criminal minds | one-shots ✓

22. made-up pizza hirearchy

"this," rossi says, disgust lacing every letter, "is a disgrace. this is not pizza. this is something to be ashsamed of."

emily pouts, "i happen to like dominoes, thank you very much. just because you're a rich snob who happens to be italian does not mean you can judge what kind of pizzas i like."

"that's exactly what it means." rossi says, and emily wrinkles her nose at him.

she refuses to believe in his made up pizza hierarchy - pizza being, she's tried to remind him, literally just bread, cheese, sauce, and seasoning - or that he's got some kind of power over her because she chose ham over pepperoni.

she wishes jj were here. at least then she'd have someone on her side.

"real pizza needs to be authentic," rossi starts and she doesn't bother suppressing her eye roll - if she had a dollar eveytime she heard this speech, she'd have as much as money as him. "it needs to come from the heart, not from the sweaty hands of underpaid teenagers."

"ew." she says, putting her pizza slice down. she's suddenly not hungry, "that's disgusting."

he shrugs, "but not untrue."

the worst part is, he's right - logically, she knows they use gloves and wash their hands - but imagining someone else's sweat in her food - a teenagers sweat - is enough to make her shudder.

"okay, then, show me what you mean."

rossi blinks at her, "what?"

"make me a pizza. a real, authentic, true pizza."

for a moment, he just stares at her like she's crazy, but then he seems to realize it's a challenge - if his pizza sucks and/or he doesn't actually make the pizza, he no longer has rights to making fun.

he tilts his head up and emily smiles. "fine."