hellvsr

You knew it the first time he looked at you with those distant, scorched-earth eyes. The kind of gaze that warned you to not get close or else you’ll get burned.

But you stayed. You always did.

You stayed when he pushed you away with sharp words and silences colder than winter. You stayed when his hands trembled but never reached for you. You stayed when he carved spaces between you like he was more afraid of being held than being abandoned.

You stayed because you thought—Maybe if you loved him enough, Maybe if you stayed long enough, he would finally believe he was worth it. And maybe—just maybe—he’d finally learn how to love you back.

But love isn’t always loud. Sometimes, love is quiet in the worst way.

You had been telling him about something that upset you—a small thing, really, something that clung to you like a paper cut, a soft kind of pain that only needed a little kindness to heal.

But Tsukishima just scoffed, looking away like your hurt was too heavy for him to carry. “You’re overreacting again. Seriously, why do you always cry over things like this?”

And there it was. The crack you had been waiting to split. You blinked, once, twice—as if you could keep the tears from falling if you just didn’t move. As if you could freeze the moment before it broke you.

Your voice came out quieter than you meant. “If it hurts me, shouldn’t it matter to you?”

Silence.

“You said you hate seeing me cry, because you never know what to do, or what to say to calm me down….” The weight in your throat made the words feel like glass “But you’re the one who keeps making me cry, every damn time Kei.”

There was no venom in your voice. No sharpness. No anger. Only the soft ache of someone who had been holding the world’s worth of sadness in their chest for far too long.

Tsukishima’s eyes flickered, as if the weight of your words finally pierced something inside him. Like he hadn’t expected you to say it. Like he hadn’t realized how much you’d been carrying.

“I…I didn’t mean it like that.” he said, barely above a whisper.

And maybe that would have been enough the first time. Maybe you would have clung to that the way you used to—like a lifeline. Like a reason to stay. But this time, the ache inside you was louder than the excuse.

You just smiled—small, soft, heartbreakingly tired. “I know.”

Because that’s what hurt the most. He didn’t mean to. He just did.

You rose to your feet, slow, deliberate, as if moving too quickly would shatter you entirely.

He watched you, something desperate flickering in his gaze, but his hands never reached for you. That was always the problem, wasn’t it? His hands never reached for you.

“Where are you going?” It came out sharp, almost a demand—like he didn’t know how else to ask you to stay.

You hesitated in the doorway, one last chance waiting between your ribs. “Away from this.” You didn’t slam the door. You didn’t even raise your voice. Because you didn’t need to.

Some goodbyes are loud. Some leave echoes. But the ones that hurt the most are the quiet ones. The ones that come when you’ve finally stopped crying.

Because when you stop crying, it means you’ve finally learned to let them go.

Apparently flirting is a lost art, so now corporations have to prepackage desire and sell it back to people. Profitable as hell - no one’s here for coffee and cake, they’re here for the speed-date special (one drink + compulsory pastry purchase), hoping to get laid while you just get paid.

So you keep grinning, as if your soul isn’t evaporating into the steam belching from the industrial dishwasher, as if you don’t feel blisteringly alone in the middle of it all.

And through it all, your brain keeps skipping from timer alarms to the image of federal fingers, two knuckles deep, every time you’re piping cream into a puff. (Shit… down to the last few slices of cream pie, too.)

Suddenly, the strawberry glaze on the donuts looks uncomfortably close to the pink of his lips, and before you can stop yourself, every eclair, cannoli, and tart around you starts to register as blatantly, absurdly phallic.

So no, there’s no God in these few square feet of linoleum.

Only the rush, the timers, the low-grade panic of not scorching custard while imagining what it might feel like to have a very specific authority (say, a 46-year-old, father-of-one, Unit Chief of the BAU sort of authority) shoved into you, both literally and metaphorically.

Spinoza’s Theory: burned to a crisp.

Or maybe not burned - just torched by distraction.

Because it’s easy to dunk on Spinoza’s God-in-everything theory when the real problem is this: whatever it is you feel for Mr. Aaron Hotchner (swimmer, FBI agent, father of one, unfairly skilled at fingering) is not just lust. And those polyester Valentine puppies staring at you aren’t exactly helping you pretend otherwise.

The thing is, you and Aaron have undeniable (stupid) sexual chemistry. You’ve tried to avoid each other - it doesn’t work. You’ll both always find an excuse to meet.

And while the beginnings of those meetings are awkward-but-friendly, catching up like two people playing at normalcy, they never stay that way. Because inevitably one of you leans in, and suddenly (veeeery suddenly) you’re making out, messy and pressed together, and more often than not it escalates - your fault, mostly, but he never exactly protests - into grinding so intense it teeters on obscene.

