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@em-prentiss
Hello!!
I figured this would be an easier way to interact with everyone ;) I love requests, so if you ever have any for hotchniss or Aaron, lmk! (not smut) <3
Check out my side blog @aaronsguccitie for the Aaron fics <3
Ao3: em_prentiss
Masterlist
Sometimes more active on twitter :p
oh, isn’t it strange? we’ll die anyway
----
“Emily.” He says. She’s never Prentiss now, she notices. Never when she doesn’t strictly have to be. “Everything okay?”
Sure it is. Yeah, it’s okay.
Word count: 0.7k
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
----
The sound of her knock breaks the stillness. It’s firm, two taps, a far cry from the uneven fluttering in her chest that hasn’t stopped since the shots rang. Hours later she’s still thrumming, strung tight like a wire, the muscles under her skin unable to loosen, to unlock, even after a scalding shower and multiple assurances that he’s fine.
Her head doesn’t quieten. The fear is always louder.
Her heart lurches when the door whooshes open. Cool air skims the skin above her knees, and Emily is suddenly struck by how this looks—knocking at her boss’ door in the inky quiet of midnight, pajama shorts on her hips and desperation carved in the set of her jaw. Not a carnal kind of desperation, but desperation all the same, winding her body taut under thin cotton nighties.
To his credit, his gaze doesn’t dip down. His brows, though, do knit in familiar concern.
“Emily.” He says. She’s never Prentiss now, she notices. Never when she doesn’t strictly have to be. “Everything okay?”
Sure it is. Yeah, it’s okay. The unsub is in cuffs. They’re going home tomorrow. He crumpled down to the floor but he got up again. Everything is fine.
She hasn’t stopped trembling since.
“Yeah.” Emily swallows thickly. Everything’s just fine. Just let her body soak up some of the warmth that always flows from him, and she’ll be in tip top shape. Just let her feel him in the space that’s always between them.
Just—
Just let them stand on opposite thresholds, feet just shy of the edges.
Hotch eyes her with no small amount of tenderness. Just this, Emily thinks; the rise of his chest under his t-shirt, his pulse beating in the hollow of his neck. She doesn’t need the softness in his gaze, or in his voice as he murmurs, “It’s late.”
As he says it, he edges back. Cracks the door wider. Emily doesn’t think before she takes the invitation—and extends it further before she can feel it. Arms around his neck, his cheek next to hers, the sharp vortex of his inhale forming in her ear.
Idiot.
She jerks back, her mouth dry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God, I—”
“Shh.” His hand blazes heat through the nape of her neck. Thumb under her ear, fingertips slipping into her hair, he stops her from edging further back. Her resistance is weak. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Emily digs her palms into her eyes. She still sees him there, crumpling to the floor, two rips in his vest where the bullets lodged. Probably bruised, the EMT said about his ribs. You’ll need an x-ray.
“Are you?” She asks, swallowing against the tremble in her voice. Jesus, she needs to get it together.
Hotch strokes a line down the pearl at the base of her neck. “Yes.” He murmurs, though she can hear the strain if she focuses. “They’re just bruises, Emily.”
This time.
It’s all she can think about. They’re so, so fragile—each of them. No matter how much they lift and shoot and train, it’s all for naught. Their skin splits like butter under a hot knife, their bones crack easy as chalk.
It’s laughable. They’re paper thin, puppets on strings.
Even him.
She doesn’t feel the tears until he tugs her hands away from her eyes, two gentle fingers locked around each of her wrists. Her cheeks are cold with them, dampened and slick when Hotch swipes dry paths with his thumbs.
“Hey, hey.” He whispers, as carefully as he’s wiping her face. “Emily, don’t—don’t do this to yourself. I’m okay, I am. Please don’t…”
Emily’s chin jerks. She steps back, her shoulders hitting the wall. “I’m sorry.” She chokes out. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“Honey, please.”
It shudders through her, his voice desperate. Her chest tightens, vision blurring; she feels herself go limp, the tears burning hot and spilling down her cheeks, pooling right in his palms. He’s saying something, whispering pleas, reassurances. I’m sorry. Why’s he sorry?
There’s, at the core of her, a deep-seated relief waging war against the turmoil that brought her crawling to his door. Emily feels it like a warm, smoking gun pressed to her temple. Oh so gently grazing her skin, heated metal sizzling her flesh—still heavier than the shuddering kiss he whispers against her mouth.
bellis perennis
----
She smooths between his shoulder blades; her hand finds the tattoo without her feeling it, fingers brushing his inked skin. It’s something small and delicate and more him than he realizes.
Daisies, for his first love.
Word count: 0.6k
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
----
The first time she sees it, he’s soaking wet.
See is generous, really. She’s far too distracted by the way his shirt clings, his hair plastered to his face in a way that almost makes him seem…younger. Her eyes roam everywhere in their effort not to linger—thigh, forearm, dripping jaw. Steady heat blooms under her cheeks as she shifts her gaze from the startlingly clear lines of his torso to his slick-wet lashes, trying to find reprieve.
She finds it in the darkened silk of his tie. Safe space. The joke doesn’t even tremble: I’d give you my jacket, but I don’t think you’re my size, all easy like his sharpened outlines don’t set her insides on fire.
Chivalrous, he rumbles, and the flat line of his mouth makes hers curve. Emily’s eyes drop, passing over a blot of something dark on his chest on their way down. Shoes are good, she decides. Not even remotely arousing.
The beige precinct rug darkens around his feet, a distinct circle of water where he shifts uncomfortably and pulls at his clothes to keep them from sticking. Emily is relieved when someone brings him a towel.
_____
The second time she sees it, he breaks down in her arms.
A brush of her fingertips has his ribs caving under her touch. He tugs her back into him where she tries to back up, mouth salty against hers, voice desperate as he begs, please, please. I’m okay, it’s okay, I don’t wanna stop.
She whispers no, watches as it breaks him, and wraps her arms around him in something too loose to be a hug. It tightens when his head falls heavily onto her shoulder. She smooths between his shoulder blades; her hand finds the tattoo without her feeling it, fingers brushing his inked skin. It’s something small and delicate and more him than he realizes.
Daisies, for his first love.
A sprig of them, curled over his heart. Two fully bloomed perennials, joined at the stem, a tight bud sprouted between them. Still unfurled. Emily doesn’t ask; she just waits until her shoulder dries and the trembles ease under her hand.
They shrug their shirts on. He tells her, eyes fixed on the ceiling, thumb fidgeting with the base of his ring finger, that daisies were her favorite flowers.
Emily thinks it’s fitting. She says so, hesitantly; blue eyes and sweetness, blonde shining gold like their plump, fuzzy centers.
Hotch’s hand finds hers. You’re not a rebound, he says, rasping—eyes wet, fingers too tight around her pulse, still mourning a whole lifetime.
She wants to believe him. But her weight is so flimsy against the foundation of his love.
Or at least she thinks.
_____
The third time she sees it, she’s hesitant about where to put her hands. Whether her fingers are allowed to touch that hollow under his pec, the dip where his heart lies.
Soon enough she forgets, her nails scrambling for purchase, dragging glowing red lines on his skin. She’s not intentionally sidestepping; her fingers instinctively tangle in the thick strands of his hair, hands trailing down to grasp elsewhere and make his breath skip.
Later, she finds it under her palm, warmed by a racing rhythm that still hasn’t calmed. Three stems cinched into one peeking out over the joint of her thumb. Her fingers go still, curling against the flowers.
He catches her wrist before she pulls it back, gently keeping it pinned.
Emily’s breath slows.
Aaron’s fingers are warm over the spread of her pulse, his kiss, when he brushes it, even warmer.
____
The tenth, eleventh, twelfth time, Emily understands.
To touch it is to touch his heart.
if your cascade ocean wave blues come
----
He blinks up to find Emily, hovering above him, his cheek smushed against his knee.
He blinks again, and there’s that look in her eyes, the worry that swarms too wide for her to try to conceal. It’s pointless, even when she tries to spread her frown thin. A wide gap opens in the pit of his stomach, his heart falling through.
Word count: 0.9k
Written for @hotchnissnano! <3
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
----
Cold water streams into his eyes, relentless and clear. It don’t sting anymore; his eyes have gotten accustomed to the frigid spray, unblinking against its indifferent fall. He looks down at his pruned fingertips, tries to find the time written on the wrinkles. Aaron can’t tell if it’s been a minute or an eternity. He just knows that he’s heavy, everything dying down as his body curls in on itself under the water.
