sky2nd

[sky2nd]

A Gilded Cage

Summary: As a mutant who can siphon energy and emotion, you’re brought onto the team by Val to control the Void—but things quickly spiral beyond expectation. Pairing: The Void x F!Reader x Bob Word Count: 4K Rating: Mature, 18+ only. Dub-con, coercion and manipulation, elements of shame and guilt, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected PIV sex and heavy angst.) Not all elements are tagged.  A/N: My muse went a little feral on this one. Thank you to @writercole and @gettingvetted for beta'ing and to @seeyalaterinnovator and @trelaney for letting me scream in their DMs about this. Please comment or reblog if you enjoyed this and want to see more. Or scream at me in my inbox. That always makes my day.

Masterlist | Lewis Pullman Masterlist

Valentina prepared you for this moment as best she could, providing you with exhaustive psychological profiles of Bob and the Void, along with video documentation. You even heard firsthand accounts straight from the team, and even from Bob himself. But now, standing before him, you realize none of it could truly capture the depth of what you faced.

The Void was not just a presence; he was an overwhelming, suffocating force that seemed to bend the very fabric of reality and leech the light from everything in sight. With each step towards him you feel that ever present core of hope within you flicker as the bright airy room of the tower decays into a greyish pallor. Instinctively you want to recoil, but you force yourself forward. 

You have a job to do. And failure isn’t an option.

“I wondered when you’d show up,” he murmurs, his voice sliding through the air like smoke, curling into your bones and seeping into your mind. 

He turns, his eyes fix on you, twin pinpricks of liquid gold, tracking your approach with unsettling attention. It’s as though he sees beyond your body, peeling away your thoughts, your fears, your very soul, layer by layer. It’s unnerving to be on the receiving end of such attention, to be seen so clearly like you see others. But where your gift brings comfort and calm, his unearths only discord and grief.

"Such a pretty little jailer Val sent." He tilts his head consideringly, and a hollow laugh follows.  “No... not a jailer. Not really. Val’s little pet, aren’t you?” he says, something cold beneath the amusement. “She thinks you’re here to stop me.” 

You don’t bother correcting him. Even if he can’t influence your emotions or force you to drown in the howling, bottomless pit that churns inside him, he still sees the invisible leash Val has coiled around your neck, pulling you this way and that for her own purposes. 

“We need Bob back,” you reply calmly, advancing steadily towards him. Each step is slow and measured, your shoulders purposely relaxed. 

“I won’t let go that easily,” he informs you. 

“I know,” you say, moving close enough to brush the edge of his shadowed form. 

His hand snaps out in an instant, seizing your wrist. His touch is impossibly cold, unnatural, and you recoil. Shame oozes from his grip, thick and black. It hurts more than you expect. You exhale softly, the sound barely audible, but you don’t let your emotions surface. 

“I can take your pain,” you promise him. “Let me.” 

Your aura unfolds into his, cool and steady, a salve to suffering he exudes. He shudders, and for a fleeting moment, the dark shroud surrounding him flickers, its shadowy tendrils thinning just enough for you to catch a glimpse of Bob beneath. His face is pale and drawn, and his lips part, a silent scream you never hear before the darkness clamps shut around him, and he’s gone again.

The Void releases a distorted hiss and pulls you flush against him. His form is solid, unnervingly real beneath the swirl of shadows. There's weight to him, oppressive and inescapable, and your heartbeat spasms against your chest. 

“I know how your gift works,” he whispers, and his voice is a rasp just behind your ear, soft and invasive. “A handshake. A fleeting touch on a stranger’s arm. Subtle... harmless.”

Slowly, he drags his fingertips along the curve of your lower lip, tugging it down ever so slightly.

"We’ve read your file," he continues. "If you want to siphon anything from me, you'll need more than a brush of skin. You need prolonged contact. Something deeper…intimate. Lasting."

The words land heavy, and you freeze, a cold knot of revulsion twisting in your stomach. The light brush of his fingertips along the collar of your dress makes his meaning crystal clear, and for a moment, all you can do is stand there, paralyzed.

The Void smiles.

His mouth stretches wide, revealing sharp, immaculate teeth, bone-white against the surrounding black, a grotesque contrast to the glowing eyes above. 

“I want your shame,” he says, voice low and full of hunger. 

His hand rises to cup your jaw. Your fingers wrap around his wrist in an attempt to assert some measure of control, but your aura flares weakly, breaking against his like a wave crashing on rocks, its force dissipating without impact. 

He smiles knowingly. “Give me what I want, and you’ll get Bob back,” he promises, his voice curling into your thoughts. 

Disgust and anger burn away the shock you feel, and you grit your teeth, forcing your power to gather beneath your skin, feeling it pulse and swell with a steady, growing pressure. With a ragged exhale, you push outward, unleashing the full force of it. The wave of energy sends the Void several feet from you and washes away the darkness, leaving only Bob and you standing under the midday sun. He blinks at you, his expression shocked, and then he smiles, soft and sweet. 

Relief floods your body, and for a heartbeat, the weight of the Void’s presence is gone from you both, but the moment is short-lived. Darkness shifts, gathering at his feet, swirling and reforming with unnatural speed. It moves like a tidal wave and in the blink of an eye, reclaims Bob and pulls him back under. Dark laughter follows, echoing for too long in the open space.

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” he growls, closing the distance between you and pulling you firmly back against him.

A rush of adrenaline floods your veins, and you reach deep within, calling on your gift, urging it to the surface. Then, just as your power stirs, the Void’s next words freeze you in place.

“I know what Val promised you if you could control me,” he whispers. “And what will happen if you fail. Where she’ll send you.”

His words conjure images of sterile rooms, restraints, and faceless men in white coats. Places where people like you stopped being a person and became a subject. Somewhere you didn’t come back from. It takes everything you have not to let it consume you, not to let the panic, the gut-deep terror, slip free. A futile effort because the creature in front of you isn’t guessing how you feel or what will happen to you. He doesn’t need to. He knows.

Your throat tightens when you try to swallow, struggling to find your voice. When you force the words out they are thin and unsteady. "If that’s what you want from me, you could just take it.”

He sighs, long, exaggerated, as if the very idea disappoints him, but the hunger behind his eyes never dims. 

"That’s boring," he says. "I want your submission. Your shame, little pet. The weight of knowing you traded a piece of yourself for your freedom. And knowing," he leans in until his mouth hovers inches from yours, “that you’ll do it again and again every time I emerge.”

“No,” you croak. “I won’t.”

The smile that spreads across his face is anything but comforting, an ugly gash that stretches across his blurred features. "Resist if it helps," he murmurs. "But we both know what you’ll eventually decide."

You turn away, your lashes fluttering in a futile attempt to block him out, to escape the suffocating proximity. His breath mingles with yours, the air around thick and heavy with his presence. It feels like you can’t even breathe. Then his large hand settles at your waist, and you flinch. His fingers flex against your flesh, possessive and eager in a way that makes your stomach churn. Every fiber of your being wants to pull away, to scream, but you know it’s pointless. 

Fear and anger fizzle out as another feeling rises to the surface. Resignation. You are trapped, caught in a web spun not just by the monster in front of you, but by Val too. There’s no escaping this. No way to win. If you fail to return Bob, Val will hand you over to be dissected and studied. And if you do as he asks, you’ll be giving away a piece of yourself you can never get back. 

There is only one choice, you realize. The same choice you’ve faced your whole life. To survive. To endure. 

Your shoulders sag, heavy with defeat, and you lower your chin to your chest, the whisper of your acceptance barely audible. It tastes like ash in your mouth.

He moves instantly. His lips crash into yours, hard and consuming. There’s no tenderness, only raw, possessive hunger. The hand at your waist slides down, wrapping around your lower back, and then you feel your feet leave the floor. He lifts you effortlessly, holding you against him, suspended just above the ground like a doll in his hands.

It’s disorienting and your lungs burn, desperate for air, but he doesn't relent. His tongue, hot, almost scaldingly so, moves against yours with a force that overwhelms thought. You're so focused on the sensation that you don’t even notice you’re moving. Not until your back meets the cool glass of the window. The shock of it makes you gasp into his mouth as your feet touch the floor once more.

The Void pulls back and stares down at you, inhaling slowly until his breath spills into a low, primal groan, as if he’s tasting something in the air between you.

“Delicious,” he rasps. 

Your pulse spikes, the fear you’re trying to suppress creeping up your throat, choking you. 

“Val even dressed you so pretty for me.” His tone is mockingly sweet as his fingers toy with the hem of your dress.

The choice of your attire was deliberately chosen by her. No weapons. No armor. Not even a hint of the strength you carry. Just soft fabric in pale, passive shades that left your collarbone exposed, your legs bare. It was a costume crafted to make you look delicate. Harmless. The kind of vulnerability that would draw a predator close.

It was meant to disarm him, but now, with his fingers grazing your skin and his breath falling hotly against your ear, it’s clear it was never him left unguarded. It was always you.

The scrape of his teeth against your pulse point jolts you back into your body, sharp and sudden. A broken sound escapes your throat as he gathers your skin between his teeth and bites down possessively. Your fingers curl into the black, swirling mass of his chest, desperate to ground yourself and dissipate the pain. 

“Shhh,” he whispers, laving his tongue over your tender skin. “You’ll like it soon enough,” he promises.

His hands trail up your sides, fingertips grazing the swell of your breasts with deliberate slowness. Bright eyes catch yours, steady and unblinking, studying every reaction. You can’t look away, even when one of his hands settles over the hollow at your throat. His long fingers span your neck with ease, and your chest rises in a trembling breath, tight with fear at what he means to do. But he only smiles, letting his fingers trail down to trace the gentle scoop of your neckline. 

Goosebumps rise in the wake of his touch, and a shuddery gasp leaves you when they slip beneath, sliding under your bra to brush against bare skin. He teases one nipple and then another until they harden under his touch, sending a shock of desire through your body. The scrape of his nail across the sensitive peak has you jerking forward, lips parted. He captures them in an achingly gentle kiss, building a warmth in your chest you try to ignore. 

“Will you taste as sweet as I imagine?” he questions. 

You blink at him dumbly, your lips swollen and tender before suddenly he’s at your feet. All you can see of him is the unruly outline of Bob’s wild curls when he presses in close, urging your thighs apart. Without warning, he hooks one of your legs and throws it over his shoulder, leaving you teetering on a single foot. His breath is warm and moist against your clothed core, and you feel it grow damp as he mouths along the fabric. Your hands hover, uncertain and trembling, before one instinctively moves to the crown of his head, more a reflex than intention, as if to push him away. But before you can act, his hand closes over yours, holding it there in a silent command. A twisted show of encouragement that turns your resistance into complicity. 

He groans, a low, filthy sound that you know will haunt you. Your underwear is torn from your body with ease, allowing him to get his first taste of you. He drags the flat of his tongue slowly through the length of your cunt, lapping with unrestrained hunger, his nose nudging your clit with each pass. Your insides coil in a tense knot, torn between pleasure and revulsion under his unrelenting pace.

To have his mouth on you like this feels invasive, a violation of more than just your body. He’s taking pieces of you with every touch, and you can do nothing to stop him.

“So wet for me, little pet,” he croons. “I thought you didn’t want this.”

You clamp your mouth shut, lips drawn tight in defiance. You won’t give him the satisfaction, but he doesn’t seem to need it. The sting of shame burns beneath your skin, and he drinks it in with every slow, deliberate flick of his tongue against your cunt. Worse is the spike of desire that curls in your gut when he works one finger inside followed by another, the rough pad of his thumb circling your clit with precision. He seems to know just the rhythm to have you squirming beneath him. Then his mouth seals over your tender bud, and you cannot keep quiet any longer.

A desperate keen builds in your throat, spilling out between your unwilling lips. Your hips lift, and you follow the sensations he brings, unable to stop yourself as a powerful wave rolls through your body, nearly stealing your vision. The Void doesn’t relent, doesn’t give you a moment of reprieve. He works to make your body his, your pleasure and shame his greatest feast. You come again with a frantic chant of please, please, please, whether begging him to stop or to keep going, you can’t even tell. For the first time in forever, you realize it’s only you in your head. No echoes of another's feelings, no interference. Just the raw, unfiltered purity of your own emotions. And it feels so good.

You don’t want it to stop. 

But then the Void pulls away, rising smoothly to his feet, just as your third orgasm threatens to break. You nearly reach for him, driven to soothe the ache deep between your thighs and feel something that is wholly, undeniably your own once more. The realization of what you were almost about to do crashes over you like ice water. Horrified, you pull back, the cold of clarity cutting through the haze.

“It’s been years since you’ve felt anyone’s warmth,” he murmurs, trailing the back of his hand along your cheek. “Val never let you wander far, did she?”

Your gaze flicks away from him, fixing on the high, vaulted ceiling. Humiliation crawls under your skin, burrowing deep inside as he continues to speak. He’s close enough that you can smell yourself on him.

“Nothing but your fingers to keep your company, leaving you needy for more. Desperate to be filled.”

Moisture clings to your lashes. You blink it back, unwilling to let it fall. A trembling breath escapes your lips, shaky and thin. You just need to get through this, get to the other side of today. 

He chuckles, low and knowing, seeming to pluck the thought straight from your mind.

“Today’s only the beginning,” the Void promises.

Your limbs feel heavy, uncertain, and you let yourself slump against the glass wall behind you when he guides your leg around his hip. Even now, after everything, it shocks you how real he feels –not like a ghost, but flesh and bone. Solid. Warm. Present. It's wrong. He shouldn’t feel this human. Self-loathing coils with something more insidious in your chest. You hate how your body responds to the feel of his knuckles brushing over your cunt as he lines himself up. How it wants him.

You brace yourself for cruelty, for the same brutal hunger he turns on others. To be consumed, used, and broken. Instead, he’s tender, almost painfully so as he splits you open with his cock inch by inch. He wants you to feel every part of him until he’s fully seated inside you, your bodies pressed impossibly close together. The gentleness is disarming, unravelling you more than violence ever could, but it’s the weight of your own shame that eclipses everything else.

Effortlessly he lifts you from the ground, and without thinking, your other leg wraps around his hip, drawing him closer than you intend. Your hands find their place on his biceps, gripping them tightly for support, your body reacting before your mind can catch up. He continues his steady pace, and need sparks along your nerves.

He groans, his hand settling loosely around your throat, reminding you of his power. 

Power.

The word reverberates through your fogged mind, thick with the weight of the Void’s presence and what he’s reduced you to. It’s a battle just to surface and to remember who you are beneath the haze, beneath the way he makes your body feel. But you have to. You have to.

Tentatively, you reach outward, your aura stretching like a fragile thread in the dark. It brushes against his, soft and searching. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even notice, lost to the ragged rhythm of his own breath, adrift in his pleasure.

So you press deeper.

You wrap around him, slowly, carefully, letting your light seep into the cracks of his being. The darkness yields, drinks you in like rain on sun-starved soil. You bring the Void closer, kissing him willingly for the first time. It’s a fight not to lose yourself in the warmth of him, the unexpectedly velvety feel of his lips as your power flows into him. Your own pleasure spikes as his increases into a frantic need. He abandons all pretense of gentleness, using your body to find his own end. Fingers dig painfully into your flesh, and the hand around your throat tightens. 

Your eyes flutter, the blurred outline of his face sharpening just enough to betray something familiar about him. Bob’s features flicker beneath wispy shadows of the Void, like a memory struggling to surface. But the eyes… the eyes are wrong. Not Bob’s warm, weary gaze. They are something far more alien, golden white, and burning.

You gasp for air against the restriction of his hand and force yourself to reach deeper into the well of power buried within you. Your own fingers knot into the black mass of hair, grounding you, anchoring you, as your mouth crashes into his and your tongue claims his with fierce desperation. The energy stirs immediately, rising fast, vibrating just beneath your skin, a low hum that grows until the glass behind you seems to tremble with it. You hold on to it until it’s indistinguishable from your own guilt, fury, and desire. 

“Give me it all,” the Void pants into your mouth. “Your shame, your need. Show me, show me, show me,” he chants. 

Your back arches, a cry caught in your throat, energy pouring out of you and into him. Light encompasses you both, blinding in its intensity. Your orgasm sweeps up through your chest, spreading along every fiber of your being, flooding you with a kind of euphoria you’ve never experienced. The Void stills inside you, coming undone and flooding you with a scalding heat. You hold onto him, eyes squeezed tightly closed, overwhelmed with emotions and feelings that are not your own.

When you finally summon the strength to open your eyes, you're met with a pair of impossibly bright blue ones. But it's not the color that stops your breath.

It's the look on Bob’s face.

He stares down at you, wide-eyed, his features drawn tight with uncertainty. His brows are furrowed, lips parted as if caught between a question and an apology. So achingly human and different from the Void that you have no idea what to say to him. 

Bob looks down at where your bodies are linked together, a visible shudder rippling through him. You slowly unwind your legs from around his waist, surprised when his hands remain steady beneath you. With surprising gentleness, he lowers you to the ground. You wince when he slips out from you, a stinging ache left behind in his absence. Cold air rushes in and you shiver, skin pebbling.

You press your legs together, smoothing your dress back into place. Across from you, he adjusts his own clothes, movements slow, shoulders rounded inward as though trying to make himself smaller. The silence stretches between you, but you feel his eyes on you, watching you through the damp curls clinging to his forehead.

He looks lost. Fragile in a way you hadn’t expected. And despite the horror you feel, something inside you aches to offer him comfort. But you stop yourself. His shame coils around you, thick and suffocating, merging with your own until you can no longer tell where his ends and yours begin. It threads through you both, binding tight – a connection you didn’t ask for stitched into the very fabric of who you are now. 

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he whispers.

And then he's gone.

You're left standing in the silence, alone once more. Time slips away, meaningless in the thick stillness that settles around you. It isn't until the soft ding of the elevator breaks the air that you remember how to breathe. The staccato rhythmic click of Val’s heels follows and your spine straightens before your mind catches up. You swipe at the wetness on your cheeks. 

Everything hurts, from the sharp throb at your neck where his teeth found skin to the bruising pressure you already feel blooming at your hip. But nothing compares to the deep, lingering ache between your legs. A reminder you’ll feel for days.

“Well,” Val says, looking you up and down with a critical eye, “you look like a fucking mess.” 

You blink at her, momentarily stunned, though you know by now you shouldn’t be. Not with Val. Never with Val.

“It’s good to see he left you in one piece,” she adds, lips curling into a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. Her hand lifts to tug at the collar of your rumpled dress, inspecting the damage like she’s assessing a tear in upholstery. “Can’t say the same for your dress. Then again, I didn’t expect it to survive his… attention.”

You stare at her, the truth sinking in like a stone in your gut. She knew exactly how this would play out. From the start. And she handed you over, without hesitation, like it meant nothing. Rage wells in your chest, but horror swallows it whole, and you just stand there, hollow and trembling at the edges.

“Don’t fall apart on me now,” she says, exasperated. She gives your cheek two sharp, condescending pats. The sting lingers, and you flinch despite yourself.

“Go make yourself presentable so we can tell the team the good news,” she adds, pulling a small set of keys from her coat pocket and pressing them into your hand. They’re cold and heavy against your skin. “You earned your place here. Congratulations.”

Her heels click away without waiting for a response. You watch her retreating form, aching, marked, and trying to remember how it feels to breathe like yourself. 

This is what you wanted, isn’t it? But it doesn’t feel like triumph. It’s just another prison, gilded and gleaming, but a cage all the same. You carved off a piece of yourself to get here. And as the silence settles in, you realize the real nightmare hasn’t even started.

♡

My inbox is open for your thoughts on this story, requests for drabbles in this verse or other stories about Bob!

