Emma Grace (white_diamonds) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-16 11:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, emma frost (white queen), scott summers (cyclops) |
Who: Emma Frost and Scott Summers
What: Emma's diamond powers kick in, also they talk about dreams and dance around their feelings
When: Last night
Where: Scott and Dani's place
Rating: PG-13 for talk of genocide and dead students and things
Status: Complete
With the barest sort of warning and after a number of days without contact, Emma had found herself at Scott’s. It’d been a week of startling and upsetting dreams and they’d left her in the foulest sort of mood. Emma had enough clarity to know that the dreams weren’t Scott’s fault and so she didn’t mean to take them out on him. But it was almost as though she couldn’t quite help herself.
With tense muscles and an utterly neutral face, she appeared more distant than normal. So it was without much warning that she rushed into him, crushed his lips with hers, and all but dragged him to the bed. Sex with Scott was a comfort, as was the mere act of being around him. Without telepathy to explain what she felt, Emma relied largely on action.
When it was over, Emma rolled to her side, away from Scott and almost felt bad for the sudden intrusion and lack of explanation. But she said nothing. A storm cloud hung over her head.
Scott had been surprised, but pleasantly so. He'd thought she'd needed time to come to terms with things, but had been expecting he'd need to reach out first. He'd opened the door, and gave her an even smile. His mind was already deducing strategies on how to break through to her, but then her lips were assaulting his and he was falling onto the bed.
Afterwards, he took a moment to collect himself, then rolled over towards her. Without words, he spooned against her and pulled Emma against him, arm around her waist.
The silence was permissible. Though it hung in the air between them, thick and oppressive, Emma didn't seem to want to break it. Letting him pull her close, she didn't curl into him, though instinct demanded it. Quietly, she sighed and rested her head against the pillow.
Like many things with Emma, it was best to let her come to it. There was a limit to that, and through that oppressive silence Scott was beginning to approach his. He pressed his lips against her shoulder. The silence grew, until it became a dark bubble encasing them.
Finally, Scott said, "Whatever it is, you know I won't judge."
Emma's response was to think loudly at him. It was only after she realized that he clearly hadn't heard her that she murmured a soft, "I know," into the pillow and let her hair cover half her face. "I need to sleep." It was late and the past few days hadn't been restful in the least.
Sadly, Scott couldn't read her mind just yet. He wanted to. He tried to, but he couldn't. With gentle fingers he brushed her hair away from her face. He could see for the first time how exhausted she looked. Scott wasn't even sure she'd bothered to do any sort of make-up before she'd come over. He stroked her ear and asked, "Can you sleep, right now?"
"Of course I can, darling," she responded lightly, as though it were the simplest sort of thing. It wasn't as though the dreams could really keep exhaustion away. They just managed to make sleep an entirely unpleasant experience.
Maybe being here would be enough to give her a restful sleep. He didn't know what dreams awaited him when he closed his eyes. Reaching over her, he retrieved his glasses. His world became tinted red again. Wherever he went, whenever he slept, he had the glasses. It was too dangerous to risk, otherwise. Leaning down, he kissed her cheek, and then lay down next to her.
"Goodnight," she said, warmth creeping into her tone. Slowly, she reached for his hand and kissed his palm. Her eyes were fluttering shut by the time his hand was back resting against her side.
Scott's dreams come in fits and spurts. They're teleported onto a ship. There's some kind of a threat. They have a plan to shut down a missile, only it's not a missile. And then the plan breaks down and he knows he's sent a young woman to her death. And there's nothing he can do to stop it.
Emma turned in her sleep but made no sound. What she dreamed of was far worse than what she'd seen during the week. Gone were the X-Men, replaced by children. Innocent mutant children. And as the goth girl claimed, they all died.
Genosha burned. With a knowledge that seemed possible only because it was a dream, Emma watched her students and waited for the worst of it. Without warning, as one dream shifted to the next, Genosha was engulfed in flames. There wasn't enough time to react; the children didn't even have time to scream. Emma rushed toward the first body she could reach and wrapped herself around it. Hours passed, or maybe minutes. Metal melted and buildings crumbled and all of the life in Genosha ended.
