Waiting for the Storm to Break Part 5
Title: Waiting for the Storm to Break (part 5)
Author: Louisa and Tamoline
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/Emma Frost
This is part of a story in a sequence Intersecting Trajectories. Links to the rest can be found in this post:
Masterpost
There's a storm coming, building up inside Emily. The only question is: when it breaks, will she shatter with it?
It takes a moment for the sound to penetrate the other world in which I've buried myself. I run it through my head again. It was the doorbell.
That's... unexpected. People don't call on me. This had better be worth it.
The irritation gives me the energy to get to my feet.
Not that there's any worry underlying my feelings, nor the stifled conviction that whatever this is, it can't be good.
For the first time since I moved here, I briefly wish that I had looked around for an apartment with a video intercom, because I have *no* idea who this could be.
No ideas I'm willing to entertain, anyway.
It's just too much. This is my sanctuary, my place away from the world. Even the irritation and... whatever else is barely enough to sustain me.
I clear my mind. I can do this.
And annoyance is the only thing I'm feeling.
I support myself against the wall with one hand, and take the intercom with the other.
"Emily Prentiss?" I ask a little curtly.
And the answer shatters me.
"Emma Winthrop," her oh so familiar voice answers. She pauses momentarily, before continuing. "Can we talk?"
Like a bad echo of what happened last time.
* * * * * *
I stopped outside the door, one last pause before I entered the room.
My last chance to reconsider.
Did I really want to go into the room and face what was inside?
In the end, it simply wasn't a choice. I might not want to face her, but I needed to look Amanda in the eye one last time and ask her why.
Why had she framed me?
Why had she blackened my name with the rest of the team even before the accusations started?
Just... why?
I took a deep breath, releasing it slowly as I gathered my mental defences. I wasn't really ready -- I didn't think I ever would be, not really -- but I could do this.
I nodded to the unlucky agent on guard duty and reached for the handle. Time to get this show on the road.
I stepped through the door.
Even caged like this, even after everything, she still somehow managed to keep her wild beauty. Maybe a little ragged around the edges -- lank hair, the shadows of sleepless nights beneath her eyes -- but still with the same pull, the same power. Something flared within me, forcing me to acknowledge that I was still attracted to her.
I supposed I'd known that, at least on an intellectual level, but I'd half-thought... I'd assumed that recent events would have somehow diminished those feelings. I surely couldn't be attracted to someone I felt contempt for.
It was easier to believe that when she wasn't sitting there in front of me.
But this was normal, I supposed. Too much water under the bridge. Too much shared history. It would pass.
Time heals all wounds, after all. Or so they say.
Amanda looked up as I entered the small interrogation room. Something flashed briefly in the depths of her eyes -- surprise, I thought -- but she quickly covered it up with a sardonic smile.
"Well, look who's come to visit."
I didn't reply immediately, just inspecting a little while longer. Now that I knew what to look for, the signs were obvious.
How had I missed them for so long?
She shifted uncomfortably under my gaze, getting that look that meant she was just about to throw a verbal jab, to shout at me, anything to get a reaction.
She'd probably succeed too, I admitted ruefully to myself. She'd always known just how to twist the knife.
So I decided to preempt her instead.
"Why did you do it?"
She looked discombobulated for a moment, then gave a sharp, hard laugh.
"I'm surprised you haven't read the transcripts already, honey. Didn't they explain everything to your satisfaction?"
I hadn't, actually. Celia's favour-mongering had only gone so far. Not that I needed to her know that.
"You didn't really give them the kind of answers that I'm looking for." Which I strongly suspected to be true, as far as it went. "How could you do this to me, to us?"
Give me something, I begged her silently. Despite the lies, the betrayal, despite everything, I still wanted to believe...
In something. I just wasn't quite sure what.
Apparently my inner romantic had survived, even now.
Now it was her turn to look at me for a minute, with something, almost a surprised look in her eyes. Then she started laughing. The first one almost sounded like it had to be forced out of her throat, but the rest flowed loud and harsh.
Her laughter tore away at me, leaving me feeling smaller, lesser for it, like I had been judged and found wanting.
It really was like just another night at casa de Prentiss.
"Oh, that's cute," she said after she took a breath, wiping her eyes. "You really think that there was ever an 'us'."
I felt like all the air had been forced from lungs. Never been... I mean, sure, there had been tough times, sure, what she had done was unforgiveable, but...
I had hoped, I had wanted there to be an explanation, something I could understand, something I could hold onto.
But never?
She had this kind of twisted smile on her face. "Nothing personal, honey. It was never anything personal."
I staggered to my feet. I couldn't be in here any longer.
