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Peter is the second person to ever survive two consecutive Jigsaw traps. Considering the first had been Amanda Young, he supposes he can’t blame the subsequent suspicion. Especially given Hoffman’s clumsy attempts at a frame job.
“Look,” Erickson says apologetically as he passes Peter his third cup of coffee of the night. “You and I both know you’re one of the good ones, but you have to understand how this looks.”
“One of the good ones, huh?” Peter says. “So you never doubted me, sir?”
Erickson had. They both know Erickson had. Peter’s not as sore about that as he thinks he has the right to be, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to rub Erickson’s nose in it a little.
Erickson grimaces, the picture-perfect look of bland midwestern discomfort. He’s sitting across from Peter in the interrogation room, looking at least half as exhausted as Peter feels. At least somebody at the station had been nice enough to find Peter a pair of non-bloodstained sweats to change into on his arrival. Erickson looks like he’s been wearing the same suit for two days straight.
“Walk me through it again,” Erickson says. “One last time, okay? Just to make sure we’ve got it all straight.”
Peter’s head is pounding, and the station coffee tastes like shit. Still, what’s he going to say? No? Please bump me to the top of your suspect list again, I really miss the feeling of all my coworkers accusing me of murder?
He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face and chugs his lukewarm coffee. “I found Hoffman’s name in the files, noticed his sister’s connection to one of the Jigsaw victims. After everything that had happened, it made me realize that every time something happened, Hoffman was at the center of it. So I followed him and…”
He feels Hoffman’s nose breaking under his fist. The crunch of it, meaty and thick. Shoving Hoffman into the glass coffin and feeling victory flood his veins like an adrenaline hit.
Hoffman had smiled and the walls began to close in.
“And then?” Erickson prompts, like Petter hasn’t told him the whole tale start to finish a dozen times already.
“And then,” Peter bites, “he left me to die in the goddamn trap.”
“But you didn’t, he saved you.” Erickson stares him down hard, gaze flinty. “Why did he save you?”
Like Peter hasn’t been asking himself that all fucking night. Clawing at the walls, shrugging off his jacket as he climbed for the grate in the ceiling. Looking down at Hoffman’s face as he realized that he wasn’t getting out of this one alive after all.
Hoffman hadn’t been smiling anymore. Beneath the grimy glass, his face had been unreadable.
And then he’d pressed a button. The walls stopped moving. The coffin sailed away, and it was just Peter, stuck in a sliver of space only just large enough to breathe. But he was alive. He was alive.
An anonymous tip had led his colleagues to his rescue an hour later, and Peter had been pulled exhausted, bloody, bruised but whole from the trap. Nobody could explain it. As far as they could see, nothing like it had ever happened before.
Peter failed his game. And Hoffman had let him live anyway.
Erickson gets to his feet, circling the room. Not like he’s trying to be intimidating, just like he’s trying to think. His ever-present Bluetooth is off, lying abandoned on the table. After six hours of grilling Peter like he’s a prized fucking pig, he’s stripped down to the basic. Unbuttoned suit jacket, slack tie, and an exhausted look. “Your last trap, he didn’t intervene then,” he says. “He told the other detectives on scene that nobody else had made it. Must have been a hell of a surprise for him when you were wheeled out.” Erickson turns around, leveling Peter with a piercing look. “He didn’t help you then. So, what changed between that trap and this one?”
Peter’s heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest. “I don’t know,” he lies. “I don’t fucking know, okay?”
“Did he say anything to you?” Erickson presses, hands on the table as he leans into Peter’s space. “Before the trap, you were suspicious of him. Did you confront him? Give me something to work with here, Peter.”
“I don’t know!” Peter snaps, louder than he intends. “There’s nothing, okay? I don’t know why the guy spared me! He’s a fucking psychopath, who knows why he does anything? His favorite hobby is murder by bear trap.”
Erickson’s gaze pierces into him like a knife. Sweat beads on the back of Peter’s neck. His hands are shaking under the table. Because of the three cups of coffee and near-death experience. That’s all.
After a moment, Erickson sighs, and drops into his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. The tension in the room breaks and Peter breathes out again.
“Well,” Erickson says wearily, “you can just thank your lucky stars Hoffman’s as bad at framing you as he is at killing you. Didn’t take much digging to find he’d lifted your phone from evidence, and your doctor says a homemade tracheotomy is not conducive to executing jigsaw traps.”
“Well, thanks, Erickson, it really warms my heart to hear you don’t think I’m a fucking serial killer, after all.”
Erickson holds his hand up in silent apology. “He got me, okay? I wasn’t thinking straight, and I let him sway me for a minute. But it would never have held up - we know you’re not Hoffman’s type.”
Hoffman’s type. Erickson doesn’t mean for that to sound the way it sounds. It makes Peter’s stomach twist itself into knots all the same.
“Right,” Peter says. “Is this little interview over? Can I get back to work now?”
“What you can do,” Erickson says, “is get your ass home and take a week off work. Paid,” he hurries to add at Peter’s expression. “You’re not being suspended, Strahm, you’re being put on medical leave.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Peter says incredulously, getting to his feet. “I cracked this case wide open while I had a hole in my throat, and now you’re sending me home because I got stuck in a closet for an hour? You can’t be serious.”
“You never should have been working the case so soon to begin with,” Erickson says, getting to his feet too and heading for the door to the room. “Take a break, heal up, and then we’ll see about getting you reinstated to the case. I’ve organized a ride home for you.”
“This is ridiculous,” Peter fumes, really gathering steam now. Erickson opens the door. “I’m perfectly fucking fine. I can -”
Standing on the other side of the door is Lindsey Perez.
Peter stares at her. She smiles. The fresh scars on her face glimmer in the light at the movement. “Hey, Peter,” she says. “Care for a ride?”
---
Peter’s betrayal at Perez’s miraculous revival does not last long enough to even put down roots. Seeing her in his kitchen, frowning as she crouches down to fish two beers from his fridge, is so surreal that it knocks the simmering fury clean out of him.
She’d nearly died in his arms. He’d worn her blood across his shirt like warpaint when he kicked in the door at Gideon. It was her he’d been thinking of when he shoved Hoffman into that stupid coffin.
“You need to buy real food,” she calls, straightening up with a bottle in each hand. “You can’t live off takeout at your age.”
“Fuck you,” Peter says. “I don’t take health advice from dead women.”
Perez gives him an amused look as she crosses the room to sink onto the couch beside him. She opens his bottle for him, which is emasculating but probably necessary, because it turns out being jammed in a two-by-two square of space while recovering from massive surgery is a deceptively exhausting ordeal.
“I said I’m sorry,” she says. “We knew there was a leak in the department. Erickson wanted to keep a lid on things until we were sure where it was coming from.”
“So you suspected me too,” Peter grouses as he sips his beer. It’s only moderately better than the shitty office coffee had been. “Great. Is there anybody who didn’t think I was a fucking serial killer?”
