#hotch

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

Your stomach flips. “Spence.”

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

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

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

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

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

Morgan snorts. “What weekend?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You perform.

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

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

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

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

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

Reid shuts his book and sets it on the table.

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

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

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

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

Rossi nods once. “You’ll have them.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t,” Prentiss says immediately.

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

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

Not the team. You.

Your stomach twists.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You blink hard. “What?”

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

You frown. “I’m not—”

He gives you a look.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He hums. “Sure.”

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

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

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

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

He nods. “Good.”

You frown.

“I’m attempting corrective behavioural conditioning.”

Your eyes narrow. “By being annoying?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

You sigh. “Reid.”

“Hm?”

“Tell me if I’m overthinking this.”

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

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

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

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

Reid examines the highlighted timeline for another few seconds.

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

You frown slightly.

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

Your brows lift. “So, I’m right?”

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

“What’s she right about?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good girl,” he says absently.

Your entire nervous system short-circuits.

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

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

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

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

You finally blink. “What?”

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

You frown. “What are you—”

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

Your eyes go wide. “Spencer—”

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

“Reid.”

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

You freeze. “Reid, I swear to—”

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

He pauses, tilting his head.

“Very obviously your type.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your stomach flips.

God. That’s pathetic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twelve notifications.

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

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

But one of the messages catches your eye.

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

You snort, then type out a reply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ping! Ping! Two more messages pop up.

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

That answer comes a little too easily.

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

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

You shake your head, typing quickly.

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

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

TUESDAY 9:50AM

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

He’s wearing a grey suit today.

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

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

Hotch ignores him completely.

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

He glances once around the table.

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

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

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

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

“You should probably blink.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You lift a shoulder. “About ten.”

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

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

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

You blink. “Oh.”

His gaze holds yours for a second too long.

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

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

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

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

Your breath catches softly in your throat.

“Anytime, sir,” you manage.

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

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

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

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

Two new messages from DCRunner00.

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

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

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

“Hey, you busy?”

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

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

“I could be working.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

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

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

“I could use your help.”

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

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

“Where do you want to start?”

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

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

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

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

Reid hums quietly beside you. “Not necessarily.”

You stare at him. “Care to elaborate?”

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

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

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

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

“No, listen to me carefully.”

Both you and Reid glance up automatically.

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

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

He pauses briefly beside Reid’s desk, listening.

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

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

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

Your stomach flips.

This absolutely should not be as hot as it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your face heats.

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

Oh my God.

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

He stops.

Then slowly turns toward you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You: Work, mostly. You: And sleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He straightens, brows drawing tighter.

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

You set the cup down in front of him.

“So,” you tilt your head, “coffee.”

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

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

Your face heats instantly.

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

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

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

Which is also when you finally check your messages again.

DCRunner00: Chaos how?

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

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

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

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

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

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

He replies almost immediately.

DCRunner00: Accurate, though? You: Unfortunately.

You drop your phone on the bed and start undressing.

Ping!

DCRunner00: What do you actually do?

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

You: Mostly admin. You: Governmental stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

He replies instantly again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You open your protein bar.

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

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

You type out a vague response.

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

His next reply takes almost two minutes to come through.

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

You almost choke on your tea.

That’s... weird.

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

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

You sit up straighter, suddenly a little nauseous.

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

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

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

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

DCRunner00: No promises.

WEDNESDAY 8:10AM

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

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

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

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

“Is Garcia in yet?”

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

You pull your laptop out of your bag.

“I just—I need her.”

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

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

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

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

His brows pull together slightly.

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

You nod slowly, already stepping around him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You grimace. “I don’t know.”

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

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

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

She nods.

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

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

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

You wince.

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

You hesitate.

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

She squints at the screen.

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

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

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

She starts scrolling back through the messages.

“Have you told Hotch?”

“Nope.”

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

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

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

You groan, dragging both hands over your face.

“You do mention Hotch kind of a lot.”

Your head snaps up. “He’s my boss.”

Garcia gives you a long look.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Sure.”

“Garcia.”

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

You point at the screen. “Focus.”

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

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

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

You sigh. “I don’t love that idea.”

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

You frown. “In English?”

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

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

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

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

You: I thought I told you not to spiral.

He replies so fast that even Garcia flinches.

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

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

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

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

“No.”

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

You nod.

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

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

“You’re the best, Pen.”

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

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

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

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

His brows pull together. “Everything alright?”

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

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

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

“Okay, now I’m concerned,” he says.

You glance at him. “Why?”

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

You roll your eyes. “Spence—”

“Something must be seriously wrong.”

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

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

His brows shoot up. “A guy—”

“Online,” you add quickly.

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

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

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

You glare at him. “Yes. That one.”

“Then yes, I remember it very clearly.”

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

His forehead creases. “Have you told—”

“No.”

“Maybe you should—”

“I said no.”

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

You narrow your eyes at him.

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

You lift a brow, waiting for the punchline.

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

You stare at him.

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

He pauses, frowning faintly.

“That was supposed to be reassuring.”

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

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

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

You: You’re weird.

He replies just as fast as usual.

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

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

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

You snort softly, typing out a quick reply.

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

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

It doesn’t work.

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

You: You went quiet. Should I be concerned?

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

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

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

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

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

Your stomach drops. “Oh my God.”

You immediately call Garcia back.

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

“You saw me this morning.”

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

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

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

“No.”

“Are you insane?”

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

Garcia goes quiet for a second.

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

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

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

You press your free hand against your forehead.

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

Garcia scoffs loudly.

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

The line goes quiet again—then she sighs.

“Why are you so against telling Hotch?”

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

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

Your shoulders sag. “Thank you.”

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

You nearly choke. “What?”

“Non-negotiable.”

“Penelope, that’s insane.”

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

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

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re overreacting.”

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

You frown. “…Morally complicit?”

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

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

She hums, satisfied.

“I need to reply to him again.”

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

You laugh despite yourself. “Thanks, Pen.”

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

“I was actually thinking psychological thriller marathon.”

“Absolutely not.”

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

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

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

You: Lucky guess.

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

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

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

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

At exactly six-fifteen, your desk phone rings.

“Hello?”

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

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

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

“See who soon?” Reid asks.

You glance at him. “Garcia.”

He tilts his head.

“She’s staying over tonight.”

His brows lift. “Because of your stalk—”

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

His gaze narrows. “Should I be worried?”

You scoff. “About me? Never.”

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

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

You pause mid-motion.

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

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

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

“Agent.”

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

You force a small smile. “Sir.”

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

You nod once. “Of course.”

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

Your breath catches.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You shake your head. “Shit. Sorry.”

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

For a moment, neither of you says anything.

Then—

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

You shut your eyes. “Penelope.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your stomach twists. “Or escalate.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THURSDAY 6:45AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You scowl at him. “A drought issue?”

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

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

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

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

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

Someone clears their throat behind you.

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

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

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

Very slowly, you turn in your chair.

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

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

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

You want to die.

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

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

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

You drop your head into your hands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You glance up at him hopefully.

“Morgan definitely is, though.”

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

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

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

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

Your stomach flips.

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

You shoot him a warning look. “Spence.”

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

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

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

You turn back to him, frowning.

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

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

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

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

You open the message thread—and your stomach drops.

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

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

Ice floods your bloodstream.

You stop breathing.

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

You don’t answer him. You can’t.

The bullpen dissolves into white noise around you.

Until—

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

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

Reid gasps. “Wait. Is that—”

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

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

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

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

“What’s going on?”

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

“What happened?” he asks, sharper now.

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

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

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

“Who sent this?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Could this day get any worse?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You grimace. “Fantastic.”

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

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

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

The room goes still for half a second.

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

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

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

“Or angry,” Morgan adds.

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

You sink lower in your chair.

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

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

You elbow him immediately.

“Ow.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hotch leans forward slightly. “How sloppy?”

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

Hotch nods once, already shifting into command mode.

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

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

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

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

You open your mouth to argue.

“I mean it,” he adds, voice low.

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

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

Then his eyes flick up, meeting yours.

“I’m taking her home.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hotch crouches slightly, holding one hand out toward her.

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

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

Your eyes go wide.

Traitor.

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

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

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

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

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

Every object in every room suddenly feels mortifyingly personal.

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

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

But this?

This feels dangerously close to being found out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m fine.”

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

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

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

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

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

“You think this is nothing?”

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

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

His jaw tightens slightly.

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

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

Which, to him, maybe he hasn’t.

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

That’s all.

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

He nods once. “Want me to clear the—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

He pauses, expression sharpening slightly.

“Alright. Keep me updated.”

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

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

Your stomach tightens.

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

The name hits you immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except this time Hotch does pause.

“Why do you do that?”

You frown. “Do what?”

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

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

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

Your pulse stutters.

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

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

But Hotch doesn’t seem to hear you.

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

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

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

“Leave Leia out of this.”

“She doesn’t like strangers.”

“She likes you.”

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

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

Your fingers tighten instinctively around the edge of the counter.

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

Oh God.

“Which means Reid already noticed the pattern.”

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

“You track me.”

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

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

Your breath stutters.

And Hotch notices immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

His eyes lock onto yours.

“You redirect.”

You can barely breathe now.

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

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

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

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

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

The apartment suddenly feels oppressively quiet.

His throat shifts slightly.

And then—

His phone rings.

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

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

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

Because holy fuck.

Holy fuck.

What the hell just happened?

“They got him.”

Your head snaps up. “They what?”

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

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

“Oh.”

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

A cold shiver slips down your spine.

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

He pauses, then looks at you.

“But they got him.”

“Good,” you say quietly.

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

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

You nod. “Okay.”

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

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

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

Hotch stills.

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

“Babysitting?” he repeats.

“You know what I mean.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your breath catches in your throat.

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

But you can’t.

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

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

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

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

Then he kisses you.

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

But the restraint doesn’t last long.

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

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

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

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

Like he needs to be absolutely certain this is real.

“Aaron—”

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

FRIDAY 6:15AM

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

Oh God.

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

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

Your stomach swoops.

You slept with your boss last night.

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

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

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

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Most days.”

His brows pull together slightly. “Why?”

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

Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face.

“Sounds like a terrible boss,” he murmurs.

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

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

He hums, breath warm against your skin.

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

“Oh, he notices.”

Your stomach flips. “Really?”

“Mhm.”

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

Heat floods your face. “Aaron—”

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

“Oh my God.”

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

“And the red bra,” he murmurs.

Your breath catches.

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

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

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

“Mm, sure.”

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

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

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

You feel his lips curve.

“Good thing I’m the boss.”

10:35AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, but nothing really happened.”

Morgan and Prentiss both stare at you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I was.”

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

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

You frown. “Hotch, I—”

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

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

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

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

“…Huh.”

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

He tilts his head.

Then—

“Oh my God.”

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

“All victims are couples,” Garcia looks over the group, ducking away from the images, “All of the attacks occurred in the Coyote Springs just outside Flagstaff, Arizona. All within a gated subdivision, heavy neighborhood watch presence, but it’s a large neighborhood. There’s nearly 6,000 residents in the community.” 

“Woah, big neighborhood.” Emily sighs, looking back to the file. 

Reid clears his throat, “The murders span six weeks. Each murder escalates in violence, but consistent within method. This suggests the unsub is a local. Or at least familiar with the area.”

“Not a drifter,” Morgan adds, “He knows their routines. Knows who belongs.” 

Your gaze sharpens, “Which means he’s comfortable there.”

Hotch nods without looking up to acknowledge you, “And patient.” 

Reid leans forward to add more, “There’s another commonality. Every couple has a significant age gap.”

“Yeah,” JJ agrees, “All of these women are at least fifteen years younger than their husbands.” 

“That’s not a coincidence,” Prentiss confirms, “That’s motive.”

You speak without hesitation, “Resentment.” 

Rossi turns to you, “Elaborate.” 

“When I was working in hostage negotiation,” Your voice calm, “large age gaps in relationships came from extremist ideology and vigilante thinking. They see themselves as a moral authority. He isn’t killing these couples, he’s correcting something he sees as wrong.” 

All eyes on you. Your eyes dart to Hotch. “Theft of youth.” 

Reid’s eyes light up, “A savior complex. He may believe he’s actually rescuing the younger woman from-”

“-a perceived predator,” Rossi finishes. 

“Which makes Coyote Springs his hunting ground. His own aquarium. Everyone inside thinks they’re safe.” Emily continues. 

Hotch exhales slowly, “So we canvass. Interview neighbors. Increase patrol presence.” 

“That could spook him into hiding.” JJ argues. 

“Yeah,” Morgan agrees, “This guy thrives on control. You flood the neighborhood with badges, he disappears.” 

Prentiss tilts her head, “Unless he comes to us.” 

You feel the shift before anyone could actually say it. Her eyes darting to you. Then Hotch. 

Rossi’s eyes flick between you two now, “You’re thinking bait.” 

It didn’t go over anyone’s heads that you and Hotch have a scarily similar age gap as the victims. Beautiful. Active. The perfect setup. 

“I’m thinking opportunity.” Emily corrects, “Two people who could fit the pattern. A new couple moves in quietly. Lets the unsub think something perfect fell in his lap.”

“No.”

Hotch’s answer immediate. 

You blink. Then laugh. “Wow, look at us already on the same page.” 

His eyes turn to you now, sharp and warning, “This is not a game.” 

“Never said it was,” You reply lightly, “I’m just agreeing that maybe the two of us playing house isn’t the best play.”

JJ steps in, “If the unsub is watching, he’s choosing couples that look stable. Happy.”

“Yet another reason this wouldn’t work.” You mutter, Rossi elbow in your side tells you he’s the only one that caught the comment. 

“Which means?” Garcia questions. 

“A married couple, or at least one that presents that way would statistically be the most appealing to draw him out.”

More eyes fall back to you. 

You slowly look around, “Oh, absolutely not.”

Hotch doesn’t look at you, “Agreed.” 

“You telling me you’re scared, Y/Ln?” Morgan grins. 

You look him dead in the eye, “I’m telling you I’m smart enough to know that Hotch and I can’t sell married and in love.” 

“Well,” Rossi turns his gaze over to the rest of the group, “Are there any other alternatives here on the team?” 

The group looks around at each other. You know there aren’t any. You don’t need to look around to know that most of them are too close in age to raise that kind of brow. 

“I can’t believe this.” You shake your head with a humorless laugh. 

Hotch’s jaw tightens, “He’s looking for a performance.” 

The rest of the room quiets at his words. You’d be ashamed to admit to the warmth pooling at the dark look on his eyes. This shouldn’t be able to work. 

“Look, you’re both qualified.” Emily claps, “It wouldn’t be your first time going undercover.”

“I mean no offense by it, but Y/Ln is the perfect trophy wife bait.” Morgan holds up his hands in self defense. 

“Somehow I’m still offended.”

Rossi raises a brow to you and Hotch, “The unsub is escalating. If we miss him again, someone else dies. This isn’t about what’s comfortable. It’s about leverage.” 

Hotch pinches the bridge of his nose. Silence stretches while everyone tries to come up with an alternative.

“So maybe it is the best play.” You sigh, coming to the same conclusion as the rest of the team.  Your hand slides to cover your face with a groan. 

“For what it’s worth, this is like so hot.” Garcia bites the end of her pen looking at you both, “So hot.” 

“Babygirl.” Morgan sighs with the shake of his head. 

“You’re enjoying this way too much, Pen.” You warn with a smile that is anything but friendly. 

“Immensly.” She continues to beam. 

A long pause. 

Finally Hotch exhales, “If we do this-”

He pauses to read your face. You aren’t supposed to profile each other, but you can see he’s looking to see if you’re truly comfortable. If you can do this. You know you can. You give him a subtle nod. 

“-we do everything by the book.” He continues, “Full surveillance. Backup within minutes. No unnecessary risks.”

You suddenly smirk, “You’re gonna hate every second of this.” 

“Yes,” He said flatly. You grin wider, “Then I’m in.” 

He looks at you. Really looks. 

“Wheels up in two hours. We prep covers immediately.”

Garcia squeals. Prentiss smirks at you. Morgan claps once.

This is going to get complicated. 

-

The jet's familiar hum rings over them lowly. You’re curled sideways in your chair, Emily to your right. Hotch directly across from you, Rossi to his left. A table separating you both. Morgan was making calls to get a stakeout van for the rest of the team. They wouldn’t be the only eyes on you two while undercover, but they would be most watchful. 

“Alright,” You smile, “Let’s build our beautiful lie.” 

Hotch’s eyes dart to yours over his file, “We already have preliminary covers.”

“Preliminary is not convincing.” You reply, turning to Emily for help. 

“She’s right.” She shrugs, “Especially since we know this unsub is watching his victims.”

He doesn’t argue, he simply sets down his file on the table.  “Progress.” You bite your cheek.  “Aaron Hayes. Attorney. Corporate litigation.” 

“Third marriage,” You add with cheer, “Which no offence, you can sell.” 

His mouth tightens, “It’s realistic considering the previous victims.” 

“And it adds baggage.” You continue, “Baggage is realistic. That’s what he’ll like.” 

Rossi raises his brows, “What about you?”

“Y/n Hayes.” You quickly reach out a hand to shake his with a pearly smile plastered to your face, “Twenty-six. Former marketing assistant. Now… professionally vague.”

“Trophy wife.” Hotch said flatly. You beam, “Exactly.” 

His eyes study you, “You’re sure you’re comfortable with this?” 

“Hotch, you’ve seen me pretend to be sympathetic to truly terrible people. Being hot and underestimated is a vacation.” 

He exhales quietly. 

“I want to add something else.”

He looks back up. 

“Power.” 

He frowns, “Explain.” 

“You’re already older. Already established. Already married multiple times, but I think we lean into it harder.” You lean back in your chair, “Make you a professor. Law school. Ethics. Authority.”

He immediately stiffens, “That’s unnecessary.” 

“Is it?” You tilt your head, “Our unsub in punishing perceived imbalance. We don’t know how long he watches his victims, he may have already picked his next couple. But if we tip the scale? Give him something that makes his skin crawl.”

The jet goes silent as it’s clear he is contemplating your idea. 

“A professor implies mentorship. Influence.” 

“And the implication that I was dazzled,” You add lightly, “By your mind. Your status. Your power.” 

The silence stretches back over the jet. 

“That makes you uncomfortable.” You observe. 

He pinches the bridge of his nose, again, “It complicates the dynamic.” 

“That’s the point.”

He stares for a long moment, “Fine.” 

You grin, “Great! So, how did we meet?”

“A conference.” 

“Boring. Try again.” 

He sighs, “Guest lecture. You were assisting with event coordination.” 

“Ooh, I love that!” You agree, “I spilled coffee on you.” 

“You did not.” 

“I absolutely did. You were very patient about it. Very kind. I thought you were intimidating.”

Hotch’s lips twitch into a smile for a split second before he could correct it . For a split second, you saw it. 

“And then,” You continue, “you asked me to dinner. Which I declined. Twice.”

“Why twice?” 

“Because it makes you chase.” You answer obviously, “And because neighbors love that kind of story.” 

Hotch closes his file, “You’ve done this before.” 

“Something tells me you really didn’t look at my resume all the times Straus sent it back when I was brought on.”

Rossi leans in closer to Hotch, “She did this for a year for the FBI. It was prior to the hostage negotiation.” 

You watch the realization and curiosity pass over his face. He hadn’t looked into you much at all. There wasn’t much desire after Straus insisted upon you. 

The jet began to descend shortly after that. By the time you guys touchdown, the local office had coordinated everything. A house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the middle of Coyote Springs. Clean title. Plausible history. A U-Haul full of furniture staged to look like it was from a loving family. 

As soon as you both stepped onto the tarmac, you slid your hand into Hotch’s. Walking over to the small public airport rather than the waiting black SUVs with the rest of the team. Hotch froze for a half second. 

“Breathe. Like you like me.”

“I don’t-”

“In character.” You correct yourself, “It's game on.”

Realistically the unsub could be anyone. Which is why they weren’t afforded with the luxury of riding with the rest of the team. The show has begun. 

You keep your posture relaxed, smiling brightly. By the time Hotch parks the U-Haul in the driveway, three neighbors were already watching from their front porches. 

“Showtime.” You give Hotch one last smile before hopping out of the truck. 

You make your way around to his side, wrapping both arms around his waist and pressing a kiss to his cheek. You look at the house in front of you both. He stiffened again, then recovered. He slips an arm around your shoulders.

“There you go.” You whisper, “Professor Hayes.” 

He glances down at you, “You’re enjoying this.” 

“Immensely.” You tease. 

