A Fake Empire Christmas

[nike_ravus]

Title: Fake Empire Christmas Spectacular (part 1 of 2)
Author: Alsike
Rating: PG-13 (Possibly more F-bombs than usual, but it's the holidays...)
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds 
Pairing: Emma Frost/Emily Prentiss, other Emma Frost/Emily Prentiss 
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Criminal Minds. I owe wizened_cynic for the concept of quantum babies.  She does it much better than me.  Title stolen from the song by The National. 
Apologies:  Happy Christmas!  Or other holiday/lack of holiday of your choice!

Fake Empire 1 (Queen Emma)
Fake Empire 2 (JJ's Part)
Fake Empire 3 (Emily's Part)
Fake Empire 4 (The Mansion)
Fake Empire 5 (Kyougen)
Fake Empire 6 (Morning)
Fake Empire 7 (Mostly Emma's)
Fake Empire 8 (JJ goes off the deep end)
Fake Empire 9 (Back to work)
Fake Empire 10 (Visitors)
Fake Empire 11 (Jubilee)
Places out of Time
Everyday Fiascoes

 

Prologue:

“I don’t do holidays,” said Emma, irritably.  The semester had been fucking annoying, and it wasn’t even over yet, and she just wanted a break from all this pressure.  But no.  It was the holidays.

“Honey,” said Logan, taking out his cigar.  “You’ve got kids.  You’d better do holidays, or you’ll be having a mutiny on your hands.”

“What do you do on holidays?”

Logan shrugged.  “I usually take my girls camping, but I doubt that’s your shot of bourbon.”

Emma groaned and leaned against the counter of the faculty kitchen.  Jean interrupted her solitude a moment later.

“I heard you were wondering what to do for Christmas.”  Jean grinned.  It was clear she was enjoying this far too much.

“I am sure any input you would have would be exceedingly enlightening.”

“Designing your Christmas traditions is a very important part of becoming an independent adult.”

“I am an adult.  What I am not is a fan of meaningless calendrical events that are associated with greed, sloth, and gluttony.”

“You’ve never spent Christmas with Emily before?”

Emma frowned.  “Once.  It was an accident.  I didn’t realize what day it was.  I was in DC for a meeting, and I didn’t want to get a hotel, so I stopped by.  She had me come to her office Christmas party.  I made her boss incredibly jealous, and her so-called best friend incredibly annoyed.”  The memory of satisfaction was still strong.  And fucking Emily in the FBI bathroom was not something she would ever stop reminiscing fondly about.  “We had sex.  It wasn’t particularly festive sex.  It was just sex.  Don't get any ideas.”

“No presents?”

Emma grinned.  “Not… precisely.”

Jean rolled her eyes.  “I’m not the one with the ideas.”  Not for the first time she sympathized with Ororo’s rant about how it was a travesty that her dear childhood friend should be stuck with a shallow, sex-obsessed irritant like Emma Frost.  But, well, it wasn’t as if Emily was complaining.

Emma grinned again and licked her lips absently.

“Anyways, Emma.  Usually what people do is they take the family traditions they like best and combine them into a new tradition.  Kids like patterns, so tradition is good.”

Emma called Emily and proposed this solution.

“Any family traditions you particularly liked?”

Emily furrowed her brow.  “I don’t think we had family traditions.  There was usually a big party, and I had to wear a dress, which was terrible.  Then some well-meaning elder would offer me Champagne, and I would embarrass myself in front of various political and religious leaders, and wake up the next morning to my mom on the phone, averting some crisis that I had caused at said party, with a pounding headache.”

Emma laughed.  “You were a little lush, weren’t you?”

“It made me feel happy, for a little bit.”

“I know,” Emma said softly, and shook her head.  This was terrible.  “My family had a really wonderful tradition of trying to find the most horrible disgusting thing and wrapping it very fancily to fool the recipient into thinking it was something good.  It was mainly amongst my sisters and I.  My father found it hilarious, and my mother was too out of it to notice.  A win was three points, excitement, disappointment, and then horror.  I think I was ten when my sister started it with something easy, dog feces, because she was too lazy to go shopping.  The last time she got me, I had probably done something to deserve it, because she strangled my pet chinchilla, shaved it, and wrapped it up for me.  The next year I gave her photos of her boyfriend having anal sex with a transsexual male prostitute, and a positive VD exam.”  Emma actually giggled, as if the joy of vengeance was still very present with her.  Emily cringed.

