CM Fic: Symbiosis (PG) (2/2)
Part I
They wandered back to the Bureau together, slow strides indicating relaxation and friendliness, a group of agents dependent upon each other. Even though they were going back to the office to write their reports on the previous case of child abduction, molestation and murder, here and now, they could rely on each other to remember that there was more to the world than evil and corruption.
He walked next to Prentiss, her shoulders hunched against the falling rain and he glanced at her to catch a few drops rolling down her skirt of hair. He followed one on its entire journey from the top of her head to the explosion of its final contact with the cement at her feet. She caught his eyes as they moved back up, but didn’t say anything, though he could find no shame in having been caught watching her.
He smiled to himself.
Back in the bullpen, they split up again, Morgan and Reid devolving into adolescents without supervision on the topic of Kurt Vonnegut and free will.
Only in his unit, he thought to himself.
Prentiss slipped into his office with him, quietly taking up her perch on the couch and continuing with her work without a word. He looked at her for a minute, contemplating his sudden awareness of her, his notice of her clothes and hair. The moment from earlier in the day, the flash of something across her eyes came to mind and he wondered, was it because of that that he was seeing her differently from only a few hours before?
Was it only a few hours? He knew that there had been moments in the last few months where she’d sparked something inside of him - something that he wanted to call pride and admiration, but which in reality could have been affection and pleasure. It wouldn’t have taken too much of a shift of his thought processes to make him see Emily Prentiss more than a co-worker.
So, maybe that had been it. The look that had flashed over her features earlier that morning could have flipped the internal switch that kept Prentiss at arm’s length. Aaron Hotchner had been out of the game for too long if he couldn’t recognize the lure and attention of a beautiful woman.
Was it him that was holding back? He didn’t think that someone as open and affectionate as Prentiss would find it easy to hold back on emotions as strong as an attraction to a man she saw every day of the week. But, they did work in a job where understanding how emotions played out and showed themselves was known by rote; how to hide them was learned just as quickly. Just because she could show an honest empathy towards victims didn’t mean that her affection towards friends would manifest itself just as freely.
Hotch glanced up at her, watching her through his hooded eyes as she shifted some papers and wrote a few more words. His gaze rested on her fingers, danced along her arms and over her shoulders to watch as she bit her lip in concentration. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch in an affectionate smile.
“What’re you smiling at?” she asked, with her own small smile.
He cleared his throat, buying time to overcome her surprised question. He honestly didn’t know how to answer her. There was a part of him wondering if he could admit to her that his switch had been flipped, but too much of his life depended on the family network of the team and what would the consequences be if something like that would happen?
Should he ask her?
Could he risk it?
Never in his life had he felt less confident about a profile than sitting in his office, looking at one of his closest friends and wondering if there could be something more. He sighed and shook his head.
He really was a coward in many ways.
“Nothing.”
She watched him for a long moment and then shrugging, turned back to her work. Their cases had piled up and there was more than one report to finish; he took her cue and turned back to his own. Even with the unexpected butterflies in his stomach, he could still finish his work and leave the office with some semblance of dignity.
The next time that Hotch lifted his head from his work, the bull pen lights were out but he could hear Morgan and Reid yelling at each other in another childish argument. Hotch shook his head.
“What are they going on about now?” Prentiss asked, not even bothering to lift her eyes from her laptop.
For a very short, intense moment, Hotch was transported to another life - another universe - where he and Prentiss were sitting in a living room and that question was asked of their kids. The illusion was so strong that Hotch froze, his imaginary eye taking in the plush couch, chair and a half and cherry coffee table in the immaculately decorated living room. He could smell the faint reminiscence of pot roast from an unreal supper, the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the Technicolor pictures of husband, wife and step-siblings.
“Oh God,” he groaned, dropping his tired head into his just as tired hands. Every muscle in his body screamed surrender.
“Hotch?”
Before he could even lift his head to stop her from coming across the room, Prentiss was at his side, slender fingers resting on the top of his head.
“Hotch? You alright?”
