queen of analogue (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tellitslant) wrote2008-07-14 02:11 pm
tellitslant) wrote2008-07-14 02:11 pm
Entry tags:
FIC: say you want your freedom (X-Men comicsverse, Emma/Kitty, PG-13)
Title: say you want your freedom
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tellitslant
Recipient:sionnain
Fandom: X-Men (comicsverse, Astonishing-ish)
Word Count: 1600
Pairing: Emma Frost/Kitty Pryde
Rating: PG-13
Notes: written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
femslash08. Thanks to soupytwist and pirateygoodness for beta assistance.
Disclaimer: Marvel's, with nods to John Byrne and Joss Whedon.
Summary:
Not long after she joins the team, Kitty starts having the dreams again.
They're the same dreams she's had off and on almost ever since she met Emma. If 'met' is the right word to convey 'having been kidnapped, bound, and held captive by for hours.'
Somehow, Kitty doesn't think it is.
The dreams started then, and came back the next time, after she was rescued by Storm. And because of that rescue, they became far more confusing.
Most of the time, the dreams are fairly straightforward – Kitty stuck back in that chair, Emma towering over her, all white leather and white skin and beauty sharp as diamonds even then, reminding the thirteen-year-old Kitty of everything she wasn't and wouldn't ever be despite years of dance training. In the dreams, the humiliation is stronger, and the frustrated burning desire to break through her bonds and get her hands on that perfect skin and mark it somehow, pay Emma back, except that she can't move, can't phase, can't do anything except watch Emma smirk.
Sometimes, after those dreams, Kitty wakes up on the floor under her bed or, worse, a storey or two further down the mansion. That's a habit she thought she'd broken years ago, and she hates the thought that Emma reduces her to a fumbling, inept teenager.
Those are the dreams she has most often, and Kitty's smart enough to know that they're not just about Emma. They show up whenever she wants to get away from things – when her parents got divorced, when she and Pete were fighting, all the time during that short terrifying period when everything around her was shifting and Ororo changed her hair…
Ororo.
And that's what makes things weird. Because even though Kitty knows it was Ororo who rescued her all those years ago, it was still Ororo in Emma's body, in the White Queen's body, and that was… confusing. So sometimes Kitty has strange dreams, mixed-up dreams where she's not the child she was but the woman she is and Emma tying her to a chair or taking away her ability to phase is mixed in with Emma soothing her or talking her down or comforting her, holding her together somehow. Emma de-powering her, and yet making it all right.
Kitty doesn’t phase herself out of bed during those dreams. No, she's always right in bed when she wakes up, because that's exactly where she doesn't want to be when she's embarrassed and angry and refusing to admit that she's so wet her thighs are slippery. So it's easier for her to go down to the Danger Room early and train and sweat until those thoughts are buried beneath the anger, buried deep enough that she can pretend they're not there at all.
If Emma wanted, she could break through to that level of Kitty's mind with less effort than it takes her to wiggle into her skin-tight costume. Kitty tries not to think about that either.
Kitty used to vary her Danger Room programs, but usually now she comes back to the same one – the attack on Genosha. It challenges her enough to keep her from turning the dream over in her mind, and instead she gets angrier and angrier thinking about Emma's constant ability to put her students in mortal danger. Sometimes it backfires, and she finds herself remembering the rare times Emma talks about the Hellions or Synch or even Sophie… but usually she comes out hurting and heartsore and ready to blame Emma for everything from global warming to the toaster breaking.
She's raging today, limp and overheated and tired from another futile round of trying to save mutants who've been dead for months, when she walks into the change room and comes face to face with Emma.
Kitty stops dead, trying frantically to slam shields up around her every thought but knowing she's failing. Emma looks up at her with that same disdainful smirk that Kitty sees in her dreams, and she settles for hoping quietly that her loud anger will keep Emma from reading any deeper than the surface of her mind.
