Lycanthropy 6 END

[nike_ravus]

Title: Lycanthropy (Part 6) CONCLUSION

Author: Alsike

Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds x-over

Pairing: Emma Frost/Peter Parker, Emma Frost/Emily Prentiss

Rating: NC-17

AN/Disclaimer: Not my girls.

Word Count: 3052

Prompt: 034. Animalistic

Apologies: The end.  Now off to drink tea and attempt to be productive for a little while.

Summary: Love is just a symptom of a disease, a disease that makes you want to kill.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5
 

 

 

Emma couldn’t get away from her scent.  She couldn’t run fast enough to forget the way she felt while touching her, petting her fur, nuzzling between her shoulder blades.  She had never felt like that, like she couldn’t have enough of touching someone, like touching someone was enough to bring her off.

She hated this, hated that whatever she did she couldn’t control this.  She hadn’t planned on finding her, but she had let her feet take their own path and they had sought her out, she had let herself laugh when Emily had been acting crazy, let herself comfort her.  She had hated it when Emily had been ashamed of her beautiful fur, and she couldn’t let her stay that way, and then it had gone too far, and fine, if she had made a decision she wouldn’t have stopped it, she wouldn’t have regretted it, but her body had made the decision for her and she was not okay with that!

She didn’t go home that night.  She didn’t remember that night, except for anger and frustration and guilt, and cool air.

*            *            *

Emma had taken her shirt.  Emily picked twigs out of her hair and pressed her face against the abandoned clump of sweaty tank top, breathing it in and trying not to cry.  Her neck was raw and her fingers came away bloody, and she still had to fucking go back to work that afternoon!

Jubilee spotted her trying to sneak back to her office, her hair down to hide the marks on her neck, the tanktop barely preserving decency.  For once she wouldn’t have minded the fur.  From a distance it would have looked like she was wearing a black shirt, but between Emma fleeing and leaving her unsatisfied and Emily managing to bring herself to get up, it had retreated back to just a trail running down the back of her neck, like a shadow.  The student had given an amused wolf-whistle and then luckily let her crawl in through the window of her office in peace.

Miss Hartley walked in right as she was trying to do something about the open wound on her neck.  Emma clearly did not hold back when she bit, and she had sharp teeth!  The secretary gave her a sharp look.

“Sit,” she said, and turned and walked back out.  Feeling weak but sort of careless, as she was leaving tomorrow anyway, Emily obeyed.  Miss Hartley came back with disinfectant and bandages, and started cleaning up her neck.

“Thank you.”

Miss Hartley harrumphed.

“So you… you know?” 

The secretary didn’t answer.  She just cleaned the wound and Emily winced at the sting.

“You’re staying, I suppose,” she finally stated.  Emily stared at her, the words a heavy sledgehammer blow, or tried to, as Miss Hartley was keeping behind her and out of sight.

“What?” she asked weakly.

“She’s marked you.  Is she still denying that you’re hers?”

She wasn’t denying that.  It was the reverse that was in question.  Emily glanced down.  How did she know all of this?  But she had been there, for everything almost, every time Emily had rushed in, scattered and panicked, every time she had gotten angry.  She had even brought her tea after Emma had fled her office, mouth kiss-bruised and scared.  It was her St John’s Wort tea, one of the few things that could calm her down.  Tessa Hartley knew everything.  She had arranged the temporary substitute counselor to fill in for the rest of the year.  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, though she knew she knew it already.

“And when the bond calls you back?”

Emily jerked her head up.  She had never heard it said like that before.  “We’re not bonded.  She was very careful not to do anything she can’t take back!”

Miss Hartley paused in her bandaging.  “And you’re just going to accept that?”

“What?”

Tessa looked at her with those same narrowed eyes that she always had used when Emily was about to be too lenient with a student, or turn everything upside down because someone had asked nicely.  “You’re just going to roll over and let her use you when she wants to and ignore you when she’s too busy with her perfect life and perfect fiancé?  I thought you were the wolf.”

“What right do I have?”

“You have this right!”  The secretary jabbed her wound fiercely.  Emily yelped and felt her hackles rise up, the fur on her neck bristling.  “She marked you.  She came to you.”  She frowned, eyeing Emily suspiciously.  “But you still feel like you coerced her.  You feel like your disease coerced her.”