The cold is safe. It envelopes him with unyielding arms, so harsh that everything else dulls in comparison. His head. The whispers. They’re crushed under the heavy assault of water raining down on the tub, on his scalp, into his eyes and on his back.
His limbs grow laden, succumbing to the freeze. Aaron feels each one pressed up against him: legs to chest, elbows into knees, chin touching the base of his throat. A ball of dead weight and frigid flesh. His breath, when it puffs out, shudders. The tremble is bone-deep now, carved under his skin several degrees ago.
He should probably get out, he thinks.
A murmur tries to get past the steady thump. Aaron closes his eyes, tilts his head further under the water. It descends on the beads of his spine, sending a fresh wave of static in his ears. His drying hair wets again, plastering to his forehead, soaked to the roots. A shudder rolls down the path between his shoulders, halting in its tracks when a hand lands on his arm. The grip is familiar, searing hot against his skin.
He blinks up to find Emily, hovering above him, his cheek smushed against his knee.
He blinks again, and there’s that look in her eyes, the worry that swarms too wide for her to try to conceal. It’s pointless, even when she tries to spread her frown thin. A wide gap opens in the pit of his stomach, his heart falling through.
Her mouth moves silently. It falters, smooth lines stuttering; through the part in the rain, he thinks he hears a small, low, hey.
He swallows. She turns the water off. Sharp silence rings in his ears, softened by the rustle of the towel she unfolds and crouches down to drape over his shoulders. She rubs the rough fibers into his skin, soaking up the water, leeching the blue from his nails.
Aaron shudders under the towel. He feels the chatter along his teeth, a tremble in his throat that he can’t swallow down. Two points of heat glow in his eyes, a fainter, deeper shame tugging in his gut when her dry cheek presses against his damp one, lips brushing his lobe as she murmurs, “Let’s get you out of here.”
He’s weightless and too heavy all at once, limbs dragging wherever Emily tugs. He feels them and doesn’t, suspended half inside his body, half out.
She makes him stand. Squeezes them both through the door. Sits him on the bed, dampness soaking through their newly changed sheets.
Aaron’s eyes close, his hands fisting into the towel. His tongue licks along his cold molars, jaw trembling, breath uneven. He hears the click of the thermostat as Emily cranks it up. The unoiled hinges squeaking as she pulls the closet open. Rustling clothes. Shuffle of her socks against the floor. The noise is dead in his head, beaten out of submission; he relishes in the silence, the blissful quiet, the death of whispered taunts and shoved down memories.
He only realizes how tight he’s clenching his fists when Emily’s touch loosens them.
Her hands are warm as they cradle his face, coaxing his eyes open, his fingers loose. Her thumb strokes over his cheekbone; she brushes his hair back with a free hand, chasing it with a scrunch of the towel and drying the lingering bathwater. Aaron looks away from the furrow between her brows, a curving slope pinched into her skin.
Her mouth finds his forehead, the heat of a sigh fogging against his temple. “You’re freezing.” She says quietly, squeezing out more water from his hair before reaching for the stack of clothes she’d gotten. She hooks her fingers into the collar of a sweatshirt and stretches it out into a circle wide enough for his head to pass through.
Aaron unlocks his stiff jaw.
“I can—”
“I know.” She says, a small, stilted smile pulling at her lips. “Let me?”
Aaron swallows, feeling the shake travel down his throat. A white flash of her teeth bites down on her lip.
He lets her.
Lets her replace the damp towel with dry clothes. Lets her cup his face so he can leech the warmth from her palms, lets her rub his hair until it frizzes, drape a blanket over his shoulders, pull his stagnant limbs into hers. He feels the ice crack beneath her body heat and the idle trace of her hand along his exposed skin.
His eyes burn with a hot film of tears, a boulder lodged in his throat. The noise flattens under the thump of her heartbeat.
“Thank you.” He croaks.
Emily’s fingers thread through his hair. She presses a long, lingering kiss to his temple. “I love you.” She murmurs.
Her hand is warm on the nape of his neck, gently nudging until his head is ducked into her chest. She lets him steal her heat, soak her shirt, grip her side so tight her skin turns red under her clothes, a branded apology, a desperate plea.
Emily listens. She answers with kisses brushed to his hair, nails scraping lightly over his scalp.
nano- (prefix): denoting a very small item
Hotchniss friends! This November, I'm putting a twist on the original NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with a different kind of "nano." Instead of endeavoring to write a novel, join me in doing the opposite — a month of <1000-word ficlets!
Suggested prompts are included below, but I would also love for this event to be a catch-all for the blurb you've been itching to write, snippets from WIPs you've since abandoned but are still proud of, AUs you want to dip a toe into, kinktober fills you didn't have the time to complete, and more.
Maybe you're looking for a way to get back into a regular writing habit. Maybe you want the challenge of a new format. Whatever your motivation, I hope you will consider participating!
HOTCHNISS NANO-WRIMO PROMPTS Write every day, write once, mix prompts, or ignore them entirely. Make 'em filthy or fluffy or anything in between.
NOV 1/2・memoriam NOV 3/4・cold NOV 5/6・flower NOV 7/8・takeout NOV 9/10・suit NOV 11/12・poison ivy NOV 13/14・praise NOV 15/16・bad day NOV 17/18・salsa NOV 19/20・long distance NOV 21/22・first kiss NOV 23/24・missed call NOV 25/26・morning after NOV 27/28・gratitude/thanksgiving NOV 29/30・water
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Keep your ficlets under 1000 words! For an added challenge, consider that the term "drabble" technically refers to fiction of exactly 100 words, with "double drabble" equaling 200 words, "triple drabble" equaling 300, etc.
Tumblr: Tag your posts with the tracked tag #hotchniss nano 2025. I’ll collect everything into a masterpost at the beginning of December. (p.s. Sharing each other's contributions is highly encouraged!)
AO3: Post your ficlets to the Hotchniss Nano-Wrimo 2025 collection.
questions? ・ rb to spread the word! ・ gif cred: @sculien
jumped in feet first and I landed too hard
----
She looks frazzled, one thread away from fraying, as if she were a month fresh from Paris and not about to join an innocuous, sun-soaked pool party.
Aaron watches her throat jerk as she swallows. “It shouldn’t be this hard.” She grits out. Each word forces itself through her clenched jaw, rough and dragging. She heaves in a breath, white-knuckling her arms. “It’s just a stupid wrap. I can take it off. I can wear a bikini.”
Word count: 3k
----
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The sun glares down at them with a viciousness unique to July. Crimped heat waves rise off the grill, distorting the image of the clear blue pool taking up the glittering majority of Rossi’s lawn. It’s a pretty picture, painted in vibrant green and cerulean water and the sun-drenched shades of everyone’s swimsuits.
Smoke sears Aaron’s eyes. Even half secluded under the shade, his shirt starts to cling. Damp heat trails down his neck, soaking his nape as he searches the poolside and finds his team scattered—Morgan lounging on a floatie, egging Reid on as JJ swims laps and Garcia lathers on pint-sized dollops of sunscreen on her arms. Rossi is stirring something cold and 90% alcoholic. Aaron, tending to an empty grill, notices that their count is missing one. He checks his watch.
It’s been upward of twenty minutes since Emily had gone in to change. He won’t pretend he hasn’t been keeping track, hasn’t had her as his sixth sense the moment Garcia begged for and Rossi approved a pool party. It was almost natural, the concern that wound its way through his skull and stayed there—practically second nature. It’s his own panic that used to flare at the merest whisper of a beach day, reshaped into a knot of anxiety with Emily’s name on it.
It’s a discredit to her, he knows. But between himself and no one else, he can’t stop himself from quietly fussing.
Aaron abandons his post and walks into the living room, blinking into the thick, shadowy dark that smothers it. A cool gust of air blows on the sweat on his neck. He rubs his eyes and half blindly makes a beeline for the closest bathroom. He knocks; silence answers. After a couple of seconds and a few more knocks, he twists the knob. The door eases open.
There’s more bathrooms than strictly necessary on Rossi’s ground floor. He goes through another two of them and starts feeling ridiculous, but persists far after the sweat on his skin has cooled. This time it’s a quick rap, his hand on the doorknob in case he’s left wanting for an answer.