"There are other telepaths in the school, you know, Katherine," Emma drawls, standing up from the bench and shimmying the rest of the way into a pair of – tight, naturally – workout pants. "I have no illusions left about your feelings for me, but there's no need to share them with the entire student body, now is there?" Kitty opens her mouth to snap back, but Emma doesn't let her get a word in before continuing. "I can help you with that. Even if Charles never managed to teach you any control, I'm sure I could manage it. Just a little step into your mind to show you how it's done…"
She reaches out a hand and Kitty bats it away – harder than she means to, but she doesn't really care. "Stop it, Frost," she shouts. "I told you, I don't want you in my mind. I can take care of myself just fine without you around, and I have no idea what you think you can teach me about control. You don't care about me or how in control I am or am not – you don't even care enough to remember that my name is Kitty and not Katherine. And frankly, I don't care who knows I hate you. So stop pretending you give a shit about anything but your own reputation and leave me alone." She spins on her heel to stalk out, but Emma's low, mocking laughter stops her and she turns slowly.
"Oh yes, I can see you're perfectly in control, Katherine –" Kitty snarls, and Emma waves a dismissive hand. "Kitty, then – if you insist on being diminished, far be it for me to argue. Coming in here every morning to work out to the point of fatigue simply shrieks control. Now, I neither know nor care what demons you seek to exorcise, but hear this. I will not have you undermining my leadership of this school by constantly broadcasting your anger at me throughout the place. We must present a united front, no matter how much of a pretence it is. It is part of your job as an educator here and I will have that much from you if I have to set up your shields myself."
Kitty is quivering with rage, as if she is the child Emma is accusing her of being. All she wants to do is strike back, and hard. "I don't know, Emma," she says, her voice sickeningly sweet even to her own ears. "I think it's important that the students know I don't like you, and why. It might stop them from getting too close to you. And it is part of my job as a teacher to keep them safe." It's a cheap shot, she knows it, but she watches it hit home and turns to phase away through the nearest wall before Emma can rob her of the last word – and before she starts to regret her words.
Instead of phasing through the wall, her hand hits it solidly, and she stares at it for a moment before Emma grabs her shoulders and spins her around, pressing her back against a wall that she still can't pass through.
"You're not getting away that easily. We're finishing this," Emma growls, glaring down at her, and suddenly Kitty knows that Emma is in her mind, stopping her from phasing, keeping her there, holding her in place, and before she can help herself she knows that all the details of her dreams are there right at the surface, practically screaming themselves at Emma.
Kitty can see the exact moment the memories reach Emma, the way she's caught off guard so that her expression runs from anger to shock to guile – and something else – before she gets it under control and wipes her face perfectly blank.
"Ah," she practically purrs, not moving an inch away from Kitty. "So that's what you come here every morning to get out of your system. I see. No wonder…" She trails off, then stops and just looks at Kitty for a moment. Kitty squirms, flushed with anger and embarrassment, acutely aware of the heat of Emma's hands on her shoulders. It's a simple touch, and Emma's grip has loosened enough that Kitty could probably break away easily, but she's pinned by more than Emma mentally blocking her ability to phase.
"Your power suits you, Kitty," Emma says after a pause. "You always need to be able to get free. And you don't like that I can take that away from you. Well, that's just too bad. We balance each other nicely; indeed, perhaps that's what we need from each other. If you are here to keep me honest, then I am here to keep you under control. And much as you deny it, you do need that help."
Emma runs her hands from Kitty's shoulders down the length of her arms before stepping back, and Kitty closes her eyes for a moment, surprised by the intensity of the sensation – she's not used to touch that she doesn't dictate the bounds of. When she opens her eyes, Emma is stalking out the door. Her voice floats back to Kitty's ears. "Do come see me when you want to learn more about control, Katherine, dear. After all, you wouldn't want those thoughts becoming common knowledge among the students, now would you? Or the other staff?"
Kitty sags back against the wall, and almost through it, finding that Emma has released her powers. She tries to muster up a sense of outrage at just how easy it is for Emma to take control of her like that. She should hate it – does in the dreams, certainly (most of them). Instead, no matter how much she tries to ignore it, she's left with a vague sense of discontent, not at how quickly Emma could take advantage of her, but at the fact that she didn't press that advantage.
Kitty can still feel Emma's touch on her arms, uninvited and yet somehow not unwelcome, gentler than she ever expected it to be. Deliberate. Controlled.
