somewhere only we know ══════emily prentiss

11.suffice

11.𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞
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the next morning olivia spent 40 minutes just trying to pull herself up from the couch just to get to her bed for another hour of shitty sleep. she knew going out to a club with alice was not a good idea but at least she took care of her that time, something she lacked to do almost every other occasion. her eyes were puffy, face felt hot and all she wanted was ava's special hangover soup but seeing as she didn't know how to make it, nor did she have the energy too, that wasn't going to happen. she eventually got up by 1pm and tugged on some sweatpants and a shirt she hadn't worn in a year and waddled to her bathroom, making herself presentable enough to not be seen as crazy before trudging down to her car in the parking deck and driving off to the closest panera she could find.

  she wished she could say she forgot everything that happened last night and leave it at that but sadly, she was just short of it. she remembered majority of her night and the rest was easy to fill in. she didn't necessarily regret admitting her feelings to emily but the execution, drunkenky getting upset at how attractive someone is to their face, was definitely not the most romantic confession. now there was nothing else she could do other than park her car at a random abandoned building and eat her soup in silence as she people watched in hopes to distract her mind.

   and that's exactly what she did for the next two hours. sit and watch random people as they walked by, making up little scenarios and personalities for them if they stopped long enough, but eventually that got old. she loved people watching but there was only so many names she could think of for strangers before she couldn't avoid her inner gay panic any more. she knew she needed to talk to emily eventually but the issues was, would emily want to talk to her? sure they had shared memories olivia would always cherish and had told each other things at late hours that were never to be spoken of again but somehow in her mind, she wasn't sure if that constituted as 'more than friends' activities. emily had never really shown any clear fire signs and although olivia tried to, she wasn't sure how they had come off. she sat there for a bit longer before heading to rockys to get emily's favorite cupcake as a peace offering in hopes of not losing the best thing to happen to her since she moved into her complex.

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  emily's mind had been racing all day, only worsening when olivia called her and asked her to come over because she had something to give her. was she going to bring up last night? was she going to just ignore it? did she even remember? yet here emily was not 4 minutes later knocking on her door.

olivia open it with a small grin.  "hey" was all she could say, opening the door wider and beckoning her in  "i got you a cupcake from rocky's"

"thank you". the atmosphere was stale as she took the treat from her grasp

"i,um... can we talk?"

emily should of known better than to assume she had forgotten, olivia was the one of the most observant people she knew— nothing slipped through the cracks, yet she still had hoped the dessert was nothing more than a friendly gesture so they could continue on. "yeah of coarse" she said, sitting on the couch

olivia followed behind, sitting opposite of her "so..... how did you sleep?"

"i slept alright. i bet you slept amazingly"

olivia nervously chuckled "yeah.... it was alright". she wasn't sure how to bring up what they both knew needed to be said. "i'm sorry about waking you up last night, and i'm sorry for being aggressive about everything"

"you were drunk, it's fine"

"i know, i still meant everything i said though. i really do like you emily, and i need to know if i have a chance or not. we talk about so much but i feel like you leave me in the dark about things that are important."

all emily could think of was reaching over and holding her hand. she wanted to move closer and rub little circles into her palm as they sat and giggled and complimented each other for however long it took for the other to get bored, but she couldn't. it had been so long since she allowed herself to get this close to someone new that she wasn't sure how to push this further no matter how much she wanted to. "you know i care about you and you're such a wonderful person a-"

"please just tell me if you like me or not"

"olivia it's not simple" emily hated being so serious with her, it just wasn't their thing. "you mean so much to me, you've gotten me to open up in ways that i haven't been able to in years but now i don't even know how to handle situations like this anymore. ive spent years desensitizing my feelings and now here you are and i just don't want to fuck up what we have. you know what i mean? you're so open about everything meanwhile i can't even label my own sexuality." god she felt like a out of practice school girl.

olivia's heart hurt for her, reaching over and grabbing one of her hands, holding it in between her own "you don't need to label anything. i know that you've been through a lot and you're trained to compartmentalize but sexuality is fluid, just because i have a label doesn't mean you need one to be valid. you are always valid emily, especially to me."

"i know but you are so" emily sighed in frustration "you're so... good. you deserve so much and-"

"stop." olivia could handle a lot of things. she could handle emily's rants and her paranoia and her excuses to get away from situations but not this. "you deserve the same. just because you have some baggage doesn't mean you don't deserve love and to be happy. what happened to you was awful and as much as you put on your front i know it still bothers you but depriving yourself of things does nothing. i have shit i have to work through too but here i am, with you"

"i just don't want anyone to use you as leverage against me." as much as emily appreciated her kind words and comforting hand there was nothing she could do to get that plaguing fear to stop. she was always going to have that in her head, and at the end of the day it didn't matter how much emily wanted to end this conversation and cuddle olivia for the rest of the night, she was always going to have that barrier. every time she held her hand she'd be looking over her shoulder. she'd feel the need to constantly shield olivia from anything outside of their little happy place and she wasn't sure if that was something either one of them were ready for.

the blaring of emily's ringtone brought them both out of their own thoughts as she eagerly reaches for it to postpone the conversation just a bit more, taking the conversation to the hall. after a few minutes she came back to find olivia staring off blankly into the pillow on her lap. 'what is going on in there? is she mad? is she hurt?'. she set those thoughts aside, instead clearing her throat "there's a emergency at the headquarters.... i have to go"
olivia could only nod, getting up as they made their way to the front door.

"are we okay?"

olivia nodded "yeah... yeah we're okay". there it was, that little smile that made this entire situation even harder for emily "we still gotta work through this but we are okay"

"okay." and just like that emily left with a heavy heart, getting in the elevator and going back to her apartment.

emily didn't have an emergency at the office, she hadn't even gotten a real call, but she couldn't stay. she couldn't handle olivia being so willing to do almost anything for her, for them, and the thought of someone loving her that that much was something she couldn't wrap her head around just yet.

AN:/

hey guys, i hope you're enjoying the story so far!! i just wanted to let you guys know that i will be posting next week due to personal reasons.

i hope you guys can understand, don't forget that if you can always listen to the playlist though!! it's linked on my announcement page :)

drink water and sleep well<3