The Saturday morning sun filtered through the sheer curtains of Emily's apartment, casting golden stripes across the hardwood floor and the plush couch where you found yourself. The city outside was just beginning to stir, but inside, time seemed to move differently—slower, more deliberate, weighted with anticipation.
Emily's hands were everywhere, it seemed. Tracing the curve of your spine, skimming along your ribs, mapping territory she'd explored countless times before but somehow always found new again. You were settled in her lap, straddling her thighs, your fingers tangled in her silver hair as you kissed her with the kind of lazy intensity that only Saturday mornings allowed.
There was no rush. No case to get to, no phone calls interrupting, no world demanding either of your attention. Just this, just her hands on your skin, her lips moving from your mouth to your jaw to that sensitive spot just below your ear that made you shiver.
"You're beautiful," she murmured against your neck, her voice still rough with sleep and want. Her hands slid beneath the hem of your shirt, well, technically her shirt that you'd stolen to sleep in, her fingertips cool against your warm skin.
You arched into her touch, a soft sound escaping your lips as she explored the planes of your stomach, the curve of your waist. Everything felt heightened somehow, every nerve ending singing under her attention.
Emily's hands moved higher, pushing the fabric up slowly, reverently, until she pulled the shirt over your head entirely and tossed it somewhere behind the couch. The morning air kissed your bare skin, raising goosebumps that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the way she was looking at you: dark eyes blown wide with desire, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
"Hi," you breathed, suddenly feeling exposed in the best possible way.
"Hi yourself," she replied, her hands settling on your hips, thumbs tracing small circles against your skin.
You leaned in to kiss her again, slower this time, savoring the taste of coffee and something uniquely Emily. Her hands began to wander again, sliding up your sides, and you felt your breath catch in anticipation of where they might go next.
When her palms finally cupped your breasts, you gasped into her mouth, your hips rolling involuntarily against her. She smiled against your lips, you could feel it, clearly pleased with your reaction. Her thumbs began to trace lazy patterns, circling closer and closer to where you were becoming increasingly sensitive.
"Emily," you breathed, breaking the kiss to rest your forehead against hers.
"Mmm?" She was focused, attentive, reading every micro-expression on your face, every hitch in your breathing.
And then her thumb grazed over your nipple—just the lightest touch, barely there—and the sound that tore from your throat was louder than either of you expected. Your whole body tensed, pleasure shooting through you like electricity, concentrated and intense and almost overwhelming.
"Em," you gasped, your fingers tightening in her hair. "If you do that again, I can't—"
You couldn't even finish the sentence, too caught up in the sensation still reverberating through your body. When you finally managed to focus on her face, you found her staring at you with an expression of absolute fascination, her eyes wide with realization.
"Wait," she said slowly, her voice dropping an octave. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
You felt heat flood your cheeks, suddenly self-conscious despite everything. "I don't... it's just really sensitive right now, and—"
"You could come from this?" The wonder in her voice was unmistakable, mixed with something darker, more intent. "Just from me touching you here?"
Her thumb circled your nipple again, deliberately this time, and you whimpered, your hips jerking forward involuntarily. The pleasure was almost too much, too concentrated, building in a way that felt both familiar and entirely different.
"Emily, I—" You tried to form words, but she chose that moment to roll your nipple gently between her thumb and forefinger, and coherent thought became impossible.
"That's incredible," she murmured, her scientific mind clearly engaged even as desire darkened her features. "I want to see it. Can I? Will you let me?"
There was something in her voice, part question, part plea, entirely Emily in her genuine curiosity mixed with obvious arousal. You nodded, not trusting your voice, and felt her smile against your collarbone where she'd begun pressing kisses.
"Use your words, sweetheart," she prompted gently, even as her hands continued their torturous exploration. "I need to hear you say it."
"Yes," you managed, your voice breathy and desperate. "Yes, please, Em—"
"Good girl," she praised, and the words alone nearly undid you.
The Saturday sun continued its slow journey across the room as Emily devoted herself entirely to your pleasure. Her mouth found your other breast, her tongue circling and flicking while her fingers continued their work on the first. The dual sensation was overwhelming, pleasure building in waves that seemed to originate from those two points of contact and radiate outward through your entire body.
You were dimly aware that you were making sounds, gasps and whimpers and broken syllables of her name, but you couldn't bring yourself to care. Not when she was looking up at you like that, her eyes locked on your face, cataloging every expression, every reaction. Like you experiencing this pleasure was the most interesting thing she’d ever witnessed.
"That's it," she encouraged, her voice muffled against your skin. "I've got you. Let go for me."
Your hands scrambled for purchase, one gripping the back of the couch, the other still tangled in her hair. Your hips were moving of their own accord now, seeking friction, seeking more, seeking something to ground you as the pleasure built higher and higher.
Emily seemed to sense how close you were. She increased the pressure slightly, her teeth grazing gently, and that was all it took. The orgasm hit you like a wave, unexpected in its intensity, radiating out from your chest through your entire body. You cried out, your back arching, your whole body trembling as pleasure washed over you in pulses that seemed to go on and on.
Through it all, Emily held you steady, her hands gentling their touch but never leaving you, grounding you as you rode out the waves of sensation. She pressed soft kisses to your sternum, your collarbone, anywhere she could reach, murmuring praise and endearments that you could barely process through the haze of pleasure.
When you finally came back to yourself, you found yourself slumped against her, your face buried in the crook of her neck, your body still trembling with aftershocks. Her arms were wrapped around you, holding you close, one hand stroking soothingly up and down your spine.
"Holy shit," you finally managed, your voice muffled against her skin.
You felt her laugh, the vibration traveling through both your bodies. "That was..." She pulled back slightly, encouraging you to look at her. When you did, her expression was soft, awed, thoroughly pleased with herself. "That was the hottest thing I've ever witnessed."
You felt yourself blush again, hiding your face against her shoulder. "I can't believe that just happened."
"I can't believe you've been keeping that information from me," she teased, her fingers tracing idle patterns on your back. "How long have you known?"
"I didn't, really," you admitted. "I mean, I knew it felt good, but I've never actually... not like that."
"Never?" Her voice pitched up slightly with surprise and something that sounded like pride.
You shook your head. "Never."
"Well then," Emily said, and you could hear the smile in her voice. "I'm honored to be the first." She paused, then added with a hint of mischief, "And I'm definitely going to need to explore this discovery further. You know, for science."
You laughed, finally lifting your head to look at her properly. Her hair was mussed from your hands, her lips swollen from kissing, her eyes bright with affection and lingering desire. She was beautiful, and she was yours, and the Saturday sun painted her in gold.
"For science?" you echoed, raising an eyebrow.
"Absolutely," she confirmed, her expression serious even as her eyes danced with amusement. "I need to establish whether this is a repeatable phenomenon. Multiple trials will be necessary."
"Multiple trials," you repeated, shaking your head fondly. "You're ridiculous."
"You love it," she countered, pulling you in for a soft, sweet kiss that tasted like promise and possibility.
"I love you," you corrected, and felt her smile against your lips.
"I love you too," she murmured. "Now, how do you feel about breakfast? Because I'm thinking we might need to keep our energy up. You know, for all that scientific research."
You laughed, swatting her shoulder playfully, but you couldn't deny the flutter of anticipation in your stomach at the suggestion. The Saturday stretched out before you, full of sunlight and possibility and Emily's hands on your skin.
"Breakfast sounds good," you agreed. "But maybe in a little while?"
Her eyes darkened again, that familiar heat returning. "Oh? What did you have in mind?"
Instead of answering directly, you bit your lip, suddenly feeling bold. "I was thinking... maybe we could look into nipple clamps? Just to see what's out there."
Emily's attempt at casual composure was immediate and utterly transparent. "Oh. Yeah. Sure. We could—we could do that." She cleared her throat, reaching for her phone on the coffee table with studied nonchalance. "Just, you know, browsing. Research."
But as she pulled up her browser, you watched her eyes lose focus, her thumb hovering motionless over the screen. Her breathing had changed, become shallower, and a flush was creeping up her neck.
"Em?" you prompted gently, amused.
"Sorry, I just—" She blinked, trying to refocus on the phone, but you could see her pupils dilating as her mind clearly wandered elsewhere. "I'm just thinking about... about earlier. About doing that again, but with..." She trailed off, swallowing hard.
You leaned in closer, your lips brushing her ear. "Having trouble concentrating?"
"Completely," she admitted, her voice rough. The phone slipped from her fingers onto the floor, forgotten. "God, just thinking about it..."
It was, you thought as Emily's hands found your skin again with renewed urgency, definitely the perfect way to spend a Saturday.
The Kinktober post to start off this fine Halloween. Remember, two hands on the phone.
This got way longer than I planned but Emily Prentiss makes me feral so here we are. First time writing gun kink so please be gentle with me lmao.
TW: Gun Kink, Interrogation Kink, Power Dynamics, Dominant Emily Prentiss, Halloween, Costume Roleplay, Praise Kink, Established Relationship, Consensual Kink, Safe Sane and Consensual
Emily's text comes through at 4:47 PM on Halloween afternoon, just as you're debating whether to leave work early.
My place. 7 PM. Don't be late.
No explanation. No hint about the plans she's been mysteriously alluding to all week. Just that commanding tone that makes heat pool low in your stomach even through a text message.
You'd asked her three times what she had planned for tonight. Each time, she'd given you that smile, the one that's equal parts dangerous and devastating, and told you it was a surprise. That she'd taken care of everything. That all you needed to do was show up.
The last time you'd pressed, she'd leaned in close, voice dropping to something that made your pulse stutter: "Trust me. You're going to love it."
Now, standing outside her door at 6:58 PM, you're acutely aware of your heartbeat. You'd changed three times before leaving your apartment, finally settling on jeans and a simple black sweater. Something that felt appropriate for whatever Emily had planned, even though you have no idea what that might be.
You knock.
The door opens almost immediately, like she'd been waiting on the other side. Emily stands there in her a robe, hair loose around her shoulders. She looks casual, relaxed, but there's something in her eyes that makes your mouth go dry.
"Right on time," she says, stepping back to let you in. "Good girl."
The praise hits you exactly the way she knows it will. You step inside, hyperaware of her presence behind you as she closes the door. The lock clicks with a finality that sends a shiver down your spine.
"So," you say, turning to face her, trying for casual even though your voice comes out slightly breathless. "Are you going to tell me what this mysterious plan is?"
Emily's smile is slow, predatory. "Soon. First, I need you to go upstairs. There's something on the bed for you."
"Emily—"
"Go." Not harsh, but firm. The voice she uses in the field, the one that expects immediate compliance.
You go.
Her bedroom is dimly lit, curtains drawn against the early evening darkness. On the bed sits a garment bag, black and expensive-looking. Your fingers tremble slightly as you unzip it.
Inside is a costume. Not the cheap, mass-produced kind from a Halloween store. This is quality. A tailored blazer and pencil skirt in charcoal gray, a crisp white blouse, even a pair of heels in exactly your size. Professional. Severe. The kind of thing you'd wear to a job interview at a law firm.
There's a note pinned to the blouse in Emily's precise handwriting:
Put this on. Nothing underneath. Come downstairs when you're ready.
Your safeword is "red."
Heat floods through you, understanding clicking into place. That conversation three weeks ago, late at night after too much wine, when you'd confessed things you'd only ever thought about in the privacy of your own fantasies. When Emily had listened with that intense focus she brings to everything, asking careful questions, drawing out details you'd been too embarrassed to volunteer.
You'd told her about the interrogation fantasy. About wanting her to use that sharp profiler's mind on you, to break you down and make you confess things you'd never say otherwise. About how the thought of her in full agent mode, all authority and control, made you ache.
She'd kissed you breathless after that conversation, promised she'd remember every word. You hadn't realized she'd been planning this.
Your hands shake as you undress, folding your clothes neatly on the chair by her dresser. The blouse is silk, cool against your skin. The skirt fits perfectly, hugging your hips and falling just above your knees. You slip on the heels, check yourself in the mirror.
You look professional. Put-together. Exactly like someone who has something to hide.
The stairs creak under your heels as you descend. Emily's living room has been transformed. The coffee table has been pushed aside, and in its place sits a single chair, positioned in the center of the room. A floor lamp has been angled to shine directly on it, creating a pool of harsh light surrounded by shadows.
Emily stands at the edge of the light, and your breath catches.
She's changed too. Dark slacks, a crisp white shirt with the sleeves still rolled up, her FBI credentials clipped to her belt. Her service weapon sits in its holster at her hip, the leather gleaming dully in the low light. She looks every inch the federal agent, all sharp edges and controlled power.
"Sit," she says, gesturing to the chair.
You obey, hyperaware of the way the skirt rides up slightly as you sit, of the cool wood against the backs of your thighs. Emily circles around behind you, and you resist the urge to turn and follow her movement.
"Do you know why you're here?" Her voice comes from behind you, professional and detached.
"No." Your voice comes out rougher than intended.
"No?" She moves into your line of sight, standing just at the edge of the light. "Let me refresh your memory. Three weeks ago, you made certain... confessions. Admitted to certain thoughts. Certain desires."
Your pulse kicks up. "Emily—"
"Agent Prentiss," she corrects, and the formality of it sends heat straight through you. "We're going to have a conversation. You're going to answer my questions honestly and completely. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, Agent Prentiss."
"Good." She pulls another chair from the shadows, positioning it directly across from you, close enough that when she sits, her knees almost touch yours. "Let's start simple. How long have you been thinking about me?"
The question catches you off-guard with its directness. "I—what?"
"How long?" She leans forward, elbows on her knees, dark eyes fixed on your face with that profiler's intensity. "How long have you been having these thoughts about me? Fantasizing about me?"
Heat creeps up your neck. "Since we met."
"That's not specific enough. I need details." Her voice drops lower, more intimate despite the formal tone. "When exactly did you first think about me in a sexual context?"
"The first case we worked together." The words come out before you can stop them, pulled out by the weight of her gaze. "You were interviewing a suspect. I watched through the glass. The way you controlled the room, the way you broke him down... I couldn't stop thinking about it."
"Couldn't stop thinking about what, specifically?"
"About you doing that to me." Your face burns, but you can't look away from her. "About you using that voice on me. Making me tell you things."
Emily's expression doesn't change, but something flickers in her eyes. Satisfaction, maybe. Hunger. "And did you? Tell me things, in these fantasies?"
"Yes."
"What kind of things?"
"Emily—"
"Agent Prentiss." Firm, brooking no argument. "What kind of things did you imagine telling me?"
You swallow hard. "Everything. Things I wanted. Things I'd never said out loud."
"Such as?"
"That I wanted you to touch me. That I thought about your hands. Your mouth." The words are coming faster now, pulled out by her relentless focus. "That I wanted you to tell me what to do. To make me—"
"Make you what?"
"Make me beg."
The silence that follows is heavy, charged. Emily sits back slightly, studying you with that analytical gaze that makes you feel stripped bare even fully clothed.
"How often do you think about me?" she asks, voice still carefully neutral.
"Every day."
"And how often do you touch yourself while thinking about me?"
The question sends a jolt through you, direct and shameless. "I—"
"Answer the question."
"Most nights." Your voice is barely above a whisper. "Almost every night."
"Tell me about it." She shifts forward again, and you catch a hint of her perfume, something dark and sharp beneath the citrus. "Tell me what you do when you're alone, thinking about me."
"Emily, please—"
"Agent Prentiss," she corrects again, and there's steel beneath the silk of her voice now. "And I'm not asking you to beg. Not yet. I'm asking you to tell me the truth. What do you do when you're alone in your bed at night, thinking about me?"
Your hands grip the edge of the chair, knuckles white. "I touch myself."
"Where?"
"You know where."
"I want to hear you say it." She leans in closer, close enough that you can see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes. "Use your words. Where do you touch yourself when you're thinking about me?"
"Between my legs." The admission comes out shaky, breathless. "I touch myself between my legs and imagine it's you."
"What am I doing, in these fantasies?"
"Everything." You're trembling now, caught between embarrassment and arousal. "Your fingers inside me. Your mouth on me. You telling me I'm good, that I'm doing well, that I'm—"
"That you're what?"
"That I'm yours."
Emily's breath catches, just slightly, the first crack in her controlled facade. "And are you? Mine?"
"Yes." No hesitation this time. "Yes, Agent Prentiss."
"Good girl." The praise washes over you like a physical touch, and you see her notice your reaction. The way your breath hitches, the way you press your thighs together. "But I think you're still holding back. I think there are things you haven't told me yet."
"I've told you everything—"
"Have you?" She stands abruptly, and you have to tilt your head back to maintain eye contact. She moves behind you again, and you feel her presence like heat against your back. "I don't think you have. I think there are darker fantasies. Things you're afraid to admit, even now."
Her hands come to rest on your shoulders, and you jump at the contact. Her thumbs press into the tense muscles at the base of your neck, not quite a massage, more like a claim.
"Tell me," she says, voice low and dangerous in your ear. "Tell me the fantasy you're most ashamed of."
Your heart hammers against your ribs. "I can't."
"You can." Her hands slide down your arms, fingers circling your wrists, pulling them behind the chair. She doesn't restrain them, just holds them there, a suggestion of control. "You will. Because I'm asking you to, and you want to be good for me. Don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me."
The words stick in your throat, too raw, too revealing. But her hands are steady on your wrists, her breath warm against your ear, and you feel yourself breaking open under the pressure of her attention.
"Sometimes I think about you using your authority on me," you whisper. "Really using it. Not just the voice, but everything. Your badge. Your gun."
Her hands tighten on your wrists, just slightly. "My gun?"
"Yes."
"Tell me more." Her voice has gone rough, the professional detachment finally cracking. "What do I do with it?"