[sky2nd]

save a horse, ride a cowboy

[sky2nd]

Art style tutorial?! (How do you make it so celestial?)

tbh w/ u im still figuring it out, but feel free to ask me about how i draw certain features or my coloring technique. I'd be more then happy to show you ^^.

in the mean time have this tiny chubby body tutorial i made for twt a while ago.

i simplified as best as i could so hope it helps!

[sky2nd]

DEAD FROM THE WAIST DOWN

you learned to seduce your way into being loved. hotch wants to teach you that you don't have to earn love at all.

pairings: aaron hotchner x fem!reader warnings: oh hey where does one start! mentions of past emotional abuse, conditioned sexual behavior, sex as a coping mechanism (discussed), hypersexuality, angst, hurt/comfort, established relationship, soft!hotch, happy-ish ending wc: 2.8k

How many times can a man be caught off guard by the same kiss before it stops qualifying as a surprise and becomes a cherished inevitability? You would think Aaron would know by now. 

But no, every time your mouth finds his, it feels like the first time all over again.

He isn’t a romantic, he refuses to classify it in such cheesy terms. (You would passionately disagree).

Instead, he experiences it as pure revelation — how did I forget it could feel like this? Always velveteen and warm with whatever chapstick you’ve been nursing that day. Coconut. Mint. Honeyed vanilla.

Honeyed vanilla is your favorite. His too. It stains his mouth and hours later, he can still taste it. 

He knows where you keep it now. Back left pocket. You’re predictable that way. Only that way. Discovered by accident, though nothing with you ever feels accidental, the first time he came home after a week-long case and you collided into him at the door as though you had been counting seconds rather than days. 

His hand, settling on your ass like the gentlemen he is, had landed on it, the cylindrical outline concealed beneath skin-tight denim. Denim that, even in memory alone, manages to be both curse and benediction, fabric and flesh conspiring to remind him that distance was your shared adversary. One that was conquered with every bruising reunion of lips.

These particular kisses always arrive roughly as if anything less fervent wouldn’t be proof enough of his return. Always full-bodied. Always looking for more.

For a while, he reasoned it away. Novelty, perhaps. The combustible early-stage infatuation, still volatile, still prone to overcorrection. He assumed it would fade, mellow out with familiarity. Rossi called it the honeymoon phase. Said it every time Aaron showed up to work looking distinctly worse for wear in a manner wholly unrelated to the strain of work. Grinning like a bastard. And Aaron thought he wasn’t wrong.

But time failed to temper your hunger. If anything, it grew teeth. 

You meet him at the end of each day with hands that demand, with a body that knows exactly how to ask and what to take. And he lets you. Of course he lets you. He would be out of his mind not to. 

You are generous with your affection, in and out of the bedroom. You love him without filter, without edits. Love him even in the versions he hides. There are days he doesn’t know how to hold it. Doesn’t know where to put the parts of himself that still flinch under kindness.

He is a grateful man. He is a lucky man. But he is not yet certain he is a worthy one.

Your thumbs trace his jaw, and he knows, without needing to ask, that you can feel the strain habitually tucked beneath skin and bone.

Your mouth deepens the kiss before he’s ready to accommodate it, breath merging with breath in a single, faithful puff.

Mint today, he decides. The one with the cheap twist-top and that little green label peeling at the corner.

When oxygen reasserts itself as a necessity, he pulls back, lips ghosting yours, “Missed me, did you?”

“Don’t mock me,” you scold, taking advantage of the fractional distance to catch his lower lip between your teeth. “I really did. I think I started missing you before the door even closed.”

Your hands are moving to his belt, fingers tugging, pulling —

Christ.

His hands snap down to catch your wrists.

"Sweetheart," he murmurs,  "not tonight. I just — I can barely keep my eyes open."

You recoil so fast it disorients him, and before he can think, his hands are reaching out, fingers flexing toward the empty space.

“Oh, of course,” you say, eyes flitting away. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You must be exhausted.”

Your apology tastes bitter in his mouth. He’s never wanted you to equate exhaustion with rejection, least of all his. He opens his mouth to reassure you, to banish the needless guilt clouding your eyes, but you hurry forward, words tumbling as nervously as your fluttering hands toward the kitchen.

“I made dinner. It’s in the fridge. I mean, I wasn’t sure when you would be home, but it’s ready. I can heat it up right now. Unless you want to just go to bed — I could bring it to you —”

“Hey.” It’s more a plea than command. You freeze, a microsecond of stillness before your hand begins its descent toward the scrunched cotton of your long sleeve tee. He intercepts it, thumb charting the map of your skin from the blue-lit vein to bone to the center point where your hand opens. “That’s really sweet, honey. Thank you.”

"You're welcome." 

“But all I want right now,” Aaron continues, pulling your hand into the center of his chest, a chaste kiss sticking itself to your knuckles, “is for you to come to bed with me.” Then, because he knows you, he adds, “I’ll take what you made for lunch tomorrow. I don’t want it to waste.”

You nod and offer a smile. 

Usually, he loves that seeing that smile of yours, might even call it his favorite pastime, if he were prone to sentimentality.

It’s something he never tires of watching. The way it starts slow, then takes your whole face with it. It shows up in your crow’s feet first — creases he adores, even if you claim to hate them — and then folds into your cheeks until your skin swells too full to contain.

He especially loves your smile that appears when you’re trying not to show how good it feels when he calls you pretty girl. You always hide it behind his shirt, like fabric’s going to keep him from noticing how you preen under the praise. 

This one isn’t that.

It flickers at the corners of your mouth but never quite lands in your eyes. It’s a smile made for strangers. He knows better than to pretend it’s the same.

You’re already walking toward the bathroom before he can say anything, before he can figure out whether he even should. He watches as you go through the motions with the same grace you always have, but he notices the absence more than anything else. 

The things you don’t do.

Normally, you hover. You lean into him as you tug your shirt over your head, brush a kiss against the slope of his shoulder with that casual intimacy you wield like second nature. Sometimes you complain — half a yawn, half a grumble — about the late hour. And pout. And push for a kiss only to pretend you’re not pleased when he gives in.

Normally, you make noise through the quiet. You ask if he locked the front door, remind him the laundry’s still in the dryer. You hum while brushing your teeth. Curse when toothpaste hits your shirt. 

Normally, you’re all subtle magnetism, clinging in that sweetly unrepentant way of yours. When he sits to unbutton his shirt, you’re usually behind him, knees pressing into the mattress, chin of his shoulder, arms looping lazily around his waist. There’s always touch. A palm to the center of his back as you pass, a hand on his arm as you squeeze by.

Normally, you're unapologetic about needing him. Tonight, you move like a guest in your own home.

It’s intolerable. And when you’re both settled into bed for the night, Aaron reaches for you before he thinks better of it, palm flattening against your waist. He feels the shape of you through pajamas and pulls. He doesn’t stop until your chest curves into his chest, until the edge of your calves nudges his. 

"Come here." Aaron threads careful fingers through your hair, pausing at the tender juncture where your neck meets the base of your skull. "Baby,” he whispers, “tell me what’s wrong.”

His eyes don’t leave yours, watching the brief flickers of vulnerability, the sparks of emotion you try to extinguish before they catch fire.

He notices the hesitant parting of your lips, opening as if to spin a half-hearted lie, only to close again once the truth gets too close to your teeth.

"I just... I wanted to be close to you."

Aaron’s brow knits, confusion and concern braided together in the crease above his eyes, arms tightening despite the fact that you’re already pressed against him like a second skin.

"You are close to me, sweetheart."

But even as he says it, he feels the flaw in his words. The way they miss the mark. He senses it in the way you chew at the inside of your cheek, how your shoulders stiffen beneath his fingertips.

Then softer, "Not like that."

"What —,"

But you're already shaking your head. "No, I — , it's not a big deal."

“Anything that involves you is a big deal to me.”

Your thumb moves, tracing circles into the fabric, slow rotations that quickly speed into tighter spirals, as if spinning faster might somehow organize your thoughts. You’ve always done this, reaching for some small, manageable action when the larger ones feel impossible to name. 

“It’s just… easier that way sometimes. To be close like that. Then I don’t have to wonder if we’re okay.”

The realization trickles into his consciousness slowly at first, then rushes in like water breaking through a dam.

He should’ve noticed sooner, how could he not have? 

Because this isn’t new. It’s not just a one-off need or tonight’s tension talking. You’ve always needed him like this. Skin on skin. Mouth on mouth. Your body pressed against his like you’re starving for confirmation. The way you undress him in the doorway. The way you straddle his lap and roll your hips like closeness could fix everything that feels unsteady. You depend on that closeness.

You come to him with your whole body. After long days. After fights. After even the smallest moments of silence that stretches too long. You find him like a blam, like if you don’t touch him, don’t take him, you’ll come apart at the seams. Kisses are never where you stop. You want all of him. Pinned beneath you. Deep inside you. As if that's the only way to believe he loves you.

He thought, for a long time, that it was just your appetite. A high sex drive. A natural tendency. He chalked it up to love language, to hormones, to heat. And he liked it, loved it, more than he was willing to admit at first. 

But this wasn’t just want. 

This was fear, bleeding out beneath your need, disguised as pleasure.

He’s supposed to be good at this, at reading people, parsing motive from movement. But somehow, he missed this.

Because somewhere along the line, someone taught you that love was transactional. That affection had to be purchased in pieces of yourself, repaid in skin and surrender. That if you didn’t offer yourself fully, you weren’t worth holding onto. And now here you are, still paying for what someone else stole from you.

And fuck, fuck, fuck, he feels sick.

His fists curl before he knows it, nails digging into his palms. His jaw locks tight. Because if the person who planted such a belief were here — if he could see the face of whoever made you believe you had to fuck your way into being loved — he wouldn’t blink. It wouldn’t matter what badge he wore. What oaths he swore. He would make sure they never touched anyone again.

“Is that what it feels like when I say no?” He doesn’t ask it accusingly. “Like we’re not okay?”

“I know it sounds dumb. I just —”

“Hey. It’s not dumb.” He pauses, brushing your hair behind your ear. “It makes more sense.”

“It does?”

“Of course it does. You want something that confirms what words sometimes don’t. I get that. I do.” He swallows hard. “But I don’t want you to feel like we’re only okay when we’re in bed.”

“I know. I just… I don’t know how to stop.” 

There’s something else sitting in your mouth, he can see it. A confession, maybe. Or just a few loose scraps of thought you haven’t stitched together yet.

“It’s okay.” He offers up an open door.

Your eyes flick down, then up again, and finally you nod in concession. He can’t tell if you believe him. That it’s okay to be honest with him.

“I spent a long time thinking touch was the only thing I had to offer. That if I wasn’t beautiful or willing or available I didn’t have value.” You say it slowly, like you’re afraid of saying it aloud. “It’s not something I think about. Not consciously. I just… feel the silence, or the tiredness, or I can’t read you… and suddenly I’m scrambling. Trying to stop it. Trying to keep from being… dismissed, I guess. And I know you’re not… him. I know that. But sometimes my body forgets.”

You laugh, but it’s hollow.

“So I kiss you. I touch you. I try to make myself irresistible so I don’t have to ask if I’m still wanted. Because I don’t know how to ask without feeling pathetic.”

He watches as you hold back the tears fighting to stake claim on your lower lash line.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you love me,” you add. “It’s that I don’t know how to feel safe unless I can see it. And I hate that. I hate that I’m still wired for panic every time you flinch or look away or —”

Your voice catches. Whatever you were about to say fractures somewhere in your throat and never quite makes it to sound.

He doesn’t reach for you despite every neuron firing in his brain that begs for the opposite. It feels wrong, somehow, to respond with touch when you just confessed how often it’s been your only way of being heard.

So he stays still, watches the curve of your shoulder rise and fall under the slow drag of breath. Watches your gaze veer just left of his face, like you’re already bracing for disbelief, or worse, kindness that feels like pity.

You exhale instead then close your eyes.  “I don’t want you to feel obligated to fix this. I’m not trying to unload it on you. I just… I want you to know why I act like I do sometimes. It’s not mistrust. It’s old wiring. And I’m trying.”

He doesn’t speak right away.

Not because he doesn’t have something to say. He does. A thousand things, actually. Some sharp, some soft.

But you’ve just peeled your chest open with surgical precision, laid the whole bloody, tender mess of it in his lap, and the last thing he’s going to do is rush to stitch it shut with half-baked reassurance.

You shift, maybe reflexively, but you still don’t meet his eyes. So he softens. Adjusts. Meets you halfway.

“I don’t think it’s pathetic. I don’t think you’re broken. I think your nervous system is doing exactly what it was trained to do, sound the alarm at the first sign of disconnection. Fight to restore the bond before it can disappear.” His breath hitches, just enough to break through the formality of it. “But you don’t have to do that with me. You don’t have to fill the silence. You don’t have to seduce me into staying. If I pull away, I need you to know I’m not punishing you. I’m not… evaluating you. Sometimes I’m tired. Or quiet. Or somewhere else in my own head. But I’m not leaving. I’m not rescinding anything.”

Finally, his hand brushes gently — gently — over your arm.

“You don’t have to perform love here. Not with me. You get to just… have it. As it is. As you are.” He studies you. “I know you can’t unlearn it overnight. I don’t expect you to. But I’d rather you come to me scared and uncertain than go silent and spiral. Let me be the one who doesn’t make you pay for needing reassurance.”

And then, only then, his voice drops, hoarser. 

“I don’t want to be another place you have to earn safety. I want to be the proof you don’t.”

He doesn’t know if the words land. Not fully. He thinks you heard him. Thinks you wanted to believe them. But that’s different from knowing. So he doesn’t say anything else, just lets you throw his arms around neck and press your cheek into his shirt.

He feels the heat of tears soaking into his shirt. He kisses your forehead first, then your hair, whispers something that neither of you really needs to understand.

And even though he’s running on fumes, he stays awake until your breathing slows. Until he’s sure you’re asleep.

Because if you’re going to believe him, really believe him, it won’t be because of what of what he says, but what he does.

It hits him between your third or fourth breath against his chest that this was the first time you didn’t try to apologize with your body after a difficult conversation. Just warmth. Trust. Skin on skin because you want to be held, not because you’re trying to keep him from vanishing. It’s small. But to him, it’s the most profound shift in the world. 

And in the weeks that follow, he sees it again. The way you kiss him and then stop as if you trust he’ll kiss you back. 

It doesn’t happen all at once. You still hesitate when he says no. Still freeze up on the bad nights. 

But you don’t crumble anymore. You pause.

You pause and sometimes your hands shake, but you reach for him anyway.

And every time, he meets you halfway.

a/n: this sat half-finished in my drafts for soooo long because i wasn't sure i could land it, emotionally or otherwise. and i felt like it's one of those things that feels like it says more about me than i probably mean it to. if u see urself in this as well, hi. i hope it makes u feel a little less weird for the things u need, or the ways you've learned to ask for love that doesn't always make sense out loud

💌 masterlist taglist has been disbanded! if you want to get updates about my writings follow and turn notifications on for my account strictly for reblogging my works! @mariasreblogs

[sky2nd]

[sky2nd]

exit light, enter night | void

description: in which you allow the darkness to consume you

pairing: void x f!reader

w/c: 3,865

warnings: 18+ only, unprotected sex, kind of ritualistic, dom/sub themes, light choking, begging, multiple orgasms, squirting, creampie, references to ethel cain's ptolemaea if you squint. i took some creative liberties here. you don't need to have watched thunderbolts to read this!

He was there, in the shadows. 

You could feel him. A presence that was akin to the sea tide, ebbing to and fro, swelling and shrinking, but still vast and incredibly powerful. 

When had you become aware of his presence? You weren’t entirely sure. All you knew was that you had opened your eyes in the middle of the night—at the witching hour; three o’clock in the morning—and he was there. Lurking. Waiting. Watching. 

The bedroom was cold, and the air smelled faintly of smoke. Curling around you. Threatening to lick at your skin and swallow you whole. Although the darkness was oppressive, you weren’t afraid. 

You’d been waiting for him. 

He knew it, too. Traveling across the room with ease, his feet barely touching the floor, he stood at the end of your bed, towering over you. “What an interesting turn of events,” his voice filled your mind, echoing throughout the room before it settled back into his dark form. “The little human wants me here.”

You jutted your chin out slightly, staring directly at him. You could just barely make out his eyes in the darkness. An eerie glimmer beneath the shroud of shadow. “It took you long enough,” you replied, surprising yourself with your quick, sharp wit. Perhaps he was bringing an edge out of you. Inciting a combative spirit within you. 

“Impatient,” he admonished. Watching you for a moment, he tilted his head, almost curiously. “You aren’t afraid.” 

“I’ve never been scared of the dark.”

He rounded the corner of the bed, closing in on you like a cat preparing to pounce on its unassuming prey. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking for?” Wasting no time, he cut to the chase. He was completely aware of why you wanted him here tonight. Why you’d been waiting in the dark. 

“Yes. I know exactly what I’m asking for.”

In the gloom, his face shifted into what appeared to be a knowing smile. It should have filled you with trepidation. Instead, it sent a ripple of burning want through you. 

His hand moved, fingers splayed wide as he let it pass over you. He wasn’t touching you, his shadow was merely hovering. Yet somehow, you felt him. A radiation of raw power and darkness, leaving goosebumps prickling along your skin. 

You leaned back against the mattress, legs involuntarily parting. His hand stopped there, and you felt it then. The desire deep within your core intensified, deepening and spreading until you began to squirm. 

“Poor little lamb. So lost. So desperate for someone to take care of you.” 

You gasped as he sat upon the edge of the bed, inches from you. He was fully touching you now, hand settled between your thighs, the only thing separating your skin from his being the thin cotton sleep shorts you wore. 

“Say it.”

The command reverberated through your mind, and you jolted slightly, mouth moving of its own accord. “I want you to take care of me.” There was no room for doubt in your tone. It was confident. Sure. 

A chill crept through your body, and you watched in shock as your pajamas began to dissolve in shadow, until they were gone entirely, leaving you bare to him. To the void. “Oh, but that’s the innocent way of saying it. And you’re far from innocent, aren’t you, little one?”

His fingers brushed over your temple, and you gasped sharply as a vision of being filled by him flashed through your mind. “Tell me you want me to own you.”

“I want you to own me.” A chill passed through you, just before his body was pressed against yours, cool to the touch.

“Yes,” he cooed, “give in to it.” His mouth was on yours, and you parted your lips, eager, wanting, welcoming. “Give in to that animal desire in that wicked little mind of yours.”

He was bare, you could feel him. Firm planes of muscle, sharp edges of bone, solid yet light as air, permanent yet ephemeral. His hands parted your thighs, ghosting down soft, sensitive flesh. An overwhelming swell of desire pulsed through the deepest part of you, and you realized he could control it. His hand hovered over you again, where you needed him most, and the arousal grew tenfold.

Your brain seemed to give way to white noise as the warmth of your desire began to travel from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. You knew, then, that he possessed all the power in this moment. A realization passed over you. He could bring you to unfathomable heights of pleasure without even touching you.

But you wanted him to touch you. You wanted him inside you. Consuming you. Swallowing you whole. And he knew that. 

When his hands passed over your chest, fingers swirling over hardening nipples, you whimpered, mouth falling open, back arching. That barest hint of stimulation sent an electric current through your body. It was almost as if you could feel his satisfied smirk. 

“So responsive.” He turned your face toward his, lips against yours again, tongue sliding into your mouth. Tasting you. Possessing you. 

You found yourself reaching for him, hands skittering over his shoulders, legs hooking around his waist. Pulling him closer. You had dreamed about this. Conjured it up in the deepest recesses of your mind, often while your hand was between your thighs, fingers pressed into your slick. The shadow of a man, having his way with you. 

