Hellfire 5
Title: Hellfire (5/8?) (Sequel to Human)
Author: Alsike
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds x-over
Pairing: Emma Frost/Emily Prentiss
Rating: R
AN/Disclaimer: Not my girls.
Apologies: Mostly shit I made up about Emily's backstory. Seriously, I now believe this as canon, except, as one must do when translating X-Men into 'real world' mutants=homosexuals, i.e. Legacy virus = AIDS. Two completely unrelated segments.
Summary: Emma's an X-man now, but she wasn't always fighting for truth, justice, and peaceful-coexistence. Emily has had a taste of her past, but is she ready to meet the White Queen?
Emma stretched out on her bed, her arms above her head. The light coming in her window was dim and soft, and she doubted she would sleep easily. Her fingertips itched but her phone was off and buried in her bag. She wanted to think about something distracting, her plans, Sebastian’s plans, god even her irritating students, but thinking about that sort of thing just made her feel sick and tired.
She rolled onto her side and wondered if this was what Jean had meant about her feeling twitchy. If one night with Emily had fixed it (a night and a long lazy morning to be exact) then it was clear she wasn’t having enough sex. At least if the next party wasn’t too political she could probably fix that as well. It wasn’t going to help her sleep tonight though.
There was something different about sleeping with Emily. It was always too hot, but for some reason she never rolled away. And waking up in the morning, having rolled over on her phone, always left her feeling a little lost. At least it wasn’t the fear that it had been, but it wasn’t enough. Talking to her was fine, but it wasn’t touching her.
She couldn’t feel the warmth and solidity of Emily’s body pressed against her. She couldn’t press her lips to her neck and taste her skin. It was the way Emily squeezed her eyes shut, let her lips part and pulled in a quick breath when Emma slid her fingers inside of her that she couldn’t forget, couldn’t get out of her head. And how her shields dropped and how Emma could feel the rough column of fear that ran through her, but was drowned out by trust.
That was what she felt so rarely. That was what she didn’t want to let go. Even the first time, when there was no reason for it, and when the fear was so much brighter and more jagged, she had arched into her, not away. And Emma had been trying to hurt her, trying to make her realize that she wouldn’t like the price of the offering she made. But Emily had lifted her hips and thrust against her, asking for more, not afraid of her. She had been afraid of the act itself, but not of her. Emma hadn’t wanted to let this stupid human make her feel better. She didn’t deserve to feel better. But how could you twist simple trust into something duplicitous?
Emma moved her fingers quicker, kicking the covers off, keeping her eyes closed to remember the way she had looked, straddling her hips, sweat dripping from her hairline even in the cool outdoor African night. And the way she had smiled, sort of guilty, a little intense, and entirely certain that she was going to take what she wanted, and then had.
Emma came with a short gasp and let her hand slow. She rolled over, tucking her sticky fingers under her cheek. She thought that she could likely sleep now. She didn’t doubt her decision; she couldn’t. Not when she could so clearly remember the way it felt to be trusted, even when she didn’t deserve it. She could feel herself losing it, with Emily pushed against the door, giving her that look. Every moment it was farther and farther away, and it was better this way, to cut it off, pull out the roots, and throw it in the chipper. It was better than seeing her turn away.
* * *
Sometimes Ro just showed up to see how she was doing. She usually checked to make sure Emma was at least a thousand miles away, because when they ran into each other it was nasty. But if the coast was clear Ororo would take Emily out to dinner and they would always have a nice time.
But this time Emily opened the door to the late night knock with red eyes and Ororo nearly spun on her heel and marched off to kill Emma.
Emily lunged and grabbed her before she got out the door. “Where are you going?”
“To kill whomever it was who made you cry.”
Emily laughed weakly. “You can’t.”
Ororo gave her a suspicious look, suggesting that she knew that Emily was just saying that to try and stop her.