They began unloading the truck under several curious eyes. You laugh loudly at his dry comments. Leaning into him. Stolen touches and passes. Selling the lie with ease. 

“Newlyweds?” A voice calls out.

You turn to see a woman from two houses down. You answer without skipping a beat, “Six months!” 

Hotch blinks, looking back down at you. 

You tip your head forward before Hotch can flinch. Ripping off the bandaid. You knew he would tense if you didn’t catch him off guard. He’s still trying to protect you. You can feel the hesitation. Your lips are soft on his. Convincing. He relaxes into it.

When you pull back, the woman waves before heading inside. You look at Hotch, his eyes still on you. 

“Relax.” You place a hand on his chest, “You’re doing great.” 

His voice is low, “You don’t hesitate.” 

You pull him down for a hug, whispering in his ear, “Neither does our unsub. We can’t afford to.” 

You press another kiss to his cheek, grabbing another box out of the back of the truck and hauling it inside. Hotch stood for another second before grabbing something himself. He was beginning to have the feeling that this cover was going to test more than just his professionalism. 

-

The surveillance van arrives a couple hours after they had returned the U-Haul. It pulls into their corner of Coyote Springs under the guise of a local internet provider. Uniforms are convincing, and plenty of equipment inside. 

Garcia is already online and active before Morgan can put it in park. The cameras in the house are connected now. Her screens fill with all different angles. Street coverage. Door sensors. Motion alerts. 

She hums in their earpieces, “For the record, the neighbors clocked you as ‘very affectionate’ within twelve minutes of you pulling in the driveway. Linda from two doors down texted her sister Sharon about you.” 

You arch your brow, “What’d she say?”

You can practically hear Garcia’s grin, “Quote ‘The new wife is gorgeous and very young. He’s either lucky or stupid'."

”I’ll take it.” You hold up your mug of coffee in mock salute.

Word spreads fast in this neighborhood. 

The team backs off for a while, letting them get settled together. Leaving you in a house that grows quieter and quieter. Heavier.

You open the fridge and take a peek inside, “We should establish routines.” you say, practical as ever, “Food. Morning patterns. Something that feels lived in.” 

Hotch nods, “I’ll take mornings. Coffee. The paper.” “I don’t do early.” You decide immediately, “But I’ll fake it if I have to.” 

He glances at you, something like amusement flashing across his face before he hides it. “Noted.” 

“I can handle dinner.” You decide, “What kind of trophy would I be without something warm on the table for you?”

You make a face at him that reveals your true feelings about that role you're playing. You still need to establish how much the mask stays on inside. You know the unsub was watching his victims, but not how. You start pulling ingredients and getting things ready on the stove.

“I can help.” He gets up from the counter, eager to wipe the sour look from your face. 

“Respectfully, you moved us in today. You should shower.”

The way your grin lights up your face, turning back to the stove top without a care in the world, makes Hotch freeze. His heart skips a full beat. It already feels so domestic. You catch it and turn back, taking a half step closer to him. 

“Don’t forget, I’m your hot twenty-six year old wife. Act like it.” You press a kiss to his cheek before he can protest. Now you actually focus on the stove, eventually hearing his steps take him away from the room. 

By the time Hotch is done with his needed shower, he can smell the food coming from downstairs. Spaghetti. He’s impressed that you’ve even set the table. Creating the fantasy. Creating his illusion. You set down his plate at the end of the table, and you take the seat closest to his on the right. 

“If we’re too distant we stand out, and now that we’re here-” Hotch clears his throat, “You’re right. I need to act like it. At any point now the unsub could be watching us.” 

He smiles as if he hadn’t said something so horrifying. The place had already been swept for bugs, and now they had eyes on them. Now they would have to wait and see if the unsub was watching them too. 

“I’m glad you’re officially on board.” You grin, placing your hand in his.

You guys both practically drag your feet cleaning up from dinner. Avoiding the bedroom. The last line to cross. 

The room has been staged well, it’s a pretty room. A large bed right in the middle of it. Hotch pauses just behind you in the doorway, “We can take turns on the couch.” 

You shake your head immediately, “No. Couples like us don’t do that.” 

He exhales slowly, “Understood.” 

You leave him in the bathroom and take your bag to the bathroom. You change quickly and then open the door back up while you take off your makeup and brush your teeth. After spitting in the sink, you look up in the mirror to see Aaron walking in. He’s changed into long pajama pants and a black t-shirt. 

You were hoping if you were fast enough, Hotch would be in bed with the lights off by the time you came out. You blush when you notice him taking in your cover wardrobe. You’re supposed to be a young hot wife, that means little for the pajama department. 

He begins brushing his teeth while you do your skincare. The silence stretching painfully rather than peacefully is the only clue that this isn’t real. 

You’re nearly done by the time Hotch leaves and heads back to the bedroom. You follow after turning off the lights and pull back the covers. Total darkness and silence. 

You lie on your back, your hands folded over your stomach, “Night, Hotch.” 

“Goodnight.” 

Neither of you sleep very well. He stares at the opposite wall. Plagued by listening to your soft breaths while you sleep. Morning comes too fast. He’s already up by the time your eyelids pull open. 

You pad into the kitchen to see a pot of coffee on, Hotch manning the stove. He still has on his pajamas, his hair disheveled from sleep. You’re surprised he didn’t fix it first thing. But, this isn’t really him. 

“Morning, professor.” Your voice lazy from sleep. 

He freezes for half a second.

Then recovers, “Sleep well?”

You smile, taking steps closer to him. He reaches out an arm to wrap around your shoulders. The food smells good. 

“Like a dream.” You lie. He knows. 

You wrap your arms around his waist while you both sway together. You’d be ashamed to admit it once you were more awake, but you lean your weight against him to support. 

By noon, you’re laying out by the pool. The bikini is not subtle. It isn’t meant to be. 

Garcia groans over the comms you can all hear again, “This seems deeply unfair.”

“Tell me about it.” Emily whined. 

Hotch watches from inside, his jaw tight, posture rigid. He knows exactly what you are doing and why it works. He’s almost alarmed at the pace you could set for the unsub. 

Neighbors slow as they pass.  A man across the street checks his mail. Twice. 

You don’t look at any of them. You keep your sunglasses on, body relaxed and unconcerned. 

It’s bait. 

And it’s effective. 

Hotch’s eyes finally snap up from your figure when he sees someone approach the fence. A woman smiling brightly and waving you over. You get up from your lounge chair and walk over to her.

“Hi! I’m Linda. We’re having a block party on Friday, and I thought we’d invite the new couple!” 

You smile, all warmth and charm, “Isn’t that sweet!”

Hotch steps out the back patio door and walks over to join you. His arm wraps around your lower back so his hand can find home on your hip. Linda notices. Everyone does. 

“Aaron.” He extends his other hand to shake Linda’s. 

It’s clear Linda is trying to hide her gaze on their PDA. She stutters out the time while focusing on your hand placed on Hotch’s warm chest. The rock the FBI provided glimmering brightly on your ring finger. The sun continues to beat down, Hotch very aware of how you’re all skin right now. He’s only touching bare skin. He vaguely hears you ask if you should bring anything. He misses the response. 

“Lovely.” She waves, “We’ll see you then!”

Linda walks away, you wave goodbye as she walks back to her house. 

“So, that's what it takes to get you to come outside?” You turn, Hotch’s hold still on you, “Linda?”

“What-”

“I mean, I’ve been out here for how long, Garcia?”

His hand tightens again, not expecting you to circle the team back in. He forgot their eyes and ears are on everything.

“Forty-five minutes.” She answers. 

“Disappointing.” You whisper, it fans over his face. 

“I’ll work on it.” 

He leans down before you can pull another stunt, he presses a kiss to your brow. 

-

Later Emily and Morgan come over under the guise of friends bringing a housewarming gift. They welcome them both in and accept the wine with hugs. They gather together in the kitchen, everyone’s face all smiles but Emily’s tone tells another story. 

“I think we’ve got to work on being what the unsub is looking for.” She reminds, “You both need to work on being closer. Physically.”

Morgan nods, “She’s right. The profile says entitlement. Ownership. A guy who thinks he’s won.” 

“You don’t protect, Y/n. You flaunt her.” 

Hotch’s jaw tightens, “That’s not-”

“That’s the role,” She cuts in, “A man who would absolutely brag about locking down another wife half the age of the last one.” 

Emily is exaggerating obviously, but she makes her point clear. 

“I’m good, Hotch.” You smile, wrapping your hand around his arm and pulling him closer, “I’m not fragile.” 

He exhales slowly. Once. Controlled. 

“Understood.” 

The shift is nearly immediate. You can feel it. He changes how he stands. How close he is. How his hand settles on your waist when you pass him in the kitchen. Unapologetic. 

An arm draped over her shoulder as they sit on the front porch enjoying the summer night, the sky beginning to darken. Morgan and Emily left a little bit ago, leaving them alone again. This time you claim each other's space. 

A neighbor you haven’t met jogs by on a late run, waving to them as she passes. Linda’s husband takes out the trash, putting it at the end of their driveway. A group of kids pass through on their bikes, loud yells and laughter. 

Lots of activity in this neighborhood. Lots of eyes. You and Hotch are putting yourselves in full view. 

“You good?” You ask quietly. 

“Yes,” He answers, “Are you?”

You study him, “I’ve played worse roles than this.”

His mouth tightens, “That doesn’t make it easier.” 

“No, but it gets the job done.” 

You reach up to card your hands through his hair. Running along the side, pushing it back. 

“Uhh, guys?” Garcia chimes in the earpiece. You both keep faces neutral. 

“One of the exterior cameras just changed angles.” 

You still. Hotch does too. You’re not sure you would be able to tell if you weren’t practically in his lap right now. 

Inside the van, Rossi leans closer to the screen. “Did we do that?”

Garcia typing away furiously. 

“No. And the system didn’t flag it either.” 

Emily frowns, “Can someone access it remotely?”

Garcia hesitates before answering. 

“If they had administration credentials they would have remote access.” 

“So, the unsub is watching right now?” You ask, eyes still on Aaron. 

“I would assume so since he adjusted the exterior to include you both in frame.”

“Let’s give him a show.” 

You want to pull Aaron to you, but you know he needs to push this. He is the pursuer. Your hand is still in his hair when he leans down to connect your lips again. You don’t give him the chance to cut it short, leaning into him. 

He opens his mouth wider to deepen the kiss, you sit up against him. Throwing one leg over his lap, practically indecent for the front yard. 

“Take me to bed.” Your words are pressed against his lips. 

Hotch stiffens under you for a second. His eyes wide, before you give a small nod. He picks you up from his lap, carrying you into the house. You let him set you down and pull him up the stairs by the collar of his shirt. Still full of smiles and teasing. Aaron corners you against a wall in the hallway, pressing hot kisses down your neck.

You push back from him, taking his hand and pulling him into the bedroom and shut the door. The second the door shuts, you both let go, but are still out of breath. Hotch paces a few feet away from you. The bedroom is one of the few places they didn’t put a camera. 

“Garcia, did any other angles in the house change? Any interior cameras?” Your voice sounds a lot more calm and clear than you feel. 

“Um,” She clears her throat, obviously still reeling from everything she just witnessed. “Uh-I-uh it looks like he has. The hallway is angled more in the bedroom than it was when it was installed. I think I can see if he’s watching.”

There’s a long pause while she works before she comes back on, “Wait, yes! He’s online. He’s still active on the hall camera. I’m guessing he’s waiting for the afterparty.” 

Emily nods, “He’s watching for something. He wants to know if they fit his needs.” 

Inside, the performance continues. You mess up your hair, Hotch’s to be fair already was. You change out of the clothes you had on before and opt for just one of Aaron’s law t-shirts. It feels right. Puts a little pressure on that authority insecurity. 

“Is he still watching?” You ask Garcia. 

“Mhm.”

You open the door and casually skip down the stairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water. You're still flushed from the couch make out. Didn't have to fake that.

“Babygirl, you’re a genius.” Morgan claps. 

It only needs to give the illusion they need. Just enough to piss him off. 

-

You made brownies for the block party. Aaron had to run out to the store, leaving an opening for the unsub to approach as well. They don’t know his true patterns and if he’s confident enough to approach them both at once. 

All morning there is activity out in the street. People are setting up tables, music, and food. It looks like they don’t do anything small here in Coyote Springs. You picked out the perfect summer sun dress, and curled your hair and leaving it down simply. It’s short enough to put your legs on display. 

“Safe choice,” Hotch nods, looking at the tray covered in foil. 

Safe to comment on the food, not the dress.

You smile up at him, “People trust baked goods.” 

He opens the door for you both to walk out, and it’s already full. The party is already in full swing. People everywhere. Children running around. The smell of the grill takes over. 

Too many faces. 

You immediately feel your posture sag a little trying to keep track of everyone’s expressions while walking through. You keep one hand on the tray and the other curled possessively around Aaron’s bicep. You let him guide you around, introducing yourselves. 

He leans down to press the occasional kiss to your lips, temple, brow. Anything to hear your low laugh. You both look inseparable. 

From the street, it’s enviable. From the cameras, he’s raging. 

“We’ve got a lot of eyes.” Garcia says into the earpiece. 

JJ watches over the crowd, “He’s here. He wouldn’t pass up this opportunity.” 

You move slowly. Deliberately. Introductions begin to blur.  Retirees, young families, couples who’ve lived here twenty years. Kids continue to race around playing. Teens hang back in groups, too cool to really participate. You laugh easily, leaning into Hotch. You even let him speak over you once or twice.

You both stop near Linda, who is holding court beside the grill and a whole table of food. 

“Oh! You made it,” Linda says brightly. “And you brought something.”

“Brownies,” You smile. “I hope that’s okay.”

Linda takes the tray. “Oh, people will love you.”

Her gaze flicks to Hotch. “You’re a lucky man.”

Hotch smiles wide, proud, exactly the wrong way.

“I know,” he says. “I really do.”

The reaction is instant. Not from Linda.

From just behind her.

A boy, sixteen maybe seventeen goes still.

Too still.

You can feel pressure between your shoulder blades. Hotch squeezes your hand, he saw it too. 

“Oh, where are my manners!” Linda sighs, “Meet my family. This is my husband Bill, and my son Matthew.” 

She then turns where the other boy still watches. “And this is my sister Sharon and her son Toby. They live just a couple streets down.” 

Toby is tall, a little lanky. He wears a black hoodie despite the heat. He stands half in the shadow of a tree, his eyes won’t meet yours. Instead they’re on Hotch. Specifically where his hand is glued to your hip possessively. You shift closer and his grip bruises, Toby’s jaw tightens. 

You turn to speak over Aaron’s shoulder so they won’t notice what you ask Garcia. 

“Garcia, what do we know on Sharon and her son?”

There’s a pause. You turn back your attention to Linda and Sharon, waiting for her chipper voice to come on the earpiece. 

“Let me see what I can find!” She eagerly begins typing. They had to move the surveillance van a couple streets down for the block party. It would be curious for them to be parked there with all the homeowners having a party together. 

You keep smiling and turn your attention to Sharon and her son who hovers behind.  “So, how long have you guys lived here?”

“All of his life.” Sharon answers, smiling softly at him. 

“Must be hard,” You reply gently, “watching things change. New people are moving in, although I hope we’re welcomed!”

Everyone laughs at your comment, except for Toby. His gaze has yet to leave Hotch’s touch. 

Sharp. Hurt. Furious. 

Hotch squeezes a warning. 

His eyes flick up to your face for the first time. 

You excuse yourself from the group to refill both of your drinks. When you return, you immediately slide onto Hotch’s lap. You dive back into conversation totally unphased, but in your peripheral you can see Toby’s hands clenching.

Hotch makes sure to brag about his job, about you, about how good his life is now. Toby is locked in with his full attention. Every laugh from you is a needle. Every kiss gasoline. Building.

“I’ve got something juicy,” Garcia jumps back in, “Sharon was just divorced from Toby’s father last March. They had been married for twenty-two years, but he moved out and left. And then six weeks ago it looks like he was re-married.” 

“Right when the killings started.” Emily reminds. 

“It get better-or worse, I don’t know which is-what way it-” 

“Garcia.”

“He has been teaching the girls college soccer team almost as long as they were married. His new wife? She just graduated from the team last year. Can you spell slimy?”

Garcia gags over the earpiece nearly making you wince and yank it out of your ear. 

“She’s twenty-four, he’s fourty-nine.” 

Bingo. 

You turn to look over Hotch’s shoulder to see Toby’s expression, only to find him missing. Linda’s son is gone now too. 

“Does anyone have eyes on him?”

No answer. 

You both thank people as you’re saying goodbye. Smiles. Keep the act flawless. 

The house feels wrong the second your foot crosses the threshold. Hotch’s hand moves instinctively toward his weapon and stops. Static takes over the earpiece.

-

Back in the surveillance van, the team waits anxiously. Re-watching footage to see if they can spot him disappearing. Eerie silence from the couple undercover. Garcia watches the door shut and suddenly the screens turn to pixels, static playing over the speakers.

“What the hell is that?” Morgan yells. 

“I don’t know! Something is blocking the signal.” Garcia types furiously. 

“We’ve got to go in now.” Morgan grabs his vest and his gun.

“If he’s not with them, this will blow their cover. We’ll scare him away.” Rossi adds. 

“It won’t matter if they’re dead. Toby is the unsub, I’m sure of it.” 

-

Toby is standing in the living room, holding a gun he shouldn’t know how to handle. And it’s aimed right at you both. His hands are shaking. Your hand tightens around Aaron’s arm.

“Shut the door!” He yells, you both slowly step the rest of the way into the house and shut the door. 

His face is pale, eyes wide, and breathing way too fast. 

He raises the gun closer to them, “Upstairs. Now.”

Hotch manages to keep himself placed between you and the gun as he follows you both to the bedroom. Every step is deliberate, intentionally trying to put you in the least amount of harm.

“On your knees.” 

Neither of them hesitates. Neither of you tries to reach for your weapon. Yet. 

Hotch’s shoulders brush with yours. Toby paces in front of you, waving the gun wildly in their direction the entire time. 

“You think you’re better than everyone!” He yells, “You think it’s okay to take whatever you want.”

You tilt your head slightly, “What did he take from you?” 

You try to remind that Hotch is not his father, although with the anger in his eyes you’re not sure he can tell. His pacing stutters.

“You watch people like us?” You continue, “You think you’re correcting something?”

“Correcting what he’s taking!” He jabs the gun at Hotch’s chest. You feel the air get knocked out of your lungs. 

“Correcting my theft of youth?”

Your words from the beginning of the case now echo with Hotch’s voice. Toby freezes. 

“That’s what he did,” Toby’s voice growing hoarse, “He took her youth. He took our family and replaced it with something younger. Easier.”

Hotch swallows when Toby turns his focus onto you. He lets the barrel of the gun slide across your collarbone. 

“It’s despicable. This is the same thing.” He gestures between you two.

You hold his gaze, “I chose him. He didn’t take anything from me.”

Your voice softens, “And I don’t regret it.” 

The truth in your voice is unmistakable. Hotch feels it like a shockwave. An earthquake. 

“You don’t want to kill us.” You voice gentle, calming the room, “You want someone to admit what happened to you was wrong. That it was fucked up.” 

Toby’s hands shake more, his eyes fill. 

“He didn’t even talk to me about it. He just moved out.” 

You nod, “Don’t you want it to stop hurting?”

His head bobs. 

“Then put the gun down.”

He hesitates. 

Hotch keeps his voice low and steady. Using his dad voice, “You’re not a monster. You’re a kid that got left behind.”

The gun lowers. Just enough. You reach forward and take the gun from his grasp and pass it back to Hotch immediately. You kneel beside him while he cries. Morgan breaks through the door, armed and ready. 

“It’s okay, we’re all safe now.” 

Red and blue lights take over the room flashing in from the window. Morgan takes Toby down to the cars to bring him into the station. An ambulance. Police. Statements. Protocols. 

-

The team gathers in the living room to discuss everything that just unfolded and establishing a time to meet at the jet.

“Sharon works for CPI Security. That’s how Toby was able to access the homes and the cameras. He was using her devices.” Garcia explains their total blackout on seeing and hearing them. Toby was smarter than they had thought. That’s how he was without a trace. The team gives them a couple looks, quiet comments about their act while they try to wrap things up.

“Enough!” You shout, “I would like to shower and then get on a plane and go home! Is that too much to ask for?” 

“No ma’am!” “We’re going!” “Okay, okay!”

Rossi leaves to go get one of the SUVS so they can head to the airport. It would be a late night flight home. You and Aaron are left with a few officers downstairs taking pictures and taking statements while you both pack up your belongings. 

