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It all started with a dare, as terrible things in the BAU often did.
Emily and Derek may have been professional, intelligent adults when they needed to be, but it was a well-known fact that they had a childish side. It was this side of them which had led to a never-ending game of back-and-forth dares, more ridiculous (and risky) with each round. It started innocently enough, on a case in Baltimore, when Derek had leaned over the conference table as Reid took the team through the geographical profile of their latest unsub.
“Hey, Prentiss,” he whispered, like a schoolboy trying to get her attention in class.
She ignored him, trying to focus herself on Spencer, but Morgan incessantly poked her in the arm until she finally looked over at him with a scowl.
“Prentiss. Prentiss. Hey, Prentiss.” He smirked mischievously. “I dare you to throw this pen at the kid.”
She rolled her eyes and turned away again, but the man went back to his poking until at last she lost her temper. Before she even knew what she was doing, she had grabbed the biro from his hand and launched it irritably across the room, where it bounced off the back of Spencer’s mop of hair. He turned around, head tilted in confusion like some adorable lost puppy.
JJ and Rossi snickered in the corner of the room but Emily kept her gaze fixed firmly forwards, cheeks burning as she realised what she’d done.
“Prentiss-” Hotch started with a groan.
“Sorry, Reid,” She interjected quickly. “Slipped out of my hand.”
He accepted the answer with a shrug, turning back around to the board and gesturing with the marker in hand as though nothing had happened. A calm air of professionalism settled over the office again, but not before Emily kicked Derek in the shin under the table.
He’d just started a war. And she intended to win.
Exiting the conference room a few minutes later, the dark-haired woman pulled her partner to the side, punching him playfully in the arm.
“Hey!”
“Asshole,” she grumbled.
“You didn’t have to do it,” he protested. “It was just a dare.”
She looked at him with raised eyebrows, not caring to dignify that with a response. You couldn’t refuse a dare. Everybody knew that.
“Fine, fine,” he conceded. “Let’s make it even then. Give me a dare.”
“Morgan, this is ridiculous, we’re FBI agents. Adult FBI agents.”
“You too chicken, Prentiss?”
There was no hesitation this time before her answer. “I dare you to call Hotch dad.”
---
So, the game went on, no conceivable end in sight. The rest of the team gradually became aware of the strange habit between the two agents but avidly refused to get involved, seeing the embarrassment it had caused them over the years. The ridiculous events included many great stories that were inevitably shared at any sort of holiday function: Emily ‘accidentally’ spilling a whole cup of coffee on herself, Derek wearing a full face of makeup for a day, Emily changing her social media profile picture to her old high school picture, Derek stealing the whiskey from Rossi’s office, and countless other juvenile challenges.
The list went on and on, and later in their game, both agents had enlisted the help of technical analyst Penelope Garcia to come up with devastating ideas which she had been more than happy to provide. Derek also took suggestions from Reid, whose genius brain found the best situations in the strangest of places. Emily retaliated by recruiting JJ for her schemes against her partner. Rossi refused to pick sides, saying something along the lines of ‘parents shouldn’t have a favourite kid’ but laughing heartily at their childish antics. Hotch had once suggested that they dare each other to do their jobs, and they hadn’t asked him for advice since.
After a couple of steady years of this back and forth, the game had become a sort of running joke in the BAU offices, and the stakes were rapidly rising.
---
In hindsight Emily should’ve known it would come to something like this eventually.
She had been peacefully eating lunch in Garcia’s lair one afternoon when she received her latest task. It had been Derek’s turn for at least a week now, but he had yet to come up with something for Emily to do, all his ideas either too boring or they had been completed already. So, when he burst into Garcia’s office to announce he had finally come up with something, she was a little worried (to say the least).
Emily looked questioningly at Penelope after his declaration, but the other woman shrugged. Clearly, she hadn’t been the root of this.
“This one is for the books,” he said slowly, revelling in the anticipation he was creating. “A true staple of high class, classic teenage dares. I dare you to admit your love for someone.”
Emily groaned at just the thought of it. But the worst was yet to come.
“We aren’t teenagers anymore, Derek,” Emily started, but seeing she was fighting a losing battle, she sighed in acceptance. “And who exactly am I confessing to?”
