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False Starts and Still Beating Hearts - Criminal Minds - Gen (JJ Jareau, Emily Prentiss) - Words: 2,283
Written for Dark Fest. Prompt: People see JJ as the innocent one with the good family background - all the better for her to keep her secrets.
Summary: JJ doesn't have to tell the truth but sometimes she wants to tell someone at least part of it.
Content Notes: Discussion of suicide attempts and successful suicides, discussion of suicide methods (semi-graphic) and suicidal ideation and thoughts, scars. R.
Author Notes: Spoilers for 5.13 Risky Business. Takes place a few months later.
On AO3: False Starts and Still Beating Hearts
JJ dug her toes deeper into the thick carpet of Emily's living room floor and absently tugged on one fiber that was slightly longer than the ones surrounding it. She could hear the sound of Emily in the kitchen, the clink of glass against the counter, water running, and Emily's bare feet as she padded back and forth in the small space. It was late on Friday night, or early Saturday morning - JJ wasn't sure which and she wasn't about to look at the clock and find out - and the only sources of light were the bulbs fitted under the cupboards in the kitchen and the street light that filtered in through the thin cream curtain that covered the window to the apartment balcony.
It was kind of a secret between the women on the team, something they had that was just theirs. On nights when they got back late, late enough that no one would have expected them to come home, they all went to Emily's apartment and decompressed together. Some nights they could fall asleep, Emily curled neatly in her armchair while JJ and Garcia tangled together on the couch, and on the nights where the crime scenes had been too awful to close their eyes so soon they sat up and talked and waited for the sun to rise again to promise that there would be another day even after everything they'd seen. Tonight they were one short; Kevin Lynch had still been at Quantico finishing up a case of his own and Garcia had opted to go back to her own apartment with him even though she didn't look like she was going to sleep tonight.
The clink of a glass being set down on the coffee table startled JJ and she couldn't hide the full body jolt that gave away her surprise. In the police stations and in the field she always did her best to be as steel nerved as everyone else but right now she was caught between the numbness that came with exhaustion and the edge from adrenaline that was a result of holding her gun and staying steady while Hotch and Morgan slowly talked the unsub away from his hostage. Emily smiled apologetically and sat down on the couch, her leg close enough that if JJ tipped her head to the side she would be resting against Emily's knee.
"Do you want anything else? Something to eat?" Emily asked.
Even after all the nights they'd spent like this Emily still played the ever helpful and courteous host. JJ sometimes wondered if that was a part of Emily's upbringing that she would ever be able to shake or if it was just a part of her now. "I'm fine," JJ said, answering both the question Emily had asked and the one she hadn't.
Both of their drinks sat untouched on the table and JJ fidgeted as she slowly wound down. She didn't want to sleep, not until she was back at home and she could hold Henry and they could both lay in her warm and sun-filled bedroom in the early afternoon and nap. For some reason JJ had never had a nightmare when she was sleeping next to Henry; it was like her unconscious mind somehow knew that he was safe and within reach and whatever horrors she'd seen couldn't reach them there. She knew it was more likely that her unconscious mind knew she didn't want to frighten her baby and kept the nightmares at bay when he was in close proximity. Emily didn't seem like she was aiming for sleep either; every minute or two she'd shift her weight and roll her shoulders - that's where Emily held all of her tension.
"Do you ever think about it?" Emily asked.
JJ knew what Emily was asking but the question was vague enough that JJ could pretend not to understand. "What?" The question came out rough, like half of it had been left behind in her chest.
"About what Tracy and Don Miller, and Zachary Finch did," Emily said. The warmth of her leg from JJ's side disappeared as she pulled it up onto the couch.
"Do you?" JJ asked. She tipped her head back on the couch cushions so she could see Emily. The successful suicide pact between the three young teenagers hadn't been what had brought them to the small town of Camden on the Maine coast but it had provided a sudden and horrifying illumination to what they were dealing with. JJ had stayed with the local sheriff while the rest of the team processed the scene and ruled out that it was the direct handiwork of the unsub, but the pictures and the grieving parents that had come after had been like a stormy ocean breaking on a completely unprepared shoreline.
Emily sighed. "Not really. Every once in a while I think of all the ways I know to die. Usually that's more than enough to stop me from considering it, but even then I know that I don't want to die."
