Archive of Our Own

Immature was Mark Hoffman’s middle name. Mark, stupid, unsophisticated, immature, didn’t-know-what-was-good-for-him Hoffman. 

Mark Hoffman, who skulked around crime scenes with that blase look on his face. Who got too familiar with Jigsaw’s motto in his promotion speech. Who acted like some kind of resolved martyr that couldn’t be saved whenever someone offered him an olive branch.

Peter wonders what on earth the Police Department bigwigs were smoking when they made him lieutenant instead of having him committed. He would’ve assumed they were high on bribery, if Hoffman wasn't more of a threats guy. Maybe in his younger years he had been, Peter thinks. He’s found pictures of Hoffman when he was fresh out of the academy, snooping through files in his office, and Peter will admit, Hoffman retains a little more of that dopey, sad look he's mostly dropped in his older years. Perhaps in another life Hoffman settled down in a job that was good for him, married young, and became a totally respectable member of society. 

He finds it funny, too, that Hoffman keeps pictures of himself crumpled into desk drawers next to candy bar wrappers, dried up pens, and bent paper clips.

Peter steals one of them just to fuck with him and buries an unflattering image of Mark Hoffman accepting his academy diploma in the depths of his wallet. If a stranger picked it up, they might think he was someone Peter cared about, but Peter Strahm keeps his wallet in his back pocket, which is right below where he conceals his gun. God help the next person who thinks it’s a good idea to mug him, but at least he’s not idiot Mark Hoffman, who reportedly walks down the halls of his apartment complex with a gun pulled, ready to unload a round into the culprit who keeps breaking the soda machine, or the newest laundry room thief.  

So, Mark Hoffman was stupid, and immature, and entirely moronic.

He brought out the worst in Peter, too. They’d stalk out of the station on Friday nights and slip into Hoffman’s shitty Ford Crown-Victoria. Hoffman was a terrible driver, but Peter let him do it anyway, messing with the radio and cursing the entire way while he wove through traffic. 

They’d pull up behind abandoned shopping malls or warehouses Hoffman seemed to have a knack for finding, which was suspicious in its own right. Hoffman would do a shitty parking job, kill the engine, and glance over at Peter with those heavy blue eyes, looking like he was trying to initiate some kind of challenge. Then Peter would let him do absurd things like cum in his mouth and coo endearing things at him afterwards. 

Immature . 

The last time they did it, Hoffman had Peter acting like a teenager in the backseat, palms sweating, stumbling over his few words, heart thrumming uncomfortably as he licked into his mouth and rubbed his hips against Peter’s thigh like a cat getting comfortable. 

It went something like this. 

“Hoffman,” Peter says, once he takes a brief pause from Peter’s lips to nip at his neck.

Hoffman grunts languidly against Peter’s throat, giving him permission to go on, smoothing his hands up the back of his shirt. Peter could feel his chest cramping with the words buzzing at the forefront of his brain. 

Hoffman scrapes his teeth particularly hard at Peter’s neck, making him hiss. “Don’t leave bruises,” is all he manages and shifts his leg a little so Hoffman can grind against him better. Stupid, how he always gives Hoffman exactly what he wants, however hard he tries not to. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Hoffman says lowly with his head still tucked against Peter's neck, not sounding at all like he means it. As if to prove a point, he shifts his mouth to a spot higher on Peter’s neck, right below his chin that will be impossible to conceal with a shirt collar, and sucks hard. 

Whatever, Peter reminds himself, it didn’t matter. It was Friday night, and he won’t get another hickey from Mark Hoffman ever again. Peter rests his trembling hands on Hoffman's broad back, shifting them slowly up to the peak of his shoulders, and then threading his fingers through thick, dark hair. He tugs gently. “Hey.” 

Hoffman seems to only take the hair-pulling as encouragement and drags his lips hard against Peter’s sweating skin, making a quiet noise. 

Peter tugs slightly harder. “Hey.”

“What?” Hoffman pulls his head upwards with the soft pop of his lips disconnecting from skin. He stares at Peter with hazy, half lidded eyes. “You want me to fuck you?” 

Peter has to blink. There wasn’t usually such a blunt verbal transaction. Their communication resorted most commonly to mumbled grunts (and possibly insults) while tugging frantically at each other's clothes. Besides, the backseat was a little tight for the both of them. The last time they fucked properly, it was at Peter’s place, where there was at least a stable surface. 

“What? No,” Peter says, placing his hands on Hoffman's shoulders and holding him slightly away.  

