WHO:Emma & Jean WHEN: (backdated) early july WHERE: Emma & Jean's home WHAT: The culmination of Phoenix's interference with Jean and Emma WARNINGS: Mentions of death, mostly some feels. STATUS: Complete
Emma felt like she was going to burst apart at any moment, the strength of the force seemed to just build and build. It didn’t help Emma’s grasp on things either, her temper or her mood, which seemed to crest and fall constantly. She could be nothing but furious ire and scathing wit the one moment, and then sweetness the next.
Her mood swings were starting to irritate even her.
Part of it, she was sure, was Jean. They were both relying on the other to pull them back from the brink that they were circling it constantly. They’d tip over and probably consume the entire planet soon.
And yet, Emma was still drawn to the power, to Jean, even if it might destroy her and everything else.
She'd reveled in it. She'd fought it. She'd burned and screamed inside her head and inside Emma's head. And at times, she lost herself to it.
Jean was the Phoenix and the Phoenix was Jean Grey and the Phoenix was Emma and Jean was Emma.
Hands pressed to her head, Jean tried to breath. Her own mood swings had ended, replaced by unending rage. It was really just a matter of how much rage, and how much longer she could control it.
In a moment of lucidity she considered calling Logan or Laura to kill her. Laura wouldn't hesitate she thought. Logan, she’d spoken to over the phone often during this. When Emma couldn’t bring her down, he sometimes could. But always at the back of his mind she could sense fear and grief and anger. And while she knew it wasn’t at her but at the situation, it still angered her.
It was a near constant kind of feedback loop; Jean’s anger, her own anger, Jean’s fury, her own fury, just bubbling and building, swinging back and forth between them to feed the fire. Emma knew that it wasn’t good, that it was a signal of bad things coming, likely them being those bad things. She understood the dreams better now, how the Phoenix twisted and altered things, how insanity went hand in hand with this force.
Feeling Jean’s breaking point on the horizon, Emma had to put aside her own issues, slipping behind her love to wrap her arms around Jean’s waist, leaning the fully length of her body into the redhead, attempting to calm the fire with her own presence in their mental link.
“Darling,” her voice was almost an echo between them, “fire’s getting high.”
“I can’t…” Jean’s voice broke, and she leaned back against Emma and closed her eyes. “I’m trying. I’m trying…”
God, for once in any of her lives, she wanted to live without the Phoenix. As drunk as the power made her, as natural as it was, she wanted to live without it poisoning her just once. Just to know what being relatively normal felt like. “I think she’s pissed at us.”
It made sense that she’d be pissed, Emma and Jean were not using her full potential, they were squandering her power, she wasn’t fully in control, reaping her rewards of life and death. Emma slipped her hands into Jean’s, slipping her fingers through Jean’s and squeezing.
“She seems it. Pissed we’re not completely hers.” They’d had their moments, both of them, slipping and letting too much of Phoenix control them, sway their actions. With terrible effects at times. “And we aren’t, Jean. We’re still ours, still ourselves. It’s hard, darling, I know.” Especially as it became more and more obvious that they’d be driven insane by it eventually.
Some people, like Kitty, might have trouble forgiving them. Jean wasn’t sure they deserved that forgiveness. The fire flared out and disappeared for a few precious moments, and Jean’s fingers tightened in Emma’s. “There’s only two choices, Emma. Either we put the fire out, or we put ourselves out.”
It was so tempting to let someone else do that for her. So tempting. And unfair.
There were mistakes that Emma had made, in this and in other things, places where clawing back respect or forgiveness would mean work and effort, potentially putting her in places she didn’t rightly like to be. But her life had been an unbalance of fighting for both sides for so long that Emma was getting rather used to making amends.
Especially with Kitty.
“Jean, we control our lives. We decide what we do. We choose our paths. We’re not her pawns, and we are not giving up.” As daunting as it might be, as hard as breaking the hold, that would be preferable over any alternative. “I refuse to lose to this, Jean. I refuse to lose you to this. So come hell or high water, we are going to stop this.”
“How.” Jean’s throat felt raw, and fire rimmed her eyes like tears. “Tell me how, because I finally understand why I accepted death so willingly.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, wishing she could just cut it all off. Then she waved her hand, and it burned away, magically short. A nice side effect of the Phoenix. Instant make-overs.
“That’s better…” The fiery tears had gone as well, and Jean seemed a little more Jean and a little less suicidal. “But I still don’t know how to fight this without losing everything I am.”
Maybe she could embrace it. Become something more. Unlock her full potential. It was tempting.
“Jean,” Emma pulled back just enough to twist Jean around to face her, determination etched into every one of her carefully managed features, “I am not losing you to this. I refuse to watch you burn away again. Even if I have to take her and turn diamond for good, I will.”
