#granted this hasn't been a professional relationship for quite some time

[roominthecastle]

[sequinsmile-x]

A Few of My Favourite Things

It's Emily's birthday, and Aaron and Jack seize the opportunity to right some of the wrongs of the past.

-x-

Hi besties,

Nearly four years into my Hotchniss writing career and I finally get to write one of 'those' ao3 author notes.

I know it hasn't been *that* long since I posted a fic, but 5 days is probably the longest it's been without me posting for a couple of years. I had (planned) surgery on one of my lungs on Friday and only got home from the hospital yesterday. I'm still recovering and will be for a few weeks, but I've been working on this on and off for a few days because I always write something for their birthdays <3

I'll absolutely still be posting - writing keeps my mind alive - but probably not quite as often as we're all used to whilst my body remembers how to...breathe properly hahaha

Anyway, here's a belated birthday fic for Emily based on an anon I got <3

As always, let me know what you think!

-x-

Warnings: None, just super super fluffy

Words: 3.5k

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

“Emmy, can I ask you something?” 

She smiles as she looks at Jack, nodding as she sits up to make room for him on the couch, her book already closed and on the coffee table by the time he joins her so he has her full attention. Aaron was still at work, kept behind by paperwork and reports, and she’d offered to pick Jack up from Jessica’s and take him home. Aaron had smiled gratefully at her, his eyes shining with everything he couldn’t say to her whilst they were at work. He glanced towards the window of his office to ensure no one was watching before he stamped a quick kiss against her lips, a tiny moment of them lingering between them before they returned to the professionalism they held as dear as they did their relationship. 

It was a fine line they’d walked for months now, the 8 months since their first date some of the best of her life, and she knew eventually they’d have to stop. That as they moved further into this, as they took every next inevitable, wonderful, step into officially living together and marriage and kids, working together would no longer be practical. The blind eye that Strauss and the higher-ups had granted them so far would go away, any prentice of willful ignorance gone with by them submitting an address change form, or the existence of a marriage certificate. 

She knew realistically it would be her who would leave the BAU, and she was content with it. If it hadn’t been for Aaron, and by extension Jack, and the love and happiness they’d brought to her life she’s sure she would have left the BAU, and potentially DC, anyway. That she’d have taken the first offer that got her out of here, no matter how far away it took her, because she needed to be who she was now without people looking at her and mourning who she once was. Aaron had helped her through it, had helped her help herself more than anything else, and she finally felt at peace. Like she had a home for the first time in her life, only it wasn’t made out of bricks and mortar but a man, who she would have once called stern, with a dimpled smile that made her stomach flip every time, and his little boy. 

She loved Jack so much that it scared her sometimes. At first, she’d doubted her place in his life, never wanting to overstep, the gap his mother had left behind was not one she wanted anyone to think she was trying to fill, but as time went on she got more comfortable with it all. She cared less about what other people may think because it worked for them. She was the one Jack would seek out if he was sick or sad, his face pressed against her neck as she soothed him with soft words, gentle kisses and fierce hugs. He’d bring her paintings he’d done at school with a proud smile as he presented them to her and she’d react as if they should be hung in the Louvre. She loved him, and he loved her, and that was enough. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that when she and Aaron had more children she wouldn’t love them any differently to how she loved him. 

He’d taught her that she could be a mom, even if he never ended up calling her that. 

“Of course you can, sweet boy. You can ask me anything, you know that,” she says, patting the couch as he joins her, her smile getting wider as he sits next to her and huddles against her side as if on instinct, “Is everything okay?” 

He sighs as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulder, “I don’t know what I want to do for my birthday.”

She has to press her lips together to stop herself from laughing, never wanting him to think she was making fun of him, “Your birthday is meant to be fun, kiddo. Let’s think about it together,” she pushes his hair from his forehead and then drops a kiss there before she encourages him further into her embrace, “Have you had any ideas at all?” 

He half shrugs against her, “I know I want Daddy’s chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.” 

