Derek Morgan draped his left arm over the backrest of the vinyl booth and swung his gaze easily away from where it had been focused and onto the mostly empty seidel in front of him. He pondered the remnants of the amber coloured liquid for a moment before lifting the glass and draining the rest, the action causing him to look directly at the person who sat across from him.
Emily Prentiss' whole upper body was turned sideways in her seat, her right elbow propped up on the backrest and her attentions wholly focused elsewhere. From the look on her face (which could only be described as 'utterly smitten'), it was clear Emily was completely oblivious to everything except what she was staring at. Morgan grinned to himself and turned his head to follow her line of sight to confirm what he already knew. Though the bar was full—usual even for a Thursday night—there was a mostly unobstructed view of the end of the bar counter where two blondes stood talking animatedly to each other.
Penelope Garcia was the easiest of the pair to spot, naturally. While Garcia's black and white patterned dress was unusually demure (for her), not only was the exuberant woman gesticulating excitedly as she spoke which easily drew eyes towards them, but the intense pink of the shrug she was wearing that matched the chunky earrings visible under carefully waved hair dared anyone to try and look away from her. Next to her, leaning forward onto her elbows on the bar top, Jennifer Jareau's expression was torn between bursting out into laughter and looking absolutely scandalized by whatever Garcia was telling her.
She apparently settled on a mixture between the two and though they definitely couldn't hear either woman from their positions, the mirth on JJ's face as she gripped Garcia's arm while she laughed was as bright as the close-to-neon pink shoes on the hacker's feet. Emily let out a short sigh that was clearly involuntary and tonally somewhere between wistful and dreamy, causing Morgan to set his empty beer mug down on the liquid warped table loudly. Emily jumped at the sound and immediately jerked her gaze away from the bar counter and onto her friend, her body language closing in on itself slightly as she turned to sit properly and look at him bemusedly.
"What, Morgan?" Emily shot at him, her voice unnecessarily terse.
"What, Morgan?" Derek mimicked in an exaggerated lilt and doing nothing to stop his smile from widening. He ignored the warning look on her face and leaned over the table towards her like he was sharing an important secret. "What I wanna know," he continued, his voice more serious but extremely amused nevertheless. "Is how long you've been looking at JJ like that when no one's looking?"
"Like what?" Emily asked in a forced casual tone, dropping her eyes away from the annoyingly cocksure expression on her friend's face to study her fingers.
Morgan glanced briefly at the bar counter where the other two members of their party were still waiting for a new pitcher of beer. "Like you've been stranded in Death Valley for a week in the middle of July and she's a glass of water." He let out a surprised yelp that turned into a belly laugh as she kicked him none too gently under the table, her eyes flying back to his face and her expression a clear demand to go no further. He raised his eyebrows as she opened her mouth to offer an excuse, daring her to deny it.
Emily winced and nodded her head in defeat, coming clean now that she'd been caught. "God," she breathed out embarrassedly. "Is it really that bad?"
Morgan leaned back again and shrugged. "Let's just say that if you look up 'subtle' in the dictionary, your picture isn't gonna be there."
Emily put a hand over her face like she could push the colour rising in her cheeks back down and groaned through her fingers.
"So c'mon," he continued, upturning his palms and flapping his fingers in a 'lay it on me' gesture. "Tell Papa Derek what's up."
"First of all," Emily started defensively, moving her hand away from her face to jab a finger at the air in front of his chest. "You're like five years younger than me. Secondly," she screwed her eyes shut briefly as a melodramatic shudder rocked her shoulders. "If you call yourself Papa Derek ever again, I'm going to shoot you." She looked like she was going to say something else, but dropped her hand to drum her fingers on the tabletop and didn't continue.
"Thirdly?" Morgan prodded with a laugh. The smile faded from his face when the brunette remained silent and he leaned forward again. "What's going on?" he asked seriously.
"Derek…" Emily pleaded in a near whine, glancing towards the bar counter.
"You don't have to talk if you don't want to," he promised earnestly. "But it looks like you could use someone who'd listen."
"You're not wrong; but…" Emily agreed with a tight nod before tilting her head to one side to indicate where their friends were still standing.
Morgan leaned across the table again, this time to judge where in the beer-getting process they were. They frequented this particular bar as a group a lot. There was a near constant jovial atmosphere, the drink selection was decent, the music wasn't too loud or too obnoxious, and there was nearby parking if you knew where to look for it, all of which ensured the place was fairly well populated—tonight being no exception. The exception was, however, that they were currently understaffed. Usually there were three bartenders and a bar-back but tonight there was only one frazzled bartender and the terrified bar-back who was trying her best but was clearly overwhelmed. It didn't look like their friends had even placed the order yet.