Emily watched her nails turn dusky and sharp.  “Didn't it?”

“You told your friend-”  Tessa frowned.  “The… interesting one, that it wasn’t love.  It was a biological bond, against your desire and against your will.  Is that still true?”

Emily wanted to cry now.  She hated crying.  The wolf in her hated it more.  “I just… I hoped that…  I was so happy.  I thought finally that maybe she had chosen me.  I couldn’t hold back feeling that way anymore.  I just wanted it to be okay for us.  I’m so tired of being lonely.  I’ve been lonely for my whole life and just for a moment it was possible, possible that I could have someone, something that I could trust.  And she’s kind, and too pretty, and I want to bring her coffee, and touch her face, and make her laugh, and I want her to want me back.  But if she doesn’t I can’t make her.”

Tessa gave her a hard look.  “You need to discount your guilt for a moment.  She’s not the one who’s being manipulated by her hormones.  That’s you.  But you weren’t the one who came to her.  You weren’t even the one who used her teeth.  You didn’t bite her, did you?”

Emily shook her head.  But she was beginning to feel angry instead of sad.  Perhaps she should have bitten her, given her a taste of what this felt like, how this ripped her apart.

“If you weren’t sick, would she owe you an explanation for what she did today?”

Yes!  Emily wanted to yell.  “I was trying so hard to do what she said!  I was staying away from her because she told me to!  I wasn’t even loitering in the hall outside her classroom.  She came to me.”

Why?  The question hit her like a punch to the face.  Why had she come?  If nothing had forced her, than she had to have wanted it.  Emily understood feeling guilty for wanting something, but you couldn’t take it and then give it back.  Deny the pleasure or take the blame.

Miss Hartley smiled tightly.  “You need to ask her what she’s thinking, before you leave town forever.  Perhaps, even, you need to take what’s yours.”

*            *            *

Peter wanted to do something nice for Emma.  He knew she hadn’t been feeling well, and had been unhappy with him, for reasons that seemed unclear.  He slipped into her house, pudding and movies in a bag, and readied things, doing a quick clean up, warming up some dinner. 

She didn’t come home when he expected her to, and she wasn’t picking up her phone.  He frowned, wondering where she could be.  But perhaps she had an appointment that she had forgotten to tell him about.  He put in one of the movies and watched it half-heartedly, glancing between the door and the clock more than at the screen.  Unexpectedly, he fell asleep.  He woke up groggy and miserable at three, to a blue screen, and dragged himself into Emma’s bed.

In the morning she still wasn’t home and Peter called the police. 

“Did she say she was going to meet you?” the officer asked.

“I was going to surprise her.”

The officer grunted as if to say, and now you caught her spending the night somewhere else, poor boy.  It sucks to know you’re not the only one.  “It’s too early, but we’ll send someone over anyways, ask around.”

A few minutes later Peter thought of the market on the corner.  Maybe they’d have seen her recently.  It was worth a try.  He hurried out the door.

There was a woman leaning against the wall, facing away from him, looking tense and rather worried.  He didn’t recognize her, but she was pretty enough, dark hair, slacks and a jacket with a bandage on her neck.  He trotted down the stairs and she looked up, surprised.

“You smell like her.”

Peter blinked.  He had never been accosted by a crazy person before.  “Um, sorry.”

“You’re her fiancé, aren’t you?”

“You’re talking about Emma?  Yes,” he said, suddenly threatened.  “She’s my fiancée.”  He stepped forward a little, challenging the slight woman to question that.

She didn’t.  She bared her teeth instead, and Peter felt a sudden flush of fear before she was flying at him, growling, teeth, claws, and all he remembered after that was screaming.

*            *            *

Emma saw it happen.  She had woken up in the woods, cold and confused, and hurried back to town.  She was almost home when she saw Emily, tense and unhappy, clearly waiting for her, and she froze.  She couldn’t face it, asking her why she had done what she had done.  She couldn’t face her.  And then Peter, worried and innocent of all of this, stepping out of her house, and spotting her.  She watched the two halves of her life collide, not nearly as afraid as she should have been.