“Emily?”
Silence. Her voice comes a few beats later, muffled behind the door. “Yeah?”
“Everything okay? You’ve been in there for a while.”
More silence. The kind that stretches leisurely across a handful of seconds and makes the inside of his cheeks go sour. Aaron winces to himself, the sight of her deeply furrowed brows projected onto the backs of his eyelids.
Why’d he even do this? Stupid, that’s what he is. Stupid, overbearing, unwanted, heavy-handed—
The door cracks open. Emily stands behind it, her neck craned around the edge, lips gnawed on by her teeth. Her eyes weigh a thousand tons on his face; she looks at him for a moment, thinking what he can only wish to know, before she drags the door back wider.
Albeit confused, Aaron obliges and steps into the spacious bathroom. Warm lights, cold marble, Emily’s bag drooped on the counter and her clothes spilling out of it. She shuts the door with an exhaled breath, knuckles white around the knob, turning it until the lock clicks with a startling finality.
Hot, dry sand fills his mouth. He swallows it down, because it’s not the sight of Emily in a bikini that should steal his focus; it’s the pallid sheen of her skin, the uneven fluttering pulse that he can see in her neck. She’s composed of tight, tense lines—stiff shoulders, firmly set jaw, thinly pressed lips. When she crosses her arms, Aaron’s eyes drop to the protruding knot under her elbow. Her swim wrap is tied tightly under her left rib, the material stretching across her hips and thighs, tension drawing it smooth as glass.
The worry is there, it’s ready, cresting and crashing into him like a ruthless wave.
“Emily.” He murmurs, a familiar pang in his chest. “You don’t…you don’t have to—”
“I want to.” Her eyes snap up to his, too shiny, sharp as shards of obsidian. She looks frazzled, one thread away from fraying, as if she were a month fresh from Paris and not about to join an innocuous, sun-soaked pool party.
Aaron watches her throat jerk as she swallows. “It shouldn’t be this hard.” She grits out. Each word forces itself through her clenched jaw, rough and dragging. She heaves in a breath, white-knuckling her arms. “It’s just a stupid wrap. I can take it off. I can wear a bikini.”
Her voice is a strange mix of determined and pleading, steely with a soft, vulnerable underbelly. There’s no question mark on the tip of her tongue; it’s in the bottomless depths of her eyes, hidden under the shadows of her threaded lashes. Aaron feels it seize his chest, those bitten nails of hers squeezing until his pulse rises up his throat.
“Of course you can.” He breathes. “You can do anything, Emily. But you don’t want to and it’s—it’s okay, there’s no time limit for any of this.”
She staunchly shakes her head. “It’s been almost two years, Hotch.”
“So what if it has?”
She shakes her head again. In the syrupy light of Rossi’s bathroom, her eyes gleam wetly. “I won’t let him take this from me too. I’m sick of the one-pieces and the coverups and the undershirts. I’m sick of them but I can’t—” Her eyes squeeze shut, her face contorting into trembling, downturned lines.
Aaron swallows thickly. His fingers curl into fists, a weak attempt and holding himself back from touching her as she pinches the bridge of her nose, roughly massaging her eyeballs.
“Emily.” It’s as useless as his presence, this one word, a plea, in the letters of her name. He knows everything she’s going through, every unkind thought pulsing and traveling across neurons, embedding itself into her skull just as it embedded itself into his. He knows all of them.
And yet. His throat clogs up, a lexicon of pain they share, written in both their blood, suddenly wiped clean.
I know. You’re sick of it, but you can’t let go, can’t let anyone else in. You think you can do it, but your hands hesitate on the hem of a shirt; your fingers twist into the fabric to stop themselves from trembling. You say you don’t care, and for a while you could convince yourself, but you do.
But his knowing could curl up and burst into flames for all the good it does.
She wilts before his eyes. Tar-black lashes peel open, and between them a pool of tears glistens. “No one cares.” Emily rasps. “Why do I?” The words crack, and with them, so does his resolve. He brings her into his chest, lips to her forehead and palm cradling her neck.
“Because it didn’t happen to them. They didn’t feel it.” He feels a sick sense of relief when she doesn’t push him back; his hug is weakly returned. “You did. And it’s okay if you’re not okay with that.”
“But I accepted it. I can look in the mirror—I can look, period.” Her bitter laugh beats off his chest. “I moisturize it every goddamn night. So why can’t I…?” Her fist curls in his shirt, trembling knuckles brushing against his navel. “Why can’t I do this?”
He hates hearing her voice so small. He hates feeling damp little spots of heat seep through his shirt, hates the way she curls further into his chest like Jack does after a nightmare. Aaron tightens his grip as much as he dares.
“Letting people see,” he clears his drying throat, his thoughts running down that smooth, worn down path in his brain he’d only just learned how to seal off, “it makes it real.”
It brings back the vulnerability in fresh waves. Black, clinical words printed on doctor’s reports suddenly come to life. Everyone already knows, yes, it’s no secret, but they haven’t seen. Haven’t seen where they were torn into and stitched together, clinging on to their lives with the skin of their teeth. A scar is easily forgotten once it’s out of sight and a few months pass and you’re supposedly okay. People forget what happened.
The moment they see again, they remember.
Oh, right, this happened. So long ago—years past—but it did. I’d almost forgotten.
Emily stays still in his arms, the most stagnant he’s ever known her to be. He’s stiff with something he doesn’t care to explain, equally frozen in place, praying his breaths don’t echo too loud and shatter the fragility around them, one that had been the norm eight, nine, ten months ago.
Suddenly, she straightens. Aaron’s hands fall limp at his sides; Emily heaves in a breath and reaches for the knot of her wrap.
Her eyes flick up to his. The steely determination is back, a heavy bob in her throat when she swallows.
“I’m doing it for me.” She says quietly, her fingers fumbling with the tie.
Aaron’s chin dips silently as she unwraps the fabric from her hips. She brings the corners together, starting to fold it, then abandons the task and balls it up midway, holding it in front of her stomach for a few beats before tossing it on the sink counter. In his greater periphery, he sees the starburst on her left side, large and mottled above her hip.
A low, rickety breath. Her thumbnail meeting the skin of a cuticle.
Partly because of her visible restlessness and partly because of his own desire, Aaron gently takes her face in both hands. He wipes under her eyes, thumbs erasing still-damp tear tracks gone cold.
Emily stills again. Her bottom lip trembles imperceptibly, a short exhale warming his chin in tumultuous waves. Aaron’s whole being twists and aches and bruises.
“You’re beautiful, Emily. You’re more than what happened to you.”
A sound breaks out of her, fresh heat soaking his thumbs and dripping from her chin. Her eyes flick up to the ceiling, lashes fluttering as he dries her tears, gently wipes and wipes and wipes, their skin growing tacky from salt. Her fingers find the waistband of his swim shorts; the fabric rustles in her fist, whispering.
The only noise in the bathroom consists of his crinkling trunks and Emily’s sharp, uneven breaths through her nose. Aaron doesn’t say anything as he wipes her tears, her cheeks, her bitter resentment. It’s only his heart that speaks, screaming in his chest as Emily lets him. She lets him take a fluffy hand towel from the counter, wet it, and gently press it to her face when her tears run dry. She lets him massage away the dried salt from under her eyes. The apples of her cheeks. The tip of her chin. Emily closes her eyes and doesn’t protest when he drags the towel over her temple and shuttered lids, barely pressing for fear of scraping her skin. Five fingers gentle on her jaw, he traces the straight line of her nose, connects it to the flushed skin under her right eye, then sets the towel down. He doesn’t feel it when his mouth lands on her forehead.
It’s a small, absent kiss. Instinct, he tells himself, but the urge had been lying under his skin for too long for the lie to mean much. In the wake of it, his mouth stills against her brow, hands cupped on either side of Emily’s face.
She still doesn’t push him back. Her head nudges back, into his lips; Aaron presses another kiss above the tail of her brow. Her temple. The edge of her hairline. Below a short raven curl, between her eyebrows, catching the paper-thin edge of an eyelid.
Emily exhales through her nose, steady heat skimming the base of his neck. Her fingers close around his wrist; she guides his hand to the warm dent of her waist, pressing his palm against thicker, raised skin. Her hand stays there, on top of his, her fingers parted around his wrist.
