you’d been loudly complaining about how impossible it was to meet men with a job like yours, Morgan had the brilliant idea of making you a dating profile. Garcia immediately lit up at the idea, pulling the site up on her computer while Reid launched into a rambling statistical analysis about the probability of finding genuine compatibility online.

Hotch hadn’t contributed to the conversation, but you’d known he was listening.

That had been the whole point. You always perform a little harder when Hotch can hear.

The site finally loads and you type in your credentials, waiting a few seconds for your profile to pop up.

Twelve notifications.

You click on the ‘messages’ tab and start scrolling. There are a few old conversations that fizzled out and you’ve long since decided not to reply to. There are a couple of messages from people you never intend on starting a conversation with. Then there are two new messages—ones you’d seen pop up on your phone but couldn’t be bothered to engage with over the weekend.

After all, you’re not actually looking to date anyone.

But one of the messages catches your eye.

DCRunner00: You seem like the kind of person who’s either very funny or very mean. I’m willing to risk it.

You snort, then type out a reply.

You: Unfortunately for you, those traits aren’t mutually exclusive.

Just as you hit enter, Leia leaps up onto the bed.

“Hey, sassy girl,” you coo, moving your laptop to reach for her.

Your fingers graze her soft coat, and she gives you an incredibly disapproving look.

You roll your eyes. “Alright. Sorry for loving you.”

You settle back against the pillows as she makes her way to the other side of the bed, curling up as far as she can possibly get from you.

Ping! Ping! Two more messages pop up.

DCRunner00: That’s probably the best possible answer you could’ve given. DCRunner00: So what’s your worst personality trait? I feel like that’s more interesting than hobbies.

That answer comes a little too easily.

You: Workaholic. You? DCRunner00: I get bored easily. DCRunner00: Which usually means I either start running or annoying people for entertainment. You: Sounds like a public safety issue. DCRunner00: Depends who you ask. DCRunner00: You should probably get some sleep, Workaholic. It’s late.

You glance over at Leia as she rolls onto her side, stretching her front legs, and only then do you realise you were actually smiling at your screen.

You shake your head, typing quickly.

You: Yeah, I should. You: Night, Running Man.

Then you shut your laptop before he can send another message.

TUESDAY 9:50AM

“Morgan, you’re with me at district court this afternoon,” Hotch says, closing the file in front of him. “The defence attorney’s pushing back on the Richardson testimony, so we’ll need to review our timeline before the hearing.”

He’s wearing a grey suit today.

You can never think straight when he’s wearing a grey suit.

Morgan sighs dramatically. “Nothing says excitement like four hours in a courthouse basement.”

Hotch ignores him completely.

“JJ, I want the media requests filtered through Strauss’s office before lunch. Reid, finish the geographic overlays from the Fairfax case and send them to Rossi when you’re done.”

He glances once around the table.

“If anything urgent comes in, you’ll be notified. Otherwise, continue using this downtime to catch up on reports.”

Then he gathers the files into a neat stack and stands, turning toward the door.

The rest of the room starts moving slowly. Morgan mutters something to JJ about the court hearing, Prentiss turns to Reid, asking something about a case you don’t quite catch, and Garcia is already explaining something on her laptop to Rossi, who’s watching the screen with quiet concentration.

Which leaves you to shamelessly stare at your boss’ ass as he walks out of the room.

“You should probably blink.”

Your head snaps toward Reid, frown already forming. “I’ll blink when I want to blink.”

He presses his lips together to keep from laughing, and you know he’s fighting the urge to launch into some deeply unwanted psychoanalysis of your behaviour—but thankfully, the rest of the team is still too close for him to risk it.

Eventually, everyone starts filing out of the conference room and back into the bullpen. You end up being the last to leave, behind Reid and Garcia who are chatting animatedly about some new phone app they’re both obsessed with.

You’re just about to pass Hotch’s office door when—you hear your name.

You turn your head, and he gestures for you to come in.

Reid glances briefly over his shoulder, an irritatingly knowing look on his face as you turn and step into Hotch’s office.

You clear your throat, stopping a few feet from the desk. “Sir?”

“How late were you here last night?” he asks.

You lift a shoulder. “About ten.”

His jaw shifts as he leans back in his chair. “That’s late.”

“Morgan said you needed them done by the morning.”

“I didn’t mean first thing,” he says, smoothing the end of his tie. “You could’ve finished the rest before lunch.”

You blink. “Oh.”

His gaze holds yours for a second too long.

“You don’t need to stay late to impress me.”

Your eyes widen slightly before you force out a small, awkward laugh. “Oh—uh—good to know.”

He glances briefly at the navy-blue cashmere sweater still folded neatly on the chest of drawers.

“Still,” he says, lower this time. “I appreciated it. The files, and… everything else.”

Your breath catches softly in your throat.

“Anytime, sir,” you manage.

He nods once, then drops his gaze back to the paperwork on his desk.

You don’t need any more of a dismissal than that, so you turn quickly and step out, pulling the door shut behind you. He prefers it closed, even if he won’t admit it because he doesn’t want the team to think he’s shutting them out. He’s just more comfortable in private—it helps him focus.

By the time you get back to your desk, everyone else is already settled and working quietly. Not even Reid glances up or offers a teasing remark.

You drop into your chair and wriggle your mouse, grabbing your phone while you wait for the screen to wake up.

Two new messages from DCRunner00.

DCRunner00: Running Man? DCRunner00: Great book. Slightly concerning nickname, though.

You can’t help yourself, so you type out a quick reply.

You: Better than ‘Workaholic’. You: You read Stephen King?

“Hey, you busy?”

You glance over at Reid. “Aren’t we all?”

He tilts his head. “You’re on your phone.”

“I could be working.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Good,” he says, shuffling the files on his desk. “Hotch wants us to prep the full geographic and timeline package for the Fairfax files in case it turns into an active investigation.”

You sigh, already pushing back from your desk. “And by ‘us’ you mean...?”

“I could use your help.”

“Fine,” you mutter, setting your phone down.

He scoots over as you roll your chair toward his desk, settling in beside him. The files are all laid out, including your victimology report with Rossi’s few annotations. There are crime scene reports, autopsy summaries, witness statements, geographic overlays, and maps—everything needed to justify escalating the case into a full BAU investigation.

“Where do you want to start?”

“I’m trying to rebuild the geographic timeline digitally,” he says, “but half the field reports were logged out of sequence and now the movement patterns don’t align.”

You nod. “Okay, walk me through where it stops making sense.”

Three hours later, you feel like your eyeballs are bleeding. You’ve read the same witness statement at least twenty times now, but with every pass it only makes less sense. How could Annabelle Hutton possibly be placed in two different counties less than forty minutes apart?

“It’s physically impossible,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes.

Reid hums quietly beside you. “Not necessarily.”

You stare at him. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well, depending on traffic conditions, inaccurate timestamp reporting, and the reliability of eyewitness memory retention, there are at least four scenarios where the timeline could still technically work.”

You sigh, leaning back in your chair and staring up at the ceiling. “If you know so much, then why can’t you figure this out?”

He still doesn’t turn away from his screen. “I will. Eventually.”

You groan softly, dragging both hands down your face just as a familiar voice cuts through the quiet bullpen.

“No, listen to me carefully.”

Both you and Reid glance up automatically.

Hotch is walking slowly past the desks with his phone pressed to his ear, expression calm but impossibly stern in a way that immediately makes heat crawl beneath your skin.

“You don’t need to explain the problem again,” he says evenly. “You need to tell me how you’re fixing it.”

He pauses briefly beside Reid’s desk, listening.

“Then prioritise the transfer first,” he says. “If the paperwork isn’t filed before opposing counsel reviews discovery, the timeline becomes vulnerable and the entire testimony gets picked apart.”

He rests a hand on the partition between the desks, gaze fixed somewhere distant as he listens to the person on the other end.

“No,” he says after a moment, voice lower now. “I’m not asking you to stay late. I’m telling you this needs to be finished tonight.”

Your stomach flips.

This absolutely should not be as hot as it is.

“Good,” he says calmly into the phone, straightening again. “Call me when it’s done.”

Then he keeps walking, cutting through the bullpen before turning sharply toward his office.

You stare after him, the thought slipping out before you can stop it. “Do you think he talks you through it?”

“Probably,” Reid says, turning back to his screen. “High-control personalities usually prefer maintaining verbal direction in intimate situations because it reinforces predictability and compliance dynamics.”

You go still. You hadn’t actually expected an answer.

“Someone like Hotch would probably place a pretty high psychological value on responsiveness,” Reid continues. “The immediate compliance aspect reinforces authority, which means verbal direction would likely become part of the overall intimacy dynamic rather than just communication.”

Your face heats.

“Especially because he’s not impulsive enough to rely on unpredictability. He’d want constant awareness of how the other person is responding emotionally and physically, so talking them through things would help maintain control of the situation while also reinforcing trust.”

Oh my God.

“And honestly,” Reid goes on, “people with highly structured leadership personalities usually develop pretty strong positive associations with obedience because it confirms stability, attentiveness, emotional investment—” He pauses briefly. “Which means he’d probably find it disproportionately attractive when someone follows instructions immediately or responds well to praise because it validates both the authority dynamic and the emotional trust beneath it, so statistically speaking he’d—”

He stops.

Then slowly turns toward you.

“...I crossed a social boundary somewhere in there, didn’t I?”

You nod slowly, your voice coming out unnaturally high. “Just a couple.”

He sighs, dropping his chin slightly as he turns back to his screen.

You huff out a breathless laugh and lean back in your chair again. You need a minute to recover from that, because now you’re hot all over and the only thing you can think about is your boss hovering over you, praising you in that low, steady voice while his hand settles around your throat—

Fortunately, it doesn’t take Reid long to start rambling about geographic overlays again. You do your best to focus on what he’s saying, but after another hour of scrutinising the timeline inconsistencies, you decide you need an actual break.

You grab your phone and your jacket and head out of the office, sending a quick text to the team chat asking if anyone else would like a coffee from the cafe down the road. It’s a thousand times better than break room coffee.

When you step out of the elevator on the ground floor, you bring up your messages with DCRunner00. You’re not sure why, because normally you only check your profile when you feel like you need to keep up the act, but something about this guy keeps making you want to reply.

DCRunner00: I’ve read a few. DCRunner00: What does a workaholic do for fun?

You type your reply as you step out of the building.

You: Work, mostly. You: And sleep.

By the time you return to the office with a tray of four coffees, you have two new messages—but you can’t reply to them until you set the tray down at your desk.

“Thanks, pretty girl,” Morgan says as he takes one, flashing you a grin.

You smile back. “Anything for you, gorgeous.”

Then you pull your phone out of your pocket and bring up the message thread.

DCRunner00: What’s your schedule even like? DCRunner00: You strike me as an “answers emails at midnight” type of person. You: Nah. That’s my boss. You: My schedule is chaos, though.

“Thanks,” Reid says as he takes his coffee, leaving only two.

You set your phone down and take the last two coffees out of the tray, leaving one at your desk before taking the other to Hotch’s office. You can see through the window that he’s not on the phone—for once—so you knock twice on the slightly ajar door before stepping inside.

He glances up, his brows pulling together slightly. “I didn’t ask for coffee.”

“I know,” you say quickly. “But it’s almost three, and you always need another coffee around three, and I figured you probably didn’t answer the team message because you still feel bad about me staying so late last night, which you shouldn’t, by the way.”

He straightens, brows drawing tighter.

“And I know you’ve got court with Morgan this afternoon, and you’re going to try to leave early, but someone’s definitely going to call at the last second and derail that plan, so you’ll only have enough time to get to the courthouse—not enough time to stop for coffee.”

You set the cup down in front of him.

“So,” you tilt your head, “coffee.”

He leans back in his chair, studying you for a second.

“That’s some pretty solid profiling, Agent.”

Your face heats instantly.

“Well,” you say, backing slowly toward the door, “maybe now you owe me two.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly, but it’s enough for the butterflies in your stomach to explode. You can’t help but grin as you turn away, slipping quickly out the door before your lungs forget how to work entirely.

You spend the rest of the day at Reid’s desk, finishing the case package for the Fairfax files and complaining about unreliable witnesses. Hotch and Morgan head off to court just after three, announcing to the rest of the team that they won’t be back. JJ is the first to head home again around five, followed by Prentiss, then Rossi—then you and Reid finally decide to call it a day just after six.

Which is also when you finally check your messages again.

DCRunner00: Chaos how?

You type a quick reply while you wait for your car’s AC to warm up.

You: Long hours. You: Weird hours. You: And a deeply unhealthy relationship with caffeine.

Then you tuck your phone away and head out of the parking garage.

Leia is already yowling by the time you step through your apartment door. She’s always hungry, even though she has an automatic feeder for dry food—but apparently that isn’t good enough. She prefers the wet stuff.

You quickly peel open a packet of fishy-smelling chicken jelly sludge and drop it into her bowl before washing your hands and moving into your bedroom. You flip the ensuite light on and start the shower, pulling your phone out of your pocket while you wait for the water to warm.

DCRunner00: Ah. So you’re one of those people. You: Rude.

He replies almost immediately.

DCRunner00: Accurate, though? You: Unfortunately.

You drop your phone on the bed and start undressing.

Ping!

DCRunner00: What do you actually do?

You hesitate. It’s not like you can just say you’re in the FBI. Contrary to what some people might think, real FBI agents can’t just go around bragging about their highly classified work status. It’s dangerous.

You: Mostly admin. You: Governmental stuff.

You toss your phone back onto the bed and turn into the steamy ensuite. You shower quickly, dry off, run product through your damp hair, then pull on a shirt and a pair of sweatpants before heading back out into the kitchen.

You’re not in the mood to cook tonight, so you grab a protein bar out of the cupboard and start boiling the kettle while you check your phone for what feels like the hundredth time.

DCRunner00: Sounds boring. DCRunner00: Do you get days off, though?

You drop a teabag into your mug before typing out a reply.

You: Sort of. You: But if my boss calls, I answer.

He replies instantly again.

DCRunner00: I’m starting to think you secretly enjoy being overworked. You: I think I’d get bored otherwise.

You pour the boiling water into your mug and watch his next reply pop up.

DCRunner00: That sounds suspiciously unhealthy. You: Probably. What about you? What do you do?

You tuck your phone into your pocket, then grab your tea and protein bar and head to the couch. There’s nothing you’re really interested in watching—since you don’t usually have the time to keep up with any shows—so you turn on the nightly news before grabbing your laptop and pulling up a new browser.

He’s already replied by the time you log in.

DCRunner00: Run. DCRunner00: Read. DCRunner00: Annoy people professionally. You: That sounds made up.

You open your protein bar.

DCRunner00: It mostly is. DCRunner00: So your boss actually calls you outside work hours?

You hesitate at the sudden redirection. Most men on dating apps prefer talking about themselves. Their jobs, hobbies, gym routines, childhood dogs—whatever makes them seem interesting—but this guy seems far more interested in observing than being observed.

You type out a vague response.

You: Sometimes. You: Occupational hazard, I guess. DCRunner00: And you always answer? You: Pretty much. You: He’d only call if it mattered.

His next reply takes almost two minutes to come through.

DCRunner00: Hm. DCRunner00: I’m starting to think your boss gets more attention than I do.

You almost choke on your tea.

That’s... weird.

Maybe you have mentioned your boss a little more than strictly necessary, but he’s the one asking all the questions about your job. It’s a little hard not to mention your boss when your life practically revolves around him—in more ways than you care to admit.

