Archive of Our Own ^beta

When he has time to himself, Hoffman imagines what it would take to get Strahm to break. The agent is entirely hard angles and sharp edges, at some times seeming like he’s more stone than man, and at others nearly an animal, prone to snapping and lashing out. What would he have to do, then, to get Strahm’s shoulders to slump in defeat, to see him vulnerable and unmasked? 

It’s an idle question most of the time, just background noise as he goes about his day, something fun to think about. But when he’s at the workshop, Hoffman can’t help but imagine which trap is best suited to Strahm’s unique personality, what torture would finally crack his exterior and allow him to see the light. And, of course, he also considers the question of which machine would give him the most fitting death, would bare his flaws and vices to the world with the perfect amount of grief and tinge of regret. 

But, then again, although Strahm would look so incredible strung up with the spotlight turned to highlight the viscera and twisted bones hanging from his corpse, Hoffman can’t help but want to keep his demise a more intimate affair. It’s selfish of him, sure, but he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since an exchange a few days ago that has surely completely faded from Strahm’s memory but stuck in his like a splinter.

Strahm had been poring over the case files, as if Hoffman had allowed anything helpful to make its way into them. But the agent has no way of knowing that he won’t find anything, unsuspecting as he is of Hoffman’s double life, and, even if he was aware, Hoffman’s sure he would keep looking just to spite him. Strahm’s brows were furrowed, his concentration narrowed in on the meaningless details, his brain surely filled with the images of the mutilation that Hoffman had made reality. Strahm was focusing on him, he just didn’t know it. Maybe, in time…

“You look like you could use a smoke break.” Hoffman had broken the silence, grasping for an excuse to talk to Strahm, to get through the awkwardness between them that had persisted ever since the FBI had gotten involved with the case. 

“I quit,” Strahm said, not even looking up from the files. Hoffman can hear the bitterness in the words, and it seems like he’s poking around in a raw wound. How wonderful. “If you want to waste time, do it somewhere else. I’m busy.”

And then Hoffman hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Strahm’s mouth, about him exhaling a plume of smoke (into his face, fuck), about how the lack of nicotine could only be making his stress worse. That’s probably part of why he’s been so ill-tempered, too, why every word springs out of his mouth like he wants it to hurt, like he’s spitting acid. It makes Hoffman glad to know that Strahm is constantly paying the price of ever engaging in such a frivolous and reckless habit, his decision to quit now inflicting a degree of suffering on him that would only have gotten worse with time if he had stuck with the practice. Hopefully it’ll help him to realize that his own will is stronger than any chemical.

Hoffman would love to give him something else in his mouth, a replacement for the cigarettes he must miss so much, and the metal prongs of the reverse bear trap are a perfect candidate. What would Strahm do when put to the test? Would he wait and think, trace his tongue over the steel as he considers his next move, remembering the mechanism from his detailed case notes? Or would he spring into action at once, unable to hold himself back, more than willing to sacrifice a stranger—sacrifice anything—to keep himself alive?

Strahm would win the challenge—obviously; Hoffman can feel the survival instinct radiating off him in waves even now. It’s barely a leap to imagine him doing whatever he has to so that he comes out on top, no matter what stands in his way. He probably fights dirty, too, that broad build helping him land a hell of a punch. How purple would the bruises turn if he were to slam his fist into Hoffman’s chest, his face? Would Strahm even flinch if he hit him in return, or would the adrenaline keep him swinging through whatever Hoffman could levy against him?

But if Strahm did lose, what then? Hoffman tries not to let the thought linger for too long in his mind, not wanting to consider the implications. But, when there’s nothing else for him to be doing and no fires to be put out, he can think about Strahm’s jaw torn clear from the socket, barely clinging to the rest of his face by scraps of flesh and muscle. The man would be dead, obviously, but that tightness in his bearing would be gone and replaced instead by the exposed red insides of his mouth and throat.

He wouldn’t fuck it. He would be tempted—it would be a spectacle, to say the least, but Hoffman would restrain himself, keep his dignity instead of submitting to his whims and desecrating a corpse. Mostly because of how he knows it would pale in comparison to fucking Strahm while he was alive, how having Strahm take his cock lucid and willing would outshine any attempt to steal pleasure from his broken skull. It’s only natural, like some divine right, for him to think about Strahm’s lips wrapped around his cock while he jerks himself off in the dead of night.

He’s not sure how it would happen, what it would take for Strahm to get down on his knees for him. That’s not as important for Hoffman as the thought of Strahm taking almost more than he can handle, drooling around his thick flesh instead of the bear trap’s unfeeling prongs. Hoffman would savor it; he would choke Strahm on his length, pushing as deep into the velvet clench of his throat as possible, forcing the air from his lungs as surely as if he were drowning. The glare in Strahm’s eye, that unquenchable ember of rage, would only spur him on, and he’d chase his finish in his burning depths.

That would shut Strahm up, keep his jagged barbs at bay, but not for long. Fuck, unable to form words, he might resort to biting. Even after Hoffman ruined him, used him until no one would ever look at him the same way again, Strahm would surely return to his favorite vice of needling him in no time. And that’s all part of it, isn’t it, how Strahm knows exactly what to say to best provoke him, how easily he enrages him, how it all circles back to Strahm’s caustic intelligence and dangerously wicked mouth. 

It’s up to Hoffman to decide what to do to it, and he thinks he might have the perfect solution. All that remains is to see if Strahm manages to rise to the occasion, or if afterwards Hoffman will only have the memory of him to occupy his thoughts.