“I can see them, you know,” he spoke again. “Your thoughts. Your darkest desires. And I’m in every single one of them.” His fingers came to rest upon your forehead, and your vision was clouded with the very scene that had taken place before you fell asleep.

Fingers buried deep inside your own cunt, writhing against the bed, moaning pathetically, whorishly, into the silence of your bedroom. You’d been imagining him while you did it. But your fingers couldn’t satisfy you. They weren’t long enough. Thick enough. Deep enough.

“Tell me, little one.” The vision faded again, and you returned to the present. “Can you pleasure yourself as well as I can pleasure you?”

You already knew you couldn’t. “I can’t!” you exclaimed.

“No, of course you can’t.” His fingers were there, where yours had been in the vision he’d shown you. Trailing through your sticky wetness, gathering it on his fingertips before he brushed them over your poor, aching clit. “You could never pleasure yourself as well as a god can.”

A mind-bending heat washed over you. You suddenly felt like a live wire, snapping and crackling, sizzling and popping, and he’d barely even touched you. In the shadows, his mouth parted to reveal a toothy, Cheshire cat grin. 

You were Alice, seconds away from falling into a dark rabbit hole. And yet, you felt no fear. Only anticipation. If he handed you a bottle labeled ‘Drink Me’, you would gulp it down without hesitation, consequences be damned. 

The intensity grew, and you found yourself arching off the bed once again, fingers curling into the sheets for purchase, body taut like the string of a bow. You knew that all it would take was a snap of his fingers, a flick of his hand, and you would fall apart. Knowing he held such raw power made your head spin. 

“Oh my god, please!” You cried out, unsure of what you were asking for. 

His free hand came to settle around your throat, squeezing only slightly, not using his full and infinite strength. “You learn quickly. That’s right. I am your god, aren’t I, lamb?”

There was that Cheshire smile again before he ducked forward, face against your neck. When you felt his teeth sink into your skin, a broken yelp tore itself from your throat, and you saw stars. 

If you were the lamb, he was the wolf that had you caged in his powerful jaw. 

Tongue soothing over the sharp bite, he shifted above you, pinning your wrists above your head with one hand, while he parted your delicate folds with the other. Then you felt him. Cock hard against you, trailing through your slick, even as you grew wetter still. 

“Beg me for it.” Once again, his command filled your head, voice low and almost threatening. As if you would be punished if you did not obey. 

You shifted your hips toward him, searching. “Please, please give it to me. I need it so badly, I can hardly stand it. Please!”

He hummed in amusement. “That’s simply not good enough. Remember, I know your darkest desires. The salacious things you plead for in the darkness of this room. Such filth and depravity. It’s the only way you can come. So go on, beg for it the right way.”

Dizzy, burning with need, and slightly embarrassed that he knew every intimate detail, you cried out, “Please, sir. I need your cock so badly. I need it to stretch my little pussy. I want you to ruin me for anyone else. Please!” 

“Pathetic,” he growled, but nonetheless, he aligned himself with you, and just as you were about to launch into another round of begging, he thrust forward in one fluid motion, filling you entirely. 

Your eyes went wide as saucers, and you couldn’t help the shriek that bubbled up within you. The stretch was so overwhelming, it knocked the breath right out of your lungs. But the strange thing was, it didn’t hurt. If anyone else of this size had thrust into you without careful preparation and added lubricant, you would have cried out in pain. 

But this man, this shadow, this void, did not cause you pain. In fact, what you felt was the furthest possible thing from pain imaginable. You saw the moon and stars flash behind your eyes as he joined your bodies together. You became one with the darkness, yet you’d never felt more light. 

“I own you now, little one,” he whispered in your ear. 

You wrapped your legs around his waist, wanting him impossibly closer. “I’m yours!”

Hands braced against the bed, caging you in, he pulled his hips back before he pushed forward again, relishing in the howl you let out. You were his little plaything to do whatever he pleased with. 

He was well aware that he was doing exactly what you’d asked him to; ruin you for anyone else. When he was finished with you, you would crave only him. You would never be sated, even if you fell into the bed of another. They would not fill you the way he did. They would not bring you to the heights of ecstasy that he could. 

But that was what you wanted. You had offered yourself to him, reposed in shadow, so willing and pliant.

“I waited for you,” you whispered against his mouth, as you took everything he had to give. 

“I know you did. Night after night spent hoping I would come. But I’ve always been there. Watching. Waiting.” 

Another deep thrust that resulted in your eyes rolling back in your head, a delicious tremor surging through you. 

“I was there, in the dark, when you called out my name. I am here now, as you plead for me still.” 

His words floated around you, settling into your skin like ink etched by a tattoo needle. 

“I am no good, nor evil, simply I am.” It felt as if he was speaking through you. Penetrating you in every way. “And I have come to take what is mine.”

Take me, please. All of me. I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours. 

You couldn’t get enough. All you wanted was more, more, more. Hands clawing at his back, hips rolling into his, desperate, searching, needing. You’d taken him to the hilt, and yet you still wanted more. Needed him beneath your skin, ebbing through your bloodstream. 

He gripped your hips in his hands, and even in your state of hazy pleasure, you realized how enormous they were, fingers covering the entirety of your hips. And as you looked up at him, you were suddenly aware of how he loomed over you. It felt like staring up, up, up into the vast night sky. Except there were no stars, save for the shine of his eyes as they took in the sight of you trembling beneath him. 

Others may have felt fear when looking into the face of darkness. But you simply welcomed it, searching for his mouth, allowing him to slip his tongue past your lips once again. 

He hitched your legs higher, pushing them toward your chest, allowing him a deeper range of motion that sent you wailing against his mouth, fingers digging into his back. You couldn’t describe it if you tried. It was all-consuming. A glorious, fiery warmth that bubbled to life within your veins, fizzing and popping like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. 

Tears sprang to your eyes, soon spilling down the sides of your face in hot trails. This seemed to please him greatly, as he hummed in delight. 

“Oh, look at you, little one. Crying as I have my way with you. What a sight.” He ducked down, his face inches from yours, and proceeded to press his tongue to each cheek, licking your tears away. Mouth parted in shock and awe, you watched him shiver, as if drinking your tears gave him some sort of depraved satisfaction. 

You were rendered speechless, unable to form a single coherent word as he quickened his pace, going deeper than you thought possible. It was almost as if your anatomy was changing to accommodate him. But that wasn’t possible, was it? 

However, by all accounts and purposes, it shouldn’t have been possible to fall into the throes of pleasure with a man made of shadows, yet that was exactly what was happening. 

And it was otherworldly. 

The beginnings of a glorious release were beginning to ripple through you. Your muscles tensed. Your heart rate quickened. Heat blossomed through you. You could feel yourself growing impossibly wetter around him, and the audible squelch of that wetness was obscene. 

It felt as if the darkness was coming to greet you. You sank further into the bed. Down, down, down, until it felt as if you were floating in outer space, and the only thing keeping you from floating out of orbit was him. 

“Let it overtake you,” he lulled, velvety smooth. “Don’t fight it.” A hand pressed against your low abdomen, splaying over the place where he was buried deep within you. 

You felt it then. A growing intensity. An all-consuming vibration of atoms. It swelled like an ocean wave, higher and higher, until it threatened to come violently crashing down upon you. 

He was controlling your body’s response. Amplifying it. And he could just as easily take it away if he wanted. But he didn’t. 

When his voice entered your head again, it was to speak another command. “Come.”

And you were free-falling. 

Your body was made of vast galaxies, bursting in air, vision engulfed in a myriad of bright, blinding colors that pulsed through your bloodstream. The darkness seemed to swell around you, growing until it swallowed you in its cold embrace.

His hand was against the side of your face, forehead pressed to yours. “Give it to me.” He seemed so absorb your ecstasy, consuming you, drinking you in. 

You writhed beneath him, mouth open in a silent wail as your eyes rolled back. It was an exorcism of pleasure, and you didn’t want it to end. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. I need more, more, more. 

Your legs trembled around his hips, muscles twitching of their own accord as you were ravaged by an unspeakable bliss. It seemed to go on for eternity, ebbing and flowing, so intense you felt as if it might drive you utterly mad.

No human being was meant to experience pleasure this otherworldly. It wasn’t possible. And yet, you were experiencing it. 

He had you exactly where he wanted you. Splayed out, succumbing to mindless pleasure. In your mind, he had already been given the title of god. You had given yourself to him, but he wanted to hear you say it.

As the intensity finally began to wan, and you stared up at him, eyes wide, he hummed, stroking your cheek in a way that almost seemed…tender.

“Please,” you whimpered, barely able to find your voice, “please, please, tell me I’m yours. That I belong to you.”

His fingers brushed over your parted lips. “It’s already been done.” Then those digits were slipping into your mouth, and you welcomed them, moaning salaciously as your mouth closed around them, tongue swirling. 

This seemed to delight him, as a pleased sound rumbled in the back of his throat. “Eager little lamb. It’s amusing to watch how desperate you are. Drooling all over my fingers, begging me to claim you as mine.”

He was still inside you, and he offered a particularly deep, harsh thrust that had you crying out around his fingers, eyes opening wide as saucers as an electric current ripped through you. You realized he wasn’t finished with you yet. What he’d just given you was only the beginning.

Without warning, he pulled back, gripping your hips, forcefully turning you over onto your belly. He arranged you as he saw fit, situating you so that you were face down. Your mind spun as you attempted to register the shift in position, but you didn’t have time to adjust, because seconds later, you felt him again, cock sliding into your poor, aching cunt.

You sobbed against the bed, mouth open. Strong hands held you still as he drove his hips forward at a bruising pace. How was this possible? You should have been in pain. Should have been telling him it was too much. But it wasn’t. In fact, you wanted more.

“Don’t stop!” You wailed, “don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop!”

It all seemed to intensify in this position, and you felt like a live wire, raw and thrumming with energy. With each thrust, your brain filled with white noise, tears leaking from your eyes, drool spilling from your mouth.

You could feel the power in each movement he made, thrumming above you like a great storm cloud. And you welcomed it. Begged for it. Let the storm wash over me.

One hand holding your head down, the other dipping between your legs to slide his fingers over your swollen little bundle, he spoke. “Tell me, little one. Who is your god?” He wanted to hear it again. 

And oh, how willingly you spoke it into the darkness of your bedroom. “You are!” You wept. 

“You’ll never forget it as long as you live. When you sleep at night, you will dream of me. When you find yourself in the dark, you will call my name. And I will come to you. You will crave me always. I am the only one who can satisfy that craving.”

Once again, his voice was inside your head, swirling through the folds of your brain. Yes, you would crave him. Only him. 

“Say it.”

“You! Only you!” Fiery heat had begun to gather in your belly again, spreading throughout your body. You could feel yourself dripping around him, your own arousal trailing down your inner thighs.

He angled your hips further, and suddenly, he was brushing against a little gathering of sensitive nerves, and you were screaming into the softness of the mattress as your orgasm ripped through you without warning, evidence of your ecstasy spilling from you, soaking his cock, and the sheets below.

You babbled incoherently, unsure if you were even conscious, or if you had slipped into a permanent state of bliss. Crying, sobbing, wailing. Clawing at the sheets. Trembling uncontrollably, like a leaf enduring hurricane winds. 

It was otherworldly. Supernatural. Transcendental. 

You left yourself, exiting your body, until you found yourself observing the moment from above. The way you trembled beneath the god of shadows, the one you had given your mind, body, and soul to. The one you would belong to for all eternity. 

And you smiled. 

As you returned to yourself, pleasure retreating, you felt it then. The way he pulsed within you. And there, in the deepest part of you, he spilled his seed. It filled you to the brim, and you welcomed it. 

Claim me. Make me yours. Bind me to you forever. 

As your body sank down against the bed, exhausted, legs trembling, he slid out of you, and you whimpered mournfully at the loss of contact. Moments later, you were on your back, as the darkness hovered over you, hand stroking your warm cheek, leaving coolness in its wake.

“Good little lamb,” he cooed. The sound of his voice was like black velvet against your skin, and your eyes began to grow heavy, lashes fluttering. “Morning will come soon. I must leave.” He could not exist in the light.

His lips were against yours again, and he spoke a prayer into your mouth. 

“Blessed be this daughter of the shadows, bound to me in darkness eternal.” Then he kissed you deeply, lingering only for the briefest of moments. “Sleep now, little one. Until we meet again.”

With that, you drifted into slumber.

When you woke the next morning, your eyes drifted toward the corner of the room, where he had been the night before. But all you saw was the reading chair you kept there. Shivering slightly, you realized that perhaps you’d been dreaming all along.

“What an insane dream,” you muttered to yourself as you moved to push yourself upright, swinging your legs over the side of the bed. Your pajamas were still on your body, as if they’d never disappeared at all. Nothing seemed out of place.

Then you stood, and the moment you did, you gasped, knees almost buckling as you felt it. You lifted one trembling hand, sliding it beneath the waistband of your shorts, between your thighs, dipping your fingers inside yourself. Sticky and wet, it coated your fingertips. When you drew them back, you saw it, glimmering against the digits. 

His voice echoed through your mind, repeating what he had said to you the night before. “I was there, in the dark, when you called out my name. And I am here now.”

Though you couldn’t see him, he was always with you. Lurking in the shadows. Waiting for darkness to come, so that he could once again claim you as his own. 

That realization sent you backward, legs giving way as you sank down onto the edge of the bed, holding tightly to the sheets so you wouldn’t slide down to the floor. A wave of heady desire washed over you as you recalled what he had done to you the night before.

As the morning sun warmed your bedroom, you found yourself giddy with excitement as you realized that, once the sun hid itself from the sky, he would return to you. And you would allow him to consume you once again.

After all, you weren’t afraid of the dark.

-

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[sky2nd]

category is wet cat man named bob played by lewis pullman

THEY’RE HAVING A BOB OFF

[sky2nd]

[sky2nd]

[sky2nd]

[sky2nd]

Bucky when his detachable arm detaches:

[sky2nd]

but your honour thats my emotional support word i overuse

[sky2nd]

LETTERS UNSENT

SUMMARY: You have shared too much with Caleb— your childhood in middle school, your restless teenage years in high school, and the sleepless nights that came with training at the DAA. Through every phase of your life, you’ve loved him. Quietly. Desperately. While he loved someone else.

So you learned to endure it.

You swallowed your feelings and tucked them away in secret letters never meant to be read—letters inked with heartbreak, feverish longing, and fantasies too raw to speak aloud. From crooked handwriting to elegant script, each page was a confession of the love you hated to carry, the ache you never outgrew. And when Caleb vanished from your life after graduation without a word, you buried those letters in a box, and the box deep within yourself.

Years later, fate intervenes.

Caleb returns—broader, bolder, devastatingly handsome. And strangely focused on you. His touches linger too long, his eyes see too much, and his smile says he knows exactly what you’ve been hiding. He looks at you like you’re the one he’s been waiting for—and you can’t tell if it terrifies you or tempts you more.

You try to pull away. You’ve spent too many years surviving without him to fall now.

But Caleb doesn’t let go.

Because now that he’s seen the truth—every broken sentence, every filthy fantasy, every whispered ‘I love you’ you never dared say out loud—he’s not just here to catch up.

He’s here to chase you down.

And he won’t stop until you’re his.

WORD COUNT: 11.1k

NOTES: Takes place after the Main story supposedly ends. This happens far in the future. Caleb is older here, 28–29 maybe. Reader is NOT mc, keep that in mind. In this scenario mc is with another LI.

You used to love love.

Not just the idea of it—but the ache of it. The promise of it. The giddy, schoolgirl butterflies and the midnight hopes whispered into your pillow. Love was the secret language of your world, threaded through songs you hummed under your breath, the romance novels dog-eared to your favorite passages, the ink-stained pages of letters never sent.

You believed in love the way children believe in magic.

But you grew up.

And love? It grew fangs.

Now, you love to hate it.

You hate how it made a fool of you. How it made you wait and yearn and burn in silence, hoping he’d look your way and see you. Not as a friend, not as a childhood companion, but as someone worth reaching for. Worth choosing. But he didn’t. He never did. Caleb’s heart was always spoken for.

So you buried your own.

You’ve become good at pretending. You laugh at romance now, scoff at declarations, dismiss affection with a curl of your lip and a joke that lands just bitter enough to be believable. You’re not heartless—you’re just tired. Of hoping. Of hurting. Of wanting things that were never yours to begin with.

You fill your time with things that don’t require soft emotions. You keep your hands busy and your mind busier. You hum lullabies to yourself when the silence grows too sharp. You sleep with the light on sometimes—not out of fear, but because the darkness reminds you too much of waiting for someone who never came back.

And still…

Despite it all…

Sometimes, on quiet nights when your guard slips, you wonder what it would be like to be loved out loud.

To be wanted so much it’s terrifying. To be chosen first.

You don’t dare admit it aloud. You barely let yourself think it.

Because if love ever finds you again…

You’re not sure if you’ll run away from it—

Or straight into its arms.

You hear his voice before you see him.

Low. Smooth. A little deeper than you remember. It cuts through the background noise like gravity pulling everything toward it—pulling you toward it. You freeze mid-step, your spine going taut like a wire drawn too tight. You know that voice. You’ve heard it in dreams. In memories. In the echo of unsent letters you’ll never admit you still read.

You turn slowly.

And there he is.

Caleb.

Older. Sharper. Beautiful in a way that feels almost unfair. His body is broader now, sculpted with strength and silent discipline. His jaw is dusted with scruff. His posture, relaxed but alert. And those eyes—still storm-silver and searing, but steadier somehow. Knowing.

He sees you.

Really sees you.

And for a moment, the world narrows to just the two of you standing there like a collision waiting to happen.

A beat passes.

“...It’s been a while,” he says, and God—he smiles.

That same crooked, devastating smile that used to undo you in a single heartbeat. But there’s something different now. Less boyish charm, more… reverence. Like he’s looking at a relic he thought lost forever and can’t quite believe is real.

You swallow, throat tight. “Yeah. A while.”

There’s so much you could say. So much you want to say. About the years. The distance. The versions of yourself that broke and rebuilt in his absence. But your mouth is dry and your thoughts scatter like startled birds.

Caleb steps forward—close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off him, smell the faint scent of metal and pine and something unmistakably him.

He looks you up and down slowly, like he’s taking inventory of everything time tried to steal.

“You look…” His gaze softens. “You look like trouble.”

You scoff—too sharp, too fast, your defense mechanisms kicking in like old habits. “And you still talk like you’re trying to land a date in a bar.”

His grin flashes wider. “Would it work if I was?”

God, he’s flirting.

Like you weren’t just background noise to him once. Like you didn’t spend years trying to scrape his ghost off your ribs.

You narrow your eyes. “Why are you here, Caleb?”

He leans in, the air between you charged, crackling. His voice drops—lower, rougher.

“Because I missed you.”

You blink. That wasn’t the answer you expected. Not from him. Not with that look in his eyes—part hungry, part haunted, all real.

And just like that, the careful walls you’ve built start to shake.

You hear the door creak open behind you before the sound of his footsteps catches up.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Caleb says, his voice deeper, richer than you remember. “You look... different.”

You don’t turn around immediately. The skyline looks safer than his face.

“Yeah, well. Years pass. People change.”

“Some people stay exactly the same,” he murmurs. “You still lean to the left when you’re uncomfortable.”

You whip around, heart doing a traitorous little jump when your gaze lands on him.

God. He’s unfair. Broader shoulders, sharper jaw, that golden tan that makes his white shirt look criminally good on him. His smile has mellowed into something more potent—less boyish charm, more devastating man.

You cross your arms. “You’re observant now. That’s new.”

He chuckles. “I’ve always been observant. You were just too busy avoiding my eyes to notice.”

Touché.

