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xp_logsDeciding Emma's been hiding out long enough, Adrienne seeks her out and refuses to leave until Emma talks to her. Neither sister feels better afterwards.
It may not be necessary but possible trigger warning as Emma is very blunt.
"Emmmmmma!" Adrienne called out in a singsong voice, pounding on her sister's apartment door. "I know you're innnnnnn theeeeeeere. Open up, Em!" She paused, waiting for a response. When none came, she went straight to her last resort. "I'm just going to sit here and sing until you let me in! I'm not going away!" Sitting down on the floor with her back against Emma's door, she broke into loud, out of tune song. "If you wannabe my lover, gotta get with my friennnnnnds! Make it last forever, yeah friendship never ennnnnnnnnnnnnds! If you wannabe my lover, you have got to giiiiiiiiiiiive! Taking is too easy yeah that's the waaay it iiiiiiiiisssss!"
~Go away, Adrienne.~ Emma’s mental voice was flat, emotionless.
Adrienne sent out a stab of sympathy towards her sister. "You know, there's something Vanessa likes to say about a boat," she called out, "and how you're not supposed to be alone on it, you're supposed to have someone there to catch you instead of letting the water take you! So I'm not going anywhere! If you want my futurrrre, forget my passsst, if you wanna get with meeeeeeeee, better make it fassssssst! Now don't go wastinnnnnnnnng my precious time, get your act together, we could be just fine!"
The telepathic stab into Adrienne’s speech centres was delicate but brutally efficient, cutting Adrienne’s singing, Adrienne’s voice, off in mid-chorus. ~Go away, Adrienne.~ Emma’s voice was even flatter this time.
The inability to use her voice might once have traumatized Adrienne, but she was now so self-assured in her knowledge that Emma wouldn't actually hurt her, despite being more than capable of it, that she just felt mildly irritated. ~Jesus fucking Christ, Emma!~ she exclaimed mentally, rapping her head back against the door to create some noise now that she couldn't sing. ~Stop being such a fucking brat! You've been alone long enough! I'm starting to get fucking worried here, okay? I'm not going away! You've had ample wallow-time, you've got to at least try to deal, yeah?~
She sent another wave of sympathy towards her sister and reined her frustration in. ~I know you just want to hide out forever until it all goes away, Em, but it's not going to until you deal. Trust me on this. Being alone isn't going to make you feel better, it's just going to make you feel lost.~ She had no idea what had caused this... this, what was the phrase Doug had used about what he was going through? Epic Failure To Cope? Something had happened that had made Emma want to hide from the world, and Adrienne had no idea what it was, but she highly doubted it was going to go away if Emma merely sat in her apartment not trying to move on from it. ~I have Courvoisier? And a pair of Jimmy Choos that would like to meet you? At least let me see you so I know you're okay,~ she tried to negotiate. She wanted to make sure Emma was eating, at least. Bathing. Not hurting herself in any way.
The silence went on so long that it almost seemed that Emma may not reply at all. Finally, however, her flat mental voice returned into Adrienne's head. ~If you see me and accept that I'm okay, will you go away?~ asked Emma.
~As long as you don't cheat and pull some mental mindcrap on me,~ Adrienne acquiesced, the assault on the door with the back of her head abating. ~You have to actually let me in so I can see you with my own eyes. And gimme my damn voice back!~
~No singing.~ Previously, that sentence would have been laced with Emma's dry humour, but this was instead a flat warning. But the telepathic suppression was taken from Adrienne's speech centres and, a few moments later, the door to Emma's apartment opened.
Emma had always had an approach to power dressing that had nothing in common with what people normally thought of as power dressing. Snow-white corset and underwear, white stockings beneath spike-heeled boots that came over her knees and a film-thin, whisper-thin negligee would have left most people feeling vulnerable. To Emma Frost, it was the equivalent of armour.
"Satisfied?" said Emma, raising an eyebrow at her sister, the epitome of the White Queen disturbed at home.
