sylvia plath's fig pie

It started small, the way these things always seemed to. A lock of hair taped to a piece of notebook paper, no note, just your name written across the top in careful block letters. Then nail clippings, dozens of them, arranged in a spiral inside a jewelry box that had once held a bracelet from a brand that had gifted you things for free back when you were still opening for other artists. Then teeth. Actual human teeth, four of them, wrapped in tissue paper, mailed to your label's office with a return address that didn't exist.

Your security team had assumed it was a sick joke until the lab results came back. The teeth belonged to your biggest rival in the industry, someone who'd been reported missing for a month and whose disappearance had barely made it past the entertainment blogs. Then came the fingers, three of them, this time addressed directly to your home. They belonged to the record executive who'd rejected your demo when you were seventeen, the one you used to joke about proving wrong someday.

And then, four days ago, the photographs arrived. You hadn't been allowed to see them yourself, your manager had physically taken your phone away when the crime scene images came through on the group chat with your security team, but you'd overheard enough to know they were bodies. Real ones. People who were, until recently, still walking around.

That was how the FBI got involved.

And that was how, at 9am, they ended up sitting in your kitchen, asking so many questions.

There were five of them, crowded around your kitchen island like they hadn't just upended your entire morning. Your manager hovered by the coffee machine, arms crossed, looking paler than you'd ever seen her. You sat with your knees pulled up on the barstool, wrapped in the oversized hoodie you'd stolen from your first tour bus in a lifetime that felt very far away right now.

The woman in charge, Emily, you thought her name was, had a way of talking that made you feel like you were the only person in the room, even surrounded by badges. She'd walked you through it gently, or as gently as anyone could walk you through something like this. The hair. The nails. The teeth. The fingers. The photographs you still hadn't seen and didn't particularly want to.

"Walk us through the hair again," Emily said. "When exactly did that arrive?"

"Six weeks ago. Maybe seven. It's all kind of blurred together."

"And you didn't report it at the time?"

"I get weird mail every week," you said, and you heard how defensive it sounded even as it left your mouth. "I couldn't exactly open an investigation every time some stranger tells me they'd die for me. It comes with the job."

"Do you still have the packaging? Postmarks, boxes, anything?"

"My assistant keeps everything in a bin, in case it's ever needed. She's paranoid like that. Guess it paid off."

"Has anyone approached you in person? At shows, at the studio, outside your home?"

"There's always people outside my home. It's part of the whole thing."

"Anyone who felt different. Familiar. Like they knew things about you a stranger wouldn't."

You paused at that, actually paused to think about it, and shook your head slowly. "Not that I've noticed. But I don't exactly look at every face in a crowd of ten thousand people."

"We think whoever is doing this has a personal history with you," said the tall one, Luke, though you hadn't caught his name yet, not really. He had kind eyes for someone in a job like this, the kind of eyes that made you feel like less of a spectacle and more of a person. "Not just a fan. Someone who's followed your career from the start."

"What does that mean," you asked, "followed my career from the start?"

"It means whoever this is likely knew you before you were famous," said the younger one, the pretty boy with the ID badge that said Reid. "Someone who had access to you early. A person from your life before all this."

You laughed, but there was no humor in it. "That could be a lot of people. I started performing when I was thirteen."

You caught it then, the tiny flicker of a glance between two of the agents. Filed away, noted, whatever they did with information like that. You didn't think much of it. Not yet.

"We'd like to talk about anyone from that time who might still be around," Emily said. "Vocal coaches, teachers, old collaborators. Anyone who had that kind of access to you."

Your stomach did something uncomfortable at that, but you brushed it off as the general horror of the morning rather than anything specific. There were a lot of people from back then. You hadn't thought about most of them in years.

"Can we go back to the photographs," you said, before you could stop yourself. "Nobody will tell me anything. Are they people I know?"

The room went still in a different way this time. Emily glanced at the others before answering.

"We're still confirming identities," she said. "We didn't want to say more until we were certain."

"That's not a no."

"It's not a no," she admitted.

You felt your hands start to shake and pressed them flat against the cold marble of the counter, like it might steady you. It didn't. You were aware, distantly, that everyone in the room was watching you have this moment, which somehow made it worse, like even your fear needed an audience.

It was Luke who spoke next, and not in agent voice. Quieter.

"You don't have to have all the answers right now," he said. "We're not trying to corner you. We just need to understand the picture as much as you can help us see it."

You looked at him properly for the first time. Not the badge, not the suit, just him, the way his shoulders weren't as stiff as the others', the way he'd angled himself slightly toward you instead of the room. It was such a small thing, but after an hour of feeling like a case file, it landed harder than it should have.

"Okay," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you expected. "Ask me whatever you need to."

They did. More questions, an hour's worth at least. About your schedule, your team, who had access to your calendar, whether you'd changed vocal coaches recently, whether anyone from your early career had reached out lately asking for money or a favor or just to catch up. You answered what you could. Some of it you couldn't, not because you were hiding anything, but because you genuinely didn't remember the names of half the people who'd passed through your life before you were anyone.

Eventually Emily set down her notepad.

"We'd like to talk about protective measures," she said. "Given the escalation."

There it was. You'd been waiting for it since they walked in, the word protective, like a hand closing around your wrist.

"No," you said, before she'd even finished the sentence, and by the look several of them exchanged, you got the feeling this wasn't the first time someone had told them that this morning.

"You haven't heard the plan yet," Emily said, patient in a way that made you suspicious she'd said this exact sentence to a hundred other stubborn people before you.

"I don't need to hear it. I have a show in six days. I have rehearsals, fittings, a dance session Tuesday, press on Thursday. I am not doing any of that with someone in a black suit standing behind me like a bodyguard in a movie. I already have a security team. If something happens, all I have to do is call and they're there in five minutes."

"Given what's escalated," Emily said, "we may not have five minutes."

The room went quiet at that in a different way than before. You opened your mouth to argue and found you didn't actually have anything to say.

"Leaving you without protection close by isn't something we're willing to recommend," Emily continued.

You looked around the room, at all of them, badges and blazers and the particular exhausted patience of people who dealt with people like you for a living. Your eyes caught on the tall one again, Luke, the one who didn't look like he'd stepped out of a bureau training video. He was watching you like he actually wanted to hear what you had to say, not just wait for you to stop talking.

"Fine," you said slowly, an idea forming. "Not some random guy in an earpiece. If it has to be someone, it's one of you. Someone I've actually met. Someone who isn't going to follow me around looking like an off duty secret service agent."

The room went quiet in that particular way rooms go quiet when everyone is doing the math on what you just said at the same time.

"That's not usually how assignments work," said one of the others, older, gruffer.

"Then I guess today's a weird day for everyone," you said, and you didn't miss the way the tall one, Luke, pressed his lips together like he was fighting off a smile.

Emily looked at you for a long moment, then glanced sideways at her team, some silent conversation happening that you weren't part of.

"Give us a minute," she said.

They stepped out onto your balcony, all five of them, and through the glass you watched them talk with their hands, the way people do when they think no one's paying attention. You couldn't hear a word of it, but you saw the exact moment Emily looked back through the glass at you, then at Luke, then said something that made him go a little stiff.

When they came back in, Emily was the one who spoke.

"Agent Alvez will be handling your detail," she said. "Starting today."

You looked at Luke properly for the first time, really looked, and he looked back at you like a man who had just found out his weekend plans had also been cancelled.

"Hi," you said.

"Hi," he said back, and something about the way he said it made this whole horrible morning feel, for just a second, a little bit more bearable.

★・・・・・・★

The rest of them left within the hour, folders tucked under arms, murmured instructions passed between Emily and Luke on the way out that you weren't supposed to hear but did anyway. Something about check-ins, something about a comms line, something about "obviously use your judgment" in a tone that suggested Luke's judgment was usually pretty good.

Then it was just the two of you, standing in your kitchen like neither of you were quite sure what happened in the last two hours.

"So," you said. "This is weird for both of us, right? I'm not just projecting that."

That got a laugh out of him, quick and a little surprised, like he hadn't expected you to say something like that. "Yeah. This is weird for both of us."

"Okay. Good. Just checking." You pulled your knees down off the barstool and stood, suddenly aware of how you must look, hoodie and no makeup and hair that hadn't seen a brush yet today. "Do you want coffee? I feel like we should establish, like, ground rules or something, and I can't do that without caffeine."

"Coffee's good."

You busied yourself with the machine, partly because you needed something to do with your hands, and partly because it gave you an excuse not to look at him while you asked the question that had been sitting in your chest since Emily said his name.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why'd they pick you? Out of everyone."

He was quiet for a second, long enough that you turned around to check if he'd actually heard you.

"Honestly? I think it's because I don't look like what people expect," he said. "I'm not going to stand out in a crowd the way some of the others might. And I can handle myself if I need to, which matters given the situation."

"You don't look like FBI," you agreed, studying him properly now. Jeans that weren't quite regulation, a jacket that looked like it belonged to an actual person instead of a catalog. "You look like someone's cool older brother. No offense."

"None taken. I think."

"I mean it as a compliment. The other four looked like they were about to hand me a subpoena. You look like you'd help me carry my groceries." You handed him a mug. "That's actually really important, by the way. If you're going to be around me constantly, you can't look like a fed. People are going to be paying attention. Fans. Photographers. If a picture of us gets posted anywhere, and it will, someone with a badge tucked under his jacket is a headline. Someone who looks like a normal guy is just a normal guy."

"I've done protective work before," he said. "Not exactly like this, but I get the concept."

"It's not really like protective work you've probably done. There's no blending into a crowd, because I don't get to blend into a crowd. There's no low profile. Every single day, someone is going to have a camera pointed at me, and by extension, at you. You need to be okay looking comfortable doing that. Comfortable being photographed. Comfortable rumors happening about who you are to me, because they will happen, whether we like it or not."

He considered that for a second, turning the mug in his hands. "What kind of rumors are we talking?"

"Depends on the day. Bodyguard, if I'm lucky and people are being normal. Boyfriend, if they're bored. Secret husband, if it's a slow news week and someone catches us standing too close together." You watched his eyebrows go up slightly at that last one. "I'm serious. It happened with my last tour manager. We were never together. There are still fan accounts convinced we eloped."

"Good to know what I'm walking into."

"So. Can you handle that? Genuinely. Because if the answer is no, we need a different plan before this goes any further."

He met your eyes, and there was something steady in the way he answered, no hesitation, no performance. "I can handle it."

You believed him, which surprised you a little, given you'd known the man for approximately two hours.

"Okay," you said. "Then I guess we should talk about what today actually looks like, because it's not exactly a rest day for me either."

"What's on the schedule?"

"Everything, basically." You pulled your phone off the counter and unlocked it, scrolling through the calendar app your assistant kept absurdly, almost violently organized. "Fitting for the closing show outfit at eleven. Label call at one about the merch drop, which is going to be its own headache. Then a video call with my vocal producer at three to go over final arrangements. And somewhere in there I'm supposed to approve like forty Instagram captions my social team wants me to look at, which I will not actually do until eleven at night like a functioning adult."

"That's a full day."

"That's a slow day, actually. Dance rehearsal was supposed to be today too, but my choreographer pushed it to tomorrow, something about the studio being double booked. So today's just meetings and fittings and me pretending I have opinions about merch colors."

"You don't have opinions about merch colors?"

"I have extremely strong opinions about merch colors. I just don't have the energy for label people to disagree with me about them today." You grabbed your phone charger off the counter and gestured vaguely toward the hallway. "The fitting's actually here, my stylist's coming to me instead of me going to her, so you'll get to see that particular circus. Fair warning, there will be pins. Possibly blood, if the seamstress gets excited."

"Sounds dangerous."

"You have no idea. Last tour I got stabbed with a safety pin so many times I started keeping count." You headed toward the stairs, then paused, looking back at him like you'd only just remembered he was going to be a permanent fixture now and not just a guest. "You're allowed to sit, by the way. You don't have to stand at attention in my kitchen like a Secret Service agent outside the Oval Office. Grab water, sit on the counter, whatever. I promise I don't bite."

"Noted."

"And Luke?"

He looked up at the sound of his name in your voice for what felt like the first time, like it hadn't quite landed yet that this was actually happening.

"Thanks," you said, quieter than the rest of the conversation had been. "For, I don't know. Not treating this like just a job in there. Earlier. It helped."

Something shifted in his expression, not quite a smile, something gentler than that. "That's not going to change," he said. "Job or not."

You held his gaze a second longer than you probably needed to, then turned and headed up the stairs before either of you had to figure out what to do with that.

The fitting arrived at eleven sharp, your stylist sweeping in with two assistants and a rolling rack that took up half your living room, and Luke, true to his word, did not stand at attention. He sat on the arm of your couch scrolling through something on his phone, occasionally glancing up when your stylist made you turn in a circle or hold your arms out like a scarecrow, and if he found the whole process as ridiculous as you did, he was polite enough not to show it.

You noticed, though, the way his eyes moved. Not at you, not really, but past you, tracking the assistants as they came and went, cataloguing the delivery guy who dropped off a rack of shoes at the door, clocking the sound of a car alarm outside like it meant something. It wasn't obvious. If you hadn't spent the morning learning what to look for, you might have missed it entirely, but once you saw it you couldn't unsee it, the quiet, constant work of him reading every single person who came near you.

It should have made you more nervous. Instead, every time he caught you watching him do it, he'd glance over and give you a small, easy smile, like it was nothing, like the room wasn't being silently assessed for threats, and something in your chest would loosen just slightly each time he did.

By the time the label call rolled around at one, you'd nearly forgotten there was an active federal investigation happening around you at all, right up until you caught him checking his phone screen a beat too fast, a habit you were starting to recognize as him checking for updates rather than texts. He looked up right after, found you watching, and smiled again, and just like that the knot in your stomach eased, just a little.

It was, you thought, going to take some getting used to. Both the danger, and him.

★・・・・・・★

By eight that evening, you were fried in the specific way only a day of being pleasant to strangers could fry a person. The label call had run forty minutes over because someone in marketing wanted to relitigate the merch colors after all, the vocal producer session had been fine but long, and your stylist had, in fact, drawn blood with a safety pin, right on schedule.

Luke had been a quiet, steady presence through most of it, mostly out of the way, occasionally fielding a call of his own that he stepped into the hallway for and came back from looking marginally more tense each time. You didn't ask. You figured if it was something you needed to know, he'd tell you.

You found him in your living room a little after eight, sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, and it took you a second to place why the sight of him there made something warm settle in your chest. He just looked like he belonged there. Comfortable. Not like a guest, and not like a guard either.

"Long day," you said, dropping onto the couch behind him, close enough that your knee nearly brushed his shoulder.

"You looked exhausted on that vocal call," he said. "The one at three."

"I was exhausted on that vocal call." You reached over and grabbed the guitar leaning against the side of the couch, the beat up acoustic you'd had since you were nineteen, the one you actually wrote on instead of the pretty ones you used for photos. "This is my decompression method, if you're curious. Guitar and bad reality TV. Not necessarily in that order."

You strummed something absent, half a chord progression that didn't go anywhere yet, your fingers moving through it without much thought while your mind unwound from the day. After a minute you started humming along to it, quiet, half formed, not really a melody yet, just the shape of one, the way songs always started for you, as noise before they became anything.

"What's that?" Luke asked, twisting slightly to look at you over the back of the couch.

"Nothing yet. Just a shape. Sometimes you strum for twenty minutes before anything turns into an actual song, and sometimes it never does. This is probably a never does." You kept going anyway, the melody looping back on itself, shifting a note here and there like you were feeling around in the dark for something.

"That's really good," he said, and he sounded genuinely surprised by it, like he hadn't expected the half formed nothing to sound like that.

You huffed a laugh. "Well, yeah. It's my job."

"I know, but you're like, what, a pop princess? I figured the slow acoustic guitar thing wasn't really your vibe."

Something about the way he said it, teasing but genuinely curious underneath it, made you glance over at him properly. "Have you ever actually listened to any of my music?"

He had the grace to look slightly caught out. "Not really, no. I think it's a little outside my generation."

You gasped, scandalized, mostly for effect. "You're like thirty five, not sixty. My mom knows my music better than you apparently do."

"I didn't say I was proud of it."

"Uh huh. Well, for the record, I'm going to need you to catch up, because you cannot protect a pop star and not know a single one of her songs. That's basically malpractice." You softened it with a grin, and then, because it was true and you meant it, added, "For what it's worth, I don't actually care that you haven't heard it. Most people who say they love my music have heard exactly one song. I'd rather you just be honest about it."

"I can be honest about a lot of things."

"Good. Keep that up." You shifted the guitar in your lap, an idea forming. "Okay. Educational moment. Sit still and listen."

You played him one of yours properly this time, not the noodling from before but an actual song, one from the album before this one, quieter than most of what made the radio, just voice and guitar the way you'd originally written it before anyone in a studio got their hands on it. You watched him while you played, the way his expression shifted somewhere around the second verse, like he wasn't expecting it to be that kind of song.

When you finished, he didn't say anything for a second, just looked at you like he was recalibrating something.

"Okay," he said finally. "That was really good. Like, actually good, not just polite good."

"You say that like you expected it to be bad."

"I didn't expect anything, honestly. I hadn't thought about it." He shook his head slightly, like he was still catching up to himself. "I guess I figured whatever you did was probably, I don't know, more produced. Bigger. Not just you and a guitar in a living room sounding like that."

"That's kind of the point, though. Everything gets bigger later, the strings and the drums and eight different producers arguing about the bridge. But it always starts like this. Just this." You ran your thumb along the edge of the guitar, a little self conscious now that he was looking at you like that. "That one didn't even get a music video. Barely got played live. But it's one of the ones people bring up to me the most, if that tells you anything."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Because it's honest, probably. People can tell the difference, even if they can't always explain how." You shrugged, and then, because it felt true and you weren't sure why you were telling him, added, "That one's about being twenty and realizing the version of yourself everyone loved wasn't really you yet. It's not exactly a single."

"Well, I don't need to have heard the singles to know that one hit different."

"I have my moments."You set the guitar down across both your laps, your hand still resting near the neck of it. "Have you ever played anything? Any instrument, ever, even badly."

"No. Never really had the patience for it."

"Everyone has the patience for it, they just think they don't." You shifted, angling the guitar toward him properly. "Come here, sit up like you mean it. Hand position first."

You reached over and adjusted his fingers on the frets, and if your hand lingered a beat too long doing it, neither of you mentioned it.

"Now just press down. Don't worry about which chord it is yet, just get used to how it feels."

He pressed down, awkward and stiff, and the sound that came out was somewhere between a chord and a mistake.

"That was terrible," you said cheerfully.

"Thanks."

"No, I mean it in the nicest way. Everyone's first chord sounds terrible. If your first chord sounded good I'd assume you were lying to me about never playing." You reached over again, repositioning one of his fingers. "There. Try it now."

This time it rang out clean, an actual G chord, and the look of pure surprise on his face made you laugh before you could stop yourself.

"See? Look at you. A prodigy."

"That's one chord."

"One chord is how it starts for everybody. I learned my first chord when I was eleven, in the back of a church basement, from a man who told me I'd never make it as a singer because my ear wasn't good enough yet." You said it lightly, like a funny anecdote, but something flickered under it that you didn't examine too closely. "He wasn't wrong, actually. It took me years to fix that. But the guitar came first. The voice caught up later."

"Was he your teacher?"

"One of them. I had a few, over the years. You go through a lot of vocal coaches when you're trying to break in as a kid, everyone's got an opinion about how your voice should sound." You shrugged, and it came out more tense than casual. "Anyway. Chord two."

