Red Wine is Best for Brooding
my entry number two for the Fragments of Sappho challenge.
inspired by fragment number 42: neither for me honey nor the honey bee
again check out the rest of the entries @ dogged_by_muses
I’ve never been one to make quick, rash decisions. Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. That high school photo of me that Garcia dug up out of the mists of time doesn’t exactly demonstrate my most sound judgment. What can I say I was 17 and I loved Siouxsie Sioux and it horrified my mother. Funny, as I’ve grown into adulthood I’ve realized it takes so much less to horrify the Ambassador. The crazy hair and makeup was totally unnecessary. Apparently all it took was taking a job with the FBI rather than, well, just about anything else.
All it seems to take is being true to myself and caring slightly less about appearances than I care about my own happiness. Of course, as I think about it that’s all I was doing at 17. I don’t know if it’s sad or not that so little has changed in the intervening twenty years. I still don’t have my mother’s approval, I’m still trying to find happiness, and it keeps seeming just inches out of my grasp.
Anyway, poor fashion choices notwithstanding, I don’t make imprudent decisions, especially when it comes to relationships, and by relationships I mean any…friendships, dating…all of it. It took me forever to open up to the team even though I knew it was critical to unit cohesion for us to be close. What I told Morgan that day was true. I’m a dork. I was taught how to polish up the outside and I clean up pretty nice but deep down I’m just a geek. I’m guarded and don’t volunteer a great deal of myself until I feel safe.
It’s not that I fear their judgment. I know they don’t care if I read Vonnegut, or can quote from memory any number of rather questionable sci-fi films. It’s not those things I fear them seeing. No, it’s the vulnerability. It’s the reality that the strong compartmentalizer, the cool collected Emily Prentiss, can be so easily bruised and battered. My walls are strong because I fear my heart is not.
That’s why so much of the interaction between JJ and I had been this sort of distant dance for so long, that and me following after her like a bee after honey. Don’t get me wrong I knew from the moment I saw her in Hotch’s office that I would fall hard for her, I just had hope it wouldn’t be face first. That hope has dwindled considerably in the last few days. I’m not sure if I waited too long, agonizing over my decision, or didn’t wait long enough. Maybe if I hadn’t said anything she would have come to her own conclusions and I would have been there waiting. Instead I’m sitting alone on my couch with the obligatory glass of wine staring out over my splendid view alone.
None of it matters at this point though; all of my pining has proven as futile as I had feared. When I first came out to my mother, not long after those now infamous high school photos were taken she took her time explaining to me in clear, concise terms just how unacceptable such selfish rebellion was in the daughter of an ambassador. She made it very clear that if I did choose to have a relationship with a woman it was never to be seen in public. She couldn’t have scandal reflecting upon her. At the time I found these statements rather ironic considering I hadn’t ever had a relationship with anyone, but I understood fully what she was saying.
I can’t blame her entirely for my own fear though, she may have planted the seed but I nurtured it and allowed it to grow until I was too cowardly to actually speak my heart. I allowed myself to be convinced that true happiness was always going to be out of my grasp. I’ve had moments with JJ when I thought perhaps I should be brave, take the plunge, bare my heart and soul to the potential pain that was certain to come. I had decided to do just that in fact and then we went to Florida.
We went to Florida and she went with him. And what’s worse is I practically threw her at him, playing the role of good girlfriend encouraging her into his arms. I’m sure there was a secret part of my heart that wanted her to turn to me and say she couldn’t go with him because she loved me but this is real life not the LOGO channel. So I watched her kiss him with an almost deadly pressure in my chest that stole my breath until I had to walk out. I did just that. I walked out of the room and then out of the hotel to the airport and booked my own flight home.
I haven’t seen her since.
I got a message from Hotch. I think he was trying to be supportive in his obtuse sort of way, which tells me the team is back. There are approximately a million missed calls from Garcia on my phone since I’m sure she has some sort of track on all our credit cards and she wants to know why I flew home on an excruciatingly expensive first class ticket. I can’t bring myself to call her and admit my failure. She’s been pushing me to get off my ass about a certain blond press liaison for longer than I can even begin to admit. I’ll call her tomorrow right now I’m too busy wallowing.
