Coming Back to Me (for bloodnfire, Rogue/Emma, PG-13)
Title: Coming Back to Me
Author: aphrodite_mine
Recipient: bloodnfire
Request: Rogue/Emma
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1132
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Note: I’ve cast Emma in my mind as a slightly older Evanna Lynch. I’d put her about junior or senior year of high school age here. [I’ve also got a little bonus gift for my recipient, as well as the readers, a manip of the characters looking sexy and dangerous-ish. Voila.]
Thanks: to my beta readers, an_atomic_sky and curt_tone.
There is a whirring inside the young telepath’s mind as their faces close in. She feels it coming like a giant wave, like she imagines Dr. Grey might have felt before she died the first time, before she became what no one talks about out loud. Before Alkali Lake took her, swallowed her whole. Before her psychic powers wrapped her in a cocoon. Emma watches Ms. D’Ancanto’s eyes, unblinking, her own ice blue meeting the darker hazel. Emma’s lips are frosted pink, her teacher’s are bitten to a raw red, and the whirring grows to a thunder at the moment their lips meet.
She knits scarves. Marie D’Ancanto, professor of language arts at Xavier’s School for the Gifted, sits in the teacher’s lounge, sipping coffee, wearing a sleeveless blouse and a smart a-line skirt, knitting scarves. She’ll give them away at Christmas/Chanukah, she thinks, rounding the end with her needle. Or maybe, she swallows, thinking of recent news reports and staring at her hands, she won’t.
Emma Grace Frost does not like being out of control. She has known this from an early age, and for the most part, it hasn’t been an issue. She sees a hairdresser once a month to maintain the ends of her blonde bob, gets her nails done twice as often, in the French style. She likes the white tips. At age thirteen the voices start trickling in; mommy fucking the neighbor, daddy mocking his investors, Christian sneaking drinks after dark. At age fifteen she enrolls in Xavier’s school having done research on the internet and finding that it just might suit her needs despite the recent lack of headmaster. She threatens to expose Frost Enterprises with a carefully drafted letter if her education isn’t funded. Her mother’s smile when they drop her off at the ivy gates is almost genuine.
The last student who asked about Ms. D’Ancanto’s mutancy regretted it afterwards. Sam Guthrie complained all the way down the hallway to what was formerly Professor Xavier’s office, but where Ororo Munroe had recently moved her files. He was simply wondering about the validity of the education they were receiving, he grumbled, claiming this was a fair complaint. Weren’t the ethics of a professor to be questioned when it was a known fact that she had willingly induced the cure; something that Xavier’s had a solid stance against? Professor Munroe had calmly explained that, while his questions were valid, the classroom was no place to ask them. She and the other elder X-Men had fully approved Ms. D’Ancanto’s application for teacher; she had earned the right to educate the students here at Xavier’s the same as any other Professor, regardless of powers. After the lecture, she smiled, touched Sam’s hand, and doled out a week of detention.
Marie isn’t even sure she remembers what life was like before the cure. She’s tried so hard to forget. There are walls in her mind, walls which only Emma can see, walls built to keep the other voices, and the past firmly in their places. There was never a rush of touching, for Marie. It was slow. Maybe her fingers had numbed from the years of living wrapped, but there was no longer any spark. No need to rush. So they kissed, she and Bobby, as boyfriend and girlfriend, for months on end, nothing changing. The walls growing thicker, Marie’s hands growing more confident, Bobby forgetting to flinch. But she somehow, in all the concentration, she forgot how to want him. She wanted instead to sit in the quiet and move her pen across the page or click needles together, hearing the stirring voices of the children floors below filter up through the ventilation system. Emma knows this. Watches her fingers.
It’s only an arts education, she thinks sometimes, dejectedly, for a group of students who hardly need another mode of self-expression. What else should I expect? Emma watches her carefully, stacking papers carefully at the desk in the front of the classroom. Emma makes sure that every pencil is perfectly sharpened (she only has to hand them to Frank and he does the honors) before she leaves for the next class. She inspects his work, half paying attention. She watches Ms. D’Ancanto. Her dark hair, the perfect white streak, moving. She shouldn’t worry so much. Her childhood was happy, in Meridian. Marie smiles, the memory of family barbecues slipping into her mind, unquestioned. Emma smooths her skirt, shoulders her backpack.