Perez punches him in his arm. “Don’t be a dick,” she says. “You know I didn’t. I was pushing Erickson to let you in on the big secret ages ago, but, well…”
“Hoffman started his shit of a frame job, whatever, I get it,” Peter says, shoving her fist away and wiggling back into the cushions. He doesn’t want to admit it, but his whole damn body feels like an open wound. It’s possible Erickson had been onto something with that medical leave bullshit, but like hell is Peter going to tell him that. “Still, I thought you fucking died, Perez.”
“Well, now you know what it’s like,” she says swiftly, mercenary in her lack of sympathy. “Because you’ve put me through it twice, and turnabout's fair play.”
Peter grimaces. Takes a pull from his beer. It’s still shit.
Perez watches him drink with a raised brow. “Why are you even drinking this if you don’t like it?” she turns her bottle in her palm to pluck at the label. “This isn’t even your brand.”
“Somebody left it here,” Peter says. “Might as well drink it.”
Perez’s brows reach her hairline. “Since when do you have people over?”
Peter refuses to react to that. Works to keep his face straight, expression exasperated at best. “Since when do you police who I do and don’t have over. What are you, my mom?”
Thankfully, it’s distraction enough as Perez’s face crumples into a look of disgust. “Oh, Christ, no thanks. It’s bad enough being your partner, I don’t want to be any more responsible for you than I have to be.”
God, Peter had missed her ribbing. He’d missed her more than he even fucking thought, and he’d already missed her quite a lot. “Fuck off,” he says. “Are you staying on my couch tonight or what?”
“Well, I’m not leaving you behind to get kidnapped by another serial killer,” she replies. “Starting to think you might be killer catnip or something.”
“It was once,” Peter replies. “The second time -” the second time Peter had waltzed his own stupid ass into a trap, actually, which was more embarrassing. “You know what, forget it. Besides, how many serial killers do you really think are in this goddamn city? It’s only so big.”
Perez snorts, draining the last of her bottle and getting to her feet. “All it takes is one,” she says. “And it sure seems like you’ve got his attention.”
---
Erickson had asked what changed between Peter’s first trap and his second. Peter had told him nothing. That had been a big fat lie. In the week between trap one and trap two, Peter fucked Hoffman.
He hadn’t meant to. Peter doesn’t make a habit of getting into bed with serial killers, and even murder aside, Hoffman pissed him off like nothing else. He had, right from the jump, the two of them glaring each other down over Kerry’s cooling corpse, the rest of Homicide milling about uselessly, unaware of the monster in their midst.
Afterwards, Hoffman cornered him in the tiny office kitchen while Peter was getting coffee. “You have a problem with me?” he growled. “Or do you just get your rocks off questioning my authority in front of my squad?”
“Do you get your rocks off letting serial killers mutilate your coworkers?” Peter fired back. “How many of your men are in graves now and you still haven’t caught the guy responsible? There’s incompetence and then there’s whatever the fuck you have going on. Is there something in the coffee around here that just makes you all shit detectives or what?”
Hoffman shoved him up against the bench. “Are you trying to imply something, Agent?”
Peter had a solid foot on him, but Hoffman was built like a brick shithouse. He couldn’t wiggle free without doing serious damage to them both, and Peter had enough citations on his file for fighting as it was. “Careful, Detective,” he said, patting Hoffman’s cheek condescendingly. “Maybe you should save some of this enthusiasm for the case.”
Hoffman shoved him again. Peter’s back was pressed right into the edge of the bench. They were close enough that Peter could smell the stink of coffee on Hoffman’s breath. The roughness of it all was exhilarating, honestly. People rarely pushed back against Peter - they tended to roll their eyes and walk away. It was nice to be challenged every now and again.
“You better shut your mouth,” Hoffman had said, “before somebody shuts it for you.”
In hindsight, that probably should have been Peter’s first red flag. It’s embarrassing that it took him stabbing a hole in his own throat to put two and two together.
Once Peter had been discharged from the hospital, Hoffman showed up on his doorstep toting a six pack of cheap beer and a smug expression that Peter wanted to claw off his face. “Congratulations on the recovery, Agent Strahm,” he’d said. “I guess your mouth isn’t meant to be kept shut after all.”
If Peter had his gun on him, he’d have shot him right then and there. “You’re a fucking psychopath,” he said. “I’m going to rip your fingers off, shove them down your throat, and watch you choke on them.”
Hoffman had smiled. He had an awful smile. “You wanna watch me choke?” He stepped closer so that Peter had to step back, crossing over the threshold. Hoffman shut the door behind himself. “Why don’t you give me something to choke on, then?”
The tension between them was so electric that it set every hair on Peter’s body on end. He could barely breathe the air was so thick with it. Peter had never been so attracted to somebody in all his fucking life, and he had two failed marriages under his belt. “Get out of my fucking apartment.”
Hoffman’s finger had slipped into the neck of Peter’s sweater, dragging it down to reveal the bandage at the base of Peter’s throat. His thumb pressed against it. Gentle but threatening. Intimidatingly intimate. “Sure,” Hoffman said. “Or you could show me your bedroom instead.”
Peter wanted him dead like he’d never wanted anything else. “You’re not good enough for my fucking bedroom,” he said, and he shoved Hoffman up against the door, kissing him as hard and angry as he could, using all of his teeth.
Hoffman’s shitty beer fell to the carpet and his hands went to Peter’s hair. He kissed like he wanted to eat Peter alive. Consumption, total and wasteless, no scraps left behind, just Hoffman picking Peter’s bones from his teeth.
It was the worst kiss of Peter’s life. It made him so hard it was embarrassing.
Hoffman had fucked him on the floor. First, knelt between Peter’s legs as he sat on the couch, sucking his cock with graceless, messy enthusiasm, and then on the carpet, scraping all the skin from Peter’s knees with every hard, punishing thrust.
Peter was too old to be having that kind of sex. He had a hole in his goddamn throat, every bone in his body ached, and he was grieving his partner and best friend. If asked, he would say that was why he did it. He was in no real place to be making decisions, and Hoffman had used Peter’s moment of weakness to manipulate him into it.
“Yes,” Peter gasped as Hoffman turned him flat on his back, hauling Peter’s thighs around his thick waist. “Christ, fuck, keep going, don’t fucking stop, I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you, fuck, fuck -”
“Promise?” Hoffman huffed, fucking Peter like he was born to do it. Sweat from the bridge of his nose dripped to Peter’s cheek, damp hair hanging in his face. His hands were planted either side of Peter’s head, and each thrust rode Peter up the carpet another half inch. “How would you do it, Agent? How would you kill me?”
Peter’s arms were around Hoffman’s shoulders, fingers digging into his back. He could feel skin parting from flesh beneath his nails. If Hoffman killed him now, they’d scrape traces of him from Peter’s fingertips for evidence.
