Mercy
Title: Fake Empire Side Story: Emily's Notebooks volume II (pt 16): Mercy
Author: Alsike
Rating: R
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Pairing: Other Emma Frost/Other Emily Prentiss
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Criminal Minds. I owe wizened_cynic for the concept of quantum babies. She does it much better than me. Title stolen from the poem The State of Virginia After Southampton: 1831, by Geoffrey Brock.
Apologies: So, I'm a massive heel for not working on this for so long. This is the last chapter of volume II. I have some ideas for volume III, but I hope this is satisfying for now.
Summary: In a different world, Erik Magnus overthrew the US government when Emily Prentiss was only twelve years old. On that day the course of her life changed irrevocably. This is her story.
Fake Empire Side Stories:
Emily's Notebooks I: The Christmas Revolution
Whore,
Touch, Pain, Fear, Death
Emily's Notebooks II: Nights Spent Listening to Noises
Want, Jealousy, Loyalty, Torture, Hygiene, Pride, Lust, Vengeance
Original Fake Empire Stories
While they cleaned the blood up in the courtyard and began reconstructing the downstairs, my mistress left to stay at her summerhouse. I was told to go with her. It wasn’t as if I could refuse.
I sat in the back of the car as we drove into the mountains, arms wrapped around my knees, watching the city fade away in the trees and vines. The bloodstains were still visible before my eyes. I clutched my letter of marque and watched the skies for sentinels, wondering if I managed to throw it away, would they come for us, would they destroy us. I wished for justice in a world that lacked it. Not human justice, nor mutant justice, I didn’t believe either of those existed, but something beyond that. Whether it was divinity or fate or cruel coincidence, I needed some evidence that I would be punished here and now for what I had done. But the only recriminations were in my own mind, and I knew, too well, that such pain would fade the moment I forgot to lacerate myself with regret.
I forgot as we pulled into the compound. It was beautiful there, a small building surrounded by jungle, with hot vivid blooms, and a cool still pool fed by a waterfall. It was paradise, and there was nowhere I belonged less. The servants generally ignored me. They could run things on their own here. There was no need for a liaison to the slaves when there were none. Kurt had stayed behind to help with the reconstruction. He had promised to keep Jennifer safe. The other servants assumed I had been brought for one purpose alone. I was not even given a place to sleep. But if not called for, I would not intrude into my mistress’ presence. I did my best to stay out of the way, to remain invisible.
The library was small, but private, and none of the servants ever entered it, so I spent the first night on the sofa in there. I spent much of the next few days there, reading. I hadn’t had the opportunity to do so before, not for years, not since I had become a slave, and I was out of practice.
At first I was afraid to touch anything, so I would only read what was out, marking the places with my finger and paging though carefully, doing my best to leave no trace. It was an odd collection of works, some new histories of the mutant era, others old philosophical texts.
There were many by members of the Frankfurt School, which were made even more beautiful by the way they continued to write, pursue their goals, when they were fleeing or hiding from persecution and violence. How many others had made choices like I had? How many had turned against their own to save themselves? But what they had done was try so desperately to understand what had made their world turn against them, the lies people told, the beliefs that they clung to in the face of insurmountable evidence. The mutants had taken them as their heroes, as models of how live under oppression. But now, after the revolution, they had taken on the role of the oppressor, and their histories were chilling evidence of the way a story could recreate the truth.
I was reading an account of the massacre in Louisiana, where small cadres of mutants had wiped out an entire regiment by surrounding them with wooden palisades, spraying them with highly flammable substances, and burning them to death. I wondered if that was where Jennifer’s father had died. It was celebrated as a great tactical success, a miracle of mutants with disparate powers working together against overwhelming odds. Now it was a holiday. There had been so much death, vile and ugly and irrational. It hadn’t stopped, would never stop, and I was trying not to be sick when I felt someone watching me. Emma was standing in the doorway, looking at me, an unreadable expression on her face.
