I feel like a tousled youth.
Who: Scott Summers and Emma Frost What: Confessions When: 12/24 Where: Emma's car, and a nice view. Status: PG-13
Scott had rushed out of the house to knock on the door to Emma’s car. Probably fast enough to be embarrassing, but lately she’d made him feel a lot lighter. She was, of course, still Emma Frost, but this was a different place and a different time. They had existential crises much less frequently than in the dreams, and that was a rather nice thing.
She raised an eyebrow at him as he knocked on the passenger side door. He could stand there and look cute for just a few seconds. Let him wonder if she'd actually let him in.
After all, she was still Emma Frost, which meant that she had a reputation to maintain. One that involved being coy and difficult and all frozen up inside. Scott was a man who took things way too seriously at times, and she was in too playful a mood not to mock him. Just slightly.
You look so adorable outside my car right now. I've half a mind to keep you out there, pouting at me all evening.
I have half a mind to blow off the handle, Scott thought back, mentally smirking at her as he toyed with his glasses. His hair was a little bit of a mess and his shirt was only half tucked in, which made it look like he’d really, really rushed. And he had. With Kitty catcalling after him as he’d rushed out the door.
Rachel, of course, had been less than impressed. Emma was well aware of that, and it made this moment even more sweet.
She laughed aloud as she finally surrendered and unlocked the door. There were things that she wanted to discuss with him, and she felt like if she didn't do it soon, the opportunity to bring it up would pass somehow. It was just a feeling, but it put her in a bit of a rush, too. Emma didn't really want to waste their whole evening in his driveway.
Slipping into the car, Scott leaned over and kissed Emma on the cheek before he closed the door. Of course, everything was red to him, but she looked damn fine in that santa outfit. He rested his hand on her knee and stroked it. "Wow.."
"Well worth the looks and catcalling you received, I think," Emma stated, with a bit of a smirk. The car had been running the entire time, mainly to keep the heat on. Emma wasn't wearing a coat, and the snowy weather outside meant she would have been freezing her nipples off otherwise.
She put the car into drive and started driving away from his house. There was a spot up on a cliff that overlooked the city and had a view of the ocean far off. It was secluded, and great for a late night picnic. Which they'd be enjoying in her car, but it was the thought that counted. There were two fancy thermoses in the cup holders between them, and Emma motioned to one of them with her hand as she drove, "Hot chocolate. I wasn't sure what kind you preferred, so it's just plain hot chocolate, only made with milk instead of water. It gets more creamy that way."
Emma preferred a bit of mint or mexican spice in hers. This time she'd gone with mint, and her own mug had an E drawn on the top so he'd know whose was whose.
Scott smiled at her, then buckled up and combed his fingers through his hair. His eyes roamed over her, before he decided if he kept doing that he wouldn't be able to focus on anything else. He kept his hand on her knee, and kept rubbing it. "I'm not that picky when it comes to hot cocoa. Usually I have the instant stuff, which probably isn't as good as this will be."
He picked up the mug without the E, and took a careful sip. He groaned. "Oh damn."
"I've never been one to settle for the hot water kind. Not without adding my own cream to it, of course. When I lost the school I had to settle in many ways when it came to culinary luxuries. I think I've found ways to adapt around most of them, but I still budget some money for treats now and then." Emma kept her eyes on the road as she drove, only glancing at Scott every once in a while. She was trying not to let his presence distract her; Usually it was Scott that did the driving.
"And I'm still a horrible cook, too. Though you'll be amused to know that I've finally managed not to burn take-away pizza."
Though many things had translated from the dreams, Scott’s ability to cook hadn’t been one of them. In the dreams he was pretty good. In the waking world, not so much. “Learned to follow the instructions? Maybe next you can attempt homemade mac and cheese.”
He grinned at her, teasingly, eyes soft behind his glasses. He liked this. He could watch her freely.
