Work Text:
She’d been intrigued by him the moment he arrived on his first day at work.
Emily was home for the summer between her undergrad and her masters, preparing to go Yale for a year whilst she figured out what to do with her life. She spent the early days of her break avoiding her mother, something she had become quite skilled at over the years.
On Aaron Hotchner’s first day, she’d, quite literally, walked into him. Her coffee had spilt all over his white shirt, her vicious hangover enough to dull her usual quick reflexes. He’d been good-natured about it, despite his obvious irritation, and from there a friendship between the two of them had formed. In the weeks that followed he’d snuck her past her mother more than once, never judging her for being drunk, or asking where she was getting served since she was still underage.
She found him fascinating, something about how serious he was enough to draw her in. He was handsome, his jaw and nose all made of sharp edges, contradictory to his soft eyes and smile that she could pull out of him even at the most inopportune of moments.
She flirts with him all the time, and he flirts back when it’s just the two of them. A sparkle in his eyes that makes her chest feel full of emotions she doesn’t want to name. She overhears him telling one of the other security personnel that he’s newly single, that his long-term girlfriend had broken up with him just before he took this job, and any thoughts she may have previously had about not going any further than harmless flirting disappear.
She watches him from across the ballroom. She’s at the back of the room, leaning against a wall and hoping she doesn’t get seen. Her mother had forced her to come, insisting that she mingles with people she doesn’t like. Instead, Emily watches Aaron from across the room.
He looks good in his suit, just like he always did. He commanded the team he was part of, despite not being the leader, a natural authoritative air about him that meant people listened to him. His eyes meet hers across the room and she winks at him, something that makes him shake his head at her. She finishes her drink and pushes herself off the wall, crossing the room to speak to him.
“Agent Hotchner,” she says as she approaches him, her smile wide and eyes sparkling.
He smiles at her, clearly trying to hide it and failing, the dimples she finds herself itching to press her thumbs into carved deep into his cheeks.
“Miss Prentiss.”
She pretends to act wounded, her hand over her heart, “Miss Prentiss,” she exclaims, “so formal.”
Aaron shakes his head at her, his eyes flicking around the room to keep an eye on his colleagues.
“I am here in a formal capacity.”
She can’t explain her need to spend time with him, the almost primal desire to dig beneath his serious exterior. To mess up his hair and crease his always perfectly ironed clothes. It feels like the last several weeks have been leading up to this moment between them, and she doesn’t want it to pass them by. An idea forms in her head and before she can talk herself out of it she’s already talking.
“Well, that’s good,” she replies, leaning in closer, “because I need you in a formal capacity.”
He turns serious immediately. His brows creasing in a way she knows will one day form frown lines around his eyes. The mere thought of it, the way she wants to see it, to still know him in years to come makes her stomach flip.
“What do you mean?” He asks, his confusion clear.
She tilts her head backwards, indicating a man standing several feet behind her. A man she doesn’t know, a random guest of her mother’s.
“See that guy?” she says, watching how he looks past her, his eyes narrowing as he spots the man in question before he looks back at her and nods.
“You know him?”
She doesn’t correct him but doesn’t confirm it either. Shrugging slightly, her breath catching in her throat as he shifts closer as if he was ready to protect her from anything.
Aaron doesn’t move for a moment, his eyes flicking back and forth between her and the man before he nods again. He reaches out for her, his hand at her back as he leads her out of the room, the heat of his palm less than an inch from her skin. He talks into his microphone, letting the rest of the team know he is with her.
Later that night, when she leans in to kiss him and he enthusiastically responds, she can’t find it in herself to feel bad for the lie by omission that had led them there.
____
18 Months Later
“Hi, sweetheart” Aaron calls out as he walks into their home. He makes sure that the door is locked behind him before he turns to look back at the open-plan apartment, frowning when he can’t see his girlfriend anywhere. “Em?”
“I’m here,” she replies, sitting up from where she’d been laying on the couch, a tired smile on her face as she looks at him. Aaron laughs and walks over, abandoning his briefcase on the kitchen counter on his way. He leans over the couch and kisses her before he rounds it to join her. He smiles at the sight of newspapers spread all over the coffee table.
“Apartment hunting going well?”
“Don’t laugh at me,” she grumbles, immediately leaning against him as he sits next to her, both of her arms wrapping around one of his, her hands grasping at his tricep, “It sucks.”
He kisses her forehead, smiling against her skin, “I know it sucks. Why do you think I settled for this place?” He asks, pulling back to look at her, “It was the first one I saw that was affordable and not in a completely terrible area.”