He walks closer—too close—and you catch a whiff of his cologne, spicy and dark, like danger disguised as comfort. His gaze drops to your lips for half a second too long before returning to your eyes with a glint that spells trouble.

“How long has it been?” he asks softly.

“Since you ditched our entire friend group without a word? Or since I gave up hoping for a message you never sent?”

His jaw tenses. “I deserved that.”

“You did.”

There’s a beat of silence between you, thick with all the things you’re too proud to say and all the things he suddenly looks desperate to.

You retreat into the safety of the couch, motioning for him to sit across—but no, of course not. Caleb drops beside you, hip pressed against yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“What about Emcee?” you ask, biting the inside of your cheek. “You two live happily ever after or what?”

His brow furrows. “Emcee? God, no. That was over before it ever started.”

Your heart skips. “Oh.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I’m not.” Lie. “Just surprised.”

“Good,” he says, leaning in, his voice a husky whisper. “Because I didn’t come here to talk about her. I came here for you.”

Your breath catches. You laugh, shaky and forced. “Wow, Caleb. You’ve upgraded your flirting. What happened to your legendary cheesy pickup lines?”

He grins. “I could still use one, if you’re nostalgic. But I figured you’ve grown out of tolerating my bullshit.”

“Smart of you.”

And yet, the way his knee brushes yours every few seconds isn’t helping. Neither is the way his hand hovers just a little too close to your thigh when he reaches for his coffee.

You’re not sure what’s worse—that he’s this charming now, or that it’s working.

Later that night, after he leaves with a promise to “see you soon” and a gaze that lingers like heat, you retreat into your sanctuary.

Your room. Your old dresser. The box tucked under the drawer like a dirty little secret.

The letters.

Every one of them stained with years of aching want and unspeakable need. A catalogue of your descent into hopeless longing, from childish hope to fevered fantasy. The kind of thing no one should ever read.

Especially not Caleb.

But fate, of course, doesn’t care what you want.

The first time he brushes a strand of hair behind your ear, it's under the guise of helping you with groceries.

“I’m perfectly capable,” you snap, snatching the bag from his hands.

Caleb just laughs, leaning in. “I know. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.”

His knuckles graze yours. You pretend not to notice. He pretends not to notice you pretending. Bastard.

—

The second time, you’re at your favorite café, the one with the uneven chairs and the cinnamon drinks he used to gag over. You’d brought him there as a joke, once. Now he takes you there seriously.

He’s seated too close, his thigh pressed against yours like a quiet claim.

“So,” he says, turning his head toward you. “No boyfriend? Fiancé? Star-crossed lover waiting in the wings?”

“None of your business.”

“That’s a no, then,” he says smugly, sipping his drink.

You glance at him, narrowing your eyes. “Why are you asking?”

“Just making sure I’m not stepping on any toes,” he murmurs, then adds, “when I kiss you.”

Your heart slams into your ribs. You scoff, rolling your eyes so hard they might get stuck. “You’re not kissing me.”

“Not today, maybe,” he says easily. “But eventually.”

You hate how warm your cheeks get. You hate him a little more for noticing.

—

The third time is worse.

You’ve both had a bit too much wine. Not drunk, but soft around the edges. He’s on your couch, lounging like he belongs there, like the time between now and then never happened.

He watches you over the rim of his glass. “Why do you keep flinching when I touch you?”

“I don’t flinch.”

“You do. Like you’re scared I’m not real.”

You take a sip of your wine and stare straight ahead. “I’m just trying to figure out what you want.”

His voice goes quiet. “You.”

The word hits you like a punch.

“You wanted Emcee for years.”

“I was stupid for years.”

You meet his eyes. They’re clearer than they’ve ever been—focused, almost painfully sincere.

“That’s convenient,” you say coldly.

He sets his glass down, leans in. “No. It’s fate finally letting me try again.”

His hand reaches up, brushes your cheek with maddening tenderness. He’s so close you can feel the heat of his breath.

You freeze. The ache in your chest roars to life again. This is everything you ever wanted—but you don’t trust it. Not yet.

You turn your head. Just barely.

Caleb’s jaw clenches, his hand falling away.

He sits back without a word.

—

The fourth time, it’s raining.

He brings you a coffee, his hair damp, his hoodie soaked at the shoulders.

“You didn’t have to walk in this weather,” you mutter, taking the drink anyway.

“I wanted to.” His smile is lazy, but his eyes are sharp. “You’re still not letting me in.”

“Would you trust someone who vanished for years without a word?”

His smile falters. Then, to your surprise, he nods. “I wouldn’t. But I’d want them to fight for the chance to be trusted again.”

He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a familiar-looking charm—a bent paper star you made him in high school.

“I didn’t forget you,” he says, voice low. “I tried to.”

That might be the worst thing he’s ever said. Because it means he felt something. Because it means you weren’t the only one suffering in silence.

Because it means he’s telling the truth.

You excuse yourself before your throat gives way to the sobs you refuse to let him see.

He doesn’t follow.

But he waits.

He always waits now.

And that’s more dangerous than any of his old pickup lines.

You agree to go with him to the observatory.

Big mistake.

It’s late, the sky smeared with stars and promises, the air just crisp enough that Caleb offers you his jacket before you can even pretend to be cold.

You don’t take it.

So, naturally, he just drapes it over your shoulders anyway, like you’re his.

“It looks better on you,” he says, voice quiet as your fingers clutch at the sleeves that still smell like him.

“Don’t start,” you murmur, but there’s no real bite to it.

“Start what?” His smirk is all mischief. “Being nice? Can’t help it. You bring it out of me.”

You roll your eyes and turn your gaze to the sky, but he keeps watching you like you’re the constellation he’s been chasing all his life.

“I used to come here when I missed you,” you admit without thinking, and immediately wish you hadn’t.

The silence that follows is so sharp it could cut glass.

“When you missed me?” His voice is different now—serious. Dangerous. “How often did that happen?”

You laugh, tight and brittle. “Only every time I breathed.”

His head tilts slightly, like he’s not sure he heard you right.

Then: “Say that again.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll use it against me.”

He steps closer, slow and purposeful, until your back meets the cold railing. His hands cage you in, one on either side of your body, his expression unreadable but intense.

“Do you really think I’d take something that precious and weaponize it?”

“I don’t know what you’d do anymore.”

“Then let me show you,” he says, and for a terrifying second, you think he’s going to kiss you.

But he doesn’t.

His lips hover just beside your ear, the warmth of his breath teasing your neck.

“I dreamt of you too, you know. Every damn night.”

Your knees nearly buckle, but pride is a stronger drug than longing.

“Then why didn’t you do anything?” you whisper.

He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes burning. “Because I was stupid. And I thought you didn’t feel the same.”

You snort. “Well. You were wrong.”

“I know,” he growls. “I know that now. And you’re still keeping me at arm’s length.”

“Damn right I am.”

His smile is tight, hungry. “Fine. You want to make me work for it? I’ll work.”

“I want to be chased, Caleb. Not collected.”

He steps back, hands raised in mock surrender, but his grin is pure trouble.

“Then run, sweetheart. I’ll catch up.”

You hate him for knowing exactly how to undo you.

And maybe you hate yourself more for wanting to be caught.

It’s late. The kind of late where even the shadows seem to sleep.

The old piano room is still your secret solace—dusty, dim, filled with forgotten echoes and dreams you never dared to say out loud. The acoustics are perfect. No one ever comes in here anymore.

Except for one person.

You don't hear him at first. You’re too wrapped up in the song, the way your voice trembles on the high notes, the keys trembling beneath your fingertips. It’s the kind of melody you never intended anyone to hear. Especially not him.

I didn't opt in to be your odd man out

I founded the club she's heard great things about

I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath

Your voice breaks. You close your eyes, breathe, keep going anyway.

I stopped CPR, after all it's no use

The spirit was gone, we would never come to

And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free

Silence. One, two, three beats of it. Then—

“You always did sound beautiful when you were sad.”

You jump.

Caleb leans against the doorway like he owns the place. Like he owns the air in your lungs. Like he owns you.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he adds, smile lazy, eyes sharp. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

You blink. “You heard that?”

“I always do.”

Of course he did.

You feel your cheeks burn as he strolls in, gaze never leaving yours. “That song… it’s new?”

You clear your throat, try for nonchalance. “Just something I was playing around with.”

He hums. “Right. Totally not about anyone in particular.”

You bristle. “Did I say that?”

“Nope. But you don’t have to. You forget—I know your voice. I know when it’s for fun. And when it’s ripping you open.”

You glance away, fingers tapping nervously on the ivory keys. “You're being dramatic.”

He kneels beside the bench. Just like that, he’s too close again. Always too close.

“You used to do this all the time,” he murmurs. “Sneak away to sing where no one could find you. You didn’t know I followed.”

Your heart stutters. “You never said anything.”

“Why would I ruin it?” His gaze darkens. “Hearing you like that—it was the only time I ever got to feel like you needed something.”

“I didn’t sing those songs for you,” you lie.

Caleb tilts his head, eyes locked on yours. “Then why are your cheeks red?”

You shove away from the piano, muttering, “You're insufferable.”

He follows, not missing a beat. “You’re blushing, songbird.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

You stop. He almost slams into you.

You glare up at him. “You think you’re so clever.”

He leans in, smirking. “No. I think I’ve waited too long to be this close to you, and now that I’m here, I’m not backing off.”

The worst part? Your hands are trembling. Your knees are weak. And still, somehow, you want more.

But pride wraps around your tongue like a noose.

“You heard the song,” you say, voice low. “That’s enough.”

His eyes flick down to your lips. Then back up. He’s not smiling anymore.

“No,” Caleb whispers. “It’s not.”

You should have locked the damn drawer.

You don’t even know what made you check—but something prickled at the back of your neck the moment you stepped into your apartment. Like something sacred had been disturbed. And when you see the box in Caleb’s hands, your heart stops cold.

No. No.

His head lifts as the door shuts behind you.

And your world implodes.

He’s seated on your couch like he’s carved from stone, the soft golden lamp beside him casting long shadows across the muscles in his jaw and the heartbreak in his eyes.

He’s holding your soul in his hands.

The letters—dozens of them, hundreds, years of ink and agony and lust and grief—you recognize the crooked childhood handwriting, the shaky, angry teenage confessions, the flowing script of your adult longing. Pages of you. Laid bare.

Your breath catches. Your throat closes.

“I—That’s not—You weren’t supposed to—” Your voice cracks. Your knees are trembling.

Caleb stands, the box still in his grip. He looks wrecked.

“I read every single one,” he says softly.

“Put them away,” you whisper, voice hollow. “Please, just… put them away.”

“I can’t.”

You turn to bolt, pure instinct.

And that’s when gravity betrays you.

A weight presses against your body—not crushing, but firm, immovable, inescapable. His Evol. 

Your hands fly to the walls, to the floor, anywhere to push back, but you’re floating. Held in place. Suspended in the moment you never wanted him to witness.

“Caleb—!”

“I need you to hear me,” he says, moving closer. Slowly. Carefully. Like approaching a wounded animal.

Your back hits the wall.

He stops just inches from you, eyes devouring every inch of your face. His expression is ravenous, pained, like he’s starving and terrified that the meal in front of him will vanish if he breathes too hard.

“I didn’t know,” he says, his voice ragged. “I never knew.”

You shake your head. “You weren’t supposed to.”

His hand lifts. Hovers near your cheek. “I’ve been walking around blind, thinking I lost you back then. But you never stopped… You loved me. You loved me so much it hurt.”

Tears gather hot and fast in your eyes. “Caleb—don’t—”

“And I was in love with you,” he breathes. “All this time I thought I was chasing someone else, but it was you. It was always you.”

You look away. “You didn’t want me. You wanted her. You chose her.”

“I didn’t choose anyone,” he growls. “I was a coward. I ran. I shut you out and let you carry all that alone. I thought I was protecting you.”

“You weren’t,” you whisper. “You were destroying me.”

The look in his eyes breaks something in you.

“I memorized your words,” he says quietly, his forehead leaning gently against yours. “Every line. Every wish. Every desperate, filthy, aching thing you wanted to say. I felt all of it. Like I was there with you, through every goddamn year I missed.”

You tremble, caught in his pull, aching with the need to believe—but terrified to let yourself fall.

“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” you whisper.

“I’m not asking you to,” he murmurs. “Not yet.”

His fingers trail lightly over your waist, your hip, anchoring you. The Gravity around you loosens just enough for your feet to touch the floor again, but you don’t move.

His mouth brushes against your temple.

“I just want to earn you. All of you. Like I should’ve from the start.”

You don’t kiss him.

But you don’t pull away either.

You can’t.

Because suddenly, you're not cold anymore.

You’re burning.

He stays.

Even when you tell him to leave—quietly, then louder, then with trembling fingers pressed to his chest like a warning—Caleb stays.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you whisper, not meeting his eyes.

“I should’ve been here years ago,” he murmurs. “Don’t you get it? I’m not leaving again.”

You shove him.

He barely budges.

You shove him again.

This time, his hands catch your wrists mid-motion, fast, firm—calm.

You freeze. His skin is warm against yours, calloused where it should be gentle, familiar where it should feel foreign. Your pulse spikes in your throat.

“Let me go,” you say, breathless.

“No.”

Your breath hitches.

“No?” you echo.

His voice drops. “Not until you stop pretending you don’t want me to stay.”

You glare up at him, furious. “You think a few words and a couple of pretty promises erase everything?”

“No,” he says again. “But I’ll keep proving myself until they do.”

You twist out of his grip—nearly—before he suddenly pulls you in.

And for one terrible, brilliant second, your bodies align like they’ve been waiting for this moment your whole lives.

His eyes search yours.

And then, Caleb whispers, “Tell me to stop.”

You open your mouth.

But nothing comes out.

So he kisses you.

Not a soft, hesitant brush of lips.

It’s a claiming.

It’s all the years you spent alone, writing down your agony like confessions to a God who never answered. It’s every fantasy you denied yourself, every moment you watched him look at someone else and wished it were you. It's him—finally, truly, desperately—here.

Your fingers fist in his shirt like you’re angry, like you’re clinging to something you swore you’d never need again.

And when you break apart, gasping, forehead pressed to his, you say—

“I hate you.”

He smiles, soft and ruined. “I know.”

“I hate how much I wanted that.”

“I hope you did.”

“I’m still not making this easy.”

Caleb’s lips trail down your jaw, his voice a low rasp. “You’ve never made anything easy, sweetheart. That’s why you’re worth everything.”

And still—

Still, your heart trembles with the weight of old wounds, and you pull back just enough to see the truth in his eyes.

“You’ll have to fight for this,” you warn him.

His hand finds the back of your neck, possessive and reverent. “Then prepare to be relentlessly pursued.”

You never agreed to date him.

But apparently, Caleb’s taking “relentless pursuit” as a blood oath.

He shows up at your place the next morning with coffee—your actual order, down to the way you like the foam. He doesn’t say how he remembers. You don’t ask.

That night, he texts you at 2am.

Bastard: Thinking about that song you sang. Thinking about your lips too, but that’s not important (it is).

You throw your phone across the bed.

The next day, he’s waiting outside your building. Leaning against his hoverbike, all long legs and low-lidded eyes and that grin. You think he’s here for some kind of mission.

Nope.

Just here to take you to lunch.

“Don’t say this is a date,” you grumble.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, offering his hand. “But hold on tight anyway.”

You hate how your fingers slide into his like they belong there.

—

Caleb doesn’t just flirt. He weaponizes charm like he trained for it.

He gives you compliments with the kind of intensity that makes it hard to breathe.

“I love your voice. Especially when you don’t realize you’re humming.”

“You roll your eyes the same way you used to when I beat you in training. It’s kind of adorable.”

“You don’t have to pretend around me. I know what you sound like when you're honest. I miss that sound.”

He touches you too often. Hand brushing your lower back when he walks past. Fingers grazing yours when he hands you something. Sitting just a little too close on your couch, his thigh pressed against yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

You hold strong—for a while.

Until he stays over one night, after watching some late-night sci-fi re-run and falling asleep on your couch like a smug golden retriever with abs.

You try to nudge him awake.

You fail.

Hard.

He catches your wrist in his sleep, pulls you down half-on top of him, murmurs your name like it’s a secret prayer, and buries his face in your neck.

You don’t sleep.

Your body is screaming.

But your heart?

It’s terrified.

—

When morning comes, you wake to him cooking in your kitchen like he belongs there, shirt half-unbuttoned, hair a mess, singing your song under his breath.

You freeze in the doorway.

He sees you.

And smiles.

Like you’re not the one who spent ten years hiding a love that almost broke you. Like he’s not here to crack it wide open.

“Morning, sweetheart,” Caleb says softly. “Stay.”

You almost do.

But you don’t.

Not yet.

You think you're doing a good job keeping him at bay.

You’re not.

Because Caleb is everywhere now.

He’s in your kitchen again, humming off-key as he steals bites from your cooking. He’s draped across your couch like it’s his favorite place in the world. He’s in the way he looks at you like you invented gravity, like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded.

You keep your walls up.

But he keeps coming.

Like he knows you’re lying every time you act unaffected.

—

One night, after a long mission and even longer silence, he shows up unannounced. Eyes shadowed. Mouth grim. Shoulders tense with something unspoken.

You open the door.

He doesn’t say a word—just walks past you, breath ragged.

You follow him into your living room. “Caleb?”

“I thought I lost you again,” he says, voice low.

Your stomach drops. “What?”

He turns to face you, and it’s like the air shifts. Thickens.

“I heard your name over the comms. Brief moment of static. No confirmation you made it out. Just radio silence.”

You cross your arms. “I made it out fine.”

“I didn’t know that,” he snaps. “And for a second, I thought—” He cuts himself off, jaw tight.

You exhale. “I’m used to people not checking in.”

“I’m not people.”

He stalks closer.

You step back.

He follows.

“I don’t care how many times you push me away. You don’t get to disappear on me.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” you throw back. “Pretend like none of this hurts? Like I didn’t bleed for you in silence for years while you played hero somewhere else?”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Your voice cracks. “Because I can’t let myself fall again, Caleb. Not if you're just gonna walk away when it gets hard.”

He grabs your wrist.

Not rough. Just certain.

“Look at me.”

You don’t.

So he tips your chin up with two fingers.

His eyes are burning.

“I am not going anywhere. I don't care how long it takes. You can scream, you can run, you can tell me you hate me. I’ll still be right here.”

“Why?” you whisper, eyes glossy. “Why now?”

“Because I’ve loved you longer than I even understood what that meant,” he breathes. “And I’m done pretending I don’t want every single part of you.”

His other hand slides to your waist, slow and reverent.

Your breath hitches.

You can feel his heartbeat through your palm. Fast. Desperate.

The heat between you is unbearable.

One tilt of your head and you’d be kissing him again.

You want to.

God, you ache to.

But instead, you whisper, “This changes nothing.”

He leans in, nose brushing yours.

“Wrong,” Caleb whispers, his voice rough with restraint. “It changes everything.”

But he doesn’t kiss you.

Not this time.

He lets you go.

And it’s infuriating—because now you want him even more.

The first thing you notice is the light—soft gold spilling through your curtains, catching on floating dust motes, warming the edges of the sheets tangled around your legs.

The second thing you notice is the heat.

Not the weather. Not the blanket.

Him.

Your breath stills.

Because Caleb’s wrapped around you like he owns you.

Which—he doesn’t.

He shouldn’t.

And yet here you are, cocooned in his arms, his entire body molded to yours like you were sculpted to fit him. Your head is pillowed on his chest, right over the steady, heavy thump of his heart. One of his hands is buried in your hair, fingers gently tangled, the other gripping your waist in a possessive clutch that hasn’t loosened even in sleep.

You remember falling asleep with your back to him.

You do not remember signing up for this full-body cuddle trap.