“I’d make it hurt,” Peter snarled. Hoffman fucked into him hard, just right, and he groaned, head falling back to the carpet. He was going to come any fucking second now. He hadn’t come on somebody’s cock like this since college. He was too old to shoot off untouched, but it was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon. “I’d get my hands around your goddamn throat and I’d - fuck - I’d squeeze until you begged me to stop.”
“Would you?” Hoffman bit Peter’s shoulder, right alongside the scar his handiwork had lain into Peter’s throat. “Would you stop?”
“Would you?” Peter countered, and then, “Christ, fuck - right there, Hoffman.”
He came like that - fingers digging furrows into Hoffman’s back, shooting across his stomach like some kind of slut, groaning and grunting and panting all the while. He was still seeing stars when Hoffman pressed him down into the floor, fucked the remaining breath out of him, and came with his dick lodged so deep in Peter’s ass it felt like the ghosts of Peter’s ancestors were judging him from beyond the grave.
Hoffman didn’t pull out right away. He stayed where he was, crushing Peter into the carpet, his solid barrel of a chest heaving against Peter’s. Their skin was tacky with a combination of sweat and dried come, gluing them together at the points where they touched. It was revolting, but Peter was so deep in the afterglow that he let it stand for a solid two minutes.
Eventually, when it became apparent Hoffman was not going to be moving of his own free will, Peter slapped his shoulder. Hard, not playful. “Get off me,” he snapped. “Christ, you’re as heavy as a goddamn truck.”
Hoffman grunted, his breath gusting along Peter’s throat, and then he moved, pulling out and away. The sting of it made Peter wince. The less to be said about the state of his ass the better. He sat up, every bone in his body creaking. “I’m going to shower,” he said. “You better be out of my apartment by the time I come back.”
Hoffman was sitting on the floor, still buck ass naked. He raised a brow at Peter. “Or what?”
Peter leveled him an unimpressed look as he climbed to his feet. “Or I’m going to tase you and toss you out into the hallway for the junkies to rob.”
Peter’s shower had taken approximately twice as long as it needed to. When he hobbled back out, Hoffman was gone. The only sign he’d been there at all was the shitty beer on Peter’s kitchen counter and the tender bruises blooming across Peter’s collarbone.
On the scale of bad ideas Peter had over the course of his life, fucking his primary murder suspect probably ranked at least in the top three. He’d lived a long life though, so he wasn’t going to put it at number one, not just yet.
After all, it wasn’t like Hoffman had even been arrested.
Three days later, Hoffman stuck Peter in his second saw trap, framed him for serial murder, and became the most wanted man in America.
It was hard to dispute his spot at number one after that.
---
Peter’s medical leave seems to last an eon. There’s another game while he’s stuck in his apartment recuperating. One of the survivors is Pamela Jenkins, the reporter that has been a pain in Peter’s goddamn side since he was assigned the Jigsaw case, and her status as a z-list celebrity shoots the whole thing to the top of every news channel.
He calls Erickson as soon as he sees it on TV, pacing around his living room, watching as footage of Jenkins being rolled out in a gurney plays on loop.
“Look, Strahm,” Erickson says as soon as he picks up. “I’m not going to -”
“Take me off medical,” Peter interrupts. “I can help.”
“Last time you helped, you wound up being framed and left for dead in a trap,” Erickson says.
“Well, I’m not fucking dead, and Hoffman is still out there.” On the screen, the footage cuts to another gurney. The sheet over this one barely obscures the body bag beneath it. “Nobody knows this case like I do, and nobody’s as motivated as me to fucking catch him.”
“We still don’t know why he left you alive,” Erickson says, but Peter can feel him crumbling. “It might be safer if you were off the case totally, to try and avoid catching his attention again.”
Peter still has a bruise on his collarbone from Hoffman’s teeth. He thinks it’s pretty un-fucking-likely that Hoffman’s attention has wavered from him at all. “If you don’t put me back on this, I’m going to look into it alone, and then you’ll have to split your attention and resources between the case and me,” Peter says. “Your choice, Erickson.”
Erickson curses. In the background, somebody calls his name, and Erickson covers the receiver for a second as he replies. When he speaks to Peter again, his voice is resigned. “Okay, fine. Tomorrow, you can come back in. But I’m serious, Strahm, I need you to be careful. He’s getting worse, more violent. I don’t think you’ll survive a third trap, so watch yourself.”
Erickson hangs up. Peter tosses his phone aside, turning back to the TV. On the screen, another gurney, another body in a bag. Whatever is inside of it leaves a trail of murky, acidic blood as it’s wheeled out of sight and into an ambulance.
Peter stares at the screen, one hand absently rubbing over the scar in his throat. Eight victims, they’re saying. It’s the highest toll for a jigsaw game yet.
A week ago, Peter let the man who murdered those people fuck him on his living room floor. He got his hands in his stupid fucking hair and kissed him until his mouth felt bruised, and afterwards, when his mind should have been clear, he’d let Hoffman rest his forehead in the grove of his ribs with something that was almost tenderness.
“When will Jigsaw’s reign of terror end?” asks the newscaster, her pretty face creased into a serious frown. “For how long will he hold this city in his grip - and for how long will the police allow it?”
Peter’s throat feels thick from more than scar tissue.
---
Perez is not thrilled to see him back at work the next afternoon. “You still look like shit,” she says, looming over Peter’s desk. “I don’t know what Erickson’s thinking.”
“Erickson’s thinking that half this department is dead, and if we don’t start pulling our weight, the FBI is going to wear out our welcome real quick,” Peter counters. He holds out his hand for the file Perez is nursing. “Are you going to give that to me or are we going to have to fight over it?”
Perez rolls her eyes, dropping it on his desk. “With the state you’re in? Please, I don’t fight cripples.”
Peter ignores her, flipping open the folder and fanning through the photographs. Inside, the pictures of Hoffman’s latest game stare back at him. Barbed wire and shotguns - bloody corpses sagging from a carousel, their insides painted all over the walls.
Perez misinterprets his look. “Brutal, isn’t he? It’s awful to say, but he makes John look merciful in comparison.”
Peter had been thinking about how the hand that sat like a heavy weight on the back of Peter’s neck could also string a man in a barbed wire gallows. “Yeah. Not pretty.” He clears his throat, closing the folder. “How’s the department holding up with the big reveal?”
Perez grimaces, glancing over her shoulder. “Moral isn’t exactly high, but I think most of Hoffman’s friends were already dead by the time this came out, so… Doesn’t seem like anybody here was close with him. Or that they really knew him at all.” Her fingers tap on the edge of his desk. “You never liked him, did you?”
Peter’s head snaps up. “What?”
“When we met, at the first crime scene,” Perez clarifies. “You clocked him right away. It was so tense I thought you two were going to start brawling right then and there. You couldn’t stand each other.”
“I thought he was a prick,” Peter says. “I didn’t think he was a serial killer, not right away.”
