Emily Prentiss One Shots

Terrifying

Emily Prentiss deserves to be happy so I made it happen. Tooth-rotting fluff, Emily not knowing how to be loved, thank god for JJ and Penelope.

You and Emily reach for the same pastry, a shared danish and a month later, her best friends corner her at work. JJ and Penelope's interrogation bleeds into your lunch date, and it leads to the most horrifying moment of Emily's life.

The thing about secrets is that Emily Prentiss has always been good at keeping them. It's practically in her DNA. Years of diplomatic dinners where one wrong word could spark an international incident, followed by years in the field where silence could mean the difference between life and death. So when she meets you at that coffee shop three blocks from Quantico on a random Tuesday morning, she doesn't think twice about keeping it to herself.

It starts innocently enough. You're reaching for the same pastry in the display case, and when your fingers brush, you pull back with an apologetic smile that makes something in Emily's chest do an uncomfortable flip. You insist she take it, she insists you take it, and somehow you end up sharing it at a corner table while your respective coffees grow cold.

You're a librarian at Georgetown. You have paint on your jeans from crafting that morning. You laugh at Emily's dry observations about the other customers, and when she has to leave for work, you write your number on her napkin in neat, careful handwriting.

Emily stares at that napkin for three days before she texts you.

That was a month ago.

Now, Emily finds herself doing things she hasn't done in years, leaving work exactly on time, checking her phone between case files, and smiling at nothing in particular. It's terrifying. You're terrifying, in the way that genuinely good things often are when you've spent most of your life waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You text her pictures of your cat. You remember that she takes her coffee black with one sugar. You ask about her day and actually listen to the answer, even when she has to be vague about the details. Last week, you brought her homemade soup when she mentioned having a cold, showing up at her apartment with a thermos and a soft smile, not expecting to be invited in, not asking for anything in return.

It makes Emily feel physically ill when she thinks about it too long: this kindness, this sweetness, this complete absence of ulterior motive. She's spent so long armoring herself against the world that she doesn't quite know what to do with someone who approaches her with open hands.

So she doesn't tell anyone. Not the team, not her friends, not even after the fourth date, or the eighth, or the night you fall asleep on her couch mid-movie and she covers you with a blanket and watches you breathe for longer than she'd ever admit.

She should have known she couldn't keep it hidden forever. Not from profilers. Not from Penelope Garcia and JJ, who have made it their personal mission to know everything about everyone they love.