“Well, I suppose I will have to give this back to evidence.” You sigh, holding up the rock on your ring finger to the light with a chuckle. 

“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll take some getting used to. You’ll feel lighter.” 

You roll your eyes, putting your toiletries away, looking at him in the mirror. 

Leaning your hip against the counter you look up at him, soft now and unguarded. “You were very convincing. You stepped it up.”

He matches your lean, a step closer. 

“You were extraordinary from the beginning.”

The smile on your face shifts into something real, “You used my words back there.” 

“I know.” He says, “I know what they mean to you.”

A beat passes. You swallow, his eyes follow down your throat. One he has kissed numerous times now. 

“Do you regret it?” he asks. 

You shake your head without hesitation, “Not even a little.” 

Hotch reaches out, slowly. Deliberate. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. The touch is warm. Bare. Uncharacteristically gentle. 

“Neither do I.” 

-

The jet hums as it cuts through the dark sky. Hotch sits at the table with a file open in front of him that he is definitely not reading. You took the same seat across from him as usual. Emily and Rossi join the table, Morgan and Garcia sit on the couch facing them with wide grins. 

For the first six minutes of the flight, no one says a thing. 

“So,” Morgan starts far too casually, “We gonna talk about the kissing, or are we pretending none of that ever happened?”

You close your eyes. Hotch exhales through his nose. 

JJ doesn’t even look up from her tablet, “I witnessed at least nine when I was on cams.”

Garcia gasps, “I’ve got so many screenshots-

“Garcia.” Hotch warns.

You groan, “Oh my god.” 

Rossi smiles into his coffee, “You know, I’ve been undercover a lot. But I’ve never seen Hotch commit like that.” 

Morgan grins, “My boss went from ‘don’t touch me’ to ‘this is my wife, don’t even breathe in her direction’ in twenty-four hours.” 

Hotch clears his throat, “Focus.”

“Sir,” Emily smiles, “You grabbed her waist every time someone looked at her for more than two seconds.” 

“That was tactical.”

You snort loudly before you can even stop it. 

Morgan points immediately, “See! She knew it!”

Garcia’s cuts in, “And can we discuss the wardrobe?”

You straighten in your seat, “Garcia-”

“The bikini,” She barrels on, “The sundress. The backless sundress. The way you were charming everyone and-”

“Garcia!” You say both mortified and laughing.

JJ smiles, “To be fair, it worked. He didn’t stand a chance.” 

“Hotch or Toby?” Rossi asks with a jab. 

Hotch’s ears turn red. 

“Well, technically Y/n is closer in age to Toby than she is to Hotch.” Reid interjects.  “Please, don’t ever remind me of that again.” You shake your head, a sour look on your face. “I would also not like to be reminded of that.” Hotch agrees. 

Rossi raises his brow still looking at Hotch. 

“It was part of the profile.” He reminds. 

Impossibly so, Rossi’s brow aims higher at Aaron’s answer, “You told three different men you were ‘very lucky’ and ‘not stupid enough to mess this up’.”

Silence. 

Your lips twitch with a smile as you look over to him, “You did?”

His jaw tightens, “That… may have come up.”

Morgan outright laughs, “Boss, you were bragging.”

You cover your face with one hand, “I can never show my face in Arizona again.” 

“You absolutely can,” Emily disagrees, “You own that cul-de-sac now. Whatever you two were doing, it sold and it worked.”

Reid nods, “Yeah, no notes. Except, next time? I want hazard pay for having to watch all that.”

"Me on the other hand, " Garcia grins wickedly, "I saved it all!"

“You’re welcome, you pervs!” 

You toss a harmless handful of plane popcorn at them, rolling your eyes. There’s an unguarded and warm smile on your face that makes Hotch shake his head watching it all unfold. 

Hours later it’s early morning on the east coast when they finally land on the tarmac. 

“Debrief tomorrow at 9AM.” Hotch says, “Get some rest.” 

The team disperses, still chuckling and yawning as they walk to their cars. The cabin is quiet as you lean back in your seat while Hotch packs up his briefcase. 

“You think any of them bought it?” You ask, a soft smile on your face. Honest and open. 

He flashes you his rare smile. The one usually saved for you and Jack on the weekends.

“Probably not.”

extra of the team finding out here!

It doesn’t happen often, hardly ever, really. Aaron’s not the kind of man who forgets things, especially not lunch. Maybe twice every four months, if that. And even then, he never asks for you to bring it. He usually brushes off your offers with a quick ‘I’ll grab something from the cafeteria’ which, of course, actually means ‘I won’t eat until dinner.’ 

And that just won’t suffice. Especially not when he’s been filling out his shirt so nicely, lately.

So there you were, pretty shoes dragging against the dull bureau floor, lunch in one hand, cookies and your purse dangling from the other, wrist definitely starting to ache. You weren’t exactly sneaking into the bullpen, but you weren’t strutting either. Just stuck in that awkward middle space reserved for people who technically shouldn’t be there, but have the authority to show up anyway, because boss man said so.

“There she is! Hotchner’s better half,” Emily called out, spinning her chair around with a grin.

You offered a sheepish wave, trying not to drop anything. “I come bearing gifts…and mild wrist pain.”

“Oh! Are those the butterscotch ones?” Penelope squealed, jumping up from where she’d been perched on Spencer’s desk.

“Yes, new recipe,” you said, carefully setting your things down on JJ’s desk as she kindly unhooked your overloaded purse. “I swapped out the dark brown sugar for light, added a little sea salt on top, and I may have used browned butter this time. I was feeling ambitious.”

“You browned the butter?” Penelope gasped. “You absolute kitchen goddess!”

Spencer leaned in for a closer look as you popped the lid off the container. “That actually changes the flavor quite a bit. The Maillard reaction from browning—”

“Yes, yes, science, great,” Emily cut in. “Can we eat them now, or is there a presentation we have to sit through first?”

You laughed, nudging the tin closer to everyone. “No presentations. Just cookies. Though if anyone gives them a rating out of ten that’s higher than a nine, I won’t complain.”

Morgan was the first to grab one, swiftly using it as a pointer to gesture towards Aaron, who was pushing back his chair. “Oh look, here he comes.”

You glanced up just in time to catch it—that little motion he always did, fingers brushing his tie flat against his chest as he stood. A completely innocent gesture. Totally routine. And somehow still enough to make your mouth water.

“You know,” Morgan added, mid-chew, “that’s the fastest I’ve ever seen him leave his office. Last time he moved like that, we had an active shooter in the building.”

“Alright, don’t scare her,” Rossi scolded, swatting Morgan’s bicep with a file. “She already doesn't like coming here as it is.”

“Now, that’s not true, Dave,” you corrected, grabbing Aaron’s lunch. “I love seeing you all. I just prefer doing it without all the security nuisance, badges, metal detectors and guns.”

Morgan nudged your elbow, eyes still on Aaron as he made his way over. “For a guy who claims he’s not clingy, he’s practically tripping over himself right now.”

“Oh, he’s definitely clingy,” you grinned, just as Aaron reached you, wasting zero time before leaning in and placing a swift kiss to your lips, murmuring a dreamy ‘Hi you’ before pulling away.

“Come on.” Morgan shook his head, reaching for his second cookie. “This is the same guy who made us sit through a mandatory refresher on workplace boundaries, and now look at him, breaking every single one.”

“Let them be in love,” JJ said sweetly, sipping her coffee like this was all perfectly normal.

You looked up at Aaron, eyebrows raised, trying to coax some kind of reaction to all the teasing. But he didn’t even glance at the others, just kept his eyes on you as he took the lunch bag from your hands, his fingers brushing along your wrist with just enough pressure to say thank you, I missed you, without saying anything at all.

“You didn’t have to come all this way, honey.”

“I know, but I overbaked and figured I was due for my monthly dose of shocking the system.” You glanced around the bullpen, cringing a little at the endless clacking of keyboards and constant ringing of phones. It was all starting to give you at least four different headaches. “Feels like there’s less oxygen in here somehow.”

“That’s because no one is allowed to breathe until all the paperwork is done,” Emily interjected dryly. 

“Is that true, Aaron?” you asked, reaching up to fuss with his tie. “Are you working your team too hard?”

“They live to complain.”

A chorus of groans and mock-offended noises rose up around you, just as Aaron’s hand slipped to the small of your back, steering you gently towards his office.

“Blinds stay open, you two,” Morgan called after you, pointing two fingers from his eyes to yours. “We’re watching!”

“Just keep walking,” Aaron murmured into your hair, voice quiet and beguiled, giving your hip a subtle squeeze as he guided you up the stairs.

You bit back a grin, feeling far too smug—and frankly, far too giddy—for someone standing in a federal building. Inside his office, he quietly closed the door behind you and you made yourself at home by sliding into one of the chairs across from his desk. 

“Think Morgan might have a point, you are getting a little reckless with the PDA. You’re going soft.”

He moved to his chair, smoothing his tie against his chest as he sat. “I’ve always been soft with you.”

That answer knocked the wind out of you in the quietest way. You blinked once, then shook your head. “Wow. Okay. That’s not even fair.”

He just looked amused, unpacking the lunch bag while sneaking glances at you like he couldn’t help himself. “You know they’ll be talking about this all afternoon.”

You waved him off and kicked his foot gently under the desk, because footsies, like true love, didn’t have an expiration date. “Let them. Let them talk about how you have a gorgeous, brilliant, amazing wife who is kind enough to hand-deliver your lunch.”

“They already know.”

“Good answer.” You nodded, satisfied, and handed him a few tissues just as he took the first bite of his sandwich. “Now, how's your day been? And don’t say ‘fine’, or I’ll start pulling out my therapist's voice and asking about your coping mechanisms.”

He chewed, giving you a dour look over the top of the sandwich like he was already reconsidering speaking at all.

“Busy. Two consults, one profile draft, and I’ve had to remind Morgan three times to finish his report.”

“So… business as usual.”

“Basically.”

He took another bite, and you used the pause to admire him. How pretty he looked. He was getting subtly more rugged with time, never quite managing the clean-shaven look, not for lack of trying, but that had always been fine by you. You loved him exactly as he was.

Your eyes wandered over his desk, taking in the meticulously organised scene in front of you. Everything was in its place, except for a single pen and one loose file slightly out of line, a tiny disruption in an otherwise perfect system. It made you smile.

He wiped his mouth, and in that moment, his wedding band caught the thin stream of light this moody building begrudgingly allowed in. As if the universe was saying, yes, look—he’s yours.

And you thanked her silently for it. Because he was.

“Want to ditch the rest of the day, fake a headache, and run away with me to somewhere that doesn’t require badge access?” you proposed, straightening the photo of you on his desk. 

He tilted his head. “Tempting.”

“You’d never actually do it, though.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I’ll think about it the whole time I’m here.”

Your smile pulled a little wider. “That’s enough for me. That—and as long as I’ll have you home in time for dinner,” you said, though it came out as more of a question. Maybe even a tiny, minuscule threat. 

“Don’t worry, I will,” he assured you kindly. “I know your parents are coming over tonight. I wouldn’t dream of making you face that alone. I’m guessing that’s what’s been bothering you, hence the industrial-sized cookie batch?”

You sighed, slumping back into the chair. “Am I that obvious?”

“Only to me.”

“You know they’re hard work. And I can only fake-smile and nod my way through so many stories about people I don’t remember and opinions I didn’t ask for.”

Aaron set his sandwich aside, abandoning it on the tissue you had passed him earlier. He used another to wipe his hands, then stood, taking two steps to get to you. 

Before you could say anything, his hands were on either side of your chair, gently turning it to face him. He crouched down, and you instinctively parted your legs so he could slot in between them. 

“Hey,” he urged softly. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through it together, and if it gets to be too much, I’m excellent at coming up with polite excuses to get them out of the house.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, sweetheart.”

And just in case his words were not confirmation enough, his hands came to cradle your face, thumbs circling your skin before he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your forehead. 

“Go to that bookstore you like,” he said next, already reaching into his pocket. “Grab your favorite coffee, roam around for a while, and try not to stress until they text you that they’re on their way, okay?”

He pulled out his wallet and fished out his card. “You’re too pretty to be stressing in this skirt.”

You raised a brow, lifting one leg and watching the flowy fabric settle back down over your knee. “It’s cute right?”

“Very.” He nodded, dead serious. “Go buy yourself another one.” He extended the card towards you like it was non-negotiable.

You laughed, giving his hand a light swat. “I’m not taking your card like some 1950s housewife.”

“You’re not. You’re my very independent, endlessly capable wife who I happen to love spoiling any chance I get. Now, please, take it. Call it payment for lunch…and for making you come all the way here, knowing full well how much you’d rather avoid this place.”

You pouted, eyes dancing between the card and his face. “Fine,” you relented, plucking the card from his hand. “But I’m only getting one book. Two max. The bookshelf is about to collapse.”

“Buy as many as you want.” He reached down, helping you to your feet with a gentle tug. “I’ll build you a new bookshelf.”

“You?”

“Yes, me.” 

“You’ll build me a new bookshelf?”

He leaned in close, lips brushing your ear as he murmured, “With actual tools.”

“Okay, now I have to see that.”

He pulled back, straightening your cardigan, fussing without ever making it feel like fussing. “Then you better pick up a lot of books.” 

You rolled your eyes, tucking the card away into your pocket. “This is enabling.”

“This is love,” he corrected, stealing a quick kiss before walking you to the door. “Text me when you get there. And if you see a ridiculous romance novel with a cheesy title, get it. I want to hear the plot.”

You grinned, poking his chest. “You just want to make fun of me.” 

“No, I just like knowing what’s taking up space in that beautiful head of yours.” 

“It’s mostly just you.”

He looked like he was trying not to smile too hard at that, so you saved him the trouble by leaning up and giving him one last kiss, ignoring all the hollering behind you from Morgan. 

“I love you,” he promised, smoothing a hand down your arm. “Now, go before I change my mind and fake a headache just to come with you.”

tags - @fandomscombine @pastelpinkflowerlife @hazzyking @bernelflo @risenqueen1521 @jazzimac1967 @camihotchner @abschaffer2 @ill-be-okay-soon-enough @pacmillo-blog-blog @stilestotherescue @kiwriteswords @anvdala @supersanelyromantic @yourallaround-simp @percysley @wowitsafemale @cinnamoncunt @mggslover @khxna @keiminds

You’re leaning over the evidence table, deliberately bending farther than necessary to reach a photo, when Rossi sidles up beside you.

“You trying to get fired, kid?” he mutters under his breath. Already knowing exactly what you're playing at. Rossi knows Hotch too well, knows you too well. And has definitely figured out just what your relationship entails behind closed doors.

You don’t even look at him. “Just keeping him on his toes, David.”

He hums, unconvinced. “He’s gonna put you on your knees later, and not in the fun way.”

You grin, sharp and sweet, when in reality you should've been mortified at the words coming out of Rossi's mouth. “We’ll see.”

Hotch’s voice cuts across the bullpen. “L/N. My six. Now.”

You straighten slowly, brushing imaginary lint off your shirt. “Yes, sir.”

You saunter over, boots echoing, and stop just inside his personal space, close enough that he has to tilt his head down to glare at you.

The rest of the room pretends they’re suddenly very very busy. And definitely not listening to whatever is about to happen between the two of you.

“You’re off the raid,” he says, voice low enough that only you can hear the tremor of fury underneath. Meaning that you've just struck bingo, and Hotch is giving you exactly what you were playing for later.

You blink, all mock innocence, before you raise your brows at him. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You’re staying here with the locals.”

You laugh, actually laugh, straight in his face. “No, I’m not.”

“That wasn’t a request.” His eyes flash, his pupils dilating, darkening. You can tell that he is trying to claw his way out of Hotch, begging to be released upon you.

“And this isn’t a negotiation.” You step closer, dropping your voice to a purr. “You want me on a leash, Aaron, you’re gonna have to put it on me yourself. In front of everyone. Go ahead.” You cross your arms over your chest.

His nostrils flare. For one electric second, you think he might actually do it, might snap right here, take his belt off, and drag you out by the back of your neck like you both know you want him to.

Instead, he exhales through his nose, slow and controlled, trying to ground himself before he says something too unprofessional. When he finally speaks, he leans down to whisper in your ear through gritted teeth, “Fine! You’re with me. You leave my sight for less than .01 seconds, I'll cuff you to the SUV and leave you in the car overnight like some abandoned pet left on the side of the road. Try me.”

You lick your bottom lip. “Promise?”

He turns on his heel before he does something he can’t take back in front of twenty witnesses and the entirety of his team.

The raid is a clusterfuck waiting to happen, and you are the match.

Hotch wants to go in quietly through the back. You’re already halfway across the parking lot toward the front door before he grabs your vest and yanks you back.

“Jesus Christ, do you have a death wish today?” He says, leaving little to no discussion in his tone, you know that tone all too well, even strive to get it out of him on occasion... well, more times than not.

You spin, grinning up at him. “Only if you’re the one pulling the trigger.”

He looks like he’s two seconds from gagging you with his own tie and bending you over right here, right now.

Morgan’s voice crackles over comms. “Hotch, we’re set on the east side. You two coming or getting a room?”

You reach up and key your own comm without looking away from Hotch. “We’re coming, 'baby girl'. Unit Chief’s just having a little performance anxiety.” You can already imagine Morgan's confused look at the nickname.

Hotch rips the earpiece out of your ear and crushes it under his boot.

You whistle, low and a little playful. “That’s destruction of FBI property, sir. Very naughty.”

He grabs the front of your vest this time, hauling you in until you’re nose to nose. There he is. “You do not speak again until this unsub is in cuffs. Not one fucking word. Nod if you understand.”

You nod, solemn and mocking. Already planning to break that exact promise.

He releases you like you’re radioactive.

The warehouse is a maze of rusted machinery and broken skylights. Moonlight stripes the concrete floor. You move ahead of Hotch, deliberately, clearing corners before he can tell you to wait.

He hisses your name, barely audible.

You ignore him.

You hear the unsub before you see him: panicked breathing, the clatter of a dropped magazine. He’s reloading behind a stack of crates twenty feet ahead.

You raise your weapon before you step into the open.

Hotch swears viciously behind you and moves to cover, but you’re already talking.

“FBI! Drop it!”

The unsub spins, wild-eyed, gun up.

You don’t flinch.

Hotch is shouting your name now, furious and afraid all at the same time, but you keep your voice steady, taunting. “Come on, sweetheart. You wanted us to chase you. Here I am.”

The unsub’s finger tightens on the trigger.

Hotch’s arm hooks around your waist from behind, and he yanks you sideways, throwing you both sideways behind a forklift just as the shot rings out. Concrete explodes exactly where you were just standing.

You land half on top of him, ears ringing, heart slamming against your ribs.

He’s shaking with rage, hands gripping your vest so hard the straps bite.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snarls into your face.

You grin, breathless, high on adrenaline and the feel of him under you. “You’re welcome.”

Another shot pings off metal above your heads.

Hotch flips you onto your back, shielding you with his body, weapon already up. His voice in your ear is lethal. “Stay. Down.”

This time, you finally listen.

He rises in one fluid motion, one precise shot to his leg, and the unsub drops like a puppet that just had its strings cut.

Silence falls in the warehouse, broken only by distant shouting as the rest of the team floods in.

Hotch holsters his weapon, turns back to you, where you’re pushing to your feet.

You meet his eyes across the moonlit warehouse, chest heaving, blood thundering in your ears.

The unsub is down.

The cuffs are clicking.

And Aaron Hotchner looks like he’s deciding exactly how long it’s going to take to make you cry tonight.

The jet is grounded until at least morning due to a mechanical failure in the engine, so the team books into the hotel closest to the hangar and landing strip.

Everyone’s exhausted, adrenaline crashing hard, all a little annoyed from the lack of sleeping in their own beds tonight. But the air between you and Hotch is still a live current, ready to explode any second now.

You’re leaning against the check-in desk, tapping your badge against your palm, when Hotch steps up beside you and quietly tells the clerk, “Two singles.”

You don’t miss a beat. “Separate rooms,” you echo, loud enough for Hotch and the clerk to hear. You flash him a saccharine smile. “How very professional of us, Agent Hotchner. Gotta keep up appearances for the Bureau. Wouldn’t want anyone to know their precious unit chief has been balls-deep in his subordinate every night for the last eight months.”

The night clerk’s eyes go wide. Rossi, waiting for his key behind you, chokes on a laugh which he pretends is a cough.

Hotch doesn’t flinch. He just signs the receipt with a pen that might actually snap in his grip, then hands you a keycard.