Perez gives a grim look. “Erickson says you were obsessive about him, after what happened with me.”
Christ. Peter wishes people would stop talking to him about what he was or wasn’t like with Hoffman. “Because I’m a good agent, and Hoffman was one suspicious piece of shit.”
Perez sinks down into the seat opposite him. She’s watching him, and Peter’s not so sure he likes the look in her eyes. “We’re partners, right?”
“Right.”
“So you wouldn’t lie to me,” Perez says.
Peter hopes to fucking hell he doesn’t look as guilty as he feels. “I wouldn’t.”
Perez’s eyes bore into him. “Why did Hoffman let you live, Peter?”
Peter’s stomach flips. He’s in his apartment again, Hoffman’s hands all over him, still chilly from his shitty beer. Mouth hot on Peter’s skin, teeth biting at the bone.
He’d touched Peter like he was starving for it. His hands had been everywhere, roaming every inch of Peter’s body, collecting every inch of Peter’s skin in his greedy grip. Peter doesn’t think he’s ever fucked somebody who wanted him so much.
Hoffman had asked how he’d kill him, and Peter had told him he’d get his hands on him and squeeze until Hoffman begged him to stop.
“Would you?” Hoffman had asked.
“Would you?” Peter had replied.
It’s only just occurring to Peter now that Hoffman had never answered.
He thinks of the glass coffin, Hoffman’s unreadable face as the walls closed in around Peter.
Perez is still looking at him. Peter swallows. Opens his mouth. Says -
Erickson barges into his office, half manic. “Jill Tuck just tried to kill Hoffman.”
---
Internal Affairs is not pleased to share Jill’s custody with the FBI. “Look,” hisses Gibson as they crowd at the two-way mirror facing Jill, “she doesn’t want you here. She doesn’t trust any of you, and frankly, I don’t fucking blame her.”
“Like it or not, she’s crucial to our case,” Erickson says, drawing on all of his authority. “Jill Tuck is currently the only surviving witness to come face to face with Mark Hoffman in his element.”
“That’s not the way I heard it,” Gibson says, shooting Peter a pointed look. “Why don’t you work with the evidence you have and keep your hands out of my department.”
Peter has a grudging respect for Gibson, which is the only reason he keeps from saying something unprofessional. Going by the complaints in Hoffman’s file with Gibson’s name attached, Gibson is the only one outside of Peter to have ever seen through Detective Mark Hoffman’s perfect facade. “Hoffman holds grudges, he’s not going to let her go,” he says. “He’ll come for her, and that’s going to be our best opportunity to take him in.”
“You try and use her as bait, you’re going to get her and everybody in the fucking building killed,” Gibson warns. “Unless Special Agent Strahm feels like sharing the secrets to unlocking Hoffman’s merciful streak.”
“Hoffman doesn’t have a merciful streak,” Peter snaps, fucking fed up with being talked about like some kind of miraculous proof of concept as far as Hoffman is concerned. “He’s impulsive and dumb as a rock, and so are you if you think you can put Jill somewhere he won’t find.”
“We’ve got safe houses,” Gibson says mulishly.
“Oh yeah?” Peter challenges, getting in his face. “And are these safe houses associated with this department? The department Hoffman spent twenty years of his life working at? Are you fucking stupid?”
Erickson gets between them, one hand to Peter’s chest as he pushes him back. “Cool it, Agent,” he says to Peter. Then to Gibson, “Strahm has a point, I’m afraid. Hoffman very likely accounted for this possibility. It’d be best to consider any information he had access to tainted.”
Gibson grits his teeth, spinning on his heel as he glares through the window at Jill. “Well, what do you suggest, then?”
“The FBI has safe houses,” Perez chips in. “We can take her there and set up a sting for Hoffman elsewhere.”
“You really think he’ll fall for that?” Gibson says skeptically, running jittery fingers through his hair.
“I think if we give him a reason to be drawn towards a secondary location, he might,” Peter says. Everybody’s eyes turn to him. “I’ll take the sting - he knows how much I want to take him down, he’ll assume I’ll be wherever Jill is.”
Gibson narrows his eyes at him, hand falling away from his face. “We’d have to leak your location for that to work.”
“No,” Perez says immediately. “Absolutely not. You barely got out alive last time, and we can’t count on him sparing you twice when we don’t even know why he did it once.”
“I’m not going to need him to spare me,” Peter says, insulted at the mere implication. “I’ll be ready this time, and I’ll have a team with me to take him in.”
“Yeah, because Hoffman has shown a lot of reservation when it comes to murdering whole teams before,” Perez snaps.
Erickson, however, is looking at him thoughtfully. “It could work,” he allows.
Perez whirls on him. “Sir -”
Erickson holds up a hand to still her. “Strahm will have a whole team with him. Taking him by surprise is our best chance, and we can’t risk Jill’s life by turning her into bait, Gibson’s right.”
Perez does not look swayed in the slightest. “He should still be on medical leave -”
“So it’s settled,” Peter cuts in. “You guys and Internal Affair will take Jill to a secure FBI safe house, and I’ll set up a sting.”
“Can you excuse us for a second?” Perez says frostily, grabbing Peter by the elbow and steering him out of the observation room and into the corridor.
Peter shakes her off the moment the door closes. “What are you fucking doing?”
“What are you doing?” Perez challenges in a hiss, arms folding of her chest. “I know you want to bring Hoffman down, but you’re all but throwing yourself at his feet and begging him to trap you again. Do you have any self-preservation?”
“He’s not going to trap me again,” Peter says, more confidently than he really feels. “And if he tries it, I’ll break his fucking face before I slap the cuffs on him.” Perez is looking up at him with grim steel in her eyes, gaze darting about as if searching for something in Peter’s expression. “What?” he snaps.
“Is this just about being the one to bring him in?” she asks. “Or is this about something else?”
“This is about making sure a serial killer is off the streets,” Peter snaps. “Or are we not doing our job anymore?”
Perez’s mouth twists into a sour frown. “You said you wouldn’t lie to me.”
“I’m not,” Peter protests.
It has the benefit of being true, too. Never once has Perez asked if he’s slept with Hoffman, so Peter hasn’t technically lied to her about fuck all. He doesn’t know why Hoffman spared him, he does want him off the streets, and he does want to be the one to do it. Everything else? That’s just fucking details, and Peter is so tired of the fucking details.
The door to the observation room cracks open and Erickson pokes his head out, looking between the two of them. “You both done quarreling?” he asks. “IA agreed to our offer, we’ve got a sting to set up and a Jigsaw apprentice to catch.”
A thrill shoots through Peter. Beside him, he catches Perez glancing at him but he refuses to glance back. “Yes, sir. We’re ready.”
---
The safe house Peter lands for the sting is nicer than his apartment. Broad windows overlooking a pleasant neighborhood street, three bedrooms, expensive furniture. Peter, who has been living out of a month-to-month shithole since he was transferred to the Jigsaw taskforce, is almost jealous.