“I wasn’t crying about Emma.” She grimaced slightly. “I haven’t cried about her yet, and I’m not going to start. I have plenty to cry about that has nothing to do with her.”
Ro sighed. “I believe it. Are you going to invite me in?”
“I brought you some tea. Should I make us some?”
Emily allowed it, and Ororo took her time in the kitchen, allowing Emily a chance to wash her face and regain her composure.
Seated, Emily breathed in the steam rising off her cup. “What is this?”
“I found it while I was in Nigeria. It’s not technically tea, since it’s made by steeping grains and grinding them up with spices. It’s called Kunun Gyada.”
Emily tasted hers and leaned back, enjoying it. Ororo watched her for a long moment.
“Am I allowed to ask about what made you cry if it wasn’t our mutual… friend?”
“I’ll give you the long version, since I love a captive audience.” Emily seemed easy enough, but it was a blatant front. Ororo didn’t respond and waited for her to talk her way out of her defenses. She always ended up confessing to her, even if she never confessed to anyone else. Perhaps it had something to do with their childhood together. Ororo thought that Emily kept many secrets from those she only had met as an adult.
She stood up instead of speaking and went to her stereo, pressing play without putting in a disc and lowering the volume until it only softly filled the background. Ororo tipped her head inquiringly.
Emily smiled. “Siouxsie and the Banshees,” she filled in. “You could say that listening to this was what made me cry.” She sat and picked up her drink, and looked down into it. “When we left Italy, my mother was transferred to the Ukraine. But it was part of Soviet Russia, and there weren’t really any good international schools, so she left me in London at a boarding school. I met a boy there.” She gave a broad grin as if expecting Ro to interpret that statement in an interesting way. Ororo, however, knew Emily, and merely looked at her with slight disapproval. “He was… older, and very pretty, and most definitely a rule breaker.”
“And you immediately fell in love with him,” Ororo filled in dryly.
Emily laughed. “It amounted to that in the end. I loved him very much. Probably because he was completely gay and extremely non-threatening. And because, what he did for me… it probably saved my life.”
Ororo frowned. “What did he do?”
“He was my best friend.” Emily paused and thought for a moment. “His name was Michael,” she finally said. “His family was from the north, Yorkshire, out in the countryside, and he had had a hard time adjusting to London. I had a hard time adjusting to… everything, a hard time finding my bearings after what had happened in Italy. And he gave me someone who would listen, someone who made sure I went out and did things and stopped being afraid of having a good time. We went out to clubs in the South End whenever there were Goth bands playing. And I mean whenever. We must have gone to every single concert. We snuck out so many times, and were caught, and had so many demerits.” She grinned, laughing to herself. “He’s the one who let me believe that it really was all right if I wasn’t attracted to boys, and that it didn’t mean I had to be interested in girls either. And when I was finally ready to admit that I was actually interested in girls, he made me go out and embarrass myself by trying to talk to them.” Emily winced. “I think it was good for me in the long run.”
“He invited me home with him for break, and I didn’t want to go to the Ukraine, so I went to Yorkshire instead. And his parents had sheep.” She seemed mildly elated by this, and Ororo tried not to be shocked. “And they loved me… not the sheep, his parents. (The sheep were generally uninterested in my presence.) I mean, they knew he was gay, and they were generally supportive of it, and I think they sussed me out pretty quick. But his parents always bothered him about grandchildren. That made me uncomfortable at first, but I got used to it, and then they started in on me. At about the third break I spent there, they had pretty much adopted me. I wrote them more often than I wrote my own mother. And someone made the joke that Michael and I could get married and have children and still pursue our… outside interests.” Emily smiled with a pensive melancholic sweetness.
Ororo snorted. “You didn’t think that was going to work?”
“We were going to do it.”
Ororo gaped at her earnestness.
Emily ducked her head. “Michael thought it was probably his only chance to have kids of his own, and I… I just wanted to be part of a family.”