You: Jealous already, Running Man? DCRunner00: Should I be?

You sit up straighter, suddenly a little nauseous.

You: I think you’re spending too much time talking to strangers online. DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: You still replied, though.

“Okay,” you say, startling Leia who was half-asleep on the other end of the couch. “That’s enough.”

You: I’m going to sleep. You: Try not to spiral while I’m gone.

His last message pops up just before you shut your laptop.

DCRunner00: No promises.

WEDNESDAY 8:10AM

“Come on,” you mutter, mashing the elevator button for the doors to close.

You’re a whole thirty minutes earlier than usual this morning. You didn’t even make a coffee in your travel mug before running out the door. You just woke up, brushed your teeth, checked your messages—and decided you needed to talk to Garcia immediately.

“Hey—woah.” Reid steps out of your way as you rush into the bullpen. “You’re early.”

You drop your bag on your desk and quickly shrug off your jacket.

“Is Garcia in yet?”

He frowns slightly. “I think so. Why?”

You pull your laptop out of your bag.

“I just—I need her.”

You’re already walking away before he can press any further, moving back through the bullpen with your laptop hugged against your chest. You’re just about to round the corner toward the elevators when—

“Hey—” Hotch stops short just as you nearly run into him. “Slow down. You alright?”

His hand is hovering near your waist—not quite touching, but close enough for you to feel its warmth.

You blink up at him. “Sorry. Yeah. Uh—totally fine. Just going to see Garcia about... a case.”

His brows pull together slightly.

“Alright, well, Garcia’s not going anywhere,” he says evenly. “Take a breath.”

You nod slowly, already stepping around him.

“Right,” you mutter. “Breathing. Got it. Sorry, sir.”

You can almost swear you see the corner of his mouth lift—but then the elevator dings behind you, and you have to hurry to slip through the doors before they slide shut.

It feels like an eternity before they finally open again, but once they do you practically sprint down the hall to Garcia’s lair and burst through the door without warning.

She startles so hard she nearly drops her coffee. “Sweet mother of encryption, knock first!”

“Sorry,” you say, breathless. “I need you.”

“Well, obviously,” she mutters, checking her shirt for any spills. “I’m the backbone of this entire operation.”

You drop down into the spare chair and open your laptop, setting it on her desk.

“You cannot judge me for what I’m about to show you.”

She glances up, brows lifting. “Oh. So this is serious?”

You grimace. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Slightly less reassuring than I was hoping for. Tell me what’s happened.”

You take a deep breath, then let it out in a rush.

“You remember the dating profile you set up for me?”

She nods.

“Alright, so, I won’t lie, I haven’t really met anyone on there yet, but I check the messages occasionally. When I’ve got time, you know? And I don’t have a whole lot of ongoing conversations, but this one guy sent me something that was kind of funny, so I responded, and the conversation was pretty normal for the most part. I couldn’t reply all that quickly, but he didn’t seem to mind.”

You shift awkwardly, scooting your chair closer to her desk.

“Nothing really felt out of place until—well, he wouldn’t talk about himself much, which is strange because most people on dating apps are usually more interested in presenting themselves than gathering information. He kept asking questions about my job, actually. Not that my job is on my profile, but he was really curious about my schedule, or—I guess—lack of schedule.”

You wince.

“So now that I think about it, that was probably the second sign something might be off. Or maybe he just wanted to meet up, I don’t know.”

You hesitate.

“But then he sent me this message at like... two a.m.”

She squints at the screen.

DCRunner00: Bet you answer your boss faster than you answer anyone else.

“Mmm. Nope. Don’t love that,” she says, shaking her head. “That is not a normal amount of emotional investment for a stranger.”

You sink back in your chair. “That’s what I thought.”

She starts scrolling back through the messages.

“Have you told Hotch?”

“Nope.”

She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “You answered way too fast for that to be a normal response.”

“Because the answer is no,” you say firmly, leaning forward again.

“Mm-hm.” She keeps scrolling. “Okay, well... technically this could still be nothing. He could just be some lonely basement cryptid with Wi-Fi and poor social skills.”

You groan, dragging both hands over your face.

“You do mention Hotch kind of a lot.”

Your head snaps up. “He’s my boss.”

Garcia gives you a long look.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Sure.”

“Garcia.”

“I’m just saying, if a man talked about a woman this much online, we’d all be making faces.”

You point at the screen. “Focus.”

“Right. Yes. Creepy internet man. Sorry.”

Her expression settles into something more focused as she turns back toward her array of monitors.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Don’t block him yet.”

You sigh. “I don’t love that idea.”

“Neither do I, babycakes, but if he’s routing through the website normally, I might be able to pull connection data if we keep him talking long enough.”

You frown. “In English?”

She gives you another look. “Timestamps, login patterns, regional pings, possible VPN usage, device signatures if he slips up—basic digital stalking fun.”

“Oh, of course,” you say sarcastically. “Normal stuff.”

“For me, it is normal.” She points toward the laptop. “Now reply to him. Something casual. I want to see if he responds immediately again.”

Your fingers hover over the keys for a second before you type out your reply.

You: I thought I told you not to spiral.

He replies so fast that even Garcia flinches.

DCRunner00: Relax. It was a joke. DCRunner00: Mostly.

She stares at the screen. “Okay, I officially don’t like him.”

You lean back in your chair again, nausea twisting low in your gut. “I feel sick.”

Garcia’s expression softens slightly. “Maybe you should tell—”

“No.”

She sighs quietly. “Okay. Fine. Can you keep replying from your phone?”

You nod.

“Good. Don’t overdo it, just enough to keep him engaged.” Her fingers start flying across the keyboard. “I’ll work my magic down here and call you if I find anything.”

You push yourself out of the chair, clutching your phone a little tighter.

“You’re the best, Pen.”

“I know.” She waves a hand without looking away from her screens. “Now go pretend to be emotionally stable upstairs.”

By the time you get back to your desk, almost everyone is already in the conference room ready for the morning briefing. You drop your phone beside your keyboard—too anxious to have it with you during the meeting—then quickly unpack your things and grab a notebook before making your way up.

Reid nods at you from his usual seat, gesturing to the empty one beside him.

“Hey,” you mutter as you drop down next to him.

His brows pull together. “Everything alright?”

You nod. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll explain later.”

Hotch keeps the morning briefing quick. He goes over yesterday’s court hearing, outlines the Fairfax briefing package in case it escalates into an active investigation, then gets JJ to run through the highest priority consultation requests.

You spend most of it toying with a loose thread on the cuff of your blouse. You’re pretty sure it’s the first briefing in years where you haven’t spent at least part of it staring at Hotch instead of your notes—and when the room finally relaxes and everyone starts to filter out, Reid turns to you.

“Okay, now I’m concerned,” he says.

You glance at him. “Why?”

“You didn’t look at Hotch once during that entire meeting.”

You roll your eyes. “Spence—”

“Something must be seriously wrong.”

You let out a long exhale, glancing briefly around the almost empty room. Only Morgan and Rossi are left, halfway to the door, deep in discussion about something that happened at the court hearing yesterday afternoon.

“Okay,” you say quietly, turning back to Reid. “I’m having some... trouble, I guess, with a guy.”

His brows shoot up. “A guy—”

“Online,” you add quickly.

He tilts his head. “I’m confused again.”

You sigh. “Remember that dating profile Garcia set up for me?”

“You mean the profile you allowed Garcia to create as part of your increasingly unsustainable performative dating strategy?”

You glare at him. “Yes. That one.”

“Then yes, I remember it very clearly.”

“Well,” you mutter, pinching the bridge of your nose, “I had this guy message me a couple days ago. It was normal at first but now it’s gotten... weird. So, I’m getting Garcia to look into it.”

His forehead creases. “Have you told—”

“No.”

“Maybe you should—”

“I said no.”

“Alright.” He raises both hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m dropping it. It’s just…”

You narrow your eyes at him.

“Well, statistically speaking, the majority of uncomfortable online interactions don’t escalate into actual stalking behaviour. Most people displaying premature emotional fixation online are socially isolated rather than violent.”

You lift a brow, waiting for the punchline.

“However,” he adds, “cyberstalking offenders also tend to develop parasocial attachments disproportionately quickly because the perceived emotional intimacy bypasses a lot of normal social barriers, which means escalation patterns can become highly personalised in a very short period of time.”

You stare at him.

“In cases where the fixation becomes grievance-oriented, the offender is usually highly organised rather than impulsive, so the behaviour tends to be significantly more deliberate and psychologically targeted.”

He pauses, frowning faintly.

“That was supposed to be reassuring.”

“…Thanks, Reid,” you mutter, turning away from him slowly. “Now I feel so much better.”

When you get back to your desk, you decide it’s time to reply again. You grab your phone and bring up the messages, taking a minute to think about what to type—knowing Garcia will be seeing the conversation too.

You type out the only mildly casual response you can think of.

You: You’re weird.

He replies just as fast as usual.

DCRunner00: You disappear a lot. You: Workaholic, remember. You: I told you my schedule was chaos.

You’re about to turn your phone over on your desk when a different notification pops up—from Garcia.

Garcia: If this is your version of flirting, baby girl, I think I just figured out why you’re still single.

You snort softly, typing out a quick reply.

You: Trust me, that’s not the reason. Garcia: So there IS a reason? You: Shh. I’m working. Garcia: Boo!

You huff another quiet laugh as you turn your phone over, nudging it toward the edge of your desk in the hopes that you might be able to focus on work rather than creepy internet man for at least a few hours.

It doesn’t work.

Barely half an hour later, you lift your phone to check for another notification—but there’s nothing there. You pull up the message thread again and scroll up, checking the timestamps to see if he’s ever gone quiet on you before—but he hasn’t. Not really. So you type another message.

You: You went quiet. Should I be concerned?

It’s a calculated move. If he’s paying attention to response patterns—and at this point you’re pretty sure he is—then following up first helps maintain the illusion that nothing has changed. No sudden distance. No obvious discomfort. No reason for him to think you’re pulling away.

If he is dangerous, the last thing you want is for him to feel rejected.

An hour later, Rossi drops a legal pad onto your desk, asking you to take another look at a witness timeline that doesn’t feel right—which keeps you occupied for a good forty-five minutes. Then Morgan leans over the partition between your desks, asking if you can translate Reid into English. That takes up another hour of your day, and by the time you grab your first afternoon coffee, you’ve got three notifications.

One is a missed call from Garcia. The other two are from creepy internet man.

DCRunner00: Depends. Are you worried about me? DCRunner00: Blue looks good on you, by the way.

Your stomach drops. “Oh my God.”

You immediately call Garcia back.

She answers on half a ring. “Are you wearing blue?”

“You saw me this morning.”

“I can’t remember,” she says. “Are you?”

You drag a hand through your hair. “Yes.”

“Holy shit,” she whispers. “You’ve got to tell—”

“No.”

“Are you insane?”

“Maybe, but—” You squeeze your eyes shut for a second. “Okay, just—hear me out. Blue is a statistically safe guess. It’s a neutral professional colour with high frequency in workplace attire, especially in government buildings.”

Garcia goes quiet for a second.

“And does this unsub know you work in a government building?”

“Don’t call him that,” you snap. “And—well, kind of. I didn’t tell him exactly, but I said... government adjacent.”

“I swear to God,” she mutters, “if I have to identify your body next week, I’m going to kill you.”

You press your free hand against your forehead.

“You won’t,” you say firmly. “Alright? We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

Garcia scoffs loudly.

“Seriously,” you insist. “It could still be nothing. A weird coincidence, maybe an awkward guy with boundary issues and too much free time. We deal with actual predators every day. I can handle a few creepy messages.”

The line goes quiet again—then she sighs.

“Why are you so against telling Hotch?”

“Because I don’t want to bother him,” you say quickly. “We’ve got a quiet week, he finally seems slightly less stressed, and I don’t want to cause a whole fuss over something that might turn out to be nothing.”

She sighs again, louder this time. “Fine. I won’t go to Hotch.”

Your shoulders sag. “Thank you.”

“On one condition,” she adds. “I’m sleeping over tonight.”

You nearly choke. “What?”

“Non-negotiable.”

“Penelope, that’s insane.”

“No,” Garcia says firmly, “what’s insane is you trying to casually explain away potential stalking behaviour while actively refusing to inform your unit chief.”

“He is not stalking me,” you protest, keeping your voice low.

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“And yet,” Garcia says, “if you die, I become morally complicit because I knew about creepy internet man and failed to intervene.”

You frown. “…Morally complicit?”

“Accessory to murder-adjacent,” she corrects. “And my guilty conscience requires eight hours of sleep minimum, so congratulations. We’re having a slumber party.”

You let out a long sigh. “Okay. Fine.”

She hums, satisfied.

“I need to reply to him again.”

“Well, don’t ask me,” she mutters. “You’re the one who’s apparently fluent in creepy internet freak.”

You laugh despite yourself. “Thanks, Pen.”

“Mm-hm. And just so we’re clear, tonight we are watching wholesome romantic comedies and eating enough sugar to kill a Victorian child.”

“I was actually thinking psychological thriller marathon.”

“Absolutely not.”

You smile faintly, leaning back in your chair. “Fine. Romantic comedies it is.”

“Good,” Garcia says firmly. “Now hang up before I change my mind and march upstairs to Hotch’s office myself.”

You roll your eyes as you hang up, then open the message thread again. You don’t have to think too hard about what to type. You don’t want to escalate or accuse him, but you need him to stay engaged. You want him to explain himself to see how he reframes the behaviour.

You: Lucky guess.

The next few hours slip by in a strange blur of routine tasks and fragmented conversations.

At about three o’clock, Prentiss drops a file on your desk and asks if you can double-check a victim timeline while she’s stuck on the phone with Chicago. Then Rossi calls you into his office to sanity-check a profile theory he’s working through out loud—which means fifteen minutes of listening to him argue with himself while you sit there trying not to focus on Hotch’s voice through the wall.

When you finally get back to your desk, Reid spends twenty minutes walking you through a probability model nobody asked for but everyone somehow ends up listening to anyway. He only stops when Hotch appears, carrying a stack of files from the Richardson case he wants Morgan to look over before he signs them off—and for the first time in God knows how long, you don’t stare shamelessly at his ass as he walks out of the bullpen.

By six p.m., JJ and Rossi are gone, Prentiss is helping Morgan with the Richardson files, and Reid is building a tiny tower out of paperclips while he reads over a file Rossi dropped on his desk before he left.

At exactly six-fifteen, your desk phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Pack your things, baby girl. Your government-issued sleepover is about to begin.”

You snort softly. “Alright. I’ll see you soon.”

You hang up the phone and start clearing your desk, organising paperwork into piles and packing away stationery while you wait for your computer to shut down.

“See who soon?” Reid asks.

You glance at him. “Garcia.”

He tilts his head.

“She’s staying over tonight.”

His brows lift. “Because of your stalk—”

“Girl’s night,” you interrupt, eyes widening. “That’s all.”

His gaze narrows. “Should I be worried?”

You scoff. “About me? Never.”

You slide your arms into your jacket then finally pick up your phone, finding two new notifications from creepy internet man waiting for you.

“Really?” Reid asks, turning his chair to face you. “Because you’ve spent most of the day staring at your phone like it’s a bomb, you spent most of Rossi’s profile discussion peeling the label off your water bottle instead of contributing, and you reorganised the same stack of paperwork three separate times.”