She continued from behind me, her words like blades, tearing at the shattered remnants of my heart. "You were just convenient. Someone to blame for anything that went wrong. And you were so wrapped up in me, it was almost pathetic. That just made it so much easier."
I reached the door, leaning against the frame as if it would give me strength.
"I will say this for you." Something prompted me to look back, as if some hint of salvation could be garnered from this mess. A mistake. She still had that strange twisted smile on her face. "You always were a good fuck."
I snapped my head back, away from her and exited the room as quickly as I could.
I managed to make it to the bathroom before my composure fell. Not tears, I wasn't going to give that bitch any more of those. But I didn't want to be seen out, to be seen by any of the rest of the people I worked with.
They'd only use it against me.
So I sat in a cubicle, and clenched my hands until it felt like I was going to draw blood from my palms.
This had been a disaster. And it had been of my own making.
The signs Amanda had shown were so obvious in hindsight. I should have been able to tell...
But I didn't. Or, more accurately, I hadn't wanted to.
I couldn't do this again. I couldn't let my view of people be compromised by... feelings again.
Amanda could still serve a useful purpose. I could use her as an object lesson, hold onto the congealed rage like a knife to pare away at my heart, to make sure this could never happen again.
Never again.
Not ever.
* * * * * *
For a moment, I don't know what I feel about Emma's return. All I can tell is that there's something there, something vast, boiling up from my depths.
And then it hits with the force of a hurriance. And I am *incandescent.*
"What the *hell* do you think you're doing here."
It's not a question, but she starts to answer anyway. I think.
"I-"
I don't really care.
"You left, and you didn't say that you were coming back. Well, it's too late now, Emma *Frost*." I throw her name at her as though it's an edged weapon.
I know how she feels about her privacy, and this time? I'm fully capable and fully intend to make anything I can into a weapon.
She left me, she hurt me and she broke me. And, right now, I'm out for blood.
"Oh." She sounds a little offput and almost disappointed. Not exactly the reaction I was looking for, or expecting. "How much do you know?"
"The salient facts. Everything that you didn't bother to *tell* me yourself." I laugh sharply. "You aren't nearly as good
at hiding your tracks as you thought. I've known since long before you even left."
"What?"
A hit. A palpable hit, at her pride if nothing else.
I'll take what I can get.
"Did you really think that I couldn't find out? Or are you just surprised that I managed to hide it from you?"
"More the latter, if I'm to be completely honest. You have *layers*, Ms Prentiss." She sounds admiring, and this really isn't the way I want this conversation to go.
"You'll never find out. I don't want to have anything more to do with you."
"So you don't have a problem with... the m-word?" She sounds oddly hesitant.
There's a part of me that analyses the fact that she could find out for herself, but doesn't, but most of me just doesn't care.
I could lie here. Pretend to be prejudiced against mutants. Make up some plausible lie about how I thought that she was different, but now I see she's just like all the other *freaks*.
It would be easy. And, unless she dug, she'd probably never find out it wasn't true. and I could fairly certain that I'd never see her again.
It would be perfect.
Only one thing stops me, and it isn't Emma. It isn't her opinion of me. It isn't even my self respect.
It's JJ.
I can't do that again. Not even to Emma.
"Not even with the t-word," I spit. "I could lie and say it's because you were trustworthy, but it's just because you were predictable."
Heat enters her voice. "Not predictable *enough*, apparently."
I laugh bitterly. "That was more a case of me lying to myself than anything else. You may be able to know *what* people think, but I'm far better at knowing *how* they think."
"You think far too highly of yourself," she says through her teeth.
"Which is a crime *you've* never been guilty of, is it?"
I hear her take a deep breath. "I should leave."
"You should never have come back."
"You have my number. If you ever want to... do whatever, you can contact me."
"It's never going to happen." The laugh that follows grates my throat. "For all your telepathy, you're still so stuck inside your own mind. I *helped* you, I put you back together and you?" Some part of myself screams at me to stop, but the words burst out anyway. "You *broke* me, Emma." Not because you left me, not because you broke my heart, though neither of those things helped. No, you broke me by doing all that after managing to take away the only way I can cry. "You're toxic", and I make an inspired guess, "and I bet that I'm not the first person to tell you that."
The quick inhale I hear over the intercom tells me that I scored a hit.
"I'm sorry," she says in a small voice, and the apology, rather than the almost fight we got into earlier is what sends me over the edge.
"Just fuck off, Emma!" I slam the intercom handset into the holder, but it doesn't feel like enough. The next thing I know the handset earpiece is in ruins and I'm breathing heavily, still holding it by the handle.