“Didn’t know you guys had this sort of funding,” he observes as he circles the master bedroom, getting a lay of the land. “So this is where all the taxpayer dollars go.”
Gibson levels him a sour look. He’s only here because nobody with any authority from Internal Affairs wanted to work directly with Strahm on this, and he’ll be heading back to the real safe house with Jill as soon as IA gets all their equipment set up. “We’ve got a team in a van outside watching the entrance,” he says. “Five men in the main area of the house, and SWAT on speed dial if we lose contact with the van.”
“Are we anticipating losing contact with the van?” Peter asks with a brow raise. “Are your people not well trained?”
“We’re anticipating Mark Hoffman coming in guns blazing with pure intent to kill Jill Tuck,” Gibson says. “Are you sure you want to be alone in here?” His gaze drops to Peter’s throat and he makes no effort to pretend otherwise.
“He has to believe he has a real chance at her,” Peter says. “If he doesn’t think he can manage it, he’s not going to bother trying. He’s dumb, but he’s not that dumb.”
Gibson shrugs. “It’s your life,” he says. “Just remember, if he gets the jump on you, try and buy us some time to send in backup.”
Peter sends him an irritated look. “Thanks, Gibson, I’ll take it into consideration.”
Gibson waves him off, exiting the room and shutting the door firmly behind him. He hears him pause outside to talk to the team guarding the house, and then he vanishes, out to babysit Jill Tuck while Peter sits here and waits for the real action.
Peter stretches, glancing towards the curtains. They’re firmly shut, as if they’re hiding something of value, unlike the rest of the house, where they’re just ajar enough to give the impression of covert observation.
Fifteen agents. Five in the house, ten outside watching it. A SWAT team down the street. And Peter Strahm, Mark Hoffman’s survivor, waiting with his gun loaded and full intention to use it.
Peter settles into an armchair in the corner, gun resting on his knee, and waits.
---
He doesn’t have to wait long. An hour after Gibson leaves, there’s a twitch at the curtains. The window behind them slides open, so silently that if Peter hadn’t been looking right at it he wouldn’t have noticed it at all. Equally silently, he sets a thumb to the safety of his gun.
The curtains part. Mark Hoffman climbs through the window and into the room right before him.
The first thing Peter notices is his outfit. All black, like a fucking commando or something. He looks fucking ridiculous, but if the van out on the street hadn’t noticed him slinking through the yard, it must have been effective. The second thing he notices is his face.
A fresh scar twists across his cheek, branching out from the corner of his mouth in a sickening tangle of stitches and raw flesh. Jill hadn’t told them how she’d tried to off him, but staring at the gaping wound in Hoffman’s face, Peter has a couple of ideas.
After a moment of silent staring, Hoffman says, “Strahm.”
Peter clicks his safety off. “Hoffman,” he says pleasantly.
Hoffman doesn’t bother glancing around the room. “Jill’s not here, is she?”
“No, she’s not,” Peter confirms. “Just you, me, and a houseful of cops eager to bring you in.”
“What about you?” Hoffman asks.
Peter quirks a brow. “What about me?”
Hoffman steps closer. Behind him, the freshly closed curtains sway in the breeze. “Are you eager to bring me in?”
Peter snorts. “I’m eager to put this gun in your mouth and pull the fucking trigger.”
The corner of Hoffman’s mouth that isn’t massacred turns up. “Kinky,” he says. “You think a lot about my mouth, Agent?”
“We’re not doing that again,” Peter tells him sternly. He climbs to his feet, taking care to keep his gun aimed at Hoffman. “Hands in the air, get on your knees.”
“On my knees? Thought you said we weren’t doing that again,” Hoffman says, but he obediently sinks down on the carpet, hands folded behind his head. “I’m surprised to see you back in the field so soon. I would have thought they’d have you on mandated leave.”
“I made a convincing argument,” Peter says, circling close. He should call out, alert everybody else to the fact the sting has in fact stung. But if he does, then it’ll be a circus, everybody rushing to be the one to drag Hoffman in, and God knows what Hoffman will do with that kind of distraction. “Lay down, keep your hands where I can see them.”
Hoffman does, gingerly setting his good cheek into the carpet. As Peter looms over him, it makes the ruined side of his face all the more apparent. God. The stitches in it are shoddy, at best. Peter just knows Hoffman did them himself. “What now, Agent?”
One handed, Peter pulls his cuffs from his belt. “Now, you shut the fuck up and I get to watch as a court of law slaps you with a death sentence.”
“Or,” Hoffman says, “we could -”
Peter sets a knee to his back and Hoffman lets out a winded grunt. “What did I say about shutting the fuck up?”
“You’re the boss,” Hoffman wheezes. “Jesus, and here I thought medical leave would make you lose weight. You’re heavier than before.”
Peter has to set his gun down to cuff him. Peter eyes the body beneath him. He’s pliant right now, but he hasn’t forgotten Hoffman’s strength - how easily Hoffman had manhandled him, shoving and pushing Peter wherever he wanted him.
Peter does not want to set his gun down. Fuck. If this is going to work, he’s going to have to call somebody else in, after all.
“Problem up there?” Hoffman calls. “Performance anxiety?”
Peter scowls. “Fuck you,” he snaps, pushing all his weight onto Hoffman’s back. “God, do you ever shut the fuck up?”
“This would be easier with back up,” Hoffman suggests. “Wanna call some in?”
“I said shut up,” Peter snarls, just barely quiet enough to avoid being overheard. “Just - Jesus, give me a fucking second to think.”
He doesn’t get a second to think. Hoffman’s moving before the words are even out of Peter’s mouth, sending him sprawling to the floor, gun spinning out of his hand. Hoffman is over him in an instant, one hand on Peter’s mouth, the other pressing the hand closest to the gun into the carpet. It all happens so quickly that Peter doesn’t even have time to register what’s happening until it’s over.
Above him, Hoffman’s breathing heavily but silently, a looming shape that dominates Peter’s vision. His hand on Peter’s mouth tastes of sweat and gunpowder.
Fuck. Peter glares up at him. He had been so focused on Hoffman’s strength he’d forgotten he had superhuman reflexes to match. Truly, when God made Mark Hoffman, he put all his points into his brawn and none into his brain.
Hoffman grins down at him. He leans in, close enough his hair brushes Peter’s cheek. “No screaming,” he says. “You didn’t want backup before, so let’s keep them out of it now.”
Fuck you, Peter tries to say, but it’s muffled into Hoffman’s palm.
Hoffman pulls back, just enough that Peter can see his face. His knees are either side of Peter’s waist, but when Peter tries to buck him off it’s like fighting a brick wall. Hoffman’s hand on his mouth loosens, shifting down to curl over Peter’s throat, heel of his palm against his tender scar. “Tell me where Jill is,” Hoffman says, “and I might just let you go.”