 She didn’t hear what they said, but she saw Peter feel threatened, saw him challenge her.  And Emily didn’t look like anything much, but she was so much stronger and more dangerous than she seemed.  Peter spoke, and Emily’s face contorted into an ugly inhuman scowl.  And then there was blood, and screaming, and she ran.  She ran towards them, needing to stop this, save them from what was entirely her fault.  She had hardly taken three steps before a police car appeared, and screeched to a stop double parked outside her house.  Two officers jumped out.  Emily whirled on them, dropping Peter, who crumpled like a rag doll, half woman, half fur, all claws.  One grabbed her.  The other pulled a tranq-rifle out of the car.  Emma heard the shot, and dropped jarringly to her hands and knees.  Two bodies lay slumped on the ground.

*            *            *

Peter looked awful, lying there, his face, arms and chest bandaged, and this was her fault.  She had fought herself for too long, when there was no other choice, no way not to hurt someone, instead of just hurting him she had nearly gotten him killed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing he couldn’t hear her.  She slid off the ring and clenched it tightly in a fist.  “You told me, told me I shouldn’t fight it, didn’t need to fight it.  But I could have, and it could have been okay.  We could have been okay.  I didn’t though.  I didn’t choose.  Not because I didn’t know, but because of my stupid pride.  I couldn’t have you both and now I can’t have either of you.”  She drooped, “Fuck!”  She threw the ring.  It clinked violently against the window and then dropped to the floor.  She turned swiftly and walked out.

Emily was in a holding cell, drugged to the gills, and guarded at all moments by a policeman.  She ducked through the station, trying to find her way there, and ran smack into Dr McCoy.  He grabbed her arm when she tried to push past him.

“Stop,” he hissed at her.  “You shouldn’t see her.  You’ll only rile her up.”

“I need to see her.”

“You can’t.  You don’t have permission.”  He gave her a cold look.  “This didn’t have to happen this way.  I told her that she could stay in control.  But you threw yourself at her.  Do you think it matters if she finishes?  It’s about scent.  You left her bound to you and helpless and walked away!  No wonder she couldn’t control her anger, no one could, not like that!”  He grabbed her shoulders and shook them.  “I wanted her to survive this!”

“Do you think I didn’t?” Emma growled.

Dr McCoy’s eyes widened.  He grabbed her arm, shoving up the sleeve of Emily’s stolen shirt and exposing the thick white fur just prickling up from her wrist.  “You- you’re positive too?”

Emma jerked her arm away.  “Don’t touch me!”

“Are you medicating?” he asked, horrified.

“It’s not a disease,” she hissed, only half believing it herself.  “It’s a gift.  I tried to fight it.  I tried to throw it out.  But I’m not going to drug myself sick because I’m afraid of it.  I can control it, even if all that means is knowing when to let it control me.”

“You can’t walk around un-medicated!”

“I can and I will!  Hundreds of carriers do it, like the student who bit me!”  She should have been a carrier, she thought.  She might have been, if it hadn’t been for Emily.  But carriers aren’t immune from triggers.  She could have never known. 

“But you-“ Dr McCoy seemed to realize something, something terrible.  “When they send her away, you’re already bonded.  You could die.  You need to tell someone.  They might take you with her.”

“When?  I thought there was going to be a trial?”  The thought of volunteering to be shoved into a mental institution horrified her.  But it made her sick to think of Emily there alone.

“She attacked someone.  Police officers pulled her off.  If we’re lucky they’ll send her to an institution.”  And not kill her, went unsaid.

“And they’ll keep her full of drugs.  Keep her inside.”

Dr McCoy nodded.  “Keep her away from you.”

*            *            *

Emily was sitting in the dock, her clothes still dirty and stained with Peter’s blood.  There were hollows around her eyes that matched Emma’s.  She looked ratty and drugged and weak.  Emma just hoped that she would have enough time.  Emily’s hands were cuffed behind her back, a guard standing tense at her side, but she didn’t look strong enough to hurt anyone.

She sniffed the air once and glanced up, towards Emma, her eyes empty and yet begging.  “I’m sorry,” she mouthed, but Emma shook her head.  It wasn’t she who needed to apologize.

“She is a danger to herself and others.  The State of New York requests remand.”