"You—" You have to stop, swallow, try again. "You make me look at it, let me think about it, and then you—"
"Then I what?"
"You use it on me. Touch me with it. Make me feel how much power you have over me."
Emily releases your wrists and moves back around to face you. Her expression is intense, searching, and you brace yourself for judgment, for her to tell you it's too much, too dark.
Instead, she reaches down and unholsters her weapon.
Your breath stops.
"This?" she asks, holding it carefully, professionally, finger nowhere near the trigger. God the sight of her slender fingers wrapped around the metal is almost too much. "This is what you think about?"
You can't speak, can only nod.
"I need to hear you say it."
"Yes." Your voice is barely audible. "Yes, Agent Prentiss."
She checks the chamber with practiced efficiency, removes the magazine, clears it completely. The movements are smooth, automatic, the product of years of training. When she's satisfied it's safe, she sets the magazine on the side table and turns back to you.
"I want you to understand something," she says, voice dropping to something more intimate, more real. "This is a tool. A weapon. I've been trained to use it, to respect it, to never treat it carelessly. If we do this—if I use this the way you're asking me to—I need to know you understand that. I need to know you trust me completely."
"I do." No hesitation. "I trust you."
"And you remember your safeword?"
"Red."
"Good." She moves closer, standing directly in front of you, the weapon held loosely at her side. "Stand up."
You obey on shaky legs. She's close enough now that you have to tilt your head back to meet her eyes, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off her body.
"I'm going to ask you again," she says, voice low and commanding. "And I want complete honesty. What do you want me to do with this?"
"I want you to touch me with it." The words come out in a rush, shameless now. "I want to feel it against my skin. I want to know that you could—that you have that power over me, and you're choosing to use it this way instead."
"Where do you want me to touch you?"
"Everywhere." You're trembling, caught between fear and desire. "Anywhere you want."
Emily's free hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb brushing over your lower lip. "You're so beautiful like this. Nervous and desperate and trying so hard to be good for me."
"I want to be good for you."
"I know you do." She leans in, lips brushing your ear. "Turn around. Hands on the chair."
You turn, gripping the back of the chair, acutely aware of how the position makes you vulnerable. Emily steps up behind you, close enough that you can feel her against your back. Her hands slid up your arms and tug at the blazer by your shoulders, pulling off your body.
"Spread your legs," she says, and you do, the heels making you unsteady. "Wider."
You adjust, and she makes a satisfied sound. Her free hand slides down your spine, over the curve of your ass, down to the hem of your skirt.
"Remember," she says, voice steady and controlled, "you're not wearing anything under this. Are you?"
"No, Agent Prentiss."
"Good girl." She gathers the skirt in her fist, pulling it up slowly, exposing you to the cool air. "Stay still."
You feel the barrel of the gun first against the back of your thigh, cool metal against overheated skin. You gasp, and Emily's other hand comes to rest on your hip, steadying you.
"Breathe," she instructs, and you try, pulling air into your lungs in shaky gasps. "That's it. Just feel it."
She drags it higher, achingly slow, up the inside of your thigh. The metal is smooth, foreign, dangerous even though you know she's made it safe. Your fingers grip the chair hard enough to hurt.
"Please," you hear yourself say, though you're not sure what you're asking for.
"Please what?" She presses the barrel higher, not quite touching where you're desperate for contact. "Please stop? Please more?"
"More. Please, more."
"I don't think you've earned it yet." She pulls back slightly, and you whimper at the loss. "I think you still have more to tell me. More confessions to make."
"I've told you everything—"
"Have you told me how wet you get, thinking about this?" The gun traces patterns on your inner thigh, maddeningly close but not close enough. "How you touch yourself and imagine it's me, imagine me doing exactly this?"
"Yes." You're shaking now, caught between the chair and her body, between the cool metal and her warm hand. "Yes, I think about this. I think about you having this kind of power over me and choosing to use it to make me feel good instead of—"
"Instead of what?"
"Instead of anything else. You could do anything, and you choose this. You choose to make me fall apart."
"That's right." Her voice is rough now, the professional mask finally cracking completely. "I choose this. I choose you. And right now, I'm choosing to make you beg."
The barrel drags higher, and you feel it press against you, cool and smooth and absolutely nothing like anything you've felt before. Your hips jerk involuntarily, and Emily's hand tightens on your hip.
"Stay still," she commands. "Don't move unless I tell you to."
You freeze, every muscle locked tight, as she moves the weapon against you with careful, controlled precision. The sensation is overwhelming—the wrongness of it, the danger, the absolute trust required to let her do this. Your vision blurs at the edges.
"Emily—"
"Agent Prentiss," she corrects, but her voice is softer now, almost tender. "Stay with me. Tell me how it feels."
"It feels—" You can't find words, can only make a desperate sound as she increases the pressure slightly. "It feels like I'm going to die if you stop."
"I'm not going to stop." She leans in, lips against your ear. "Not until you give me what I want. Tell me. Tell me every filthy thought you've ever had about me."
The words pour out of you then, shameless and desperate. You tell her about watching her in the bullpen and imagining her bending you over her desk. About lying awake at night touching yourself and imagining her hands, her mouth, her voice telling you exactly what to do. About sitting next to her on the jet and daydreaming about pulling her into the bathroom while the team is just outside the door.
"Good girl," she murmurs, and the praise combined with the steady pressure of the gun against you is almost too much. "Such a good girl, telling me everything. What else? What else do you want?"
"I want you inside me." The admission tears out of you with a choked sob built from pure desperation. "I want your fingers inside me while you hold that against my throat and tell me I'm yours."
Emily makes a sound that's almost a growl. She pulls the gun away, and before you can protest the loss, her fingers are there instead, sliding through your wetness with a groan.
"Fuck," she breathes, the professionalism finally shattering completely. "You're soaked. All from this? From me interrogating you?"
"Yes." You're beyond shame now, pushing back against her hand. "Yes, from you, always from you—"
"Hands behind your back."
You obey immediately, and she gathers both your wrists in one hand, holding them firmly at the small of your back. The position makes you helpless, dependent on the chair for balance, completely at her mercy.
"I'm going to give you what you asked for," she says, voice rough with desire. "But you don't come until I say you can. Understand?"
"Yes, Agent Prentiss."
Two fingers slide inside you, and you cry out at the sudden fullness. She doesn't give you time to adjust, setting a rhythm that's almost brutal in its efficiency. Her other hand brings the gun up, and you feel the cool barrel press against the side of your throat.
"Is this what you wanted?" she asks, voice dark and dangerous. "Is this the fantasy? Me inside you, my weapon against your throat, you completely at my mercy?"
"Agent Prentiss," she corrects, but there's warmth in it now, affection beneath the command. "And not yet. You're going to wait. You're going to take what I give you and wait until I decide you've earned it."
She adjusts her angle, and her fingers find that spot inside you that makes your vision white out. The gun stays steady against your throat, a constant reminder of her control, her power, her choice to use it this way.
"You're close already," she observes, clinical even now. "I can feel you clenching around my fingers. But you're going to be good for me, aren't you? You're going to wait."
"I'm trying—" You're shaking, every muscle taut, balanced on a knife's edge. "I'm trying to be good—"
"You are good." Her voice softens slightly, and she presses a kiss to your shoulder. "You're so good for me. Taking everything I give you. Telling me all your secrets. Being so brave and honest and perfect."
The praise combined with the relentless rhythm of her fingers is almost too much. You feel yourself starting to tip over the edge, and you bite your lip hard enough to taste blood, trying to hold back.
"Emily, please"
"What do you need?" The gun moves from your throat to your jaw, tilting your head back. "Tell me what you need."
"I need to come. Please, I need—I can't hold back much longer—"
"Look at me."
You turn your head as much as you can in this position, meeting her eyes. They're dark, pupils blown wide, but there's something else there too. Something tender beneath the dominance.
"You've been so good," she says, and her voice is Emily now, not Agent Prentiss. Just Emily, your Emily. "So perfect. Come for me. Let me feel it."
Permission granted, you shatter. The orgasm rips through you with an intensity that makes your knees buckle. Your eyes flutter shut as wave after wave crashes over you. She works you through it, fingers never stopping, drawing it out until you're sobbing with the intensity of it.
"That's it," she murmurs, voice soothing now. "That's my girl. So beautiful. So perfect."
When you finally stop shaking, she carefully withdraws her fingers and releases your wrists. The gun disappears, and then both her arms are around you, supporting your weight as your legs threaten to give out.
"I've got you," she says, and it's definitely Emily now, all the authority replaced with tenderness. "I've got you. You did so well."
She guides you away from the chair, helps you sink down onto the couch. Your legs are still trembling, your breath coming in gasps. Emily sits beside you, pulling you against her chest, one hand stroking your hair.
"Are you okay?" she asks, and there's genuine concern in her voice. "Was that too much?"
"No." You turn your face into her neck, breathing in her scent. "No, it was perfect. You were perfect."
"You were incredible." She presses a kiss to your temple. "So brave. So honest. I'm so proud of you."
You stay like that for a long moment, her arms around you, your breathing gradually slowing to normal. Eventually, you pull back enough to look at her face.
"So," you say, voice still shaky but with a hint of humor creeping in. "Happy Halloween?"
Emily laughs, the sound warm and genuine. "Happy Halloween. Though I think we might have just ruined every other Halloween for you. How are you going to top this next year?"
"I don't know." You lean in to kiss her, soft and sweet, a contrast to everything that came before. "But I'm sure you'll think of something."
"Probably." She stands, pulling you up with her. "Come on. Let's get you out of this costume and into a bath. I think you've earned some aftercare."
"Wait." You catch her wrist, steadying yourself on legs that still feel unsteady. "Emily."
She turns back, concern flickering across her face. "What is it? Do you need something?"
"Yes." You step closer, reaching up to cup her face. "I need you."
"You have me—"
"No." You kiss her, swallowing whatever else she was going to say. "I need to touch you. I need to make you feel what you just made me feel."
Emily's breath catches. "You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." Your fingers find the buttons of her shirt, and you're pleased to note they're steadier now. "I want to. Please, Emily. Let me."
For a moment she just looks at you, something vulnerable flickering in her dark eyes. Then she nods, and you feel her surrender in the way her shoulders drop, the way she lets you push the shirt off and guide her backward toward the bedroom.
You take your time undressing her, reverent and deliberate, until she's bare before you. Then you guide her to sit on the edge of the bed, and sink to your knees between her thighs.
"You don't have to—" she starts again, but the words dissolve into a gasp as you lean forward and put your mouth on her.
She tastes like desire and salt and something uniquely Emily. You work her with lips and tongue, doing what you know what makes her gasp, what makes her fingers tighten in your hair. She's already so wet, and you realize with a thrill that getting you off turned her on just as much.
"Fuck," she breathes, and her usual composure is cracking, her hips rolling against your mouth. "Just like that princess. Don't stop."
You don't. You work her higher and higher, adding fingers when she begs for them, until she's trembling and gasping your name. When she comes, it's with your name on her lips and her thighs trembling around your head.
You kiss your way up her body as she catches her breath, and when you reach her mouth she pulls you into a deep kiss, tasting herself on your lips.
"God, you're perfect," she murmurs against your mouth. Then her hands are on you, rolling you beneath her, and her lips are painting your neck, "so perfect, made for me."
"Emily, I can't, I'm too—"
"You can." Her thigh presses between your legs, and you're shocked to find you're already wet again, your body responding to her touch despite how thoroughly she's already taken you apart. "And you will. Because I'm not done with you yet."
She proves it with her mouth on your neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin there before soothing it with her tongue. Her hands are everywhere.
One cupping your breast, thumb circling your nipple, the other gripping your hip to hold you in place. Her thigh grinds against you with perfect, deliberate pressure, finding exactly the right angle to make you gasp.
You're oversensitive and it borders on too much, pleasure blurring into something almost painful, your nerve endings singing. But then she murmurs "that's my girl, give me one more" against your ear, her voice rough with desire and pride, and you're lost.
This orgasm is different. It's deeper, more intense, pulled from somewhere deeper inside you that you didn't know existed. It builds slowly this time, a wave gathering strength, and when it finally crests you do scream, her name torn from your throat raw and desperate. She swallows the sound with a kiss, her tongue sliding against yours as you shatter beneath her.
Afterward, she carries you to the bathroom and sets you gently in the tub, climbing in behind you. The hot water soothes your trembling muscles, and you sink back against her chest with a contented sigh.
"Emily?" you say as her lips press soft kisses to your shoulder.
"Mmm?"
"Thank you. For listening. For remembering. For making it safe to tell you these things."
Her arms tighten around you. "Always. You never have to thank me for that. Your trust is the most precious thing you could give me, and I will never take it for granted."
You turn in her arms enough to kiss her, tasting the promise in it. The commitment to always make this safe, to always honor what you share with her.
"What are you thinking about?" she asks after a comfortable silence, voice soft in the steamy air.
"Just that I love you," you say, and feel her smile against your skin.
"I love you too." She tightens her arms around you. "My brave, beautiful girl. Mine."
"Yours," you agree, and let yourself sink into the warmth of the water and her embrace.
When the water grows cold, she pulls you out and dries you with careful tenderness, then slides one of her soft hoodies over your head. The two of you curl together on the couch, and she lets you turn on one of the awful horror movies you love.
Outside, the Halloween night continues, full of costumes and pretend scares. But here, in Emily's arms, you've found something better than any fantasy. You've found someone who sees all of you, even the parts you were afraid to show, and loves you not despite them, but because of them.
And that, you think as Emily's fingers trace idle patterns on your skin and fake screams echo from the TV, is the best treat you could have asked for.
Emily Prentiss deserves to be happy so I made it happen. Tooth-rotting fluff, Emily not knowing how to be loved, thank god for JJ and Penelope.
You and Emily reach for the same pastry, a shared danish and a month later, her best friends corner her at work. JJ and Penelope's interrogation bleeds into your lunch date, and it leads to the most horrifying moment of Emily's life.
The thing about secrets is that Emily Prentiss has always been good at keeping them. It's practically in her DNA. Years of diplomatic dinners where one wrong word could spark an international incident, followed by years in the field where silence could mean the difference between life and death. So when she meets you at that coffee shop three blocks from Quantico on a random Tuesday morning, she doesn't think twice about keeping it to herself.
It starts innocently enough. You're reaching for the same pastry in the display case, and when your fingers brush, you pull back with an apologetic smile that makes something in Emily's chest do an uncomfortable flip. You insist she take it, she insists you take it, and somehow you end up sharing it at a corner table while your respective coffees grow cold.
You're a librarian at Georgetown. You have paint on your jeans from crafting that morning. You laugh at Emily's dry observations about the other customers, and when she has to leave for work, you write your number on her napkin in neat, careful handwriting.
Emily stares at that napkin for three days before she texts you.
That was a month ago.
Now, Emily finds herself doing things she hasn't done in years, leaving work exactly on time, checking her phone between case files, and smiling at nothing in particular. It's terrifying. You're terrifying, in the way that genuinely good things often are when you've spent most of your life waiting for the other shoe to drop.
You text her pictures of your cat. You remember that she takes her coffee black with one sugar. You ask about her day and actually listen to the answer, even when she has to be vague about the details. Last week, you brought her homemade soup when she mentioned having a cold, showing up at her apartment with a thermos and a soft smile, not expecting to be invited in, not asking for anything in return.
It makes Emily feel physically ill when she thinks about it too long: this kindness, this sweetness, this complete absence of ulterior motive. She's spent so long armoring herself against the world that she doesn't quite know what to do with someone who approaches her with open hands.
So she doesn't tell anyone. Not the team, not her friends, not even after the fourth date, or the eighth, or the night you fall asleep on her couch mid-movie and she covers you with a blanket and watches you breathe for longer than she'd ever admit.
She should have known she couldn't keep it hidden forever. Not from profilers. Not from Penelope Garcia and JJ, who have made it their personal mission to know everything about everyone they love.
It's a Thursday afternoon, and Emily is in her office tackling the never-ending mountain of paperwork that comes with being Unit Chief, when her door opens without a knock. She doesn't need to look up to know who it is—she can hear the clicking of Penelope's heels and smell JJ's jasmine perfume.
"We need to talk," Penelope announces, closing the door behind them with an ominous click.
Emily doesn't look up from her report. "If this is about the budget meeting, I already told Strauss—"
"It's not about the budget meeting," JJ interrupts, and there's something in her tone that makes Emily's pen still on the page.
She looks up. Both women are staring at her with identical expressions: arms crossed, eyebrows raised, the kind of look that has broken hardened unsubs in interrogation rooms.
"Okay," Emily says slowly, setting down her pen. "What's this about?"
Penelope moves first, circling the desk to perch on the edge of it, while JJ takes one of the chairs across from Emily. They're boxing her in, Emily realizes. Classic interview technique.
"You've been different," JJ says simply.
"Different how?"
"Happy," Penelope supplies, and the word hangs in the air like an accusation. "You've been happy, and you haven't told us why, and we've been very patient, but it's been over a month, and Emily Prentiss, if you don't start talking right now—"
"There's nothing to talk about," Emily tries, but even she can hear how weak it sounds.
JJ leans forward. "You left at 5:30 last Tuesday. On the dot. You never leave at 5:30."
"You smiled at your phone during the briefing on Monday," Penelope adds. "A real smile. The kind that reaches your eyes."
"And you've been wearing that necklace," JJ continues, gesturing to the delicate silver chain at Emily's throat, a gift from you, given just last week, with a shyness that made Emily's heart ache. "I've never seen it before."
Emily's hand moves unconsciously to the necklace, and she knows she's been caught. She could lie, she's an excellent liar when she needs to be, but these are her best friends, and suddenly she's exhausted from the weight of keeping this to herself.