“Room 312,” he says, voice flat. “I’ll be there in five minutes. You open that door for anyone else, you won’t sit for a month.”

He walks away before you can answer.

You take the stairs two at a time, pulse already racing.

The second the door clicks shut behind him, the mask is gone.

He shrugs out of his jacket, tosses it toward the chair in the corner of the room, and stalks toward you like a predator who’s finally off leash and pouncing straight toward its next meal.

“Strip!”

You arch a brow at him. “Please?”

He’s on you in two strides, hand fisted in your hair, tilting your head back, hard.

“Don’t push me any further tonight,” he warns. “You’ve used up every last ounce of patience I have.”

“Good.” You smile slowly up at him.

He kisses you all teeth, no mercy, until you’re gasping against his mouth. Then he spins you, shoves you chest-first over the foot of the bed, yanks your jeans and panties down in one rough motion.

His palm slides between your shoulder blades, pinning you flat. You feel the heat of him behind you, the hard line of his cock pressing against your ass through his slacks.

“You’ve been begging for this all day,” he says, his voice low and more controlled than you had anticipated when you started pushing him this morning. It's the way he gets right before he completely unravels you. “Every smart-ass comment, every eye roll, every time you said my title like it’s a fucking joke. You want my attention? You have it.”

He drags your hips back until you’re bent perfectly for him, feet barely touching the carpet. The first thrust of his clothed hips against your bare skin is deliberate, grinding, a promise and a threat all at once.

You push back, greedy for him to enter you.

He stills you with one hand splayed over the base of your spine, the other winding your hair around his fist until your neck arches.

“Stay still,” he growls. “You move when I tell you to move.” He leans over you, mouth at your ear. “Color?”

“Green,” you breathe, already trembling. “So fucking green.”

He pulls back just enough to unbuckle his belt, the metallic clink loud in the almost silent room. You hear his zipper, feel the blunt, bare heat of him drag up the seam of your body.

He doesn’t enter you. Not yet.

Instead, he notches himself at your entrance and holds there, agonizingly still, while you try to rock back and take him, sheathe yourself on his cock. His grip on your hair tightens, holding you exactly where he wants you.

“Beg!”

“Please, Sir—”

“Louder.”

“Please fuck me, Sir, I need—”

He slams into you in one brutal stroke, no warning, filling you so suddenly your breath catches on a scream.

Your legs wrap around nothing, toes curling into the carpet, hips snapping hard enough to jolt the bedframe into the wall with every thrust.

He flips you onto your back without pulling out, hooking your knees over his elbows, and spreading you wide. The new angle drags a broken sound from your throat as his thrusts take him deeper and deeper.

“Look at you,” he growls against your collarbone as he shoves your shirt up and runs his mouth over your skin, teeth scraping against you. “Acting like a spoiled little brat in front of the entire team. You think they didn’t notice? You think I didn’t see the way Morgan smirked every time you opened that mouth?”

“Maybe I wanted them to know,” you taunt, breathless, reaching for him. “Maybe I’m tired of pretending I don’t belong to—”

He cuts you off by pulling out entirely and flipping you again, this time onto your knees, face and chest pressed against the mattress.

He thrusts back in so hard your hands scrabble for purchase on the sheets.

“Say it,” he snarls, one hand sliding up to collar your throat from behind, the other gripping your hip hard enough to leave a bruise in the morning. “Finish that sentence.”

“I belong to you,” you sob, clenching around him. “Only you—fuck—Aaron—”

“That’s right.” He presses you deeper into the bed, hips relentless. “You’re mine. And tomorrow, when you can’t walk straight and my cum still dripping down your thighs during our briefing on the jet, you’ll remember exactly who you answer to.”

He reaches beneath you, finds your clit with better precision than a trained sharpshooter, no searching, no hesitation, just the rough pad of his finger settling right where you’re swollen and aching for him. He doesn’t move at first. Just presses, holds, lets you feel the weight of that single point of contact while his cock throbs inside you, stretching you open, owning every trembling inch.

You try to rock back, to chase more, but his grip turns iron.

“Stay,” he growls against the shell of your ear, breath hot, voice shredded. “You take what I give you.”

Then he starts to move, slow, cruel circles that drag over your clit with exactly enough pressure to make your thighs shake. Every stroke is perfectly timed with the roll of his hips, the thick drag of him pulling out until only the head remains before he slams back in, forcing the air from your lungs.

Your hands claw at the sheets. Your spine arches so hard it hurts. The pleasure coils tighter and tighter, vicious and unstoppable, until you’re sobbing his name into the pillow, broken and desperate little pleas of his name.

He speeds up, just barely, thumb flicking faster, hips snapping harder, the wet sound of him fucking you filling the room along with your wrecked moans.

“Cum,” he orders, voice cracking with restraint. “Cum on my cock right now. Show me who you belong to.”

The command rips through you.

You shatter, back bowing, toes curling, a raw scream tearing from your throat as your entire body locks down around him. Wave after wave crashes over you, so intense your vision whites out, every pulse of your orgasm dragging him deeper, milking him with greedy, rhythmic clenches.

He swears once and loses the last thread of control. His rhythm stutters, hips slamming forward one final time as he cums with a rough groan, spilling inside you.

You feel every throb, every pulse, the way he jerks and grinds through it, forehead pressed hard between your shoulder blades like he’s trying to fuse himself to your skin.

He stays there, buried to the hilt, chest heaving against your back, both of you trembling in the aftermath, slick with sweat and utterly spent. You can’t help it, your hips give a tiny, greedy roll, chasing the last sparks of pleasure, trying to keep him deep.

A soft, satisfied moan slips out of you.

Hotch’s chuckle rumbles against your spine. His arms tighten, pinning you flat to the mattress so you can’t move an inch further than you've already wiggled.

“You think we’re done?” he murmurs, lips brushing the shell of your ear. He nips the lobe hard enough to make you gasp. “Oh, sweetheart. You’ve had your fun. Now it’s my time to play.”

He pulls out slowly, letting you feel every inch drag against your oversensitive walls. You whine at the sudden emptiness, but before you can protest, he’s already moving, shirt buttons flying, slacks kicked the rest of the way off, socks gone.

In seconds, he’s gloriously bare, all hard lines, cock still half-hard and glistening with your cum.

He turns his attention to you next, signaling with his hand for you to flip over on your back. You do as ordered.

Your shirt is shoved up under your arms. He yanks it off, unhooks your bra, and tosses both across the room. Then he grabs his discarded tie and crawls over you.

“Hands up,” he orders.

You obey instantly, stretching your arms above your head. He loops the tie around your wrists, threads it through the headboard, and cinches it tight. Not painful, but absolutely inescapable from your end of the deal. You tug once; the silk holds firm.

A helpless little thrill shoots straight to your core.

He settles between your thighs again, slides back inside you with one smooth thrust that makes your back arch. You’re so wet, so swollen, the stretch burns in the best way, you're not sure you can take the sensation much longer before cumming again.

“Good girl,” he praises, voice rough. “Stay just like that.”

He starts slow. Long and deep strokes that hit every spot inside you. His mouth finds your neck, your breasts, sucking bruises into your skin while his hips roll in that maddening rhythm he knows drives you absolutely insane.

It doesn’t take long before you’re writhing, breath hitching, thighs trembling around his waist.

“Please! Sir, I’m close,” you whimper.

He pulls out completely.

You cry out, hips bucking at nothing. He watches you struggle against the tie, thighs squeezing together for friction that isn’t there.

“Shh.” He strokes your hip in a soothing yet cruel manner. “Calm down a little. We’re nowhere near done.”

He waits until your breathing evens, until the desperation fades, then slides back in and starts all over again.

He does it four times.

Four times, he builds you right to the brink, fingers on your clit, mouth on your nipples, cock dragging slow and steady against your walls, until you’re sobbing, begging, tears of frustration gathering at the corners of your eyes.

The fifth time you get loud, really loud, a broken, whining “Please, please, I can’t—” spilling out over and over.

Hotch clicks his tongue. “Too noisy, baby.” He reaches for your discarded panties and balls them up. “Open.”

You shake your head, playful defiance flaring even through the haze.

He arches a brow. “Open that pretty mouth, or I stop entirely and you get nothing.”

Your lips part instantly. He stuffs the panties in, the taste of yourself flooding your tongue, muffling every sound to desperate, garbled whimpers.

“There we go,” he croons, brushing the back of his hand over your cheek. “Much better.”

He fucks you like that for what feels like hours. He comes once deep inside you again, groaning your name against your throat. Pulls out, strokes himself, and paints thick stripes across your stomach and breasts.

Later, he pushes your knees to your chest, and spills across your face while you keen helplessly behind the gag.

Each time he finishes, he starts again, sliding through the mess he’s made across your frame, using it to make you slicker, filthier. You lose count of his orgasms. You’re a trembling, oversensitive wreck, and still he denies you that second release, pulling out the instant your walls start to flutter.

Finally, finally, he collapses over you, sweat-slick and breathless, cock spent and utterly dry. He reaches up and carefully unties your wrists, massaging the faint red marks with his thumbs. Then he gently pulls the soaked panties from your mouth. You work your jaw, swallowing hard, voice hoarse.

He kisses you softly. “Up,” he murmurs.

You’re boneless, but he helps you sit. He slides the same wet panties that he just pulled from your mouth back up your legs, tugging them into place with deliberate care. The fabric settles against your abused, swollen pussy, trapping every drop of his cum inside you. You whimper at the pressure.

He leaves for a second before coming back with a wet cloth in his hand.

When he settles back down beside you, he cups your chin, tilts your face to his, and with the warm cloth, he cleans your cheeks, your lips, your eyelashes with tender, reverent strokes that make you melt against his hand.

But when you reach for a tissue to wipe your chest and stomach, he catches your wrist.

“No.” His voice drops into that stern, deep tone that makes you freeze. “You don’t clean the rest off. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not until we’re wheels-down at Quantico and you’re standing in my shower at home. You’re going to feel me on your skin every second on the jet, every time you shift in your chair. You’ll remember exactly who you bratted off to today, and exactly who owns every inch of this body. Understood?”

You nod, throat tight, arousal somehow flaring all over again despite everything.

“Yes, Sir.”

He smiles, a small, satisfied, and soft smile, before he pulls you into his chest. His hand spreads possessively over the sticky mess on your stomach, holding you close.

“Sleep, trouble,” he whispers into your hair. “You’re going to need it.

You’re already half-asleep when he speaks again, voice low in the dark.

“Next time you pull a stunt like that in the field, I won’t wait until we’re in a hotel room.”

You smile against his skin, sore and sated and utterly ruined.

“Next time,” you mumble, “I’ll be worse.”

He bites your shoulder in warning.

You wake up to the alarm on Hotch’s watch at 5:47 a.m. He’s already sitting on the edge of the bed, hair damp from the shower, knotting a fresh tie. You try to roll over and immediately regret it. Every muscle between your hips screams. Your thighs are sticky, your pussy swollen and aching, and when you clench experimentally, you feel the slow, obscene slide of everything he left inside you only a couple of hours ago.

He glances back, eyes satisfied.

“Up,” he says, voice still rough from sleep and sex. “Wheels up in forty.”

You groan. Actually groan. Getting vertical feels like an Olympic event that you never trained for.

He watches you struggle into yesterday’s jeans with the faintest smirk curling his mouth, when in reality, all you want is a pair of sweatpants.

The panties he pulled back up your legs after he finally untied you are soaked through, his cum, yours, the evidence of four separate loads, and every step makes the fabric drag against your oversensitive clit.

By the time you limp into the hotel lobby, the whole team is already waiting. Morgan does a double-take.

“Damn, sweetheart. You pull a muscle wrestling that unsub... or something?”

You flip him off with the hand that isn’t clutching your go-bag strap for support.

Hotch doesn’t say a word, just opens the back door of the SUV for you like a perfect gentleman, as you make it to the cars. You slide across the seat and bite the inside of your cheek to keep from whimpering when your ass meets cold and slightly hard leather.

On the jet, you take the seat farthest from the group, legs pressed tightly together, praying the movement of the plane doesn’t jostle anything loose. Hotch sits directly across the aisle from you, tablet in hand, leading the debrief like nothing happened last night. Like he didn’t wreck you so thoroughly that you’re still tasting him through your pussy.

He starts with the profile review. You’re supposed to contribute. Instead, you’re hyper-aware of the slow trickle working its way down your thigh every time the jet banks left. You shift, and the wet drag of cotton against your folds makes you swallow a gasp.

Hotch’s eyes flick to you. Calm and professional. Except for the slight curve at the corner of his mouth that says he knows exactly what you’re feeling.

“Agent L/N,” he says smoothly, “care to walk us through the victimology again and what we can learn from it for future cases?”

You open your mouth. Close it. Clear your throat. “Uh. Females, twenty-two to twenty-nine, brunettes, all abducted within—”

Your voice cracks on the last word because the plane hits a pocket of turbulence, and you feel a fresh pulse of warmth slip free. You clamp your thighs harder, face burning.

Reid starts rambling about geographic decay rates. You stop listening. All you can focus on is the slow, steady throb between your legs and the way Hotch’s gaze keeps drifting to your lap like he’s cataloging every squirm.

Forty unending minutes later, the wheels finally touch down in Quantico. You stand too fast, and your knees nearly buckle. Hotch’s hand shoots out to steady your elbow, the perfect picture of a concerned boss... or partner.

You make it down the stairs on wobbly legs, every step making the mess in your panties shift and cling. You’re praying no one notices the way you’re walking like you just rode a horse for twelve hours straight.

Rossi falls into step beside Hotch as you head for the car park. He doesn’t even bother lowering his voice.

“Atta boy,” he mutters, clapping Hotch once on the shoulder.

Hotch doesn’t answer, but you catch the faint, wicked tilt of his lips before he slides on his sunglasses.

You flip Rossi off behind Hotch’s back.

Rossi just laughs knowingly and calls over his shoulder, “Feel better, kid.”

You’re going to kill them both.

Later.

Much, much later.

When you can walk again.

Also, the noises coming out of your mouth are quite similar anyway.

Same pitch. Same breathlessness. Same “Yes, that’s the spot, sweetheart - like that?” murmured behind you in that pompous gravelly chuckle that does absolutely nothing to help you separate the two scenarios.

At least this time, it’s his thumbs digging into the knot just under your shoulder blades and not… well. Other places.

You don’t know how he does it.

It’s awful. It’s amazing. It makes you want to cry, make out, confess every fear you’ve ever had since the third grade, and tell him about the time you got lost in a supermarket when you were six and never fully recovered.

(Stepping stone of your abandonment issues, actually. Very formative stuff.)

But instead, you just hum.

And before he can tease you (because you know he will, the moment he realizes you’ve melted into a limp, worshipful little puddle over a shoulder rub), you manage to mumble:

“Can you keep doing this forever?”

Also because - small detail, minor point - he’s pinning you to the mattress with his hips. Like, fully. Whole FBI-agent body weight centered right over the curve of your ass.

And every time he shifts - reaching up to get a better angle, dragging his hands (those large, beautiful hands) up the sides of your spine - his hips roll just slightly forward.

And- yeah. He sort of… rocks against you.

Not on purpose.

(Probably?)

(…Definitely.)

Which would be fine. Totally manageable. Not at all a problem - if it weren’t for the fact that he’s wearing the least fuckable pajamas on Earth… which, of course, makes them ten times more fuckable.

Plain, boring navy bottoms. A matching buttoned top. (Aaron Hotchner cannot survive without buttons. He needs order. He needs structure. Even in REM sleep.)

Classic grandpa cut. V-neck just deep enough to show a scandalous sliver of collarbone you might, unironically, faint over.

(Thankfully, your current view is limited to his bedside table: a vintage old-man lamp that costs more than your phone, and a framed photo of him and his son.)

(Hi, Jack. Sorry for having thoughts about your father.)

Back to the pajamas - the most crucial detail is the fabric.

It’s the softest thing you’ve ever touched. High-thread-count sorcery. Probably imported. Definitely overpriced. Breathable, which is just a fancy way of saying stupidly thin.

Thin enough that when he leans in - presses down - you can feel the shape of his-

…Anyway. You’re getting ideas. (Again, sorry, framed Jack.)

“Not to be paternalistic,” he starts. (It is to be paternalistic. Entirely so. But you’ll allow it. You’ll allow anything, frankly, because for some reason it’s insanely hot when he talks like this.)

“-but you shouldn’t have a back like this at your age.”

“Well, thankfully I’ve got your magic hands to fix it, don’t I?” You smile, turning your head to look back at him, because you’re an idiot who still thinks eye contact might save you.

It doesn’t.

What you get instead is one of his signature sighs - the special not-to-be-paternalistic-but-very-much-is variety that sounds like he’s aging ten years just trying to keep you alive - and then a gently condescending lecture about cervical strain and spinal alignment and how you “can’t just twist your neck around if you actually want this to help,” yada yada-

“I know it doesn’t feel like a big deal now, but these things add up,” yada yada-

“I just-can you please take this seriously? I know you joke, but I’d like you to still be able to stand up straight in ten years.” yada yada, (okay, long-term vision, wow, didn’t know we were doing that now) yada yada-

“Sweetheart”.

All of it delivered in that deeply patronizing, annoyingly hot concerned-professional voice he’s perfected.

The one that should be irritating. Would be irritating, If it weren’t currently paired with both his hands kneading down your back, thumbs sinking into that dangerously tender spot just above your hips.

(You would roll your eyes, but you’ve just been told that’s a cervical risk. So you moan into the pillow instead. Respectfully.)

“Breathe through it,” he says. And you do. Immediately. Obediently.

Because he says it so kindly that you have to keep reminding yourself – repeatedly - that he actually cares about your spinal health, and is not, in fact, secretly calculating how many ways you could arch your hips to grind back against his very conveniently located crotch.

(You are. You’re calculating. You’re the problem.)

“Yeah, that’s a good one. Keep doing this,” he says, as his thumbs keep moving - maybe in circles, maybe up and down - you honestly couldn’t say. You’ve lost all grip on spatial awareness.

All you know is there’s a pulsing, needy little bundle of nerves between your legs now demanding attention.

Especially when he comments, right as his fingers glide just above your ass-

“You’re really tight here.” Sir (GN). Be serious. “You should start being a bit more mindful about your posture.”

And with just those few words, your clit - tired, neglected, and frankly done with being emotionally sidelined - decides it’s going to take what it can get.

If a proper orgasm isn’t on the table, a slightly patronizing lecture from Aaron Hotchner about spinal health will have to do.

It politely raises a hand. Submits a request to speak. The brain, overwhelmed and half-fried from continuous exposure to his voice, approves it immediately.

So you ask, way too casually for what it actually means:

“Could you go lower?”

“Lower?” he repeats, taunting, as his hands pause their tantric little routine before gliding under your waist and flipping you over onto his orthopedic mattress.

Now you’re face-to-face with him.

Arms crossed. Brows furrowed. That specific, sharpened brand of exasperation he reserves only for you - his favorite little headache (how romantic of him) - comes today with a bonus layer of disbelief.

Because Best-Profiler-Or-Whatever-Goddamn-Award-He-Just-Won-Again 2012 (the year's not over, but if the Bureau doesn’t give him another brass plaque to add to the terrifying shrine of ego and martyrdom he keeps in his office, he might actually cry) has officially clocked that the look in your – probably very dilated - eyes says one thing and one thing only:

Fuck me. (So Shakespearian.)

Still, since profiling is such a complex job –

(Or so he claims, usually while humblebragging about how he reads murderers for a living, yet somehow still can’t figure out the real reason you keep staring at his hands-)

so many factors, so many nuances, every twitch, every blink, every micro expression a breadcrumb-

So, you, being the considerate, emotionally generous person that you are, decide to spare him the effort. You remove all ambiguity, wrap your legs around his waist, and pull him in.

(Also: your boobs are out. The top of your pajama set’s currently sitting neatly folded on the far bedside table, placed there with care by none other than the Sexy Masseuse Extraordinaire himself.)

(You can’t turn to look at it. If you twist your neck, he’ll scold you. But you know it’s there.)

(So yes. #FreeTheNipple could easily be Exhibit B. Another little clue in the ever-growing case file of She Wants Me. Please, Aaron. Be thorough. File it under Intent.)

And apparently, he does.

Because without you saying a single word, he exhales - through his cutest, slightly uneven nostrils (and probably a deviated septum he refuses to get checked out) - and mutters, incredulous:

“Again?!”

Ah. Yes. Again.

