Beaten and Bruised
I thought we were friends
I guess it just depends who you ask
These feelings tend to leave me
with a hole in my chest
Now the time has come
I just wish I could erase
All the damage done, all this pain
all this heartache
It was just one dream, half a memory, just the sight of her, in that dress, at the ball and the way she smiled. It was the way she smiled that broke her, that made it an absolute fact. She could feel it as clearly as a brush of fingers on her skin. “I am everything to you.” It felt like glory.
And for once Emily couldn’t second-guess it. She couldn’t think, “she’s not looking at me.” She couldn’t even wonder why. “Why me? Why someone like me?”
She should have asked, “how long?”
But she was lost in remembering, her mouth, the heat of her touch, the bite of her nails like a brand on her skin.
And she woke up alone.
Half Boyfriend - Jay Brannan
I don’t know where we’re going
but I know we’ve gone too far and
I hope it isn’t showing
but I think I love you and
I can't believe you're leaving
just when I let you in and
when you had me believing
I could feel again
“I thought it was time. There’s only so long you can lie to yourself, only so long you can pretend there’s something real.”
“It wasn’t real?” asked Ororo softly. She hated this part of Emily’s strength, the part that didn’t let her feel because she thought that she didn’t deserve to feel. Being hurt was her own fault, evidence of her own weakness. Ororo supposed that there was only a finite number of times you could need someone and be turned away, until it became your fault for being needy rather than their fault for not caring.
“I guess… I guess I didn’t realize how much I had let myself rely on her. It was strange,” Emily laughed, and Ororo shook her head to herself, disappointed. “I’ve always felt uncomfortable in public situations. My mother always had things to do, and I never made friends easily. Even when I went with my friends and girlfriends, clubbing or even informal parties, I couldn’t just enjoy it. I couldn’t lose the tension. I’d drink or dance or,” she rolled her eyes, “make out with random people, to try to lose it. I had one friend, who could pull me out of that. He would catch my eye across the room, and smile or make a face, and I could forget it for a moment. But with Emma… I could be surrounded by people who hated me, who were irritated, ugly, violent, selfish, sycophantic, and I wouldn’t even notice. If she was looking at me, I was at home.”
“And that isn’t real?”
Emily twisted the phone cord in her fingers. “It wasn’t. It was nice, but it was a lie I told myself. A story. I could pretend we were going home together.”
“Is that what you want?” Ro asked. “Someone to come home to?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I didn’t ask what you said. I asked you what you want.”
On Call - Kings Of Leon
She said call me now baby, and I'd come a running.
She said call me now baby, and I'd come a running.
If you'd call me now, baby then I'd come a running.
I'm on call, to be there.
One and all, to be there.
And when I fall, to pieces.
Lord you know, I'll be there waiting.
“It’s been almost a year. Isn’t that when it’s supposed to end? Shouldn’t I stop thinking about her? Shouldn’t it be starting to fade? Why can’t I stop hurting, start forgetting?”
Emma closed her eyes. She had been asking herself the same questions. Wasn’t a year the end of the infatuation? Even if she still cared, shouldn’t it just not matter as much? Shouldn’t she be able to look at her ringing phone, see the ID and hit Ignore by now? If she was tired, if it was late… It hadn’t happened yet.
But that was her own misery, and Emily’s questions were on a different subject, one that Emma had much more experience with than these mysteries of attachment.
“No,” she said flatly. “A year is when you start to remember. The feelings fade and the memories come back. You laugh and for a few moments forget to remember that you’re supposed to cry instead.”
Emily lay back into her pillows, letting the sound comfort her, even if the words were intended to break her heart.
“It’s only later that you start to forget. It’s the little things first, not the quirks or the looks or the smiles, but the feelings. You forget why she used to make you laugh, why you had so much hope for him, why that one exasperated you to the end of your tether. Then you forget how they smelled, how they played, how they whined, and then you forget why you loved them.”