She sighs, long and deep, and slumps back in her chair. "Her name is Y/N."
The squeal that Penelope lets out is barely human. JJ's face breaks into a grin so wide it must hurt.
"Her?" Penelope gasps. "Oh my god, her? Tell us everything. Right now. Every single detail."
"There's not much to tell," Emily protests, but she can feel her cheeks warming.
"Lies," JJ says cheerfully. "Start from the beginning. How did you meet?"
Emily knows resistance is futile. She takes a breath and begins. "Coffee shop. About a month ago. We reached for the same pastry."
"That's adorable," Penelope breathes. "Like a meet-cute from a movie. What does she do? What's she like? Have you kissed her? Of course you've kissed her, it's been a month—"
"She's a librarian," Emily interrupts before Penelope can spiral further. "At Georgetown. She's... she's really sweet."
The way Emily says 'sweet' makes JJ's expression soften. "Sweet in a way that scares you," she observes quietly, because JJ has always been able to read Emily better than almost anyone.
Emily looks down at her hands. "She brought me soup when I was sick. She didn't even come in, just... dropped it off. She bakes bread from scratch. She has a cat named Victor Frankenstein. She remembers everything I tell her, even the small stuff. And she's just... she's good. Genuinely good. It's terrifying."
"Oh, Emily," JJ says, and there's so much understanding in those two words that Emily has to blink rapidly.
"How many dates?" Penelope asks, slightly softer now.
"I don't know. We don't really... we just see each other. Get dinner, or she comes over, or I go to her place. We went to a bookstore last weekend and spent three hours there. She bought me a first edition Dickinson and wouldn't let me pay her back."
"You're in deep," JJ observes.
"I'm not—" Emily starts, then stops. "Maybe. I don't know. I'm trying not to think about it too hard."
"Why haven't you told us?" Penelope asks, and there's no accusation in it, just genuine curiosity.
Emily considers the question. "Because telling you makes it real. And if it's real, then it can fall apart. And I don't... I'm not sure I can handle that right now."
"Or," JJ offers gently, "it's real, and it doesn't fall apart, and you get to be happy."
Before Emily can respond, her phone rings. Your name lights up the screen, and Emily's entire demeanor shifts. Her shoulders relax, her expression softens, and Penelope and JJ exchange a look that speaks volumes.
Emily reaches for the phone, then hesitates, glancing at her friends. They're watching her with barely contained glee, and she knows there's no point in asking them to leave.
She answers. "Hey."
"Hey yourself," your voice comes through, warm and slightly apologetic. "I'm downstairs. I think you forgot about lunch?"
Emily's eyes fly to the clock on her computer. 12:45. You were supposed to meet at 12:30, and she was supposed to come down, but she got so caught up in being interrogated that she completely lost track of time.
"Shit," she mutters. "I'm sorry, I got caught up in—"
"It's okay," you interrupt, and you sound like you mean it. "I know you're busy. I can just head back, we can reschedule—"
Emily looks at Penelope and JJ, who are both leaning forward in their seats like they're watching the season finale of their favorite show. She thinks about keeping you separate, keeping this thing precious and private and protected. Then she thinks about what JJ said, about being happy, about things not falling apart.
She takes a breath.
"Do you want to come up, actually?"
There's a pause on the other end of the line. "Up? To... to your office?"
"Yeah. If you want. No pressure."
"Are you sure?" You sound nervous, which makes Emily smile despite herself.
"I'm sure. Sixth floor. I'll let security know you're coming."
"Okay," you say, and Emily can hear the smile in your voice. "Okay, I'll be right up."
Emily hangs up and immediately looks at Penelope, who has her hand literally pressed over her mouth, her eyes wide and sparkling. "If you scream—" Emily warns.
Penelope makes a muffled sound that might be a squeal, might be a squeak, might be both. JJ is grinning so hard she looks like the Cheshire Cat.
"Be normal," Emily pleads, standing up to smooth down her shirt, then immediately feeling ridiculous for doing so. "Please, both of you, be normal human beings."
"We're always normal," Penelope protests, finally removing her hand from her mouth. "We're the most normal. I'm going to be so normal she won't even believe it."
"That's not reassuring."
"What's she look like?" JJ asks. "Wait, don't tell me. I want to be surprised."
Emily paces behind her desk, suddenly nervous in a way she hasn't been since she was a teenager. "Maybe this was a mistake. I should call her back, tell her—"
"Don't you dare," Penelope interrupts. "You invited her up. She's coming. We're going to meet the woman who made Emily Prentiss smile at her phone during a briefing, and it's going to be wonderful."
There's a soft knock at the door, and Emily's heart does something acrobatic in her chest. She crosses the room and opens it, and there you are.
You're wearing jeans and a soft green sweater that brings out your eyes, your hair slightly windblown, and you're holding two paper bags that smell like the Italian deli three blocks over. When you see Emily, your whole face lights up in a way that makes Emily forget, just for a moment, that there are two profilers watching this entire interaction with rapt attention.
"Hi," you say softly.
"Hi," Emily echoes, and she can't help it, she smiles, real and genuine and completely unguarded.
"I brought lunch," you continue, holding up the bags. "I got your usual, and I wasn't sure if you'd eaten, so I got extra in case...." You trail off as you notice Penelope and JJ for the first time. "Oh. You have company. I'm sorry, I should have—"
"No," Emily says quickly, stepping back to let you in. "No, it's fine. This is... these are my best friends. Penelope Garcia and Jennifer Jareau. They were just... we were just..."
"Interrogating her about you," Penelope finishes cheerfully, standing up and extending her hand. "Hi. I'm Penelope. I've heard absolutely nothing about you until fifteen minutes ago, but I already love you because you make Emily smile like that."
You shake her hand, looking slightly overwhelmed but charmed. "Y/N. It's nice to meet you."
"JJ," JJ introduces herself, also standing to shake your hand. "And ignore Penelope. We're not usually this intense."
"Yes we are," Penelope corrects. "But only because we care."
You look at Emily, who shrugs helplessly. "I told you about them," she says, and you laugh. That soft, genuine laugh that Emily has become slightly addicted to over the past month.
"You did," you agree. "The tech analyst and the one who saved you from a burning building. You didn't mention they were ambush specialists."
"It's a secondary skill set," JJ says, and Emily can see her doing what she always does, assessing, analyzing, forming opinions. But there's warmth in her eyes, approval, and Emily feels something tight in her chest loosen slightly.
"We were just leaving," Penelope announces, grabbing JJ's arm. "Leaving you two to have lunch. Alone. In private."
"We were?" JJ asks, then catches Penelope's meaningful look. "Right. Yes. We were. Lots of work to do. Cases to solve. Bad guys to catch."
They move toward the door, but Penelope pauses, turning back to you. "It was really nice to meet you, Y/N. I hope we see you again soon."
"Me too," you say, and you sound like you mean it.
When they're gone, the door clicking shut behind them, you turn to Emily with raised eyebrows. "So. That happened."
"I'm sorry," Emily says. "They cornered me, and then you called, and I just—"
"Emily," you interrupt, setting the lunch bags down on her desk and crossing to where she's standing. "It's okay. I'm glad I got to meet them. They clearly care about you a lot."
"They're going to tell everyone," Emily warns. "By the end of the day, the entire team will know."
You step closer, and Emily can smell your perfume. Something light and floral that she's come to associate with safety, with softness, with things that don't hurt. "Is that okay?" you ask quietly. "Me being... something people know about?"
Emily looks at you, really looks at you. At the hope in your eyes, the vulnerability, the way you're trying to seem casual about this when she knows it matters to you. She thinks about all the reasons she's kept this quiet, kept you separate, kept herself protected. And then she thinks about what it felt like to say your name out loud to her best friends, to stop hiding something that makes her happy.
"Yeah," she says, and means it. "Yeah, it's okay."
Your smile could power the entire building. "Good. Because I brought you the carbonara you like, and it's getting cold."
You eat lunch in her office, you sitting in one of the chairs across from her desk, Emily in her usual spot, and you tell her about your morning. A story about a patron who tried to check out seventeen books on beekeeping and got into an argument with the automated system. Emily tells you about the paperwork she's been drowning in, and you listen like it's the most interesting thing you've ever heard.
When you leave, forty-five minutes later, you kiss her at the door, brief and sweet and completely chaste, but it still makes Emily's skin warm. "Text me later?" you ask.
"I will," Emily promises.
She watches you walk down the hallway toward the elevators, and she's so distracted that she doesn't notice Penelope's head popping out of her office until she hears, "She's perfect. You're keeping her. This isn't a discussion."
Emily turns to find not just Penelope, but also JJ, Tara, and Alvez all standing in the hallway, various degrees of smugness on their faces.
"Really?" Emily asks. "All of you?"
"Garcia sent a 911 text," Alvez explains, grinning. "Said there was a development in the 'Emily's Secret Life' case."
"I hate all of you," Emily says, but there's no heat in it.
"You like her," Reid observes. "Your pupils are dilated, you're smiling, and you've touched that necklace twelve times in the last minute."
"I'm a profiler, Reid. I know what I'm feeling."
"And what are you feeling?" JJ asks, softer now, the teasing edge gone from her voice.
Emily looks down the hallway where you disappeared, then back at her team, her family, if she's being honest. "Terrified," she admits. "But... good. I'm feeling good."
"She brought you lunch," Penelope sighs dreamily. "And she has a cat named Victor Frankenstein. And she bakes bread. Emily, if you don't marry her, I will."
Tara claps Emily on the shoulder. "Happy for you, Prentiss. She seems great. Little young for you, maybe—"
"She's thirty-four," Emily interrupts. "That's not that young."
"Defensive about your girl," Alvez notes with a grin. "Noted."
They drift back to their respective desks eventually, but not before extracting a promise from Emily to bring you to the next team dinner. Emily agrees, mostly to get them to leave her alone, but also because the idea doesn't fill her with quite as much dread as it might have a few hours ago.
Back in her office, Emily sits down at her desk and sees that you've left a note on one of the napkins from lunch. It's simple, just a few words in your careful handwriting: Thank you for letting me in.
Emily reads it three times, then carefully folds it and tucks it into her wallet, right next to the first napkin you ever wrote your number on.
Her phone buzzes. A text from you: Your friends are lovely. Penelope already found me on Instagram and liked 7 photos. Should I be concerned?
Emily laughs out loud, alone in her office, and types back: That's actually showing restraint for her
Three days later, you're standing outside Emily's apartment with a bottle of wine and a container of tiramisu from the Italian bakery near your place. Your heart is doing something complicated in your chest. Not quite racing, but not quite steady either.
You knock, and the door opens almost immediately. Emily's in jeans and a soft gray sweater, her hair down and slightly damp like she's recently showered. She looks younger like this, more relaxed, and the smile she gives you is warm and unguarded.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi." You hold up the wine and dessert. "I come bearing gifts."
"You didn't have to do that." But she's already stepping aside to let you in, and when you pass her in the doorway, you catch the scent of her perfume mixed with something cooking. Garlic, maybe, and tomatoes.
Emily closes the door behind you and takes the wine from you, fingers brushing yours. "Make yourself comfortable. Dinner's almost ready."
You follow her into the kitchen, which is small but efficient, and watch as she stirs something in a pot on the stove. "What are we having?"
"Pasta puttanesca. It's one of the few things I can make without burning down the building." She glances over her shoulder at you. "I hope that's okay."
"It's perfect."
And it is. The dinner is simple but delicious, and you eat at her small dining table with candles she lit without making a big deal about it. The conversation flows easily—you tell her about a difficult student you're working with, and she tells you about a case that's been keeping her up at night. Not the details, never the details, but enough that you understand the weight she carries.
"Do you ever get used to it?" you ask quietly. "The things you see?"
Emily's quiet for a moment, twirling pasta on her fork. "No," she says finally. "But you learn to carry it differently. You learn to find the good things and hold onto them."
The way she looks at you when she says it makes your breath catch.
After dinner, you insist on helping with the dishes despite her protests. You end up standing side by side at the sink, her washing and you drying, and it feels absurdly domestic in a way that makes your chest ache. Emily's shoulder bumps against yours as she hands you a plate, and neither of you moves away.
"This sweater looks good on you." Emily says softly.
You set the plate down on the counter, blushing a tad, "Thank you Emily."
When the dishes are done, you migrate to the couch with the tiramisu and two forks. Emily pours you both wine, and you end up sitting closer than strictly necessary, your thigh pressed against hers. The conversation shifts to lighter things, books you've both read, places you want to travel, the ridiculous names Penelope has apparently given to all her computers.
"She calls one of them 'The Oracle,'" Emily says, shaking her head. "I don't ask questions anymore."
You laugh, and Emily watches you with something soft in her expression. "What?" you ask.
"Nothing. I just—" She sets her wine glass down on the coffee table. "I'm really glad you're here."
"Me too."
There's a moment where neither of you moves, where the air between you feels charged with possibility. Then Emily reaches up, her hand cupping your cheek, and leans in.
The kiss is soft at first, tentative, like she's giving you room to pull away. But you don't. You lean into it, your hand finding the back of her neck, and the kiss deepens. She tastes like wine and something sweeter, and when she pulls back just enough to rest her forehead against yours, you're both breathing a little harder.
"You're terrifying," Emily whispers.
You blink, pulling back just enough to see her face. "What?"
"You're terrifying," she repeats, and there's something raw in her voice. "The way you make me feel. How easy this is. How much I want—" She stops, shakes her head. "It's terrifying."
You can't help the small smile that tugs at your lips. "I'm the least scary person alive."
Emily laughs, the sound soft and a little breathless. "That's what makes it worse." Her thumb brushes across your cheekbone. "You're not supposed to be this easy to fall for."
Your heart does something complicated in your chest. "Who says there are rules?"
"Fair point." Emily kisses you again, slower this time, deeper, and when she pulls you closer, you go willingly.
When you finally break apart, you're half in her lap, her hands steady on your waist. "Stay," she says quietly. "I mean—not like that, unless you want to, but just—stay. A little longer."
"Okay," you say, and settle against her side, her arm around your shoulders. "I can do that."
You stay until the candles burn low and the wine bottle is empty, talking and kissing and existing in the quiet comfort of each other's presence. And when you finally do leave, well past midnight, Emily walks you to the door and kisses you one more time.
"Text me when you get home," she says.
"I will."
"And maybe—" Emily hesitates, then pushes forward. "Maybe we could do this again? Soon?"
You smile, reaching up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'd really like that."
The next day, Emily makes it through her last meeting on autopilot. She's supposed to be reviewing case files, but all she can think about is the way you looked in her apartment, that stupid sweater, the taste of wine on your lips.
The second the meeting ends, she's out of her chair and heading straight for Garcia's office. She spots JJ in the hallway and grabs her arm without breaking stride.
"Garcia's office. Now."
JJ's eyebrows shoot up. "What—"
"Now, JJ."
Penelope looks up from her screens when they burst through the door, Emily closing it firmly behind them. "Well, well, well. To what do I owe this dramatic entrance?"
Emily paces the small space between the desk and the wall of monitors. "I'm in so deep."
"We know," JJ says, leaning against the desk with a knowing smile.
"No, you don't understand." Emily runs a hand through her hair. "No one makes me nervous. I've gone undercover with terrorists. I've stared down serial killers. But last night I hesitated. Me. I hesitated before kissing her because I was nervous."
Penelope's face softens into something unbearably fond. "Oh, honey."
"That's actually really sweet," JJ adds.
"It's terrifying," Emily corrects, but there's no heat in it. "I said she was terrifying and she laughed because—" she chuckled one, panicked, "God, she has no idea."
"So what are you going to do about it?" Penelope asks.
Emily stops pacing. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," JJ says slowly, like she's explaining something to a child, "are you going to keep having these perfect dates and pretending this is casual, or are you going to actually do something about it?"
"We're... I mean, we're seeing each other."
"Seeing each other," Penelope repeats flatly. "Emily Prentiss, I have seen you take down unsubs twice your size without blinking, and you can't even define this relationship?"
"I'm not—it's not that I can't—"
"Ask her to be your girlfriend," JJ says simply.
Emily's mouth opens. Closes. "I—"
"Your what?" Penelope prompts, grinning now.
"My girl—" Emily actually stutters over the word. "My girlfriend."
"Oh my God," JJ says, delighted. "You can't even say it."
"I can say it!" Emily protests. "Girlfriend. See? Girlfriend."
"Then go say it to her," Penelope says, shooing her toward the door with both hands. "Go! Right now!"
"I can't just show up at her job—"
"Yes, you can," JJ says, and physically pushes Emily toward the door. "You absolutely can. In fact, you're going to."
"But I—"
"No buts." JJ opens the door and gives Emily one more gentle shove. "Go get your girlfriend, Prentiss."
Emily stumbles into the hallway, turns back to argue, but JJ and Penelope are both making shooing motions, their faces bright with encouragement and barely suppressed laughter.
"You're both terrible," Emily says, but she's already pulling out her phone to text you.
"We're the best friends you've ever had!" Penelope calls after her.
Emily doesn't argue. She's too busy typing: Are you free? I need to ask you something.
Your response comes almost immediately: I'm always free for you.
And Emily, despite her nerves, despite the way her hands are shaking slightly, can't help but smile as she heads to gather her stuff.
The Georgetown library is quieter than Emily expected for a Thursday afternoon. Her footsteps echo too loudly on the marble floors as she makes her way through the main reading room, past students hunched over laptops and ancient texts. She's been here before, picked you up once after a late shift, but today everything feels different. More significant.
She practiced what she was going to say three times in the car. Then deleted the mental script entirely because it sounded ridiculous. Then tried to reconstruct it. Then gave up.