“Do you want me to suck your dick, then?” Hoffman has the audacity to look bored, blue eyes phasing over the scene between them, lips slightly parted.

Peter shakes his head again. “No. Just- god, will you listen to me for a minute?” 

Hoffman says nothing and remains unexpressive, which Peter takes as a signal to go ahead. 

“I think we should-” I think we should what? Peter's internal dialogue starts to run wild, clutching fervently at the back of his tongue. Break up? The idea of saying it almost made him laugh. They weren't fucking together. Stop seeing each other? They had to work, for christ's sake. Take some time off? The goal was to “take time off” for the rest of their foreseeable lives. 

“Shouldn’t have sex,” Peter finishes, clearing his throat. 

“Okay.” Hoffman rolls his shoulder slightly, still leaning practically on top of Peter in the backseat. There’s the slightest bit of sweat on his brow that Peter has the vague and sudden urge to lick off. “Do you just want me to drop you home, then?” Hoffman asks. “It’s still early. We could get dinner.” 

Peter swallows, cringing as soon as the words left his mouth, but there was no stopping them. “No-I mean, for good .” 

It’s as if someone flipped a switch. There’s a brief pause before Hoffman scoffs. “That’s cute.” 

“No, I’m fucking serious.” Peter struggles to push Hoffman away from him, wriggling embarrassingly into an upright position.

Hoffman’s eyelids flutter only slightly, mouth twisting into an unreadable expression. “Some other commitment you’re worried about?” He purses his lips. “And is it just the sex? Or do you want me to stop giving you hickeys, too?”

Peter can’t help but tilt his head around to glimpse himself in the rearview mirror, and groans in frustration as soon as he sees the smattering of red marks above a thoroughly wrinkled shirt collar. The last time he got mad at Hoffman for leaving hickeys, he asked if Peter wanted him to go out and buy concealer in a manner Peter thought was joking, but was a bit too serious for comfort. 

“All of it! Just- stop. ”

Hoffman blinks and licks his lips. “Okay.” He shifts backwards so he’s sitting on the seat next to Peter. “It’s my car,” he sneers, “I take it you still want me to drive you home?” 

Peter looks around at the deserted parking lot. They had to be a good five miles from human activity, nevermind a bus station. He was half inclined to walk, but Hoffman was being unexpectedly good about the whole thing. It wouldn’t hurt to mooch a ride. 

“Fine,” Peter growls, “just this once.” 

“Okay.” Hoffman’s face stays in a scowl as he opened the car door and wandered around to the front seat. He turns around and glances at Peter over the headrest once he’s in. “You gonna sit back there?”

Frowning, Peter follows suit, gets out, and opens the passenger side door. His windbreaker was already lying on the seat from where he’d left it earlier and he gathers it into a ball, stuffing it under his arm before sitting down and slamming the door. “Let’s go. I don’t want to spend any longer with you.”

“Change of heart, then?” Hoffman asks rhetorically, sliding the key into the ignition.

Peter keeps his eyes trained out the window and doesn’t respond, staring into his own reflection against the darkening glass and curling his hands together in fists by his side. This was for the best, really, it was. 

Hoffman almost purrs as he starts the car. “Because I felt like you really liked me there for a second.” 

It’s Tuesday when Peter realizes that potentially, Hoffman didn’t get the message. 

Peter concludes that he’s either exceedingly stubborn, or detrimentally stupid (although probably both) when Hoffman prowls up to him in the breakroom. 

He’s dressed as he usually is, in monochromatic business casual, save for his stupid shirts that are consistently too tight across the chest, and uncharacteristically expensive for the rest of his cheap garbage outfit. Today he’s wearing a light blue silk one. 

“Strahm,” he says, almost predatorily, face set in its usual look. Hoffman slips a hand into his pants pocket and surfaces with a keychain, dangling it from a thick index finger and letting it swing near Peter’s face. “You should come with me to get lunch.”

Surprisingly, or, unsurprisingly, this is not code for anything. Hoffman has a never ending hatred for the office refrigerator, which Peter will begrudgingly admit, is somewhat warranted. (“It makes your food soggy,” is Hoffman’s standard, gruff complaint when pressed. Peter neglects to add that it also makes everything taste vaguely of pickles, because it would only fuel Hoffman’s resolve.)

“I am not going to lunch with you,” Peter scowls. 

“I’m just picking up takeout,” Hoffman corrects, blinking slowly down at him. 

“Still doesn’t change my answer.” Peter hunches back over his limp peanut butter sandwich and takes another agonizing bite. There is the distinct aftertaste of dill. 