Emma has never liked sharing. The times she’s had to do it; when she was young, really, before her powers blossomed like a dark flower in her mind, her mother would set her in the playroom along with her older sisters and expect them to play quietly for hours. Adrienne always had elaborate scenes set up with dolls; everything designated as hers, nothing for Cordelia or Emma to touch. She grew up wanting. Staring, watching from the outside, waiting for the perfect opportunity, for the moment when Adrienne’s back was turned. For the best moment to pounce. To attack.
In the moment before she falls asleep, Marie blinks, seeing the blonde girl running, suddenly, underneath her eyelids. Her white-gold hair swings, soft, against her shoulders. Bare skin except for lace, lace and straps, covering the gentle swell of her chest. A silk skirt. "Ms. D’Ancanto." Her voice, thick like quicksand. Marie struggles with the sheets, gasping for breath, drowning. "I liked you better, you know," she stops running, stepping closer now, reaching out a tiny hand, the nails painted white, "when you were-" Marie slips free of it, jerking awake, sitting up, pushing the sheets away. "Rogue," she whispers, knowing it’s the truth.
After class again. The room empties again. Marie straightens papers again. Sighing to herself, again. She has chewed her lips raw, thinking. Regretting. She wonders now, if the stories on the news are true. If the same thing will happen to her. If she’ll... if she’ll be herself again. The scarves hanging on her bedpost are waiting for her bare neck, her gloves are cold in her drawer, waiting for her fingers. She looks up, thoughtful. Emma is watching her again, those frozen eyes like steel, revealing nothing. "Ms. D’Ancanto," the girl whispers, not as introduction. As statement. This is the last time anyone will say those words for a long time.
The chair legs scrape the wooden floor as Emma pushes it neatly in. "You don’t need to be afraid," she says, feeling the thunder coming like a giant wave. The pressure closing in fast. "This is a gift." She smiles a little, watching Marie’s face, watching her become Rogue again. She sees what they will become, stretches to her toes, and presses their lips together, almost expecting the world to crash apart.
Author: aphrodite_mine
Recipient: bloodnfire
Request: Rogue/Emma
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1132
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Note: I’ve cast Emma in my mind as a slightly older Evanna Lynch. I’d put her about junior or senior year of high school age here. [I’ve also got a little bonus gift for my recipient, as well as the readers, a manip of the characters looking sexy and dangerous-ish. Voila.]
Thanks: to my beta readers, an_atomic_sky and curt_tone.
There is a whirring inside the young telepath’s mind as their faces close in. She feels it coming like a giant wave, like she imagines Dr. Grey might have felt before she died the first time, before she became what no one talks about out loud. Before Alkali Lake took her, swallowed her whole. Before her psychic powers wrapped her in a cocoon. Emma watches Ms. D’Ancanto’s eyes, unblinking, her own ice blue meeting the darker hazel. Emma’s lips are frosted pink, her teacher’s are bitten to a raw red, and the whirring grows to a thunder at the moment their lips meet.
She knits scarves. Marie D’Ancanto, professor of language arts at Xavier’s School for the Gifted, sits in the teacher’s lounge, sipping coffee, wearing a sleeveless blouse and a smart a-line skirt, knitting scarves. She’ll give them away at Christmas/Chanukah, she thinks, rounding the end with her needle. Or maybe, she swallows, thinking of recent news reports and staring at her hands, she won’t.
Emma Grace Frost does not like being out of control. She has known this from an early age, and for the most part, it hasn’t been an issue. She sees a hairdresser once a month to maintain the ends of her blonde bob, gets her nails done twice as often, in the French style. She likes the white tips. At age thirteen the voices start trickling in; mommy fucking the neighbor, daddy mocking his investors, Christian sneaking drinks after dark. At age fifteen she enrolls in Xavier’s school having done research on the internet and finding that it just might suit her needs despite the recent lack of headmaster. She threatens to expose Frost Enterprises with a carefully drafted letter if her education isn’t funded. Her mother’s smile when they drop her off at the ivy gates is almost genuine.
