#Dave Rossi: the OG Hotchniss shipper

[sequinsmile-x]

Hi, can I order a totally jealous Emily Prentiss?🥺She can't say anything because she and aaron don't have a romantic relationship, but it ends up exploding and they both bring out their feelings.

Order up!!

Just a quick note, if you have sent me one of these I have it and will get to it eventually. Feel free to send me more, I love doing them :)

Happier

Words: 2k

Warnings: A bit of cursing

She doesn’t know what it is at first. Or at least, that's what she tells herself when Aaron introduces them to Beth. That she doesn’t know what the gnawing feeling in her belly is, or why her whole body burns when she sees them together. The way Aaron’s hand falls to Beth’s lower back on a team night out when he invites her along makes her want to cry. How seeing him kiss her makes Emily’s chest ache and her teeth clench as she holds back the words that want to claw their way out of her throat.

It should have been me.

It was her, exactly once. They’d all been out for drinks, the team's favourite way of blowing off steam after a particularly rough case. All of them staring ahead in silence on the jet home, their minds rolling over the fresh horrors they had seen, until someone, usually Derek, would suggest drinks the following night.

Aaron, ever the gentleman, had taken her home. Sharing a cab with her despite the fact she lived in the opposite direction to him and insisting he walked her to her door. If it had been anyone else she would have questioned their motivation and assumed they were searching for the invitation into her apartment that was on the tip of her tongue. But Aaron didn’t, he simply walked her to her door and turned away once he was happy she was safe. Something in her snapped, dozens of small moments leading up to that one. She placed a hand on his shoulder and spun him round, kissing him before he could say anything.

He left her apartment in the early hours of the morning, his lips pressed against her bare shoulder as he murmured something about having to get home to Jack. A promise that they would talk about this, both of them acknowledging that this could never be just once into the darkness of her bedroom.

Sean McAllister called the next day, and once was all they ever got.

A small part of her, a naive part, had hoped that something could happen when she came back from Paris. But it never happened. Their friendship remained unaffected by the night they had spent together and she often wondered if she’d imagined it, if she had dreamt how it felt to have his hands on her skin.

Then he’d look at her, something close to affection in his eyes and she’d know she hadn’t. That it had been real, but all they would ever have.

“He’s happy.”

Dave’s voice makes her jump, and she turns to look at him where he has appeared next to her, her hand on her chest as she blows out a breath. She realises she’d been staring, her face set in a firm line and her grip on her glass tight.

“Damn it, Dave. We need to get you a bell or something.” She says, ignoring what he had said. Hoping he would drop it. He smirks at her as he tilts his head towards where Aaron and Beth are dancing and laughing together.

“He’s happy.”

She clears her throat, hoping her voice remains steady. “So you’ve said.”

“But he could be happier.”

Her head snaps from where she’d been watching them back to Dave, her eyebrows raised, her mouth open in shock.

“How do you-”

“I know everything, bella.” He says, smirking at her again, and she briefly wonders if Aaron would suspend her if she punched the older man in the face. “The case just before Doyle escaped if I’m correct?”

Dave laughs at her when she blushes slightly, giving him the only answer he needs.

“Shut up, Dave.” She says, taking a sip of her drink so she could re centre herself. She makes the mistake of looking back over and feels the usual turning of her stomach as she looks at Aaron and Beth and they are kissing.

“You’re jealous.”

She opens her mouth to argue with him but can’t. He’d given a name to what she’d been feeling for weeks. Jealousy.

She wanted it to be her.

“Like I said,” Dave says, laying a hand on her shoulder. “He’s happy, but he could be happier.” He squeezes her shoulder. “Just make sure you’re sure if you say something. He’s been through enough.”

That is what kept her quiet. What stopped her from telling him how she felt, even before Beth came on the scene. Aaron deserved a happy ending, a peaceful epilogue to his life after so much pain and sorrow. She wanted him and his son, his sweet, wonderful, son to have that. Even if she wasn’t part of it.

She’d get over it. Eventually.

Dave walks off before she can reply and Emily sighs, shaking her head as she downs the rest of her drink. She looks back over and decides she can’t stay any longer, can’t watch the man she’s fairly sure she loves with the woman he loved. Aaron’s eyes briefly catch hers and she smiles before looking away.

Emily quickly says goodbye to the rest of the team, claiming a headache when the rest they try to make her stay.

She’s on the sidewalk trying to hail a cab when she hears the door of the bar open again and her shoulders tense. She knows it’s him before she turns around, able to sense his presence so easily it tore through her, lancing at her fragile nerves.

“Is everything ok, Emily?” He asks, his hands in his pockets as he looks at her, gentle concern written all over his face.

“I’m fine, Hotch.” She says, tearing her eyes away from his, knowing he would catch her out if he looked at her for too long. “I’m just not feeling it tonight.”

