Chapter Text
She finds him in the dim of the non-descript bar roughly an hour before last call. As if a scent hound released on his heels.
(He had thought himself safe, hidden, tucked into the corner, walking distance from the stark apartment that held little life to it but his name on the lease and the pictures of Jack that decorate the bedside table.)
Slides into the seat next to him without a word, jolting him from the dark reverie as he stares into the glass of amber on the bar-top, accompanied by a puff of air that carries the smallest hint of her shampoo.
(Saffron and cedar.)
(A scent he’d come to associate with her. One he finds helps settle him more often than not these days.)
(But in this moment, it latches onto his frayed emotions, the ones he’s been try to fight into submission for the last few hours, and sets them ablaze.)
Aaron clenches his jaw, swallowing down several vile and visceral comments that instantly form on his tongue as he studies her.
She doesn’t look his way, and that adds kindling to the fire in his chest.
(He wants to hurt something, that old black dog of childhood snarling in his head, the feel of fists on flesh calling to the broken thing he has spent his whole life keeping muzzled.)
Instead, behind a curtain of onyx hair as she sits facing the bar while he remains stationary with his back to the wall, she leans over to sniff at the amber liquid in the glass laying just beyond his fingertips. Sits up and finally looks over at him, her nose wrinkled in vague distaste, but there’s a strange knowing in her eyes.
(It almost catches him off guard. If his anger was any less, the ocean of understanding in that look might have left him flat-footed and vulnerable.)
“Go home Prentiss,” he finally snarls when it becomes clear she won’t break the silence, save for the gentle tap of her fingernails against wood.
(Go home and leave him. Leave him alone before she can see the darkness tucked under his skin, the anger simmering in his chest. Leave him before he lashes out in an effort to escape the hellfire in his heart.)
“You first,” she retorts, lifting her chin in defiance.
(Defiant since the beginning, in her own way, worming her way onto his team, defiant in a way no one else dared.)
Leaning forward in a surge of motion, Aaron tilts until he’s in her space, trying to impress upon her how violently he wants her gone. “Go away,” he hisses, and there’s that anger starting to seep out. Knuckles ache with strain at how tightly he clenches his fists on his thighs.
(All coiled knots of disappointment and rage, but all at himself. Not at Hayley. He’s hurting, a sad, wounded thing, and he had been born into the fists of his father, and knew how to cope in the taste and feel of pain. Wants to feel blood in his teeth in a way that haunts him.)
Emily lifts a brow at his closeness, unruffled.
Studies him for a long, humming moment, gaze dark and languid.
And then she turns to face him fully, knees knocking into his with a sharp crack. He’s forced to recoil slightly at the impact, and she takes the opportunity to lean into the space he’s just vacated.
“You. First,” she says slowly, prolonging each syllable.
A gentle hand on his knee stops him before he can spray venom.
“Go home before you drink that cheap whiskey and do something you regret Aaron.”
(It’s a blow, knocking him off kilter, hearing his name from her lips, not the moniker he normally hears.)
The warmth of her touch vanishes as quickly as it came, withdrawn to rest on the bar top next to the glass he hadn’t been able to bring himself to touch since ordering.
(Had been fighting with himself to not touch since ordering.)
“What do you know about regret?” he snaps coldly.
Cruelly.
(Make her leave before she sees the way he wants to hurt something.)
(Wants her to flinch and back away, regardless of how it might destroy something in their working relationship, because he doesn’t know what he will do with all these feelings making holes in his heart.)
Instead, Emily does nothing he expects.
(Again. And again. And again.)
(Defying expectations as if it were her full-time job.)
She picks up his glass, the whiskey well warm by this point, and downs it. Scowls at the taste even as he sputters in protest.
“I’ve had better whiskey in a frat basement,” she coughs around the burn, before side-eyeing him. “And don’t say that it’s meant to be sipped. We both know this wasn't a drink you ordered with intention to sip.”
Pauses, as if giving him a moment to respond. He's caught tongue-tied and near bemused. Torn between directing anger at her for stealing his whiskey and a strange desire to thank her for doing just that.
“And you never heard me say anything about a frat basement,” she adds, levity sparkling in her tone, but it doesn’t match the seriousness in her eyes.
She slides off the stool as easy as she arrived and holds out a hand.
“Nothing good is going to come of you fighting demons in the bottom of a glass Aaron,” she says quietly.
It takes the wind out of his lungs. Let's it all out like smoke in a breeze, swirling away the dark.
