"Sex is what makes us human" is stupid. Almost every species fucks. Humans are the only species that jumps motorcycles over school buses that are on fire. Some other things too probably
my mind palace is made out of drywall and it is occupied by an angry 16 year old american boy who keeps punching holes into the wall and that is why i dont remember things
sometimes i be saying im gonna go to bed and then i dont go to bed. frequently in fact. this is because i have the heart of an optimist and the soul of a liar
âI asked chatgptââ Iâm gonna stop you right there pal because I asked Penelope Garcia and she said youâre a whiny little bitch loser and weâre all laughing at you <3
synopsis: you learned his silences by heart, translated his distance into hope,
mistook endurance for devotionâuntil loving him began to feel like disappearing.
â° pairings. tsukishima kei x reader
â° genre. angst
â° word count. 615
â° a/n. sorry for highkey ghosting u all WHHAHAHAHA iâve just been real busy with life and school and stuff BUT! to celebrate my comeback, i come bearing tsukishima angst ;P enjoy!
There are some people you love like breathingâeffortless, necessary, suffocating when taken away. And there are people you love like bleedingâslow, painful, and with every drop, you wonder how much more you can lose before you finally break.
Tsukishima Kei was both.
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 youâll 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 thoughtâMaybe if you loved him enough, Maybe if you stayed long enough, he would finally believe he was worth it. And maybeâjust maybeâheâd finally learn how to love you back.
But love isnât always loud. Sometimes, love is quiet in the worst way.
You had been telling him about something that upset youâa 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. âYouâre overreacting again. Seriously, why do you always cry over things like this?â
And there it was. The crack you had been waiting to split. You blinked, once, twiceâas if you could keep the tears from falling if you just didnât move. As if you could freeze the moment before it broke you.
Your voice came out quieter than you meant. âIf it hurts me, shouldnât it matter to you?â
Silence.
âYou said you hate seeing me cry, because you never know what to do, or what to say to calm me downâŚ.â The weight in your throat made the words feel like glass âBut youâre the one who keeps making me cry, every damn time Kei.â
There was no venom in your voice. No sharpness. No anger. Only the soft ache of someone who had been holding the worldâs worth of sadness in their chest for far too long.
Tsukishimaâs eyes flickered, as if the weight of your words finally pierced something inside him. Like he hadnât expected you to say it. Like he hadnât realized how much youâd been carrying.
âIâŚI didnât mean it like that.â 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 toâlike a lifeline. Like a reason to stay. But this time, the ache inside you was louder than the excuse.
You just smiledâsmall, soft, heartbreakingly tired. âI know.â
Because thatâs what hurt the most. He didnât 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, wasnât it? His hands never reached for you.
âWhere are you going?â It came out sharp, almost a demandâlike he didnât know how else to ask you to stay.
You hesitated in the doorway, one last chance waiting between your ribs. âAway from this.â You didnât slam the door. You didnât even raise your voice. Because you didnât 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 youâve finally stopped crying.
Because when you stop crying, it means youâve finally learned to let them go.
am i the only one who lowkey hates when people post tumblr fics on tiktok because then everyone is giving their unsolicited opinion on fanart.
i just saw a tiktok that was like âme after reading the worse fic that everyone over hypesâ and itâs so fucking weird because fanfiction is inherently self indulgent if you want to read something you consider a âmasterpieceâ then write it yourself but sending hate towards to a stranger that WRITES shit for FREE on the internet will always be weird.
then when people delete their blogs everyoneâs so shocked âŚ
you screenshotted a fic posted it on the most POPULAR app in the world and then is surprised when the writer gets upset and leaves
stop harassing writers this is legit the same thing that happened on wattpad!
i hate to sound like a gatekeeper but fandom being exposed to normies is one of the worst things that have happened. not saying people canât join a fandom but itâs opened the door for people who feel comfortable making fun of others for their interestâs!
am i the only one who lowkey hates when people post tumblr fics on tiktok because then everyone is giving their unsolicited opinion on fanart.
i just saw a tiktok that was like âme after reading the worse fic that everyone over hypesâ and itâs so fucking weird because fanfiction is inherently self indulgent if you want to read something you consider a âmasterpieceâ then write it yourself but sending hate towards to a stranger that WRITES shit for FREE on the internet will always be weird.
then when people delete their blogs everyoneâs so shocked âŚ
you screenshotted a fic posted it on the most POPULAR app in the world and then is surprised when the writer gets upset and leaves
stop harassing writers this is legit the same thing that happened on wattpad!
i hate to sound like a gatekeeper but fandom being exposed to normies is one of the worst things that have happened. not saying people canât join a fandom but itâs opened the door for people who feel comfortable making fun of others for their interestâs!
Aaron Hotchner x fleabag!reader
Genre: Mutual pining & Fluff (I know, it feels strange for me too)
Summary: Valentineâs Day is already hell when youâre stuck on shift avoiding your crush on Aaron Hotchner... then he shows up, fills out your cafĂŠâs tacky matchmaking card, and basically confesses. Cute, right? Until has an allergic reaction, and you end up on your knees giving him an EpiPen injection that could very well land him in the ER for⌠entirely different reasons.
Warnings: waaaay too cheesy (idiots in love), a few cuss words here and there, unashamed size kink about Hotchâs hands (sue me), relentless bullying over his lack of ass, Hotch has an allergic reaction (loser), incorrect use of EpiPen, Superman name-drop lovingly dedicated to Dr. Bin Hotchology
Word Count: 4.1k
Dado's Corner: request here!! I couldnât resist cramming in some cheap philosophy within the first 200 words... so enjoy an entirely wrong take on Spinozaâs immanence!! YAYYYY! Still, I put extra love into the graphics this time, so have fun (or donât!) scrolling through them hihi + super special thanks to @sweetheartsocks & @hotchology <3
masterlist
On your bathroom break (doomscrolling Facebook like a responsible adult) you stumble across the nugget that Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza once claimed thereâs a little bit of God in everything.
Sweet sentiment, sure - but the man lived in the 1600s, with quills and endless afternoons to philosophize, not behind the counter of a cafeteria on Valentineâs Day, hemmed in by $9.99 polyester puppies gnawing on plush hearts with their polyester teeth.
(And what next⌠polyester organs? A polyester bloodstream? A polyester soul?)
God is hard to spot when every oven is a ticking bomb: sponge cake pleading for rescue in four minutes, croissants bronzing to perfection in twelve, the so-called Loverâs Cheesecake (just cherry in a tacky Valentineâs disguise, but slap âlimited editionâ on the label and watch the masses worship) demanding release in seventeen.
Meanwhile, the counter seethes - ravenous couples tripping over each other to pay, everything doubled, doubled, doubled - while youâre forced to hand out Valentineâs âget to know meâ cards.
(The rules: fill one out as you order, swap it with whatever stranger in the cafĂŠ makes your loins twitch.)
Apparently flirting is a lost art, so now corporations have to prepackage desire and sell it back to people. Profitable as hell - no oneâs here for coffee and cake, theyâre 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 isnât evaporating into the steam belching from the industrial dishwasher, as if you donât 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 youâre 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, thereâs 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.
Spinozaâs Theory: burned to a crisp.
Or maybe not burned - just torched by distraction.
Because itâs easy to dunk on Spinozaâs 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 arenât exactly helping you pretend otherwise.
The thing is, you and Aaron have undeniable (stupid) sexual chemistry. Youâve tried to avoid each other - it doesnât work. Youâll 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) youâre 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 thatâs 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 youâll have to have the Talkâ˘. 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 manâs 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 youâd keep.
And now youâre 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 doesnât 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.
Youâre absolutely cooked (like the sponge cake in one minute, croissants in nine, Loverâs Cheesecake in fourteen) for him.
And worse, youâre terrified. Terrified he might not feel the same. More terrified he does, and might want to make sense of⌠whatever this is.
Itâs not that you donât want love⌠hell, love is your longest obsession, the thing youâve been starving for since you were old enough to understand what wanting even was.
But wanting it with him feels different.
Heâs 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 youâve 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 isnât about chasing chaos or flinging yourself into the arms of the wrong men for the thrill of the disaster, itâs about the terrifying possibility of something that could actually last.
The cruel joke, though, is that once you peel back the layers, Aaron isnât a safe fantasy at all. Heâs a very troubled man. And yet, that only makes you want him more.
Youâd love to tell yourself thereâs no one else like him, but since the start of your shift youâve mistaken at least six dark-haired men in three-piece suits for him from behind.
Which is ridiculous.
You donât even know why your brain entertained the idea in the first place. Itâs not like heâd be dropping in on Valentineâs Day to check up on you.
Heâs a busy man, for one thing.
And for another - youâre nothing. A distraction, maybe. A bad habit at best. You shouldnât 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 Valentineâs as you do.
Maybe heâs texted, asking if youâre 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 heâs drowning in paperwork, too responsible to even look at his phone.
Maybe heâs found an actual date, someone who wasnât 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 cafĂŠ 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.
Heâs 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.
âWhat can I do for you?â 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.
âHey⌠uh. Hi. Just a Black Americano. No sugar, please.â 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.)
âUm⌠cash or-â
âCard, please.â (Oh, heâs 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 (driverâs 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 didnât notice his clumsiness.
(And indeed, you donât notice⌠youâre too busy staring at his hands.)
Thatâs when he spots the stack of Valentineâs matchmaking cards at the register. His brow furrows, leaning closer to read the tiny print.
âŚRight. Payment. Suspended. You almost forgot that tiny capitalism detail.
âTo place an order, you have to fill-â (âthe barista,â aka you, who now wants to die, preferably at the hands of those thick fingers) â-this cardâŚâ
You canât 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 Valentineâs Day in recorded history.
âYou know there are better ways to harvest peopleâs personal data, right?â 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 heâs busy lecturing you about petty larceny with customer info.)
âScared no one will pick you?â you fire back, already sliding toward the pastry case like the worldâs most reckless hypocrite.
Because itâs Valentineâs Day, youâre a feminist, and if your crush isnât even bringing you flowers, then fine, youâre not bitter. Not at all. In fact, you should totally be the one showering him with freebies.
(Aka âpicking him.â Aka immediately contradicting yourself in deed if not in word. Man⌠Aaron Hotchner canât 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⌠thereâs that hope. That flicker of idiocy whispering that maybe heâll 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. Heâs free to do whatever he wants⌠youâre not together. You have no claim. You shouldnât care. You could do the exact same thing. Totally. Hypothetically. You wonât, obviously. But you could.)
Just for him, you plate a tart youâre 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 youâre ethical even in your hypocrisy).
âYou really donât have to do that,â 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 itâs thanks to you he even gets to play the game at all. Was this the single dumbest move of your life? Quite possibly.)
âNo shit.â You even tuck a cookie into a bag, right there in plain view. Hell, make it two - one for Jack, one for Jackâs infuriatingly handsome father.