“Em-”

“Please, Aaron.” She practically pleads, cursing under her breath when another cab drives straight past her. “Just leave it, I’m fine.”

“At least let me get you home.” He offers. He hadn’t been drinking, he had driven to the bar that night, and she remembers watching him open the car door for Beth as they arrived.

She scoffs. “And what, show me to my door? Come in for a night cap?” She asks, more malice in her voice than she intended. Coming the closest to addressing the one night they had spent together than either of them ever had.

“Emily.” He steps towards her, placing his hand on her shoulder and she shrugs him off, his touch burning through her. Flashes of memories of how it felt to be under him, overwhelmed by him, washing over her.

“Please. Leave it.” She says, stepping forwards as a cab finally stops for her. “Go back to your girlfriend, Aaron.”

She knows she’s being unfair, the desolate look on his face making her heart clench in her chest as she climbs into the cab and gives her address to the driver, and she doesn’t look at him again as they drive off.

She just wanted him to be happy, why didn’t he understand that?

__________

Emily has been home for two hours, having changed into her pajamas and pouring herself a large glass of wine the moment she walks into her apartment, when there's a knock at her door.

She sighs, placing her glass down on the coffee table as she stands, assuming it is Dave who has come to check on her. The texts he had sent her after she left the bar were ignored apart from a confirmation that she had made it home.

She opens the door without checking who it is, a chastisement for her nosey, but well meaning, friend already making its way out.

“Look, Dave I appreciate-” She looks up and stops, face to face with Aaron. “Oh. Not Dave.”

“Definitely not.” He says, a soft smile on his face. She doesn’t move, just stands there staring at him as he clears his throat. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” She stutters out, stepping back to let him in. He walks further into her apartment, looking around, and she realises he had never been here before, his only visits having been to her old place before her fake death. She stands behind him and crosses her arms across her chest, as if protecting herself. “What do you want, Aaron?”

“This is a nice place.” He says, turning back to look at her.

“Aaron.”

“I think we should talk.” He steps towards her and offers his hand out, but she just stares at it before raising her eyebrow at him.

“About what?”

“Us.” He grabs her hand and leads her towards her couch. It takes her a second to register what he’s said, and she wrenches her hands out of his.

“Us?” She scoffs. “You have a girlfriend, Aaron. We are nothing.” She says, not believing the words as she says them herself.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.” Aaron replies, as if it’s the most simple thing in the world. As if she hadn’t watched him kissing Beth only a few hours before.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Beth and I broke up.”

“God, Aaron.” She looks at the floor and blows out a breath before she looks back at him. “That’s not…” She drifts off unsure what she wants to say. “Why?”

“I think you know why, Emily.” He holds her hand again and she doesn't pull away this time, lets herself get dragged towards him. “We never spoke about it. I thought we would, but then you pulled away. At the time I thought you regretted it, that you realised that screwed up single fathers weren’t your thing.”

Her face falls at that, her spare hand moving of its own accord to cup his cheek. “Aaron-”

“Then by the time I realised what was actually going on you were already lost. I gave you space when you came back and we still never talked about it so I thought it was over before it even started.” He moves his hand to her lower back, holding her in place. As if his words weren’t enough of an anchor to keep her in place. “Then I met Beth and she was nice, and funny. And she made me feel happy.”

She does start to pull away at that, but he holds her firmly in place.

“Never for a second did I think you felt the same way, Emily. Otherwise I would have waited until you were ready.” He says, and she opens her mouth to talk but he carries on. “You weren’t being very subtle tonight.”

She flushes and bites her lip. “I’m sorry.” She says, finally finding her voice. “I didn’t want to get in the way of anything. I’d have gotten over it eventually.”

“I wouldn’t have.” He says firmly, pulling her slightly closer. “You’re it, Emily. And I know you might not be ready yet, that you might need time. But I’ll be here waiting for you when you are.”

She chokes out a sound that sounds somewhere between a laugh and a sob and she hugs him, closing the final gap between them as she buries her face in his jacket, his scent overwhelming her. She isn’t sure how much time passes, how long they stand there in her living room before she speaks.

“Aaron?” She pulls back to look at him, a smile on her face.

“Yes?” He replies as he tucks some hair behind her ear, the tender gesture making her stomach burn, but for entirely different reasons to earlier in the bar

“I’m ready.”

He kisses her so fiercely the only reason she stays standing is his grip on her, his arms tight around her back. She kisses him back, pouring everything she cannot say yet into it, hoping he understands.

__________

At their wedding a year later Dave makes a speech taking credit for finally pushing them together. His exaggerated words about finding Emily seething with jealousy in a downtown dive bar making the small crowd laugh and her blush, hiding her face into Aaron’s shoulder as he chuckles at her when she groans.

Aaron cups the back of her head and she looks up at him, unable to stop herself from smiling.

She kisses him and all she feels is love.