The keys jangle as Hoffman snatches them into his palm and drops them back into his pocket. Instead of walking away like Peter prays he will, Hoffman sits down in the crappy folding chair across from him with a grunt, staring across the table. His expression, as usual, is unreadable. 

Peter waits to finish chewing before he asks. “What do you want?” 

“Nothing.”

“Then stop staring at me.”

“Okay.” Hoffman cocks his head and averts his gaze for all of a second before he coughs lightly in the back of his throat and looks back at Peter. “Did you say that for any reason?” He asks.

“Did I say what?” Peter asks vaguely. 

Hoffman blinks. “That we shouldn't have sex.” 

Instantly, Peter's blood runs cold. His fingers twitch. He’s half inclined to lunge across the table and strangle him. Hissing, Peter crams the remaining sandwich back into its tinfoil and narrows his eyes at Hoffman. “We're at work, ” he growls under his breath. “Does that mean anything to you?!”

“Jesus,” Hoffman says, “I didn't mean right here. Feel like they would boot my lead detective title if I did that .”

“You know what I meant,” Peter snaps. He can feel his face heating. 

“I didn't, actually, that's why I brought it up.” 

“No! Fuck , I meant now-” Peter halts himself, glaring and trying to take a deep breath before his anger can get ahead of him. Less for Hoffman's sake, and more for his own, it wouldn't do to lose his shit on a coworker seemingly unprovoked, although it’s definitely happened before. Hoffman had a taste for referencing private events in the middle of the workday.

“Look,” Peter says, measured. “I said exactly what I meant.” 

“Which is?” Hoffman purses his lips, waiting. 

The stupidity of Mark Hoffman never fails to impress him. Peter stands up abruptly, the table tremors. “I don't want to be having this fucking conversation. I don't want to be talking to you, but if you really can't get this through your thick skull, we'll talk outside. Professionally ,” he adds. 

The keys reemerge from Hoffman's pocket. “Lunch?”

It feels crushingly too familiar getting back into Hoffman’s car. Peter hates how he knows what the interior feels like, the familiar whisper of his seat belt as it clicks into place and he glances over at Hoffman. He’s staring straight ahead, but not making any moves to start the engine. 

“Seriously, what is it?” Peter snaps, raking a hand through his hair. “What do you actually want to talk about? I thought I was clear.” 

“Is this some kind of game to you?” Hoffman asks. 

“Is what?” Peter makes a noise in the back of his throat, but he senses where this is going. 

“You, me, this whole thing.” 

“No.” Peter eyes the center console dubiously. “But it’s over now.”

“Because you want it to be?” Hoffman finally directs his gaze towards him, and his face carries a melancholy that feels almost off putting in the soft daylight. Nothing about the scene between them fits his expression. 

“Yes, because I want it to be,” Peter says, and he has to take a deep breath to get the rest out. “It’s over, for good. I’m serious. I’m not seeing you again.” 

“You don’t get to dictate everything.” 

Peter makes a noise in the back of his throat. “And I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t push me to these places!”

“Oh yeah, how so?” Hoffman’s tone is less than inviting. “You act like you’re so fucking above this, but you’re manipulative, you do know that?”

Peter raises both his eyebrows. “Are we done here?” Hoffman was manipulative too, in all seriousness, just terrible at it. Besides, Peter was being straightforward enough, wasn't he?

“You going to explain why you’re making this decision?”

“No.”

Hoffman’s jaw tenses. When he speaks, his voice is bound tight. “How about you get out of my car, then?”

Peter doesn’t have it in him to protest, so he just tiredly nods his head and clambers out. He can feel Hoffman’s icy eyes on him the entire walk back to the precinct. It's not like Hoffman to grovel. Peter thinks that's about the closest he’ll ever get. 

Once he’s inside, Peter plops down at his desk, head swimming. He just needed for this all to blow over, that was it. Feelings were temporary. It’s not like anything between them had the slightest chance of lasting, anyway. He was simply speeding up the inevitable. 

Peter has never really thought hard about the logistics of breaking up with someone. He hates to even call it a breakup. The logistics of abruptly and formally stopping showing affection towards a specific individual , if what they had before could have even been called affection. 

He forgets that in all seriousness, he actually knows a lot about Mark Hoffman. Of course, there are the basic things that come with spending every Saturday night with a person, like how Hoffman’s apartment has a very controlled clutter aspect to it, he takes his coffee black, and he can’t stand small talk. He knows about all of Hoffman’s little mannerism, how he’ll tap his foot and twiddle his thumbs but think twice before he ever bit his nails. There are the conversations they have, Hoffman’s subtle, forward engagement when they reach a topic he likes. When they argue, he’s not so much clever, as knows exactly how to push Peter’s buttons. 