"I was never one for following someone else's instructions, as you well know. But perhaps I've learned to do so in this case. Now if only I could get water to boil without getting it all over my stove. The problem with kraft dinner is you have to boil the pasta first." Emma never thought she'd be joking about her current circumstances, but lately she'd gained a little perspective. She wasn't sure what had changed; Logan's death, maybe, or the holiday season. Either way, it felt like she was more at peace with everything.
She turned onto the freeway and set the cruise control, then took one of her hands off the wheel and placed it over his. There was that spark, like lightning and fire, and her insides felt like they were going to turn to goo. It made her feel like some idiot child again, though she refused to giggle.
Peace was something that Scott Summers had become unfamiliar with. It was something he searched for and strove for but never found. Not the way he’d wanted. He turned his hand around and stroked at her fingers with his. “You look amazing.”
"And you... look like a tousled youth who escaped his parents house to sneak off with his girlfriend." Emma purred. "It's a good look on you, actually. It almost makes me feel like some teenager, driving off to make out point so that we can get laid in my car."
They were probably going to get laid in her car, and that was exactly the reason for this journey. Emma thought the comparison was amusing. Scott tended to make her feel like she was young and fresh, which was quite the accomplishment these days. She wasn't going to quote old and tired Madonna songs, but the sentiment was similar.
“I feel like a tousled youth. That was something I mostly missed out on.” He didn’t really blame Rachel for it, though tousled youth escapades had directly led to her being created. “You really do make me feel younger again, sometimes. Less weighed down.”
And he said that without the benefit of being able to read her mind. If red quartz glasses could express love, his did.
They didn't, but they didn't need to. Emma could feel it radiating off of him. In the past that would have been such an overwhelming amount of emotion that Emma would have been terrified of it. Recently, that didn't matter at all. In fact, it just made her feel even more confident.
"Shiny and new," Emma joked, "But... I do understand that. I feel the same way, in fact. I'm not going to tell you how long it's been since that happened, but it has been a very long time. I can't even be certain that anyone has made me feel the way you do."
She removed her hand from his, finally, to grab at her cocoa mug. Just a quick distraction from the moment they were sharing, but Emma needed the break. She took a quiet sip from her mug and turned off the freeway.
It was a moment, and Scott was leaving it in her hands. He'd spent too much of his life pushing people that he wanted someone to do the pushing, at least a little bit. It wasn't in Scott's nature to sit idly by when he wanted to do something or wanted someone. But he respected her, and he loved her. He knew she needed to come to things at her own pace.
"Everyone always tries to tell me who I belong with and no one seems content to let me choose."
"That was my entire life, darling. It's not as if I don't understand," Emma admitted. Even in the dreams, it had taken them years to get to the point where she'd been able to tell him about her past. Even then, she'd held back quite a bit of it. "Oh it was a life of privelege, I won't deny it. But even those born to it have specific obligations to live up to, and I never did. Father was always trying to tell me where I belonged and what I should be doing. I had to blackmail him just to get him to fund my school."
"And no one will be happy with your choice here if you choose me. You're smart enough to know that, too."
Scott put down his hot cocoa and shook his head. “I think that maybe it’s time to choose things for ourselves. That’s something that...neither of us got much opportunity to do, in those dreams. We reacted and we reacted and we reacted and never got to really live. I’d like to really live.”
"We get shuttled from crisis to crisis, yes, and I have to share you with over a hundred other mutants. Not to mention the entire rest of the world and a dream to change it, the mutant revolution, and everything else. And Ilyana. I'm almost certain something with Ilyana is happening there." She squinted a bit, then shrugged one of her shoulders. They were almost there. She turned onto a long road that seemed to lead to nowhere, and was more narrow than some others. The brightness of the city around them disappeared as trees lining the path blocked it out.
"And we're mutants, darling. We aren't going to escape that. You'll have to share me with my company when I get it all finalized. I'll have to share you with that outreach center. We cannot sit idly by when the oddities of this county present themselves. But I think we could make an effort to balance it all a bit better."
"We don't have a hundred other mutants here. We have a half-dozen." Scott sighed. He wouldn't mind having more of them. His revolutionary team. Ilyanna and Emma had become like his left and right hands. "I kind of miss them. Ilyanna and those kids. It's the first time in a long time that it felt like we were actually doing something besides keeping still or sliding backwards."
