A/N: I originally finished this chapter the day after I posted this story, but I felt it was too rushed. I rewrote it and this is the product of the rewritten version ;)
I don't own characters from Criminal Minds and other fandoms that have been mentioned.
The seat belt feels relaxed as it slid through her breasts and latches itself inside the buckle. A breath escapes her mouth as she hears the car door close in on her. There's a few seconds of silence in between before her date reappears behind the wheel, a relieved smile forming in her lips. Her mind is still in a state of haywire, most likely due to the extensive amount of wine she downed before they abruptly left the restaurant.
Alex glances back at the petite woman as the engine of the car roars to life. "I'm ssorry," she slurs, attentive to the fact that she is smack down hammered. "So sorry, Phoebeee."
Said woman doesn't answer right away; she has a plastic look on her face, though she does mean well. The linguist knows that the younger woman is perceptive of her advantage to see through her bullshit—it's more out of habit than actual reasoning. They are both highly intelligent, a fact they are certain about each other, despite having a vague, almost desolate background revealed through themselves (actually, it was their peers that built up their dating profiles). Underestimation of each other would've deemed either of them unworthy of their assumed brilliance.
She—Blake—actually thought that the woman was a profiler at one point. A clever one, even.
"No need," Phoebe finally answers after taking a sharp right turn that caused the older woman's stomah to churn a bit. She deccelerates to allow the other woman to relax, sensing the sharp pain of her head suddenly bashing onto the seat behind. "I should be sorry as well. And for the atrocious driving—I'm also a bit tipsy, but I've always been feeling a bit on the edge when out in the road at night."
The FBI agent bites back a silly chuckle as she looks back at the date several hours before. Garcia and JJ had nagged the woman through several teeth-clenching, terribly sugarcoated phone calls to prep herself for the upcoming night. She had then wished that she didn't agree on a poll suggesting a one week vacation for the entire team due to the nonstop cases they were working on that finally came to a rest. If she had changed her mind, however, then Cruz would've probably—no, certainly—put her on desk duty for a month. She also wasn't ready to deal with an irritated, sleep-deprived Rossi, who was more than excited to finally catch up on his beauty sleep.
Phoebe had picked her up two hours later, though she was clearly rushing to arrive on time. Her dress and hair had been done, but her make-up wasn't completely the look she was going for. That and the fact that her erratic behaviour when she greeted her at the porch concluded said observation.
However, she was certainly a bit surprised at how well her demeanor shifted when they entered the restaurant. The woman wore a genuine smile as she led her to their reserved table, and she was downright relaxed when the waitress assigned to them had asked for their orders. The change in behaviour could possibly be the blame of her being a profiler, certainly not wanting the woman to take the hint that she was extremely nervous for this. It humoured the brunette; this date was utterly nerve-wrecking for her as well.
They started a casual rapport while they waited for their meals to arrive, learning something a bit more about themselves as they shot each other questions and blurt out quick, short answers. "I'm so sorry," she said, a frown on her face. "My sisters actually set me up on this date; you're this flipping well put, badass professional FBI agent, and that has me freaking shaking all over my body because I'm just a cheesy advice columnist!"
"Phoebe," she recalled herself saying, "there's really no reason you should be nervous around me. I'm a mess when it comes to dating, and that was before I married James. We only divorced a couple weeks back, and this is actually my first one ever since. If there's one of us that should be tense, then it should be me."
The petite woman sighed. "Marriage is so stressful on both sides. I don't know how my sister and my brother-in-law do it." She then chuckled. "How ironic. I spew out love advice for people and I have such an awful love life myself."
"We could drink to that."
"Hell yeah."
By the time their meals had arrived, Alex had downed most of the bottle of red wine and was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol beverage. She was hardly half her way to finishing her dish when she abruptly excused herself to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet when she expelled her stomach contents in the bowel. Fortunately, none of the vomit had sprayed on her dress, but Phoebe had insisted that they leave the restaurant already. She ordered a Sprite for the older woman to drink before they exited with a huge tip for the waitress.
Blake's thought train interrupts when the car suddenly halts to a stop. Looking up, she's a bit hazed, but she could see that they'd already arrived at her place. She holds her empty Sprite can as the other woman escorts her out of the vehicle, arm over her arm. It had been a while since she was this intoxicated, insisting that it was a waste of time and led to a pounding headache in the wake of the morning sun.
"I can stay over for the night."
"You don't have to."
Phoebe gives a look to the older woman; it's the 'are-you-actually-serious-Blake?' that she received usually from JJ or Garcia. "I always have an extra set of clothes in case something happens," she informs. "I've been in this dating game for a long time. Way too long, even."
Alex wants to laugh, but all she could make out was disturbing sounds that aren't of human nature. She remembers a similar time like this as she and Phoebe walk up to the porch of her house. The memory stretches far back into her high school days; it was one of the best nights of her life. It happened back when she was a confident, tomboyish senior that didn't give a damn outside school. She had a girls' night out when her two best friends—Sioban and Valerie; together, were the three smartasses of their senior year but Alex pulled through as valedictorian.
They were celebrating their final nights together before they would eventually separate to their own paths of success. At the time, Alex had a huge crush on Sioban. She knew how dilute homosexuality was at her school, and how the damn principal had to be extremely homophobic. The only coping mechanism that helped her was her passion of writing in her journal. She had 7 notebooks describing every little detail of her sapphic love for Sioban, though it didn't really bother her much because she had remained focused in her studies.