She hums and rests her cheek against the top of his head, “The best birthday breakfast ever.” 

“And it would be fun to go to the park. And maybe the arcade?” He muses, his fingers idly playing with the delicate chain of her bracelet, something she’d rarely taken off of her wrist since Aaron gave it to her one date night just because, “I just want to spend the day with you and Daddy.” 

Her cheeks ache with the smile that spreads across her face, love for him so overwhelming it briefly makes it hard to breathe, “Well, you’ll get that no matter what we do.” 

It’s a promise she knows she can keep because they’d booked two weeks off work so they’d be off for both Jack’s and her birthday, a positive side effect of Strauss’s recent ‘use it or lose it’ policy when it came to the team's leave. Aaron and Emily both had so many vacation days left she’s sure they could have taken a month off and still had time to spare, but they’d settle on this for now, both of them silently agreeing they’d keep the rest banked until the honeymoon they both knew was somewhere not too far away on the horizon. 

Jack pulls away and looks up at her, his head tilted slightly to the side, his eyes full of curiosity, “What did you used to do on your birthday?” 

“When I was your age?” She asks, something that gets her a nod in response, and she suppresses a sad sigh, “My mom would take me out to eat at a nice restaurant if she wasn’t busy with work.” She runs her fingers through his hair, smiling when it flops back down immediately, partially covering his horrified expression. 

“She never took you to the park and pushed you on the swings? Or went to the arcade with you?” 

She smiles at that, internally laughing at the image of her mother in an arcade, the red soles of her Louboutins sticking to the soda-covered vinyl floor as her daughter tries to win enough tickets to get a stuffed cat from the prize stand. It wasn’t something Emily had ever really thought about all that much before. Her birthdays had consisted of over the top gifts and very little time with her mother. Any meal they did go out for was in a restaurant designed for adults - fancy dishes created to be paired with wine, nothing for a little girl who wanted pizza, chicken nuggets and ice cream until she fell asleep. 

It briefly makes her sad, familiar sorrow for the younger version of herself flickering in her gut, and she promises herself Jack and any siblings he would one day have would never have to feel this way. 

“No, sweetie,” she says, “She didn’t, but we’re talking about your birthday,” she says, diverting the conversation back to him, tickling his stomach to draw a laugh about him, “Chocolate chip pancakes, the park, the arcade…anything else?” 

He furrows his brow and pauses, deep in thought for a moment, before his eyes go bright and he looks at her, “Ice cream.” 

She laughs and nods, tugging him back into a hug, “Ice cream sounds perfect.”

___

The first thing she notices when she wakes up is the smell of pancakes. The second is the sound of Jack giggling followed by Aaron shushing him, his voice low as he tries to stay quiet. 

“We need to be quiet, buddy.” 

“But we’re about to wake her up anyway.” 

She decides to take pity on her boyfriend when she hears his exasperated spy, not that she’s sure she could hide that she’s awake much longer anyway, her smile wide and sleepy as she half presses it into his pillow, and she opens her eyes. 

“Lucky for the two of you, I’m already awake,” she says as she sits up, her smile getting wider at the sight of them - matching grins on their faces and splatters of flour in their hair and on their cheeks. She looks at the tray in Aaron’s hands with a huge stack of pancakes on it and a cup of coffee, and then back up at her boyfriend, “What’s all this?” 

“Happy birthday, Emily!” They say in unison as Jack scrambles onto the bed, throwing himself into her arms, an embrace she returns just as fiercely. 

“Thank you,” she replies, stamping a kiss against his forehead before she turns to Aaron who is now sitting on the edge of the bed, ready to hand her the tray. She gratefully takes it from him and rests it over her and Jack’s laps and cups Aaron’s cheek, tugging him in for a kiss, keeping him in place, chasing the taste of batter and him before he pulls back, “Thank you too.” 

He smiles and kisses her quickly, “You’re welcome sweetheart,” he winks at her as he sits back so she has access to the tray, “They’re your favourite.” 

