Fic preview, 'Shattered'

[summer_jackel]

Intested in a spot of fanfic?
X-men, R-ish rated, a bittersweet romance between Emma and Henry. Quite furry. (well, it involves *Henry*.)

This rose from an email conversation with Princess Alexandria, where it came out that we both share a certain level of annoyance at Scott's treatment of Emma in the recent run of X-men stories. Henry is just so much better for her. And the pairing is so *sweet*.

The fic is posted in the comments to this entry. If you feedback me I will be very happy, and may even preview other fics to this journal. What more incentive can I offer?

Comments

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

"I'm fine." Her voice holds an edge of pique, as it always does, and arrogance, but there is something beneath it now, something brittle, something almost afraid. "I've been fine for a week. You can let me out of the hospital wing." Unspoken, there is the rest of the sentence, the command: "and you will."

The doctor sighs heavily, his enormous chest moving beneath the white lab coat, and he turns away from her. "I suppose that you are correct." He walks away to fiddle with his instruments, but slowly, because the delicate, precise machines were never designed for his huge paws. She has seen them slip, has heard him curse them several times in the last week, when he did not think she was listening; had heard the raw frustration in his voice. Something in her is hurt by that, and it surprises her.

"You are free to go, Emma. You are correct in your estimation; your health seems adequate."

The soft, faintly slurred growl that his voice has become holds almost an element of mockery, or something darker, and he will not look at her. She stares fixedly at the back of his head, the longer, darker blue fur slicked carefully down against the short, thick plush that covers the rest of him, his small, feline ears laid back. "Please do take efforts not to overextend yourself, and rest for at least the next several weeks. You may feel the veritable epitome of health, but please recall that a mere seven days ago you were shattered into two hundred thousand, three hundred and eighty six very small pieces, and I do not relish the task of attempting to reassemble them again."

The determined expression falters on her pale face; for a moment, horror flashes in blue eyes clear as the facet of diamond, but he does not see it.

"Of course, Doctor," she answers, her voice cool and professional. She turns and walks away, her heels an imperious staccato on his medlab floor.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

No one waits for her. She might even have welcomed Jean, but there is no sign of the Phoenix to be had, though Emma can still feel the ghost of that terrible, living fire in her mind, in every cell of her, and probably always will. Thinking of that, she shivers, and feels still more alone.

Has she not done enough for them that they care for her, she wonders with brief venom, but upon further reflection supposes not. Curled on her side in the pale, luxurious expanse of her bed, staring moodily out at the deepening shadows in the garden, she waits for comfort that will never come. Not her girls, not Jean, not even...not even him.

She died, she was shattered, and he never came home for her.

In her white silk gown, Emma Frost shivers, and her sky-pale eyes are tired.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

She knocks upon his door. It is late and the mansion is quiet, but there is still light coming from underneath the jamb. She was surprised not to find him in his lab; in the last week, he had seemed to live there.

No response; she knocks again. The door comes open a little too forcefully; the surprised widening of his small, golden eyes is comical.

"May I come in?" The arch of her brow makes it less of a question.

"Of...of course." Was that hesitation? The doctor is never at a loss for words.

She pads into his suite. It is messy, not in the manner of someone who is habitually cluttered, but rather the quarters of an otherwise neat man who has been under great stress. Books are the overwhelming theme of his decor, and there is almost as much equipment, half of it in pieces, as in the lab.

You must like putting things back together, Henry, she thinks.

He watches her warily. She realizes that he is dressed only in loose, ancient black sweatpants. His thick blue fur is damp, and there is a scent in the room similar to recently bathed dog, though it is not unpleasant. She can hear the shower fan still running. His hair is wetter than all the fur, and hangs around his small ears in neat ringlets. There is tension in his pose.

Henry, what exactly did I do to hurt you?

"How do you feel, Emma?" he asks.

She sighs and crosses her arms across her silk-clad chest, thinking with a little irony that she wears more to bed than she does as part of her daily costume. "Physically? Fine. I suppose that I am...more perturbed, by this experience, than I had realized."

The faintest smile touches his wide muzzle, flashing the edge of fangs that are each as long and pale as her hand; the velvet around his whiskers crinkles, and the slate blue nose leather, as damp as the rest of him, twitches minutely. The set of his broad shoulders relaxes somewhat, and she is surprised at the simple happiness that brings her.

