A/N: Just to let you know: English is not my mother tongue and this is my first attempt in writing a work of fiction in this language. I worked hard to give you a text as "clean" as possible but please let me know if you see any mistakes. That being said, enjoy!

Update: For all my Spanish readers, you can check out the translation "Relojes Rotos" made by the amazing Titi25!

If she had told him back there, while they were stuck in this tawdry jewelry store with no one but a psycho and his pawn pointing a 9 mm at them, as well as a traumatized employee lying on the floor with a gunshot wound—he sometimes thought about her, wishing she at least got a raise for the extra shift—that they would still be playing this shitty game months after, then, well, that's an understatement to say that he definitely would've laughed at her scared but still lovely face—but let's be honest: cracking a smile wasn't exactly the mood he was into at this very moment.

That's the truth. He'd never have thought this game would become such a regular hit between the two of them, even less so the stressor that would've pushed her to cheat on her husband of seven years with him.

Maybe she just called him, by the bye. Told him how they were all exhausted by this harrowing case in Philly that has seemed to offer nothing but a series of unforeseen developments. "I was just calling to say that I'm thinking about you, and I'm sorry if I don't always reply to your texts, it's not that I don't want to, just that we've been very busy, you know." Yeah, she'd certainly say something along the same lines. That wouldn't surprise him at this point.

Even though it's way past 1 AM, he's not surprised either when his phone vibrates in his slacks' pocket. At this point, he doesn't need to look up to know that it's her about to ask him for the umpteenth time this damned question. Something as regular as clockwork.

"I knew you'd be awake," she starts, her languid voice pulsing through the phone.

He sits at the edge of the bed, legs wide and elbows against knees, waiting for her to go straight to the point. Engaging in any sort of small talk just doesn't seem right, somehow.

"So, Spence… Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"Hmph, I see quite a pattern these days," she teases him.

"Just spill it, JJ," he says with a sigh, his eyes starting to ache over sleep deprivation.

"Come to my room. And come equipped," she emphasizes on the last word.

She hangs up instantly, as there is no need to wait for an answer. He's taken part into her game and, as he's done it since their first play, he'll go as far as it will take him. Even if the pumping adrenaline from the first times has started to fade. Even if he, the genius, has known the right answer from the beginning but has always chosen to remain incorrect.

He's been considering for a few weeks now to put a stop to their relationship, or whatever the word, the label he can use to describe it. They're not best friends anymore, needless to say siblings or family. He's been considering going back to what it was before the game, when no one was hurting besides him. When it felt easier to relate to the romantic imagery of the jinxed lover, condemned to keep everything within his limbs, instead of the egoistic home wrecker. That's kind of a stretch.

And talking about that. It is not as if he had never experienced it, as if he had never used his damaged family to rationalize his tormented youth. Otherwise, he could have gotten an excuse, or sort of, but he can't even plead ignorance (would it even be possible, I mean, isn't it the point of having an eidetic memory?). And just because his synapses never give him respite (damn, couldn't you shut it up for once?) he pictures his mother, just like that, her mature traits pierced with worry and agitation. A shiver runs down his spin for a second as he realizes, at that moment, that he's thankful for her condition. It's for the best, her Alzheimer's. He doesn't recognize himself so how could she.

Goddamnit. His throat tightens and tightens until he can't bear it anymore. Fuck, he's on the brink of collapsing in this barely decorated single room in Northeast Philadelphia and by the time the paramedics recover his inert body, his colleagues will be wondering why their Spencer had a half-empty box of condoms hidden in the layers of his go bag. This can't be happening, he has to do something, anything to stop the constriction. Thank God, his hands finally react to the warning signals his brain has been sending for minutes now and, before he surrenders, his tie loosen up around his neck. Better, much better.

Leaning over the faucet, still panting, he stares at his reflection for a while until it seizes him. The man in the mirror is the same he remembers from thirteen years ago in the bathroom at Groton's police station. Sure, he's changed a lot physically, most parts for the better as his friends often love to recall. But some things don't vary despite the years and these trembling eyelids trying to cover up the mess his pupils are sinking into are just ones of them. He may be clean now, but this woman, she's another kind of a drug. As sweet and hazy as Dilaudid, each shot corresponding to the maximal dose administrable.

And as he wonders, it seizes him too: it's useless to stop, Gideon's not here anymore to put him back on the right track.

