Slips and Twists
Fuck me. Every night, these dreams - I can't get her out of my fucking head. One night away and I was able to sleep, at least, but... seriously. Calling Zoe Emma? My little kept woman is a mouse to Emma's lion; they resemble each other only in silhouette, and even then Emma Frost is somehow undeniably more magnificent.
Oh, and fuck Adel, too. I'll get him for screwing with my woman. The man needs to learn to keep his hands off what isn't his.
=NYC= Apt 240 |Zenith| - Autumn Lights Apartments - East Village
The heat of it - bodies in motion, full of sweat and energy. Teeth and hands and tiny moans, growls and pants and then a pair of little exhalations as Shaw looks down at Zenith, eyes half-lidded but bright in the very clutch of lust - and then the word, whispered fiercely in that moment of ecstasy: "Emma!"
Zenith's eyes are open, but she's far away, deep in her own thoughts. Not so far, though, that the name doesn't catch her, make her stumble and lose her own climb, not so far from the top but gone now. Rage makes her still at first, too much emotion to choose a course of retribution just yet. "Emma?" she repeats, soft, very soft.
The words don't really penetrate Shaw's mind - he's caught in the last of it, thoughts somewhere else - or rather, not thinking at all, with lower parts of his brain doing the thinking. He collapses on Zenith, kissing her without noticing her woodenness and then rolling to the side. Only then does her question slip in: "What?" he asks, brow sweaty but furrowed.
It's a close thing, but in the end she gives him time to explain--or rope to hang himself with. "Emma?" Zenith repeats, cadence blurred by the effort to keep it level. She sits up and pulls the sheet to her, crossed arms holding it tightly across her chest.
Shaw freezes, sudden paranoia crossing his face as he looks at Zenith with suspicion, disbelief and a modicum of fear writ large in his gaze. He tries hesitantly - "Zoe?" he says.
"Oh, now you remember who you're fucking!" Zenith says volume rising with each word, standing up from the bed and abadoning the sheet. "Why couldn't you go to /her/ that night when I told you no?" She brings up shaking hands to press against her mouth.
A brief shake of Shaw's head - as if to clear it, as Zenith's rising volume confirms indubitably that this is not a dream. "Zoe," he repeats, starting to rise himself - on the far side of the bed, now, but advancing on her with careful steps and an outraised hand. "I didn't - I'm not - I..." He's shaken, it seems, far more than he ought to be.
Zenith shakes her head. "No. No!" She lets her hands fall to hug across her chest again and steps back as he comes forward. "So not only am I not good enough, I'm not good enough to fucking /pretend/? A little /fucking/ effort to make sure I didn't have to have my nose rubbed in it?"
"/Zoe/," Shaw says emphatically, crossing the remaining steps to reach for her emphaticallly and try to pull her towards him. "I'm not sleeping--fucking her," he says, trying and failing to summon defensive rancor. "She doesn't mean a thing." The last is clearly, clearly a lie.
Zenith lets herself be pulled, unresisting. Moisture sparkles in her eyes, but she rubs them absently with the heel of her hand, and glares at him. "At least I keep my names straight," she says, avidly watching him now, hungry to see hurt equal to her own.
Sudden tension from Shaw as that sinks in, and what was becoming an embrace becomes a push away as - naked - Sebastian Shaw just stares at Zenith. Earlier shaken uncertainty begins to solidify into anger as Shaw finds a direction to channel himself. "/What?/" he asks, voice cracking like a whip.
Zenith continues that movement and steps away, towards her closet. She pauses, and points her finger at him--"/You/ are one to talk,"--and then picks up a handy tank top from a pile on a nearby chair and pulls it over her head.
"You told me," Shaw says, getting more heated, "that that was all long ov--whore." He spits the word. "/Slut/." He ignores her own accusation - "I'm not sleeping with her," he says to brush it off. "But you? What, do you supplement your allowance on the side with the bed I bought you?"
Zenith sneers at him. "What, she won't have you? Otherwise you would be, so don't pretend you're on the moral high-ground here, you fucking hypocrite." She steps into a pair of panties.
Shaw steps towards Zenith again, and he raises his hand as if he's going to hit her. "You..." he hisses.
Zenith tries to face him down, hands on her hips. "It /was/ all in the past until you hit me the first time," she says, cold, flat. Then she flips up to the ceiling and settles herself to watch him, out of reach.