You pause mid-motion.

“Also,” he continues, “you usually correct Morgan when he misquotes case statistics and today you let him do it twice, which honestly might be the most concerning—”

“Okay!” you cut in quickly, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Good talk. Love the observational skills. Bye.”

He doesn’t say anything else as you walk away, murmuring goodbyes to Morgan and Prentiss as you pass, but you can still feel him watching you. You’re just about to press the button for the elevator when—

“Agent.”

You stop automatically, turning to find Hotch with a file tucked under one arm and that signature frown etched between his brows. Only this time it isn’t frustrated or disapproving—it’s curious.

You force a small smile. “Sir.”

His eyes move over your face briefly. “You alright?”

You nod once. “Of course.”

He takes a step forward, his voice dropping lower. “You sure?”

Your breath catches.

He’s close now. Too close. You have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. You can smell his cologne, feel his warmth, count the beauty marks dotted across his cheek.

“You’ve seemed distracted today,” he says.

You swallow hard. “Uh—no. No. Sorry, I just—I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

His brows draw a little tighter, and he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else—press harder, maybe—but then seems to think better of it.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “Get some rest tonight.”

Then he nods once and steps back, his jaw tightening for just a second before he turns away.

You don’t move immediately. You can’t. Your mind is reeling, your pulse is still hammering, and your breath is caught somewhere between your ribs while your lungs try to remember how to work.

“Hello?” Garcia calls from behind you. “I cannot hold these doors forever, babycakes.”

You shake your head. “Shit. Sorry.”

You turn and hurry into the elevator, slipping in beside her just before the doors slide shut.

For a moment, neither of you says anything.

Then—

“So, that thing you said earlier about there being a reason you’re still single…”

You shut your eyes. “Penelope.”

“I’m just saying,” she continues lightly, “unless I hallucinated whatever just happened in that hallway, I’m starting to develop theories.”

You ignore her, watching the numbers on the elevator slowly descend like counting down the days you have before the entire team figures out your secret. Because if this guy really is a creep, if you do have to tell Hotch, then it’s only a matter of time before the BAU are dissecting your dating life and realising what a ruse it really is.

And you know better than anyone that once these profilers start looking too closely at something, they rarely stop until they’ve pulled it apart completely.

The second you step through the door to your apartment, Garcia rushes past you to sweep the place. Leia startles almost immediately, running from the couch to your bedroom while Garcia complains about the fact that Leia is the only cat she’s ever met that doesn’t like her.

“Leia hates everyone,” you tell her, kicking your shoes off by the door. “Even me.”

Garcia just rolls her eyes, continuing from room to room to check the window locks and balcony doors.

Once she’s satisfied that everything is secure, she sets her laptop up on your kitchen counter and starts running a program that looks like hieroglyphics to you.

“Have you seen his latest messages?” she asks.

You shake your head, setting your phone on the counter. “No.”

She opens your laptop and logs into the dating site—because apparently she knows your password now.

DCRunner00: Maybe. DCRunner00: Or maybe you’re just easier to read than you think.

You type out the first response you can think of, not wanting to seem like you’re overanalysing this.

You: Or maybe I’m just not trying so hard to be mysterious.

Garcia then spends the next ten minutes trying to explain her process to you in terms that almost make sense. So far she’s managed to narrow him down to a general region through login patterns and routing behaviour, but she still can’t lock onto a direct IP address. Not because she can’t—apparently that part would actually be pretty easy—but because doing it properly would mean running requests through systems that leave a trail. And right now, this definitely isn’t an official investigation.

“The second I start pulling the fun federal strings,” Garcia says, typing furiously, “there’s paperwork, access logs, oversight, and approximately twelve thousand ways for this to become a whole thing.”

You lean against the counter. “We don’t want that.”

“Not yet.” Her expression sharpens slightly. “Also, if creepy internet man is more sophisticated than he seems, there’s always a chance he’s monitoring for targeted tracing attempts. If he realises someone’s looking too closely at him before we know who he is, he could disappear completely.”

Your stomach twists. “Or escalate.”

You spend the next couple of hours keeping creepy internet man engaged while Garcia rambles tech jargon that makes less sense the longer the night wears on. At some point, you order pizza, then you migrate to the couch, and eventually you both end up sitting through the credits of Two Weeks Notice while waiting for one last reply in the hopes that he might finally answer something about himself.

DCRunner00: Refreshing DCRunner00: Most people hide too much. You: Depends what they’re trying to hide. DCRunner00: What are you trying to hide? You: Besides the fact that I’m exhausted? Nothing. DCRunner00: You seem distracted tonight. You: Long day. DCRunner00: I noticed. You: How was yours?

You wait until almost midnight before finally deciding to call it a night.

Garcia checks all the windows and doors again while you brush your teeth and change into pyjamas. When you step back out of your bedroom to say goodnight, Garcia is trying her hardest to lure Leia onto the couch with her, but Leia is very stubbornly curled up beneath the TV unit.

“Night, Pen,” you murmur, rubbing your eyes. “Thanks again... for everything.”

“Night, gorgeous,” she calls, peering over the back of the couch. “Wake me up if you hear literally anything suspicious. Or if Leia finally decides it’s my time.”

You laugh softly, blinking slowly as you turn back into your room and fall face first into bed.

THURSDAY 6:45AM

You’re not sure whether to be relieved or concerned when you wake up to no new messages from creepy internet man. He hasn’t gone quiet for this long before—but if he is just a normal, slightly awkward guy with boundary issues and an internet connection, well... it’s not that hard to believe he might just be sleeping.

Garcia is already up making coffee by the time you step out of your room, trying to bribe Leia out from under the couch with a tube of tuna paste.

The second she sees you, she jumps up and launches into another long-winded explanation about login activity and movement patterns across different access points. Apparently, creepy internet man logged in from three different geographical locations over the course of a few hours last night—which is normal, right? That means he was out doing normal human things, not just lurking in his mother’s basement, stalking women online.

Garcia isn’t entirely convinced that him moving locations is enough to get him off the hook as the BAU’s next unsub, but it at least shuts her up until you’re both back at the office.

“Hey,” Reid says as soon as you walk into the bullpen. “You haven’t been murdered.”

You frown slightly. “Good morning to you too, Spence.”

Morgan glances up from the file on his desk. “Uh—why are we getting murdered?”

Reid gestures vaguely in your direction. “Because she’s potentially being cyberstalked by a—”

“Oh, wow, look at the time,” you interrupt, glaring at Reid. “Wouldn’t it be such a shame if we all started minding our own business right about now.”

Prentiss turns in her chair, brows raised. “Cyberstalked?”

“Nobody is cyberstalking anybody,” you say as you drop into your chair. “And nobody’s getting murdered—but great start to the morning, everyone. Love the energy. Now leave me alone.”

Morgan chuckles quietly. “Damn. Thought you said you got laid last weekend.”

Your hands slip off the desk as you try to pull yourself closer.

“Technically,” Reid says, “she only implied it by refusing to answer Garcia’s question during Monday morning’s briefing.”

“Ah.” Morgan leans back in his chair. “I knew this was a drought issue.”

You scowl at him. “A drought issue?”

“Statistically speaking,” Reid adds, “people experiencing prolonged romantic or sexual dissatisfaction often display lower frustration tolerance and increased agitation in familiar social environments.”

Morgan looks at him. “Man, just say she needs to get laid.”

“Oh my God,” you snap. “I do not need to get laid. I am having a completely normal amount of sex already, thank you very much—and frankly I think it’s deeply inappropriate that you’re all this invested in whether or not I’m orgasming regularly.”

Reid tilts his head. “You’re having sex?”

Morgan’s brows shoot up, Prentiss chokes on her coffee, and you open your mouth to fire back at him when—

Someone clears their throat behind you.

Heat crawls violently up your neck—but you don’t turn around. You can’t.

“Briefing room. Five minutes,” Hotch says, his voice dangerously even. “JJ’s got an update on the custodial interview with Wallace.”

Morgan presses a fist against his mouth, trying—and failing—to smother the strangled sound of laughter.

Very slowly, you turn in your chair.

Hotch is standing at the edge of the bullpen with a coffee in one hand and a file in the other. His expression is almost perfectly composed, but there’s something dangerous lurking beneath it—something suspiciously close to amusement in the tightness of his mouth.

“Be right there, sir,” you blurt, lifting two fingers to your forehead in the most ill-timed attempt at a salute the FBI has ever seen.

Hotch just looks at you, the muscle in his jaw jumping once before he turns away.

You want to die.

The second his office door clicks shut behind him, Morgan drops his fist and smacks his palm flat against the desk with a choked laugh.

“Oh, you are never recovering from that,” Prentiss mutters, smirking behind her coffee cup.

Morgan leans back in his chair, grinning. “Baby girl, that was painful to watch.”

You drop your head into your hands.

“You somehow escalated the situation at every possible opportunity,” Reid says thoughtfully.

“I hate you all,” you mumble into your palms.

You spend the next half hour with your nose buried in your notebook, avoiding eye contact with the entire team while JJ explains the month-long back-and-forth that it took to finally get approval for the Wallace interview.

Apparently, the prison is limiting the interview to a single hour and reserving the right to terminate it early if the inmate becomes uncooperative—which Rossi thinks is less about policy and more about Wallace trying to dictate the terms of the interaction.

It’s not ideal, especially considering you were the one who convinced Hotch to push for the interview before Wallace is transferred to death row. His case was one of the first you ever studied during the BAU training programme, and there isn’t much you wouldn’t give to pick the sociopath’s brains. One hour with him feels dangerously short—that is, assuming Hotch actually picks you to be in the interview with him.

“We don’t have enough time to waste managing personalities in the room,” Hotch says, gathering the files in front of him. “I’ll decide on a second agent and send out the interview schedule later today.”

Chairs start scraping back almost immediately, files and notebooks snapping shut as everyone gathers their things and starts filtering out of the room—but you don’t move. You stay firmly planted in your seat, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of your cheek while you debate whether to follow Hotch into his office and ask to be part of the interview. You don’t even have to be asking the questions, you just want to be there. You were the one pushing for it in the first place.

But then your brain very helpfully reminds you that Aaron Hotchner heard you say the word orgasming less than an hour ago and suddenly, being on death row yourself feels infinitely preferable to making eye contact with your unit chief.

“You alright?” Reid asks, lingering beside you.

You sigh heavily, finally closing your notebook. “Yep. Just thinking about how I’ll probably have to fake my own death and change my name after this morning.”

He shrugs. “Hotch probably isn’t even thinking about it anymore.”

You glance up at him hopefully.

“Morgan definitely is, though.”

You roll your eyes, letting out another resigned sigh as you stand up and follow him out of the briefing room.

The rest of the morning manages to pass without incident. You stay chained to your desk, reviewing reports and processing any files that come your way while very deliberately not glancing up any time Hotch steps out of his office. At around eleven, Morgan and JJ head out to the cafe down the street and come back with coffees for the whole team. Then there’s a printer jam that gives the rest of the office a rare glimpse at just how angry Emily Prentiss can get when frustrated.

It isn’t until just before midday that you finally get up to go to the bathroom, and when you return to your desk, there’s one new notification in your inbox.

From: Aaron Hotchner Subject: Wallace Interview You’re with me next Thursday. We leave at 0700.

Your stomach flips.

“Wow,” Reid says, suddenly standing right beside your desk. “He picked you pretty quickly.”

You shoot him a warning look. “Spence.”

“I’m just saying, he usually deliberates longer.”

You glance back at the screen, rereading the first five words that make your pulse skip a little faster.

“You and Hotch do work unusually well together in confined conversational environments,” Reid adds.

You turn back to him, frowning.

He tilts his head. “That sounded more suggestive than I intended.”

You open your mouth to tell him how deeply unhelpful he’s being when your phone buzzes twice against your desk—like it does several times a day, but something about it feels different this time. Wrong.

You reach for it slowly, your stomach twisting tighter as you turn it over.

Two new notifications from creepy internet man. The first since last night.

You open the message thread—and your stomach drops.

DCRunner00: [Image attachment] DCRunner00: Did you and your friend have fun last night?

The image is of your apartment building. It’s grainy, slightly crooked, clearly taken from somewhere across the street—but your living room windows are unmistakable. Warm light glowing through the glass. The blurred silhouette of someone inside.

Ice floods your bloodstream.

You stop breathing.

“Is that... your apartment?” Reid asks, leaning over your shoulder.

You don’t answer him. You can’t.

The bullpen dissolves into white noise around you.

Until—

“I’m done!” Garcia’s voice cuts through the static. “I can’t do this anymore!”

She’s marching right toward you, your laptop—that she’d still been monitoring—tucked under one arm.

Reid gasps. “Wait. Is that—”

Morgan straightens in his chair. “What’s happening?”

“Hotch’s office,” Garcia says, her expression dangerously stern as she stops beside your desk. “Now.”

You nod slowly, your shoes almost slipping against the carpet as you push your chair back. Reid steps aside just enough to let you stand, but before he can get too far, you reach out and wrap your fingers around his wrist, silently dragging him with you as you follow Garcia back through the bullpen.

Hotch glances up the second Garcia pushes open his office door.

“What’s going on?”

His tone is calm, automatic, already slipping into that low, calculated cadence he uses when he’s trying to talk someone down from the ledge. His gaze moves from her to you—and something in his expression shifts. Hardens. That muscle in his jaw ticking just once before he turns back to Garcia.

“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.

Garcia crosses the room quickly, opening your laptop and sitting it on his desk while you hover uselessly in the doorway with Reid still caught in your grip.

Hotch glances at the screen, his eyes flicking through the messages.

Then he looks back up—right at you—and something unreadable settles across his face. Something dangerous.

“Who sent this?”

Garcia spends the next five minutes explaining the entire situation at hyper speed while you just... stand there, leaning slightly against Reid like the whole world has tilted on its axis.

It’s funny how you can spend years building a career around finding bad people. Thinking like them. Predicting them. Profiling them. But the moment something happens to you—something real—that’s when all the theory suddenly stops feeling theoretical. And maybe it’s because you know exactly what people like this are capable of, or how quickly situations like this can escalate once someone decides they’re emotionally invested in you.

Or maybe it’s just the horrifying realisation that some part of you knew where this was heading all along. And you still didn’t do anything about it until now. Not until you put yourself—and your friend—in danger.

“Get everyone in the briefing room,” Hotch says the second Garcia finishes. “Now.”

Garcia nods once before slipping back out the door, and only then do you finally let go of Reid’s wrist—making a mental note to apologise later for the excessive physical contact.

Hotch’s eyes drop down briefly, following the movement almost automatically. Something tightens in his expression for half a second before his attention snaps back to the laptop still open in front of him.

“Reid,” he says. “Print the entire message history and document everything. Full timeline, screenshots, attachments—all of it. I want copies ready for the team in ten.”

You swallow hard. “The—the entire message history?”

“Yes,” Hotch says simply. “Every message.”

Could this day get any worse?

Fifteen minutes later, you’re back in the briefing room with the entire team flipping through printed copies of your dating profile and messages. It almost feels like an out-of-body experience. Like one of those mortifying dreams where you watch everything unfold from above without any real ability to stop it.

“Okay,” Prentiss says. “Where do we start?”

“Victimology,” Morgan answers immediately—then he glances at you. “Sorry, baby girl.”

You wave him off. “Reid’s been profiling me all week. Go for it.”