Then there's his thigh—wedged between your legs like it lives there.

Your cheeks burn.

“Okay,” you whisper to yourself. “Time to get out before you completely lose your mind.”

You try to slip away quietly.

You wiggle.

No movement.

You nudge his hand.

His grip tightens.

You try prying his fingers from your waist. It’s like wrestling a bear. A warm, unfairly smug bear.

You let out a frustrated sigh and attempt to roll away—but the second you shift, Caleb lets out a low, sleepy groan. His body shifts with yours, tightening the hold, his thigh sliding higher. His lips brush your neck, parting slightly—

And then he nibbles.

You whimper.

It betrays you instantly.

That quiet little sound. The one that escapes before you can swallow it.

Caleb hums. The vibrations rumble through his chest, into your cheek.

And then—

“Mm... morning,” he murmurs, voice wrecked and delicious.

You go still.

“Caleb,” you say, your voice a warning.

His lips find your pulse point. “You smell good,” he slurs, still half-asleep, tone thick with something dangerous.

His thigh rocks just slightly forward. Pressure, heat.

You squeak.

His arms tighten like steel bands.

He’s caging you in.

“C-Caleb, get off—this is—this is not appropriate!”

Another sleepy groan. His lips ghost along your jaw. “You’re so warm.”

Your brain short-circuits.

“You’re dreaming,” you say, trying desperately to breathe like a normal person. “This is a dream. You’re dreaming. Let me go.”

He chuckles—chuckles. A deep, lazy sound against your neck. “If I’m dreaming, I’m never waking up.”

Then his hips shift. Just barely.

But enough.

“Caleb!”

His eyes snap open.

You expect guilt.

What you get is heat.

Raw, focused, and dangerous.

He blinks once. Then twice. Then—

His hand slides from your waist to the small of your back. His nose brushes yours.

“I was trying to be good,” Caleb murmurs. “You have no idea how hard it’s been.”

You do, actually.

Because it’s been hell for you, too.

You’re seconds from giving in—completely, helplessly—when you shove at his chest with both hands and scramble out from beneath him.

You’re standing, heart racing, cheeks flushed, breathless.

Caleb just smirks from the bed, messy-haired and golden in the morning light. “What? You gonna pretend you didn’t enjoy that?”

You throw a pillow at his face.

“Out,” you snap.

He catches it effortlessly. “No breakfast first?”

You march to the door.

“Fine, fine. But next time?” He swings his legs over the edge and stands, gaze searing into yours. “You’ll beg me to stay.”

You slam the door in his face.

It doesn’t stop your knees from buckling.

It happens fast.

Too fast for logic. Too fast for the walls you’ve spent years constructing around your traitorous heart.

One moment you’re arguing—again. Another stupid quip from him, another reckless flirtation that turns your blood to fire. You’re trying to hold on to the last shred of distance between you, snapping something half-hearted and defensive—

And then Caleb moves.

He grabs your wrists, spinning you with dizzying ease, and slams them gently but firmly against the wall. Your back hits the cold surface. His body follows.

You gasp.

His eyes meet yours.

They are ravenous.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Caleb says, voice low, feral, shaking with restraint. “I can’t keep pretending I don’t want to devour you.”

Your breath catches.

And then he kisses you.

Hard.

Not sweet. Not tentative.

Possessive.

Like he’s claiming what was always his.

Your body jerks with the force of it, your wrists still caged in his hands above your head. You try to twist free—not to escape, but because it’s too much, all-consuming, desperate.

He doesn’t let you go.

He presses closer instead, chasing your mouth with his own, drinking in every gasp, every shuddering moan you try to swallow.

You break away for air—just for a second—and he follows, mouth trailing your jaw, nipping your throat, sucking a mark into the skin just below your ear.

“Caleb—” you manage, but it comes out a whimper.

His pelvis grinds into yours, deliberate and aching. The friction draws a strangled sound from your throat.

“Oh god—”

“That’s it,” he groans against your skin. “That sound. I’ve imagined it every night. Every. Damn. Night.”

His hands leave your wrists—only to slide down your arms, your sides, until they’re clutching your hips like he might fall apart if he lets go. He lifts you onto the wall, thigh pressing between your legs, grinding again.

Your fingers tangle in his shirt, yanking him closer even as your brain screams to stop this.

But your body?

Your body is already his.

“Tell me to stop,” Caleb breathes, forehead pressed to yours, chest heaving.

You don’t.

You can’t.

There’s no pretending anymore. No wall to hide behind.

Because the truth is—he touches you like a man starved, but worships you like you're divine.

His lips return to yours, slower this time but no less intense, and it feels like every missed moment, every unsent letter, every buried ache is burning through the kiss.

His self-control shatters.

And you let it.

Because there’s no going back now.

He whispers your name like a secret, like a vow. It breaks you a little, how he says it. Like he’s tasting the weight of it for the first time.

There’s a moment—barely a breath—after that kiss.

His forehead presses to yours, both of you trembling, not just from adrenaline but from something deeper. Something that feels like standing on the edge of a cliff after running your whole life just to avoid the fall.

Then he moves.

Your legs wrap around his waist without thought—instinct meeting inevitability. You're holding on to the only thing in the room that feels real. He lifts you as if he was made to, the heat between you palpable, a pulse that beats beneath your skin, echoing every missed chance and quiet longing.

The kiss deepens. Desperate, molten, tasting of years swallowed down and swallowed whole. His hands are everywhere—anchoring, memorizing, shaking just slightly from how hard he’s holding back.

He carries you through the house like a man possessed. Not with lust, but with ache. The bedroom door shuts with a thud behind you, and suddenly the air is full of promises, unspoken but heavy. When your back meets the mattress, he follows—solid and unyielding. Not crushing, but overwhelming in the way only someone you've loved for too long can be.

His weight is warmth, his gaze all hunger and reverence. His hands slide beneath your clothes, not to strip, but to feel. His palm over your heart. His fingers brushing your ribs like counting the years apart. Every touch says: I missed this. I missed you.

“You still gonna pretend you don’t want this?” he murmurs, his voice low, scraping over the tenderest parts of you.

You try to breathe out a laugh, but it catches on something in your throat—emotion, maybe. Want, definitely.

His mouth presses to your skin in a trail that’s less possession and more devotion. His touch follows, mapping you slowly, like he's rediscovering a land he once called home. You feel yourself arch into him, answer him without words, because words were never big enough for this.

He whispers things you’ll remember later—soft confessions and raw need laced with regret for every year wasted. You shiver when his breath touches your skin, when his fingers slide across bare inches you didn't mean to offer but couldn't deny.

And then... silence. Not because the moment ends. But because it begins.

Everything else fades.

There are no sharp lines, only sensation—heat and trembling limbs, quiet gasps, and the way your fingers fist into his shirt like you’ll fall apart without him there to catch you.

You lose time in the haze of it. In the rhythm of closeness, of skin against skin, of hearts beating so loud they drown out thought. You feel unraveled. Revered. Completely undone. Not by action, but by intent.

After, when the quiet stretches between you and your breath finally slows, he doesn’t let go. He stays draped over you, face buried in the crook of your neck like he’s terrified you’ll vanish if he opens his eyes.

“This isn’t over,” he says. His voice is hoarse, a whisper etched with everything he’s never said aloud. “I’m not letting you go. Not this time.”

And for the first time, you let yourself believe it.

Not because of what just happened.

But because of everything that didn’t need to.

You lost track of how long ago the sun set.

The air is heavy with heat and sweat, your skin slick against the sheets. You’re boneless, trembling, lips swollen from kisses too deep, too desperate. Every nerve is raw. Every breath you take shudders.

And Caleb?

Caleb is still going.

He hovers above you, eyes dark with something starved—like he’s been waiting his whole life for this and now that he has you, he doesn’t know how to stop. His hands roam as if relearning the shape of you again and again, like the memory alone will never be enough.

“We’re not done,” he murmurs, brushing hair from your damp forehead. “Not yet.”

You try to protest, but all that leaves you is a soft, aching sound.

He smiles—soft, wicked, reverent.

And leans in to kiss you like it’s the first time all over again.

You're floating.

Barely conscious, held together by the fragile thread of Caleb’s body wrapped around yours, his breath a soft rhythm against your neck.

Your limbs are jelly. Your thighs ache. Your lips are kiss-bitten and bruised, and you're so sensitive that every inch of you shivers when he so much as adjusts beside you.

And yet—even now, even after hours—he won’t stop touching.

Not in the same feral, frantic way as before. No. Now it’s worship.

He kisses the curve of your shoulder, the back of your neck, your spine. His fingertips trace lazy, possessive patterns into your hips. He murmurs things—some unintelligible, some far too intimate.

“You’re perfect,” he whispers against your skin.

“I missed you.”

“I’ll never let you go again.”

You’re too tired to reply. Your voice is hoarse from screaming, from moaning his name over and over, but your heart responds like a bell rung too hard. It throbs.

Eventually, he gets up—only to return with a warm towel, water, a fresh shirt. He tends to you with gentle hands, murmuring apologies each time you flinch from how sensitive you are, pressing soft kisses to your forehead, your temple, your knuckles.

When he finally slides into the shower with you, your body instinctively leans into his. The water is hot, soothing, washing away the sweat, the stickiness, the evidence of your complete and total unraveling.

But not the ache. Not the possessiveness.

He sits on the tiled bench and pulls you into his lap, your legs straddling him, head tucked under his chin. You’re exhausted, wrecked—and he’s still hard beneath you.

You give him a look that’s half horror, half disbelief.

He smirks, eyes dark and gleaming. “I told you, I’m not finished.”

“Caleb—”

“I owe you,” he says, voice dipping low. “For every year I didn’t touch you. For every time you cried over me in silence. For every word in those letters I should’ve read sooner.”

Your breath hitches.

And then his lips descend again—slow, tender, reverent. As if he’s trying to memorize this version of you, water-slicked and trembling in his arms, yours at last.

Back in bed, you collapse into his chest, body boneless, heart hammering.

And just when you think he’s finally done—

He shifts again.

Rolls you beneath him.

“You’re not going to let me sleep?” you rasp.

His fingers trail down your body, between your thighs, making you jolt.

“No,” he breathes against your ear. “You’re not sleeping until I’ve claimed every inch of you. Until you can’t think of anything but me.”

You should tell him to stop.

You don’t.

Because the truth is: every part of you belongs to him already.

And now?

He’s going to make sure you never forget it.

The morning after feels… dangerous.

Not because you’re in any real peril—but because it’s blissfully quiet, and the man who wrecked you within an inch of your life is humming softly in your kitchen, shirtless, wearing nothing but sweatpants slung far too low on his hips, looking like the devil himself in domestic drag.

You barely make it through the doorway, each step a careful negotiation with gravity and sore muscles. Your thighs ache. Your back aches. Everything aches. But the moment Caleb glances over his shoulder and smirks at your limp?

Oh, you want to punch him.

Or kiss him.

Or both.

“You’re up,” he says, voice as smug as the day is long.

“I tried to stay asleep,” you deadpan. “But someone kept me up all night.”

He chuckles—low and wicked—and sets a mug of coffee on the counter for you.

“Consider it payback.”

You squint at him. “For what?”

His eyes drop to your hips, the curve of your throat, the faint marks blooming on your skin like war medals.

“For every letter you wrote and never gave me.”

Your stomach drops.

The mug clatters slightly when you set it down too fast.

You’d almost forgotten. Almost managed to push aside the mortifying knowledge that he read everything.

And yet, here he is—utterly unbothered, possibly turned on, casually flipping pancakes like he didn’t spend the night wrecking you with the very fantasies you'd penned in lonely bedrooms and late-night heartbreak.

“You read them all,” you say, not quite a question.

He looks at you over his shoulder. “Memorized. Studied. Jerk—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Caleb.”

He only grins wider.

You try to be casual, sip your coffee, lean against the wall like you’re not reliving every desperate, depraved word he’s now got locked and loaded in that beautiful head of his. But he’s already watching you too closely. Reading you like one of those letters.

“There's one you missed,” you murmur before you can stop yourself.

He freezes.

Slowly, slowly, he turns. “Where?”

You bite your lip.

“The drawer by my bed. Bottom one.”

He’s gone before you even blink.

Your heart is pounding.

By the time you stumble after him, he’s already sitting on the bed, letter in hand. It’s the last one. The one you wrote when you thought you’d never see him again. It was raw, feral—filled with longing so thick it could drown you.

He reads it silently. His jaw tightens. His Adam’s apple bobs hard.

When he finishes, he just looks at you.

You’re not sure what you expect.

But you do not expect him to throw the letter down and stand up like that.

“I’m going to ruin you again,” he says, voice low. “And this time, it won’t stop until you beg me to believe you’re mine.”

Your knees buckle.

But he’s already crossing the room.

Already crowding you against the wall, hands gripping your thighs, lifting you effortlessly until your back hits wood and your legs wrap around him like muscle memory.

“Caleb—” you gasp, but he silences you with a kiss that’s pure possession.

“No more running. No more letters.” He grinds against you, voice rasping. “You want to scream my name? Do it now. Right here. Where I can answer every word.”

And you do.

God help you, you do.

—

You don't know how you made it through round... whatever number that was. Your body's a puddle, your skin still humming, but Caleb is finally calm. Sated, for now. The hunger in his eyes has simmered down into something deeper—something dangerous in its quiet intensity.

He’s seated now, bare chest gleaming faintly in the afternoon light, legs spread with an unmistakable air of ownership. You’re half-draped across his torso, wearing one of his shirts that swallows you whole. He holds you with one arm looped securely around your waist, the other hand delicately unfolding that last letter. The most intimate one. The one you never meant anyone—especially him—to see.

You try not to squirm as he reads it again, slowly, as if committing every line to memory.

You can feel his eyes on the page—but his attention is on you.

“You wrote this two years ago,” he says softly, thumb brushing idle circles against your inner thigh. “I was at the edge of the solar belt. Couldn’t sleep that night. I felt… off. Like I was missing something.”

You glance down, ashamed. “Don’t romanticize it.”

“I’m not,” he replies simply. “I’m aligning timelines.”

Your heart stutters. His hand stills.

“Do you want me to stop reading?” he asks, genuine this time.

You consider it. Swallow. Then shake your head.

He nods, kisses your temple.

Another beat of silence. The room smells of skin and paper and sunlight.

Then, quietly, with a low chuckle, he murmurs:

“I should have known,” he mutters, “you liked being chased. You always did, even as a kid. Remember all those games of tag?”

You remember.

And you remember how he’d always let you win—just enough—before pulling you back into his arms with that sly smile of his, the one that made your heart race and your stomach flip.

You squirm, face heating. “That’s different.”

“It was always you,” he says softly. “Even when I didn’t know what I was looking for. I’d follow you through fields, parks, school halls. You’d run, I’d chase. Every time.”

His voice dips, husky but no longer carnal. “You were never hiding from me. You were waiting for me to catch up.”

Your throat tightens.

“And I did.” He sets the letter aside. “Finally.”

The intensity softens into something almost unbearably tender. His fingers curl beneath your chin and tilt your face up.

“No more letters,” he murmurs. “If there’s something you want… tell me. If you need something… I’ll listen. If you feel too much—good. So do I.”

You try to look away, but he won’t let you.

“You’ve already stripped yourself bare,” he whispers, brushing your hair back. “Now let me carry the weight.”

And just like that, your defenses crumble—slowly, quietly, like a dam leaking at the seams.

You rest your forehead against his. His lips ghost over yours. There’s no urgency. No fire.

Just heat. Banked and waiting.

And when he pulls you closer, tucks you against his chest, and lets out a slow breath—you swear you can feel his heartbeat echo your own.

The world outside is quiet, but inside your home, chaos reigns.

“Hey! Give that back!” you shout, laughing breathlessly as you chase after Caleb, who’s casually sauntering around your kitchen—your kitchen—holding your favorite coffee mug high above his head like a trophy.

Bastard. 

“This?” Caleb grins, the morning light making his messy hair look unfairly golden, like he just strolled out of a dream. “You mean our mug now. Community property.”

“That’s not how this works!” You make a wild grab for it, but he just shifts it higher, smirking like he’s enjoying this a little too much.

Maybe it’s the fact that he’s only in a loose pair of joggers, the drawstring barely tied, his chest bare and warm and still a little damp from his earlier shower. Maybe it’s the way he looks at you—like you’re the only thing in the world worth teasing, worth chasing. Whatever it is, your heart flutters violently in your chest.

“Caleb, I swear—” you lunge for him again.

He catches you effortlessly, laughing as he spins you around until your back is pressed against his chest, trapping you in his arms. The mug dangles in front of you tauntingly. His scent envelops you—fresh soap, coffee, and something that’s just him.

“Say please,” he whispers into your ear, his breath warm, sending a shiver racing down your spine.

You wriggle in his arms, only managing to grind yourself back against his hips in the most scandalous way. Caleb’s arms tighten, his low groan rumbling against your back.

You freeze, heat flooding your cheeks. Damn him.

Caleb chuckles, feeling the way you stiffen. “Careful, sweetheart. You’re playing with fire this early in the morning.”

“You started it,” you mutter, glaring over your shoulder.

He grins lazily, shameless. “I’ll finish it, too.”

Before you can retort, he finally, finally relinquishes the mug, setting it gently on the counter. You think you’re safe—until he sweeps you off your feet in one effortless move, carrying you bridal style toward the couch.

“Caleb! Put me down!” you yelp, pounding your fists against his chest, but he’s unbothered, humming a tune under his breath like this is the most normal thing in the world.

“Shhh. We’re doing Sunday properly,” he says, plopping down onto the couch and settling you firmly on his lap, caging you in with his arms. “Coffee. Couch. Cuddles. Mandatory.”

You open your mouth to protest, but his hand cups the back of your head, gently guiding you to rest against his shoulder. His touch is slow, deliberate, almost reverent.

You can feel the tension humming between you—thick, electric—but somehow, it doesn’t feel urgent. It feels… safe. Warm. Like you could fall asleep right here and Caleb would keep the whole world away from you.

You sigh, feeling your body relax against him despite yourself.

“This isn’t fair,” you grumble.

“What’s not fair?” he asks, voice low and teasing as he presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“You being so… so…” You gesture vaguely, words failing you. How do you describe this? Caleb being infuriating and sweet and annoyingly perfect, all wrapped up in one stupidly handsome package?

“So what?” he presses, feigning innocence. His hand strokes lazily up and down your spine, his touch feather-light.

You groan into his chest. “Everything.”

He laughs—really laughs—and the sound rumbles deep in his chest, vibrating against you. You can’t help the small smile that creeps across your face. You hate how easy it is to be soft with him. How easy it is to fall harder when you promised yourself you’d be careful.

“You’re stuck with me now, sweetheart,” Caleb says, dropping his forehead against yours, his eyes shining with something raw and unspoken. “Might as well get used to it.”

Your heart thuds painfully against your ribs, and for once, you don’t have a snarky reply. Just this—this impossible, chaotic, beautiful morning. His arms around you. His laugh in your ears. His heartbeat steady beneath your hand.

Maybe you are stuck with him.

Maybe you want to be.

And when Caleb presses a soft, lingering kiss to your lips—tender, warm, unbearably sweet—you know you’re completely, hopelessly, irreversibly his.

And judging by the way he smiles against your mouth, he's known it all along.

Your lunch is burning.

You know it is—because you can smell the faint scent of charred vegetables—and yet, you can’t do anything about it.

Because Caleb.

Because Caleb, who has one arm lazily wrapped around your waist, caging you against the counter, a spatula abandoned nearby. Because Caleb, who keeps murmuring absolutely mortifying things against your ear in that deep, smug voice of his, his lips brushing your skin with every word.

Because Caleb, who somehow—somehow—has memorized every single humiliating word you ever wrote to him.