He snapped back to himself and jerked upright, his face ending just a few inches from hers. Her brown eyes were wide with worry and questions, her fingertips pressing gently against his skull. He could literally see her pulse in the curve of her neck and swallowed thickly before shaking his head to clear his thoughts.
“I’m exhausted.”
She smiled endearingly at him and nodded. “Yes. Yes, you are.”
“I think I’m going to head home.” He sighed.
“I’ll drive you.”
He frowned. “Prentiss, I live on the other...”
“I’m fine. I don’t want you driving like this.”
He could see her point, could feel himself relaxing already with the thought of not having to face downtown traffic alone. But still, some of him wanted the independence of driving home alone; especially to deal with the sudden and surprise twist of feelings in his gut.
“Fine,” he surrendered.
He refused to acknowledge that something passed over her eyes again, reminded himself, that he was reading in to something that he wanted, but wasn’t there.
But it was.
And he saw it.
“I’ll go tell the boys that we’re leaving. I’ll be ready in just a few,” she said, letting her fingers drag through his hair just a little bit, before patting him on the shoulder. She cast him one final glance before disappearing out his office door.
Groaning softly, he dropped his head to the blotter on his desk; the earlier comfort he’d received from the nearly-immovable object lost now in his confusion. Sitting up again, his fingers began to tap against the wood in thought.
There were too many things that could happen, that could go wrong. On the other hand, there were so many things that could go right. But which should he trust?
“Hotch!” Prentiss called from the bullpen.
He stood and shuffled some random files into his briefcase, and trudged out of his sanctuary of an office and into the darkness of the abandoned communal room. Morgan and Reid waved to him from their positions in the conference room and then turned back to their work.
Prentiss led him into the elevator, pushing the button for the third level of the parking garage. He was silent for the ride, the thoughts of tomorrow work day slipping easily from his concentration with her presence right beside him. Black ink changed into black hair, brown desks changed into brown eyes, ticking clocks turned into tapping heels; he pushed the heels of his own hands into his eyes, rubbing vigorously.
“I think I’m losing it.” He murmured, his shoulders lumping.
The elevator dinged their arrival and she asked softly, “Why?”
When he looked at her, saw the worry and concern lining her features, he had to bite his lower lip to keep himself from saying anything stupid. He even had his mouth open, but then shook his head instead.
Her brow furrowed and she frowned, not accepting his refusal, but keeping silent regardless. She stuck her hand out to stop the doors from closing again and stepped into the echoing space of the underground garage.
She took two steps and Hotch called, “I’m seeing things I shouldn’t be seeing.”
She froze and turned to him. She was silent, attentive; a pillar of strength among his suddenly crumbling foundations. Emily Prentiss waited.
“I’m not talking hallucinations,” he fumbled to clarify. “I’m talking feelings... I’m seeing feelings.” He stepped out of the closing elevator, his shoulder bumping against the heavy steel, but not stopping his progress. “I’m seeing things that I wasn’t seeing yesterday.” His eyes were pleading with her to understand what it was that he was admitting, his soft voice hollow in the large space surrounding them. His tone dropped when he begged, “Tell me I’m not just seeing them in my head... I need to know if they’re there.”
The darkness that he’d woken up with, which had settled into the background when he’d arrived at that office was gaining ground in his mind again. The confusion he had at the way he was spilling his guts to her fed the darkness; he was worried that when he woke up tomorrow, even coming in to the office wasn’t going to suffice a reprieve from the darkness. The joy he’d felt at lunch time, the comfort of an afternoon without a word said blipped into the void as the idea that he was making a horrible mistake leapt out at him.
She stepped closer to him and for a moment, in his confusion, she looked iridescent in the harsh fluorescent. He blinked heavily and when he was looking at her again, she was shaking her head in surprise.
“You weren’t supposed to see it, Hotch.” She said softly, cool fingers rising to rest against his cheek.
His head tipped a little, glanced to the ground that was still, amazingly, beneath him. He closed his eyes then, and absorbed the reality of her touch. Skin to skin, he suddenly realized that he’d barely been touched all day; not at all until Prentiss had touched his hair in the office. Startled, he looked up, looked at her and understood his swirling emotions and imagination.