She looks down at the pancakes, her smile getting impossibly wider when she realises they are heart-shaped, and she chuckles when she sees the scattering of chocolate throughout them, “Chocolate chip!” 

“The best birthday breakfast ever,” Jack says, repeating something she’d said to him weeks ago when he was agonising over what to do for his birthday. They’d ended up doing everything he’d wanted, and he’d fallen asleep on the couch that night as they watched his favourite movie, happy and content and safe between them. 

She hums and leans down to kiss his forehead, “Well, there are a lot of pancakes here,” she smiles up at Aaron, “I think you boys are going to have to help me.” 

Aaron chuckles and reaches for one of the forks on the tray, “Why do you think we brought three forks up here?” 

She laughs and shakes her head at him as he cuts through the soft pancakes with the side of the fork. She leans forward to eat the first bite when he offers his fork to her, and she smiles, “You’ve got it all planned out.” 

“Trust me, sweetheart,” he says, winking again, “We’ve got the whole day planned out, don’t we Jack?” 

Jack nods enthusiastically, half a pancake in his hands, his fork already abandoned entirely, “We do!” 

She narrows her eyes playfully, “You two are lucky I trust you.” 

Aaron kisses her cheek, and then the corner of her lips, “Eat your pancakes, Em. All will be revealed.” 

After they’ve had breakfast, Aaron insists he’ll clean the kitchen, ignoring their usual rule that if one of them cooked the other cleaned up, and he encourages her towards the shower. He joins her when he’s done in the kitchen, his hands on her hips as he pulls her back under the stream of hot water, whispering he’d distracted Jack with a video game to buy them 30 minutes before he kisses her. 

They give her gifts, a framed photo of the three of them from Jack and a necklace from Aaron to match her bracelet, and cards with beautiful things written in them that almost make her cry. Aaron’s warm and comforting hand on her thigh, a gentle squeeze through the material of her jeans, is the only thing that keeps her together. They tell her it’s time to go and she doesn’t even care where they are going because she feels warm and loved and just happy to be with them. Aaron insists they all wear jackets, a hint that wherever they are going they’d be outside, and they get into the car. It’s when they are just over halfway there she realises they are going to the park, a journey they’d made only five days ago for Jack’s birthday, and she smiles curiously at her boyfriend, reaching over the centre console to reach for his hand, his eyes giving nothing away when he turns to look at her. 

When they are a safe distance away from the parking lot, Emily and Aaron walking hand in hand just a few paces behind Jack, the little boy takes off at a run, “I’m going to go save the swings for us.” 

“Jack, be careful,” Aaron says, “Make sure-”

“I stay where you can see me, I know,” Jack says, rolling his eyes at his father and the warning he always gave him. Aaron chuckles as Jack continues to run towards the swings and he shakes his head lovingly. 

“You know, he never used to do that before you,” he says, squeezing her hand, his smile getting wider when she laughs and looks at him, her eyebrow raised, her smile diminishing any attempt to pretend she was annoyed. 

“So,” she starts curiously, purposely knocking her shoulder against his, “The park,” she presses her lips together to contain her smile, “Are you going to tell me what you two are up to yet?” 

He stops her, turning them so he can talk to her and keep an eye on Jack, “A couple of weeks ago a little bird told me you never got to do any fun things on your birthday like go to the park or the arcade.” 

She bites the inside of her cheek and looks over at Jack, the little boy now patiently sitting on one of the swings as he waits for them, and then back at Aaron, “Did he now?” 

Aaron nods and squeezes her hips before his hands slip to her lower back, encouraging her closer, “He did, so we decided we’d make sure you got to do all of those fun things on your birthday this year,” he explains, his smile adorably nervous, “We’re going to a pizza place for lunch, then the arcade and then out for ice cream - which I was told was non-negotiable - which will be followed by heading home to order in dinner from a place of your choosing,” he smiles, his dimples carved out into his cheeks, “And then we’ll watch whatever nerdy movie you pick.”