You try not to die of embarrassment right there.

“You know,” Caleb drawls, his voice a slow purr against your ear, “you were really dramatic back in middle school. I believe it went something like—” he clears his throat exaggeratedly, clearly having way too much fun, “‘Dear Caleb, I hate you so much I hope you trip and fall into a mud puddle in front of the entire school. Maybe then you’ll stop being so full of yourself.’”

You groan, shoving your sleeves over your face, mortified. “Stopppp.” You’re basically trying to melt into the counter at this point.

But Caleb’s laughing, warm and delighted, peeling your sleeves down to expose your burning face. He lives for this now, clearly. Every time you squirm, he looks like he’s won the lottery.

“And then—then,” he continues gleefully, ignoring your protests, “in high school, when I got a little popular… You wrote, ‘Congratulations, Prince Charming. Maybe one day you’ll notice the loyal commoner you left in the dust. But no worries. I’m totally fine. Totally. Absolutely fine. Not like I ever cared anyway.’”

He recites it with dramatic flair, clutching his chest like a wounded lover. You are dying inside.

“Oh my God, Caleb,” you hiss, trying to hide your face again. “Shut up! I was, like, fifteen! I didn’t know anything about anything!”

He laughs again, low and fond, his chest vibrating against your back. “You knew enough to break my heart, sweetheart,” he murmurs, and you feel the serious undercurrent beneath all the teasing—the raw affection.

You twist in his grip, attempting to shove him away, but he just effortlessly manhandles you into his lap instead. One strong arm loops around your waist, the other sneaks into your hair, stroking it slowly, tangling his fingers through the strands.

You pout at him, cheeks still on fire. “You’re so annoying.”

His grin softens into something devastatingly tender. His eyes burn bright and molten as he stares at you, like you’re the only thing in the entire world.

“Not done yet,” he murmurs.

Your stomach drops.

You already know what's coming. The worst part.

Caleb leans down, nuzzles against your temple, and in a low, sinful voice, whispers, “And then there were the ones where you couldn’t stop thinking about me at night.”

You jerk, mortified, but he tightens his hold on you, trapping you snug against him. His lips graze your ear.

“You had so many thoughts about me,” he says, voice dropping impossibly lower. “About what you wanted me to do to you. About what you wanted to do to me.” He chuckles darkly when you squeak and try to wriggle away.

“I can quote those too, if you want,” he teases mercilessly. “Maybe I should start with the one where you described me tying you up with my DAA-issued tactical belt—”

“CALEB!!” you shriek, smacking his chest as he throws his head back laughing.

You bury your face in his shoulder, absolutely vibrating with secondhand embarrassment, whimpering, “I’m going to die. I’m actually going to die.”

“No, you’re not,” he says, pressing kisses to your hairline, your forehead, your temple, over and over again until your trembling subsides into quiet giggles. His arms are warm and unrelenting around you.

You risk peeking up at him—and freeze.

He’s staring down at you with a look so filled with adoration it physically steals the air from your lungs. His hand cups your jaw so gently it makes your heart ache.

“You’re my life,” Caleb says, voice rough with feeling. “You’ve always been my life. You just didn’t know it yet.”

You blink up at him, stunned, your heart threatening to burst out of your chest.

Slowly, shyly, you rest your forehead against his, your hands sliding up to his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath your palms.

Caleb exhales shakily, as if the moment is too big even for him.

The smell of burnt food lingers, the sun pours golden light across the kitchen, and you sit there, tangled up in him, the most chaotic, beautiful, utterly yours thing you’ve ever had.

“Guess I’m stuck with you, huh?” you whisper, a teasing glint in your eye.

Caleb’s smile turns crooked, boyish.

“Forever, sweetheart,” he murmurs.

And then he kisses you, slow and deep and soft, like a promise he’s waited a lifetime to keep.

—

Later that night, you're curled up on the couch together, tangled in a heap of limbs and fluffy throw blankets, a low movie playing in the background.

You’re half-dozing, feeling deliciously warm and safe against Caleb’s chest, his heartbeat lulling you into a haze. His hand strokes lazily through your hair, fingertips dragging slow, lazy patterns against your scalp.

You’re just about to slip under completely when—

"Sweetheart?" Caleb’s voice, deceptively casual.

You hum in response, not even bothering to open your eyes.

"What's this? Another letter?"

You tense immediately.

No.

No no no.

Your eyes snap open in horror just in time to see Caleb, that absolute devil, pulling out one of the more battered, worn pieces of paper from somewhere.

You gasp, trying to grab for it, but he holds it way above your head, smirking like the cat who caught the canary.

"Caleb!" you shriek, flailing. "Put it away! You can't—!"

He just laughs and pins you down easily with one hand on your waist, straddling your thighs to trap you in place.

“I think the people deserve to hear this one,” he teases, that wicked glint in his eye. “Specifically, me.”

He clears his throat dramatically while you writhe helplessly beneath him.

"‘It’s not fair,’" Caleb reads aloud, smirking as he drags his gaze down your squirming body. "‘It’s not fair how he fills out his uniform. How his gloves tighten around his fingers. How I can’t stop thinking about what those hands would feel like on my skin. How I dream about him tying my wrists, whispering filthy promises against my neck—’"

"CALEB!!" you wail, smacking your hands against his chest in a feeble attempt to stop him. Your face is boiling hot.

But Caleb, the menace, the absolute menace, just grins wider, loving every second of your humiliation.

"And it goes on," he says gleefully, ignoring your mortified whimper. "‘How I'd let him do anything to me. How I'd beg him to lose control. How much I crave him, every breath, every heartbeat, like I'm dying of thirst in a desert and he's the only water I'll ever want.’"

Your soul tries to physically leave your body.

You slap your hands over your face, wishing for death.

"Please," you moan into your palms, "Caleb, please stop—"

But he just chuckles darkly, leaning down until his nose brushes yours, his voice dropping to a sinful murmur.

“You really should have mailed this one, sweetheart,” he says, eyes smoldering. "Would’ve saved us a lot of time."

You whimper, still hiding your face. He peels your hands away from your burning cheeks gently but firmly, making you meet his gaze.

Caleb’s smile turns unbearably tender as he cradles your flushed face between his palms, thumbs brushing over your cheekbones.

"I memorized every word," he says softly. "Every single one. They're engraved into me now. Just like you."

Your heart stutters painfully in your chest.

You can't look away from him—those devastating sunset eyes drinking you in like you hung the stars.

He dips his head lower, kissing the corner of your mouth, slow and reverent.

“You’re mine,” Caleb murmurs, voice rough with possessiveness and love. “You always were.”

You melt completely, boneless in his hold, helpless against him—as you’ve always been.

"Caleb..." you whisper, voice trembling.

He smiles that slow, infuriating, dangerous smile—and promptly starts tickling you, laughing when you shriek and try to wriggle free, your earlier mortification forgotten in a burst of chaotic laughter and flailing limbs.

You scream his name, half furious, half in love.

Caleb just laughs like it’s the happiest sound in the world.

It’s late.

Not the deep velvet of midnight, but that quiet hour when the world seems suspended in hush. The city hums softly beyond the windows, and the room is awash in the muted amber of a bedside lamp. You're tangled together beneath the sheets—not in passion this time, but in something far more dangerous.

Vulnerability.

Caleb lies on his side, propped up on one elbow, watching you with that look again—the one that's too tender, too knowing. His fingers trail lazily across your arm, like he can’t stop touching you even now. Like he’s making sure you’re still here.

“I should’ve reached out sooner,” he says.

You stay quiet. Not because you're angry. Because you're afraid of what might come next.

“I didn’t date her,” he adds, so casually it nearly slips by.

You blink.

“What?”

“She wasn’t mine,” he says. “Never was. I thought…” He hesitates. “I thought she might be the only person who could understand what I was becoming. The training. The pressure. But it was never romantic. Not even close.”

Your throat feels tight. You shift, pulling the blanket up like armor.

“Then why didn’t you call? Or message? Or—anything, Caleb? You just vanished.”

He exhales, slow and jagged.

“I was afraid,” he admits.

You glance up, surprised.

He stares at the ceiling, jaw clenched. “Not of the missions. Not of the fleet. I was afraid that if I talked to you, really talked to you, I’d drop everything just to be near you. I was already teetering. One video call and I would’ve been done for.”

Your heart twists painfully.

“You idiot,” you whisper. “I would’ve taken you. In any form.”

“I didn’t want you to take less of me.” He looks at you then, eyes bare, voice rough. “I wanted to be worthy of what you wrote in those letters. Of the way you looked at me when we were kids.”

You want to scream. Or cry. Or maybe just bury your face in his chest until the years melt away.

“You were worthy, Caleb. You just… didn’t believe it.”

A silence settles. Not heavy. Just real.

He pulls you closer. One hand cradling your head to his chest, the other tangled in your fingers beneath the sheets. You listen to his heartbeat again.

Stronger now.

Steady.

“For the record,” he murmurs, “when I read the one about the lake—when we were sixteen—I nearly lost it. I remember that night. I didn’t know what to do with the way I felt back then.”

You squeeze his hand. “You pushed me into the water.”

“You screamed my name so loud, half the neighborhood heard.”

You smile despite yourself.

Then softer, quieter:

“I used to dream about that moment, you know? If you ever found the letters. If you ever came back.”

“And now that I have?”

Your smile fades. You tilt your head up and find him waiting. Bare. Present.

“I don’t want dreams anymore,” you whisper.

“Good,” Caleb says, leaning down until his lips barely brush yours. “Because I’m not leaving this time. And I don’t need letters. I have you.”

And when he kisses you, it’s not a claim.

It’s a promise.

The shuttle touches down with a soft hiss, and before the hatch even fully opens, you're hit with the scent of your hometown—familiar, grounding, sweetened by nostalgia. The air is different here. Softer. Like time slows down just enough to let you breathe.

Caleb steps out behind you, his duffel slung lazily over one shoulder. His eyes sweep over the old landing port, the cracked pavement, the overgrown grass curling at the edges of fences long forgotten. He doesn't say anything for a moment.

Then, quietly: “It’s smaller than I remember.”

You huff a laugh. “Because we’re bigger now.”

He looks at you—really looks. “You are.”

There’s a weight to those words you don’t touch yet. Not here. Not now.

The town unfolds before you like a photograph—faded but warm. You walk the familiar streets side by side, shoulders brushing, passing your old school, the corner store where you used to pool pocket change for sweets, the park where you’d play tag until dusk.

“I remember this tree,” Caleb murmurs, stopping beneath the one with the warped trunk. “You used to climb it like a gremlin.”

“You fell out of it once,” you remind him. “Cried for hours.”

He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “And you didn’t leave my side.”

A beat of silence.

“You always stayed,” he says.

You glance at him, the late afternoon sun haloing his profile. “You just didn’t always notice.”

His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, his hand brushes yours. Then lingers. Then takes it fully.

You don’t let go.

The path takes you past your childhood home. Your heart kicks up. The windows are still the same. The porch swing still crooked. You half expect to hear your mother calling you in for dinner. Caleb pauses beside you.

“I remember sneaking out through your window,” he says with a crooked grin. “You made me carry that squeaky chair so we wouldn’t get caught.”

“You always stepped on the wrong floorboard anyway,” you mutter. “We always got caught.”

“Worth it,” he murmurs. “Every single time.”

You don’t speak again until you're standing at the edge of the lake—the one you wrote about. The one where you screamed his name across the water. It looks just like it did then.

The sun dips low, painting the surface gold.

You watch the light scatter across the waves, lost in thought.

“I didn’t know you loved me then,” he says, voice quiet. “But I felt it. In every laugh. Every fight. Every stupid dare. I felt it. I just didn’t have the words.”

Your throat tightens.

“I didn’t either,” you say. “So I wrote them instead.”

He turns to you slowly. “No more letters,” he whispers.

Then, gently, reverently, Caleb cups your face.

You close your eyes.

The kiss is soft this time. Not a promise or a possession. Just a memory, coming full circle.

Just two people who finally stopped running.

NOTES: guys I'm so embarrassed, I can't believe I posted the unedited version!!! I didn't like how instead of talking through their issues these two went to bang instead, AHHH this is so embarrassing!!!

[sky2nd]

probably needed a hug instead — Aaron Hotchner

FemOC!reader x Aaron Hotchner

SUMMARY —After a long, emotionally draining case, you find yourself unraveling—your feelings for Hotch too heavy to carry, too risky to speak aloud. You go out with the girls to escape it, but it only makes the ache worse. When JJ calls him despite your protests, Hotch shows up. You try to push him away, admitting that being near him makes it harder to keep yourself together. But Hotch doesn't back down. He steps in gently, grounding you with steady words and arms that don’t let go. When you finally whisper his name, he answers with rare softness—"Baby doll, I know." It’s the kind of moment that changes everything—not loud, but soul-deep. Quiet, intimate, and real. I say reader is probably in her early twenty’s in this maybe mid twenty’s and Hotch is like close to thirty ish in this

Warnings : Angst , hurt , comfort, reader is very fragile after a case but she is deeply in love with Hotch , he consumes her , he’s so sweet with her .. she’s gets little tipsy , JJ gets her water , to drink after em takes her drink away . Reader has anxiety, JJ is the one who calls Hotch saying reader needs him . I should advice that the reader there is small age gap between her and Hotch which means this why the reader is the way she is . You are . .. — WC : 3.5K

Author notes : I think I put too much emotion in to this because of how much I wanna hug this man .. he’s the best I just need his arms around me .. one hug please .. if you liked this please consider liking reblog-ing or comment

I loved writing this with everything in me sorry it got so long .

Think I wanna do a mini series of this

@ssamorganhotchner @honeypiehotchner @hotchsonlygirl

You hadn’t meant to call him. You didn’t even remember pulling out your phone, didn’t remember your fingers hovering over his contact like muscle memory, like instinct.

The line rang once—maybe twice—before he answered.

“Where are you?”

His voice cut through the noise like it always did—calm, quiet, unmistakably him. Your heart twisted.

You blinked, suddenly aware of the bar’s soft glow, the way the music pulsed under your skin, the clink of glasses and laughter that didn’t quite reach your chest. “I’m with the girls.”

He paused. You could picture it—his brow furrowed, hand likely resting on his desk or maybe tucked into the pocket of his slacks, jaw clenched just slightly.

“With the girls?” he repeated, low and careful.

“Hotch, please,” you murmured, your voice barely audible even to yourself. “I’m fine.”

“No, you sound—” He didn’t finish. His voice dipped. “You sound tipsy. What bar?”

“No,” you whispered again, more to yourself than to him.

Emily leaned in, brow raised, lips pursed. “Is that Hotch?”

You gave her a small nod.

“No,” she said quickly, snatching your phone before you could stop her. “This is a no Hotch zone.”

The call ended with a soft beep, but your chest was still too full—of what, you weren’t ready to name.

Because it was just a hug you’d wanted earlier. That’s what you told yourself. A simple hug.

But the idea of his arms around you—solid, warm, safe—meant more than you were ready to admit. It wasn’t a casual thing. Not with him. Not for you.

And God, you didn’t want him to see it. Didn’t want him to know. Because affection, especially from you, meant something. And he wasn’t just anyone.

He was Hotch.

And you were dangerously close to falling apart in the echo of his voice alone.

“What’s gotten into you?” Emily asked, eyes narrowing slightly as she studied you from across the booth. Not judgmental. Just… concerned. And sharp. Like she already knew the answer but needed to hear you say it.

Garcia tilted her head, lips pursed like she wanted to echo the question but was trying to respect your space. Barely.

JJ glanced over too. None of them said it, but you felt it—the shift, the weight, the unspoken something hanging in the air.

“It’s nothing,” you muttered, reaching for your drink like it could cover the crack in your voice.

Emily didn’t even blink. “It’s something. That’s your fourth drink since we got here.”

You exhaled through your nose, brushing her off. “Look, I’m just—”

Emily reached across the table and took the glass from your hand. “Nope. You’re done. I’m cutting you off.”

“Em—”

JJ stood. “I’ll get her some water.”

“I’m fine,” you said, but it didn’t land the way you wanted it to. It sounded tired. Hollow. Like you’d run out of ways to keep it together.

Emily leaned in, eyes locked on yours. “Earlier. What was going on between you and Hotch?”

Your stomach twisted.

“It was nothing,” you said quickly. Too quickly.

JJ came back and set the glass in front of you. “Drink,” she said, gently, like she didn’t want to push but she would if she had to.

You stared at the water. Your fingers wrapped around the glass, cold against your skin.

But you didn’t lift it.

Because it wasn’t the alcohol that made your chest tight.

It was him.

And even now, you couldn’t admit that out loud.

“He consumes me,” you finally broke, the words trembling out of your mouth before you could catch them.

Emily’s brows pulled together, her head tilting slightly, gentle but firm.

“I’m in love with him,” you breathed, voice cracking, “and I just—after the case tonight, I wanted a hug from him.”

You laughed softly, but it wasn’t joy—it was disbelief, shame. “But instead I came out with you guys, and… I know it’s stupid.”

The tears slipped down before you could stop them. Silent at first, then steady. You wiped at your cheek with the back of your hand, but they just kept coming.

“I mean, he’s our boss. The unit chief. And I’m just… me. Nothing.”

“Don’t you dare say that,” Emily cut in, voice low and fierce, her tone slicing through your spiral. She reached over the table, her hand closing around yours. “You are amazing. You are strong. And you know he cares about you.”

Before you could say anything else, JJ stepped away from the table. You barely noticed until you heard her voice—quiet but urgent.

She was on the phone.

With him.

“Where are you?” Hotch’s voice filtered faintly from her phone, but you caught the edge in it. The shift in tone.

“She needs you,” JJ said, her voice cracking as she turned slightly away from the table. “I mean—really needs you.”

There was a pause, and then JJ told him where you all were.

You stared down at the water in your glass, gripping it so tightly your knuckles were white. You took a shaky sip, your throat dry and raw.

“I don’t know what to do,” you said quietly, more to yourself than anyone. “I don’t want to lose myself… but I feel like I’m already failing at that. Because of how much he consumes me.”

The table was quiet now, not out of discomfort—but out of love. They saw you. They didn’t say anything, not yet. They didn’t need to.

JJ returned to the table with a soft smile, brushing a hand over your shoulder like nothing had just happened. “Sorry—I was just checking in on the kids and Will.”

You looked up at her, your voice shaky, barely above a whisper. “Don’t lie.”

She froze for a second.

“I know it was Hotch you called…”

There was a pause. Emily glanced at JJ, then back at you. She didn’t deny it. She didn’t even try to.

“Forget what I said,” you muttered, pulling your hand away from your glass, your shoulders curling in just a little. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Just—forget it.”

“Hey,” Emily cut in gently, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut down now.”

You shook your head, wiping at your face, embarrassed by the tear tracks that hadn’t quite dried. You didn’t want to be this version of yourself in front of them—cracked open, exposed. But it was too late for pretending.

“Maybe this is what you need,” Emily said, quiet but firm, the kind of voice she used in interrogations—measured, but full of weight.

“I agree,” Garcia added softly, her voice so unlike its usual brightness, like she was handling something fragile.

You swallowed hard. Your fingers trembled slightly as they clutched the edge of the table, trying to ground yourself.

You’d gone quiet after talking about him.

After the tears. After the truth you hadn’t meant to spill.

Now, everything just sat heavy in your chest. You hadn’t said a word since JJ made the call. The others didn’t push. They just… stayed with you. Let the silence be what it was.

You stared into your glass like it held all the answers.

Then he walked in.

You didn’t look up, but you felt it. That shift in the air. The presence you always noticed, even when you didn’t want to.

He scanned the bar the way he always did—sharp, unreadable, controlled.