It’s hard to think about, but he knows what sex with Hoffman is like, too. The soft feeling of Hoffman’s big hands around Peter’s hips, the way he likes to be kissed, the birthmark on his right shoulder. Not only what it’s like to call Hoffman by his first name, but to say it in a way that insinuated his every last desire, warm at the tip of his toungue and packed with emotion.

Worst of all, Peter knows about Hoffman’s few, carefully kept secrets. Little tidbits about who his sister was, and how Hoffman felt numb, like he was dissolving after she died. He knows about Hoffman’s drinking, about his mother, how he’s never seen himself as quite fitting anywhere. 

None of these things just go away because Peter decided not to talk to him anymore. He hates it. It eats him alive every time he sees Hoffman’s eyes flicker in the breakroom and he knows he’s back on it with the stupid fridge thing. Or when he’s brooding in the parking lot and Peter knows instantly it’s because his car won’t start again. One day he’s halfway through telling Perez that Erickson’s mustache makes him look like Walt Disney before he realizes Hoffman was the one who first made that comment. 

But the overall crowning, worst part of all, is how Hoffman still knows him . Peter can’t just take back all the information he’s given him, or the ways they’re compatible. It's absurd how easily they're able to slip into their usual banter without a second thought. 

At least in the first few weeks, Hoffman started out unusually cold, and was easy to ignore. Now, assigned to the same task of looking over evidence, Peter has forgotten how skilled Hoffman is at bothering him.

“What's this?” Hoffman picks a pen out of a box of them on Peter's desk and clicks it experimentally, frowning. Perez got him a box of those pens for his birthday, since he was constantly losing them, and they were the only ones he actually enjoyed writing with.  

“It’s a pen.” Peter snatches it from him as he walks around the corner of the desk, along with a file from the top of the stack on his desk. 

“I don't know why you're even bothering to go through all of these,” Hoffman says gruffly.

Peter frowns. “It's my job.” He taps the top of the pile with the stolen pen. “And it's yours, too.” 

Hoffman looks at him as he slides a thick folder off the top and opens it, but his blue eyes are glazed and uninterested. He dips back into the pens and taps one idly against his lips as he studies the page. 

“Stop it with the pens,” Peter insists over the lip of his own file.

“You know I can see why you like these so much,” Hoffman replies instead of obeying, clicking the other end of the pen, “They're…nice.” 

“Yeah?” Peter can feel his lip curling. 

“Yeah.” If Hoffman picked up on Peter's visceral tone, he's ignoring it. “Very useful.”

“Useful?” Peter muses, “I didn’t know you were capable of reading and writing.” Peter’s brain yells at him that they’re slipping into dangerously comfortable territory, but Hoffman continues. 

“Well,” Hoffman sighs, sounding almost distraught, “I could always use one to stab you in the throat.”

Peter makes a point of not looking up, but he can feel his mouth twitch. “Oh yeah? Makeshift tracheotomy?” 

Hoffman grunts in amusement. There’s a rustle of paper as he turns the page of his document. “If you want.” 

“I’m sure that’s exactly what I need right now. You’re good with people Hoffman, you know that?” 

“Don’t be sarcastic. I think it might make things easier for you. You seem to have a lot of trouble breathing through your nose.”

“Shut up Hoffman, you fucking peice of shit.” 

Hoffman smirks but remains otherwise neutral. He’s perusing crime scene photos now like they’re the cartoon section in the Sunday paper. “I hope you give a better tracheotomy than you do a blowjob,” is all he says, “otherwise you’re going to die.” 

Looking back on it, Peter should have seen the water cube coming. 

Maybe, he thinks, he remembered Hoffman wrong. All petty grins and stupid comments, and not the way he tilted his head in resolve, closed the file and left early with less than a goodbye. It was common for him to be stoic, but this was different. He looked, and frankly Peter didn’t know how else to describe it, sad.

The first thing Peter did when he woke up with his head in a box was start going through his pockets. 

In the FBI, they tell you to call for help, for your partner, your backup. They also tell you that you never, ever, under any circumstances, enter a dangerous situation alone. He and Perez used to roast the ending scene in Silence of the Lambs, where Jodie Foster enters the house alone and realizes what’s actually going on. 

“That never happens,” Perez told him. “She’d have backup.” 