Achingly slow, Aaron traces the edge of the scar with his thumb. Emily shivers against him. She squeezes his wrist; he doesn’t know if it’s supposed to encourage or dissuade him, so he stills, letting his hand be pinned down beneath hers. Her tongue darts across her bottom lip, a flash of teeth grazing down as their eyes meet.
“I can do it.” She says quietly.
Aaron traces the length of her jaw. “You can. I know you can. But it doesn’t have to be today.”
Her eyes fall closed, an open mouthed exhale betraying her frustration. The corner of her mouth quirks, a bitter impersonation of a laugh rising from her throat. “I didn’t even pack a one-piece. I told myself,” she swallows, “I told myself I wouldn’t need it today.”
“One day you won’t.” Aaron murmurs, pushing a stray hair back, trying to stop himself from kissing the skin it exposes. “Do you want my shirt?” He asks unthinkingly.
Emily huffs out something like a laugh, her eyes brightening for the first time since she let him in. “And have the whole team—”
They both jump at a knock on the door.
“Em.” Garcia calls out, still knocking as she speaks. “Are you okay, sweets? How long have you been in there?”
Emily crosses her arms over her chest, wetting her lip as she faces the door. “I’m okay Garcia. Coming in a sec.”
“Do you need anything?”
Her mouth lifts. “No, no, I’m good, Pen.”
“Okay then. Have you seen Hotch?”
A flush paints her face. “No.” She calls out. “Try the kitchen?”
Garcia mutters an affirmative and Emily turns back, grabbing her balled up wrap from the counter. “Sorry for keeping you.” She says. “And for dragging you in.” The material unfurls, and she gathers it over her scar.
“Emily.” He says firmly, grabbing the two ends of her wrap after her fingers fumble twice. “I came in to check on you in the first place.”
“Oh. Yeah.” She mumbles. Aaron deftly ties a knot up high under her rib. “Uh, why’d you do that, anyway? Was I taking that long?”
He pulls it tight. “I had a hunch. Good?” He nods at the wrap.
Emily nods.
“Not too tight?”
“No, no, it’s good. Thank you.”
“Do you want me to get you a shirt? Did you pack one or—”
“God no, please, Hotch.” Her nose wrinkles as if he’s being entirely dramatic, as if she wasn’t a few seconds away from a breakdown when he walked in. “I think I’ll just keep this on for today. Dip my feet in.” She shrugs, toying with the knot. “I don’t know about swimming.”
Aaron nods. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
He wants, desperately, to ask if she’s okay. But she’s already let him do so much, and the last thing he wants to do is make her feel like the kid gloves are on, so he just snaps his mouth shut and swallows the words.
“I’ll, uh—” he points to the door. Emily’s head bobs a bit too strongly, her arms crossing again over her chest. Aaron unlocks the door, turns the knob, and shuffles out just in time to miss Garcia.
____
She loiters around the pool, languid and seemingly blithe. She sips Rossi’s concoction as JJ helps with the sunscreen on her back, then pulls out a sleek pair of sunglasses and a paperback and ignores Morgan’s goading to get her into the water. She does dip her feet in, though, sitting on the ledge and tilting her chin toward the sun, occasionally dodging sprays from Morgan and Reid’s flailing limbs. She laughs with an easiness that makes it nearly impossible to recall the last twenty minutes, her teeth flashing blinding white, her dimples constant grooves in her cheeks as she splashes Reid and nudges Garcia’s floatie away from the pool edge when she floats too close. Her coverup doesn’t come off but it does get damp, clinging to her legs in places, darkening to a deeper blue than her top.
He can’t stop himself from watching her. Every few seconds when he would turn his eyes away from the grill, taking reprieve from the smoke, they’d find her again, flitting about at the edges, spread out on a lounge chair or pouring drinks in long-stemmed glasses.
Moth to a flame. His gaze sticks, like the material of the wrap to her skin. Even when she turns to meet it, he can barely pull his eyes away. Which is why he can’t pretend to be surprised when she comes over to his perch at the grill, sunglasses pushed up her hair, a bottle of sunscreen in her hand.
“Did you reapply?”
He didn’t even apply so he can reapply.
Aaron flips a patty. “No.”
Emily tsks quietly. “UV’s ten. Look here.” She tilts his chin toward her, the slightest press of her fingertips against his jaw. Aaron’s relieved to find the easy slump of her reddened shoulders. He ducks his head down and she smears dollops of coconut-scented sunscreen on his face, swiping it on his cheeks and forehead. He doesn’t get the chance to spread it in before she does, massaging circles into his skin, amplifying the heat to the max.
“Your nose is getting red. If you don’t stay diligent,” Emily murmurs, her eyes two inches from his and wholly serious, “I’ll get you Garcia’s floppy hat.”
The one with the pink bow. And pearls.
“I’ll set a timer.” He says. Emily’s mouth quirks, the shadow of a dimple in her cheek.
“That’s a shame. You would’ve looked quite dashing.”
She tosses the bottle onto one of the tables and grabs a pair of tongs. He smiles quietly to himself, shuffling over to make room at the grill. Neither of them says anything more; they watch their friends splash, slowly wilt under the heat of the sun, and flip burgers together in silence.
fixed on your hand of gold
----
It’s not that Emily had never started over from scratch before. That’s nothing new; the desolate emptiness of a vacant home is well known to her, perpetually ingrained in the space behind her eyes.
But she messed up this time. She let the sight fade, let herself believe that there’s no reason to hold on to it any longer, because she’d finally settled. Her roots were planted in rich, plentiful soil, and they wove down so deep beneath the ground she never imagined they’d be torn up again.
She was wrong.
Or, 5 things Emily holds on to and 1 thing she lets go of.
Word count: 6.7k
----
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
1.
The last book hits the edge of the box with a thud, Emily’s increasingly desperate searching making the sound echo louder than it should. Her teeth automatically bite down on her lip. She gnaws on it as she shifts the box away next to the three already caging her and turns her attention to the last one standing, still pushed neatly against the wall where the others had been. There’s a faint tremble in her hands as she pushes her bangs behind her ears.
It’s ridiculous, the voice in her head whispers. You’re being ridiculous.
And it’s right.
Emily ignores it. She ignores the lump lodging itself in her throat, swallowing hard as she drags the last box in front of her crossed legs and grabs the boxcutter Hotch had given her. Her hands are warm as she slices through the tape and tips the box out, fingers sifting through the endless spines. All familiar, all read, all hers.
The rug beneath her is not. The room housing three stacks of said boxes is not.
They’re Aaron Hotchner’s, something she’s still trying to wrap her head around.
Her cat had been adopted by her best friend. Her clothes and jewelry had been sent to her mother, boxed up and unceremoniously dropped off on the estate’s doorstep, where they’d no doubt stayed in a storage closet until her mother came back from Madrid. And, somehow—for some reason—her books had found themselves in the possession of one Aaron Hotchner. Every single book she owned, tipped out of its place on her bookshelves and lined neatly into cardboard boxes, sitting and gathering dust in his unoccupied guest room. Lying untouched in the dark, waiting for her hand to reach for them and dust them off. Waiting, all sealed up and neat, like love letters.
Emily tries and fails to tell herself that it means nothing. Tending to her clothes and her cat was rational, right? But who would miss her books other than herself? That’s what keeps drilling a hole in her skull, a neat little pocket right at her prefrontal cortex where Aaron Hotchner has reigned for longer than she can stomach. The unspoken, unadulterated hope of it all has been a confusing warmth in her chest ever since he told her that he took them in, if she ever wanted them.
Of course she does. But one more than any other.
She thumbs past Poe and trashy science fiction, titles starting to blur as she reaches the end of one row and starts anew at the other. Emily skips over the French Monte-Cristo, pushes away cracked spines of Khalil Gibran, her eyes scanning the rows faster than her hands do. Both searches come up empty; the lump grows in her throat, harder to swallow as she reaches the last line of books.
Logically, she knows that the book is probably here. Hotch isn’t the type to misplace things. And even if he did, she can buy a newer edition from anywhere—a shiny new copy, laminated and smooth, its pages crisp and uncreased. Of all the things she owns, books are some of the most easily replaceable. It’s fine.