There’s a quiet ripple of laughter around the table, but Hotch barely blinks. He’s sitting on the opposite side, between Prentiss and JJ, with his arms folded tightly across his chest and gaze fixed on the copies spread out in front of him like he’s trying very hard not to look directly at you.

“We need to be careful building a victimology this early,” he says evenly. “Especially considering how well we know the victim. Personal familiarity creates bias.”

Reid tilts his head. “Normally, yes. But stalking crimes are often highly individualised.” He starts flipping through the printed messages as he talks. “Statistically speaking, stalking victims are usually targeted for a very specific reason. The motivation is generally rooted in either resentment, fixation, revenge, or romantic obsession.”

You grimace. “Fantastic.”

“Most victims also know their stalkers,” Reid continues. “Approximately seventy-five percent of stalking cases involve some form of prior relationship or perceived emotional connection.”

“Okay,” JJ says carefully, looking toward you. “Is there anyone you can think of who might hold a grudge against you? Someone you arrested, rejected, testified against—anything like that?”

You snort quietly. “Does every criminal I’ve ever interviewed count?”

The room goes still for half a second.

“Wait,” Prentiss says, sitting forward slightly. “Actually, that makes sense.”

Hotch’s eyes flick up as Prentiss pushes one of the printouts into the middle of the table, tapping the page.

“This escalation happened fast. Less than a week. That’s not somebody slowly building emotional trust from scratch—that’s somebody who already came into this interaction emotionally invested.”

“Or angry,” Morgan adds.

“Exactly,” Prentiss says. “He doesn’t lash out until she has Garcia over. That’s jealousy. Possessiveness.”

You sink lower in your chair.

“And he starts reacting every time she brings up her boss,” Rossi says, flipping through the printouts. “That’s territorial behaviour. He’s fixating on a prominent male figure in her life.”

“Not the only one fixating on him,” Reid murmurs beside you.

You elbow him immediately.

“Ow.”

Hotch glances up sharply. “Something to add, Reid?”

Reid straightens. “Uh—no. No, I think Rossi covered it.”

Hotch’s eyes narrow slightly, like he knows there’s something he’s missing, but he lets it go.

“Garcia,” he says instead, “tell me you found something useful.”

“Oh, I found things,” Garcia says immediately, the rapid clacking of her keyboard echoing loudly through the conference room speaker. “Deeply unsettling things. Our creepy little internet goblin has been very busy.”

Prentiss frowns slightly, mouthing ‘internet goblin’ across the table to JJ.

“Okay, so—profile was created nine days ago using a burner email and a VPN bouncing between three different states, which normally would make me want to set my computer on fire, but our boy got sloppy.”

Hotch leans forward slightly. “How sloppy?”

“Sloppy enough that one login pinged off a public Wi-Fi network less than six blocks from her apartment last night,” she says. “And before anybody asks, yes, I’m already pulling traffic cams.”

Hotch nods once, already shifting into command mode.

“Morgan, Prentiss—start canvassing within a ten-block radius of her apartment. Garcia will feed you anything useful from the traffic cams. JJ, coordinate with local PD and see if there’ve been any complaints of suspicious activity in the area. Peeping, prowlers, stalking complaints—anything that fits this escalation pattern. Rossi, start pulling names from old cases. Anybody with a history of fixation, stalking behaviour, or inappropriate attachment to investigators. Garcia, keep digging and keep me posted.”

Everyone starts moving immediately, papers shuffling and chairs scraping back as the room shifts into motion.

“I want to help,” you say suddenly. “This is my mess, let me fix it.”

“You can help,” he says evenly, “by going home, locking your doors, and staying there until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

You open your mouth to argue.

“I mean it,” he adds, voice low.

“I’ll take her,” Reid offers immediately.

“No,” Hotch says, gathering the printouts into one neat pile. “You go with Morgan and Prentiss.”

Then his eyes flick up, meeting yours.

“I’m taking her home.”

The next hour is one of the strangest of your life.

Hotch tells you to take your laptop back down to Garcia, who’s already in full FBI investigation mode—her screens covered in maps, metadata, CCTV stills, and enlarged screenshots of your own dating profile staring back at you in horrifying definition. When you finally make it back to your desk, Rossi spends twenty straight minutes walking you through every violent offender you’ve interviewed in the last three years, forcing you to revisit dozens of interactions you’d long since filed away as routine.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Morgan drops a schematic of your apartment building onto your desk and starts questioning you about entrances, exits, blind spots, and security cameras while Reid quietly replaces the coffee you forgot existed an hour ago. It isn’t until Morgan leaves and JJ immediately takes his place beside you that you realise nobody has let you out of their sight for more than a few minutes at a time.

Then, finally, Hotch steps out of his office—files in one hand and his go-bag in the other, like he fully intends on staying the night if necessary.

“Ready?” he asks, stopping beside your desk.

You stare at the go-bag for one long, deeply horrified second.

“Yep,” you manage, voice tight as you slowly push out of your chair.

Hotch drives. You don’t even try to argue. You just sit in the passenger seat with your knees pressed together and your heart beating out of your chest. It’s not like you haven’t been in the car with him before. You have, plenty of times. This just feels... different.

Neither of you speak until he cuts the engine in the parking garage of your building, and you have to try very hard not to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t asked for directions the whole way here.

“Wait,” he mutters before climbing out of the car.

He grabs his bag from the back, then moves around the car and opens your door.

It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to unbuckle your seatbelt—your hands are shaking and your pulse is still pounding hard enough to make you dizzy—but once you finally do, you slip out of the car and lead him toward the fire stairs.

He never leaves more than a foot of distance between you. Never checks his phone. Never glances down. He stays glued to your side like a real protection detail. And thanks to your avid and wildly inappropriate imagination, you’ve already mentally written an entire bodyguard romance plot starring Aaron Hotchner and yours truly by the time you finally reach your apartment door.

“I—uh—wasn’t really expecting company,” you say as you push the door open. “Sorry.”

The second you step inside, Leia leaps off the couch with a loud, rumbling trill—probably wondering why you’re home before dark for the first time in years.

Hotch pauses, his brow furrowing slightly. “You have a cat.”

You glance back at him as you kick your shoes off and nudge them out of the way. “Is that really the most surprising thing you’ve learned about me today?”

He watches Leia for another second before glancing back at you. “It’s unexpected.”

You roll your eyes, trying to ignore the way your heart skips when he quietly toes off his shoes beside the door without even asking. Like he already expects to stay awhile.

Leia chirrups again as she pads through the living room toward you, no doubt about to demand an early dinner—until she catches sight of Hotch and abruptly stops short. Her ears flicker, her tail waving from side to side as she assesses the new man in her apartment.

Hotch crouches slightly, holding one hand out toward her.

“Oh, she doesn’t really like people,” you say quickly. “So don’t take it personally if she—”

Leia immediately walks straight up to him. She sniffs his hand once before pressing directly into his palm with a loud purr rumbling through her entire body.

Your eyes go wide.

Traitor.

Hotch’s mouth twitches faintly as Leia leans harder into his hand.

Oh my God. Are you jealous of your cat right now?

He gives Leia one final scratch behind the ears before straightening, the softness in his expression fading almost immediately as he slips back into work mode. He scans the apartment briefly before setting the files down on your tiny dining table and shrugging his jacket off, draping it over the back of a chair.

You stand there for a second longer than you probably should, watching him move through your apartment with the same calm focus he brings to crime scenes and briefing rooms and interrogation tables. He checks the windows, the balcony doors, glances briefly—thank God—into your bedroom, then double-checks the locks on the front door.

The whole thing feels weirdly surreal. You’ve imagined Aaron Hotchner inside your apartment a thousand times in a thousand different ways—just not like this. And nothing you imagined could have possibly prepared you for the reality of it. The way everything feels so much smaller. Warmer. More exposed.

Every object in every room suddenly feels mortifyingly personal.

If he lingers long enough in your kitchen, he’s going to notice the unusually empty trash can and realise you survive almost entirely on caffeine and convenience. If he looks too closely at your bookshelf, he’s going to find an unhealthy collection of romance novels with more trigger warnings than plot points. And if he looks into your bedroom again and turns his head just a little more to the right, he’s going to see your vibrator sitting on the nightstand—and then you’ll actually have to fake your own death.

Because you’ve spent years carefully curating a version of yourself that keeps people from looking too closely. Flirty. Casual. Detached enough to joke about bad dates and hookups and sex without anybody ever realising that none of it means anything. It’s easier that way. Easier to let everyone assume your attention is scattered in every direction instead of fixed very specifically on the one person you absolutely cannot have.

But this?

This feels dangerously close to being found out.

The next couple of hours pass in strange, uneven waves of normalcy and low-grade psychological torture.

Hotch sits at your tiny dining table without complaint, dwarfing it as he hunches over files and asks careful questions about your routines, your neighbours, and whether anyone in the building has seemed overly interested in you recently. His phone rings a lot, which isn’t unusual, and every time he answers it you spend almost the entire conversation staring unashamed at the way his shirt pulls tight across his back when he reaches for another printout.

Which is wildly inappropriate considering the circumstances, but you can’t really help it. You’re strung out, on edge, and, as Morgan so helpfully pointed out this morning, severely under-fucked.

And Leia, unfortunately—but not unsurprisingly—remains no help whatsoever.

By seven o’clock she’s fully abandoned you in favour of draping herself across Hotch’s lap while he reviews new data from Garcia, completely oblivious to the fact that you haven’t been able to breathe normally since he walked through the door.

“Are you hungry?” you ask eventually, moving back into the kitchen as if you have anything in there to offer.

Hotch glances up from his laptop, one hand resting absently against Leia’s back while she purrs in his lap.

“I’m fine.”

You lean a hip against the kitchen counter, folding your arms tightly across your chest. “Any updates?”

He glances back down at his screen. “Garcia narrowed the traffic footage down to three vehicles that stayed in the area longer than they should have—Morgan and Prentiss are running the plates now. And Rossi’s pulling relatives connected to your previous cases. Family members who attended trials, sentencing hearings, interviews. Anyone who might’ve had access to your name outside the official reports.”

You nod slowly, silence settling again for a moment before you exhale sharply.

“Are you sure sitting here doing absolutely nothing is really the best use of me right now?”

His eyes flick back up, that signature Hotchner scowl set between his brows.

“You think this is nothing?”

His voice stays calm, but there’s something firmer underneath it now.

“You’ve spent the last four days being threatened, surveilled, and followed by someone we still haven’t identified,” he says. “Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid are out chasing leads because somebody targeted you. Rossi’s pulling case files because somebody targeted you. Garcia’s been at her desk for six straight hours because somebody targeted you.”

His jaw tightens slightly.

“My job right now is making sure nothing happens to you,” he says quietly. “Let me do that.”

Your breath catches, something warm and uncomfortably familiar twisting in your chest as Aaron Hotchner just sits there watching you like he hasn’t said anything unusual at all.

Which, to him, maybe he hasn’t.

He’s just doing his job. Looking out for his team. He’s not here because he wants to be. He’s here because someone threatened one of his agents.

That’s all.

You clear your throat, pushing away from the counter before the silence stretches too long. “I’m—uh—I’m just going to shower quickly. If that’s alright.”

He nods once. “Want me to clear the—”

“No,” you say immediately. “God, no. No. It’s fine. Totally fine.”

His brows pull together slightly, confusion flickering briefly across his face before you turn and hurry into your bedroom, shutting the door a little harder than necessary behind you.

Then you take the longest shower known to mankind. You stand beneath the scalding spray for at least ten minutes before even touching anything. Then you scrub, exfoliate, shave, condition, rinse twice, and stand there for just a little longer before finally gathering the courage to step out. All the while trying desperately not to think about the fact that your unit chief is only two thin walls away while you’re dripping wet and completely naked.

You rummage through your dresser until you find an oversized sweater that isn’t totally threadbare and a clean pair of pyjama shorts. Technically, they’re just striped flannel pants you cut into shorts, but at least they’re not as short as the rest of your pyjama collection that definitely needs replacing.

If only you actually had time for things like shopping... and emotional stability.

“No, wait for Morgan before you approach,” Hotch says as you step quietly back into the living room, phone pressed against his ear while he paces slowly beside the dining table. “If the registration’s fake, I don’t want you making contact until we know exactly who’s inside.”

He pauses, expression sharpening slightly.

“Alright. Keep me updated.”

He lowers the phone slowly before looking over at you for the first time since you re-emerged—and for half a second, he visibly loses his train of thought. It’s only tiny. Barely there. Just a brief pause before his expression shutters back into place.

“Garcia tracked one of the vehicles from the traffic footage to a motel outside Arlington,” he says, glancing back down at the files scattered across the table. “The driver’s been masking his activity through multiple VPNs, so she couldn’t pull a clean trace from the motel Wi-Fi, but only one room in the motel was actively using the network.”

Your stomach tightens.

“The name on the reservation was fake,” he continues, “but the room was paid for using a credit card belonging to Daniel Mercer.”

The name hits you immediately.

“Ethan Mercer’s brother,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods. “Rossi confirmed it about twenty minutes ago. Morgan and Prentiss are waiting for local PD before they move in.”

You nod slowly, your pulse fluttering anxiously in your throat as you move toward the kitchen. Not because you actually need anything in there, but because standing still feels almost impossible right now.

“Ethan barely spoke during the trial,” you murmur, folding your arms as you lean back against the counter. “I don’t think I ever even met his brother.”

“You wouldn’t need to,” Hotch says, already gathering the files into a neat pile. “People build attachments to investigators without ever interacting directly. Especially when they’re looking for someone to blame.”

Your skin prickles. “You really think it’s him?”

“It fits,” Hotch replies evenly. “Established emotional investment, personal motive, no prior record. Which explains the inconsistency. The escalation without follow-through. The long gaps between contact attempts. He knows enough to be cautious, but not enough to stay controlled.”

He straightens, turning back toward you—and for the briefest second, his eyes drop to your bare legs before snapping back up to your face almost immediately.

He clears his throat. “This probably isn’t something he’s done before. But his brother has.”

The apartment falls quiet again after that. Hotch returns to collecting files while you stare absently toward the dark balcony doors, your pulse still refusing to settle beneath your skin.

“Well,” you mutter eventually, gripping the edge of the counter to hoist yourself up. “On the bright side, I still think I’ve dated worse.”

The joke leaves your lips lightly enough, the same way they always do—easy, detached, halfway between genuine and ironic so nobody ever pauses long enough to look too closely.

Except this time Hotch does pause.

“Why do you do that?”

You frown. “Do what?”

“Deflect.” He straightens again, one hand still holding a stack of printouts. “Every time something gets too serious, you make a joke. Or you flirt. Or you say something just inappropriate enough to throw people off balance.”

You lift a shoulder. “Maybe I’m just charming.”

“No.” His eyes narrow slightly, brows pulling together. “No, because it changes depending on the situation.”

Your pulse stutters.

“With Morgan it’s competitive,” he continues, setting the papers back on the table. “You tease him because he pushes back and it keeps conversations superficial. Garcia gets exaggerated stories because she responds emotionally instead of analytically. Half the things you say to Reid are specifically designed to make him flustered enough to stop examining what you actually mean.”

“Wow,” you murmur, shifting your weight against the countertop. “Starting to feel a little attacked here.”

But Hotch doesn’t seem to hear you.

“The dating profile doesn’t fit,” he says, almost to himself. “Neither does the apartment.”

Your stomach twists as his gaze moves briefly across the room. The bookshelves. The carefully organised clutter. Leia now curled up asleep on the couch.

