A/N: "Pretending to be a Couple" prompt on tumblr
A/N 2: Just a word of warning, I've been having a terrible feeling that they wrote Deborah out of season 2 so everything I write from now on in (until I know for sure that she'll return after all) will probably have a sense of doom about it (spoiler alert: the next ficlet was prompted with "Amnesia" but it ain't pretty). Feels almost wrong to put them here, but then they've always been nonlinear and didn't have to conform to just one fictional reality... Hopefully the show will give me more cause to write happy things again, though I honestly doubt it.
Anyway!
There is a familiarity in her movements as she straightens his tie, rests her hand on his chest, looks up to him with a smile; a familiarity one cannot feign, and he squirms a little, eyes skimming the crowd for any familiar faces. But there are none, and even if there were, they have an excuse to be out together, as a couple.
It's for the case's sake, he repeats in his mind as her fingers curl around his arm. He looks down and they appear pale against the dark fabric of his suit, reminding him of Emily's - and then again she feels completely different as she falls in step next to him. She is warm when Emily is cold; close when the true Mrs. Reid is distanced; she is there.
He stops the comparison, the list that grows in his mind, knowing that it would soon see them both undressed, sharing his bed; knowing that Mrs. Reid will never match up to her - and he wonders, not for the first time, if it was a mistake to ask Deborah to pose as his wife (for the sake of the case, and nothing else). But she asked no questions and simply said yes, as he knew she would.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he realizes that she has to take what she gets, and on his terms. He is using her, and it's not fair at all.
But she is there, and he can't keep himself from taking all that she offers so freely to him.