He finally decides to shut the fuck up and, with visible reluctance, slides his card into the reader. Youâve 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, youâre 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 youâre forced into a staring contest with the cashier while the bank decides whether or not youâre trustworthy enough for capitalism.
Now multiply that by Aaron Hotchner.
Itâs torture. The eye contact is nuclear, more dangerous than any youâve shared since the first time you locked eyes.
The silence stretches until it feels scripted, like youâve 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, itâs absurdly peaceful - as if the cafĂŠ has collapsed into just you and him - and suddenly all that âyou and me against the worldâ garbage pop songs keep spewing doesnât 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.
âSo can I-â he nods toward the stack of Valentineâs cards.
âYeah⌠sure!â You both step toward it at the same time, him plucking a card, you fishing out a pen from the holder. âHereâs your penâŚâ
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 donât let go. Which makes him glance up at you, puzzled, but not quite calling you on it either.
âJust⌠make sure to give it back when youâre done,â you say, too quickly. âWe donât have that many.â
His hand is warm. You already know itâs warm (especially when itâs wandered to very specific real estate on your body), but today it feels explicitly warm.
Aaron clears his throat. âOf courseâŚâ Still not releasing your hand. Then again, youâre not releasing his either. ââŚYou have my word.â (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. âUm⌠thank you again for the cookies. Jack will be⌠elated.â
âOf courseâŚâ you echo, and yeah, youâre 90% sure youâre drooling.
Which is why youâre ready to murder your coworker for not letting you âtable serviceâ his order - i.e., personally deliver his coffee, hover like a lovesick bat, and snoop on whatever the hell heâs scribbling on that stupid matchmaking card.
Instead, youâre stuck behind the register, watching your FBI crush seat himself at a table for two. And not just any table for two. Heâs 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 canât get it out of your head.
Youâll never be employee of the year if Aaron Hotchner is across the room, smiling at some stranger, talking to him like you donât even exist - on the most romantic day of the year, no less.
Thereâs 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 wouldnât mind sitting on.
The man across from him looks exactly like you feel: rapt, transfixed, probably wondering if heâs 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, youâve learned, for when heâs nervous.
A few minutes pass and heâs doing it too often now, scratching his hand, taking deep breaths. Oh shit. Heâs 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. Whereâs 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 Spinozaâs right and thereâs a little bit of God in everything, then surely He wouldnât 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 heâs right there, mere inches away from you, standing at the cash register.
And heâs 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 doesnât quite cover the skin.
Sweet. Wholesome.
Like maybe you, of all people (against all odds), finally managed to embarrass Aaron Hotchner, and now heâs 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.
âUm,â he clears his throat, shifting, âby any chance were there strawberries in that tart? I might be⌠allergic.â
Strawberry powder.
You donât think. You just grab his hand and tug, steering him through the chaos of the cafĂŠ as he keeps muttering âI have an EpiPen in the carâ (like heâs going to make it that far) and behind the staff-room door.
Itâs almost romantic if you forget the part where his throat might close in six minutes.
Anyways, youâve trained for this. The way he can probably assemble a rifle in under ten seconds - you can save his life.
Step 1: Establish Dominance.
âTake your pants off,â you deadpan, already rifling through the cabinet. Orange tip down, blue safety cap off, your fist wrapped around the injector (like a pro!!! Youâve got this!!!)
âIâm sorry?!â His voice breaks halfway, startled and ragged⌠much like his breathing pattern (or maybe heâs into being bossed around? Not the time.) âDo you even know what youâre doing?â
Oh, fantastic. He doesnât trust women.
Step 2: Remove Obstacles (Pants).
He doesnât have time to activate his reflexes, because youâre 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.
âAre you seriously wearing Superman briefs? You go to the FBI every day dressed like that under your suit?â
âYes, okay?!â He shushes you, flustered (which is rude considering youâre literally saving his life.) âBut could you - quiet down a little? I can explain-â he involuntarily hisses as your fingers graze the inside seam.
Step 3: Insert Hero Juice.
Decoy successful.
Heâs still sputtering about the Superman underwear - how he only wears them because his six-year-old has the exact same pair, and itâs their thing. A fatherâson tradition that makes no logical sense (but then, isnât that the whole point of children?) - matching silly underwear, or âvery coolâ 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 youâd have a handful of cake. (Pancake, more like⌠the man is devastatingly flat.)
âIs it in?â you ask, tilting your head up at him.
Sure, youâre 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 isnât exactly standard medical practice.
And the way heâs looming above you - with his skin flushed, eyes wide, and breaths shallow and uneven - youâre starting to suspect his hyperventilating isnât just from the anaphylaxis.
He fumbles, swallows, shakes his head, then finally croaks out, âUm⌠yes.â
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.
âYou didnât have to take my pants off,â he murmurs, breath catching. âThe pen can pierce through⌠very thick fabric.â
âYeah, well, excuse me for wanting to actually see what I was doing,â you snap back, which feels defensive but also entirely justified, considering you just saved his life.
âItâs alright,â 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. âI-I think we should do something.â
(Wow. Stunning clarity. âSomething.â Could mean sex, could mean Scrabble.)
âSex?â you blurt, because honesty is still the best policy.
He laughs and suddenly your impulsive guess doesnât sound so insane. âNo.â He shakes his head. (How dare he?) âI mean- I wouldnât be opposed to that. But I was thinking⌠more of a date.â
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 Loverâs Cheesecake from the ovenâŚ)
A date. He said a date. A DATE. On Valentineâs Day, while his pants are around his thighs. A DATE???? WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUU-
âI⌠am not opposed to that either,â you stammer. âYes.â
Step 5: Youâre 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. Youâre positive thereâs 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
Aaron Hotchner x fem!prosecutor!reader
Genre: slow burn (you drive him insane and he finds it endearing against his will)
Summary: Your first case as a prosecutor: no solid evidence, three dead women, and a defendant with a flaccid dick and a good lawyer. Enter SSA Hotchner - your secretaryâs favorite fossil, condescending as hell, allegedly a genius. Heâs your key witness and consultant. Unfortunately, he also has really, really nice hands.
Warnings: graphic discussion of murder, serial killer case, some swearing, jokes on lawyers doing cocaine, objectification of Hotchâs ladyfingers, Hotch almost cries, serves full passenger-princess energy, and... allegedly gets bricked up on your sofa.
Word Count: 14k
Dado's Corner: This took an enormous amount of sweat and suffering (sorry for disappearing for like⌠2+ weeks). If itâs boring I will simply pass away. Consider this my first official entry in the 2025 âBring Case Fics Backâ movement because I LOVE case fics with my whole heart!!! Huge thank you to @sweetheartsocks and @hotchology for listening to me whine about this monstrosity <333 requested by yours truly!!
masterlist
Neutralize men who think they know better than you!
A few simple steps to make them see how your dick is bigger than theirs, even if youâre kind of losing it. Mask it! Be more alpha than the alpha male - destroy him!
On todayâs special: how to intimidate a beloved ex-prosecutor who used to sit his skinny buttcheeks on the same chair in your brand-new DA office?
Thinking about it lowkey makes you want to replace the chair - seriously, how many asses have christened that upholstery? Anyway. Itâs not like you actually want to destroy the man.
You couldnât â Bertha, your secretary (who used to work for him), talks about him with such gooey fondness youâd choke if she ever saw the full psychological welfare plan youâve sketched in the margins of your notebook.
Also: inconvenient fact - heâs your key witness and consultant for your first big murder trial. Everyoneâs watching. This goes well, your career keeps breathing. This goes badly, and you may as well hang a sign on the courthouse that says plot twist: rookie prosecutor implodes.
You canât wreck Aaron Hotchner. You can, however, administer very tasteful humiliation.
Stalk - sorry, research. Georgetown Law, summa cum laude, âhighest conviction rate among prosecutors under 35â (office press release: statistics as emotional support). Learn his metrics until you can correct him mid-sentence and watch his neat little kingdom wobble.
Wear a killer outfit (no pun intended) to that murder-trial strategy meeting with the fossil - your job here is to exude confidence, not to blend in. Special-occasion perfume - check. The alarmingly expensive heels that click very loudly on terrazzo tiles- check. Let the tiles announce your arrival.
Master the element of surprise. Position yourself outside the DA steps. Wait for Mr. 92% conviction rate (versus the 84% national average) to arrive, all long-legged nostalgia and hair product. Hide behind a column. Let him pause, look up at the window of his old office - now your office - and smile his little sentimental smile. Spring from your hiding spot, click-clack past his slow, elegant loafers, hold the door like you own the building. Smell him (he smells nice). Note the product in his hair (a lot). Let the moment accumulate.
But then-
You round the corner in full vindictive glide, heel cocked for the final triumphant tap, and your foot finds that one treacherous fleck of terrazzo grease the building has been saving for you.
Time expands so you can regret properly.
You trip. Miserably.
Your briefcase ricochets, pops open, and your files launch into the air like paper petals before the most theatrical sex scene in a cheap rom-com. Bold. Not spontaneous. Impossible to tidy up afterward. And, above all, flagrantly attention-seeking (mission accomplished?).
You land. Spectacularly. Knees, palms, dignity in slow motion.
Aaron Hotchner - thirteen consecutive jury wins, the man the FBI practically begged to recruit (despite the tearjerker version he tells - âit was too late for me as a prosecutorâ - the real story is they did ask; he just prefers the nobler exit line) - drops to his knees immediately without hesitation. Â
First and last time a man will do this for you.
Also: you hear his knees crack. Old man. Ha.
1995 Prosecutor of the Year, D.C. Bar Associationâs golden boy, has one hand on your ankle and the other on your neck - steadying you, guiding your chin up with just his thumb, as if afraid to overstep even while youâre sprawled on the floor.
Respectful. Irritatingly so.
His brows are knit, worry lines carved deep into a face that - letâs be honest - looked significantly less⌠archaeological in the old photo you saw of him last night. Heâs ancient, you decide. And still, that hand remains, swallowing your ankle, thumb tracing the bone lightly, checking if anythingâs dislocated.
âAre you alright?â
You blink up at him, dazed by proximity and humiliation.
âIâm fine. Iâm fine.â You scramble up too fast, knees wobbling. He catches you anyway - one hand at the small of your back, gently straightening you. âDonât worry, really, Iâm fine.â
He doesnât look convinced. He stays there a second too long, brow furrowed, then murmurs, almost apologetically, âStay here. Let me help.â
Heâs already moving before you can stop him - gathering your fallen briefcase and the blizzard of papers you just redecorated the staircase with.
You meet him halfway - because, honestly, you still have scraps of pride left - but he shoots you a look that clearly says I told you to stay put and has the good sense not to actually say it out loud (suck it).
Your fingers brush in the handoff. Great. Itâs embarrassingly cinematic. Not at all the commanding entrance you rehearsed.
âI hope they werenât alphabetized,â he says flatly. A joke from the fossil. (You think.) âA peculiar way to meet, Counselor.â
He offers his hand. You canât tell if heâs smiling or just lifting his brows to keep assessing you like a potential concussion case.