Your office is tucked away on the third floor, a small space you share with two other archivists. Emily knows you're usually there on Thursdays, cataloging new acquisitions. She also knows she's being slightly insane, showing up unannounced like this, but JJ's voice is still in her head: Go get your girlfriend.
Except you're not her girlfriend. Not officially. That's the whole point of this terrifying mission.
Emily finds your office door half-open, and through the gap she can see you at your desk, completely absorbed in whatever you're examining. The late afternoon light slants through the window, catching in your hair, a pencil tucked behind your ear.
Emily's heart does something complicated in her chest.
She knocks softly on the doorframe.
You look up, and your whole face transforms when you see her. That smile, the one that's just for Emily, the one that makes her feel like she's the only person in the world worth smiling at like that.
"Hey," you say, already standing, already moving toward her. "I didn't think you'd get here so fast. Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine," Emily says quickly. Then, because she's apparently incapable of being normal about this: "Well. Not fine. I mean, nothing's wrong. Everything's good. I just—I needed to—"
She's doing this badly. She's doing this so badly.
You're watching her with that gentle, patient expression that somehow makes Emily feel both more nervous and more safe. "Do you want to come in? Sit down?"
"No. Yes. Maybe." Emily steps into the office and closes the door behind her, which suddenly feels like a very significant action. "I need to ask you something."
"Okay," you say slowly, and there's the tiniest hint of concern in your voice now. "You're kind of freaking me out a little."
"I'm freaking myself out," Emily admits. She runs a hand through her hair, a nervous gesture she can't seem to stop. "This is—I had a whole thing planned. What I was going to say. But it all sounded wrong, and now I'm just—"
"Emily." You step closer, close enough that Emily can smell your perfume. "Whatever it is, just say it."
Right. Just say it. Like it's that simple.
Emily takes a breath. "I've been thinking about what we're doing. This—us. And I know we've been taking it slow, which is good, that's been good. But I also think—I mean, I know that I—"
She's doing it again. Overcomplicating it.
"I want you to be my girlfriend," Emily says, and the words come out in a rush, inelegant and graceless. "Officially. I want to be able to call you that. I want—I want this to be real. More real. I mean, it's already real, but I want it to be—"
"Yes," you say.
Emily stops mid-ramble. "What?"
"Yes." You're smiling now, that soft, devastating smile that Emily is absolutely not prepared for. "I want that too. I've wanted that."
"You have?"
"Emily." You laugh, and it's the sweetest sound Emily's ever heard. "I've been yours since that first coffee. I was just waiting for you to be ready."
Something in Emily's chest loosens, unfurls. "I'm ready," she says, and she means it. "I'm terrified, but I'm ready."
"You don't have to be terrified." You reach for her hand, lacing your fingers together. "It's just me."
"That's exactly why I'm terrified," Emily says honestly. "Because it's you. Because this matters."
You step closer, until there's barely any space between you. "It matters to me too."
Emily kisses you then, soft and sure, and it feels like sealing a promise. When she pulls back, you're both smiling.
"So," you say, a teasing note in your voice. "Does this mean I get to meet your team officially? As your girlfriend?"
Emily groans. "They're going to be insufferable about this."
"I can handle insufferable."
"You say that now." But Emily's smiling, and she can't seem to stop. "Fair warning: Penelope's probably already done a full background check on you."
"I like Penelope."
"Everyone likes Penelope." Emily squeezes your hand. "I should let you get back to work. I just—I needed to ask. In person."
"I'm glad you did." You kiss her again, quick and sweet. "Even if you did show up looking like you were about to defuse a bomb."
"It felt like defusing a bomb," Emily admits.
"Well, you did it." You walk her to the door, still holding her hand. "Text me when you get back to Quantico?"
"I will." Emily pauses in the doorway, looking back at you. "Hey."
"Yeah?"
"I'm really glad you said yes."
Your smile is radiant. "I'm really glad you asked."
Emily makes it all the way to her car before she texts the group chat: I did it.
The responses are immediate and enthusiastic and exactly what Emily expected. She's still reading through Penelope's string of heart emojis when her phone buzzes with a text from you: For the record, you're the least scary person alive when you're asking someone to be your girlfriend.
Emily laughs, alone in her car, and thinks that maybe she's starting to believe that being vulnerable isn't the same as being weak.
She drives back to Quantico with the windows down and the radio up, and for the first time in a long time, Emily Prentiss lets herself be completely, unreservedly happy.
Emily Prentiss has always prided herself on control, until you walk into the BAU and completely destroy her composure. What starts as an inconvenient crush turns into weeks of pining, an Advil-induced crisis, and JJ's relentless meddling before Emily finally works up the courage to ask for what she wants. Featuring: useless lesbian panic, homemade cookies as a love language, and the entire FBI running a betting pool.
This has the feel of a classic 2020 fanfic and I really love it chat. 4k words
Emily Prentiss prided herself on control. Years in the field, undercover operations that required her to become someone else entirely, high-stakes negotiations where one wrong word could mean the difference between life and death. She'd mastered the art of keeping her composure. She was cool, collected, unshakeable.
Until you walked into the BAU.
It started innocently enough. Hotch had mentioned they were getting a new team member, someone with an impressive record from the field office in Seattle. Emily had nodded, made the appropriate interested noises, and gone back to her case file. She'd seen plenty of agents come and go over the years. This would be no different.
Except it was different. Completely, utterly, devastatingly different.
You'd walked in on a Tuesday morning, and Emily had glanced up from her desk at the sound of Hotch's voice doing introductions. That glance had turned into a stare she'd had to physically force herself to break. You were beautiful, yes, but it wasn't just that. There was something about the way you carried yourself. Confident but not cocky, warm but professional, with an easy smile that made her stomach do an unfamiliar flip.
"Everyone, this is our new agent," Hotch had said, and you'd waved, a little awkward, a little endearing.
"Hi, I'm really excited to be here," you'd said, and your voice had washed over Emily like warm honey.
She was so fucked.
"Emily Prentiss," she'd managed, standing to shake your hand. Your grip was firm, your hand warm, and Emily had held on maybe a half-second too long before dropping it like it had burned her.
JJ had noticed. Of course JJ had noticed. Her best friend had a sixth sense for this kind of thing, and the knowing smirk she'd shot Emily from across the bullpen had made Emily want to sink through the floor.
That first week, Emily had convinced herself it was just a fleeting attraction. You were new, interesting, and yes, gorgeous, but it would pass. She was a professional. She'd worked with attractive people before. This was no different.
Except you were brilliant. Watching you work your first case with the team, Emily had been struck by your intuition, the way you connected dots others missed, how you handled witnesses with a perfect blend of empathy and authority. You fit into the team dynamic like you'd always been there, trading jokes with Morgan, geeking out over statistics with Reid, matching Garcia's enthusiasm for all things colorful and caffeinated.
And you were kind. So impossibly kind. You remembered that Reid liked his coffee with an obscene amount of sugar, that Morgan was trying to cut back on carbs, that Rossi preferred whiskey cooled. You'd brought in homemade cookies your second week, apologizing that they were "probably terrible" even though they were the best chocolate chip cookies Emily had ever tasted.
Emily had eaten three and then avoided the break room for the rest of the day because she couldn't trust herself not to make a complete fool of herself over baked goods.
By week three, Emily was in trouble. Deep, deep trouble.
She found herself timing her coffee breaks to coincide with yours. She volunteered to partner with you on witness interviews, maybe a little too enthusiastically. She caught herself staring at you during briefings, watching the way you tucked your hair behind your ear when you were concentrating, how you bit your lower lip when you were thinking through a problem.
"You're being obvious," JJ had whispered to her during one such briefing, and Emily had kicked her under the table.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Emily had whispered back, even as her eyes drifted back to you.
"Uh-huh. Sure."
The real crisis came on a Saturday. Emily had been home, supposedly enjoying her day off, but really she'd been thinking about something funny you'd said the day before. You'd been talking about a disastrous first date you'd been on years ago, and the way you'd told the story—self-deprecating and hilarious—had made everyone laugh until their sides hurt.
Emily had picked up her phone. She'd pulled up your contact information. She'd started typing out a message: "Hey, I was just thinking about that story you told yesterday and—"
She'd stared at the unsent message for a full five minutes, her thumb hovering over the send button.
What was she doing? It was Saturday. You weren't on a case. There was no professional reason to text you. If she sent this, it would be obvious. It would be her reaching out just to reach out, just because she wanted to talk to you, just because she'd been thinking about you, which she had been doing almost constantly for three weeks now.
Emily had deleted the message and thrown her phone across the couch like it had personally offended her.
"Get it together, Prentiss," she'd muttered to herself, but her treacherous brain had immediately supplied an image of your smile, and she'd groaned, burying her face in a throw pillow.
Monday morning, JJ had cornered her in the break room before anyone else arrived.
"Okay, we need to talk about your situation," JJ had said, blocking the doorway.
"I don't have a situation."
"Emily. You almost texted her on Saturday." Emily sighed because she knew JJ was right.
"You have a tell. You get this look on your face, like you're fighting an internal battle. You had that look all day Friday." JJ had crossed her arms, her expression softening. "Em, it's okay to like someone."
"I don't—" Emily had started, but JJ had just raised an eyebrow. "Okay, fine. Maybe I find her... interesting."
"Interesting?"
"Attractive."
"Uh-huh."
"Okay, I'm losing my mind. Happy? I can't stop thinking about her. She's brilliant and funny and kind, and she brought homemade cookies, JJ. Homemade. Who does that? And her smile. God, her smile could end wars. I'm completely, utterly gone, and I hate it because I'm supposed to be professional, and instead I'm acting like a teenager with a crush."
JJ had grinned, looking far too pleased with this confession. "So ask her out."
"Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"Because we work together. Because it could make things awkward. Because what if she's not even interested? Because I could ruin the team dynamic. Because—"
"Because you're scared," JJ had said gently.
Emily had opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. Because yes, that was exactly it. She was terrified.
The week had continued, and Emily had tried, really tried, to get her feelings under control. She'd been moderately successful, or at least she'd thought so, until Thursday afternoon.
The team had been in the middle of a particularly grueling case, everyone running on too little sleep and too much coffee. Emily had been at her desk, reviewing crime scene photos for the hundredth time, when she'd heard your voice.
"Emily?"
She'd looked up, and her heart had immediately clenched. You looked exhausted, your usual brightness dimmed by fatigue. But more than that, you looked miserable. Your eyes were slightly unfocused, and you were holding yourself carefully, like movement hurt.
"Hey, are you okay?" Emily had asked, already half-standing.
"I'm fine, just—" You'd winced, pressing your fingers to your temple. "I have the worst headache. I was wondering if you might have any Advil? I ran out, and I already asked Reid but he only has the extra-strength stuff that makes me feel weird, and Morgan's out too, and—" Your voice had been so small, so pitiful, almost apologetic for asking.
Emily had never heard you sound like that before. You were always so upbeat, so positive, even in the worst circumstances. Hearing that thread of pain in your voice, seeing you look so vulnerable, had done something to her chest, made something crack wide open.
"Of course, yeah, let me—" Emily had practically lunged for her bag, digging through it with suddenly clumsy fingers. "I definitely have some. Here, sit down."
You'd sunk into the chair beside her desk with a grateful sigh, and Emily had found the bottle, shaking out two pills and grabbing a water bottle from her desk drawer.
"Here," she'd said, handing them over. Your fingers had brushed hers as you'd taken them, and Emily had felt that touch all the way to her toes.
"You're a lifesaver," you'd said, swallowing the pills. "Thank you so much, Emily. Really."
"It's nothing, don't worry about it." Emily had wanted to reach out, to smooth the furrow between your brows, to do something to ease your pain. Instead, she'd gripped the edge of her desk. "Do you want me to dim the lights? Or I could close the blinds?"
You'd looked up at her with such genuine gratitude that Emily had felt her heart skip a beat. "Would you mind? The fluorescents are killing me."
"Not at all." Emily had immediately moved to close the blinds, then had turned off the overhead lights in their section of the bullpen, leaving just the desk lamps. "Better?"
"So much better." You'd smiled at her, soft and warm despite the pain. "You're the best, you know that?"
Emily had been about to respond when she'd caught sight of JJ watching them from across the bullpen, her expression knowing and amused. JJ had mouthed something that looked suspiciously like "so gone," and Emily had shot her a look that promised retribution.
But JJ wasn't wrong. Watching you curl up in the chair beside her desk, your eyes closed, your breathing evening out as the medication started to work—Emily had felt something settle in her chest, something warm and terrifying and absolutely certain.
She was completely, utterly, irrevocably fucked.
Later that evening, after you'd gone home early at Hotch's insistence (and after you'd thanked Emily three more times for the Advil, each thank you making Emily's heart do increasingly complicated acrobatics), JJ had dragged Emily to a bar near Quantico.
"Okay," JJ had said, sliding a beer across the table. "We're doing this."
"Doing what?"
"You're going to ask her out."
Emily had nearly choked on her drink. "What? No. Absolutely not."
"Emily. I watched you today. You practically melted when she asked you for Advil. Advil. You looked at her like she'd asked you to move mountains, and you were already planning the logistics."
"I was just being helpful—"
"You closed all the blinds and turned off the lights. You gave her your chair. You checked on her every ten minutes. Morgan asked you a direct question about the case and you didn't even hear him because you were too busy making sure she was comfortable."
Emily had buried her face in her hands. "Oh God."
"Yeah. Oh God." JJ had reached across the table, pulling Emily's hands down. "Em, listen to me. Life is short. Our job reminds us of that every single day. You like her. Really like her. And I've seen the way she looks at you—"
"Don't," Emily had said, not daring to hope. "Don't say that unless you're sure."
"I'm sure. She lights up when you walk into a room. She laughs at all your jokes, even the bad ones. She always sits next to you on the jet. She brings you coffee without you asking, and she makes it exactly how you like it." JJ had squeezed her hands. "She likes you too, Em. I'd bet my life on it."
Emily had wanted to believe her. God, she'd wanted to believe her so badly.
"What if I'm wrong? What if I ask and she says no and then everything is awkward and—"
"What if you ask and she says yes?" JJ had countered. "What if you could be happy? Don't you deserve that?"
Emily had thought about your smile. Your laugh. The way you'd looked at her when she'd given you the Advil, like she'd done something heroic instead of just basic human kindness.
"I'm terrified," she'd admitted quietly.
"I know. But you're also brave. You've faced down serial killers and terrorists. You can ask out a girl you like."
"Those things are not equivalent." She pointed at JJ with her bottle.
"Aren't they? You're risking something either way. At least this time, the potential reward is happiness instead of just not dying."
Emily had laughed despite herself. "You make a compelling argument."
"I'm very wise. It's why you keep me around." JJ had grinned. "So? Are you going to do it?"
Emily had taken a long drink of her beer, gathering her courage. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. I'll ask her out."
"Tomorrow?"
"Let's not get crazy. I need to plan what to say."
"Emily—"
"Monday. I'll do it Monday. I promise."
JJ had looked skeptical but had nodded. "Okay. Monday. I'm holding you to that."
The weekend had been torture. Emily had rehearsed what she'd say approximately eight hundred times. She'd changed her outfit four times Monday morning before settling on dark slacks and a burgundy blouse that JJ had once said brought out her eyes. She'd arrived at work early, her stomach a knot of nerves.
And then she'd promptly lost her nerve.
You'd walked in looking beautiful as always, wearing a soft blue sweater that made Emily forget how to form coherent thoughts. You'd smiled at her, waved, called out "Morning, Emily!" in that warm voice, and Emily had managed to wave back before pretending to be very interested in her case files.
"Smooth," JJ had muttered, passing her desk.
"Shut up," Emily had muttered back.
The morning had passed in a blur of paperwork and consultations. Emily had tried to find the right moment, but there was always someone around, always an interruption. By lunch, she'd been ready to give up to try again another day.
But then you'd appeared at her desk, that same smile on your face.
"Hey, want to grab lunch? I'm thinking that Thai place down the street. I'll drive."
Emily's brain had short-circuited. You were asking her to lunch. Just the two of them. This was perfect. This was her chance.
"I—yes. Yeah, that sounds great."
The drive to the restaurant had been easy, comfortable. You'd told her about a podcast you'd been listening to, and Emily had found herself relaxing, laughing at your commentary. This was good. This was normal. She could do this.
They'd ordered and had fallen into easy conversation about the latest case, about Reid's latest obscure fact, about Garcia's new collection of pen toppers.
Emily had been working up her courage, trying to find the right segue, when you'd said something that had made her pause.
"I'm really glad I joined the BAU," you'd said, playing with your napkin. "Everyone's been so welcoming. Especially you."
"Me?"
"Yeah. You've been... really kind. Patient with all my questions, helpful on cases. You made me feel like part of the team right away." You'd looked up at her, and there had been something in your eyes that had made Emily's breath catch. "It means a lot."
This was it. This was her moment.
"I'm glad you're here too," Emily had said, her heart pounding. "You're a great agent. And—" She'd taken a breath. "And I really enjoy spending time with you. Not just at work. Like this. Just... talking."
You'd smiled, soft and a little shy. "Me too."
"So I was wondering—" Emily had forced herself to maintain eye contact, to push through the fear. "Would you want to do this again sometime? Not just lunch. Maybe dinner? Like... a date?"
She'd watched your expression carefully, trying to read your reaction. For a moment, you'd just stared at her, and Emily had felt her stomach drop. She'd misread this. She'd ruined everything. She should have kept her mouth shut—
Then you'd smiled, bright and genuine and absolutely radiant.
"I'd love that," you'd said. "I was actually hoping you'd ask."
Emily had felt relief and joy flood through her in equal measure. "Really?"