Save for one.
When Emma emerged from the ruins of her classroom, it was with a dead body in her arms. Emma felt oddly distanced from the situation, it must have been a form of PTSD. She looked down at her hand and noticed it shining.
And then she woke. Suddenly alert, Emma silently took a deep breath and pushed herself out of the bed. She reached for Scott's shirt and clothed herself and felt... odd. Detached.
She padded quietly into Scott's bathroom, leaving it open just a crack, and let out the quietest gasp when she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Genosha was just a place in Scott's dreams. He knew of it. He knew he'd been there before, but in the past. Its state in the dream 'present' was uncertain. He certainly didn't have the raw visceral experience that Emma had just gone through, or even the emotional attachment that Kitty did. He simply hadn't dreamed about the genocide.
The shifting in the bed woke Scott from his dream. He felt an odd sort of grief. One more life sacrificed for the dream. For their survival. He looked towards the bathroom as something shimmering caught his eye in the crack. He couldn't see what it was, but he slipped out of the bed, walked over, and knocked lightly on the door, "Are you alright?"
The door opened wider at his action, and Scott’s jaw dropped. He stared at Emma in complete shock, and not a little awe.
Emma didn’t look quite like she had in her dream. Looking at herself in the mirror, she didn’t think she looked all that much like a human-shaped diamond. But she shone like someone who wore a bit too much shimmering moisturizer, with the barest hint of glitter on her skin.
She brought a hand to her face and tried the elasticity of her skin, noting that it was harder, that she couldn’t leave an impression with her finger on her cheek without pressing as hard as she could. Then she tried her hair. It rather reminded her of a doll’s; it was stiff and curled at the ends. When she moved her head, it moved but when she tried to crush a curl between her thumb and index finger, it wouldn’t give way.
When Scott approached, Emma turned. The spell was broken and the shine faded. Her emotions, which had seemed so far away only moments ago, bubbled to the surface. The thought of the dead goth girl made Emma’s eyes water. “I’m fine,” she lied, turning away from Scott and back to the mirror to stare at her face once more.
"You lie."
Scott rested a hand on Emma's waist, staring at her face, rather than at her in the mirror. Her skin had...well it was fine now. Normal, soft and smooth. He wondered what it would have felt like to touch her like that.
He wasn't even sure that... transformation... had been what had bothered her. But he couldn't listen if she wouldn't talk, and she wouldn't talk if he didn't try to get her to.
Emma sighed quietly, not arguing with his statement. It was written plainly enough on her tired face that she wasn't perfectly fine and she wasn't about to deny it.
For a moment, her face went passive as she tried to make herself turn into a diamond again. It didn't work, but Emma had the faintest sort of feeling that control would come. It was like a muscle that needed to be exercised. Now probably wasn't the time to push herself too hard.
After long minutes of silence, she cast her gaze down, finding herself unable to look into her own eyes. "Do you know of Genosha?"
"I know the name. I know it's a place I've been, but I've never dreamed of anything about it," Scott replied. Whatever it was, it was going to be bad. Not wanting to have this conversation in front of a mirror and next to the toilet, he guided Emma out of the bathroom and sat her down on a comfortable chair. He knelt next to her, so she didn't have to crane her neck up.
"It died." Emma didn't look at Scott so much as she looked through him. There were circles around her eyes that made her seem frail and exhausted. "I mean," she focused slightly, "it was destroyed. I was there. My entire class died."
Two words. Two words that sort of sounded so casual and yet were so descriptive, "I'm sorry, Emma." It sounded ineffectual. 'I'm sorry' to losing all those students.
Scott asked gently, "They were all mutants. There. I remember that." Maybe that's why they were all endangered. Why he fought so hard to protect their species.
He put a hand over Emma's, "That... form you were in. It protected you, didn't it?" He almost didn't want to know what she'd seen.
Emma wasn't one for loud, obnoxious breakdowns. She was collected, even as she felt a wave of nausea hit her. It took a few deep, calming breaths to make her stomach stop flipping. "You didn't know?" She smiled, but it felt empty. "Sometimes I'm a diamond." Emma recalled the other dreams from the past week. She remembered how her skin would shift. Organic diamond, is what they'd said. It made her almost impossible to take down for any extended period of time.