I dropped the book as if it were on fire and shoved it away from me, then ducked my head. But she just walked in and pulled a particular book off a high shelf. She tossed it at me. “Here,” she said. “You might like this better.”
Then she selected another and left.
The book was entitled Captain Blood. It seemed to be a tale about pirates and adventures, and I hoped it would be meaningless, but interesting enough to keep my mind absorbed. I needed something relaxing. But the very first chapter told the story of a young idealistic doctor being sold into slavery because he was foolish enough to believe his duty as a doctor was above politics, and in the humanity of a Christian nation.
It was the story of a man who lost his ideals, and found them again in his mistress’ imagined disapproval. It was about becoming a slave, a slave who fell in love with his mistress. And even when he escaped, to become a pirate, the ultimate freedom, without country, without morals, he still was bound by this love. And when he found the fantasy to be false, he lost, not only his inclination to be good, but his hope. And without hope, one cannot even counterfeit freedom.
I could not bring myself to stop reading.
He was more proud than I, and yet I could not help my tears as I neared the end. What a fantasy, to choose honor over violence, to gain a reprieve, be given power and respect, and to be allowed to choose mercy.
It was well imagined, and the difficulty of choosing mercy, the weakness of a man’s character was accurately described. Accurately… how would I know? I had never, would never, choose mercy if I saw a risk in it. A dead man never took revenge.
* * *
She called for me that night.
I couldn’t see her anymore, that was the trouble. When I looked at her, frowning at me sternly from her perch, cross-legged on her bed, as I hovered in the doorway, unable to bring myself to cross the threshold, all I could see was her bland impassive expression as people were murdered in front of her, at her command. They had wanted to kill her, tried to, imagined it, had done their utmost to brutalize and murder me. But if I felt so little, I was certain that she felt less. I blamed her for my own lack of mercy, my inhumane desire for vengeance.
“Come here,” she snapped, frustrated with my hesitance.
I came towards her, stood immobile, waiting for her next command. Her expression stiffened as she noticed my resistance. She slid forward, letting her feet drop off the edge of the bed.
“Get down.”
I knelt. She grabbed my hair, jerking me forward, and I bit, sinking my teeth into the soft flesh of her thigh. She shoved me in response, backhanding me sharply across the face.
I knelt unmoved, as expressionless as I could make myself, tasting the iron of blood in my mouth. I thought about what she had said about none of us being free. I wondered if I was a person to her, who was allowed to have feelings, opinions, moods. I didn’t feel like a person. She treated me like a loyal dog, but I acted like a dog. I didn’t know if she could really interact with someone else as if they were a person, but even for myself, I wasn’t able to speak, I couldn’t express my own feelings. I couldn’t do anything, not even tell her, “No. Not tonight. I can’t touch you when my hands are soaked in their blood. I can’t pretend to be your lover when I finally know what it means to be your slave.” I was more useless than she.
“Fine.” My mistress dropped back on her bed, bringing her knees up, and rubbing the small mark I had made on her leg. “Whatever. Just get out.”
I didn’t want to go. I realized that unhappily. I couldn’t sit on my feelings heavily enough to acquiesce to touching her, but I didn’t want to be tossed out either. I didn’t want to spend another night alone. I sat there hating myself, until she gave me a furious look. “Go away!”
I slept on the floor in the hall outside of her door.
* * *
She tripped over me on her way out that morning, then scowled, and jerked me to my feet. “Come on.”
I followed her ashamedly out to the waterfall pool. I sat on the edge, near the deep still water, watching, while she stripped off to swim. She dove in, apathetic to my presence, and started swimming laps across the length of the pool. The light hit her bare pale skin when it surfaced as she moved. The splashing from the waterfall muffled the noise of her motion and around me the morning grew warm quickly.
Finishing what seemed like exercise, she paddled over to me, and watched me back. She looked calmer than usual. Her eyes took on the color of the water, glinting like blue chips of a sapphire in her face. Her hair had darkened to a soft honey brown. She seemed to consider me. I met her eyes, but impassively, giving her nothing. Then she grabbed my ankle and dragged me in.