Except now, Peter is seeing what was so difficult about not having backup . The adrenaline gets around him like a vice, coiling and burning and directing him places before he has time to think. The tape telling him not to enter clicks off. He turns around and stares at dead John Kramer with his still, cold hands and the blood-slicked rubbery skin of his neck. 

Peter says, “Fuck you” and enters the secret door like every stupid person in every horror movie he’s ever watched. Peter was suddenly young agent Starling, stumbling through the basement with a gun drawn, fumbling and wide eyed as a newborn fawn in the dark, praying on instincts and the kindness of a killer. 

Then he was being shoved against a wall. The only thing that registered was his skull thumping against jagged concrete, the taste of metal in his mouth as Peter’s teeth chomped down hard on his own tongue, and the pressing, burning, heart shattering realization that it was Hoffman behind him. There was the slightest hopeful flutter in his chest for only a second as powerful arms locked around him and Peter could feel the squeeze of familiar force against his ribs. This was a joke, right?

What were the chances Hoffman broke out of his trap and rushed to the scene once he learned that Peter went in without backup? Had he found another way in? Was this him, attacking a threatening stranger on a murder scene like any cop would? 

The hope stayed alive in his chest as Peter waited for Hoffman’s familiar scoff, for him to drop his arms in feigned disgust and say something like “Jesus, you scared me.” or “Fuck, Strahm, be more careful,” in a manner that was dismissive, but just accusing enough for Peter to know he really meant it. Hell, he’s desperate for Hoffman to say something stupid like he always does at inappropriate times. “Fancy seeing you here?”, or maybe, “Didn’t know you were into this kind of thing.” Peter has never been more desperate for Mark Hoffman to reference their sex life at work than now. 

But Hoffman’s arms don’t drop. He barrels his weight into Peter’s back and slams him into the wall again. Peter lets out a pathetic ‘oof’ sound as the wind is knocked out of him, and there it is, right? Hoffman has heard his voice now. He knows who he’s facing. 

Peter involuntarily draws in a wild, panicked breath, the pain in his lungs persisting. Floating over the moldy basement stench is the smell of Hoffman. His sweat and the undercurrent of Old Spice that is the same kind Peter buys. The cologne Peter had investigated in his bathroom cabinet not two months prior, and most of all, the panicky, inevitable smell of a rubber pig mask. The synthetic hair of the disguise rubs at the back of Peter’s head while he struggles against the wall, wiry and itchy, lacing his whole body with acute discomfort. 

The hope in Peter’s chest is fighting for its life. All doctors are being called into the room. 

Hoffman’s gloved hand forces itself around Peter’s throat and he gasps, choking on the pressure and the blood in his mouth. 

The hope is flatlining. Someone is getting a defibrillator. 

“It’s me,” Peter coughs up, wriggling and trying to wrench his head from Hoffman’s grasp. “Come on, it’s me.” His voice is verging on frantic. Hoffman is not responding. 

Three, two, one, clear. The defibrillator is being put to use. 

Hoffman has surfaced with a syringe. 

Unsuccessful, the doctors are giving it another try. The hope’s wife and kids are crying in the waiting room. 

“It’s me,” Peter croaks again, “Stop.” It’s me! Mentally, one half of him has spun Hoffman around, shaking his shoulders, slapping his face. It's me, Hoffman, goddamn it. Wake up. 

Hoffman pops the cap on the syringe and makes an odd shushing noise that is halfway between frustration and resolve.  

The syringe enters Peter’s neck and in the ten seconds before he blacks out; the doctors step away from the table.

Peter wishes he woke up in the box as a changed man, but he doesn’t. The brand of Hoffman’s hand around his throat is still there when he blinks awake, hazy until he realizes where he is. Four walls of glass that reduce him to helpless mush immediately. Nobody in FBI training told him what to do in a situation like this.

Peter takes a millisecond to assess the scene, groping at the glass and crudely soldered metal. Each slap of his palm is deafeningly loud, and he suddenly understands why aquariums tell kids not to tap on the glass. Still, it confirms what Peter already knows; the box is airtight. 

Maybe it’s that first drop of water that sends him over the edge. Lukewarm and more of a death sentence than any gun pressed to his head has ever felt like.

The box is perfectly level, too, so it sits where it falls at the very back of Peter’s neck. Absurdly, his brain pictures Hoffman bent next to Peter’s empty chair with a box full of tools by his hip, measuring everything out perfectly before Peter's awaited arrival. It’s probably not far from the truth.  

There's a small, silent moment where it’s just Peter and the drop of water, until what he knows is inevitable starts to happen. 