It’s fine. It won’t be the one Grandad gave her, his knowing smile to her juvenile pout as he pressed it into her hands and opened up the first page with her, but it’ll still be the same book. The same book that had crumpled her disgruntled contempt, broken it down and made it give way to curiosity; colorful pictures and captivating titles had caught her attention, holding it for longer than anything else in the ice-capped mountains ever could. It was a gateway, Grandad’s hand gentle on her shoulder as he nudged her in, helped her tumble into a world of undiscovered depths. Her love of constellations, mythology, science fiction; it all bred from that one moment, one weathered hand guiding her into a lap and telling her to read.
The sob is working in her throat when she finds it: bottom row, four titles away from the edge of the box, wedged between a romance novel Garcia had lent her and a worn copy of Vonnegut. Emily’s finger grazes the spine, cracked and faded. Her next exhale is shaky with relief as she pulls it out.
It’s not that Emily had never started over from scratch before. That’s nothing new; the desolate emptiness of a vacant home is well known to her, perpetually ingrained in the space behind her eyes.
But she messed up this time. She let the sight fade, let herself believe that there’s no reason to hold on to it any longer, because she’d finally settled. Her roots were planted in rich, plentiful soil, and they wove down so deep beneath the ground she never imagined they’d be torn up again.
She was wrong. Her nerve endings still burn from the force of it.
Emily stuffs the book in her purse and stands, grimacing at the ache in her knees—serves her right for sitting cross-legged for so long—and gingerly stepping between the maze of boxes out of the guest room. She follows the scent of marinara sauce into the kitchen, finding Hotch standing at the stove, sternly overseeing two pans and a furiously boiling pot. He looks up at the click of her shoes on the floor and she’s yet again struck by his domestic image, sharp expression melting into something gentler, soft hair sticking up and soft t-shirt pulled over his shoulders.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
And his voice. So tender it’s formless, all the time, like he’s stopped bothering to hide it.
Emily doesn’t really think, she just does it. Closes the distance, loops her arms around his neck and feels the scrape of his cheek against hers as her chin settles on his shoulder. Their chests press, air trapped and smothered between them.
“Thank you.” She whispers, the words tucked under his jaw.
He’s warm against her. Stiff. Smelling faintly of detergent and butter-coated, sautéed onions. She’s about to step back when his arms come up around her back, trapping her, gently squeezing.
“You’re welcome.” He says. His voice vibrates through her chest and between the pulses of her thrumming heart. She warms, adrenaline still racing through her blood as his nearly hot hand settles flat to the left of her ribcage.
Emily briefly closes her eyes as his thumb rubs over her shirt, idly smoothing the fabric and notching against the pearls of her spine. Familiar. As if they’ve done this before. He breathes in, and her chest follows his, rising with his inhale.
“Stay for dinner?”
Maybe she would’ve thought it through another time. When her throat wasn’t thick with emotion, when her head was clear enough to ring alarm bells at his low, soft tone and the aimless touches on her back. Maybe she would’ve, another time. But not this one.
“Okay.”
2.
Emily still isn’t entirely sure she hasn’t been spiritually possessed.
It’s barely nine thirty, she’s seated in the sun-drenched booth of an all American diner, (opposite her devastatingly casually dressed boss), and her throat tingles from yelling her voice hoarse at a kiddies soccer game. The culprit sits next to her, blonde hair alight in the sun, his body tilted away at a dramatic angle as he scribbles at a piece of paper. She’s not allowed to look; Emily suspects she’ll be gifted an art piece very soon.
If she can stay awake for it.
She tries to blink the heaviness from her eyes, bringing a palm up to her mouth in an attempt to stifle another yawn. Her coffee is drained, but it doesn’t douse the fatigue; Emily claps her hand against the third yawn in as many minutes.
Hotch wordlessly pushes his still warm, still half full mug toward her, a soft gleam in his eyes that has her searching his mouth for a smile. “Consider it a thank you.” He says as the mug grazes her fingertips, his voice faintly apologetic.
Emily smiles, heat staining her cheeks.
There’s something quietly charming about him in this light. It’s in the easy slope of his shoulders, the dark blue of the polo that drapes over them and shamelessly clings. Plucked from the midst of a teeming soccer field watched closely by hawk-eyed PTA moms, he’s now much more silent in the corner of the booth—words softer, tone lower, altogether shrinking in size. The slightest half moons press into his cheeks, a curve toying with the corner of his mouth.
This side of him has only recently opened up, but Emily is rapidly falling as in love with it as she already is with the stern, no nonsense side she’s known for years. Trouble, her head rings, but she’s far too worn down to care now.
Her hands wrap around the mug, briefly stacking on top of his as she drags it closer, fingers gently parting around his wrist. “No need. It’s just, uh, a tad early.” Her lips twist wryly. But it’s not like she was going to get any more sleep either way; at least she didn’t waste the morning twisted in sheets damp with cold sweat. Hotch’s hand slips from beneath hers; he still keeps his arm extended, fingers pressed against the bottom of the mug. “You guys do this every week?”
He hands her the bowl of sugar as she’s reaching for it. The crystals could melt where they touch her skin. “Jack does. I coach when I can.”
“Luke’s mom says Dad’s the best coach.” Jack pipes up, his neck twisting as he turns to look at her.
Emily, sleep deprived, starving, and four degrees too hot, blurts out, “Oh, I bet she does.”
She only fully realizes what she’s said when Hotch’s ears turn pink. Emily snaps her mouth shut. Opens it again, cringing. Closes it, then hurriedly brings the mug to her lips, barely feeling the hot sting of the coffee as it slides down her throat.
Jesus.
Jack has thankfully returned to his drawing. Hotch shifts in his seat, the hand he had extended across the table drawing back to the nape of his neck.
“Because you’re such a great coach,” Emily rushes out belatedly, a hot flame licking up her jaw. Oh, god, it reaches her cheeks, doesn’t it? “And you obviously care about—”
“Sorry for the delay!” The waitress—Kathy—hurries over in a flurry of clinking plates. Emily’s mouth snaps shut again, hot magma pooling under her cheekbones as Kathy sets her tray down. She swallows against the burn in her throat, singed tastebuds grating against the roof of her mouth; her eyes fix themselves on the rapidly filling table, staunchly not looking up as Hotch murmurs, so quiet it nearly gets drowned out by the clink of plates being set down, it’s no worries.
“Cheese omelette and hash for Dad.” The huge plate somewhat acts as a barrier, Emily thinks with a bit too much desperation. Not as much empty space between their chests. “Chocolate chip pancakes—extra whipped cream—for this handsome boy.” The waitress smiles fondly at Jack as he lifts his drawing up, tucking it inward on his lap. “And waffles for Mom.”
Emily’s eyes snap up, wide as they meet Hotch’s. He doesn’t react, regarding her with cool brown eyes that linger for a beat too long before flitting to the end of the table. The only thing he does is turn to smile thankfully at the waitress after she sets down golden brown, syrup-drenched waffles in front of her.
Nobody corrects her. Jack, having set his drawing back down on the table, continues scribbling with vigor. Air thins in her lungs, kicking her head into a spin.
Emily suddenly feels wide awake.
“Can I get you guys anything else? More coffee for you, sir?”
“No, thank you.” Hotch murmurs politely. His voice is headless.
The waitress turns to Emily, hand already extended to the two mugs at her elbow. “What about you, hon? Can I take that away for you?”
Emily can only nod. Kathy takes her own empty mug, leaving Hotch’s next to her plate. There’s a faint kiss of her lipstick on the rim.
Kathy takes her leave. Emily’s mouth opens and falls shut, words sticky and clinging to her throat.
What can she say anyway?
Sun-drenched brown meets hers again. Jittery, she clutches the mug and brings it to her lips, swallowing down too-hot, too-sweet coffee. Her tongue presses against the rim and she wonders if his had, too.
Not the time, Emily.
“Jack.” Hotch clears his throat. “Crayons away, please.”
“One sec!” Jack scribbles something, then finally turns and hands the paper to her. “For you, Emily.” He says proudly, grinning with two missing front teeth.
Emily’s smile is a tad robotic as she takes the drawing. It softens into something genuine as her eyes trace the picture, taking in the colorful strokes of crayon, bold and sure, firmly pressed into the page and denting it beneath bright paraffin wax.