I couldn’t swim. I sank to the bottom, pushing against the slippery rocks to try and surface. There was a moment of air and I tried to breathe, but was going down again, and sucked in water that burned my throat. Floundering and coughing, half drowned, I somehow found my arms around her neck, and clung to her. She held me up, easily. I gasped, recovering myself, and finally I probed about with my feet until they touched. I realized that I could stand on the bottom and the water only brushed against my shoulders.
Shocked and cold and wet, my hair dripping water in my eyes, my heart still fluttering from panic, I stared at her, as she laughed at me, and I couldn’t help thinking about the one ill-considered kiss that had brought all this to a head. Maybe it was only to shut her mocking mouth, but I pulled up, twisting my fingers in her tangled wet hair, and kissed her, roughly.
Her grip dug deeply into the backs of my arms and she didn’t push me away. She kissed back, pressing against me. Her hands moved under the water to close on my waist, sliding up under my billowing shirt. I just cupped the back of her head and kissed her harder. She opened her mouth to me and I took it, took everything that she was giving.
This wasn’t us. This didn’t feel anything like us. I hated myself so much already that I didn’t even remember I was supposed to hate myself for this. I bit down on her lower lip and her hands slid down my trousers, cupping my ass and pulling my hips into hers. I took the opportunity to touch her, touch everything I could. I wasn’t gentle, but neither was she, and the cold water soothed any bruises we might have left behind.
We had sex there, rough simple sex, just hard grips and fingers pressing inside, and then moved up to collapse exhausted on the hot gold sand. I squirmed out of my stiff drenched clothing and spread it out to dry, before rolling back into the hollow made by my body. I lay still, staring up at the deep blue of the African sky, letting her fingers trace patterns on my skin with scratchy traces of sand.
“I don’t know if I like who I am,” I said, to no one.
“You are what you are,” she said, as if it weren’t a reply. But her fingers stilled, and there was nothing but silence after from us, though the air was full of birds crying.
* * *
Author: Alsike
Rating: R
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Pairing: Other Emma Frost/Other Emily Prentiss
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Criminal Minds. I owe wizened_cynic for the concept of quantum babies. She does it much better than me. Title stolen from the poem The State of Virginia After Southampton: 1831, by Geoffrey Brock.
Apologies: So, I'm a massive heel for not working on this for so long. This is the last chapter of volume II. I have some ideas for volume III, but I hope this is satisfying for now.
Summary: In a different world, Erik Magnus overthrew the US government when Emily Prentiss was only twelve years old. On that day the course of her life changed irrevocably. This is her story.
Fake Empire Side Stories:
Emily's Notebooks I: The Christmas Revolution
Whore,
Touch, Pain, Fear, Death
Emily's Notebooks II: Nights Spent Listening to Noises
Want, Jealousy, Loyalty, Torture, Hygiene, Pride, Lust, Vengeance
Original Fake Empire Stories
While they cleaned the blood up in the courtyard and began reconstructing the downstairs, my mistress left to stay at her summerhouse. I was told to go with her. It wasn’t as if I could refuse.
I sat in the back of the car as we drove into the mountains, arms wrapped around my knees, watching the city fade away in the trees and vines. The bloodstains were still visible before my eyes. I clutched my letter of marque and watched the skies for sentinels, wondering if I managed to throw it away, would they come for us, would they destroy us. I wished for justice in a world that lacked it. Not human justice, nor mutant justice, I didn’t believe either of those existed, but something beyond that. Whether it was divinity or fate or cruel coincidence, I needed some evidence that I would be punished here and now for what I had done. But the only recriminations were in my own mind, and I knew, too well, that such pain would fade the moment I forgot to lacerate myself with regret.