Emily smiles up at him, cupping his cheek to pull him in for a kiss, her thumb pressing into his dimple.
“It would be easier if you weren’t insistent on splitting rent down the middle,” she says, only pulling far enough away to speak, stamping another kiss to his lips, “I can afford more.”
Aaron sighs, shifting slightly back from her. It was a conversation they’d had countless times since they’d decided it was time to move. His apartment had served him well in the couple of years he’d lived there, but it felt like the right time to move. He wanted something slightly bigger, and in the few months Emily had been officially living with him it had become clear the apartment wasn’t quite big enough for two people. Which felt ironic when he considered that his initial plan had been to live here with Haley.
“Em-”
“I know, I know,” she says, smiling softly, not wanting it to turn into an argument again, “We do everything equally.”
“Except for the cooking,” he quips, and she scoffs, pinching lightly at his skin as he laughs again.
“I think we both know it’s safer that I don’t cook,” she replies, laying her head on his shoulder, “And I do the cleaning.”
It still surprised her when she thought about how easily they had fallen into a relationship.
At the start, she’d tried to convince herself it was just sex, that it was all it ever could be, but it had quickly developed into more. For the first time in a long time, someone cared about getting to know her. Aaron remembered every tiny thing he learnt about her. As if he was collecting facts, storing them away for a day when he’d need them. She felt the same pull to learn everything about him too. Content to lay in his arms, their naked skin pressed against each other, as he told her stories from his childhood. That summer had gone so quickly that it almost gave her whiplash. She’d prepared herself for a goodbye that never came, finding herself feeling nothing but relieved when he said he wanted to try something more long-term with her. That the fact he was about to start a new work placement and that she was about to go to Yale, didn’t concern him if it didn’t concern her.
So they’d made it work.
She visited him in DC whenever she could, never telling her mother that she was in town so she could spend every second with Aaron. He’d visit her in New Haven. Her tall, slightly mysterious, FBI boyfriend an interesting talking point to any of her friends that they’d bump into on the rare occasion they left her apartment. Throwing clothes on so they could go get food, his arms wrapped around her from behind as they stood in the grocery store trying to find the cheapest bottle of wine.
He made her happy, and she knew she did the same for him. Moving into his place when she graduated from Yale seemed like the only real option, the only thing she truly considered. Her mother had been less than impressed when she found out about them, although when she looked back on it, letting her find out when Aaron showed up at graduation might not have been the best plan.
“Anything standing out to you?” He asks, looking over at the pile of newspapers. She groans and presses her forehead into his shoulder.
“The only thing that stands out to me is that rent is extortionate for what you get in this city.”
He chuckles, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, “I’d live in a dumpster with you.”
“I thought we were already doing that here,” she deadpans, laughing and squirming away when he tickles her in retribution for her joke. She had never truly liked the apartment they lived in, but it had him in it, so because of that it felt like home. She smiles up at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, “I’d live in a dumpster with you too,” she replies, kissing his jaw, “And at this rate, that’s what we might literally end up doing,” she picks up a paper and passes it to him, grimacing as she does, “Look at the price of that. For a studio. It’s absurd.”
Aaron frowns as he looks at the photos of the apartment in question, “It is small,” he replies, smirking at her, “At least we don’t have any secrets, it wouldn’t be possible to keep them in a space like that.”
She’s grateful that he misses how she freezes, his focus on the paper in his hand giving her the second she needed to gather herself.
At first, she’d thought nothing of the lie by omission that had led to them being alone that first night. It didn’t cross her mind the next morning when she woke up in her bed, Aaron half on top of her as he slept. It didn’t as she snuck him out of the house, unable to stop herself from kissing him again. She only thinks about it months later when he tells the story of how they got together to a friend of his in front of her, his hand wrapped around hers as he mentions the man at the party that had changed everything in passing.
She never knew how to bring him up, how to tell him that what he clearly considered a part of their story was a fabrication. They’d sacrificed much for each other. She’d given up a job opportunity. Nothing about Europe seemed appealing without him, so she’d said no without a second thought.
He’d given up Haley.
Emily still remembered it happening. It was her first visit back from Yale and they’d been desperate for each other. Tearing at each other's clothes as they barely made it to the couch the first time before they eventually moved to his, now their, bed. Aaron had convinced her they needed food and ordered pizza. She’d slipped on a shirt of his as she heard a knock on the door, opening it without looking through the peephole only to be met by his ex-girlfriend. Time had slowed down as Haley looked her up and down, shock in the blonde’s eyes that turned to misplaced fury.