"Really. I've kind of had a crush on you since my first day." You'd laughed, a little embarrassed. "I was trying to work up the courage to say something, but you're kind of intimidating, you know. In a good way. In a very attractive way."
Emily had laughed, giddy and disbelieving. "You think I'm intimidating? You're the one who walked in and immediately impressed everyone. I've been a mess for weeks."
"You have not."
"I almost texted you on a Saturday just to talk. I had the message typed out and everything."
Your smile had grown impossibly wider. "Why didn't you?"
"I thought it would be too obvious. That you'd know I was interested and it would be weird."
"Emily," you'd said, reaching across the table to take her hand. "I brought homemade cookies to work, specifically hoping you'd like them. I've been making your favorite coffee every morning. I always sit next to you on the jet. I thought I was being obvious."
Emily had looked down at your hand in hers, marveling at how right it felt. "We're both idiots."
"Apparently. But we're cute idiots?"
"The cutest," Emily had agreed, and had been rewarded with your laugh.
You'd finished lunch in a happy haze, making plans for their date (Friday night, the Italian place Rossi had recommended, seven o'clock). When they'd gotten back to the office, JJ had taken one look at Emily's face and had broken into a huge grin.
"You did it!"
"I did it," Emily had confirmed, unable to stop smiling.
"And?"
"She said yes. We're going out Friday."
JJ had hugged her, squealing quietly so as not to attract attention from the rest of the team. "I'm so proud of you! I knew she liked you back."
"You were right. About everything."
"I usually am. You should listen to me more often."
Emily had been about to respond when you'd walked past, catching her eye and giving her a smile that had made Emily's knees weak. You'd mouthed "Friday" and had given her a little wave before heading to your desk.
Emily had watched you go, still smiling like an idiot.
"You're so gone," JJ had said, amused.
"Completely," Emily had agreed. "Utterly and completely gone."
And for the first time in weeks, that didn't scare her at all.
Friday had arrived both too quickly and not quickly enough. Emily had changed outfits six times, had called JJ in a panic twice, and had nearly canceled three times out of sheer nerves.
But then she'd picked you up at seven, and you'd opened the door wearing a dress that had made Emily forget the English language, and you'd smiled at her like she was the only person in the world, and all the nerves had melted away.
Dinner had been perfect. The conversation had flowed easily, moving from work to hobbies to childhood stories to dreams for the future. You'd shared a tiramisu for dessert, and when your fork had collided with Emily's reaching for the same bite, you'd both laughed, and Emily had insisted you take it.
"We can share," you'd said, and had fed her the bite, your eyes never leaving hers.
Emily had thought her heart might actually burst.
After dinner, they'd walked along the waterfront, the city lights reflecting off the water. It had been chilly, and Emily had offered you her jacket without thinking. You'd accepted it, pulling it around your shoulders, and Emily had felt absurdly pleased seeing you in her clothes.
"I had a really great time tonight," you'd said, stopping to lean against the railing overlooking the water.
"Me too." Emily had moved to stand beside you, close enough that their shoulders brushed. "I'm glad I finally worked up the courage to ask you."
"I'm glad you did too. Though I was about ready to ask you myself if you'd waited much longer."
"Really?"
"Really. JJ told me you were interested, but I wasn't sure if I should believe her or if it was wishful thinking."
Emily had turned to look at you. "JJ told you?"
"Last week. After the Advil incident." You'd grinned. "She said, and I quote, 'Emily is completely gone for you, please put her out of her misery and say yes if she ever gets brave enough to ask you out.'"
"I'm going to kill her," Emily had said, but she'd been smiling.
"Don't. She's a good friend. To both of us." You'd turned to face her fully, and in the glow of the streetlights, she looked almost ethereal. "Can I tell you something?"
"Anything."
"That day I asked you for Advil? I actually had some in my bag. I'd just taken some an hour before, but I wanted an excuse to talk to you. To see if you'd... I don't know, care, I guess. And you did. You cared so much, more than I expected. You took care of me, and it made me feel..." You'd trailed off, looking a little embarrassed.
"Feel what?" Emily had asked softly.
"Special. Like I mattered to you. Like maybe JJ was right and you did like me back."
Emily had reached out, gently tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "You do matter to me. So much. More than I probably should admit on a first date."
"I don't think there are rules about that," you'd said, leaning into her touch. "Not for us."
"No?"
"No. I think we make our own rules."
Emily had cupped your face, her thumb brushing across your cheekbone. "Can I kiss you?"
"Please," you'd breathed, and Emily had closed the distance between them.
The kiss had been soft at first, tentative, learning. But then you'd made a small sound and had pressed closer, your hands coming up to rest on Emily's waist, and the kiss had deepened, becoming something more. Emily had felt it all the way to her toes, warmth spreading through her chest, and she'd thought that this, this was what all those love songs were about.
When they'd finally pulled apart, both slightly breathless, you'd smiled at her, and Emily had been struck by how happy you looked, how right this felt.
"So," you'd said, your voice a little unsteady. "Second date?"
Emily had laughed, pressing her forehead to yours. "Definitely. How about tomorrow?"
"Eager, are we?"
"Completely. Is that okay?"
"It's more than okay. It's perfect."
She kissed you again, and again, and by the time Emily had driven you home, they'd made plans for the next three dates and had already established that this was something real, something worth pursuing.
At your door, you'd kissed her one more time, slow and sweet.
"Thank you for tonight," you'd said. "For being brave enough to ask me out."
"Thank you for saying yes. For being patient while I figured out how to be brave."
"Always." You'd squeezed her hand. "Text me when you get home?"
"I will."
Emily had waited until you'd gone inside, had driven home in a daze of happiness, and had immediately called JJ.
"So?" JJ had answered on the first ring.
"It was perfect. She's perfect. I'm—" Emily had laughed, giddy and disbelieving. "I'm so happy, JJ."
"Good. You deserve it. Both of you do." There had been a smile in JJ's voice. "I told you she liked you back."
"You did. You were right. Thank you. For pushing me, for believing in me."
"That's what best friends are for. Now go to bed. You have a second date to prepare for."
"It's tomorrow."
"I know. She told me. You two are adorable and I'm never going to let you forget that I made this happen."
"We would have figured it out eventually."
"Maybe. But I sped up the process. You're welcome."
Emily had laughed, said goodnight, and had floated to bed, her phone already lighting up with a text from you.
You: Already missing you. Is that too much for a first date?
Emily: Not at all. I'm missing you too. Can't wait for tomorrow.
You: Me neither. Sweet dreams, Emily.
Emily: Sweet dreams Princess.
Emily had fallen asleep with a smile on her face, her heart full, thinking that falling for you had been the easiest and best thing she'd ever done.
And on Monday, when they'd walked into work together, coffee in hand and matching smiles on their faces, the team had taken one look at them and had erupted in cheers and knowing looks.
"Finally!" Garcia had shouted, rushing over to hug you both. "I've been running a betting pool and I just won two hundred dollars!"
"You've been betting on us?" Emily had asked, torn between amusement and exasperation.
"Honey, the entire FBI has been betting on you two. You were so obvious it was painful."
Morgan had clapped Emily on the shoulder. "Happy for you, Prentiss. You too," he'd said to you.
Rossi had simply smiled and said, "About time."
And Hotch, ever professional, had simply nodded and said, "Congratulations. Try to keep the PDA to a minimum in the office."
"Yes, sir," you'd both said, then had looked at each other and had burst out laughing.
JJ had pulled Emily aside later, her expression smug.
"So. I was right."
"You were right," Emily had agreed. "I don't know if I would have done it without you pushing me."
"Yes, you would have. Eventually. You're brave, Em. You just needed to remember that." JJ had hugged her. "I'm really happy for you. She's great."
"She really is." Emily had looked over at you, watching as you laughed at something Garcia was saying, and had felt that now-familiar warmth in her chest. "I'm so gone for her, JJ."
"I know. But the good news is, she's just as gone for you."
And she was. Over the following weeks and months, Emily had learned just how true that was. You'd learned each other's quirks and habits, had navigated the challenges of dating while working together, had built something real and solid and beautiful.
You'd been there for each other through hard cases and harder days. You'd celebrated victories and mourned losses. You'd learned that you both hogged the blankets, that Emily was grumpy before coffee and you were a morning person, that you both loved old movies and terrible puns and lazy Sunday mornings.
Emily had learned that falling for you had been inevitable from the moment you'd walked into the BAU. But staying fallen, building a life together, choosing each other every day—that was the real gift.
And it had all started with Advil and a pitiful voice and JJ's meddling and Emily finally being brave enough to take a chance on happiness.
She'd never been more grateful to be so completely, utterly, wonderfully fucked.
Your little slip of the tongue makes her mind start spinning. Something she's already wanted but now, you've asked for it.
Happy Kinktober my hoes <3
The case files were stacked three deep on the conference table, and you'd been at this for hours. Emily was theorizing about the unsub's pattern—something about lunar cycles and victim selection that was making your head spin.
"So you're saying he picks victims based on the moon?" you asked, leaning back in your chair.
"I'm saying there's a correlation we should consider—"
"Oh gag me," you said, the words coming out more playful than dismissive as you rubbed your temples. "That's the most Reid thing you've ever said."
The room went quiet. You looked up to find Emily staring at you, something shifting in her expression—a flicker of heat quickly masked by professionalism. Alvez smirked from across the table.
"I mean—the theory. The theory is very Reid-like," you backpedaled, feeling your face flush.
Emily's lips curved slightly. "Noted." But her eyes held yours a beat too long before she turned back to the files.
Emily's eyes had an extra sparkle in them when she sat down for dinner, tossing her hair over her shoulder, hand delicately wrapped around her wine glass. You raised a brow but said nothing as you slid her plate in front of her.
Settling across from her, she thanked you for cooking and eyed you as you sat. Oh, so she's planning something. You knew Emily enough to know when she was up to something, when her wheels were turning.
She casually asked about your day as she reached for your hand, fingers gently intertwining with yours. She listened intently, nodding, responding with the same depth, as if she wasn't obviously distracted by an image in her own mind.
As she took the plates to the sink you followed, leaning against the counter and watching her, eyes tight with observation. "You're up to something." She chuckled and washed the dishes silently.
It wasn't until she closed the dishwasher that she answered, "I'm just thinking about something."
You chuckled softly, "Yeah I can tell, what's going on up there?"
She laid the towel on the counter and looked at you. "I wanna try something with you."
"And what might that be?"
Emily introducing something new in the bedroom wasn't a new concept, she wasn't ever shy about it. Casually mentioned during breakfast, while you brushed your teeth, even once in the produce section. So her quietness made you intrigued.
She looked at the floor. "Em I'm not gonna run away because you suggest something, you know this."
Her eyes found yours. "I've been thinking about it since your little incident earlier." She stepped closer. "When you told me to gag you in front of the entire team."
Your stomach flipped. "I didn't mean—"
"I know what you meant." Her voice dropped lower. "But it got me thinking about what it would be like if you actually meant it."
She stepped closer, hand finding your hip, thumb pressing against the bone there. "I've been thinking about it for weeks. The sounds you make when I'm inside you, when you're close." Her voice dropped lower, intimate. "I want to see what happens when you can't make them. When you have to feel everything without being able to tell me about it."
Your chest flushed, heat spreading up your neck. She noticed, of course she did, her free hand coming up to trace the path of color blooming across your skin. "You're thinking about it now."
"I'm always thinking about you," you managed, which pulled a real smile from her, the kind that crinkled the corners of her eyes.
"That's not an answer." She leaned in, lips brushing your ear. "Do you want me to gag you? Want me to take away that control you're always so careful about maintaining?"
Your fingers found the edge of the counter behind you, gripping hard enough that your knuckles went white. Emily's hand on your hip tightened, holding you in place, and you realized you'd been trying to shift away without meaning to. Not from fear, but from the intensity of wanting it, of wanting her to do exactly what she was describing.
"Yes." The word came out rougher than you intended.
She pulled back just enough to look at you properly, searching your face. "You're sure? We can talk about it more, establish—"
"Emily." You cut her off, reaching up to cup her face. "Yes. I want you to."
Something shifted in her expression, that profiler's mask dropping away to reveal pure want. She kissed you then, hard and claiming, tongue sliding against yours in a way that made your knees weak. When she pulled back you were breathing hard, lips already feeling swollen.
"Bedroom," she said, voice carrying that tone you'd learned meant she was done negotiating, done waiting. "Now."
You moved, her hand finding the small of your back as you walked down the hallway. Your mind was racing, imagining what she had planned, what it would feel like to give up that particular piece of control. Emily was always attentive, always watching your reactions, adjusting based on every sound you made. Without those sounds, she'd have to read your body in different ways. The thought made your thighs clench.
She guided you to sit on the edge of the bed, standing between your legs. Her fingers traced your jawline, tilted your chin up so you had to meet her eyes. "I need you to understand something first."
You nodded, trying to focus despite the way her proximity was making it hard to think.
"This is about trust. About you trusting me to read you, to know what you need even when you can't tell me." Her thumb brushed across your bottom lip. "If at any point you need to stop, you tap my arm three times. Hard enough that I'll feel it no matter what we're doing. Can you do that for me?"
"Three times," you confirmed, demonstrating against her forearm. Tap, tap, tap.
"Good girl." The praise made your stomach warm, made you want to earn more of it. She kissed you again, slower this time, thorough. Her hands moved to your shirt, fingers working the buttons with practiced ease. "I'm going to undress you first. Going to take my time with you."
She did exactly that, peeling away each layer of clothing with deliberate care, pressing kisses to newly exposed skin. By the time you were naked and she was still fully clothed, you were already trembling, already desperate for more contact. She pushed you back onto the bed, hands on your thighs spreading them apart.
"Stay just like this," she instructed, stepping back. You watched as she moved to the dresser, opening the drawer where you kept the toys you'd accumulated together. She pulled out something you didn't recognize, black fabric with a buckle. When had she bought that?
She caught your expression and smiled. "I may have done some shopping this week. Wanted to be prepared in case you said yes."
Emily returned to the bed, sitting beside you. She held up the gag, letting you see it properly. It was simple, elegant even, a wide band of soft fabric with a ball in the center. "This is going to go in your mouth. The ball isn't too big, but you'll feel it. You won't be able to talk around it, but you'll be able to breathe fine through your nose. If you need to stop, remember—"
"Three taps," you finished.
"That's right." She leaned down, kissing you once more before bringing the gag to your lips. "Open for me."
You did, letting her slide the ball into your mouth. It pressed against your tongue, foreign and strange, making you immediately aware of every sensation in your mouth. She fastened the buckle behind your head, checking that it wasn't too tight, that your hair wasn't caught. Her fingers lingered at the nape of your neck, gentle despite the dominance of the act.
"How does that feel?" she asked, and you made a sound that was supposed to be "good" but came out muffled and indistinct. The reality of not being able to speak properly hit you then, made your heart rate spike. Emily's hand immediately moved to your chest, palm flat over your racing heart. "Breathe, baby. You're okay. You're doing so well for me."
You focused on breathing through your nose, on the weight of her hand, on the way she was watching you with such intense focus. Gradually your heart rate slowed, and she smiled. "There you go. See? You're perfect."
She stood then, finally starting to undress herself. You watched hungrily as she revealed skin, the curves and planes of her body that you'd mapped with hands and mouth countless times. When she was naked she climbed onto the bed, straddling your hips. The heat of her against you made you moan, the sound strange and muted behind the gag.
"That's what I wanted to hear," she murmured, rolling her hips against you. "Those desperate little sounds you make, all trapped now. You have no idea how hot that is."
Her hands moved over your body, touching everywhere except where you needed her most. She traced your collarbones, palmed your breasts, thumbs circling your nipples until they were hard and aching. Every touch made you want to beg, to tell her what you needed, but all that came out were muffled whimpers and moans.
"You want to tell me something, don't you?" She pinched your nipple, just hard enough to make you arch. "Want to tell me to touch you properly, to stop teasing." Her hand slid down your stomach, fingers dancing along your hip bone. "But you can't. You just have to take what I give you."
Your hands fisted in the sheets, hips trying to lift toward her touch. She pressed you back down with her free hand, holding you in place. "Stay still. Let me explore you the way I want to."
It was torture, exquisite and maddening. She touched you everywhere, kissed a path down your neck to your breasts, sucked marks into your skin that would bloom purple by morning. And through it all you couldn't do anything but make those trapped, desperate sounds, couldn't beg or plead or tell her how much you needed more.
When her hand finally, finally slid between your legs, you nearly sobbed with relief. She groaned at what she found there. "God, you're so wet. Is this all from me teasing you? From not being able to talk?"
You nodded frantically, trying to press into her touch. She allowed it this time, fingers sliding through your wetness, circling your clit with just enough pressure to make you shake. Your hands came up to grip her shoulders, nails digging in.
"That's it," she encouraged, fingers moving in steady circles. "Show me what you need. Your body can tell me everything your mouth can't right now."
She worked you higher, reading every twitch and tremor, adjusting her touch based on how your hips moved, how your breathing changed. It was different like this, more intense somehow. Without the ability to speak you were more in your body, more aware of every sensation. And she was right—she could read you perfectly, knew exactly when to add more pressure, when to ease off.
When she finally slid two fingers inside you, you made a sound that was almost a scream, muffled and raw. She groaned in response, forehead pressing against yours. "You feel so good. So perfect around my fingers."
She fucked you slowly at first, thumb still working your clit, watching your face with that intense profiler focus. You were completely at her mercy, unable to ask for more or tell her to go faster, could only hold onto her and let her take you apart piece by piece.
"I can feel you getting close," she murmured, curling her fingers to hit that spot inside you that made your vision blur. "Can feel you tightening around me. You want to come, don't you? Want me to make you come while you can't even beg for it?"