So he takes a handle of those bright, squared wrappings, bury them in the bottom of his pants' front pocket, and goes straight to her room.

He's got all the right answers to the test all along but chooses to screw it anyway.

He doesn't need to knock, nor to whisper her name. She's let the door slightly ajar—it makes him sigh inside, she should know better—, and he just needs to push it open to swoop down on her, stroke her seraphic cheeks with both hands and let his burning mouth roam all over her creamy skin. He could slap himself each time he does this, for irreconcilable reasons. One for fondling her soft flesh in a way his conscience doesn't allow him to anymore. The other for letting her go back to her husband whenever they return to D.C.

They only sleep together when they're away on a case. Not once in his apartment, least of all at her home. Where would they make love, in her marital bed? On the same sofa her kids are used to watching cartoons, a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios in hand; the very one where her husband savors a Budweiser while blaming and praising and blaming again to the New Orleans Pelicans? Sure some guys would get aroused at the only thought of flouting the rule—and it's also true that between the drugs, prison and now adultery his chances to enter any sort of a good place are considerably threatened—but God forbids they ever go that far. For now, the motel rooms booked by some executives at the BAU will do just fine. For now.

And now JJ rushes her deftly fingers into the hem of his button-down shirt, nearly ripping it apart. A deep sense of longing echoes through her voice as she says I've missed you, missed you so much, you cannot imagine how much I've missed you.

"I know," he breathes. "I know."

Of course he knows, he's lived for fifteen years with this lasting feeling buried inside his chest. The realization slows him down, he aches to take his time, just for a few seconds. He grabs her hand, let it hang halfway between their faces, then approaches it to his cheekbone. Nothing's simpler and yet this gesture is what gets him closer to the purest form of easiness. It lasts just for a few seconds, giving him enough time to steady his heartbeat, and in a blink it is gone. As if she's received some sort of signal she closes the gap between them, tangles herself up in his embrace and pushes their bodies onto the bed.

"Do you think I didn't see how you were staring at me all day? All those past few days in Quantico? Damn, Spence, I can't wait anymore. Please, don't make me wait anymore," she begs, her legs pressing against his sides.

He can't refuse her anything, she's aware of it. Knows for a fact he's unable to resist her moans, her blurry vision. To the way she tilts her head down and her eyes up, strands of sandy hair hatching her face, highlighting its most striking features.

How crazy habituation cannot be applied to these features. He's read tons of research on this question; even got invited to a symposium at the University of British Columbia to discuss the characteristics of the concept. Turns out psychologists and neurobiologists agreed on a consensus: the longer and more frequently a stimulus is presented, the more likely habituation occurs. It's scientific, empirically observed, infallible. Considering the fact he's been exposed to her face more or less continuously for the last sixteen years, four months and thirteen days, his sensory receptors should've regulated their responsiveness to the stimulus long, long ago. And still he feels a constant tingling in the lower part of his abdomen each time he's staring at her, those wide and bright eyes shining down on him. Yeah, habituation can be damned.

She leans over his chest, silky hair tickling his nose, and smiles against his lips when she feels the bulge in his pants, his cock getting harder as her tongue reaches further into his mouth. He takes a hold of her face, this damned face he'll never get tired of, presses his fingertips against her scalp and when she clumsily tries to get rid of her blouse he gasps no, let me do it, and sure when he talks like this only she can oblige. Her plain shirt falls on the ground and her bra follows in a trice. As usual, he can't resist following the winding trails drawn by the light stretch marks covering her stomach, wanders back and forth, stops, starts again. When none of them can endure it any longer, he grabs her by the waist to turn her over and contemplate his lover in this new view, her naked chest illuminated by the sporadic red lights coming from the clock placed on the nightstand. It shouldn't flash this way, he could bet she'd switched it off to charge her phone and by the time she'd plugged it in back, she simply forgot to set it up again. This shouldn't bother him, it shouldn't even have crossed his mind in the first place, still he can't help but wonder why those red numbers flicker behind his eyeballs, as to warn him of an impending catastrophe. Something is definitely bound to happen tomorrow at 11:42, otherwise why the trouble?

He's on the verge to nod towards the clock, to ask her what she thinks could occur but instead she mouths please with imploring eyes and furrowed brows and he just can't stand it. Their hands tear each other pants down in concert, it almost looks like a fight, or a choreography, no, definitely like a fight in which JJ knocks down her opponent with some hasty, feverish movements. Once her mission's completed, she concedes only to get exposed to the same extent as he is, match his bare thighs, compare the level of their arousal. Ugh, not as much as she thought.