Emily was sure that would be it, that he’d want Haley back and she would be nothing more than a blip in his story. She’d quickly got dressed as he spoke to Haley in the next room, unable to stop herself from overhearing his ex-girlfriend say that she wanted him back, that she regretted leaving him. Emily still remembered the fear, the bitter pre-emptive heartbreak as the door opened behind her. She expected to turn to see a sympathetic look on his face, an apology that she didn’t want to hear. But instead, he looked confused, his eyebrows knitting together as he asked her why she was packing her things. He’d told Haley it was too late, that he loved her now.
It was the first time he’d said it.
“Are you ok, sweetheart?”
She looks at him and swallows thickly. All of a sudden, even though she’d kept it to herself for a long time, she finds herself desperate to tell him. The words escaping her before she can stop them, overwhelmed by the need to show him this part of herself. Something she had kept hidden since she was young, effortlessly being whoever those around her needed to be.
Aaron had only ever wanted her to be herself.
“I have to tell you something.”
Aaron frowns at her, concern flooding through him, his body freezing with it. She’s looking down at her nails, picking at her cuticles, and he puts his hand over hers to stop her. He links their fingers together and lifts her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.
“You can tell me anything.”
She smiles shakily at him and blows out a breath, “You know the party you worked at for my mother?”
“The one that happened the same night that you jumped me?” He asks, smiling at her, his humour an attempt to calm her. “I remember it well.”
She narrows her eyes at him, briefly forgetting her point, “I seem to remember that you made the first move.”
“We remember those early days very differently,” he replies, rubbing his thumb over her wrist, a movement they both found comforting, “So the party?”
Her smile fades as she remembers why she’d started the conversation in the first place. “Yes, the party,” she says, holding his hand tightly, “I implied that there was a man there that I didn’t want to see and…it’s not true,” she says, watching his face for a moment before she carries on, her words speeding up as she does, “I have no idea who he was. I’d never seen him before, or since and I really just wanted to spend time with you-”
“I know,” he says, cutting over her, stopping her in her tracks.
For a moment, she doesn’t react. Simply staring at him with her mouth still slightly open as his words sink in.
“You…” she drifts off, her eyebrows furrowing as she continues to stare at him.
“I know you didn’t know that man,” he says, smiling at her, “His name is Jeffery Filburn by the way,” his smile turns into a smirk, “In case you ever wondered.”
There’s another pause, another moment of silence as she simply blinks at him, lost for words for the first time since they’d met.
“How long have you known?” She asks, her eyebrows furrowing, confusion turning her to stone, her eyes fixed on his face. He shrugs a little, acting like it was no big deal, like this thing she’d thought was a secret from the start hadn’t been slowly weighing her down.
“Since the day after,” he says nonchalantly, and it snaps her out of it, causing her to gasp in outrage.
“The day after?” She exclaims, frowning at him, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“To be fair, sweetheart,” he says, raising an eyebrow at her, “I don’t think you’re in any position to question me about keeping it a secret.” Her only response is a half-hearted glare, and he puts his arm around her, pulling her into his side. “I thought it was sweet that you wanted to spend time with me. And I wanted to spend time with you.”
She groans, hiding her face in his chest, “This is so embarrassing,” she complains, “How did you find out?”
“I looked him up,” Aaron replies simply, “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I hadn’t.”
“And you don’t mind?” She asks, lifting her head just enough to look at him, scrunching her nose up slightly, “You’re not mad?”
Aaron shakes his head, reaching out and tucking some of her hair behind her ear. He’s gentle with her, just like he always had been, treating her like she’s made of something precious. He leans in to kiss her, pressing his love into her skin. Her cheek. Her nose. Her lips.
“I’m not mad,” he assures her, “As long as you’re not.”
“I’m not mad,” she says, smiling up at him, ignoring the embarrassed flush to her cheeks, the way her skin burned with it, “But maybe we just promise not to keep anything from each other from now on. No matter how…silly or small it might seem.”
He kisses her again, “Agreed,” he says, winking at her, pleased when it makes her roll her eyes at him, the last bit of seriousness in the air dissipating.
He looks at her, focusing on the beauty that had first drawn him to her, something he had quickly learned was much more than skin deep. She’d changed his life, made him happier than he remembered being in a long time, bringing out a part of him that he thought had been torn from him in his childhood. Anger and fear replaced by the love and joy she had brought him. He could never be mad about it. Not for a second.
Even if it had started with a situation she’d created. Something she’d curated. Designed with the same care she’d always shown him. The care he hoped he’d be able to bask in forever.
“I love you,” he says, his hand on her cheek, tracing her soft skin.
She beams at him, “I love you too.”