Emily was quiet. Emma wondered if she was closer than a thousand miles away, whether she could feel the thrumming ache that echoed in her own chest. Long distance relationships didn’t work for telepaths. It was worse than being alone.
“And then they’re nothing. Just names you can repeat to yourself in a mantra and wish it made you feel. You know it ought to, but when it doesn’t, you wonder if that’s what it feels like to be dead.”
She's Hearing Voices - Bloc Party
She's hearing voices call her
She's hearing voices warn her
She just can't sleep in her bed
She just can't sleep
She's falling down the stairs
She's tearing out her hair
She's screaming my name, in the night
to keep her warm
(Virginal)
Pictures of You - The Cure
You standing quiet in the rain
As I ran to your heart to be near
And we kissed as the sky fell in
Holding you close
Remembering
You fallen into my arms
Crying for the death of your heart
You were stone white
So delicate
Lost in the cold
You were always so lost in the dark
(Waterproof)
Pull My Hair - Bright Eyes
But if the hunger is still there, buried somewhere inside
Covered up by the boredom
we’ve been trying to hide
Then dig it up and devour
It'll seem more like a song
And less like it's math
If you pull on my hair, and bite me like that
And bite me like that
She had never liked being penetrated as much before she met Emma. When she had found a girl who wasn’t too squeamish to reciprocate, she thought a gentle rubbing or if she was really lucky some head was the best way to bring her off. But Emma was never gentle, and when she used her mouth it included her teeth. The first time, when it had only been sex, and barely that, Emily, trying to elicit some intimacy, had been pushed down, sucked and fucked, without preamble. Emma hadn’t even removed her clothes, just unfastened her jeans and slid her hand underneath and straight in, making her gasp as she opened, brutally, a part of her that had barely existed since she was fifteen. Her fingers were long and knife tipped, nails ragged from digging through rubble, and the fear was nearly as thrilling as the way she fucked hard, her knuckles pounding against her lips and her clit. She had pinned Emily down, kneeling over her legs, locking her wrists above her head, and watching, silently, as she twisted and struggled like a fish on a line.
Emily had surprised herself by the way she lifted her hips and thrust wantonly against her hand. Being fucked like this was entirely different than being touched gently. What she had considered coming was nothing, there was no release at that level, just more and more need, until a scratch of thumbnail across her clit, or a wet curl of tongue, brought her to an unforeseen peak. And she came, shuddering, her body clenching the fingers buried deep inside, and riding them with little aftershocks as strong as what had been everything to her before.
Better - Dashboard Confessional
You're getting sadder, getting sadder, getting sadder, getting sadder
And I don't understand, and I don't understand
But if I kiss you where it's sore
If I kiss you where it's sore
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all?
“It’s just, sex makes it easier.” Emily looked depressed. “If we’re fucking we don’t have to talk. And if we pretend sex is all we want we’re free to flirt and like each other again. We won’t talk about the hard stuff, the fact that we don’t know how to be anything to each other, we can pretend that the reason were fucking isn’t because we need to remind each other that we’re alive.”
Butterfly on a Wheel - The Mission UK
There's no scarlet in you, lay your veil down for me
As sure as god made wine, you can't wrap your arms around a memory
Take warmth from me, cold autumn wind cut sharp as a knife
And in the dark for me, you're the candle flame that flickers to life
Love breaks the wings of a butterfly on a wheel
Love breaks the wings of a butterfly on a wheel
(Dominatrix)
Orange Sky - Alexi Murdoch
My hearts been broken
Sometimes, sometimes
My mind is too strong to carry on
Too strong to carry on
And here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this…
In your love, my salvation lies
The weight was important. She remembered for a moment Genosha on the day Wanda Maximoff had changed the world. That ring had felt heavy and solid on her hand. It had made her into a different person. It gave her selfish, self-destructive impulses meaning and definition. It kept her bound, turned towards a life that she couldn’t abandon, couldn’t just toss aside and start anew.
And it meant she was not a person who was alone. In that world she had made a decision to create a life like that, and she had never regretted it or doubted it for a moment.