He's burning for her, don't get him wrong. If it wasn't for this blasted broken clock he'd already be thrusting inside her, damn it, they'd be sweating together, cursing together. He'd love her. He shakes his head, grabs a condom from his pants anyway, unrolls it down his shaft. Fails.

"Shit. Could you, um—could you take care of this?"

His face feels impossibly hot, he'd never thought it would once happen with JJ, now she must resent him for being so weak; regret her decision to jeopardize her oh-so-perfect family life, the very one she's spent years building, for someone who can't even offer her a part of himself.

But then she approaches him, a playful smirk growing on her face, and the way she says anything for you, Spence, makes his chin slightly quiver for ever doubting her in the first place. She starts by kissing him gently on the lips, then trails down all the way down to his cock, taking all the time in the world when she reaches his collarbone—his soft spot, she'd quickly learned. This feels fantastic and when she goes down again and he senses her grin against his manhood he swears he's on the edge again. His blood rushes to his extremities at the sight of her jerking his cock off, strokes of tongue here and there, and oh God how he blows out so fast now, that is for sure something habituation will never be able to arrogate either. He runs his right hand through her sandy hair, that beloved sandy hair, and just by doing so it takes a pinkish shade, returns to blondes, goes back to pink again. His head's spinning, goddam 11:42 PM what? He goes back and forth into his eidetic memory, searches for any occurrences that could refer to that time of the night. Browse, refine, cross check. Start over.

Oh, that's it. How could he have forgotten it? They were surrounded by clocks and watches back there, now he clearly sees himself checking on the time every few minutes. That's it. It was 11:42 PM when he shot Casey dead in this tawdry jewelry store.

He thought it was over, that night at 11:42, he was sure they were out of danger, done with the constant fear of being the one witnessing the other's brain tissues getting embedded into the grayish carpeted floor. Done with their morbid Truth or Dare game. But who's playing games now?

Her deep breath snaps him back to the moment, back to this reality in which his dick flatten in her hands. Crap.

"Did I do something wrong?" She inquires, a glimpse of culpability in her voice.

"What? No! It's silly, you wouldn't even believe me, it's—it's just the lightning that keeps disturbing me, I'm sorry."

She considers his response for a second before she smirks back at him, "So you telling me that I could get you off in the SUV while on duty and yet a flashing light is bothering you?"

Ah, that's right. He blushes slightly at the recollection and still finds a way to curl up his lips, eyelids closed and teeth out. They were called on a case in Orlando a month ago, their unsub was intentionally letting breadcrumbs behind him after each murder; one thing leading to another they deduced the location of his next target based on those clues. Except Lake Louisa's southeastern shore was so wide they had to dispatch in three different cars to lock down the area, and, of course, Emily partnered him with JJ. And, well, they'd been on stakeout for ages, it was his turn to play and he had wanted to go for something really crazy—the sudden development in his love life was lending him some wings and, at that time, he didn't wake up in the middle of the night that much because of this said development—so, when she had gone for 'dare', he said I bet you wouldn't be able to make me cum right here, right now. And so that day, on the outskirts of Lake Louisa, he learned in a firework that it was useless to bet against her.

"I guess you just figured me out." He takes a strand of her hair and tucks it behind her ear. "Please lie down, let me make it up to you."

There's no need to say it twice. Her toes curl up in advance as if reliving the sheer feeling of bliss his tongue and his hands and even his breathes give her each time he goes down on her. He positions himself at the end of the queen-size bed, rubs his fingertips gently against her legs which immediately fold up at the contact. Good. When his lips encounter the inner sides of her knees and wander here, and there, and oh, yes, here again, she becomes short of breath, torn between what's already there and what could come next. Her brows furrow an instant at the thought, uncomfortable at the parallel her mind is drawing up between her lover's kisses and, let's say it, the fuckery their current relationship is. Only the second later his mouth goes up and up and up, biting into each fragment of skin in his ascent, and just by doing so her vision clouds so much she wonders why heaven is always depicted so bright. To hell her inner turmoil.