That fist balls, and then Shaw points straight at Zenith, floating on the ceiling. "Get down here right now," he commands peremptorily. "/Right/ /now/." A beat. "You used your /powers/ on me," he says. "That's far worse than me hitting you - or what, do you have a double standard?" he demands. "You can float me to the fucking ceiling - drop me out the window, kill me with a thought - but somehow it's okay for you to do that and I can't make even the tiniest of responses?"
"Fuck you," is Zenith's response to the demand for her to come down. "/I/ used my powers on you when /you/ didn't take no for an answer. It's okay for you to force me and I lay there like a good submissive woman and take it and not stand up for myself?" She takes a deep, shakey breath. "Who /is/ Emma?"
"You're telling me you didn't want me?" Shaw asks. "I see how it is - so really, you're whoring yourself out to me." A flat look. "And the other night you just decided you were good up for money?"
Zenith slams a palm against the ceiling. "I /want/ you when it's not the middle of the night and you're drunk and probably imagining I'm Emma. I want you when you're fucking--making love to /me/. Me, Zoe, Zenith!" Another breath. "Who's Emma?"
"Come down," Shaw tries again, and now he's wheedling. "A business associate - an old flame. /Not/ you," he says. He takes a breath, and reaches up a hand to Zenith, trying to entice her down. "She's no one important," he repeats, more firmly, "and she's not who I spend my nights with. I haven't slept right for a while, now - that's all it is."
Zenith eyes him for a long moment, then takes the hand and drifts down. "You raise your hand and I'm back up there again," she warns. "I can stay up there all night." She sighs. "Call me Zenith, if Zoe's so hard to remember."
"I know your name, Zoe," Shaw says, and as he draws the woman close his tone is less conciliatory. "It was a mistake - sleep-deprived, no more," he says firmly. "With everything that has been happening lately, I have been under a great deal of stress." Naked body touches (mostly) clothed as the embrace becomes a grip, holding Zenith against Shaw. "You've been whoring around." It's a bald accusation.
Zenith stays stiff against him. "Once. I slept with Adel once." She laughs, sharply. "I was under a lot of stress. See, my boyfriend hit me, and everyone's been telling me to leave him."
Shaw stiffens, every muscle knotting. "/Adel/?" he asks, tone biting. "Adel al-Razi?"
Zenith tries to push away, knees slightly bent and ready to spring, back to the ceiling. "How do you know him?"
"I see how it is," Shaw replies, not releasing the woman. He chooses his words carefully. "You want someone of your /own kind/. Sleeping with a normal human like me embarrasses you among all your 'superior' friends?"
"Well, if a bigot like you can lower yourself to sleep with a mutant, I think I can do the same," Zenith sneers. "Fuck you. My best friend's not a mutant. You know, the one telling me to leave you?" She frowns, slightly. "How did you know that, either? What the fuck is this?"
"I sleep with you because I care for you," Shaw replies, though in his present state of upset 'caring' doesn't quite translate. He takes another several breaths, trying to calm himself, and then softens a little in his embrace. "I'm sorry," he tells her. "I shouldn't be mad. This isn't your fault."
Zenith doesn't quite relax just yet. "No...?" she agrees, the tone trailing off into a question of what the catch is. "I care about you too."
"Adel al-Razi has a personal grudge against me," Shaw says. "Because of my beliefs about public policy..." His tone is almost reasonable, and he begins to stroke Zenith's back. "Other reasons, too - but you know what he is," he says. "He wants to get at me - I understand this to be something as an m.o." He hugs her close. "I'm sorry, Zoe," he says quietly. "It's rape, what he did, though no one can ever prove it."
"I knew him long before I met you," Zenith says, but there's a frown to her expression. She tips her head to look at Shaw better. "I don't understand what you're implying he--" She frowns more deeply, not finishing the thought.
"There are often coincidences around Adel," Shaw says, bending his head to kiss Zenith's hair. "Now hush," he says. "It's okay. It makes better sense, and it's not your fault," he tells her. "I forgive you."
"No, really," Zenith says, getting insistent. "Tell me." She chews on her lip, but finally does relax, for the first time tonight. "Thank...you?" she sounds unsure whether she actually wants to be offering the thanks.
"Always." Shaw smiles, and he kisses Zenith's hair again and then her brow. "Let's go back to bed," he suggests to her. "We can just hold each other for a while."