He thought for a moment, licking his lips before grinning like a mad man.
“JJ.”
Emily darted her eyes over to lock with Penelope’s, panic blowing them wide as she was drawn back into a memory of a couple of weeks before, unwinding in the technical analyst’s living room with a half empty bottle of wine as she finally spilled her deep, dark secret.
---
The dark-haired agent was sat on the floor, back resting against the sofa, stem of her glass delicately perched between her fingers. She raised the deep red liquid and took another sip, feeling the warm buzz of alcohol between her ears and allowing it to numb the sound of her doubts, deciding that now would be the perfect time to come out to Penelope.
The blonde was sat opposite, equally as tipsy, and didn’t seem the least bit shocked at Emily’s confession. She, of course, slurred out that she was proud of her friend, and that she loved her, but there wasn’t a single hint of surprise evident in her words.
The next confession, however, was less expected.
Garcia saw the deep bond that JJ and Emily shared, sure. She saw the lingering touches and the warm smiles and the way they were only completely relaxed when the other was around. She knew the two women better than anyone, but when Emily let her feelings for JJ slip out between sips of wine and quiet tears, she was completely dumbstruck.
In hindsight, she should have connected the dots. She’d always suspected that Emily was gay, and knew how much she cared for the younger woman, but she never considered that those feelings could be anything other than platonic. Now, though, seeing the obvious heartache painted across the face of her friend, it was as plain as day.
Emily loved JJ. Of course she did.
Garcia listened patiently as the dark-haired woman let her feelings spill out in a rare moment of weakness, wiping away tears silently and holding her pale, shaking hand.
“I keep thinking it’s ok, Pen. I keep thinking I’m over it, that I can handle being around her, but then she walks in and smiles at me and it’s like I’m back at square one.”
She nodded understandingly and refilled Emily’s glass, looking up at her expectantly and waiting for her to continue.
“I just wish I could tell her, you know?” she looked through her tears to meet Penelope’s eyes. “And I would, I really would, but I’d rather love her in secret and live with that pain than love her out loud and risk losing her.”
Garcia started to say something about how JJ would never cut her off like that, no matter what her feelings were, but she was interrupted as Emily started to speak again, her voice cracking as she tried to push down the wave of emotion that came with her confession.
“She’s my best friend. I can’t lose that. And if all I ever get to be is her friend, that’s enough, you know? That’s more than I could have ever hoped for.”
Emily took another long drink from the glass and rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand to clear the tears away. She then let out a hollow laugh, broken and empty.
“It’s funny, if you think about it. Even now I can’t wish I hadn’t met her. It’s like I can only ever breathe when I’m around her, like all the oxygen collects up near to her, but the air is fucking poisonous, Pen.”
She paused for a moment to draw in a rattling breath, then exhaled her words so quietly that Penelope almost didn’t hear her.
“The best thing I’ve ever done is love her.”
---
Emily shook herself out of the memory and turned to look at Penelope, ignoring the confused glances that Derek was flicking between them. Her eyes burned with a silent question, but Garcia got the message and shook her head slightly, the message clear.
I didn’t tell him.
Derek jumped up from where he had been perched on the end of Garcia’s desk, making his way over the room to stand in front of Emily.
“Come on Prentiss, she’s your friend. It won’t be that bad. She’ll probably figure out you’re kidding anyway, it’s not a big deal.”
Emily could have told him then. She could’ve spilled the truth just as she had done to Garcia, she could explain why every part of this was a bad idea and she would literally rather do anything else. But she didn’t. Instead, she considered the idea that (to anyone except Garcia) this would be viewed as a harmless joke, including JJ. She could gauge the blonde’s reaction with zero risk (other than the possibility that she might break Emily’s heart, but that was nothing new). It could be her own personal test run.
“I’ll do it.”
“Emily,” Garcia started, panicked. “Are you sure this is a good- “
“I’ll do it,” she repeated, determined.
Morgan grinned and grabbed her wrist excitedly, pulling her up and out of Garcia’s lair, towards the bullpen.
“I’ll never call you chicken again, Prentiss.”