“How about we let that one die?”

“The underage hangovers as well?”

“And the incredibly boring adult parties.”

“But we need some sort of ritual humiliation.  I’ve heard this is very important.”

“I’m sure we’ll come up with something,” Emily commented dryly.  Being young was often humiliation enough.  “So now we know what we won’t do.  What should we actually do?”

“Maybe we should make a list.”

Emily nodded.  “Tree or no tree?”

Emma grimaced.  “I’m generally against nature of any sort inside houses.”

“I’m against dragging a tree up five flights of stairs to my apartment.”

“Good.”  Emma jotted a note on the margin of her grade book.  “No tree.”

“Church?”

“Kill me first.”

Emily laughed.  “When we lived in the Ukraine, we would have the party, get incredibly sloshed, and then go to Church until 3 in the morning.  Church is incredibly more interesting when the walls are spinning.  The chanting, and the images moving, and Jesus’ corpse reaching out for you-“

“No!  No church.  I’ve had enough near-death experiences, I don’t need to simulate one.”

“Presents?  Real ones, not your type.”

Emma winced.  “It would probably be excessively unkind…”

“Morning or Evening?”

“Morning.”

“Why?”

“You have to torture them a little bit!”

“Food?”

“Oh, god.  I don’t know.  We were a ham family, and I stopped eating pork at age 12, so I fasted most of the time.”

Emily started to smile.  “That gives me an idea.”

“Becoming Hindu?”

“How about I handle dinner and you take breakfast, and we’ll play the rest by ear?”

“Meaning react when Deirdre starts to whine about something?”

“Exactly.”

“All right.  That sounds fine with me.”

“Good… when are you coming out?”

“Last day of classes is on the eighteenth, so… by the twenty-first?”

“I’ll tell Deirdre you’re coming on the nineteenth.”

“Bitch.”

“You know it.”

*            *            *

The morning of the nineteenth, Emma dropped her bag next to the sofa, pulled Emily into her arms and held her there for a minute.  Emily didn’t bother trying not to cling.

“You know,” Emma said, conversationally.  “Perhaps she doesn’t even know what Christmas is.  They might not have had it on her world.”

Emily tipped her head towards the door where a crayon sketch of a Christmas tree was hanging askew.  “School.”

“I see.”

“It’s very liberal.  She taught me to cook potato latkes, and we had a long productive discussion on the merits of Ramadan, delayed gratification, fasting and charitable acts.”

“The verdict?”

Emily grinned.  “While charity is all well and good, holidays should be about getting presents.”

“And the Free Market faith has yet another adherent.”

Emily tapped her nose and Emma tipped her head to kiss her.

*            *            *

12/20

“What do you mean we’re not getting a tree!” Didi exclaimed, like a CEO admonishing her idiot underlings.

Emily gave Emma a desperate glance, but Emma rolled her eyes behind her reading glasses and lifted up her paperback, sending a clear wordless message: Grow a backbone, darling.  Jubilee, in the middle of packing to spend Christmas in Connecticut with the Kishi family and then New Years at the St. Croix cabin in Vermont, paused to watch the show and grin.

“We live in an apartment, 5 stories up and no elevator.  We’re not getting a tree.  We can go to JJ’s and look at her tree.”

“But… but where will the presents go?”

This was not a question that had occurred to Emma or Emily.  They exchanged a look.

“We could do shoes?” offered Emily.  “You know, Dutch?”

Emma covered her eyes.

“No way!” Didi exclaimed.  “Shoes are way too small!”

“And everyone wants their gifts to have the rare and distinctive odor of foot.”

“Stockings?”

“Yes, because socks are such an improvement over shoes.”

Emily glowered at both other inhabitants of her once solitary apartment, her hands on her hips.  “Well, I don’t know what else to suggest!  Underwear has too many holes to successfully contain anything non-human shaped.”