If he noticed the deflection, he didn't push it, just let you guide his fingers into the next shape, and you were grateful for that more than you could easily say.

By nine thirty he could switch between three chords, badly but audibly, and you'd stopped pretending your hands weren't finding excuses to correct his grip more often than strictly necessary. His hand was warm under yours, and at some point the correcting stopped being about the chords at all, both of you just sitting there, his fingers still under yours on the frets, neither of you moving to pull away.

You looked up at him at the same moment he looked at you, and the room went quiet in a way that had nothing to do with the guitar. His eyes dropped, just for a second, to your mouth, and you felt yourself leaning in without quite deciding to, close enough that you could feel the warmth coming off him.

Then your phone buzzed on the coffee table, loud and rude in the quiet, and you both startled back like you'd been caught at something.

"I should, um." You cleared your throat, pulling the guitar back into your own lap like a shield. "I should probably actually work for a bit. Lyrics for the extra bridge my producer wants. I've been putting it off all day."

"Yeah. Of course." He stood, a little too quickly, running a hand through his hair. "I should check in with the team anyway."

You busied yourself putting the guitar back in its stand, mostly so you had somewhere to look that wasn't him. When you finally turned around, he was standing near the hallway, looking like he wasn't sure whether to say something else or just let the moment go.

"You can take the guest room," you said, filling the silence before it could get any more awkward. "Next to mine, top of the stairs. I'd put you in the guest house out back, but given current circumstances, I don't really fancy the idea of being murdered in my sleep while my protection detail is in a separate building." You said it as a joke, light, the kind of thing you'd have said to anyone, but it came out a little thinner than you meant it to, the reality of the day catching up to you all at once.

He must have heard it too, because his voice dropped, steadier than the joke deserved. "Nothing's going to happen to you. I mean that."

You believed him, the same way you had that morning, easy and immediate, which still surprised you a little every time it happened.

"Night, Luke."

"Night."

You lay awake longer than you wanted to admit after the door clicked shut down the hall, staring at the ceiling and replaying the exact second his eyes had dropped to your mouth, wondering what would have happened if your phone hadn't gone off, wondering if you wanted to know the answer to that at all given everything else going on this week. It had been one day. One single day, and you already felt more unsteady around this man than you had around anyone in longer than you cared to think about.

You told yourself it was just the stress of everything, the fear finding somewhere safe to land now that there was someone steady in the house. You almost believed it. Somewhere down the hall, a door was shut but not locked, and knowing he was that close, awake, listening for anything wrong, was the first thing all week that had actually let you fall asleep without checking the locks three times first.

★・・・・・・★

The studio was all mirrored walls and scuffed floors and the particular smell of rosin and old sweat that never quite aired out no matter how many industrial fans your choreographer installed. You'd been coming here for years, long enough that the receptionist waved you through without looking up, long enough that you barely registered the framed photos on the wall of other artists who'd rehearsed in this same room.

Luke, on the other hand, looked like a man who had never once considered that dance rehearsal might require this much equipment.

"It's a lot, right?" you said, watching him take in the wall of mirrors, "This is basically just for one section of the closing number. The lift."

"The lift."

"There's a part where I get lifted, dramatically, very cinematic, into my dance partner's arms at the end of the bridge. It looks incredible when it works." You dropped your bag by the wall and started pulling your hair back, wincing slightly at the ache still in your shoulders from yesterday's fitting. "It also looks incredible when it doesn't work, just in a completely different way, so we've been drilling it for weeks."

Your choreographer, Marco, swept in a few minutes later with his usual chaotic energy, clapping his hands together like he was starting a race. "Okay, we don't have long, so let's move. Full run of the bridge into the lift, then we clean the ending. Where's Danny?"

Danny was your dance partner for this number, a broad shouldered guy you'd worked with for the better part of two years, easy to laugh with and, more importantly, strong enough to actually get you off the ground without either of you dying in the process. He jogged in a minute later, already sweating, apologizing about traffic, and the run through started without much ceremony.

Luke settled into a chair against the mirrored wall, and you were aware of him there in a low, constant way the whole time you danced, the way you were always aware of anyone watching you rehearse, except this awareness had a different texture to it entirely.

The first two run throughs went fine. Clean, even, the kind of competent that wouldn't embarrass anyone on stage but also wouldn't make the crowd lose their minds, which was the whole point of a closing number lift. On the third attempt, right at the peak of the bridge, Danny's grip slipped.

It happened fast. One second you were airborne, mid rotation, and the next you were coming down wrong, his hands scrambling to correct too late, and you hit the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of you before you even registered what had happened.

The room exploded into motion. Marco was shouting, Danny was apologizing frantically, someone was already crouched next to you asking if you could move your fingers, but the only thing you actually clocked clearly was Luke, out of his chair and across the room before you'd even fully processed hitting the ground, his hand steady on your shoulder as he checked you over with quick, practiced efficiency.

"I'm fine," you said, mostly to make everyone stop hovering. "I'm fine, really, just knocked the wind out of me."

"Anything hurt when you breathe?" Luke asked, ignoring the room entirely, focused only on you.

"No. I promise. Bruised ego, mostly."

He helped you up anyway, one hand under your elbow, and didn't let go until he was sure you were steady on your feet.

Marco, meanwhile, had rounded on Danny with the specific fury of a man whose vision had just been literally dropped on the floor. "That's the third time this week your grip's slipped on that rotation. Third time. We are five days from a live show, Daniel."

"I know, I'm sorry, my shoulder's been off since Tuesday, I told you—"

"I don't care whose shoulder is off, I care about her not breaking her neck." Marco pressed his fingers to his temples, visibly recalibrating, then turned and scanned the room like the solution might be hiding somewhere in the rafters. His eyes landed on Luke.

"You," he said. "Come here."

Luke blinked. "Me."

"Yes, you. You're tall, you look strong, you'll do for one run through while Danny ices his shoulder and I figure out if I need to redesign this whole section." Marco was already walking toward him, hands out like he was sizing up furniture. "Take your jacket off, you'll need the range of motion."

"I'm not a dancer."

"You don't need to be a dancer, you need to catch her and lift her on a count of four, that's it, I'll walk you through it." Marco turned to you. "Is that alright with you?"

You looked at Luke, who looked, for possibly the first time since you'd met him, genuinely thrown. There was a faint color rising up his neck that had nothing to do with the room's temperature.

"Only if he's comfortable," you said, fighting a smile.

"I can do it," Luke said, a beat too quickly, and shrugged out of his jacket like a man walking toward something he hadn't fully agreed to yet.

Marco walked him through the mechanics fast, hands here, weight there, the timing of the count. "Hands go here, on her waist, not lower, this isn't that kind of number. Weight goes through your legs, not your back, unless you want to be an FBI agent with a hernia. And for the love of god, look like you want to be lifting her, not like you're defusing a bomb."

"I'm trying to concentrate."

"Concentrate with your face relaxed. She's not a bomb, she's a person, and right now you look like you're about to be graded on this." Marco physically adjusted Luke's grip, tutting the whole time like a man personally offended by bad hand placement. "Also, higher. Your hands are too low. You want to look like you respect her, not like you're going to the club."

You laughed before you could stop yourself, and Marco rounded on you immediately, pointing a finger like a teacher catching a student passing notes.

"Don't laugh. I am over here trying to make sure this man does not break your neck, which is more than I can say for your actual dance partner." He turned back to Luke without missing a beat. "You see, this is the problem. Danny's hands have been in the wrong place for weeks, I've told him a hundred times, and everyone acts like it's some mystery why he keeps dropping her. It's not an if with him. It's a when. Shoulder or no shoulder, that grip was never going to hold, and today just happened to be the day gravity agreed with me."

"Good to know," Luke said, deadpan, and you caught him fighting a smile at your own laughter, which only made you laugh harder.

"Laugh all you want, I am the only person in this building actually doing my job properly, so." Marco stepped back, satisfied with the adjustment, and clapped his hands once. "Better. That's a lift, not a wrestling move. Now do it again in your head before we put music on, because I want muscle memory, not luck."

Luke ran the motion once without you in it, testing the mechanics on his own, and you stood a few feet away, trying not to stare too obviously at the way his forearms flexed as he did.

"Okay. From the top of the bridge," Marco called, clapping the music back on. "Just the lift, don't worry about the rest of the choreography."

You found your mark, and Luke found his, and for a second right before the music hit the cue, your eyes met in the mirror and he gave you a small, nervous almost smile that made your stomach flip in a way you decided very firmly to ignore.

The lift itself happened almost too fast to process. His hands found your waist exactly where they needed to be, steady in a way Danny's hadn't quite managed even on the good days, and then you were up, weightless, the room tilting as he rotated with you held easily above him like it cost him nothing at all. You came down slow, controlled, his grip never once wavering, and by the time your feet touched the floor again you were close enough to him that you could feel his breath, quick from the exertion, warm against your temple.

Neither of you moved for a second.

His hands were still at your waist. Yours had landed, without any real decision on your part, flat against his chest. The music kept playing behind you, and the room kept existing somewhere outside the very small space the two of you were currently occupying, but for that one suspended second, none of it seemed to matter very much at all. You were looking up at him, and he was looking down at you, and something about the way his jaw tightened, the way his eyes dropped briefly to your mouth before dragging back up, made it very clear he was thinking the exact same thing you were.

"Yes," Marco said loudly, clapping once, shattering the moment entirely. "Yes, perfect, that is exactly the energy I want in that lift, the tension, the eye contact, gorgeous. Okay. Let's get Danny back in and have him try to replicate that."

Luke's hands dropped from your waist like he'd been burned, and you both took a step back at the same time, suddenly very interested in looking anywhere except at each other.

"Right," you said, clearing your throat. "Yes. Great note, Marco."

Danny jogged back over, shoulder visibly iced and wrapped, and Marco reset the count, and you did the whole thing again, the lift, the rotation, the landing, and it was fine. It was competent. Danny's grip held this time, his timing clean, everything exactly the way it was supposed to look for a paying audience of thousands of people.

It just wasn't the same.

You caught Luke's eye once over Danny's shoulder mid rotation, and something in your chest ached a little at the sight of him standing there, jacket back on, watching with an expression he'd very carefully smoothed back into something neutral. You landed the second run through perfectly. You didn't feel a single second of it the way you'd felt the first.

Marco declared it good enough for the day and released you both a little after five, and you gathered your bag with hands that weren't quite steady yet, aware of Luke waiting by the door, aware of the very specific, very stubborn thought running underneath everything else in your head.

You wished it had been him again.

★・・・・・・★

The car was quiet for the first few minutes, the kind of quiet that had a lot going on underneath it. You sat in the passenger seat with your knees pulled up, still in your rehearsal clothes, watching the city slide by through the window while very deliberately not thinking about the way his hands had felt on your waist an hour ago.

It was Luke who broke it, eventually, glancing over at a red light.

"You okay? You've been quiet since we left."

"I'm fine. Just tired. Rehearsal days always wipe me out more than actual shows do, which doesn't make sense, but here we are." You shifted in your seat to look at him properly. "Can I ask you something? Where'd that come from? The lift, I mean. You clearly weren't just following Marco's instructions in the moment, that was too clean for a first try."

That got a small, almost embarrassed laugh out of him. "Honestly, it's just muscle memory. Holding weight, keeping rhythm, all of it. My abuela taught me how to dance when I was a kid, and I do a lot of weights in the gym, just an occupational hazard"

"Your abuela taught you to dance?"

"Yeah. She was big on dancing, growing up. Every family party, every quinceañera, every random Sunday afternoon if a song she liked came on the radio, she'd pull me into the kitchen and make me learn it properly. Salsa, mostly. Some merengue. She said a man who couldn't dance was a man who couldn't be trusted, which is a lot of pressure to put on an eight year old, but here we are."

"That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard, and also slightly threatening."

"She was a slightly threatening woman. In the best way." He smiled at the memory, small and real, the kind of smile that made you want to know everything else that lived behind it. "She'd get so frustrated with me if I looked at my feet instead of my partner. Used to smack the back of my head, gently, and tell me the feet would figure themselves out, the eyes were the part that mattered."

"So that's where the eye contact came from back there," you said, before you could stop yourself, and immediately felt heat rise in your cheeks at how it sounded out loud.

He didn't answer right away, and when you glanced over, his jaw had that same tight set it had right before Marco's voice broke the moment in the studio.

"Maybe," he said finally, eyes back on the road.

Neither of you said anything else about it, but the air in the car had shifted, warmer than it had been a minute ago, and you spent the rest of the drive with a small, stupid smile you couldn't quite talk yourself out of.

Back at your place, you kicked off your shoes the second the door shut behind you, groaning at the relief of it, and wandered toward the kitchen already thinking about food. Somewhere between the fridge and deciding you were too tired to actually cook anything, an idea took hold that you didn't examine too closely before acting on it.

You pulled up Spotify on the kitchen speaker and scrolled until you found a salsa playlist, something upbeat and brassy, and let it fill the room before Luke even had time to ask what you were doing.

"Okay, Agent Alvez," you said, turning to face him with your arms crossed, doing your best impression of Marco's authority. "Show me what you've got."

He looked at the speaker, then at you, then back at the speaker like it had personally betrayed him. "No. No, no."

"Yes."

"I don't dance on command."

"You watched me dance all day. Multiple times. In front of a room full of people. It's your turn."

"That's different. You're actually good at it. I vaguely lifted you once and got lucky."

"You weren't lucky, you were good, Marco does not lie about that kind of thing." You reached over and turned the volume up half a notch for emphasis. "Besides, I'm out of practice with anything that isn't choreographed for me. We can be bad at this together."

"I don't think that's how it works."

"It's exactly how it works. There's no time like the present to practice."

He exhaled through his nose, the particular sound of a man who knew he'd already lost, and rolled his shoulders back like he was bracing for something. "You're not going to let this go."

"Not even a little."

He moved, finally, just a small shift of his hips at first, testing the water, and it was so much better than the reluctance suggested it would be that you laughed out loud before you could stop yourself.

"Stop that," he said, fighting his own smile now.

"I'm not doing anything!"

"You're laughing at me."

"I'm laughing because you're good, which feels like it should be a compliment, not an insult." You stepped closer, still moving with the music, close enough now that he reached out almost on instinct and caught your hand, pulling you the rest of the way in.

"Fine," he said. "You want to see it properly, I'll show you properly."

He spun you then, without warning, the same easy confidence from the kitchen encore this morning, and you laughed again, delighted, letting him guide you through a turn you didn't fully know the steps to but somehow followed anyway, his hand finding the small of your back to keep you steady. The song shifted, the beat picking up, and for a full minute neither of you said anything at all, just moved, easy and loose and unhurried, the whole horrible week fading out somewhere at the edges of the kitchen light.

His hands settled on your hips at some point, guiding the sway of the turn, and he leaned in slightly, close enough that you felt the words more than heard them at first.

"My abuela would like you," he said.

"Would she say I have stiff hips?"

"No." A small laugh, warm against your ear. "Definitely not."

He pulled back just enough to look at you properly, an unhurried once over that made heat climb up your neck despite yourself, and then, before you'd fully registered the motion, dipped you, one arm firm behind your back, the other still holding your hand steady, the two of you close enough that his face hovered just above yours, both of you breathing a little harder than the dance strictly required.

Neither of you moved to come back up right away.

Then his phone rang, loud and jarring against the music, and he straightened you both up fast, fumbling to pull it from his pocket.

"Sorry," he said, already glancing at the screen, his expression shifting into something more alert.

"Yeah, no, it's fine," you said, reaching over to turn the music off, the kitchen suddenly much quieter than it had been a second ago.

Luke's expression shifted the second he answered, all the warmth from a minute ago draining out of his face in a way that made your stomach drop before he'd said a single word.

"Alvez," he said, and then a long pause, listening, his jaw tightening incrementally with every second that passed. "When?" Another pause. "Yeah. Send me what you have, I'll go through it tonight and come in first thing."

He hung up and didn't say anything right away, which somehow scared you more than anything he could have actually said.

"Luke."

"Local PD intercepted a package this afternoon," he said carefully. "Addressed to you. It got flagged before it made it anywhere near your building, part of the screening we set up on your mail after the first few incidents."

"Okay." Your voice came out smaller than you meant it to. "What was in it?"

He hesitated, and that hesitation told you more than you wanted to know.

"Luke."

"Photographs," he said finally. "Multiple. We're still confirming everything, but preliminary ID came back a few minutes ago." He looked at you like he genuinely did not want to say the next part out loud. "Your rival. The label executive. Your old tour manager, from the photos that came in a few days ago, we finally got confirmation on those too. And now a third, more recent one. It's Danny."

The kitchen went very quiet.

"Danny," you repeated, like saying it again might change what it meant. "My Danny. From today. From the studio."

"Yeah."

"He was fine four hours ago. He iced his shoulder and went home. I watched him leave." Your hands had gone cold, and you were dimly aware you were still holding your phone from turning the music off, gripping it hard enough that your knuckles had gone pale. "Are you telling me he's dead?"

"We believe so. Emily's on her way to notify the family now, and local PD is processing the scene. I need you to know that before anyone else tells you, or before it ends up somewhere online before we can confirm it properly."

You sat down on one of the barstools because your legs had stopped feeling entirely reliable, staring at the countertop like it might offer some kind of explanation. Danny, who complained about traffic and always brought protein bars he never actually ate and had once spent an entire rehearsal break showing you pictures of his dog. Danny, who four hours ago had been standing across from you in the studio, alive, annoyed about his shoulder, apologizing for something that turned out to not even be his fault.

"The photographs," you said slowly, the pieces arranging themselves into something you didn't want to look directly at. "Whoever's doing this took photographs of all of them. The teeth, the fingers, now this. Photos of everyone they've killed, and they sent them all to me."

"Yes."

"Why him? He's not, he's not connected to any of this, he's just my dance partner, he's not from before, he's not from my past, why would they—" You stopped, the sentence catching somewhere in your throat, because you already knew the answer even before Luke said it.

"Because he touched you," Luke said quietly. "Today, in the studio. But it's bigger than just Danny. Your rival, the executive, now him, they're not random. Every one of them is someone you've come into contact with, or someone he believes stood between you and making it, rivals he thinks were holding you back, and now anyone who gets physically close to you. We think this is about proximity and perceived competition both. Anyone who touches you, or anyone he sees as an obstacle to your success, becomes a target."

The implication of that landed on you slowly, then all at once, and you looked up at him with something close to panic.

"You touched me today," you said. "In the studio. You lifted me. In front of everyone."

Luke's expression didn't change, exactly, but something in it went very still.

"That's different," he said. "He touched you on camera, in front of people, at a rehearsal that had photographers waiting outside. That's the pattern, every victim so far has been someone visibly close to you, someone the public could see and recognize as being near you. Don't worry about me. There's no photo of the two of us together anywhere, no story, nothing that connects me to you publicly. He doesn't know who I am."

"And just now. In this kitchen."

"Nobody saw that. No cameras, no photographers, nothing that makes it out into the world." He held your gaze steadily. "It actually tells us something useful, if you think about it. This isn't someone in your life right now watching you day to day. It's someone working off what gets published, what gets photographed, what makes it into the world where he can see it. That points back to someone from before, not someone close to you currently."

"So he's, what, getting rid of anyone who could replace him. Anyone who gets close to me."

"That's what it looks like. Your rival. The executive. Now Danny. Anyone visible enough to represent competition for your attention, or proof that you've moved on without him." Luke's jaw tightened again, just slightly. "We're going to figure out who he is. I promise you that."

