Note- This was written for Pick Your Own Pairing Challenge on Chit Chat for Author Corner. The prompt is:
Character A & Character B kiss because of heightened emotions after someone else dies (whether that someone else is an unsub, BAU member, their mother, sister, friend, anyone).
Any Given Day
Erin Strauss and Dave Rossi
November 2010
Erin knew what kind of mood David would be in when she reached his office. Knew it would be ugly. He would be mean. He'd be blaming himself, blaming her, blaming God and the Devil in equal parts, their bosses, the whole government, anyone and anything he could think of he would blame for this.
Her death had been so senseless. She wasn't the only person who died today but she was the only one who mattered to them.
Even though it would have been smarter to stay away from David today, and for weeks to come if Erin didn't want to get her head bitten off, she went straight to his office upon receiving the bureau wide email.
The FBI was locked down so none of them could leave the building right now. She slipped into his office without knocking. A lesser woman would have gasped at the sight in front of her.
The desk was overturned, papers and books littered the floor, his computer was laying in a broken heap, glass from picture frames glinted up off the carpet. And there he sat, on his leather couch, a drink in his hand, breathing heavily, eyes looking glassy and dazed.
He hissed at her "Get the fuck out of my sight. You are the last person I want to see right now."
Ignoring his words she walked over and plucked the drink from his hand, set in on a book shelf, and said "It won't help any."
"Nothing will help any now! She's dead!"
"I know."
"I should have done more!"
"There was nothing any of us could do. Her transfer was over all our heads."
He stood up, eyes flaring with anger, raring for a fight against an easy target. And Erin had always been that to David. Ever since their days of being young agents who drank too much and always challenged each other in the field (her cold and by the book, him loose and wild, him always trying to get her to break her boundaries and for a while there she had) it was like this between them. They would square off and neither one would dare back down till someone was in flames. They had so much history between them they could fill up a stadium with it. The history of what they did, what they didn't do, what they wanted to do, what they couldn't do, what they gave up on, what they clung hard to, what they said, who they betrayed, who they would always remain even long after they realized how futile their actions really were in the grand scheme of things.
It was ironic, she believed now, that it was him, out of all the agents she worked with back in the day, who was still around now. He had been the first one to pack up and leave for better horizons. Yet he couldn't stay away. He had to get back in the game and settle old scores- even if it was the death of him to do it.
And it very well could be. On days like today it felt like it was just one more step till he became a memory- the legendary David Rossi, an epitaph on a stone in a cemetery. Then there wouldn't be anymore ghosts to haunt this man. But for right now he was consumed by things in his past he wished he had done different.
People he wished he could have saved.
The weight of too many senseless deaths bore down on his shoulders and etched in the lines of his face. He needed someone to take it out on. Before she ever left her office that day Erin knew she would be that person for him, because he needed her to be.
Dave's eyes were filled with dueling anger and regret as he stood glaring at her and then spat out "You could have kept JJ here if you wanted! You could have fought for her!"
"I did."
"Don't give me that bullshit!"
"If Agent Jarreau was here she would still be alive but-"
"Damn right she would be." He grabbed Erin's wrist and jerked her against his body. "And I blame you for that as much as anyone! You have blood on your hands just as much as me."
"The only people with bloody hands are the terrorists who bombed the building and killed our colleagues today, and you know that. You just can't accept it right now. But it does nothing for her memory to behave the way you are."
Breathing hard, their bodies pressed together, he hissed "Don't you talk about her memory. That's for people who loved her. You made her life hell. You don't get to talk about her now."
"I was an advocate for her many times. Whether you believe that or not."
"Shut up!" He slammed his lips against hers, taking her mouth in a kiss as intense as the first one they shared twenty some years before when she was engaged to another man and David was her flirty co-worker who said she should run off with him rather than get hitched.
She hadn't. Just like David knew all along she wouldn't. That is just not who she was. She couldn't take that kind of risk with her future.
But what she could take, and take oh so well, was this punishment he was delivering to her today. Giving her a kiss she shouldn't want and yet had been craving ever since their last angry, needy, drunken kiss a few years back- right after he had re-joined the BAU and handled a case in Indianapolis that brought back old memories for him.
He got back to the BAU that night, cracked into a fresh bottle of scotch and by the time he was a few glasses in he was ready to find her and get a few things off his chest about her ice queen attitude. She happened to be working late. He came into her office, told her off, and they had ended their arguement with a fiery kiss before Erin pushed David away and kicked him out of her office.
Today she didn't push him away though. Today she took his punishing kiss because she not only wanted it but because he needed to give it to her. He needed to spew his emotions on someone and she was the one he could get the most raw with on any given day.
His hand held the back of her head as his mouth devoured her lips. He forced her backwards, her heels crunching over broken glass and strewn papers, until her ass was on the edge of his desk. His hand closed around her breast, covered by her lacy bra and silk blouse.
She wrenched her mouth free of his and threw back her head.
He stilled. Seeming to realize what he was doing all of the sudden. Panting hard he backed away from her and ran his hand through her hair. "She was a young mother...was...I can't believe I'm talking about JJ in past tense."
"It's a terrible loss for your team and her family," Erin said, as kindly as she could, while adjusting her clothes. She lay her hand on David's arm. "If there is anything you need..." she murmured and then left, knowing he wouldn't come to her any time soon.
They both knew they only worked in small doses.
THE END
