Emma, Doug and Marie-Ange
Feb. 24th, 2009 10:00 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsEmma had long since perfected the art of not waiting for anyone. Being late for an appointment was an option that anyone employed by or attempting to deal with Frost Enterprises had long since discarded. Emma herself had learned to schedule her tasks to allow her to finalise as the people she was meeting arrived.
Thus she finished reading the last page of the report she had commissioned into Shaw's latest travel arrangements as the knock sounded on her door. She slipped her telepathic #Come in# into the minds of Doug and Marie-Ange, brushing it lightly enough to just make it past their shields.
Doug opened the door and preceded Marie-Ange into the room. He seated himself in one of the two chairs facing Emma's desk without saying anything. He wasn't exactly sure what to expect, or why Emma had indicated that Marie-Ange should be present. The uncertainty was making him a little more taciturn than usual, and his eyes flicked around, taking everything in.
By comparison, Marie-Ange was, at least on the surface, calm and unworried. But then, it wasn't her mind that was in need of repairing. At least, not in any way that a mind could be repaired - Marie-Ange was broken in ways that Doug was not. And since this meeting was about Doug, she was secondary, in her mind, no need to worry or fret, she was there to be support in one way or another.
Emma waved Doug and Marie-Ange to sit and briefly contemplated them before speaking. "I don't think there's any need for polite preliminaries," she said. "You both know what I did to Doug to defeat Ignatova. I want to put that right. It will require extensive telepathic therapy." Her fingers tapped lightly on the report she had just finalised. "Shaw is making moves; unpleasant moves. The Black Court requires a counterbalance. I need my new Court and I require my White Knight, fully functional and effective."
Emma leaned back in her chair. "Necessity drives me. To such an extent that I cannot be . . . trusted. There is a chance, given unfettered access, that I will turn Doug entirely into what I require in a Knight. Such an outcome is not, perhaps, ethically appropriate. As such, I would request that Marie-Ange join us in the therapy sessions. To ensure that I do not lead Doug too far astray."
And Emma expected her to prevent this? Marie-Ange raised an eyebrow fractionally before reconsidering it. Not that a poker face really helped matters at all with Emma Frost, especally where Marie-Ange was concerned. Her shields were flimsy at best and nearly non-existent even on a good day. "I ... will do what I can." She said after some quiet thought. She wasn't quite sure she was the best choice for this, but at the same time, couldn't think of anyone else suited to it either.
"To the death ninja style telepathic battles are not required," said Emma. "Polite reminders of the boundaries should be more than sufficient." She looked down at the report again, a visual reminder of Shaw's perfidy. "To have a universal translator subject to my every whim is somewhat tempting." She looked up again at Doug. "Are you ready for it? To have everything back?" she asked him.
Doug had felt almost secondary to the interaction between Emma and Marie-Ange, and was fairly sure he'd missed some of what had passed between the two. But he trusted Marie-Ange implicitly, and despite Emma's words about not being trusted, he did trust her as well. He nodded and sat back in his chair, ready for Emma to begin.
Emma leaned back in her chair, anchoring herself in reality, a slight smile on her pale lips. "So very trusting," she murmured and then stepped back into Doug's mindscape. She inspected the scaffolding she had rebuilt, and noted with pleasure that it had strengthened and shaped itself even more clearly into something identifiable as Doug. Then she stepped sideways into the hall of mirrors, facing again the Doug closed in his hall of mirrors and closed doors, the Doug she thought of as her true White Knight, clear-eyed and hard of purpose, completely focussed as he had been on a task that no longer had meaning. Temptation surged through her again, to destroy the scaffolding she had built, to bring this Knight into the world, but she reached out her mind again, touched Marie-Ange's mind lightly, letting its anxiety and hope guide her.
She did not ask Doug if he was ready; he had told her that back in her office.
Emma reached out with her mind and caught the handles of the doors so firmly closed within the hall of mirrors. With a sharp tug, she pulled them all open at once.
There was a rush of images, a shout that was half-pain, half-exultation from the Doug in front of her and then the walls fell in.
hunched figure red area growing pot anthropomorphic insectoids diamond queen rice-paper screens lab coat no distractions angie forge amanda me gunshot xorn interconnectedness salsa meme no distractions emerald fire kick circuitry expanding subservience dominance no distractions control freedom good enough knight trojan horse
It was as though Emma had opened a sluice in his brain, and now all of the information that had been dammed behind it was flooding back in, a thousand different images and thoughts and emotions all at once, and Doug thought it was a wonder his head didn't simply pop under the pressure of it all. His power, the same power that Emma had originally gone in to remove those things that distracted him from using it to full effect, struggled under the deluge, attempting to parse the overload back into the places those pieces of his self had previously lived.