Neither of you said anything else for a moment, the full weight of it settling into the room, quieter and colder than either of you knew how to fill.

"I need you to hear something from me directly," Luke said finally, his voice steady in a way that felt deliberate, the same steadiness he'd used in your kitchen the first morning you met him. "Nothing is going to happen to you. I'm not leaving. If anything, this changes how careful we're being, not whether I'm here."

"You could be a target now too."

"I've been a target before. It's part of the job." He said it plainly, no bravado in it, just fact, the same way he'd told you he could handle the paparazzi that first day. "What matters right now is you. And keeping you safe until we find whoever's doing this."

You wanted to argue, wanted to point out that this didn't feel like a job anymore, not after the kitchen, not after the dip, not after the way his hand had felt at your waist ten minutes before his phone rang and everything went sideways. But the words wouldn't come, not with Danny's name still hanging in the air between you, not with the image of a stranger somewhere out there cataloguing every single person who got close enough to touch you.

"I have five days until the closing show," you said instead, quietly, mostly to yourself. "Five days, and someone I worked with for two years is dead because he lifted me at rehearsal."

"I know."

"I don't know if I can do this."

Luke crossed the kitchen and crouched slightly in front of where you sat, close enough that you had to look at him instead of the counter, his hands resting lightly on the outside of your knees, careful, not presumptuous, just there.

"You don't have to figure that out tonight," he said. "Tonight, you just have to let me do my job. Everything else can wait until morning."

You nodded, because it was easier than arguing, and because some small, stubborn part of you believed him when he said it, the same way you'd believed him every single time so far.

★・・・・・・★

The next three days blurred together in a way that felt almost deliberate, like your brain was trying to protect you from remembering them too clearly. Rehearsals moved indoors, closed to anyone who wasn't already vetted twice over. Press appearances got cancelled one by one, your publicist fielding furious calls from outlets who didn't understand, or didn't care, that you were currently the subject of an active federal investigation. Marco brought in a new lift partner, a quiet, competent guy named Theo who you liked fine and felt absolutely nothing dancing with, which you supposed was probably safer for everyone involved.

Luke was a constant now in a way that had stopped feeling strange almost immediately. He was there when you woke up, there through every rehearsal, there at the end of every day when you finally stopped moving long enough to feel anything. You'd stopped noticing the low hum of him watching every room you walked into. It had become, somehow, the most stabilizing thing in your life.

There was, underneath all of it, one thread that had nothing to do with the case at all, though it had been steadily gnawing at you regardless. Your manager had gotten it into her head, somewhere around day two of the investigation, that the closing show needed a moment nobody was expecting. A surprise. Something to give the fans, and the headlines, a story that wasn't just about tour numbers or ticket sales.

"You've got that new song," she'd said over the phone, the one you'd been sitting with for the next album, still half finished, still just yours. "The one with no title yet. Perform it at the final show. Just you and a guitar, unannounced. It'll be everywhere by morning."

You'd agreed, mostly because it was easier than arguing, and mostly because some reckless part of you liked the idea before the events of the week had made every part of your life feel like a threat assessment. The problem was the song wasn't finished. It had a verse, most of a chorus, and a bridge that refused to cooperate no matter how many nights you sat with it, because you didn't actually know yet what the song was supposed to be about. Every version you tried felt hollow, technically fine, emotionally empty, and you were running out of nights to figure it out before someone needed a final lyric sheet to send to your band.

By the fourth night, two days out from the closing show, you found yourself sitting on your bedroom floor at midnight surrounded by lyric sheets you couldn't focus on, that unfinished bridge staring back up at you in your own handwriting, your hands shaking in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

Luke found you there when he came to check the hallway on his usual round.

"Hey." He crouched in the doorway, careful, the way he always was when he wasn't sure how deep the moment went. "You okay?"

"I don't think I can do the show," you said, before you'd fully decided to say it out loud. Once it was out, though, it kept coming, faster than you could stop it. "Danny is dead because he touched me at rehearsal. My rival is dead. My old tour manager is dead, and he was never even actually involved with me, it was just a rumor, and that was enough. And in two days I'm supposed to stand on a stage in front of twenty thousand people, completely exposed, completely visible, and just, what, sing? Like none of that happened?"

"You don't have to decide that tonight."

"I have to decide it eventually. And every version of the decision feels wrong. If I cancel, he wins, whoever he is, he gets to take this from me on top of everything else he's already taken. But if I go through with it, I'm basically handing him a stage and a spotlight and every single person who gets near me becomes a potential name on a list." Your voice cracked on the last word, and you hated how small it sounded. "I keep thinking about Danny's dog. Did you know he had a dog? He showed me pictures of it constantly. Somebody has to explain to that dog why he's not coming home."

Luke moved into the room properly then, sitting down on the floor across from you instead of standing in the doorway, close enough that his knee nearly touched yours.

"I can't tell you it's an easy decision," he said. "I'm not going to pretend it is. But I can tell you what I know. We are not going to let you walk into that building without a plan that accounts for every single one of your risks. Full sweep of the venue, full control of who has access to backstage, coordination with venue security days in advance instead of hours. If you decide to do the show, it will not be you standing up there unprotected. It'll be you standing up there with an entire team making sure nothing gets close to you that shouldn't."

"And if that's not enough."

"It will be enough." He said it with a certainty that should have felt hollow, given everything that had already happened, but somehow didn't. "I'm not going to lie to you and say there's zero risk. There's risk in everything, that's just true. But I am telling you, as the person whose actual job is assessing exactly this kind of risk, that a well secured show is safer than you canceling and staying an open target with nothing to focus your energy on except waiting for whatever happens next."

You considered that, turning it over, feeling some of the tightness in your chest ease just slightly.

"You really think we'll catch him before the show."

"I think we're closer than we were four days ago. Every piece of evidence narrows the list. And I think whoever this is wants an audience, given the pattern, given how personal all of this has been. Which means the show isn't just a risk. It might also be the moment he can't resist showing up for." Luke's jaw tightened at his own words, like he didn't love the implication either. "That's not me telling you to use yourself as bait. That's not the plan, and I wouldn't let it be the plan. But it does mean we can prepare for the possibility instead of pretending it isn't there."

You nodded slowly, and for a moment neither of you said anything, the quiet of the room settling somewhere more bearable than it had been a few minutes ago.

"Can I ask you something else," you said eventually, gesturing vaguely at the mess of paper around you. "Not case related. Actual crisis related, just a smaller one."

"Go for it."

"My manager wants me to debut a new song at the closing show. Unannounced, just me and a guitar. It's not even for this album, it's for the next one, nobody's supposed to hear it yet, but she thinks it'll be good for the headlines, give people something other than tour numbers to talk about." You gestured at the papers again, more helplessly this time. "The problem is I don't actually know what the song is about yet. I've had the verse for months. The bridge just won't come. Every time I sit down to write it, it comes out sounding like nothing, like I'm just filling space instead of saying something."

"What's the song called?"

"It doesn't have a title yet either. That's usually how you know you haven't figured out what it's actually about."

Luke considered that for a second, glancing at the lyric sheet nearest to him without quite reaching for it. "Can I hear the verse you already have?"

You hesitated, then picked up the guitar leaning against your nightstand and played it through quietly, the melody still rough, the words half certain of themselves. When you finished, he was quiet for a beat.

"It sounds like it's about trusting somebody you didn't expect to," he said. "Even though everything going on around you says you shouldn't."

You looked up at him properly. "That's not what I thought it was about when I wrote it."

"Maybe it wasn't, back then. Songs can catch up to you later, right? Isn't that basically what you told me about the acoustic one." He shrugged, like he wasn't sure he had any business having an opinion on this at all, but you were already turning the idea over, feeling something shift loose in your chest for the first time all week.

"Help me finish this bridge, then," you said. "If I'm doing the show, I want it to actually be good, and apparently you have opinions."

Luke huffed something close to a laugh, surprised. "I don't know anything about writing songs."

"You know more than you think. Come here." You slid the lyric sheet toward him, tapping the empty space under the second verse. "Tell me the last thing that made you feel steady. Anything. I'll figure out the rest."

He was quiet for a moment, considering it seriously instead of brushing it off, which you appreciated more than you probably let on.

"Someone trusting me to keep them safe," he said finally. "Even when they had every reason not to trust anyone right now."

You looked up at him, and didn't write that down immediately, just sat with it for a second, the two of you on the floor of your bedroom at nearly one in the morning, two days out from a show that might change everything or nearly cost you everything, and felt, despite all of it, a little less like you were facing this alone.

"That's a good line," you said eventually, and picked up your pen, and didn't tell him yet exactly whose voice you were hearing when you wrote the rest of it down.

★・・・・・・★

The night before the closing show, the house was quieter than it had been in days. Rehearsals were done. The setlist was locked. The extra bridge, the one Luke had unknowingly helped you finish, sat printed on a single sheet of paper folded into the pocket of the jacket you'd be wearing tomorrow night, a secret you hadn't told anyone about yet, not even him.

You'd gone to bed around eleven, exhausted in the specific, bone deep way the week had left you, and you weren't sure what woke you a little after two in the morning. Not a sound exactly. More an absence of one, the particular wrongness of a house that had gone too still.

You lay there for a second, telling yourself it was nothing, before you heard it. A creak, downstairs, deliberate in a way that settled cold in your stomach immediately.

You didn't have time to decide what to do before your door opened, and Luke was already there, fully alert despite the hour, one finger to his lips.

"Someone's in the house," he said, barely above a whisper. "Stay behind me. Don't make a sound."

Your heart was hammering so hard you were sure it was audible from the hallway, but you nodded, following him out of the bedroom and toward the stairs, staying exactly where he put you, pressed against the wall just out of sight of the staircase.

The sound came again, closer now, footsteps moving through your kitchen with a confidence that made your skin crawl, someone who wasn't afraid of being caught, someone who knew the house, or at least didn't care that he didn't.

Luke moved down the stairs ahead of you, quiet and controlled, and you caught one glimpse of the man in your kitchen before everything happened at once. Older than you expected. Ordinary looking, the kind of face that wouldn't stand out in a crowd, gray at the temples, a jacket that looked like it belonged to someone's kind uncle rather than a killer. He was holding something you couldn't quite make out in the dark, and the second he saw Luke, he lunged.

It was not fast, not the clean single motion you might have expected. The man fought back harder than his ordinary appearance suggested he could, shoving Luke back into the counter hard enough to rattle the cabinets, swinging wildly, connecting once against Luke's jaw before Luke got a grip on his arm and used his own momentum against him. They went down together, crashing into a kitchen chair that splintered under the weight of it, the man still fighting, still snarling, still trying to twist free even with Luke's forearm braced hard across his back.

"I made her!" the man shouted, thrashing, his voice cracking with a strange, desperate fury. "Everything she is, I built, do you understand that, I built her from nothing—"

"Stop moving," Luke said, low and controlled despite the exertion in his voice, forcing the man's arm up behind his back until the fight finally started draining out of him. It took another long, ugly few seconds before Luke had him fully pinned, knee braced against his spine, both wrists cuffed, the whole kitchen a mess of broken chair and scattered mail from the counter.

You stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs, one hand pressed over your mouth, staring at the man now still beneath Luke's weight, at the face that was somehow both a complete stranger and, the longer you looked at it, unbearably familiar.

"No," you said, quietly, almost to yourself, the recognition arriving in pieces. The shape of his jaw. The particular way he held his shoulders even now, pinned to the floor. A church basement. A folding chair. A voice telling an eleven year old girl that your ear wasn't good enough yet, but he'd fix it, he'd make you into something worth listening to.

"Mr. Halloway," you said, and the man on the floor went very still, and then, horribly, smiled up at you like you'd finally remembered something he'd been waiting years for you to say.

"You always were a fast study," he said, and something in his voice, warm, proud, entirely wrong for the situation, made bile rise in your throat.

"You taught me," you said, the words coming out shaky, though you forced yourself to stay standing where you were instead of backing away. "When I was eleven. You taught me to sing."

"I made you," he said, and the pride in it curdled into something uglier. "Every lesson, every warmup, every hour I spent in that basement when nobody else believed a scrawny kid with an untrained ear was worth the time. I made you into something, and you just walked away from it the second someone bigger came along."

"Why," you said, your voice steadier now than you expected it to be, anger finally cutting through the fear. "Why did you kill them. Why did you kill Danny, he never did anything to you, he was just a dancer, he was just trying to do his job—"

"He touched what was mine," Halloway said, twisting his head to look at you properly, entirely unbothered by the position he was in. "Every single one of them did. That executive who told you no, like he had any right to judge what I'd already built. That rival who thought she could stand where you stand. That fool of a tour manager who let people believe he meant something to you. And now this dancer, hands all over you in front of cameras, like he'd earned that." His voice rose again, cracking with the same fervent conviction. "I was clearing a path. I was protecting my work."

"You were murdering people," you said, horrified.

"Shut up," Luke said flatly, wrenching him upright with a grip that left no room for further argument, done listening to a single additional word out of the man's mouth. "You don't get to explain yourself to her."

The flashing lights of arriving units were already washing across your living room windows, red and blue cutting through the dark, and within a minute your front door burst open, agents flooding in, Emily's voice cutting through the chaos giving orders. Luke handed Halloway off to two of them without a word, and you watched them lead him out through your own front door in handcuffs, still smiling that same horrible, satisfied smile, like he'd finally been given the audience he'd been waiting for all along.

It was a long time before the house cleared out enough for it to just be the two of you again. Someone, at some point in the chaos, had gently steered you to the couch and wrapped a blanket around your shoulders that you didn't remember asking for, and you were still sitting there, side by side with Luke in the gray hour before dawn, neither of you saying anything for a while.

"You knew him," Luke said eventually, quiet, not quite a question.

"When I was eleven. He ran vocal lessons out of a church basement, cheap enough that my mom could actually afford them. He was the first person who ever told me I could really do this." You wrapped the blanket tighter around yourself, staring at nothing. "I hadn't thought about him in years. Not really. He was just, background. A person from before all of this."

"He didn't see it that way."

"No," you said. "I guess he really didn't."

Luke's hand found yours on the couch cushion between you, steady, warm, grounding you back into the room the same way it had that very first morning in your kitchen, a week that felt like it had lasted a lifetime ago now.

"It's over," he said. "You're safe. That's the only part that matters right now."

You let yourself believe him, and for the first time in six days, you actually did.

★・・・・・・★

By the time the sun actually came up, the house had mostly emptied out, save for a couple of agents finishing up in the kitchen and a locksmith your security team had called at some ungodly hour to replace the broken window latch Halloway had used to get in. You'd showered at some point, though you barely remembered doing it, and changed into actual clothes instead of pajamas, and now sat at your kitchen counter nursing a coffee you weren't sure you wanted, watching the ordinary morning light fall across a room that had held something so entirely different a few hours ago.

Emily stopped by the counter on her way out, notebook tucked under one arm, looking like a woman who badly needed her own eight hours of sleep and wasn't going to get them anytime soon.

"Local field office will handle processing from here," she said. "Halloway's being arraigned this afternoon. You'll need to give a full statement in the next few days, but that can wait until after tonight." She glanced toward Luke, who was still nursing his split eyebrow at the counter, and something almost fond passed over her expression. "The team's flying back to Quantico Sunday morning, for the record. Not tomorrow. Sunday."

"Okay," you said, a little confused by the specificity of it.

"Just wanted that on the record," Emily said again, with the smallest, most deliberate wink you'd ever seen a federal agent give anyone, and then she was gone, leaving you and Luke alone in the kitchen with the ordinary morning light and a silence that suddenly felt a lot more loaded than it had thirty seconds ago.

"What was that about," you asked slowly.

"I have no idea," Luke said, in a tone that made it very clear he had at least some idea.

You let it go, mostly because you didn't have the energy to unpack it, and turned your attention back to him properly, taking in the shallow cut above his eyebrow he was still refusing to let anyone actually treat.

"You should let someone look at that," you said, nodding at it for the third time that morning.

"It's fine."

"You keep saying that about things that are visibly not fine."

"Occupational hazard." He gave you a small, tired smile, and something about the exhaustion behind it made your chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with fear anymore. "How are you doing? Actually doing, not the version you tell reporters."

You considered the question honestly instead of brushing past it. "I don't really know yet. Numb, mostly. I keep waiting for it to feel real, and it hasn't yet. Ask me again tomorrow."

"I will."

"You don't have to, you know." You wrapped both hands around your mug, mostly for something to do with them. "Now that Halloway's in custody, your job's technically done." You said it lightly, mostly just making conversation, though there was something underneath it you weren't quite ready to look at directly.

"I guess it is," he said, noncommittal, glancing back down at his coffee.

"Feels weird to think about, honestly. Six days of you being everywhere I am, and then Sunday you're just, gone, back to whatever your normal actually looks like."

"I'll still be around this weekend," he said. "Nothing ends the second the arrest happens. There's statements, paperwork, probably a few more days of this yet."

"Right. Of course." You busied yourself with your own mug, not sure why that answer left you feeling slightly less settled than you'd hoped it would. Still, you'd been turning something else over since the moment the sun came up, and this felt like as good a time as any to say it.

"Come to the show tonight," you said. "Not as protection detail. I mean, obviously there'll still be security, that's not going anywhere for a while, but I mean, come. As my guest. Watch it properly, from somewhere that isn't a hallway or a chair against a wall."

He raised an eyebrow, something warm and surprised crossing his face. "You want me at your closing show."

"I want you at my closing show." You said it plainly, no hedging, because after everything the last week had put both of you through, hedging felt like the wrong instinct entirely. "You've spent six days watching me from the sidelines of my entire life. I'd like you to actually watch the thing that started all of it, for once, without also having to think about exit routes and blind spots."

"I'll still think about exit routes and blind spots."

"I know. But you can also just watch the show. Both things can be true."

He was quiet for a second, and you could see him actually considering it, not just accepting an invitation but weighing what it meant, the same careful way he seemed to weigh most things.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'd like that."

You reached into your bag on the counter and pulled out a laminate on a lanyard, one of the all access passes your tour manager kept a small stack of for exactly this kind of situation, and slid it across the counter toward him.

"Backstage access," you said. "So you're not stuck in the crowd trying to see over twenty thousand people's phones. You can watch from the wings if you want, or side stage, wherever makes the most sense for you."

He turned the laminate over in his hands, something unreadable passing over his face.

"This isn't the kind of thing you hand out to just anyone, is it."

"No," you said simply. "It's not."

He looked up at you, and for a second neither of you said anything else, the quiet stretching out comfortable and a little charged all at once, the kind of quiet that had been building since a dance studio six days ago and had never quite found the right moment to resolve itself.

"I should go get some sleep before tonight," you said eventually, breaking it gently, mostly because you weren't sure what would happen if you let the silence go on any longer. "You should too. Big night."

"Big night," he agreed, and slipped the laminate into his jacket pocket like something worth keeping safe.

★・・・・・・★

The venue was already roaring by the time you got word the doors had opened, twenty thousand voices bleeding through the concrete of the arena walls even from backstage, and for the first time all week, the sound didn't make your stomach twist with dread. It just felt like your job again. The thing you'd built your whole life around, finally allowed to be the biggest thing happening tonight instead of an afterthought to everything else going on around you.

Your stylist had you in the closing look an hour before doors, the one you'd been saving all tour for exactly this night, a fitted ivory two piece with hand sewn crystal detailing along the bodice that caught the light every time you moved, paired with the boots you'd broken in specifically so they wouldn't slow you down during the choreography. You stood in front of the mirror while your glam team finished your hair, and for the first time in a week, the reflection looking back at you seemed to actually recognize the moment for what it was instead of bracing for what might go wrong.