âYou donât say, Agent.â You take his hand, firm grip. Confidence is theatre. Unfortunately, his hand is enormous, and the scene is not going to plan.
âHot-â
âHotchner. I know who you are.â (And yet heâs still holding your hand. Why is he still holding your hand?)
âAre you sure youâre alright, Counselor?â
Youâre not going to survive this day.
You clear your throat, pivot, and march for the door - the door where, in the original script, introductions were supposed to happen gracefully inside. Fine. Adapt. You hold it open for him anyway.
âCan we just get this started?â
He steps past you, faint smile tugging at his mouth. âLead the way.â
So much for dazzling him with efficiency.
âShall we take the elevator?â he adds, tone suspiciously mild.
Is he humoring you?!
You owe Bertha twenty bucks.
She bet that Mr. Hotchner would ask you to perform your opening statement within five minutes of his arrival.
You tried to delay it. You threw everything at the wall: the usual pleasantries, a weather complaint, traffic from Quantico (terrible, right?), the possibility of replacing the office chairs (âI was thinking burgundy leather instead of this depressing black?â), even the offer of tea - or whiskey, though Bertha swore up and down he never touched alcohol in the five years she worked for him.
People change.
Apparently, everyone changes. Except Aaron Probably-Has-A-Middle-Name-No-One-Knows Hotchner. (Bertha probably knows. Youâre not risking another twenty to find out.)
âWhy donât we prepare the questions for your direct examination now that weâre here?â you suggest. Itâs too late to win the bet, but still - youâd rather judge his methods before he judges yours.
He looks up from his notes. âThatâs premature. The opening statement sets the framework we have to maintain through the trial. I need to hear your version of it first. The jury has to be oriented before theyâre persuaded.â
No shit.
He continues, undeterred. âEverything that follows - the direct, the cross, the closing - has to reinforce that first impression. You build the argument from the general to the specific. Deductive structure.â
âWith all due respect,â shut the fuck up, âthatâs not going to help us here. All weâve got are circumstantial and partial evidence to indict the bastard-â his brow furrows the second you swear, adorable âand you know better than I do that the profile, however solid, isnât admissible. Itâs a tool, not evidence. Thereâs no single piece of forensics that seals this. The profile is the case, but itâs off-limits. So we start from what we have - the particular - to build up to the general. Inductive strategy.â
He looks like heâs rewiring - must be hard when no oneâs licking your boots or parroting your every sanctimonious syllable like they did back at the FBI. Sure, heâs stacked with awards, but you suspect heâs also stacked with bullshit.
âInduction doesnât hold up well,â he says evenly, ânot with a jury that comes in looking for reasonable doubt. Take it from experience.â
You narrow your eyes. âWhy do I feel like youâre implying I lack experience?â
He doesnât answer - which is smart of him, because that wouldâve earned him a slap. Instead, he exhales through his nose, slow. Youâre starting to lose patience.
âYouâre passionate about this,â he says, which in Hotch-to-English translates to: youâre impulsive because itâs your first case as a DA, and Iâm calm because Iâve been devouring trial wins for breakfast since Hammurabi wrote the first criminal code.
He keeps going before you can bite back. âThatâs good. Passionâs what separates someone who cares from someone who just clocks hours.â His gaze flicks over your face, then back down to the file in his hands. âIâm not questioning your competence. Youâve earned the chair. Youâve earned this case. Youâre here. And Iâve read the transcripts of your prior cases - I know what you can do when the odds are worse than this.â
You hate how that makes you feel. Warm. Seen. Complimented by a fossil. Gross.
âThose transcripts are classified,â you joke. Kind of. Mostly youâre just trying to hide the fact that he intimidates the hell out of you.
He raises an eyebrow, deadpan. âNot from me.â
You roll your eyes. How he likes being special. God forbid Aaron Hotchner be left out of a classified loop. He probably has clearance to your diary. Your rabid, feral crush on 1980s Tom Selleck? Absolutely compromised.
Heâs looking at you like heâs already read the footnotes on how much youâre attracted to his body hair and those slutty little booty shorts he used to wear in the â80s (when is fashion bringing those back??)
âWeâre on the same side, Counselor,â he says, quieter, eyes holding yours a second too long. You feel warm. âTrust goes both ways.â
For once, youâve got nothing. Which is a pretty damning look for someone whose entire job revolves around always having something to say.
So you clear your throat. âMy opening statementâs on page twenty-four, by the way.â
âI know,â he says. âIâve read it.â
He must be joking.
â...And?â
âItâs good,â he says simply. Then, after a beat: âActually, itâs perfect.â
Definitely joking. âYouâre kidding.â
So all that stupid-ass deductive strategy talk was just to test how easily you could be swayed? Really? You are supposed to be the one doing the psychological warfare here, not him.
âIâm serious. I donât say that often,â he adds.                   Â
This man confuses you.
âWell⌠um. Thrilled to know Iâve passed the Hotchner Bar of Perfection?â
His mouth twitches. âLetâs not get carried away.â
(???)
âAlright⌠so. Back to⌠us.â (Us? Okay, wow. Excellent start. Very professional. Very you.)
Hotchâs expression doesnât move an inch. Maybe his left brow tightens half a millimeter. Maybe you hallucinated that.
You clear your throat. âYou know the fucker- uh, the defense attorney-â
A faint exhale through his nose. Oh. That must mean he thinks youâre hilarious.
âDennis,â he says, dry. (You are not as hilarious as you thought.)
Travis Dennis - divorced loser (well⌠so is Agent Hotchner, so letâs not throw stones). Roughly Hotchnerâs age, which is either a cosmic joke or a warning sign from the universe.
And⌠he reeks. Not because he doesnât shower, but because he willingly marinates himself in the most aggressively masculine colognes known to humankind. Eau de Midlife Crisis. Just thinking about it makes your sinuses file a complaint.
âHe filed notice that Lairdâ - ergo, the alleged homicidal bastard, though youâre saving your premium insults for later - âintends to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Which means - lucky us,â lucky us your ass âwe get to host the full psychological circus. Evaluations, experts, Freudian juggling acts, the whole carnival.â
Hotchner nods once. âThat was expected.â
BOOOOOOOO. Seriously? Not even a smirk? You drop some of your best material and this man responds like a fax machine. Why is he only capable of showing signs of life when youâre actively face-planting in front of him?
âRight. And naturally, our friend decided to make it even messier. Had his client evaluated for dissociative amnesia, psychogenic memory gaps⌠basically every buzzword he could pull from Psychology Today. They even did one of those fancy neuro tests.â
Hotchner nods once. âYou mean a P300 recognition paradigm. Event-related potentials. EEG.â
âYeah, that,â you sigh. âThe beeping light show.â
He looks mildly unimpressed.
You roll your eyes. Wow. He really wants you to say the full technical term like a good little jurist, doesnât he? Canât he read the diploma on the damn wall?
You got into Harvard. Meanwhile, Prosecutor of the Year 1995 crawled out of the academic backwoods of Georgetown Law.
Please.
âYes, yes, I know what itâs called, Harris.â No reaction. Okay, maybe his second name is not Harris. âFine. State v. Harrington, 2005. EEG-based memory detection admissible under Rule 702, examiner qualification required, probative value has to outweigh prejudice, Frye and Daubert still apply, blah blah, Iâve read more than one case file in my life. I call it the beeping light show because itâs less boring than your Bureau bedtime stories. Can we move on, or do you want me to cite the Federal Reporter too?â
He raises an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth tugging up just enough to register on a seismograph. Is that a smirk? Aaron Benedict (???) Hotchner, Esq., cracking under the pressure of your brilliance? Someone alert the historical societies.
âGreat. So.â You clap your hands once. âThey hooked him up to the machine, flashed a few crime-scene photos, and â shockingly - nothing. But then they show him a picture of Mommyâs grave and suddenly itâs Times Square up there.â
That finally earns you some proper eye contact. And itâs a look.
âThat doesnât help you. It reinforces the amnesia narrative. The defense will use it to claim heâs detached from the crimes and emotionally fixated on grief, not violence.â
No shit. Pt.2
âI know,â you say, shrugging. âThatâs why itâs not going in.â
âYouâre excluding it?â
âTechnically, Iâm letting the rules exclude it.â You sit back. OOOOOH, he has no idea whatâs coming, âI suggested to the judge that if the court were feeling generous and decided to admit the tests, both sides should meet a strict filing window for full disclosure of data and expert methodology.â
Hotchner waits. You can see him catching up. âYou mean-â
âI mean,â you cut in, âI made sure that window happened to overlap with Super Bowl weekend. Dennis is a rabid fan. I couldâve walked into his office with a chainsaw and he wouldnât have noticed if it wasnât playing on ESPN. I knew heâd blow the deadline, or at least screw the paperwork. I even highlighted the clause for him, in yellow. You canât say Iâm not collegial.â
You smirk, basking in your own villainy.
Agent Hotchner folds his hands. âYou realize most prosecutors donât build their cases around the opposing counselâs calendar habits.â
(And there it is. Ever the party-pooper. God forbid you have fun while obliterating a manâs career.)
âI followed procedure,â you say sweetly. âHeâs the one who thought commas were optional in legal filings. Judge struck the neuro evidence on Tuesday morning. Poof. Gone. Officially too unreliable, unofficially too late.â How you love rocket dockets. They never fail you. Unlike men.
A pause. His gaze lingers on you. (Do you have something on your face?) âYou planned it.â
You grin. âMaybe.â
He exhales again, surrendered, and glances back at the file. âYouâre aware thatâs manipulative.â
âManipulative?â you feign offense, hand to your chest. âPlease. Timely. Thereâs a difference. This is what happens when a man loves balls more than his job.â
And thatâs when he actually laughs. Just once - much higher-pitched than his usual voice, and way too loud. You have to admit itâs very contagious.
âThat was ballsy,â he says after a beat, deadpan, eyes still on the page like he didnât just deliver the worst joke of the century.
You stare at him. He keeps reading. Silence.
Then, after a few seconds, he looks up - subtly, expectantly - checking if you caught it. Oh, you caught it. It was just bad, Agent. So fucking lame.
And heâs so proud of it. That tiny smirk creeps up again, like heâs waiting for applause. You hold firm. He stares harder.
You finally crack, a laugh bursting out of you despite yourself - not at the joke, but at his absolute commitment to defending it.
Fucking loser.
Besides whatever anyone claims about ânot judging a book by its cover,â everyone does. You could spiral into a thesis on the sociocultural implications of that phenomenon, but right now, the only thing that matters is that a trial is a performance.
Especially when itâs televised, the press is drooling over every frame, and the defendant - Evan Laird, alleged murderer (whatever, confirmed motherfucker, youâre not buying the PR) - has somehow amassed a fan club of shrieking apologists both outside and inside the courthouse. Itâs nauseating.
