#tw for internalized homophobia prolly

[beware-of-you-98]

Hello yes u are an amazing human being and I just read your angsty Em hcs and they made me feel pain and I would like to feel more pain so... I’ve come to request Emily childhood angst hcs? Your headcanons are adorable and also your Jemily at the cat cafe was adorable :)

I’m about to create an environment so angsty (also i decided to focus on her coming out/coming to terms with being gay rather than focus on her childhood in general since i already had some hcs about it!! n this is au as hell bc i don’t care about canon x)

note: whoops this got long and angsty and way past emily’s childhood oops

tw: drug use, homophobia, abortion mention, drinking, smoking (ye i still don’t know if i should put a tw for that but i do anyway 🤷‍♀️)... yeah the first half of this isn’t happy at all

emily knows from a really young age she’s different

since she’s homeschooled up until she’s 12, her only other interaction with people is with nannies and the teachers the ambassador hires

but her only other interaction to the outside world is through story books

all the princesses in her story books want to be rescued by handsome knights or princes

emily always wants to be the one to rescue the pretty princesses

her nannies buy her disney princess merch and disney movies

emily’s favorite princess is belle or jasmine bc they’re so pretty 🥺

she doesn’t think anything is wrong with it until she’s talking with her nanny about how pretty jasmine is and her nanny’s only response is a short “oh”

emily doesn’t know why, but the way she says it makes her feel guilty and so she stops talking about jasmine

and when the nanny starts to talk about aladin, she barely pays attention

(she thinks jasmine deserves better than him anyway— aladin lies to her right away and how is that supposed to be true love?)

emily keeps her thoughts about girls to herself after that day

and compartmentalizes those feelings because she hates the guilt associated with them

it’s not until she’s enrolled in the all girl’s boarding school that the feelings come back and it’s almost too hard to ignore

every other girl talks about their boyfriend or guys

emily never feels the need to talk about guys; they hold no appeal to her

(she talks about guys once or twice to try and fit in, but her stomach always flips in unpleasant ways and she always feels bad because she knows she’s lying to the other girls and herself)

her heart doesn’t flutter around boys and they don’t make her feel anything

audrey from her chemistry class makes her heart skip a beat and butterflies to erupt in her stomach

her hair is soft, her laugh is so cute and everytime she gives emily a hug, she can’t help but melt in her arms

when she kisses emily in the woods behind the school, lips tasting of strawberry chapstick, it’s as if things suddenly make sense

kissing audrey makes emily feel like she’s finally found a part of herself she didn’t even know was there and it’s glorious

when the ambassador drags her off to rome, emily snaps

she goes off the deep end because, after all the years she’s been crying for her mother’s attention, it’s kissing audrey that makes her finally pay emily any attention?????

the school emily’s enrolled in is co-ed and she immediately clings to the first group to pay her any attention

she becomes a hardcore partier

she skips class

she smokes

does drugs (weed and on the occasion, ecstasy, but once her friends convince her to do a line of coke)

(she hates the way it makes her nose run so she doesn’t do it again)

drinks and gets blackout drunk every single chance she gets

the ambassador is a lot more present at this point in her life and emily starts fights with her every night

she doesn’t even know what she’s doing anymore

her life is spiraling and she feels hopeless

and when anyone, anyone, shows her any attention, she throws herself at them

she sleeps with one of her male friends once and ends up pregnant and suddenly her life comes to a screeching halt

she’s terrified and keeps it hidden from her mother

matthew is her saving grace and never judges her once

he even holds her hand when she gets the abortion

afterwards, it’s just the two of them

matthew has to sneak out to see her because his parents loathe emily, but he manages to do it

they always go to the local park and split a joint, a cigarette or a bottle of booze between the two of them and sit in silence

emily breaks down to him one night and tells him she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her

she feels so lost and doesn’t even recognize herself anymore

matthew holds her as she cries, silently comforting her

and when she asks him what she should do, he just simply suggests that she live her life for herself and stop trying to please everyone around her

“if you’re not happy living a life trying to please other people, try living for yourself”

while the advice might be cliché, emily swears its the best she’s ever got

she works her ass off the rest of her he years (i forgot what it’s called over seas oops) not bc the ambassador wants her to, but bc emily wants to do better for herself

when the ambassador moves her back over seas, she get accepted into yale

she doesn’t label herself in college and she’s comfortable with that

she only has like one boyfriend at the start of her freshman year

but she wasn’t feeling it, so she breaks up with him and starts to date her roommate

n then she goes steady with fiona duncan for the remainder of the time she’s in college

she immediately enrolls in the fbi academy when she graduates bc she doesn’t want to do politics

as soon as she’s certified, she’s assigned the undercover position as lauren reynolds

she doesn’t like to think about those years bc they’re just as confusing as her teenage years

she likes to separate herself from lauren as much as possible bc she feels as if lauren is the embodiment of the past she wants so desperately to leave behind

she barely looks back once she’s done with the undercover mission

she spends a few years finding jobs to keep herself busy

then she joins the bau

its the first time in a while she’s around people she genuinely enjoys spending time with

she’s comfortable with the team within a few months of joining

it’s here when she officially starts to label herself as a lesbian!!

(it feels so right to say she’s a lesbian— it sounds great coming from her mouth and it makes her feel warm and whole)

she kinda keeps it hidden at first but also kinda doesn’t

no one really asks until they’re all hanging out at te bar and penelope points to a group of guys and asks her which one she thinks is cuter

emily just shrugs and gestures to the female bartender

penelope and derek take her to gay bars a lot!!

and after some persuasion, jj and reid tag along

emily notices how jj kinda stays behind at their table instead of interacting with people and is like ???

but then she notices the longing gaze and the same sad expression on the blonde’s face as she watches everyone confidently mingling around and just... knows

when she drives jj back to her apartment later that night (they carpooled), emily finally asks jj what’s wrong

and jj just goes “do you ever feel like there’s a part of you that’s been hidden so long and all you want to do is just... let it out? but you’re too scared of what others might think and that you’ll lose so many people because they can’t accept who you are? but you don’t want to live that life anymore because you’re not happy and you just... don’t know what to do?”

it sounds like rambling

but emily’s heart goes out to jj because she knows exactly how that feels

emily tells jj the same thing matthew told her all those years ago— “if you’re not happy living the life others want you to, why don’t you start living for yourself”

jj just whispers “is that what you did? wasn’t it scary?”

emily tells her of course it was!! but she had a really good friend by her side to help make it less scary and that she’ll 100% be that person for jj if she wants her to

jj comes up to her a few weeks later in private and comes out as bisexual

she’s trembling and she’s nervous but emily just beams and tells her how proud she is of her

a few years later, they’re gfs bc i said so

n emily’s finally happy!!

she has people aroun her that finally love and accept her for being herself

and that’s all she ever wanted

#criminal minds #emily prentiss #emily prentiss hcs #long post #tw for a bunch of things #tw for drug use #tw for drinking #tw for abortion mention #tw for homophobia #tw for internalized homophobia prolly #oof #eventual jemily tho!! #the bau team #i’m too lazy to tag more #OOF #angst