That woman, who’s life had been so different from hers, she had seen Emily smile and she had known; she had a selfish, careless determination, and done whatever it took to bind Emily into her life.
Emma, on the other hand, had done everything she could to push her away. But she had failed, and their daughter was getting married.
And So We Run - David Usher
Over the bridge
Back to the place where we were young
What we could have done
What did you find
Here we are naked under God
Lucky God is blind
(Hideaway)
Dying - Hole
And now I know that love is dead
You've come to bury me
There's nothing left here to pretend
Anything
Remember, you promised me
I'm dying, I'm dying, please
I want to, I need to be
Under your skin
“I almost died today.”
On the other end of the phone, Emily was dead silent.
“I almost let myself die. I wanted to. Kitty didn’t let me.”
“Sometimes I think that the reason I need you so much, is because as long as I have you, as long as I’m protecting you, I don’t have to remember that I should have died in Genosha. You fend off all the others I’ve lost.”
“I know,” said Emily quietly. “I know that’s why.”
“It isn’t fair to you. I’ve made you more than a single person in my mind. I’ve made you responsible for my life. That’s what I realized today. If I didn’t have you, I would have killed myself, the moment it sunk in, how many children I’ve lost. And when you were dead in my arms I knew it. If you hadn’t started breathing, I would have shut down my own brain. I can’t exist without you. And I hate myself for needing you so much.”
S**t Song - Kate Nash
I'm sitting with my friends getting drunk again
On wine and I think about you
Darling don't give me shit
Cos I know that you're full of it
(You're full of shit, you're full of shit)
(To the Hilt)
Paper Home - Racoon
I can always pretend when I don't want to be alone
That you're back again, safe in our paper home
Things I've done wrong, countless in name and number
But pride feels no pain
Now I run off to hide my shame
Suddenly everything was awkward. Emily felt the tension turn into amusement and she snickered. Emma shot her a look and she laughed aloud. “Can you believe we’re doing this?”
A smile spread across Emma’s face and she laughed too. “No. This is absurd. But… she’s… she’s ours. I’m not used to that.”
“You prefer ‘mine’?”
“I prefer ‘someone else’s.’ So I don’t have to care.”
“You never didn’t care.”
Emily spoke like she knew her, and Emma turned away with a scowl. “Is that why it rips me up when she asks me to come home?" She glared. "This isn’t home.”
“What is?”
Emma turned and glared. “Shut up.”
“Don’t get pissed at me! I just asked an honest question! So tell me, the school? One of your penthouses? Where you grew up?”
“You know where my last home was. You dug me out of it!”
Emily froze. “Emma…”
“Don’t! Don’t speak to me in that tone. Don’t try to placate me! I can’t rely on you!”
Emily caught her hands and pulled them in, placing them on her waist. “I’m here now,” she said. “All we can have is now.”
Strawberry Gashes - Jack Off Jill
Hex me told her
I dreamt of a devil that knew her
Pale white skin with
strawberry gashes
all over all over
Watch me fault her
You're living like a disaster
She said kill me faster
With strawberry gashes all over all over
(Belasco)
Arabian Knights - Siouxsie & The Banshees
The jewel, the prize
looking into your eyes
Cool pools drown your mind
What else will you find?
I hear a rumour - It was just a rumour
I heard a rumour - What have you done to her?
(Harem)
Bonus Track:
Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads
You may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
You may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
You may tell yourself
Am I right?... Am I wrong?
You may say to yourself
My God!... what have I done?
Letting the days go by...
Once in a lifetime...
(For Fake Empire, and all the AUs)
Emma slid her hands down Emily’s arms and twisted their fingers together. “I love you.” She kissed her gently. “In whatever world, in every universe, I love you.”
Emma started to walk away, but Emily kept a hold of her hand. “Don’t… don’t do anything stupid,” she said with a suspicious expression.
“You know me too well.”
“Yeah,” Emily smiled, but not happily. “Don’t leave me alone.”