Because to be fair, it is technically true that the second Aaron walked through the door - still suited up, still rumpled from the flight, fresh off a three-day case on the West Coast - the only greeting he got was a breathless “I missed you,” right before you yanked him down by the tie and onto his own couch to physically demonstrate that you (unlike him, [sometimes]) actually mean what you say.

So moved were you by his presence that you completely forgot to do the one basic thing required of anyone with even a shred of shame or social awareness:

Close. The. Curtains.

(You keep forgetting there’s an entire wing of Aaron’s apartment complex that has a front-row seat to his living room. Practically panoramic… oh- hi, Linda from 154.)

But it’s fine. It’s fine.

You fixed it.

You skipped the full nudity part and went for the most logistically respectful option: unzipping just his fly, just enough to free what you needed. Nothing more.

Just the essentials.

Just a fully dressed woman bouncing on a fully dressed man’s lap.

You’re pretty sure that doesn’t count as public indecency. (It’s basically PG-12. Glee’s airing worse on national television every Tuesday at 8/7c and that show’s somehow still going. So really, you’re fine. This is fine. Society has seen worse.)

…You also really, really hope no one saw it in the first place. You tell yourself no one saw it.

You keep telling yourself that, even as your brain starts tallying how many windows overlook this very couch. (Six. There are six. Possibly seven. And that woman on the third floor with the poodle - she definitely saw something. She always does.)

Those people didn’t see that your panties were still on - just pushed to the side, soaked through, clinging to your thigh.

Didn’t see the way your mouth fell open when you sank down onto his cock, gasping from the stretch, from the fuck yes finally of being full again.

Didn’t see his head fall back against the couch, eyes shut, the half-muttered “Jesus Christ” he left when your hips started rolling.

They didn’t see the way your thighs trembled when he grabbed your hips, then your waist, then your thighs again like he couldn’t decide where to hold you hardest, just knew he needed to keep you going.

Didn’t hear the noise he made when you grabbed a fistful of his tie for leverage, just to stay upright while he hit so fucking deep.

And they definitely didn’t hear the way your moan cracked when his mouth brushed your ear and he muttered: “Been thinking about this the whole damn flight.”

Three hours. He sat in a government plane, in slacks, probably surrounded by spreadsheets and murder, and still somewhere over Colorado, he was hard and thinking about you.

“I missed you,” you really mean it. (Yes, you want to fuck him. Obviously. But it’s also starting to feel like the reason you’re so desperate for his body is because being without him hurts a little more than it should.)

“That’s what you said in the shower,” he reminds you. (Oh. Right. The shower. The one that happened immediately after the couch.) “And on the bathroom sink.” Ah. Yes. You’d offered to blowdry his hair, but something else got blown first. (Priorities.) “Don’t you think that’s enough for tonight?”

He basically looks at you like you’re the most beloved disaster he’s ever encountered.

Fond - yes.

Amused - definetely.

Also very much trying not to laugh. He even bites his lip to hold it back.

Veeeery humbling experience.

And still, he leans in over you and locks his lips with yours - sweet enough to excuse how annoyingly chaste it feels. You start to pull him back in but he detours to your cheek instead, lingering there.

“You’re adorable,” he pities you. “Now please could you turn back over?”

Choking yourself with the pillow suddenly sounds like a fantastic plan. You eye it. You consider the logistics. You’re halfway to asphyxiating yourself into emotional amnesia when he leans in and kisses your shoulder.

Then the other. (Symmetry. He’s disgusting.)

You brace for his hands on your back, but it’s his mouth instead.

Starting at the nape of your neck, he works his way down your spine, lips dragging wet and slow. Every kiss sinks into your skin like he’s trying to rewrite your nervous system from the top down, rearranging your fucked-up muscles better than his actual massage ever could.

And he doesn’t stop.

Not even when his fingers hook into the waistband of your pajama pants and start easing them down - his mouth just keeps going, picking up exactly where the fabric leaves off.

You still get butterflies at the stupidly familiar feel of his calloused palms skimming down your thighs, knuckles brushing bare skin as he peels your bottoms away.

Could be excitement. Could be the fact that he’s been edging you for what feels like a fiscal quarter. Could be because you’re head over heels for him and refusing to deal with it. (Unclear. Not investigating.)

Anyways, Aaron - sweet, disciplined Aaron - folds your PJ pants, sets them neatly on top of your already-abandoned top on the bedside table (it was only a matter of time, that poor top’s been waiting for backup all night), and then immediately dives back in mouth-first (correction: teeth-first) sinking a bite right into the peak of your ass.

One side, then the other. (The man really loves symmetry.)

Groaning into your skin as you gasp his name - only for him to shut it down halfway through (fuck him, really) - he slides one arm beneath your hips, the other draping heavy across your thighs, and manhandles you into place in one smooth (hot) motion on all fours.

Ass up, panties still on (and very much soaked through).

It’s… a moment.

You crane your neck, scrambling for words - something clever, something linguistically adult - but what fries every functioning synapse isn’t just the way he’s staring at the soaked spot on your underwear;

It’s the way his pupils visibly dilate when he catches the barest glint of your cunt beneath it.

And still, he manages to outdo himself.

Because Aaron Hotchner’s greatest talent - aside from his intellect, that weirdly specific dry humor only you laugh at, and, of course, the mouthwatering, life-altering, holy-shit-that-thing-has-weight dick he’s somehow just casually lugging around - it’s his uncanny ability to always state the obvious.

“You’re soaked…” he murmurs. “You already fucked me and you’re still soaked.”

(There’s just something in Aaron saying that you fucked him…Call it power-hungry. Call it praise kink. Call it whatever.)

“Shit, say it again.” You just want his voice. More of it. Inside you, around you, anywhere.

You gasp as he hums straight into the damp fabric of your panties “Smug little thing… Let’s see how long it lasts.”

Then he drags his face down, nuzzling his nose along your glistening slit – catching every slick ridge through the soaked cotton, barely giving you any pressure, just enough to make you momentarily twitch.

He doesn’t bother teasing – just goes straight for your clit, flushed and throbbing, and latches on.

Mouth open. Tongue flat.

You start cursing everything.

Cursing the fabric of your panties he still hasn’t moved aside.

Cursing the way the soaked cotton catches every flick of his tongue – turning each pass into friction and making everything worse.

Cursing yourself for the sound you make when he moans into you – mouth hot and hungry – and yanks your hips closer like he can’t fucking help himself.

Grips your ass, fills both palms, pulls you tighter to his face until there’s nowhere for you to go – nowhere for you to run – nothing you can do but take it.

He’s drinking you. He sucks your slick through the fabric, letting it saturate his tongue, then releases your nub with a wet, obscene pop just to do it again.

Then again. And again.

Clicks his tongue just to hear the sound it makes against your cunt.

Right when you think you might actually die from how deliberately he’s taking his sweet time, he finally peels the fabric to the side.

(Thank God.)

“Fuck, Aaron-” you choke, fisting the sheets as he dives into your into your hole.

You were so fucking wrong.

His real talent isn’t stating the obvious.

It’s the way he makes out with your cunt, making you clench against him, and that molten heat already begins to gather low in your stomach.

“You taste better every fucking time. God, I missed you,” he mutters, one hand pressing into the small of your back to hold you down, the other spreading your ass so his tongue has more room to work and can slide deeper.

He fucks you with it.

Pushes in, pulls back, then he drags himself back up to your clit and just… goes feral. A combination you’re 100% sure he makes up on the spot, yet it’s somehow the exact cheat code to your nervous system.

You start grinding against his face, chasing friction like it’s oxygen, needy for whatever the hell that is until your thighs are trembling and your brain has officially vacated the premises.

The only word(s) you manage to hold onto is-

“Aaron- Aaron, please-”

Not your best work. Not ideal.

You should specify - to Mr. Old Man™ - that after please, there was going to be don’t stop.

But instead, it comes out half-strangled, choked off by the groan you let loose as he pulls away too fast, too soon, leaving you gasping face-first into a very wet, very real patch of drool on the mattress.

(It’s cooling against your chin now. Disgusting.)

You writhe, still aching, still pulsing, your body practically begging for his mouth, his nose, his fucking tongue - anything to fill the hot, miserable emptiness between your legs - until his hand wraps around the back of your neck (shit. fuck. shit), lifting you way too easily.

(Maybe because he’s strong. Maybe because you’re fully limp with desperation. Maybe because you don’t resist even a little bit. Hard to say.)

He pulls your spine upright, presses you back against his chest and crashes his mouth to yours.

And as he groans into your mouth, his whole face glistening with your arousal, smearing messily against your cheek, his cock presses between your folds, dragging through the soaked disaster he made of you.

The thick, swollen head - already leaking with precum - bumps against your clit as he grinds forward, dragging through your slick with just enough pressure to make your breath hitch, a choked moan catching halfway in your throat…

…Right as his fingers start to curl around it.

Soft. Careful. Too careful. Like his hand landed there on instinct and now he’s realizing it, hesitating, trying not to make it a thing (which, joke’s on him, it already is).

(Also, if he could go ahead and press those thick, possessive, chubby-ass fingers a little deeper into your neck- yeah. That’d be ideal. Five stars.)

So, probably in a noble act of distraction (or self-preservation), Aaron starts to push in.

That first stretch.

That toe-curling burn you never fully prepare for. The one that drags your body open inch by inch like he’s carving a space only he gets to fill. And you adore it. You crave it like a sickness.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, mouth grazing your jaw. “I couldn’t resist.” And another kiss, “I need to fuck you properly so you don’t wake me up begging for it again.”

(If he keeps holding your neck like that while saying shit like that, you’re definitely waking him up again. With your mouth. Or your thighs.)

You decide to clench around him in reply (how generous of you - really, public service) - tight enough that you know he’s furrowing his brows right now, trying so hard not to let out one of those high-pitched, desperate little whimpers that would completely shatter the illusion of his usual Important Serious Man™ composure.

“Mmm, sweetheart,” he groans, dragging in deeper until he’s finally fully seated inside of you, buried to the hilt. “You’re not even trying to hide it, are you? Squeezing me like that…”

He should really be speaking for himself, considering the thing twitching inside you just because it’s lucky enough to be nestled inside you is his cock, not yours.

And sure, he starts rocking into you all slow and deliberate, hips rolling against the swell of your ass like he thinks he can distract you with rhythm alone, but it’s textbook deflection.

(Hotchner: 1 – You: 0. For now.)

“Aaron-” you gasp, barely coherent, because fuck, you’re full. Like - can’t think, can’t breathe, forgot-Aaron’s-home-wifi-password kind of full.

(Which is annoying, because you were just about to remember it. It was something long and unnecessarily specific, like JHotchnerILoveAmerica65 or JackRules2012.)

(AHotchnerNet_3G_guest_home_office?)

(QuanticoSecure_LinkV2?) Nope. That’s the Bureau one. (You may or may not have shamelessly stolen their bandwidth to watch YouTube videos in his office the first time you visited - sitting on that black leather guest chair, legs swinging, waiting for him to come out of some high-stakes consult.)

(Ugh, come on, you almost had it. It’s the one with the weird numbers… Jack’s birthday? No, that was the old one, the one you used to mooch off before he got weird about network security after that article in The Atlantic.)

(Was it Hotchner_Home_8347_SECURE_VPNLOCKED? Or was that the printer? What was it?)

(Wait - is he 7.5 inches? 8? 8.5?! Feels like that but you’re way too biased.)

“Oh fuck-” Your nails bite into the solid curve of his bicep, your back arches on instinct - no thought involved, just muscle memory screaming yes, like that, and your body goes soft over his, melting like heat’s finally overtaken every vertebrae you’ve got.

Boneless. Useless. Yours now comes with a floppy warranty.

He notices, so he wraps his other arm tight around your waist, keeping you upright. “Yes, honey? You like that? Is that what you’re trying to say? Or-.” A sharper thrust. “Do you need me to go harder already?”

Not accepting your whimper as an answer, he goes harder anyway.

White-hot static floods your brain, sparking behind your eyes. You lose track of sound, of sense, of everything but the slap-slap-slap of skin on skin, that becomes even louder than the creaky-ass wooden antique bedframe Aaron refuses to replace.

(Yes, it was expensive. Yes, he insists it’s historical. Yes, it’s probably haunted. No, you do not care. Louis XIV himself could rise from the dead and tell you it’s a collector’s piece, you’re still letting Aaron split you in half on it.)

“Do you feel it?” he asks.

You know what he means. Doesn’t even need to say it.

Especially when his hand tightens just that little bit more around your throat - enough to blur the edges, enough to make your cunt flutter in a grateful little thank you because that was literally what you were about to beg for and this man just read your goddamn mind and saved you the humiliation-

“Well- it’s- fuck yes, right th- it’s kind of impossible not to, isn’t it?”

Wrong answer, apparently.

Because it earns you exactly zero gold stars and a one-way ticket to being shoved face-first into the mattress, his palm flat on your back.

(Or maybe he’s just decided he won’t be satisfied until you’re properly, thoroughly, professionally fucked dumb, until the only thing your brain can process, let alone say, is his name.)

“Lift your hips,” he instructs.

“What-”

“Just do it.”

You do. Of course you do. Because you are weak and unprincipled and you like it when he uses his dad voice.

(Sorry, framed Jack. Not your dad dad. Like- authority figure dad. Weird to explain. Just- sorry Jack.)

He reaches for the pillow from his side of the bed (naughty… part of you hopes he doesn’t bother changing the case afterward, just so he can fall asleep every night wrapped in the scent of your sex… but then again, you’re talking about Aaron, so he'll probably sanitize it twice and iron it back into place) and slides it beneath your stomach.

“There. Better angle for your back,” he mutters.

“Are you fucking kidding me… oh fuck- my back?” You try to mock him, but all you can think is that this stupid orthopedic pillow just shoved him even deeper.

He’s drilling into you so hard, so fucking perfectly, that all you can focus on is how thick he is - how every goddamn ridge, every pulsing vein, every inch of him is dragging against your walls and hitting your spot every single time.

Somehow, you’re still not used to how deep he gets. Still not over the fact that he fits like this, that he fucks like this. That he’s that deep. That much.

You start thinking you should give him a little plaque.

A nice, shiny, brassy “Deepest Stroke Award: Best Dick 2012” kind of thing. Stick it right next to his Bureau commendations so everyone that steps into his office knows he’s that good.

So good that as he angles himself even better (you didn’t even know that was possible), you don’t even hear the bedframe anymore.

(Which is convenient, because next time he wakes you up at 3 a.m. - all apologetic and sleepy and sweet, muttering “sorry, sweetheart, I just need to turn over, please go back to sleep” while trying not to make it creak - you’re gonna tell him to just flip you over and fuck you like this until you both go deaf. Sleep like babies. Problem solved.)

You’re gasping, whimpering, face buried in the mattress, fingers curled so tight in the sheets they might tear, and Aaron has the audacity -the actual fucking balls (which, by the way, are slapping against your clit with every thrust and fuck, they feel incredible… justice for balls, truly) - to tut at you.

“Sweetheart, you’re collapsing your shoulders again, try to pull them back. Keep the neck long.”

You try to lift yourself. You really do. But your arms are jelly, your spine’s gone to hell, and your entire body is preoccupied with coming apart on his cock.

Still, his big, warm hand spreads flat over the center of your back as he straightens you out. “Come on, sweetheart. Don’t make me correct your posture and fuck you… engage here.”

(Which is ironic. Because right now? He’s doing both flawlessly.)

“Trying,” you pant.

“Oh, I can see you’re trying,” he mutters, and somehow it’s affectionate and condescending and it should make you furious but instead your cunt clenches yet again like it wants to say thank you, sir.

He shifts his hips and pushes in deeper, angling just right and you see white.

Just white. No thoughts. No gods. No laws. Just the smug chuckle he lets out as your mouth drops open and a sound escapes that isn’t even a word anymore.

“Poor thing,” he coos as his pretentious mouth brushes your spine. “Clenching around me like that and still trying to impress me with your form. You can’t even hold yourself up, sweetheart. That’s adorable.”

“Why do you have to be such an asshole? Can’t you just say one of those stupid cheesy things you tell me all the other times?”

He kisses your shoulder. “Because for some reason,” he murmurs, lazy and devastating, “we both know why this turns you on more.”

It’s because you watch too much porn when he’s away. That’s what it is. That’s the problem. You look for the perfect video, scrolling through every possible variation of "older man, authoritative voice, hairy chest, forehead lines, kind of sad but knows how to eat pussy."

Trying to find a man with his exact nose. His exact voice. His exact cock.

But you never find it. You never find him.

And you’re too chickenshit to ask him to just send you a video of himself fucking his fist - because he’s probably doing something more important, like saving Gotham or shooting an active shooter - and you don’t want to be the reason he gets sidetracked while stroking his lenght in a government office. (…Though, the idea is… not bad.)

So instead, you settle. Again.

You open one of those copy-paste porn videos made for men who think women are doormats with vocal fry, and let it play. Same limp dialogue. Same dead-eyed expressions. Same choreographed humiliation kink that somehow makes you feel like the one being punished.

And still, it doesn’t work. Because Aaron Hotchner has fucked up your brain chemistry to such a degree that other men just don’t do it anymore. You slap the laptop shut to end up staring at that blurry pic you took of him coaching Jack’s football game. (Sorry, Jack.)

He’s just in a bland T-shirt. Biceps hulking under cotton. Arms crossed. Whistle hanging from his neck like he’s about to say something inspirational and slightly disappointed.

That’s the reason.

(...Or maybe it’s just that nothing on this godforsaken Earth turns you on more than when he tells you what to do - precisely how to take it, exactly how to behave - even though you’ve spent an embarrassing amount of mental energy convincing yourself that enjoying that somehow makes you less of a feminist, like Simone de Beauvoir’s going to rise from the grave and revoke your womanhood because you like being manhandled by a man in overpriced pajamas.)

(Yeah… it’s definitely because you watch way too much porn.)

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

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his hand sliding back up to your throat, palm pressing lightly, thumb stroking under your jaw as you try to mumble something broken and vowel-heavy that you’re pretty sure started as his name. “Oh…” Aaron chuckles, putting two and two together. “So this is what you want?”

“Hnngh…” you try, but he slaps your ass. (You swear to God, the next time he walks in front of you on a staircase, you’re smacking him. Right there. Mid-step. He will be humbled. You will have your revenge.) “Yes. Yes. Just- just stay there.”

“Here where?”

“Shut up.”

Another slap.

Another involuntary moan. (Still. Stairs, Hotchner.)

“No, but seriously - your back. You sit like shit. You fuck like a dream, but Jesus, I’m gonna send you to physical therapy myself if you keep collapsing your shoulders like that.”

You whimper into the pillow. Your clit’s caught between the pillow and your cunt clenches hard, slick dripping down your thighs, and you don’t know if you’re closer because of the way he’s choking you or the fact that he just corrected your posture.

“Could you – fuck – could you just talk more?” (There it is. Your final shred of dignity. Cashed. Spent. Gone.)

He hums behind you. “Oh, now you want feedback?” Then he leans down, and suddenly you’re wearing him – coarse salt-and-pepper chest hair scraping your slick back, the full weight of him pushing you down as his cock punches so deep into you, you have to roll your eyes back.

“You want me to tell you how fucking good you feel?” he grits, hips picking up pace, snapping harder now.

You’re not really in the conditions to answer.

Your mouth is open but your brain has blue-screened, locked in a loop of oh my God oh my God oh my fuc-

“God, look at you,” he groans, almost in disbelief, hand splaying across your upper back to keep you down, to stop your writhing. “Making a mess all over my cock. You’re dripping. Absolutely soaking me.”

And oh… you feel it.

The soaked patch you’ve been leaving on the pyjama pants he didn’t even bother taking off - just shoved down far enough to fuck you properly - slapping wetly against your skin every time he drives in.

(You’re naked. He’s half-dressed. Fully dressed, actually…)

“You’re doing so well, sweetheart,” he huffs, and oh - his voice cracks. He’s close. Good. (That’s so hot.) “Taking me so well. Still gripping me like it’s the first time. Letting me fuck you this- this deep- Jesus Christ-“ (Amen.) “I can feel every goddamn pulse-”

His hand slides from your spine to your throat - tightens just enough to send your body into full siren-mode panic, only to twist it into white-hot bliss a second later.

And then the other sneaks between your thighs, fingers already soaked in you, finding your clit like he’s done it a thousand times (you’re still in the double digits) and starts circling. . Fast. Messy. Precise.

The kind of perfect that short-circuits thought. That makes your jaw go slack. That makes your breath catch on the edge of something that isn’t quite a moan, or a cry, or-

It almost slips out.

That thing.