You nodded desperately, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes from the intensity of it all. She kissed your temple, your cheek, her pace increasing. "Then come for me, baby. Let me feel it."
Her thumb pressed harder against your clit, fingers curling just right, and you shattered. The orgasm hit you like a wave, making your whole body arch and shake. The sounds you made behind the gag were raw and desperate, and Emily swallowed them with her mouth against your neck, working you through it until you were trembling and oversensitive.
She gentled her touch, slowly withdrawing her fingers. You whimpered at the loss, body still twitching with aftershocks. Her hands moved to the buckle of the gag, carefully unfastening it and easing it from your mouth. You worked your jaw, tongue feeling thick and clumsy.
"Hey," she said softly, her fingers gentle as she cupped your face, thumb brushing along your cheekbone. Her eyes searched yours with concern and tenderness. "You okay?"
"Yeah," you managed, your voice rough and breathless, still trying to gather yourself. Your heart was still pounding hard in your chest. "That was... fuck, Em."
She smiled, looking both pleased and a little smug, that satisfied glint in her eyes that you'd come to know so well. A strand of hair fell across her flushed face. "Good?"
"So good." You reached up and pulled her down into a kiss, deep and slow and grateful, pouring everything you couldn't quite put into words into the press of your lips against hers. Your fingers tangled in her hair as you held her close, not wanting to let go just yet.
She collapsed beside you, both of you breathing hard, skin flushed and damp with sweat. She pulled you close, pressing kisses to your forehead, your temple, anywhere she could reach.
"So," she said after a moment, voice lazy and satisfied. "We're definitely doing that again."
You laughed, the sound bright in the quiet room. "Yeah. Definitely."
She traced patterns on your shoulder, fingers light and soothing. "Thank you for trusting me with that. For letting me try it with you."
You turned to look at her, seeing the vulnerability beneath the confidence. "Always, Em. I'll always trust you."
She kissed you then, soft and sweet, and you settled into her arms, body still humming with satisfaction, mind already wondering what she might suggest next.
this one came from a place of real longing. not the sad kind, but the kind that makes you understand what you actually want. after my own breakup, i found myself thinking a lot about the small, specific things: making coffee for two, reaching for someone in the dark. the way love isn't just the big moments but the quiet ones. the way sharing a space with someone changes everything.
i wanted to write about that ache, but also about what it means to choose to be vulnerable with someone. to say "i miss you" and have them actually hear it. to let yourself need someone without apologizing for it.
3k words
The apartment had never felt so empty.
You stood in the doorway of the bedroom, staring at the perfectly made bed, Emily's side still tucked in exactly as you'd left it five days ago. The morning light filtered through the curtains, casting soft shadows across the duvet, and you felt that familiar ache settle deep in your chest.
This was supposed to get easier. That's what you'd told yourself when you'd moved in three months ago, when Emily had helped you carry boxes up the stairs, when you'd laughed together trying to figure out where all your books would fit alongside hers. Living together was supposed to make things better, simpler. You'd have a home base together, a shared space that was yours and hers, a place where you both belonged.
But nobody had warned you about this part.
Nobody had told you that living together would make her absence feel so much more profound. That you'd wake up reaching for her and find only cold sheets. That you'd make coffee for two out of habit and then stare at the extra mug like it had personally betrayed you. That the silence in the apartment would feel so loud it made your ears ring.
Before you'd moved in, Emily being away on cases had been normal. Expected. You'd had your own apartment, your own routine, your own life that continued whether she was there or not. You'd miss her, of course, god you'd miss her, but there was a certain distance to it. She'd text you updates when she could, call you late at night from some hotel room in a city you'd never been to, and you'd fall asleep to the sound of her voice promising she'd be home soon.
But now? Now you came home to the apartment you shared, and everywhere you looked there were reminders of her. Her jacket draped over the back of the chair. Her books on the nightstand. The coffee mug she'd used the morning before she left, still sitting in the dish rack because you couldn't bring yourself to put it away. The faint scent of her perfume lingering in the bathroom.
You were surrounded by Emily, and yet she wasn't here.
The bed was the worst part. You'd gotten used to sleeping next to her, to the warmth of her body beside you, the steady rhythm of her breathing, the way she'd unconsciously reach for you in the middle of the night. Now the bed felt too big, too cold, too empty. You'd tried sleeping on your side, on her side, diagonally across the middle, nothing felt right. Nothing filled the Emily-shaped absence that seemed to permeate every inch of the mattress.
You'd known dating an FBI agent would be hard. Emily had been upfront about that from the beginning, had given you every opportunity to walk away before you got in too deep. But you'd fallen for her anyway; for her sharp wit and her soft heart, for the way she could read a room in seconds but still looked at you like you were the most fascinating person she'd ever met, for her strength and her vulnerability and the way she trusted you with both.
You'd thought you understood what you were signing up for. And maybe you had, back when you had separate apartments and separate lives that intersected when they could. But this, living together, building a life together, and then having her ripped away for days at a time, this was different. This was harder than you'd anticipated.
The first night she'd been gone, you'd been fine. You'd ordered takeout, caught up on the show you'd been watching, gone to bed at a reasonable hour. The second night, you'd felt her absence more keenly, but you'd managed. You'd called your best friend, taken a long bath, read until your eyes grew heavy.
By the third night, you were unraveling. You'd put on one of Emily's hoodies, the soft gray one she wore around the apartment on lazy Sundays, and curled up on the couch. Breathing in the faint scent of her that still clung to the fabric, it helped some. You'd tried to read, tried to watch TV, tried to do anything to distract yourself from the gnawing loneliness that had taken up residence in your chest.
The fourth night, you'd slept in her hoodie, clutching her pillow to your chest like a lifeline.
And now it was the sixth day, and you were getting ready for work, moving through the apartment like a ghost haunting her own life. You'd texted Emily good morning like you did every day she was away, not expecting a response, she was usually busy, deep in the case, her mind a thousand miles away from domestic concerns. Yesterday was a quieter day from her giving you both: hope she was getting close, and made the day feel degrundedly long.
Your phone buzzed just as you were pouring your coffee.
Emily: Good morning, beautiful. Case wrapped up late last night. Flying home this morning. Should be back by noon.
Your heart leapt into your throat. You read the message three times, making sure you weren't imagining it, that your sleep-deprived, Emily-starved brain wasn't playing tricks on you.
You: Really? You're coming home today?
Emily: Really. We're driving to the jet now. Can't wait to see you.
You: I'm so glad you're safe. I missed you.
Emily: Missed you too. More than you know.
You wanted to call in sick to work. Every fiber of your being was screaming at you to stay home, to be there when Emily walked through the door, to throw yourself into her arms and not let go for at least a week. But you'd already taken a personal day last month, and you had a meeting this afternoon that you couldn't miss, and you were trying so hard to be the kind of partner who didn't fall apart every time Emily left for a case.
So you took a deep breath, finished your coffee, and texted her back.
You: I have to go to work, but I'll be home by 6. Please get some rest. I love you.
Emily: I love you too. See you tonight.
The workday was torture.
You'd thought knowing Emily was home would make it easier, but it was somehow worse. She was there, in your apartment, probably exhausted and jet-lagged, and you were stuck in an office pretending to care about quarterly reports and budget projections. You checked your phone obsessively, even though Emily was probably sleeping. You watched the clock like it held the secrets of the universe. You counted down the hours, then the minutes, until you could leave.
Your coworker asked if you were feeling okay. You lied and said you were fine, just tired. She gave you a knowing look but didn't push.
The meeting ran long, of course. Because the universe had a sense of humor and apparently enjoyed watching you suffer. By the time you finally, finally escaped the office, it was nearly six-thirty, and you practically ran to your car.
The drive home felt endless. Every red light was a personal affront. Every slow driver was a test of your patience. You gripped the steering wheel so hard your knuckles turned white, and you had to consciously remind yourself to breathe, to calm down, that Emily was home and safe and waiting for you.
When you finally pulled into your parking spot, you sat in the car for a moment, trying to collect yourself. You didn't want to burst through the door like a crazy person. You didn't want Emily to see how much you'd been struggling, how hard the last five days had been. You wanted to be cool and collected and normal, the kind of girlfriend who could handle her partner's demanding job without falling apart.
But your hands were shaking as you unlocked the apartment door.
The living room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of the lamp in the corner. Emily's go-bag was by the door, her shoes kicked off beside it. The apartment felt different already, warmer, more alive, like it had been holding its breath while she was gone and could finally exhale.
You set your bag down quietly and moved through the apartment, your heart pounding. The bedroom door was ajar, and you could see the soft light from the bedside lamp spilling into the hallway.
And there she was.
Emily was propped up against the headboard, a book open in her lap, her dark hair damp from a recent shower. She was wearing your hoodie, the oversized navy blue one you'd bought on a whim and rarely wore because it was too big even for you. On Emily, it looked perfect. Soft and comfortable and utterly domestic.
She looked up when you appeared in the doorway, and the smile that spread across her face was like coming home.
"Hi," she said softly, setting her book aside.
"Hi," you managed, your voice barely above a whisper.
You didn't trust yourself to say anything else. You didn't trust yourself to move, to speak, to do anything that might shatter the fragile control you'd been maintaining all day. But then Emily held out her hand, and that was all it took.
You moved on autopilot, your fingers fumbling with the buttons of your work blouse. You stripped out of your clothes mechanically—blouse, bra, slacks, underwear—letting them fall to the floor in a heap. You didn't care about being neat or tidy or anything other than getting to Emily as fast as humanly possible.
She watched you with dark, concerned eyes, her hand still extended, waiting.
You climbed onto the bed and into her lap, straddling her thighs, pressing your naked body against her clothed one. You buried your face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of her shampoo, her skin, the faint trace of her perfume. Your arms wrapped around her shoulders, clinging to her like she might disappear if you didn't hold on tight enough.
Emily's arms came around you immediately, one hand splaying across your bare back, the other cradling the back of your head. She held you close, her touch gentle but firm, grounding you in the moment.
"Hey," she murmured against your hair. "Hey, I'm here. I'm home."
You nodded against her neck, not trusting yourself to speak. Your throat felt tight, your eyes burning with unshed tears. You'd been holding it together for five days, and now that Emily was here, now that you were in her arms, everything you'd been suppressing was threatening to overflow.
Emily's hand moved in slow, soothing circles across your back. She didn't push you to talk, didn't ask questions, just held you and let you take what you needed from her presence.
But after a moment, you felt her shift slightly, her hand coming up to cup your cheek, gently encouraging you to look at her.
"Baby," she said softly, her dark eyes searching your face. "Are you okay?"
The concern in her voice, the tenderness in her touch, it was too much. The dam broke.
You felt the first tear slip down your cheek, then another, and then you were crying in earnest, your body shaking with the force of your sobs. You tried to hide your face again, embarrassed by the intensity of your reaction, but Emily wouldn't let you. She held your face in her hands, her thumbs wiping away your tears, her eyes never leaving yours.
"Talk to me," she said gently. "What's wrong? What happened?"
"I'm okay," you insisted, even as tears continued to stream down your face. "I'm okay, I promise. I'm not—I'm not going to run away from you or anything. I'm not going anywhere."
Emily's brow furrowed, confusion and concern warring on her face. "I didn't think you were. But you're clearly not okay. You're crying, sweetheart."
"I know, I know." You took a shaky breath, trying to calm yourself enough to explain. "I'm okay, really. I just—it was different this time. It was harder."
"What was harder?" Emily asked, her voice so gentle it made your heart ache.
"You being gone." The words came out in a rush, like a confession. "I know you have to travel for work. I knew that when we started dating, and I knew it when I moved in. I'm not asking you to change your job or anything like that. But living together, it made it different. It made you being gone feel more... present, somehow."
Emily's expression softened with understanding, but she stayed quiet, letting you continue.
"The apartment felt so empty without you," you said, your voice breaking. "I'd come home and you wouldn't be here, and it was like—like the silence was screaming at me. I'd make coffee and accidentally make enough for two. I'd reach for you in bed and you weren't there. Everything reminded me of you, but you weren't here, and it hurt so much more than it used to."
"Oh, sweetheart," Emily breathed, pulling you closer.
"I'm not trying to make you feel guilty," you said quickly, desperately needing her to understand. "I know your job is important. I know you're out there saving lives and catching bad guys and doing things that actually matter. I'm so proud of you, Emily. I am. But I missed you so much it physically hurt, and I didn't know it was going to be like this."
"I didn't know either," Emily admitted quietly. "I've been doing this job for years, and I've had relationships before, but I've never—I've never lived with someone. Not like this. Not with someone I love this much."
You pulled back slightly to look at her, your vision still blurry with tears. "Really?"
"Really." Emily's hands moved to your waist, her touch warm and reassuring. "I missed you too. Every night in that hotel room, I'd think about you here, in our bed, and I'd wish I could just teleport home. I'd see something during the day, a coffee shop you'd like, or a bookstore, or just a pretty sunset, and my first thought was always 'I wish she was here to see this.'"
"You never said anything," you whispered.
"Neither did you," Emily pointed out gently. "We were both trying to be strong, I think. Trying not to make it harder on each other."
You let out a watery laugh. "That's stupid. We're stupid."
"Maybe a little," Emily agreed, a small smile tugging at her lips. She brushed a strand of hair away from your face, her touch infinitely tender. "But we're learning. This is new for both of us, living together, navigating my job, figuring out how to make this work. We're going to stumble sometimes. That's okay."
"I don't want you to worry about me when you're away," you said. "You need to focus on the case, on staying safe. I don't want to be a distraction."
"You're not a distraction," Emily said firmly. "You're the reason I fight so hard to come home. And I want you to tell me when you're struggling. I want to know what you're feeling, even if I can't fix it right away. We're partners, remember? We're in this together."
You nodded, fresh tears spilling down your cheeks. "I was so scared you'd think I couldn't handle this. That I was too needy or too dependent or—"
"Stop," Emily interrupted gently. "You're not too anything. You're human. You missed your girlfriend. That's not a character flaw, baby. That's just love."
The simplicity of her words broke something open inside you. You collapsed against her again, crying harder now, but it felt different. Cathartic. Like you were finally releasing all the tension and fear and loneliness you'd been carrying for the past five days.
Emily held you through it all, her arms strong and steady around you, her lips pressing soft kisses to your temple, your hair, anywhere she could reach. She murmured soft reassurances, told you she loved you, promised she was here and she wasn't going anywhere.
Gradually, your sobs subsided into hiccups, then into shaky breaths. You felt wrung out, exhausted, but also lighter somehow. Like you'd been carrying a weight you didn't realize was there until Emily helped you set it down.
"Better?" Emily asked softly, her hand still moving in soothing circles across your back.
"Yeah," you said, your voice hoarse. "Sorry. I didn't mean to fall apart on you the second you got home."
"Don't apologize." Emily's hand moved to cup your face again, tilting it up so you had to look at her. Her dark eyes were warm and full of love. "I'm glad you did. I'm glad you're telling me how you feel instead of keeping it bottled up."
"I really did miss you," you said quietly. "So much."
"I missed you too," Emily said. "Every single day. Every single minute."
You leaned in and kissed her, soft and slow and sweet. Emily's lips were warm against yours, her hand cradling the back of your head, holding you close. The kiss tasted like salt from your tears and like coming home and like everything you'd been missing for the past five days.
When you pulled back, Emily was smiling at you, that soft, private smile she reserved just for you.
"Can we talk about this more?" she asked. "About how to make it easier when I have to leave? I don't want you to be miserable every time I go on a case."
"I'd like that," you said. "But maybe tomorrow? Right now I just want to be close to you."
"Tomorrow," Emily agreed. She shifted slightly, adjusting her position against the headboard. "Do you want to put some clothes on? Not that I'm complaining about the view, but you might get cold."
You shook your head, burrowing closer to her. "I'm warm enough. And I like being close to you like this. I feel like—like I need to make up for five days of not being able to touch you."
Emily's expression softened even further, if that was possible. "Okay, honey. Whatever you need."
You settled more comfortably in her lap, your head resting on her shoulder, your arms wrapped around her waist. Emily's hand resumed its soothing motion across your back, and you felt yourself finally, finally starting to relax.
"I love you," you murmured against her neck. "I love you so much, Emily."
"I love you too," Emily said, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "More than I know how to say."
You stayed like that for a long time, wrapped up in each other, the silence no longer oppressive but comfortable. The apartment didn't feel empty anymore. It felt like home again, warm and safe and full of love.
hi cuties! i'm prepping to move cities, training my replacement at work, and spending more time writing my grad application paper. i wanted to write something that spoke to the turmoil that can come with realizing you're gay, something to honor a feeling of us have felt for a long time. happy pride to those in the closet, out of the closet, and between.
When a new CIA-turned-profiler joins the BAU, Emily Prentiss finds herself undeniably drawn to her, a feeling she's spent years denying. As both women spiral through internalized homophobia and family pressure, a brutal case forces them to confront the very identity they've been running from. In an alley outside a bar, Emily gives Reader a choice: love yourself, love me. What follows is a journey toward visibility, acceptance, and the freedom that comes from finally being seen.
TW!!! internalized homophobia and self-hatred, religious trauma and family pressure, homophobic slurs, violence and murder (Criminal Minds case content)
Summer 2009 hits Quantico, Virginia like a fist. The heat radiates off the pavement in visible waves as you step out of the cab, your go-bag slung over one shoulder and a box of personal effects tucked under your arm. The base pulses around you: agents rushing to their assignments, trainees eagerly following mentors, men in suits glaring at people who linger too long, the weight of federal branch still figuring out who it is in this new administration.
You stand outside the FBI Academy Main Building and breathe.