JJ sat with the silence for a few minutes, trying to decide whether or not she should listen to the warning bells that are almost deafening her. "Usually?"
"Yeah, usually. And when it's not I go bother Reid or I come sit on your couch and play with Henry while listening to you around your house," Emily said. She leaned in so that JJ could see her, her hair falling forward in a dark sheet that obscured her features a bare moment later.
"Good. My couch is always there and you're one of Henry's favorite people because you spoil him rotten," JJ said, forcing a small smile. "And I'm sure Reid appreciates being bothered even if he'll never admit it. It's good for someone to go shake him out of his books on occasion."
Emily reached for her glass and brought it back with her to the couch, settling out of sight again. "What about you? Do you ever think about it?" Emily repeated after a few minutes of silence had stretched out between them.
The easy answer here was 'once in a while' or 'I have before'. A straight 'no' would be an obvious lie; they dealt with death too much for it not to be a subject that they always carried with them. Any answer JJ gave would wind up with a request for clarification; JJ could tell that Emily was looking both for reassurance that someone else had these thoughts occasionally and that JJ was solid and Emily didn't need to worry about her. "My sister killed herself when I was eleven," JJ said, and it was a little bit easier to say that after she'd told Hotch a few months earlier.
"Oh," Emily said, open surprise in her voice. "JJ, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
JJ reached for the glass Emily had brought her and drank half of the cold water within. Neither of them drank alcohol after cases, though sometimes JJ thought that their post-case vigils were a preventative measure and she occasionally wondered if maybe she and Garcia had done this with Elle things might have ended differently. She placed her glass back on the table and folded her legs on the floor so she could lean forward. Her back was completely exposed to Emily but the position hid everything else. "Alexandra wasn't the first person in my family to try to kill herself. She was just the only one who succeeded," JJ said to her hands.
There was a quiet click as Emily's mouth opened as she prepared to speak and then a soft exhale of air. JJ could imagine Emily profiling her, Emily's mind racing to puzzle out the possibilities and what she should say that would result in the least amount of damage. "You and your sister were the only children in your family?" Emily finally asked, her uncertainty obvious.
If JJ had been an unsub, a line of thought she tried not to travel too frequently, she would have seen this as a weakness and driven through the cracks to provide false information and misdirect. But JJ wasn't an unsub and Emily wasn't trying to interrogate her; Emily was just being the best friend she knew how to be. "Jennifer and Alexandra; everyone used to comment how we looked just alike. Sometimes my dad said we were twins and I had dawdled along an extra three years. We wore our hair the same length and in family pictures they always had her stand to my side and place her hand on my shoulder."
"It sounds like you were close," Emily said. Her feet were back on the floor now and her bare ankle was resting against JJ's hip.
"My mom tried to kill herself when I was six. She took pills, but my dad was home and made her throw up in the kitchen. It sounded like he was choking her. Alexandra took me out into the woods behind our house and we stayed out until it was after dark and long after we should have gone in for dinner. Mom never went to the hospital or anything but everyone knew what she'd done." JJ stopped and realized that her hands were balled so tight that her knuckles were white ridges on her skin.
"JJ," Emily said but didn't go on.
"When I was nine I tried to cut open my wrists," JJ said, her voice feeling completely detached from her body. "It was a mess and it hurt and I probably wasn't in any danger of dying, but it felt like it at the time. Alexandra found me and cleaned me up and said not to say anything to mom. When dad noticed the bandages at dinner I told him that I'd fallen on the playground at school."
Emily was silent this time and JJ couldn't even hear her breathe. Only the presence of Emily's leg against her side told her that she wasn't alone in the room and speaking for only the darkness to swallow the words.
"I guess, when Alexandra did it, and she was actually gone, that's the first time I understood what it really meant. It had scared me the times when my mom had tried and when I had tried, but until we were standing at her funeral I didn't realize that being gone forever was so huge," JJ said, finishing while the tightness in her chest still allowed her enough air to slowly breathe in and out.
Emily moved down onto the floor so that she was next to JJ. One of her hands touched JJ's hair and then moved it away so that it wasn't hiding JJ's face. Emily kept smoothing her hand through JJ's hair and slowly JJ leaned in so that she was pressed against Emily's side.