(Dry humping. Yes. Very good dry humping. [Which is, frankly, mortifying.])

But that’s where it stops.

Because you both know if you cross that line - if hands slip below belts (or into that mythical zone where his undershirt never seems to exist) - then you’ll have to have the Talk™. And nothing is more terrifying than that.

So you settle for what you do: kissing until your lips ache, pretending the marks you leave on each other are accidental, silently agreeing that everything from collarbone to hip is no man’s land.

But then, inevitably, you have to leave.

He drives you home, walks you all the way to your door, and kisses you goodbye with such unbearable tenderness it makes you want to undo every boundary you swore you’d keep.

And now you’re starting to miss him.

You catch yourself wanting to see him even in your luteal phase (a biological red flag if there ever was one). You get a dopamine rush every time your phone screen lights up, only to spiral into frustration when it doesn’t say Aaron Hotchner.

You linger too long on his profile picture, sketching his face from memory, refreshing his status, waiting for the green dot to glow - then panicking and exiting the chat the second he comes online.

You’re absolutely cooked (like the sponge cake in one minute, croissants in nine, Lover’s Cheesecake in fourteen) for him.

And worse, you’re terrified. Terrified he might not feel the same. More terrified he does, and might want to make sense of… whatever this is.

It’s not that you don’t want love… hell, love is your longest obsession, the thing you’ve been starving for since you were old enough to understand what wanting even was.

But wanting it with him feels different.

He’s older, sharper, devastatingly hot in a way no guy your age could ever fake (though you do have to remind yourself, repeatedly, to redirect blood flow to your brain for at least a few more minutes).

He radiates competence, emotional intelligence, a steadiness you’ve never touched before, the kind of gravity that makes you feel like you could stop spinning out of orbit if you just stood close enough to him.

With Aaron, it isn’t about chasing chaos or flinging yourself into the arms of the wrong men for the thrill of the disaster, it’s about the terrifying possibility of something that could actually last.

The cruel joke, though, is that once you peel back the layers, Aaron isn’t a safe fantasy at all. He’s a very troubled man. And yet, that only makes you want him more.

You’d love to tell yourself there’s no one else like him, but since the start of your shift you’ve mistaken at least six dark-haired men in three-piece suits for him from behind.

Which is ridiculous.

You don’t even know why your brain entertained the idea in the first place. It’s not like he’d be dropping in on Valentine’s Day to check up on you.

He’s a busy man, for one thing.

And for another - you’re nothing. A distraction, maybe. A bad habit at best. You shouldn’t even be expecting him.

Still, you find yourself wandering past the pastry lab backdoor more times than necessary, circling through the staff room just to glance at your phone, hoping for a notification.

Maybe he feels as alone on Valentine’s as you do.

Maybe he’s texted, asking if you’re free, so you could meet up and trade war stories about your day… before inevitably ending up pressed against each other, doing the usual.

Or maybe he’s drowning in paperwork, too responsible to even look at his phone.

Maybe he’s found an actual date, someone who wasn’t too scared shitless to be direct and take a ride on his thick- well.

But no. Nothing. Not even the green light of him being online.

And your eyes start to betray you so badly that every man with dark hair becomes him. Then even that flimsy requirement collapses, and suddenly every man reminds you of him.

Every profile. Every flash of shoulders and jawlines in the crowd.

Every voice pitched low enough to rattle your ribs sounds like his, every passing accent with that faint, posh cadence becomes his.

Even silence begins to sound like him.

Even the nothingness, somehow, holds the echo of his presence. Which is cuckoo bananas, because the café has never been so suffocatingly overcrowded, and yet there he is, threaded through it all, standing right in the middle of the absence.

In every single few square feet of linoleum, he lingers.

He’s there.

For real. (FR! No, not France.)

Tangible. Matter and bone. On the other side of the counter. Not some hallucination, but him: all suited up, shoulders cutting the crowd, that disarming, unexpected smile tugging his mouth open just slightly as the line spits him out at the register.

“What can I do for you?” you ask, smiling - leaning into the double edge of the words, savoring the way he glances down, mouth still parted, shaking his head once before he finally drags his eyes back up to yours.

“Hey… uh. Hi. Just a Black Americano. No sugar, please.” The most basic order in existence… and yet somehow the most painfully awkward thing either of you has ever managed to say.

You scramble for the next step (payment? He does have to pay, right?) but his stupidly earnest eyes knock you so off-balance you almost forget capitalism still applies, even to sexual tension. (Definitely not an alpha move.)