Reaching out, he pulled her to him and kissed her; drank from the heavenly light of her touch. She gasped against him, surprised, but after a shocking moment, her fingers dropped to curl into the lapels of his suit jacket. They stood frozen, pressed together until a supernova of sensation shattered against Hotch’s ribcage and he stepped back from her.
Her eyes were dark, hooded as she looked at him. Her breathing whispered against his cheeks in an unsteady rhythm and her fingers clenched tighter around the fabric at his chest.
He hadn’t understood much about what had happened to him throughout the day, but standing there in that one instant he understood one thing: he needed to kiss her again.
They collided again, this time with his fingers curling into the dark strands at the nape of her neck and one of hers rising to clutch him tighter to her. He drowned in her, pulled himself away from the routine darkness of his life and bathed in the rightness of that unexpected moment. It was different, it was change; it was everything.
He felt the vibrations of a swallowed moan against his lips and smiled happily at the sensation. He peppered a hundred kisses to her cheeks and eyebrows, finally resting his lips against her forehead. He hated the cliché of finding himself in a kiss, but it was his reality in that moment and he grinned freely against her skin.
Prentiss took a deep, steadying breath and dropped on hand to rest against his waist, dipping a finger under his belt along his shirt. She rest against him and he could feel her start to relax against him; coming to terms with what they’d just done.
“Well, that was different,” she quipped.
Hotch laughed freely and shook his head. “That’s okay.”
She pulled back from him, looked into his eyes for a solid minute and then smiled tenderly at him before cupping a palm against his cheek. “Yeah, it is.” She stood straighter and kissed him chastely again, before taking his hand and pulling him along behind her. “Come on. You’re still exhausted, and you are still not driving yourself home.”
He grinned and chuckled.
Suddenly she stopped and pressed herself against him, arms rising to slip around his shoulders. She raised her lips to his ear and whispered, “Besides, I’m not finished with you yet.”
They wandered back to the Bureau together, slow strides indicating relaxation and friendliness, a group of agents dependent upon each other. Even though they were going back to the office to write their reports on the previous case of child abduction, molestation and murder, here and now, they could rely on each other to remember that there was more to the world than evil and corruption.
He walked next to Prentiss, her shoulders hunched against the falling rain and he glanced at her to catch a few drops rolling down her skirt of hair. He followed one on its entire journey from the top of her head to the explosion of its final contact with the cement at her feet. She caught his eyes as they moved back up, but didn’t say anything, though he could find no shame in having been caught watching her.
He smiled to himself.
Back in the bullpen, they split up again, Morgan and Reid devolving into adolescents without supervision on the topic of Kurt Vonnegut and free will.
Only in his unit, he thought to himself.
Prentiss slipped into his office with him, quietly taking up her perch on the couch and continuing with her work without a word. He looked at her for a minute, contemplating his sudden awareness of her, his notice of her clothes and hair. The moment from earlier in the day, the flash of something across her eyes came to mind and he wondered, was it because of that that he was seeing her differently from only a few hours before?
Was it only a few hours? He knew that there had been moments in the last few months where she’d sparked something inside of him - something that he wanted to call pride and admiration, but which in reality could have been affection and pleasure. It wouldn’t have taken too much of a shift of his thought processes to make him see Emily Prentiss more than a co-worker.
So, maybe that had been it. The look that had flashed over her features earlier that morning could have flipped the internal switch that kept Prentiss at arm’s length. Aaron Hotchner had been out of the game for too long if he couldn’t recognize the lure and attention of a beautiful woman.
Was it him that was holding back? He didn’t think that someone as open and affectionate as Prentiss would find it easy to hold back on emotions as strong as an attraction to a man she saw every day of the week. But, they did work in a job where understanding how emotions played out and showed themselves was known by rote; how to hide them was learned just as quickly. Just because she could show an honest empathy towards victims didn’t mean that her affection towards friends would manifest itself just as freely.