“You project someone impulsive. Social. Sexually confident. But nothing in here supports that.” His eyes flick back toward you again. “You live like someone who protects their space carefully. Even the cat.”

“Leave Leia out of this.”

“She doesn’t like strangers.”

“She likes you.”

The words slip out too quickly, and something in his expression shifts.

“You keep people at a distance,” he continues slowly, close enough now that you can hear the quiet rasp beneath his voice. “Even the team. You let people think they know you because it keeps them from looking closer.” He hesitates, brow furrowing. “Except Reid.”

Your fingers tighten instinctively around the edge of the counter.

“You trust him,” Hotch says. “Not just socially. Behaviourally. You anchor yourself to him when you’re stressed. Physical proximity. Eye contact. Redirecting conversations through him.” He pauses, watching you carefully now. “And earlier you said he’d been profiling you all week.”

Oh God.

“Which means Reid already noticed the pattern.”

He goes quiet for a moment, his expression tightening almost imperceptibly as he looks back over the last few months—years—in real time. You can practically see it happening behind his eyes. Every interaction. Every joke. Every look you thought you’d hidden quickly enough.

“You track me.”

The words come quieter now. Less certain. Like he’s still realising them.

“You know my routines,” he continues slowly. “You anticipate questions before I ask them. You look up when you hear my office door open even when you can’t see me.” He steps closer again. “You know when I need coffee before I do. You watch my reactions before anyone else in the room.”

Your breath stutters.

And Hotch notices immediately.

His expression shifts slightly as his eyes flick across your face, your posture, your hands still locked around the edge of the counter hard enough that your knuckles have gone pale beneath the kitchen lights.

“Your breathing changes when I get too close to you,” he says quietly.

He takes another slow step forward, close enough now that you have to tilt your head back slightly to keep looking at him.

“You stop fidgeting,” he continues. “You go completely still.” His gaze drops briefly to your hands before lifting again. “Like you’re afraid movement alone is going to give you away.”

Your heart is beating so hard now you’re half-convinced he can hear it.

“You lose verbal fluency,” he says, voice lower now. “You trip over words you normally wouldn’t. Your pupils dilate. Your heart rate increases. And every single time I get close to noticing it—”

His eyes lock onto yours.

“You redirect.”

You can barely breathe now.

He’s standing right in front of you, close enough that the heat rolling off him sinks straight into your skin, close enough that one more step would put him between your knees where you’re perched on the counter.

And somehow the worst part is that he still sounds calm. Thoughtful. Like Aaron Hotchner is profiling you with the same careful focus he’d bring to an unsub—except this time the thing he’s slowly uncovering is the fact that you’ve been hopelessly in love with him this entire time.

You swallow hard, your gaze catching just briefly on his mouth before you drag it back up to his eyes, pulse hammering so hard you can barely think straight.

“Figured it out yet, Agent Hotchner?” you ask softly.

He goes still for half a second, something unreadable flickering across his face as his eyes drop to your mouth before lifting back to your eyes again.

The apartment suddenly feels oppressively quiet.

His throat shifts slightly.

And then—

His phone rings.

He steps back immediately, his expression shuttering back into something careful and unreadable.

“Hotchner,” he says, pressing his phone against his ear.

You don’t hear much after that. Not really. You recognise Morgan’s muffled voice, but you can’t quite hear what he’s saying. Not while Hotch slowly paces your living room. You catch fragments of the conversation. Questions. Short answers. The low, steady cadence of his voice slipping effortlessly back into work mode while your own nervous system continues actively collapsing in on itself.

Because holy fuck.

Holy fuck.

What the hell just happened?

“They got him.”

Your head snaps up. “They what?”

Hotch moves back to the dining table and starts gathering his things.

“It was him. Daniel Mercer,” he says. “Morgan and Prentiss found him in the motel room with multiple burner phones, printed screenshots from the dating profile, and enough surveillance material to establish intent.”

“Oh.”

“Local PD recovered notebooks too,” he continues. “Names, schedules, work addresses. Everyone connected to Ethan Mercer’s conviction. Judges, prosecutors, witnesses. You were first because you were the arresting agent.”

A cold shiver slips down your spine.

“Garcia also confirmed the motel Wi-Fi matched the same VPN chain used to access the dating profile,” Hotch adds. “Once Mercer realised the Bureau was involved, the direct contact stopped. After that he shifted to surveillance. Morgan said the room was covered in trial material. Photos. Notes. Newspaper clippings. He’d been building the grievance for months.”

He pauses, then looks at you.

“But they got him.”

“Good,” you say quietly.

Hotch nods once before turning back to the dining table, slipping his laptop into his bag with careful efficiency before gathering every file and printout into one neat pile.

“Local PD will hold Mercer overnight until federal transport clears,” he says, sliding the papers into his bag. “Garcia’s already started coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You’ll need to give an additional statement tomorrow regarding the dating profile.”

You nod. “Okay.”

Hotch reaches for his jacket, draping it over one arm.

“There’ll still be additional officers patrolling the area tonight,” he says. “And if you don’t want to be alone, I can have Reid or Garcia stay here.”

“I’ll be fine,” you mutter, glancing down at the kitchen tiles. “You can stop babysitting me now.”

Hotch stills.

Then slowly, deliberately, sets his jacket on the table.

“Babysitting?” he repeats.

“You know what I mean.”

He steps toward you, brows drawn. “I don’t think I do.”

“You solved the case,” you mutter, heat crawling up the back of your neck. “You profiled me. Thoroughly. So congratulations, I guess. You figured out the whole sad little secret, the weird avoidance issues, the entire personality disorder cocktail—” You let out a short, humourless laugh. “You can go back to pretending none of this ever happened now.”

He closes the distance between you before you even fully realise he’s moving, stopping directly in front of the counter again. Exactly where he’d been when you asked him if he’d figured it out. Close enough that you can feel his warmth. Close enough that you can see the day-old shadow of stubble lining his jaw.

“You’re being deliberately provocative now because you’re embarrassed,” he says. “But embarrassment isn’t actually your primary response here.”

His gaze drops to your mouth again, and your pulse stumbles.

“If it was,” he adds quietly, “you wouldn’t still be looking at me like that.”

Your breath catches in your throat.

You want to say something. Anything. Another joke. Another deflection. Something sharp enough to cut through the tension in the air and stop him looking at you like this. Exposing you like this.

But you can’t.

All you can do is stare at him. At the steady intensity in his eyes. At the way his tie has loosened slightly over the course of the night. At the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the white shirt you’ve spent an embarrassing number of years picturing on your bedroom floor.

You swallow hard, and he notices. Of course he does.

Something shifts in his expression then. Something softer. Less guarded.

His hand comes up beneath your jaw, his thumb pressing gently into your chin as he pulls you closer. You fall forward without hesitation, and he leans in, dark eyes still searching yours as if he isn’t entirely sure he has permission yet.

Then he kisses you.

It’s not rushed. Not messy. If anything, the first press of his mouth against yours feels almost unbearably controlled, like he’s still holding himself back even now.

But the restraint doesn’t last long.

Your hand catches his tie, tugging him closer, and something rough slips from the back of his throat as he steps in, his hips slotting between your thighs. His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, fingers tightening just enough to tilt your head back exactly as far as he wants it.

Your lips part against his with a broken sound, and he deepens it slowly, his tongue moving against yours like he has all the time in the world. Tasting you. Learning you. Mapping every small sound and ragged exhale with the same focused intensity he brings to everything—and somehow that’s what undoes you the most. Not urgency. Attention.

His breath mingles with yours, hot and uneven, and when his teeth catch your bottom lip it’s deliberate, measured—a sharp little spark shooting straight through your spine. Your hips roll toward him without permission, and his answering groan rumbles through his chest, vibrating beneath your palm and making you ache everywhere you’ve been starving for him.

Then he pulls back just enough to look at you properly again. His hand still tangled in your hair. Thumb dragging once across your jaw. His eyes move over your face with the same intensity he uses in every debrief, every case, every crisis, except right now you are the thing he’s making sure of.

Like he needs to be absolutely certain this is real.

“Aaron—”

“Bedroom,” he says immediately, voice low and rough enough to send heat crashing straight through you. “Now.”

FRIDAY 6:15AM

Your alarm blares somewhere beside the bed, startling you awake hard enough that your heart immediately starts pounding. You reach for it blindly, determined to silence it before it wakes—

Oh God.

The second your hand hits the snooze button, you freeze.

Your heart is beating faster now, your pulse thrumming in your throat as you turn slowly—so slowly—toward the other side of the bed, where Aaron fucking Hotchner stirs sleepily.

Your stomach swoops.

You slept with your boss last night.

With a shallow, shaky breath, you carefully start to move. His arm is heavy at your waist, but you manage to slip out from underneath it without fully waking him. You shove the covers off and shiver at the sudden exposure, leaning over the side of the bed to find your discarded sweater. You pull it over your head before quietly padding toward the ensuite, refusing to glance back at your very hot, very naked unit chief still tangled in your sheets.

You only just make it around the other side of the bed before something tugs at the back of your sweater. You stop, glancing back to find Hotch half-awake, eyes half-lidded with one hand caught at the hem of your sweater.

“Do you really get up this early?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Most days.”

His brows pull together slightly. “Why?”

You let out a small, breathless laugh. “Because my boss is kind of a hard ass about punctuality.”

Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face.

“Sounds like a terrible boss,” he murmurs.

Then he tugs on your sweater again—hard enough this time that you let out a startled laugh as you stumble backward onto the mattress and into him. He catches you easily, one arm wrapping around your waist before you can even fully recover, pulling you back against the warmth of his chest.

“Yeah,” you murmur, laughing softly as his mouth brushes beneath your ear. “He’s awful. Very demanding.”

He hums, breath warm against your skin.

“He’s really hot, though,” you add, smiling despite yourself. “So I like having time to put in a little effort, you know? Hope he notices.”

“Oh, he notices.”

Your stomach flips. “Really?”

“Mhm.”

His arm tightens around your waist. “He notices the skirts.”

Heat floods your face. “Aaron—”

“He notices the tights.” His mouth brushes against the nape of your neck. “The ones with the seam up the back.”

“Oh my God.”

You try to turn your face into the pillow, but he just holds you tighter, pressing his lips firm against your neck.

“And the red bra,” he murmurs.

Your breath catches.

“Noticed that so much I had to wait until everyone left the conference room before I could get up.”

You let out a strangled sound, squirming in his arms, but it’s no use. His chest vibrates against your back, something suspiciously close to laughter.

“My washing machine broke that week,” you whine. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Mm, sure.”

You twist around immediately. “I’m not lying.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, like he doesn’t quite believe you, but before you can protest again—he kisses you. Warm, slow, sleep-soft. His mouth moves against yours almost lazily, his hand tightening slightly at your waist when a pathetic little whimper slips out before you can stop it.

“Careful,” you murmur, breathless against his mouth. “Don’t want to be late.”

You feel his lips curve.

“Good thing I’m the boss.”

10:35AM

You made it to work well on time. Even after three orgasms, a shower, and an awkward attempt at a ‘What Now?’ conversation—that ended in the aforementioned third orgasm. Because fortunately for your rapidly fraying nervous system, Hotch hadn’t even hesitated when you’d finally asked what happens next. In fact, he’d answered a little too quickly.

The first thing he’d asked was whether you’d be comfortable keeping things quiet for a while. Not because he’s worried about the team finding out—he trusts them. Trusts you. The concern is Strauss, and the Bureau, and keeping you in the BAU while he figures out exactly how much trouble the two of you have just created for yourselves. At some point he’d even started muttering about reporting structures and supervisory chains, half-thinking out loud while pulling on his tie. Something about possibly moving your reporting line over to Rossi. Something else about needing to review the Bureau’s fraternisation policies before making any moves.

That was when you kissed him—effectively, and very quickly, kicking off round three.

Because he’d clearly been thinking about this for a while, which means Aaron Hotchner has been noticing a lot more than just short skirts and inappropriately coloured underwear. It means that the second he decided to kiss you in your apartment last night, he’d already known exactly what he was getting himself into.

“Alright, gorgeous,” Morgan says, startling you as he raps a knuckle against your desk. “They’ll be ready for you downstairs in ten.”

You glance up at him, brows drawn—and it takes an embarrassingly long second for you to figure out what he’s talking about.

“Oh.” You blink. “Right. Yeah, I’ll head down soon. Thanks.”

Prentiss looks over from her desk. “You gonna be okay?”

You lift a shoulder. “Sure. What’s another case report?”

Morgan frowns, dropping into his chair. “It’s not exactly every day you’re the victim, baby girl.”

“Yeah, but nothing really happened.”

Morgan and Prentiss both stare at you.

“Because of the team,” you add quickly. “You guys caught him before he actually did anything. So... you know, nothing bad happened.” You plaster on a smile that feels reasonably convincing. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

Prentiss narrows her eyes, but before she can say anything else, Reid appears.

“You’re in a remarkably good mood for someone who was being actively cyberstalked twelve hours ago,” he says, stirring his second coffee of the day.

You turn back to your screen, trying to ignore the heat creeping into your cheeks. “Maybe I just have a newfound appreciation for life.”

Reid studies you for a moment, clearly unconvinced—but he doesn’t push. He just moves slowly back toward his desk, setting his coffee down with unnecessary care while the rest of the team turn away, finally deciding to mind their own business.

You force your attention back to the report in front of you, determined to at least look productive for the next ten minutes—when a familiar voice cuts through your concentration.

“Rossi’s taking Wallace with you next week,” Hotch says, setting the file down on your desk.

You blink up at him. “I thought you were leading the interview.”

“I was.”

Something in his expression tightens briefly before he lowers his voice.

“Wallace has a long history of using sex, intimidation, and emotional targeting to destabilise people during interviews,” he says. “Especially women.”

You frown. “Hotch, I—”

“And if he says something to you in that room,” he continues evenly, “or looks at you the wrong way, I need to know the agent sitting beside you is still capable of thinking objectively.”

Your stomach flips as his eyes meet yours—steady, intense, devastatingly honest.

“Right now,” he says quietly, “I’m not sure that’s me.”

Then he’s gone. Moving through the bullpen back toward his office like he hasn’t just set your pulse racing and your head spinning. You watch after him for a moment before shaking your head, glancing back at your computer screen as if you’d been focused on it at all in the first place.

“…Huh.”

You turn toward the sound and find Reid staring at you again. Not rudely. Just watching with the same focused curiosity he’d been wearing since your suspiciously cheerful comment about cyberstalking.

He tilts his head.

Then—

“Oh my God.”

You close your eyes. “Spencer… don’t.”

he looks up and catches you staring.                                      

you give him a small smile. he holds it for a beat, returns it, quiet and unreadable, and then turns back to the conversation like nothing happened.

“there you are, darling.” your mom finds you before you can register what just happened, pulling you into the huddle. “come meet jack. this is dr. jack abbot, remember? i told you about him. he’s the one who was at the gym with your father when he had that small stroke. kept him stable until the ambulance came.”

you did remember. vaguely. your mom had mentioned him a few times over the phone during those scary first few days, always with this tone like she wanted you to know he was one of the good ones. she’d also, at some point, let slip that he was quite handsome for his age which had made you curious enough to look him up.

you’d found almost nothing. a blurry photo from some hospital gala where he was younger, dark haired, barely recognizable. another from an award ceremony, grainy and poorly lit, his face half turned from the camera. you’d closed the tab and thought nothing more of it.

the man standing in front of you now had not been adequately prepared for.

you reach your hand out. his is warm, large, engulfing your palm easily. the touch moves through you faster than it should.