"So I don't think about it. Because if I did I would be the one in the kitchen with Will holding my hair while I vomited and Henry would be watching from the doorway," JJ said, her voice sounding faraway even to herself.
She knew that Emily was probably trying to connect dots; suicidal behavior was rarely found by itself without other factors, particularly when focused in a familial setting. If Emily was wondering or theorizing she didn't let on. "My couch is always here and I'm sure Reid wouldn't mind another person bothering him," Emily said.
JJ nodded and rolled her head so she wasn't on the bony edge of Emily's shoulder. The tightness in her chest was slowly easing. "Speaking of the couch, maybe we should be up there instead of down here."
Emily nodded but it still took them a few minutes to rise unsteadily and rearrange themselves on the couch. "Are you going to sleep?" Emily asked, sounding entirely too awake for whatever time it was in the morning.
"I don't think so," JJ said even as she let her eyes fall shut and placed her head on the armrest of the couch. She wouldn't fall sleep but the exhaustion was rushing over her like waves now and it felt nice to close her eyes.
At some point in the night JJ felt Emily's fingers tracing up the inside of her left wrist and pausing over the small lump of scar tissue that could barely be felt. There were thin scars on the inside of both JJ's wrists, though her pale skin made them difficult to see and the only people who had touched her there with enough sensitivity to feel them had never asked. JJ moved her right arm so that it was within Emily's reach and held both palms up so Emily could see and feel.
Emily's fingertips continued to ghost along JJ's left wrist for several minutes before they moved to her right and repeated the process. When she was finished she leaned down and pressed the side of her face against them, not quite a kiss but close.
JJ shivered and twitched but kept her eyes closed. "Your hair is tickling me," she said, not able to stop laughter from escaping.
Emily laughed too, shaking her hair against JJ's skin for another moment before backing away and resettling on the couch.
When JJ finally opened her eyes there was morning light slipping through the edges of the curtains and she found herself watching as Emily slept uneasily. She woke Emily 'accidentally' when she noticed the signs of her slipping into a nightmare and they both remained on the couch until it was time for JJ to get up and go back home to Will and Henry for the rest of the weekend.
Written for Dark Fest. Prompt: People see JJ as the innocent one with the good family background - all the better for her to keep her secrets.
Summary: JJ doesn't have to tell the truth but sometimes she wants to tell someone at least part of it.
Content Notes: Discussion of suicide attempts and successful suicides, discussion of suicide methods (semi-graphic) and suicidal ideation and thoughts, scars. R.
Author Notes: Spoilers for 5.13 Risky Business. Takes place a few months later.
On AO3: False Starts and Still Beating Hearts
JJ dug her toes deeper into the thick carpet of Emily's living room floor and absently tugged on one fiber that was slightly longer than the ones surrounding it. She could hear the sound of Emily in the kitchen, the clink of glass against the counter, water running, and Emily's bare feet as she padded back and forth in the small space. It was late on Friday night, or early Saturday morning - JJ wasn't sure which and she wasn't about to look at the clock and find out - and the only sources of light were the bulbs fitted under the cupboards in the kitchen and the street light that filtered in through the thin cream curtain that covered the window to the apartment balcony.
It was kind of a secret between the women on the team, something they had that was just theirs. On nights when they got back late, late enough that no one would have expected them to come home, they all went to Emily's apartment and decompressed together. Some nights they could fall asleep, Emily curled neatly in her armchair while JJ and Garcia tangled together on the couch, and on the nights where the crime scenes had been too awful to close their eyes so soon they sat up and talked and waited for the sun to rise again to promise that there would be another day even after everything they'd seen. Tonight they were one short; Kevin Lynch had still been at Quantico finishing up a case of his own and Garcia had opted to go back to her own apartment with him even though she didn't look like she was going to sleep tonight.
The clink of a glass being set down on the coffee table startled JJ and she couldn't hide the full body jolt that gave away her surprise. In the police stations and in the field she always did her best to be as steel nerved as everyone else but right now she was caught between the numbness that came with exhaustion and the edge from adrenaline that was a result of holding her gun and staying steady while Hotch and Morgan slowly talked the unsub away from his hostage. Emily smiled apologetically and sat down on the couch, her leg close enough that if JJ tipped her head to the side she would be resting against Emily's knee.