Except not quite the White Queen. The Ice Queen. Perfect and brittle and ready to shatter if someone hit her hard enough.
Adrienne's face fell when she saw Emma, awash in sympathy once again. The former model felt she had a pretty good understanding of why people chose the clothing they wore. Emma was wearing clothes that made her feel powerful, in control, meant to throw people off balance... while hiding out in her apartment alone. Sheesh. Emma was definitely not in a good place emotionally. "Oh, sweetie," she murmured sympathetically. She longed to reach out and hug her sister, but wasn't sure if touching Emma would trigger whatever she was trying to hide from, knowing all too well that touch was one of her own triggers. Instead, she slipped into the apartment and closed the door. "No, I'm not satisfied," she muttered, shaking her head. "I won't be satisfied until you talk to me about this."
Taking the bottle of cognac and the pair of shoes out of the bag she'd brought, Adrienne set the shoes on Emma's coffee table. "Sit, try on the shoes," she said quietly, and headed to the kitchenette to grab two glasses for the alcohol. "What happened, Em?" she asked when she returned, pouring the cognac and helping herself to a seat.
Emma was the most subtle of telepaths, proud of her ability to read even the most heavily shielded mind without leaving a trace. That made the obvious strength of her probe into Adrienne’s mind even more shocking, a quick and careless rustle through Adrienne’s latest memories. “You know what happened,” said Emma, even as she drew her mind out of Adrienne’s. “Doug and Amanda told you the truth. Glorian made us all sixteen again.” She made no attempt to move from her position at the door, only turning to face Adrienne. “Happy happy fun times.” Emma made no attempt to hide the bitterness in her words.
Adrienne recoiled at the feeling of Emma probing her mind, making a face and taking a gulp of the cognac. "Ow, Em!" she muttered indignantly. "What the hell? You could have just asked me!" With a sigh of a typical annoyed sibling, she rose from her seat and brought Emma's cognac over to the entrance of the apartment where Emma was still standing. "Em, I know you were made to think you were sixteen, but I have no idea what that means. I was thirteen when you were sixteen," she said in a tone that was nearly apologetic. "Daddy Dearest didn't tell me anything. I knew you were in the asylum, and then you weren't. He didn't even tell me the circumstances of your leaving. Is that what... what's upsetting you? How you left the asylum? Did you have to... do something to leave?" Had she bribed an orderly with sex to have a window left open or something? But why would that have affected the White Queen so much?
When she was done here, no matter what happened, Adrienne decided she would find out everything she could about this asylum, including whether she could get access to it and use her powers to find out what had happened there and whether that was what was causing her sister this kind of... distress.
"Oh, Adrienne, dear heart," said Emma but there was no affection in her words. "Do you really want to hate me that much?"
"Uhh... what?" Adrienne was confused suddenly. "Why would you talking to me about this make me hate you? I'm not going to hate you, Em, no matter what you said or did back then."
"Really?" said Emma, raising an eyebrow. "You shouldn't make promises you won't be able to keep. Not," Emma waved a hand dismissively, "that your approval matters to me in this case." Emma shrugged and took the cognac, inhaling the smallest amount across her tongue. "Excellent choice," she noted absently. "It took me rather a long time to gain control of my telepathy," she said, the change in subject made even more abrupt by the fact Emma was still using the same flat tone. "The joys of early adoption. No guidance, no idea what was happening to me, no shields, no control and a truly stupendous amount of psychoactive drugs to top it all off nicely. I didn't even know what I was. Not really. Mutation was only the whisper of a rumour when I manifested. I was a myth. A dream. A legend. I barely knew I was real. None of it," Emma took another sip of her cognac, "assisted by the fact that I had a head full of mad people to deal with. The staff found me useful: they always knew that someone was having a psychotic episode when I started screaming." She looked down at her drink for a moment, and then back at Adrienne. "The staff found me useful in a number of ways. Do you know the very first thing I did when I finally worked it all out? When I finally had my power under control?"