You found Luke in the wings during soundcheck, laminate around his neck, looking distinctly out of place among the crew in headsets and the dancers stretching along the floor. He'd worn the same jacket from that morning, the good one, the one he'd called his panic choice, and you noticed, not for the first time this week, how it actually suited him, the kind of quiet, understated handsome that never tried very hard and somehow worked better because of it. Something about seeing him there, in your world instead of standing at the edge of it, made your chest go warm and a little unsteady.

"You clean up nice for backstage," you said, nodding at the jacket.

"I panicked and wore the nicest thing I own."

"It's working for you." You glanced toward the stage, where your band was running through the top of the set one more time, and felt the familiar pre show hum settle into your chest, sharper tonight than usual, everything a little more vivid after the week you'd had. "You nervous?"

"For you or for me?"

"Either. Both."

"A little of both, honestly." He looked at you properly then, something steady and warm in it that you were getting increasingly used to, and increasingly unwilling to live without. It was strange, you thought, how quickly a face could become the thing your eyes looked for first in any room. A week ago you hadn't known the particular way his jaw set when he was concentrating, or the small, private smile he only gave you and nobody else. Now you couldn't imagine not knowing it. "You're going to be incredible. I don't think that's actually in question."

"We'll see." You hesitated, glancing toward Marco, who was running Theo through the lift one final time near the edge of the stage, smooth and clean, no hitch anywhere in it. "That's not going to happen again, by the way. What happened with Danny. Marco's had Theo drilling nothing else for three days straight."

"I know. I watched half of it." Luke's expression softened, understanding exactly what you actually meant underneath the sentence. "You don't have to think about that tonight. Just get through the show. That's the only job you have."

"We'll see how I hold it together." You squeezed his arm once, quick, before your stage manager called you toward the tunnel, the countdown clock in the wings ticking down toward zero. "Watch from side stage. I mean it. I want to be able to see you."

What followed was a blur of adrenaline and choreography, hit after hit, the crowd singing your own words back at you louder than you could hear yourself, the new lift landing clean and easy in Theo's hands with no fear left in your body when you came down from it. Somewhere in the middle of it all, you caught Luke's eye from the wings during the bridge of your biggest single, and he was smiling, wide and unguarded, an easy, boyish thing you didn't get to see nearly often enough given how careful he usually was with his own face. You filed the image away like something worth keeping.

It came near the end of the main set, right where your setlist had a natural gap for a costume change that nobody in the audience would notice was actually about to become something else entirely. You waved off your guitar tech's usual handoff and took the stool yourself instead, settling the acoustic across your lap while the crowd noise shifted into a curious, expectant hush.

"So," you said into the mic, and the arena went quieter, sensing something unplanned. "This isn't on the setlist."

The crowd roared at that, the specific delighted chaos of a room realizing they were about to get something nobody else had.

"Before I do this, I want to say something." You let the noise settle, waiting until it had gone properly quiet. "This week has been hell, honestly. Some of you already know some of it. I lost people this week who mattered to me, and tonight's for them, and for their families, wherever they are right now." Your voice caught, just slightly, and you let it, because pretending otherwise felt like its own kind of dishonesty. "But it's also taught me something, weirdly. That even in the worst possible situation, the actual worst case, there can still be light in it somewhere. I didn't expect to learn that this week. I'm glad I did."

The arena had gone hushed and reverent, twenty thousand phone lights rising slowly into the dark like something closer to a vigil than a concert.

"So this next one's new. It's not out yet, it's not even really finished, technically. I wrote it this week, actually, and I had some help with it, more than the person who helped probably realizes. I wanted to sing it here first, tonight, before anyone else hears it."

You found the exact spot in the wings where Luke stood half in shadow, arms loosely crossed, watching you with the same quiet attention he gave everything, the same attention that had once made you feel like a case file and now just made you feel seen, and you let your eyes settle there before you started to play.

I didn't ask for someone steady, 

didn't think I had the room. 

Then you found me in the silence, 

in the middle of an empty room.

Everybody's always watching, 

every version that I show. 

But you looked beyond the surface, 

saw the parts I didn't know.

Maybe love was never louder, 

maybe it was always this. 

Just somebody standing still enough to make the running quit.

You thought, somewhere in the middle of that first verse, about the particular steadiness of him, not just his hands, though you thought about those plenty, but the whole quiet architecture of the man, the way he never rushed anything, never performed concern the way people around you usually did, just showed up and stayed and let you figure out in your own time what that actually meant.

So call it the last five days, 

call it a stranger who stayed. 

I never planned for this, 

never planned for you, 

but here we are anyway.

You said trust looks like someone steady, 

even when the whole world says run. 

So I'm done running from the one thing that finally felt like coming home.

Call it bad timing, 

call it good luck. 

I don't really mind what you call it, 

as long as you're still here when I wake up.

The chorus lifted, and the crowd rose with it, thousands of phones tracking your every move, and you kept your eyes exactly where they'd landed, unwilling to look away even as you felt the shift rippling through the front rows, people starting to notice, starting to follow your gaze toward the wings instead of watching the stage.

Maybe I was good at hiding, 

maybe I'd forgotten how to let somebody see me clearly, 

without figuring it all out.

You never asked for perfect, 

never asked me to pretend. 

You just waited where you found me, 

until I let you in.

You thought about the guitar lesson on your couch, his hands clumsy on the frets, the way he'd looked at you right before your phone rang and neither of you moved to close the last few inches. You thought about the dance studio, the lift, the way his jaw had tightened right before Marco's voice broke the moment. You thought about his abuela, and his stubborn refusal to dance in your kitchen until you'd worn him down, and the small, warm ache that lived in your chest every single time he smiled at you like he actually meant it.

Then the bridge came, the one built from a single line on your bedroom floor at one in the morning, the one that hadn't existed a week ago.

If home's a person, 

maybe that's you. 

Maybe home was never somewhere, 

maybe it was something true.

And if tomorrow changes everything, 

like tomorrow always does, 

I'll still remember how you looked at me like I was already enough.

You didn't look at the crowd while you sang it. You looked at Luke, the entire time, the way you'd looked at him in a dance studio mirror six days ago right before everything got complicated, and you let every single person in that arena watch you do it, because for once you weren't hiding a single part of what the song actually meant.

So call it the last five days, 

call it a stranger who stayed. 

I never planned for this, 

never planned for you, but here we are anyway.

You said trust looks like someone steady, 

even when the whole world says run. 

So I'm done running from the one thing that finally felt like coming home.

Yeah, call it whatever you want. 

I think I'd just call it you.

Whispers moved through the crowd like a current, heads turning toward the wings, phones angling away from the stage entirely now, chasing the same direction your eyes kept refusing to leave. You could hear it, faintly, underneath the music, the particular hum of twenty thousand people realizing they were witnessing something they weren't supposed to be able to name yet but absolutely could.

You caught, somewhere near the end of it, the flash of a phone camera angled toward the wings instead of the stage, someone in the front rows fully turned around now, capturing exactly where your attention kept landing instead of the performance itself. You didn't stop playing. Some small, reckless part of you didn't even mind. Let them see it, you thought. Let all of it be real for once, in front of everyone, instead of something you kept folded up small and private in a jacket pocket.

When the song ended, the arena erupted in a way that had nothing to do with production value or choreography, just pure, unfiltered noise, and you allowed yourself exactly one more look toward the wings before your band kicked back into the next number on the actual setlist.

Luke hadn't moved. He was still watching you, jaw slightly slack, one hand pressed briefly to his own chest like he was checking it was still working properly, like a man who had just realized, in real time, in front of twenty thousand strangers, exactly what that song had been about, and exactly what it meant that you'd wanted him to know it here, first, before anyone else in the world got the chance to.

The rest of the show passed in a haze you barely registered, the closing numbers and the final costume change and the last chorus of your biggest song with the entire arena singing it back louder than the actual mix, all of it happening somewhere slightly outside yourself while the only thing that felt fully real was the knowledge that Luke was still standing in the wings, watching, waiting for you the way he had been all week.

You hit your marks on autopilot, smiled where you were supposed to smile, hit the notes you'd hit a hundred times on this tour without a single one of them requiring any real thought tonight, because your whole body seemed to be running on some separate track entirely, one that had nothing to do with the choreography and everything to do with the man standing side stage in a jacket he'd panicked into wearing. Every time you turned during the closing number, your eyes found him without meaning to, and every time, he was already looking back.

By the encore you'd stopped even pretending to yourself that you weren't rushing the transitions slightly, cutting your usual banter with the crowd shorter than normal, eager in a way you didn't examine too closely for the show to actually end. Your band picked up on it too, you were fairly sure, exchanging a couple of knowing looks during the bridge of the final song that you decided very deliberately to ignore.

You took your final bow to a wall of sound that would have overwhelmed you on any other night, and tonight barely registered at all, because the second the lights cut and the house music kicked in, you were already moving, cutting through your own crew, past your stage manager's congratulations, past a runner trying to hand you a bottle of water you didn't stop for, straight toward the wings, heart still hammering from the set and from something that had absolutely nothing to do with cardio.

He was exactly where you'd left him, and the second he saw you coming, whatever he'd been about to say died in his throat.

"Hey," he managed instead.

"Hey." You stopped a foot away from him, breathless from the show and from something else entirely, adrenaline and nerves tangled together in a way you couldn't fully separate anymore. "You heard the song."

"I heard the song."

"And?"

"And I think," he said slowly, like he was choosing each word with real care, "that I've spent six days telling myself this was complicated because of the job. Because of the case. Because you were technically someone I was supposed to be protecting, not someone I was supposed to be falling for." His jaw worked once, like the last part had cost him something to say out loud. "I don't have that excuse anymore. Halloway's in custody. The case is basically closed. And I still feel exactly the same way I did an hour ago, watching you sing that."

Your heart was doing something entirely unreasonable in your chest. "Which is?"

"Which is that I don't want to go back to Quantico Sunday and pretend the last week didn't happen the way it happened." He took a step closer, close enough now that you had to tilt your head up slightly to hold his eyes. "I know this isn't exactly normal circumstances. I know we met because someone was trying to hurt you, and that's not exactly a great foundation for anything. But I've spent every day since wanting to be near you for reasons that have nothing to do with the case at all, and I don't know how to keep pretending otherwise."

"You could have said something earlier," you said, though there was no real accusation in it, just something soft and a little dazed.

"I was your protection detail. There's a whole ethics conversation about that I very deliberately didn't have with myself until about ten minutes ago." A small, helpless laugh escaped him. "And also, I wasn't sure you felt the same way. Until tonight. In front of twenty thousand people, apparently, which is a hell of a way to find out."

"I wrote you a song," you said. "I think that qualifies as a pretty clear signal."

"Yeah," he said, something wondering in his voice. "I'm starting to piece that together."

You closed the last of the distance yourself this time, done waiting for the universe to interrupt you with a ringing phone or a stage manager's countdown clock or anything else that might steal the moment before either of you got to have it properly. His hand came up to your jaw, careful, like you were something he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed to touch, and when he kissed you it was slow and certain in exactly the way everything about him had been since the very first morning in your kitchen, steady, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world now that neither of you were pretending anymore.

Somewhere behind you, muffled by the ringing in your own ears, you were fairly sure you heard a stagehand whistle, and you did not care even slightly.

When you finally pulled back, just far enough to actually look at him, he was smiling, the same wide, unguarded thing you'd caught from the wings during your set, except now it was pointed directly at you and nothing else.

"For the record," he said, "that was a really good song."

"For the record," you said, "you inspired most of the good lines."

"I told you one thing about trust and steadiness. That's barely a contribution."

"You'd be surprised how far one honest sentence goes when you're trying to write something true." You leaned into him, tucking yourself against his chest, feeling his arms come around you easily, naturally, like the two of you had been doing this for years instead of six days. "Come back to my place tonight. Not because you're on protection detail. Just because I want you there."

"I think I can manage that," he said, and pressed a kiss to the top of your head, and for the first time in longer than you could remember, the whole enormous, exhausting week finally felt like it was actually, fully, over.

★・・・・・・★

You woke up the next morning tangled in your own sheets with Luke's arm heavy across your waist, sunlight cutting through the gap in your curtains in a way that felt almost obscene given how late you'd both actually gone to sleep. For a long moment you just lay there, listening to him breathe, cataloguing the small, ordinary details you hadn't gotten to appreciate properly in the blur of everything that had happened once the two of you finally made it back to your place and shut the door behind you, the way his hair curled slightly at his temple, the sheer, uncomplicated fact of him being there at all.

It occurred to you, lying there, that this was the first morning in over a week you'd woken up without your stomach immediately dropping into dread. No creak downstairs to brace for. No headline to check before you'd even opened your eyes properly. Just sunlight, and quiet, and the steady rise and fall of him breathing beside you.

He stirred a few minutes later, blinking awake slow, and the second his eyes found you, he smiled in a way that made your chest do something entirely unreasonable for eight in the morning.

"Morning," he said, voice rough with sleep.

"Morning." You shifted closer, tucking yourself against him properly. "How's the head?"

"The head's fine. The eyebrow's less fine." He touched the small cut above it gingerly, wincing. "How's the singer? Any regrets about last night?"

"Exactly zero." You propped yourself up on one elbow to look at him properly, still half convinced this whole thing might dissolve the second you looked away. "You?"

"Also zero. Possibly negative regrets, if that's a real category." He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, unhurried, the same steady, careful way he did most things. "Though I suspect we're about to find out exactly how public zero regrets is going to get."

"Optimistic of you to think we get to ease into it."

"I've stopped expecting anything about this week to ease into anything." He laughed, low and a little rueful, pulling you closer instead of reaching for his phone, which you appreciated more than you said out loud. "Can we just have twenty more minutes before the world finds out. Selfishly. For me."

"Twenty minutes," you agreed, and meant it, tucking your face against his chest and closing your eyes again, listening to his heartbeat like it was the only news you actually needed this morning.

You got closer to forty, in the end, drifting in and out of a warm, unhurried doze, trading half sentences about nothing important, his hand tracing slow circles against your back the entire time. It was, you thought, possibly the calmest you'd felt in longer than a single bad week could account for.

It was your phone that eventually broke it, charging on the nightstand, buzzing itself into a small frenzy that neither of you could pretend to ignore any longer.

You groaned and reached for it, already bracing yourself, and found roughly forty missed calls from your manager and publicist combined, along with several hundred notifications you didn't have the emotional bandwidth to open individually. Your manager had also, apparently, sent seventeen separate texts, escalating steadily from "call me" to "CALL ME" to a single, ominous "we need to talk strategy" sent at four in the morning.

"That's a lot of texts," Luke observed, reading over your shoulder without much shame about it.

"She gets like this whenever anything unplanned happens. It's a professional hazard of representing me." You opened the first article that loaded instead of calling anyone back, some entertainment site with a headline that had clearly been written in a hurry sometime around midnight.

POPSTAR DEBUTS SURPRISE SONG AT CLOSING SHOW, EYES NEVER LEAVE MYSTERIOUS MAN IN THE WINGS

Below it sat a photo, grainy but unmistakable, taken from somewhere in the front rows during the bridge, you on the stool with the guitar, gaze locked firmly toward the side of the stage, and Luke, half lit by the wing lights, watching you back with an expression that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

"Oh no," you said, though you were laughing, mostly because there was nothing else productive to do with the feeling.

Luke leaned over to look at the screen, going very still for a second before huffing out a laugh of his own. "That is a deeply unflattering angle of my face."

"It's an extremely flattering angle of your face, actually, that's the problem." You scrolled further, watching headline after headline pile up, half the internet apparently having spent all night trying to identify the man in the photo, several accounts already, alarmingly, close. One particularly dedicated fan thread had already cross referenced grainy paparazzi shots from the fitting week and produced a blurry but recognizable photo of him carrying your garment bag into the studio. "This is going to be everywhere by lunch."

"It's already everywhere. I checked my own phone while you were asleep." He said it with a kind of resigned amusement that suggested he'd made his peace with it sometime around three in the morning. "Emily texted me a single question mark at one point. I have not yet found the courage to respond to it."

"You're going to have to respond to it eventually."

"I know. I'm choosing denial for another hour, minimum." He scrolled his own phone for a second, then huffed a laugh. "Reid sent a whole paragraph analyzing exactly what the eye contact in that photo statistically indicates about romantic intent. I didn't ask for that, but I appreciate the thoroughness."

"Please tell me you're going to share that paragraph with me eventually."

"Absolutely not. It'll go straight to your head."

"Rude, but noted." You set your own phone face down on the nightstand, deciding the rest of the internet could wait a little longer while you had this, warm and unhurried and entirely, finally real. Your manager could wait. The label could wait. The forty missed calls could all sit there ringing into voicemail for another half hour, because right now, none of it felt nearly as urgent as it apparently was to everyone else.

"For what it's worth," you said, propping your chin against his chest, "I don't regret any of it. Not the song, not the wings, not the fact that apparently half the internet already has a nickname for whatever this is."

"There's a nickname already?"

"There's several. Give it a day, it'll narrow down to one everyone agrees on. That's usually how it goes."

"What's the leading contender?"

"I'm not telling you. Some things a man just has to earn."

"That's not how withholding information works, and you know it."

"Later," you said, and leaned in to kiss him instead of answering, slow at first and then not slow at all, one hand curling against his bare chest, his palm sliding warm along your jaw to hold you there like he had no intention of letting the moment end quickly. It went on long enough that the phone buzzing itself hoarse a few inches away stopped registering as anything worth caring about, long enough that you'd both gone a little breathless by the time you finally broke apart, foreheads still resting together.

"The world can wait a little longer than half an hour, right?" he murmured, voice rough, clearly not planning to move from this bed for a while yet.

"The world can wait as long as I say it can," you said. "That's basically the one perk of being famous."

He laughed against your mouth, low and warm, and kissed you again anyway, unhurried and easy in the quiet of a morning that felt, for the first time in longer than you could remember, entirely uncomplicated. Your phone was still buzzing itself hoarse against the nightstand a few inches away, and somewhere across the country a newsroom was probably drafting three more articles about the two of you before either of you had even had coffee. None of it changed the one thing that actually mattered.

He was here. He'd chosen to stay. And for right now, that was more than enough. 

★・・・・・・★

He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again there was a slight hesitance to it that you weren't used to hearing from him outside a bookshop three weeks into knowing him.

"You could stay at mine," he said, a little too quickly, and then seemed to hear himself and slowed down. "For a few days. If that would help. I have a sofa. It's — it's actually quite comfortable, statistically speaking, I sleep on it more often than I sleep in my own bed most weeks, which probably says something concerning about my sleep hygiene that I haven't fully examined, but the point is it's perfectly liveable, and you'd have the bedroom, obviously, I wouldn't expect you to—"

"Spencer."

"—and there's no pressure at all, I just thought, given the state of your back door, and given that you might not feel entirely comfortable being alone right now, which would be completely understandable, that it might—"

"Spencer."

He stopped.

"Thank you," you said quietly.

Something in his shoulders eased at once, like he'd been bracing for an entirely different answer.

"Of course," he said, simple and immediate, as though there had never been any other possibility at all.

You ended up at his instead — a small, cluttered flat that smelled faintly of old paper and coffee, bookshelves crowding every wall floor to ceiling in a way that made something in your chest ease slightly despite everything. It felt, in its own strange way, like a smaller, more chaotic version of your own shop. Safe by association, maybe. Or maybe just safe because it was his.

