Fic: So This Is Permanence
Title: So This Is Permanence
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairings: Emily/JJ, Emily/Jordan
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: In which Emily schools herself and deals with it.
Notes: Hopped up on Joy Division, spinning out of control. Parentheticals like mad because compartmentalization is an art form.
Emily had made plans. Not very good plans, but she’d been scraping the bottom of the barrel for so long that even her truly crap ideas were going into play. Ideas like ducking out of that impromptu we-save-children-from-damaged-mothers (thank-god-we’re-not-damaged-mothers) dinner with a wink and a grin (more sheepish and crooked than sly and sultry, but she’d already been too thick with merlot to be much good at convincing) in favor of wandering down Las Vegas Strip, wanting (so much) to die.
Ideas like drinking herself stupid at a bar she only remembers for the song on the jukebox (‘Voices,’ a joke) and the silver rod through the bartender’s left eyebrow before slinking around after handsy couples (clearly on the verge of spontaneous nuptials) who were probably (hopefully) too far gone to notice someone vaguely desperate (dark-haired, dismal-shaped) staring numbly from the shadows.
Ideas like picturing JJ sprawled out on a standard-issue hotel bed (probably identical to her own, but she’d been reduced to assuming these days, hadn’t she?), fat white pillows propped under head, idle hand on arching belly, mouth. Mouth. Creasing and cringing and cracking warm smiles into the hard, flat body of a cell phone. Because Will is a gentleman and a charmer and a husband who rubs feet and makes tea and calls like clockwork just to say hello. Because Emily is a lush and a coward and a lousy excuse for a sometime friend who can’t even look a pregnant woman in the eye for an honest ‘Congratulations.’
(Because Las Vegas is a city for lovers and losers and lame, lost Agent Prentiss with her proud, pinched nose and her too-wide shoulders and her awkward, swinging limbs. Emily, who can’t get it the fuck under control in the back row of a gaudy marriage parlor, the kind even fake pastor Elvis would trash on principle, its pink plastic seating and its pink wedding arch and its gag-me pink-on-pink neon sign all saying ‘She Left You For This’ and ‘Pick Up Your Fucking Heart Before You Bleed On The Linoleum.’ Or maybe it just says ‘Wedding Chapel’; her memory really sucks sometimes.)
She thinks if marriage were so great Ian Curtis wouldn’t have strung himself up like yesterday’s laundry and ‘Twenty Four Hours’ wouldn’t make her ache and Siouxsie Sioux would be sunning in Southern France with Budgie and a dozen cats instead of strutting about in skin-tight leather with hot women on either arm, preaching female superiority to a million screaming fans.
But JJ’s a small-town girl. She’s only heard Bauhaus once, by mistake (Emily’s fault for leaving the stereo on), and she can’t understand why anyone would let Peter Murphy near a microphone. Being with Emily - being with Emily - is the most fucked up thing she’s ever done (she doesn’t count sorority hazing or hard drugs or shooting Penelope’s would-be killer in the bullpen, in the back) and Emily, Emily knows this. Emily knew this when they wound up trolling bars for Jack the Ripper in New Orleans and JJ took one look at Will and thought he could make her whole again. Because Emily’s love is the sort of love that breaks a small-town girl, and JJ hates, hates, hates, hates - hates! - being broken.
So Emily had made plans that seemed simple enough to follow (she can still manage simple most days, some days) because even she isn’t that much of a masochist (well, at least not anymore). And even she knows that maternity leave was really the brainchild of some forward-thinking co-worker (ex-lover) who, predicting the warm, steady pull of marriage and motherhood on an otherwise competent employee (ex-lover), anticipated the importance of acquiring an able replacement and preparing (preparing) for total loss. She’d downed a bottle of scotch in the privacy of her living room and told herself, in no uncertain terms, to bolster and barricade and perfect her ‘fuck you’ walk (the one that always disintegrates when she catches sight of long blonde hair) in time for JJ’s triumphant return. Because she’s accepted that JJ will leave her eventually (well, no, Ms. Jareau is already gone), and Emily really doesn’t want to be the only one left crying.
But no one had told her Jordan Todd would be her responsibility. And although she’d expected someone stunning and coy - aspiring press liaisons would sooner die than be caught drab - she had seriously underestimated JJ’s knack for naïve cruelty. She might have been all right if Agent Todd had been less of a rebel (this, too, was JJ’s fault; goddamn early labor), but now she’s playing sucker for another pretty face, running defense and lecturing Hotch and knocking again and again on that door she swore (she swore!) she would avoid. Jordan Todd (née Jennifer Jareau) is witty and determined and fiercely aggressive. She’s not quite as smooth as her predecessor, but Emily is willing to bet she’s a lot more honest (ill-advised fabrications for Mrs. Holden notwithstanding). Jordan makes Emily laugh (ironically, self-mockingly, but it’s better than nothing) and brings Emily coffee (too much sugar most of the time, but otherwise perfect), and Jordan won’t go searching for someone (much less some honey-tongued beacon of law enforcement) to make her whole again. (Emily has talked to her about Morgan; some things are too pathetic to relate.)
So if Emily can just make herself see Jordan for a while - not the familiar space of JJ’s office, not the pictures in her dresser drawer, not the fact that she already thinks this is some sick attempt at matchmaking - there’s a slim possibility she’ll wake up one morning and not be completely alone. Because she’s not going to get through this the way she thought she would (her ‘fuck you’s’ always come out wrong; she’s afraid she’ll start to beg) and Jordan really, really, really wants to take her dancing.