Still standing opposite Emma in the entryway, Adrienne took a sip of her own cognac as she let all of Emma's words sink in and create feelings in herself, something that happened much more easily when her sister talked to her than it did when most other people told her awful stories. With this one, she took what she already felt in regards to her own childhood, reminded herself of how she'd felt through much of her marriage, and her struggles with control of her own powers, and then multiplied those feelings exponentially to incorporate the particular details Emma had just revealed to her, or hadn't revealed, but had alluded to.
She then extrapolated those feelings in herself with what she knew of her sister's methods and forged a hypothesis to answer her question. "You... killed someone on staff?" she murmured quietly, hand shaking as she raised the cognac glass to her lips in an attempt to steady herself. "I hope I'm right. I hope you killed them all." Of course, she may have been off base with that hypothesis, because Emma seemed rather sure that whatever had happened would cause Adrienne to hate her, and if her sister had indeed killed the person or persons who 'found her useful in a number of ways', Adrienne was more inclined to throw her a parade than hate her.
"Ten points and a gold star to the brunette," said Emma, dryly. "Yes, Adrienne, I murdered someone on the staff. Or built a trap inside his head to make him kill himself. Comme ci comme ca, I guess, as to whether you want to call it murder but no-one was going to believe the mad little girl and her stories of what he did to her at night, no matter how rich daddy was. Do you know - I don't even know if he died? Maybe I didn't murder someone at all, though I did very much want to. In the end it just seemed more important to walk out into the night than make sure he'd made the cuts go deep enough." The corner of Emma's lip twitched in the closest approximation to a smile she had managed during the conversation. "Freedom is a wonderful thing, is it not?"
"It is," Adrienne answered without hesitation. She nearly held up her glass to Emma's in a toast, but figured the situation didn't really warrant it at this point in time. "And you're right, no one would have believed you if you'd tried to go through... proper channels." She gave Emma a wry smile. "You could have been a rising star in the business world, well educated and very successful for your age, and chances are they still wouldn't have believed you. Even with bruises to prove it. So what can you do? We do what we have to do to survive, to be free," she shrugged. "I'm sure if you wanted to kill him, he'd be dead. I've never known you to fail at doing anything you wanted to do, Em," she added in the same wry tone. So this was why Emma was hiding out? Because she'd remembered what this guard had done to her?
“No,” said Emma and her tone was icy again. “I don’t fail. I don’t break. No matter what they do to me. Because surviving is all that matters.” Emma wasn’t talking to Adrienne any more, that much was clear, but to something inside her own head. “I don’t ever let them break me.”
"Damn right," Adrienne nodded without a hint of humour, matching Emma's cold tone as she went to pour herself another glass of cognac. "So maybe there can be something good you can take out of being sixteen again... being able to reaffirm that to yourself. That you were strong enough to survive back then, and you're even stronger now. Strong enough to get through this." She nearly added 'I believe in you', but that seemed to be laying it on a bit thick, and Adrienne didn't want this to turn into some sort of sappy Disney moment.
“Do you remember what it felt like?” asked Emma. “Wanting daddy dearest’s approval? Do you remember craving it? Doing anything you could to get it? How you’d do anything he asked, even when what he asked for was... wrong?” Emma’s eyes were firmly fixed on her glass, on a memory that only she could see. “I got to see inside his head, Adrienne. No shields, no concealment, when he had me there in front of him and was doing his worst. Lucky me, I got to dive straight into the slime and muck and the things he thought about when he was looking at his own daughter. His daughters. What he wanted to do to us. I saw all of that. Like they were my own thoughts – I didn’t have any way of separating my thoughts from his. I just knew, right then, right there, what a monster he was. What it felt like to be that monster and enjoy it.” She looked up from the glass and fixed Adrienne’s gaze with her own. “He couldn’t be satisfied, you know. He would never be able to approve of us, because no matter what we did to please him, he could always think of something worse. And all I could think, before I fell down the rabbit hole, was how much it hurt because I would never, ever be good enough for him.” Emma took a sip of her drink again, iron control asserted over her own need to drain the glass. “There aren’t words for how fucked up we were back then, Adrienne. Any of us. All of us. How long it took to stop being that person. Or do what Christian did and take the easy way out.” Another sip, controlled and steady. “There is not a single good thing in this world that I can take out of being sixteen again.”