Fuck.
As the anger drains from me, so does my energy, and I sink to my knees. In the aftermath, I feel something familiar, something that hasn't happened in too long, something that feels almost like salvation as my eyes blur and tears start streaming down my face.
The storm inside me breaks and I'm crying and, God help me, it feels *glorious* even as it empties me out.
At long last.
Release.
* * * * * *
As I enter the office I feel a brief impulse to burst into a jaunty whistle. I suppress it, of course, but I do give Reid and Morgan a quick almost-smile, to raised eyebrows.
It's twisted, it's wrong, but I feel *so* much better this morning it's unreal. My depression of the last few weeks has lifted as though it never was, and it almost feels like I'm walking on clouds.
It's just by comparison, I know, but I'm determined to enjoy the euphoria whilst it lasts. Maybe even to the start of the next case, if I'm lucky.
A couple of hours later and the usual jackals have gathered around the coffee area. Normally when the topic of conversation is likely to be me, I'd be reticient about approaching, but today? I'm feeling invulnerable, and I need my midmorning cup of coffee.
This, of course, does not go unnoticed.
"Did someone get lucky last night?" Morgan asks with a big grin on his face.
"A lady never tells," I reply smoothly and his smile becomes a smirk.
He's wrong, but, given I usually release after sex, he's closer than he might think.
JJ gives me a quick worried glance. I'm not certain exactly what she sees, but she seems to untense, a little.
I sense another talk in our near future. Ah well, I can probably fob her off with enough of the truth.
About an hour later, Hotch pops his head out of his office and gives me a searching glance. I nod slightly to him, and he holds my gaze for a few seconds before disappearing back behind his door.
I'm in the clear, for the moment, but he'll be keeping an eye on for a while, just in case.
I need to make sure to establish a new routine for emotional release.
Anger is right out, regardless of what happened last night. Not only do I refuse go be abusive to other people as a matter of routine (and, despite everything, I feel a little guilty about blowing up at Emma last night. But only a little), but it's just dangerous in this line of work. Too much temptation to let it... create incidents.
The old way worked well enough, assuming that last night's closure allows me to use it again, but maybe I can come up with a another method. Just in case.
But I can think of such things later. I have paperwork, glorious paperwork, to keep me company for now.
It's a measure of my mood that I'm not being completely sarcastic when I think that.
Today is going to be a good day.
Author: Louisa and Tamoline
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily Prentiss/Emma Frost
This is part of a story in a sequence Intersecting Trajectories. Links to the rest can be found in this post:
Masterpost
There's a storm coming, building up inside Emily. The only question is: when it breaks, will she shatter with it?
It takes a moment for the sound to penetrate the other world in which I've buried myself. I run it through my head again. It was the doorbell.
That's... unexpected. People don't call on me. This had better be worth it.
The irritation gives me the energy to get to my feet.
Not that there's any worry underlying my feelings, nor the stifled conviction that whatever this is, it can't be good.
For the first time since I moved here, I briefly wish that I had looked around for an apartment with a video intercom, because I have *no* idea who this could be.
No ideas I'm willing to entertain, anyway.
It's just too much. This is my sanctuary, my place away from the world. Even the irritation and... whatever else is barely enough to sustain me.
I clear my mind. I can do this.
And annoyance is the only thing I'm feeling.
I support myself against the wall with one hand, and take the intercom with the other.
"Emily Prentiss?" I ask a little curtly.
And the answer shatters me.
"Emma Winthrop," her oh so familiar voice answers. She pauses momentarily, before continuing. "Can we talk?"
Like a bad echo of what happened last time.
* * * * * *
I stopped outside the door, one last pause before I entered the room.
My last chance to reconsider.
Did I really want to go into the room and face what was inside?
In the end, it simply wasn't a choice. I might not want to face her, but I needed to look Amanda in the eye one last time and ask her why.
Why had she framed me?
Why had she blackened my name with the rest of the team even before the accusations started?
Just... why?
I took a deep breath, releasing it slowly as I gathered my mental defences. I wasn't really ready -- I didn't think I ever would be, not really -- but I could do this.
I nodded to the unlucky agent on guard duty and reached for the handle. Time to get this show on the road.
I stepped through the door.
Even caged like this, even after everything, she still somehow managed to keep her wild beauty. Maybe a little ragged around the edges -- lank hair, the shadows of sleepless nights beneath her eyes -- but still with the same pull, the same power. Something flared within me, forcing me to acknowledge that I was still attracted to her.
I supposed I'd known that, at least on an intellectual level, but I'd half-thought... I'd assumed that recent events would have somehow diminished those feelings. I surely couldn't be attracted to someone I felt contempt for.
