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railingsofsorrow · 2 years ago

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Bronwnies & Conversations

summary: you've been doing a great job putting up a mask, until someone notices and calls you out for it. based on the prompt: “I don't want you to be alone.”

pairing: platonic!emily prentiss x fem! bau!reader

w.c: 2.1K

warnings/content: this is a reader-insert; trigger warnings: discussion about trauma, mentions of blood and violence (nothing graphic), near-death experiences; mentions of aversion to touch because of trauma, mentions of nightmares; hurt/comfort; friendship plays big part, there is no romance; this whole thing is a conversation about trauma and the recovery process so be aware please.

A/N: hello! I wrote this for the CM Comfort Fic Challenge by @imagining-in-the-margins i hope you enjoy it. <3

彡 .ೃ࿐ ೃ⁀➷彡 .ೃ࿐ ೃ⁀➷彡 .ೃ࿐ ೃ⁀➷

Emily Prentiss had a pretty wide knowledge. She was a profiler, therefore it was part of her daily routine to observe a lot without even realizing.

Which was why she noticed that you were different.

No. That was not because she was a good profiler.

Anyone that simply looked close enough would find that something had changed in you. Or rather, something had drifted away from you.

Your eyes were unfocused for the most part of the day and you grabbed more files than you could take in your hands — trying to diffuse whatever was on your mind into work.

You weren't lacking. You'd give your input in cases, did your best whenever you were on the field or in the office, and even joked around with everyone once in a while. That's the thing: every action, every word, it wasn't you.

Emily saw the difference. It was forced. You didn't want to do any of that. In fact, it looked like you didn't even want to be there.

Six months ago, when it all happened, she watched you falter and lose it in a blink of seconds. The nightmares were ongoing and the sleeping medication didn't help a lot. Still, after taking a well-deserved leave — completely forced because you did not desire to stop working. Hotch didn't accept a no for an answer — it hadn't been enough time.

Healing isn't linear. It has its ups and downs. Emily knew that. She had been through that. She was still going through the process of healing, actually. It never does stop, does it?

Emily watched you go back to work. She watched you act as if nothing happened but the pain was still very clear deep down your soul.

For months, she didn't say anything. It wasn't her place. It was your life so you must've known what you were doing.

No.

She was wrong.

She would've interfered months ago. As your best friend, as your fellow co-worker and as someone that cares a lot and should not have simply watched your suffering from afar.

You had gone through a trauma. A situation like that alters the perceptions you have of the world. She didn't want you to feel as if you were alone. So, even though you wouldn't reach out for help, she would reach for you.

This was how Emily ended up at your apartment door in the middle of the night with your favorite dessert in hands.

When you opened the door, the last person you expected it to be was Emily. Not that she didn't visit you. But it was almost nine in the evening and she never showed up without a previous warning like a text or a call.

Your brows knitted in concern, taking a once over at your friend. “Em, is everything alright?”

She noticed your expression and chuckled, “Oh, everything is great. I just missed you and wanted to visit. I hope that's okay?”

You blink, stunned. “Of course,” You reply, forcing a smile. “Yeah, come in.”

You sigh as she passes through the door, “The apartment is a mess, Em. I didn't realize you'd come. Why didn't you call me or something? I would've tidied up and—”

“I don't mind.” She shrugs, fixing up the brownie she brought in some plates for the both of you. You hated that you and Emily were intimate enough for her to just know where anything was around your place.

You left her in the kitchen to pick up the clothes scattered around your living room. You paced around harshly and moved to your room, throwing some of the mess in your bed and closing the door. Emily wouldn't get in there.

When you stepped back into your living room, she was sitting on the couch, eyeing the brownies as if they had the answers to the questions about the afterlife.

“Can we talk?” She asked without looking back. You were leaning on the wall, studying her carefully. She didn't just come to visit you. There was something there. Her back was relaxed but her voice was serious.

“Are you okay?” You ask, approaching her slowly. You sat at the end of the couch. There would have been a moment where you never left a single space between the two of you. There was a time when your love language was physical touch. Now, you just couldn't bear to be that close to someone. Even your best friend. “Em, I know you didn't come just to visit. What it is?”

“I'm worried about you.”

You froze.

Maybe you should've cover up the eyebags with some concealer.

You didn't even knew she would come!

“Why?” You rested against the couch, averting your attention elsewhere. Your whole body had tensed and you were trying not to let it show.

Had you been too obvious?

You thought you were doing a great job at hiding your feelings from everyone.

You were doing your best to act like before. It was just so hard. Because before you didn't have a near-death experience. Before was a time when you weren't covered in blood when your friends found you and you were barely breathing. Before was. . . before.

You didn't know how to go back to that. But you were trying. Weren't you trying hard enough?

She said your name and you looked at her and then looked away again, “It's me, okay? You don't have to pretend when it's me. Never.”

“I'm fine, Emily.” You said shortly, staring at the opposite side of the room. Almost glaring. She wasn't supposed to know. Nobody was supposed to see beneath your acts. “If that is why you came—”

“I came because I care and I can't just sit around and do nothing anymore,” Emily explained. Her tone made a part of you churn in anger.