“Um… cash or-”

“Card, please.” (Oh, he’s so pretty.)

Too pretty, really, to be digging around in a wallet, but here he is, taking his sweet time with a sleek leather one. He keeps eye contact as he thumbs through the slots, and you feel… warm. Uncomfortably warm.

He pulls out the first card, hesitates, quickly pushes it back in, checks the one behind (driver’s license), then the one even behind (library card, adorable), raises his eyebrows at himself in self-disappointment, and finally circles back to the original card - all with the composure of a man who clearly hopes you didn’t notice his clumsiness.

(And indeed, you don’t notice… you’re too busy staring at his hands.)

That’s when he spots the stack of Valentine’s matchmaking cards at the register. His brow furrows, leaning closer to read the tiny print.

…Right. Payment. Suspended. You almost forgot that tiny capitalism detail.

“To place an order, you have to fill-” (‘the barista,’ aka you, who now wants to die, preferably at the hands of those thick fingers) “-this card…”

You can’t even bring yourself to explain the rest of the drill, you just jab a finger toward the cutesy poster of instructions and pray he can read.

Still, the idea of Aaron Hotchner actually participating in a speed date within spitting distance of you feels like the kind of humiliation that would officially cement this as the worst Valentine’s Day in recorded history.

“You know there are better ways to harvest people’s personal data, right?” he says flatly, head tipped, brows arched in that unmistakable Disappointed Dad way. (Which is hilarious, really, because his eyes go wide and soft when he does it even while he’s busy lecturing you about petty larceny with customer info.)

“Scared no one will pick you?” you fire back, already sliding toward the pastry case like the world’s most reckless hypocrite.

Because it’s Valentine’s Day, you’re a feminist, and if your crush isn’t even bringing you flowers, then fine, you’re not bitter. Not at all. In fact, you should totally be the one showering him with freebies.

(Aka “picking him.” Aka immediately contradicting yourself in deed if not in word. Man… Aaron Hotchner can’t even enjoy the humbling experience of worrying what it might feel like not to be picked for once in his life, because here you are, doling out princess treatment. This is busted.)

And yet… there’s that hope. That flicker of idiocy whispering that maybe he’ll clock the gesture, tuck it away somewhere in that brain, and think twice before handing his matchmaking card to some random woman. Or man.

(Not that it matters. He’s free to do whatever he wants… you’re not together. You have no claim. You shouldn’t care. You could do the exact same thing. Totally. Hypothetically. You won’t, obviously. But you could.)

Just for him, you plate a tart you’re obnoxiously proud of: glossy pastry cream, a scatter of fresh raspberries, that faint blush from strawberry powder folded into the base (all-natural, no fake dye, because you’re ethical even in your hypocrisy).

“You really don’t have to do that,” he says, completely oblivious to the fact that this tart (this pastry masterpiece) is literally his entry ticket into the whole stupid matchmaking circus.

(Meaning it’s thanks to you he even gets to play the game at all. Was this the single dumbest move of your life? Quite possibly.)

“No shit.” You even tuck a cookie into a bag, right there in plain view. Hell, make it two - one for Jack, one for Jack’s infuriatingly handsome father.

He finally decides to shut the fuck up and, with visible reluctance, slides his card into the reader. You’ve never wanted to be a slit more in your life.

Most importantly: those thick fingers, struggling to stab a PIN into buttons designed for toddlers.

(Not that you sneak a peek at the code… he shields it with his other hand.)

(And anyway, you’re far too occupied with the gleam of his eerily smooth, hairless knuckles. Entire palm, shaved down to baby-soft nothingness. A crime against nature, really. At least the veins bulge thicker, defiant. Still, you mourn the furry paws. Justice for the furry paws.)

Fun fact: you almost never pay with card yourself, mostly to avoid the weird little purgatory where you’re forced into a staring contest with the cashier while the bank decides whether or not you’re trustworthy enough for capitalism.

Now multiply that by Aaron Hotchner.

It’s torture. The eye contact is nuclear, more dangerous than any you’ve shared since the first time you locked eyes.

The silence stretches until it feels scripted, like you’ve stumbled into the middle of a slow-dance montage no one warned you about, two leads locked in a wordless smize-off. For a suspended moment, it’s absurdly peaceful - as if the café has collapsed into just you and him - and suddenly all that “you and me against the world” garbage pop songs keep spewing doesn’t sound like garbage at all.

It sounds… plausible. Terrifyingly plausible.

His lips part - at least you think they do, or maybe you just keep staring at them so hard your brain invents it - and he looks like he might actually say something. Something important.