It’s an impressively comprehensive portrait of the soccer field, with two figures standing in front of the bleachers, cheering on a tiny one as it kicks the ball into the goal. A speech bubble rises above Emily and Hotch’s heads, connecting and warping to fit “go, Jack!!!” in the midst of it. The goalpost is dotted with a dozen mini goal!’s around the hastily drawn ball, some of the letters blending into the wobbly lines of the net.
The waitress’ implication hangs over her shoulders, settling there comfortably along with the shame that accompanies it. Emily shoves them both down, down, feeling them settle into a distant stomachache entirely unrelated to her two cups of coffee glugged on an empty stomach.
“Wow, Jack. I love it. You’re quite the artist, huh? Even got my sunglasses and everything.” She laughs, ruffling his hair. He beams, lips splitting wide to show his toothy grin. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
He launches himself into the hug she offers. “You’re welcome! Can you come next week, too?”
Emily’s eyes dart to Hotch. He’s already looking, his plate untouched. “I—uh. I’d love to, Jack. But I’d have to ask my boss.” She gives Jack a close-lipped, apologetic smile, her hand automatically smoothing down his hair. Jack’s eyes dart to his father’s, and Emily just barely restrains herself from doing the same when he speaks up.
“He doesn’t mind. If you don’t, that is.”
She turns her head, a strange thrill in her chest. It’s like she’s on the precipice of something unknown, toeing a taut line that hangs above inscrutable nothingness.
“No, no, I don’t.” Emily swallows. “I don’t mind.”
They eat their breakfast. Emily’s cheek hardly gets the chance to cool down. Unwilling to let the morning end, she accepts their offer to go home with them. Jack showers, they make cookies; hot, melty chocolate chips smear on the corner of her mouth.
Hotch wipes it off. Tastes the sugar from her lips. Discovers the unending, molten heat in her cheeks.
Jack’s drawing finds its home on her nightstand.
3.
She’s not really looking for anything in particular. Her grocery basket is full enough of everything she knows she doesn’t have at home, a carton of eggs half hidden beneath bars of chocolate and a few other essentials, but Emily still lingers even as the handle starts to grate down on her elbow joint. The aisles are fairly empty; no one loiters around but her, the movement of her body noticeably slow against the brisk rush of other shoppers.
It’s something she’s found herself doing lately: giving more time to small, inconsequential tasks. Chopping her dinner vegetables slower, feeling the cold juice of a tomato soak her fingertips; inhaling the clean scent of fabric softener as she tips it into the washing machine, filling the cap to the brim with cloudy soft solution; slowly combing through the knots in her freshly washed hair, feeling the sticky cold of her shirt where it soaks through with water and fuses with her skin. She’s forcing herself to inhale her breaths slowly, letting them inflate her chest into a balloon until she can feel the beat of her heart in its cage, can hear it echoing faintly in her ears as it uses up the finite oxygen she trapped in her lungs.
It helps ease the tightness in her chest. The sense of doom lessens when she zeroes in on the few seconds she’s physically present in, restless anxiety blurring into the background as she concentrates all of her focus solely on the length of her vision.
So she’s walking around the grocery store at 7:36 pm, her hair still damp from the shower she’d taken to wash the case off, basket swinging in her elbow as she bypasses kitchen supplies to reach the racks of mugs occupying the rest of the aisle.
She needs mugs, she remembers. Cool air blows on the back of her neck as she stops in front of them, her eyes skipping over the rows of ceramics.
She’s always liked shopping for them. Not for any particular reason; her penchant for pretty things has existed as long as she had, flourishing under superfluous wealth and hungry eyes that ravished anything and everything in their line of sight. Her mug collection that she cultivates in each house she finds herself in is almost inevitably started over anew with each move. There was never enough room or need to move them. Besides, they’re fragile. Her kulhad, once brimming with the chai Aarya had poured for her—brown as the swirl of her eyes and nowhere near as sweet—had broken on a temporary move back to DC, cleaved pieces of terracotta clay nestled between bubble wrap, pathetic and entirely useless. It was yet again another bitter reminder not to get attached, but she’s adamant this time.
No movers.
Her near-empty cupboards still house plain mugs, and she’s decided that wouldn’t do. The plain ceramics are as lifeless as the rest of her polished apartment. So Emily spends a sizable amount of time in front of the mug racks, nudging some aside, peering through the gaps into the others.
The one that catches her eye is entirely ridiculous, tucked behind plain monochrome ones and colorful, flower patterned monstrosities.
It has a cat on it. A simple cartoonish cat outlined in black, nearly unremarkable except for the thick-rimmed glasses on its face. Emily laughs when she see it and immediately reaches her hand through the maze of mugs to grasp the handle. As she guides it out her smile gets wider, the cat’s blank expression clashing with its scholarly looking spectacles, its mouth drawn in neutral curves. The rest of the mug is smooth white, save for a line of black circling the rim.
She knows she’ll be taking it with her.
The act could very nearly be considered useless; she hasn’t been spending all that much time in her apartment lately, paying rent for the shadows that frequent it more often than she does, but she goes back every once in a while. Maybe to prove to herself that she can. Sitting alone in the quiet is less bearable than it used to be, the thick silence creeping down her spine and curling into dread in her stomach. Sleeping on her own is very nearly a lost cause, at least if she wants to steer clear of medication.
She still hasn’t fully forgiven Aaron for it. Her bed is infinitely more comfortable than his; her sheets are Egyptian cotton, her pillowcases Mulberry silk, and yet none of it substitutes the tangible safety of his body next to hers. She’d known the moment she’d woken up the first time in his bed, half pinned under his arm and clear-eyed after a full night’s rest, that she was fucked.
But Emily holds herself back from running to the Hotchner home tonight.
She takes her mug home, sorts away the groceries, feeds Sergio, and makes herself a warm chamomile. It relaxes her decently enough by the time she gets into bed, still relatively early to allow herself at least several hours of inevitable tossing and turning before the hand ticks past midnight.
Emily sets her drained mug on the nightstand and automatically smiles when she spots Jack’s drawing glinting behind its frame, a crayon version of her and Aaron shoulder to shoulder. Sergio hops up on the bed and plops himself on her chest as she grabs her phone, halfway through thumbing a message.
Good night, she texts Aaron.
He calls thirty seconds later and she has to hide her smile beneath the slur in her voice, trying to ignore the way she sinks deeper into the mattress at the timber of his voice. Their exchange is brief, questions that sound like I love you’s and low murmurs that all but say take care of yourself for me wrapped in static that crackles with the distance. It has her warm by the time they hang up, the phone on her pillow, love heavy in her mouth.
Her eyes slip closed quickly. Sergio nuzzles in her neck, purring up a storm; Emily nuzzles her nose into his fur and hooks a light finger into his collar. She tumbles into sleep and wakes up multiple times throughout the night, cold despite the comforter, but she doesn’t dream.
Emily considers it a victory.
She’s over the next day, a sticky brown rim of coffee lining the bottom of the mug by the time she walks into the Hotchner household.
“Cute,” Aaron says mildly, taking it from her hand and running it under the water, smoothly adding it to his pile of dishes.
Emily leans against the countertop. “Reminds me of my boyfriend.” She grins.
He frowns, mouth softly curving up. She’s almost entirely sure it has to do with her use of boyfriend. “Am I so feline-like?” He asks, his voice bending beneath a combination of teasing and confusion.
She loves him. All the time, but especially like this—brows knitted together without any real tension, contradicting the lines of his smile and his deeply pressed dimples. The realization is nothing new; it doesn’t knock her off kilter. These bells have been ringing for a while now.
Still, her heart thrums faster in her wrists.
“Oh, honey,” she murmurs, straightening and dropping a kiss on his cheek. “I wasn’t talking about you. Maybe if you’d get some glasses, though…” Her brows arch lightly, teeth teasing her lip.
Aaron’s grumble warms her ear. Emily laughs, watching the cat’s face disappear beneath a froth of bubbles and surface again, suds chased away by the running water. Aaron tips the mug upside down on the dishrack, amongst a plastic Spider-Man cup and plain china, and she’s gnawing down on her lip against something she can’t explain as he tilts her jaw, gently greets her with a kiss. His fingertips are pruned and soft against her skin, the scent of lemon dish soap curling around her and pulling her into the miscellany of scents that make up a home.
She hides an uncharacteristic blush in his shoulder before bumping him aside, grabbing a towel and situating herself in front of the dishrack.