“Get fucked,” Peter says hoarsely. “I couldn’t if I wanted to, I don’t fucking know, asshole.”
Hoffman’s hand on his throat squeezes, just enough to make Peter’s breath stutter. “I don’t believe you.”
“Then you’re a shit fucking detective,” Peter snaps. “Given your past history of torture, you think they’re going to be sharing that sort of information outside of a need-to-know basis?”
Hoffman’s jaw tightens, something dark fluttering through his eyes. Without his golden boy facade to hide behind, it’s honestly kind of frightening. This is Hoffman unleashed, nothing to hold him back. Peter is very aware of the hand on his throat - of how little force it takes to snap a human neck. “I can find her without you,” Hoffman says. “And when I do, I’m going to rip her face from her fucking skull.”
“Good for you,” Peter says. “If you set one foot out of this room, you’re going to be swarmed.”
“Nobody saw me come in, nobody’s going to see me leave,” Hoffman says.
“They sure fucking will when I start screaming for them.”
Hoffman shifts, his whole weight bearing Peter to the floor. “Try it and I’ll -”
“You’ll do what?” Peter gasps. “Kill me? Go on, do it. I fucking dare you.”
Silence. Above him, Hoffman is as still as a stone statue. The hand on Peter’s throat is so tight he can barely breathe through it. Peter wonders if he can feel Peter’s pulse - the rapid pounding of it trying to break free from beneath his skin.
Hoffman breathes out very slowly. His thumb strokes over Peter’s scar. “I could do it,” he says. “It’d be so easy.”
Peter’s heart is beating so hard he feels like he’s going to be sick. Half terror, half exhilaration. Hoffman’s heat is bleeding into him through all the points they’re touching. God. God. Peter had really thought he could ignore this strange, fucked up draw between them, but he’s never been so aware of something in all his life.
Hoffman’s still staring at him, thumb on his scar, heavy in Peter’s lap. Fuck.
Peter swallows and asks the question that’s been haunting him since the last time Hoffman had him teetering on death’s doorway. “Why haven’t you?”
A strange look steals over Hoffman’s face. Surprised, confused, worried. Peter realizes what he should have fucking know this whole time.
He laughs, head dropping back to the floor, eyes squeezing shut. “Christ, you don’t know, do you? You don’t even fucking know.” He breathes out. “Great. Just great. My life’s in the hands of a serial killer, and he can’t even tell me why he doesn’t want to add me to the list.”
“That’s not true,” Hoffman says, snapping Peter’s attention back to him. “I know why I don’t want to kill you.”
“Do you?” Peter asks dubiously.
“Yes,” Hoffman says. “I don’t want to kill you because I like it better when you’re alive.”
Peter doesn’t know what the fuck that means and he doesn’t get a chance to ask. Hoffman’s kissing him, right there on the carpet of the sting safe house, holding Peter against the floor like he’s convinced Peter’s going to start swinging any second now.
Peter should. He doesn’t. Instead, he gets his free hand in Hoffman’s greasy hair, holds him tight, and kisses back.
Hoffman makes a desperate, hungry sound into Peter’s mouth. He lets go of Peter’s wrist, shifts both hands to cradle Peter’s head, holds him still as he licks into his mouth. He tastes like blood and alcohol. Peter feels where his mouth is split like overripe fruit, the smear of blood as the weak stitches protest under Hoffman’s eager assault. It’s that more than anything that gives him the strength to tear away, rolling his head to the side as he gasps. “Shit, fuck, stop, stop.”
Hoffman kisses Peter’s chin, sucks a mark into his neck. With anybody else, it might have been sweet. With him, it’s fucking feral. Peter feels fresh blood left behind in the wake of Hoffman’s touch. “Don’t want to stop,” he mutters, hands leaving Peter’s hair to skate up his stomach, untucking his shirt. “You’re hard, I can feel it, Christ, you feel so good.”
Of course Peter’s fucking hard. He’s been hard since Hoffman pinned him against the goddamn carpet. He tries to squirm away, but Hoffman’s hands are everywhere. His hand drops to Peter’s belt and Peter barely manages to catch it before it can begin unbuckling him. “There’s a half dozen fucking cops in this building,” he hisses. “And they all want you dead - I want you dead.”
Hoffman pulls away just enough to blink bleary eyes at him. “You’ll just have to be quiet then,” he says, and pulls Peter’s belt free, his zipper down, and shoves a hand in his pants.
Peter’s head thumps back against the carpet, biting down on his knuckles. Hoffman’s fist around him is rough and dry, and he jerks Peter off ruthlessly, sitting on Peter’s thighs to watch the slippery head of Peter’s cock vanish in and out of his thick fist. It feels embarrassingly good, and Peter’s losing control of the situation by the second. He’s already struggling to see why this is a bad idea, struggling to remember that the same hand wringing bitten off hisses from him murdered eight people only days ago.
“God,” Hoffman says above him, fervent like a prayer. “I wish you knew what you looked like when you were like this. It’s fucking incredible, you look like a goddamn slut, it’s so hot, Jesus, Strahm, Peter -”
“Shut up,” Peter snarls, sitting up just enough to fist a hand in Hoffman’s hair. “Somebody’s going to fucking hear you.”
Hoffman grins, pulling against the hold Peter has in his hair. His pupils are blown wide despite the fact Peter hasn’t so much as touched him. “Don’t want them to walk in and see you giving it up for the big bad Jigsaw killer, is that right, Agent?” Hoffman taunts, leaning in to place his cheek against Peter’s. His hand twists around Peter’s cock and he shudders, head dropping onto Hoffman’s shoulder as he struggles to say quiet. “Don’t want them to see how much you’re enjoying this, how hot it gets you.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Peter says, and means it. He wrenches back, out of Hoffman’s grip. “Get your dick out, right the fuck now.”
Hoffman does, hands tripping over themselves in his rush. The strain of his erection through his pants is obvious, and when he finally unzips, Peter wraps his hand around it, smearing his thumb over the head, brain momentarily going offline as he feels how wet he is already, precome slick all over Peter’s hand despite the fact he’s only just touched him.
Hoffman doesn’t give him a moment to adjust, he wraps his hand around Peter’s wrist, encouraging him to jerk him off, and Peter hates being bossed around, but the desperation of it gets to him, and he does, letting Hoffman guide his strokes, moaning in Peter’s ear all the while.
“Like that, God, missed your touch, missed how much you fucking hate me,” Hoffman hisses.
“That’s what gets you hot?” Peter asks. “How much I hate you?”
“Like you wouldn’t know,” Hoffman says darkly, and pushes Peter back down to the floor, rolling him onto his side. “Put your thighs together, I’m going to fuck them.”
Peter’s stomach swoops and a shudder rakes over every knot in his spine. “Don’t be fucking ridiculous, we don’t have lube -”
“Don’t need it,” Hoffman grunts, yanking Peter’s pants down, hand pressing on the outside of Peter’s knee so his legs grind together, and thrusting clumsily into his thighs. He’s right - Hoffman’s so slick that it barely chafes at all, his dick grinding right between Peter’s legs.
