Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The case was over. The blacklister cuffed and processed. For once, there were no casualties. No collateral. Just tired bodies and rare laughter echoing through the empty Post Office.

“Alright,” Aram grinned, setting a bottle on the conference table, “we’ve been stuck in here for fourteen hours straight. I say we celebrate.”

“With a children’s party game?” Ressler raised an eyebrow.

“Better than doing paperwork,” Samar said, folding her arms with a shrug.

Ressler smirked. “Fair enough.”

Red watched from the shadows of the doorway, Dembe beside him. Both had arrived late—uninvited, yet expected.

“Ah, Spin the Bottle,” Red mused, tone dry. “Isn’t this how the CIA recruits half their assets?”

“We could use the practice,” Cooper said, arms crossed but not stopping them. “And if you two are already here, might as well join in.”

Dembe gave Red a side glance. “They want us to kiss someone, Raymond.”

Red narrowed his eyes. “They want us to sit in a circle and randomly swap bodily fluids under the illusion of innocence.”

Liz, across the room, tried not to smile—but her eyes betrayed her amusement.

“I dare you,” she said to Red, voice light but challenging, “to play.”

That, of course, sealed it.

⸻

Everyone sat around the circle. Aram spun first—landing on no one, the bottle pointing toward a desk leg.

“Try again,” Samar sighed.

Second time, it landed on Cooper.

Aram paled. “Can I—uh—do a handshake?”

Cooper snorted. “I think a respectful nod will do.”

Everyone laughed.

Ressler spun next. It landed squarely on Samar. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t hesitate.

“Let’s get this over with,” she muttered—and kissed him. It was brief, mostly perfunctory. But Ressler looked mildly dazed afterward.

Then came Dembe.

He spun, quiet and composed—and the bottle landed on Liz.

Silence.

Her eyes widened slightly, but she gave a small nod. Dembe leaned forward and kissed her cheek, then gently pressed a real, brief kiss to her lips.

It was soft. Innocent.

But Red’s entire body stiffened. His jaw locked. His fingers curled into fists on his knees.

Dembe, ever observant, noticed—but said nothing.

Liz sat back, a touch of color rising in her cheeks.

Then Red spun.

Slowly. Deliberately.

The bottle turned.

Turned.

Stopped.

On Aram.

“Absolutely not,” Red said.

“Fair,” Aram nodded quickly, scooting out of the way. “Spin again.”

This time, it pointed to no one. Then to Ressler. Red glared. Ressler raised his hands. “Don’t even think about it.”

Next came Samar again. Then Dembe. Then Liz.

Liz took her turn.

And the bottle pointed straight at him.

Time stopped.

Red’s eyes met hers. There was a pause. A shift. Something neither could take back.

The silence thickened.

Then Liz leaned forward, lips trembling just slightly—and kissed him.

What should’ve been a brief brush of lips wasn’t.

Because Red moved.

He deepened it.

His hand rose to her jaw, gently but firmly. His thumb grazed her cheek. Her lips parted. His mouth moved with hers, slow, reverent, hungry. Not like a game. Not like anyone else had. This was deliberate. Decades of restraint cracking.

The world blurred. The air burned.

Until—

“Ahem.”

Cooper’s voice sliced the moment in two like a blade.

Elizabeth gasped and jerked away, breath caught, eyes wide.

She scrambled back to her seat, not meeting Red’s eyes. Not meeting anyone’s eyes.

Red sat perfectly still, his expression unreadable—but his hand, curled against his leg, was still shaking.

Liz tucked her hair behind her ear. “That was…”

“Unexpected,” Cooper finished dryly. “Let’s call that the end of the game.”

Everyone nodded, scattered. Awkward laughter followed. But Liz never looked at Red again. Not that night.

And Red?

He watched her go, lips still tasting her name in the silence she left behind.

Chapter Text

The amber glow of Red’s study was still and quiet, save for the slow swirl of scotch in a crystal glass.

He sat in a high-backed chair, legs crossed, elbow resting on the armrest, fingertips absently brushing his lips. The memory had worn a groove into his mind: the taste of her. The weight of her mouth against his. The surprised little breath she’d given when his hand found her jaw.