---
Standing in JJ’s office, with Derek and Penelope inconspicuously hovering outside to watch through the window, Emily started to think that this may not have been the best idea. Any thoughts she may have had about backing out, though, were banished when JJ glanced up from her paperwork and smiled.
“Hey, Em!” JJ chirped as the older woman came in and closed the door. Her mouth turned down at the corners when she saw the slight tremble in her hands. “Everything okay?”
Emily nodded wordlessly and fell into the chair opposite the blonde’s desk, pulling at the bottom of her blouse nervously. JJ waited patiently for her to speak, but when it became clear that she wasn’t even going to look up, she broke the tense silence that filled the office.
“What’s up, Em?”
The dark-haired agent drew in a deep breath and reminded herself that this was just a stupid dare, repeating Morgan’s earlier words to herself. No big deal Prentiss. No big deal.
As it turns out, fake confessing your love to someone you were actually in love with was a lot more difficult than she had expected. Everything she had wanted to say since she had met the then-media-liaison was right there on the tip of her tongue, but Emily found that she didn’t quite want to use those carefully crafted words right now. Not under the guise of this stupid dare. Maybe she’d never get the chance to say them aloud, but she refused to taint the purest bit of her heart with a falsified confession. Instead, she settled on some generic declaration and repeated to herself, over and over again, that this was just a dare.
The words sounded clumsy and awkward and Emily found that reminding herself why she was here was no longer having any effect on quelling her nerves. She looked up at the blonde to gauge her reaction, seeing a million different emotions cross her face at once. They were gone long before Emily could place them, her usually sharp profiling abilities clouded with nerves, and replaced with a wide grin.
Oh my god, she’s smiling?
And then JJ was laughing, leaning back in her office chair, relaxed, as she said:
“Derek put you up to this, right?”
Just like that, Emily’s bubbling hope was crushed under a wave of reality, but she forced the smile back onto her face and responded in what she hoped was a light and breezy tone.
“Was it really that obvious?”
Hopefully, the crushing pain racing through her wasn’t as clear to the blonde. She couldn’t deal with that truth. Not right now.
“You two are ridiculous.” She laughed again. “Someone really needs to take Morgan down a peg, that man really is too much…”
She trailed off, eyes lighting up with a sudden idea. Emily tried not to groan as she ran through the possibilities of what the blonde could say next.
“What if we trick him?” Emily tilted her head questioningly and the blonde continued.
“What if we convince him that I fell for it? Tell him you actually meant it? We can even pretend to go on a couple of dates. His face would be priceless.”
For the second time that day, Emily found herself yelling in her head about how much of a terrible idea this was. She knew the pain something like this would bring, knew that she’d be on the receiving end of more than one pitying look from Penelope, knew that it could only end badly. And yet, with JJ looking at her like that, brimming with excitement and anticipation, Emily was helpless.
She tried not to scream as she heard herself agree. Goddamn it, Prentiss.
JJ launched into a detailed explanation of her plan, gesturing wildly with her hands and practically bursting at the seams with amusement as Emily watched with a sort of resigned acceptance, unable to hide the small smile that broke across her face as she watched the other woman. The blonde brushed a rogue strand of hair behind her ear mid-sentence and the older woman fought a losing battle to ignore how her heart fluttered at the simple gesture.
It was gonna be a long day.
---
As it turns out, that day was only the start of the torture.
It had been simple enough. Emily returned to Derek and Penelope who were waiting for her with baited breath, telling them that it had gone surprisingly well, that the little dare had unexpectedly turned into something more.
Garcia looked like she was about to implode with happiness for her friend until she noticed the brunette’s posture, the hint of sadness in her eyes. When Derek had finished with his shocked exclamations, she pulled Emily to the side and listened to her explanation of what had actually unfolded in JJ’s office.
“I know what you’re going to say, Garcia. Trust me, I already know how much of a bad idea this is. I just can’t say no to her.”
Penelope sighed, exasperated, but knew she was fighting a losing battle and instead reached out to squeeze her friends’ hand in a show of silent comfort.
“I’m here if you need me.”
“I know.”