So when her drunken self decided to finally lock lips with the object of her affection, the euphoric feelings intensified when the other woman kisses back. It was then that they realised they both had wanted each other for a while, and that ended up with hot, steamy sex—in which they become each other's first. Tragically, they couldn't keep the relationship long distant as Alex decided to attend the FBI Academy not long after, and Sioban's studies to become a geneologist consumed most of her free time. They drifted apart for the better, but they still remain genuine friends.
"Alex?" Phoebe calls out, intercepting the woman's reminiscence again. "Are you sure you don't need my help?"
"Yeah, I can manage."
By then, the two women are inside—Phoebe setting her go-bag on a couch and Alex heading upstairs to change in her bedroom. Frankly, the FBI agent is relieved that she could finally take off this goddamn dress. The tightness of the attire reveal her the true intentions of why it had been banished in the dark of her stuffed closet for so long. Her sloshed status adds to the list uncomfortable things that's also been keeping her night such a chaotic disaster. To total more problems into the mess, she's trying to come about ways to apologise and make amends to Phoebe, even if she had dismissed the amount of regretful acknowledgements she drawled out.
The petite brunette doesn't seem to want to interrupt her privacy, given the fact that she hears the shower of the bathroom downstairs running—quite shocked, actually, that she figured out the faucet of the damn thing already—and that she could also hear the flirty lyrics of Bruno Mars echoing around the house. Alex doesn't comment on the obvious fact that she was inadvetently disturbing the usual serene tranquilness of her home, and secretly because she likes, quite appreciatively, the choice of artist. She goes back to her TARDIS-like (because it seems bigger on the inside) closet to dig her favourite pair of shorts and a Berkeley t-shirt, which still wraps around her a bit loosely even after the many years of wearing. She was so sure she'd thrown it or given it away to a charity since the incident of a laundry load shrinking after being set to a dryer, but she's relieved since the college is where she met James.
As if some higher power or being wanted to irritate her evening even more, her phone yet again chimes, and she doesn't hesitate to snatch the device from her bed to quickly analyse the notification.
Prentiss: I take it that the date is going fine since you aren't venting it all on me about how disastrous it was???
Alex stifles a chuckle.
Oh dear, I'm afraid to disappoint you.
Prentiss: Lol, now Clyde owes me 100 euros.
She scoffs, furrowing a brow in annoyance.
Prentiss: Did I hit a nerve in you, Dr. Alex Blake?? I can practically taste your vexation in my tongue.
That's a bit of a mouthful description, agent.
Prentiss: Clever and funny. No wonder you get all the girls.
"Bitch." The cursed mutter is followed by another dry laugh. She comforts herself in the bedsheets over her mattress before answering a FaceTime call from the Interpol agent herself. "I'm knackered, Emily. I feel like I just got hit by a train and then flung into a field of jagged boulders and prickly gravel."
She hears the noirette clicking her tongue. "If it makes the pain feel a teeny bit better, I didn't even get the slightest hint that you were drunk, let alone concluding the amount of agony you're suffering already."
"I honestly just want to skip tomorrow already," Blake whines, feeling her tears well up inside. "Nothing is going to bring me out of bed the next day because the torture is going to get worse. The most I can hope for, realistically, is that I'm numb for at least some parts of the day." She then considers an idea. "Maybe I should just sleep in all day."
"I'm just surprised you aren't slurring as much because I know how much of a drinker you get when you drink unsupervised by the team." The Interpol chief pauses. "Garcia had sent me a few details about you during the plane ride back to London after we rescued JJ."
"Oh." She even researched about me? Should I be at least flattered? "I'm flustered. Garcia really does have a list of fun facts about me?"
"She says it's two pages long, and that's her shortest list. If you'd like, and I don't know why I'm admitting this to you because I know how smug you can be"—Blake stiffles a laugh at her continuous babble—"you can go ask the resident Oracle of All Things Known and Unknown for my list. Spoilers, it's 12 more pages than yours. Rossi's is 31, however."
"Well, let's hope that she has gigantic handwriting or Garcia might actually be our own personal friendly stalker."
Emily snorts. "I think you may need reading glasses for this one. I needed mine, which I rarely ever use, so I could snoop into Morgan's when I wanted to get back at him once."
"Oh, you're evil, Emily Prentiss."
"And you still have Phoebe Halliwell staying at your house even though it's her nephew's birthday tomorrow, and she still needs to finish up a post before it's overdue!" Blake's eyes widen at the sudden information. "Who's the more evil one now?"
"But who's the one stalking me now?"
The Interpol agent bites her lip. "Don't do that to me, Doctor Blake. Now, go back to whatever you were doing with the lovely date of yours."
"She won't be mine for long."
The call terminates.
"Though I wish it was you."
A/N: Yes, the little, microscopic piece of angst in the end that somehow wrenches my heart even though I'm the one writing it. Am I the only one that likes to mentally abuse myself with all the torture that I give to my favourite agents? I hope not.
And yes, that's Phoebe Halliwell from the TV Show Charmed. There was suggested queerness in her in some parts of the show, or at least I suggested it, especially when she was with Kyra. And me being such a slut for hot queer ladies, since I myself am such, I liked to toy with the idea. Although things didn't work out with them, I really liked the thought of Alex/Phoebe.
I might be considering this plot when writing this story: first the initial date, then something goes horribly wrong, and then Blake calls Prentiss to rant about how shitty it was. Maybe I'll tinker with it a bit, no?
Anyways, I'll be stopping the notes at the end because I think I maybe annoying you guys with those, and honestly I think it's just a little too much for me. I never written any ending Author's Notes back when I wrote at Wattpad.
Enough of me rambling, or typing actually; I really hope you guys are enjoying yourselves with this as I've seen quite a few people have. Hope I don't disappoint in the future! Thanks for reading xx