She chuckles and hooks her arms around his neck, her fingers trailing through the short hair there. She feels tears pressing at the back of her eyes, her chest tight with love and everything she’d never been able to find the words for. She’d never been loved like this before. Never been loved so unconditionally or deeply, and there were moments like this when it was overwhelming, something that not all that long ago would have sent her running in the other direction. 

These days, she didn’t want to run anywhere other than towards Aaron and Jack, and the future they were building together. 

She watches as panic washes over her boyfriend’s face, mistaking her silence for annoyance rather than joyful disbelief, “If this was a bad idea, we can go home,” he says, half stuttering out his words in a way she’d never heard from him before, “I have a backup reservation at that new Italian place this evening-”

She cuts him off with a kiss, her hands on each of his cheeks as she pulls back, “No, this is…” she trails off into a wet chuckle, shaking her head at him, “This is perfect,” she kisses him again, “You’re perfect. I love you so much.” 

He smiles, his relief spreading through him in a way she can feel, his body relaxing against hers, “I love you too.” 

She leans in to kiss him again but they are cut off by a yell from Jack, his patience finally running out. 

“Dad, Emily, hurry up!”

They both laugh and look at him, his hands on his hips as he stands just a few feet away from the swings, and then they look back at each other, wide smiles on both of their faces as they start to walk towards the young boy.

“He never used to do that either.” 

“Aaron.” 

___

It had without a doubt, been her favourite birthday she’d ever had. 

Jack insisted that he had to push her on the swing, his small hands on her back helped along by Aaron’s bigger hands just above them, both of them laughing as she tried to pretend she wasn’t enjoying herself. They’d ordered more food than they could possibly have eaten at the pizza place and then spent more money than she thought possible at the arcade. Hours and hours lost to the three of them moving from game to game, the tickets they’d won stuffed into their pockets as they drank giant sodas and somehow found room for hot dogs and ice cream. She’d handed her tickets over to Aaron when she went to the bathroom, her lips stamped against his as he said they’d meet her at the prize counter, and she expected that she’d find them standing there with some plastic game Jack had picked out for himself. 

Instead, she’d found them there with a large stuffed cat in Jack’s arms, his smile wide as he handed it to her and told her they’d chosen it for her. It’s probably the ugliest looking thing she’s ever seen - its black fur looked unevenly distributed, its sewn-on smile was wonky and the stare from its eyes was something close to unnerving - but she loves it. It’s immediately her favourite thing she’s ever been given, and she’s sure she’s never come closer to crying in public. It’s something that would have felt ridiculous in the middle of an arcade filled with screaming children and exasperated parents, so she’d held it together. She’d held the cat close all night, cuddled up against her as they watched Star Wars, a physical manifestation of their love for her that she wasn’t quite ready to let go of yet. 

When they get ready for bed, she places it on an armchair in the corner of Aaron’s bedroom and pats it on the head before she walks to the ensuite. She’s just finished with her skincare routine when Aaron joins her, his arms wrapping around her from behind as he smiles at her in the mirror. 

“Did you have a good birthday?” He asks, kissing her cheek, making her smile when he shifts down to kiss her neck, his nose nestling against her jawline, his love for her lotion well known. 

“I did,” she replies, resting her hands over his on her abdomen, “The best.” 

He tilts his head to look down at her, “Are you sure? It was only when we were at the arcade I realised I’d let Jack talk me into the perfect day for a 6-year-old boy.” 

She’d laugh, but she wants him to know how much this had meant to her, how this had been infinitely more special to her than a dinner in a restaurant they could eat at any night could ever have been. She turns in his arms and wraps her arms around his neck, letting her thumb stroke back and forth over the patch of skin beneath his hairline. 

“Honey, today was perfect,” she says, her eyes boring into his, hoping more than anything that he’d believe her, “You gave me something I didn’t even know I’d been missing,” she smiles when he relaxes, “This was the best birthday I’ve ever had,” her smile turns mischievous as she leans in to kiss him, “If anything, you’ve just made more hard work for yourself next year when you have to try and top it.” 