---
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Emily and JJ made sure to let Hotch, Rossi and Reid into the prank to avoid any sort of HR catastrophe, but other than that, nothing too dramatic happened.
It was the next day that Emily really started to realise what she’d gotten herself into. She had been working on some bit of paperwork as she desperately tried to inhale her morning cup of coffee at record speed, when a certain blonde agent bounced into the bullpen and perched on the edge of her desk. JJ mumbled something about how Derek was coming, before laughing loudly at nothing and grabbing Emily’s hand as though she’d just made a hilarious joke.
There was some sort of benefit to this situation, Emily figured. It wouldn’t be difficult to convince Derek of her feelings. She wouldn’t need to fake how ridiculously flustered she got every time JJ touched her.
JJ glanced around innocently as Morgan came into the office, smirking at the women as though he had just caught them in some nefarious act and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
“Morning, ladies. How are we this morning?”
JJ blushed and Emily had half a second to wonder how the other woman could do that on command before she jumped up and started towards her own office, shooting a quick wink back to the other agent.
Emily didn’t have to fake being flustered that time, either.
---
The next time Emily found herself in that position, the team was in O’Keefe’s for a well-earned drink after a long case. JJ had spent the night perfecting her act, flirting with the brunette at every opportunity like she’d been doing it for years. After a couple of drinks, though, Emily’d had enough liquid courage to return the favour.
There was at least an hour of this back and forth, chaste comments that were just a little bit too true (at least on Emily’s end), before JJ leaned forward to murmur in her friend’s ear so that their co-workers wouldn’t overhear.
“Damn, Prentiss. If we weren’t pulling off the prank of the century right now, I would definitely be taking you home tonight.”
Emily was grateful for the intense warmth of the bar, as it gave an excuse for the bright red shade her face had taken on. Instead of attempting to respond, she jumped up from her stool and held out a hand. After all, avoidance was the Prentiss specialty.
“Care to dance, agent Jareau?”
JJ grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
The two pushed their way to the middle of the crowd of dancing people, shoved together by the teeming mass of bodies surrounding them (not that Emily was complaining). With the light buzz of alcohol in their systems, they jumped and swayed and did all the things that tipsy people did when music was playing, moving a little too close together for it to be friendly. But of course, Emily reminded herself, this was part of the act. No big deal. No big deal.
When JJ grabbed the back of her neck however, any and all sense vacated Emily’s head immediately. She was wide eyed and nervous and the ability to breathe slipped away from her like smoke. In the darkened warmth of that bar, heart pounding in anticipation, she leaned towards JJ almost unconsciously, watching as the blonde’s face was overtaken by a smile before she closed the gap between them.
The kiss was passionate and heated and everything Emily had ever imagined it would be, and somehow more. She couldn’t help but notice how long it seemed to go on, couldn’t ignore the feeling of fingers tangled in her hair, but tried to push down her thoughts long enough to simply appreciate the moment.
When at last they broke apart for air, Emily was too busy being proud of herself that her knees hadn’t given out to notice the way the blonde was glancing back over her shoulder.
“Do you think he saw?” she asked.
“Huh?” The haze of the kiss was still clouding her thoughts, and Emily couldn’t hear over the feeling of her own fingers digging into JJ’s waist.
“Derek. Do you think he saw us?”
Oh.
Emily made a mental note to look up whether hearts could actually deflate, because she was pretty sure that was happening to her. It had just been another part of the act. It was stupid of her to even consider otherwise, stupid of her to let hope creep out for the darkest corner of her mind and leave a burning trail in its wake. Not trusting her voice to be steady, she merely shrugged and turned as though to head away from the dancefloor.
But like someone was enjoying the brunette’s misery, the situation turned from bad to worse as the DJ decided that now would be the perfect time for a slow song.
So, inevitably, Emily ended up slow-dancing with JJ.
Predictably, her hands fit perfectly over JJ’s hips and of course the blonde’s arms melted around her neck like a scarf. They swayed together like they were one instead of two, and Emily cursed herself for getting into this ridiculous position, cursed her feelings for clouding her usually sound judgement. It was her fault that her heart was being broken again.