"I think that explains some of the dreams I've had. But when I wake up I... forget those parts." He smiled wanly, an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, "Diamond skin for a frosty heart. That seems apropos."
He ran his thumb over Emma's knuckles, still smiling at her.
"I'm..." Emma hesitated, trying to remember the words she'd said in a dream, "I'm my own best friend." She scoffed quietly, almost miserably.
"That's a lie too." Scott retrieved some underwear and pulled it on, then pulled a chair closer to Emma so he could sit down near her.
"You're too hard on yourself, for the sins of your family and how that twisted you. You have friends. Real ones, not ones who lick your boots."
Sometimes if you squinted, Scott almost looked like a character out of a Disney movie. Emma regarded him for a moment before shaking her head. She reminded herself that she hadn't nearly enough sleep for the past few days and that a flare of temper wasn't really something Scott deserved.
"I'm just... quoting myself. I've had dreams all week. Something different every night. I tortured and betrayed our team, the one we led together. I think I got Kitty killed." She watched his face closely for a reaction to that.
At least he wasn't wearing yellow briefs on the outside of a blue outfit. What kind of costume was that? At least he looked good in spandex. Leather treated to be breathable would probably have been better.
Scott's face remained impassive, "I’m not sure you did. Or maybe we did, together. Before you woke me up, we were on an alien world. Kitty got stuck in some kind of ballistic weapon pointed at Earth."
He refused to say 'giant bullet'. His brain was still wrapping itself around the idea of someone conceiving and then building a moon-sized cannon. It was like out of Star Wars. Only with gunpowder.
He wasn't even sure it had been a railgun, which would at least be respectable.
"A bullet," Emma said, in an annoyingly helpful sort of way. "She phased it through the planet." The details were fairly clear. Emma remembered her time at the school and on the Breakworld. She remembered finding Piotr and losing Kitty.
"I didn't mean to, but it was my fault." Emma sniffed. "I brought her there." Kitty had been meant to stop Emma from causing harm to the team, to go as far as killing.
"She chose to stay," Scott pointed out. "She could have left at any time. Any of us could have." He fell silent, for a moment, before adding, "I wondered why there was a graveyard at that school. What kind of school would need one. What kind of world would such a place exist."
Taking Emma's hand, he kissed her palm, "You didn't kill her, Emma." There was reason for the woman to have guilt, but that wasn't one of them.
Emma felt her eyes water. A tear fell before she could blink it away. Furiously, she wiped it off her cheek and felt a bit stupid. It was just a dream, wasn't it?
"No, we couldn't have," she said, voice a near whisper. "I'd show you what I," she almost said did but stopped short, "saw if I could."
Scott's hand moved up to cup Emma's face, "I wish you could. It's easier to show than to tell."
It helped that sometimes emotions could slip through the cracks when showing. It was difficult to disguise those.
Emma felt uncomfortable. It was the raw closeness, the dangerous level of vulnerability she approached. It was Scott's fault. Slowly, she brought her hands to his and tried to bring them down into her lap. That didn't make her want to squirm quite so much.
"I remember Henry and Logan and Piotr," Emma said. "And students. We had a lot of those." A pause. "We saw Xavier, had to save him from something. And Cassandra Nova." Exhaling, Emma continued, "I did something to your brain to make you control your powers for a short time."
"That would explain the dream I had." He nodded at her. He had been saving them, in reserve, for much of their time on Breakworld. It was a strategy that had paid off, but it hadn't been without pain. Or without an ache when he'd needed his visor again.
"Maybe that's why I woke up and I wasn't blind this time." Or maybe it was Emma's closeness. He never woke up blind when she was in bed with him.
"Or maybe you're just slowly coming into your powers," Emma said, almost absently. She was getting lost in thought.
"I don't know how I feel about that," Scott admitted. He glanced over at the glasses resting on the table.