(Hayley wouldn’t let alcohol stay in the house.)
(Had met his father once, in the cloud of liquor and hurt that followed, and understood Aaron’s fear of himself.)
(Emily had no way of knowing just how gut wrenching her words are.)
(She needs to stop saying his name.)
(He needs her to stop saying his name before it rips open more holes in him.)
“If you really want that drink, have it tomorrow. Not tonight. Okay?” she asks, hand still outstretched in offering.
(There’s a jagged wound in his heart, seeping pain and rage and hurt.)
(But some of that anger is sliding away under the relentless sea that is Emily Prentiss, smothered under the washing calm.)
He takes her hand.
It’s warm in his.
But firm as she leads him out of the bar, refusing to release him even when they’re out on the sidewalk. The night air is a slap against stress warmed skin. He breathes deeply, blinking against the drop in temperature. The streetlights hum in the darkness, and Emily doesn’t speak as she leads him through the cool Virginia streets.
He doesn’t try to ask where they’re going.
The emotional crash is pending, the call for violence sapping his energy.
They pass the street that would lead to his apartment.
The moon peaks out from behind a thin cloud.
Silver glints across the sheen of Emily’s hair.
(Aaron is hurting, hurting deeply.)
A few blocks later, they’re at Emily’s apartment.
And the wind is gone from Aaron’s sails, strength bleeding from his limbs, exhaustion seeping out of his marrow.
(Sickness in his throat, how close he had come to drowning sorrows just like his father before.)
He’s gently pulled into her place, distantly hearing her lock the door behind them. Let’s her help him out of his jacket, where it’s hung on the rack next to hers. Toes off his shoes onto the mat. Doesn’t resist when she tugs him in the direction of the living room, until he finds himself standing in front of her coach, lost.
When Emily looks at him with heartbreaking kindness and not a single word, the cracks make themselves known.
A tear runs down his cheek and a sob catches in his throat.
(Until the divorce papers, he had held valiantly onto a glimmer of hope.)
(And that hope has just died.)
Emily hugs him gently, and then huffs in surprise when his arms tighten around her.
(Holding onto her through the first of the flood.)
But she doesn’t push him off, gives him this.
Eventually he’s able to scrape himself back together and releases her, looking away in embarrassment.
Emily moves away.
(He’s fractured something between them.)
Only to reach under the couch cushions and flip out a pull-out bed.
He blinks.
(Maybe this is the shock.)
He blinks again.
Emily has disappeared somewhere into her apartment, but he can hear rustling from upstairs.
He looks at the mattress, the flannel sheets already tucked into the corners, and reaches out a gentle finger. The sheets are soft.
He blinks again.
Emily reappears, carrying two pillows tucked to her chest and a pile of navy and grey fabric on top.
Setting the pillows down, she hands the pile of clothing to him, which unfolds into basketball shorts that are definitely too large for Emily and an oversized and borderline ratty t-shirt emblazoned with the Montreal Expos.
He looks at them.
Looks at her.
She just grins.
“Expos?” he rasps, unable to think of anything else to say.
She laughs, a bright flare of sound.
“Nostalgia, what can I say?” she responds, before turning away and pulling the blanket draped across the back of the couch down. She unfolds it with a flick of her wrists and settles it on the mattress.
“Bathroom is under the stairs, there should be some mouthwash under the sink but I don’t have a spare toothbrush, sorry, and the tap water is run through a filter so if you need any, just grab a glass from the cupboard,” she tells him. Gives him one final look, and a gentle pat on his shoulder, before moving away.
He blinks again.
The lights are dim, only the lamp in the corner left on, Emily having retreated up the stairs.
Leaving him alone.
(But he doesn’t feel so alone.)
(He doesn't deserve this kindness.)
(But he clings to it, a lifeboat in a stormy sea.)
He shuffles to the bathroom and doesn’t bother with the light, squinting in the shadows thrown by the living room lamp. Shrugs his way out of his clothes and into the basketball shorts and the t-shirt Emily had given him. Moving mechanically, with little thought. The shirt is a bit tight around his arms and shorter than anything he would wear, but it’s soft and smells clean.
(Smells like Emily.)
He blinks again.
Shuffles back to the living room. Sets his pile of clothes at the foot of the couch. Makes it to the pull out couch. Doesn’t bother turning off the lamp.
(He needs just a little light to ward off the darkness.)
Lays down.
And cries himself to sleep.