Fresh start. The words taste bitter. Fresh starts are for people who haven't spent three years in the CIA watching their partner make increasingly reckless calls that culminated in a warehouse in Peru and a bullet that missed your femoral artery by two inches. Fresh starts are for people who don't wake up at 3 AM with phantom pain in their leg.
But here you are anyway, externally composed, internally spiraling, trying to convince yourself that the BAU is different. That profiling domestic cases in the continental United States is different. That you can outrun what happened if you run just far enough.
The glass doors of the building loom ahead. You adjust your grip on the box and step inside.
The BAU bullpen looks exactly like Hotch described it, organized chaos with personality bleeding through the professional veneer. You stand at the glass doors taking in the space that's supposed to encourage healing and growth, attempting to find someone who was standing still.
"Agent." Hotch's voice cuts through your spiral. He's standing by his office door, expression neutral but eyes assessing. He's the only one who knows. The only one who read the full file, saw the incident report, understood why you needed out of the CIA and into something that felt less like slowly dying.
You cross to him, and he gestures you into his office. The door clicks shut.
"How are you settling in?"
"I haven't started yet," you say, aiming for light. It falls flat.
Hotch's expression softens almost imperceptibly. "The team is good. They'll welcome you. Give them time to adjust, we don't get new members often."
You nod. Time. You can do time. You've done worse.
"I won't tell them about Peru unless you want me to," he continues. "As far as they're concerned, you're a skilled profiler from the CIA looking for fieldwork that makes a difference."
"That's not entirely untrue."
"No," Hotch agrees. "It's not."
He slides your credentials across the desk, gives you a firm handshake and leads you out to the bullpen. The team is filtering in, it's early, barely seven, but apparently, this is normal. A blonde woman with kind eyes spots you first and breaks into a smile.
"You must be our new profiler!" She crosses to you, hand extended. "Jennifer Jareau, but everyone calls me JJ. I'm the communications liaison."
Her handshake is firm, warm. You introduce yourself and immediately get swept into a round of introductions. Derek Morgan, charming smile, assessing eyes. Spencer Reid, younger than you expected, already rattling off statistics about CIA-to-FBI transfers. Penelope Garcia appears in a blur of color and enthusiasm, pulling you into a hug before you can protest.
"We're so excited to have you! New blood, fresh perspectives, and Hotch says you're brilliant, which is basically like the Pope declaring sainthood because he never compliments anyone—"
"Garcia," Hotch says mildly.
"Right, right, professional boundaries." She beams at you anyway.
You're smiling, actually smiling, when you feel it. The weight of a gaze. You turn and find her.
Emily Prentiss stands by her desk, coffee mug in hand, dark eyes fixed on you with an intensity that makes your breath catch. She's beautiful in a way that feels dangerous to notice. Sharp features, dark hair framing her face, an elegance that speaks to the diplomatic background Hotch mentioned in passing.
"Prentiss," Hotch says, and there's something in his tone you can't quite parse. "This is our new team member."
Emily crosses to you, and you notice she doesn't close the distance the way the others did. She stops just outside comfortable conversation range, extends her hand with professional precision.
"Emily Prentiss." Her voice is cool, controlled. "Welcome to the BAU."
Your hand meets hers, and the contact sends an unexpected jolt through you. Her grip is firm, brief. She releases you quickly, steps back.
"Thank you," you manage. "I've heard good things about the team."
"We do good work." It's not unfriendly, exactly, but it's not warm either. Emily's gaze flicks to Hotch, then back to you. "I'm sure you'll find it different from the CIA."
There's something in the way she says it, not quite dismissive, but close. Like she's already decided something about you and found it wanting.
"I'm looking forward to it," you say evenly.
Emily nods once, then returns to her desk without another word.
JJ appears at your elbow, guiding you toward an empty desk. "Don't mind Emily," she says quietly. "She's not usually like that. She's actually one of the warmest people here once you get to know her."
You glance back at Emily, who's now focused intently on her computer screen, jaw tight.
"I'm sure we'll find our rhythm," you say.
You don't mention the way your palm still tingles from her handshake, or the hollow feeling that settled in your chest when she walked away.
The first case comes three days later. A serial arsonist in Baltimore, victims trapped in their homes. It's brutal, urgent, and exactly the kind of work you joined the BAU to do.
On the jet, you sit across from Reid, who's explaining the psychological profile of arsonists with the kind of enthusiasm that makes you think he's never had a boring thought in his life. Morgan's reviewing crime scene photos. JJ's on the phone with the Baltimore PD. Gideon's reading a book that looks older than you are.
Emily sits at the far end of the cabin, gaze fixed out the window.
You've tried, these past three days. Tried to build rapport, find common ground. You brought her coffee the way you'd seen JJ do it. She thanked you with a tight smile and didn't drink it. You asked her opinion on a case file, she gave you a thorough, professional answer and then found somewhere else to be. You made a joke during a team lunch, everyone laughed except Emily, who barely looked up from her book.
It shouldn't bother you. You're the new person. These things take time.
But it does bother you, in a way that feels disproportionate and uncomfortable. You find yourself watching her when you shouldn't, noticing things you have no business noticing. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she's concentrating. The precise way she handles her weapon. The rare, genuine smile she gives JJ that transforms her entire face.
You want that smile directed at you with an intensity that frightens you.
Professional friction, you tell yourself firmly. Territorial behavior. Perfectly normal for an established team member when someone new arrives.
It has nothing to do with the way your heart rate picks up when she enters a room, or the way you've started timing your coffee breaks to coincide with hers, hoping for a conversation that never quite materializes.
Nothing at all.
The Baltimore case wraps in four days. The unsub is caught, the fires stopped. On the jet home, the team is loose, relaxed. Morgan's teasing Reid about something, JJ's asleep with headphones in, Hotch and Gideon are huddled in a corner, debriefing.
You're reviewing your notes, trying to see where you could have been faster, sharper. The CIA taught you to be good. You need to be better.
"You did well."
You look up. Emily's standing in the aisle beside your seat, expression neutral but not cold. It's the first time she's voluntarily spoken to you outside of case necessity.
"Thank you," you say carefully.
She nods, then moves past you toward the back of the jet.
It's nothing. Barely a sentence. But you turn it over in your mind the entire flight home, examining it from every angle like evidence, trying to understand what it means.
JJ catches you watching Emily's retreating form and gives you a sympathetic smile.
"She'll come around," JJ says quietly. "I promise."
You nod, but you're not sure what you're hoping she'll come around to.
You're not sure you want to know.
The second case is worse than the first.
Three women dead in Austin, all killed in their homes, all staged to look peaceful. Sleeping beauties, the media called them, because the unsub poses them in their beds, hands folded, eyes closed.
It's the kind of case that gets under your skin and stays there.
You're in the precinct conference room at two in the morning, alone with the crime scene photos, when Emily finds you.
"Can't sleep?" she asks from the doorway.
You glance up. She's in jeans and a Georgetown sweatshirt, hair loose around her shoulders. It's the most casual you've seen her, and it does something to your concentration that you firmly ignore.
"Too wired," you admit. "Trying to find the pattern we're missing."
Emily crosses to the board, studies it with those dark, assessing eyes. "The staging bothers you."
It's not a question, but you answer anyway. "He's not just killing them. He's tucking them in. There's care there, even in the violence."
"Remorse," Emily says. "He knows what he's doing is wrong, but he can't stop himself."
"Which makes him more dangerous." You stand, move to the board beside her. You're close enough to smell her perfume, something subtle but heavy. "Because he'll escalate to resolve the cognitive dissonance."
"We need to find him before he does." Emily's gaze flicks to you, and for a moment, something passes between you. Understanding, maybe. Recognition.
Then she steps back, and the moment breaks.
"You should get some sleep," she says, voice returning to that professional distance. "We'll need clear heads tomorrow."
"You're here too," you point out.
"I'm always working." She says it like a confession, then seems to regret it. "Goodnight."
She's gone before you can respond.
You stand in the empty conference room, staring at the space she occupied, and wonder why it feels like she's running from you.
The pattern continues. Emily gives you an inch, a conversation about a case, a moment of shared understanding, once even a genuine laugh at something you said, and then she retreats. Pulls back behind professional courtesy and leaves you wanting.
It's maddening.
Morgan catches you watching Emily across the bullpen one afternoon. He doesn't say anything at first, just sidles up beside you with two cups of coffee, hands you one.
"You good?" he asks casually.
Your heart rate spikes. "Yeah. Fine. Why?"
"Just checking." Morgan takes a sip of his coffee, eyes still on the bullpen. "You've been pretty focused on the Prentiss case file lately."
You frown. "She's a good profiler. I'm trying to learn from her approach."
"Right." Morgan's quiet for a beat. "Look, I'm just going to say this because I think you're solid, and I don't want to see you get blindsided. People notice things. They talk. And in a place like this," He glances around the bullpen, lowers his voice. "You gotta be careful about what people think they're seeing."
Your stomach tightens, but not with recognition, with confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm not trying to start anything," Morgan says quickly. "I'm just saying, be smart. Be careful. Emily's a good agent and a good person, but this job doesn't always make room for—" He stops, seems to reconsider. "Just watch yourself, okay?"
He walks away before you can respond, leaving you standing in the middle of the bullpen with your coffee growing cold in your hands.
You replay the conversation in your head, trying to parse what he meant. People notice things. What things? You're doing your job. You're studying Emily's methods because she's skilled, because you respect her work. That's professional. That's normal.
Isn't it?
The panic that creeps up your spine isn't about being caught, it's about being misunderstood. About Morgan seeing something in your behavior that isn't there, or worse, something you can't quite name. Something you've been rationalizing as professional admiration and competitive focus because anything else is impossible.
Emily's a woman. You're supposed to marry a man. You're supposed to give your parents the life they've been planning for you since birth.
So whatever Morgan thinks he saw, he's wrong.
You just need to prove it.
Three weeks in, you're partnered with Emily for interviews. A case in Denver, witnesses scattered across the city. Hotch splits the team, and somehow you end up in an SUV with Emily, driving to a suspect's workplace in uncomfortable silence.
"Take the next left," Emily says, eyes on the GPS.
You turn, navigate through downtown traffic. The silence stretches.
"Can I ask you something?" The words escape before you can stop them.
Emily's shoulders tense. "Sure."
"Have I done something to offend you?"
She looks at you sharply, bangs bouncing against her forehead. "What?"
"You've been cold since I arrived. Distant. I'm trying to figure out if I did something wrong or if this is just how you are with new people."
Emily's quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is carefully controlled. "You haven't done anything wrong."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Emily." You pull into the parking lot, put the SUV in park, turn to face her. "I'm a profiler. You're a profiler. We both know you're lying."
Her jaw tightens. For a second, you think she might actually answer. Then she opens the door.
"We have an interview to conduct," she says, and that's the end of it.
But during the interview, when the suspect gets aggressive and steps toward you, Emily moves. Positions herself between you and the threat with a speed that speaks to instinct, not thought. Her hand goes to her weapon, voice drops to something dangerous.
"Step back. Now."
The suspect complies. The interview continues. But you can't stop thinking about the way Emily protected you without hesitation, even as she keeps you at arm's length in every other way.
In the SUV afterward, you try again. "Thank you. For that."
"It's my job," Emily says, but her voice is softer than before.
"Is it your job to freeze me out the rest of the time?"
Emily's hands tighten on the steering wheel. "I'm not freezing you out."
"Then what do you call it?"
"I call it maintaining professional boundaries."
"With me specifically, or with everyone?"
Emily doesn't answer. But you see it, the way her throat works, the tension in her shoulders. She's not unaffected. She's not indifferent.
She's scared.
The realization hits you like a physical blow. Emily Prentiss, who faces down serial killers without flinching, is scared of you.
You don't push further. But something shifts between you in that moment, some unspoken acknowledgment that whatever this is, isn't simple professional friction.
It's something else entirely.
Something neither of you is ready to name.
The word enters your head on a Tuesday.
You're in your apartment, alone, staring at your phone. Your mother called earlier, left a voicemail about a man she wants you to meet. "A lawyer, sweetheart. Very successful. Your father and I think you'd like him."
You haven't called her back.
Instead, you're thinking about Emily. About the way she looked at you yesterday when you solved a puzzle in the case that had everyone stumped. Pride, maybe. Or something warmer.
About the way your stomach flips when she smiles.
About the way you've started cataloging details about her like evidence. How she takes her coffee, the books that swap on her desk, the way she worries her bottom lip when she's thinking.
Gay.
The word appears in your mind fully formed, and you immediately shove it away.
No. No. You're not—you've never—
You think about your ex-boyfriends from college. Nice guys. Boring sex. You blamed the boredom on stress, on youth, on anything but the truth.
You think about your parents' expectations. The perfect daughter who would give them perfect grandchildren and a perfect son-in-law and undo all the worry you caused with your "reckless" CIA work.
You think about Emily's hands. Her mouth. The way she'd look at you if you were brave enough to—
No.
You delete your mother's voicemail and go to bed, and you don't let yourself brew over why you can't stop thinking about Emily Prentiss.
Emily is having the same crisis, though she won't admit it.
She's in her apartment, second glass of wine in hand, trying to read a book and failing spectacularly because all she can think about is you.
The way you chewed your pen during the team meeting today. The way you laughed at one of Morgan's jokes, head thrown back, unselfconscious. The way you looked at her when you thought she wasn't paying attention, like you were trying to solve her.
She's been cold to you. She knows it. She hates herself for it.
But the alternative is worse.
The alternative is admitting why her heart races when you enter a room. Why she times her arrivals to the coffee maker to coincide with yours, even though she never lets the conversations go anywhere. Why she lies awake at night thinking about what it would feel like to—
Stop.
Emily drains her wine glass. She thinks about her mother, about the carefully constructed image of the Prentiss family. About the Catholic school she attended, the things the nuns said about people like—
About people who felt things they shouldn't.
She thinks about Josh, her ex-boyfriend who she dated because he was safe and appropriate and she felt absolutely nothing for him beyond mild affection.
She thinks about the women she's noticed over the years, the ones who made her feel too much, and how she's always explained it away as admiration or friendship or anything but the truth.
She thinks about you, and the way you look at her, and how terrified she is that you might see her.
Really see her.
Emily pours another glass of wine and doesn't let herself finish the thought.
The case comes in on a Thursday. Three bodies in Roanoke, Virginia. All men, all killed in their homes, all with evidence of torture before death.
It's brutal. Vicious. Personal.
You're in the conference room when Garcia pulls up the crime scene photos, and even Hotch looks a little pale.
"The unsub spent hours with each victim," Reid says, studying the photos. "The level of torture suggests extreme rage."
"Or self-hatred," Emily says quietly.
Everyone looks at her. She's staring at the board, expression unreadable.
"What do you mean?" Hotch asks.
"The victims are all gay men. Openly gay, active in the community. The unsub isn't just killing them, he's punishing them for something."
"For being gay," you say, and your voice comes out rougher than intended.
Emily's gaze flicks to you, and something passes between you. Recognition. Understanding.
Fear.
"We should consider that the unsub might be closeted," Emily continues, looking back at the board. "Punishing in others what he can't accept in himself. The freedom he won't give himself."
The room is quiet. Then Hotch nods.
"Let's work that angle. Wheels up in thirty."
The case gets worse.
The unsub kills again while you're in Roanoke. A fourth victim, same MO. The torture is escalating.
You're at the crime scene with Emily, and it's bad. The victim is young, mid-twenties, whole life ahead of him. He's been positioned in his living room, surrounded by photos of himself with his boyfriend, with friends at Pride events, living openly and authentically.
The unsub made him look at those photos while he died.
You have to step outside. The air is cold, sharp in your lungs. You're a professional. You've seen worse. But something about this case is getting to you in a way you can't quite articulate.
"Hey."
You turn. Emily's standing in the doorway, backlit by the crime scene lights.
"I'm fine," you say automatically.
"You're not." Emily steps outside, lets the door close behind her. "This case is hard."
"They're all hard."
"Not like this." Emily moves closer, and you can see the strain in her face. She's feeling it too. "This one's different."
"Why?" The question comes out sharper than intended, defensive. "Because the victims are gay?"
Emily flinches. "Because the unsub is killing people for being something he hates about himself. Because every victim is a mirror he's trying to break."
Her voice cracks on the last word, and you realize she's not just talking about the unsub.
"Emily—"
"We should get back inside." She turns away, but you catch her arm.
"Wait."
She freezes. You're touching her, your hand on her forearm, and the contact sends electricity through you. You should let go. You don't.
"This case is getting to you too," you say quietly.
Emily's eyes meet yours, and for a moment, you see everything. The fear, the self-hatred, the desperate longing for something she won't let herself name.
You see yourself reflected back.
"We all have cases that hit harder," Emily says, but she doesn't pull away from your touch.
"Emily," a beg, a plea for a real conversation. For something deeper than professionals who see the worst together.
"We should get back inside," she repeats, and this time you let her go.
But as you follow her back into the crime scene, you can still feel the warmth of her skin under your palm, and you know something has shifted.
You're both drowning, and neither of you knows how to ask for help.
The team catches the unsub two days later. He is a closeted gay man, just like Emily predicted. Married, kids, active in his church. He killed men who had the freedom he didn't he was allowed.
During his confession, he breaks down. "I just wanted what they had," he sobs. "I just wanted to be myself."
You watch Emily's face go pale. She excuses herself, and no one stops her.
Hotch notices how long Emily is gone first. He always does. He finds her in a stairwell on the third floor of the precinct, tucked into the corner like she's trying to make herself invisible.
She's not crying. Emily doesn't cry.
But she's close.
"Emily." Not Prentiss. This isn't a conversation with her boss, but with someone who cares.
She looks up, and Hotch sees it all. The fear, the self-hatred, the desperate exhaustion of someone who's been fighting themselves for too long.