"Do you want anything else? Something to eat?" Emily asked.
Even after all the nights they'd spent like this Emily still played the ever helpful and courteous host. JJ sometimes wondered if that was a part of Emily's upbringing that she would ever be able to shake or if it was just a part of her now. "I'm fine," JJ said, answering both the question Emily had asked and the one she hadn't.
Both of their drinks sat untouched on the table and JJ fidgeted as she slowly wound down. She didn't want to sleep, not until she was back at home and she could hold Henry and they could both lay in her warm and sun-filled bedroom in the early afternoon and nap. For some reason JJ had never had a nightmare when she was sleeping next to Henry; it was like her unconscious mind somehow knew that he was safe and within reach and whatever horrors she'd seen couldn't reach them there. She knew it was more likely that her unconscious mind knew she didn't want to frighten her baby and kept the nightmares at bay when he was in close proximity. Emily didn't seem like she was aiming for sleep either; every minute or two she'd shift her weight and roll her shoulders - that's where Emily held all of her tension.
"Do you ever think about it?" Emily asked.
JJ knew what Emily was asking but the question was vague enough that JJ could pretend not to understand. "What?" The question came out rough, like half of it had been left behind in her chest.
"About what Tracy and Don Miller, and Zachary Finch did," Emily said. The warmth of her leg from JJ's side disappeared as she pulled it up onto the couch.
"Do you?" JJ asked. She tipped her head back on the couch cushions so she could see Emily. The successful suicide pact between the three young teenagers hadn't been what had brought them to the small town of Camden on the Maine coast but it had provided a sudden and horrifying illumination to what they were dealing with. JJ had stayed with the local sheriff while the rest of the team processed the scene and ruled out that it was the direct handiwork of the unsub, but the pictures and the grieving parents that had come after had been like a stormy ocean breaking on a completely unprepared shoreline.
Emily sighed. "Not really. Every once in a while I think of all the ways I know to die. Usually that's more than enough to stop me from considering it, but even then I know that I don't want to die."
JJ sat with the silence for a few minutes, trying to decide whether or not she should listen to the warning bells that are almost deafening her. "Usually?"
"Yeah, usually. And when it's not I go bother Reid or I come sit on your couch and play with Henry while listening to you around your house," Emily said. She leaned in so that JJ could see her, her hair falling forward in a dark sheet that obscured her features a bare moment later.
"Good. My couch is always there and you're one of Henry's favorite people because you spoil him rotten," JJ said, forcing a small smile. "And I'm sure Reid appreciates being bothered even if he'll never admit it. It's good for someone to go shake him out of his books on occasion."
Emily reached for her glass and brought it back with her to the couch, settling out of sight again. "What about you? Do you ever think about it?" Emily repeated after a few minutes of silence had stretched out between them.
The easy answer here was 'once in a while' or 'I have before'. A straight 'no' would be an obvious lie; they dealt with death too much for it not to be a subject that they always carried with them. Any answer JJ gave would wind up with a request for clarification; JJ could tell that Emily was looking both for reassurance that someone else had these thoughts occasionally and that JJ was solid and Emily didn't need to worry about her. "My sister killed herself when I was eleven," JJ said, and it was a little bit easier to say that after she'd told Hotch a few months earlier.
"Oh," Emily said, open surprise in her voice. "JJ, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
JJ reached for the glass Emily had brought her and drank half of the cold water within. Neither of them drank alcohol after cases, though sometimes JJ thought that their post-case vigils were a preventative measure and she occasionally wondered if maybe she and Garcia had done this with Elle things might have ended differently. She placed her glass back on the table and folded her legs on the floor so she could lean forward. Her back was completely exposed to Emily but the position hid everything else. "Alexandra wasn't the first person in my family to try to kill herself. She was just the only one who succeeded," JJ said to her hands.
There was a quiet click as Emily's mouth opened as she prepared to speak and then a soft exhale of air. JJ could imagine Emily profiling her, Emily's mind racing to puzzle out the possibilities and what she should say that would result in the least amount of damage. "You and your sister were the only children in your family?" Emily finally asked, her uncertainty obvious.