JJ sat up straighter, gave a small wave.

Then he was behind you.

“Ladies,” he said quietly.

You leaned back in the booth, arms crossing tightly over your chest. The wall you’d built back up in the last few minutes, shaky as it was, was suddenly working overtime.

“Great,” you muttered.

“Can we talk?” he asked, voice low, unreadable like always—but something about the way he said it made you flinch inside.

“Talk?” you scoffed, still not looking at him. “Really, Hotch?”

You shook your head, eyes fixed on the table. “No. I’m fine.”

He didn’t argue. Just reached out and tugged gently at your arm. Not hard—just enough to remind you he was real, and there.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go outside.”

Still, you didn’t move.

Not until Emily’s voice cut through.

“You need this.”

You looked at her, then JJ. Garcia didn’t say anything, but her eyes were soft. She gave you the smallest nod.

You swallowed, jaw tight, chest tighter.

You stood up.

And followed him out.

You stepped into the cool night air, the breeze brushing against your bare arms like ice. You hadn’t realized how cold it was until you were out there.

You should’ve brought a jacket.

Hotch noticed.

Of course he did.

You tried not to shiver, wrapping your arms tighter around yourself, but he was already moving—quietly, like always. He pulled off his suit jacket, the familiar black one you’d seen a hundred times in briefings and crime scenes, and held it out.

“No,” you said quickly, shaking your head. “I can’t.”

“It’s just my jacket,” he replied calmly, no judgment, no push—just fact. “It’ll keep you warm.”

“Please… no,” you said again, softer this time.

He didn’t listen.

He stepped forward and gently wrapped it around your shoulders anyway, his hands brushing your arms before falling away.

That was it.

The tears you’d been holding back, the ones that dried halfway in the bar, started all over again. You turned away from him, pressing the heels of your palms to your eyes like it would stop them from falling.

“Great,” you muttered under your breath, voice cracking.

Behind you, he didn’t move.

“What is it?” he asked finally, low and even, but not cold.

You took a breath that shook too much. Your voice didn’t come right away. When it did, it was small.

“I can’t do this.”

You didn’t turn around. You didn’t have to.

Because you could already feel him watching you, the way he always did—seeing more than you wanted him to.

“You consume me,” you said, voice barely steady as you paced in front of him.

Hotch stood still, hands at his sides, eyes never leaving you. Listening.

“I don’t know how it happened,” you went on, fingers brushing through your hair, breath catching. “I’m just—I'm not sure how to handle this, Hotch.”

The way you said his name made something flicker across his face. Almost imperceptible. But it was there. A quiet crack in the armor.

“I’m losing myself,” you admitted. “And it’s not good for me.”

You stopped pacing for a second, hands clenched at your sides.

“I don’t know if I should even be part of the team anymore.”

He took a small step forward. Not enough to close the space—just enough to be present.

“You’re the unit chief,” you said, looking at him now, eyes burning. “And I’m just… me.”

You shook your head. “Nothing can happen.”

“Hey,” he said softly. “Take a breath.”

“No,” you said quickly, backing away a step. “I’ve gotta say this.”

He didn’t interrupt. Just stood there, solid as ever. Letting you speak.

“I wanted to hug you tonight,” you confessed, voice breaking, the words rushing out now like they couldn’t be held anymore. “After the case. I wanted to—God, I wanted to so bad.”

You looked away, ashamed.

“But I didn’t. I went out with the girls instead because I knew I couldn’t be near you alone. Because I can’t control myself around you.”

And there it was—out in the open. The silence after felt louder than anything else.

He was still watching you.

But he hadn’t moved.

And maybe that hurt more than anything.

Hotch stepped forward.

His hand came out, not rough, just steady—enough to stop your pacing.

“Look at me,” he said.

“No. Please, Hotch,” you whispered, shaking your head, voice trembling.

“I’m not asking,” he said gently, but there was that firm tone behind it—the one that always left no room to argue.

You looked up.

His eyes didn’t waver.

“Take a deep breath for me,” he said. “Please.”

So you did.

Even though your chest was tight. Even though the air burned on the way down. You did.

“I wish I would’ve known sooner,” he said.

You gave a short, bitter chuckle, brushing your tears away with the sleeve of the jacket he gave you.

“You knew,” you said, your voice sharp around the edge of pain. “You’re the unit chief. The best profiler in the damn country. You can’t tell me you didn’t feel it.”

He didn’t respond right away. Didn’t argue. He just stood there, looking at you like he was seeing you all at once for the first time.

“If this was eating at you the way it is now,” he finally said, “you could’ve come to me.”

“No,” you said, eyes burning again. “Because I’m not supposed to feel this way about you.”

You took a shaky breath, voice starting to crack again.

“You consume me so much, Hotch,” you whispered, head shaking. “It’s like I can’t breathe when I’m around you and I can’t breathe when I’m not.”

You stepped back, wrapping your arms around yourself like it might hold everything in.

“No,” you repeated, softer this time. “I’m losing it.”

And there was nothing left to hide.

“You’re stubborn, you know that?” he said, a quiet chuckle breaking through the tension.

You sighed, exhausted. “You think this is funny?”

“Oh no,” Hotch said, the humor gone as quickly as it came. “It’s not funny. Trust me, your feelings are definitely not funny.”

He stepped a little closer.

“You won’t lose yourself,” he said, quiet but solid, “Not if I have anything to do about it.”

Just then, the door opened behind you.

Emily was first. JJ and Garcia right behind her.

Each of them came in without hesitation—one by one.

Emily pulled you into a hug first. “I paid your tab,” she murmured against your ear. “You’re good to go whenever you’re ready. We’ll catch you back at my place if you want… or see you in the morning, okay?”

You nodded. “Thanks, Em.”

Garcia wrapped her arms around you next. “I wanna know everything,” she whispered, half-playful, half-serious. “Don’t hold back.”

JJ was last. Her hug lingered the longest.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “But you needed this. You needed to talk to him… to get it out. He needed to know.”

“It’s okay,” you said. You gave her a small smile that didn’t reach your eyes, but it was enough.

They all looked back once before heading toward the SUV.

You watched them go, arms folded, heart still thudding too loud in your chest.

“They care about you,” Hotch said beside you, his voice low.

“I know they do,” you said quietly.

“So do I.”

You turned to look at him.

“We would miss you,” he continued. “If you left.”

He didn’t rush his words. He never did.

“I need you to stay,” he said, and then even softer, “Please.”

You swallowed hard. Looked away. Your hands shook a little.

“I don’t know,” you whispered. “I love you, Hotch.”

You blinked, but the tears were already there.

“I’m in love with you.”

The air felt still, like the world had paused for you to finally say it.

“I know I can’t say that—not right away—not like this. But…” Your voice cracked again. “How do I stop loving you?”

Silence.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t interrupt.

Didn’t say anything reckless.

But he stayed. And that meant something too.

“She was right,” Hotch finally said.

You blinked, caught off guard.

“Who?” you asked quietly.

“JJ,” he replied.

You let out a breath. “Needed… don’t you think that’s a strong word?”

“No,” he said, firm now. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Hotch,” you shook your head. “You don’t get it.”

“No,” he said again—more certain this time. “I do.”

He stepped closer, and something in his tone changed.

“You’re in love with me. And you said we couldn’t happen.”

You looked down. You couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Maybe you’re right,” he continued, voice quieter now. “But you can’t make that decision all on your own.”

Before you could respond, he reached for you—gentle but insistent—and pulled you into him.

You pushed at his chest weakly. “No—please, Hotch. I can’t do this,” your voice cracked. “Even if I want it… I can’t.”

“I know,” he said, his arms steady around you. “I know you need a hug.”

That broke you.

Not the words—but the way he said it. Soft. Certain. Like he’d been carrying the weight too.

And finally—finally—you let yourself fall into him.

“I’ve got you,” he said, his voice low against your hair.

You were stiff at first, arms still caught somewhere between pushing him away and clinging to him.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I promise.”

His hands were warm, one resting between your shoulder blades, the other steady at your lower back.

“I’m not gonna let you lose it,” he murmured. “Not on my watch.”

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t pull away this time.

“Let me be here for you. Let me in.”

You felt your walls breaking down—slow, silent, painful.

“Take a deep breath,” he said again, softer this time. “It’s okay. I got you.”

And somehow… just hearing that again, like that…

You did.

You took that breath.

And let yourself fall completely into him.

“Aaron…” you whisper, barely audible against his chest.

His hold tightens just a little, just enough to remind you he’s still there.

“I know,” he says, voice low, rougher now.

“Baby doll, I know.”

You feel your breath catch in your throat. The name hits deeper than you thought it would.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs again, closer now, mouth near your temple. “I’m not letting you go.”

You don’t answer. You can’t. The tears return, heavier now, but you’re not shaking this time. Not fighting it.

You just hold on.

And for once… so does he.

Should I take you home… or to Em’s?” he asked quietly, like he didn’t want to break the moment, like he knew your answer might not be steady yet.

You swallowed. Your fingers curled tighter into the sleeves of his suit jacket.

“I don’t want to be alone,” you murmured, barely above a breath.

“So to Em’s,” he echoed softly, trying to meet you where you were.

You didn’t say anything right away. Just stared out toward the street, the lights blurring a little in your vision.

“Or…” his voice came again, gentle, uncertain, “maybe we can drive around a bit. I don’t mind.”

You nodded slowly, no words, just the quiet kind of agreement that came from not wanting to face silence in a room. Not yet.

You both walked to his SUV. He kept his arm around you—not like a claim, not like control. Just enough to keep you steady. Just enough to say he was still there.

“You okay?” he asked once more, voice low like a whisper meant just for you.

“I’m not sure yet,” you admitted, the truth sticking in your throat. “But… I’m glad you’re here.”

You climbed into the SUV, pulling the jacket tighter around you. It still smelled like him—faint cologne, something clean and warm and steady.

And for the first time all night, you let yourself exhale.

“Baby doll…” you whispered, more to yourself than to him.

He didn’t say anything right away, but you saw it—just the smallest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he kept his eyes on the road, like he’d heard it, felt it, and chose to carry it gently.

You reached for his hand, hesitant at first. There was a beat of silence where you almost pulled away—but he didn’t move. Didn’t shift. Didn’t flinch.

He let you hold his hand.

That was enough to make your chest ache in a different kind of way.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, your thumb brushing lightly across his knuckles. “For coming tonight… for not just leaving after JJ called. For driving around with me.”

He still didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. His grip tightened just a little, enough to let you know he heard you. That he was here.

“I just… I didn’t want this to end yet,” you murmured, your voice thinner now, breaking in the middle. “I needed more time with you.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was full. Full of everything you’d both been trying not to say. The weight of it hung in the air between your joined hands.

Aaron finally glanced over at you, his eyes soft in the passing glow of the streetlights. He didn’t speak—he just ran his thumb over the back of your hand, slow and steady, like a promise he wasn’t ready to put into words yet.

But you felt it. You knew he felt it too , and for the first you could breathe this could be the moment , for you to .

You didn’t know when exactly it happened—somewhere between the city lights and the soft lull of the road beneath you—but you’d drifted off, still holding his hand.

Hotch noticed. Of course he did.

But he didn’t wake you.

He just kept driving, one hand on the wheel, the other still wrapped gently around yours. Every so often, he glanced over—just to make sure you were still sleeping, still breathing steady. That you were okay, at least for now.

And he drove. All night. Through quiet streets and empty highways, not caring about the time or the distance. Just needing to keep moving. Just needing to be there.

By the time the first light started to bleed across the horizon, the sky cracked open with morning. You stirred only when he pulled into a gas station, the soft rumble of the engine cutting off. Your hand was still in his.

“Good morning,” he said softly, handing you a warm cup of coffee he’d already picked up, like he’d timed everything just for you.

You blinked a few times, your voice raspy with sleep. “What time is it?”

“A little after six,” he said. “We’ve been driving a while.”

Your fingers wrapped around the cup. It was warm. Steadying. Just like him.

“Where are we headed now?” you asked, trying to piece together your surroundings, your hair a little messy, your mind still groggy.

He didn’t hesitate. “You’re coming home with me.”

You blinked again. “Hotch—”

“No arguments,” he said, but not sharply. Just matter-of-fact. “You need a shower, some real food. Rest. We’ll head into the office afterward.”

“I can shower at my place,” you tried, though your voice lacked conviction.

“I know you can,” he said, eyes meeting yours with quiet intensity. “But I’m not dropping you off alone right now.”

You didn’t respond right away. Just held onto the coffee, and the weight of what he meant. What he wasn’t saying.

It wasn’t just about a shower. It was about keeping you close. Making sure you didn’t fall apart the second the silence caught up to you.

So, you nodded.

“Okay.”

He gave the smallest nod back, like it settled something in him, and pulled back out onto the road.

You didn’t let go of his hand. Not once.

[sky2nd]

The Prophecy [Aaron Hotchner x Female Reader]

Masterlist|| Ao3||Word Count: 4k|| AN: This is for the lovelies who have also felt unlovable, defeated, and gotten their heart broken time after time. This was originally supposed to go in an entirely different direction when I started writing this during the week, but now it is purely self-indulgant...BUT writing this was cheaper than therapy. I also might be embarrassed by this in the morning and delete this--idk LOL. Tags/Warnings: female reader, alcohol tw, reader has self-worth issues, reader goes on bad dates, might be slightly ooc for hotch idk, hotch is no.1 reader defender, hotch falls first, whipped!hotch, insecure!reader, heartbroken reader, protective!hotch, mainly hotch's POV, reader is 100% a mary sue--sorry, not sorry. Summary: Hotch watched you get treated incorrectly time and time again by your poor choice in men. Over time, he begins to try and show you what you deserve.

In the cool, dim light of the early morning, Aaron Hotchner walked into the BAU roundtable room, his footsteps quiet against the polished floor. 

The team was already there- 

Everyone but you gathered around the table, their voices a low murmur of concern. He paused at the door, observing them--

A rare moment of unguarded conversation among the agents.

Your name was circling the room. He knew his team wasn’t one who gossiped, per se. But this was different than workplace chatter; this seemed…this seemed important. 

"Did you see her last night?" JJ asked, her voice tinged with worry. "Spencer found her crying in the parking lot.

Across the table, Spencer nodded, his youthful face more solemn than usual. "She was in her car. Just...sitting there. It was late."

Penelope shook her head, her vibrant accessories jangling softly with the movement. "That guy she's been seeing, the one who keeps popping in and out of her life? He stood her up again. I mean, who does that to someone as wonderful as her?"

Derek’s jaw tightened visibly. "We need to tell her to cut him loose. The guy's no good."

Emily leaned back in her chair, her expression thoughtful. "It's not our place to say who she should see, but it's tough watching her go through this."

Rossi, ever the sage, swirled the coffee in his cup before speaking. "The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch someone you care about get hurt."

Hotch stepped into the room fully, the conversation pausing as all eyes turned to him. He moved to his usual seat, the chair's soft scrape punctuating the sudden silence. 

"How is she this morning?" His voice was calm, but there was an undercurrent of concern that matched his team's.

No one seemed ready to answer. It was a telling silence, one that spoke volumes about their collective unease for your well-being.

Clearing his throat, Hotch folded his hands on the table, his gaze settling on each of his team members. 

"We're a team, and we look out for each other. It's not just about being agents; it's about being there for one another as people." His eyes darkened with a quiet intensity. "We need to make sure she knows she's supported, not just as a colleague, but as a friend."

Just then, the door opened again, and you stepped in. There was a slight redness around your eyes, a testament to the previous night's tears, but you masked it well with a brave smile. 

"Morning, everyone," you said, your voice steady despite the slight quiver you hoped no one noticed.

The room filled with choruses of "Morning," each agent offering you a smile, but their eyes were too knowing, too filled with empathy.

As the meeting proceeded, Hotch found himself watching you more often than usual. 

You were the glue of the team--

Always brightening up the room. 

Always making sure everyone else was okay. 

It pained him to see that light dimmed, even just a fraction. 

He made a mental note to check in with you later, privately, to offer a listening ear if you needed it.

Throughout the briefing, your contributions were as insightful as ever, but Hotch noticed the small things--

The way your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes.

How you were quieter than usual. 

Less inclined to join in the lighter moments of banter.

When the meeting broke up, Hotch lingered, watching as you gathered your notes and prepared to head to your office. 

He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the conversation ahead. It was not just about being a leader now; it was about being a friend and maybe--

Just maybe, something more.

In that quiet, somber room, as the early rays of sunlight began to filter through the blinds, Hotch realized just how deeply your well-being affected him. 

The realization was sudden, like a shift in the air--

A silent acknowledgement of a burgeoning concern that felt a lot like the beginning of something far deeper.

Not even a week later, the office was nearly empty. 

The hum of computers and the distant sound of night shift agents were the only accompaniment to the soft clacking of Hotch’s shoes against the polished floor as he prepared to leave for the evening. 

It had been a long day, filled with the usual demands and stresses, but none of that seemed to matter now as he rounded the corner and stopped short.

There you were, pacing the bullpen in a dress that took his breath away--

A stunning array of shimmering fabric that cascaded down in elegant folds, catching the dim office light and throwing it back out in soft, glowing ripples.

It was unlike anything he had ever seen you wear; the dress made for a special occasion, its beauty stark against the backdrop of the BAU’s utilitarian surroundings.

Looking at it, it reminded him of your personality. A reflection of light on everyone around you. Made up of so many pieces--beautiful in itself, but for others to appreciate as well. 

Your face, however, told a different story. 

It was etched with disappointment, the hurt in your eyes stark and unguarded as you moved restlessly across the floor. Hotch’s concern deepened, his initial pause turning into a determined stride towards you.

You didn’t notice him at first, lost in your troubled thoughts. When you finally saw him, the surprise on your face quickly morphed into a strained smile. 

"Oh, Hotch, I didn’t see you there."

"Clearly dressed for a special occasion," he commented softly, his voice carrying a note of concern. "You look...beautiful." 

He meant it, but the compliment was tinged with…worry as he took in the full picture--

The meticulously done makeup, the curls in your hair falling just so, the perfume that seemed a touch too poignant for the empty office.

You chuckled weakly, the sound hollow. 

"Was supposed to be a special night. I had a date, but..." Your voice trailed off, and you shrugged, a brittle edge to your movements. "He cancelled. Less than an hour ago. Guess it wasn't as special to him."

Hotch frowned, noting the weariness that seemed to seep through your attempt at humor. 

"You shouldn’t have to feel this way," he said, stepping closer, his voice lowering. "You put so much into this, into everything you do. It's not right, him not seeing that."

Your smile faltered, and you looked away, a self-deprecating laugh escaping you. "Maybe I’m just too much, you know? Maybe it’s just... me--”

"No." Hotch said firmly, cutting through your words. His expression was stern, but his eyes were kind, a rare show of open frustration mixing with something softer. "It’s not you. It’s him. Anyone who fails to see what they have right in front of them doesn’t deserve it."

Your eyes met his, and for a moment, the bullpen seemed to hold its breath. The air between you was charged, filled with the unspoken thoughts and emotions swirling around.

"You deserve someone who sees you," Hotch continued, his voice emphatic--passionate even. "Not just the effort you put into one evening, but every day…the way you look out for everyone here, how you keep us…together. You deserve much more than last-minute cancellations and excuses."

The words seemed to hang in the air, heavy and sincere. You swallowed hard, the impact of his words slowly sinking in. The corners of your mouth twitched, a ghost of a genuine smile beginning to form. "Thank you, Hotch," you murmured, your voice thick with unshed tears. "I...I needed to hear that."

Hotch nodded, his posture relaxing slightly as he sensed the shift in your demeanor. "Anyone would be lucky to have you," he added, the truth of his statement clear in his steady gaze.