"Perturbed. Indeed, yes, I suppose that I would be as well. Rest assured that I believe you will make a full recovery."

"Then I won't doubt it." The ghost of a smile touches her full lips, though it does not thaw her eyes; he watches it intently. "Henry. I never thanked you for what you did." She glides up to him, her elegant hands held in loose fists at her sides, and wills her expression to hold what she never wants it to hold: honesty, pain, the memory of fear. "I truly appreciate it."

"You do not need to thank me, Emma." His voice is soft, dry, and there is new tension in his warm golden eyes, the set of his huge chest. "Besides, it was Jean who...repaired you. I could not."

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

There is such quiet pain in those words. Cold anger flares briefly in the White Queen's heart: why has this one never learned to hide such things, to protect himself, especially from the likes of her? She stands on the tips of her toes, suddenly reaching for him, and touches her lips to the broad, moist end of his muzzle.

He starts to jump back; with dry amusement, she can feel the fur raising on his burly shoulders; she holds onto him. It is nothing at all like kissing someone...more human-shaped, but it is not unpleasant, as she had at one time feared. The fur around his mouth is shorter, softer even than good mink, the leather of his nose cool against her forehead. She deepens the kiss, darting her tongue against the curve of canine, exploring the edge of his own. It is rough, like the tongue of the lion he resembles. This time, he does pull away, and there is nothing she can do to stop him.

"Emma." There is almost anger in his voice, a world, a universe of frustration and pain in the deep gold eyes which again refuse to meet her own. He paces a little, folds his huge, furred arms across his chest as if to shield himself, as if to comfort himself. She does not miss the bulge in his sweatpants, impressive in bulk as the rest of him; a tiny and rather wicked grin flicks across her regal features as he turns away from her. "Go away, Emma. Go back to your suite and go to bed."

Her smile deepens. "If you'll come with me."

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

He wheels back around, and for a moment, her instincts tell her to flee, tell her that this bestial creature will attack her, though she has never known Henry to be anything other than utterly gentle. He sees her sudden tension, and his face crumples, his ears sinking miserably into the fur. "Please do not do this." His voice is level, professional.

"And why not?" She is surprised by the bitterness in her words. "You want me. I'm a telepath. I know."

"Not a particularly ethical telepath, if you know," he grumbles.

“My dear,” she chuckles richly, “since when have I been renowned for my ethics?”

"What about Scott?"

Emma swallows and folds her arms over her chest again; she knew that he would bring this up, that he had to, and she is annoyed that she needs to explain herself to anyone, that anyone even knows this. But she is surprised by how it hurts.

“Scott wasn’t there.” Her voice is low, and now it is her turn to look away, not to meet the keen intelligence searching in his animal eyes. “I was...shattered. And he didn’t do anything.”

She pauses for a moment; Henry watches her with compassion and concern, bu says nothing. “He never even touched me, you know, outside of my mind.” She feels the weight of his hand on her shoulder then, a paw the size of her head. “It’s over with Scott.”

Suddenly, she is fighting tears, and she hates herself for that, because she loved Scott, and knows she shouldn’t. She feels his claws running carefully through the impeccable platinum fall of her hair, cupping the back of her skull, and there is a note of triumph in her tiny, sad smile.

She turns to face him. His expression is wise and mournful, but there is a wariness in his gentle golden gaze to temper the longing. This stings her, but she forces herself to remember that she has earned it.

“And what would you have of me, my lady?” The doctor’s growling voice is a harsh, pained whisper. “What exactly do you want?”

“I’m not certain,” she admits, despising the wince she sees in hs eyes, the way he pulls into himself. “I know that I don’t want to be alone right now. That I’m scared.”

“I do not want to be...used, Emma. Though I would be lying if I denied my attraction.”

She remembers the evidence of his attraction all too well, and color blooms like rosebuds in her sculpted cheeks, a tight longing of her own clenching deep inside her.

“I’m not like that...well, I’m not like that all the time.” He does not laugh at her feeble joke. She begins to pace. “You wanted to sing opera to me, badly and off key. You were there...you tried to put me back together. No one else even tried.” The shock of it shines in her broken-glass eyes. “I trust you. I really don’t want to hurt you.”

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

His enormous, furred hand is shaking slightly as he raises it to cup her jaw, tilts her face upwards, stares into her features searchingly and a little desperately. The side of his thumb brushes against her mouth.