It was a small arraignment in the small local courthouse, but these cases were thrilling to reporters.  Emily’s mother had sent a lawyer, who seemed to be more terrified of Emily than the prosecution, but she hadn’t come herself.  The reporters were snapping pictures, and interviewing each other.  They were too afraid to approach Emily, Peter was still unconscious, and Emma just gave them a look that would make a grown man wet himself if they tried to talk to her.

“Counselor?  Do you oppose the request for remand?”

“No,” the idiot of a lawyer said.  “Her mother would prefer it if the state would assist in keeping her from doing an injury to herself.  It has become apparent that she has not been taking her medication, and she is not to be trusted independently.”

 Emma wanted to kill him, but that would be a waste of time.  Right now everyone was focused on the bench, and she breathed out, letting the wolf take over.  This is what she realized she could do last night, realized that she couldn’t fight it, didn’t want to fight it.  There was nothing more real than this.

It wanted, so badly, to go to its mate, to mend her and comfort her, and it saw the threat that was this whole room, these stinking humans keeping them apart.  She gathered herself and leapt, falling like a bomb from the balcony, a wolf landing on the prosecution table, scattering papers and pens under her paws.  The young assistant DA screamed and fell over backwards.  Emma lunged for the guard standing beside Emily and he jerked back, terrified of the teeth and of the disease they carried.  She twisted into the dock, grabbing Emily’s pant leg, tugging.  Emily staggered to her feet, and then fell a little.  Emma bit her leg harshly and she howled, but it worked, she changed, her paws slipping out of the cuffs and they ran.

They burst out of the courtroom and loped through the halls, two wolves, one dark, one light.  They charged past the stunned security guard, knocking him off his feet, and fled down the street towards the edge of town and the forest, leaving the sounds of pursuit far behind.

Emily was weak.  The drugs made it hard to maintain the change, and they had only made it a few miles into the woods when she was staggering, half human on her hands, half wolf on two feet.  Emma found a fallen tree and scrabbled away at the dirt, clearing out the burrow beneath it.  She led Emily in, pushing her with her nose and tugging with her teeth when she hesitated, but she was too tired, too weak to resist, or question why, and she drooped into the burrow, on the cool moist earth, already fading.  Emma tugged boughs in front of the opening, guarding it, from passing eyes, and then moved inside the darkness.  She curled up, a hot furry mass on Emily’s stomach.

Tomorrow, Emma thought, when the drugs had worn off, they would head into the mountains, get far away until she was healthy again.  Then, who knew?  Go back to a different town, a different city?  Try to pass?  Cross the border into Canada?  Or stay in the forest, find a place outside of society.  She would explain too, ask forgiveness for the lies she had told, for how she had been so stupid to fight this tooth and nail because she thought it wasn’t real, thought that anything that strong, that overwhelming could never be read.  But that was tomorrow.  For now, at least, she could curl up in the dark little burrow and feel the heat of her mate’s body against her own.

 

FIN

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Always a pleasure! Love the yin and yang imagery of the dark and light wolves. All questions from chapter 1 answered.

[cmfanz.livejournal.com]

Typing the words as they're coming:

Beautiful
Angsty
Thoughtful

Thanks for the excellent work and read you soon.

[theatrekid510.livejournal.com]

i know im only posting on this story now, but i wanted to wait until the end...you always know how to capture emma/emily angst so well and this is no different. though i had to work a bit more to envision this AU, it was amazing. i liked how their bond overpowered anything society could have possibly thrown at or done to them. keep writing...i really look forward to all your stories with this pairing!

[atrumnoxnoctis.livejournal.com]

Up until the end there, I thought only you and I knew who Miss Hartley was! <3 Still, you did an amazing job of keeping Sage in character, so kudos to you! I was hoping that she'd be a werewolf too, actually, with all her knowledge concerning certain matters of lycanthropy and whatnot. I mean, with her usual, in-control demeanor, you'd think that she'd make an incredible one. Ah, but thanks for including the little Sage/Garcia in one of your earlier chapters and in this one as well! It made me squee with happiness!

We didn't one of the traditional happy ending scenes in the conclusion of this fic, but I'm actually pretty satisfied with the way this all turned out. The usual norms of a relationship are thrown out in place of a more animalistic one, so it's understandable that things aren't always going to go smoothly. Congrats on finishing up another piece. *blinks* I guess this means you have about five prompts left now for the Citrus table, right?