To counteract that circus - to stop the media from cuddling up to the bastard whoâs single-handedly spiking newsstand sales 500% - you need control of the optics. You need coherence, look strong, confident, and yes, good-looking for the inevitable prestige drama Hollywood will crank out about this in twenty years (or five, Dahmer-style.)
Which, unfortunately, is hard to pull off when your co-counsel is a six-foot federal agent whose entire wardrobe screams funeral home catalogue.
To his great⌠surprise (letâs go with surprise), Agent Hotchner receives a text from you that morning. A wonderful text. Truly, itâs the kind of thing that must make his day.
âWeâre matching today.â
And before he can even process what that means, a second text arrives:
Wear burgundy.
 It brings out the color of your eyes. Youâre welcome :)
Then, immediately-
Iâll pick you up at 8. Be ready.
He stares at his phone for a full thirty seconds. Technically, yes, you live on his route to the courthouse, but that hardly explains why youâve decided to chauffeur him.
Still, if six days of trial prep have taught him anything, itâs that the path of least resistance is usually the one where he just lets you do whatever it is youâre doing. Trust her and donât ask questions. Thatâs the lesson.
That doesnât stop him from muttering under his breath as he stares into his closet. He wishes youâd at least consulted him - or, better yet, picked navy. He was already wearing navy. His eyes looked perfectly fine in navy.
But no. Burgundy.
Burgundy means dismantling his entire morning routine and rebuilding it from scratch.
Would a burgundy tie and socks (safely hidden beneath his slacks) satisfy your mysterious aesthetic vision, or does he need to escalate his commitment? Should he be rifling through his underwear drawer for something that meets your newly instituted color-scheme policy?
Maybe the cufflinks. Just to be safe.
Heâs not naĂŻve enough to rule out the possibility that youâd actually storm into his apartment and assemble the outfit yourself if he failed to meet your (letâs be honest) very modest expectations. The thought makes him chuckle under his breath.
Captivated? No. Not the right word. It just⌠pulls a smile out of him. A small one. Against his better judgment.
The pattern repeats itself the moment he hears your car before he sees it. Hard not to: the bassline hits from half a block away.
You roll to a stop directly in front of the building entrance. You canât park there. (The signs say so in at least three languages.) Youâre lucky heâs already outside - any longer, and the tenantsâ group chat wouldâve exploded with âWHO IS SHE AND WHY IS SHE BLARING BRITNEY?â
The window slides down. You lean out, sunglasses, smirk. He is terrified.
âGet in, loser. Weâre going shopping.â
He blinks. Stares. Processing.
You sigh. Of course. Heâs not going to get the Mean Girls reference. He just stands there, holding his briefcase, wondering what part of this qualifies as an appropriate mode of transportation to federal court.
You tap the steering wheel. âWeâre going to the courthouse, Hotchner. Try to keep up with the cultural touchstones next time.â
He adjusts his tie, sighs, and climbs in. Under his breath - barely audible over the bassline - you catch something that sounds suspiciously like, âYouâre going to be the death of me.â
Perfect. Thatâs exactly the energy youâre going for.
âYou ready to fry the motherfucker?â you ask, grinning. (Allegedly.)
He shoots you a look, then glances at the dashboard - where your music is blaring with the delicate subtlety of an air raid siren. Rihanna (heâs fairly sure thatâs who it is - not that he listens to anything so relentlessly upbeat on his commute; his playlist consists of real music. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, for instance: a profound Beatles ballad about Desmond and Molly who⌠get married and open a bar. Now thatâs lyricism.) is currently pleading please donât stop the music (music, music, music, music).
And because heâs both a gentleman and, at this point, a hostage, he politely honors her request - raising his voice just to be heard.
âIs this-â he gestures vaguely at the speakers, â-your pre-trial ritual? Or should I assume this is a recent development?â
âOh no,â you say, smiling sweetly, âback in corporate law we just did cocaine.â
His jaw tightens. âIâll assume thatâs a joke.â
You shrug. âYou can assume whatever helps you sleep at night, Agent.â
He exhales through his nose, looks out the window. âItâs too early for this.â
(Itâs too early, in general.)
Inside the courtroom, itâs just you and him. Perks of arriving inhumanely in advance - at least that, you agree on.
Excitement thrums in your bones with every click of your heels down the aisle. You find yourself wanting to whisper. Everything you do feels too loud, the echo of your steps almost inappropriate. In an hour, itâll be chaos. For now, itâs sacred.
You breathe in. Breathe out.
The case folders glow too bright against the old oak table; your reflection in the polished wood looks new, too new, against all this history. Good thing thereâs a fossil sitting beside you to balance the composition.
The morning light hits him square in the face, turning his eyes the same honeyed tone as the wood around you. He fits here perfectly, like he never left. (And, annoyingly, you were right, the burgundy does bring out his eyes.)
He looks exactly the same and somehow completely different.
You feel his hand on your shoulder. âYouâre going to do great. Trust me.â Itâs gone as softly and swiftly as it came.
You wonder if he misses all of this.
If someone asked what a hotshot lawyer like you thinks while delivering the opening statement of the century, youâd have to admit: itâs not the jury. Not the defense. Not even the perfectly rehearsed crescendo you spent three nights memorizing.
Itâs five minutes earlier - when you told Aaron Hotchner to take notes on everyone. The judge. The jury. The stinky man. The bastard who canât get it hard. Especially the stinky man.
All very professional - until Agent Hotchner replied, âYes, maâam.â
Youâve been replaying it ever since. Maâam. Not Miss. Really? Are you supposed to remind him of your birth year again?
Though, to be fair, he probably said it to sound respectful - to emphasize your authority. Sweet. Or maybe heâs just one of those men who secretly likes being second-in-command. After all, when you spend your days commanding a federal unit, maybe itâs a relief to take orders for once. Maybe he likes being told what his place is.
Well. No time to unpack that particular Freudian suitcase.
The gavel drops. Court adjourned. The courtroom drains of people, Dennisâ aquatic nightmare of a cologne finally fades, and your nostrils rejoice - even as the echo of your own voice still lingers in the rafters.
He starts gathering your files and placing them in the briefcase in the exact order you put them this morning without you ever asked him to do so âYou did well.â He says softly.
Heâs way too caring for being an ex-lawyer. they usually donât give a shit, he gives a shit enough to tell you you did well instead of great like he reassured you before everything started. You havenât missed it!
âWell? Thatâs it? I was going for transcendental.â
âThe jury liked you,â he says, ignoring the bait. âThey followed you. Thatâs not common on day one.â
You tilt your head. âFollowed me?â
âJurors five, seven, and ten,â he clarifies. âThey were watching you when Dennis spoke. That means they trust your read on him.â
You grin, a little smug. âSo, theyâre on our side?â
He hesitates. âMostly. They drank up his opening statement⌠he played the humanist angle well. But after the detective described the wounds, you pulled them back. They mirrored you. Nodded when you did. Percentage-wise? Maybe sixty-forty, leaning our way now.â
You whistle low. âSixty-forty, huh? Iâll take those odds. Not bad for a first day.â
âItâll shift again tomorrow. It always does.â
âEver the optimist, Agent Hotchner.â
He glances sideways, almost smiling. âIâm a realist.â
âWell, Mr. Realist, if I keep swinging at this rate, weâll hit eighty-twenty by Friday.â
âThat is way too ambitious, Counsel.â
STFU! Instead of worrying about sounding like a dick to you, he should worry about reading the two books you recommended on how to be likable before he even dares step foot in your courtroom again and torpedoes his own examination.
STATE v. EVAN LAIRD - TRIAL RECORD, VOL. II
pp. 162â167
Excerpt: DIRECT EXAMINATION OF SSA AARON HOTCHNER
(as conducted by the best prosecutor who has ever walked this earth in four-inch heels)
Before the record even begins, the court reporter really should have included the following factual corrections:
Counsel for the State (yours truly) entered the courtroom looking like a goddess.
The defense looked like a damp sock.
The jury was already half in love with you before you opened your mouth.
Agent Hotchner looked⌠well. Like that. In a suit. Under oath. Jury already half in love with him too.
But sadly, the stenographer cannot annotate âCounsel is 100% winning this trial on sheer charisma and the power of a burgundy heel alone,â so the official transcript begins instead - quite drably - with:
The transcript, of course, does not capture:
the way Agent Hotchner kept looking at you like you personally hung the moon over the witness stand (equal parts jealous of your brilliance and quietly, infuriatingly proud),
the fact that you knew youâd already won by page 163,
or how Dennis visibly aged three to five business years between pp. 165â167.
But thatâs alright.
History will.
And if not, Hollywood definitely will... youâre not losing hope.
One of the first things you learn in a male-dominated field is that emotion is a liability. Emotion makes you irrational. Emotion shuts down critical thinking. Emotion is exactly what youâre not paid to bring into the courtroom.
You can care, sure, but only in the way a surgeon cares: distantly, cleanly, without blood on the cuffs. Never take anything too much to heart. Never let anything slip under the ribcage.
Youâre supposed to represent the State, whatever the hell that means - an actor delivering lines that belong to an institution convincingly enough so no one sees the person underneath.
Which is why you should not be feeling what youâre feeling right now.
 âAgent Hotchner, you testified on direct that youâre an expert in behavioral analysis. Correct?â Stinky Man (Harvard Lawâs single greatest waste of tuition, oxygen, and institutional reputation) asks. Oh. Sorry. Attorney Travis Dennis.
âYes.â
âAnd behavioral analysis - unlike DNA or fingerprints - is not physical evidence, is it?â (No, but your mom is. Nice Star Wars sheets, by the way. And there goes your feminist card, straight into the shredder.)
âItâs not physical in the same way, no.â
âSo itâs not measurable. Not testable. Not something you can put under a microscope.â
âItâs measurable in the sense that itâs tied to observable behavior and established patterns-â
Dennis slices the air with a hand, cutting him off. âBut you canât bag and tag it, can you?â (Well, maybe your dad shouldâve bagged his dick, Dennis, but here we are.)
Hotchner pauses. âNo.â
âAgent Hotchner,â Dennis continues, stepping deliberately into your sightline, blocking your view of your witness and the only pair of eyes in this room that make you feel even remotely anchored, âbehavioral analysis is just your interpretation of what crime scene behavior means. Fair?â
Your jaw tightens. Helpless. You feel helpless - and not because Agent Hotchner is struggling. He isnât.
Youâve rehearsed this exact exchange with him until you could both recite it backward in your sleep. This tactic was more predictable than Dennisâ cologne. Heâs reading from the script you outlined, every line exactly where you expected it.
Itâs studied. Itâs foreseen. Itâs controlled. And yet-
âItâs an interpretation drawn from evidence, yes,â Hotchner says, steady, measured, composed. Everything you wish you could be while your pulse tries to batter its way out of your wrist.