It doesn’t take long before the mug is a permanent fixture in his cupboard. It takes less before his cupboard becomes theirs.
4.
The buzz of the gun isn’t new enough to make her anxious, but she’s still stiff as she waits for it to make contact with her rib, breath caught and nail poised on her cuticle. The cold room doesn’t help either; goosebumps pebble on her skin, raise the hairs at the back of her neck.
“Try to relax.” Lizzie says, adjusting the gun in her grip.
Emily closes her eyes as the needle sinks into her flesh. The sting of the pain immediately takes her three decades prior, to her fifteen-year-old self and the yawning emptiness eating at her insides. Her tear-filled eyes, dull and bleak, shutting tightly against the urge to scream. The plastic wrapping on the chair had split beneath her nails, ripping free into shreds in her fists.
It felt good back then, the pain. Like it was penance, though she could never find anything harrowing enough to wipe her clean. She’d never been fully able to shake off that feeling, every bite of pain stirring up the thought that she deserved it for some reason or the other. Her list is miles long. Pick something and it’ll fit.
Her guilt had solidified in her gut, a boulder that she carried around and never knew how to set down, how to throw up, how to crumble to pieces. Sometimes she thinks it might’ve been broken down by acid, because it doesn’t sit as heavy as it used to, the center of her attention; now she feels it more subtly, sharp pebbles lining the underside of her skin, poking and grazing and nicking vessels in various stages of healing. One wrong bump, and everything goes bleeding again.
Now she curls her fingers into her shirt, nails slipping on the soft fabric. It isn’t hers; it’s Aaron’s, stolen under the guise of needing something loose to wear after. Really, Emily has a hundred linen tops and airy blouses. The excuse is as feeble as they come, but he took it. Hummed and kissed her clothed shoulder, his voice warm as he’d asked what she wanted for dinner.
“When did you get this?” Lizzie’s voice rises above the hum of the gun, breaking Emily from her reverie. Her tongue aches from the bite of her teeth, eyes damp with a glaze she tries to blink away.
Emily wets her lips. September, 1985. The sky couldn’t decide whether to split beneath the relief of rain or hold itself together until the clouds passed them by. “Long time,” she says tightly, her voice lined with a rasp. “Thirty years, give or take.”
Lizzie nods, humming. “It’s in pretty good shape, all things considered. The placement definitely helps.”
It’s not a particularly pretty tattoo. A plain hourglass etched on her side, laying over her ribs, an amalgamation of her blood and pain and miniscule threads of hope that had existed, even back then. The sand eventually bottoms out on one side. It’s how it works.
Emily now knows that’s not quite how things end up playing out. Still, the sight of the fading ink made her rush to search for a parlor, an irrational desperation screaming from her veins, yelling all the way to her head. She won’t forget, she never could. But she still wants her body to bear the memory, her skin and bones to know that there’s a reason the clock is still ticking, her heart is still beating even though his isn’t.
She’s crying by the time it’s done. There’s no use hiding it, long streaks of tears cutting down her cheeks.
The artist hands her a tissue. “Ribs are a tough place.” She says kindly.
Emily wipes her nose, accepts the water and snack she’s given before striding out to her car and crying into the wheel.
Her side stings for the whole rest of the day. Before bed, Aaron helps her change the dressing. Her skin is red and raw, almost violently puckered around the tattoo.
It’s electric blue, Matthew’s favorite color.
5.
The bright sticky note is the first thing to catch her attention.
Emily knows what it means long before she reads what’s written on it. There’s a slight chill clinging to her skin, kissing her spine and the tips of her fingers, lingering without warm palms to massage it out. Never mind the covers brought up to her ear; so long as the other side of the bed is cold, she is, too.
She stretches out a sore, bent elbow. It cracks, echoing in the silence along with the creak of the bed as she shifts her limbs, bringing them back to life after her comatose-like sleep. Rubbing her eye with one hand, she reaches over with the other and plucks the note from Aaron’s distinctly cold pillow. While mildly annoyed, she still handles it with care, gentle fingers and a light grip as she brings it up to her eyes.
It takes a few seconds for the words to come into focus.
Went for a grocery run. I wouldn’t have, but I knew I’d be in bigger trouble if we didn’t have pancakes for breakfast. Be back soon. Don’t make yourself coffee, I’ll get some on the way.
Ps, I did kiss you good morning.
Emily smiles despite herself, the sound of Aaron’s voice echoing crisp and clear as she reads. Her eyes narrow on the last line, his neat lettering turning softer, loopy with amusement.
Smartass. It’s not a good morning kiss if she didn’t feel it.
A knock on the door makes her drop the note, smiling. “Come in, Jack,” she calls out, a grating rasp in her throat.
Jack shuffles in, yawning. He squints, his eyes all but slits, hair and pajamas chaotically mussed as he makes his way over to the bed.
“Morning, baby.”
Jack rubs a fist into his eye. “Dad didn’t wake me.” He says, an equal stickiness to his voice.
“It’s ’cause he went out early. Wanna sleep until he gets back?” She pats the bed.
Jack nods drowsily. He clambers in, gracelessly flopping onto Aaron’s pillow and very nearly crushing the sticky note beneath his head. Emily tucks it under her own pillow just before her arm gets pinned to her side; Jack rests half his weight on her, rooting sleepily into her collarbone.
“’M hungry.” He grumbles.
“But you want to sleep?” Emily laughs, pressing a kiss to his forehead as he nods. “Your dad went out to get us pancake mix. He’ll be back soon.” She whispers, worming her arm out so it’s around his shoulders, tucking him into her side.
Her fingers sift through his soft blonde hair. In a minute his breathing evens out again, warming her skin in equal intervals. Emily’s eyes fall closed, too, but she doesn’t drift. Nose pressed to his hairline, she inhales the faded scent of shampoo and drinks in the quiet of the morning.
When her arm goes numb, and she feels the effect of glugging too much water before bed, she carefully slides out from under Jack. He doesn’t stir as she adjusts his head on her pillow and tugs the comforter up his shoulders.
Emily quietly tiptoes in and out of the bathroom, finding her way in the sparse light from the part in the curtains, water dripping down her chin and soaking her tank top. She goes about her skincare then makes sure to dry her hands properly before grabbing the note, pursing her lips against a smile as she skims it again.
She was surprised when Aaron started leaving them for her, colorful sticky notes stuck to her vanity mirror and cold pillows and tucked under the coffee machine, but really she shouldn’t have been. He’s a romantic, even when he struggles to verbally express it.
The notes contain varying contents. They used to enclose instructions, when she started getting more comfortable in the apartment—how to work the washing machine, telling her to clean out the coffee filter or else it won’t drip down for hours. More than a few held dad jokes, something stupid and bound to make her laugh. Few are love notes. They’re hardly Shakespearean, but the romance is in his neat handwriting on the notes, in the mental image of him hunched over with a pen clutched in his hand and taking a minute to leave her something of the day.
She’s thumbing the note in her hand as she reaches into her side of the closet and through her clothes for a shoe box. It’s not empty, but the dry shuffle of notes inside isn’t quite heavy enough to substitute the weight of a pair of shoes.
The box is lightly perfumed with the scent of dried flowers. They’re a guilty pleasure of hers, one that bloomed after Aaron frequently started to present her with bouquets on date nights. She sneaks one from each neatly wrapped arrangement he gifts her, hangs it upside down deep in the darkness of their closet until it dries, then carefully places it in the box amongst other fragile sprigs of flowers.
Sometimes Emily feels nauseous with the sweetness of it. She’d never been a sentimental person; nostalgia would’ve killed her if she let it. She learned long ago not to get attached to materialistic possessions—things that worm their way into her heart, then into her hands. But she’s learning to let herself have it.
“What’s this?”
Emily startles, biting down on a yelp when Aaron’s arm envelopes her waist.
“Jesus.” She breathes as he brings her back into his chest, her heart pounding under his fingertips. “We need to put a bell on you.”
“What’s this?” He asks again, the smile audible in his voice. It caresses the skin behind her ear, small and lilting with curiosity as he picks up one of the sticky notes and runs his thumb over his own handwriting.
Emily shakes her head, groaning as she plucks it out of his hand. “What it is, is not cute now that you know about it.” She grumbles halfheartedly, her cheeks simmering with a blush. The note floats back down into the box, forgotten when his warm hand cups her jaw and gently tilts her chin over her shoulder.