As the silence stretched between you, a palpable connection in the quiet of the almost deserted office, it was clear that something had shifted. 

Not just in the night. But perhaps, just maybe--in the space that lay between personal heartache and the promise of something deeper, something real that was just beginning to take root in the dim light of the bullpen.

About a month had passed, and Hotch kept a close eye on you. He hated that not much had changed for you. He wanted to see you return to the office with a smile on your face one day. 

That you’d share you met someone who charmed you and held space for you in a way you deserved. 

Someone that treated you right.

The way he wishes he could tattoo it into your brain all of the ways he knows you should be treated. The way he wishes he could treat you that way--

Just to show you. 

Or what he told himself when he began thinking about how he wouldn’t stand you up. 

How he’d hold every door open for you. 

How he’d be prompt and make sure you knew you could take his word. 

Yet here you were. 

The local bar was buzzing with the usual Friday night crowd, the atmosphere lively and the lights dimly lit, casting a warm, inviting glow over the small group from the BAU. 

Laughter and chatter filled the air as the team, having wrapped up a particularly grueling set of cases, gathered around a large table cluttered with empty glasses and half-eaten appetizers. 

Hotch, who usually opted out of such gatherings, found himself not only attending but also genuinely enjoying the camaraderie. 

His eyes frequently searched you out, making sure you were handling the evening well.

As the night progressed and the drinks flowed more freely, the conversation deepened into personal territories. You, slightly more uninhibited from the alcohol, began to share more openly about your recent dating woes. 

"And then," you laughed, though the humor didn't quite reach your eyes, "he just disappears. Poof! Like magic. One day, it's text after text, and then nothing. Like I made it all up in my head."

You laughed. It echoed. He watched, heart sinking. You were drifting. Away.

The team's laughter quieted down as they listened, their expressions a mixture of sympathy and discomfort. Rossi raised his eyebrows, shooting a look at Hotch, who was watching you intently. 

Your smile faded as you continued, the alcohol loosening your tongue further. "I don't know, maybe it's just me. I dunno…Maybe I'm just...unlovable."

A heavy silence fell over the table, the word hanging in the air like a thick cloud. 

The team exchanged awkward glances--

Clearly at a loss. 

Hotch's jaw tightened as he saw the self-deprecation take a darker turn, his concern deepening.

"That's not true," Hotch finally said, his voice firm and commanding attention. "Being ghosted says more about his character than it does about your worth. You are... incredibly important, not just to anyone you date but to all of us here." His voice softened, "You light up every room you enter, and if someone can't see that, it's their loss, not yours."

The table went quiet, everyone looking between you and Hotch, sensing the weight of his words. 

Your eyes welled up with tears--

The kindness in his voice breaking through the veneer of humor you had used as a shield all night. 

"Excuse me," you muttered, quickly standing and making your way to the bar without meeting anyone’s eyes.

As you stood and made your way to the bar, the rest of the team exchanged knowing looks, their earlier conversation giving way to a shared understanding of what needed to happen next.

Derek caught Hotch's arm as he started to follow you. "Man, you see the way she lights up around you?" he said in a low voice, his gaze serious. "She deserves someone who's going to show up for her, really show her how she should be treated."

Emily chimed in, her expression earnest. "And not just show up, Hotch. You need to say it, too. She needs to hear how you feel about her. It’s obvious to all of us, and honestly, it’s been a long time coming."

Rossi, ever the sage, gave Hotch a firm pat on the back. "You’re a good man, Aaron. You both deserve a shot at happiness. Don’t let your chance slip by because you’re too cautious to take the next step."

Hotch looked between his friends, their faces reflecting a mix of encouragement and insistence. 

The weight of their words settled over him, reinforcing what he already felt in his heart.

 He nodded, a resolve firming in his eyes as he turned to follow you to the bar.

"Thanks," he murmured, grateful for their support. 

The team watched for a moment longer, satisfied with their intervention, before they started to gather their things, their subdued waves goodbye mingling with quiet hopes for what might develop between their stoic leader and the woman who had brought a new light to his eyes.

Hotch watched them leave before turning his attention back to you--

Now alone at the bar. 

Throwing back another drink.

With a newfound determination, he was ready to take the advice of his team to heart and to make this evening a turning point--

Not just for tonight, but for all the days to come.

He approached quietly, taking the seat next to you. The bartender moved away to give you some privacy, sensing the shift in mood.

"You don’t have to try so hard to be okay all the time," Hotch said gently, his voice barely above the noise of the bar. "It’s alright to not be alright."

You turned to look at him, the dim light of the bar highlighting the vulnerability in your expression. "I just don’t want to be this person, Hotch. This...sad, pathetic person who gets left all the time."

"You are not pathetic," Hotch countered softly, his tone earnest. "You’re human. And being human means you feel things deeply. It’s one of the things...one of the many things that makes you so special."

Your eyes met his. 

A mix of gratitude and sadness swirling within. 

"Why are you so good to me?" you asked, a small, wistful smile playing on your lips.

"Because you deserve someone to be good to you," Hotch replied, his gaze steady. "And I'm here as long as you need."

The conversation paused as you both sat, the noise around you fading into a background hum. 

Hotch’s offer hung in the air. 

Sincere and simple. 

A promise from a friend that felt like it could be the start of something more, something neither of you had expected but perhaps both needed.

You did not take much convincing to get home. Hotch watched your balance waver. Your eyes glassy. Your yawns. Your red-rimmed eyes. 

The silence in the car was thick--

Only occasionally interrupted by the soft hum of the engine and the faint sound of passing traffic. 

Hotch kept stealing glances at you. His concern evident in the crease of his brow and the tight set of his jaw. 

You stared out the window, your reflection ghosting back at you, tinged with the glow of the streetlights.

Breaking the silence, your voice was soft but filled with a weariness that seemed too heavy for one person to bear. 

"There was this guy I really liked," you began, your words slightly slurred from the drinks. "He always kept me on the back burner. I'd wait by the phone. Hoping he’d call. But he never did. I hate that I've turned into the girl I used to judge…the one who cares too much about people who don't care about her at all."

You paused, a bitter laugh escaping your lips as you continued. 

"I’d give up anything just to love someone who loves me back. It feels like I've taken a back seat in everyone else's life because they've all found love. And me? I’m just... I'm so alone. It’s like this loneliness follows me into every room, no matter how many people are there."

Hotch listened, his expression somber, the usual reserve slowly melting away under the weight of your heartfelt confession. 

After a moment, he spoke.

His voice low and filled with an unexpected vulnerability. 

"I understand what you mean," he admitted. "After my marriage ended and Haley...after she died, I was thrown into a kind of loneliness I had never known. When you spend so much of your life with someone, you don’t realize how much of yourself is intertwined with theirs until they're gone."

He paused, choosing his words carefully. 

"And you’re right, no matter how full other parts of your life are, nothing can truly fill the void that’s left by a lack of romance or intimacy. It’s a different kind of emptiness, one that seems to echo louder the quieter it gets."

Your head turned slowly to look at him, surprised not only by his openness but also by the resonance of his words with your own feelings. 

There was a comfort in knowing you weren’t alone in your loneliness. 

That someone as composed and self-assured as Hotch could understand such deep, personal pain.

"The hardest part," Hotch continued, his eyes briefly meeting yours before returning to the road, "is learning how to fill that void in a way that’s healthy, without losing yourself to it. And I see you trying to do that, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now."

The car pulled up to your place, the engine idling as you both sat in silence for a moment, letting the weight of the conversation settle.

"Thank you, Hotch," you finally said, your voice softer, tinged with gratitude and a newfound respect. "For understanding. For being here."

Hotch nodded. A gentle smile touching his lips. "Always," he assured you. "Let me walk you to the door. Just to make sure you're okay."

At your door, you turned to face Hotch--

And without a word, you wrapped your arms around him in a grateful hug. 

It was more than a simple gesture of thanks; it was a release of some of the night’s accumulated tension and loneliness.

Hotch, caught slightly off guard, heitated for only a moment before his arms came around you, returning the embrace with a protective warmth

He could smell the faint mix of your perfume, now mingled with the sharp scent of alcohol, and it stirred something in him--

A concern deeper than the usual care he held for his team. 

As he held you, his hand gently patting your back in comfort.

Hotch found himself wishing he could do more.

Wishing he could step inside. Make you a cup of coffee. And talk through the night until you felt better. 

But he held back, acutely aware of the boundaries that his role as your superior and his professional integrity dictated.

As you finally pulled back, looking up at him with eyes that showed a flicker of something like relief and comfort, Hotch realized that his feelings were perhaps more complicated than he had admitted to himself. 

There was something magnetic about you. 

Something that drew him in, far beyond the simple need to protect a team member. 

It was a pull he hadn’t expected, one he hadn’t felt in a very long time, and it left him momentarily unsure of his next words.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay?” he asked, his voice low, filled with genuine concern.

“Yes, thanks to you,” you replied, managing a small smile that seemed to brighten the dim hallway. “Really, Hotch, I can’t thank you enough for tonight.”

“Just doing my part,” Hotch said, trying to sound more casual than he felt. “But if you need anything, or just want to talk, you have my number.”

You nodded, and there was a lingering look, a silent acknowledgment of the bond that had deepened tonight, before you turned to open your door. “Goodnight, Hotch,” you said, stepping inside.

“Goodnight,” he replied, watching the door close gently behind you. 

He stood there for a few more moments, lost in thought. 

The night had revealed layers of both your vulnerabilities and strengths, and Hotch felt a renewed commitment to supporting you, not just as a leader but as someone who genuinely cared.

As he walked back to his car, the quiet of the night surrounding him, Hotch felt a mixture of worry and something akin to anticipation. It was clear now that his concern for you went beyond the professional; it was personal, and it was growing. 

He hoped that would be the end of it. He wished it would.

He just wanted to see you happy. 

Glowing from within like he knew you could and often did. 

Hotch approached your desk, his steps deliberate, echoing softly in the nearly empty bullpen. 

The rest of the team had already left for the day, leaving behind a quiet that seemed to magnify the frustration evident in your posture. 

As he drew closer, he saw your face buried in your hands. Your shoulders tense.

The office was quiet. The clock ticked loud. Each second echoed. You sat, staring. Lost.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his tone laden with concern as he stopped beside your desk.

You lifted your head, your expression a mixture of bitterness and fatigue. "Guess," you said, voice tinged with a harsh laugh.

"A guy?" Hotch guessed, his brow furrowing as he watched your reaction.

"Yup," you replied bitterly. "Got a lovely message today. Apparently, I'm not pretty enough and not compatible enough for him. And oh, he couldn't possibly date someone who works for the FBI." The frustration in your voice grew with each word. "And to top it all off, I'm losing my reservation at this place that took ages to get into."

Hotch's expression shifted from concern to disbelief, then to a visible annoyance. "Where do you find these guys?" he asked, his tone sharp. Boys. He wanted to say. "I'd love to have a chance to talk to them, give them a piece of my mind."

Your eyes widened slightly, taken aback by his intensity. 

Hotch's jaw was set, his eyes hard with indignation on your behalf. 

After a moment, he softened slightly, gesturing to your things. "Collect your things," he instructed.

You stared at him, confusion etched across your face--

"What?"

"We’re going to that dinner reservation," Hotch stated firmly, as if it were the most natural decision in the world. "It’s important to you, and you deserve at least one night where someone can attempt to live up to what you deserve."

The sudden shift in the evening's plans left you momentarily speechless, your previous frustrations giving way to a surge of something else--

Surprise. 

Perhaps tinged with relief. 

You slowly began to gather your belongings, still processing his words.

"Hotch, I..." you started, unsure of how to express your gratitude or the flurry of emotions his gesture had sparked.

"No need to thank me," Hotch interrupted gently, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he saw the change in your demeanor. "Let’s just go have a good evening, okay? No expectations, no pressures. Just dinner. As friends."

The word 'friends' hung in the air, safe yet filled with unspoken possibilities. 

As you followed him out of the office, your steps matched his in rhythm. 

A silent acknowledgment of the shift in your relationship.

As they walked out of the BAU, Hotch's actions spoke volumes about the kind of evening he intended to provide. 

He held every door open for you-- 

His movements graceful. 

Assured. 

A soft but firm hand on your back guiding you through the thresholds. 

At the restaurant, he pulled out your chair, a gesture that might have seemed outdated to some, but from him, it felt respectful. 

A nod to a gentler time.

A time he still lived in and was raising his son to live in. 

Once seated, the conversation between you flowed effortlessly.

You spoke animatedly about the dishes, your favorites, and the memories associated with them, lighting up as you described the people woven throughout your life.

How highly you spoke of them and how important they were to you.

These memories that made you who you were. 

Hotch watched you, a small, genuine smile playing on his lips, captivated by the light in your eyes and the passion in your voice.

As the evening progressed, Hotch found himself offering compliments, each more personal than might be usual for a boss. 

“You have an incredible way of seeing beauty in simple things,” he remarked sincerely, watching as a blush crept up your cheeks.

It was cute. He’d never seen your cheeks turn that color pink before. 

Sweet, even. 

You seemed taken aback, almost shy, under the weight of his words. "I...thank you," you stuttered slightly, your smile bright but your eyes reflecting a hint of disbelief. "I-I’m not used to hearing that kind of thing."

Hotch's expression turned quizzical, his head tilting slightly. “Really? I find it hard to believe no one has ever told you that before. To me, you are so many things…”

Your eyes widened, and a vulnerable honesty shone through as you responded. "I've never been complimented like that. And from someone like you--Hotch,” You laughed, almost at yourself, “you’re... you’re attractive, smart, important. For you to see me like that, it’s... i-it’s everything. And hard to believe."

Hotch paused, the weight of your words settling between them. His brow furrowed slightly, not in frustration, but in a thoughtful reassessment of how he had come to view you--

Not just as a subordinate or a friend, but as someone deeply impressive in your own right. 

Someone he cared for more than just a team member or friend. 

Something so much more, he’d realized. 

“You should believe it because it’s true,” he said earnestly. “And I’d tell you more often if you’d let me.”

The air around you seemed to charge with a new energy, a mixture of surprise, anticipation, and a burgeoning realization of the mutual respect and admiration that might be blossoming into something more. 

The way Hotch looked at you in that moment--

With a profound seriousness tinged with warmth. 

It made your heart flutter in a way that no hollow compliment from anyone else ever could.

Dinner continued under this new, uncharted atmosphere, each of you navigating this subtle shift in your dynamic, exploring the boundaries of a relationship that was, perhaps, no longer just professional. 

As the night drew on, the conversation deepened, not just into personal likes and aspirations but into what made each of you the person sitting at that table. 

As Hotch drove you back to the BAU parking lot after what had unexpectedly turned into one of the most memorable evenings of your both of your lives.

The night air felt charged with a new, electric energy. 

He had been the perfect gentleman throughout the night, insisting on paying for dinner and ensuring every part of the evening felt speciall.

Standing beside your car under the soft glow of the parking lot lights, you turned to him, your heart full of gratitude. "Thank you, Hotch. This was...this was the best not-date, date ever," you said, the words not quite sufficient to express the depth of your feelings.

Hotch smiled, a hint of something more serious in his gaze. "It can be considered an actual date, if you want...or I could plan one that could be our actual first date, if that would be something you’d be interested in," he proposed, watching your reaction closely.

Your expression shifted to one of disbelief, a mix of joy and astonishment dancing in your eyes. "Y-You...would want to go on a real date with me? But look at you? You're handsome, sexy, smart, experienced... and I'm just me?"

Hotch shook his head, his expression softening with a warmth that made your heart skip a beat. "I can’t believe you don’t see what I see," he said earnestly. "You are incredible, truly. You’re beautiful, smart, and absolutely wonderful. I so lucky if you’d have me."

The words washed over you, stirring a mix of emotions so intense they nearly overwhelmed you. "This feels too good to be true, like a dream," you murmured, the vulnerability in your voice mirrored in your eyes.

Like he said the words you’d been waiting for…for so long. 

Hotch stepped closer, his voice dropping to a tender murmur. "Honey, this isn’t a dream. This is real, all of it," he assured you, his call to affection so genuine it carved a warm path straight to your heart.

The air between you had thickened, the kind that could change the course of a life 

You felt the intensity of his gaze, the palpable connection sparking between you, and in a moment of need to ensure this wasn't a figment of your imagination, you blurted out, "Pinch me, I must be dreaming."

Hotch chuckled softly, his eyes alight with affection and amusement. "I’ll do you one better," he said, and before you could respond, he leaned in.

His lips met yours in a kiss that sent sparks flying through every nerve in your body. 

A kiss so profound and filled with emotion it felt as though everything but the two of you had melted away.

A kiss that put all other attempts from others before to shame. 

As you kissed under the soft lights of the BAU parking lot, it was as if the world had come to a standstill, the only sound being your combined breaths and the faint rustle of the night wind. 

It was the kind of kiss that marked the beginning of something new and beautiful.

A moment neither of you would ever forget—

The world seemed to realign itself slowly as you both pulled apart. 

Breathless. 

The air was still thick with the electricity of the moment, and the soft glow of the parking lot lights cast a gentle halo around you. 

He gazed down at you, his eyes searching yours for a reaction, a sign of how you felt after such a profound connection.

For a few heartbeats, neither of you spoke. 

You were both caught in the gravity of what had just happened. 

The kiss lingering like a promise between you.

Finally, Hotch broke the silence, his voice gentle, tinged with hope. 

"Was that better than a pinch?" he asked, a tentative smile playing on his lips.

You couldn't help but laugh softly, the sound light and filled with the fluttering of a thousand tiny butterflies in your stomach.

"Much better," you admitted, your voice a whisper as you dared to meet his eyes again. "Hotch, I...I didn't expect this. A-Any of this."

Hotch's smile grew warmer, his hand reaching up to gently tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear, his touch lingering just a moment longer than necessary. "Neither did I," he confessed. "But I'm glad it happened. You're...you're more amazing than you realize. And I want to explore this, explore us, if you're willing."

The sincerity in his voice, the earnestness of his gaze, it all made your heart swell even as a sliver of uncertainty lingered. 

"Are you sure? I mean, you're you, and I'm...well, I'm just me. Are we really good for each other?"

Hotch’s expression grew serious, his thumb softly caressing your cheek. "You are not 'just' anything," he said firmly. "You are incredible, and yes, I am sure. More than I've been about anything in a long time. I admire you, respect you, and I am drawn to you. I hope to make up for all those who failed so miserably at trying to hold something as special as you.”

His words, so full of conviction and depth, washed away the last of your doubts. 

"O-Okay," you whispered, a smile breaking through your initial apprehension. 

As you both lingered by your car, neither of you in a rush to end the night, the conversation drifted to lighter topics--

Plans for your next outing. Favorite movies, books, the comfortable chatter marking the ease that had always existed between you, now deepened by the new, flourishing intimacy.

Finally, with a last, lingering look, Hotch said goodnight, promising to call you tomorrow. 

As you watched him walk away, his figure receding into the night, you felt a warmth spreading through you, a mix of excitement and peace, the night’s surprises leaving you eager for what the future might hold.

And for Hotch, he knew he had a 1 in a million chance of a lifetime to prove to you over and over again what you deserved. He never wanted to see the light in you dim again. If anything, he wanted to be the one to help you burn brighter. 

Tag List: @zaddyhotch @estragos @todorokishoe24 @looking1016  @khxna @rousethemouse @averyhotchner @reidfile @bernelflo @lover-of-books-and-tea @frickin-bats @sleepysongbirdsings @justyourusualash @person-005 @iyskgd @hiireadstuff @kcch-ns @alexxavicry @superlegend216 @sweethotchlogy

[sky2nd]

I'm all three...

[sky2nd]

“what’s your dream job?” um to be aaron hotchner’s stay at home wife