AN: FLASHDRABBLE. Reviews, plllleasseee. The quote is from the episode Outfoxed, though I'm sure most of you know this. There are also references to Minimal Loss and 52 Pickup. Hoooorah, episodes with H/E read between the lines goodness. Also, disclaimer: I don't own shiiiiiiaaaat.

Rated T for language. BTW.

It must be distracting working with someone so beautiful.

And it was.

Aaron Hotchner was a stony man. He was reserved, pensive at times. Some would go so far as to label him a bit stodgy. But it was his way, to be a man of walls, a man of boundaries, a man of regulations when it came to personal connection in the business realm. He was a man of his job.

But he was a man.

And being a man, one that was attracted to women, nonetheless, it was distracting, dammit.

Certainly, not in a million (billion?) years, would he ever voice the opinion. Certainly not. And it wasn't just because he was her co-worker. Morgan definitely made enough flirtatious comments to make that boundary null.

He was (is) her boss, and being her boss constructed an entirely impassable wall, one in which he can only think of her in a business sense, and, on occasion, in a friendly way.

But hell if it wasn't distracting.

Emily Prentiss had been beautiful all her life. Well, he didn't know this for sure, but he damn well knew she was disarmingly pretty as a teenager. Granted, when he was younger and working with her mother, he had only met her in passing, never anything ceremonious or worthy of distinction.

But she had been beautiful, beautiful enough for him to give her a double take when he passed her by. The soft contours of her youth had been off-putting, and he should have known it would only get worse (better.)

The Prentiss of today wore a matter-of-fact wardrobe (business never looked so good.) Her hair was often unflatteringly pulled back (he wanted to keep it there, because otherwise he often thought he was in danger of touching it, caressing it.) She slouched oddly sometimes (that he can't account for. Rebellion against her mother's upbringing of her?)

But she was a goddess, really. Every curve was sculptural, every expression a painting (the whole fucking Louvre), every motion a dance. Distracting? That was like calling a shotgun wound at point blank range a paper cut.

It would help if she had been a bitch. Kind of like her mother, Hotch wanted to will himself to think, but he wasn't sure he could ever call a woman that. Maybe Strauss.

But no. Prentiss was the perfect mix of snarky smirks, concentrated frowns, and vivacious laughs. She was business, but she was also life.

And what's more was she bore darkness like he did, but she bore it with grace. She was a self-described nerd, but she danced around her past horrors and her waking nightmares like it was second-fucking-nature.

Baffled. That's a better word. Not distracted. Emily Prentiss baffled Aaron Hotchner.

She was enigmatically beautiful, something he had never seen so brilliantly in another woman.

He was baffled, he was distracted, he was disarmed, because she was the only being in his perfectly structured machinated life that caused his walls to grow shaky, caused his boundaries to coup d'état. He thought he could change for her. He thought she could revolutionize everything. He thought he could (maybe kind of sort of) love her.

It's why he cried when he heard her being beat over the speakers.

It's why he cringed when they used her as bait (though she looked ethereal in that black, black dress.)

It's why he wanted to show "The Fox" what his knuckles felt like smashed against his face.

Distracting?

When she caught him staring, she gave him a puzzled smirk, something that says, "What are you looking at? Is there something wrong with me?" (along the lines of stains, hair out of place, something in her teeth?)

And he wanted to stare on, to say something dashing like that he's looking at perfection, or that the idea of something being wrong with her is preposterous. Out of the question.

But instead, he diverted his stare (glare?) somewhere else, ignoring the way her lips curve, ignoring how "boss" and "subordinate" are nuances if it just means he could tell her how beautiful she was every morning for the rest of their lives.

It must be distracting working with someone so beautiful.

Distracting? Fuck.

Aaron Hotchner was a man enslaved.