Those pieces had to somehow mesh with all the experiences that Doug had had starting from the moment Emma had kissed his forehead (he remembered now, a strangely tender moment of her brushing the hair back from his forehead and murmuring 'sleep') to Emma leaning back in her chair ('so very trusting'). The memories blended in chaotic and sometimes unpredictable fashion. Such a good boy, a memory of Emma murmured silkily as she reclined on an imaginary bed, and the libido that had been denied, and in fact not even existed, for those several months came roaring back in a torrent that left his head spinning even as he clutched it in pain. His hips shifted from side to side as his hands fisted in his hair and the slightest trickle of blood seeped from one nostril.
Marie-Ange had seen, or felt, or heard, or thought, she wasn't sure if it was any of those, or all of them, glimpses of the torrent that rushed back to Doug. The strange well that was the expression of her precognition in her mind tugged at the thoughts, let her share a fraction of what Doug felt.
The pale astral image that was Marie-Ange observing Emma was impassive, there was little she could do except be there. Any more than that ran too much of a risk of the precognitive 'well' harming Doug. But in the office, she reached out to gently pry Doug's fingers out of his hair, enclosing his hands in hers.
Emma observed the chaos that was Doug's mind, the roaring torrent of images, using her touch lightly to guide certain thought processes back into their appropriate places, letting other less important ones go by and settle where they would. Some things could be repaired later; her vigilance was to ensure that those things that needed to be in the right place from the beginning, were in the right place. Her touch was deft and gentle and left no trace, even as the torrent slowed, became more manageable as Doug's power shifted to a higher intensity.
Some memories and thoughts slotted back easily into their previous spaces, or meshed effortlessly with the events of the past several months. But some of the memories rubbed against each other, with a feeling like that of two pieces of jagged metal scraping painfully together.
As Doug exhaled, he applied steady pressure, and the first shot roared out of the gun. It missed high and to the right as his target tried to crouch and finish reloading. The Glock roared again and again, Doug's shots coming metronome-precise, slightly less than a second apart. The second shot chipped concrete to the left of his target, but the third hit home on the green man's shoulder, causing him to stagger back. The fourth and fifth ripped through his thigh, and Doug continued to fire until the slide clicked open on an empty clip.
A harsh crack sounded through the afternoon air, and Doug staggered backward as though a mule had kicked him in the chest.
Doug winced at the remembered feeling in his sternum, and struggled to calm his breathing. "I think...that might need to go away," he said slowly.
"Or not," said Emma gently. "The harshest lessons are sometimes the best ones to remember." Her gentle riffle through his memories confirmed that they were in an acceptable state, if nowhere near as well-ordered as they used to be. Her gaze came back to the real world and noted the drawn look on Doug's face. "But we will see what is required. After you've had time to rest." A handkerchief materialised in her hand from one of her numerous desk drawers and she passed it over to Doug. "I really must stop doing that to you," she said, nodding at the blood that stained his upper lip. "Next time, I promise to be gentle."
Thus she finished reading the last page of the report she had commissioned into Shaw's latest travel arrangements as the knock sounded on her door. She slipped her telepathic #Come in# into the minds of Doug and Marie-Ange, brushing it lightly enough to just make it past their shields.
Doug opened the door and preceded Marie-Ange into the room. He seated himself in one of the two chairs facing Emma's desk without saying anything. He wasn't exactly sure what to expect, or why Emma had indicated that Marie-Ange should be present. The uncertainty was making him a little more taciturn than usual, and his eyes flicked around, taking everything in.
By comparison, Marie-Ange was, at least on the surface, calm and unworried. But then, it wasn't her mind that was in need of repairing. At least, not in any way that a mind could be repaired - Marie-Ange was broken in ways that Doug was not. And since this meeting was about Doug, she was secondary, in her mind, no need to worry or fret, she was there to be support in one way or another.
Emma waved Doug and Marie-Ange to sit and briefly contemplated them before speaking. "I don't think there's any need for polite preliminaries," she said. "You both know what I did to Doug to defeat Ignatova. I want to put that right. It will require extensive telepathic therapy." Her fingers tapped lightly on the report she had just finalised. "Shaw is making moves; unpleasant moves. The Black Court requires a counterbalance. I need my new Court and I require my White Knight, fully functional and effective."
Emma leaned back in her chair. "Necessity drives me. To such an extent that I cannot be . . . trusted. There is a chance, given unfettered access, that I will turn Doug entirely into what I require in a Knight. Such an outcome is not, perhaps, ethically appropriate. As such, I would request that Marie-Ange join us in the therapy sessions. To ensure that I do not lead Doug too far astray."
And Emma expected her to prevent this? Marie-Ange raised an eyebrow fractionally before reconsidering it. Not that a poker face really helped matters at all with Emma Frost, especally where Marie-Ange was concerned. Her shields were flimsy at best and nearly non-existent even on a good day. "I ... will do what I can." She said after some quiet thought. She wasn't quite sure she was the best choice for this, but at the same time, couldn't think of anyone else suited to it either.
"To the death ninja style telepathic battles are not required," said Emma. "Polite reminders of the boundaries should be more than sufficient." She looked down at the report again, a visual reminder of Shaw's perfidy. "To have a universal translator subject to my every whim is somewhat tempting." She looked up again at Doug. "Are you ready for it? To have everything back?" she asked him.