It’s fucking filthy. Peter has never been so aroused in his fucking life. “Oh, fuck you,” he groans, folding his arms over his face, rocking back as Hoffman thrusts against him. “You’re such a piece of fucking shit.”
Hoffman’s arms are around him, one on Peter’s waist and the other pressed into his bared stomach. His forehead rests against the back of Peter’s neck, and he can feel each humid exhale of his breath. “If you hate me so much, why do you let me do this?” he asks. “Why do you let me fuck you, huh?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Peter snaps and yanks Hoffman’s off his waist, directing it to his dick. “Jesus, fucking touch me already.”
Hoffman does, jerking Peter off in time with each roll of his hips. He feels surrounded by Hoffman, consumed by him. There’s not a place they don’t touch, clothes shoved hastily out of the way, skin worked into a slick sweat. Hoffman noses Peter’s collar down, mouthing at his neck. Then he bites. Hard.
“Oh Christ,” Peter announces, and comes in Hoffman’s hand.
Hoffman makes a sound like a wild animal and rolls Peter face first into the floor, kneeling above him as he yanks Peter’s shirt up. Peter blinks blearily into the plush carpet. Behind him he hears the slick sound of Hoffman working his own dick and a moment later he grunts and goes still, hot come spurting across Peter’s back.
“That’s fucking disgusting,” Peter tells him, still face down in the carpet.
Hoffman makes a noise of disagreement. His hand slips through the mess he’d left, smearing it in Peter’s skin. “Looks good,” he says, voice hoarse. “Should look like this more often.”
Peter manages to summon enough energy to roll onto his side, squinting at him. Hoffman’s smiling. His hand has fallen on Peter’s waist, and he’s watching the way his thumb smoothes against Peter’s exposed hipbone with a look on his face that makes Peter’s heart crawl into his throat.
“I’m not going to look like this more often,” he says. “I’m not going to look like this ever again. Fucking you once was bad enough. Twice is goddamn reprehensible.”
Hoffman’s thumb on his skin stills. His face goes expressionless, jaw tight enough to make his stitches gleam in the light. “Reprehensible,” Hoffman says. “Funny how you never seem to remember that until after it happens.”
Christ. Peter’s so tired of making excuses about this to himself, he doesn’t want to have to make them to Hoffman too. He rolls over onto his back, uncaring of the mess he’s leaving on the floor, and drops an arm across his eyes. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he says.
“I think I’ve been pretty clear about what I want from you,” Hoffman says, and his thumb presses hard enough into Peter’s skin that he just knows it’s going to bruise.
“You want me alive, you want to fuck me, okay, whatever.” Peter shifts his arm to look up at Hoffman. “And then?”
Hoffman blinks. “And then what?”
“Exactly,” Peter says. “And then what? You’re still a fucking serial killer, I’m still going to arrest you.”
“Are you?” Hoffman asks, raising a brow. He’s disheveled, pants barely buttoned, sleeves pushed up to bare his arms. There are imprints in his skin there that Peter only vaguely remembers leaving behind. “You’ve been pretty bad at it so far, arresting me.”
Peter hikes himself up on his elbows. “Almost as bad as you are at killing me. Guess we’re at an impasse.”
“Guess so,” Hoffman says, watching him intensely. His hand is still on Peter’s waist.
He’s weighing something up. Peter can see the cautious, careful mathematics of it happening on his face. “Fuck, you look like you’re about to give yourself an aneurysm. Just say whatever you’re thinking.”
“I’m not going to stop Jigsaw’s work,” Hoffman says. “I know you want me to, but I’m not.”
“What gave you that idea?” Peter asks incredulously. “The fact I set up a whole fucking sting operation? Of fucking course I want you to stop, you’re killing people.”
“They’re killing themselves,” Hoffman says, and Peter is so tired of hearing the John Kramer special. “If you could just -”
Peter sits up fully, and Hoffman’s hand falls from his waist to his knee. Whatever Hoffman sees in Peter’s expression stalls his monologue in his track. “Just because I haven’t arrested you - yet - doesn’t mean I believe in your goddamn cult,” he hisses. “I want to be perfectly fucking clear here - what you’re doing is murder, and there is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise. Nothing.”
Hoffman grits his teeth, sneering. “Too good for my philosophy but not too good for my dick?”
“Oh, fuck you,” Peter says, with genuine fury. “There’s no reasoning with you Jigsaw lunatics. Forget this.”
He goes to climb to his feet, but Hoffman’s hand shoots out, latching onto Peter’s ankle and tumbling him into Hoffman’s lap. “If you call for help right now, I’m going to snap your neck,” Hoffman snarls.
Peter elbows him in the gut - hard. Winded, Hoffman’s grip on him loosens and Peter climbs back out of his lap, rounding on him. “I was just getting some goddamn space,” he hisses. “I don’t want to sit around with my pants down discussing murder, sorry if it doesn’t get my engine going like it does you, maybe you should fuck another serial killer if that’s what you’re after.”
Hoffman’s face does something complicated, but he doesn’t intervene as Peter straightens his shirt, buckling his belt and does his best to brush the freshly fucked look out of his hair. As he watches, Hoffman says, “Are you going to try and convince me to stop?”
Peter shoots him an acidic look. “What would be the point? You wouldn’t stop to save your own skin; you’re not going to stop just because I ask you nicely.”
Hoffman stares at him. “Would you?”
“Would I what?” Peter snaps.
Hoffman’s mouth curls at the corner. He gets to his feet too, stepping nearer to Peter. “Ask me nicely.”
Peter stares him down, hoping to convey that if Hoffman tries to touch him right now he’s going to bite his hand off. “You want me to ask you nicely to stop killing? Just so you can get a kick out of saying no?”
“I might say yes,” Hoffman wheedles. His hands hover gamely over Peter’s hips, fingers brushing but not quite touching. “You don’t want to try? Your pride more important, Agent?”
When the answer’s going to be no anyway, yes, it is. Peter opens his mouth to say just that when something occurs to him. It’s fucking crazy, but so is Hoffman, and Peter’s always been a good gambler.
“Strahm?” Hoffman asks, raising his brows, smug, self-satisfied grin on his face. “Got something to say?”
Peter’s not going to be able to stop him from killing, not unless he arrests him or kills him himself, and both those options are becoming increasingly unlikely. You can’t leash the beast. But maybe, just maybe, you can collar him.
“Don’t kill Jill Tuck,” Peter says.
Hoffman goes still, eyes dangerously glassy. “What?”
Peter steps in, guides Hoffman’s hands to rest on his waist. He puts his own hands on Hoffman’s chest, sliding them up, draping his arms around his broad shoulders. Hoffman is so still beneath him, but he’s not fooling Peter. When his hands had ghosted over his ribcage, he’d felt the pounding of his heart.