“nice to meet you,” you say, and you mean it more than is appropriate.

he looks at you the way men his age sometimes do when they’re trying very hard not to. “you as well.”

your dad says something about jack being a veteran, about it being a meaningful weekend for him too. jack doesn’t smile at that. just something solemn moving behind his eyes, confirming that whatever he’d seen hadn’t left him clean.

you think about that look for the rest of the evening.

---

you run into him at the farmer’s market three days later.

you’re standing at a stall debating between two bunches of peonies when you feel someone stop beside you. you glance over and there he is, in a grey henley and dark jeans, looking entirely too good for a saturday morning farmer’s market in suburban new york.

“dr. abbot,” you say, a little surprised.

“just jack,” he says, eyes moving to the flowers and then back to you. “visiting your parents for the weekend?”

“for a little longer than that,” you say. “you live around here?”

“ten minutes that way.” he nods vaguely in a direction. noncommittal. like he’s already deciding how much to give you.

you buy both bunches of peonies just to have something to do with your hands.

he walks with you for a bit, not quite on purpose, or at least that’s how he plays it. the conversation is easy in a way that feels unfair. he asks about your masters, what you studied, what you’re doing now. he listens like he’s genuinely curious about you, takes his time without interruption. you learn he’s been in suburban new york for a few years, that he left his practice in the city after his wife passed, that he has his own little clinic now because apparently that’s what you do when you’re trying to build a quieter life.

he says it nonchalantly and you don’t press for more.

when you reach the end of the market he stops and you stop with him.

“i’ll see you around,” he says. not a question exactly. more like something he’s hoping for.

“probably,” you say.

he almost smiles. almost.

---

you see him twice more before the dinner.

once at your parents’ house when he stops by to drop something off for your dad, catching you in the kitchen in an oversized tee and sleep shorts, hair still messy from bed. he looks at you for exactly one second longer than he should before fixing his expression back to neutral and asking if your father is home.

and then once at the pharmacy, where he’s picking up a prescription and you’re buying face wash, and he ends up standing in line behind you and making a quiet comment about the brand you picked that makes you laugh, and then looks almost annoyed at himself for making you laugh.

he’s trying. you can see it clearly. the deliberate neutrality of him, the way he keeps his eyes from lingering, the way he keeps things brief and polite.

it makes you want to push.

---

the dinner is your mother’s idea. a small thank you, she says, for everything jack did for your father. nothing formal, just the four of you on a friday evening.

you wear a dress that you’d packed for no real reason. silky, short, the kind that sits just high enough on your thigh to be a problem. you tell yourself it’s because you felt like it.

you know that’s not entirely true.

jack arrives at seven. you watch him from the top of the stairs as your dad lets him in, see the moment he looks up and finds you coming down, see him look away just as quickly. his jaw goes tight, a muscle flickering there briefly before he smooths it over.

dinner is pleasant. your mom talks too much, your dad laughs too loud, and jack sits across from you being perfectly polite and perfectly composed and absolutely not looking at you any more than is necessary.

which somehow makes it worse.

you excuse yourself after the main course, slipping down the hall toward the bathroom. you’re washing your hands when you hear him in the hallway.

you step out and find him already there in the narrow hall, and neither of you move. the dinner sounds feel far away. the space between you is close enough to feel the warmth of him, and his cologne reaches you before anything else, something quiet and warm, and he’s looking at you the way he’s been carefully not looking at you all evening.

your pulse does something it has no business doing.

you reach into your pocket slowly, pull out the folded slip of paper you’d put there before dinner, hold it out between two fingers. your eyes stay on his.

he looks down at it. back up at you. and for a second, just one, his gaze drops to your mouth and stays there long enough to make your breath catch.

“i’m your father’s friend,” he says. his voice comes out lower than intended.

“i know,” you say softly.

he should walk away. you can see him thinking it. the war behind his eyes.

he reaches out and takes the paper instead, fingers brushing yours, and then he steps back and clears his throat and goes back down the hall without another word.

you lean against the wall for a moment before you follow.

---

you go back to the table and finish dinner and make conversation and laugh at your dad’s jokes and do not think about the hallway.

you do not think about the way he’d looked at your mouth.

you do not think about the way his fingers had felt brushing yours when he took the paper.

jack stays another hour, polite and easy and perfectly composed, and when he leaves he shakes your dad’s hand and thanks your mom for dinner. he glances at you once on his way out, brief and unreadable, the kind of look that gives nothing and takes everything.

“lovely to meet you properly,” he says.

“you too,” you say.

the door closes and you help your mom clear the table and go to bed and do not think about it at all.

---

a week passes.

you work. that’s the honest answer for what you do with the silence of your phone. you open your laptop early and close it late and fill the hours in between with emails and decks and calls that run long, the familiar rhythm of it steadying in a way you hadn’t expected to need.

it helps, mostly. you’d taken this break to breathe and somehow you’d gone and complicated it spectacularly within the first two weeks, so throwing yourself back into spreadsheets feels like a reasonable correction.

your mom keeps finding reasons to bring him up at dinner. jack mentioned he might come to the farmers market this weekend. jack was asking after your thesis topic, isn’t that sweet. you nod and eat your food and say nothing.

your phone stays quiet.

you start to feel that particular kind of silly that you really hate feeling. the kind that makes you want to be annoyed at yourself more than at anyone else. you’re not a girl who waits around. you’d handed him your number because you’d wanted to, not because you were expecting anything, and it had meant nothing, and you are completely fine.

your phone buzzes on thursday morning and you pick it up embarrassingly fast.

it’s your landlord about a leaking pipe in your city apartment.

you put the phone face down and open another email.

---

you go for a walk thursday afternoon because you need air and because staring at a laptop in your childhood bedroom is making you feel sixteen in a way you don’t appreciate.

the neighborhood is quiet and warm, someone’s sprinkler ticking in a front yard, birds doing their thing in the trees. you have your earbuds in and you’re almost feeling like yourself again when you turn a corner and nearly walk into him.

he’s coming back from a run, slowing to a stop, a little breathless. grey tee, dark shorts, the outline of his prosthetic visible below the hem, silver hair slightly damp. looking entirely too good on a thursday afternoon.

you look straight ahead and keep walking.

you hear him pause then fall into step beside you.

“hey,” he tries.

nothing.

“you’re ignoring me,” he says. there’s a quiet amusement to it that makes it significantly harder to maintain your expression.

you pull one earbud out and look at him with the most neutral expression you own. “can i help you?”

“you walked right past me.”

“i didn’t see you.”

“you saw me,” he says simply.

you stop. turn to face him fully on the pavement, squinting a little in the afternoon sun. “you didn’t text.”

he holds your gaze. “i know.”

“okay,” you say pleasantly, and put your earbud back in.

he reaches out and touches your elbow, gently, and you stop again.

“it’s not right,” he says, when you look at him. his voice is low and even, like he’s explained this to himself many times already. “your father is one of my closest friends. you’re his daughter. there’s an age gap that—”

“i’m aware of my own age,” you say.

“i know that.”

“and i’m aware of yours.”

“that’s not what i—”

“jack.” you say it quietly but clearly. “i have a masters degree. i have a career. i pay my own rent in one of the most expensive cities in the country.” you hold his gaze without flinching. “i don’t need you to decide what i can and can’t handle. i don’t like being put in a box, especially not by someone who looked at me the way you did in that hallway.”

something shifts in his expression. he looks away briefly, jaw working.

“one drink,” he says finally, still not looking at you. “there’s a place on 4th avenue. friday night.”

you look at him.

“no,” you say.

he blinks. looks back at you. “no?”

“dinner,” you say. “and then a drink.”

a beat.

“you’re negotiating.”

“i’m clarifying,” you say pleasantly.

he looks at you for a long moment. you watch him try very hard not to smile and almost succeed.

“dinner,” he says. “and a drink.”

“and you’re paying,” you add.

he exhales through his nose. “obviously.”

you put your earbud back in and start walking. “friday works,” you call back.

you don’t turn around but you’re fairly certain he’s standing there watching you go and doing that almost-smile again.

good.

---

he texts friday morning.

jack: should i pick you up or are you meeting me there.

you stare at your phone for an embarrassing amount of time.

he confirmed. he actually texted to confirm, which means he’d been thinking about it, which means he hadn’t spent the week being perfectly unbothered the way you’d assumed he had. and he’d offered to pick you up. like it was a real date. like he was going to come to your parents’ front door and walk you to his car and—

you put your phone face down on the bed.

get it together, you tell yourself.

you pick it up again.

but he’d offered to pick you up. that’s a thing a gentleman does. a thoughtful person. and he’s thoughtful, you’ve noticed that about him, the way he listens, the way he remembers small things you’ve said, the way he—

and he’s so annoyingly attractive. how does that happen. how does someone get to be that age and look like that and also be like that. it should be one or the other. it’s unfair is what it is.

you realize you’ve been staring at the ceiling for five minutes.

you: i’ll meet you there.

you put the phone down and go get ready and absolutely do not smile at yourself in the mirror.

you smile at yourself in the mirror a little bit.

---

the place on 4th avenue is small and warm, the kind of bar that moonlights as a restaurant. dark wood and low lighting and a chalkboard menu above the bar. he pulls out your chair and you sit and pretend that doesn’t do anything to you.

he orders without looking at the menu. you notice that but don’t say anything.

it starts careful. he already knows the broad strokes of your masters from the farmer’s market, so he asks something different tonight. what you actually want to do next, now that it’s done. where you see yourself going. you tell him honestly, more honestly than you expected to, about the job you’re good at but aren’t sure you love, about the version of your career you’re still trying to build toward. he listens with his glass resting in his hand and his eyes on you and doesn’t once look at his phone.

“and now you’re here,” he says.

“now i’m here,” you agree. “taking a break. or trying to. i’m still working remotely so it’s not quite a break.”

“doesn’t sound like much of a rest.”

you think about it honestly. “it’s getting there.”

he nods like he understands that specific kind of tired. you get the feeling he does.

you ask about medicine, what made him choose it, whether he ever wanted something different. he thinks before he answers, which you like about him, the absence of automatic responses.

“lost a close friend when i was young,” he says simply. “couldn’t do anything. felt like i should have been able to.” he turns his glass once. “so i decided i’d learn how.”

“and the army?”

“enlisted after my first year of pre-med. served as a combat medic for two tours.” a brief pause. “finished my degree when i came back.”

he says it with the flatness of someone who has made peace with something that didn’t deserve it. you don’t push. just let it settle between you the way it needs to.

you talk about other things after that. easier things. he asks about the city, whether you miss it yet, and you tell him honestly that you miss the noise more than you expected to. he tells you he grew up in boston, that new york had always felt like someone else’s city even after years of living there. you ask what suburban new york feels like and he thinks about it for a moment.

“quieter,” he says. “in a way i needed.”

you ask him what he does with the quiet and he says he reads, mostly. medical journals, some fiction. runs in the mornings. you tell him that sounds very disciplined and he looks at you with something dry.

“you say that like it’s an insult.”

“i say it like it’s very you,” you say, and he looks at you for a moment like he’s trying to decide what to do with that.

the conversation moves like that all evening, one thing leading naturally into the next, barely any effort. you forget to check your phone. you forget to be nervous. you just talk, and he talks, and at some point you realize you’re leaning forward with your chin in your hand and he’s leaning forward too and the space between you has gotten smaller without either of you deciding it.

at some point the bar fills in around you. the dinner crowd thinning and the drinks crowd arriving, louder, livelier, music turned up a notch. someone laughs too hard at the bar. a group spills in through the door bringing the warm night air with them.

you and jack don’t notice any of it.

it’s only when he glances around and then back at you that you realize how late it’s gotten.

“i’ll just use the bathroom,” he says, pushing his chair back. “be right back.”

you watch him stop at the bar on the way back. a quiet word with the bartender, something slipped across the counter without a word to you about it.

he comes back and picks up his jacket.

“ready?” he says simply.

you smile a little without meaning to. “yeah,” you say. “let’s go.”

---

the night air is warm with a slight breeze when you step outside. you pull your jacket loosely around your shoulders and say “i had a really good time” and mean it completely and then immediately start wondering if it sounded too eager. you fall into step beside him on the pavement and the silence is comfortable but your brain is doing that thing where it replays the whole evening looking for something to be anxious about and finding too many candidates.

did it go well. it felt like it went well. he paid without making it a thing which was. god that was sweet. but he hasn’t said anything since we left and maybe that means—

“you’ve gone somewhere,” he says.

you blink. look up at him. “what?”

“just now.” he glances at you, steady. “where’d you go?”

your mouth opens. closes. “nowhere,” you say.

he looks at you for a moment in that way he has, like he can see straight through the word, and almost smiles and says nothing and you feel your face go warm.

“do you want to take a walk,” he says instead. “there’s a park just around the corner.”

“yes,” you say, maybe a little too quickly.

he definitely notices. doesn’t say anything.

---

the park is quiet, just the sound of your footsteps and the distant hum of the street. the trees are full and dark against the sky and the path is lit by old iron lampposts and the air smells like cut grass and something floral.

you spot the ice cream stand before he does. a small cart tucked near the park entrance, fairy lights strung around the awning.

you stop walking.

he follows your gaze. looks back at you. that almost smile already happening.

“come on,” you say, already heading over.

he shakes his head slightly and follows.

you get strawberry cheesecake in a cup. he gets dark chocolate pecan, which somehow suits him completely. you both stand under the fairy lights eating ice cream while the warm night moves around you.

“here,” you say, holding your spoon out toward him.

he looks at it. then takes the taste, and his expression does something reluctant and impressed at the same time.

“that’s actually good,” he says.

“i know,” you say smugly.

he holds his own spoon out without a word. you lean in and try it and the dark chocolate hits first and then the pecan and it’s rich and warm and very him somehow.

“okay,” you admit. “that’s also good.”

“i know,” he says, and you laugh, and this time he actually smiles. quiet and real and just for a moment.

you look at him in the lamplight and feel something settle warm in your chest and think. oh. okay. this is a problem.

---

you start walking again when the cups are empty, slower now, no particular direction. the park is mostly yours at this hour, just the occasional dog walker passing with a nod.

you’re not in your head anymore. somewhere between the ice cream and the smiling you’d stopped replaying the evening and landed back in it.

he’s walking close enough that your shoulders brush every few steps and neither of you moves away.

you stop near a lamppost where the path curves and turn to look at him and he’s already looking at you, that careful composure doing very little at this particular moment.

you lean up and kiss him.

he goes still. one second. two. then his hand comes up slow and cups your jaw and he kisses you back, deep and sure, and you forget about the warm night and the lamplight and everything else.

he pulls back first. steps back slightly. shakes his head.

you groan softly. “i’ve never had to ask for things, you know.”

that flicker at the corner of his mouth. “so you’re a spoiled brat.”

“what will it take,” you say, looking up at him. “for you to just give in.”

“i’m not—” he stops. jaw tight. “i’m not relationship material. you should know that going in.”

you hold his gaze. “i’m not looking for a relationship either. it doesn’t have to be more than what it is.” a beat. “we’re adults, jack.”

he looks at you for a long moment. the last argument behind his eyes going quiet.

then he kisses you again. different this time. his hand gripping your face, consuming, and you grip the front of his jacket and let him.

he pulls back just enough to speak, voice low.