.Zip
I guess it just depends who you ask
These feelings tend to leave me
with a hole in my chest
Now the time has come
I just wish I could erase
All the damage done, all this pain
all this heartache
It was just one dream, half a memory, just the sight of her, in that dress, at the ball and the way she smiled. It was the way she smiled that broke her, that made it an absolute fact. She could feel it as clearly as a brush of fingers on her skin. “I am everything to you.” It felt like glory.
And for once Emily couldn’t second-guess it. She couldn’t think, “she’s not looking at me.” She couldn’t even wonder why. “Why me? Why someone like me?”
She should have asked, “how long?”
But she was lost in remembering, her mouth, the heat of her touch, the bite of her nails like a brand on her skin.
And she woke up alone.
Half Boyfriend - Jay Brannan
I don’t know where we’re going
but I know we’ve gone too far and
I hope it isn’t showing
but I think I love you and
I can't believe you're leaving
just when I let you in and
when you had me believing
I could feel again
“I thought it was time. There’s only so long you can lie to yourself, only so long you can pretend there’s something real.”
“It wasn’t real?” asked Ororo softly. She hated this part of Emily’s strength, the part that didn’t let her feel because she thought that she didn’t deserve to feel. Being hurt was her own fault, evidence of her own weakness. Ororo supposed that there was only a finite number of times you could need someone and be turned away, until it became your fault for being needy rather than their fault for not caring.
“I guess… I guess I didn’t realize how much I had let myself rely on her. It was strange,” Emily laughed, and Ororo shook her head to herself, disappointed. “I’ve always felt uncomfortable in public situations. My mother always had things to do, and I never made friends easily. Even when I went with my friends and girlfriends, clubbing or even informal parties, I couldn’t just enjoy it. I couldn’t lose the tension. I’d drink or dance or,” she rolled her eyes, “make out with random people, to try to lose it. I had one friend, who could pull me out of that. He would catch my eye across the room, and smile or make a face, and I could forget it for a moment. But with Emma… I could be surrounded by people who hated me, who were irritated, ugly, violent, selfish, sycophantic, and I wouldn’t even notice. If she was looking at me, I was at home.”
“And that isn’t real?”
Emily twisted the phone cord in her fingers. “It wasn’t. It was nice, but it was a lie I told myself. A story. I could pretend we were going home together.”
“Is that what you want?” Ro asked. “Someone to come home to?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I didn’t ask what you said. I asked you what you want.”
On Call - Kings Of Leon
She said call me now baby, and I'd come a running.
She said call me now baby, and I'd come a running.
If you'd call me now, baby then I'd come a running.
I'm on call, to be there.
One and all, to be there.
And when I fall, to pieces.
Lord you know, I'll be there waiting.
“It’s been almost a year. Isn’t that when it’s supposed to end? Shouldn’t I stop thinking about her? Shouldn’t it be starting to fade? Why can’t I stop hurting, start forgetting?”
Emma closed her eyes. She had been asking herself the same questions. Wasn’t a year the end of the infatuation? Even if she still cared, shouldn’t it just not matter as much? Shouldn’t she be able to look at her ringing phone, see the ID and hit Ignore by now? If she was tired, if it was late… It hadn’t happened yet.
But that was her own misery, and Emily’s questions were on a different subject, one that Emma had much more experience with than these mysteries of attachment.
“No,” she said flatly. “A year is when you start to remember. The feelings fade and the memories come back. You laugh and for a few moments forget to remember that you’re supposed to cry instead.”
Emily lay back into her pillows, letting the sound comfort her, even if the words were intended to break her heart.
“It’s only later that you start to forget. It’s the little things first, not the quirks or the looks or the smiles, but the feelings. You forget why she used to make you laugh, why you had so much hope for him, why that one exasperated you to the end of your tether. Then you forget how they smelled, how they played, how they whined, and then you forget why you loved them.”
Emily was quiet. Emma wondered if she was closer than a thousand miles away, whether she could feel the thrumming ache that echoed in her own chest. Long distance relationships didn’t work for telepaths. It was worse than being alone.
