Danny Zuko 18: All at Sea
Title: Danny Zuko was a Hot Chick (part 18 of 20)
Author: Alsike
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds x-over
Pairing: Emma Frost/Emily Prentiss
Rating: NC-17
AN/Disclaimer: Not my girls.
Word Count: 1722
Citrus Taste Summer Battle Prompt # 8. 'Out at Sea' Fantasy
Apologies: Oh my god this section nearly killed me. It was pain! I fought with it for hours. I think it's okay now but probably incoherent. I really can't win with this one.
Apparently, Emma didn’t feel like talking to her today. That was… interesting. She just kept casting rather appropriative looks over her once in a while, and sitting up straight with a detached arrogance that was really getting irritating. Of course, Emily was slightly more worried about the way that her mother was avoiding speaking to her, her pinched mouth and narrow expression.
“I was looking for you yesterday at lunch,” she said finally. “I couldn’t find you, or your friend, anywhere.”
Emily swallowed hard. They hadn’t really made it out in time for lunch. “Oh,” she managed.
“You’re not going to tell me that you went into town?”
“We… didn’t go into town.”
“You promised, Emily.” Elizabeth fixed her with a stern look. “Not lying when you’re caught really doesn’t make you honest.”
It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t be able to make her feel this guilty when she didn’t even want to understand. Emily looked away, trying not to scuff her shoes on the carpet. “We’re leaving in a week.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
She met her mother’s eyes. “I know I promised. But some things are more important.”
“Like showing off your slutty new underwear?”
Emily jerked back. She had been really careful to not just leave that lying around. “What?”
“Why are you hiding things from me?”
“Because they’re none of your business!” Her choice of underwear really wasn’t her mother’s business.
“You are my business!” Her mother threw up her hands. “You’re turning into someone I can’t trust!”
“Because you won’t listen!”
“Listen to what? That’s it’s more important for you to get off than to keep your promises to me?”
“Why do you think that this is easy? It isn’t easy! It isn’t about you!”
“You having sex is most definitely about me. You are my daughter and my responsibility, and if something happens because I’m ignoring this, it is going to be my problem! I thought I could trust you to make good decisions, but if you can’t even control yourself-“
“I have six more days with her!”
“And you want me to believe that that’s going to be the end of it? You’re a teenager. You will find someone just as attractive, just as irresistible, just as important, and this will all happen again.”
“It won’t! Emma’s different.”
Elizabeth let out an exasperated groan. “Honestly, whoever decided young love was sweet and deserving of respect did the whole world a disservice. She’s not your Juliet, she’s just your Rosaline, and you will forget her just as quickly. She’s a bad enough influence as it is, and next time I might not be close enough to keep an eye on you.”
Emily caught sight of Manuel taking a tray out to the pool area and cringed. “What makes you think you’ve been keeping an eye on me this time? She’s been there when I needed her, and I’m just trying to do the same.”
“And that means sleeping with her.”
“It’s showing that I care.”
“You don’t need to spread your legs for everyone you care about!”
“Why are you calling me a whore?” Emily didn’t want to sob but she couldn’t keep her voice from breaking. “Why do you think I’m stupid? I know that we’re young and that this is just for the summer, but it’s still important to me! Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll forget everything, maybe I’ll stop caring, but that doesn’t make this any less real right now. It’s hard. She’s complicated and hurt and half the time I have no idea what I’m supposed to do to fix things, and sometimes I don’t want to try. I just want to turn and run, but if I do that, if I pull back for one second, she’s gone.”
“Then you should let her go! If it’s that unhealthy, why are you wasting your time on her?”
“I’m not like that,” Emily spat. “If someone lets you in, you don’t just let them drown. But you wouldn’t understand that. You didn’t even think it was worth holding on to someone you were married to.”
“Are you actually comparing yourself to me?” Her mother sounded angry, but she controlled it. She looked at her, then smiled tightly and shook her head. “You might like needy people now, but at some point you won’t have any more to give. And if you’re not getting anything back, then you cut the cord or you lose everything.”
“Maybe you’re right, but maybe you’re selfish, and I’m not going to walk away if someone needs me.”
She hadn’t notice Emma come into the room looking for her. Her mother hadn’t noticed either. And they didn’t notice her spin around and walk out.