“the townhouse is two minutes from here,” he says.

you didn’t know that. you file it away for later.

“okay,” you say.

he takes your hand and you go.

---

the door barely shuts behind you.

his hands find your waist before you’ve taken a step inside, walking you back against the entryway wall, mouth on yours, and the kiss is nothing like the one in the park. that one had been careful, him dipping his toe in. this one is hungry, open mouthed, his tongue sliding against yours slowly, like he’s tasting something he’s been thinking about for a long time. you make a sound against his mouth and feel him exhale hard through his nose like it costs him something.

your fingers find his shirt buttons. his hands push your jacket off your shoulders and it hits the floor somewhere. something knocks off the entryway table, neither of you flinches.

he pulls back just enough to look at you, chest rising and falling, hair slightly messed from your hands, and the composed dr. jack abbot of dinner and parks and careful measured distance is completely gone. what’s left is just him, looking at you like you’re the only thing in the room he’s done being good about.

he takes your hand and walks you backward through the darkened living room and sits down on the couch, pulling you down onto his lap in one smooth motion, hands settling on your hips.

“jack—”

“here,” he murmurs, guiding your hips forward, then back, slow. “like that.”

your breath catches. his jaw is tight, eyes dark, watching your face with an intensity that makes it hard to think straight. his hands grip your hips and move them again, that same slow roll, and a soft sound escapes you before you can stop it.

“you have no idea,” he says, low, almost to himself. his forehead drops to your shoulder for just a moment. “how long i’ve wanted this.” his mouth finds your jaw, your neck. “wanted you.”

you pull back just enough to look at him, chest heaving, lips swollen. his eyes meet yours, dark, pupils blown.

“fuck me,” you breathe against his mouth. “please.”

a groan tears out of him.

he flips you in one smooth motion, your back meeting the couch cushions, him over you, and his hands find the zipper of your skirt, fumbling with it in a way that is deeply satisfying coming from someone so usually composed. you reach down to help and he bats your hands away gently.

“i’ve got it,” he mutters, jaw tight, and you bite your lip to keep from smiling.

he does.

---

you wake up to the smell of coffee.

for a moment you just lie there, ceiling unfamiliar, sheets softer than yours, the morning light coming in through curtains you don’t recognize. then it lands. right. jack’s townhouse. you sit up slowly and push your hair back and look around the room.

it’s neat in the way of someone who lives alone and likes order. dark furniture, minimal, a small stack of books on the nightstand. a glass of water on your side that wasn’t there when you fell asleep.

you stare at the glass of water for a moment.

you find his shirt at the foot of the bed and pull it on and pad downstairs.

he’s in the kitchen. grey tee, dark pants, barefoot. you can hear the faint clink of his prosthetic foot as he moves around the stove with that same leisured pace as always. coffee already poured, two cups. eggs in the pan. toast just popped.

he glances over when you appear in the doorway.

“morning,” he says simply. like this is normal. like you wake up in his house all the time.

“you made breakfast,” you say.

he just smiles in return.

you slide onto the stool at the kitchen island and wrap both hands around the mug he pushes toward you and watch him cook and try not to feel too much about any of this.

you mostly fail.

he plates the eggs without ceremony and sets it in front of you and sits across with his own and you eat together in the quiet morning, the kind of quiet that doesn’t need filling. outside birds are doing their thing in the backyard. somewhere a lawnmower starts up distantly.

“did you sleep okay?” he asks at some point.

“really well actually,” you say, and mean it. the peaceful dreamless kind you’d been craving for months.

---

you leave just after nine. he walks you to the door, and just before you step out he cups the back of your head gently and presses his lips to your forehead.

your insides melt.

“i’ll see you later,” he says.

you look up at him. “yeah,” you say softly. “you will.”

you walk to your car with his shirt smell still on your skin and the ghost of his mouth on your forehead and think. oh you are in so much trouble.

---

it becomes a pattern after that.

stolen minutes, mostly. a look across the room that lasts a beat too long. his hand finding the small of your back when he passes you in the hallway at your parents’, gone before anyone could notice. a text at odd hours that starts as nothing and becomes something by the time you put your phone down.

---

it was gathering at your parents’. a few neighbors gathered in the living room, some rosé for the women, beers for the men, your mom moving between guests with a platter of something she’d spent the morning making. it fills up fast the way your parents’ house always does, loud and warm, someone’s kid running through the hallway.

you’re in a sundress, yellow, the kind that sits light on your shoulders. jack is there when you arrive, talking to one of your dad’s colleagues, and his eyes find you once across the yard, darkening just a fraction.

you go inside for ice an hour in.

the kitchen is quiet after the noise of the backyard, just the hum of the fridge and the distant sound of someone laughing outside. you’re pulling the ice tray when you hear the door behind you.

you don’t turn around. you already know.

his hands find your hips from behind, turning you, and then his mouth is on yours and it’s nothing like the usual careful composed kisses. one hand slides into your hair, the other flat against the small of your back pulling you in, and he kisses you the way he does when he’s been watching you from across a yard for an hour and has run out of patience for it. open mouthed, his tongue sliding slow against yours until your fingers curl into his shirt and you forget what you came in here for.

his hand moves under the hem of your dress, palm dragging slow up the inside of your thigh, and he pulls back just enough to look at you.

“is my girl wet for me?” he murmurs, low, meant only for you.

your breath stutters. you don’t answer. he finds out anyway, fingers pressing against the thin fabric of your underwear, and the quiet sound he makes against your temple is deeply unfair.

“jack,” you warn softly.

“shhh,” he says, and drops to his knees.

he pushes your dress up and hooks your underwear down in one smooth motion, tucks it into his pocket, and then his mouth is on you and the world narrows to the warm press of his tongue. your hand flies to your mouth. the other grips the counter behind you hard enough to whiten your knuckles, the noise of the party bleeding through the walls while he takes you apart quietly on the kitchen floor.

he doesn’t rush. that’s the thing about jack. he never rushes.

by the time you come you’re biting down on your own fist, eyes squeezed shut, shaking.

he stands up and fixes the hem of your dress back down like nothing happened. looks at you once, the corner of his lips tilted up in a smirk, while you’re still trying to remember how to breathe.

“i’ll give those back later,” he says, patting his pocket.

“you’re unbelievable,” you manage.

he reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. presses a single kiss to your cheek and walks back outside.

you stand in the kitchen for a full minute before you follow.

---

he keeps his eyes on you for the rest of the day. not obviously. just enough that you feel it every time, that quiet heat from across the yard. enough to know he hasn’t forgotten.

you don’t get the underwear back.

what you get instead, after the last guests trickle out and your parents call it a night, is his hand finding yours in the dark hallway and him walking you to the downstairs bathroom and clicking the lock behind you both.

you’re quiet about it. mostly.

---

the dinner is a few of your dad’s colleagues and their wives, jack included, the type of evening that involves good wine and stories you’ve heard versions of before. you sit at the far end of the table and catch him looking at you twice, both times immediately looking away.

you wear something simple. nothing risky. you’re behaving.

mostly.

you say your goodbyes at the door, your coat already on. “i’m heading out to meet a friend,” you tell your dad, kissing his cheek. “i’ll stay over hers. i’ll be back in the morning.”

“i can drop you off,” jack says from behind you, already reaching for his keys. “i’m heading that way.” you were going to meet him anyway.

your dad claps him on the shoulder. “perfect, save her the uber.”

you smile. “thanks, jack.”

the drive starts quiet. lights bleeding past the windows, jack’s hand loose on the wheel, the low hum of the radio filling the space between you. comfortable on the surface. charged underneath.

you watch the road for a while.

then you reach across the console.

“don’t,” he says immediately, his hand closing over yours.

you do it anyway.

he exhales hard. pulls off at the next quiet stretch, a side road that’s dark and empty. he clicks the lock and reaches for the lever at the side of his seat and lets it fall back. then his hands find you and he hauls you over the console and onto his lap before you’ve fully registered the movement.

you land against him and his mouth finds yours, urgent in a way that pulls low in your stomach. you’re both pulling at things, his shirt buttons, your top, the zip of his pants, the graceless urgency of too much want in too small a space.

when he finally pushes inside you, both of you stilling for just a moment at the stretch of it, thick and familiar and so so good, your forehead drops to his shoulder and you exhale shakily.

“okay?” he murmurs.

“yeah,” you breathe. “yeah, move—”

you start to roll your hips and his hands grip your waist, steadying, guiding, letting you find the rhythm. the windows fog at the edges. his jaw is tight, eyes dark, watching your face with that focused intensity that makes you feel like the only thing in the room.

then his feet find the floor and he starts thrusting up to meet you, slow and hard, and your head falls back.

“jack—”

“i’ve got you, darlin’,” he says low, one hand splayed across your lower back holding you close, the other pulling your top aside, unhooking your bra, his mouth replacing it, warm against your hardened peak. you dig your fingers into his shoulders and stop thinking about anything at all.

the radio plays on softly. outside the road stays empty.

neither of you are in any hurry.

---

you end up staying the night.

you hadn’t planned to. but the radio plays on softly and neither of you move and at some point the quiet of the car becomes the quiet of his townhouse and then it’s late and he’s pulling his shirt over your head in the dark and saying stay against your temple like it’s nothing.

so you do.

---

a few days later you answer the door at your parents’ when the doorbell goes.

you’re in sleep shorts and an oversized tee, hair up, not having expected anyone. jack stands on the other side of the door in dark slacks and a polo, his glasses hanging from the collar, looking entirely too put together for a tuesday morning.

you lean against the doorframe. “where are you going dressed like that?”

he looks at you. then very deliberately looks at your shorts. “golf. your father suggested i develop a normal hobby.”

“and you listened?”

“he’s very persuasive.”

you open your mouth to say something else when your dad’s voice carries from inside. “jack! give me five minutes, i’m almost ready!”

jack raises an eyebrow at you. you raise one back.

and then he steps into the foyer, glances once over your shoulder toward the stairs, and kisses you quickly. you feel his hand caress your jaw and then it’s gone just as fast when he pulls back.

“i’ll see you later,” he murmurs.

he steps back and straightens his collar. looks completely poised.

you are not completely poised.

your dad comes thundering down the stairs two minutes later, clapping jack on the shoulder, steering him out the door. jack follows, and just before he reaches the car he glances back once.

you’re still in the doorframe.

he smiles. that small smile, only for you, and turns away.

you stay there a moment longer than you need to before going back inside.

---

the phone starts buzzing an hour later.

it’s sitting on the kitchen counter where your dad left it, lighting up with a number you recognize from his office. you grab your keys.

you find them on the sixth hole. your dad spots you first, face confused, and you hold up the phone. his expression shifts immediately into the particular look he gets when something’s gone sideways at work.

he steps away to take the call and you’re left standing on the green in your tiny shorts while jack abbot turns around and takes you in with a slow once over.

“my dad forgot his phone,” you say innocently.

“i can see that,” he says.

“interesting shorts,” he says.

“thank you.”

“that wasn’t a compliment.”

“i know,” you say, and smile.

your dad reappears, phone pressed to his chest, apology already on his face. “jack, i’m so sorry, there’s something with the mcvoy merger, i have to go. i’ll make it up to you, we’ll reschedule—”

“go,” jack says easily. “don’t worry about it.”

your dad looks between you both. “she can drive you back—”

“go sort your merger,” jack says.

your dad squeezes his shoulder gratefully and strides off toward the car park, already back on the phone. and then it’s just you and jack and the open green and the warm afternoon stretching out around you.

he looks at you.

you look back.

“get a hole in one,” you say.

he stares at you. “i’m sorry?”

“hole in one, old man,” you say. “and i’ll make it worth your while.”

a long pause. he looks out at the green. looks back at you. the corner of his mouth pulling in a way he doesn’t quite manage to hide. he shakes his head with a chuckle under his breath. 

he lines up his shot with the confidence of someone who is very good at things he pretends not to care about.

it drops clean.

he turns and looks at you over the top of his glasses.

you burst out laughing.

he’s still giving you that look, warm and steady and just slightly wolfish, and something flips over in your chest.

“hole in one,” he says simply.

---

things fall in his entryway.

his keys missing the hook. your sandals somewhere near the door. his phone clattering off the console table that neither of you stops for because he has you against the wall with his hands under your thighs before the door is fully shut, your legs wrapping around him, laughing into his mouth until you’re not laughing anymore.

“you wore those shorts on purpose,” he says against your jaw.

“i have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” you manage.

he pulls back just enough to look at you, hair messed, chest rising and falling, and shakes his head slowly, a quiet laugh in his expression.

“what am i gonna do with you,” he says, low and gravelly, shaking his head in faux disappointment.

“i have a few ideas,” you say.

he carries you upstairs with your legs still around him, mouth finding your neck, the curve of your shoulder. he sets you down on the edge of the bed and steps back, reaching behind him to pull his polo off in one smooth motion.

you take a moment to just. look at him.

toned shoulders in the way of someone who has been active his whole life, with a softness at his middle. freckles scattered across his arms and chest, concentrated at the shoulders, the kind that come from years in the sun. a slight roundness to his stomach that makes him look exactly his age in the best possible way. silver hair dusted across his chest, catching the afternoon light. you bite your lip as you take him in.

his eyes are already on you.

his hands find the waistband of your shorts and drag them down slowly, dropping them somewhere on the floor. he straightens up and looks at you for a moment.

“touch yourself for me,” he says quietly.

you hold his gaze for a beat. then you lean back on your palms and slide a hand down between your thighs, fingers tracing down your folds, finding the growing wetness there.

he stands there watching, breathing a little heavily, before his hands find his belt buckle, unhooking it slow, shoving his pants down without looking away from you. his cock is thick and already hard and his hand wraps around it, stroking, eyes tracking every movement of your fingers, and the whole thing is so intense and quiet that your breath has gone completely unsteady.

then he steps forward.

he takes your wrist and brings your hand up and closes his mouth around your fingers, sucking them clean without breaking eye contact, and your brain short circuits completely.

he pushes you back onto the bed.

he buries his face between your thighs, mouth finding your clit with no warning, and your back arches clean off the bed. he works you open, tongue fucking into you obscenely, and you’re loud about it, louder than you mean to be, one hand twisting in his silver hair while your hips roll down against his mouth chasing more.

you soak him and he doesn’t pull back. just makes a quiet satisfied sound against you and keeps going like he has nowhere else to be, like this is exactly where he wants to be, until you’re shaking and your brain has turned completely to mush and your whole body is pulling tight.

“jack— jack i need—”

he pulls back just enough to look up at you, mouth slick, eyes dark, expression perfectly composed.

“hm?” he says. “can’t quite hear you. old man ears.”

you groan. “jack.”

“sorry?” the corner of his mouth twitches.

“you know what i need—”

he tuts softly. “you’re going to have to be more specific, sweet girl.”

you huff, thighs squeezing around his shoulders, and he raises an eyebrow at you like he has all the time in the world and fully intends to use it.

“please,” you breathe. “please please just fuck me, jack, please—”

you keep saying it, broken and shameless, until he pulls back, rolls a condom on with steady hands, and finally fills you in one slow push that knocks the air clean out of your lungs.