She swallows, and tries not to think about where else Emma might touch her as part of teaching her control.
Predictably, she fails.
Author:
tellitslantRecipient:
sionnainFandom: X-Men (comicsverse, Astonishing-ish)
Word Count: 1600
Pairing: Emma Frost/Kitty Pryde
Rating: PG-13
Notes: written for
femslash08. Thanks to soupytwist and pirateygoodness for beta assistance.Disclaimer: Marvel's, with nods to John Byrne and Joss Whedon.
Summary:
Not long after she joins the team, Kitty starts having the dreams again.
They're the same dreams she's had off and on almost ever since she met Emma. If 'met' is the right word to convey 'having been kidnapped, bound, and held captive by for hours.'
Somehow, Kitty doesn't think it is.
The dreams started then, and came back the next time, after she was rescued by Storm. And because of that rescue, they became far more confusing.
Most of the time, the dreams are fairly straightforward – Kitty stuck back in that chair, Emma towering over her, all white leather and white skin and beauty sharp as diamonds even then, reminding the thirteen-year-old Kitty of everything she wasn't and wouldn't ever be despite years of dance training. In the dreams, the humiliation is stronger, and the frustrated burning desire to break through her bonds and get her hands on that perfect skin and mark it somehow, pay Emma back, except that she can't move, can't phase, can't do anything except watch Emma smirk.
Sometimes, after those dreams, Kitty wakes up on the floor under her bed or, worse, a storey or two further down the mansion. That's a habit she thought she'd broken years ago, and she hates the thought that Emma reduces her to a fumbling, inept teenager.
Those are the dreams she has most often, and Kitty's smart enough to know that they're not just about Emma. They show up whenever she wants to get away from things – when her parents got divorced, when she and Pete were fighting, all the time during that short terrifying period when everything around her was shifting and Ororo changed her hair…
Ororo.
And that's what makes things weird. Because even though Kitty knows it was Ororo who rescued her all those years ago, it was still Ororo in Emma's body, in the White Queen's body, and that was… confusing. So sometimes Kitty has strange dreams, mixed-up dreams where she's not the child she was but the woman she is and Emma tying her to a chair or taking away her ability to phase is mixed in with Emma soothing her or talking her down or comforting her, holding her together somehow. Emma de-powering her, and yet making it all right.
Kitty doesn’t phase herself out of bed during those dreams. No, she's always right in bed when she wakes up, because that's exactly where she doesn't want to be when she's embarrassed and angry and refusing to admit that she's so wet her thighs are slippery. So it's easier for her to go down to the Danger Room early and train and sweat until those thoughts are buried beneath the anger, buried deep enough that she can pretend they're not there at all.
If Emma wanted, she could break through to that level of Kitty's mind with less effort than it takes her to wiggle into her skin-tight costume. Kitty tries not to think about that either.
Kitty used to vary her Danger Room programs, but usually now she comes back to the same one – the attack on Genosha. It challenges her enough to keep her from turning the dream over in her mind, and instead she gets angrier and angrier thinking about Emma's constant ability to put her students in mortal danger. Sometimes it backfires, and she finds herself remembering the rare times Emma talks about the Hellions or Synch or even Sophie… but usually she comes out hurting and heartsore and ready to blame Emma for everything from global warming to the toaster breaking.
She's raging today, limp and overheated and tired from another futile round of trying to save mutants who've been dead for months, when she walks into the change room and comes face to face with Emma.
Kitty stops dead, trying frantically to slam shields up around her every thought but knowing she's failing. Emma looks up at her with that same disdainful smirk that Kitty sees in her dreams, and she settles for hoping quietly that her loud anger will keep Emma from reading any deeper than the surface of her mind.