He didn't hover, exactly, though you noticed early on that the flat was spotless in a way that felt deliberate rather than accidental, surfaces wiped down, nothing sticky left forgotten on a counter, a bottle of hand sanitiser tucked discreetly by the door that he touched almost without thinking each time he came in. Later you'd learn it wasn't really about tidiness at all, not exactly. Germs, apparently, were a whole separate category of concern for him, one he managed quietly and constantly without ever quite making it your problem. That was, you thought, one of the things you loved most about him, how he seemed to instinctively know the difference between space and abandonment, giving you the former without ever once making you feel like the latter. He made tea. He set a blanket within easy reach without commenting on it. He simply existed nearby, steady and unremarkable, exactly the way he always had.

"I don't really know how to cook," he admitted, standing rather uncertainly in the middle of his own kitchen a while later, staring at a pot of water as though it might do something unexpected if left unsupervised. "I know the theory extensively. The application is less reliable."

"You've read about cooking."

"I've read several books about the Maillard reaction specifically."

"That's not the same as cooking, Spencer."

"No," he admitted, "I don't suppose it is."

You ended up standing beside him at the counter, guiding him through something simple — pasta, a jar of sauce he'd apparently bought purely because the label looked "nutritionally reasonable," garlic he chopped with the meticulous, slightly alarming precision of someone who'd clearly researched the correct technique rather than simply learned it by doing.

"Smaller pieces," you said, laughing despite yourself as he produced garlic slices thin enough to see through. "It's pasta, not a science experiment."

"Uniform size ensures even cooking."

"It's garlic."

"Precisely my point."

You reached over to adjust his grip on the knife, correcting the angle slightly, and he went very still beside you, close enough that you were suddenly, acutely aware of how little space actually separated you both. His hand stayed where you'd placed it, warm beneath yours, and for a moment neither of you moved, the boiling water forgotten entirely, the garlic forgotten entirely, everything narrowing down to the small, charged distance between his face and yours.

You could have closed it. You both seemed to realise that at exactly the same moment, some current passing wordlessly between you, his eyes dropping briefly to your mouth before returning, almost guiltily, to your eyes.

Neither of you moved.

"The, um." Spencer cleared his throat, stepping back half a pace, his ears going faintly pink. "The water's boiling."

"Right." Your own voice came out slightly unsteady. "Pasta. We should— yes."

You busied yourself with the pot, feeling strangely breathless, and didn't quite trust yourself to look at him again until the moment had safely passed.

★・・・・・・★

Dinner, once actually cooked, turned out considerably better than either of you had any right to expect, and afterward you found yourselves settled together on his sofa, plates abandoned on the coffee table, the strange charged tension from the kitchen having dissolved back into something easier, warmer.

"What movie?" Spencer asked, already reaching for the remote.

"Okay, this is going to sound ridiculous given everything," you said, "but I want to watch Pride and Prejudice. The irony isn't lost on me, believe me. I just— you know me. I'd rather laugh about it than let it sit there being awful."

"...the novel?"

"The film." 

“Based on the novle you clearly don’t like?”

“Loosly based, the 2005 one isn’t that accurate… you know the one wiith Keira Knightley."

Spencer was quiet for exactly one second before rising from the sofa entirely, crossing to a shelf crowded with DVDs you hadn't properly examined yet, and producing, with only a small amount of searching, the case in question.

You stared at him.

"You own it?"

"I own several adaptations of most major nineteenth-century novels," he said, entirely unbothered, already crossing back towards you. "For comparative purposes."

"Of course you do."

"I still think you should watch it with me anyway," you added, softer now, once he'd settled back beside you, disc already sliding into the player. "I don't want that night to be the last thing I remember about that story. I'd rather choose something new to remember instead. With you, this time."

Something shifted in his expression at that, understanding, mostly, but something warmer underneath it too, something he didn't immediately try to hide.

"Okay," he said, quiet and certain, reaching for the blanket draped over the back of the sofa and settling it over both your laps at once, close enough now that his shoulder pressed warm against yours. "We'll watch it. I'll try to keep my structural objections to myself."

"You won't."

"...No," he admitted. "Probably not."

You settled in beside him, sharing the single blanket without either of you commenting on it, his arm loose and easy around your shoulders, and something in the room felt, for the first time in longer than you could properly measure, entirely, uncomplicatedly easy.

★・・・・・・★

He was, predictably, unable to keep his structural objections to himself.

"They combined two separate proposal scenes into one for pacing purposes," he informed you, roughly forty minutes in, entirely unprompted. "Which streamlines the narrative, admittedly, but it does somewhat flatten Darcy's actual character arc."

"I'm aware. You've told me. Twice."

"I wanted to make sure it had properly registered."

"It's registered, Spencer."

"I also think the cinematography is quite good," he added, almost grudgingly, as though it cost him something to admit the film had any merit at all. "The long tracking shot at the ball. That's technically difficult to achieve well."

"Are you complimenting a romance film?"

"I'm complimenting the camera work."

"Sure you are."

He huffed something that might have been a laugh, and you let yourself lean slightly into his side, the warmth of him steady and solid beside you, and for a while neither of you said anything else at all, simply watching Elizabeth Bennet argue her way through drawing rooms and country lanes while rain occasionally pattered against his own windows outside, entirely unplanned, entirely fitting.

You felt yourself relaxing properly for the first time in what felt like weeks.

Then the rain scene arrived.

You knew it was coming, you'd seen this adaptation before, years ago, long before any of this, but something about watching it now, tonight, with actual rain streaking his own windows in soft, quiet counterpoint, made the whole scene land differently than it ever had before. Darcy, soaked through, furious and desperate all at once, finally saying the thing he'd been holding back the entire film.

You must know. Surely you must know it was all for you.

Neither of you said anything.

You felt Spencer go very still beside you, his arm, which had settled loosely around your shoulders sometime in the last half hour without either of you commenting on it, tightening very slightly.

You didn't look at him.

You didn't trust yourself to, not yet, not with the particular quality of silence sitting between you now, charged in a way the rest of the evening hadn't been.

The scene ended. The film continued. Neither of you moved to acknowledge what had just passed silently between you, and yet something had shifted regardless, settling into the room the way rain settles into soil, quiet and thorough and impossible to fully undo afterward.

★・・・・・・★

You must have drifted, at some point, exhaustion finally catching up with you the way it so often did lately without warning. When you surfaced again the film had ended, credits scrolling silently across the screen, and you were curled properly into Spencer's side now, his arm still around you, his other hand resting lightly over yours where it lay against your knee.

"Hey," he murmured, noticing you'd woken. "You fell asleep."

"Sorry." You shifted, a little embarrassed, though he didn't loosen his hold at all.

"Don't apologise." A ghost of a smile. "I think that's usually my line."

You smiled faintly back, and for a moment neither of you moved, the quiet hum of the credits still playing softly in the background, rain still tapping gently against his windows.

"Spencer."

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Always."

You considered how to phrase it, considered simply not asking at all, and then decided, after everything the last few weeks had taken from you, that you were done letting fear decide what you were and weren't allowed to say out loud.

"During the rain scene," you said quietly. "You went very still."

He looked at you properly then, something careful crossing his face, and you felt suddenly, absurdly self-conscious under the weight of it.

"What?" you asked. "Is my face doing something weird? I probably still look half-asleep."

"Your face," Spencer said, entirely too seriously for the question, "is beautiful."

You blinked at him, caught completely off guard, heat rushing to your cheeks. "I — what?"

He didn't answer that either, not directly, just held your gaze for a moment longer before he took a slow breath instead, gathering something, and when he finally spoke his voice had lost its usual easy rhythm entirely, replaced by something far more careful, far more exposed.

"I need to tell you something," he said, "and I'd like to say all of it before you respond, if that's alright. I don't think I'll manage it properly otherwise."

"Okay."

He was quiet for another moment, visibly organising his own thoughts the way you imagined he organised everything else in his life, carefully, precisely, with more consideration than most people gave anything at all.

"When Hotch told me I couldn't be on the entry team," he began slowly, "I understood the reasoning immediately. I've built my entire career on being able to think clearly under pressure. I know, statistically and professionally, that emotional proximity compromises that. I agreed with him before he'd even finished the sentence."

"Spencer—"

"Please. Let me finish." He said it gently, but firmly enough that you settled back, quiet, letting him continue. "I sat in that van outside your flat and listened to the entire thing unfold over the radio, and for the first time in my adult life, everything I know about profiling, about probability, about statistics, was completely useless to me. I couldn't calculate my way out of how frightened I was. I've spent my whole life believing that if I simply understood enough, if I gathered enough information quickly enough, I could keep the people I cared about safe. That night proved me wrong in a way I don't think I've fully recovered from yet."

You reached for his hand without quite deciding to, and he let you take it, holding on like it mattered.

"I've read four thousand three hundred and some books in my lifetime," he continued, quieter now, something raw bleeding through the careful precision of his voice. "I can quote statistics on grief, on trauma, on fear, on love, from more sources than I could probably list in one sitting. None of it prepared me for how it actually felt sitting in that van, completely helpless, listening to the possibility that I might lose you before I'd even properly told you what you meant to me."

Your breath caught.

"I told myself, for weeks, that it was too soon. That we'd known each other such a short time, statistically speaking, that whatever I was feeling was probably just an artifact of circumstance, adrenaline, proximity under stress. I tried to explain it away, the same way I try to explain almost everything away, because that's usually safer than simply admitting the truth of something." He finally looked up properly, meeting your eyes, something entirely unguarded in his expression now. "But sitting in that van, I wasn't thinking about statistics. I wasn't thinking about probability. I was thinking that if anything happened to you, I would never forgive myself for not telling you sooner. That the only thing I actually wanted, more than solving the case, more than being right about the profile, more than anything else in my entire life at that exact moment, was the chance to tell you how I felt and have you still be there to hear it."

"Spencer—" Your voice came out thick, tears threatening again, though these felt entirely different from every other kind you'd cried in the last few weeks.

"I was so scared to lose you," he said, voice cracking properly now, no attempt left to keep it steady. "I don't think I've ever been that frightened of anything in my entire life, and I've profiled serial killers for a living. I sat in that van and I thought about every conversation we'd had, every ridiculous argument about fantasy novels, every time you called me adorable or impossible or told me I had Earl Grey energy, and I thought, if I lose the chance to hear her say something like that again, I don't know what I'll—"

His voice broke entirely.

"I can't lose you again," he finished, barely above a whisper. "I don't think I'd survive it a second time. I love you. I think I've loved you since the day you called my reading habits tragic, and I have never once, in my entire life, been more certain of anything than I am of that."

For a moment neither of you moved.

Then you closed the distance between you.

You didn't entirely know where you found the courage for it, some small, stubborn scrap of certainty that had survived everything the last few weeks had put you through, rising up now at exactly the moment it mattered most. Your hand found the front of his cardigan, curling into the worn fabric, and you kissed him before either of you could talk yourselves out of it.

He made a small, startled sound against your mouth, caught entirely off guard for half a second, and then he was kissing you back properly, one hand coming up to cradle the back of your head with the same careful, reverent gentleness he brought to everything he touched, as though he still couldn't quite believe this was actually happening and didn't want to rush a single second of it in case it wasn't.

It wasn't hurried. If anything, he slowed it down deliberately, savouring it, the way you imagined he savoured the opening page of a book he'd been waiting years to finally read, like something worth being patient with, worth doing properly, worth remembering in exact, precise detail rather than losing to haste. His thumb traced slowly along your jaw. His breath caught, once, softly, against your mouth. You felt, in the unhurried care of it, everything he'd just spent minutes trying to put into words, translated now into something far simpler and far more certain.

When you finally broke apart, foreheads resting together, both of you slightly breathless, he let out something between a laugh and a sob, pure relief written across every feature, like a man who'd spent years imagining this exact moment and had just discovered the reality of it was somehow better than anything he'd allowed himself to picture.

"I love you too," you whispered, before he could say anything else. "I think I have for a while now."

"You could have led with that," he said, voice still unsteady, but lighter now, something like joy breaking through everything else. "You let me give an entire speech."

"I liked the speech."

"It was four thousand three hundred books' worth of nervous rambling."

"It was perfect," you said simply, and watched something in him finally, fully settle, the tension he'd been carrying since that horrible night dissolving at last into something soft and certain and entirely, wonderfully real.

"Stay," you murmured, still close enough to feel him smile against your temple.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I told you that already."

"I know." You settled further into him, the credits still glowing faintly on the screen, his arm tightening comfortably around you. "I just wanted to hear it again."

"You can hear it as many times as you need to."

Outside, the rain went on quietly against the window, and you let your eyes fall closed against his shoulder, warm and certain and, for once, entirely unafraid of the dark.

★・・・・・・★

a/n: and it over :((( i spend more time writing this than my essay that is due tomorrow.... lock in gang, take this as a sign to do work before tumblr time xoxo

You remembered searching for his face amongst all those unfamiliar shapes crowding the doorway. You remembered not finding it. You remembered the sick, spiralling terror of that absence, worse somehow than the blade at your throat, and then nothing — the room tilting, sound folding in on itself, darkness closing over everything at once.

You didn't know where you'd gone after that. There was a strange, disjointed gap in your memory now, fragments surfacing without order or context — a stretcher, cold air against your face, someone's voice repeating your name too loudly, too urgently, close to your ear. A blood pressure cuff tightening around your arm. Fluorescent lights sliding past overhead, too bright, too fast, while wheels rattled beneath you over some uneven surface. None of it connected properly to anything else. It simply existed, scattered and incomplete, like pages torn loose from a book and shuffled back together in the wrong order.

You didn't know if any of it had actually happened the way you remembered it, or whether your own frightened mind had simply filled in gaps with whatever felt most plausible.

You didn't know if Daniel was still out there somewhere.

You didn't know if the rest of the team had made it out safely, whether Morgan's arms catching you meant he'd been hurt doing it, whether anyone else had been standing too close to that knife when it finally clattered to the floor.

You didn't know, and not knowing pressed down on your chest with a weight that felt disturbingly similar to the plastic ties that had once bitten into your wrists — invisible now, but no less real, no less capable of making it hard to breathe.

Your heart began to race, the machine beside you responding with a faster, more urgent beeping, and for a moment panic threatened to swallow you whole all over again, alone in an unfamiliar room with no idea how much time had passed or where anyone else actually was. Your fingers curled instinctively into the thin hospital blanket, some part of you already braced for a door to open and reveal something worse than uncertainty.

Then you turned your head.

And found him.

Spencer sat in the chair beside your bed, upper body slumped forward, head resting against the mattress near your hip, one of his hands still loosely curled around yours where it must have been for hours, judging by how deeply asleep he seemed.

He looked wrecked.

Not in any dramatic, cinematic way. Just thoroughly, quietly exhausted — dark circles bruised deep beneath his eyes, hair falling messily across his forehead, his cardigan creased as though he'd been wearing it for days without once thinking to change. There was a faint shadow of stubble along his jaw that you'd never seen on him before, and even in sleep his brow stayed slightly furrowed, as though some part of him refused to fully rest even now.

You stared at him for a long moment, something enormous rising in your chest that you didn't quite have words for yet.

You'd never really let yourself look at him like this before. Properly. Without the constant undercurrent of a case, or fear, or the particular self-consciousness that came from being watched back. Asleep, he seemed younger somehow, softer around the edges, none of the careful composure he usually wore layered over everything else he was feeling. His mouth had fallen slightly open. One curl had flopped stubbornly over his forehead, refusing to stay swept back the way the rest of his hair mostly was, and you found yourself absurdly, achingly fond of that one small, uncooperative detail.

Even exhausted like this — especially exhausted like this — you thought he might be the most beautiful thing you'd ever properly looked at. Not in the obvious way people usually meant when they said that about someone. Not sharp jawlines or symmetry or anything you could have described neatly in a single sentence. It was the whole of him, really. The furrow that stayed in his brow even in sleep, as though some part of him had spent every hour you were missing turning the case over and over, refusing to let it rest even when his body finally gave out. The loyal, stubborn way he'd apparently refused to leave this chair long enough to properly lie down somewhere. The fact that his hand had found yours and simply stayed there, unconsciously, as though some part of him needed the reassurance of it even while unconscious.

He hadn't been there when it happened. He'd told you that himself, hadn't he, more times than you could count, in that steady, apologetic voice of his. But he was here now, worn down to nothing and still holding on, and something about that felt more precious to you in this exact moment than anything he could have done by simply being present in that room days ago.

You stayed like that for a while, simply watching him breathe, cataloguing every small, exhausted, unguarded detail of him the way he so often catalogued the world around himself without meaning to — as though, if you looked closely enough, carefully enough, you might finally understand exactly how someone could come to matter this much in so little time.

"Spencer."

It came out barely a whisper, cracked and small, your throat raw from disuse. He didn't stir.

"Spencer," you tried again, a little stronger this time, your free hand — the one without the IV line — moving instinctively to rest over the hand he already had wrapped around yours.

His eyes opened.

For a second he simply blinked, disoriented, the way anyone might waking suddenly from an exhausted, unplanned sleep. Then his gaze found your face properly, and something in his entire body changed at once — the tiredness still there, but suddenly secondary to something far more urgent flooding into his expression.

"You're awake." His voice cracked slightly on the words, barely above a whisper, as though he didn't quite trust it yet. "You're — oh, thank god, you're awake."

You felt your own eyes fill without warning, everything you'd been holding onto in the dark finally, safely, allowed to break apart now that he was actually here, actually real, actually looking at you like you were the only thing that mattered in the entire hospital.

"Spencer," you said again, and this time it broke apart into a sob halfway through his name, tears spilling over freely now, your whole body beginning to shake with the force of everything you hadn't let yourself feel until this exact moment.

"Hey — hey, I'm here." He was up out of the chair instantly, careful of the IV line, careful of your bandaged arm, gathering you into his arms as gently as though you might shatter at the wrong pressure. "I'm here. You're safe. I promise you, you're safe."

You cried into his shoulder, ugly and unrestrained, months of terror finally finding somewhere safe enough to land, and he simply held you through it, one hand stroking slowly over your hair, murmuring low, steady reassurances against the top of your head that you couldn't fully make out but didn't need to. The tone alone was enough.

"I'm sorry," he said eventually, once your sobbing had quieted into smaller, hitching breaths, still holding you close, his voice rough with something that sounded dangerously close to his own tears. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there."

"You're here now," you managed, voice muffled against his shoulder.

"I should have been there from the beginning." His arms tightened slightly around you. "Hotch wouldn't let me on the entry team. I argued. I begged, honestly, more than I've ever begged anyone for anything in my life, and he still said no, because he was right, because I was too close, because if something had gone wrong in there I wouldn't have been able to think clearly enough to help you." He exhaled, unsteady. "I understood it. I still hated every second of it. I sat in the van outside listening to the entire thing happen over the radio, and I have never in my life felt more useless."

You pulled back just enough to look at him properly, taking in the exhaustion and guilt written plainly across his face.

"You found me," you said softly. "That's not useless."

"I wasn't there when—"

"You found me," you repeated, firmer this time, your hand coming up to rest against his cheek the way his own hand once had against yours, except this touch, unlike Daniel's, felt like nothing but safety. "That's what matters. You got the team there. You're the reason I'm here at all."

Something in his expression cracked slightly at that, some tightly held piece of guilt loosening just a fraction under the weight of your certainty.

"We traced him through a secondary account," he said quietly, after a moment, seeming to need to explain it properly, as though the details themselves might help either of you make sense of what had happened. "Garcia found a username he'd used on an old forum years ago, linked eventually to a property registered under his mother's maiden name. An old family cottage, remote enough that nobody had thought to check it. Once we had the address, everything moved fast." His jaw tightened. "Too slow, still. But fast, once we knew."