When some technical issue cut out the sound mid-way through the song, most people groaned and shouted expletives at the DJ. Emily, though, hadn’t really heard the music over the pounding of her own heart, and so didn’t stop her movements. In truth, she really couldn’t bring herself to let go of the other woman, not yet. Some tiny voice at the back of her mind was yelling that this may be the only chance she would get to dance with JJ, and like hell if she was going to waste it, so they kept swaying in the middle of the annoyed crowd, JJ burying her face in the crook of the older woman’s neck.
If anyone had asked Emily at that moment, she would have said that the jeering of the angry patrons was the most beautiful song she had ever heard.
---
Three and a half weeks into their insane prank and Emily wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on. She knew that the faked romantic gestures would be hard, but she hadn’t expected their little everyday interactions to be so painful. Simple things were breaking her resolve.
It was the time they had been out at a crime scene, looking over some evidence and debating their various ideas about the unsub. Emily’s hair had slipped out of the grip of her hair tie and the harsh wind was whipping it into her eyes so JJ had reached out an absent hand to tuck it back behind her ear. The brunette tried desperately not to notice how goosebumps rose where the tips of JJ’s fingers had ghosted over her jaw, instead putting all of her attention onto the case at hand.
It was when JJ leaned over a table to look at a map, hair falling to the sides of her face so Emily could see that the chain of her necklace had been skewed to one side. When the blonde stood, Emily instinctually reached around to the back of her neck to slide the clasp of the necklace back into place, only realising what she’d done a second later as she made note of how close she was standing to JJ. She stepped back quickly and went straight back to the profile, ignoring the confused look JJ shot her way.
It was the time Reid approached Emily to innocently tell her that he had no idea she was such a good actress, and she responded that she wasn’t, offering no further explanation. JJ, standing a few metres away, gave no indication that she’d heard the exchange, but filed away Emily’s words to analyse at a later date.
It was the day Emily had come into the office on a particularly bad morning, after her car had broken down on the way to work, to find a vase of fresh flowers on her desk. Almost like the blonde had prophetically known she’d need a pick-me-up. The little card taped to the stem of one of the flowers was clearly not a part of the ruse, as it read in neat, slanted handwriting that Emily immediately recognised: ‘To my partner in crime.’
It was all the times that JJ brushed a kiss across her cheek: when she left the office at night, when she was heading out into the field, when they finally caught an elusive unsub. It became sort of habitual, and sometimes JJ would find herself repeating the gesture when Derek wasn’t there to see it. Like she’d forgotten there was a purpose behind it, and was instead just doing it because she wanted to.
It was the night they went back to Emily’s apartment after telling Morgan they were going on a date night. Emily offered to cook dinner for them both because it would be a shame to waste the evening and she really wasn’t that bad of a chef and JJ-stop-laughing-I-promise-I-can-cook. When the blonde had shuffled a playlist at top volume in the kitchen, however, the evening had quickly devolved into a very dramatic (and pretty awful) duet, with ladles for microphones and the polished tiles as a stage. Then they were laughing and trying to save the burnt food, eventually giving in and ordering takeout, and Emily tried to ignore the voice that was telling her this was the best fake date she’d ever had.
It was all these little things that pushed Emily towards putting an end to the whole prank. Before, it had hurt not having JJ. But now, having her and yet not, knowing that every moment which she would treasure was just another part of the plan for the blonde? It was killing her.
So, at last, after four agonising weeks of pretending and not pretending and god knows what, Emily took Garcia up on her offer of help. She approached the technical analyst sheepishly one evening when everyone else had left the office for the night.
“Pen, can I ask you for a favour?”
“Of course, sweetness! As the goddess of all things wise and helpful, how can I be of service?”
Emily smiled gratefully at the eccentric woman. “I need you to ‘accidentally’ let the me-and-JJ thing slip to Derek. If you can.”
Garcia’s eyes softened immediately, and she reached out to gently take her friend’s hand.
“I just can’t do it anymore,” Emily whispered with a sad smile.
Penelope brushed a rogue tear from the brunette’s cheek and promised to tell him tomorrow. She wrapped Emily in a quick hug and murmured a you’ll get through this before she headed home, leaving the other woman mourn the loss of a relationship that had never even been real.