I forgot as we pulled into the compound. It was beautiful there, a small building surrounded by jungle, with hot vivid blooms, and a cool still pool fed by a waterfall. It was paradise, and there was nowhere I belonged less. The servants generally ignored me. They could run things on their own here. There was no need for a liaison to the slaves when there were none. Kurt had stayed behind to help with the reconstruction. He had promised to keep Jennifer safe. The other servants assumed I had been brought for one purpose alone. I was not even given a place to sleep. But if not called for, I would not intrude into my mistress’ presence. I did my best to stay out of the way, to remain invisible.
The library was small, but private, and none of the servants ever entered it, so I spent the first night on the sofa in there. I spent much of the next few days there, reading. I hadn’t had the opportunity to do so before, not for years, not since I had become a slave, and I was out of practice.
At first I was afraid to touch anything, so I would only read what was out, marking the places with my finger and paging though carefully, doing my best to leave no trace. It was an odd collection of works, some new histories of the mutant era, others old philosophical texts.
There were many by members of the Frankfurt School, which were made even more beautiful by the way they continued to write, pursue their goals, when they were fleeing or hiding from persecution and violence. How many others had made choices like I had? How many had turned against their own to save themselves? But what they had done was try so desperately to understand what had made their world turn against them, the lies people told, the beliefs that they clung to in the face of insurmountable evidence. The mutants had taken them as their heroes, as models of how live under oppression. But now, after the revolution, they had taken on the role of the oppressor, and their histories were chilling evidence of the way a story could recreate the truth.
I was reading an account of the massacre in Louisiana, where small cadres of mutants had wiped out an entire regiment by surrounding them with wooden palisades, spraying them with highly flammable substances, and burning them to death. I wondered if that was where Jennifer’s father had died. It was celebrated as a great tactical success, a miracle of mutants with disparate powers working together against overwhelming odds. Now it was a holiday. There had been so much death, vile and ugly and irrational. It hadn’t stopped, would never stop, and I was trying not to be sick when I felt someone watching me. Emma was standing in the doorway, looking at me, an unreadable expression on her face.
I dropped the book as if it were on fire and shoved it away from me, then ducked my head. But she just walked in and pulled a particular book off a high shelf. She tossed it at me. “Here,” she said. “You might like this better.”
Then she selected another and left.
The book was entitled Captain Blood. It seemed to be a tale about pirates and adventures, and I hoped it would be meaningless, but interesting enough to keep my mind absorbed. I needed something relaxing. But the very first chapter told the story of a young idealistic doctor being sold into slavery because he was foolish enough to believe his duty as a doctor was above politics, and in the humanity of a Christian nation.
It was the story of a man who lost his ideals, and found them again in his mistress’ imagined disapproval. It was about becoming a slave, a slave who fell in love with his mistress. And even when he escaped, to become a pirate, the ultimate freedom, without country, without morals, he still was bound by this love. And when he found the fantasy to be false, he lost, not only his inclination to be good, but his hope. And without hope, one cannot even counterfeit freedom.
I could not bring myself to stop reading.
He was more proud than I, and yet I could not help my tears as I neared the end. What a fantasy, to choose honor over violence, to gain a reprieve, be given power and respect, and to be allowed to choose mercy.
It was well imagined, and the difficulty of choosing mercy, the weakness of a man’s character was accurately described. Accurately… how would I know? I had never, would never, choose mercy if I saw a risk in it. A dead man never took revenge.
* * *
She called for me that night.
I couldn’t see her anymore, that was the trouble. When I looked at her, frowning at me sternly from her perch, cross-legged on her bed, as I hovered in the doorway, unable to bring myself to cross the threshold, all I could see was her bland impassive expression as people were murdered in front of her, at her command. They had wanted to kill her, tried to, imagined it, had done their utmost to brutalize and murder me. But if I felt so little, I was certain that she felt less. I blamed her for my own lack of mercy, my inhumane desire for vengeance.
“Come here,” she snapped, frustrated with my hesitance.
I came towards her, stood immobile, waiting for her next command. Her expression stiffened as she noticed my resistance. She slid forward, letting her feet drop off the edge of the bed.
“Get down.”