*sighs* Damn, I've been in a slump with my own writing. I've been so down lately. Ah, but still, expect an e-mail from me later tonight. >>;

[nike-ravus.livejournal.com]

ooh? An email? Yay! I have been Waiting!

Regarding citrus taste... (This one really should have counted for Orgasm Denial tooo, but there wasn't really enough sex in it to make it count twice)... They have a new summer challenge. It intrigues me.

http://community.livejournal.com/citrus_taste/76613.html

I am thinking about doing it.

[atrumnoxnoctis.livejournal.com]

*blinks* Damn, that was quick. o.o Lol! What, were you waiting and lurking all this time for me to respond or something? Just kidding! Just kidding!

*clicks link* Oo~ Some of those prompts sound fun. I'd love to see what you'd do with a few of them if you really do decide to participate!

Ack, but I'm sorry to have kept you waiting so long for that prologue of mine, which I'm still uncertain about sending your way. Er, but to reward your patience, expect a few drabbles about another pairing that I'm planning on including in my fic. >>; Wanna take a guess about what that pairing is? X3

[nike-ravus.livejournal.com]

:D
I think i know. :)
And don't be afraid, I'm sure it will be great, and I like giving advice enough to give advice even if it's totally fine. But I can also dig in if you think it needs work.

I'm actually thinking of turning the prompts into a single running storyline AU. When you mentioned your special pairing I was like, Oh! I should include that! But I think Cordy might be like 10 or something, which would make it creepy. But creepy is good, right?

Query: do you know the sisters' relative ages? Or have some guess? 2 yrs? 4 yrs?

Yeah, I'm lurking away, well, actually working on aforementioned prompts with gmail open.

[atrumnoxnoctis.livejournal.com]

*is suspicious* Do you now? <<; God, not only are you an amazing writer, but you're a mind reader too?! I cannot compete! *cries* T_T

Eh, it probably still needs work. I might have to delay it again for a bit, but I'll still send you those drabbles though. It'll be something nice and amusing to tide you over with until I can wrap my head about how to go about this prologue of mine. @_@

Ah, a single-running storyline would probably be the easiest and most fun route. I was going to say that at least the new table had only twenty prompts as opposed to fifty to work with, but it seems that you already have a good idea of how you're going to accomplish this new challenge.

*snorts* My special pairing. <3 It looks like I've managed to convert another shipper to it, so yay me! Eh, but considering how old you make Cordy's sisters, she might not be as young as you'd think. Then again, if you want to keep her around ten, that'd be fine. It's not like you-know-who is gonna mind. God, it's not like she cares about conventional norms, seeing as how she's ages upon ages old in the comic-verse. <<;

I had to get my comics out to get an answer to your query, so my apologies for the wait. Let's see... as far as a family backstory goes, I only have the solo series of Emma Frost as a reference, but from what I see, it looked like Christian (if you decide to include him) was already old enough to live on his own. Adrienne was still living with her parents, but if I had to guess, she probably would've been well into college by then. Interesting tidbit: she was actually a model for a short time before Emma broke the news to Daddy Frost and had her dreams dashed away. Emma herself was at a prep school of some sort, but I'd wager that she was in junior or senior at the time. She was in college by the third book though, and that occurred about two years after she left home according to the timeline. Cordelia is a little rebel, but it looked like she was still a teenager at the time. I'd guess at around fourteen or fifteen at the very oldest.

Recap (according to my assumptions of the first book): Cordelia = 14 or 15 (I'd say 13 would be the bare minimum though); Emma = 16 or 17; Adrienne = early twenties; Christian = mid-twenties or so. Er, of course, this is just my opinion though. I know ComicVine doesn't keep a record of a character's age. I mean, if we go by the timeline in which Emma was first shown in the comics, Emma would be pretty old by now, right? ^^;

[nike-ravus.livejournal.com]

Comics timelines are a pain! I like to keep mine standard..ish though, even if that means I throw out half of canon to do it. So Cordelia and Emma are 2-3 years apart? If we go by ancient backstory of Emma she had already left home at 16. I feel like they're not very close, and they don't go to school together (not even in the same car, right?), so Emma's probably in HS while Cordelia's in middle school, although apparently already doing drugs?

Hmm I always thought Adrienne was older than Christian, though that may be just because she survives as a character longer.