Below, Spencer feels a hand rigorously running through his curly hair, caressing strands here and grabbing others there. He clings further into her thighs, it is time he thought with delight and she might think it as well as his thumb becomes instantly wet as it sinks into her labial and finds her engorged clitoris. She whimpers louder at each stroke, so loud now he hesitates to slow the pace down; they should be more careful, anyone could hear them, let them know how wrong all of this is. Convince them to stop. Yes, that they should. You know they should; you know you should. No matter how much you want to go on, this is wrong. Wait, you sure this is really wrong?

Yet it feels so right to touch her, lick her with vigor as if his mental sanity was at stake. So right to witness her legs shaking, to hear her saying don't stop baby, this is so good, please don't stop, yeah, just like this, don't you ever stop, like a song put on repeat. He can't suppress a muffled groan from escaping his lips; oh my, yes that may be wrong but how could he ever stop? Her pelvis rises under his grip, he pushes her pussy deeper into his mouth as she cries his name in staccato and when five, no, six seconds later her bottom falls again on the mattress, he knows it's over.

He takes a few moments to recollect composure—breathe in, breathe out—, wipes his mouth with a single motion on to the white sheets and finally rejoins her at the bed's head. She seems so at peace with her whole naked body stretched like a cat's; if it wasn't for her flushed cheeks and strands of hair stuck by droplets of sweat, he would have sworn she'd already fallen asleep. He feels pretty worn out too, he wishes he could let go and take some rest in her arms, just for once. He'd be dreaming, that's for sure. His mind wouldn't bother to invent some crazy scripts in which he would successfully catch the Chameleon or, in a whole another genre, would hijack the I–95 traffic to get on time to attend his own wedding or witness his first child's birth or whatever. No, he'd simply dream of a meta-reality in which he'd be sleeping in her arms, this time in D.C. in a place of their own. His forehead creases: somehow the Chameleon scenario sounds more plausible.

Maybe his thoughts were too loud and that's why she's getting out of drowsiness. She stretches some more towards him as to soothe him; covers his chest with her left arm, her nipples brushing against his ribs.

"Did I tell you I missed you?" She asks with a light-hearted, genuine giggle.

"You did. Four times, actually."

"Oh yeah? You know I never really remember much afterward. Anyway, a whole week without that tongue of yours felt like torture. Thank God they booked single rooms this time."

He settles for a soft chuckle, still uneasy about the erectile dysfunction he'd experienced but also grateful she didn't bring the subject up for discussion. Before he can contain it a deep, long yawn breaks free from his mouth. Yeah, he really is exhausted. It might be past 2 AM now—he's tempted for a second to verify this assertion on the alarm clock but the flickering light on his peripheral vision prevents him from doing so—and he really should get going if he doesn't want to raise any suspicion in the morning. He straightens, swiftly drags himself out of her grip and scoops up his clothes scattered on the floor. Her bra's outermost set of hooks got hitched into the hem of his button-down shirt, after a few clumsy attempts he eventually succeeds to untie them without tearing neither apart.

When he's finally fully clothed and ready to go back to his room, he hears her say, "Stay with me."

It's not a question. She's straightened too; her eyes are no longer clogged by clouds of endorphins. This is so unsettling. She's never asked him to stay before.

He takes a breath. "You know we can't, there could be a breakthrough at any moment." She still doesn't flinch. "Look, I'd love to, really. But imagine if Emily shows up at the door and sees us like…this. It wouldn't be a game anymore."

Her brows furrow slightly at the word 'game' and he wonders if, maybe, he's just hurt her by saying it. That's the truth, though. This game has been the only thing that keeps them secluded from what they're really doing. It's a way to distort the reality; let's say someone was about to call them out about their adultery, then they'd just have to reply, in an offended way of course, that they've only been playing a game. A terrible, perverse game. But still.

"Alright, you made a point. As usual," she finally says.

She sinks back into the sheets, hugs the pillow with both arms. It's time to go. One last glance at her dazzling figure and he walks straight to the door, head down.

"Wait, you didn't take your turn."

He faces her again. "Excuse me?"

"Your turn, you know, as your 'Truth or Dare' turn. You're so eager to shoot back a question usually. Go on, ask it."

It's like his stomach just opened in two, absorbing all the bacteria from the non-sterilized environment. She might repeat she loves him, the truth is she can only express it behind closed doors, whether in the dampness of their hotel rooms or in the heat of the action while on the field. No matter what she might think, it has always been a game for her. No more, no less.

"I'm not really inspired right now. Maybe another time."

And he exits the room, its comforting smell, its disturbing clock. Maybe another time.