Hotch glanced up at her, watching her through his hooded eyes as she shifted some papers and wrote a few more words. His gaze rested on her fingers, danced along her arms and over her shoulders to watch as she bit her lip in concentration. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch in an affectionate smile.
“What’re you smiling at?” she asked, with her own small smile.
He cleared his throat, buying time to overcome her surprised question. He honestly didn’t know how to answer her. There was a part of him wondering if he could admit to her that his switch had been flipped, but too much of his life depended on the family network of the team and what would the consequences be if something like that would happen?
Should he ask her?
Could he risk it?
Never in his life had he felt less confident about a profile than sitting in his office, looking at one of his closest friends and wondering if there could be something more. He sighed and shook his head.
He really was a coward in many ways.
“Nothing.”
She watched him for a long moment and then shrugging, turned back to her work. Their cases had piled up and there was more than one report to finish; he took her cue and turned back to his own. Even with the unexpected butterflies in his stomach, he could still finish his work and leave the office with some semblance of dignity.
The next time that Hotch lifted his head from his work, the bull pen lights were out but he could hear Morgan and Reid yelling at each other in another childish argument. Hotch shook his head.
“What are they going on about now?” Prentiss asked, not even bothering to lift her eyes from her laptop.
For a very short, intense moment, Hotch was transported to another life - another universe - where he and Prentiss were sitting in a living room and that question was asked of their kids. The illusion was so strong that Hotch froze, his imaginary eye taking in the plush couch, chair and a half and cherry coffee table in the immaculately decorated living room. He could smell the faint reminiscence of pot roast from an unreal supper, the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the Technicolor pictures of husband, wife and step-siblings.
“Oh God,” he groaned, dropping his tired head into his just as tired hands. Every muscle in his body screamed surrender.
“Hotch?”
Before he could even lift his head to stop her from coming across the room, Prentiss was at his side, slender fingers resting on the top of his head.
“Hotch? You alright?”
He snapped back to himself and jerked upright, his face ending just a few inches from hers. Her brown eyes were wide with worry and questions, her fingertips pressing gently against his skull. He could literally see her pulse in the curve of her neck and swallowed thickly before shaking his head to clear his thoughts.
“I’m exhausted.”
She smiled endearingly at him and nodded. “Yes. Yes, you are.”
“I think I’m going to head home.” He sighed.
“I’ll drive you.”
He frowned. “Prentiss, I live on the other...”
“I’m fine. I don’t want you driving like this.”
He could see her point, could feel himself relaxing already with the thought of not having to face downtown traffic alone. But still, some of him wanted the independence of driving home alone; especially to deal with the sudden and surprise twist of feelings in his gut.
“Fine,” he surrendered.
He refused to acknowledge that something passed over her eyes again, reminded himself, that he was reading in to something that he wanted, but wasn’t there.
But it was.
And he saw it.
“I’ll go tell the boys that we’re leaving. I’ll be ready in just a few,” she said, letting her fingers drag through his hair just a little bit, before patting him on the shoulder. She cast him one final glance before disappearing out his office door.
Groaning softly, he dropped his head to the blotter on his desk; the earlier comfort he’d received from the nearly-immovable object lost now in his confusion. Sitting up again, his fingers began to tap against the wood in thought.
There were too many things that could happen, that could go wrong. On the other hand, there were so many things that could go right. But which should he trust?
“Hotch!” Prentiss called from the bullpen.
He stood and shuffled some random files into his briefcase, and trudged out of his sanctuary of an office and into the darkness of the abandoned communal room. Morgan and Reid waved to him from their positions in the conference room and then turned back to their work.
Prentiss led him into the elevator, pushing the button for the third level of the parking garage. He was silent for the ride, the thoughts of tomorrow work day slipping easily from his concentration with her presence right beside him. Black ink changed into black hair, brown desks changed into brown eyes, ticking clocks turned into tapping heels; he pushed the heels of his own hands into his eyes, rubbing vigorously.
“I think I’m losing it.” He murmured, his shoulders lumping.