âNot from facts,â Dennis snaps back. âFrom meaning.â
âItâs based on facts. Patterns of behavior are facts.â
âBut you canât show this jury a single photograph, a single document, that proves your interpretation is correct, can you?â Dennis counters, leaning in.
âI can explain why itâs consistent with known patterns-â
âThatâs a no,â Dennis pounces, cutting him off. (You hope he accidentally uses industrial-grade sanding paper instead of toilet paper tonight.) âBecause you also told us the earrings were taken as trophies, Agent. Letâs go through the evidence. Did law enforcement ever recover a jewelry box containing the victimsâ earrings?â
âNo.â
âDid you find a single earring belonging definitively to any of the three victims in my clientâs possession?â
âNo.â
âAny photographs of the earrings in his apartment? Hidden compartment? Safe?â
âNo.â
âSo,â Dennis says brightly, âthis entire âtrophyâ claim is based on what you think happened, not on anything you actually found.â
âItâs based on the consistency of the behavior across the scenes,â Hotch replies evenly. âThree victims, three missing pairs of earrings, nothing else disturbed-â
âAnd thatâs your interpretation.â Dennis snaps, talking over him.
Your body moves before your brain even clocks the impulse. Youâre on your feet. âObjection. Asked and answered.â
Hotchnerâs head snaps toward you instantly - like heâd been waiting for you to do exactly that. His mouth twitches. Just the ghost of a smile, the kind only youâd recognize after weeks of working with this man, watching the micro-expressions he pretends are figments of your imagination.
(And after finally persuading him to rotate in a navy tie because studies âsuggest it builds trust.â He called it bullshit - no, excuse you, pseudoscience - but you know what else is a pseudoscience? Behavioral analysis. And yet he still wears the navy. And still matches you. Very curious.)
The judge doesnât even hesitate. âSustained. Move on, Mr. Dennis.â (SUCK IT, DENNIS!!!)
Dennis gives a little bow, theatrically chastened. You fantasize about frisbee-launching your legal pad directly at his massive forehead.
âAgent Hotchner,â he resumes âcan you point, here and now, to a single piece of physical evidence that directly links my client to these murders?â (Your mom, Dennis. Your client would absolutely rail your mom.)
âWe have partial prints and fibres consistent with-â
Dennis pounces. âConsistent with. Not unique to. So: no weapon with his DNA. No blood in his car. No security footage showing him at the scene. Correct?â
âThatâs correct,â Hotchner says.
âAnd what you offer this jury instead,â Dennis continues, âis a story. A compelling story; Iâll give you that. But a story.â
Your fingers curl inward so hard your nails dig half-moons into your palm. âObjection, argumentative.â
The judge lets him have this one. âOverruled. The witness can answer.â
Agent Hotchnerâs eyes narrow - barely, but enough to make the hairs on your arms stand at attention. âWhat Iâve given this jury is an analysis of behaviour grounded in decades of data on similar offenders. Theyâre free to weigh that against the physical evidence.â (Your dick is hard. Heâs so competent, so soft-spoken-)
âOf course⌠and they should,â he says, with that oily courtroom swagger that makes you wish homicide were legal in limited circumstances. He strolls in a slow semicircle, resting one elbow casually on the jury railing.
Overconfident. Loud red flag. Your stomach flips. Instinctively your eyes dart toward Hotchner.
Heâs already looking at you. He gives the smallest nod. A barely-there Iâve got it. His eyes look very soft and rounded.
âAgent Hotchner,â he begins, âisnât it true that under your leadership, the BAU has been involved in several⌠controversies?â
âObjection,â you fire. âRelevance.â
âGoes to credibility,â Dennis counters.
The judge hesitates, then: âOverruled. Keep it brief, Mr. Dennis.â
Dennis beams like he expected that answer. He turns fully to the jury, ready to perform. âOne of your longest-standing members, Jason Gideon,â he says, tapping his butt-chin, ârecently left the unit under⌠whatâs the word?â
He pretends to think. He absolutely does not need to pretend. âOh yes. Scandalous circumstances.â
âAfter your case in Flagstaff, Arizona,â he continues sweetly (disgusting), âwhere - correct me if Iâm wrong - a college student took her own life because of the Behavioral Analysis Unitâs poor decisions.â
Hotch doesnât move. But you see it, just the faintest tightening at the jaw.
âAnd wasnât this same agent - Mr. Gideon - readmitted into the BAU only a few months after the Boston incident?â Dennis goes on. âThe one that left him - how shall we say this gently? - mentally compromised?â
Youâre already halfway out of your chair. âObjection - prejudicial, inflammatory, unrelated-â
Dennis lifts a finger at the judge, not even looking at you. (He is a dead man.) âAlmost done, Your Honor.â He pivots back to Hotchner. âAnd wasnât it you, Agent Hotchner, who personally signed the authorization for his return?â
Hotch sits perfectly still - but something in him fades. Knowing him, you can tell he still loses sleep over this because he canât help but blame himself. You pray he doesnât give Dennis the satisfaction of watching him bleed.
âYes.â Hotchner replies, softer than before. The parasiteâs smile blooms. (Cockroach. Absolute cockroach.)
âAnd before that,â Dennis continues, strolling lazily as if he owns the room, âwerenât there rumors of an internal inquiry into drug use in your unit? And wasnât another agent suspected of killing a suspect during an FBI operation?â
Oh for fuckâs sake.
âObjection,â you bark. âSpeculation, no evidentiary basis, zero relevance to Mr. Laird - and unless this courtroom has suddenly started offering salon services to accommodate counselâs passion for gossip, Mr. Dennis, would you like a perm? Highlights? A keratin treatment? Perhaps a volumizing mousse?â
A ripple of laughter rolls through the jury⌠see? This is funny because Dennis is bald.
âSustained,â the judge sighs - very pointedly avoiding eye contact with you, presumably to hide the half-smirk tugging at his mouth (GOTCHA!) âCounsel, letâs dial back the metaphors. And Mr. Dennis - get to the point. Stop wasting my time.â (OOOOOOF! SUCK IT DENNIIIIIIIS!!)
Dennis nods with that performatively respectful little bow that makes your left eyelid twitch. Bootlicking Maximus. âOf course, Your Honor. Agent Hotchner⌠isnât it true that, during the time these homicides occurred, you were going through a divorce?â
He fires it off so fast you barely inhale before-
âMy personal life has no bearing on my expertise or the truth of my testimony.â But his voice breaks in a way youâve never heard from him.
And it guts you. The question blindsided you so completely you didnât even get a chance to object, and now heâs left standing there, exposed, forced to answer something he never should have had to touch.
Alone. On the stand.
You hate yourself. Fully, viscerally. You want to sink into the floor or rewind the clock or throw a chair - anything but sit there while he takes this hit because you didnât open your mouth fast enough.
He curls his left hand into a fist, his thumb stroking along the side of his index finger. Your gaze cradles up, catching the sudden shine in his eyes. He doesnât blink, holding them wide open as if refusing to let anything spill down his cheek.
You are apoplectic.
Dennis smirks. âNo further questions, Your Honor.â
You want to⌠hug Agent Hotchner?!
Court adjourned. You keep your face neutral - your best ânothing to see here, folksâ mask - but your chest is doing that awful molten thing, like your sternum is turning into warm pudding against your will.
âŚWhatever that means.
Probably nothing good.
Your name and loser suddenly rhyme in your head, which is just fantastic, but you refuse to let even a single atom of humiliation surface. Not here. Not in this oxygen-deprived gladiator pit.
Do not crumble. Do not let your eye twitch. Do not let your soul drip out your ears. Just glide toward the double doors, look ethereal, and get the hell out before anyone notices-
But Hotchner reaches them first, holds one open for you, already wearing that bittersweet, worried look of his.
âIâm sorry,â he murmurs, impossibly gentle for a man who just got carved up on the stand.
âItâs not your fault, Nicholas,â you snap, slicing through the hallway without breaking stride. (You only call him that to punish him. He does not deserve punishment right now, but if you suddenly stopped calling him that, heâd notice. And consistency is the backbone of all effective psychological warfare.)
âWe planned for that stunt. We knew the bastard would try itâŚâ You canât even bring yourself to look at him. Just click. clack. click. clack. Your heels are practically sprinting.
His longer stride easily keeps pace, never falling a step behind. Of course. Even his gait is supportive.
âI can tell youâre upset,â low enough that it hits the side of your neck more than your ear. You feel shivers down your spine.
âNot with you.â You wave a hand, still walking. âYou did great. I just⌠I wish I couldâve-â
âYou did everything you could,â he cuts in. âYou saved it more than I thought was possible. Donât blame yourself.â
Talking strategy with him as you walk side by side isâŚ
Shit. (fig.)
Itâs one of those Law & Order scenes where the hotshot lawyers stride in sync down a hallway, spitting out legal jargon no actual lawyer would use, clearly written by someone whose only knowledge of jurisprudence comes from a crossword puzzle. But fine. Youâll allow it.
Because the point isnât the law. Itâs the tension. The proximity.
Your arms nearly brushing. Your heels clicking in time with his longer stride. The sexual undertow of two extremely repressed professionals walking two inches apart even though there is an entire corridor available.
And you keep noticing his eyes - those tortured, warm brown eyes that look like theyâre holding a centuryâs worth of moral dilemmas. As if he tucks them into the inside pocket of his suit jacket every morning, right next to his ballpoint pen and that M5 Kraft-paper notebook he only pulls out when heâs about to dismantle someoneâs soul.
There has to be something behind them. Or maybe itâs just the fact that he definitely owns prescription glasses and refuses to wear them because of his superiority complex. Most probably the man canât see shit, and thatâs why heâs looking at you like that.
âIâll review the file on Hudson tonight,â you say finally - meaning the surprise witness Dennis yanked out of his asshole (sorry, out of the cylinder) to magically âconfirmâ Lairdâs shapeshifting alibi for the murder of forty-one-year-old Evelyn Rourke.
Itâs a problem. A big one. The kind of wound the defense will pour salt into until the jury starts bleeding doubt.
You hate it. Especially since during BAU interrogation Laird said heâd been grading papers in his office - which would explain his car being parked near Evelyn Rourkeâs home - except⌠no papers were due. No assignments were collected. No class had even taken place.
Hard to grade when the course management system shows absolutely zero student activity, you mother- prick. Liar.
âAllow me to help you,â Hotchner says, meeting your eyes with this steady, infuriating sincerity that hits harder than it should.
It takes you a beat to recalibrate - to remember how to move your mouth. âItâs been a long day for you. You should rest.â
âI can handle it.â He pauses, mouth parting just slightly⌠just a tiny, unguarded breath.. âAnd⌠if anyone should rest, itâs you.â Heâs smirking. Boyishly. No grown man with a clearance level that high should be allowed to smirk boyishly.
âPlease, I could uncover someoneâs dirt to blackmail them with my eyes closed.â
His eyebrow lifts. âSo thatâs what you did in corporate law?â
You roll your eyes, but the smile ruins any hope of sounding intimidating. Whatever. He deserves the attitude tax.