---
The next day, when Garcia pulled him aside after they’d solved yet another case, Derek took the news good naturedly, albeit with a lot of surprise. He told Penelope that he had suspected the lie at first, but after seeing the way the two were with each-other, he’d lost any doubts about them. It was strange, he said. Emily was really good at acting like she was in love. And JJ wasn’t half bad either.
He confronted the women just before they boarded the jet, laughing along with JJ as she recalled every detail of their elaborate plan for him and occasionally glancing over at Emily’s strained smile. It seemed that the blonde agent noticed too, as she cut the story short to go and check on the other woman.
“Hey, Em. You ok? You look a little faraway.”
Emily nodded quickly, grateful that it was time for them to board the jet as it gave her an excuse not to elaborate on her answer. She desperately hoped that JJ would go chat with Morgan some more or play chess with Reid, but of course her luck meant that the blonde settled into the seat right next to Emily. The older woman stared resolutely out of the plane window, determined not to say a word in case her voice betrayed the roar of emotions in her chest.
She was denied this, though, when a soft pressure leaned towards her shoulder.
“It’s over, JJ. He knows,” she murmured.
“I know.”
But still she let her head drop onto Emily’s shoulder, threading her fingers through the other woman’s with a gentle squeeze.
Thinking that she just hadn’t understood, Emily repeated herself, the words sounding to her own ears as though they had come from somebody else’s lips.
“He knows we were faking it, Jayje.”
There was a pause as JJ’s thumb went still where it had been tracing light circles on the back of Emily’s hand. It was almost a full minute of agonising silence before the younger woman finally spoke.
“Were we?”
Emily’s tongue turned to lead at the insinuation and her head swam with memories of warm smiles and soft touches, of honeyed words and lingering looks, of slow dances with no music in the middle of a crowd of strangers. She couldn’t find a single word to respond with, but JJ seemed to understand, and resumed her lazy tracing over the other woman’s hand. Neither of them said anything else for the whole flight, and for the first time it seemed as though the silence was weighted with something.
Like the air crackled with an electric what if?
When they touched down, JJ followed Emily to her car without hesitation. She went back to Emily’s apartment like she’d been doing since this whole prank started.
That night, she slid into the bed next to Emily with the same practiced ease she’d shown over the past few weeks, when their ‘date nights’ went on a little too long and she was too tired to drive home. The two had shared little more than a few sentences since getting off the jet, but some sort of understanding seemed to flow between them, and despite the nerves climbing up Emily’s throat, she still found comfort in the presence of the blonde; a certain peace of mind that had always been there, and always would.
But there was something different about it now. About them. Something about the way JJ slid closer, something about how they met in a soft embrace, even though there was nobody to see the act.
Not that there was an act. Not anymore. Maybe there never had been.
Emily had been right on the plane. Their little joke was over, finished as soon as Morgan had discovered the truth. There was no false agreement to hide behind now.
When at last their lips met in a tender kiss, Emily found herself thinking of a pen thrown across a conference room and couldn’t help but smile, feeling the expression mirrored on the face of the other woman. She thought of Hotch’s disapproving glare and Rossi’s amusement, Reid’s confusion and Morgan’s grin. She thought of the night she’d told Penelope that loving JJ was the best thing she’d ever done and knew she’d been right. She thought of humble beginnings and tried not to wonder too hard how in the hell she had gotten here, instead focusing on the feeling of silky blonde hair tangled between her fingers and JJ’s hand curled around her jaw.
There were conversations that needed to be had, sure. Emily had a proper confession to give, and JJ had some truth of her own to share. But right now, bodies twined together like they’d come apart a long time ago and were only now being reunited, both women were content to revel in a rare moment of peace and honesty.
Emily didn’t need Derek to dare her to do this. She dared herself to face the truth and, this time, it had finally paid off.
It wasn’t fake now. It wasn’t a sick joke that burned a hole through her heart or a scripted play with a tragic ending. It was new beginnings on old foundations, unrealistic fantasies turned blissful reality. It was the end of a long lie that stretched out behind them like a marathon.
It was the start of their own little slice of forever.