The drop turns into a trickle; the trickle turns into a steady stream and all Peter can think is that if he cries, it’ll only fill up faster. 

This is when he checks his pockets.

He almost accepts his fate when the first one comes up empty. Where his keys would usually be, there’s nothing but dust and lint. He didn’t know what he originally thought he’d do with them, maybe try to use the edge to unscrew a bolt on the box, but that plan is useless now. 

His wallet is missing, too. He doesn’t have time to feel embarrassed Hoffman will probably find the picture of himself inside. How poetic, nestled among his badge, driver’s license, and credit cards-all the things that made him formally himself, was the picture of his killer, a silent sign of what was to come. 

In the FBI, they tell you that a full wallet is one of the most identifying objects anyone owns, and valuable beyond its financial contents. It can tell you so much about a person. Are they the type to keep coupons? Are there photos of family inside? What stores do they own gift cards for? Apparently, Peter was the type to keep pictures of his ex, his killer, his angel of death and the person who inexplicably knows him best.

He wonders if Hoffman will even bother to look, if he wants the picture back or if he’ll just take the cash and burn the rest. Peter hopes it's neither. He hopes that this is a dream he’ll have the privilege of waking up from soon. 

The following pocket arrives as a similar disappointment. No knife, no gun. Peter is going to die. But then, as his fingertips slide across the top of his pant leg, imploding with urgent thoughts as the water rises to eye level, his palm roams over a bump. Peter’s mind is so clouded with fear he can hardly conceptualize what it is, but he presses his fingers in deep all the same, like he can sink through the fabric and reach it. Before the rest of him can catch up, he’s squirming a hand into the pocket, sweating fingers curling desperately around the object that will save his life. 

An unassuming ballpoint pen. 

Peter only barely has time to remember Hoffman’s soft blue eyes before it’s being plunged into his throat. 

When he wakes up, it’s with the paramedics. Turns out, it’s normal to go into shock after you give yourself a tracheostomy with a shitty desk pen.

The search team finds him twenty minutes after the critical moment, unconscious, with his head in a box and a hole in his throat. He’s pulled out painfully slowly, head lolling against the stretcher while they load him into an ambulance. The only thing that registers is the wet buzz of water in his lungs, and the bleary scene around him, awash with police lights and sharp voices. As he blinks through foggy vision, Peter feels his stomach constrict with nausea. 

Erickson is by his side. Someone removes the trach and presses a cloth over his throat so he can talk. 

Peter can’t stand that the first words out of his mouth are, “Where’s Hoffman?” 

Hoffman is alive. A little too alive, actually, with nothing but bruised wrists and a half assed story to show for it. Peter catches his eyes as he’s being pushed into an ambulance. It’s too far away to gauge his expression properly, but Hoffman holds his gaze for a minute, then wavers before pulling his blanket tighter around his shoulders and turning away. 

The next time he sees Hoffman, it’s like he’s in a dream.

Peter wasn’t surprised when they kicked him off the case. An honorable discharge because Peter was, of course, injured while serving the FBI. Erickson broke the news, the only person who’d visited him since he’d gotten into the hospital. 

Now Hoffman was here, and his presence alone was making Peter unbearably nauseous. 

“Doctor said you were asking for me.” Hoffman stands on the opposite side of Perez’s abandoned hospital bed, hands folded in front of him.

“I wasn’t,” Peter responds before he can think better of it. 

“Yes,” Hoffman says, “you were.” He takes a few steps forward and stands menacingly by Peter’s side of the bed. “I’m sorry about Perez,” he finally adds.

“So you’re admitting you killed her?” 

Hoffman blinks. “Killed her? Peter, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Agent Perez’s injury was a tragedy-”

“-Oh, don’t play dumb with me, I know it was you! You killed her and then you fucking came after me. I-I remember you .” 

Hoffman’s lips purse into a momentary pout. He looks away like a frustrated parent trying to gather their patience. “I didn’t kill her,” he repeats. 

“Listen!” Peter gets to his feet, kicking the chair he had just been sitting in aside. “I know, I know what you are, I know what you did . You killed her, she was my partner, and you fucking killed her, you fucking-” It may just be the tracheostomy, but Peter is keenly aware it’s getting harder to breathe. His hands tremble. He wishes he hadn’t kicked that chair away so soon, he needs to sit down. “You fucking killed her,” he breathes again, closing his eyes in defeat and bringing a tired hand to his temple. 

“She was important to you?” Hoffman’s voice is low, and almost curious. When Peter cracks his eyes back open, he can see Hoffman staring at him with quiet intent.

