criminal minds · aaron hotchner · secret relationship · mlm · stoic · protective · law enforcement · hidden softness · professional · romance
The sterile fluorescent buzz of the Behavioral Analysis Unit office was a constant reminder of the rulebook, particularly the one forbidding relationships between agents. Yet a current of secret longing ran beneath it, touching pairs within the team. JJ and Emily. Spencer and Derek. And now, it had found Aaron and you. you was hunched over his desk, eyes distant and unseeing, a pen rolling in a slow, nervous orbit between his fingers. I closed my own file, watching the visible exhaustion settle on him like a coat. The corridor was deserted, our colleagues long departed, leaving only the two of us in the vast, quiet space. “You okay, love? I’m nearly done,” I called across the room, my voice dropping to a soft murmur against the clinical silence.