It hadn’t been part of the game.

Not for him.

He smiled faintly, running a thumb across the corner of his mouth.

He should have stopped himself. Should have stepped back before he felt her lean in. Before she made that soft sound and gave herself away.

But he hadn’t.

Because for a moment, she hadn’t been Agent Keen. And he hadn’t been her criminal informant.

They had been them.

A sudden bang of a door downstairs shattered the silence.

Footsteps—heels on hardwood, rapid, purposeful—approached.

The door to his study flung open without warning.

Elizabeth Keen stormed in, face flushed, eyes blazing.

“What the hell was that?”

Red blinked slowly. “Good evening to you, too.”

“Don’t play coy with me!” she snapped. “That kiss. Last night. In front of everyone.”

He remained seated, swirling the scotch with maddening calm. “Yes… what about it?”

“You deepened it,” she hissed. “It was supposed to be a stupid game—just a kiss—but you—you turned it into something else.”

He looked at her, really looked. Her fists clenched at her sides, chest rising with short, angry breaths. But beneath it—there was panic. And heat.

“And what, pray tell, do you believe I turned it into?” he asked softly.

She glared. “You know what you did.”

He stood.

It was slow. Controlled.

He set the glass down.

Walked toward her.

She didn’t move.

“You’re my informant,” she said sharply, almost like a shield. “That’s all. We are not—this is not some twisted thing you get to play with. We’re just work partners.”

He took another step.

She stepped back.

“We’re not friends,” she continued, voice thinner now, more desperate. “We’re not… lovers.”

Another step. Her back hit the wall.

“And what exactly are you afraid of, Elizabeth?” he murmured.

“I’m not afraid,” she spat, her voice breaking. “I’m angry. That was unprofessional. Reckless. Manipulative.”

Red leaned in, bracing one hand on the wall beside her head. He was so close now, she could smell the faint burn of his cologne and the scotch on his breath.

And then he did the last thing she expected.

He laughed.

Low. Quiet. Like he was amused.

She stared. “What the hell is so funny?”

His eyes—dark, warm, dangerous—met hers.

“You,” he whispered.

And then he kissed her.

Hard.

There was no hesitation, no teasing. It was all hunger. All fire.

She gasped against his mouth, and he took it, deepening the kiss like he had the night before—but this time, with no one to stop them.

No audience.

No pretending.

Her fingers fisted in his shirt. Her anger dissolved in an instant.

She kissed him back just as hard.

When he lifted her—hands gripping her thighs, her legs wrapping around his waist—she didn’t question it. She wanted this. Had wanted it for so long she’d convinced herself she didn’t.

He carried her to the desk and laid her down on it, never breaking the kiss, his mouth traveling down her neck, slow and reverent, like he was remembering her as he discovered her.

Clothes came off in pieces. Buttons lost. Breath hitching. She arched against him, hands in his hair, moaning when his mouth returned to hers.

“Red—”

The sound of her saying his name like that—soft, raw, needy—undid him.

He whispered hers like a prayer. “Elizabeth…”

It wasn’t gentle.

But it wasn’t rough either.

It was years of longing—bitten-back desire, buried feelings, frustration, guilt—all bursting into this one night. This one desperate need to feel something real.

She gasped his name again as he entered her, and he kissed her jaw, her cheek, her lips—trying to say everything he never could.

They moved like they knew each other already.

And in a way, they did.

When she came apart beneath him, clinging to his shoulders, her mouth on his neck, Red murmured her name like an answer.

And when they were still—his forehead pressed to hers, their breathing slowly syncing—neither spoke.

Because they knew if they did, something would break.

⸻

Afterward, she dressed quickly.

He stayed seated, shirt still half-open, watching her in silence.

She didn’t look at him. Not once.

When she reached the door, she paused. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

He didn’t argue.

Didn’t call after her.

Just watched her walk away, with the taste of her still on his tongue and the echo of her breath in his ears.

He poured another scotch.

Touched his fingers to his lips.

And smiled.