“Yes,” Peter groans, “Yes, she was she was my fucking partne-”

“-Did you love her?” 

The question takes him entirely off guard. Peter lets out a dry cough. “-Did I? Jesus are you-,” it takes him a moment to process, “are you jealous ?”

Hoffman just keeps staring at him, which entirely confirms his guess. 

Peter brings his hand back to his forehead and drags it over his face. “ No. She was half my age, she was my best friend-I- and you fucking killed her.” Peter makes a ragged noise in the back of his throat. Any minute now, he’s going to cry. Cry in front of Hoffman , of all people. He pitches forward and clutches the side of Perez’s hospital bed to stabilize himself. “I know it was you, you killed-” he huffs, “killed her.”

Peter feels the first prick of tears at the corner of his eyes and before he knows it, he’s being yanked into Hoffman’s heavy embrace for the second time in twenty-four hours. 

“What are you doing-,” Peter has time to get out before Hoffman is kissing him hard and warm, one hand pawing awkwardly over his chest. Peter is too weak to fight him, but Hoffman lets him go as soon as he breaks the kiss. Hoffman wipes the back of his mouth and catches onto Peter’s wrist just as he’s trying to dart away, drifting  his hand back from the front hem of Peter’s shirt.

“What the fuck was that?!” Peter barks. 

“Had to make sure you weren’t wearing a wire,” Hoffman pants. “Look at me.”

“You know they don’t put cameras in hospital rooms. You didn’t have to do that. I’m not wearing a wire. Besides, it feels stupid to suddenly start being careful now , doesn’t it?” Peter struggles against Hoffman's grip, but it's no use.

“Look at me,” Hoffman insists again, phasing over the conjecture.  

Hesitantly, and he tells himself only because he has to get justice for Perez, Peter obeys. 

“She’s not dead.” Hoffman says the words slowly and deliberately, blinking at Peter as though this changes everything. 

“Yes she is, she-”

“She’s not dead.” Hoffman gives Peter’s wrist a sharp tug, making him stumble towards his chest. Peter turns his face away so Hoffman won’t try to kiss him again.

“She’s not,” Hoffman hisses as soon as he’s close enough. “That trap, it's not engineered to kill. Any decent doctor could heal her.” Hoffman grabs the side of Peter’s face and forces him to look into his wavering blue eyes. “She got hit in the face, right?”

“What?”

“ She got hit in the face , am I correct or not?” 

“She did I-”

“Then she’s fine.” Hoffman drops Peter’s arm all at once, letting out a small sigh. There's the craziest little smile on Hoffman's face. A nervous smile, like he's just given Peter a present and waiting to see if he likes it. “She’s alive. I don’t know what you’re so worked up about,” he reiterates.

Something about the waver in Hoffman’s voice is enough for Peter to believe him. He's the type of person who sounds more human lying than anything else. Peter still takes a step away from him, anyway. “ You tried to kill my best friend!” The lingering shock rolls through him, but he’ll admit, it has a much different ring to it than plain old, “ You killed my best friend .” Absurd, the depths his standards have dropped to. 

Stupid idiot Hoffman. Had he not thought to make sure the trap wouldn’t kill? Was this some kind of romantic gesture?

“Then why isn’t she here?” Peter finally demands, “Why can’t I see her?” 

Hoffman sighs, scowling at him. “It’s probably for her safety. They think she’s still Kramer’s target, for some reason,” he adds, like this is all that far a reach. 

“But Kramer’s dead,” Peter snaps. His heart is still hammering. In the most insane, betraying way, he wants more assurance from Hoffman. He wants to be grabbed again and then promised a million times that everything has fully worked out.

“Doesn’t mean he can’t still give orders,” Hoffman explains, clipped. His lower lip juts out in a pout. “And as far as I’m concerned, you should be thanking me. I saved the both of you, which I didn’t have to do.” He takes a menacing step towards Peter. “I had to make sure you went into that warehouse without backup, didn’t I? I gave you all the tools to survive. You should be grateful .” 

Peter resists the urge to spit in Hoffman’s face. Shaking, he takes a measured breath and another step back. “And what’s stopping me from telling the FBI everything you just told me?”

Hoffman grits his teeth and buries his hands in his pockets. There's a silent beat between the two officers before it hits Peter like a ton of bricks. He makes a ragged cough like he's stabbed himself in the throat all over again. “Oh my god,” he mutters, “you actually thought I’d be grateful?” 