Emma suddenly looked intrigued.  “Perhaps…”

“No!  No!  I don’t want to hear it!  Anywhere you’ve gone after mentioning underwear is a not-appropriate-for-small-children place!”

Jubilee snorted and hauled Didi off to distract her so her parents could argue.

Eventually they settled on a fake tropical plant and one thigh-high white leather boot.

Garcia, coming by to drop off her special chocolate dipped popcorn balls (made without peanut butter contamination just for Deirdre), spotted the boot and cracked up.  Then she decided that it was perfect and in the future she would always include a thigh-high leather boot as part of the decorations.

“Well,” Emma said, glancing over at Emily.  “That’s one tradition down.”

*            *            *

 

12/21

“What do you mean you haven’t done any shopping yet?”  This one was Emily.

Emma stiffened.  “What?  I’m not used to… trying to get things that people will actually want.”

“You read minds!  How hard can it be?”

Emma frowned and raised an eyebrow.  “Are you actually implying I get people what they really want for Christmas.  Because I’m rich, and a superhero, but I still think that’s beyond me.”

Emily blinked.  “What do you mean?”

“Let’s take your friend Morgan, for example.  What he really wants is to wake up on Christmas morning and find out that he doesn’t have job anymore, because there is no more need for what you do, no more children in trouble, or women getting murdered.”

Emily nodded, that sounded about right.

“And then Penelope, what she wants most of all is to finish the coding project she’s been working on for the last two years.  But she wants to have done it.  Barring that, she wants to have time to finish it, so you know, if I end all murder and violence to children I’ll at least have most of your colleagues covered.”  Emma thought for a moment and frowned.  “Mine would probably be satisfied with that as well, actually.”

“I think a lot of people would.”

“I would.  If I could have done it I would have done it for purely selfish reasons ten years ago, but unfortunately, I can’t.  Plan B?”

“What do you usually get people?”

“Something that they don’t want, but will probably be better for having.”

“Like?”

“For Morgan?  Maturity.  Penelope?  An instruction manual on how not to meddle in other people’s business.  Jennifer?  Just a taste of sensitivity to other people’s feelings.”

Emily rolled her eyes.  “Try this.  Get people not what they want, nor what they deserve, but something they will like.  Okay?”

“I’m a telepath, not a precognitive.”

“Take an educated guess.”

*            *            *

“So, what do you want for Christmas?”

The dead silence on the other end of the line suggested that Jubilee had shoved the phone into the bedspread so it wouldn’t pick up the sounds of her amusement.  When she brought it back she was still snickering.  “This is new for you, isn’t it?”

“Dickens lied,” Emma snapped.  “Even if Ebenezer Scrooge decided to turn over a new leaf, there’s no way he would have any idea how he was supposed to make people happy.  Being insensitive to other people’s wants is a character trait, not a conscious decision.”

“I see,” Jubilee said, and rattled off a list of six CDs.  Then she paused.  “Actually, what I really want is a copy of Kunstmythologie, by Böttiger, but it’s been out of print since 1811.  Still, if you never ask for impossible things you never get miracles.”

Emma snorted.  “1811.  Okay.  How are things in Connecticut?”

“Cold.  There’s like a foot of snow outside.”

From the background of the room Emma heard Janine’s calm sarcasm correct the measurement.  “Three inches.”

“And Nini’s little sister has been freaking out the whole time about how she can’t believe her boring sibling is dating someone ‘like her.’”  There was a small groan from the background.  “I think someone’s little sister has a bit of an incest obsession.”

The next groan was decidedly louder.

*            *            *

Emma lay flat on her stomach across from where Didi was playing intently with Emily’s CDs and eyed her carefully.  Unfortunately, although she wasn’t even from this universe, her DNA was still close enough to Emma’s to make mind-reading impossible.  But she was four.  She shouldn’t be that hard to please.

“What do you want for Christmas?”