The three-word, soul-ruining thing people only say when they’re either very brave or very stupid. And right now, with his fingers rubbing you and his cock still buried so deep it feels like belonging, you’re dangerously close to being both.

“F-fuck, Aaron-”

“I’ve got you. Let go, sweetheart.”

And you do.

You break. Your thighs tremble, your back arches involuntarily (and Aaron’s too far gone to lecture you about spinal integrity now), and your moan turns guttural and ugly as your orgasm crashes through you - pulling his name from your throat

You clamp down so hard around him he curses, jaw clenched, hips jerking once, twice, then he’s there too.

Hot, deep, choking on his breath as he thrusts into the tight clutch of your pulsing cunt, burying himself to the hilt, spilling inside you in rough, thick spurts that have your body jolting again from the aftershocks.

He groans into your shoulder, mouth open, teeth grazing skin, hips still twitching through the aftershocks - every helpless pulse of him inside you dragging another ripple of heat down your spine, through your thighs, and eventually, shamefully, down onto the sheets.

He doesn’t pull out.

Doesn’t move, really, except to press his chest tighter against your back, as if he’s trying to stay in your skin. Like if he lets go, something might slip - out of him, out of you, out of whatever the hell this is.

His breathing is still a bit ragged, hot and damp against your shoulder, and you feel his lips brush there, once, then again - barely a kiss, just contact.

Just reassurance. Just him not knowing how else to say I needed that. Instead it’s just words not meant to be heard - just soft, scattered nothings that don’t quite form sentences, all of them pressed into your skin.

"You're okay,"

"Got you,"

"So good, baby..."

Over and over. Sweet. Ruined. Honest.

Your chest hurts.

Because he means it.

He’s not thinking about it, he’s just being. And it’s the most terrifyingly beautiful thing he’s ever done to you. You need to ruin it.

“FUCK, that was incredible. Where did you keep all of that?!”

He pauses. You can feel him trying not to laugh.

You roll onto your side, gasping. “No, like, WOW. Wow wow wow, Aaron. Wow. Who are you? What was that? Have you been holding out? Were you possessed? Should I call someone? Is there a hotline?”

You watch the faint blush creep across his cheek as he pushes up onto his elbows, runs a hand through his post-sex hair (sexier than pre-sex hair, somehow), and exhales the most exasperatedly fond sound you’ve ever heard.

“Please don’t call anyone.”

These moments - when he completely misses a joke that any normal adult would clock instantly - really do make you want to climb him like a tree all over again.

But what really gets you? What sets your neurons on fire and your soul on its knees?

The phenomenon - still unstudied, tragically overlooked by science - in which post-sex Aaron becomes the most meticulous, terrifyingly competent man alive.

He doesn’t hesitate. Just materializes a warm cloth from nowhere (possibly interdimensional?), cleans you up with it, straightens the sheets, fluffs the pillows, and tucks you in.

You don’t even know when he grabbed his glasses, but suddenly they’re on his face and you’re on his chest, half-sitting, draped over him.

You might feel shame for being so clingy if he ever said anything about it. But he never does. Not even a snide little quip. Just those small, fond huffs that suggest he’s mostly annoyed at himself for enjoying this so much.

Or, like now, he reaches calmly into his go-bag and pulls out what is undeniably the driest, dustiest, most textbook-looking book you've ever seen in your life.

“Sorry,” he says, settling back against the headboard. “I’ve just got a few chapters left… do you want to pretend to be reading with me?”

Wise choice of words, Agent Hotchner.

Because what you really want is to drown yourself in his pheromones and rub your cheek on his chest hair until your responsibilities disintegrate.

“Wearing those,” you sigh dreamily, eyeing the glasses, the page, the stupid peaceful look on his face, “you can do anything you’d like.”

He shakes his head - fond. Touched.

Probably regretting all his life choices, but not enough to stop.

He flips open the tome, rests it against one bent knee, and starts reading. His finger glides up to his lips every time he turns a page, like he’s savoring each one. Every now and then, he adjusts his glasses.

You watch in awe.

Reverence.

…Horniness.

So you just keep kissing him. Aimless, endless little things - his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, the back of his ear - any patch of skin within a lazy head-turn radius gets worshipped.

“Wow. Wow wow. Aaron. Wow. Wowowowowow.”

He doesn’t even flinch.

Just keeps reading, completely unbothered.

Occasionally hums.

If you’re lucky, he presses a kiss into your hair or the side of your temple - never rushed, always lingering, like he’s sealing something in.

Or if he just does that because he’s an old fuck and that’s how they taught knights to kiss their trembling maidens back in the 1500s.

He looks so… peaceful. Way too peaceful.

Which is immediately suspicious.

You open your mouth, just about to ask, “Can we do it again?” when, without even glancing up from the page, he slides the hand resting on your waist down.

Dips straight into your PJ pants, then your underwear.

Your mouth falls open. Nothing comes out.

Not even the question. He’s already answered it.

He exhales through his nose - completely unbothered - as his index finger starts stroking your clit in the slowest lazy little patterns.

Like fingering you under a blanket mid-biography is just his evening chore before tea and chapter seven. Like he’s got all night. (He probably does.)

(You can’t even moan yet. You’re too busy trying to process the fact that he’s still reading.)

And then, instead of simply licking a finger to turn the page like a normal person, he brings two of those thick fingers to his mouth.

He sucks on them, eyes still fixed on the text, lips closed around his fingers as he coats them in spit. And without ever lifting his gaze, he sinks them deep into you - curling just enough to make your thighs tense around him.

“You think I don’t know the real reason you’re always staring at my hands?”

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Throwing your head back, you groan silently. “Alright, I’m on my way.” You take a deep breath in and pull yourself off the floor like you weighed a ton. “I’m sorry, I’ve been called into work, gotta go.” You say, giving the poor guy a sad smile while pulling up your jeans and your very not work appropriate top. It was a dark red, covered in rhinestones, a deep v neck that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. A pathetic wave comes from your wrist, and the cold air hits you quicker than expected, climbing into your car.

The elevator ride up to the BAU floor took an eternity, each floor button lighting up as you pass it. It slows on floor four, and you shuffle over as the doors slide open. Your eyes don’t leave your shoes as one of the guys from cyber crimes steps into the space. Finally, getting to floor seven, you give him a tight lipped smile before stalking into the bullpen.

You hear him before you see him, Derek laughing at something dorky Spencer had said. Then, a loud whistle comes from him as you walk into view. “Wow, I guess someone had a good night.”

“Not even close.” You laugh, rummaging through your desk and yanking out the go bag, throwing it over your shoulder.

“Bad date?” He pipes, his eyebrows pulling together, concerned.

“Great date.” You sigh, giving a pointed look to Emily, Pen and JJ. All of them leant on Emily’s desk and she shakes her head.

“Again?” She asks, a disbelief in her tone.

“Again!” You exclaim, throwing your hands up before walking to the bathroom to get changed into your work clothes.

“Is this one of those girl’s night things I don’t understand?” Derek asks, a sassy hand on his hip.

“You don’t even know the half of it sugar.” Penelope shakes her head, the feathers she had stuck in her buns swaying back and forth.

“Round table!” Hotch barks to the group from the catwalk, his head nodding towards the conference room.

Everyone filters into the room, all taking their usual seats around the table. The projector screen pulls down slowly, and Penelope stood awaiting her go.

“Where’s-.” Hotch started, but was quickly silenced by your light jogging into the room, pretty much throwing yourself down in the chair.

“Good night?” Dave asks with a smirk. You glare at him darkly, like ice shooting from your eyes, a scowl forming on your face. “Ok!” He turns away from you to the screen.

Penelope clicks on the remote, and the projector whirs. Three photos of brunette woman pop up on the screen, and then gruesome ones follow up. “Here’s our victims, Lila Grey, Jess Jones and Kira Walker. All found slaughtered in alleyways, necks cut.” Pen squeaked, looking away from the screen.

“The Glendale police department want our help in locating the killer, they can’t figure out where in the city he is or who he is.” Hotch says, “Wheels up in 20, debrief on the jet, he’s escalating.”

-

The jet was warm, a stark comparison from the runway, that was biting cold and climbed through the fabric of your shirt. It was still a marvel to you that you had a private jet, it was smoother than an economy plane.

Magnolia files were plopped down in front of you, the back of Hotch’s suit comes into vision and he sits down in his regular seat, back to the small kitchenette. His eyes didn’t even cast you glance but that gets pushed to the back of your mind when your eyes are filled with puddles of blood.

“Seems pretty cut and dry right?” JJ calls, “Middle-aged, probably single, woman hating.”

You were all in agreement, “What did the women do for work?” You ask, staring at their photos.

“They all worked in finance, behind the scenes.” Derek says, “So maybe financial incentives?”

“They have a list of suspects for us to look at once we get there, two of them can’t be located so that’s our priority.” Hotch commands, “But rest till we get there, I know I interrupted your sleep.”

“Well most of us.” Emily jokes, nudging you with her shoulder and a catty smile spreads across her lips.

“Shut up.” You say with gritted teeth, and a light slap to her shoulder and you couldn’t help the bright red heat that spread across your face. Catching dark eyes across the jet, you somehow think you turn more red and focus on the file in front of you.

It’s early when you land, the sunrise just peeking through the clouds and shrouds everything in a bright orange hue. You stare out of the window of the police precinct, a cup of strong black coffee. Spencer was drawing on the whiteboard figuring out a geographical profile for the two missing suspects while the rest of the team checked on the others already interviewed, just to double check.

You stare at the map, the huge circles not making any sense. “What have you marked?”

“Where they were killed and their addresses.” He stated, stroking his straight tie.

“Add in their workplaces.” You say, Spencer adds the dots to the whiteboard. Connecting each women’s three points into a triangle and he circles it in a bright red. “Call Pen!” You instruct Spencer and he pulls his flip phone out, refusing to succumb to modern technology.

“You’re on speaker.” He tells her as soon as she picks up.

“Pen! Look for previous offenders in a three mile radius of Davis street.” A stressed hand pulls through your hair. “Look for previous assault offenders, battery, bar fights, domestic.” You list off, a nod from approval from Spencer.

“Sorry pumpkin! But there’s no one with a previous history in this area.” She says, deflated, before apologising and leaving the call.

“Stupid geographical profile.” You scoff, shoving yourself into the chair.

“Maybe we could add.” Spencer starts but you cut him off, tone harsh and sharp.

“We’re not gunna find him!” As it came out you felt the unneeded venom. “Sorry. Just frustrated.” You give him a weak smile and the rest of the team appear in that moment.

“Everything ok?” JJ asks, looking between you and Spencer.

“No result from the geographical.” You shrug with a sigh. “I’ve also looked over lots of people work priors. They either don’t normally branch to women or are back in prison.”

Morning turned to evening and you hadn’t left the same position from earlier, the whole team looking over files upon files. Hope was slowly dwindling as a large pile of takeaway coffee cups piled into a mountain.

“Alright, let’s call it a night.” Hotch says, leaning back and standing up. “Unfortunately for the hotel two people have to share. They were fully booked for the night, no cancellations.”

A collective groan comes from the team, that’s the last thing you all wanted to hear after a long day. The short ride to the hotel was a quiet one, silent prayers hoping, wishing to have a room to yourself.

-

“Ok, let’s draw draws.” Derek says, pulling out the straws he kept in his go bag. You all had decided when Strauss wanted to stiff you with sharing rooms, you’d draw straws, keep it fair and by chance. This led to Spencer rambling on about probability and how it wasn’t really fair due to preconceived notions on picking. “It’s bossmans turn to share so whoever draws the short straw, get cozy!”

Derek pulls his first, long. He sighs and holds them to Dave, long. His smile was brass and unwavering and he heads off to bed before anyone else had pulled theirs. Spencer pulls his, long. Derek finally gets to you, putting them in front of you.

You cast your mind back to Spencer’s rant about preconceived notions. You knew you were privy to picking straws on the right, due to being right handed. A leap of faith, you pull one on the left. It stops a second after you grab it and you shut your eyes in disappointment.

Everyone else releases the deep breaths they were holding. You tried to not show Hotch your face, trying to not deeply offend him.

Begrudgingly, you drag your feet behind Hotch, not missing the sympathetic looks from the rest of the team, waving them off weakly.

“Well there goes her nightly plans.” Emily snorts to JJ, tapping shoulders as they walk away with a snicker.

Hotch’s ears prick up at that, her hushed tone knowing that whatever that was wasn’t meant for his ears, especially because you shoved an aggressive middle finger in their direction. That only made Emily and JJ laugh more.

He leads the way to the room, carefully checking behind to make sure you’re still trailing behind him. You were, you looked exhausted. Feet dragging, bag dragging and rubbing your eyes. Holding the key card up to the censor, it beeps loudly and he pushes open the door.

One bed, he strode in the hotel room, putting his go bag on the small couch. “Sorry you have to share with me. I’ll take the couch.”

You rolled your eyes, you knew he was trying to be chivalrous. “It’s fine, and no. You won’t fit on that couch.” You shake your head. “You’re not the first man I’ve shared a bed with.” You joke, he doesn’t find it funny.

“I’ll take the side near the door.” He states seriously. You nod.

“Fine, you can have the first shower, I prefer to shower in the morning.” Your tone is harsh. He nods and you stare at his back, glaring daggers into his back hoping he’d bleed out and die so he couldn’t interrupt another one of your orgasms.

The shower turns on and rushes loudly. You pull on your pyjamas and slip into the sheets, staring longingly at your go bag, desperate for the release that was hidden away in a deep pocket.

He came out of the shower in just a towel. He was sparkling in the shitty LED light of the hotel room, he doesn’t look at you as he quickly rummages through his go bag, pulling out his pyjamas and muttering a “Sorry” then disappearing back into the bathroom.

Then he climbed into bed next to you, it was awkward and the two of you were ridged. Him because of the unwavering professionalism that suffocated his every move, and you still ever so frustrated of your lack of getting off. Realising the two of you had never shared a room before, you wondered what kind of sleeper he was. Emily was a wriggler, JJ a kicker, Spencer a mumbler and Derek a snorer. Rossi somehow had never shared a room with anyone on the team, you were convinced he rigged it.

He sat with a case file open and you sighed. “It’s getting late, can I turn the light off?” You ask, frustrated after thirty minutes of tossing and turning, the white bright hotel light hindering you.

“Yep.” His brows scrunch at your harsh tone. You look into his eyes, he’s profiling you, a deep breath sucked in and you flipped over.

“Night.” Your tone is clipped as the room is covered in a thick layer of darkness, you fall asleep quickly and set a quiet alarm for far to early in the morning.

You awoke to the first shrill ring of your alarm. Eyes pulling open into pure blackness. Sitting up, you take a couple moments to breathe, staring at your phone and reading a text from Pen.

‘How’s the boss?’

‘Ridged like a corpse.’

Your eyes gloss over him even though you couldn’t see him, you hadn’t woke once in the night to any movement or snoring, it was so… Hotch.

Wandering to the shower with your go bag, it spurts on, sputtering until it comes to a steady stream. You step in and the shower, it’s warmer than the hotel showers you were used to. An involuntary sigh pulls from you, hands running through your hair, washing out the shampoo. Your cheap body wash also being ran down the drain.

Before you knew it, your hands and slipped down south. Lightly touching, ghosting over yourself and you bite your lip. One of your fingers grazes your clit and a louder sigh crawls from you, you bring a hand to your mouth as you start moving in frantic circles.

Images of Hotch from the night before cloud your mind, his back muscles glistening in the hotel light and the faint glimpse of chest hair you’d seen when he hid away back in this very room. Before you could debate the morality of wanking to your boss who was one thin hotel wall over, two of your fingers slip inside of yourself and you bite a lip so hard you draw blood.

Your chest heaves and you lean against the shower wall. The white tiles were cold against the heat radiating from you, the contrast making everything more intense. Your mind filled with Hotch, arms, back, chest. That ten second glimpse was enough to send you spiralling. The warmth of him next to you in the bed had your legs trembling. Wandering, your mind jumped to what he would be like as a lover, would the strokes be deep or rough, you hoped rough. Teetering, closer and closer to the edge you were panting, deep in your fantasy you could almost hear his voice.

Except you could hear his voice, and he was pounding on the door.

“Hey! We need to get going and I need to brush my teeth.”

The shower turned cold, and you gasped loudly, jumping out.

A film reel plays in your head, there’s no way this is happening again. Every date, you finally get to the edge, the phone rings. No matter what time, nine am, two am, his voice always pulled you out of the deepest pleasure.

“Are you ok?” He shouted through the door, wrapping a towel around yourself you open the door to him standing right there.

“Yeah, there’s no more hot water.” You pull your lips together into a line, pushing past him so he can’t profile your flushed face. The bathroom door locks behind him.

You imagined taking an axe to the door psycho style, but then came to your senses, scrambling into your work clothes and running out of the room before he could finish up in the bathroom.

-

When you get to the precinct, Emily is already there. She’s pouring over case files and you sit down next to her, coffee already in hand.

“What have you got?” You ask.

“There’s this guy, lives just outside the geo profile and has a prior of car damage. Before you say unrelated, it was his ex’s car and she was in it.” You nod along and point to the very small yes pile.

“Somebody didn’t get a good night sleep.” She laughs looking at the tiredness on your face.

“He has a sixth sense.” You hiss quietly, looking around to make sure no one else was in earshot. “I was mid shower.”

“Yikes.” She grits her teeth and looks at you sympathetically. Then her sympathy turns to that sly grin she would get, when she was about to suggest something incredibly stupid. “You know.” Her voice is low, “There is one way to fix his sixth sense..”

“You’re crazy.”

“We all know you have a thing for him.” She tilts her head knowingly, you shake your head and look to the door.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Swallowing thickly, you refuse to meet her eyes.

“The rest of the team might not be able to profile you well, but I can.” She teases and nudges your shoulder.

You roll your eyes and scoff. Eyes staring at the file in front of you, swiftly moving on from Emily’s brash accusation. Fingers tapping on the wooden table, a smooth rhythm.

The rest of the day goes slow, dragging by, each second like pulling teeth. Spent pulling files and cross checking.

You hum and grunt all day, dozens of trips to the coffee machine, gulping them down. Derek catches Emily’s eye across the table, he nods towards you with a raised eyebrow. She waves a hand dismissively as you come back in, mug full to the brim. It’s five when you finally get a hit.

“Don Forbes.” Penelope states. “Has a matching record with Emily’s car guy, and his face suspiciously matches the one from the mugshot. He changed his name, that’s why we couldn’t find him.”

Hotch stands straight at that, pulling on his blazer he’d haphazardly shoved off during the day. You all follow suit, pulling on your vests and triple checking the gun was settled in your holster.

“Prentiss.” He states as she appears next to him, pulling her to a small corridor away from the team. “Is she ok to be in the field?” He nods towards you.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” She nods, “She’s just..” She takes a pregnant pause. “Frustrated.”

Hotch furrows his eyebrows, “At the case?”

“She’s going to kill me.” Emily mutters and checks over her shoulder, seeing you strap Spencer into his vest. “You keep interrupting her, private moments.” She widens her eyes intentionally.

“Ah.” He responds flatly. Nodding that stiff nod he always did. “Let’s go then.”

-

“Don Forbes, FBI!” Derek calls through the door, banging on it loudly.

No answer, JJ peers through the window. “He’s running!” She shouts, and you and Hotch immediately run to the back of the house, Derek kicks down the door and the rest of the team file in.

As you round the corner, he barrels through his own back door and tries to barge through the back gate and into the woods that lined his home. But, Hotch grabs the back of his collar, yanking him back and throwing him down into his shed wall. Pulling his arms behind him and clinking the cuffs on.

Everything turns into a blur, the heat crawls up from your legs, up your torso and to your neck. It’s like the world goes silent, only focused on Hotch and how his biceps made the fabric on his shirt pull tight.

-

Finally, Don had been questioned, confessed and checked, to be kept in holding to his trial. Breathing a breath of fresh air, the team stands outside of the precinct.

“Let’s stay the night, It’s too cloudy for the jet now.” Hotch nods, glancing up to the sky.

“Alright! Who wants to hit a bar?” Rossi rocks back on his heels, throwing his blazer over his shoulder. An echoing chorus of yes’s and please’s come from everyone.

“I think I’ll give this one a miss, I’m exhausted.” You smile and wave, quickly walking over to the car, ready to drive off.

A knock comes on the window just as you put the key in the ignition. Hotch is stood there, and you nod. He pulls open the door and climbs in.

“Not feeling it?” You ask and drive out.

“No. I’m also feeling tired.”

You glance out the corner of your eye, “I must be great in bed huh?” You joke and your eyes widen. “That’s not what I meant.” Bright red flush covers your face and you are thankful to be pulling into the hotel car park.