It was easier to believe that when she wasn't sitting there in front of me.
But this was normal, I supposed. Too much water under the bridge. Too much shared history. It would pass.
Time heals all wounds, after all. Or so they say.
Amanda looked up as I entered the small interrogation room. Something flashed briefly in the depths of her eyes -- surprise, I thought -- but she quickly covered it up with a sardonic smile.
"Well, look who's come to visit."
I didn't reply immediately, just inspecting a little while longer. Now that I knew what to look for, the signs were obvious.
How had I missed them for so long?
She shifted uncomfortably under my gaze, getting that look that meant she was just about to throw a verbal jab, to shout at me, anything to get a reaction.
She'd probably succeed too, I admitted ruefully to myself. She'd always known just how to twist the knife.
So I decided to preempt her instead.
"Why did you do it?"
She looked discombobulated for a moment, then gave a sharp, hard laugh.
"I'm surprised you haven't read the transcripts already, honey. Didn't they explain everything to your satisfaction?"
I hadn't, actually. Celia's favour-mongering had only gone so far. Not that I needed to her know that.
"You didn't really give them the kind of answers that I'm looking for." Which I strongly suspected to be true, as far as it went. "How could you do this to me, to us?"
Give me something, I begged her silently. Despite the lies, the betrayal, despite everything, I still wanted to believe...
In something. I just wasn't quite sure what.
Apparently my inner romantic had survived, even now.
Now it was her turn to look at me for a minute, with something, almost a surprised look in her eyes. Then she started laughing. The first one almost sounded like it had to be forced out of her throat, but the rest flowed loud and harsh.
Her laughter tore away at me, leaving me feeling smaller, lesser for it, like I had been judged and found wanting.
It really was like just another night at casa de Prentiss.
"Oh, that's cute," she said after she took a breath, wiping her eyes. "You really think that there was ever an 'us'."
I felt like all the air had been forced from lungs. Never been... I mean, sure, there had been tough times, sure, what she had done was unforgiveable, but...
I had hoped, I had wanted there to be an explanation, something I could understand, something I could hold onto.
But never?
She had this kind of twisted smile on her face. "Nothing personal, honey. It was never anything personal."
I staggered to my feet. I couldn't be in here any longer.
She continued from behind me, her words like blades, tearing at the shattered remnants of my heart. "You were just convenient. Someone to blame for anything that went wrong. And you were so wrapped up in me, it was almost pathetic. That just made it so much easier."
I reached the door, leaning against the frame as if it would give me strength.
"I will say this for you." Something prompted me to look back, as if some hint of salvation could be garnered from this mess. A mistake. She still had that strange twisted smile on her face. "You always were a good fuck."
I snapped my head back, away from her and exited the room as quickly as I could.
I managed to make it to the bathroom before my composure fell. Not tears, I wasn't going to give that bitch any more of those. But I didn't want to be seen out, to be seen by any of the rest of the people I worked with.
They'd only use it against me.
So I sat in a cubicle, and clenched my hands until it felt like I was going to draw blood from my palms.
This had been a disaster. And it had been of my own making.
The signs Amanda had shown were so obvious in hindsight. I should have been able to tell...
But I didn't. Or, more accurately, I hadn't wanted to.
I couldn't do this again. I couldn't let my view of people be compromised by... feelings again.
Amanda could still serve a useful purpose. I could use her as an object lesson, hold onto the congealed rage like a knife to pare away at my heart, to make sure this could never happen again.
Never again.
Not ever.
* * * * * *
For a moment, I don't know what I feel about Emma's return. All I can tell is that there's something there, something vast, boiling up from my depths.
And then it hits with the force of a hurriance. And I am *incandescent.*
"What the *hell* do you think you're doing here."
It's not a question, but she starts to answer anyway. I think.
"I-"
I don't really care.
"You left, and you didn't say that you were coming back. Well, it's too late now, Emma *Frost*." I throw her name at her as though it's an edged weapon.
I know how she feels about her privacy, and this time? I'm fully capable and fully intend to make anything I can into a weapon.
She left me, she hurt me and she broke me. And, right now, I'm out for blood.
"Oh." She sounds a little offput and almost disappointed. Not exactly the reaction I was looking for, or expecting. "How much do you know?"
"The salient facts. Everything that you didn't bother to *tell* me yourself." I laugh sharply. "You aren't nearly as good
at hiding your tracks as you thought. I've known since long before you even left."
"What?"
A hit. A palpable hit, at her pride if nothing else.
I'll take what I can get.