“Jean found these beautiful lips,” he rumbles harshly, “beneath the sofa. It was horrible. I felt so helpless. But I could not bring myself to believe that you were gone, that nothing could be done.”

She looks up to him almost beseechingly. “If Jean hadn’t been able to do what she can,” the White Queen asks wistfully, “would you have kept a piece to remember me by?”

“Emma.” His growling baritone is as serious as his careful grip on her bare arms, clawed paws that engulf them. “I would have kept all of them.”

He bends his leonine head to hers, and the wide maw gapes incrementally as a pink slip of tongue delicately touches her lips. She wraps her arms around the heavy, maned neck, bringing his muzzle down to her mouth, grazing the dark blue-gray leather of his damp nose with her teeth. Craning her head up to reach him hurts her neck; she buries her head in the soft, deep fur of his chest and closes her eyes as his arms close around her.

She is a tall woman, but beside him she is tiny; she has never been so completely engulfed since she was a small child. She did not feel so comforted, even then. Emma holds him as tightly as she can, knowing that she cannot hurt him, at least not physically.

He is warm, his thick fur silken against her cheek. She runs her fingers through it, breathing in the pleasant musk as she works his fingers down his spine. She reaches just below the hem of his pants, and he tenses as she finds his short, lynx-like tail. Relaxing as he realizes she will not run from him, that she is serious, he shivers in her arms.

His maleness rises against her; with a knowing smile, the White Queen presses her belly closer, rubbing against him wantonly. The movement earns her a tiny, stifled mew. Emma rubs her cheek against his fur, catlike, and laughs, a little startled.

“Doctor McCoy,” she breathes, “You purr.”

“The circumstances which altered my appearance to its present constituency,” he explained, “added a [technical term for the organ that allows cats to purr] to my vocal cords, thereby...”

A touch of her fingers to his muzzle silences him. “Henry.”

His features quirk into a sheepish grin; eyes of liquid gold soften. “I purr.”

“I love it,” she murmurs. “Will you purr for me, lovely Beast?”

“My lady,” he tells her carefully, his quiet purr never abating, “I will do any number of things for you, including that.”

And he scoops her up carefully. The White Queen makes a low, pleasured sound as she twines small fingers in his mane, pulls his heavy animal head forward to hers to kiss him again, boldly exploring the contours of his muzzle, soft velvet and dagger fangs, his hesitant feline tongue.

Emma smoothes his stiff whiskers, nibbles her lightly. He licks her from jaw to temple, not roughly enough to harm the delicate skin, before beginning to groom her white-blond hair.

She squeals a protest as he holds her tighter, and his purr deepens. She buries her face in the fur below his jaw, and laughs softly as he carries her to the bed, though there are still tears glittering like diamonds on her cheeks.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

“I’m not shattered any more,” she whispers, a great deal later.

“No,” he breathes into superheated skin. “Nor am I.”

fin?

The way cats purr...

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

D'oh! I meant to look up the name of the organ that causes cats to purr and replace the appropriate bit in the story. Ah, well. I'll do it before I post the thing anywhere else.

Anyone know what it is and want to save me the research?

Re: The way cats purr...

[ravenwulf.livejournal.com]

I think its just their voicebox from what I've been told. it just works in a different way. for a cat ro purr, it uses both the voicebox and the diaphram together to make the purring noise.

Re: The way cats purr...

[ravenwulf.livejournal.com]

nice fic by the way =)

Re: The way cats purr...

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Thanks. =)
I need to find some sort of veternary text explaining this process so that Henry can start to explain it to Emma...because that is what he'd do...

[doppleganger55.livejournal.com]

Awesome, I see I'm not the only one that got vibes off of Emma and Beast. You should post this at Gargoyles X in that non-Garg pimping thread. Hope you continue with this. You could do the predictable i.e. Scott finding out about Emma and Henry and he and Beast duke it out. Or maybe Emma gets preggers. I've always wanted to see Beast as a father. I think he would do a wonderful job.

Doppleganger

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it! At the moment, I don't have any plans to continue this; I have too many projects on the table as it is to get overly involved in this one. But I do wonder what happens next.

And yeah, Emma/Henry...they are so the obvious couple! But then I'm biased. I love Henry and dislike Scott intensely.

Jackel