DISCLAIMER: Criminal Minds and its characters are the property of CBS. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Ain't No Sunshine
By gilligankane
The sun falls out of the sky and the world sinks into darkness in an instant. Emily is left out in the cold, watching the sun fade into the distance, willing it to rise again, only for a moment.
She feels so cold and lonely and she knows the sun won't come back.
The sun always goes away when JJ leaves and it never comes back until she does.
JJ's not really gone – she's right down the hall, tucked away into her office, and all Emily has to do is get over herself and ask the blonde to lunch.
But what if she's on the phone with Will, Emily asks herself. Or she's admiring the engagement ring on her finger. Or…
There are so many reasons not to go into the office, and not enough reasons to bust down the door and profess her undying love for Jennifer Jareau.
Except that JJ already knows how she feels, which hurts even worse every time she leaves Emily in a rush of cold wind and cloud cover. She still leaves even though she knows that Emily is stuck out in a storm of sorts, shaking and shivering desperately, waiting patiently until she gets back.
JJ brings the sunshine and when she leaves it brings the rain.
Darkness settles around Emily, like a heavy, dense fog that settles over the beach and sand, sinking in and leaving everyone there with a chill in their bones and a weight in their heart.
She lets it every time, because she knows, if she lets JJ go this time – just one more time, she tells herself every time – the blonde will come back to her when she comes to the realization that they can't live without each other.
"Hey Em, we're going for drinks, you in?" Derek's voice intrudes into her cocoon of silence, but she flashes him a sympathetic grin regardless.
"I was planning on just heading home, catching up on some sleep," she says with a regretful smile. "Next time?"
"Next time, you're buying." He laughs and reaches out, his hand resting softly on her shoulder. His face drops and his eyes become serious, his mouth drawn into a straight line. "You can't wait for her forever, Em. It's not fair to you."
And the moment is gone as he straightens up, his smile lighting up the room again. She watches him turn towards Reid.
"Looks like it's just us, Boy Genius. Let's go." Emily looks away towards JJ's brightly lit office and argues with herself.
A part of her says: go in there.
The other half of her says: don't be an idiot.
But irrationality wins and she finds herself inching slowly towards JJ's office, willing her feet to turn around, go back. But her heart sends her racing into the office and the battle between the two has her walking at a normal pace.
"Hey JJ, not going for drinks?" She leans casually against the doorway, trained eyes running over every line on JJ's face.
The blonde looks up startled, but smiles instantly and Emily can feel the sunshine touch her skin, kissing her with the hope of warmth.
"It's not good for the…" Her voice trails off, but Emily knows what she means and she nods, the smile slipping an inch on her face. "Anyway, why are you here still?"
"Wanted to catch up on some sleep. I actually should get going, traffic is going to be hell at this hour." But she doesn't move from the doorway and doesn't hide the way she's staring at the woman behind the desk.
Her resolve breaks because the sun is shining down on her and she can breathe again.
She pushes off the doorway and meets the blonde halfway. JJ's hands pit perfectly around her neck and Emily's slip back into place on JJ's waist as if they never let go.
"We shouldn't do this," Emily whispers, purely for obligations sake. She's going to do this, whether it's right or not, because she's too damn cold and she can't take it anymore. She doesn't wait for JJ's answer and is rewarded with the taste of JJ: vanilla, pure and simple and sweet, just like the blonde.
Her hands slip under JJ's top, her fingers finding warm skin, smooth and perfect. The blonde trembles slightly in her arms and Emily abandons JJ's lips for mere moments, making her way down the long stretch of neck, savoring the sweet smell of her perfume, memorizing the way JJ's skin feels under her lips.
They're standing in the middle of JJ's office, necking like teenagers and all Emily can think about is how she wants to do this every day for the rest of her life.
Emily moves them away from the middle of the room, pushing JJ against her desk, not caring to stop and clear the papers that JJ had been working on. She moves even further down the blonde's neck, her tongue slipping down past the hollow in her throat, while her fingers work nimbly as they slip buttons through button holes. She makes her way back up, recapturing JJ's mouth in a hot gasp, her hands pushing JJ back, lifting her up, sitting her on the desk. She moves between the blonde's legs and tries not to completely fall apart when JJ moans her name, soft and in a half-whisper, as if she'd been saying the name Emily like that forever.
Right now, the sun is beating down on her so hard she's afraid she'll die of a heat stroke, or sun poisoning. The heat from this kind of sunshine is oppressive, but it only pushes her towards ecstasy; only warms her from the inside out.
The sunshine never stays forever.
The phone rings obtrusively and Emily knows from the ringtone alone that it's someone she doesn't want calling at this particular moment. JJ tenses, her body going rigid. Emily tries to ignore it, her hands pulling JJ closer to her, away from the ringing phone.
She can't lose the sunshine now, not when she just got it back.
"Em, I need…" Emily doesn't let her finish. She kisses the blonde long and hard, memorizing everything she can because she's not sure when she'll be able to kiss JJ like this again.
But then the kiss is over and even though she's made it so JJ can't get her phone to open or to answer the call, and Emily takes some satisfaction out of that fact, she suddenly feels cold, so cold, and each second that JJ fumbles more with her phone makes the sun fade into the sky, taking warmth and life and happiness with it.
She buttons her shirt hastily, and turns to leave the room, knowing that she's venturing out into the cold, dark, sunless world.
"Being" with JJ is like living in Alaska: half of the year in sunlight, half of the year in darkness.
As she moves away from JJ's office, ignoring the way that JJ's voice changes from throaty moans to steady speech, she feels the sun slipping from her fingers, moving right outside of her grasp, taunting her. She thinks if she could just reach out a little more, she'd catch the sun again and never let it go. She knows that's not true.
Darkness settles around Emily, like a heavy, dense fog that settles over the beach and sand, sinking in and leaving everyone there with a chill in their bones and a weight in their heart.
She lets it every time, because she knows, if she lets JJ go this time – just one more time, she tells herself every time – the blonde will come back to her when she comes to the realization that they can't live without each other.
She just doesn't know how long she has to wait for the sun anymore.
The End