"I can't do this anymore," she says, and her voice breaks.
Hotch sits down beside her on the concrete steps. "Tell me."
And Emily does. It pours out of her, years of shame and fear that she's never spoken aloud.
"I was fifteen," she starts, her voice barely above a whisper. "In Rome. I got pregnant because I wanted to fit in, wanted to be normal, wanted to prove I could be the girl everyone expected me to be." She laughs bitterly. "I went to my priest. I thought— that he'd help me. That the church would be there for me."
Her hands are shaking. "He told me if I got an abortion, I wouldn't be welcome in the church anymore. That I'd be damned. That God would turn his back on me." She swallows hard. "But I did it anyway. My friend Matthew helped me. He took me to the clinic, held my hand, helped me find the courage to walk back into that church afterward even though I knew, I knew, I was wrong. Broken. Sinful."
"Emily—"
"No, you don't understand." Her voice cracks, palms swiping at her thighs. "I've spent my entire life trying to be good enough. Trying to undo that sin, trying to prove I'm not the terrible person they said I was. And I thought—I thought if I just worked hard enough, if I was perfect enough, if I followed all the rules—" She stops, presses her palms against her eyes. "But I can't. Because it's not just the abortion. It's this. It's her."
She drops her hands, and her eyes are wild with panic. "I look at her and I feel—God, I feel everything. And I know what the church would say. What my parents would say. What that priest would say. That this is another sin, another way I'm broken, another reason I don't deserve his grace and love." She sniffles, one last attempt to get it together. Hotch doesn't press.
"I've never felt like this about anyone," Emily continues, and now the tears are coming. "And I hate myself for it. I hate that I can't just be normal, that I can't just want what I'm supposed to want. I hate that every time I look at her, I hear that priest's voice telling me I'm damned.I hate that I'm thirty-six years old and I'm still terrified of a God who was supposed to love me but only ever made me feel like I was wrong."
She's crying now, really crying, hands wiping at her cheeks with vague awareness. "I've been cold to her because I'm terrified. Because if I let myself feel this, if I let myself want her, then I have to admit that everything they taught me was a lie. Or that I'm exactly as broken as they said I was. And I don't know which is worse."
"Emily." Hotch's voice is gentle but firm. "There's nothing wrong with you."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand that you're letting other people's hatred dictate your life. I understand that you're punishing yourself for something that isn't a crime or a sin or anything but human."
Emily's breath hitches.
"You're one of the best agents I've ever worked with," Hotch continues. "You're brilliant, compassionate, brave. You face down killers without flinching. But you're terrified of your own heart."
"I don't know how to not be terrified."
"You start by being honest. With yourself first, then with her."
"What if—" Emily's voice drops to a whisper. "What if I lose everything?"
"What if you gain everything?" Hotch counters. "Emily, I've watched you these past two months. I've seen the way you look at her when you think no one's watching. I've seen the way she looks at you. You're both drowning in denial, and it's destroying you."
"My parents—"
"Your parents don't have to live your life. You do." Hotch pauses. "Do you want to end up like our unsub? So consumed by self-hatred that you destroy yourself and everyone around you?"
"No," Emily whispers.
"Then stop letting fear win. Stop letting other people's prejudice write your story." Hotch stands, offers her his hand. "You deserve to be happy, Emily. You deserve to love and be loved. Not despite who you are, but because of it."
Emily takes his hand, lets him pull her to her feet. She's shaking, but there's something different in her eyes now.
Determination.
"I don't know how to do this," she admits.
"You start by accepting yourself. The rest will follow."
Emily nods slowly. Then, quietly: "I'm gay."
It's the first time she's said it out loud. The words hang in the air between them, terrifying and liberating in equal measure.
"Yes," Hotch says simply. "You are." The beginnings of a prideful smile curling at the edges of his mouth.
Emily starts to cry then, really cry, not the careful tears she's allowed herself before. Hotch pulls her into a hug, and she clings to him like he's the only thing keeping her upright.
"It's okay," he murmurs. "You're okay. I've got you."
They stand there in the stairwell for a long time. When Emily finally pulls back, her eyes are red but clear.
"Thank you," she says.
"Don't thank me. Just be yourself."
Emily nods. She doesn't know how yet, but for the first time in her life, she thinks she might want to try.
The next week is hell.
Emily has accepted herself, said the words, let them be real. But acceptance doesn't erase thirty-plus years of conditioning. It doesn't make the fear disappear.
And watching you is torture.
Because now that Emily's let herself see it, she can't unsee it. The way you look at her when you think she's not paying attention. The way you find excuses to be near her. The way your breath catches when your hands accidentally brush.
You feel it too. Emily doesn't need to ask. She knows.
But she also sees the denial. The way you flinch away from the truth. The way you mention your parents' expectations with a forced brightness that doesn't reach your eyes. The way you're trying so hard to be something you're not.
Emily recognizes it because she lived it. Is still living it, in some ways.
She wants to shake you. Wants to grab you by the shoulders and tell you to stop wasting time, stop hurting yourself, stop letting fear win.
But she can't. Because you have to come to this yourself, the way she did. No one can force you to accept who you are. It doesn't make watching it any easier.
Monday, you mention a guy your mother wants you to meet. You say it casually, like it doesn't matter, but Emily sees the way your hands shake.
Wednesday, the team is sitting around the bullpen doing anything but paperwork. You're laughing at something Morgan said, but it doesn't reach your eyes. Emily watches you from across the office and sees herself seven days ago. Going through the motions, pretending everything is fine, slowly suffocating.
JJ appears at her elbow, a luring smile on her face, "You should talk to her."
"About what?" Emily responds as her brow rose.
"Emily." JJ's voice is gentle. "I'm not blind. Neither is anyone else on this team."
Emily's stomach drops. "I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do." JJ squeezes her arm. "And for what it's worth? We'd all be happy for you. Both of you."
She walks away before Emily can respond, leaving Emily staring into her coffee and wondering when she became so transparent.
Thursday, you're partnered with Emily for interviews again. You're professional, competent, everything you should be.
But in the car, you're quiet. Withdrawn.
"Are you okay?" Emily asks, even though she knows the answer.
"Why does everyone keep asking me that?"
"Because you're not."
You're quiet for a long moment. Then: "My mother called again. About that guy. She's insistent I meet him."
"Are you going to?"
"I don't know." Your voice is small. "Maybe I should. Maybe it would be easier."
"Easier than what?"
You don't answer, but Emily sees the way your jaw tightens, the way you grip the steering wheel.
"Easier than being honest?" Emily presses, and she knows she shouldn't, knows she's pushing too hard, but she can't stop herself.
"I don't know what you want me to say."
"I want you to say the truth."
"The truth?" You laugh, and it's bitter. "The truth is that I'm trying to be a good daughter. I'm trying to give my parents the life they wanted for me. I'm trying to be normal."
"And how's that working out for you?"
You pull into the parking lot too fast, slam the car into park. "What do you want from me, Emily?"
Everything, Emily thinks. I want you to stop hurting yourself. I want you to be free. I want you to look at me the way you do when you think I'm not watching and not be afraid of it.
But she can't say that. Not yet. Not when you're still so deep in denial.
"I want you to be happy," Emily says quietly.
You look at her, and your eyes are bright with unshed tears. "What if I don't know how?"
"You learn," Emily says. "You start by being honest with yourself."
"And if the truth is something I can't accept?"
"Then you're going to spend your whole life running from yourself. And trust me—" Emily's voice cracks. "That's no way to live."
You stare at her for a long moment. Then you get out of the car without another word.
Emily sits in the passenger seat and tries not to cry. She's watching you destroy yourself the way she almost did, and there's nothing she can do to stop it.
The team goes out the following Friday. It's been a good week, two cases closed, no casualties, everyone's in high spirits.
Emily's been watching you all night. You're smiling, laughing, playing darts with Morgan. To anyone else, you look fine.
But Emily sees the cracks. The forced brightness. The way you're drinking faster than usual. The way you keep checking your phone.
JJ and Penelope pull you into conversation, and Emily watches from across the bar. She's nursing a beer, trying to decide if she should leave or stay, when she hears it.
"My mom's got this whole timeline planned out," you're saying, and your voice is too bright. "Meet this lawyer, date for a year, engaged by next summer. She's already talking about wedding venues."
"And what do you think about that?" Penelope asks carefully.
"I think—" You pause, take a drink. "I think it would make them happy. After everything I put them through with the CIA, the least I can do is give them the daughter they wanted."
"But what do you want?" JJ asks.
You laugh, and it's hollow. "Does it matter?"
Emily's on her feet before she realizes she's moving. She crosses the bar, and she knows her expression must be intense because Morgan actually steps back.
"Can I talk to you?" Emily says, and it's not really a question.
"Emily—"
"Now. Please."
You look at JJ and Penelope, who both nod encouragingly. You set down your drink and follow Emily toward the exit.
Hotch watches from his seat at the bar. He catches Emily's eye, gives her a small nod.
Go.
Emily leads you out of the bar, past the entrance, into the alley beside the building. It's dark, private, and Emily can finally breathe.
She turns to face you, and all the words she's been holding back for months threaten to spill out at once.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"What?"
"What, are you doing?" Emily repeats, and her voice is shaking. "You're going to meet this guy? You're going to date him, marry him, give your parents the perfect life they want? You're going to spend your entire life pretending to be someone you're not?"
"Emily—"
"No. Listen to me." Emily steps closer. "I've spent the last two months watching you destroy yourself. I've watched you try so hard to be what everyone else wants you to be. And I can't—I can't watch it anymore."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly," Emily cuts in. "I understand because I've been where you are. I've spent my entire life trying to be the perfect daughter, the perfect agent, the perfect everything. I've dated men I didn't love because it was easier than admitting the truth. I've hated myself for feeling things I was told were wrong."
Your eyes are wide, and Emily can see you're barely breathing.
"But you know what I realized?" Emily continues, and she's crying now, doesn't care. "I realized that living a lie is worse than any truth. I realized that being perfect for everyone else means being nothing for myself. I realized that I'd rather be honest and alone than dishonest and surrounded by people who don't really know me."
"Emily—"
"I'm gay," Emily says, and the words come easier this time. "I'm gay, and I've spent thirty-six years hating myself for it. Thirty-six years listening to my mother's disapproval and the church's condemnation and society's prejudice. Thirty-six years being terrified of who I am."
She takes another step closer, and now you're backed against the brick wall, nowhere to run.
"But I'm done being terrified," Emily says. "I'm done letting other people's hatred dictate my life. I'm done pretending to be someone I'm not. And I'm done watching you do the same thing."
"I don't—" Your voice breaks. "I can't—"
"Yes, you can." Emily's hands come up to frame your face, and you're shaking. "You can be honest. You can be yourself. You can stop trying to be the daughter your parents want and start being the woman you are."
"What if they hate me?"
"Then they never really loved you in the first place," Emily says gently. "Because love isn't conditional. Love doesn't come with requirements. Love accepts you as you are, not as someone wishes you would be."
You're crying now, tears streaming down your face. "I'm so scared."
"I know. I'm scared too." Emily's thumbs brush away your tears. "But I'd rather be scared and honest than comfortable and living a lie."
"Emily—"
"I'm in love with you," Emily says, and the words feel like jumping off a cliff. "I think I've been in love with you since the day you walked into the BAU. And I know you feel it too. I know you're terrified of it. But I'm asking you, begging you, don't throw away your life because you're afraid of what other people will think."
You're staring at her, and Emily can see the war happening behind your eyes. Fear and longing and self-hatred and hope all battling for dominance.
"I don't know how to do this," you whisper.
"You start by being honest. With yourself first." Emily pauses. "So I'm going to ask you a question, and I need you to answer honestly. Not what you think you should say. Not what would make your parents happy. The truth."
You nod shakily.
"Are you gay?"
The silence stretches, the weight of obligations, the societal prejudice, rings in your ears. Emily can hear her own heartbeat, can feel your breath against her skin.
Then, so quietly she almost doesn't hear it: "Yes."
The word breaks something open in both of you. You start crying harder, and Emily pulls you into her arms, holds you while you shake apart.
"I'm gay," you say again, louder this time. "I'm gay, and I'm terrified, and I don't know what to do." Your hands fist in her shirt like it's the only thing keeping you tethered to the conversation.
"You don't have to know," Emily murmurs into your hair. "You just have to be honest. The rest will come."
You pull back enough to look at her, and your eyes are red but clear. "What if I lose it all? My job, the team—"
"What if you gain everything?" Emily echoes Hotch's words. "What if you get to be yourself? What if you get to be happy?"
Your heart does something complicated, expression shifting from fear just an inch. "What if I get to be with you?"
Emily's breath catches. "Yeah. What if?"
You stare at each other, and the air between you is electric. Emily can see the moment you decide, the moment fear loses and truth wins.
"I want to be with you," you whisper. "I want to stop pretending. I want to be myself."
"Then be yourself," Emily says. "Be with me. Be free."
"I'm gay," you say, and this time you're laughing. "Oh my god, I'm gay."
"Yeah," Emily says, grinning. "You are."
And then you're kissing her.
It's tentative at first, your lips barely brushing Emily's, like you're testing whether this is real, whether you're allowed. Emily's hands come up to cup your face, gentle, giving you space to pull away if you need to.
But you don't pull away. Instead, you lean in, and the kiss deepens. Your hands slide from Emily's shirt to her neck, fingers threading into her hair, and Emily makes a sound low in her throat that sends heat racing through your entire body.
It feels like relief. Like coming home. Like every piece of yourself you've been holding separate finally clicking into place.
When you finally break apart, you're both breathing hard. Emily's forehead rests against yours, and she's smiling. Really smiling, the kind of smile you've been craving since the day you met her.
"Okay," you say, breathless. "Okay."
"Okay," Emily echoes, and she kisses you again, softer this time. Sweeter.
You stay like that for a long moment, just holding each other in the alley, letting the reality of it settle over you. You're gay. Emily's gay. You're together. The world hasn't ended.
"We should probably go back inside," Emily says eventually, though she doesn't sound like she wants to move.
"Probably," you agree, but you don't let go of her yet.
Emily laughs, pressing one more kiss to your temple before stepping back. "Come on. Before they send a search party."
You take a moment to compose yourself, smoothing down your shirt, running your fingers through your hair. Emily does the same, though there's a flush high on her cheeks that makeup can't hide, and her lips are kiss-swollen in a way that's going to be obvious to anyone who looks.
You don't care.
Emily reaches for your hand as you head toward the door, and you let her take it. Your fingers lace together naturally, like they've been doing this for years instead of minutes.
The bar is loud when you step back inside, the team's laughter carrying over the music. But the moment you and Emily walk through the door, still holding hands, the conversation at your table dies.
JJ sees you first. Her eyes drop to your joined hands, then back up to your faces, and her entire expression transforms into something knowing and delighted. She elbows Penelope, who turns to look and immediately gasps.
"Finally," Penelope says, loud enough that half the bar probably hears.
Morgan's grin is shit-eating. "Took you long enough."
Reid looks confused for about half a second before his eyes widen in understanding. "Oh. Oh."
And Hotch just nods, quiet and approving, the corner of his mouth ticking up in what might be the closest thing to a smile you've ever seen from him outside of Jack's presence.
"We were starting to think we'd have to lock you two in a room," JJ says, standing to pull you both into a hug. "I'm so happy for you."
"You knew?" you ask, though the answer is obvious.
"Sweetheart, we all knew," Penelope says, joining the hug and nearly knocking you over with enthusiasm. "You two have been doing this ridiculous dance for months. It was painful to watch."
"I didn't know," Reid offers helpfully.
"You never know," Morgan says, clapping him on the shoulder before turning to Emily. "Seriously, though. I'm happy for you, Prentiss. Both of you."
Emily's hand tightens around yours, and when you glance at her, there are tears in her eyes. Good tears. Relief tears.
"Thank you," she says, and her voice is thick with emotion. "All of you."
"You're family," Hotch says simply. "This doesn't change that. It never would."
The team rallies around you after that, buying rounds, telling embarrassing stories, treating this like any other outing. And maybe that's what makes it so perfect. They're not making a big deal out of it, not treating you like you're fragile or different. They're just happy. Supportive. There.
You catch Emily's eye at one point, and she's smiling that smile. The one you've been craving, the one that transforms her entire face. And this time, it's directed at you.
An hour later, Emily leans in close, her breath warm against your ear. "Want to get out of here?"
Your heart does that complicated thing again. "Yeah. Yes."
You say your goodbyes, JJ hugs you extra tight, Penelope makes you promise to tell her everything tomorrow, Morgan gives Emily a look that's equal parts warning and approval. Then you're walking out into the cool night air, Emily's hand still in yours, and the world feels like your oyster.
The walk to your apartment is quiet, it's charged. Electric. Every brush of Emily's shoulder against yours sends sparks racing across your skin.
When you reach your door, you fumble with your keys, hyperaware of Emily standing close behind you. You finally get the door unlocked, but before you can push it open, Emily's hand catches your wrist.
You turn, and she's right there, close enough that you can see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes.
"Hi," she says softly.
"Hi," you breathe.
And then she's kissing you again, pressing you back against your apartment door. This kiss is different from the one in the alley, less tentative, more certain. Emily's hands slide to your hips, holding you steady, and you make a sound that's half gasp, half moan.
Your hands find her hair, her neck, her shoulders, anywhere you can reach. Emily tastes like wine and possibility, and you can't get enough. When she presses closer, fitting her body perfectly against yours, you forget how to breathe.
"Emily," you gasp against her mouth, and she makes that sound again, low and wanting.
Your back is against the door, Emily's mouth is on yours, and for the first time in your life, you feel completely, utterly free.
