(no subject)
Title: Not sleeping anymore
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Under age sex, prostitution
Fandom: Ultimate X-Men
Summary: Jubilee doesn't sleep much anymore. Short story.
There had been a time when Jubilee remembered sleeping. Lazy Sunday mornings curled up under her Teen Titans coverlet and watching the sunlight move across the posters on her wall. Shining like happiness. All lazy and feeling so heavy she could fall right through the bed, and too much effort to move. Just. Being. Hearing Mom and Dad move around the house quietly, the soft singsong of Chinese with its tonal noises and falling and lifting, filling her ears and telling her that this was home. Home was safe, warm, sunshine and lazy.
Her life didn't have much of that anymore.
Not since Then.
Then had come in a big ball of fire and the numbness had set right in, to be followed by the rage that this was happening and that someone had dared. She hadn't thought it was possibly to hate that much. She'd been ten when the Sentinels had set down in LA...school the next day had been quiet. There'd been...faces missing. No one talked about them. Not at all. Not ever. It wasn't to be discussed. Mutants were bad news, and they didn't really exist because that would mean saying there were bad things in the world.
She knew all about the bad things now.
She'd been 12 when her hands had shot fireworks. Pretty dancing balls of light, streamers of explosives and she'd cut and run, leaving blinded security guards behind her. Pushed her hands deep into the ocean water, dirty slick grimy as it was, sobbing and not knowing what else she could do. Except keep her hands cool. Because if they were wet and cool, then she wouldn't have the explosions happen. Like Chinese New Year's, full of fireworks and Cynjen had told her it was all going to be alright, given her a hug and told her that her new blue eyes were pretty. So pretty. There had been best-friend kisses and Cynjen had fed her icecream, laughing and her blond hair flashing in the Californian sun. Jubilee had gone home and her parents had bought coloured contacts to turn her eyes back to the proper colour they had been when she left the house that morning. It had been going to be alright. They didn't care, but they knew other people would. SO they protected her and let her practice, laughing at the fireworks. Mom loved fireworks and Jubilee was special and loved and pretty because she could make fireworks anytime Mom wanted to look at them, and because she was just Jubilee. And everything had been just about perfect, even though she'd started wearing gloves everywhere in case she got angry and lost control for a few moments.
The X-Men were a thing on the tv screen. Magneto just the same. They were far away and they never touched her and her life. She was a Chinese American, first generation, growing up in Beverly Hills. Nothing bad could really happen in a place so protected. Safe. Home was safe and Jubilee laughed and yelled and went to her gymnastic compititions and there were noises about the Olympics in her future. Which was, you know, sorta cool. She loved to perform, and if she went in the Olympics...she'd be performing to the whole world. Everyone would know about her. Which would be so cool. Cynjen giggled when she went on about it after the practises and competitions that the Olympic spotters went to, and kissed her to make her shut up.
And Then.
Then.
Someone had put a carbomb under their car, and they'd died. It had been an explosion that far outrivalled any of the pretty sparks and flashes she could put out. The smoke had risen and the scent of burning had lingered in her nose for days. Weeks. Sometimes she woke up screaming because it wound its way into her dreams. She'd stayed in foster care right up until four weeks after, when she was still shocky from her parents funerals, her foster father had come into her room, reeking drunk. She'd been asleep and he'd just pulled down the covers, pushed up her nightie and tried to rape her. She drove him off with fireworks, and it wasn't him they turned on. It was her.
She hadn't known.
Exactly.
How much people could hate.
And she'd learned how to, once she got her feet on the streets and started running. She'd never stopped. LA downtown, so dangerous glitzy bright with hardness lurking at the corners of your view. Hated, and felt angry. So angry all the time. The gloves became a permenant fixture. She learnt to lisp, put on coy glances and a hip shimmy that sent the johns panting in her tracks. She had a sort of innocence, so tiny China doll perfect. Some of them really got off on the blue eyes in an Asian face. Turning tricks wasn't something she liked, but she needed to eat. Needed money for other things as well. And she still had to lurk at the edges because she was known as a mutie, and muties didn't get to walk the street corners in the more wellpaying areas. She was a mutie child whore, who was just lucky enough and strong enough to keep out of the clutches of the pimps and the really bad johns. Sometimes runaways turned up dead. The police couldn't care less, particularily if they showed an obvious mutation.