"Is he—"

"In custody," Spencer said, before you could finish the question, something colder and more certain settling into his voice now. "He's not going anywhere. He confessed to all ten murders within an hour of processing. He seemed almost proud of it." A muscle in his jaw flexed. "He won't be anywhere near you again. I promise you that."

You nodded, some of the tension in your own shoulders finally easing at the certainty in his voice, and let yourself simply look at him for a long moment — the exhaustion, the guilt, the sheer, overwhelming relief still written plainly across every feature.

"How long was I out?" you asked eventually.

"On and off, almost two days." He reached up, gently brushing a strand of hair back from your face, the gesture achingly careful, achingly different from the last time someone had touched you that way. "You were dehydrated, and the burn needed proper treatment, and there was a mild concussion from — " He stopped himself, jaw tightening again, clearly editing something out of the sentence before it could fully form. "From earlier. The doctors say you're going to be alright. Physically, at least."

"And the rest?"

"The rest will take time," he said honestly, no false reassurance in it, which somehow meant more than empty comfort would have. "I won't pretend otherwise. But you don't have to do any of it alone."

You held his gaze for a long moment, something settling quietly between you that hadn't quite had space to exist until now — not fear, not adrenaline, not the frantic urgency of any of your previous conversations. Just this. Just him, sitting close, looking at you like you were something worth protecting rather than something to be solved.

"Stay," you said quietly. "Please. However long you can."

"I'm not going anywhere." He said it instantly, without hesitation, settling back into the chair beside your bed but keeping your hand held firmly in his. "I can stay as long as you want me to. Days. Weeks, if that's what you need. I already told Hotch I'm not leaving your side until you tell me otherwise."

"What did he say to that?"

"He said he expected as much." The faintest, exhausted smile tugged at the corner of Spencer's mouth. "Morgan said something considerably less professional, but the sentiment was similar."

You managed something close to a laugh, small and watery, and felt something in your chest ease properly for the first time since you'd woken up in that cold, dark room.

"Get some rest," Spencer said gently, thumb moving in slow, soothing circles over the back of your uninjured hand. "I'll be right here."

"You should rest too," you murmured, already feeling your own eyes growing heavy again, exhaustion pulling at you now that fear no longer had quite so firm a grip. "You look terrible."

"I've been told that already, several times, in the last forty-eight hours."

"They're not wrong."

"No," he admitted, quiet and fond despite everything. "I don't suppose they are."

You let your eyes fall closed, his hand still warm and steady around yours, his voice a low, familiar comfort in the quiet hum of the hospital room, and for the first time in days, allowed yourself to drift towards sleep without a single flicker of fear following you down into it.

He was still there when you woke again.

He stayed every time after that, too.

★・・・・・・★

a/n: guys one more part left, how are we feeling? also i could be tempted to write a part 12 but you would have to give me ideas (requests r open darlings) xx

He couldn't flirt with women at bars like Derek could, though he still always managed to get a woman's number without trying — just saying some well-timed nerdy fact and dragging his eyes up and down in a way that seemed like he was studying a woman, not objectifying her… not that you noticed, of course, since he was just your best friend.

He confessed to you, over too much wine after a particularly stressful case, that he'd read countless smut books and non-fiction books on "women's pleasure." You were sitting outside on his apartment’s mini balcony on a worn out blanket on the floor, a glass of wine in each of your hands. You giggled in reply, sloshing your wine over yourself, imagining Spencer blushing while reading but maintaining a clear and rigorous focus. Imagining the way his fingers traced the words on the page, imagining him licking his fingers to turn it. Imagining him making notes, running a flustered hand through his hair.

He leaned over, his pocket hankercheif in hand, and helped clean the wine from your dress, and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore. It was so painfully, beautifully, perfectly Spencer. Your Spencer… your best friend Spencer.

But you couldn't pretend your heart didn't do flips when he cleaned you up, laughing shyly, embarrassed, protesting that he also "conducted practical experiments."

"So you're not a virgin?" you asked, boldly.

"I'm thirty," Spencer said dryly. "Of course I'm not a virgin."

"You never argue when Morgan makes fun of you for it?"

"Yeah, because then he'd want… details." He shuddered slightly. "I like being private."

"So Dr. Reid doesn't kiss and tell?"

"Never," he said, with far more seriousness than the conversation required — and you felt your stomach flip like it always did when Spencer looked into your eyes.

He wasn't attractive. You'd told yourself that so many times it should have started sounding true by now. It never did. Spencer Reid was beautiful, but you refused to let your stupid heart acknowledge it, because if you did, if you let yourself feel it all then there would be no going back, and that terrified you.

It was the way he existed in a room, maybe. The way he'd fold himself into a chair like his limbs were an afterthought, then forget his own body entirely the second something interesting crossed his mind. You weren't supposed to notice things like the curve of his jaw when he tilted his head mid-thought, or the way his hands moved when he talked — precise, almost delicate, like he was conducting something only he could hear. You definitely weren't supposed to notice his mouth. You'd made a personal rule about that months ago and broken it approximately four hundred times since.

This isn't attraction, you told yourself. Not really. It's just… observation. Anyone with eyes would notice these things. It didn't mean anything. Noticing that someone was beautiful wasn't the same as wanting them. You could admire a painting without needing to own it, could stand in front of a sculpture and think God, that's stunning without any of it meaning you'd lost your mind.

Except paintings didn't laugh at your jokes. Sculptures didn't remember your coffee order down to the exact ratio of oat milk. And you'd never wanted to trace your fingers along a canvas the way you wanted to reach across and push a piece of hair off his forehead, just to have an excuse to touch him.

He was your best friend. That was the whole point of him. That was supposed to be the entire, uncomplicated shape of this.

You were just observing. That's all this was.

… You were becoming a very unconvincing liar.

And maybe that's why you found yourself asking "any recommendations?" before you had a chance to stop yourself; you supposed you could always blame it on the wine.

"…recommendations?" Spencer questioned tilting his head as he did so.

"Yeah, like book recommendations. About... about the... the topic you were just telling me about."

"...Women's pleasure books?"

"…yes…"

"I— surely you're already an expert in that field?" he laughed awkwardly, avoiding your eyes. 

Three PhDs. Spencer took knowledge seriously, any knowledge. He wouldn't just read about something; he'd study it, understand it, master it. The thought sent a sharp pang through your chest—jealousy for every woman who had already experienced Spencer's expertise, for every person who had been on the receiving end of those precise, analytical hands applied to pleasure instead of paperwork. The thought made you want to both run from this conversation and lean into it simultaneously.

"It's funny, really," you began, the wine making you say more than you probably should — but Spencer was your best friend, you could tell him anything, even this. "I've never… you know…"

"Wait, you're a virgin?"

"What? No—"

"Then what?"

"Do I have to spell it out?"

"Do I have to remind you that yes, always?"

"Well." You felt your face flush a bright crimson. "I've never… cum before." you said, voice small, eyes avoiding his gaze.

Spencer’s head jolted up and just stared at you for a second, "Wait, you mean—?"

"…yeah."

"But you dated Andrew for, what, four years?" he immediately recalled the name of your most recent ex, and you swore for a second you could see his face sour a tiny bit at the mention of his name.

"…yep."

"And he never once—?"

"We had Sex, but I just never… It wasn't bad, and it's not like I need to, you know, to have fun. It feels good, I just — I don't know, I think I'm too stressed or something. Or maybe I’ve never really trusted the people I’ve been with as much as I should. I just kind of accepted it would never happen for me. Which is fine. But — sorry, this is weird, isn't it?"

"I don't think it's weird."

"No?"

"No."

"Okay." You said it almost at a whisper. You knew Spencer meant what he said. It felt like there were no boundaries between the two of you.

Truthfully, your previous sexual experiences had been fun and they felt good but you’d never experience that total wave of pleasure, you’ve felt the coil wind itself inside you but it just never snapped. You knew what it was supost to be like — Christ you’d faked enough to almost convince yourself... almost. 

"Can I ask a question?" Spencer probed, pulling you out of your thoughts.

"Go right ahead."

"So you've never even cum on your own?"

"You mean like… masturbated?" you said at almost a whisper, suddenly aware that the two of you were outside, the thought of his neighbours overhearing the conversation had you squirming.

"Yeah. Have you ever tried toys, or anything? At the end of the day you're the one who knows your body best, but — when you say never, do you mean never never, or never with someone else?" Spencer said, completely oblivious to the fact that you were trying to talk as quietly as possible.

"Erm." You were flustered. "I guess both. I've never — sorry, I'm a grown adult, I don't know why this is so difficult for me to talk about. I mean, I've never done anything on my own. I think it's a shame thing? And I know it's not shameful, not to profile myself, but maybe it was my upbringing, or maybe I'm not sure. I've read fiction and watched things and wanted to — I really wanted to, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Is that weird?"

"I don't think it's weird."

"You don't?"

"Of course I don't."He paused, considering you with those intense eyes that saw too much. "I just think you need more confidence, and to learn more about your own body — what you do and don't like. Learn your erogenous zones, stuff like that, what feels good for you."

"Yeah, maybe. I am nearly thirty, though, Spencer."

"Most women learn new ways to climax in their late twenties — in fact that's when a lot of women squirt for the first time. But plenty of women never orgasm in their lives at all, usually because they've only had one partner who didn't know what they were doing. A lot of women cum for the first time using toys. Some don't have their first orgasm until their forties and later. No one's sexual journey is the same."

"Wow, you really have read a lot of books."

"Yeah, I suppose I have." He shifted slightly closer. "Do you know your erogenous zones?"

"My what?"

Spencer just said your name, in a slightly condescending tone.

"What?"

A silent tension settled over the two of you, you could see Spencer's mind working in real time, saw him weighing up the pros and cons of something, something you weren’t entirely sure what it was yet.

“You trust me right?” Spencer's voice was suddenly softer, more intimate than before.

“More than anything.” The thought flashed through your mind and fell out of your mouth before you could stop it, and you realized with a jolt that it was absolutely true. You trusted Spencer Reid with your life on the job, with your secrets after hours, with your heart when it was breaking. Why not with this too?

"Okay, so…" Spencer took a breath, his eyes fixed on yours. "Let me try."

Did you hear him right? Your brain scrambled to catch up, replaying the words like they might change if you looked at them from a different angle. Spencer — your best friend, the one who once color-coded your bookshelf without asking, who'd fallen asleep on your couch more times than you could count — was offering to... no. That couldn't be right. This was Spencer. This was safe, familiar, uncomplicated Spencer, and yet here he was, looking at you like the ground had shifted and he was waiting to see if you'd noticed too. Was this even real? Was this some wine-soaked fever dream you were going to wake up from, mortified, in an hour? You searched his face for the joke, the out, the moment he'd laugh and say he was kidding. It didn't come.

“Let me try,” He repeated himself, “I don’t want to get your hopes up but I’ve been told I’m pretty good…”

"Shut up." You laughed in spite of yourself, the sound coming out shaky.

"I am being serious though…" His voice dropped lower, the academic detachment melting away into something raw and honest. "I don't want it to be weird between us but, I mean we're friends right?"

"Of course."

"And friends help each other out, right?"

You couldn't fault his logic. It was perfectly Spencer—framing an offer of intimate, mind-blowing pleasure in the practical terms of mutual assistance.

"...yeah?"

"It's obviously completely up to you, I'm not saying that we should have a whole complete friend with benefits situation, unless you want to, but I could… teach you?"

"Teach me?"

The words hung in the air between you, fragile but determined. Spencer's hands stilled on your waist, and he met your eyes in the mirror again, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his face.

"you know, to save you the trouble of reading every dusty book in my personal library," he teased gently.

"I mean yeah i guess we could do something like that," you managed, a nervous laugh escaping you.

His expression softened, the teasing replaced by something serious, something intent. "Alright," he said, his voice dropping to a low murmur. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

You nodded, your breath catching in your throat.

"Would you like to come inside?"

You laughed, a genuine, breathless sound this time. "I'd like to cum full stop, that's why we're in this predicament, Spencer."

"Shut up, you know what I mean." A faint blush crept up his neck, and you found it endearing.

"Yeah, sorry, after you,"

He led the way inside, his apartment a familiar space that suddenly felt charged with new potential. "My bedroom is this way," he said, his voice casual as if discussing the weather, "unless you'd rather the couch but I think that the bedroom would probably work better?"

"Yeah that… that works for me," you felt flush, heat pooling between your legs. You couldn't believe that you were doing this.

Spencer opened the door, and you followed him, unsure what else to do. His bedroom was quintessentially him—books stacked in precarious towers, a worn-out copy of some dense text on the nightstand, and a perfectly made bed with hospital corners. He turned to face you, and the air between you thickened.

"We don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with," he said softly. "We can stop at any point."

You nodded, your throat too tight to speak. The logical part of your brain, the part that sounded suspiciously like Spencer himself, was screaming that this was a catastrophic idea. It would ruin everything. But the rest of you, the part that had been starved for this exact kind of attention, was thrumming with a nervous, desperate energy.

He seemed to understand your silent assent. He didn't move to kiss you or undress you. Instead, he stepped back, giving you space, and gestured towards a full-length mirror leaning against the far wall. "Come here for a second."

Confused, you walked up to him, your legs feeling unsteady. He positioned you in front of the mirror, standing behind you but not touching. You could see both of your reflections—your flushed face and wide eyes, and him behind you, his expression unreadable but intensely focused.

He took your hand, his thumb stroking your knuckles. "Okay, so... we're going to start with a lesson?" you asked, unsure of the situation you found yourself in.

Spencer shook his head slightly, his eyes sharp and focused on yours. "Not a lesson. A profile. You've been faking it, which means you're an excellent observer of others' pleasure but not your own. Let's treat this like a profile. I'm going to present you with stimuli, and you're going to tell me what data you gather from your own body. No right or wrong answers, just raw data. Can you do that for me?"

all you did was nod, what else could you do. Spencer, your spencer, even now was searching for ways to make you comfortable, to make you familiar. You knew profiling, you did it every day, and he knew that. He knew the logical part of your brain was telling you that this uncharted waters were a bad idea, he made it seem normal. you appreciated it more than he would ever know.

"Step 1," he said, his voice low and steady, a direct contrast to the frantic beating of your heart. "Observation. You need to see what I see." His hands came to rest gently on your waist, and you jumped slightly at the contact. "Easy," he murmured. "Relax, and just watch."

“Okay,” you breathed out, trusting him entirely.

“Before I do anything I want you to see how beautiful you are, no matter what does or doesn’t happen I need you to know that, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Can you say it back to me?”

“Spencer this is silly—”

“Just humour me, just say you’re beautiful,” his head dipped so his lips were next to your ear, his voice low and steady “Because you should know that you are so so beautiful.”

“I—” you swallowed thickly, your eyes resting on your figure, “I’m beautiful.”

“That’s so good.” he praised, “Well done.” His eyes met yours in the mirror. "I can feel your heart racing, relax." 

You tried to even out your breathing — you really did — but Spencer was so close. Sure, you'd fallen asleep on his shoulder on the jet before, you'd hugged him a hundred times, but this was something else entirely. This sent heat pooling low in your core and made your head spin, and he was barely even touching you, his hands just resting on your waist. 

“Do you think you could take your dress off for me? We can do whatever you’re comfortable with, it may be easier if you're just in your bra and panties.”

“..yeah, okay.” 

Your fingers trembled as they found the zipper of your dress, the metallic sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room. The fabric pooled at your feet, leaving you exposed in nothing but your simple lace bra and panties. Spencer's gaze was like a physical touch, scorching a path over your skin. A low, strained sound escaped his throat, something between a groan and a whimper, and his hands returned to your waist, his thumbs stroking circles against your hip bones.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, his voice thick with an emotion you couldn't name. "Repeat it back to me, baby."

The pet name sent a fresh wave of heat through you, making your head spin. Your voice was barely a whisper when you obeyed. "I'm so beautiful."

"Good girl," he breathed, the praise so quiet you almost thought you imagined it. But the way your knees went weak, threatening to give out, was very, very real. His hands tightened on your waist, the only thing holding you upright as he pulled you back flush against his chest.

"Now, I don't want you to just watch. I want you to watch your micro-expressions. Notice the slight flaring of your nostrils, the dilation of your pupils. Those are autonomic responses. They don't lie. We're going to use them as feedback to calibrate what works. Just tell me what you see, and tell me what you feel as we go on okay?"

He slowly slid his hands up your sides, his touch feather-light. "We're going to start with your somatic mapping points. These aren't technically sexual, but they're very receptive to touch in general, but especially when you're aroused. I’m going to touch you in these places, keep your eyes on the mirror baby so you can see exactly what I do."

His fingers traced the line of your jaw, and you watched in the mirror as your head tilted back slightly into his touch. "The neck," he whispered, his breath warm against your skin. "A concentration of nerve endings." He demonstrated, his fingertips skimming the sensitive skin below your ear, and a soft gasp escaped your lips. You saw it happen in the mirror, the way your body responded instantly to his.

"See?" he said, a hint of academic satisfaction in his tone. "Your body knows what it likes. You just have to learn to listen." He moved his hands to your shoulders, kneading the tight muscles there. "Stress is an inhibitor of pleasure. We need to get rid of it."

His touch was clinical in its precision, yet it sent arcs of electricity through you. You watched in the mirror, mesmerized, as his long fingers worked deep circles into the muscles flanking your spine. Your head lolled forward, giving him better access, and a soft sigh escaped your lips. The visual was intoxicating—seeing his large hands on your bare skin, watching the way your own body responded, the flush creeping up your chest and neck, the unmistakable pleasure slackening your features. It was like watching a stranger discover a new language of sensation, and you were both the observer and the observed. A fine sheen of sweat bloomed across your skin, not from exertion, but from the sheer, concentrated heat of his touch.

His hands were a study in controlled grace, a paradox you were only just beginning to understand. They weren't the hands of a laborer, thick and calloused, but they possessed a strength that belied their elegant appearance. You could see every long, tapered finger, the clean, square nails, the faint dusting of light brown hair on his knuckles. These were the hands that flicked through hundreds of pages a minute, that wrote complex formulas on whiteboards, that handled evidence with delicate precision. And now, they were mapping the terrain of your body with that same exacting attention to detail.

His thumbs were the focal point, pressing with an almost scientific pressure into the stubborn knot between your shoulder blades. You could feel the muscle slowly yielding, the tension unwinding under his relentless, circular motion. His other fingers splayed wide across your back, anchoring him, their pads a warm, steady presence that promised safety. As he worked his way down your spine, you could feel the subtle shift in his grip, the way his fingers would trace the line of your ribs before his palms would flatten against the small of your back, pressing gently to ground you. It was a language of touch, fluent and articulate, and with every passing second, you were becoming more and more fluent in reading it.

"Ready for the next step?" he asked.

You could only nod, your voice gone.

His hands moved around to your stomach, splaying across it. "The abdomen," he explained, his voice a low rumble against your ear. "Full of nerve endings. Often overlooked." He began to trace slow, deliberate patterns on your skin, and your hips began to move restlessly.

"Here," he murmured, moving his hands, his voice a low hum against your ear. "The antecubital fossa," he said, his fingers gently tracing the soft, sensitive skin on the inside of your elbow. "The skin here is thinner, and the veins are closer to the surface, making it more receptive to light touch." He demonstrated, his fingertips barely grazing the area, and you shivered, a full-body tremor that had nothing to do with being cold. He smiled, a small, knowing curve of his lips. "And the wrists," he continued, his thumb pressing gently into the pulse point there. "Another area of high sensitivity. It's a vulnerable spot, biologically. Protecting major arteries. The brain registers touch here as particularly significant. One of the reasons why people like being tied up, but we won’t get onto that today" He lifted your wrist to his lips, pressing a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the thrumming beat of your heart. You watched, mesmerized, as your own pulse seemed to leap in response.