Didi eyed her.  “Don’t go back to school,” she said, and Emma groaned internally.  She was worse than Emily.  Emily had basically said she was allowed to poke around in her head for the information she needed, but when she triggered the right thoughts by asking, “Well, what do you want then?” she had been hit by a flood of images and feelings that were all about her, about making Emily feel safe, and not leaving her alone again, and being something like a family, and then Emily had jerked them back, looked away, and muttered something about never having enough socks.

Sometimes people in general were really irritating.

 

*    *    *

12/22

JJ stared at the woman standing on her drive.  She looked at Emily and sighed, shaking her head.  “Oh no.  No, no, no.”

“JJ.”  Emily shrugged unhelpfully.  “I’m not going to just leave her at home.”

“Jennifer.”  Emma smiled, and ignored JJ’s tense expression as she offered to take her coat.  White leather with an artic fox collar, PETA would have a field day with this, JJ thought, on edge, waiting for Emma’s first comment.

But pointedly Emma did not make a comment about the size of the house, nor the mess on the straggly winter lawn.  She carefully looked at the overwhelming mass of Christmas decorations, the lights, the tree that was just a little too tall to stand entirely straight, but didn’t comment, nor did she comment on the IKEA furniture, nor even on the first activity, which was cookie baking.

Finally JJ couldn’t take it anymore.  “God!  Just say it!  Insult me!  Insult my house!  I can’t deal with imagining what you’re thinking!”

Emma was laughing at her.  Even Emily was covering her mouth.

“I told you,” Emma said to Emily between gasps.  “I knew she couldn’t take me being polite.  We have a perfectly functional antagonism, let us get on with it.”

“Fine,” Emily said, shaking her head.  “Fine.”  She left them, following Didi’s brisk thrust into the familiar house.

“So,” inquired JJ.  “The verdict?”

“It's very… picturesque,” said Emma, with a grin.  “Almost bourgeois.”

JJ rolled her eyes.  “I can take that.  My mother’s said worse things.  You take this.”

She handed Emma an apron, which Emma raised between two fingers as if holding a particularly monstrous centipede.  “Are you serious?”

JJ just turned and beckoned over her shoulder for Emma to follow.

Will was in the kitchen, wearing an apron himself and organizing bags of flour and other accoutrements.  He smiled at his wife, and then his eyes widened at the woman following.

“Oh, you’re Emma, right?”  Will looked nervous.  “I saw you at the party a year ago, but we never officially met.  I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All of it bad, I assume.”  Emma narrowed her eyes.  It was rather irritating to have everyone assume a first name familiarity with her.  And had they actually met?  He was entirely unfamiliar.

Will flushed and shrugged indecisively.

“Well, I’ve never heard anything about you, which suggests that you aren’t all that important.  So let’s call it even.”

JJ winced and tried to derail this conversational route.  “Henry!  Henry!  Come out.  You know everyone here!”

Henry looked suspicious and peeked out from behind the counter.  He shook his head.

“This is Emma.  Didi’s other… parent.  You’ve met her before.” 

Emma glanced down her nose at the small dirty-faced boy, who cowered, and then she looked away.

Henry ducked back behind the counter.

*            *            *

The cookie baking was going rather smoothly actually, Will mixing, Emily rolling out, Didi and Henry making a mess, JJ trying to keep things off the floor, and Emma supervising.  Emma liked supervising.  She made critical comments about the decorative patterns chosen for the cookies, which was generally every single type of sprinkle and colored sugar possible.  Didi ignored her, but Henry looked worried and tried to be tidier.  Emily eventually elbowed her in the side to make her shut up, and handed her the cookie cutter.

The final batch had just gone into the oven when the doorbell rang, and JJ made a small sound of despair before going to answer it.  Interested, Emma cast her mind out and winced.  It was Jennifer’s mother.  She was going to make herself scarce.

“I’ll dry,” she said, giving Will a look to let him know he was washing.  Emily blinked, bemused, and looked suspicious.  But, in vengeance for making her cut shapes out, Emma blocked her curious mental probe, put her nose in the air, and ignored her.

*            *            *

“Oh!  Isn’t she darling!  Jenny dear, when are you going to get around to giving me a granddaughter?”