“I was going to stay in the UK for university, and then after college we’d work out where we were going to go and what we were going to do there, and get married. I was planning on going to Leeds University and living with Michael’s family while I studied there, or maybe peace studies in Bradford. But my mother flipped out and made me go to Yale. We started out with drastic international phone bills that drove my mother nuts. Not that she couldn’t afford it, she just thought I wasn’t studying or making new friends. But suddenly, two years in, he stopped calling me, and wouldn’t take my calls.”
Emily looked down, an expression of strain crossing her face. “It was an awful year, but I eventually had to just get used to it that we weren’t friends anymore. I graduated and my mother finagled me a job somewhere. And then he called me again, to tell me he was dying.” She took in a rough breath.
Ororo sat up in surprise. But really, why should she have been surprised.
“He was a mutant, nothing big. He could touch something and change its color.” Emily laughed weakly. “You don’t want to know what he did to my hair, but it was gorgeous.” She swallowed. “And in one of his nightclubs, looking for a hookup, he caught the legacy virus.”
Ororo sighed. They had tried so hard to stop that, and failed so many people. And then her friend had sacrificed himself for the cure. He had known that they had already lost too many people to this disease, his own sister among them.
“That was why he had stopped calling me. When he found out he contracted it, he didn’t know how to tell me. He didn’t know how to tell anyone. But when he knew he was actually dying, he called me. I flew to be with him, I was a human, so it didn’t matter that I had to go into quarantine. I quit my job, just dropped everything. I hoped every day that he would recover, that they would find a cure, and every day all I heard was ‘these people deserve to die.’ I was losing my best friend and no one cared.”
Her voice broke and Ororo reached out and took her hand.
“I miss him. I miss him so much. God, it’s been eight, nearly nine years. But sometimes it feels like he was the only one who ever really loved me. And he was the one I belonged with, because we weren’t everything to each other. We were just enough. But I’m not enough for anyone else.”
Ororo didn’t respond to this, although she felt that she knew why Emily had been thinking about him today, and just pulled her into her embrace.
* * *
Part 6
Author: Alsike
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds x-over
Pairing: Emma Frost/Emily Prentiss
Rating: R
AN/Disclaimer: Not my girls.
Apologies: Mostly shit I made up about Emily's backstory. Seriously, I now believe this as canon, except, as one must do when translating X-Men into 'real world' mutants=homosexuals, i.e. Legacy virus = AIDS. Two completely unrelated segments.
Summary: Emma's an X-man now, but she wasn't always fighting for truth, justice, and peaceful-coexistence. Emily has had a taste of her past, but is she ready to meet the White Queen?
Emma stretched out on her bed, her arms above her head. The light coming in her window was dim and soft, and she doubted she would sleep easily. Her fingertips itched but her phone was off and buried in her bag. She wanted to think about something distracting, her plans, Sebastian’s plans, god even her irritating students, but thinking about that sort of thing just made her feel sick and tired.
She rolled onto her side and wondered if this was what Jean had meant about her feeling twitchy. If one night with Emily had fixed it (a night and a long lazy morning to be exact) then it was clear she wasn’t having enough sex. At least if the next party wasn’t too political she could probably fix that as well. It wasn’t going to help her sleep tonight though.
There was something different about sleeping with Emily. It was always too hot, but for some reason she never rolled away. And waking up in the morning, having rolled over on her phone, always left her feeling a little lost. At least it wasn’t the fear that it had been, but it wasn’t enough. Talking to her was fine, but it wasn’t touching her.
She couldn’t feel the warmth and solidity of Emily’s body pressed against her. She couldn’t press her lips to her neck and taste her skin. It was the way Emily squeezed her eyes shut, let her lips part and pulled in a quick breath when Emma slid her fingers inside of her that she couldn’t forget, couldn’t get out of her head. And how her shields dropped and how Emma could feel the rough column of fear that ran through her, but was drowned out by trust.