His hands slid around to your ribcage, his long fingers spanning your waist. "The intercostal muscles," he explained, his voice a low, hypnotic drone. "The muscles between your ribs. They're constantly in use, expanding and contracting with every breath. They're not often touched, which makes them highly sensitive when they are." His thumbs traced the bottom curve of your ribs, a slow, deliberate motion that made you arch your back, a silent plea for more. "And the thorax," he continued, his hands moving up to cup your breasts, his thumbs brushing against the underside. "The mammary glands. We'll get to the nipples specifically, but the entire area is an erogenous zone, rich with nerve endings connected to the same network that innervates the clitoris." He squeezed gently, his palms molding to your curves, and you felt a fresh wave of wetness between your legs. He was turning your body into a textbook, and you were the most willing student.

"Spencer," you breathed, your eyes fluttering shut.

"No," he said gently. "Eyes open. Watch yourself. See how beautiful you are when you're feeling pleasure."

Your eyes flew open, locking onto your reflection. His thumbs brushed over your nipples, which were already hard and straining against the fabric. The sensation was electric, shooting straight down to your core.

"This is a primary erogenous zone. these are universally responsive," he continued, his voice maddeningly calm as your body began to tremble. "Direct stimulation is key." He deftly unhooked your bra, letting it fall away. Your breasts were exposed in the mirror, and for a moment, you felt a flash of self-consciousness.

"Don't look away," he commanded softly. He rolled your nipples between his thumb and forefinger, and a choked moan tore from your throat. "That's it. Let yourself feel it."

One of his hands left your breast, trailing down your stomach. "There are other primary zones," he said, his fingers toying with the waistband of your pants. "But I think the most important lesson for tonight is about control."

He turned you to face him, his hands now on your waist. "I want you to see what I do," he said, his eyes dark with an emotion you couldn't quite name. "And then, I want you to do it to yourself."

Your breath hitched. "What?"

"You're the expert on your own body," he said, his lips curving into a slight smile. "I'm just here to give you the textbook. Now it's time for some practical application."

He led you back to the bed, positioning you against the pillows. He knelt between your legs, his eyes never leaving yours. "First," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "Remember, I'm going to show you. Then, you're going to take over."

And as his fingers finally found your clit, you knew this was a night you would never forget.

His fingers were impossibly gentle as they made contact, a stark contrast to the jolt of electricity that shot through you. You watched, mesmerized, as he slowly, deliberately circled your clit with his middle finger. The touch was barely there, a whisper of sensation, but it was more intense than anything you'd ever felt.

"The clitoral glans," he began, his voice a low, husky rumble that vibrated through you. "It contains approximately eight thousand sensory nerve fibers. That's double the number found in the entire penis, baby. It's purely for pleasure."

A soft whimper escaped his lips as he felt you pulse against his finger. He was getting off on this, on teaching you, on feeling you respond. The realization sent a fresh wave of arousal through you.

"More," you breathed, your hips arching off the bed.

"Not yet," he chided softly, his other hand pressing gently on your stomach to keep you still. "Patience. We're building sensation. Rushing bypasses crucial neural pathways." He applied a fraction more pressure, changing the motion to a slow, firm figure-eight. "The external structure is just the tip. The internal clitoral bulbs and crura extend down, wrapping around the vagina. When we stimulate this area," he paused to press down slightly, making you gasp, "we're engaging the entire complex."

Your hands fisted in the sheets. "Spencer... please."

"Please what, sweetheart? Use your words."

"Please... more. Please, sir."

The word hung in the air between you. Spencer's breath hitched, his eyes darkening with something primal. He let out a low, guttural groan. "Fuck," he whispered, more to himself than to you. "Don't... don't call me that unless you mean it."

"I mean it," you panted, the submission feeling natural, right.

A slow, predatory smile spread across his face. "Good girl." He increased the pressure, his movements becoming more deliberate. "Now, pay attention. The clitoris isn't a button to be pushed. It's an entire network. Watch how I vary the pressure and speed. See how your body responds differently to each touch."

He demonstrated, switching from slow circles to rapid, light flicks, then back to firm, steady pressure. Each change sent you spiraling higher, your body trembling uncontrollably.

"You're doing so well," he praised, his voice strained with his own arousal. "You're so responsive. Look at you." He nodded towards the mirror, and you forced your eyes open. Your face was flushed, your mouth parted, your chest heaving. You looked debauched, and you'd never felt more beautiful.

"Now," he said, his voice dropping even lower. "We're going to explore the anterior vaginal wall. Often called the G-spot, though that's a misnomer. It's actually the clitoral-urethral-vaginal complex, or CUV." He slowly slid a single finger inside you, and you cried out at the exquisite stretch. "There. Do you feel that? That slightly rougher, ridged texture?"

You could only nod, your words lost.

"That's it," he murmured, his finger curling upwards to stroke that spot. "That's the root of the clitoris we're stimulating from the inside. It's why some women can orgasm from penetration alone, though most need direct clitoral stimulation as well." He began to move his finger in a 'come here' motion, his thumb returning to circle your clit.

The dual stimulation was overwhelming. Your vision blurred, your body arching off the bed.

"Easy, baby," he soothed, his voice strained. "Breathe through it. Don't chase it. Let it build." He whimpered again, the sound barely audible. "God, you're so tight. So wet for me."

You were close, so close to that edge you'd never been able to reach before. "Please Sir," you begged, "I'm gonna..."

"No," he said firmly, suddenly withdrawing his hand. You cried out at the loss, your eyes flying open in protest. "Not yet. I told you. You're going to do it yourself."

He shifted, leaning over you until his body bracketed yours, caging you in with a warmth that was both a comfort and a torment. His face was so close to yours that his curls brushed against your temple, and you could feel the warmth of his breath fanning across the shell of your ear. His voice was a low, intimate rumble, a vibration that seemed to travel from his chest straight through your bones. "Your heart rate is still elevated—I can feel your pulse hammering right here." He punctuated the statement by pressing a soft, impossibly gentle kiss to the side of your neck, right over the frantic, fluttering pulse point. The contrast between his tender lips and your wild pulse made you whimper. "Your pupils are blown," he continued, his gaze dropping to your eyes for a fraction of a second before returning to your face. "But I need to know what's happening in your head. Are you truly processing the sensation, letting your body feel without judgment or analysis? Or are you just performing the role you think you're supposed to play, trying to give me the reaction you think I want to hear?"

"that's... this—"

"It's okay baby, take your time and tell me."

"Felt so good, I was going to cum spencer, please, please, please keep going," you whined.

He made a 'tsk' noise as he shifted, positioning himself beside you, his eyes burning into yours. "My turn to watch," he said, his voice thick with desire. "Show me what you learned. Touch yourself for me, baby. Let me see you make yourself cum."

Your hand shook as you brought it between your legs, your fingers sliding easily through your wetness. You mimicked his motions, circling your clit, then sliding a finger inside to stroke that sensitive spot.

"That's it," he encouraged, his hand resting on your thigh, his touch grounding you. "Just like that. You're in control now. Show me how you like it."

And as you watched yourself in the mirror, your fingers moving with growing confidence, Spencer's eyes locked on yours, you finally understood. This wasn't just about pleasure. It was about power. Your power. And as the first waves of your orgasm began to build, you knew this was only the beginning.

Your fingers moved with a hesitant rhythm, mimicking the patterns he'd taught you, but lacking his confident precision. It felt good, but it wasn't the same. The edge was there, but it was fuzzy, indistinct.

"Look at me, not the mirror," Spencer commanded softly, his voice a low thrum that seemed to resonate directly in your clit. You tore your gaze away from your reflection to meet his. His eyes were dark, almost black with desire, and they were fixed on your face, on your hand. "That's it. Good girl. Now, tell me what you're feeling."

"I... it's good," you panted, your strokes faltering slightly. "But it's not... it's not the same."

"Because you're thinking too much," he said, his hand still resting heavily on your thigh. "You're performing instead of feeling. Your brain is still trying to analyze the data instead of just experiencing it. Let go."

"I don't know how," you whispered, frustration welling up inside you.

"Yes, you do," he murmured, his voice dropping impossibly lower. "You just need to stop fighting it. Let me help." He covered your hand with his, his long fingers wrapping around yours. "Together. Feel how I'm guiding you? Feel the pressure?"

His hand over yours was a revelation. He guided your fingers, showing you exactly where to press, how fast to move. The pleasure sharpened, your hips bucking up to meet the combined pressure of your hands.

"That's it," he breathed, his own voice strained. "You feel that? That's the frenulum of your clitoral hood. Extremely sensitive. We're going to focus there for a moment."

He guided your fingers in tiny, precise circles, and the coil inside you began to tighten, a hot, heavy pressure building in your core.

"Spencer," you gasped, your head falling back against the pillows.

"No," he said, his voice firm but gentle. "Eyes on me. I want to see you when you cum for the first time."

The authority in his voice sent a fresh jolt of arousal through you. "Yes, sir," you breathed, the words slipping out before you could stop them.

He let out a ragged groan, his hips jerking against the bed. "Fuck, baby. You can't say things like that." He was painfully hard, his control clearly fraying at the edges. "You're so perfect. So responsive."

He guided your fingers faster, the pressure increasing. "Now, I want you to add another finger. Inside. Curl them up, just like I showed you." You obeyed, a second finger sliding easily into your wet heat. "That's it. Now press. Can you feel how full you are? How your body is opening up to receive pleasure?"

You could only moan in response, your body trembling on the verge of something monumental.

"You're close," he said, his voice a strained whisper. "I can feel it. Your muscles are starting to contract. Don't fight it. Let it happen." He removed his hand, leaving you to your own devices. "Now, baby. You know what to do. Show me. Cum for me."

His words were your undoing. You drove your fingers deeper, your thumb working your clit in a desperate, frantic rhythm. And then it happened. The coil snapped. A wave of pleasure so intense it was almost painful crashed over you, stealing your breath, your vision whiting out. You cried out his name, your body arching off the bed, your inner walls clamping down on your fingers as wave after wave of ecstasy washed through you.

It was endless. It was everything. It was heaven.

When you finally came back to yourself, Spencer was there, his eyes soft, a gentle smile on his face. "There you are," he murmured, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from your forehead. "Welcome back."

You could only stare at him, your body still trembling with aftershocks. You'd never felt anything like that. You'd never even imagined anything like that.

"How do you feel?" he asked, his voice soft.

"Incredible," you whispered, your voice hoarse. "I... I had no idea."

"You're just beginning to learn what your body is capable of," he said, his thumb stroking your cheek. "And I'm going to teach you everything."

A profound silence settled over the room, broken only by your ragged breaths and the frantic pounding of your own heart. Spencer didn't move, just watched you with an intensity that was both clinical and deeply intimate. You felt exposed, not just physically, but emotionally, laid bare by the force of your own pleasure.

"Your body is still responding," he observed quietly, his gaze dropping to where your hand still rested between your legs. "The involuntary contractions can last for several minutes. It's called the resolution phase. The blood is still engorging the tissues."

He gently took your wrist, his touch careful as he drew your hand away. He brought your fingers to his lips, his eyes never leaving yours, and slowly, deliberately, licked them clean. The sight was so obscene, so possessive, a fresh jolt of arousal shot through you.

"You taste incredible," he murmured, his voice a low, rough rumble. "Slightly sweet, slightly tangy. The pH balance changes throughout the menstrual cycle, affecting the taste. Right now, it's perfect."

You whimpered, your body already gearing up for more.

"Shh, baby," he soothed, releasing your hand and leaning over you. "Don't rush. The refractory period for women is notoriously shorter than for men. In some cases, it's virtually non-existent. We can build on this sensation, make the next one even stronger." He lowered his head, his lips hovering just above yours. "But first, I need to taste you properly."

His mouth was on yours before you could respond, a deep, claiming kiss that tasted of you and of him. It wasn't gentle; it was hungry, devouring. He kissed you like he was trying to memorize you, his tongue exploring your mouth with the same thoroughness he applied to everything else. You kissed him back with equal fervor, your hands coming up to tangle in his hair, tugging just as you'd imagined so many times.

He groaned into your mouth, his hips pressing into yours, and you could feel the hard, thick length of his erection through his pants. He was so turned on, and it was all because of you.

"Spencer," you gasped as he moved his mouth to your neck, nipping and sucking at the sensitive skin. "Please."

"Please what, sweetheart?" he murmured against your skin. "Use your words. Tell me what you need."

"I need... I need you."

"I know," he said, his voice strained. "And you'll have me. All of me. But we're not done with this yet." He moved down your body, his mouth leaving a trail of fire on your skin. "The perineum," he whispered, his tongue flicking out to taste the sensitive stretch of skin between your vagina and your anus. "Often neglected, but rich with nerve endings. Part of the pudendal nerve network."

You cried out, your hips bucking off the bed. No one had ever touched you there, never with their mouth. The sensation was shocking, electric.

"And then," he continued, his voice muffled as he moved lower, "there's the anus itself. The external sphincter has one of the highest concentrations of nerve endings in the entire body." He gently spread your cheeks, his tongue circling your tight hole. "It's not for everyone, but for those who enjoy it... it can be incredibly intense."

You were writhing now, your body a live wire of sensation. "Spencer, please," you begged, not even sure what you were begging for.

"Patience, baby," he chided, his voice a low chuckle. "We're getting there." He moved back up, his face hovering over your dripping core. "Now for the main event. Cunnilingus. From the Latin 'cunnus' for vulva and 'lingere' to lick." He looked up at you, his eyes dark with desire. "I'm going to use my tongue on your clitoris, baby. I'm going to make you cum again baby but this time on my mouth. I know you have it in you so I'm not going to stop until you do okay? I've been wanting to taste this pretty pussy for so long are you going to let me baby?"

"yes," you moaned at the mental image forming in your head, "yes sir."

"fuck," spencer groaned, "you're so perfect."

And then his mouth was on you, his tongue delving into your folds, licking and sucking with a skill that left you breathless. He was relentless, his tongue exploring every inch of you, his lips closing around your clit and sucking hard. You were lost, your body a vessel for pleasure, your mind gone.

"Spencer!" you screamed, your hands fisting in his hair, holding him to you. "Please, don't stop."

He didn't. He doubled his efforts, his tongue flicking your clit in a rapid, staccato rhythm while he slid two fingers inside you, curling them up to stroke that sensitive spot deep within. The combination was devastating, a perfect storm of sensation that sent you spiraling towards the edge again.

"That's it, baby," he growled against your core, his voice muffled. "Cum for me. Let me taste you. Give me everything."

And you did. You came with a force that terrified you, your body convulsing, your vision blacking out, a scream tearing from your throat. It was even more intense than the first one, a tidal wave of pleasure that threatened to drown you.

When you came back to yourself, Spencer was still there, his face glistening with your cum, a look of pure, unadulterated triumph on his face.

"Two," he said, his voice a low, satisfied purr. "And that's just the beginning."

The world slowly came back into focus, not all at once, but in soft, hazy increments. The first thing you registered was the gentle weight of Spencer's hand on your trembling thigh, a grounding point in the sea of sensation you were still floating in. The second was his breathing, a steady, controlled rhythm that contrasted sharply with your own ragged gasps.

He didn't speak. He just watched you, his gaze soft but analytical, like a scientist observing a fascinating new phenomenon. He was giving you time, letting your body ride out the lingering aftershocks that were still making your muscles quiver.

"Your heart rate is approximately one hundred and ten beats per minute," he finally murmured, his voice a low vibration that you felt more than heard. "Elevated, but decreasing. The post-orgasmic prolactin surge is likely kicking in, creating that feeling of deep relaxation. It's nature's way of ensuring you rest and process the experience."

A weak laugh escaped your lips. "Only you would turn the best orgasm of my life into a biology lesson."

A small, genuine smile touched his mouth. "It's all biology, baby. Beautiful, messy, perfect biology." He shifted, moving to lie beside you, propping his head up on his hand. "How do you feel? Be specific. Describe the sensations."

You took a moment to assess yourself. "Tingly. All over. Like... like my skin is too small for my body. And heavy. So heavy, but in a good way. Like I could sink right through the mattress."

"That's the myotonia," he explained, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your stomach. "The muscle tension that builds during arousal and release. It leaves you feeling limp, pliant. It's why you're so responsive to touch right now. Your nerve endings are still firing at an elevated rate."

His touch was light, almost absent-minded, but it was setting you on fire all over again. You could feel the heat building between your legs, a slow, deep ache.

"Again?" you asked, your voice filled with wonder.

"We can," he said softly. "But not like that. Not yet." He leaned in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your shoulder. "Rushing from one orgasm to the next can be overwhelming. It can desensitize the clitoral glans, making subsequent orgasms more difficult to achieve. We need to be more strategic."

"Strategic?" you repeated, a breathless laugh escaping you. "You make it sound like a military operation."

"In a way, it is," he said, his mouth moving to the sensitive skin of your neck. "It's a campaign for pleasure. And right now, we're in the reconnaissance phase." He nipped at your earlobe, his tongue swirling around the delicate shell. "We need to map out all the places that make you gasp."

His hands began to roam again, but this time, they were slower, more deliberate. He wasn't trying to get you off; he was exploring. He traced the line of your collarbone, his fingers dipping into the hollows of your throat. He skimmed his knuckles down the sides of your ribs, counting them one by one.

"Twenty-four," he whispered, his lips following the path of his fingers. "Protective cage for your heart and lungs. But so sensitive to touch."

You were melting, your body turning to liquid under his ministrations. This was a different kind of pleasure, slower, deeper, more intimate. It wasn't about the frantic chase for release; it was about the journey itself.

"Spencer," you breathed, your hands coming up to rest on his back, feeling the shift of his muscles under his shirt.

"Yes, baby?"

"Take this off," you tugged at his shirt. "I want to feel you."

He hesitated for a moment, a flicker of something—vulnerability, perhaps—in his eyes. Then he nodded, sitting up to pull his shirt over his head. Your breath caught. You'd seen him without a shirt before, on beach trips, but this was different. This was Spencer, your Spencer, bared to you in the soft lamplight of his bedroom.

He was leaner than you'd expected, his body a roadmap of pale skin and wiry muscle. There was a thin, silvery scar on his side, and another on his shoulder. You reached out, your fingers tracing the scar on his side.

"What happened here?" you asked softly.

"Gunshot wound," he said, his voice quiet. "A few years ago."

Your heart clenched. You knew, of course, about the dangers of his job, but seeing the evidence of it on his body made it terrifyingly real.

"Hey," he said, his voice gentle as he covered your hand with his. "I'm okay. It's all part of the past."

You looked up at him, your eyes meeting his. And in that moment, you saw it all—the genius, the profiler, the teacher, the man who had seen too much, the man who was offering you a piece of himself that he'd never offered to anyone else.

"Come here," you whispered, pulling him down for a kiss.

It was different this time. Slower, deeper, more tender. It wasn't about hunger or desperation; it was about connection. It was about the quiet intimacy of two people who had seen each other at their most vulnerable and had chosen to stay.

"I want you," you murmured against his lips. "All of you."

"I know," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "And you'll have me, we have one more step for today if you're up for it."

He moved back down your body, his mouth leaving a trail of soft, wet kisses. "We've explored the external," he said, his voice a low whisper against your skin. "Now it's time to go deeper."

