U is for Uvula
Title: U is for Uvula
Pairing: Reid/Prentiss
Rating: PG13
Summary: There's a reason hookers charge more for kissing.
Warnings: Language, spoilers for Minimal Loss, vaguely implied (past) drug use, more schmoopiness! SOMEONE STOP ME!
Notes: This is part of my Alphabet Meme, as prompted by the magnificent invaderk. ♥
There's a reason hookers charge more for kissing.
You can't hide from a kiss. You can't turn your head to the side, crane your neck away, squeeze your eyes shut and pretend it's because it's just so fucking good. You can't count on someone else's impending orgasm to distract them from your boredom. You can't be anybody but yourself, anywhere but in it, without being called out on your shit.
When someone pays for a kiss, they're paying for the attention, for the intimacy -- not for the anonymity or the thrill or the spanking their wife won't take.
Emily gets it. She's fucked more men than she's kissed, if she's going to be honest, and half of the ones she did kiss, she wishes she hadn't. A bad kiss is worse than bad sex -- she can at least get herself off, if it comes to that, but there's nothing worse than some guy trying to lick your uvula and thinking it turns you on. There's no way around it other than telling him straight up how much he sucks.
A kiss exposes you, and Emily doesn't really do exposed.
That's why she almost tells him no when he asks.
But that's the thing -- he asks.
They're in Salt Lake City. Exhausted. Drinking club soda in the bar of some nameless hotel at three o'clock in the morning, playing Hangman on a paper napkin. It's their routine. They're both insomniacs, both vulnerable to bad old habits in the early hours, both shot through with a streak of black humor that's tickled by the apropos morbidity of the game. Reid usually wins, but Emily's up by three words this time and closing in rapidly on a fourth.
It's this hiccup in the pattern that cues her in, that makes her tip her tired eyes up to his face and really look. It's then that she realizes he's looking, too; paying more attention to her than to the words she's been using to try to stump him. He's wearing the expression he gets when he's hunched over a map or shuffling the pieces of a puzzle together in his brain, intense and serious and not quite to Eureka!, but almost. There's something else there, too, though. An extra furrow in his brow that appears when something hurts and he's trying not to show it.
"What's wrong?" she asks him, her pen paused and hovering.
Reid shakes his head, about to tell her nothing, but at the last second opts for honesty instead. He doesn't lie well to her. He never has. "Sometimes..." he starts, but then he has to stop and swallow. He blinks at her, but it's not a nervous blink, just a slow shuttering. "Sometimes? I look at you, and I just... I remember the way you looked after Colorado. I can see where... I just... your bruises. They were..." His hands flutter like they're itchy, like he's working hard to hold them back.
Emily sets her pen down and tilts her head to the side. She can feel her own brow contract; feel the tight, heavy pull start in her chest, and something in her body language gives him the permission he needs. He reaches across the gap between them and runs the tips of his fingers down the side of her face. His memory is exact. It's perfect. Everywhere he touches, Emily can practically feel the capillaries break, feel her blood rush up to meet him, feel her skin bloom grotesquely against his. She doesn't flinch, though, just keeps her eyes fixed on his. His pupils are open wide in the low light, and for a second, she can see so far into him that it makes her knees unsteady.
"It's okay," she says after a moment, surprised by the thickness of her voice, its quiet timbre. He's still touching her, one finger resting against the corner of her mouth, looking at her so intently that she thinks he's forgotten it's there. "You did really good there, you know. I can't tell you how many times... how grateful I was -- I am -- that it was you in there with me. I don't know if anyone else...."
She lets the words fade out, leaving him with the unspoken implications. They aren't lost on him. He swallows again, and she watches his adam's apple move, and she feels his finger twitch against her lips, and suddenly her mouth is so dry that she can't help but wet it.
He doesn't pull back.
Instead, he just follows the seam, slow and careful, and when his finger slips under her top lip, she feels it glide over the rough spot there. The scar tissue. He stops moving then and just feels, a minute back-and-forth that would normally make her cringe.
"What happened?" he asks quietly. So quietly. Whispers. "You had stitches."
Emily pushes his finger aside gently with her tongue and tells him. "I fell down the stairs when I was five. Broke my two front teeth and split open my lip. They stitched the back so the scar wouldn't show."
"Oh," he says. "They did a good job. It looks..." He stops abruptly. Then, "Can I kiss you?"
He asks. It's so earnest, so out-of-the-blue, so naked that she can't even answer him with her words. Can't tell him that it's probably a shitty idea, that he's already leaned on too many of her bruises, fingered too many of her scars. Can't tell him that his dangerously sharp brain is dulled by the hour, by the silence around them, by the forced intimacy of what they do. Can't tell him that that costs extra, costs more than either of them have in their pockets.
Can't tell him no.
So she tells him yes instead; nods at him so slightly that anyone but a profiler would miss it.
He leans in and takes her face in his hands like he's afraid he'll crush her into nothing, and then he kisses her. It's slow, all lips at first, sweet and reverent and soft. The softest thing she's had against her body since they got here, and warm like the covers pulled up to her neck, like bathwater, like her bones melting down into gold. The tongue is her idea, but he doesn't protest, and when she feels him slide his own up under her lip, glide over the spot where she bled as a little girl, she just tightens her fingers in his hair and holds on.
A kiss will open a hole in your chest.
Sometimes it's a fist through a wall, all jagged plaster and broken beams and a room that will never hold the heat again. But sometimes? Sometimes it's just a key turning in a lock, a door swinging open. Someone waiting on the other side.