I knelt. She grabbed my hair, jerking me forward, and I bit, sinking my teeth into the soft flesh of her thigh. She shoved me in response, backhanding me sharply across the face.
I knelt unmoved, as expressionless as I could make myself, tasting the iron of blood in my mouth. I thought about what she had said about none of us being free. I wondered if I was a person to her, who was allowed to have feelings, opinions, moods. I didn’t feel like a person. She treated me like a loyal dog, but I acted like a dog. I didn’t know if she could really interact with someone else as if they were a person, but even for myself, I wasn’t able to speak, I couldn’t express my own feelings. I couldn’t do anything, not even tell her, “No. Not tonight. I can’t touch you when my hands are soaked in their blood. I can’t pretend to be your lover when I finally know what it means to be your slave.” I was more useless than she.
“Fine.” My mistress dropped back on her bed, bringing her knees up, and rubbing the small mark I had made on her leg. “Whatever. Just get out.”
I didn’t want to go. I realized that unhappily. I couldn’t sit on my feelings heavily enough to acquiesce to touching her, but I didn’t want to be tossed out either. I didn’t want to spend another night alone. I sat there hating myself, until she gave me a furious look. “Go away!”
I slept on the floor in the hall outside of her door.
* * *
She tripped over me on her way out that morning, then scowled, and jerked me to my feet. “Come on.”
I followed her ashamedly out to the waterfall pool. I sat on the edge, near the deep still water, watching, while she stripped off to swim. She dove in, apathetic to my presence, and started swimming laps across the length of the pool. The light hit her bare pale skin when it surfaced as she moved. The splashing from the waterfall muffled the noise of her motion and around me the morning grew warm quickly.
Finishing what seemed like exercise, she paddled over to me, and watched me back. She looked calmer than usual. Her eyes took on the color of the water, glinting like blue chips of a sapphire in her face. Her hair had darkened to a soft honey brown. She seemed to consider me. I met her eyes, but impassively, giving her nothing. Then she grabbed my ankle and dragged me in.
I couldn’t swim. I sank to the bottom, pushing against the slippery rocks to try and surface. There was a moment of air and I tried to breathe, but was going down again, and sucked in water that burned my throat. Floundering and coughing, half drowned, I somehow found my arms around her neck, and clung to her. She held me up, easily. I gasped, recovering myself, and finally I probed about with my feet until they touched. I realized that I could stand on the bottom and the water only brushed against my shoulders.
Shocked and cold and wet, my hair dripping water in my eyes, my heart still fluttering from panic, I stared at her, as she laughed at me, and I couldn’t help thinking about the one ill-considered kiss that had brought all this to a head. Maybe it was only to shut her mocking mouth, but I pulled up, twisting my fingers in her tangled wet hair, and kissed her, roughly.
Her grip dug deeply into the backs of my arms and she didn’t push me away. She kissed back, pressing against me. Her hands moved under the water to close on my waist, sliding up under my billowing shirt. I just cupped the back of her head and kissed her harder. She opened her mouth to me and I took it, took everything that she was giving.
This wasn’t us. This didn’t feel anything like us. I hated myself so much already that I didn’t even remember I was supposed to hate myself for this. I bit down on her lower lip and her hands slid down my trousers, cupping my ass and pulling my hips into hers. I took the opportunity to touch her, touch everything I could. I wasn’t gentle, but neither was she, and the cold water soothed any bruises we might have left behind.
We had sex there, rough simple sex, just hard grips and fingers pressing inside, and then moved up to collapse exhausted on the hot gold sand. I squirmed out of my stiff drenched clothing and spread it out to dry, before rolling back into the hollow made by my body. I lay still, staring up at the deep blue of the African sky, letting her fingers trace patterns on my skin with scratchy traces of sand.
“I don’t know if I like who I am,” I said, to no one.
“You are what you are,” she said, as if it weren’t a reply. But her fingers stilled, and there was nothing but silence after from us, though the air was full of birds crying.
* * *