You know what else you did back in corporate law? Worked overtime waiting for a breakthrough.
Back in the golden days, overstaying even one minute past your billable hours practically bought you a yacht. (Youâre joking.)
Now the only thing you earn is the privilege of foreseeing a very constipated (allegedly) FBI Special Agent cross the threshold into what, in hindsight, you absolutely could have tricked him into believing was a no-shoes apartment.
You could have stayed at your office to keep working, but unfortunately â tragically - the building closes at midnight. Such a shame. Heartbreaking. The terrible, terrible curse of public service: being forced to take your work home.
And if that means âhomeâ just so happens to include Aaron Whatever-His-Middle-Name-Is Hotchner standing in your apartment at eleven forty-three p.m. for what is definitely going to be an all-nighter of digging up dirt on Caleb Hudson? Well.
Thatâs simply circumstance.
Horrible, unavoidable, wildly inconvenient circumstance. Fate. Destiny. Bureaucratic sabotage. The universe has its little jokes.
âDo you need something?â you ask, watching him linger awkwardly by the door.
First time Mr. 1995 Prosecutor of the Year has stepped into someone elseâs home for work, apparently. (Work and work-only purposes.)
âWater? Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?â
âIâm fine, thanks.â he says, fumbling a little as his gaze drifts over the space - hopefully taking in the very expensive, very real granite countertops you bought after years of soul-sucking private practice in New York. (Take that, Mr. Record Breaker.)
âWhere should we settle?â he asks.
Heâs eyeing the sofa. His tired, disciplined, possibly arthritic ass clearly yearns for the sofa. (Oh, no!) And what kind of monster would deny him a guest that? Not you. Youâre civilized. (Arguably.)
And sure - sitting beside him would be perfectly logical for case discussion, strategic alignment, professional synergy⌠and absolutely nothing else. Even though it is, admittedly, an eccentric choice of seating for two people whose jobs technically involve ethics trainings.
But this is his decision. His comfort. You are merely thrilled - overjoyed - that he cares for his spineâs longevity, so he can continue serving this great nation in tailored suits and questionable emotional repression.
Your enthusiasm has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the idea of him settling within accidental-elbow-brush radius is causing your autonomic nervous system to start playing the drums on your ribcage.
No. You are, at the end of the day, simply accommodating an elderly manâs lumbar needs.
It would, however, be about 10,000 times more comfortable if you werenât still in heels and your work dress inside your own home - but alas, regrettably, tragically, devastatingly, catastrophically, lamentably, inexcusably, and dare you say irreparably the zipper is stationed at the exact latitude of âhumanly unreachable.â
Which leaves you with two options:
       A. suffer in dignified silence, or
       B. ask Agent Big Hands over there for assistance.
âŚAnd at what emotional, psychological, and potentially legal cost is Option B even remotely permitted?
âAnything wrong?â he asks gently.
Youâd love to object (asked and answered, Your Honor) because he absolutely knows youâre not fine. The question was courtesy, not ignorance. (Rephrase, Counsel.)
Okay, so. Heâll see straight through any lie you try to feed him. He always does. So better be⌠truthful. Youâre basically under oath. (fig.)
âUm.â You clear your throat, which suddenly feels three sizes too small. âI know this is⌠crazy, but I need your help to-â
âYeah. So if you couldâŚâ you trail off, turn around, and point to your back. âUnzip this? I canât reach it.â
Congratulations: Prosecutor of Records also wins Guinness World Record for Fastest Human to Turn Magenta - 0.01 seconds from request to humiliation.
âSure,â he says. Except he sounds not sure.
You feel his hands hover behind your neck for two - maybe three - agonizing beats before he finally commits, fingers fumbling for the microscopic, sadistic little teardrop masquerading as a zipper pull.
Itâs such an offensively unergonomic design that, to get any kind of grip (which is definitely the only reason - jury still deliberating), he has to brace his much-too-large hand right at the center of your back.
His breath warms the back of your neck. Shivers down your spine. Fantastic. Truly the ideal work environment.
Itâs⌠intimate.
Way too intimate for two people who are absolutely-not-anything and definitely-only-here-to-destroy-Caleb-Hudsonâs-life.
The rough drag of his knuckles traces the back of your neck, then your spine, then lower - following the slow descent of the zipper. Heâs clearly trying to be quick, as respectful as a man can be while undressing someone in their living room, yet his hands are excruciatingly careful.
Too careful.
Maybe because the dress is delicate. Maybe because heâs trying not to touch you more than necessary. Maybe because he is touching you more than necessary. Or maybe (your favorite theory) heâs stalling, and youâre projecting.
God, you wish you could read his mind.
He only removes his hand from your lower back when he reaches the bottom of the zipper - pulling away like someone who knows exactly what lingering would imply. (Or more accurately: like someone you really, really enjoy imagining knows exactly what lingering would imply.)
Silence.
You donât dare turn around. You donât know if heâs still looking, or if heâs pretending to breathe normally.
âThank you,â you manage.
He clears his throat. âOf course.â
The genius, absolutely-not-deliberate-and-premeditated idea you had of changing into your silk, lace-trimmed, sheer, criminally short pajama set suddenly feels⌠less defensible now that youâre standing half-undressed in front of him.
Hard (much like you imagine his⌠federal member is right now) to find a statute that would make slipping into that skimpy little number subtle and not premeditated.
You briefly wonder if you pulled a Laird and claimed dissociative amnesia (sorry, Your Honor, I have no recollection of choosing the sluttiest babydoll in my drawer) Hotchner would swallow it as easily as the jury is swallowing Lairdâs story.
(Though you do realize this is, annoyingly, the perfect demonstrative example for trial. Too bad it would blow up both of your careers and probably wouldnât clear evidentiary standards. Damn.)
And so, after one quick change into your responsible, standard pajama set - sitting cross-legged, doing your best âcozy professionalâ impression, encouraging him with a casual make yourself comfortable - he actually listens.
Unfortunately.
Off comes the jacket, which he folds over the sofa. Then those enormous thumbs of his move to the cuffs, and he starts unbuttoning. Lethargically. Casually. In your personal thesaurus, all tragically perfect synonyms for sensually - and absolutely, infuriatingly, not on purpose.
The striped fabric slips past the monogrammed A.H. cufflinks (ego complex⌠every lawyer has one), and then he rolls his sleeves - no, folds them, meticulously, because God forbid Aaron Hotchner ever crease a shirt in your presence - up to his elbows.
Forearms.
Veiny forearms.
Veiny, hairy forearms.
Veiny, hairy, salt-and-peppered, âI carry federal authority and maybe also you, sweetheartâ forearms.
At this pace, you are absolutely getting nothing done.
All your blood has filed a relocation request to the downstairs levels (something Lairdâs permanently off-duty dick could never accomplish), but trying to make actual legal progress while charming thirty-three-year-old Caleb Hudson - small coffee shop owner in a neighborhood where the rent screams corporate dystopia - requires more functioning neurons than you currently have.
And not to rely on prejudice - please, youâre a professional - but based on actual competence and years of corporate law experience (especially those years spent as an intern procuring âassetsâ for senior partners while juggling six double-espressos), your instincts flare.
âDonât you think Hudson looks like a drug dealer?â you ask.
Hotchner stops just short of sighing. Then he just stares at you for a full beat. (Hi. Yes. Hello, hot stuff. Put that face away. Youâre trying to work.)
Without a single verbal comment, he reaches into the pocket of his slacks and pulls out - not his dick (tragic), though that wouldâve been hilarious - his phone and his big federal-agent fingers start punching in a number.
Four.
Two.
Seven (three times).
Two again (three times).
Four (three times).
And one more two.
You watch him compose âGARCIAâ on T9 like itâs the most erotic clerical task youâve ever witnessed.
He presses Call.
Not even a full ring.
âSir! What do I owe the pleasure of a phone call so late at night?â comes Penelope Garciaâs unmistakable voice.
Mr. Sir turns to you with this tiny, apologetic look, as if you havenât spent half your prep nights listening to archived BAU recordings where Garcia called him âHotchieâ while delivering data dumps at 2AM.
Ridiculous. He should know better. Penelope Garcia is a national treasure and should be preserved in a bulletproof dome.
âGarcia,â he says, voice flattening into that work-mode baritone that drops your IQ by fifteen points on impact, âI need a quick check. Caleb Hudson. Thirty-three. D.C. resident. Any priors related to narcotics distribution?â
You mouth narcotics distribution??? at him. (Fucking loser.)
He ignores you.
âOoooh, a bad boy? Finally! Iâve been lighting candles for a morally ambiguous hottie to enter your life, sir.â (So youâre not the only one who thinks heâs a closeted bisexual⌠interesting.)
âGarcia-â he warns.
âMy sincerest apologies, sir. Sir. Iâll get to work.â
Clackclackclack.
âHm.â
Clackclackclackclackclack.
ââŚHuh.â
ClackclackCLACKclackclack.
A pause.
âWell, paint me disappointed, but Iâve got nothing.â
Hotchner turns to you, already gearing up for a lecture on ethical stereotyping. âNot everyone who looks like a dealer is a-â
âHi, Penelope,â you cut in smoothly, leaning toward the phone Hotchner is holding up with one of his⌠paws. Your mouth ends up perilously near Hotchnerâs fingers - pure coincidence, obviously, and any suggestion otherwise is defamatory. âCan you pull the surveillance footage from the alleyway next to Hudsonâs shop between 8:30 and 8:45 p.m., any day within the first week of trial?â
Long story short: youâre always right.
At exactly 8:37 p.m. on November 13th, there is a - how to put it - mutually enthusiastic pocket-fishing session between none other than Caleb Hudson and, as Garcia gleefully identifies, Attorney Grant Goodman (the ironyâŚ), junior partner at Lesser-Keith, one of DCâs top five law firms.
Drug of choice: cocaine. Of course.
Snowflakes alone donât make him guilty, but-
Garcia inhales sharply. âOkay soooo⌠both Goodman and Dennis-â (Smelly man?? Really??) â-go to the same squash club. And - oh ho HO - on November 13th, they had a match scheduled for 4:24 p.m. And! According to Dennisâ office system, his secretary moved a deposition at 5 p.m. last-minute that same day.â
âBecause he had to go smash a ball against a wall with a cokehead and discuss something extremely corrupt,â you mutter.
You earn a long look from Hotchner. As if he hasnât been staring at you this whole time.
No time to unpack any of that because - of course - 1995 Prosecutor of the Year fires up that unfortunately enormous, tragically gorgeous brain of his, and suddenly heâs assembling the sexiest, most airtight theory youâve ever heard in your life.
Garcia emails over a one-minute clip from the squash club security cameras. Hotchner opens it on your computer.
Then he leans in.
And he gestures - gestures - for you to come closer too. Invites you into his bubble - explicitly, with a little tilt of his head and a âcome look at thisâ.