That was what she felt so rarely. That was what she didn’t want to let go. Even the first time, when there was no reason for it, and when the fear was so much brighter and more jagged, she had arched into her, not away. And Emma had been trying to hurt her, trying to make her realize that she wouldn’t like the price of the offering she made. But Emily had lifted her hips and thrust against her, asking for more, not afraid of her. She had been afraid of the act itself, but not of her. Emma hadn’t wanted to let this stupid human make her feel better. She didn’t deserve to feel better. But how could you twist simple trust into something duplicitous?
Emma moved her fingers quicker, kicking the covers off, keeping her eyes closed to remember the way she had looked, straddling her hips, sweat dripping from her hairline even in the cool outdoor African night. And the way she had smiled, sort of guilty, a little intense, and entirely certain that she was going to take what she wanted, and then had.
Emma came with a short gasp and let her hand slow. She rolled over, tucking her sticky fingers under her cheek. She thought that she could likely sleep now. She didn’t doubt her decision; she couldn’t. Not when she could so clearly remember the way it felt to be trusted, even when she didn’t deserve it. She could feel herself losing it, with Emily pushed against the door, giving her that look. Every moment it was farther and farther away, and it was better this way, to cut it off, pull out the roots, and throw it in the chipper. It was better than seeing her turn away.
* * *
Sometimes Ro just showed up to see how she was doing. She usually checked to make sure Emma was at least a thousand miles away, because when they ran into each other it was nasty. But if the coast was clear Ororo would take Emily out to dinner and they would always have a nice time.
But this time Emily opened the door to the late night knock with red eyes and Ororo nearly spun on her heel and marched off to kill Emma.
Emily lunged and grabbed her before she got out the door. “Where are you going?”
“To kill whomever it was who made you cry.”
Emily laughed weakly. “You can’t.”
Ororo gave her a suspicious look, suggesting that she knew that Emily was just saying that to try and stop her.
“I wasn’t crying about Emma.” She grimaced slightly. “I haven’t cried about her yet, and I’m not going to start. I have plenty to cry about that has nothing to do with her.”
Ro sighed. “I believe it. Are you going to invite me in?”
“I brought you some tea. Should I make us some?”
Emily allowed it, and Ororo took her time in the kitchen, allowing Emily a chance to wash her face and regain her composure.
Seated, Emily breathed in the steam rising off her cup. “What is this?”
“I found it while I was in Nigeria. It’s not technically tea, since it’s made by steeping grains and grinding them up with spices. It’s called Kunun Gyada.”
Emily tasted hers and leaned back, enjoying it. Ororo watched her for a long moment.
“Am I allowed to ask about what made you cry if it wasn’t our mutual… friend?”
“I’ll give you the long version, since I love a captive audience.” Emily seemed easy enough, but it was a blatant front. Ororo didn’t respond and waited for her to talk her way out of her defenses. She always ended up confessing to her, even if she never confessed to anyone else. Perhaps it had something to do with their childhood together. Ororo thought that Emily kept many secrets from those she only had met as an adult.
She stood up instead of speaking and went to her stereo, pressing play without putting in a disc and lowering the volume until it only softly filled the background. Ororo tipped her head inquiringly.
Emily smiled. “Siouxsie and the Banshees,” she filled in. “You could say that listening to this was what made me cry.” She sat and picked up her drink, and looked down into it. “When we left Italy, my mother was transferred to the Ukraine. But it was part of Soviet Russia, and there weren’t really any good international schools, so she left me in London at a boarding school. I met a boy there.” She gave a broad grin as if expecting Ro to interpret that statement in an interesting way. Ororo, however, knew Emily, and merely looked at her with slight disapproval. “He was… older, and very pretty, and most definitely a rule breaker.”
“And you immediately fell in love with him,” Ororo filled in dryly.
Emily laughed. “It amounted to that in the end. I loved him very much. Probably because he was completely gay and extremely non-threatening. And because, what he did for me… it probably saved my life.”
