These Two Asleep, for microgirl8225, Rossi/Prentiss, R (original) (raw)

Title: These Two Asleep
Author: wojelah
Recipient: microgirl8225
Pairing: Rossi/Prentiss
Rating: soft R
Word Count: ~ 2,000ish
Warnings/spoilers: Through 5x11, Retaliation
Summary/prompt: The anatomy of a relationship, told in bedtimes. Written for the prompt, "Dave and Emily sleeping together. Not necessarily sex, but just snuggling together in bed. Maybe the first time Dave stays at Emily's place or they talk in bed before they go to sleep, so a few vignettes of what they talk about." I hope you find this fits the bill!

A/N: Title from 27,000 Miles, by Albert Goldbarth.

The first time Dave sees Emily Prentiss asleep, it's because he walks in on her.

To be fair, he'd been summoned there by JJ, on her way to round up the rest of the troops, and the briefing is due to start momentarily, so it's not an intentional intrusion. He hasn't been back at the BAU long, but long enough to know that JJ is an authority not to be denied.

They got back from L.A. a week ago, Garcia's noticeably on the mend, and they've had a mercifully quiet few days, so Dave's a little surprised to open the door to find Emily Prentiss asleep at the conference table, head on her elbows, face turned toward the door.

He's not sure why he pauses. His normal response would be to flick on the lights and crack a joke. But for all her breathing's quiet and even, there's a tension in her shoulders that hasn't eased, a small, vertical worry line between her eyebrows, and maybe that's why he hesitates, standing in the doorway, reaching for the light switch.

Noise filters up from the bullpen - Morgan, laughing at something Garcia's said - and Prentiss wakes with a start. She sits upright so fast his own spine protests, scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her palms.

He doesn't mean to move, but he must do it anyway, some slight shift that catches her attention. She looks at him, face open, eyes wide, and he just looks back, caught in the quiet and the dim light, in something fragile he doesn't quite know how to define.

Another burst of noise and the moment shatters. Dave flicks on the light. "Morning," is all he says.

Emily groans and Dave laughs and the rest of the team piles in through the doorway, and time moves on.

---

He falls asleep on the way home from Indianapolis.

He doesn't normally - doesn't like to sleep when he's traveling, period, really. Since he came back to the BAU, he uses the time on the flights home to catch up on paperwork. They're too busy on the flights out for sleep to be an option.

Indianapolis hadn't really been a proper case, he supposes, blinking blearily at the sunlight pouring in through the plane window. Dave's sufficiently aware to know that he's intentionally missing the point. He swipes a hand over his goatee and realizes he's not alone at the table.

Prentiss is sitting on the other side, an open file in front of her, scribbling notes on a legal pad, entirely engrossed. Only he's wrong about that, because without looking up, she reaches forward and slides a cup of coffee across the table.

Dave takes a sip. It's strong and black and steaming hot, and he knows full well that Prentiss hadn't been there before he'd fallen asleep.

He coughs, clearing the rust from his throat. "Thanks."

She looks up, then, and quirks him a smile. "Welcome."

Maybe it's the fact that JJ and Morgan are at the other end of the plane. Maybe it's the fact that he's still a little groggy. Maybe it's the fact that she showed up in a bar and refused to let him shove them all away. Maybe it's a little of everything that lets him say, "I wasn't just talking about the coffee."

Prentiss goes still, then, and drops her eyes, but she's still smiling. "There goes my career as a barista." She closes the folder, stacks the pad on top, and stands. "We land in thirty. Drink up." She walks away down the aisle. The cup's warm against his palm as he watches her go.

---

He tags along to the hospital in Colorado. Hotch has enough of a mess to clean up, and he's got Reid and Morgan and JJ to help, so Dave doesn't feel terribly guilty about tailing the ambulance.

He knows damn well why he's doing it; knows just how lucky they were today; knows just how close he came to losing two of the best agents he knows. The doctors aren't worried, but they're keeping her overnight for observation, and he cuts her off when she tries to argue with them. When she argues with him, Dave just dials up Hotch and lets him lay down the law.

