#emilex

Past Friday Fic Recs:  [Friday Fic Recs - Tumblr] || [CM Fic Recs - AO3 Collection]

My Fanfic Master Lists: [JJ/Emily] || [Tara/Emily] || [JJ/Tara] || [Tara/Rebecca]

2023 Rec Lists: [JJ/Emily] || [Tara/Emily + Other Femslash]

            Alex came home from teaching her evening class to find Emily asleep on the couch, and she smiled and quietly pulled a blanket over her wife without waking her.  Emily needed her sleep.  She still had a few more weeks of maternity leave before she went back to work, and with a newborn baby in the house, sleep was a rare blessing for both of them.  Alex tiptoed into the nursery, where Matthew was still asleep in his crib.  He woke up and started fussing, so Alex picked him up and soothed him.

            “What’s the matter, little man?” she cooed, “Are you hungry?  Let’s go see if Mommy left you a bottle in the fridge.”

            Alex checked the fridge, but there was no milk for Matthew, who was still fussing in her arms despite her best efforts to calm him.  Emily woke up at the sound of her son’s cries.

            “He’s probably hungry,” she yawned.

            “Yeah, I was looking for a bottle for him,” Alex said, “I didn’t want to wake you.”

            “It’s fine; just give him to me,” Emily sighed.

            Matthew squirmed and cried as Alex passed him over to Emily, and Emily unbuttoned her blouse to breastfeed him.  She brought him to her breast and waited for him to start sucking.

            “Oh, come on,” she groaned, “You did it earlier!”

            “What’s the matter?” Alex asked.

            “He’s not latching.  I can’t—I can’t feed him.”

            “Okay, well, can I help?”

            Emily shook her head.  “No, I just…I need to get him in the right—ah!—position.”  Matthew just continued to squirm and wail as Emily shifted him around, trying to get him to latch on, and finally moving him to her other breast with equal success.  Alex could see the frustration and desperation growing in Emily’s face, and Matthew’s incessant screaming certainly didn’t help the situation.

            “You know what?  Why don’t I make him some formula?” Alex finally said, “Fed is best, right?”

            Emily had to concede that trying to nurse just wasn’t working out for anyone right now, so she sighed and nodded.  She tried her best to soothe Matthew, rocking him back and forth and talking to him in a gentle, singsong voice while Alex made a bottle of formula in the kitchen.  When Alex came back from the kitchen, Emily handed her son over to her wife.  Alex sat down in an armchair with Matthew and offered him the bottle, and Matthew immediately calmed down once he started drinking his formula.

            Emily looked over at her wife, and she just looked so natural with a baby in her arms.  Alex was so good with Matthew, and his little face just lit up whenever he saw her.  Emily, on the other hand, despite having given birth to him, was much more out of her element with Matthew.  She never thought motherhood would be easy, per se, but she didn’t think it would feel this unnatural to her.  It wasn’t that she didn’t love Matthew—of course she loved her son; she loved him with all her heart.  But she didn’t seem to have the same bond with him that Alex did.  Maybe she just didn’t know how to be a mother—it wasn’t like she got a great example of it growing up.  So many things that just seemed to come naturally to Alex felt foreign to Emily, and she couldn’t help but wonder if there was something wrong with her.

            Alex looked up from feeding her son and saw Emily wipe away a tear.

            “Em?” she said, “Honey, what is it?  Is it because he wouldn’t nurse?  You know that’s not your fault.”

            “It’s not just that,” Emily sighed, “What if I’m not a good mother?”

            “Oh, sweetheart, you’re a great mother,” Alex assured her.

            “Am I though?” Emily asked, “I mean, I want to be, but…but that doesn’t mean I actually am.  My mom wanted to be a good mother, but she still—”

            “You’re not her, Emily.”

            “But I learned from her,” Emily pointed out, “Everything I know about being a mother, I learned from her.  Maybe that’s why I don’t know how to bond with Matthew, or play with him, or make him smile the way you do.  My mother never did those things with me.  I can hardly remember her ever holding me, and she was always too busy for kid stuff like bedtime stories or lullabies or playing pretend.  I don’t think she played with me much at all until I was old enough to understand card games.”

            “You underestimate yourself,” Alex said, “You’re wonderful with Matthew.  He loves you.  You see how he smiles and giggles when you tickle him or blow raspberries.  You do know how to bond with him and play with him, even if it still feels new and strange to you.  It doesn’t always click right away, you know, mothers and their babies, but that doesn’t mean you’re not doing a good job or you’re not a good mother.”

            “Yeah, I know…” Emily nodded, “It just—it seems like you know so much more about all of this mom stuff.”

            Alex cleared her throat nervously.  “Yeah, well, uh, it’s not—it’s not my first time…” Alex said, and Emily felt her stomach turn over with guilt.  How could she possibly forget about Ethan?

            “Oh, god, Alex, baby, I’m so sorry!  I didn’t mean to—”

            “It’s okay,” Alex said, “Matthew isn’t Ethan.  I’ll always love Ethan, but Matthew is a brand-new little boy, and I can love him for who he is.”

            “Still…”

            “It helps that he looks so much like you,” Alex continued, “Ethan looked a lot like me, and I could see a lot of myself in him.  I could see the kind of person he’d grow up to be—you know, if he’d gotten the chance to grow up.  But with Matthew, I look at him, and I see so much of the woman I love, and that just brings me joy, because having more Emily in my life can only be a good thing.”

            Emily smiled.  She got up from the couch and perched on the armrest of Alex’s chair, and she wrapped an arm around her wife and looked down at the baby in her arms, who was finishing the last of his bottle.

            “I love you so much,” Emily said, “There’s no one I’d rather raise this little guy with than you.”

            “I love you, too, Em,” Alex said, leaning over to kiss her wife, “You want to burp him and put him down?”

All submission must be a sapphic (including nblw) pairing. Emily Prentiss x Reader fics will be given extra brownie points ;) but I am also accepting submissions from the following (stand alone names indicate x-reader):

Criminal Minds

Alex Blake; Penemily; Temily; Jemily; Jormily; Emilex; Tenemily; any other sapphic Emily ship that isn't listed.

Station 19

Maya Bishop; Carina Deluca; Marina.

Grey's Anatomy

Addison Montgomery; Amelia Shepherd; Kai Bartley; Kaimelia.

Marvel

Natasha Romanoff; Carol Danvers; Hela; Thena; Pepper Potts; Maria Hill; Yelena Belova; Hope van Dyne; Okoye; Shuri; and any sapphic pairing for those characters.

Rules

All submissions should aim to be at least 500 words (though less is okay), no more than 10,000.

Anything over 1000 words must include a keep reading/readmore

The following information should be at the start of the fic/above the cut: Title; Pairing; Warnings (trigger and content warnings must be included when applicable; if it's smut, mark it 18+); and a Short Description which includes tagging me, @sweetprentiss.

In the tags, please use iv's birthday writing challenge 2022 🎂on every submission.

Minors can participate, but can only submit SFW fics.

You've got a little less than a month for this first set of prompts, which I know may be a quick turn around, but please don't stress about it :) This is supposed to be something fun for all of us :)

Even if you have never written before or never participated in a bingo before, please feel free to submit something! I promise that whatever you can create will be wonderful :)

pls don't let this flop/ pls signal boost!!