Garcia and JJ seemed totally unperturbed about the indefinite wait for a lull in the patrons calling out demands, totally engrossed in their own conversation; they weren't in any hurry. The team had been taken off rotation for a while after several hellish months of back-to-back out of area cases and thus were on a mini vacation of sorts; if you counted still having to go into the office for consults and paperwork 'vacation' (which they did). They had time. They had more time than usual. He looked back at Emily who seemed to realize that too and she sighed heavily. Just because she needed to talk, didn't necessarily mean she wanted to.
"I gotta say," Morgan drawled with a smirk while getting comfortable in his seat again. "I didn't realize things were this serious."
Emily frowned thoughtfully and tilted her head slightly. "Things?"
Morgan raised his eyebrows and shot his friend a disbelieving look. "Really, Princess? That's how we're gonna play this?" he shook his head when she didn't answer. He loved the woman like a sister, but she was easily one of the most emotionally stubborn people he knew. And he knew Aaron Hotchner. "How long have you been in love with JJ, Emily?" he asked directly but gently, noting the nervous look she threw towards the counter at the question as if their friends would be able to hear them over the din.
"Long enough that I can't remember—and don't want to remember—what it's like not to be." The brunette admitted quietly after a moment of hesitation.
Derek studied his friend for a moment as she rolled her tongue nervously over her lips. He didn't see what the big deal was. Clearly something was wrong if she'd been in love with JJ that long and not only hadn't said anything to her but made a deliberate effort to keep it from everyone else. Them both being women couldn't be the issue. JJ had never hidden her bisexuality from anyone on the team so it wasn't like Emily didn't know. About a month after she joined the team, Emily herself had told them she was homoflexible, a term Derek had never heard before then and needed explained to him ('almost always gay,' she'd said, 'but sometimes…'); but obviously their compatible orientations were anything but a hindrance. Interoffice dalliances were against protocol, sure; but they weren't just coworkers, they were family and they'd shielded each other against protocol violations for things much more serious than dating a colleague. Besides, most of those dating bylaws had been written because of Rossi anyways.
The idea that mutual attraction could have been the problem was so absurd he didn't even think of it as an option to be considered. Anyone with a pulse who had been around JJ and Emily when they were within ten feet of each other could tell they were attracted to one another. He knew for a fact neither of them was seeing anyone seriously. Working for the BAU tended to severely shorten the lifespan of any of their relationships. Morgan had never said so, but he often thought that the two women used the job as an excuse to end casual relationships that started to aspire to more. They didn't profile each other but he knew his friends well and both JJ and Emily tended towards emotional inaccessibility (except, he always internally pointed out, with each other) and it was easier and not entirely incorrect to put all the blame of failed attempts at long-term relationships on the job. Derek rubbed the back of his head trying to figure out what was going on and coming up with nothing except his usual confusion over why they hadn't been dating ages ago.
"I'm not seeing the problem, Em." He admitted finally with a shake of his head.
Emily scowled petulantly and pressed herself against the backrest as if she had to physically distance herself from his obliviousness lest it was catching. "In what world," she started crossly while folding her arms over her chest, "is having unrequited feelings for one of your best friends not 'a problem'?"
Emily's expression was serious and more than a little annoyed but Derek couldn't help it; he laughed. She had barely gotten to the end of her perturbed (and rhetorical) question when the genuine bark of laughter burst out of him before he even knew it was there in order to stop it.
"Hah-hah, asshole." The profiler across from him grumbled, sinking slightly in her seat sulkily. This insensitive shit head was supposed to be her friend. When Morgan wouldn't stop his damned chuckling that was bordering on barely contained guffaw, Emily kicked him again. Harder than the last time. Her lips curled into a remorselessly childish grin when his laughter ended abruptly in a pained shout as he immediately bent to rub his hand against his shin.
"Damn, woman!" Morgan hissed. "I've seen you kick down doors with more gentleness!"
"Well those doors didn't piss me off as much as you do." She reasoned irritatedly.
"You're right, you're right. I'm sorry." He said honestly, righting himself and holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "It's just… unrequited, Prentiss? Do you even pay attention to your own interactions with her?"
Emily eyed him suspiciously. She was fairly sure what he was going to say and that she didn't want to hear it, but she swept one arm out in a 'go ahead' motion anyway.
"Let me run through the obvious facts," Derek started, casually holding up one hand so he could tick off his points with his fingers. "Number one: you guys are always together."