"You're an asshole," she snaps at him, not-quite-hurling the phone back at him, but she stops trying to get out of the damn bed.

"You only just noticed?" he drawls back. He's chicken enough to be grateful that the nurse walks in on them at that point.

There's not much in La Plata County, and the hospital in Durango isn't all that far from her hotel, so he takes advantage and slips out while Prentiss is being bullied into having her vitals taken. When he comes back, her go-bag in tow, Emily is asleep, one hand curled lightly against her chest, the other lax and open on the blanket.

He knows the soundtrack to every cut on her face, from the bruise on her cheek to the cut on her lip, and it plays loud and clear as he studies her. She looks fragile in the unkind light. He knows, now, what a lie that is. He knew it before, really. It's just that now he has proof.

He's uncomfortably aware that what he's feeling is something more than simple pride.

He's also really good at ignoring complications.

So he chooses to ignore this one, and settles into the hard plastic chair to spend the night.

The nurses wake him periodically as they make their rounds, but he manages to catnap, tilting his head back against the wall and crossing his arms. At some point, someone offers him a blanket, and he wraps it over his shoulders.

The last time he wakes up, it's to see Prentiss watching him from the bed. It's nearly seven in the morning. He groans as he sits up, vertebrae protesting, and picks up her go-bag from the floor.

"You're still an asshole," she says, but she's smiling.

---

He doesn't sleep when they get back from Cleveland. At least, not much. Certainly not well. It'll pass, he knows - if the Galens taught him anything, it's that, but for now Zoe Hawkes is far too fresh in his memory.

He makes it a week before it starts to tell on him. It's late in the day and he's nodding off at his desk when Prentiss cracks open his door and startles him awake.

There's an awkward pause while they both stare at each other. For a moment, Dave thinks she might turn and walk back out to let him save face, and he's too bleary to come up with some quip to relieve the tension.

Only then she surprises him, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame as she gives him a quick once-over. "You look like shit," she says.

"I look like I need a drink" he answers, because that, at least, is very true.

She quirks a grin, hesitates just barely long enough for him to notice, and offers, "I know a place." It's an honest invitation, and it catches him by surprise. He waits too long to answer, he supposes, because then she flushes, backing away. "Sorry. I didn't mean -"

"Prentiss," he says, cutting her off. "I'd like that."

He doesn't sleep well that night, but he does sleep better.

---

Three months later, he shows up at her house with a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of wine, and it doesn't take a profiler to tell she's been crying when she opens the door

"You look like shit," he says.

She manages a laugh. "I look like I need a drink," she answers, and he's absurdly pleased she remembers.

"I brought options," he offers.

Emily laughs again, and lets him in.

He pours her into bed before calling himself a cab. Her cell is on the table and it rings while he's watching the street. It's Cooley, and it takes everything Dave has not to answer it. There's no voicemail notification, as far as Dave can tell. The last thing he does before the cab shows is delete the number from her call history. He doesn't feel guilty about it in the slightest.

---

Reid isn't dead, and Washington, D.C. isn't covered in anthrax, and somewhere between the elevator and the garage, he invites her back for a drink. It's nearly habit, at this point - a routine, a custom, something they do when one or the other or both of them just needs an ear, or a sounding board, or just someone to sit there and take up space. He's come to find he needs it, and he doesn't let himself look too closely at why. The fact that something like this can be ordinary is enough of a gift.

It's not till he's standing in his kitchen, the wine open and breathing on the island, that he realizes that tonight isn't habit or routine or custom at all. There is nothing routine about the curve of Emily's hip against his hand, or the smooth line of her jaw beneath his thumb, or the taste of her mouth opening up under his. There is nothing ordinary about the way she leads him up the stairs, or the way she looks spread out against the blue of his bedspread, or the way she laughs as she tugs him down against her. There is nothing habitual about the feel of her body around his as he sinks into her, although he concedes that it may be entirely habit-forming.