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairings: Emily/JJ, Emily/Jordan
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: In which Emily schools herself and deals with it.
Notes: Hopped up on Joy Division, spinning out of control. Parentheticals like mad because compartmentalization is an art form.
Emily had made plans. Not very good plans, but she’d been scraping the bottom of the barrel for so long that even her truly crap ideas were going into play. Ideas like ducking out of that impromptu we-save-children-from-damaged-mothers (thank-god-we’re-not-damaged-mothers) dinner with a wink and a grin (more sheepish and crooked than sly and sultry, but she’d already been too thick with merlot to be much good at convincing) in favor of wandering down Las Vegas Strip, wanting (so much) to die.
Ideas like drinking herself stupid at a bar she only remembers for the song on the jukebox (‘Voices,’ a joke) and the silver rod through the bartender’s left eyebrow before slinking around after handsy couples (clearly on the verge of spontaneous nuptials) who were probably (hopefully) too far gone to notice someone vaguely desperate (dark-haired, dismal-shaped) staring numbly from the shadows.
Ideas like picturing JJ sprawled out on a standard-issue hotel bed (probably identical to her own, but she’d been reduced to assuming these days, hadn’t she?), fat white pillows propped under head, idle hand on arching belly, mouth. Mouth. Creasing and cringing and cracking warm smiles into the hard, flat body of a cell phone. Because Will is a gentleman and a charmer and a husband who rubs feet and makes tea and calls like clockwork just to say hello. Because Emily is a lush and a coward and a lousy excuse for a sometime friend who can’t even look a pregnant woman in the eye for an honest ‘Congratulations.’
(Because Las Vegas is a city for lovers and losers and lame, lost Agent Prentiss with her proud, pinched nose and her too-wide shoulders and her awkward, swinging limbs. Emily, who can’t get it the fuck under control in the back row of a gaudy marriage parlor, the kind even fake pastor Elvis would trash on principle, its pink plastic seating and its pink wedding arch and its gag-me pink-on-pink neon sign all saying ‘She Left You For This’ and ‘Pick Up Your Fucking Heart Before You Bleed On The Linoleum.’ Or maybe it just says ‘Wedding Chapel’; her memory really sucks sometimes.)
She thinks if marriage were so great Ian Curtis wouldn’t have strung himself up like yesterday’s laundry and ‘Twenty Four Hours’ wouldn’t make her ache and Siouxsie Sioux would be sunning in Southern France with Budgie and a dozen cats instead of strutting about in skin-tight leather with hot women on either arm, preaching female superiority to a million screaming fans.
But JJ’s a small-town girl. She’s only heard Bauhaus once, by mistake (Emily’s fault for leaving the stereo on), and she can’t understand why anyone would let Peter Murphy near a microphone. Being with Emily - being with Emily - is the most fucked up thing she’s ever done (she doesn’t count sorority hazing or hard drugs or shooting Penelope’s would-be killer in the bullpen, in the back) and Emily, Emily knows this. Emily knew this when they wound up trolling bars for Jack the Ripper in New Orleans and JJ took one look at Will and thought he could make her whole again. Because Emily’s love is the sort of love that breaks a small-town girl, and JJ hates, hates, hates, hates - hates! - being broken.
So Emily had made plans that seemed simple enough to follow (she can still manage simple most days, some days) because even she isn’t that much of a masochist (well, at least not anymore). And even she knows that maternity leave was really the brainchild of some forward-thinking co-worker (ex-lover) who, predicting the warm, steady pull of marriage and motherhood on an otherwise competent employee (ex-lover), anticipated the importance of acquiring an able replacement and preparing (preparing) for total loss. She’d downed a bottle of scotch in the privacy of her living room and told herself, in no uncertain terms, to bolster and barricade and perfect her ‘fuck you’ walk (the one that always disintegrates when she catches sight of long blonde hair) in time for JJ’s triumphant return. Because she’s accepted that JJ will leave her eventually (well, no, Ms. Jareau is already gone), and Emily really doesn’t want to be the only one left crying.
But no one had told her Jordan Todd would be her responsibility. And although she’d expected someone stunning and coy - aspiring press liaisons would sooner die than be caught drab - she had seriously underestimated JJ’s knack for naïve cruelty. She might have been all right if Agent Todd had been less of a rebel (this, too, was JJ’s fault; goddamn early labor), but now she’s playing sucker for another pretty face, running defense and lecturing Hotch and knocking again and again on that door she swore (she swore!) she would avoid. Jordan Todd (née Jennifer Jareau) is witty and determined and fiercely aggressive. She’s not quite as smooth as her predecessor, but Emily is willing to bet she’s a lot more honest (ill-advised fabrications for Mrs. Holden notwithstanding). Jordan makes Emily laugh (ironically, self-mockingly, but it’s better than nothing) and brings Emily coffee (too much sugar most of the time, but otherwise perfect), and Jordan won’t go searching for someone (much less some honey-tongued beacon of law enforcement) to make her whole again. (Emily has talked to her about Morgan; some things are too pathetic to relate.)
So if Emily can just make herself see Jordan for a while - not the familiar space of JJ’s office, not the pictures in her dresser drawer, not the fact that she already thinks this is some sick attempt at matchmaking - there’s a slim possibility she’ll wake up one morning and not be completely alone. Because she’s not going to get through this the way she thought she would (her ‘fuck you’s’ always come out wrong; she’s afraid she’ll start to beg) and Jordan really, really, really wants to take her dancing.