---

the bed creaks.

he has your legs pushed up, knees to your chest, ankles hooked over his shoulders, and you are folded so completely beneath him that the only thing you can do is hold on and take it. his hands brace either side of your head, eyes on your face, and he moves with a focus that makes it impossible to think about anything else.

the headboard finds the wall. once. twice. and then it just. stays there, a constant rhythmic clatter that fades into the background because there are other sounds now too — the slap of skin, your moans climbing higher with every stroke, the low sounds he makes when he’s trying to stay controlled and losing the battle. the room is loud with all of it and neither of you are doing anything to stop it.

“you’re doing so well for me,” he murmurs. his thumb finds your clit, rubbing slow circles over the swollen bud, and you make a sound that you feel in your whole body. “killin’ me, baby,” he grunts. your puffy lips stretched around him, taking everything he gives, and he looks down at where you’re joined and his breathing is shaky. 

his hips are losing that careful rhythm, thrusts getting shorter and more urgent, and you can feel him everywhere, the relentless drag and push of him, your whole body pulled taut around him.

“jack—”

“yeah baby,” he breathes. “yeah yeah, come for me. fuck—” his thumb keeps those merciless circles over your needy clit. “this pretty pussy’s squeezing me so good, can you feel that—”

and that’s it. you come with his name on your lips and your whole body arching up into him, thighs shaking against his shoulders. he follows right behind you, a low groan pressed into the curve of your neck, hips stuttering to a stop.

for a moment neither of you move.

---

then he carefully lowers your legs, pressing a brief kiss to the inside of your knee before he pulls back. you hear him in the bathroom, water running, and then he’s back with a warm towel and he cleans you up quietly, thorough and gentle, and you lie there and let him and try not to think too hard about what that means.

he tosses the towel aside and settles on the edge of the bed. reaches down and unstraps his prosthetic, setting it carefully against the nightstand. the room is quiet while he does it, a routine for him.

you watch him from where you’re curled on your side, still soft and sleepy.

“does it hurt?” you ask, voice still a little wrecked.

“not hurt,” he says. “just gets uncomfortable after a while.”

you reach out without thinking, fingers finding the end of his residual limb, and you massage there gently. he goes very still for a moment. then his hand comes up and squeezes your shoulder.

neither of you say anything. you don’t need to.

he settles back against the headboard and pulls you into his side, your cheek finding his chest, his hand moving through your hair in long slow strokes. he presses his lips to the top of your head and you close your eyes and breathe him in and think that this is a very dangerous thing to have gotten used to.

“i’m ordering thai,” he says after a while.

“okay,” you say, not moving.

he reaches for his phone with his free hand, the other still in your hair, and places the order without asking what you want because he already knows. you smile at that a little where he can’t see it.

the food arrives forty minutes later and you eat together in his bed, containers spread between you on the duvet, casablanca pulled up on the tv.

you groan when you see the title screen.

“you haven’t seen it,” he says, already settling back.

“i’ve seen enough of it.”

“that’s not the same thing.” he hands you a container of pad thai. “watch the movie.”

you watch the movie.

it’s good. you’re not going to tell him that.

halfway through you’re completely invested and stealing bites off his plate and he lets you, which is how you know he’s in a good mood. the lamp is on low, the room warm, the sound of old hollywood filling the quiet between you. he makes a comment about the cinematography at some point and you make a comment back and it turns into a whole thing and by the time you look up the scene has moved on entirely.

“we missed it,” you say.

“i’ve seen it forty times,” he says. “it’s fine.”

you laugh softly and settle back into his side.

you’re asleep before the ending. you don’t even realize it’s happening, just the warmth of him and the low sound of the television and then nothing at all.

you wake up to a dark room and credits rolling softly on the screen.

jack is asleep beside you, breathing slow and even, one arm still loosely around you. you lie there for a moment in the quiet of his townhouse, the distant sound of a car outside, the low hum of the television.

then you slip carefully out from under his arm.

you find your clothes in the low light, dress quietly, check your phone. 12:43am.

you lean over him. “jack,” you whisper.

he stirs. opens one eye.

“i’m heading home,” you say softly.

he reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, still half asleep. “text me when you’re in.”

“okay,” you say.

you let yourself out.

---

the house is quiet when you slip through the front door, just the lamp on low in the living room. you’re halfway up the stairs when your dad’s voice comes from the kitchen.

“that you?”

you pause. “yeah, it’s me.”

he appears in the doorway in his robe, mug in hand, looking more tired than suspicious. “where were you?”

“out,” you say.

“with?”

you open your mouth. close it. look somewhere past his shoulder.

your dad watches you for a moment, something shifting in his expression, gentle rather than pressing.

“hey,” he says quietly. “i’m not going to push. you’re an adult, i know that.” he sets his mug down and comes to the foot of the stairs, looking up at you with that look he’s had your whole life. “i just worry about you, kiddo. that’s all. just want you to be careful.”

you feel it in your chest, that particular warmth that only he can put there.

“i know,” you say softly. “i am.”

he reaches up and presses a kiss to your forehead. “get some sleep.”

you watch him shuffle back toward the kitchen. then you go upstairs.

---

you’re in bed, lamp off, staring at the ceiling when you pick up your phone.

you’re in bed, lamp off, staring at the ceiling when you pick up your phone.

you: i think dad knows

jack: how?

you type out the whole interaction. 

jack: okay. let’s lay low for a bit.

you stare at the screen.

you: :(

jack: be good and i’ll reward you.

you smile at your phone in the dark.

you: tie me up?

jack: i just said be good.

you laugh to yourself, quietly. 

you: fine. deal.

you put your phone face down and close your eyes and fall asleep smiling like an idiot.

---

it’s been a few days since the golf course.

you text. not constantly, not in the way that would mean something you’ve both agreed not to name. just enough. a voice memo here, a late night exchange there, him sending you a dry one liner about a patient that makes you laugh out loud at your laptop and your mom asking what’s so funny from the other room.

you missed him. more than made sense for something that wasn’t supposed to be more than what it was.

you wondered if he missed you just as much. you didn’t ask.

---

it was game day. a few of the neighbors had gathered in your parents’ living room, beers cracked, the big tv loud with commentary. it fills up fast the way your parents’ house always does, loud and warm, someone’s kid running through the hallway, the smell of something good coming from the kitchen.

you’re on the back porch when you hear your name.

“no way.”

you turn. marcus is standing at the sliding door grinning at you, older than you remember but the same eyes, the same easy smile. you went to high school together, lost touch the way people do.

“marcus,” you say, and he pulls you into a hug that lifts you slightly off the ground.

you spend the next hour catching up in the corner of the living room, half watching the game, laughing at old memories and terrible teachers and that one party junior year that neither of you should probably talk about. he’s easy to be around. always was.

you don’t notice jack until you feel it.

that particular awareness. like a change in the room’s temperature. you glance over marcus’s shoulder mid laugh and find jack across the living room, standing with your dad and two other men, drink in hand, eyes on you.

he looks away the second you catch him.

but you felt it. the weight of it. a different kind of watching than his usual.

you let it go and laugh at something marcus says and don’t look over again.

your phone buzzes at 9:43 pm, twenty minutes after the last guests have trickled out.

come over.

two words. no context.

you say goodnight to your parents, grab your keys, and go.

---

he opens the door before you’ve knocked.

he’s still in what he wore to the game, shirt untucked now, sleeves rolled to the elbow. you can see the definition in his forearms, a vein running through the muscle there, fit in the way of someone who keeps at it without making a show of it. he steps aside to let you in and you cross the threshold and turn to look at him and know. something is sitting differently about him tonight.

“jack,” you start.

“bedroom,” he says. “strip and get on the bed.”

you hold his gaze for a moment. he holds yours back, jaw set, unblinking.

you go upstairs.

you hear him follow a minute later. you’re sitting on the edge of the bed when he comes in, jaw set, eyes darker than usual.

“i said strip,” he says quietly.

“i know what you said,” you say. “i’m trying to figure out what’s going on with you first.”

a beat.

“nothing’s going on,” he says.

“jack.”

he looks at you for a long moment. then he crosses the room, tips your chin up with two fingers, and looks down at you.

“who was he,” he says. low and even, not quite a question.

oh.

you feel the smile start before you can stop it. “marcus?”

his jaw tightens. “is that his name.”

“he’s an old friend,” you say. “we went to high school together.”

his face stays still. but his eyes shift.

“strip,” he says again. “and get on the bed.”

this time you do.

---

the lamp on the nightstand casts the room in dark golden hues. he stands at the foot of the bed and watches you undress, unhooking your bra, sliding fabric off your shoulders, letting things fall. his eyes track every inch of you as it’s revealed, quiet and intent, taking his time with it.

you feel every second of his gaze like a physical thing.

he strips himself without looking away from you. shirt first, then his belt, his pants. the freckles scattered across his body, heavy on his arms, the slight roundness of him. you bite your lip as you take him in.

he looks at you for a long moment in the warm quiet of the room.

“did anything ever happen,” he says. “between you and marcus.”

you look up at him. “we kissed once. at a party junior year.” a pause. “that’s it.”

his jaw ticks.

“once,” he repeats.

“once,” you confirm. “it was nothing.”

he looks at you for another long moment. then he reaches forward and turns you, guiding you onto your hands and knees, one hand pressing firm between your shoulder blades.

you hear him behind you, the tear of a wrapper, and then his hands find your hips and he tilts your chin gently to the right.

there’s a mirror.

long, leaning against the wall, angled just enough that you can see everything. him behind you, broad shoulders, the curve of his body, hands gripping your hips. you, flushed and waiting. the two of you together.

“look,” he says quietly. “look at how good you look with me.”

you look. and then he pushes inside and your mouth falls open.

he sets a pace that’s different from his usual. not cruel, never cruel, but insistent. purposeful. his grip on your hips tighter than normal, fingers pressing into the flesh of you in a way that’ll leave marks and you both know it. every thrust driving you forward, the headboard finding the wall, that familiar clatter filling the room.

“fuck,” he groans, almost to himself, eyes on the mirror meeting yours. “such a good girl, takin me so well.”

you whimper. his hand moves from your hip to your jaw, thumb pressing at the seam of your lips, and your mouth opens for it without thinking. you suck on it lazily, eyes fluttering shut, clenching around him, and the sound he makes behind you is low and barely contained.

then he pulls back, flips you, hauling you up the bed in one smooth motion so your back meets the mattress. he hoists your leg up over his shoulder, the other hooking around the back of his thigh, and pushes back inside and the angle is different, deeper, and you make a sound that comes from somewhere embarrassingly desperate.

he looks down at you.

his eyes are darker than usual. not angry exactly. something more complicated than that. like there’s a purpose behind them, something he’s working through that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with you, and he’s groaning low with every thrust but his jaw is carrying something heavier than exertion.

he wants to imprint himself on you. you can feel it. the want of it radiating off him in waves.

and somewhere underneath all of it, buried where you can’t quite see it, he knows he needs to stop. that this isn’t — it isn’t — it isn’t supposed to be—

his thumb pressing down, rubbing tight circles against your clit, and your back arches clean off the mattress.

“jack—”

“yeah, baby,” he grits out. “come on. come for me.”

you do. hard and shaking, his name breaking apart in your mouth.

he stills. pulls out before he can get there, jaw tight, sits back on his heels. too far in his own head to follow you over the edge. he deals with the condom quietly, efficiently, like if he moves fast enough you won’t notice.

you’re too far gone to notice.

silence settles over the room.

---

he cleans you up without a word, warm towel, the same quiet efficiency as always. then he sits back against the headboard and you roll onto your side, cheek on the pillow, looking up at him.

you’re smiling. you can’t help it.

he looks down at you. reaches out and tucks a strand of hair back from your face.

“what,” he says.

“i like this side of you,” you say.

he looks at you for a long moment, the corner of his mouth doing a slow losing battle.

“go to sleep,” he says.

you keep smiling.

“goodnight jack,” you hum.

---

he doesn’t sleep.

you’re curled against his side, breathing slow and even, and he lies there in the dark with the ceiling above him and his thoughts going in circles he can’t stop.

marcus. the way you’d laughed with him. easy and bright, the kind of laugh that comes from somewhere comfortable, somewhere with no history of grief or war or bad decisions made in the dark.

he’s a good guy probably. your age. no baggage. no prosthetic leaning against a nightstand. no dead wife he still talks to sometimes in his head when things get quiet enough.

these past two months have been — he stops himself. doesn’t finish the thought.

it was supposed to be simple. he’d told himself that from the beginning. told you too. not a relationship. not more than what it is. just two adults who understood the terms.

but then breakfast happened. and the ice cream in the park. and you falling asleep against him during casablanca and him not moving for two hours because he didn’t want to wake you.

he’d said he wouldn’t give in. he’d said it to himself in that hallway at your parents’ house the night you slipped him your number. he’d said it on the walk when you’d called him out. he’d said it outside the restaurant.

and then he’d stopped saying it entirely.

he looks at you in the dark. the soft rise and fall of you. something clenching in his chest that he doesn’t have a name for and doesn’t want one.

he should put some space between them. before it becomes something it can’t come back from. before you wake up one day and realize you’ve wasted the best years of your life on a man who is held together with old stitches and careful habits.

he thinks about the sabbatical he’s been putting off for two years. three months. scotland, maybe. somewhere far enough that the distance does the work he can’t seem to do himself.

he makes the decision somewhere around four in the morning.

he lies there until six feeling terrible about it.

he’s careful getting up. detaches his prosthetic in the dim light, reattaches it quietly, presses a kiss so soft to your cheek you don’t stir.

then he goes to the kitchen and makes breakfast.

you appear in the doorway twenty minutes later, hair loose, wearing his shirt again, and something about the sight of you does exactly what he knew it would. you pad over and wrap your arms around him from behind, cheek pressed between his shoulder blades, and he goes very still.

“morning,” you say, muffled against his back.

“morning,” he says.

he keeps his voice even. keeps his hands moving. eggs in the pan. toast just popped. coffee already poured.

you don’t notice anything. you’re too warm, too soft with sleep, too happy. you steal a piece of toast and sit at the island and talk about something you’d dreamed about and he listens and nods and says the right things and thinks about scotland.

you leave after breakfast with a kiss to his jaw and a smile that does something complicated to his chest.

“i’ll see you later,” you say.

“yeah,” he says.

he watches you go.

---

you drive home giddy in a way you haven’t been in a long time.

you spend the morning working from your childhood bedroom, laptop open, but your mind keeps drifting. to the mirror. to his hands. to the way he’d looked at you in the warm lamp light like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.

he likes you. he has to. people don’t look at people like that unless they mean it.

maybe next time you see him you’ll tell him. quietly. simply. just — i really like you, jack. and see what happens.

you’re smiling at your laptop when your phone lights up on the desk beside you. four consecutive buzzes.

5:04 pm.

you pick it up still smiling when you see it's from the man who won't leave your head.

the smile fades before you’ve finished reading.

jack: hey.

jack: i’ve been thinking about us. what we had these past few months has been really good. more than i anticipated, if i’m honest. but i think we both knew this wasn’t built to last.

jack: the sneaking around, your father, the gap between us. it isn’t fair to either of us to keep going. i’m taking a sabbatical i’ve been putting off for some time. leaving tomorrow. a few months away feels like the right call. i'm sorry i couldn't say goodbye.

jack: take care of yourself.

you read it twice. then a third time like the words might rearrange themselves into something different if you give them enough chances.

they don’t.

you put your phone face down on the desk and sit very still. outside the neighborhood kids laugh. a car passes. the world just keeps going.

you’d been planning to tell him you liked him. you’d been rehearsing it in your head all morning.

you think you heard it. the moment your heart shattered into a million pieces.