But then unfortunately the card machine shrieks its approval, vomiting out the receipt with all the bureaucratic joylessness of the IRS, slicing the moment clean in half.

“So can I-” he nods toward the stack of Valentine’s cards.

“Yeah… sure!” You both step toward it at the same time, him plucking a card, you fishing out a pen from the holder. “Here’s your pen…”

He takes the pen - but his hand is big enough that it engulfs your fingertips too, like he meant to catch more than plastic. And you don’t let go. Which makes him glance up at you, puzzled, but not quite calling you on it either.

“Just… make sure to give it back when you’re done,” you say, too quickly. “We don’t have that many.”

His hand is warm. You already know it’s warm (especially when it’s wandered to very specific real estate on your body), but today it feels explicitly warm.

Aaron clears his throat. “Of course…” Still not releasing your hand. Then again, you’re not releasing his either. “…You have my word.” (What the- for stationery?!)

Finally he juggles the pen, the card, and the bagged cookies with the grace of a man trying very hard not to drop evidence. “Um… thank you again for the cookies. Jack will be… elated.”

“Of course…” you echo, and yeah, you’re 90% sure you’re drooling.

Which is why you’re ready to murder your coworker for not letting you “table service” his order - i.e., personally deliver his coffee, hover like a lovesick bat, and snoop on whatever the hell he’s scribbling on that stupid matchmaking card.

Instead, you’re stuck behind the register, watching your FBI crush seat himself at a table for two. And not just any table for two. He’s across from a man who looks like he crawled out of his third divorce: orange-tinted skin, long hair, goatee, too many shirt buttons undone. Greasy aura.

Definitely older. Definitely trouble. Definitely… smiling at Aaron.

You can’t get it out of your head.

You’ll never be employee of the year if Aaron Hotchner is across the room, smiling at some stranger, talking to him like you don’t even exist - on the most romantic day of the year, no less.

There’s a weird, charged energy to it that knots your stomach, and you keep sneaking glances over, unable to stop.

His left hand scribbles on the card.

His face is focused… dangerously focused, the kind of face you wouldn’t mind sitting on.

The man across from him looks exactly like you feel: rapt, transfixed, probably wondering if he’s hallucinating.

Then Aaron takes a bite of the tart. Closes his eyes. Tilts his head back just slightly, licks his lips. He… likes it?!

You nearly faint.

His hand drifts, thumb rubbing across his index finger - a tell, you’ve learned, for when he’s nervous.

A few minutes pass and he’s doing it too often now, scratching his hand, taking deep breaths. Oh shit. He’s nervous. Aaron Hotchner, seasoned federal agent, absolute unit, is nervous about reentering the dating pool.

And then - he sets the pen down. Picks up the card. Your heart slams itself against your ribcage so violently you wonder if the polyester puppies can hear it.

He stands, pushes his chair neatly back into the table, and flashes the man-

-flashes the man one last smile!! (You might actually be having palpitations.)

He takes a few steps, looking down, unreadable. Your brain races. Where’s he going?

Sexy woman at table four? No. Must be the elegant lady at table three, perfectly age-appropriate.

Nope.

The philosophy professor at table two? God forbid. (If Spinoza’s right and there’s a little bit of God in everything, then surely He wouldn’t be cruel enough to let Hotchner flirt with a philosophy professor in your line of sight.)

(Who cares about Spinoza. Who cares about philosophy?)

What matters is that Hotchner keeps moving - past table two, murmuring polite apologies as he slips by table one - until he’s right there, mere inches away from you, standing at the cash register.

And he’s handing you the card.

He looks… red.

Red as in flushed, flustered - cheeks faintly pink, color creeping down the line of his throat where his collar doesn’t quite cover the skin.

Sweet. Wholesome.

Like maybe you, of all people (against all odds), finally managed to embarrass Aaron Hotchner, and now he’s standing here blushing like a schoolboy while silently declaring feelings.

But then your eyes catch on his hands.

The card trembles just slightly in his grip, and his palms look… wrong.

Not just the unsettling baldness of them - though that, perversely, makes it worse, accentuating the mottled patches, the angry red stippling, the rash blooming across his skin. The same flush climbs unevenly from his jawline, spilling down the exposed slice of his neck in a scatter of raised welts.

“Um,” he clears his throat, shifting, “by any chance were there strawberries in that tart? I might be… allergic.”

Strawberry powder.

You don’t think. You just grab his hand and tug, steering him through the chaos of the café as he keeps muttering “I have an EpiPen in the car” (like he’s going to make it that far) and behind the staff-room door.