“And then they’re nothing. Just names you can repeat to yourself in a mantra and wish it made you feel. You know it ought to, but when it doesn’t, you wonder if that’s what it feels like to be dead.”
She's Hearing Voices - Bloc Party
She's hearing voices call her
She's hearing voices warn her
She just can't sleep in her bed
She just can't sleep
She's falling down the stairs
She's tearing out her hair
She's screaming my name, in the night
to keep her warm
(Virginal)
Pictures of You - The Cure
You standing quiet in the rain
As I ran to your heart to be near
And we kissed as the sky fell in
Holding you close
Remembering
You fallen into my arms
Crying for the death of your heart
You were stone white
So delicate
Lost in the cold
You were always so lost in the dark
(Waterproof)
Pull My Hair - Bright Eyes
But if the hunger is still there, buried somewhere inside
Covered up by the boredom
we’ve been trying to hide
Then dig it up and devour
It'll seem more like a song
And less like it's math
If you pull on my hair, and bite me like that
And bite me like that
She had never liked being penetrated as much before she met Emma. When she had found a girl who wasn’t too squeamish to reciprocate, she thought a gentle rubbing or if she was really lucky some head was the best way to bring her off. But Emma was never gentle, and when she used her mouth it included her teeth. The first time, when it had only been sex, and barely that, Emily, trying to elicit some intimacy, had been pushed down, sucked and fucked, without preamble. Emma hadn’t even removed her clothes, just unfastened her jeans and slid her hand underneath and straight in, making her gasp as she opened, brutally, a part of her that had barely existed since she was fifteen. Her fingers were long and knife tipped, nails ragged from digging through rubble, and the fear was nearly as thrilling as the way she fucked hard, her knuckles pounding against her lips and her clit. She had pinned Emily down, kneeling over her legs, locking her wrists above her head, and watching, silently, as she twisted and struggled like a fish on a line.
Emily had surprised herself by the way she lifted her hips and thrust wantonly against her hand. Being fucked like this was entirely different than being touched gently. What she had considered coming was nothing, there was no release at that level, just more and more need, until a scratch of thumbnail across her clit, or a wet curl of tongue, brought her to an unforeseen peak. And she came, shuddering, her body clenching the fingers buried deep inside, and riding them with little aftershocks as strong as what had been everything to her before.
Better - Dashboard Confessional
You're getting sadder, getting sadder, getting sadder, getting sadder
And I don't understand, and I don't understand
But if I kiss you where it's sore
If I kiss you where it's sore
Will you feel better, better, better
Will you feel anything at all?
“It’s just, sex makes it easier.” Emily looked depressed. “If we’re fucking we don’t have to talk. And if we pretend sex is all we want we’re free to flirt and like each other again. We won’t talk about the hard stuff, the fact that we don’t know how to be anything to each other, we can pretend that the reason were fucking isn’t because we need to remind each other that we’re alive.”
Butterfly on a Wheel - The Mission UK
There's no scarlet in you, lay your veil down for me
As sure as god made wine, you can't wrap your arms around a memory
Take warmth from me, cold autumn wind cut sharp as a knife
And in the dark for me, you're the candle flame that flickers to life
Love breaks the wings of a butterfly on a wheel
Love breaks the wings of a butterfly on a wheel
(Dominatrix)
Orange Sky - Alexi Murdoch
My hearts been broken
Sometimes, sometimes
My mind is too strong to carry on
Too strong to carry on
And here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this…
In your love, my salvation lies
The weight was important. She remembered for a moment Genosha on the day Wanda Maximoff had changed the world. That ring had felt heavy and solid on her hand. It had made her into a different person. It gave her selfish, self-destructive impulses meaning and definition. It kept her bound, turned towards a life that she couldn’t abandon, couldn’t just toss aside and start anew.
And it meant she was not a person who was alone. In that world she had made a decision to create a life like that, and she had never regretted it or doubted it for a moment.