Nauseous, Adrienne leaned her head back against the wall until the stars cleared from her vision and the bile disappated in her throat. Her stomach was still clenching queasily but at least she no longer felt like she was going to throw up. Hopefully that would provide enough of an answer to Emma's first batch of questions because she couldn't seem to get her mouth to work yet.
With her head still against the wall she watched Emma sip her drink and did the same, willing herself to match her sister's lead and take a single sip with a steady hand. The alcohol burned the back of her throat but the shock of it broke her inability to speak. "You can't change it now, Em," she said quietly, all teasing and false bravado and cheerfulness gone. She sounded defeated, like she knew now that there was nothing she could do to make Emma feel better, despite how much she wanted to help her sister. She wanted to make Emma stop hurting but didn't know how, and that in turn made her feel guilty. "There's nothing you can do to change it. All there is is to move on. Just keep going. And wait for it to get better." Adrienne really wanted a hug after what Emma had stirred up within herself, and that made her realize just how much she had stopped being the person she was.
"And there's nothing you can do to help," replied Emma. "No matter how much you might want to. I learned a lot of things in that place, Adrienne. I learned that I don't need anyone else to approve of what I do. And I learned that I can never rely on anyone else to help me." She closed her eyes wearily for a moment. "Especially my family." Her telepathic probe was like a finger on Adrienne's lips, stopping any protest. "I know that things have changed. I know now is not then. I know how much you want to help me and why you want to help me. But," Emma opened her eyes again, "right now, all I can see is what you were when I was sixteen. All of it. Christian. Hazel. Daddy dearest. Everything that was fucked up and wrong and broken about being a Frost, and being in that asylum and knowing that no-one, no-one, cared a damn that I was there." Emma shut down her telepathy and took another sip of her cognac. "Go away, Adrienne," she said again, very quietly.
"Okay," Adrienne replied with a defeated finality now that she could speak again. Really, what more was there to say? Emma had said it all. Things had changed, she regretted who she'd been back then and did want to help Emma now. But if Emma was having trouble seeing past how things had been twenty-some years ago, it wasn't doing any good to stay. She didn't want to be around Emma if that was how she thought of Adrienne. Mostly, she didn't want to screw up what they'd built in the past couple years. What Emma had said to her on the sidewalk in front of Eulid Pharm back in the fall had meant a lot to Adrienne, and she wouldn't see that destroyed now. If seeing Adrienne reminded Emma of that nightmare period of time, then the younger Frost would gladly take herself out of Emma's sight.
The brunette drained the rest of her cognac, lamenting the fact that she was too buzzed to drive and was going to have to crash with someone in the city or cab all the way back to the mansion, and set the glass on the coffee table. Without looking at Emma, she opened the door and departed without another word. There were no more assurances that things would get better, no promises of finding someone who could help her (even though Adrienne was certainly going to talk to some people about this), no hopeful, positive comments about how different things were now. She just left. And managed to make it all the way downstairs- which she took as a victory as her eyes were becoming clouded with moisture- before lashing out at the garbage can outside the building, kicking the crap out of it while she only half strangled a scream.
After the encounter, Adrienne heads over to the Brownstone for help and Doug and Amanda make some suggestions on who could help Emma.
Hailing a cab outside Emma's building, Adrienne dug around in her pockets for some crumpled bills and ended up having to walk eight blocks to the Brownstone when she didn't have enough to pay the cabby for the entire journey. And her cell phone was dead again. Needless to say, her mood hadn't improved since leaving Emma's when she pounded on Amanda's apartment door. "Hey Zeus! You in there? I need to talk to you! Emma's fucking messed up, I need you, and I need Doug. Doug!" She realized that yelling might not be the best idea since it was getting late and the building was filled with people who could kill her in the blink of an eye so while she waited for Amanda to answer Adrienne pounded on Doug's door. "Doug! Are you there? I need to talk to you! It's about Emma!"