Doug had felt almost secondary to the interaction between Emma and Marie-Ange, and was fairly sure he'd missed some of what had passed between the two. But he trusted Marie-Ange implicitly, and despite Emma's words about not being trusted, he did trust her as well. He nodded and sat back in his chair, ready for Emma to begin.
Emma leaned back in her chair, anchoring herself in reality, a slight smile on her pale lips. "So very trusting," she murmured and then stepped back into Doug's mindscape. She inspected the scaffolding she had rebuilt, and noted with pleasure that it had strengthened and shaped itself even more clearly into something identifiable as Doug. Then she stepped sideways into the hall of mirrors, facing again the Doug closed in his hall of mirrors and closed doors, the Doug she thought of as her true White Knight, clear-eyed and hard of purpose, completely focussed as he had been on a task that no longer had meaning. Temptation surged through her again, to destroy the scaffolding she had built, to bring this Knight into the world, but she reached out her mind again, touched Marie-Ange's mind lightly, letting its anxiety and hope guide her.
She did not ask Doug if he was ready; he had told her that back in her office.
Emma reached out with her mind and caught the handles of the doors so firmly closed within the hall of mirrors. With a sharp tug, she pulled them all open at once.
There was a rush of images, a shout that was half-pain, half-exultation from the Doug in front of her and then the walls fell in.
hunched figure red area growing pot anthropomorphic insectoids diamond queen rice-paper screens lab coat no distractions angie forge amanda me gunshot xorn interconnectedness salsa meme no distractions emerald fire kick circuitry expanding subservience dominance no distractions control freedom good enough knight trojan horse
It was as though Emma had opened a sluice in his brain, and now all of the information that had been dammed behind it was flooding back in, a thousand different images and thoughts and emotions all at once, and Doug thought it was a wonder his head didn't simply pop under the pressure of it all. His power, the same power that Emma had originally gone in to remove those things that distracted him from using it to full effect, struggled under the deluge, attempting to parse the overload back into the places those pieces of his self had previously lived.
Those pieces had to somehow mesh with all the experiences that Doug had had starting from the moment Emma had kissed his forehead (he remembered now, a strangely tender moment of her brushing the hair back from his forehead and murmuring 'sleep') to Emma leaning back in her chair ('so very trusting'). The memories blended in chaotic and sometimes unpredictable fashion. Such a good boy, a memory of Emma murmured silkily as she reclined on an imaginary bed, and the libido that had been denied, and in fact not even existed, for those several months came roaring back in a torrent that left his head spinning even as he clutched it in pain. His hips shifted from side to side as his hands fisted in his hair and the slightest trickle of blood seeped from one nostril.
Marie-Ange had seen, or felt, or heard, or thought, she wasn't sure if it was any of those, or all of them, glimpses of the torrent that rushed back to Doug. The strange well that was the expression of her precognition in her mind tugged at the thoughts, let her share a fraction of what Doug felt.
The pale astral image that was Marie-Ange observing Emma was impassive, there was little she could do except be there. Any more than that ran too much of a risk of the precognitive 'well' harming Doug. But in the office, she reached out to gently pry Doug's fingers out of his hair, enclosing his hands in hers.
Emma observed the chaos that was Doug's mind, the roaring torrent of images, using her touch lightly to guide certain thought processes back into their appropriate places, letting other less important ones go by and settle where they would. Some things could be repaired later; her vigilance was to ensure that those things that needed to be in the right place from the beginning, were in the right place. Her touch was deft and gentle and left no trace, even as the torrent slowed, became more manageable as Doug's power shifted to a higher intensity.
Some memories and thoughts slotted back easily into their previous spaces, or meshed effortlessly with the events of the past several months. But some of the memories rubbed against each other, with a feeling like that of two pieces of jagged metal scraping painfully together.
As Doug exhaled, he applied steady pressure, and the first shot roared out of the gun. It missed high and to the right as his target tried to crouch and finish reloading. The Glock roared again and again, Doug's shots coming metronome-precise, slightly less than a second apart. The second shot chipped concrete to the left of his target, but the third hit home on the green man's shoulder, causing him to stagger back. The fourth and fifth ripped through his thigh, and Doug continued to fire until the slide clicked open on an empty clip.
A harsh crack sounded through the afternoon air, and Doug staggered backward as though a mule had kicked him in the chest.
Doug winced at the remembered feeling in his sternum, and struggled to calm his breathing. "I think...that might need to go away," he said slowly.
"Or not," said Emma gently. "The harshest lessons are sometimes the best ones to remember." Her gentle riffle through his memories confirmed that they were in an acceptable state, if nowhere near as well-ordered as they used to be. Her gaze came back to the real world and noted the drawn look on Doug's face. "But we will see what is required. After you've had time to rest." A handkerchief materialised in her hand from one of her numerous desk drawers and she passed it over to Doug. "I really must stop doing that to you," she said, nodding at the blood that stained his upper lip. "Next time, I promise to be gentle."
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