He grins at her, his grip on her tightening, “I look forward to the challenge,” he kisses her, his hands firm on her lower back as he holds her close, his fingers sneaking under the hem of her t-shirt. He starts to lead her towards the bedroom, both of them grasping at each other, their kiss eventually lost as her knees hit the back of the bed and she pulls him down on top of her, “Just one thing though.” 

She frowns at him as she tries to catch her breath, “What?” 

“We’re not doing this with that fucking cat watching us.”

She laughs as she looks over to the stuffed cat sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room, and she holds Aaron’s head against her chest, his forehead against her collarbone, “Don’t worry honey,” she encourages him to look up at her, her lips stamped against his as she scrapes his hair away from his forehead, “I’m sure we’ll find a permanent place for it.” 

18 months later, the cat is one of many stuffed animals lined up in their daughter’s nursery. Its wonky smile a well-loved companion on long sleepless nights as Emily feeds the baby and Aaron holds them both close.

[cornyonmains]

Decided to read the novel for My Stand In, which is titled Professional Body Double. I'm a little disappointed with some of the changes the show made. Needless to say, novel spoilers ahead, though I won't touch on anything that hasn't happened in the show, as I'm only halfway through the book. Anyways, on to my first beef with the show.

One of the most informative aspects of Joe's character was changed. In the novel, Joe had also never been on bottom before, but that wasn't because he was holding out for someone special. At the beginning of the novel Joe is fielding offers for threesomes, the guy's been around the block and doesn't have a huge attachment to his virginity. Joe's character never bottomed because he'd quite simply never gotten the offer thanks to his more masculine looks. What makes this even more depressing is you find out that he thought it might have been his preference in the first place, but Joe being Joe, advocated about as well for himself during sex as he did anything else.

I think it was unwise to switch things up the way they did, because it really does explain a lot about why Joe was willing to suffer so many indignities to be with Ming. Joe asked for very little from the people in his life and didn't get it. Joe never really stood a chance when Ming came along and started giving him what he wanted.

Another thing I thought it was a shame the show didn't highlight is that in the novel, there's a fairly considerable age gap between Joe and Ming. Ming is 20 and Joe is 30. This actually offered a lot of explanation as to why Joe ignored a lot of Ming's red flags. He didn't ignore them, he just chalked a lot of it up to Ming being young and spoiled. But that's not to say the novel lets Joe off the hook.

Joe was, and I truly do lack a better word to describe this, completely servile to Ming. In the novels he waited on him hand and foot, created no real sexual boundaries with him, and preferred placating Ming's temper over challenging it. He was willing to meet any conditions for them to be together.

Ming's character progression is something I wish the show could have found a way to depict. Because during this time, Ming's development wasn't stagnant. What Joe had right, to an extent, was that Ming was young and still learning how to process his feelings. Towards the end of their first relationship, Ming had managed, for the most part, to regard Joe as completely distinct from Tong, and not just as a replacement. It's heavily implied he was in love with Joe, but just didn't know how to process these realizations that kept coming to him in piecemeal.

Ming liked the happy and relaxed environment he had with Joe in his condo, he was convinced nobody would ever be as sexually compatible with him as Joe, and he'd actually wanted to support him the first time Joe came home completely exhausted from set, but didn't say anything about it until he fucked up. Ming, who ran away to America as soon as he realized he was gay, did what Ming always did, he was quietly processing things, and was too young and stupid to give Joe a clue. He took for granted that Joe would be, in HIS words, obedient and docile.

The author of this, Shui Qian Qeng, is so good at writing gay toxicity it's stupid. It made me wonder if they're part of the community, but we don't speculate in this house, it's just a passing thought I had due to how nuanced the depiction of sexual confusion in this book is, particularly with Sol's character. Sexual confusion in BL tends to play very formulaically on screen. Existential crisis, a few heartfelt conversations, one cursed episode, a kiss at the end of the season, and everyone lives happily ever after. In the novel, Sol struggles for years, and is still processing his sexuality in an unhealthy way because the 'I'm straight, but only gay for this one guy in particular' trope so often used in BL is used in this novel, but to convey denial and sexual struggle. Upon Joe's death, Sol is still saying he's straight, but that Joe's the exception. This is treated with much deserved skepticism. Shui Qian Qeng, as a queer person who knows you're not reading this, bless you for that. I so desperately wish Sol's story would have been better adapted for the show.

