Observation to Obsession
It started with his hands.
Chris reloaded the gun like it was second nature.
No thought, no hesitation.
Safety, chamber, magazine.
Smooth, efficient, inevitable.
Peter noticed.
Of course he did.
He noticed threats. That’s all it was.
Threat assessment.
---
Except later on, when Chris shrugged on his jacket with Peter still watching.
The roll of his shoulders.
The ease of the motion.
Like the jacket wasn’t clothing, just another part of him.
---
The same hands that would strip a weapon down to its bones, would also hold doors open without thinking.
His daughter, strangers, old women in parking lots…it was all automatic.
Peter told himself it was trivial. Useless details.
But yet, he kept cataloguing.
---
Christopher steered a cart one-handed through the grocery store, relaxed but steady.
His thumb smoothed over the list folded in his palm.
Casual strength in something so ordinary.
Coincidence, Peter decided.
He needed groceries too. Everyone needed groceries.
Then he started timing his trips.
Monday mornings, Saturday afternoons, The odd Wednesday.
It was always coincidental.
---
Chris ate like he fought—controlled. Precise.
When salsa dripped, he caught it with his thumb and licked it away without thought.
Nothing special. Peter stared anyway.
---
Chris diced onions with the same rhythm he’d use to field strip a rifle.
No wasted movement, no unshed tears.
When he stretched…shirt riding up, a strip of skin flashed above his belt.
Peter was watching from the window, disgusted with himself.
It was beneath him, but still he watched.
---
Training sessions.
Chris guided Isaac’s grip on a knife, patient voice low and steady.
Teaching violence with the same care others taught piano scales.
Peter sat on the porch with a book he didn’t read.
His attention already claimed.
---
Driving…
One hand sat loose on the wheel, the other rested on his thigh.
His thumb traced patterns into the leather at stoplights.
An unconscious habit.
Peter wondered what else those hands did without thinking.
---
At some point, it stopped being threat assessment.
Stopped being another habit to catalogue.
Peter now looked at those hands and wondered how much control they really held.
And if that same patience would be turned on him.
The thought hit during a pack meeting.
Derek explaining one thing or the other, Chris gestured with his pen.
Peter doesn’t hear a word of anything.
He just tracked the movement of fingers through air and imagines them mapped against skin.
His skin.
Want hit him like a bullet train.
Dangerous. Stupid.
The exact mistake that ruined truces. That got people killed.
But Christopher shifted his grip on the pen and Peter’s pulse jumped.
He was already gone.
---
This wasn’t pure observation anymore.
It wasn’t even curiosity.
This was treading on obsession.
He wanted things he couldn’t have, from a man who’d put a bullet in him if he ever knew.
The smart move would be to distance himself.
But Peter was a moth drawn to a flame.
So, he kept watching. Kept cataloguing. Kept lying to himself.
What he didn’t realize—what obsession blinded him to—was that Christopher saw.
He’d been watching right back...
---
Chris recognized obsession when he saw it.
Knew what it looked like when someone so careful started making careless mistakes.
Peter thought he was subtle, but hunters were trained to spot tells.
The way conversations died when Chris moved his hands.
How Peter appeared in places he shouldn’t be.
The staring that went on just long enough to notice.
Chris could have called him out on it.
Should, probably.
Instead, he found himself moving slower when he knew Peter was watching.
Letting stretches linger.
Taking his time with simple tasks.
If Peter wanted to look, Chris wasn’t going to stop him.
Might even help him along.
Draw it out.
See how long…
Peter could keep pretending, before either of them snapped.