Sometimes it's worth the price.
Pairing: Reid/Prentiss
Rating: PG13
Summary: There's a reason hookers charge more for kissing.
Warnings: Language, spoilers for Minimal Loss, vaguely implied (past) drug use, more schmoopiness! SOMEONE STOP ME!
Notes: This is part of my Alphabet Meme, as prompted by the magnificent invaderk. ♥
There's a reason hookers charge more for kissing.
You can't hide from a kiss. You can't turn your head to the side, crane your neck away, squeeze your eyes shut and pretend it's because it's just so fucking good. You can't count on someone else's impending orgasm to distract them from your boredom. You can't be anybody but yourself, anywhere but in it, without being called out on your shit.
When someone pays for a kiss, they're paying for the attention, for the intimacy -- not for the anonymity or the thrill or the spanking their wife won't take.
Emily gets it. She's fucked more men than she's kissed, if she's going to be honest, and half of the ones she did kiss, she wishes she hadn't. A bad kiss is worse than bad sex -- she can at least get herself off, if it comes to that, but there's nothing worse than some guy trying to lick your uvula and thinking it turns you on. There's no way around it other than telling him straight up how much he sucks.
A kiss exposes you, and Emily doesn't really do exposed.
That's why she almost tells him no when he asks.
But that's the thing -- he asks.
They're in Salt Lake City. Exhausted. Drinking club soda in the bar of some nameless hotel at three o'clock in the morning, playing Hangman on a paper napkin. It's their routine. They're both insomniacs, both vulnerable to bad old habits in the early hours, both shot through with a streak of black humor that's tickled by the apropos morbidity of the game. Reid usually wins, but Emily's up by three words this time and closing in rapidly on a fourth.
It's this hiccup in the pattern that cues her in, that makes her tip her tired eyes up to his face and really look. It's then that she realizes he's looking, too; paying more attention to her than to the words she's been using to try to stump him. He's wearing the expression he gets when he's hunched over a map or shuffling the pieces of a puzzle together in his brain, intense and serious and not quite to Eureka!, but almost. There's something else there, too, though. An extra furrow in his brow that appears when something hurts and he's trying not to show it.
"What's wrong?" she asks him, her pen paused and hovering.
Reid shakes his head, about to tell her nothing, but at the last second opts for honesty instead. He doesn't lie well to her. He never has. "Sometimes..." he starts, but then he has to stop and swallow. He blinks at her, but it's not a nervous blink, just a slow shuttering. "Sometimes? I look at you, and I just... I remember the way you looked after Colorado. I can see where... I just... your bruises. They were..." His hands flutter like they're itchy, like he's working hard to hold them back.
Emily sets her pen down and tilts her head to the side. She can feel her own brow contract; feel the tight, heavy pull start in her chest, and something in her body language gives him the permission he needs. He reaches across the gap between them and runs the tips of his fingers down the side of her face. His memory is exact. It's perfect. Everywhere he touches, Emily can practically feel the capillaries break, feel her blood rush up to meet him, feel her skin bloom grotesquely against his. She doesn't flinch, though, just keeps her eyes fixed on his. His pupils are open wide in the low light, and for a second, she can see so far into him that it makes her knees unsteady.
"It's okay," she says after a moment, surprised by the thickness of her voice, its quiet timbre. He's still touching her, one finger resting against the corner of her mouth, looking at her so intently that she thinks he's forgotten it's there. "You did really good there, you know. I can't tell you how many times... how grateful I was -- I am -- that it was you in there with me. I don't know if anyone else...."
She lets the words fade out, leaving him with the unspoken implications. They aren't lost on him. He swallows again, and she watches his adam's apple move, and she feels his finger twitch against her lips, and suddenly her mouth is so dry that she can't help but wet it.
He doesn't pull back.
Instead, he just follows the seam, slow and careful, and when his finger slips under her top lip, she feels it glide over the rough spot there. The scar tissue. He stops moving then and just feels, a minute back-and-forth that would normally make her cringe.
"What happened?" he asks quietly. So quietly. Whispers. "You had stitches."
Emily pushes his finger aside gently with her tongue and tells him. "I fell down the stairs when I was five. Broke my two front teeth and split open my lip. They stitched the back so the scar wouldn't show."
"Oh," he says. "They did a good job. It looks..." He stops abruptly. Then, "Can I kiss you?"
He asks. It's so earnest, so out-of-the-blue, so naked that she can't even answer him with her words. Can't tell him that it's probably a shitty idea, that he's already leaned on too many of her bruises, fingered too many of her scars. Can't tell him that his dangerously sharp brain is dulled by the hour, by the silence around them, by the forced intimacy of what they do. Can't tell him that that costs extra, costs more than either of them have in their pockets.
Can't tell him no.
So she tells him yes instead; nods at him so slightly that anyone but a profiler would miss it.
He leans in and takes her face in his hands like he's afraid he'll crush her into nothing, and then he kisses her. It's slow, all lips at first, sweet and reverent and soft. The softest thing she's had against her body since they got here, and warm like the covers pulled up to her neck, like bathwater, like her bones melting down into gold. The tongue is her idea, but he doesn't protest, and when she feels him slide his own up under her lip, glide over the spot where she bled as a little girl, she just tightens her fingers in his hair and holds on.
A kiss will open a hole in your chest.
Sometimes it's a fist through a wall, all jagged plaster and broken beams and a room that will never hold the heat again. But sometimes? Sometimes it's just a key turning in a lock, a door swinging open. Someone waiting on the other side.
Sometimes it's worth the price.