It is, he tells her afterward, entirely extraordinary.

"You're an idiot," she replies, curled against him.

He strokes a hand through her hair, winding a strand around his finger and smiling as she nearly purrs in contentment. "Probably. Why in particular?"

"We could've done this months ago."

He shifts to look her in the eye as best he can. "Months?"

She blushes, but meets his gaze. "Months."

He drops his head back against the pillow, grinning like a fool. "I'm a traditionalist, what can I say. I like to take things slow." Emily smacks him lightly. "Ow."

"You mean you're an idiot who doesn't know a good thing when it's staring him in the face?" she demands, prodding him with a finger.

Dave laughs. "Yeah. Something like that."

"Lucky for you, I'm patient." Emily wraps an arm around him.

He has to cough around the sudden tightening in his throat. "Lucky for you, I'm good at making up for lost time."

---

He's right. Emily Prentiss is entirely habit-forming. Curled up in her bed, Hotch and Reid in the hospital, the Reaper at large, and all hell breaking loose, Dave wonders what he'll do if he ever has to do without her.

Then Ben Vanderwaal dies and his past comes back to visit, and Dave thinks he might just find out. But when they come back from Long Island, she follows him home. It's a grace he hadn't expected, and he won't push.

Even so, they fall asleep on separate sides of the bed, six inches of space and Emma between them.

---

They argue.

She sleeps at her apartment for a week.

He sleeps in his own bed. Poorly.

---

He apologizes.

So does she.

It's not enough.

---

One night, he wakes up and she's not there. He can see the dent in the pillow from her head; the room smells of sweat and sex and Emily. He vaguely remembers her clothing landing on the floor at some point, but it's no longer there. Dave shrugs into his robe and a pair of sweatpants, and wanders downstairs.

Emily's curled up in his massive wingback, fully dressed, her feet tucked beneath her. One of the table lamps is on low, a quiet pool of light. He thinks she's asleep, her eyelashes dark shadows against her cheeks, but when he shuffles forward and she looks up, he knows he's wrong. He just doesn't know how badly.

He's not awake enough to do this, he thinks, but the conversation's happening regardless. If he could just pause to think, he'd know how to stop it, but instead he's agreeing with her. He knows this is the wrong answer. He knows she wants to hear that it's the wrong answer. But all he can hear is the two of them, calm and quiet, in rational agreement.

They need to take a break. It's been too much too fast. There's too much else to handle at the moment.

They're polite and careful and adult. He holds the door for her, waiting to make sure the car starts, waiting to watch her drive away.

He doesn't go back to bed. When dawn comes, he's still sitting in the armchair, reaching after the smell of her perfume.

---

Haley Hotchner dies, and they're all listening.

No one sleeps. They can see it on each others' faces.

---

He's outside when Emily faces down the unsub in Nashville, so he doesn't know exactly what happens. When they drag him out and shove him into a cruiser, she stays inside, alone, and Dave notices. When she comes out, Morgan keeps an eye on her, and Dave notices. She's not okay when they split up for the night, and Dave notices.

A week later, the circles under her eyes tell him she's still not sleeping.

He's halfway to her house with a bottle of Scotch when his nerve fails and he turns around.

---

She gets hit by a car.

She's fine, mostly, but a week later, he's still not sleeping.

This time, he doesn't turn the car around.

She opens the door.

No one says a word.

---

Late, late that night, she traces quiet lines along his chest, over his arm, the two of them wrapped up in each other and the dark.

"I'm an idiot," Emily says quietly.

He tightens his arm around her. "Makes two of us."

"Thank god," she laughs, and he pretends he can't feel the water on her cheek. "I'd hate to think I was alone."

"Hardly," Dave answers. "But -"

"We need to talk," she finishes. Her voice is warm, but a little blurry, and he can feel her body relaxing. "I know. But right now, can we just -"

"Sleep," he fills in. "Yeah. We can do that."

For once, he thinks, that might be true.