Zenith is reluctant, but she goes along with it, following him to tuck herself beside him in bed, tenseness pushed deeper but still as tight as ever.
PG-13 for being racy.
Oh, and fuck Adel, too. I'll get him for screwing with my woman. The man needs to learn to keep his hands off what isn't his.
=NYC= Apt 240 |Zenith| - Autumn Lights Apartments - East Village
The heat of it - bodies in motion, full of sweat and energy. Teeth and hands and tiny moans, growls and pants and then a pair of little exhalations as Shaw looks down at Zenith, eyes half-lidded but bright in the very clutch of lust - and then the word, whispered fiercely in that moment of ecstasy: "Emma!"
Zenith's eyes are open, but she's far away, deep in her own thoughts. Not so far, though, that the name doesn't catch her, make her stumble and lose her own climb, not so far from the top but gone now. Rage makes her still at first, too much emotion to choose a course of retribution just yet. "Emma?" she repeats, soft, very soft.
The words don't really penetrate Shaw's mind - he's caught in the last of it, thoughts somewhere else - or rather, not thinking at all, with lower parts of his brain doing the thinking. He collapses on Zenith, kissing her without noticing her woodenness and then rolling to the side. Only then does her question slip in: "What?" he asks, brow sweaty but furrowed.
It's a close thing, but in the end she gives him time to explain--or rope to hang himself with. "Emma?" Zenith repeats, cadence blurred by the effort to keep it level. She sits up and pulls the sheet to her, crossed arms holding it tightly across her chest.
Shaw freezes, sudden paranoia crossing his face as he looks at Zenith with suspicion, disbelief and a modicum of fear writ large in his gaze. He tries hesitantly - "Zoe?" he says.
"Oh, now you remember who you're fucking!" Zenith says volume rising with each word, standing up from the bed and abadoning the sheet. "Why couldn't you go to /her/ that night when I told you no?" She brings up shaking hands to press against her mouth.
A brief shake of Shaw's head - as if to clear it, as Zenith's rising volume confirms indubitably that this is not a dream. "Zoe," he repeats, starting to rise himself - on the far side of the bed, now, but advancing on her with careful steps and an outraised hand. "I didn't - I'm not - I..." He's shaken, it seems, far more than he ought to be.
Zenith shakes her head. "No. No!" She lets her hands fall to hug across her chest again and steps back as he comes forward. "So not only am I not good enough, I'm not good enough to fucking /pretend/? A little /fucking/ effort to make sure I didn't have to have my nose rubbed in it?"
"/Zoe/," Shaw says emphatically, crossing the remaining steps to reach for her emphaticallly and try to pull her towards him. "I'm not sleeping--fucking her," he says, trying and failing to summon defensive rancor. "She doesn't mean a thing." The last is clearly, clearly a lie.
Zenith lets herself be pulled, unresisting. Moisture sparkles in her eyes, but she rubs them absently with the heel of her hand, and glares at him. "At least I keep my names straight," she says, avidly watching him now, hungry to see hurt equal to her own.
Sudden tension from Shaw as that sinks in, and what was becoming an embrace becomes a push away as - naked - Sebastian Shaw just stares at Zenith. Earlier shaken uncertainty begins to solidify into anger as Shaw finds a direction to channel himself. "/What?/" he asks, voice cracking like a whip.
Zenith continues that movement and steps away, towards her closet. She pauses, and points her finger at him--"/You/ are one to talk,"--and then picks up a handy tank top from a pile on a nearby chair and pulls it over her head.
"You told me," Shaw says, getting more heated, "that that was all long ov--whore." He spits the word. "/Slut/." He ignores her own accusation - "I'm not sleeping with her," he says to brush it off. "But you? What, do you supplement your allowance on the side with the bed I bought you?"
Zenith sneers at him. "What, she won't have you? Otherwise you would be, so don't pretend you're on the moral high-ground here, you fucking hypocrite." She steps into a pair of panties.
Shaw steps towards Zenith again, and he raises his hand as if he's going to hit her. "You..." he hisses.
Zenith tries to face him down, hands on her hips. "It /was/ all in the past until you hit me the first time," she says, cold, flat. Then she flips up to the ceiling and settles herself to watch him, out of reach.