* * *
Emily found her on the roof, exhausted from fighting with her mother. They had fought to a standstill though, no promises or threats on either side. Emma was standing at the railing on the edge of the platform, her fingers curled around the bar, looking out. The sky was cloudy, threatening lightning, although rain was unlikely, and the sunbathing chairs were deserted.
“Hey.”
“Leave me alone.”
Emily felt like she had been hit. She couldn’t take this right now and she sucked in a breath, trying not to cry. “What?” It was too weak, and she was ashamed of the way her voice sounded.
Emma whirled, but kept a tight hold on the railing. “Leave me alone! I don’t want to be the person who needs you! I don’t need your help! I’m not drowning and I don’t need you to save me!”
Emily stared. “You heard that.”
“I heard it yesterday too. I just thought fucking you was worth putting up with your savior complex. It’s not.” She turned away. “I’ll avoid you if you’ll do the same. It’s only a couple of days.”
Emily felt weak. She dropped into a lawn chair and pressed her fists against her face.
“Fuck you,” she said finally.
Emma froze, but didn’t turn around.
“I’ve done everything I can to keep my mom from telling on us, and you have done shit to help me. You’ve done everything you can to make it more difficult, to make her hate you, to make me break my promises to her.”
“I did not,” Emma snapped. “You were the one who offered. I was just buying you underwear. You were the one who said you’d… show them off. I wanted to smoke pot. You wanted to screw me instead. You just keep throwing yourself at me. It’s like you think your body is some magic tool that will keep me from- from hurting myself.”
Emily swallowed. She couldn’t deny that, not really. “Can’t… can’t you believe that I need you too?”
Emma glanced over her shoulder at her. “Don’t I make you miserable?”
Emily laughed. “Yes. But maybe meeting you is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“You don’t make any sense.”
Emily shrugged. “I know your dad would be worse, but do you think it’s easy for me to try and make my mom understand? She does think I’m seven, and I’ve let her believe that for a long time. I have secrets, and now my absolute biggest secret is common knowledge. And she doesn’t understand. And if she knew… about how this started, or what it was supposed to mean, she would understand even less.”
Emma turned back towards her, but didn’t look at her. She just stared at her feet. “What is it supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. That’s what you said.” Emily got up and walked over to her. She cupped her cheek, lifting her head, and leaned in, pressing a light kiss against her lips. “See,” she said, smiling weakly. “Nothing at all.”
Emma jerked back. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Because we can’t do anything. Nothing I want is possible, and I just have to deal with that. And you can’t do anything either, no matter how much you want to protect me.” She spat that word like it was profanity. Emily had known she was going to regret saying that. She just wished she didn’t have to regret it every day.
“You’re right.”
“I wish we could run away,” Emma muttered, turning away.
Emily flinched a little in surprise. “What? I don’t-“
“If this wasn’t my family anymore, I wouldn’t be broken, and you wouldn’t want to fix me. We wouldn’t have to wait for it to be over and utterly out of our control. Your mom wouldn't be able to tell you that it’s all going to go away, and that everything you’re feeling now is teenage hormones.”
Put that way, it sounded perfect. “Where to?”
Emma shrugged. “Just get on a boat, go everywhere. We couldn’t stay anywhere too long, or they’d catch us.”
“Everywhere, hmm?” Emily put her hands on the railing, Emma between them. She rested her chin on her shoulder, closed her eyes, and breathed in the scent of her hair.
“I would let you take me to your seedy authentic restaurants.”
“I’d carry your bags when you were shopping.”
Emma turned in the space between her arms and threaded her fingers in her hair, pushing it behind her ears. “You told me ages ago that you were honorable. I guess I didn’t realize how much that would piss me off.”
“And you said romance was dead.”
Emma pushed into her, wrapping her arms tightly around her shoulders, and Emily’s arms closed around her back, pulling her tightly into her body. “I don’t want you to go.”
“So you’re not going to ignore me for six days?”
Emma’s expression hardened. “No. I’m just… I don’t want to let you go.”
Emily cupped her face and ran her thumbs across her cheeks, trying to erase the strain from the muscles. “Where would we go first?”
Emma just looked at her for a long moment, something utterly exhausted in her eyes. But she managed a slow almost smile. “Doesn’t matter. We wouldn’t get out.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wouldn’t let you out of bed.”
It was so true, and Emily couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up out of her. Emma joined in and they collapsed onto one of the lawn chairs.
They stayed there until it was long past time for lunch.
Part 19