His hands left your waist, moving to the button of his trousers. You watched, your breath held tight in your chest, as he undid them with quick, efficient movements. The fabric slid down his narrow hips, taking his boxers with it, and your eyes widened.

Oh.

He was built like the rest of him—all long lines and surprising substance. Your gaze traced the proud, rigid length of him, the flushed head already glistening at the tip. It wasn't just long; it was the thick, solid weight of him that made your mouth go dry, a formidable presence that promised a challenge, a stretch. A thatch of soft, brown curls nestled at the base, and the sight sent a dizzying rush of pure, unadulterated desire through you. This wasn't just a part of him; it was a statement, a quiet, undeniable proof of the power he usually kept so carefully restrained.

He reached for his nightstand, the movement pulling you from your reverie. He pulled out a foil packet, ripping it open with his teeth before rolling the latex on with practiced, steady ease. He positioned himself between your legs, his eyes fixed on yours. "I'm going to enter you, baby. But I'm not going to move. I'm just going to let you feel me. Let you get used to the sensation of being filled."

He leaned forward, his forearms braced on the bed beside your head, and positioned himself at your entrance. He didn't push, just rested the tip of his cock against your wet, swollen folds. The contact was electric, a promise of everything to come, and you gasped at the sheer intimacy of it.

"Tell me if you want me to stop," he said, his voice strained with the effort of holding back.

"Don't stop," you breathed, your hands gripping his shoulders.

Slowly, inch by excruciating inch, he pushed into you. It was a stretch, a delicious, overwhelming fullness that stole your breath. He was bigger than you'd expected, his thickness pressing against your inner walls in a way that sent sparks of pleasure shooting through you.

When he was finally fully seated inside you, he stopped, his body still, his weight resting on his elbows. He just looked at you, his eyes dark with an emotion that took your breath away.

"How does that feel?" he asked, his voice a low rumble.

"Full," you gasped. "So full. It's... it's incredible."

"Good," he murmured, his hips rocking slightly, a tiny, experimental movement that made you cry out. "That's just the beginning, baby. That's just the first taste of what it feels like to be completely and utterly mine."

He remained still, a statue of restraint above you, and the stillness itself became a form of exquisite torture. You could feel every single inch of him, the thick, hard length of him stretching you, filling you completely. Your inner muscles clenched around him, an involuntary spasm that made him hiss in a sharp breath.

"Easy, baby," he murmured, his voice a low, strained vibration against your throat. "Don't do that. Don't rush. Just... feel."

His words were a command, but they were also a gift. He was forcing you to slow down, to experience every nuance of the moment. You closed your eyes, focusing inward, cataloging the sensations. The pressure, the fullness, the heat of him, the way your body seemed to mold itself to his shape, as if they were two pieces of a puzzle you hadn't even realized were missing each other.

"The vaginal canal is remarkably elastic," he began, his voice a low, hypnotic drone that was somehow both incredibly arousing and deeply comforting. "It can expand significantly, but it's also rich with nerve endings, particularly in the outer third. What you're feeling now, that intense pressure, is the stimulation of those nerve endings. The deeper penetration primarily stimulates the internal structures—the cervix, the anterior fornix."

He shifted slightly, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, and you cried out, your hips bucking up to meet him.

"Shh," he soothed, his hand coming to rest on your hip, holding you still. "I know. It's a lot. But we need to take it slow. Your body is still adjusting to the intensity of the stimulation. We need to give your nervous system time to process the input."

"Spencer," you begged, your hands fisting in the sheets. "Please. I need... I need more."

"I know, baby," he said, his voice thick with sympathy and desire. "And you'll get it. But first, I want you to do something for me."

He leaned down, his lips brushing against your ear. "I want you to bear down. Just a little. Like you're trying to push me out."

You looked at him, your eyes wide with confusion. "What? Why?"

"Just trust me," he said, his voice firm but gentle. "Do it."

You took a deep breath, then did as he asked, bearing down slightly. The sensation was immediate, and incredible. As you pushed down, his cock seemed to sink even deeper into you, hitting a spot deep inside that made you see stars. At the same time, the pressure on your clit intensified, sending a jolt of pure pleasure through you.

"Oh god," you cried out, your back arching off the bed.

"Good girl," he murmured, his voice a low, satisfied purr. "That's it. That's the anterior fornix, also known as the A-spot. It's a highly sensitive erogenous zone located deep inside the vagina, near the cervix. Stimulating it can lead to incredibly intense, full-body orgasms."

He began to move then, but not with the frantic thrusting you were used to. His movements were slow, deliberate, a deep, grinding rhythm that seemed to touch every part of you at once. Each time he bottomed out, he would pause, letting you feel the full, overwhelming pressure, before pulling back just as slowly.

"Feel that?" he asked, his voice a low, strained whisper. "Feel how I'm filling you up? How your body is opening up to receive me?"

You could only nod, your words lost in a haze of pleasure. This was different, so different from anything you'd ever experienced. It wasn't just about the physical act; it was about the connection, the intimacy, the way he seemed to know your body better than you did yourself.

"You're so tight, baby," he groaned, his hips grinding against yours. "So wet. So perfect for me."

He shifted his angle slightly, and suddenly, the stimulation on your clit intensified, his pubic bone rubbing against it with each deep thrust. The combination of the deep, internal pressure and the external friction was intoxicating, a slow, steady build towards an orgasm that you knew would be unlike anything you'd ever experienced before.

"Spencer," you gasped, your hands coming up to grip his shoulders, your nails digging into his skin. "I'm... I'm close."

"I know," he said, his voice a low, triumphant growl. "I can feel it. Your muscles are starting to contract. You're getting so tight around me."

He increased his pace slightly, his movements becoming more deliberate, more purposeful. He was chasing your orgasm, but he was doing it with a surgeon's precision, with a scientist's understanding of the female body.

"That's it, baby," he urged, his voice a low, commanding whisper. "Let go. Give it to me. Cum for me. Cum all over my cock."

And with a final, deep thrust, you did. You came with a force that shattered you, a scream tearing from your throat as your body convulsed around him. It was a full-body orgasm, a tidal wave of pleasure that started deep inside you and radiated outwards, consuming you entirely.

As you came down from the high, Spencer was still there, his body still buried deep inside yours, his eyes soft, a gentle smile on his face.

"Three," he said, his voice a low, satisfied purr. 

The world didn't just come back into focus; it seemed to have been entirely remade. The air in the room felt thicker, charged with the energy of what had just happened. Spencer remained inside you, not moving, just letting you adjust, letting the last tremors of your orgasm subside around him. He was a warm, heavy weight, a solid presence that anchored you to the earth when you felt like you might float away.

He lowered his head, not to kiss you, but to press his forehead against yours. His breathing was ragged, his heart hammering against your chest. He hadn't found his own release, you realized with a jolt. He had been so focused on you, on teaching you, that he had completely ignored his own needs.

"Spencer," you whispered, your voice hoarse. "You didn't..."

"Shh," he murmured, his eyes closing. "This wasn't about me. This was about you. About showing you." He finally pulled out of you slowly, carefully, and the loss was immediate and profound. He dealt with the condom in the bathroom, returning a moment later with a warm, damp cloth.

You lay there, feeling exposed and vulnerable, as he gently cleaned you up. His touch was reverent, his movements careful and precise. It was the most intimate thing you had ever experienced, more intimate than the sex itself.

"There," he said softly, tossing the cloth aside and pulling the covers over both of you. He settled beside you, pulling you into his arms, your head resting on his chest. You could feel the steady, reassuring beat of his heart beneath your ear.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, his voice a low rumble in his chest.

"I don't have words for it," you admitted, your fingers tracing patterns on his skin. "It was... like my body was a foreign country, and you were the only one who had a map."

A small smile touched his lips. "I just have a lot of reference material," he said, his hand stroking your hair. "The female orgasm is a fascinating subject. Did you know that the clitoral-urethral-vaginal complex, the entire network of structures responsible for female pleasure, is actually the size of a wishbone? Most of it is internal."

"I feel like I've just been on a field trip," you said, a sleepy laugh escaping you. "A very, very good field trip."

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest. "There's still more to see," he said, his voice soft. "But not tonight. Tonight, we just rest."

“So they’ll be a next time?”

“If you’ll have me?”

“Yes, Spencer, I’ll always want you.”

You lay in comfortable silence for a long time, the only sounds the steady rhythm of your breathing and the distant hum of the city outside. You felt safe, cherished, in a way you never had before.

"Spencer?" you said quietly.

"Hmm?"

"Why did you... why did you do this for me?"

He was quiet for a moment, like he was weighing every word before he let himself say it. "Because I hate the idea of you going through life missing something so fundamental," he said finally. "Because I've seen so much darkness in this job, in this world, and I wanted — just once — to be the reason something good happened to you instead." He paused, and you felt him take a breath, like he was steadying himself for something he'd rehearsed a hundred times and still wasn't ready for. "And because I've been in love with you for three years. The thought of you never knowing what it felt like to be wanted, completely, by someone who actually paid attention — I couldn't stand it anymore."

Your breath caught in your throat. You lifted your head to look at him, eyes wide, sure you'd misheard. "What?"

"I love you," he said again, steadier this time, like saying it once had used up all his fear. "Not as a friend. Not as a colleague. As the person I want to wake up next to for the rest of my life, if you'll let me. I've rewritten this confession in my head probably two hundred times, tried to find the perfect moment, the perfect words — and there never was one. So tonight I stopped waiting for the right time to say it, and just tried to show you instead."

Tears welled in your eyes, hot and sudden. You'd spent so long insisting that you didn't find him attractive, that he was just your best friend, that whatever you felt was loneliness dressed up as something else. But hearing him say it out loud, watching him hand you his fear like it was the safest thing in the world — you couldn't lie to yourself anymore. You never really could. You'd just been good at pretending.

"I love you too," you whispered, and the words felt strange in your mouth, like a language you'd never let yourself speak before. "I think I have for a long time. I was just too scared to say it first."

He leaned in, and the kiss that followed wasn't hungry — it was slow, careful, almost reverent, like he was sealing a promise rather than starting something. Like he needed you to feel every ounce of finally in it.

When he pulled back, he was smiling — not his usual crooked, nervous half-smile, but something wide open or unguarded, a smile you didn't think you'd ever seen on him before.

"So," he said, voice light, "what do we do now?"

"Well," you said, a matching smile spreading across your face. "I think we should probably go on a date. A real one. With dinner and a movie. And then maybe we can come back here and you can teach me about the male orgasm..."

He laughed, a full, rich sound that filled the room. "I think that can be arranged," he said, pulling you closer. "But for now, let's just sleep. We've had a big night."

And as you drifted off to sleep in his arms, you knew that this was just the beginning of a whole new chapter in your life, a chapter that you couldn't wait to write with him.

★・・・・・・★

a/n: second time writing smut kinda nervous, how did i do? El try not to write a praise kink challenge, level impossible #writewhatyouknow.

but like fr tho how do people write smut, like this shit is HARD (and I'm not just talking about cock bbg)

I know this is not realistic, but the man is fictional so let me be delusional, and we don't read smut to mirror our own sex lives as they are either bad or non existant xoxo we read smut for empowerment and for a fun, funky and fictional time

He'd told you, almost proudly, the second time he came back, that he wasn't like the others. That he wasn't going to force anything from you the way certain other men might have, given the opportunity. That whatever happened between the two of you, when it finally happened, needed to be real. Freely given. Earned, the same way everything else about this had apparently needed to be earned.

"I don't want you to give me anything you don't mean," he'd said, gentle, sincere, entirely oblivious to how insane the sentence sounded given the plastic still biting into your wrists. "I want it to be real."

Real.

You'd almost laughed, except nothing about the sound that came out of you afterward resembled laughter. How could any of this be real. You were tied to a wall in a room with no windows by a man who'd branded his own obsession into your skin, who'd killed four people and called it a puzzle designed for you, who slapped you when you told him the truth and then wiped your tears away like he was the one comforting a victim rather than the one who'd made you cry. There was nothing real here. There was only him, and the strange, terrible logic he'd built around you, brick by brick, for an entire year, and you trapped somewhere inside it with no way out that you could see.

The thought made you feel sick in a way that had nothing to do with hunger.

You didn't know how much longer you could survive inside that particular kind of nothing. Not the pain. You thought, distantly, that you could probably survive the pain, if it came to that, the way you'd apparently survived it already. It was the waiting that felt unsurvivable. The not knowing. The slow, grinding erosion of every certainty you'd ever had about what real safety felt like, replaced instead with this — a locked door, a buzzing bulb, and a man who called cruelty tenderness without any apparent awareness that the two words meant different things.

Spencer.

You held onto the name the way you'd been holding onto it since the beginning, worn smooth now from how many times you'd turned it over in the dark. You didn't let yourself imagine what he might be doing right now, searching, or waiting, or simply staring at a corkboard somewhere trying to force a location out of thin air through sheer force of intellect. You didn't let yourself imagine, either, the alternative — that it had already been too long, that hope like this had an expiry date you were quietly, silently approaching.

You simply held the name, the way you might hold the last page of a book you refused to finish, and waited.

★・・・・・・★

The door opened sometime later, light spilling in exactly as it always did, and you flinched from habit rather than fresh shock this time.

Daniel carried a tray.

You stared at it, uncomprehending for a moment, your exhausted brain refusing to process something so mundane appearing in a place like this. A bowl of tomato soup, still faintly steaming. A grilled cheese sandwich beside it, cut precisely into four neat triangles, crusts removed.

Your stomach turned violently.

"I know this is your favourite," he said, settling cross-legged on the floor in front of you, tearing off a small piece of the sandwich with a care that made your skin crawl. "You mentioned it once, in a Goodreads status. Comfort reading and comfort food, you called it. Soup and a toastie, crusts off, every single time you're having a bad day." He smiled, soft, entirely unaware of the horror on your face. "I wanted you to have something familiar. Something that feels like home, even here."

"I'm not hungry," you managed, voice hoarse from disuse.

"You have to eat something." His tone stayed gentle, but something firmer sat beneath it now, an edge you'd learned to recognise and fear in equal measure. "You'll make yourself sick otherwise, and then I'll have to worry, and I don't want to worry. Please."

You shook your head, throat tight, everything in you rebelling at the idea of accepting anything from his hands, however carefully he'd prepared it.

"Please," he said again, softer, holding the small triangle of sandwich towards your mouth with a patience that frightened you more than shouting would have. "For me. Just a little."

You didn't want to. Every part of you screamed not to, jaw clenched shut, head turning away as far as the bindings would allow. Daniel's expression didn't change, patient as ever, and when you still refused he simply set the tray aside and reached for you instead, fingers pressing firm against your jaw, forcing your mouth open with a gentleness that made the coercion of it somehow worse, not better.

"Don't fight me on this," he said quietly, holding your face steady while he pushed the small piece of sandwich past your lips. "You'll choke if you fight it. Just swallow."

You gagged, throat working uselessly against the food and against him both, tears spilling hot down your face, and still his hand stayed exactly where it was, patient, immovable, until you finally forced yourself to swallow simply because there was no other way for the moment to end.

"There," he murmured, something satisfied settling over his features as he finally released your jaw. "That's better. See? Nothing bad happening. Just the two of us, and a meal you love."

Nothing bad happening.

You wanted to laugh, except nothing about the sound building in your chest resembled laughter anymore. It was your favourite food, and he'd tainted it completely, the way he'd tainted your notebook star, your Goodreads reviews, your own name said aloud in that horrible, tender voice. Every single thing you'd ever loved, he seemed determined to get his hands on, to hold and repurpose and make his, until there was nothing left of your own life that still belonged only to you.

Except one thing.

You closed your eyes, unable to look at him, and held the one name he hadn't managed to touch yet, hadn't managed to twist into something unrecognisable.

Spencer.

It was small. It was quiet. It was the only thing in this entire room that still felt like it was only yours, and you clung to it, silent and stubborn, hating your own body for its animal need to survive even here, even like this, but refusing, absolutely, to let him have that too.

★・・・・・・★

The world ended in noise.

One moment there was only the quiet scrape of the spoon against the bowl, Daniel's low, contented murmuring about some detail from your reading history you barely registered anymore. The next, the door behind him exploded inward with a crash that seemed to shake the entire room, light flooding in from multiple angles at once, shouted voices overlapping in a wall of sound too fast and too loud to properly untangle.

"FBI! Hands where I can see them!"

Daniel moved faster than you'd thought possible, the tray clattering to the floor, forgotten, as he yanked you upright by your bound wrists, spinning you in front of him like a shield. Cold metal pressed suddenly, sharply, against the side of your throat, and you went utterly still, breath catching, every nerve in your body screaming at once.

"Stay back!" Daniel's voice had lost every trace of its earlier gentleness, high and frantic now, the knife trembling slightly against your skin with the force of his own panic. "I swear to god, I'll do it, stay back!"

Shapes filled the doorway, weapons raised, voices layered over each other in a controlled, practiced chaos you couldn't fully process.

"Daniel." A voice, calm, deliberately unhurried, cutting through the noise. Hotch. You recognised the register even through your own terror, the same absolute stillness he'd used the night the team first descended on your shop. "Nobody else has to get hurt tonight. Put the knife down."

"You don't understand what I built," Daniel said, voice cracking, the blade shaking harder against your throat. "You don't understand what this means—"

"I understand you wanted her to see you clearly." Hotch's voice didn't waver, didn't rush, each word placed with deliberate, careful weight. "She sees you now, Daniel. Everyone does. That was always the point, wasn't it? Being seen. You've already achieved that. Killing her doesn't add to it. It only ends it."

Your eyes darted frantically across the doorway, across every shape crowding into it, searching, desperate, for one face among the chaos.

He wasn't there.

Panic, colder and more total than anything Daniel's knife had managed, closed over you at the realisation. Every other face you half-recognised — Morgan, tense and coiled near the door, JJ somewhere behind him, Rossi's steady, watchful presence at the edge of your vision.

Not Spencer.

Where is he.

The thought tore through you with a violence that had nothing to do with the blade still pressed against your skin, and for one horrible, disorienting moment you couldn't tell which fear was louder — the knife at your throat, or his absence from the room entirely.

"Let her go," Hotch said again, quieter now, closer. "You still have a choice here. Make the one that doesn't end with you losing everything."

The blade wavered.

Daniel's breathing had gone ragged behind you, his grip faltering, some internal calculation you couldn't see collapsing in on itself by degrees. And then, all at once, the pressure at your throat vanished, the knife clattering to the concrete floor as hands seized him from behind, voices shouting instructions you couldn't process, your own legs finally giving out beneath you now that nothing was holding you upright anymore.

Someone caught you before you hit the ground.

"I've got you, I've got you," Morgan's voice, low and urgent, cutting through the ringing in your ears as he eased you down, hands working quickly at the ties around your wrists. "You're safe now, you hear me? It's over."

You barely heard him.

Your eyes were still moving, frantic, searching every corner of the chaos for one face that simply wasn't there, the absence of him louder somehow than every shout and every scraping boot filling the small room.

"Spencer," you managed, barely a whisper, your voice cracking apart entirely. "Where's Spencer."

Morgan's expression flickered, something you couldn't read passing behind his eyes too fast for you to catch, and then the room began to tilt, sound folding in on itself, your own vision narrowing at the edges the way it had once before, in a bookshop, on a night that felt like a lifetime ago now.

Spencer.

You held the name one last time, the only anchor you had left, and let the dark finally take you under.

★・・・・・・★

a/n: sorry if its a lot, were at the end of the angsty bit, rest assured it has a happy ending and the series is nearly done yey