“I don’t doubt it.” He says smirking, climbing out of the car.

Following him to the room, he clicks open the door and you flop down on you flop down on the bed face first, you sigh, the cheap hotel mattress feeling like a cloud after a whole day of ridged plastic chairs. “Could you grab my pyjamas?” You mutter to Hotch.

“Sure.” He laughs and shakes his head at you, your head pressed into the pillow.

Pulling through your bag, he grabs your pyjamas, they were long sleeved and had a pattern of small forest animals dotted all over. Underneath, there was a pink vibrator, staring at it.

“You always bring this with you?” You hear Hotch ask and you lazily turn your head.

He’s stood there, holding your vibrator in his hand taking steps towards you. You scurry up, and sit on the edge of the bed. And he was walking towards you slowly, clicking it on. You wanted the ground to open and swallow you up. The embarrassment consumes you, your mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air.

“I know about your little predicament.” He smiles, it’s teasing and tantalising. He’s now towering in front of you, taking your jaw in his hand and’s forcing you to look up at him.

“Oh god.” You didn’t think you could get redder, but the heat on your cheeks becomes burning.

He clicks off the vibe and throws it to the side. Pulling you up, and putting a stabilising hand around your back. “This ok?” He checks in, you nod furiously.

Then, he kisses you. His lips are warm, and you already squeak, his arms hold you close, his chest was hard, solid, his muscles flexing as one of his hand snakes to the back of your head. You grab his bicep, fingers digging in. He groans into the kiss now, catching your bottom lip with his teeth.

Your hands wander, the cotton shirt smooth under your fingers. The top button pops open easily, the next one too. You hadn’t stopped kissing, his tongue dips into your mouth and your fingers fumble with the buttons. He was warm, everywhere.

Finally, the bottom button pops open, the shirt flows open. Pulling away from Aaron’s kiss, your eyes drag down his naked chest. Unable to control yourself, your lips attach to the base of Aaron’s jaw, and your hands feel him up. He’s breathy, you suck on his neck, not caring about the consequences tomorrow.

Pulling you off, he looks down at you, those pools of dark brown hypnotising you. He bends down, now focusing on your neck, in between teasing kisses he whispers, “I’m sorry for interrupting your fun.” His nose drags up the side of your neck.

“How about I make it up to you?”

You’re sure you melt at that, your legs turning to jelly. His strong, sturdy arms hold you up, sweeping your legs up, he throws you down onto the bed. The old springs of the hotel bed creak as you bounce. Sliding up to the pillows, he moves.

It’s predatory, the way he crawled up to you. Him the lion, you the helpless deer. His fingers popped open your slacks, yanking down your legs, coming face to face with your red underwear.

“For me?” He smirks, pinging the elastic back into your hip, it makes you jolt. It’s a light stinging pain, you don’t mind.

“You wish.” You cut back, a flashy smile on your face. He doesn’t like that, the deep, serious unit chief spreads across his face.

“You’re going regret that.” He growls, pulling the panties down your legs, leaving you bare to him. Before you even suck in a breath, his mouth is on you.

Licking a deep stripe up you, entrance to clit, a deep shudder pulls from your body. Landing on your clit, his tongue flicks softly. Sparks of pleasure shoot through your pelvis, and your hands grip onto the pillow surrounding your head.

“Oh fuck!” You cry out, your head shoving back.

He smirks against you, big, thick hands pulling your thighs apart, leaving you wide open, to his mercy. His licks turn into sucking, taking your clit into your mouth and your thigh muscle tenses. His teeth graze it, and you’re sure you saw stars.

Legs trembling through his tight grip, your eyes squeeze shut as you cum. He’s relentless, licking you through your orgasm, making your hips jump.

He looks up at you, his eyebrows peaked, chin shiny with your juices. “God.” You sigh at the sight.

“Not God baby, just me.” He smirks and dives back in. Going back to the rough licks and pokes he was using before. He licks another full stripe up you, pulling back and blowing cool air over your clit.

Your hands jump into his hair, it’s softer than you thought it would be. You claw at his scalp and you feel your abs tense. One of his hands snakes down, sliding up from the bottom, catching your wetness as he goes. His finger slips inside of you and you moan out. “Sir!”

You don’t even think about the title, but you feel him groan against you, the vibrations travel up you.

“You can give me another?” He asks, and another finger pushes in. He pushes up and brushes your g spot. You swear you feel your brain turn to mush, the constant stimulation, his tongue flicking your clit and fingers pumping in and out you. The tension builds in your abdomen and you nod furiously, the front bits of your hair fall in front of your face.

Through your hair you meet his eyes, “Use your words.” He instructs, non relenting.

“Yes, Yes! Yes!” You scream out, sure the dirty looks you were going to get from the receptionist tomorrow morning would be scorning. You cum on his face again, your body going limp and you spread out, chest heaving up and down, sweat clung to the shirt you hadn’t removed yet.

That came off in quick succession, Aaron crawling up your body, hands grabbing one side each, he yanks. The buttons fly everywhere and he pulls it off you, snaking his hands around your back and unhooked your bra, also pulling that from your body.

“My shirt!” You whine, “That’s my favourite one.”

He kisses you softly this time, a look of fake sympathy in his eyes. “Aww, I’ll buy you three more, in different colours.”

He’s back on your neck, sucking the skin in, giving you a deeper hickey next to the lighter one he’d left earlier. Your hips jump up and brush against his cock, and you gasp. His teeth scrape along your neck as you push up against him.

He undoes his slacks, pulling them down and his boxers with them and your eyes wander down.

“Woah.” You say before you can think about it, your eyes become as wide as saucers.

He drags his cock up and down you, covering the tip of his cock in your wetness. Your teeth clamp down on your lip, as it catches on your entrance and he pushes in ever so slightly.

“I’m gunna rip you open.” He says breathlessly, his voice deeper than you’d ever heard it.

Before you can even formulate a quip, he pushes into you, the stretch making your eyebrows pull together and a begging look in your eyes.

“Oh!” You moan, and he pulls out and slams back in, the sudden fullness sending you into a deep pleasure spiral.

He lowers himself down to his forearms, his head right next to yours, his thick forearms flexed and the veins popping out. His thrusts are uniform and rough.

“You going to cum again for me?” He asks, knowing he won’t last long in tight warmth you had surrounded him in. It felt like every time he pulled out, you sucked him back in.

“Yea.” You whisper breathlessly, and you sink your teeth into the flesh on his forearms. Mumbling the constant string of moans pulling from your throat.

Feeling like you’re floating, you’d never felt this amount of pleasure as his cock dragged deliciously against your g spot. “So-so full.” You squeak out, eyes rolling back.

“Where’s all that annoyance now huh?” You could hear the smirk and his thrusts get faster, transporting you into another world.

“Ah- ah! Aaron!” You suck in a deep breath. You’re sure your brain goes black, not capable of a competent thought. Your whole body trembles this time, the coil in your pelvis just begging to snap.

“Cum for me baby.”

That’s all it takes, you tighten around him, nails digging into his back and a silent cry comes from your throat. He slows slightly, however, still thrusting and bringing himself over the edge.

Pushing to the hilt, he releases inside of you. He places his forehead against yours and he slips out of you.

“You ok?” He checks in, stroking your hair.

“Yeah.” There’s a satisfied smile on your face as he quickly darts off to the bathroom, coming back with a wet rag and cleaning his cum off of your pussy and inner thighs, you shiver, still sensitive.

Once you’re clean, he clambers into bed next to you, pulling the covers over you, neither rod you bothering to get dressed.

“You know, I might have to make a complaint to HR,” You joke. “I’m sure that my boss cumming in me might come under sexual harassment.”

“Hmm.” He hums. “Well I think my subordinate rubbing herself in the shower while imagining me naked also comes under sexual harassment.” He jokes back.

Horror pulls over your face. “I’m gunna kill Em-”

He cuts you off, “Emily didn’t tell me about the shower, but she did tell me about you not coming for a while, well she implied it.”

“Then how?” Your jaw is slack and that familiar redness lights you up like a christmas string.

“I am a profiler.” He smiles. “Your face was very, very red.”

“Oh shut up. You’re the one who came out here in a towel and decided to just show me those back muscles.” You roll your eyes.

“My back muscles?” He smirks, smugness all over his face.

“Fuck off.” You huff, “Sir.” You add slyly.

It’s now his turn to turn bright red.

-

“Is anyone going to address the elephant in the room?” Derek asks after everyone is a couple drinks in, looser from the alcohol.

“Or do you mean the elephants that aren’t in the room?” JJ snorts, taking another sip out of her drink. Her and Emily make eyecontact across the circular table and start giggling manically.

“What? What did I miss?” Spencer tilts his head in confusion. “There’s no elephants in the room.”

“Hotch and y/n sitting in a tree.” JJ starts.

“What you think they’re kissing?” Spencer exclaims, pushing up his glasses in shock.

“Oh they’re doing a lot more than kissing. I can’t wait to tell Penelope.” She finishes, typing furiously on her phone.

-

an: heyy party people, thanks for reading this!! this idea was a long time coming so please please like and reblog it! i need that fbi agent so baddddd. comment if you want to be added to a tag list!!

“Aren’t you at least a little bit embarrassed?” you tease, already starting to brew the coffee beans. It has been almost a year since he bought it – following your suggestion – and he never even cared to learn how to use it. Not that he needed to, really. You were always there to do it for him.

He pressed his lips together in a mocking reflective expression, just to shrug his shoulders “Not really, no.” you just chuckle as the two of you move in sync to finish preparing breakfast.

Just as the eggs were ready, his phone rang all the way to his bedroom. As an old man who still hadn’t created the urge to be glued to his phone 24/7, you took over the bacon pan as he faded into the hallway to pick up.

You were so focused on your task you didn’t realize he was taking too long. It wasn’t until you filled both of your plates and mugs that you noticed he didn’t come back. Your first reaction was too tense, to go after him and check what was wrong, but soon after you heard his laugh, loud and strong, making its way towards you. So, no emergencies.

Sensing it was probably Sean, your boyfriend’s brother, or maybe Rossi with a gossip – something you learnt after you started dating Hotch: the two older men at the BAU were gossipers. Penelope Garcia level gossiper – you stayed back, giving them privacy to chat. Ignoring all the etiquette lessons you had, you started eating alone. At least one of you should enjoy the warm food.

Just when you took the last bite you heard him stepping back into the kitchen, a ghost of a smile still present on his face “Hey, you chatty” you teased. He chuckled, sitting beside you on the stoll and drinking a sip of coffee “Who was it?” your curiosity got the best of you, even though you knew he was going to tell you either way.

“Beth!”

Oh.

“Oh”

“Yeah.” he agrees, taking a bite of the toast, completely oblivious to the gut wrenching feeling taking over your senses “She called me to say she’s coming back. From Hong Kong.”

Oh (but harder).

“That’s… good?”

“It’s great! She got to transfer back for a promotion, with a higher salary and getting to be close to her family.” he explains, sounding way too pleased with himself.

“She rocks.” you cringe immediately, not knowing what the hell you meant by that.

“Right?” fortunately – or not, that’s up to the eye of the beholder – he remained completely clueless to your awkwardness. “Jack’s going to lose it when he hears it.” he said, chuckling to himself.

You hate how hearing this makes you twice as jealous.

“Y’think Jack remembers her?” you wonder, pretending to be unbothered as you wash your dishes in a way to distract yourself. He stays silent for a second, and you hope he’s not picking up on your selfish rotting for the worse.

“He does. Last time she face-timed me, Jack took over half the call.” he says, his voice suddenly closer to you. He takes the dishes from your hand, gently pushing you to the side “That’s on me.” he points kindly, taking over the dishes. You step away, hoping he didn’t feel the sound of your heart breaking.

They face-time each other? Is Jack a part of this? By the way he said it, it seems like a frequent occurrence. Where were you all those times? How could you miss that?

Is this cheating? Objectively speaking, if it was cheating he probably wouldn’t be so blunt about it. And he’s probably the most loyal person you know.

So why does it feel like cheating? Why do you feel betrayed? Why do you feel so jealous?

Trying to take a hold of the situation, you fight to appear normal, trying your best to hide your anxiousness and all of self-doubt, at least while you figure your feelings out. Otherwise you’d probably end up locked in a mental asylum.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

It turned out the mental asylum would probably be a nicer place to be than your own head right now.

As the day passed by, you started to notice how excited Aaron was for Beth’s arrival. If you missed their calls before, you definitely weren’t now. Every other day you stumbled on him somewhere in the house, his phone balanced between his shoulder and his ear while he finished a task.

When it wasn’t the calls, it was the texting. He would send her pictures about things she liked and places she missed. She would always send a picture of everything that was different over there, ask silly questions about the job or about Jack. 

And Jack was a whole other problem. Not a problem, actually. But his obvious adoration towards the woman made you bitter. You found yourself losing your appetite more often than not every time Jack asked about her in the middle of dinner or lunch. Which was a horror on its own, but it was even worse because every time he did it, soon after the meal ended Hotch would call her to tell her about it.

You felt like an outsider.

The worst part was that it wasn’t even their fault. Everytime you walked by him, he asked you to join the call, pulling you to sit with him and chat with the woman on the other side of the screen. She would ask about you, about your likes and dislikes. She would joke about Hotch, about his sleep myoclonus, about his ability to fall asleep in the first few minutes of a movie.  You laughed with her, making fun of his antic habits as if sharing that with her didn’t feel like a knife in your gut. 

When she finally came back, it was, somehow, worse.

Hotch insisted that you’d tag along on their catching ups, you hang with them as she went out with the team. You had playdates with her and Jack.

It was now safe to say: you hated Beth. And you were completely obsessed with her.

You watched the way she spoke, the way she dressed. How she smiled, how she laughed. The exact color of her lipstick, her haircut. 

When her nails were perfectly made. She was so elegant. You started doing your nails weekly.

Next time you saw her, her nails were chipped and two of them were broken. She was so carefree. You cancelled your membership at the nail salon.

One would think Beth was a frequent character in Hotch's life. She really wasn’t. With all the cases, Jack and his relationship with you, he barely had time to actually hang out with Beth. But there was no point, and the damage was made.

Ever since he took that call, she made her way into your head, building her own little house with a balcony and a white fence. Even if she wasn’t around, your mind made sure to think about her. You hated hearing her name, but you secretly hoped it would come up in the middle of the conversation.

When his phone rang, you braced yourself, preparing for that gut wrenching pain you were oh, so familiar with. 9 out of 10 times, it wasn’t her. But 1 out of ten times, it was. And when you hear him calling her name, smiling easily at the speaker like she was seeing him, you felt your world fall apart, and what a comforting sensation that was.

You had no idea how you could crave someone as much as you craved her.

You wanted her gone.

The thought came to you out of nowhere, in the middle of the night. You were sleeping on his bed – almost yours by now – and his body involuntarily jerked. And there it was: another sleepless night. You were reminded of her, and now you were cursed to spend the rest of the evening wondering if she slept on the same side of the bed you were in, on how she would react. Would she laugh? Would she wake him? Would she pretend she didn’t see it?

It was maddening. It had to stop.

It wasn’t going to stop. You had to get out of this.

When the thought came, it stayed. You haven’t thought about it before, but you knew it. It had to be done. There was no way you would survive this. There was no way you could compete with this, with her. They understood each other to a degree you could never. They were the same age, and had the same references. They were both divorced, they had experiences you still haven’t had. You hated being outside of their inside jokes, even if said jokes were whatever was fashion in the 70’s.

Truth to be told, you wouldn’t even be with him if she hadn’t moved out of the country. And now she was back, reclaiming her old apartment, her athletic habits and his heart.

You weren’t dumb. You could see he loved you. But he loved her too. And you wouldn’t settle for half. Even if it killed you inside.

Besides being younger than Aaron – and Beth – you were very mature. Mature enough to understand that you shouldn’t make a big deal out of this. You knew, usually, the right thing to do was to talk about your feelings. To explain where you were coming from and make changes in order to keep the relationship alive.

But how could you go to the man you loved and beg him to not fall back in love with his ex? What exactly do you want to achieve by talking to him about it? He wasn’t doing anything wrong, you know that much. He would probably just stop talking to her ‘if it meant not making you insecure’, but you know very well how that would turn out. You didn’t want it to end with a fight, and you didn’t want to feel like you had to put up a fight to keep the man you love. You didn’t deserve that, and neither did him.

So, piece by piece, you started to make your way out of Aaron’s life.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You usually spent the majority of your time in his place. And you started to change that, slowly starting to spend more time in your rented apartment than in his. Piece by piece, you started to move back your clothes. First a blouse, then a pajama. Evolving to your dresses, shoes, and your products.

It was going by unnoticed, until after you moved almost all the products on your side of his bathroom’s cabinet. A wednesday morning, while getting ready to work, you opened it to find everything back where they belonged.

You stayed there, shocked for a few seconds, your heart racing. The toothbrush inside your mouth is frozen, the minty foam starting to burn your gums. Aaron stepped on the bathroom behind you, fixing his cufflinks and looking at you through the mirror.

“Oh, I saw you ran out of them.” he explained, casually pointing at the new stack of products, completely unaware of your mind short circuiting “You didn’t restock, but I remembered them from last time. I had to go to the drugstore anyway.” he shrugged, reaching for his cologne and stepping out like he didn’t just shatter your whole world.

Later, when your tears smudged your mascara, you just said you choked with the mouthwash.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

After a while, you’d spent so much time on your own place that Aaron started to miss you. Not only that, he questioned it. One specific morning, you were in the shared kitchen in the BAU mixing a bowl of yogurt with cereals and fruits when you felt a pair of large hands clinging to your hips. Yelping in surprise, you turned to face your boyfriend.

“Hey, you scared me.” you chuckled, picking up the bowl to put something between the two of you.

“I miss you.” he said, simply. He wasn’t whining, or complaining, or even trying to talk you out of your devious plan – not that he knew about it. He was just stating a fact, as clear as the day, the same way and tone he announced a profile or call a meeting.

Not knowing what to answer without breaking into tears, you stuffed a spoon full of greek yogurt, granola and strawberries into your mouth. While you did it, you mumbled something he couldn’t comprehend. Figuring you said you missed him too, he just moved on, leaning over your head to reach for the cabinet.

“Can I take you out for dinner tonight?” he asked, grabbing the freshly made coffee and filing his mug “It’s been a while since we left the house.”

You swoon at him, taking a deep breath before answering “It has. But I have plans.” you grimaced “Girls night.” you explained, chewing on the granola for longer than needed.

Aaron stopped for a second, his steaming mug already halfway to his lips. “Oh.” He wasn’t the kind of boyfriend to be in the way of your life, but he usually was aware of your plans. Not in a controlling way, but by knowing you, talking to you. And he was just realizing how it felt not knowing. He hated it. Not being a man to give up, he quickly came up with another idea “I can make you that BLT you like while you get ready.” not seeing you immediately jump with joy – as you usually do when BLT is mentioned – he suggested “Or we can stop at McDonalds drive-thru when I pick you up later.” 

Your heart did a backflip and shattered in a thousand pieces with the sight of his puppy eyes, expectantly looking at you.

“Oh that sounds lovely. But the bar we’re heading it’s the one across the street from my building. We’re walking there.” you explain, placing a hand on his chest gently, fixing the lapels of his suit. He looked down at your hands, fighting the urge to pull you by his arms and lock you in there. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but his gut knew something didn’t sit right.

“Text me when you get there. And when you get home.” he says, more a statement than a request. Your safety was not negotiable. You nodded, stepping closer to him and giving him a quick peck on the side of his jaw.

“I promise!” and you meant it, winking at him as you move to leave the kitchen.

Just as you step outside the perimeter, you almost bump into Rossi, who’s just standing there with his hands buried in his pockets and his eyebrow raised so high it was almost blending his hairline. Not ready to handle his piercing gaze – knowing you’d crumble at the first couple minutes –, you just nodded and gave him one of your best polite smiles, speeding your pace all the way to your desk.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

After you knocked twice on the office door, you stared at the words “David Rossi” engraved on the metal platter in its center as you waited for him to open.

When he did, you were surprised to see his office drowned in low light coming from the lamp on his desk and the moonlight peeking through the widow.

“You wanted to see me?” it meant as a statement: he did ask to see you. At first, you were sure it had something to do with the case you were consulting, the topic you and him were talking about during dinner. What confused you was that the setting looked anything but professional, if the expensive bourbon bottle and the two glasses sitting on the table wasn’t enough of a tell.

