calliopes_muse | CM fic - We've Got Tonight

Title: We’ve Got Tonight

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Emily/Jordan

Rating: Maybe PG-13 (if it’s not smut, I have a hard time knowing)

Summary: The title really says it all.

A/N: There was this split second scene in 4.10’s “Brothers in Arms” near the end between Emily and Jordan and it stuck with me. I’ve been wanting to write something and maybe there will be more later just based on this nanosecond of a scene, but I was driving out for a training and heard this song. It fits that moment so perfectly for me. For those not familiar with the song that inspired me, it’s “We’ve Got Tonight” by Bob Seger (lyrics and vid at the link).

********

“Are you okay?”

Her hands stay on my back, long after the deafening ring of the shots are gone, but it’s not until I turn to see her dark eyes burning into me with tunnel vision intensity, that I feel truly rattled. She wasn’t just a woman, not even a profiler or an agent or a coworker. At that moment, she was wounded. I could see it in the darkness in her eyes. Actually, I couldn’t see anything. There was endless black behind those regal cheekbones and fine angular nose. My momma once told me that you could see The Light in a person’s eyes. Of course, she meant in a spiritual sense, but I don’t think momma was too far off the mark in this case either.

Something had wounded the seemingly indestructible Emily Prentiss, and now she was slowly dying inside.

This wasn’t okay.

Later that night, I stood outside her hotel room door, a bottle of wine rested chilling in the ice bucket in my arms and wondered more than once if I was being out of line or too friendly. I hadn’t known Emily long, but I had seen a fun, even flirty, side of her. To see her replaced by this other creature so empty and alone was more than I could handle.

With a new resolve, I knocked on her door. I heard steps moving toward the door, then retreat. I waited, unsure what to do. I raised my hand to knock again when the door opened.

“Hey! It’s kind of late. Is something wrong?” The apparent delay had been from making herself presentable, which in this case meant a black silk robe. Her hair hung down in damp loose curls from the shower she had only recently finished.

“No…no, um, nothing’s wrong. I just, um…” she watched me patiently, while I took a deep breath to gather my wits, “Look, this was a tough case for me. I said I was okay earlier, but I was…am kind of rattled from it still, and I had this crazy idea that it would be nice to sit down and act human and normal for a while.”

She hesitated, and I suddenly felt really stupid.

“But, I don’t want to intrude either. I can understand if you just want to be alone.” I turned, wishing there was a physical way to kick my own ass right now. There wasn’t a shoe big enough in the Western hemisphere to fill the void my mouth had just made.

“Jordan, wait.” I turned, and she was angling her head in that way I saw her do in the bar. “You’re right, it would feel wonderful to act human and normal for a little while. Come on, you’re dripping.” She pointed to the ice bucket, making an nice puddle at my feet. I rushed into the room and placed it on the tray next to hers.

“Shall I?”

“Yes, please,” she said a bit more emphatically than I expected.

I handed her a glass, “Plastic…classy.”

“Well, I like to live it up, what can I say?” Emily took a seat at the small table in the corner.

“You could say why you’re really here.” Oh, busted! I settled down opposite her, getting ready for either one of two outcomes.

“A cut-to-the-chase type of woman. I like that. Okay, you got me, but only a little bit. I was rattled tonight, but it wasn’t the case that did it to me. It was you.”

I let the words settle while she stared a hole into the bottom of her plastic cut, already nearly drained. I reached to the dresser behind me for the cold wine bottle.

“More?” She nodded her approval so I topped her off. The silence was getting to be pretty obvious.

“Emily, you know conversations work better when two are involved. Talk to me.”

She looked at me this time. The pain so evident on her face. The eyes as haunting as before. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“But you know you want to. You work with profilers every day. Do you really think they can’t see, that they don’t sense something? I’ve only been around you for a few weeks, and I see it. They’re like your family.”

Emily played with the rim of her glass, one finger barely dusting the edge. She had a look of bemusement on her face, “Then why don’t they ask? Seriously, it’s not above Hotch or Morgan to want to know for the sake of the team or even Garcia just for the juicy gossip. Why you?”

I leaned back into my chair, feeling we were getting firmly into the preferred path I was hoping for with this conversation, “Family doesn’t always want to know the truth. Think of me as that crazy cousin who shows up once in like 20 years of family reunions, drunk as a skunk, and you know that you’d tell her anything because there’s no way in hell she’d ever talk to anyone else in the family, much less remember the conversation.”

This actually drew a laugh from Emily.

“I wouldn’t know about crazy cousins like that. It was only me and my parents. I didn’t even meet my maternal grandmother until she fell ill and that was three weeks before she died. She kept mixing me up with my mother.”

Some things were starting to click together for me, “So, the BAU is really like your first taste of a family.”

She nodded, finishing off her glass and reaching for the bottle. There was no way I was discouraging her if it meant she’d open up. “Do any of them know that about you?”

She shook her head emphatically, “No.”

“Why not?”

She sat up and rested her arms on the table, “It’s like you said, there’s just some things family doesn’t want to know and some things we can’t tell them.”

My spine tingled at the words. The door was creaking open to seeing inside Emily’s mind. Now I hoped I didn’t say the wrong thing.

“What can’t you tell them, Emily?” She looked at me half terrified, half surprised I dared, and totally off guard. The foundation in her dam was cracking, and I knew I was going to get caught in the tidal wave coming. Then it was gone, and she stood and started pacing. I panicked and grabbed her hand at her pass closest to me.

“Emily, don’t. Don’t shut me out.” She pulled at her hand, but I wouldn’t let go. “No. I’m not letting go.”

“Why not?” There were tears - real, warm, hot tears - on her cheeks, and I couldn’t stop myself from brushing them away. “Why not? When everyone else does.”

“Two reasons: you can trust me and you deserve to be free of this. Whatever this is that is eating you up. You deserve to let it go,” I took her face in both of my hands, “Let it go, Emily.”

She gripped at both of my hands as the tears started to fall freely. I saw the wave coming, 200 feet high and roaring in intensity, and I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to. Truth be told, I didn’t want to. From the moment I saw her, I wanted to be swept away by her, by the force that is Emily Prentiss.

She wrapped her arms around me and wept onto my shoulder, “I loved her. I loved her too much and she broke my heart. Now she has a baby and she’s with him and…”

She nuzzled my neck, making my knees buckle, before pulling away, “I won’t get hurt like that again.”

I kept a grip on one hand, refusing to let her go, “You’re hurt and lonely, yes, Emily. But you’re not broken,” I tugged on her hand to get her to look at me, “And you’re not alone, not tonight.”

I pulled her back to me, her silk robe falling open tantalizingly. She didn’t bother to fix it and finished the effect by undoing the tie holding it loosely together. She was completely naked, not even underwear, and my heart raced at the visual. I brushed her cheeks again with my fingers, this time with purpose and intent. I let myself feel the softness of her skin and the moisture of her lips, before brushing my own against them. It was a barely noticeable touch, but it rocked both of us to our foundations. An understanding passed between us. For tonight, we weren’t alone, if only for tonight.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

elekanahmen.livejournal.com

mmmmmm my god they are like a tidal wave...

gah. i'm going to write some em/jordan soonish... once finals are passed. i might be coauthoring some with

mcgarrygirl78 so we'll see :)

*snuggles* more more more!

From:

CM fic - We've Got Tonight - Emily/Jordan

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