Aaron lightly presses his forehead against hers. His eyes are alight with curiosity, his smile soft with a tenderness that says even though he wants to dig, he’ll let it go. “Sorry. This is me forgetting.” His fingers tangle in her hair, the base of his thumb pressing warmly against her neck. “Ejecting the memories back to you. See, I can’t even remember a thing anymore.”
It’s so ridiculous she can’t help but laugh, airy and low as his hair tickles her forehead. She sees Jack stir from the corner of her eye and presses her fingers to her mouth, containing the laugh. “You’re ridiculous.” She whispers.
Aaron’s eyes gleam, bright brown sweet as honey.
“I love you,” he murmurs, one hand stroking down her side, tucking under the hem of her tank top, the other tugging her fingers away so he can kiss her.
“I love you.” She sighs against his mouth. The words get swallowed up in a small nibble of her teeth, just enough to make him hum before she pulls away. Still faintly blushing, Emily places the lid back on the box and pretends not to feel the sticky heat of Aaron’s gaze.
It doesn’t work.
His chin lands on her shoulder, hungry lips finding bare skin. “Coffee’s downstairs.” He whispers, rubbing up and down her arm. “And pastries.”
Emily’s brow arches. “Thought you went out to get pancake batter.”
“I did. Figured you might like a pick me up.”
She chews down on her lip, simmering again. They were up late last night.
Clearly remembering, Aaron laughs softly, his arms coming up around her gently rumbling stomach. Emily forgets the box and her embarrassment, turning to get a glimpse of Jack still soundly asleep in their bed.
“Should we wake the big boy?” She murmurs, a ball of glowing light lodging under her ribs.
Aaron’s lips find her temple. He squeezes her, his sun warmed cheek nearly as hot as her flushed one. “Let him sleep.”
+1
Emily’s fingers tangle in the chain as she pulls it out of her pocket. The gold thread twists itself into a knot as she worms her fingers out, two gently clasped hands glinting almost innocently in the sun. Without much thought, she starts picking at the smooth tangle, her nails catching and slipping as she works the knot.
Effervescent waves of screaming children engulf her. The cold breeze ruffles her hair, slyly slips past her coat collar and presses chilly fingers to her spine, coaxing a shiver out. The effect is momentarily balanced out by the heat of the sun, warm rays thrown across her cheeks and knuckles.
Emily’s nail catches on a thread that loosens the knot. She pulls on it, watching as it stretches, formless, and pinches the other piece of the chain at the center. Dragging it free, she unravels the knot and finds her thumb pressing down on the ring.
Its fate is decided, set to be embedded at the murky bottom of the Potomac. Emily doesn’t know why she bothered; she’s sick of the ring, sick of seeing it in bare glimpses through the hidden depths of her jewelry box. Every glance brought about a deep flush of shame, her own frustration at her naivety surfacing like a wave.
The thing is, it made her feel something. A twisted sense of pride, at having done what no one could, making a sociopath fall in love with her. Look at her—she made the invincible fall. A cold-blooded casing of organs and viciousness lying at her feet, daring to love her when no one else has.
And maybe it was that, all along, that stopped her from throwing it out in the first place. The worst humanity had to offer believed she was lovable. But finally someone had. And she had the proof in her hands. He had no empathy, no mercy, but somehow, he had space enough in the cold chamber of his heart for her to occupy.
The waning light bounces off the ring, and she feels stillness. Its cold metal burns her fingertips. They tell her to let go, to warm them again.
Emily listens. She tips her palm outward and the ring tumbles down to the lake, a flash of gold swallowed by deep blue. Some part of her expects to feel relief, her organs lighter. But it’s a blissful sense of nothing except for the cold that wraps her in its embrace.
Leaning against the railing of the bridge, Emily’s fingers curl in her coat, seeking warmth as the November air travels to her lungs. Her gaze skips across cyclists and blushing couples and coat-bundled families.
“Careful, Jack.”
“I got it.”
Emily turns, smiling. Aaron and Jack are haloed in gold a few feet away, close enough for their voices to carry, far away enough for her heart to tug. She shifts along the bridge until the gap closes, too impatient to wait for them to erase the distance, and takes the steaming cup of hot chocolate from the cup holder Jack is holding. “Thank you, handsome.” She murmurs, kissing the top of his head.
“Careful,” Aaron turns the warning to her, his voice soft with care, “it’s hot.”
“Burned my tongue.” Jack says, a small frown pinching his brows.
“Oh, I hate when that happens. You know what helps?” Emily says, adjusting the cuff around the paper cup before lowering it down to Jack’s chin. The droopy swirl of whipped cream starts to melt in the steaming hot chocolate. “Dip your tongue in.”
Jack immediately complies, grinning, cream smearing on his cheeks. Giggles spill from his open mouth, his frown fading in the depths of the silken white froth. Aaron wipes it from Jack’s face—chin, cheeks, nose—and murmurs something about sticking his tongue in the frigid air instead, the retort lost on both him and Emily. He’s still fond as he drops the sticky tissue in his pocket, the weight of his eyes on them chasing away the cold dug into Emily’s bones, molten heat taking its place under her skin.
Jack skips off to the playground when he polishes his drink, blonde hair shining gold as he takes off with two sets of eyes on his back. Emily still holds hers in one hand, the other in Aaron’s. Her fingertips warm, safely encased within his, his two palms sandwiching hers in a pool of heat. His thick platinum band, warmed from his body heat, settles at the base of her knuckles.
The setting sun lights her on fire. Emily closes her eyes, nose nuzzled in Aaron’s collar, and sees the world flash gold under her lids.
hotchniss as coparents
Hostage (Hotchniss Version) ♡
Gold on your fingertips,
Fingertips against my cheek
Gold leaf across your lips
Kiss me until I can't speak
tis the damn season is so hotchniss coded goodbye
So clueless and so beautiful <333
"That ship doesn't make any sense" "They've never/barely interacted." And it's like highkey I do not care. What happened to fun? What happened to whimsy? The art of the crack ship? We used to be a proper society, me thinks.
super specific tag game
thank you for the tag, @eyesontheskyline!! <3
one piece of jewelry you can't go anywhere without: My bracelets always and more recently, my necklace (that I stole from my mom for a month straight until she told me to get my own. Which I did lol. This one is more out of laziness because everything I'm always wearing is gold so if I want to wear a silver necklace I'd have to switch everything out (I hate mixing metals), otherwise I do love to alternate between my necklaces bc I love them)
most worn shoes: black Puma sneakers that I've had for like three years now. They look fossilized 😭
new book/fic that has you in its grip: this is so super disappointing, especially for me, but I haven't been reading all that much lately. I'm more than halfway through Babel by R. F. Kuang and it is pretty good so far but I still haven't been particularly gripped by anything yet iygwim. I'll still be continuing though because I need to know how it ends
one drink you can't go without: Lipton peach ice tea <3333 my beloved. It runs through my veins atp
latest kitchen fail: I haven't been in the kitchen in a long while, the only thing that comes to mind is a cake that I made with my friends during a blind-deaf-mute challenge. The texture was sooo weird and we had to add vinegar to the milk since we didn't have buttermilk so it smelled horrible😭 to be fair though we are good bakers I think the recipe was just whack
a piece of media you have been wanting to watch for ages but never got the time to: We live in time!! I wanted to see it in the cinema so bad but I couldn't find anyone to go with me and it was only showing for a ridiculously short time so I never got to catch it
latest character to enter brainrot mode: Aaron Hotchner and Emily Prentiss are now coming up on their two year anniversary living rent free in my head. Congrats, guys
no pressure tags: @leavemurph @hotchnissonly @relentlessescapism @infinite-reads
In case anyone wants to know how it’s going, the draft I made in ao3 of the wip that’s “only got two scenes left” self deleted today. Lol
"Derek, because I like you, I'm gonna ask you not to do this." EMILY PRENTISS CRIMINAL MINDS 06x16 “CODA”
4x01 | 11x09 "What if he's got PTSD?"
GIF REQUEST MEME - 9. FAVORITE BROTP: DEMILY (DEREK MORGAN & EMILY PRENTISS) (requested by @mortalscience <3)
bonuses that i thought didnt fit in the grid/layout nicely :D