Didi was sitting on Mrs. Jareau’s lap with an expression of ‘who is this woman, and what did I do to deserve such torture?’  JJ met her eyes with an apologetic look.

“Mom…”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong.  Henry’s lovely, a little apple, just like you were.”  She pinched Henry’s chubby cheek.  “But you should have gotten on it right away.  Farther than four years apart-”

“And they’ll hardly be like siblings, yes mom.  I know.”  JJ leaned into Emily’s ear.  “My brother an I are ten months apart.  I didn’t even want to think about sex with a cock for three months afterwards.  Just the thought… ten months.”

Emily gave her an uncomfortable look.  “I, um, never want to think about sex with cocks.  Especially not involving your mother.”

“Sorry!”  JJ grinned.  Finally, the tables had turned!

“You’re this darling’s mother?”  Mrs. Jareau inquired of Emily.

“Um, yes?” Emily was never quite sure how to answer that.

“Did you bring your husband?”

“Uh, no.”  She flashed her bare hand.  “No husband.  My, er, girlfriend is around somewhere… probably harassing the help.”

“Girlfriend?”  JJ’s mom looked at her curiously.  “I always wondered what that was like.  You know… sexually.”

Emily’s jaw moved up and down inchoately.  JJ covered her face.

“I would have asked Jenny, but all those girls looked so disappointed after the sleepovers, I was sure my little prude of a daughter hadn’t even suggested truth or dare.”

“Mom!”

Emily raised an eyebrow.  “JJ had a lot of girlfriends?”

“She was a lesbian magnet.  And until she was fifteen, she was the perfect tomboy.  Her sister finally took her aside and taught her the female mysteries.  It didn’t stop her from coming home covered in mud at least once a week.”

JJ groaned.  “I’m just going to go find Emma and get a little more humiliated, all right?”

*            *            *

Emily had decided that tonight was just a night for weird things to happen, Emma volunteering to help with the dishes, Didi actually not being blatantly rude to JJ’s mother…  Finally escaping from the living room where JJ’s mom was now busy grilling Will, she slipped into the kitchen and walked in on JJ and Emma standing together and laughing about something.  This was utterly bewildering.

“What’s… going on?”

JJ just covered her mouth, unable to stop laughing.

Emma gave her a somewhat disparaging grin.  “Only-children wouldn’t understand.”

“Oookay,” Emily ducked out to go look for Didi and Henry.  They were only-children too at least.

JJ turned to Emma, still snickering occasionally.  She shook her head.  “Older sisters really do suck.”

Emma nodded.  No one could top Adrienne, but barring outright murder, Jennifer’s sister could give anyone a run for her money.

JJ sighed, glancing toward the doorway that Emily had departed through.  “My mom keeps hassling me about having more, to keep Hen from being lonely.  But.”  She grimaced.  “Not yet.”

“Can’t face it?”

JJ eyed Emma speculatively.  “What about you?”  She wiggled her eyebrows.  “Going to give Didi a little sister to tyrannize?”

Emma looked horrified at the prospect.  “Why would you even-“

But JJ’s expression flickered from amused to pensive and considering.  “Kids… are something Emily’s always wanted, I think.  But she would never let herself have some just because she wanted to.  It would be irresponsible, and it seems like... she thinks she’s undeserving.  But she does deserve to have that liveliness in her life.  It’s good for her.  She always seems to walk a little too close…”  She couldn’t finish it.  Emma could.

“To death,” she said softly.  She knew exactly what JJ meant, and she wasn’t afraid of the words.  She didn’t believe in jinxes or curses, especially not ones that it was far too late to stop.

JJ nodded uncomfortably.  “So Didi was perfect.  It forced her hand.  But she deserves to get what she wants, once in her life, and maybe she wants more.”  JJ shrugged.  “You could ask.”

Emma’s lips tightened.  She really couldn’t.  

The timer went and there was a small stampede as Didi came charging in, followed by Emily with Henry on her shoulders.

“Cookies now!”

JJ shooed them away from the stove.  Emily set Henry on his feet and he babbled at her for a moment about the colored sprinkles he had put on his gingerbread men, and then let Didi drag him off.  Emily straightened, smiling, dragging her fingers through her hair.  “You done with your secret ‘I have siblings’ talk now?”