Tracking down the guys who had killed her parents became her next all consuming passion. Someone had to have done it. With scraps of info and a deadly determination, she got into places where she never should have walked. But she had to do it. For her parents. Because she needed to know who could kill them. She needed to know why. So she flirted and fucked and made her way through the maze of infomation she could find in order to find the prize in the middle.
When she was 15, she'd been on the streets about three years and she had just killed the first person she ever killed. Bad john. With knives. And a video camera. Snuff films were all the rage, especially snuff films with attractive mutants. Because...people hated what they didn't understand, right? And if they were attracted to what they hated, then that was worse. Because some mutants looked just like everybody else. So they had the dual desires. Lust and hate. So...snuff films of mutants were a booming business on the blackmarket. She got away with a J-shaped scar on her stomach where he had tried to cut her, and he had died when she shot a firework at him and it exploded his throat. There had been so much blood. She'd scrubbed and scrubbed to get the blood off her, then ran with the beginnings of the videtape. No one came after her, so she must have escaped detection.
She didn't sleep very well anymore. But she was real close to finding the guys who had killed her parents. And when she did...she was going to kill them on purpose. Burn them to death through a thousand little wounds. Make them hurt and hurt. For her parents and everything that had happened to her since. She didn't like this life and she wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before Then. But since that wasn't possible...she was going to punish them for making this possible. This wasn't what her life had been going to be. Her parents weren't meant to be dead. But they were, and she was living on the streets and a hooker, getting a little older now and a little more desperate with each trick...used goods. No one really wanted used goods.
Probably, she'd kill for a good night's sleep with no dreams.
Maybe if she got the guys who killed her parents, then she could sleep. Maybe then.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Under age sex, prostitution
Fandom: Ultimate X-Men
Summary: Jubilee doesn't sleep much anymore. Short story.
There had been a time when Jubilee remembered sleeping. Lazy Sunday mornings curled up under her Teen Titans coverlet and watching the sunlight move across the posters on her wall. Shining like happiness. All lazy and feeling so heavy she could fall right through the bed, and too much effort to move. Just. Being. Hearing Mom and Dad move around the house quietly, the soft singsong of Chinese with its tonal noises and falling and lifting, filling her ears and telling her that this was home. Home was safe, warm, sunshine and lazy.
Her life didn't have much of that anymore.
Not since Then.
Then had come in a big ball of fire and the numbness had set right in, to be followed by the rage that this was happening and that someone had dared. She hadn't thought it was possibly to hate that much. She'd been ten when the Sentinels had set down in LA...school the next day had been quiet. There'd been...faces missing. No one talked about them. Not at all. Not ever. It wasn't to be discussed. Mutants were bad news, and they didn't really exist because that would mean saying there were bad things in the world.
She knew all about the bad things now.
She'd been 12 when her hands had shot fireworks. Pretty dancing balls of light, streamers of explosives and she'd cut and run, leaving blinded security guards behind her. Pushed her hands deep into the ocean water, dirty slick grimy as it was, sobbing and not knowing what else she could do. Except keep her hands cool. Because if they were wet and cool, then she wouldn't have the explosions happen. Like Chinese New Year's, full of fireworks and Cynjen had told her it was all going to be alright, given her a hug and told her that her new blue eyes were pretty. So pretty. There had been best-friend kisses and Cynjen had fed her icecream, laughing and her blond hair flashing in the Californian sun. Jubilee had gone home and her parents had bought coloured contacts to turn her eyes back to the proper colour they had been when she left the house that morning. It had been going to be alright. They didn't care, but they knew other people would. SO they protected her and let her practice, laughing at the fireworks. Mom loved fireworks and Jubilee was special and loved and pretty because she could make fireworks anytime Mom wanted to look at them, and because she was just Jubilee. And everything had been just about perfect, even though she'd started wearing gloves everywhere in case she got angry and lost control for a few moments.