The last student who asked about Ms. D’Ancanto’s mutancy regretted it afterwards. Sam Guthrie complained all the way down the hallway to what was formerly Professor Xavier’s office, but where Ororo Munroe had recently moved her files. He was simply wondering about the validity of the education they were receiving, he grumbled, claiming this was a fair complaint. Weren’t the ethics of a professor to be questioned when it was a known fact that she had willingly induced the cure; something that Xavier’s had a solid stance against? Professor Munroe had calmly explained that, while his questions were valid, the classroom was no place to ask them. She and the other elder X-Men had fully approved Ms. D’Ancanto’s application for teacher; she had earned the right to educate the students here at Xavier’s the same as any other Professor, regardless of powers. After the lecture, she smiled, touched Sam’s hand, and doled out a week of detention.
Marie isn’t even sure she remembers what life was like before the cure. She’s tried so hard to forget. There are walls in her mind, walls which only Emma can see, walls built to keep the other voices, and the past firmly in their places. There was never a rush of touching, for Marie. It was slow. Maybe her fingers had numbed from the years of living wrapped, but there was no longer any spark. No need to rush. So they kissed, she and Bobby, as boyfriend and girlfriend, for months on end, nothing changing. The walls growing thicker, Marie’s hands growing more confident, Bobby forgetting to flinch. But she somehow, in all the concentration, she forgot how to want him. She wanted instead to sit in the quiet and move her pen across the page or click needles together, hearing the stirring voices of the children floors below filter up through the ventilation system. Emma knows this. Watches her fingers.
It’s only an arts education, she thinks sometimes, dejectedly, for a group of students who hardly need another mode of self-expression. What else should I expect? Emma watches her carefully, stacking papers carefully at the desk in the front of the classroom. Emma makes sure that every pencil is perfectly sharpened (she only has to hand them to Frank and he does the honors) before she leaves for the next class. She inspects his work, half paying attention. She watches Ms. D’Ancanto. Her dark hair, the perfect white streak, moving. She shouldn’t worry so much. Her childhood was happy, in Meridian. Marie smiles, the memory of family barbecues slipping into her mind, unquestioned. Emma smooths her skirt, shoulders her backpack.
Emma has never liked sharing. The times she’s had to do it; when she was young, really, before her powers blossomed like a dark flower in her mind, her mother would set her in the playroom along with her older sisters and expect them to play quietly for hours. Adrienne always had elaborate scenes set up with dolls; everything designated as hers, nothing for Cordelia or Emma to touch. She grew up wanting. Staring, watching from the outside, waiting for the perfect opportunity, for the moment when Adrienne’s back was turned. For the best moment to pounce. To attack.
In the moment before she falls asleep, Marie blinks, seeing the blonde girl running, suddenly, underneath her eyelids. Her white-gold hair swings, soft, against her shoulders. Bare skin except for lace, lace and straps, covering the gentle swell of her chest. A silk skirt. "Ms. D’Ancanto." Her voice, thick like quicksand. Marie struggles with the sheets, gasping for breath, drowning. "I liked you better, you know," she stops running, stepping closer now, reaching out a tiny hand, the nails painted white, "when you were-" Marie slips free of it, jerking awake, sitting up, pushing the sheets away. "Rogue," she whispers, knowing it’s the truth.
After class again. The room empties again. Marie straightens papers again. Sighing to herself, again. She has chewed her lips raw, thinking. Regretting. She wonders now, if the stories on the news are true. If the same thing will happen to her. If she’ll... if she’ll be herself again. The scarves hanging on her bedpost are waiting for her bare neck, her gloves are cold in her drawer, waiting for her fingers. She looks up, thoughtful. Emma is watching her again, those frozen eyes like steel, revealing nothing. "Ms. D’Ancanto," the girl whispers, not as introduction. As statement. This is the last time anyone will say those words for a long time.
The chair legs scrape the wooden floor as Emma pushes it neatly in. "You don’t need to be afraid," she says, feeling the thunder coming like a giant wave. The pressure closing in fast. "This is a gift." She smiles a little, watching Marie’s face, watching her become Rogue again. She sees what they will become, stretches to her toes, and presses their lips together, almost expecting the world to crash apart.