He leans in, lips skating along Hoffman’s cheek. Comes to a rest by his ear. “Don’t kill Jill Tuck,” he says. “Please.”
Hoffman’s stillness breaks. He shivers, full bodied, and the hands on Peter’s waist clench. “Very clever,” Hoffman says. His voice is uneven. “But -”
Peter kisses his jaw and Hoffman sucks in a sharp breath. Again, this time beneath his ear. Peter’s pressed right up against him, can feel every unsteady inhale Hoffman takes. He tries again, voice lower. “Don’t kill her - pretty, pretty please.”
Hoffman’s hands spasm on him, nails biting into Peter’s skin. Hoffman swallows. Peter smiles into Hoffman’s throat, unable to help himself.
“Didn’t realize you sounded so good begging,” Hoffman says unsteadily.
“You asked for it,” Peter reminds him wryly. He goes to step back but Hoffman’s hands clamp down, holding him in place. Peter supposes it’d ruin his little performance to fight back, so he allows it. For now. “Was that pretty enough for you?”
Hoffman’s quiet for a long moment. “You saw what she did to me. She’d do it again if she had the chance.”
Peter snorts. “No, she won’t. She’s fucking terrified of you.”
“She should be,” Hoffman snarls.
“And what about you?” Peter asks. “Are you terrified of one tiny little woman? Really?”
Hoffman shoots him a dark look. “It’s not about being afraid. She deserves to die.”
“You deserve to die,” Peter says. “And yet, here I am, letting you live.”
“You want me to learn from your benevolence?” Hoffman asks skeptically. “What next? Going to ask me to accompany you to church?”
Peter ignores that. “Jill Tuck isn’t worth your time, and she’s sure as shit not worth dying over.”
He expects Hoffman to reject him out of hand, but he doesn’t. He looks thoughtful. For the first time since this whole mess between them started, genuine hope blooms in Peter’s gut, a sickening unfamiliar feeling.
“If I let Jill live,” Hoffman says slowly, “what does that get me?”
Peter can’t believe he’s reached the point in his life where he’s bargaining with a serial killer and instead of thinking ‘what the fuck’ he’s thinking ‘oh, thank god’. “You wanted me to ask you nicely, and I did. I guess it’s up to you whether you consider that to be worth anything or not.”
Hoffman’s head tilts to the side, just a bit. His gaze rakes over Peter, the familiar burning hunger of it. “What else would you ask for?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” Peter says, working hard to keep his voice even. “Why don’t you give me a reason for us to find out?”
Silence holds. The tension is so thick Peter’s amazed it’s not leaking out of the room, sending every cop in the house running for them. It stupefies him sometimes that the world can continue to spin on, completely ignorant, when Hoffman looks at him like that.
Hoffman’s hands fall from his waist. He steps back. “Okay.”
Peter’s breath catches. “Okay?”
“Okay, I won’t kill Jill Tuck,” Hoffman says, and the face he pulls as the words leave his mouth make it seem like they genuinely cost him something on the way out.
He could be lying. Peter isn’t so stupid as to not take that into consideration. He knows he’s not though. What would be the point? Peter would find out immediately, and if killed Jill after promising Peter he wouldn’t, Peter would be angrier than if he’d just kept his mouth shut and done it without saying a word to begin with.
Maybe that’s fucked up, being angrier about the potential lie than the murder, but Peter doesn’t have enough energy to waste it worrying about that.
Peter grins. “Would you look at that,” he marvels. “He’s capable of rational thought after all.”
The glare Hoffman levels at him tells Peter he doesn’t find that funny at all. Peter can just tell he’s getting ready to say something snarky when there’s a knock on the door. “Sir?”
They both freeze, wide-eyed. Fuck.
The doorknob begins to turn. So quickly it leaves Peter blinking, Hoffman is against the wall, disappearing out of sight as the door opens in front of him. One of the Internal Affairs cops stands on the threshold, looking at Peter with a raised brow and a curious expression.
God. Peter hopes he doesn’t look like he just let their target fuck him on the floor. “What?” he snaps.
“Just wanted to check in and pass along an update,” says the IA goon. “Gibson says there’s been nothing at their location, and the guys on the street haven’t seen anything.”
Peter is unbearably aware of the fact Mark Hoffman is standing a foot from his man and can break necks at an alarming speed. “Yeah, well. Night’s still early.”
The intruder nods seriously. “You’re right, your plan was right, sir. He’ll show.”
Peter doesn’t know how to respond to that. Thankfully he doesn’t need to. The cop leaves, shutting the door behind him, exposing Hoffman once more who looks more amused than Peter thinks is strictly necessary.
Hoffman peels himself away from the wall. “So this was your plan, was it?”
“And it fucking worked,” Peter reminds him.
“Not as far as they know.” Hoffman glances over his shoulder to the closed door. “What are you going to tell them in the morning?”
Peter has no clue. He’s hoping he can throw around words like ‘unstable and unreliable’ and let Hoffman’s own ineptitude take the fall. Hard to plan for a crazy person after all. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Get the fuck out of here, before somebody comes back in.”
Hoffman snorts. “One short fuck on the floor and then you throw me out. You’re developing a routine, Agent.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want to snuggle and exchange pillow talk? If you’re not out of here in the next two minutes, I’m going to shoot you in the foot and call for backup.” Peter stoops, picking up his gun from where it’s been abandoned by the bed, slipping it into its holster. It’s a miracle the IA cop hadn’t noticed it. “And if I hear anything about Jill Tuck dying, I’m going to track you down and shoot you in the other foot, too.”
Hoffman looks at him with an expression that verges uncomfortably close to fond. “You’re such a little bitch,” he says. “It’s no wonder nobody likes you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t kill people for fun so -”
Hoffman cuts him off by kissing him. Both hands in Peter’s hair, open mouthed. Way too filthy. Peter’s so taken off guard he just lets it happen, hands fisting in Hoffman’s shirt for balance.
Hoffman pulls back, smiling. Before, Peter had called it awful. Now, with the still-healing scar stretching over his cheek, it looks positively horrifying. “Think about what you want to beg me for next, won’t you?”
“Don’t get fucking used to it,” Peter warns. “I’m not going to make a habit of it.”
Hoffman laughs. It’s a rusty sound, both in disuse and disability, what with the gory hole in his cheek. Peter, who had to learn how to talk properly with a hole in his throat, is uncomfortably sympathetic. “Be seeing you, Agent.”
“Get the fuck out of my safe house,” Peter says in reply.
Hoffman does. As Peter watches him vanish out the window, he thinks of Hoffman looming over him, hair in his face, sweat dripping to Peter’s skin. “Would you stop?” he’d asked and Peter had said, “Would you?”
Hoffman had. Two times.
“Think about what you want to beg me for next.”
Peter can’t wait to make it three.