"There are other telepaths in the school, you know, Katherine," Emma drawls, standing up from the bench and shimmying the rest of the way into a pair of – tight, naturally – workout pants. "I have no illusions left about your feelings for me, but there's no need to share them with the entire student body, now is there?" Kitty opens her mouth to snap back, but Emma doesn't let her get a word in before continuing. "I can help you with that. Even if Charles never managed to teach you any control, I'm sure I could manage it. Just a little step into your mind to show you how it's done…"
She reaches out a hand and Kitty bats it away – harder than she means to, but she doesn't really care. "Stop it, Frost," she shouts. "I told you, I don't want you in my mind. I can take care of myself just fine without you around, and I have no idea what you think you can teach me about control. You don't care about me or how in control I am or am not – you don't even care enough to remember that my name is Kitty and not Katherine. And frankly, I don't care who knows I hate you. So stop pretending you give a shit about anything but your own reputation and leave me alone." She spins on her heel to stalk out, but Emma's low, mocking laughter stops her and she turns slowly.
"Oh yes, I can see you're perfectly in control, Katherine –" Kitty snarls, and Emma waves a dismissive hand. "Kitty, then – if you insist on being diminished, far be it for me to argue. Coming in here every morning to work out to the point of fatigue simply shrieks control. Now, I neither know nor care what demons you seek to exorcise, but hear this. I will not have you undermining my leadership of this school by constantly broadcasting your anger at me throughout the place. We must present a united front, no matter how much of a pretence it is. It is part of your job as an educator here and I will have that much from you if I have to set up your shields myself."
Kitty is quivering with rage, as if she is the child Emma is accusing her of being. All she wants to do is strike back, and hard. "I don't know, Emma," she says, her voice sickeningly sweet even to her own ears. "I think it's important that the students know I don't like you, and why. It might stop them from getting too close to you. And it is part of my job as a teacher to keep them safe." It's a cheap shot, she knows it, but she watches it hit home and turns to phase away through the nearest wall before Emma can rob her of the last word – and before she starts to regret her words.
Instead of phasing through the wall, her hand hits it solidly, and she stares at it for a moment before Emma grabs her shoulders and spins her around, pressing her back against a wall that she still can't pass through.
"You're not getting away that easily. We're finishing this," Emma growls, glaring down at her, and suddenly Kitty knows that Emma is in her mind, stopping her from phasing, keeping her there, holding her in place, and before she can help herself she knows that all the details of her dreams are there right at the surface, practically screaming themselves at Emma.
Kitty can see the exact moment the memories reach Emma, the way she's caught off guard so that her expression runs from anger to shock to guile – and something else – before she gets it under control and wipes her face perfectly blank.
"Ah," she practically purrs, not moving an inch away from Kitty. "So that's what you come here every morning to get out of your system. I see. No wonder…" She trails off, then stops and just looks at Kitty for a moment. Kitty squirms, flushed with anger and embarrassment, acutely aware of the heat of Emma's hands on her shoulders. It's a simple touch, and Emma's grip has loosened enough that Kitty could probably break away easily, but she's pinned by more than Emma mentally blocking her ability to phase.
"Your power suits you, Kitty," Emma says after a pause. "You always need to be able to get free. And you don't like that I can take that away from you. Well, that's just too bad. We balance each other nicely; indeed, perhaps that's what we need from each other. If you are here to keep me honest, then I am here to keep you under control. And much as you deny it, you do need that help."
Emma runs her hands from Kitty's shoulders down the length of her arms before stepping back, and Kitty closes her eyes for a moment, surprised by the intensity of the sensation – she's not used to touch that she doesn't dictate the bounds of. When she opens her eyes, Emma is stalking out the door. Her voice floats back to Kitty's ears. "Do come see me when you want to learn more about control, Katherine, dear. After all, you wouldn't want those thoughts becoming common knowledge among the students, now would you? Or the other staff?"
Kitty sags back against the wall, and almost through it, finding that Emma has released her powers. She tries to muster up a sense of outrage at just how easy it is for Emma to take control of her like that. She should hate it – does in the dreams, certainly (most of them). Instead, no matter how much she tries to ignore it, she's left with a vague sense of discontent, not at how quickly Emma could take advantage of her, but at the fact that she didn't press that advantage.
Kitty can still feel Emma's touch on her arms, uninvited and yet somehow not unwelcome, gentler than she ever expected it to be. Deliberate. Controlled.
She swallows, and tries not to think about where else Emma might touch her as part of teaching her control.
Predictably, she fails.