Another beat of silence between them, another unspoken conformation. Peter lets out a sickened laugh. His ears are ringing. Is Perez even alive? Or did Hoffman just say that to gain his trust? Peter is suddenly extremely aware that he’s sharing the room with a deranged serial killer. However, he still can’t stop the next words that leave his mouth. 

“You think I’m in love with you ?” Peter hisses and starts backing towards the door, getting his hands on the nob. “You’re sick, you’re really sick, you know that? And you’ll be wishing you just killed me after my department is done with you.” 

“Peter,” Hoffman’s voice is altogether too calm for the situation between them. 

“No, shut it. I’m sick of you and your bullshit. You don’t know what you’ve just put me through.”

“Peter.”

“No. You don’t get to call me by my fucking first name, you don’t get to-”

All at once he’s being backed against the bedframe. One of Hoffman’s large hands stretches forward and clamps down on his shoulder. “Shut up.”

“What!?” Like he's a little kid again, Peter snaps, “you can't make me.”

Evidently, Hoffman can. “I said shut up,” Hoffman repeats for good measure as his other hand - the one not actively bruising Peter's collar bone- raises and smothers decidedly over Peter’s nose and mouth. Hoffman uses the hand to maneuver Peter’s face so they're forced to look directly at each other. His soft upper lip curls slowly. Hoffmans's blue eyes cut straight through Peter and gut his soul like a fish. “Take a second to think about what I just did for you, yeah?” Hoffman says.

Peter makes a muffled attempt at words. He wriggles underneath Hoffman’s tight grip and tries to pull away. Finally, Hoffman removes his hand so he can speak. “You almost killed me,” he spits as soon as he's free, throat burning. “You almost killed Perez.” 

Hoffman blinks, his hand inexplicably tightens. “No,” he grunts, “Try again.” 

“You’ve been manipulating me since day one. You’re a psycho!”

Something in Hoffman appears to break, his eyes darken, polluting his entire face with malice. “How about I just tell you?” he says thickly. The hand on Peter’s shoulder shifts to Hoffman grips his throat instead, right under the tracheostomy scar. “I staged a very convincing attempt on both yours and Agent Perez’s lives that proved non-fatal, but were convincing enough to fool both the FBI and John Kramer. Do you know how difficult that is? Do you know how much easier it would have been to just kill you?”

Peter splutters. 

“Right,” Hoffman continues, “Easy, and it would still be easy.”

“So why don’t you just do it?” Peter gasps, scrabbling at Hoffman’s forearm where his hand is clutching Peter’s neck. 

“Because I have a sense of justice, and I don’t think you would like it very much.” Hoffman’s grip finally slackens and Peter pulls away, coughing and massaging his throat. The sensation of being without oxygen was altogether too familiar. He wonders if Hoffman did that on purpose, if this was a reminder of what he was capable of.

“Now, do you want me to leave?” Hoffman asks, staring down at him with heavy disdain, “or should I just get Erickson so you can tell him everything?” 

Peter heaves in a deep breath and staggers to his feet, collapsing onto Perez’s empty bed with a shudder. He’s drenched in sweat. 

“No, leave.” He coughs again, looking back up at Hoffman. “I mean don’t-don’t tell Erickson.”

There is a slow nod. He gets it, Peter realizes as Hoffman’s hand slips into the pocket of his trench coat as he moves for the door and pulls something out, tossing it onto the bed. “You forgot this, by the way,” he says. 

On the mattress beside him is Peter’s wallet, lying open and innocent with Hoffman’s photo smiling up at him. Peter picks up the wallet and stares at it dumbly for a second. That stupid fucking photo. Hoffman with his mouth half open. speaking, hands blurred in motion. 

Peter looks up to say something, mouth dry, heart still beating out of his chest, but Hoffman is already speaking.

“You might not see me for a while.”

Peter just stares. “I know.”

They both swallow and look at each other. Peter figures this is the closest they’ll ever get to a formal goodbye. He runs his thumb over the photo, blotting the brief outline of Hoffman’s face. He looks happy, for once. You can see his sister in the background, grinning, her green eyes twinkling. Peter can see it, sort of; Hoffman in another life. 

Hoffman turns to leave but before he can quite go, Peter calls out his name. “Mark?”

Hoffman’s hand lingers on the doorknob. He turns around, eyes glazed with a sort of restless hurt. “What?”

“You’ll be okay, right?”

There's another unpleasant moment of silence. “Do you trust me?”

Peter doesn’t even know anymore, he just looks on. “I could.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You mean it?”

“Yeah, Peter, I do.” And with that, the door clicks shut, leaving him in silence once again.