A/N: My protest against SOPA, PIPA, ACTA. What had me really upset was when I heard that while SOPA got dropped, the government decided to shut down a major site on the internet without it. If they don't need a bill to do that, who's to say it only begins and ends with the internet? The internet has become ingrained into a majority of people's daily lives now, it has become more than a stepping stone - a large platform - for all sorts of people (i.e aspiring writers, musicians, artists, etc), it has become ways of communications and forming bonds and making friends with people all over the world, it has become a new way of entertainment, it has become a way for people to express their freedom of speech.
Distortion
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Summary:
A/U – In a bleak world where the government's power is unlimited, Aaron Hotchner knew only of one sure thing: anyone against the government is evil. But then he meets Emily Prentiss. H/P, Protest against SOPA, PIPA, ACTA.
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Disclaimer – I do not own Criminal Minds. All thoughts in this fiction belong to me.
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ONE
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He met her in a small, quaint café that he went to every morning for the past three years now. Aaron Hotchner remembered that the date was May 21. He remembered because it was the day that would change his life forever. He remembered because of her, Emily Prentiss. She changed him and he wasn't sure if it was a good change or a bad one, only that after that day, he hasn't quite viewed the world the same way.
Aaron Hotchner grew up his whole life both fearing and admiring the government. His own parents worked all day and night for it, for Aaron and for the rest of the world. He lived his entire existence with one easy motto like everyone else, everyone save for Emily Prentiss at least, and that was:
"Anyone against the government was evil."
Emily Prentiss was different. While Aaron grew up with the government as his hero, Emily made it her enemy. She blamed everything on it; the good as well as the bad. Aaron never thought he would ever meet someone with such open hostility and abundant hatred for something that protected its people, a system that was created by the people for the people to help eliminate all evils that life had to offer, until he met Emily Prentiss. But now when he looked back at it, he shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, when they first met, it was with Emily reading an old newspaper article in public.
He remembered that particular detail well because the first words he uttered to her had been:
"Where did you get that?"
She looked up at him, startled brown eyes looking into his intense ones. Aaron slid into the booth chair across from her as she quickly folded the paper into a bulky square and then gently tucked it back into her purse. She pursed her lips in thought.
"I found it somewhere on the streets."
It had been her first lie to him but at the time he didn't really care. He had been more intrigued on why it had been intriguing her to begin with. The whole history of newspapers intrigued him in fact. The only other time he saw a newspaper was in the hands of his dad over ten years ago a little while before newspapers were deemed obsolete and then outright banned by the government a year later.
"Sure. I believe that," he humored her as he clasped his hands together on top of the table, head tilted to the side.
She huffed at him, torn between giggling and being offended. She ran a hand into her dark hair and slouched back. Aaron was certain she wasn't going to say anything else on the subject without a little push. He leaned forward. "That was a newspaper, wasn't it?"
"I don't know." She said.
He remembered then seeing fear in her brown eyes for a fraction of a second. It was what made him pull back. "My name's Aaron by the way."
Emily Prentiss had trust issues. She told him that later but Aaron had already figured it out back in the café. It had been in the slight hesitation in her movements. It had been in her wide, dark eyes that Aaron often had trouble reading.
But she did eventually allow a tiny smile to creep onto her face as he slowly steered the conversation away from the newspaper that distractedly peeked out from her purse.
"I come here every day, you know," he said offhandedly.
She nodded; she'd seen him every day he entered through the door. Emily was just as observant as Aaron was. "I've seen you around before."
"I just never got the courage to talk to you 'til now," he said.
Emily was incredibly smart. Aaron knew that, it was easy to see in her eyes, in the way she talked. He just never realized to what extent. But then she allowed herself a brief, pointed, look at her purse and then back at him and he saw it in her eyes - a flash of understanding - and he knew.
"You needed an excuse to talk to me," she deadpanned.
Aaron never told her how much the accusation had stung but it did. He could hear the underlying message there that said what his dad often said to him straight out, "You're a coward." He was sure she didn't mean it like that but it was the way Aaron was, the way Aaron grew up.
"Sure," he said distractedly and thankfully they left it at that.
It was by the end of their conversation- an hour give or take a couple minutes - when both adults eventually agreed that if they stayed any longer they'd be late for their jobs that Aaron realized that as much as Emily hated the government, she feared it just the same as everyone else, maybe even more so. She just knew how to hide it.
"Aaron," she began slowly.
He looked up to find that she had already raised to her feet, purse swinging over her right shoulder. Her brown eyes seemed to try to look straight into his soul for a moment. He didn't say anything, just locked eyes on her and gave her all his attention and that seemed to be enough to give her the courage to continue.
"You're not going to report me, are you?"
Aaron wondered if he should have said "yes" then. It would have been a lot simpler, a lot less stressful. It would've been what a sane person would've said. It would've been the right thing to say. But he didn't say it. Or think it.
"No."
Because as much as Emily was different from anyone Aaron had ever met in his whole life, she was also the most intriguing.