"So?" The look on the brunette's face was as exasperated as her voice and she rolled her eyes. " Of course we are. We're friends and we work together."
Morgan shook his head, anticipating that response. "Okay but when no one can find JJ, everyone knows to ask you and vice versa. Even outside work. And we can all gauge how serious a situation is by how long it takes one of you to find the other. When you quit? We only knew that something was really wrong when JJ'd said you hadn't been answering any of her calls."
Emily shrugged, unconvinced. So they were close, so what? So it was usually a very cold day in the hottest part of hell when one of them didn't answer or return the other's calls, big deal. All that really highlighted was that JJ was an attentive friend. Garcia usually knew where she was too, but that didn't mean the hacker wanted to date her.
"Number two," Morgan continued unfazed. "You guys always find some way or some reason to sabotage each other from dating seriously."
Emily snorted and said; "now you're just exaggerating. That's not even close to true."
Morgan grinned as if he had been hoping for that reaction. "You think so, huh?" he glanced towards the bar again. More people had arrived at some point and the high counter was barely visible from their position but he could just make out JJ looking embarrassedly forlorn while she was saying something to Garcia with a hand pressed to her forehead. "I'm not gonna shame you with a full run down, even though I could. Let's just go with recent history. What about that program specialist?"
Emily let out a short laugh. "You're telling me you think JJ made me break it off with Miranda?"
"Didn't she?" he asked smugly in challenge.
"No."
Derek steepled his fingers together and gazed at the ceiling for a moment, pretending to be engrossed in the act of recalling the exact circumstances around the break up. "If memory serves correctly—and believe me Princess, it does—you and JJ were together outside work way more than usual the whole time you and Miranda were dating."
"Yeah," Emily huffed while rolling her eyes. "You remember because you were with us most of the time."
"True, but who usually came up with the plans?"
"JJ," she concurred a little reluctantly. "But it's not like Andi was never there."
"Also true, but keeping that in mind—who usually ended up having to share a cab at the end of the night because they were going in the same direction?"
"Me, Garcia, and JJ."
"But more importantly, you and JJ. Garcia only ever needed a lift to the park and rides. "
"Oh my god, will you stop?" Emily almost laughed; this was ridiculous. "Listen to yourself, will you? You're saying that Jay being considerate of where Andi lived by picking stuff closer to her was what? A ploy to get me to hang out alone in a cab with her for an extra half hour?"
Morgan shrugged. "You could have stayed at Miranda's."
"Not with the herd of insomniac brontosaurs' living directly above her." Emily had hated staying at Miranda's. She still had no idea how many people had lived in the condo above her ex's, but she was certain they were all made out of two ton boulders. Everyone—including Miranda—knew she would have preferred to walk the nearly thirty-five miles between their apartments than stay over there.
"Bingo." Morgan pointed out proudly when he saw Emily make the connection he'd been leading her towards. "And stuff like that happens every time either of you dates someone for more than a few weeks."
"You're reaching." Emily insisted dismissively. There was no way she was going to let his absurd apophenia plant a false hope in her. That was dangerous and would ultimately be disastrous. "How did you even become a profiler?" she ribbed. "You can't just chalk up coincidence to purposeful deliberation like that. Anyway, I stopped seeing Miranda because she hated the job; you know that. There's only so many dinners and weekend getaways you can cancel or leave in the middle of before it gets too much. JJ had nothing to do with it. And regardless of how I feel about her, I can't believe you'd think I'd purposely screw something up for Jennifer. What am I, twelve?"
"I'm not saying you guys do it on purpose," Morgan explained unapologetically, propping his elbows up on the table. "But that doesn't change that you do." He didn't point out that Miranda may have told Emily that she resented her job (and that was probably true too), but if his friend had been half as interested in the program specialist as she was in JJ, she would have noticed that Miranda subtly directed a lot of that resentment at the petite blonde. "What about last person JJ was dating? The detective from New Orleans?"
"Crawfish?" Emily snorted and shook her head. "I didn't do anything. What could I have anyway? He was barely around here."
"Come on! You were always pointing out the guy's faults in front of JJ; you don't think your opinion means anything to her? You don't think that all that flirting you refused to tone down around Will had an impact on their relationship?"
"Believe me, that was on a short timer from the beginning." Emily informed him flatly. "The only thing they really had in common was interlocking genitals." Though it would prove her point entirely, she couldn't tell Morgan that after a pregnancy scare JJ had realized that Will wanted more than she wanted to offer so Emily added, "ask her yourself. And so what if I was flirting? It's just part of our friendship." She gestured to the space between them. "We flirt and it doesn't mean anything. It's not my fault he was insecure."
