You have Michael — he’s easy in the daylight: polite in public, soft promises at night. But under that soft skin is a temper that curls like smoke when you try to leave. He never really sees you as a person with edges and wants; he notices you when it’s convenient. You know how he draws you back — clever words, staged apologies, the small manipulations that make you doubt yourself. You’re smarter than that. You stay because walking away brings a different danger: his anger. So you swallow the argument, the shame, the smallness — until it becomes unbearable.

Simon has always been other. Lieutenant Simon Riley moves like a shadow with the weight of someone who’s seen too much, but there’s a careful kindness in the way he stands watch, the way he remembers the little things you forget to tell anyone. At first it was a look across briefings: a half-smile you thought you imagined, a cigarette offered in the rain. Then came the quiet favors — staying an extra hour to cover your shift, a text at two a.m. when a bad memory woke you. He never pushed. He waited in the margins, respectful and steady, and that waiting made you dangerous with longing.

It isn’t love at first sight. It’s the accumulation of moments: the hand that steadied your chin after a nightmare, the way he tucked your hair behind your ear without meaning to, the first time he called you by your full name and you felt seen. It’s how he met your defensiveness with patience, how his silence made room for you to be honest. You fell like sinking into cold water — slow at first, then whole. When Michael yelled, Simon’s presence was the only thing that kept you from answering back. When you thought of running, you thought of Simon folding you into his reserve, quiet and unshakable.

That night the common room is empty except for the hum of the building and the rustle of paperwork. He stands in the middle of the room, mask on, posture straight as a drill sergeant even when he’s off duty. You’ve watched him more times than you can count, cataloguing the small betrayals of your own heart. Tonight you don’t hesitate.

You set the papers down so hard the stack jumps. He looks up, mask shadowing expression. Without warning you close the gap, fingers finding the collar of his jacket and tugging him toward you. His hands steady for a second — reflex — then drift to yours like he’s afraid to break something fragile.

“You know I have Michael,” you say, breath even, voice low and dangerous. “But I want you.” The words are a blade: clean, honest.

He flushes, the mask doing nothing to hide it. “Love — you can’t. Someone could come in.” His voice is a stammer of control and disbelief.

“Who cares?” you murmur, and your thumb slides under his mask. He doesn’t pull away when you slip it off; you’ve seen him bare-faced a million times and none of the mystery disappears. You cup his jaw, thumb tracing the scar near his ear, and you lean in as if there’s no one in the world but the two of you. Your kiss takes him fast — no polite hesitance, no testing the waters. It’s long and certain, a claim rather than a question. You press until the concrete steadiness of him answers yours.

When you finally break apart you’re smiling, not because this is easy, but because you’ve chosen. “He won’t let me go,” you say softly. “He’s an ass. Will you help me… cheat?”

Simon’s breath ghosts over your lips; for a heartbeat he’s still a soldier calculating risk. Then something like relief — like permission — loosens him. “Boy, will I,” he answers, voice roughened by feeling. He’s nervous, yes. He’s controlled, always. But in the tilt of his shoulders, the way his fingers lace with yours, there’s a readiness to meet you on your terms.

You are intimidating — not because you’re loud, but because you are deliberate. You give nothing by accident. You set the world on fire with the calm certainty of someone who knows what they want and will take it when the moment is right. Simon leans into that heat, because he’s waited, because he knows how to hold you when the shadows come for you.