So you do- (come. Come close. To him.)
Your shoulders touch. They remain touching. For sixty straight seconds.
Pixelated blobs jerk across the screen. Goodman, allegedly. Barely two pixels tall. The resolution is three clicks above Etch A Sketch.
He pauses the footage. âGoodmanâs movements are sloppy.â
You stare at him.
Sloppy? Sir, the only sloppy thing in this room is the type of head you are actively restraining yourself from giving him every time he uses that giant brain and that giant pointer finger to gesture at your screen.
âNotice the escalation in his motor control,â he says quietly, analytical as ever, but when he leans in to indicate the exact timestamp, his voice brushes against your neck like he did it on purpose.
âI canât see shit,â you whisper, which is only partly true. Mostly you just canât see anything past the hormonal tsunami heâs causing.
He reaches across you, finger brushing yours, hits the 10-second rewind button, slows the playback to half-speed. Then he presses play.
âItâs visible right here.â
Except he turns toward you at the exact same moment you instinctively turn toward him.
Your noses almost brush. Your girl-weiner twitches breath mingles.
You immediately whip your face back toward the screen. âSo,â you announce loudly, âcokehead-not-so-Good-man wants to sue Hudsonâs ass because the product isnât hitting anymore.â
He nods. âExactly.â
âWow. That was⌠really smart. You sure are impressive, Hotchner.â
He immediately turns into a raspberry. Like youâve just kissed him, not praised his PowerPoint-level analysis of two blurry pixels. (Praise kink, check.)
âThanks,â he manages, clearing his throat. âBut⌠letâs move forward.â
If forward means grabbing a pillow to strategically place on his lap because one compliment turned him into a bricked-up (allegedly bricked-up. Circumstantial evidence only. Not admissible in court. But your professional gut says: guilty.) Boy Scout, then yes.
Youâd also like to move forward. Preferably onto that lap, pillow be damned.
âSo,â he continues, back to his Very Serious Theory Voiceâ˘, âGoodman complains to Dennis that Hudsonâs product is weak. Prices up, quality down. Dennis sees an opening. Hudson is vulnerable. Easy leverage. And if Hudson is willing to bend for drugs, heâs willing to bend for anythingâŚâ
He glances at you.
(Bending? Interesting choice of verb, Hotchner. Plenty of things in this room could bend for him right now-)
âA tailor-made witness,â he finishes. âAn uncomplicated alibi for a homicide defendant. From Dennisâ perspective, itâs the perfect opportunity.â
You want to gargle on his cock and balls.
âYeah, textbook moron strategy. Checks out.â
âDennis has been stuck at junior partner for seven years,â Hotchner goes on. âHe wants to make name partner. He needs a high-profile victory. Heâs frustrated. Overworked. Under-recognized. Recently divorced as well - that kind of personal instability tends to magnify professional desperation.â
(Not to be presumptuous, but⌠youâre pretty sure heâs veering autobiographical with that last detail. Youâre not touching it. Not emotionally. Not right now.)
âAnd nobody wants to fuck him,â you add dryly.
âThatâs⌠not an unreasonable assessment,â he fumbles a bit. âMen in his position often compensate for perceived inadequacy through career hyperfixation. If he sees Hudson as a tool to win, heâll use him.â
âUse him to lie under oath and commit perjury so he can win?â you translate.
He nods once. Smiles at you (oh, fuck⌠dimples.) âDennis recognizes that Hudson will need legal protection once heâs inevitably arrested for the cocaine trafficking theyâre already blackmailing him over. Goodman provides the connection. Dennis provides the motive. Together they construct an alibi for Laird that - on paper - looks credible enough to sway a jury if we donât dismantle it.â
You blink at him. Horny. Offended. Horrified. Aroused. How dare a man be this brilliant while also looking like that?
Pick one struggle, Hotchner. Jesus.
âAnd meanwhile,â you say, gesturing, âHudson gets legal immunity, Goodman gets better coke, Dennis gets a career boost, and Laird gets a shiny new timeline?â
He nods at you proudly. (Winner winner, cokehead dinner.)
Now, if this very dignified chain of reasoning requires a far less dignified (but technically legal⌠ish) explanation for how you got there⌠well. Ethics are supposed to transcend the law, but they usually get winded halfway up the staircase.
You cannot â cannot - disclose the details. But.
Letâs just say: Garcia ate a fortune cookie. Opened the little paper. Noticed that a few characters looked suspiciously like part of an encryption key. She said them out loud - as one does - and boom, suddenly the universe âaccidentallyâ revealed an entire chain of coded emails exchanged between Goodman and your former golden boy of a key witness, Caleb Hudson.
Emails in which they discussed every single thing Hotchner had already theorized. (Pick one struggle, Hotchner. Pt.2.)
And to Dennisâ credit, he was smart enough not to leave a single digital trace. Which means his humiliation in front of the jury will be purely emotional⌠your favorite kind.
Of course Garcia didnât âfindâ the code in a cookie message.
Of course she performed an act of digital sorcery that breaks at least three federal statutes and one metaphysical rule of the universe.
But hey⌠because only she could ever replicate it, technically no one can prove she did anything at all.
You really shouldâve gone to wizard school instead of law school. If youâd learned spellwork, you could simply wave lex procedura invisibilis and poof - every mandatory filing would magically assemble itself with perfect Bluebook citations.
Instead, now that the adrenaline crash has hit and the sun is starting to smear orange over your curtains, itâs your job - your mortal, dumb-human job - to crank out:
Motion to admit impeachment evidence (under seal)
Notice of newly discovered evidence
Motion to file exhibits under seal
Affidavit of authenticity (forensic examiner, metadata)
Proposed order for in camera review (the judgeâs autograph page)
Motion for permission to recall witness (insurance policy, just in case Hudson testifies before the judge rules)
Supplement to witness disclosure list (because Dennis will whine like a bitch about foundation)
Supplement to witness disclosure list (naming the metadata analyst so Dennis canât cry foundation)
All before 8AM. Easy, no?
Well - yes. Technically it isnât that muchâŚ
If you hadnât just survived the most exhausting day of trial in the entire short-but-promising lifespan of your prosecutorial career.
If you hadnât spent the afternoon listening to Dennis âEau de Sewer Ratâ turn your star witness into pulverized dust on the stand.
If you hadnât been forced to rescue the entire case with the legal equivalent of dental floss, expired tape, and one glitter pen that may or may not qualify as a controlled substance under federal law.
If you hadnât been awake for twenty-four hours without a break, a nap, a pizza slice, or the mercy of God.
And - most damningly of all - if you werenât currently sitting beside a man whose Windsor knot has surrendered halfway down his chest and whose first two shirt buttons are undone (and so are you. Undone.)
Thank fucking God you have not just a competent prosecutor beside you, but the Prosecutor of the Year (1995), the man who once filed a 32-count RICO indictment during a power outage with only a flashlight and spite to guide him.
You can feel him even without looking. The warmth of him soaking into your leg, minute by minute, because at some point your thighs drifted together under the pretense of sharing one stack of Exhibits AâF.
With Agent Hotchner at your side (literally), you can get this mountain of filings done in 45 minutes (WHOOOOHOOOOO) instead of the usual hour and a half.
Right?
âŚright?
You reach for your laptop, stretch your neck, and start typing the caption line of the first motion-
âTHE STATE OFâŚâ
A soft sound brushes your ear.
Not your laptop. Not your legal pads. Not even the steady tick of the wall clock rhythmically mocking your mortality.
Itâs a breath. A puff. A tiny rumble. Your brain does the full Itâs a Bird, Itâs a Plane, ItâsâŚ
âŚno.
No no no no-
Itâs a Hotchner.
And heâs snoring.
Head tipped back against your sofa, arms crossed over his chest (heâs⌠holding himself? Oh fuck.). His brows, usually a fortress of tension and micro-frowns, look finally smooth for the first time in⌠possibly ever.
His lashes? Oof. Too long. Natureâs favorite child.
And his mouth - pink, no, Barbie-pink, slightly parted in a soft, unguarded way that absolutely should not be happening in your living room. On your sofa. Next to you.
(So thatâs why your legs were touching. Fantastic. Wonderful. You hate yourself. Also this is going to be the best hour and a half of your life.)
He looks peaceful. So peaceful that you genuinely frighten yourself with the intrusive thought that you want to drape a blanket over him and brush his hair off his forehead with the same hand that should be busy filing seven legal documents by itself.
And you do manage to work - technically. Sort of.
Despite having to rewrite the last paragraph of the last brief five separate times because your eyes keep closing from exhaustion⌠and because the sudden morning chill forced you to pull a fluffy blanket over your legs and stomach.
Now, if that blanket happens to fall over Agent Snore beside you, itâs obviously pure kindness. Completely altruistic. Humanitarian aid.
And if he instinctively steals it in his sleep because heâs apparently a big-ass cover hog, thatâs none of your business. Neither is the part where he shifts, drowsy, and rests his head on your shoulder.
He stops snoring, but you feel the warm exhale from his nose graze your neck. One of his arms drapes across your torso, settling on your opposite hip unconsciously. He pulls you closer in his sleep.
How many years in prison does the penal code give you if the very first thought that crosses your mind is âheâs so divorced-â?
(Not so alleged) murderer Evan Laird looks positively gleeful watching Caleb Hudson sit there and recite, line by line, the perjury Dennis spoon-fed him. A man accused of stabbing three women thirty-four, forty-one, and fifty-two times respectively is finally getting a good day.
Not on your watch.
The fastest way to rattle a liar? Pretend youâre immortalizing every stupid thing the defense says. So every time Dennis lobs another brain-dead question at Hudson, you dutifully jot something down (the classic corporate lawyer prosecutor mind game.)
No one can see whatâs on your legal pad, which is exactly why they assume itâs devastating. Fatal.
It is⌠not.
On your Very Important Legal Padâ˘, there is now an unflatteringly accurate portrait of none other than Agent Hotchner.
Speaking of which⌠you feel him shift beside you. Just a small movement, but you know his tells: the tilt of his head, the short hitch in his breath, the controlled inhale through his nose when heâs desperately pretending heâs not reacting.
Heâs definitely clocked what youâre doing.
Agent Hotchner gracefully plants both elbows on the table, nudging your arm like he isnât engaging in psychological foreplay in the middle of a homicide trial. He leans in - purely to âread along,â of course - then lets his arms sink down in a relaxed stretch that is absolutely⌠wow.
His jacket slides back. The sluttiest wrist in the entire Eastern District of Columbia.
The State now moves to enter into evidence:
Exhibit A: the clean, absolutely obscene line of tendon,
Exhibit B: the Submariner watch sitting just a little loose,
Exhibit C: the pink cufflinks and the dusty-pink shirt he very obviously bought on purpose - despite swearing up and down he didnât own a single thing in that color - all because you suggested the two of you match in pink today. And the cufflinks? Engraved with his initials. Subtle as a brick. This man absolutely went shopping the second you texted him. (Good for him. That shade looks so good on him it might as well have been custom-designed by a government lab for the sole purpose of making you lose your mind.)