If JJ had been an unsub, a line of thought she tried not to travel too frequently, she would have seen this as a weakness and driven through the cracks to provide false information and misdirect. But JJ wasn't an unsub and Emily wasn't trying to interrogate her; Emily was just being the best friend she knew how to be. "Jennifer and Alexandra; everyone used to comment how we looked just alike. Sometimes my dad said we were twins and I had dawdled along an extra three years. We wore our hair the same length and in family pictures they always had her stand to my side and place her hand on my shoulder."
"It sounds like you were close," Emily said. Her feet were back on the floor now and her bare ankle was resting against JJ's hip.
"My mom tried to kill herself when I was six. She took pills, but my dad was home and made her throw up in the kitchen. It sounded like he was choking her. Alexandra took me out into the woods behind our house and we stayed out until it was after dark and long after we should have gone in for dinner. Mom never went to the hospital or anything but everyone knew what she'd done." JJ stopped and realized that her hands were balled so tight that her knuckles were white ridges on her skin.
"JJ," Emily said but didn't go on.
"When I was nine I tried to cut open my wrists," JJ said, her voice feeling completely detached from her body. "It was a mess and it hurt and I probably wasn't in any danger of dying, but it felt like it at the time. Alexandra found me and cleaned me up and said not to say anything to mom. When dad noticed the bandages at dinner I told him that I'd fallen on the playground at school."
Emily was silent this time and JJ couldn't even hear her breathe. Only the presence of Emily's leg against her side told her that she wasn't alone in the room and speaking for only the darkness to swallow the words.
"I guess, when Alexandra did it, and she was actually gone, that's the first time I understood what it really meant. It had scared me the times when my mom had tried and when I had tried, but until we were standing at her funeral I didn't realize that being gone forever was so huge," JJ said, finishing while the tightness in her chest still allowed her enough air to slowly breathe in and out.
Emily moved down onto the floor so that she was next to JJ. One of her hands touched JJ's hair and then moved it away so that it wasn't hiding JJ's face. Emily kept smoothing her hand through JJ's hair and slowly JJ leaned in so that she was pressed against Emily's side.
"So I don't think about it. Because if I did I would be the one in the kitchen with Will holding my hair while I vomited and Henry would be watching from the doorway," JJ said, her voice sounding faraway even to herself.
She knew that Emily was probably trying to connect dots; suicidal behavior was rarely found by itself without other factors, particularly when focused in a familial setting. If Emily was wondering or theorizing she didn't let on. "My couch is always here and I'm sure Reid wouldn't mind another person bothering him," Emily said.
JJ nodded and rolled her head so she wasn't on the bony edge of Emily's shoulder. The tightness in her chest was slowly easing. "Speaking of the couch, maybe we should be up there instead of down here."
Emily nodded but it still took them a few minutes to rise unsteadily and rearrange themselves on the couch. "Are you going to sleep?" Emily asked, sounding entirely too awake for whatever time it was in the morning.
"I don't think so," JJ said even as she let her eyes fall shut and placed her head on the armrest of the couch. She wouldn't fall sleep but the exhaustion was rushing over her like waves now and it felt nice to close her eyes.
At some point in the night JJ felt Emily's fingers tracing up the inside of her left wrist and pausing over the small lump of scar tissue that could barely be felt. There were thin scars on the inside of both JJ's wrists, though her pale skin made them difficult to see and the only people who had touched her there with enough sensitivity to feel them had never asked. JJ moved her right arm so that it was within Emily's reach and held both palms up so Emily could see and feel.
Emily's fingertips continued to ghost along JJ's left wrist for several minutes before they moved to her right and repeated the process. When she was finished she leaned down and pressed the side of her face against them, not quite a kiss but close.
JJ shivered and twitched but kept her eyes closed. "Your hair is tickling me," she said, not able to stop laughter from escaping.
Emily laughed too, shaking her hair against JJ's skin for another moment before backing away and resettling on the couch.
When JJ finally opened her eyes there was morning light slipping through the edges of the curtains and she found herself watching as Emily slept uneasily. She woke Emily 'accidentally' when she noticed the signs of her slipping into a nightmare and they both remained on the couch until it was time for JJ to get up and go back home to Will and Henry for the rest of the weekend.
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I really enjoyed creating a backstory for JJ here, even knowing that it would be anything like the show would choose for her family dynamic.
Thank you for commenting! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.