Ororo frowned. “What did he do?”
“He was my best friend.” Emily paused and thought for a moment. “His name was Michael,” she finally said. “His family was from the north, Yorkshire, out in the countryside, and he had had a hard time adjusting to London. I had a hard time adjusting to… everything, a hard time finding my bearings after what had happened in Italy. And he gave me someone who would listen, someone who made sure I went out and did things and stopped being afraid of having a good time. We went out to clubs in the South End whenever there were Goth bands playing. And I mean whenever. We must have gone to every single concert. We snuck out so many times, and were caught, and had so many demerits.” She grinned, laughing to herself. “He’s the one who let me believe that it really was all right if I wasn’t attracted to boys, and that it didn’t mean I had to be interested in girls either. And when I was finally ready to admit that I was actually interested in girls, he made me go out and embarrass myself by trying to talk to them.” Emily winced. “I think it was good for me in the long run.”
“He invited me home with him for break, and I didn’t want to go to the Ukraine, so I went to Yorkshire instead. And his parents had sheep.” She seemed mildly elated by this, and Ororo tried not to be shocked. “And they loved me… not the sheep, his parents. (The sheep were generally uninterested in my presence.) I mean, they knew he was gay, and they were generally supportive of it, and I think they sussed me out pretty quick. But his parents always bothered him about grandchildren. That made me uncomfortable at first, but I got used to it, and then they started in on me. At about the third break I spent there, they had pretty much adopted me. I wrote them more often than I wrote my own mother. And someone made the joke that Michael and I could get married and have children and still pursue our… outside interests.” Emily smiled with a pensive melancholic sweetness.
Ororo snorted. “You didn’t think that was going to work?”
“We were going to do it.”
Ororo gaped at her earnestness.
Emily ducked her head. “Michael thought it was probably his only chance to have kids of his own, and I… I just wanted to be part of a family.”
“I was going to stay in the UK for university, and then after college we’d work out where we were going to go and what we were going to do there, and get married. I was planning on going to Leeds University and living with Michael’s family while I studied there, or maybe peace studies in Bradford. But my mother flipped out and made me go to Yale. We started out with drastic international phone bills that drove my mother nuts. Not that she couldn’t afford it, she just thought I wasn’t studying or making new friends. But suddenly, two years in, he stopped calling me, and wouldn’t take my calls.”
Emily looked down, an expression of strain crossing her face. “It was an awful year, but I eventually had to just get used to it that we weren’t friends anymore. I graduated and my mother finagled me a job somewhere. And then he called me again, to tell me he was dying.” She took in a rough breath.
Ororo sat up in surprise. But really, why should she have been surprised.
“He was a mutant, nothing big. He could touch something and change its color.” Emily laughed weakly. “You don’t want to know what he did to my hair, but it was gorgeous.” She swallowed. “And in one of his nightclubs, looking for a hookup, he caught the legacy virus.”
Ororo sighed. They had tried so hard to stop that, and failed so many people. And then her friend had sacrificed himself for the cure. He had known that they had already lost too many people to this disease, his own sister among them.
“That was why he had stopped calling me. When he found out he contracted it, he didn’t know how to tell me. He didn’t know how to tell anyone. But when he knew he was actually dying, he called me. I flew to be with him, I was a human, so it didn’t matter that I had to go into quarantine. I quit my job, just dropped everything. I hoped every day that he would recover, that they would find a cure, and every day all I heard was ‘these people deserve to die.’ I was losing my best friend and no one cared.”
Her voice broke and Ororo reached out and took her hand.
“I miss him. I miss him so much. God, it’s been eight, nearly nine years. But sometimes it feels like he was the only one who ever really loved me. And he was the one I belonged with, because we weren’t everything to each other. We were just enough. But I’m not enough for anyone else.”
Ororo didn’t respond to this, although she felt that she knew why Emily had been thinking about him today, and just pulled her into her embrace.
* * *
Part 6