All allegedly accidental, Your Honor. Surely.
You absolutely do not spend a full three seconds staring at the tendon by his watch. No. Never. Ridiculous.
He plucks the pen right out of your hand. Your fingers brush. You stop breathing (clearly because of the pink, obviously). And then - dead serious, not a flicker of shame - he draws a moustache on his own doodled portrait.
He even taps the paper once heâs done, tilting his head like heâs pointing out a key exhibit for show. Playing along with your little psychological warfare routine so convincingly that only then does Laird finally shift, uneasy, in his seat.
Hotchner leans in, his hand coming up to shield your ear. âLaird is looking at you,â he murmurs (meow).
Considering Laird is a homicidal bastard who stabbed three women to death, that warning should make you instantly shit yourself. Instead, your hormones - ever the overachievers - interpret it as a wildly incorrect sign that Agent Hotchner might be⌠jealous.
Jealous that another man is admiring your supreme elegance. Jealous that someone else is basking in the holy privilege of sitting this close to you. (To be fair, todayâs heels do look fucking good.)
Alright.. more likely heâs referring to the fact that Dennis probably told his client that at exactly 7:13 a.m., the docket updated with:
STATEâS MOTION - FILED UNDER SEAL.
No description. No visible title. No attached exhibits. No summary.
You used every inch of procedural power to make sure Dennis would be too blinded by his own ego to see the real problem. You want him thinking you filed a misconduct motion because he acted like a cunt with Agent Snore - sorry, Agent Hotchner - during cross, instead of suspecting the perjury bomb ticking under his case.
Laird, however, is not completely stupid. Heâs catching on.
But key-witness Caleb is long past the point of being âunder oath,â and Dennis has surely already reassured his client with something in the neighborhood of: you and I, sir, are reasonable men and women are petty; at worst sheâll sanction me, try to get my cross tossed, she has no other path to a win.
(Or some equally slime-coated version of the same sentiment, because Dennis is a slimy man.)
You lean into Hotchner as well, hand cupped to his ear, and try not to faint at the way your fingers instinctively adjust, settling against his cheek instead. Heâs warm. (Comfortably warm. Not fever warm. You checked.)
âLaird can suck on my dickâ et⌠docket.â
You savor every millisecond of Hotchnerâs pointed look (truly, a five-star entrĂŠe) but you canât ignore the fact that Dennis keeps sneaking glances at you now too. The manâs bald head is practically turning into a lighthouse beacon with how aggressively itâs sweating.
Not that youâre focused on him.
Because whatâs really short-circuiting your brain is the exponential spike in how often youâve felt Agent Hotchnerâs gaze on you today. Usually itâs intimidating. Today⌠not so much. You can feel every time he looks up from his notes, checks the courtroom, breathes.
You glance back at him. He glances down at his notes. You glance at him again. He glances at your Very Important Legal Padâ˘.
You retaliate by giving his doodle a unibrow.
He exhales, and when you both look up, the rhythm misfires. One of you messes up. (Him. Definitely him.) And now youâre caught staring at each other like two idiots in a very public, very televised courtroom.
You smile. He looks like heâs about to say something-
âCounsellor, cross-examination?â the judge calls.
Showtime. Time to dismantle Caleb Hudson.
If before your cross-examination the question was whether Laird was guilty, now the only question remaining is how many different statutes he violated while trying to pretend he wasnât.
A fabricated alibi means consciousness of guilt. Perjury means obstruction. Obstruction guts the insanity defense. And all of that, in combination, opens the door to sentencing so harsh you can practically hear the penal code laughing.
The only reason the trial hasnât officially died today is because the judge wants time to decide whether Hudson, Dennis, and Goodman deserve five years of matching jumpsuits - or if heâd prefer to let the State Bar chew on their bones first.
The beauty of the moonlight interrupts what was absolutely about to be your very premature - hopefully-not-jinxing - celebratory cork-pop of the $100 bottle of wine someone once gifted you on a birthday you barely remember.
You pretend to like it because the bottle costs $100.
Your pulse is still cocky from the big win you landed today⌠but it spikes higher the moment you remember how Aaron Hotchnerâs head fit (perfectly, absurdly, fatefully, indecently, cosmically, architecturally, astronomically) against your shoulder.
Warm. Heavy. Softly snoring. Like a puzzle piece that should absolutely not be a puzzle piece and yet⌠there it was.
You slouch deeper into the couch.
At this exact time yesterday, you and Agent Hotchner were shoulder-to-shoulder - an arrangement so accidentally deliberate it bordered on contractual - sharing heat and oxygen, both of you very pointedly pretending not to notice that the other one absolutely noticed.
You were bent over your laptop together, parsing grainy, potato-quality surveillance footage until your noses nearly collided, until a single extra millimeter of leaning wouldâve legally qualified as a kiss in several progressive jurisdictions.
And now that same laptop is playing your third Julia Roberts movie in a row, doing absolutely nothing to fix the fact that-
Youâre alone.
And thinking about him. Way too much
Alone with the what-ifs, the maybes, the very stupid fantasies your brain starts producing when the clock ticks past the hour where lawyers revert into pumpkins, ethics evaporate, and self-control becomes a purely theoretical construct.
Itâs late enough that your thoughts are now legally non-binding. Late enough that no jury in the world could hold you accountable for imagining the many, many creative ways Agent Hotchner would ensure the movie currently playing (sorry, Julia Roberts) becomes nothing but faint background noise to a much louder, much wetter soundtrack.
Late enough that you can picture it way too effortlessly, and you let yourself wonder-
Maybe heâs thinking about you too. Maybe heâs replaying the way your shoulder felt under his cheek.
Maybe heâs lying in bed, tie undone, wishing he hadnât slipped out of your apartment at dawn like a responsible adult who (because heâs him) bought you breakfast, made your coffee exactly how you like it without burning the kitchen, and unloaded your dishwasher as penance for passing out on your sofa.
Maybe-
Your phone rings. You stare at the caller ID.
Agent Hotchner.
Maybe?? Yes, maybe indeed. Not to honk your own horn, but a call this late can only mean one thing and one thing only. One sacred, blessed, horizontal thing.
Starts with booty. Ends with call.
Right?
âŚRight?
âHey-â
âThere is something Iâve been wanting to tell you-â he begins, intimate.
Oh. Oh.
Oh.
Poor thing. He canât even say he wants to fuck you to your face. Sweet, repressed, morally upstanding fossil.
âI donât sleep with consultants during trial,â you cut in... to rescue him. âBut if youâve made your way all the way over here, Iâm not going to let you freeze your ass outside. Come up.â
Through your own talking, you hear him, muffled, continue:
ââŚmy team and I kept looking into Laird after what you told me about the EEG - the beeping light show, as you insist on calling it. response you mentioned. Something about that reaction you mentioned⌠it wasnât sitting right with me.â
F U C K.
ââŚI had Garcia re-run the raw data from the psych evaluation so I could see it myself,â he goes on, completely missing the part where you basically told him come upstairs and rail me into a different legal system. âThe absence of response to the crime-scene images wasnât physiological. It was conditioned.â
âWhat do you mean, conditioned?â
He exhales, low and steady (you wish someone else were low and steady on you right now). âLaird wasnât detached because of trauma or amnesia. He was trained to suppress his response. The brain patterns match deliberate rehearsal, not dissociation.â
ThatâŚ
Thatâs bad. For Laird.
Very, very, veeeeery good for you.
âSo he knew the images. He recognized them. Enough to suppress the reaction.â
âExactly,â he says. âAnd the only time the suppression failed was with the image of his motherâs grave.â
Oh.
Oh.
If your girl-weiner werenât already hard for⌠reasons⌠she would be now.
âSo he wasnât detached from the murders,â you say slowly. âHe was detached from everything but mommy.â
ââŚYes. But not in the way youâre thinking right now.â (Pfff. What a fool. If only he knew what youâre thinking right now.)
âOur initial hypothesis,â he continues, âwas that he didnât anticipate they would show him the cemetery photo, so he dropped the suppression and reacted instinctively. But when, in the next slide, they showed him a picture of himself with his mother and the response wasnât nearly as strong. And that inconsistency⌠it suggested the reaction wasnât about grief. It was about something he was hiding.â
âDefinitely not his mommy issues,â you mutter. âThose are pretty obvious by now.â
He sighs. A very you are exhausting, but unfortunately youâre also right (!!!) kind of sigh.
âGarcia ran vehicle telemetry. We checked his plate hits over the last eighteen months. His car was logged outside his motherâs cemetery within hours after each murder.â
In the name of teamwork (and ignoring the fact that youâre in pajama shorts and holding a wine glass worth $25) you sprint to the crime-scene of paperwork that is your dining table. You flip through Lairdâs bank statements so fast you nearly give yourself a papercut.
âNo card activity in that window to suggest he was buying flowers,â you read out loud.
âExactly,â Hotchner says. âBut he still stayed approximately an hour each time he âvisitedâ.â
Thatâs a fuckload of time.
âThatâs a staggering amount of time,â you mutter. Â âWhat was he doing, having conversations with her ghost? Full-on Psycho reenactment? âMother made me do it,â that whole routine?â
âI wish it were that simple, Counsel⌠we just found the box of earrings.â
You go completely still. âWhere?â
âHidden inside Mrs. Lairdâs tombstone,â he says. âCavities cut into the interior. Forensic techs recovered it less than an hour ago. Itâs full of the victimsâ DNA. And his.â
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIEEEEEEND-
âThis is insane. This is fantastic. Do you understand what this means for the case? Hotchner, heâs done. Heâs roasted. He is charred. He will rot in prison for the rest of his miserable life, the families will finally get their justice-â
âDonât rush to notify the families, not yet.â
âWhy?â you whisper.
âWe didnât find three pairs,â he says. âWe found seven.â
âŚShit.
âAnd by the way,â he adds, clearing his throat. âIâm more the type to invite you to dinner at least three times before going any further, Counsel.â
Heat spikes up your neck. âThree specifically?!â you tease.
You can hear the smile in his voice - can practically see the way he tilts his head down when he chuckles, hiding flushed cheeks from absolutely no one but himself. âSee you tomorrow, Counsel. Goodnight.â
âGoodnight⌠Iâll pick you up at nine.â
âCanât wait,â he says, soft and unbearably sweet.
Well. Neither can you⌠especially for the three dinners part.
(The way I had to physically restrain myself with these two or it wouldâve ballooned into a 20k-word disaster⌠Iâm not going there. Oof. They need to fuck. I mean... have three dinners.
âŚOr at least enough for Hotch to pay her back for the gas.)
Twitter / X reports that Everyoneâs A Star is topping iTunes charts worldwide (even above two versions of the pop juggernaut that is Taylor Swift's The Life Of A Showgirl).
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