It’s almost romantic if you forget the part where his throat might close in six minutes.

Anyways, you’ve trained for this. The way he can probably assemble a rifle in under ten seconds - you can save his life.

Step 1: Establish Dominance.

“Take your pants off,” you deadpan, already rifling through the cabinet. Orange tip down, blue safety cap off, your fist wrapped around the injector (like a pro!!! You’ve got this!!!)

“I’m sorry?!” His voice breaks halfway, startled and ragged… much like his breathing pattern (or maybe he’s into being bossed around? Not the time.) “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

Oh, fantastic. He doesn’t trust women.

Step 2: Remove Obstacles (Pants).

He doesn’t have time to activate his reflexes, because you’re already unfastening his belt. The buckle clinks. The zip slides down. (Do not give yourself bad ideas. Focus.) You drop to your knees, dragging his slacks down with you. He gulps audibly. You glance up.

“Are you seriously wearing Superman briefs? You go to the FBI every day dressed like that under your suit?”

“Yes, okay?!” He shushes you, flustered (which is rude considering you’re literally saving his life.) “But could you - quiet down a little? I can explain-” he involuntarily hisses as your fingers graze the inside seam.

Step 3: Insert Hero Juice.

Decoy successful.

He’s still sputtering about the Superman underwear - how he only wears them because his six-year-old has the exact same pair, and it’s their thing. A father–son tradition that makes no logical sense (but then, isn’t that the whole point of children?) - matching silly underwear, or “very cool” ones if you ask Jack, to get through the day not taking it too seriously.

(Not that his father has ever been good at that. Exhibit A: look where not choosing his pastry got him.)

You take advantage of the ramble to jab the injector into the upper outer thigh, right at the line of his (very cool!!!) briefs.

No reassuring click yet.

Also, to keep him still, you clamp your other hand around his opposite thigh - eloping him in place - dangerously close to forbidden territory. One inch higher and you’d have a handful of cake. (Pancake, more like… the man is devastatingly flat.)

“Is it in?” you ask, tilting your head up at him.

Sure, you’re no doctor - but you do know this much: being on your knees with one hand basically cupping his ass while driving a needle into his thigh isn’t exactly standard medical practice.

And the way he’s looming above you - with his skin flushed, eyes wide, and breaths shallow and uneven - you’re starting to suspect his hyperventilating isn’t just from the anaphylaxis.

He fumbles, swallows, shakes his head, then finally croaks out, “Um… yes.”

Step 4: The Longest Ten Seconds

Wait. Hold. Count to ten.

In ten seconds he could say nothing, could just breathe and let the medicine do its work. In ten seconds he could thank you, or - God forbid - flirt. Instead, out of the entire emotional buffet available, he serves you the worst dish.

“You didn’t have to take my pants off,” he murmurs, breath catching. “The pen can pierce through… very thick fabric.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me for wanting to actually see what I was doing,” you snap back, which feels defensive but also entirely justified, considering you just saved his life.

“It’s alright,” he says, heartfelt. Which, unfortunately, lands with a subtext you cannot ignore. Oh, yeah, I actually liked you pulling my pants off. Please do it again. Preferably slower next time.

Which is how you both end up marinating in two full seconds of unbearable silence, trading glances, the tension thicker than-

He cracks first. “I-I think we should do something.”

(Wow. Stunning clarity. “Something.” Could mean sex, could mean Scrabble.)

“Sex?” you blurt, because honesty is still the best policy.

He laughs and suddenly your impulsive guess doesn’t sound so insane. “No.” He shakes his head. (How dare he?) “I mean- I wouldn’t be opposed to that. But I was thinking… more of a date.”

And then it hits you: the smile. Rare. Unscripted. A little crooked. Prince Charming in an FBI badge. It detonates something in your chest, leaves you standing there half-kneeling, needle still in hand, absolutely cooked. (Speaking of which… you should probably go rescue the Lover’s Cheesecake from the oven…)

A date. He said a date. A DATE. On Valentine’s Day, while his pants are around his thighs. A DATE???? WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUU-

“I… am not opposed to that either,” you stammer. “Yes.”

Step 5: You’re alone in the staff room, already kneeling between his thighs, one hand on his ass. You are, quite literally, in the ideal position to either suck him off, propose marriage, or skip both and immediately elope - new surname, new city, new life. You’re positive there’s a sitcom about this exact setup. Something about a neurotic, Type-A lawyer and his chaotic, overly earnest free-spirit wife who marry after, like, one date. WHO CARES?! AARON HOTCHNER ASKED YOU OUT ON A DATE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

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