She’d be cold and hard forever, eternally cut off from feeling or emoting. But Emma would do it if it mean Jean would battle past this constant tragic fate. After all, when it came down to it, everyone would choose Jean over Emma, even Emma would.
“You just need to be stronger than her, you are stronger than her. You can do this.”
“No, that’s not happening.” Jean’s voice echoed, and whether the rush was jealousy at the idea of Emma taking the Phoenix from her or fear for what that would do to them she couldn’t say. “I need you, Emma. I can be strong but I’m not strong alone. I’ve never been. I’ve always stood on everyone’s shoulders, and without them, without you, I fall. Every time I die it’s because I was alone, or I needed to act alone.”
They’d always tried to stand themselves, but it was only with a team that they were ever strong, no matter what happened, the team came together. “Then we’re a team, you and me, we’ll support each other no matter what, and that includes this bitch. We can put her in her place, and it’s beneath us.” Emma wasn’t really one for mushy declarations, she tended to show it in other ways. And for the most part it was enough.
But she felt more might be needed here.
“I need you, Jean. Not her, I need you. And I don’t want to lose you, or be in a world where I can’t have you. I’m far too greedy, I want everything, I want it all. And now that I’ve had a little of that, I can’t give it up.” No matter what the outcome, Emma knew it was going to be both of them. Alive or dead. It was going to be both of them.
Jean’s fingers burned into Emma’s skin, flame spreading up her body. For a single second, just one, she wondered what it would feel like to burn up completely. The Phoenix raged in her head and she could hear Emma’s thoughts through the link, feel the Phoenix as it tried to drive them apart and yet draw them together.
Without warning, Jean dove into Emma’s mind, until she couldn’t tell who was who, except there was Emmajean and there was the Phoenix and there was nothing else. And maybe just maybe Emmajean could expel what Emma and Jean couldn’t on their own.
A merging of minds was quite the concept, pushing their own mental powers beyond what they could alone, a small dual hive mind that could connect and respond so totally to one another. Emma sunk into it easily, welcoming Jean’s consciousness with an open and inviting mind, closing nothing at all from her.
The power seemed to confuse the Phoenix, unsure if it wanted Jean and Emma to be combined to use that power, or if it understood just what Emmajean could do. Emma was more than prepared to give her everything to Jean, all of her abilities, all of her stubborn determination, her selfish want to have Jean to herself, not sharing her with Phoenix at all.
Give her hell, Jean. Together. That was the whole point. They could do this, together.
Share the load, like that stupid movie with the giant robots Kitty had made them watch. Emma’s mind was a warm comfort, a shared blanket. Jean surrendered herself to Emma as she invited her lover in.
And the Phoenix was expelled. She could overwhelm them, but then she would lose the greatest hosts she’d ever experienced. So she fled, leaving a portion of her power behind, a calling card to hint that one day, far in the future, she’d return.
Come back, and we’ll be stronger, and next time you’ll submit Jean warned, her voice hers and Emma’s all at once.
It was almost like a warm hug, their shared consciousness and Phoenix leaving. She wanted too much, she wanted too much and too quickly, costing herself power in the process. Emma and Jean could stand to just exist for a while, barring any conflicts from here, they didn’t need the Phoenix.
It was very settling, as she fled and Emma felt her own self right, the burning need for retribution, the unsettling need for death and rebirth, it all just left Emma until all there was was Jean and Emma, connected so much more intricately than ever before.
The anger was gone. The seething rage and the self-loathing and the hatred of the world as a whole burned away until there was only ash, and then that too was gone.
A final burst of flame, and Jean fell to one knee, reaching out for Emma. They were still joined, mind and soul, but felt herself again. Really, for the first time since she’d started dreaming.
It was rather nice, just her and Jean in their shared connection again, Emma going down with Jean, more to steady her lover than a full collapse for them. “Well,” she could hear it echo somewhat in their heads, “not to complain, but doesn’t it feel a tad anti-climactic?”
She expected more screeching, from Jean, herself or Phoenix, there was no real need to pin it on any one of them, but something a little yelly would’ve been likely.
Jean started to laugh, and it wasn’t delusional or hysterical, but a low key rumble as she leaned into Emma’s grip, and held her in return. She found she didn’t want to separate from Emma’s mind, not yet anyway. “Are you insulted?”
“Moderately,” not entirely, it was nice to feel her own mind free of the viciousness the Phoenix pushed her towards, her empathy almost nil when it came to hosting that bird. She might have some bridges that needed mending at some point. “But I suppose we’ll take the win.”
Cupping Emma’s face, Jean kissed her, laughing through their connection. I’ll play some triumphant music for us.