The elevator dinged their arrival and she asked softly, “Why?”
When he looked at her, saw the worry and concern lining her features, he had to bite his lower lip to keep himself from saying anything stupid. He even had his mouth open, but then shook his head instead.
Her brow furrowed and she frowned, not accepting his refusal, but keeping silent regardless. She stuck her hand out to stop the doors from closing again and stepped into the echoing space of the underground garage.
She took two steps and Hotch called, “I’m seeing things I shouldn’t be seeing.”
She froze and turned to him. She was silent, attentive; a pillar of strength among his suddenly crumbling foundations. Emily Prentiss waited.
“I’m not talking hallucinations,” he fumbled to clarify. “I’m talking feelings... I’m seeing feelings.” He stepped out of the closing elevator, his shoulder bumping against the heavy steel, but not stopping his progress. “I’m seeing things that I wasn’t seeing yesterday.” His eyes were pleading with her to understand what it was that he was admitting, his soft voice hollow in the large space surrounding them. His tone dropped when he begged, “Tell me I’m not just seeing them in my head... I need to know if they’re there.”
The darkness that he’d woken up with, which had settled into the background when he’d arrived at that office was gaining ground in his mind again. The confusion he had at the way he was spilling his guts to her fed the darkness; he was worried that when he woke up tomorrow, even coming in to the office wasn’t going to suffice a reprieve from the darkness. The joy he’d felt at lunch time, the comfort of an afternoon without a word said blipped into the void as the idea that he was making a horrible mistake leapt out at him.
She stepped closer to him and for a moment, in his confusion, she looked iridescent in the harsh fluorescent. He blinked heavily and when he was looking at her again, she was shaking her head in surprise.
“You weren’t supposed to see it, Hotch.” She said softly, cool fingers rising to rest against his cheek.
His head tipped a little, glanced to the ground that was still, amazingly, beneath him. He closed his eyes then, and absorbed the reality of her touch. Skin to skin, he suddenly realized that he’d barely been touched all day; not at all until Prentiss had touched his hair in the office. Startled, he looked up, looked at her and understood his swirling emotions and imagination.
Reaching out, he pulled her to him and kissed her; drank from the heavenly light of her touch. She gasped against him, surprised, but after a shocking moment, her fingers dropped to curl into the lapels of his suit jacket. They stood frozen, pressed together until a supernova of sensation shattered against Hotch’s ribcage and he stepped back from her.
Her eyes were dark, hooded as she looked at him. Her breathing whispered against his cheeks in an unsteady rhythm and her fingers clenched tighter around the fabric at his chest.
He hadn’t understood much about what had happened to him throughout the day, but standing there in that one instant he understood one thing: he needed to kiss her again.
They collided again, this time with his fingers curling into the dark strands at the nape of her neck and one of hers rising to clutch him tighter to her. He drowned in her, pulled himself away from the routine darkness of his life and bathed in the rightness of that unexpected moment. It was different, it was change; it was everything.
He felt the vibrations of a swallowed moan against his lips and smiled happily at the sensation. He peppered a hundred kisses to her cheeks and eyebrows, finally resting his lips against her forehead. He hated the cliché of finding himself in a kiss, but it was his reality in that moment and he grinned freely against her skin.
Prentiss took a deep, steadying breath and dropped on hand to rest against his waist, dipping a finger under his belt along his shirt. She rest against him and he could feel her start to relax against him; coming to terms with what they’d just done.
“Well, that was different,” she quipped.
Hotch laughed freely and shook his head. “That’s okay.”
She pulled back from him, looked into his eyes for a solid minute and then smiled tenderly at him before cupping a palm against his cheek. “Yeah, it is.” She stood straighter and kissed him chastely again, before taking his hand and pulling him along behind her. “Come on. You’re still exhausted, and you are still not driving yourself home.”
He grinned and chuckled.
Suddenly she stopped and pressed herself against him, arms rising to slip around his shoulders. She raised her lips to his ear and whispered, “Besides, I’m not finished with you yet.”