Something bitter and possessive uncurled in Emma’s stomach.  The feeling was familiar enough.  The image was new though.  She reached out, catching Emily around her waist and reeled her in.

“Hey!”

JJ glanced over, rolled her eyes, and turned back to the cookies.

Emma nosed her way into Emily’s hair.  “You smell like small child,” she muttered, and Emily squirmed in her grip until she could look her in the eye.  She caught Emma’s chin and held her still so she couldn’t look away.  Emma wasn’t about to.

“I know that look,” Emily murmured.  “Save it for later, okay?  JJ’s mom is way too interested.  No free shows.”

*            *            *

Dinner was pork-chops, mashed potatoes and peas.  Emma shifted hers around on her plate and ate nothing.  Didi and Henry made messes in their mashed potatoes until JJ snapped at them and made them stop.

Emily tried to dodge probing questions from JJ’s mother.

“Mama!” cried Henry.  “I can’t get my peas with my fork!  They run away!”

Frustrated and tired, JJ covered her eyes.  “Pick them up with your fingers.  I don’t care!”

Henry’s eyes widened and he looked like he was going to cry.  “But, but it’s bad to use my fingers.”  (Didi was having no compunctions about it.)

“It doesn’t matter.”

Henry scrunched up his face and looked like he was about to wail.  "But- but I can't be bad.  Or Santa-"

Emma had had enough and leaned over to put a butter knife in his hand.  “Use this.  Hold your fork flat and don’t stab.  It is appropriate to use your spoon.  Do not use your fingers.”

Emma demonstrated and Henry stared at her with wide eyes.  JJ was certain he was going to cry at any moment.  But he looked back down at his plate and approached his peas with a determined and careful technique.  When his plate was clear Henry cast Emma a shy searching look.

After dinner was finished there was coffee.  Henry crawled behind the couch and out the other side.  Then he tugged on Emma’s pants-leg.  Emma looked at him.  Henry put his arms up.  Emma narrowed her eyes, but Henry kept his arms up and stuck out his lower lip.

Emma gave up and shifted slightly so he could climb up next to her.  He moved easily and confidently into her lap.  Emily sat on her other side and grinned.  “Taken a shine to you?”

“I can’t imagine why.”

JJ, moving around with the coffee pot, rolled her eyes.  “Neither can I.”

*            *            *

Didi was asleep by the time they made it home, and Emma carried her into her room and put her to bed.  When she came out, Emily was in the kitchen, making tea.  She glanced up and smiled.

“Do you want me to make you a sandwich?”

Emma rolled her eyes.  “I can fend for myself.”

“I can make a sandwich for you as well.  It really doesn’t take that much effort.”

Emma shrugged and leaned on the counter across from her.  “Well, that was a vilely suburban evening, wasn’t it?”

Emily pushed her tea over and rummaged in the refrigerator.  “Refreshingly unique, really.”

Emma laughed.  “True enough.  Even Jean doesn’t try to get me to make cookies anymore.  She says I spoil the festive atmosphere.”

“It’s part of your charm.”  Emily put the second slice of bread on, cut the sandwich diagonally, and pushed it alongside the tea.  Emma lifted one edge of the crust and eyed it suspiciously.

“It actually looks edible.”

“I can cook, you know.”

“You microwave excellently.”  Emily rolled her eyes.  Emma ate some.  “And apparently you have developed a flair for sandwich making.”

“I have a harsh taskmistress these days.”

“That’s true.”

Emily propped her chin up on the heels of her hands, elbows on the counter, and just watched her.  Finally, finishing her sandwich, Emma met her eyes.

“What?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Emily said, her tone and expression still far too pleased.

“What?”  She could check, but she knew Emily would cave, and it was more entertaining to whine.

Emily leaned over the counter and kissed her, a chaste press of lips on lips.  Then sauntered out of the kitchen, past her.  “Henry likes you best,” she said, unable to hide her amusement, and Emma rolled her eyes, slid off the stool, and followed her to bed.

Part 2