“Yes. Come in.” he said, waiting for you to walk into the office to close the door. You stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, waiting for him to take the lead. Unaware – or, most probably, choosing to ignore – your startled state, he slowly made his way to the couch on the back of the room, filling up both glasses before sitting comfortably.

Taking one of the glasses, you sat beside him, pressing your lips together and trying not to bounce your leg to ease the tension.

“How was girls night?” Rossi asks, raising his glass to his lips. He didn’t even look at you as he waited for your answer, his tone almost mocking you.

Having absolutely no idea what he was going with this, you decided to play along “It was fun.”

He nodded “I see.” You took a sip of your drink, trying to keep your posture. It didn’t work. As soon as the burning liquid settled in your stomach, you turned to face him. Terrible idea.

“Dave, what’s going on? What is this?”

“You know,” he started, completely ignoring your question “People may think about profiling as a criminal study. They think we have to learn about psychopaths, stressors, geography, and criminal patterns. That it’s about getting in the mind of crazy people and figuring them out.”

“And it isn’t?” you blinked, drowned by his speech.

“Oh, definitely. But it’s not just that. It’s about studying people. Feelings, motivations. Learning, understanding their behaviour and using it to figure out their intentions.”

And that’s when it hit you: he knew.

“We have an unspoken policy in the BAU: not profiling each other.” he began, turning his body to face you.

“So why are you profiling me?” you asked, voice edging and uneasy, desperately trying to stop him from putting into words. He ignored it.

“You’re breaking up with him.” Not a question, not a suggestion, and definitely not a doubt. “I know what this is about. Who this is about.” your chewed on your bottom lip, deciding on what to say.

“Please, don’t try to talk me out of it.” you beg, hating how weak your own voice sounds. He took another long and lazy sip, and you watched as the liquid clinged to his lips, the wet reflecting the low light of the lamp.

“I won’t.” he stared at you, his eyes squinting slightly “I’m here to encourage you.”

You frowned, your eyebrows pinching together “What?”

“Yes. You really should break up with him. You know, if you’re in such an unbearable relationship.” You roll your eyes, tilting your head back.

“Stop.”

“No, seriously. Do you think he’s what? Cheating on you with Beth?”

“What? That’s not what this is about. I know he’s not cheating.” you defend yourself, cringing at the topic of the discussion.

“Then what is it?”

“I’m just…” your eyes burn with tears harder than the liquid on your throat when you down the rest of the bourbon before continuing “I’m not her.”

“You sure? Under this specific light I could’ve swore…”

“Dave!” you whine, and he chuckles.

“Yes, you’re not Beth.” you grimace at her name, not bothering to hide your feelings anymore “Why are you saying this as a bad thing?”

“Because it is. She’s back now and…” you feel a tear striking down your cheek as you gesticulate “She just fits. She gets him.”

“And you don’t?”

You sigh “You must think I sound really stupid.”

“Oh, you sound absolutely ridiculous.” you look at him, looking at a smirk on his face. Before you realize it, you’re laughing as well, but in a weak and depressed way “Love does this to us. Make us blind to the obvious. Clouds our judgement and turns us into…” he gesticulates towards you. You roll your eyes, but you’re not crying anymore “I have three divorces, so you’d think I know one thing or two about failed relationships. And let me tell you: yours isn’t one of them.”

“You’re just saying this because you’re his best friend.”

“I’m saying this because I love you.” he stated bluntly, and you widened your eyes in surprise, not expecting this. “And it'll kill me to see you do something I know you’ll regret later.” he leaned closer, looking at you with a paternal love that made you uneasy “Hotch loves you, kid. Don’t try to assume things. Let him know.”

“It’s hard.”

“I know it is. It has to be, don’t you think?” he smiles, the wrinkle on the corner of his eyes enhancing his passion towards the subject “Or else is not worth it. But talk to him. You know him more than I do, but I’m pretty sure you’re seeing things out of a place of hurt, probably past experiences.” he nod his head in a knowing gesture “From what I see, you’re out of your mind if you think that Hotch would ever consider living his life away from you.”

You only notice the tear streaming down your cheeks like a waterfall when his fingers gently wipe them away.

“Sorry.” you mumble, and he shakes his head.

“Listen, if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t. It’ll be fine too. You’ll be fine. But just don’t let it all go to waste before at least giving him a chance.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

It got to a point where you had to stop for a second to wipe the sweat out of your eyelids to see. By the time you reached your – Aaron’s – front door, your heartbeat had lowered to a normal rhythm and your skin was now cold rather than wet. You spent almost the entire night awake, tossing and turning on the bed. The night went so late it was almost morning, so you figured it made more sense to just get up and do something other than to lay in the dark with nothing but your loud and torturous mind.

Running, these past few weeks, were your loyal ally to your early mornings. That specific day, you just got back from an over two hour long run, finally feeling your limbs hurting more than your heart. As you walked in, you were surprised to find Aaron pacing around the living room, something crumpled up on one of his fist, a piece of paper in the other.

When he looked at you, his face was everything but stoic: he looked panicked, tortured, confused and, overall, hurting. “We need to talk” he said, quietly. If you listened closely, you could hear the way his voice wobbled in the middle of the sentence, like he didn’t actually want to talk. Like he wanted you to just be confused, and just ask what he meant by that, and that you weren’t being distant, he was just paranoid. Anything that could prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that you weren’t, in fact, leaving.

Despite all his silent wishes you just nodded, making your way to the couch “Yeah, we do.”

Hoping the sound of his heart shattering wasn't loud enough for you to hear, he made his way to the couch in front of you, distant enough for him to think clearly – as much as possible, under the circumstances. For a minute you just stared at each other, the weight of everything unsaid so heavy it could suffocate.

You glanced down at his hands, still not managing to understand what he was holding so tight on his fist. On the other hand, you could finally see what it was. Before you left the house that morning, already planning on staying out for long, you wrote him a note with the steps to use the coffee pot.

“Before we start,” he began, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat before continuing “I already know. So there’s no need to lie.” you gulp, shifting in your seat. You never lied to him before, but it was fair of him to point it  out. You weren’t being exactly honest. And even though you knew what he was talking about, it still surprised you when he finally said it out loud “When exactly you were planning on breaking up with me?”

Your breath hitched, panic rushing through your veins. It didn’t matter that you still weren't sure about what to do, there was no point in lying. Not anymore. It hurt you to think about it, but actually admitting to him was a whole other level of pain.

“I don’t know.” you answer weakly.

He blinks. And then chuckles.

When he dips his head down, you stare at him confused. The only thing you catch is the way his head shakes slightly, his fists flexing but never letting go of your note and the other white soft – looks fluffy? Is it a stress relief ball? – thing. Aaron tilts his head up and his eyes are full of tears. They are shiny and reddish, and you want nothing more than to make it all go away.

“Hotch,” you try, because just watching him crumble in front of you is not an option.

“Jesus! Stop calling me that.” he spat, frowning.

“Your name?”

“That’s not my name. Not to you. Not in here.” he adverts, the pain muffling the anger in his tone.

You chew on your bottom lip, trying to hold back the tears that are threatening to fall from your eyes. Sniffing as quietly as possible, you look at him “Do you think this is easy for me?”

“It must be!” he says, barely containing himself, “You’re doing it all behind my back, vanishing from my life little by little, until all I have left is an empty drawer with nothing but this shirt and a coffee pot I don't know how to use.” and you finally understand what he was holding on so tightly. It’s a plain silky pajama shirt. It’s the only piece of clothing because it’s matching short you – he – ended up tearing it in half on the first night you wore it.

“I left you instructions.” you point to the paper in his other hand.

“I don’t want to learn.” he looks disgusted at the paper, like it personally offended him “I’m not learning how to use it.” he emphasizes.

You try again “It’s not that hard.”

“I won’t.” 

That discussion was pointless, anyway. It is something to cling onto while avoiding the main issue. Sighing deeply in order to avoid crying, you change the subject “Listen, it’s nothing with you. It’s me.” you snort at that, because it’s that old cheesy and shitty excuse. But it’s the truth. “I’m just…” it’s all you manage to say before the tears blur your vision and you have to dip your head down to try and wipe them away.

His voice filled your ears, making you glance up to face him again. “I noticed that you weren’t being yourself, but I figured you’d tell me. It was something from work, or your family. I didn’t think it was this. It was us.” his voice weakens, and he has to gulp before continuing “Aren’t you happy anymore?” 

“I… there’s a lot going on.”  you feel your nose burning, and you stop caring if he sees the tears streaming down your face.

“Tell me what I did.” his demeanor changes, and he doesn’t look sad and confused anymore. He sounds energetic, urgent, demanding and begging all together “Tell me where I got it wrong, i can change it. I’ll do it right. I’ll do it better.”

Hearing this, combined with the raw desperation on his voice, so opposite from his usual calm and steady behavior, only makes you cry harder, and you don’t even try to wipe them away.

“You did nothing wrong. Nothing. I don’t want you to change. I just…” a strangled hiccup interrupted your speech, and you feel ridiculous, weak, dramatic and lonely. You want this to end, but also you want this to have never happened. “I shouldn’t feel this way in a relationship.”

He nodded, thinking. When Aaron speaks again, his voice is much calmer. Resignated, even. “So that’s it, then? You have your mind made up? Nothing I say will change it.” and it’s not a question anymore.

“I’m doing this for you, I want nothing more than what’s best for you.”

“Bullshit.”  he snapped, his words startling you “Why are you doing this? Is it the job? You said it’s not me. Is it Jack? Is this life too much for you? The responsibility of…”

“What? Of course not!” your heart aches thinking about it. It hurts that he thinks this, but you have no one but yourself to blame “I love Jack. I love our… this life.” 

He stays silent for a second, as if analyzing your explanation — or lack thereof. “Is it someone else?” you stop, and blinks. This is it. You won’t lie straight to his face. He stiffens, and it doesn’t need another word from you to understand. “Who is him?”

“Him?” you frown in the middle of your tears, so confused you stopped crying. “What do you mean?” 

“You said there was someone else.” he squinted his eyes at you.

“I didn’t, you did.” 

“You didn’t deny it. Who is he?” he insisted, his jaw tensed.

“Who do you think I am?” you asked, actually aggravated at his accusations “I would  never…” 

“Who is he?” he interrupts you, his eyes burning holes in your head.

“There's no he. It’s Beth.” 

Hotch’s jaw is immediately unlocked at that, the anger and betrayal completely subsided by complete shock and confusion. “What? You and… Beth?”

“Huh?” you were the one left in confusion now. How did he get to that conclusion? For a second, you didn’t feel the excruciating pain and humiliation from admitting your feelings to him “No. You and Beth.”

“What do I have to do with this?” he asks, his confusion turning to aggravation once again “You don’t like our friendship? That’s why you're breaking up with me?”

Now, said excruciating pain and humiliation were back on its full force. You ignored the lump on your throat, taking a deep breath and explaining the situation in the most sober and objective way possible. “I realized you and her fit more together than me and you, and…” your voice faltered as you saw his outrageous expression “...the two of you only broke up because she moved away. You’re all happy that she’s coming back. I just figured…”

“What?” he interrupted, his voice sharp and edgy “That i’d break up with you to be with her?” asking like it was a ridiculous thought. You stayed silent, because that was exactly what you thought. He huffed an incredulous laugh through his nose “Jesus. Did I ever give you a reason to question me? Or my loyalty?” he accused, his voice showing more worry than anger.

“No. Actually I don't know if you’d break up with me. That’s why I saved you the trouble.” you shrugged, trying not to show how much it hurt you to say it.

“Jesus fucking christ.” he muttered, pintching the bridge of his noise “Are you even hearing yourself?”

“Stop talking like I'm insane.” you snapped, losing your patience “You’re the one making phone calls, facetiming and going on dates with your ex girlfriend. I saw you when the two of you broke up. I was there. You were in pain. How am I supposed to feel? How am I supposed to handle this? How am I supposed to compete with this? Explain to me, Aaron. Because I have no fucking clue.”

The moment you stopped speaking, you realized you were almost yelling. It was the first time you let out your anger, your hurt. All the time you kept saying you were doing the best: for Aaron, for Jack, for Beth… Not once you stopped to think how much it sucked to be you, to deal with all of that. Yes, you could’ve talked to him sooner. But you shouldn’t have felt like that. No one should. 

When you asked him to explain, to tell you what to do, it wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t sass. You were actually asking, begging for him, for someone, to tell you how to feel. It didn’t make sense, none of this made sense to you. It was too overwhelming, and you just wanted it to be gone. You wanted to disappear.

You noticed too late you were crying, fully sobbing now, with one hand clutched to your chest, as if you tried to rip your heart out, and the other resting against your throat, trying to soothe the pain from talking so loud. You didn’t see how his expression softened, his anger melting into pure sorrow. He couldn’t believe he did that to you, that he, of all people, made you feel this way.

A few minutes had passed when he finally made a move. He got up from his couch and crossed the room, sitting right by your side. His knees were pressed against your thighs, his eyes filled with tears. His body and his soul were completely in surrender to yours. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, simply. “I should’ve seen it before. I shouldn't have acted like this. Or at least, talked to you about it. I’m not trying to make any excuses for the way I acted, but I need to explain.” he cleared, his eyes scanning your face every 10 seconds, trying to find any hint of chance in your stance “The thought of someone other than you, in a romantic way, is so out of my reality that I didn’t even considered her a ‘threat’. Not that she, or anyone, is a threat. But I really didn’t see the situation as something that could’ve hurt you. And that was my first mistake.”

“She knows you in a way that I can’t.”

“You know me in a way no one can.” he argued “You were my subordinate, then my work colleague, my friend. Now you’re my best friend and my family. You’re the woman I love.” he gulped, flinching at his own words and feeling the hot streak of a lonely tear falling from his eye. The one he couldn’t hold back. “I don’t want you going back to being less than that.”

Your posture didn’t show any kind of surrender. But he didn’t see resistance either, and when you turned to face him, he noticed that you didn’t keep arguing and just waited to listen. Taking it as a good (the best yet) sign, he pressed further.

“There’s nothing going on between me and Beth. She happened to be the first friend I’ve had outside of the job for a long time, that’s all. I don’t know if it will help to hear this,” he tried, hesitantly “...but her leaving wasn’t the only reason why we broke up.” seeing your questioning expression, he kept going “We came to the realization we worked better as friends anyway, and it was just a matter of time for us to end things. The moving just happened first.” he shrugged.

You opened your mouth to speak, but he anticipated your argument “Yes, I did suffer. It was a change in scenario, how could I not? But as I said, we knew it was happening. So what it hurt the most was actually Jack. I felt like the worst parent from giving another sort of mother figure just to take it away from his life. Again.”

Before you could think properly, your hand reached out to his, squeezing in a silent reassurance. He always doubted his parental skills, and you were always making sure to remind him how amazing he was. Even now, with your heart broken and your relationship hanging by a thread, you still found a way to comfort him. 

How could he lose something like this? Someone like this? How could he let you go? How could he make you feel that way? He had to press his lips together in a thin line to keep them from trembling, and to hold back the force of his grip when he squeezed your hand back, making sure he wasn’t hurting you as he not so subtly tried to hold on to you. To keep you from leaving.

“Honey,” he started, not even caring about his voice cracking. He couldn’t wait any longer, or lose any more chances. This was it. “I love you so much. I know this isn’t ideal, and I hate myself for ever making you feel this way. If not being with me will make you happier, then…” he gulped “...I’ll let you go. But if this situation is the only reason, please, don’t go. Please, give me a chance to show you how you’re the only one I want.”

You feel your tears running freely from your face, and you choke up a sob before speaking, your voice so weak it was barely hearable “I feel really immature.”

He laughs, but it doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of you. It sounds like he’s gone completely mad, like your admission was the water bottle after two days in the desert. It gave him hope.

“No.” he denied firmly, not letting go of your hand even for a second “Now that I think about it, if the tables were turned, I might’ve murdered your ex.” he whispered like a secret. It was so unexpected and so out of character of him that you laughed, surprising both you and him. He smiled from ear to ear at the sound of it. “I’m really sorry, I should’ve been more careful with the situation.”

“I should’ve just talked to you instead of jumping to conclusions.” you smiled apologetically. He ignores your attempt, looking deep into your eyes and calling your name with such a raw expectation that if you weren’t already seated, you would’ve fell.

“Did you change your mind?” you hesitate for a second, and he sees right through you “Tell me you have. I know you want to, I can feel it.” His voice is quiet, his words so soft spoken it feels like a spell. Only you know that you do want to be with him, now that is all cleared. “Please, give me a chance to make things right.”

You chew on your bottom lip as your eyes fill with tears again “I feel stupid.” you admit, and he wants nothing more than to cry his eyes out.

“Don’t say that ever again.” he leans in hesitantly, and when you don’t flinch or pull back, he wipes the tears from your face with the pad of his thumb. The other hand is still holding yours firmly “You were protecting yourself, as you should’ve. Thank you.”

“What for?” you snort between tears, not understanding what he could possibly be thankful for in this situation.

“Thank you for protecting and taking such good care of someone I love so much. Especially when I was too damn blind to see that she needed it.”

After that, there was no point of dragging this any further: you were completely and undeniably his.

He didn’t see it coming, his body jerking in surprise when you literally jumped to his lap, hugging him tightly and burying your face on his neck, sobbing and muttering apologies on repeat. His lips were glued to the crown of your head, kissing you repeatedly. His hands were all over you, touching from your feet to the strands of your hair, as if his body needed to feel you there, to make sure you were with him, for his mind to completely wrap up around the fact that you weren’t going anywhere.

Ignoring your words, he whispered his own, “Don’t you ever apologize. I should be the one apologizing. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” and it’s the only moment his lips leave your skin “I’m sorry. I will never make you feel this way. If I ever hurt you like that again, and I won’t, I want you…”

“Don’t say it.” you cut him off. He ignores, once again.

“...to just shoot me in the face. Kill me.”

You chuckle weakly, lifting your head from his chest to face him properly “Dude, you gotta stop with the murder threats.” he arches his eyebrow at you, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smirk.

“Dude? Who do you think you’re talking to?” he asks, and his finger tickles your sides as the stubble on his beard tickles your neck. Your body jerks and twitches on top of his while you laugh loudly, but never moving away from his.

When he finally feels you learned your lessons, his hands rested comfortably around your waist in its rightful place. You sigh, looking at him.

“Promise me that you will always talk to me, and be honest about your feelings. No matter how ugly you think they are.”

“I promise.” you say as you wipe the wet off his face, and it’s just then that he realizes he’d been crying all along “Promise me that if your feelings for me change, you’ll communicate.” he rolls his eyes so hard it feels like they’ll hit the back of his head “Promise.” you insist.

“I promise.” he says, seriously. When you relax, he starts again. “Matter of fact, my feelings just changed.” you squint your eyes at his playful tone “A few minutes ago I wanted to stop by your place to get back the clothes you took. But now, I’ve decided you’ll be spending the rest of the weekend with nothing to wear but that shirt.” he says, leaning – without moving you away from his lap – to grab the piece of fabric he left on the center table.

“I have to get at least underwear.” you argue.

“If you behave, I’ll let you borrow a couple boxers.”

“Jack will see it.”

“He’s a kid. And they’re the exact same size of what you call your casual shorts so I doubt he’ll notice the difference.” he points seriously and you squeal, slapping his chest slightly.

“That’s rude. And humiliating.”

“That’s what you get for stealing.”

Your mouth hangs open for a second “I didn’t steal! I didn’t take anything from your house but my clothes.”

“This house is ours.” he stares at you deeply, waiting for his statement to sink in before continuing “So is everything in it. From the bedroom to the coffee pot and, therefore, your clothes. So, basically, you stole from us.” he shrugged, like he made a perfect point. You just laugh, choosing to accept it.

“I’m sorry for stealing.” he nodded politely and you dive back into his embrace, sighing happily “Can we stay like this forever?” Aaron tight his arms around you, his whole body answering before any words came out.

“I’ll think about it. But before that, we have to eat. You're probably on the verge of dehydration right now.” he points, standing up with you still in his arms, and makes his way toward the kitchen. He settles you in one of the stools and hands you your shirt “Go change while I make us breakfast. Now that I’ve learnt how to use the coffee pot.”

You gasp, widening your eyes in a mock-threat. Jumping out of the stool with your shirt already crumpled on your hands, you stomp your way to where he stands behind the stove, pointing your finger to his chest. “You can cook whatever you want, but don't you dare touch the coffee pot, Aaron Hotchner.”

Aaron does just as you said, beaming while frying the bacon even when you’re upstairs in his shower. Your shower. And both of you know, somehow, you’ll be okay.