"Did you really think that I couldn't find out? Or are you just surprised that I managed to hide it from you?"
"More the latter, if I'm to be completely honest. You have *layers*, Ms Prentiss." She sounds admiring, and this really isn't the way I want this conversation to go.
"You'll never find out. I don't want to have anything more to do with you."
"So you don't have a problem with... the m-word?" She sounds oddly hesitant.
There's a part of me that analyses the fact that she could find out for herself, but doesn't, but most of me just doesn't care.
I could lie here. Pretend to be prejudiced against mutants. Make up some plausible lie about how I thought that she was different, but now I see she's just like all the other *freaks*.
It would be easy. And, unless she dug, she'd probably never find out it wasn't true. and I could fairly certain that I'd never see her again.
It would be perfect.
Only one thing stops me, and it isn't Emma. It isn't her opinion of me. It isn't even my self respect.
It's JJ.
I can't do that again. Not even to Emma.
"Not even with the t-word," I spit. "I could lie and say it's because you were trustworthy, but it's just because you were predictable."
Heat enters her voice. "Not predictable *enough*, apparently."
I laugh bitterly. "That was more a case of me lying to myself than anything else. You may be able to know *what* people think, but I'm far better at knowing *how* they think."
"You think far too highly of yourself," she says through her teeth.
"Which is a crime *you've* never been guilty of, is it?"
I hear her take a deep breath. "I should leave."
"You should never have come back."
"You have my number. If you ever want to... do whatever, you can contact me."
"It's never going to happen." The laugh that follows grates my throat. "For all your telepathy, you're still so stuck inside your own mind. I *helped* you, I put you back together and you?" Some part of myself screams at me to stop, but the words burst out anyway. "You *broke* me, Emma." Not because you left me, not because you broke my heart, though neither of those things helped. No, you broke me by doing all that after managing to take away the only way I can cry. "You're toxic", and I make an inspired guess, "and I bet that I'm not the first person to tell you that."
The quick inhale I hear over the intercom tells me that I scored a hit.
"I'm sorry," she says in a small voice, and the apology, rather than the almost fight we got into earlier is what sends me over the edge.
"Just fuck off, Emma!" I slam the intercom handset into the holder, but it doesn't feel like enough. The next thing I know the handset earpiece is in ruins and I'm breathing heavily, still holding it by the handle.
Fuck.
As the anger drains from me, so does my energy, and I sink to my knees. In the aftermath, I feel something familiar, something that hasn't happened in too long, something that feels almost like salvation as my eyes blur and tears start streaming down my face.
The storm inside me breaks and I'm crying and, God help me, it feels *glorious* even as it empties me out.
At long last.
Release.
* * * * * *
As I enter the office I feel a brief impulse to burst into a jaunty whistle. I suppress it, of course, but I do give Reid and Morgan a quick almost-smile, to raised eyebrows.
It's twisted, it's wrong, but I feel *so* much better this morning it's unreal. My depression of the last few weeks has lifted as though it never was, and it almost feels like I'm walking on clouds.
It's just by comparison, I know, but I'm determined to enjoy the euphoria whilst it lasts. Maybe even to the start of the next case, if I'm lucky.
A couple of hours later and the usual jackals have gathered around the coffee area. Normally when the topic of conversation is likely to be me, I'd be reticient about approaching, but today? I'm feeling invulnerable, and I need my midmorning cup of coffee.
This, of course, does not go unnoticed.
"Did someone get lucky last night?" Morgan asks with a big grin on his face.
"A lady never tells," I reply smoothly and his smile becomes a smirk.
He's wrong, but, given I usually release after sex, he's closer than he might think.
JJ gives me a quick worried glance. I'm not certain exactly what she sees, but she seems to untense, a little.
I sense another talk in our near future. Ah well, I can probably fob her off with enough of the truth.
About an hour later, Hotch pops his head out of his office and gives me a searching glance. I nod slightly to him, and he holds my gaze for a few seconds before disappearing back behind his door.
I'm in the clear, for the moment, but he'll be keeping an eye on for a while, just in case.
I need to make sure to establish a new routine for emotional release.
Anger is right out, regardless of what happened last night. Not only do I refuse go be abusive to other people as a matter of routine (and, despite everything, I feel a little guilty about blowing up at Emma last night. But only a little), but it's just dangerous in this line of work. Too much temptation to let it... create incidents.
The old way worked well enough, assuming that last night's closure allows me to use it again, but maybe I can come up with a another method. Just in case.
But I can think of such things later. I have paperwork, glorious paperwork, to keep me company for now.
It's a measure of my mood that I'm not being completely sarcastic when I think that.
Today is going to be a good day.