That woman, who’s life had been so different from hers, she had seen Emily smile and she had known; she had a selfish, careless determination, and done whatever it took to bind Emily into her life.
Emma, on the other hand, had done everything she could to push her away. But she had failed, and their daughter was getting married.
And So We Run - David Usher
Over the bridge
Back to the place where we were young
What we could have done
What did you find
Here we are naked under God
Lucky God is blind
(Hideaway)
Dying - Hole
And now I know that love is dead
You've come to bury me
There's nothing left here to pretend
Anything
Remember, you promised me
I'm dying, I'm dying, please
I want to, I need to be
Under your skin
“I almost died today.”
On the other end of the phone, Emily was dead silent.
“I almost let myself die. I wanted to. Kitty didn’t let me.”
“Sometimes I think that the reason I need you so much, is because as long as I have you, as long as I’m protecting you, I don’t have to remember that I should have died in Genosha. You fend off all the others I’ve lost.”
“I know,” said Emily quietly. “I know that’s why.”
“It isn’t fair to you. I’ve made you more than a single person in my mind. I’ve made you responsible for my life. That’s what I realized today. If I didn’t have you, I would have killed myself, the moment it sunk in, how many children I’ve lost. And when you were dead in my arms I knew it. If you hadn’t started breathing, I would have shut down my own brain. I can’t exist without you. And I hate myself for needing you so much.”
S**t Song - Kate Nash
I'm sitting with my friends getting drunk again
On wine and I think about you
Darling don't give me shit
Cos I know that you're full of it
(You're full of shit, you're full of shit)
(To the Hilt)
Paper Home - Racoon
I can always pretend when I don't want to be alone
That you're back again, safe in our paper home
Things I've done wrong, countless in name and number
But pride feels no pain
Now I run off to hide my shame
Suddenly everything was awkward. Emily felt the tension turn into amusement and she snickered. Emma shot her a look and she laughed aloud. “Can you believe we’re doing this?”
A smile spread across Emma’s face and she laughed too. “No. This is absurd. But… she’s… she’s ours. I’m not used to that.”
“You prefer ‘mine’?”
“I prefer ‘someone else’s.’ So I don’t have to care.”
“You never didn’t care.”
Emily spoke like she knew her, and Emma turned away with a scowl. “Is that why it rips me up when she asks me to come home?" She glared. "This isn’t home.”
“What is?”
Emma turned and glared. “Shut up.”
“Don’t get pissed at me! I just asked an honest question! So tell me, the school? One of your penthouses? Where you grew up?”
“You know where my last home was. You dug me out of it!”
Emily froze. “Emma…”
“Don’t! Don’t speak to me in that tone. Don’t try to placate me! I can’t rely on you!”
Emily caught her hands and pulled them in, placing them on her waist. “I’m here now,” she said. “All we can have is now.”
Strawberry Gashes - Jack Off Jill
Hex me told her
I dreamt of a devil that knew her
Pale white skin with
strawberry gashes
all over all over
Watch me fault her
You're living like a disaster
She said kill me faster
With strawberry gashes all over all over
(Belasco)
Arabian Knights - Siouxsie & The Banshees
The jewel, the prize
looking into your eyes
Cool pools drown your mind
What else will you find?
I hear a rumour - It was just a rumour
I heard a rumour - What have you done to her?
(Harem)
Bonus Track:
Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads
You may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
You may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
You may tell yourself
Am I right?... Am I wrong?
You may say to yourself
My God!... what have I done?
Letting the days go by...
Once in a lifetime...
(For Fake Empire, and all the AUs)
Emma slid her hands down Emily’s arms and twisted their fingers together. “I love you.” She kissed her gently. “In whatever world, in every universe, I love you.”
Emma started to walk away, but Emily kept a hold of her hand. “Don’t… don’t do anything stupid,” she said with a suspicious expression.
“You know me too well.”
“Yeah,” Emily smiled, but not happily. “Don’t leave me alone.”
.Zip