I swirl the last of my wine in my glass and drink it down. It is crisp with a slightly sweet finish, all I had in the house when I got home was a bottle of white, this added to my dark mood as red wine is so much better for brooding. Instead I am left with a wine with a honey finish that reminds me of how I imagine her skin would taste. The light tan and golden hue must be sweet, there’s no other possibility. I begin debating transitioning to something harder to obliterate these thoughts all together when I’m drawn from my sulk buy a firm knock on my door.
I go through a mental list of potential uninvited guests and quickly rule out my mother, she’s in Paris. None of the boys would show up on my doorstep at this hour no matter how concerned they were, obviously JJ is off somewhere learning to enjoy crawfish and etouffe, which leaves only Garcia. It would not be at all shocking to see the tech goddess arriving with provisions for a girl’s night of dish. I resign myself to the reality of having company and trudge toward the door. Hopefully Garcia brought tequila, tequila would be great.
I open the door to find an entirely different blond standing on my stoop nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot. My brain can’t quite process her presence here. The last time I saw her, her perfect lips were attached to that insufferable southern detective and my heart had crumbled to dust. And yet here she was staring at me with a nervous smile waiting for me to invite her in.
I move aside to allow her room to enter without saying anything. I have no idea what to say. I’m equal parts pissed, curious, hopeful, and terrified. She walks into the hall and turns to face me. I feel more than a little trapped with the door behind me and her perfect, compact body in front of me. I examine her face trying to piece together some clue as to her motivation for being here. It seems as though words are fighting to come out of her mouth but she’s not sure if she should let them. I keep silent and wait. This is her show, not mine.
She stops fidgeting and it’s as though steel is injected into her spine she stands straight, determined. It’s obvious she’s made some sort of decision and I raise an eyebrow in question. I’m not at all certain what I expect her to say. I’m not certain what I want her to say. Luckily for me she doesn’t say anything.
With one determined step she closes any gap in personal space between us and takes my face in her hands. Her touch is velvety soft and warm even against my wine flushed cheeks. Her eyes are open and clear and I feel as though I could see forever in those blue depths. She hides nothing I can see her fear, her sadness, her regret, her apology, her hope, her heart. I don’t need her words when I can see so much written there. I can tell she’s waiting to see the acknowledgment of our shared vision in my own dark gaze and I let it read there easily. As I do she closes the last breath of space between us.
Her lips are so much sweeter than I imagined the taste of wine completely overwhelmed by the smooth liquid heat of her tongue across my bottom lip and the tangle of her hands in my hair. The analytical part of my mind tries to determine how my circumstances changed so drastically in such a short period of time. That is until her teeth nip at the fullness of my lip and my analytical mind shuts down completely.
I had been so determined that I had once again let happiness slip through my fingers that I had not paused for a moment’s thought that there might still be a chance. The possibility that I wasn’t, in fact, destined to chase after life’s sweetness, always one step behind. She deepens our kiss and I taste new and glorious flavors, honey-sweet and dizzying. Whatever I had thought about fear and pain is washed away in the touch of her hands and the press of her lips. She pulls away and I know somewhere deep within that the only reason she does is to take a moment to look, to truly see. I do the same.
I take in the warm, pale copper tone of her skin, the sparkle in her eyes darkened dusky blue and I stop there once again captured by so much. I see the future in her eyes and I don’t shy away. Instead I allow the reality of it to settle into some firm, solid place in my heart. Our path will not be easy, and it certainly won’t be without trial but I do know without a doubt that it will be undeniably sweet.
This time I take her face in my hands, cupping it in gentle shaking fingers, my thumbs brush her flushed cheeks and I smile. As I do so I feel tears in my eyes and I know they are from a pain so sweet it can’t be expressed any other way and I ignore their fall down my cheeks and lean in again claiming what is finally mine.