Derek laughed lowly, futilely pushing further into his seat in case Emily decided to visit violence on his shin again. "It doesn't mean anything with us because as fine as you know I am, you've managed to resist the Morgan Charms. So far." He grinned when the brunette made a show of rolling her eyes. "The way you and JJ flirt? You guys don't even have to say anything most of the time. It's just the way you look at each other and anyone can see that. Will could see that and if it was just one-sided, it wouldn't have mattered; but it wasn't, so it did." He gestured with his hands that he was resting his case and crossed his arms. "You guys are way too into each other to be with other people. Just ask her out." He grinned. "There's no way she'd turn you down. If she does, I'll do your paperwork for a month."
"This?" she circled a finger towards Morgan while shaking her head. "This is half of why I couldn't talk about it. I don't need these kinds of thoughts in my head. The other half being that you can only just barely keep anything from Garcia, even when you want to. And you know her; she'd implode with the effort of not saying anything to JJ. They're practically sisters; JJ would notice something was up and I can't risk that. So what, I'm a little too serious with a lot of our flirtations; JJ isn't and that's fine. My feelings aside, I've never been so close to someone else, not like this. I'd rather I have her as a friend than not at all and I'm not going to ruin what we already have by making it awkward because you think it's a good idea." She glared sternly at him. "And neither are you, you big hypocrite."
Morgan frowned. "Hypocrite? What's that supposed to mean?"
This time is was Emily's turn to look smug. "What it means, Papa Derek, is that you should get off my back about what I should do with my feelings unless you're planning on telling Garcia you'd forsake your Lothario ways for the rest of your days if she even so much as playfully suggested the idea under her breath from two rooms over."
Derek stiffened slightly and shook his head, avoiding his friend's knowing stare. "It's not even like that."
"Yeah, right." Emily scoffed. "Like I haven't seen you spacing out on Garcia when you think you're being sneaky." She shook her head amusedly. "You're definitely not and never have been. I've just been too good a friend to call you on it."
"That's different."
Emily nodded amiably and turned towards the bar counter again to check on the subjects of their conversation. The two blondes had finally gotten the new pitcher and were slowly but surely making their way through the crowd back to the table, running interference for each other on approaching interlopers angling for phone numbers. "Mmhm," she hummed patronizingly. "Of course it is. After all, it's not every day the infamous Derek Morgan: Casanova of the DC Metro Area, noted Don Juan in at least seven states, gets this terrified of his own emotional attachment to some woman he hasn't even slept with."
"Hey," Morgan retorted immediately, his tone offended and sharp. "She isn't just some woman, Prentiss."
Emily grinned at having made her point and scooted further into the booth in anticipation of their friends' return to the table. "Yep," she reiterated cheekily. "Totally different."
"That wasn't fair." He huffed, scooting to the other side of his bench as well.
"Sure it was." She insisted brightly. "At least it's common knowledge that PG's into you and you're just being a big chicken shit." She held up her hand to stop whatever he'd opened his mouth to say. "Common knowledge; but if you don't want to let on to her just how much of a chance she really has, that's your choice. For now, anyways."
"Okay, I get it." Morgan grumbled in response to the implied theat. "JJ won't find out from me."
"JJ won't find out what from you?" the blonde in question asked with an amused sort of suspiciousness as she reoccupied her seat next to Emily and reached for the brunette's mug to refill it before her own.
"What Prentiss is planning for your birthday." Morgan covered easily, taking the pitcher when JJ pushed it towards him.
"That's not for another six months." She pointed out skeptically, looking back and forth between her friends. They looked like they'd been caught doing something wrong, but what wasn't immediately apparent. She exchanged a look with Garcia who was sitting across from her but though the hacker shrugged her indication that she could tell they were hiding something too, she clearly didn't know what it was either.
"It's never too early to map out your annual public humiliation." Emily pointed out with a mischievous smile as she took a much-needed drink.
JJ laughed at the absurdity of Emily even just contemplating anything that would make her remotely uncomfortable let alone following through on it. She leaned towards the brunette briefly to nudge her shoulder heavily against the profiler's. "If you say so, Em." She retorted, her voice full of good-natured disbelief. "I'll figure you out." She promised lightly with a smirk. "I have all kinds of ways to make you talk."
Emily choked slightly on her beer and tried to will away the immediate rush of warmth to her face, kicking Morgan lightly in warning under the table when he started to snicker. She noted Garcia's interested eyebrow raise with an internal frown as Derek tried to turn his amusement into a clearing of his throat.