So if Emma's just fourteen (March B-day in my canon) Cordelia's probably 11, 12 at the most, Adrienne's 18 and Christian's 20? does this sound plausible?

[atrumnoxnoctis.livejournal.com]

Cordelia and Emma aren't close at all. I think it was in the New Mutants series that Emma stated that she didn't want to see her sister again after Cordy tried to manipulate her into getting into the Hellfire Club. Cordy hasn't been seen since as far as I've heard. Uh, but from the backstory, you're right. They don't go to school together or even in the same car, and seeing as how Daddy Frost has to uphold his family image to the public, I'd doubt he'd send his youngest to anywhere but the best schools or allow her to be expelled (he's manipulated school staff before). With that said, that led me to believe that Cordy was only a few years younger than Emma and in middle school (doing drugs as you pointed out). Personally, I think with her punk rebel look and the fact that she does drugs was just a way of wanting attention (and maybe some love) from her parents. Winston may have something of an invested interest in his children's lives (making sure they're not out in public trying to humiliate him), but he's hardly the most caring father. Hazel was just pretty out of it with all her prescription drugs though.

*blinks* Oh, wait. I think you may have a point there. >> Christian's the firstborn son and first appointed heir of the Frost family, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's the oldest. Lol. I just saw "firstborn" and naturally assumed that he had been born first. Sorry. ^^; Still, from his appearance, he's a fair bit older than Cordy and Emma though. Perhaps he's closer to Adrienne in age than I thought. Regardless, I don't remember reading anything in the comics that said he had died or anything. He was taken away to a mental institution though after his apparent suicide attempt though.

The ages you mentioned do sound plausible though. I don't think Adrienne and Christian are too far apart in age.

[mauders.livejournal.com]

I thought there was more to Miss Hartley. Should have guessed it was Sage.

Wonderful story and to get it all in one week is a rare treat from you, so thank you. Always a pleasure to read your stuff.

[katiepult.livejournal.com]

Talking about computers with Garcia... Dispassionate... Man, I should have known that was Tessa! Sneaky, sneaky! :) Nicely done that.

Anyways, you had me worried there, I thought this was going to be another one of your un-happy endings. phew. It wasn't tho. Chicken-shit Emma is not chicken-shit! whoooohoooo! :D

(two wolves, one dark, one light)...haha, I knew Emma would be a white wolf :P Couldn't be another way! *wonders if she dyes her roots every month? hehe*

[charliechapfan.livejournal.com]

I never read comics. However, I was curious and I stopped to read your story. I am so glad I did. That was very entertaining. I loved the drama and how you brought these two together. You have a new fan.

[nike-ravus.livejournal.com]

Why thank you! I'm so glad that you took the risk. I did pick a pretty whacked out pairing to become obsessed with (it worked in my head, but a lot of things work there that don't work for anyone else). I hope you stick around. I will not try to convert you to comics! (I just followed Joss there and found Emma and then ran away with her.)

Thank you again!

[semerket.livejournal.com]

awesome ending!! I'm was so worried you'd do that unhappy ending thing lol. always a pleasure! :D

[rebelbyrdie.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous AU. You never cease to amaze me.

[rue-valerian.livejournal.com]

great, great, great.
loved it! creative genius.

[ryoshu.livejournal.com]

nice twist at the end. I found the ending believable. the interaction between Emily and Tessa was tart. Thanks again. Now I will the whole piece through in one sitting. sweetness.

[chikikosaotome.livejournal.com]

And you didn't like this story? seriously? i really enjoyed it. I'm not to happy with myself for totally overlooking all the obvious signs that hartly was tessa. seriously the computer scene with garcia should have given it away. but apparently i'm slow. speaking of tessa, the scene with her and emily was really nice. I felt all sad and emotionally charged as Emily was saying show she felt thinking that Emma had chosen her. for a story you didn't like it was very nice.

[taz-paradigm.livejournal.com]

Of all your non-diamond continuity fics, this one is perhaps my favorite. It really highlights the explosive (instinctual) passion. And the image of them running together, a dark and a light wolf, really shows how beautifully they contrast in both looks and personality- but how they also fit together so well.

[antiapathy2010.livejournal.com]

Absolutely lovely. I could have read this forever.