The X-Men were a thing on the tv screen. Magneto just the same. They were far away and they never touched her and her life. She was a Chinese American, first generation, growing up in Beverly Hills. Nothing bad could really happen in a place so protected. Safe. Home was safe and Jubilee laughed and yelled and went to her gymnastic compititions and there were noises about the Olympics in her future. Which was, you know, sorta cool. She loved to perform, and if she went in the Olympics...she'd be performing to the whole world. Everyone would know about her. Which would be so cool. Cynjen giggled when she went on about it after the practises and competitions that the Olympic spotters went to, and kissed her to make her shut up.
And Then.
Then.
Someone had put a carbomb under their car, and they'd died. It had been an explosion that far outrivalled any of the pretty sparks and flashes she could put out. The smoke had risen and the scent of burning had lingered in her nose for days. Weeks. Sometimes she woke up screaming because it wound its way into her dreams. She'd stayed in foster care right up until four weeks after, when she was still shocky from her parents funerals, her foster father had come into her room, reeking drunk. She'd been asleep and he'd just pulled down the covers, pushed up her nightie and tried to rape her. She drove him off with fireworks, and it wasn't him they turned on. It was her.
She hadn't known.
Exactly.
How much people could hate.
And she'd learned how to, once she got her feet on the streets and started running. She'd never stopped. LA downtown, so dangerous glitzy bright with hardness lurking at the corners of your view. Hated, and felt angry. So angry all the time. The gloves became a permenant fixture. She learnt to lisp, put on coy glances and a hip shimmy that sent the johns panting in her tracks. She had a sort of innocence, so tiny China doll perfect. Some of them really got off on the blue eyes in an Asian face. Turning tricks wasn't something she liked, but she needed to eat. Needed money for other things as well. And she still had to lurk at the edges because she was known as a mutie, and muties didn't get to walk the street corners in the more wellpaying areas. She was a mutie child whore, who was just lucky enough and strong enough to keep out of the clutches of the pimps and the really bad johns. Sometimes runaways turned up dead. The police couldn't care less, particularily if they showed an obvious mutation.
Tracking down the guys who had killed her parents became her next all consuming passion. Someone had to have done it. With scraps of info and a deadly determination, she got into places where she never should have walked. But she had to do it. For her parents. Because she needed to know who could kill them. She needed to know why. So she flirted and fucked and made her way through the maze of infomation she could find in order to find the prize in the middle.
When she was 15, she'd been on the streets about three years and she had just killed the first person she ever killed. Bad john. With knives. And a video camera. Snuff films were all the rage, especially snuff films with attractive mutants. Because...people hated what they didn't understand, right? And if they were attracted to what they hated, then that was worse. Because some mutants looked just like everybody else. So they had the dual desires. Lust and hate. So...snuff films of mutants were a booming business on the blackmarket. She got away with a J-shaped scar on her stomach where he had tried to cut her, and he had died when she shot a firework at him and it exploded his throat. There had been so much blood. She'd scrubbed and scrubbed to get the blood off her, then ran with the beginnings of the videtape. No one came after her, so she must have escaped detection.
She didn't sleep very well anymore. But she was real close to finding the guys who had killed her parents. And when she did...she was going to kill them on purpose. Burn them to death through a thousand little wounds. Make them hurt and hurt. For her parents and everything that had happened to her since. She didn't like this life and she wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before Then. But since that wasn't possible...she was going to punish them for making this possible. This wasn't what her life had been going to be. Her parents weren't meant to be dead. But they were, and she was living on the streets and a hooker, getting a little older now and a little more desperate with each trick...used goods. No one really wanted used goods.
Probably, she'd kill for a good night's sleep with no dreams.
Maybe if she got the guys who killed her parents, then she could sleep. Maybe then.