That fist balls, and then Shaw points straight at Zenith, floating on the ceiling. "Get down here right now," he commands peremptorily. "/Right/ /now/." A beat. "You used your /powers/ on me," he says. "That's far worse than me hitting you - or what, do you have a double standard?" he demands. "You can float me to the fucking ceiling - drop me out the window, kill me with a thought - but somehow it's okay for you to do that and I can't make even the tiniest of responses?"
"Fuck you," is Zenith's response to the demand for her to come down. "/I/ used my powers on you when /you/ didn't take no for an answer. It's okay for you to force me and I lay there like a good submissive woman and take it and not stand up for myself?" She takes a deep, shakey breath. "Who /is/ Emma?"
"You're telling me you didn't want me?" Shaw asks. "I see how it is - so really, you're whoring yourself out to me." A flat look. "And the other night you just decided you were good up for money?"
Zenith slams a palm against the ceiling. "I /want/ you when it's not the middle of the night and you're drunk and probably imagining I'm Emma. I want you when you're fucking--making love to /me/. Me, Zoe, Zenith!" Another breath. "Who's Emma?"
"Come down," Shaw tries again, and now he's wheedling. "A business associate - an old flame. /Not/ you," he says. He takes a breath, and reaches up a hand to Zenith, trying to entice her down. "She's no one important," he repeats, more firmly, "and she's not who I spend my nights with. I haven't slept right for a while, now - that's all it is."
Zenith eyes him for a long moment, then takes the hand and drifts down. "You raise your hand and I'm back up there again," she warns. "I can stay up there all night." She sighs. "Call me Zenith, if Zoe's so hard to remember."
"I know your name, Zoe," Shaw says, and as he draws the woman close his tone is less conciliatory. "It was a mistake - sleep-deprived, no more," he says firmly. "With everything that has been happening lately, I have been under a great deal of stress." Naked body touches (mostly) clothed as the embrace becomes a grip, holding Zenith against Shaw. "You've been whoring around." It's a bald accusation.
Zenith stays stiff against him. "Once. I slept with Adel once." She laughs, sharply. "I was under a lot of stress. See, my boyfriend hit me, and everyone's been telling me to leave him."
Shaw stiffens, every muscle knotting. "/Adel/?" he asks, tone biting. "Adel al-Razi?"
Zenith tries to push away, knees slightly bent and ready to spring, back to the ceiling. "How do you know him?"
"I see how it is," Shaw replies, not releasing the woman. He chooses his words carefully. "You want someone of your /own kind/. Sleeping with a normal human like me embarrasses you among all your 'superior' friends?"
"Well, if a bigot like you can lower yourself to sleep with a mutant, I think I can do the same," Zenith sneers. "Fuck you. My best friend's not a mutant. You know, the one telling me to leave you?" She frowns, slightly. "How did you know that, either? What the fuck is this?"
"I sleep with you because I care for you," Shaw replies, though in his present state of upset 'caring' doesn't quite translate. He takes another several breaths, trying to calm himself, and then softens a little in his embrace. "I'm sorry," he tells her. "I shouldn't be mad. This isn't your fault."
Zenith doesn't quite relax just yet. "No...?" she agrees, the tone trailing off into a question of what the catch is. "I care about you too."
"Adel al-Razi has a personal grudge against me," Shaw says. "Because of my beliefs about public policy..." His tone is almost reasonable, and he begins to stroke Zenith's back. "Other reasons, too - but you know what he is," he says. "He wants to get at me - I understand this to be something as an m.o." He hugs her close. "I'm sorry, Zoe," he says quietly. "It's rape, what he did, though no one can ever prove it."
"I knew him long before I met you," Zenith says, but there's a frown to her expression. She tips her head to look at Shaw better. "I don't understand what you're implying he--" She frowns more deeply, not finishing the thought.
"There are often coincidences around Adel," Shaw says, bending his head to kiss Zenith's hair. "Now hush," he says. "It's okay. It makes better sense, and it's not your fault," he tells her. "I forgive you."
"No, really," Zenith says, getting insistent. "Tell me." She chews on her lip, but finally does relax, for the first time tonight. "Thank...you?" she sounds unsure whether she actually wants to be offering the thanks.
"Always." Shaw smiles, and he kisses Zenith's hair again and then her brow. "Let's go back to bed," he suggests to her. "We can just hold each other for a while."
Zenith is reluctant, but she goes along with it, following him to tuck herself beside him in bed, tenseness pushed deeper but still as tight as ever.
PG-13 for being racy.