To wrap things up on a lighter note, I also found out by reading this novel that tops and bottoms are referred to as ones and zeros in China. And my sheltered Midwestern ass was like, "Well that's rude." because one of them was a zero. Then I was like, "Well why would someone refer to themselves as a zero? That's not healthy." Then I started thinking about what the numbers looked like, 0 and 1, and was like, "Oh." It was an emotional rollercoaster.

[soracities]

i never really comment on anon or on other people's blogs but this discussion has been both fascinating and validating. i know this website tends to skew younger but i do think younger people (especially girls) get a chance to realize that so many things just get better and better with age especially with how society and media creates this false sense of a ticking timebomb on their value and wraps it up in youth. i sure wish i had more of that messaging myself as someone who shared some of these fears of 'it all going downhill' after my 20s.

as someone around mid30 now, would like to echo that it like really feels like your own life BEGINS after 30 so much of the time. i felt so much more immune to the nonsense around me and other people's expectations and it’s been a beautiful and liberating journey to keep learning more and more about myself and what's truly important to me. also feeling a whole lot steadier and more confident professionally, socially, and in my overall identity (though it will always always be an ongoing lifelong learning process) and honestly i wouldn't trade anything to go back to and relive my 20s and that supposed 'youth'

a 'ticking time-bomb' is literally the perfect phrase for it and i think one of the things that i'm very grateful for having been exposed to from a young age, and that i only realised was a benefit now, is the fact that most of the tv programmes playing when i was a kid were soaps. and....granted, i have internalised a lot of messaging around beauty and what i'm allegedly worth because of it and it's something i still struggle with, but the fact remains that getting older was never something i was freaked out about, partially because the media i saw, even if i wasn't always actively watching it, did feature older women: women in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s, 60s, women navigating new relationships, or leaving old ones, or not being in relationships at all but not having that be the sole focus of literally every story line -- women falling out with friends and making up with friends and quitting jobs and finding new jobs or working the same job for 20 years that is neither exciting or glamorous but enough, women making mistakes well into their 50s and not making wise decisions and still working through their flaws and not being seen as abject failures, women just generally living their lives -- ordinary, simple lives (or at least as far as 'simple' goes in soaps because now and then something blows up or some serial killer shows up or someone ruins a wedding by sleeping with the groom or the bride or the groom or the bride sleep with their partner's sister/brother/parent/best friend and the whole town finds out at the altar etc., but aside from all THAT), and it's been subtle, admittedly, but i think it has counted in a way. if i compare that to what i would be seeing in terms of female representation as an adolescent now -- whatever would be fed to me through my friends' instagram feed or through tiktok, or whatever new teen-young-adult-aimed show drops on netflix (with 25 year-olds playing 16 year olds and wreaking havoc with what was already a fraught relationship with my body at that age), i don't know if i would have reached that conclusion, no matter how many times i could watch something like derry girls as an antidote. like, at this point, the older i get the more profoundly disturbed i become with just how much we emphasize youth for women because i am definitely growing more aware of what exactly it is that is being implied there: the best and most beautiful time of your life is when your brain still hasn't finished maturing? when you quite possibly are at your most uncertain, still figuring out your boundaries and how to assert and accept your own worth? this is what is most desirable? it's insane, literally just....insane.

i'm honestly so grateful to you for sharing this and am so happy to hear that you are finally in what sounds like such an amazing place to be because this is it. i hope you continue to feel even steadier and more at peace with yourself and your life as this journey continues for you because it is honestly such an underrated experience to finally have. i hope it takes you to all the places and all the new versions of yourself that you've always wanted to meet x