He shifted in his seat. "But we still need to learn balance."
"I think we were starting to get somewhere, yes. But we sacrificed so much to get to that point that it almost doesn't feel worth it. On the other hand, I often feel like we have to grab for anything at all, because it has to be worth it." They were down to the nitty gritty now, and Emma wondered why it was she could so freely talk about these things.
Maybe because Scott was real in a way that compelled her to be similar. Or because it was hard to hide everything from someone who shared the majority of your brain with.
The trees cut away, and a view of the city returned. It seemed like it spread out far below them and beyond them, and Emma pulled off to the side. She parked the car and leaned back against her chair, "Well, here we are."
“Too much sacrifice, is there anything left?” Scott sighed. For himself, in some ways, it had to be worth it. He’d given everything he had. His blood, his happiness, his reputation. He’d given it all up and more for their people. He knew he’d do things differently in hindsight, he just wasn’t sure how he’d do it, though.
His eyes widened a little. “Oh. this view…”
Emma let him enjoy the view for a bit, while she reached into the back seat of her car and brought out a bag. Inside the bag were two individually wrapped desserts and a pair of plastic forks. She handed him one and took one for herself.
"There might be something left. I doubt I would have stuck by your side otherwise. We might be going through a rough patch in our dreams, but I still love you."
There was a quick pause and then she returned to more mundane discussion, "I was thinking we'd have a late night picnic, but it's snowing again. We'll have to eat in here. It's your favorite, white vanilla cake with coconut in the frosting."
“I was going to ask how you knew that was my favorite, but you don’t even have to read my mind for that one.” He grinned at her as he opened his dessert. It was like a special holiday treat - and he was still really aware of what she was wearing and what it was doing to him. “It’s a little cold out there anyway. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on food, but..” His brain screeched to a halt. Did she just…?
“Yeah.” He worked his jaw. “I haven’t stopped loving you either.”
Witnessing Scott's mind screech to a halt was amusing to Emma. She smirked as she poked her fork into her own dessert, which appeared to be some kind of chocolate cake with red pieces of fruit in it. "The pull is hard to ignore, from the dreams. But I hardly think I can blame my dream self for what I feel. I think I might have been in love with you as early as that first conversation. I recall being extremely put out and infuriated that you were taken."
They were, apparently, really going to talk about this. And Emma's eyes hinted that perhaps Scott's dessert had nothing to do with coconut cake and everything to do with her and what she was wearing.
It was probably a nice visual for Emma. Scott ran a hand through his hair, which only messed it it up further. "I worried about that. That it was something that I felt but didn't feel."
He smiled a ruefully. "It was hard, even then. I didn’t want to repeat history, it wouldn’t be fair to you or her.”
"You wanted to make sure it was real, and not just the dreams," Emma said, while nodding her head a bit. His hair was even more tousled than before, and she found that she couldn't stop her hands from reaching out to fix it for him. Her fingers raked through his hair and then smoothed it a bit, "What if I told you that I have no idea if it's the dreams, or real life, or both, and I don't really care?"
“Then maybe that’s what makes it real.” Scott leaned in, trying to pull her closer with his hands. He wasn’t sure he had the words he needed to say anymore. But actions and thoughts, those were loud and clear.
Thoughts, and actions. She didn't need to be a telepath to read his body language, and she bridged the gap between them to press her lips against his.
I love you, Scott. I love you so much that it makes me weak kneed when I think about you. I love you so much that it makes me consider ridiculously domestic things like waking up by your side and making you breakfast. Even though we both know I can't cook, I love you enough that I've even thought about taking classes. I love you to the point that it's emotionally exhausting. I dance and think about you, I drive home and think about you, I go to sleep thinking about you.
And I'm too proud to admit it, and I might never be as unafraid in the face of this terrifyingly overwhelming love than I am right now. If I never find the strength to say it again, remember that I said it now. In the only way I could.