You turned to look directly at her, “Really? And why would you need to do something when nothing is wrong? You know, if you're projecting your hero complex in me, it's not my problem.”

That had not been fair, but you said it. You couldn't go back anymore. If anything, she asked for it.

Why couldn't she just go?

“Is that what you think I'm doing?” Emily's eyes burned into your profile. Her tone was so calm, so understanding. Much like JJ's when she was talking to a victim's family. You weren't a victim. “That I'm here to fulfill some guilt over my hero complex?”

“Why else would you be here?” You glared at her. “Because I'm fine. I have been fine for a long time. In fact, what happened doesn't even affect me as it used to do and—” you let out a shaky breath. “I don't need you to be my therapist.”

Emily was irking to give you a hug but she refrained from doing so, acknowledging your boundaries.

“That's not what I'm here for.” She said calmly. “I just wanted you to know that I'm here and that I see you. I know you.” She paused. “I don't want to force you to talk. But I know that you're struggling and that you're acting for the benefit of everyone else but you.”

Emily decided to add after a moment of silence. “Nobody said anything. Nobody sent me here to do an intervention. I came here on my own because I'm concerned with my best friend. I should've come before, I should've been there through it all and I'm sorry. I can't just see you hurting and not doing anything now. It's killing me to see you like this.”

It wasn't silence she received, but a choke-up sound that came deep within your throat. One you had been trying to bury along with your tears.

You thought you were doing a great job at hiding your feelings from everyone.

How could you have been foolish to think that you could hide anything from Emily Prentiss? The person that saw right through your bullshit every time?

Sobs racked out of your body continuously; there was nothing you could do to stop it. All the pain that you had been attempting to lock away was here. It never really left, you were simply ignoring it to make it go away. But that is not how it worked, was it?

You couldn't just order your brain don't think about that night. The memories would just come back with full force. Like the waves on a stormy day.

“I just—” You begin when the sons had subsided. Emily managed to sit closer to you while respecting your space. “I just didn't want to be a burden.”

She answered as if she had been expecting that, “You're not a burden. You have never been a burden,” her tone softened. “You're my best friend. I love you. There's nothing more that I'd want to do than be here for you. Like you were there for me, remember?”

Pulling your knees up and your arms around them was how you found yourself calming down your breath while listening to her. You were making yourself small because you wanted to disappear and forget everything that happened.

The aftermath of trauma was worse than the trauma itself.

The memories, the triggers, the nightmares and the loss. They owned you like no other. Your emotions were clouded by a freezing mechanism that forced you to mimic your old self to acquire some grounding.

But you couldn't really get back to who you were, could you? The before was in the past. The after was more than you could handle.

“I wish I could forget.”

You admit after a few minutes of quietness. Your breathing had calmed down and your eyes were glossed over, and puffy. You felt tired.

Emily wished she could do more.

“You can't.” She said, “But I wished you could, too. I wished I could have forgotten everything.”

You catch the faltering in her voice and take a glance at her. Your best friend was staring at her lap, wringing her fingers as if she was deep in thought.

You knew where Emily's mind just took her, so you touched her shoulder to bring her back. She was startled and you gave the area a little squeeze that said I'm here before retracting your hand.

She gave you a genuine smile.

“You were there for me,” you say, shifting. “You have always been there for me. All of you. I just didn't want the pitying gaze or the apologetic pats on the back anymore. Or have you think that I was weak. So I, I forced myself to move on. To get a grip on myself.” Brushing your strands away from your shoulder, you concluded, “But every day, waking up is hard. My nights are still filled with- with that night. It's an endless suffering, Em. Every day is like my mind is physically punching me, and I can't seem to— to figure out how to get up after a knockout anymore. I don't know what to do. I just want it to stop.”

“It won't hurt forever,” Emily promised you, understanding every single word more like you could imagine.“It won't stick in your mind like glue forever. At some point, it will become a distant memory. A distant nightmare. You're not going to forget completely. But you will heal,” The last part had you let more tears fall, albeit this time without the desperate sobs. It was more like tears of relief. The storm at his very ending.

“Can I hug you?” You could see how the question had surprised her, but a quick nod made you wrap your arms around her instantly. Emily's hugs were warm like sundown. You missed it profoundly. “Thank you for being in my life.”

“Don't thank me,” She tightened her hold on you as if she were scared you'd disappear at any second. “I love you and I'm always here, okay? Always. I'm so glad you're in my life. She added softly, “I don't want you to be alone when you're hurting.”

Both of you had tear-stricken cheeks as you split apart from the hug.

“I know you're crying because you know I'll steal all of the brownies.” You joked, and for the first time in a long while it had been real.

She chuckled and shook her head, sniffling.

“Don't even try.”

She'd let you steal all the brownies in the world if it meant she could see the real you like she was seeing at that moment.

#criminal minds fanfiction #platonic!emilyprentiss x fem!bau!reader #emily prentiss x female reader #emily prentiss fanfic

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