"I don't think it matters what you feel about it. Whether you want them or not, they're coming back." Emma looked down at her hand and focused. She knew how to control her powers. She'd been a horrible, wretched bitch but she'd also been one of the very best. Her skin changed, just for a moment, taking on an unnatural shine. With it came emotional distance, which was a welcome thing.
Emma couldn't hold it for very long, though. She went back to normal after less than a minute of almost-diamond form.
It was a strange texture under Scott's fingers. It wasn't rough like he was expecting, though it was hard to the touch. It was also, in his eyes, exceptionally beautiful.
"Maybe I can control them, here."
That caught Emma's attention enough that she looked up at Scott and met his eye. "Maybe you can." There was something inside of her that didn't want to get either of their hopes up.
"But the glasses are good to keep around. Just in case." He didn't want to try to activate his eyes. He wasn't sure how. That could prove to be problematic.
"You refracted the beams, in one of my dreams."
"I think I had that dream. Or maybe you just did it more than once." Emma rested her head on her arm, feeling utterly tired. It occurred to her that she probably looked a fright, but if that was the case, Scott hadn't let it show.
A fright was probably an understatement, but the last thing Emma needed to worry about was the state of her appearance. For once in her life she could look less than perfect.
He wouldn't tell.
"You and students seems to be a recurring theme."
"I was a teacher. We all were. We ran a school together." Now that she'd had the dreams, it seemed weird, but it was strange to her that she'd forgotten.
"That makes... sense, somehow." It would explain why he'd been drawn to the ranch job, as soon as it had been offered. Whatever else may have happened, he enjoyed guiding kids.
Even if those kids had codenames and some of them were killers.
Emma glanced at Scott for a moment, before turning her attention the floor. She wasn't sure what to say and felt frustrated by that fact. Typically, she was the epitome of cool and unaffected perfectionism. After the dreams, she felt rattled.
It wasn't hard to feel rattled after these dreams. Scott fell silent, unsure of what to say or how to help her with her unease.
It left a sort of tension in the room, and between them. The words he wanted to say, he didn't say yet.
Maybe he wanted her to say them first.
It was without much warning or ceremony that Emma rose. She got out of her chair and headed back to bed. She didn't say anything to Scott because she assumed he'd follow.
He watched her for the moment, allowing himself to admire her form. Then Scott stood, and followed. He caught her, and ran his hands up Emma's back to her shoulders, and started to squeeze and rub at them.
Emma made a soft noise in the back of her throat. It wasn't especially sexual, just the sort of noise she made when pleased. The tension melted with his touch.
That's what Scott was going for. To relax the tension and relieve her unease. To make her feel better, with no expectations beyond that simple thing. It was the sort of thing someone did for someone they cared about. Maybe even that four letter word.
Emma turned her face so she could see him behind her from the corner of her eye. "You have good hands," she complimented. They didn't take away the nightmares, but they made the nightmares more easily forgotten. Emma let him work on her sore muscles for just a bit longer than was absolutely necessary.
Then, she slid forward a bit in the bed. "Come here," she murmured.
Scott obeyed, sliding forward and coming closer. He had this overwhelming urge to just envelop her in his arms, but he waited on that urge.
Emma faced Scott. In the back of her mind lingered conversations that they'd never had in the waking world. Cyclops had told the White Queen that he loved her and Emma thought that perhaps that shouldn't have affected her so much. Those people were a source of stress and trouble. And no matter how similarly they looked, sounded, or act, they weren't the same.
And yet.
Emma reached out and brushed a bit of hair out of Scott's face. Leaning forward, she pressed a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. "Maybe we should go to sleep," she said in a voice that was no more than a whisper.
Scott wrapped his arms around Emma, and pulled her down with him. He shifted so Emma was partially on his chest, and ran his fingers through her hair. He spoke as though he'd keep all the demons at bay, "Maybe we should."
Emma rested a hand on Scott's chest. Her lips brushed against the hollow of his neck. Without another word, she curled into him and shut her eyes. Breathing in his scent, it seemed an easy enough thing to forget the burning stink of Genosha. In the peace of his arms, the memory of a horror could almost be forgotten.
Scott's lips moved against Emma's scalp, though no sound was formed. He held onto her until her breathing softened, and then he joined her in a dreamless slumber.