Amanda's door opened, the witch poking her head out, looking confused. "Adri? What the bloody hell's all the noise about?"
Doug had heard the commotion as well and popped his head out of his
own doorway. It was Adrienne, and she'd said it was about Emma, so
naturally he was...well, maybe not quite concerned, but certainly on
his way there. "Seconded," he said, walking down the hall to Amanda's
door so he didn't have to yell and wake someone potentially more
cranky up.
Adrienne followed Doug in to Amanda's apartment and closed the door before letting off a frustrated shriek much like what had happened outside Emma's building. "Emma's fucking messed up," she repeated, looking around the apartment for something to kick. "This 'being sixteen' garbage. She won't leave the fucking apartment, and she won't... she can't stop... remembering. She needs to just stop remembering but I can't make her!" she cried out, exasperated.
Amanda let out a sigh and headed straight for the kitchen and the kettle. Tea was definitely in order here. "I thought she'd been scarce around the office," she remarked. She glanced towards Doug. "I don't have a lot to suggest. Emma's more your area, Doug."
Doug followed Amanda toward the kitchen and leaned against the
doorjamb with one shoulder while he shrugged with the other. "I
suppose," he said dubiously. "I mean, I'm probably as close to her as
anyone can be to Emma, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know how to
handle this. And to be honest, even I've sort of bought into the
whole image of Emma as unshakeable, so this is kind of a shock for me,
too."
Drunk!Adrienne flopped into a chair while the others went into the kitchen, now struggling against the urge to throw things rather than kick. "How the fuck did this even happen?!" she extolled angrily. Maybe if she understood how this had all come about there would be some sort of key to fixing it? "What the fuck did you guys get into this time?!?"
"A telepathic arsewipe by the name of Glorian. He's an informant of ours, got himself exposed to Kick and accidentally did a number on us. And himself." Amanda summarised the event in her particular succinct way. "For once, it wasn't an actual mission."
"Telepathic? Like Emma?" Adrienne perked up a bit, climbing over the back of the chair to see into the kitchen where Doug and Amanda were. "Was this some sort of astral plane bullshit? Did he do something to her there that she's not telling me? How would we find something like that out?"
Doug shook his head. "Much more low level than Emma. But there's
something about him that just seems to create weird power
interactions. I mean, there was the thing with him and Haller." He
frowned, considering Adrienne's question. "I don't think he did
anything to Emma? I mean, not to her particularly. The effect hit
all of us..." He pursed his lips and thought. "Though I suppose we
can't discount the possibility that it hit Emma harder because she's a
telepath?"
"And she was the one who got him to un-whammy us," Amanda pointed out, bringing three cups of tea back to the coffee table. "Tho', to be honest, being shunted back into thinking she was in the nuthouse would be traumatic enough, in my book."
"I don't think it's the asylum- not entirely," Adrienne mused, taking a mug from Amanda and sipping at the tea with hopes that it would take the edge off the tipsyness she was feeling. "She spoke about the asylum easily enough with me. I mean, yeah, it wasn't fun, but she told me that, she wasn't hiding that it was bothering her. But that's why I'm so stumped," she admitted. "Because I think she's hiding something else that's bothering her. Or she doesn't even know there's something else that's keeping her from being... okay." She thought back to Doug's comment. "This arsewipe creates weird powers interactions? And he encountered Haller? But Haller's okay?" She mulled this over. Maybe Haller would know something about what this Glorian might have done to Emma?
"Hm. We could talk to him, get his perspective on things?" Doug
asked. "But would Emma be willing to talk to him if that was the
case?" He wasn't sure, himself. Emma was difficult to predict at the
best of times, which she clearly wasn't in at the moment. "Either of
you have any other ideas?"
Amanda shrugged. "It's possible there's some telepathic feedback or something going on, and that means another 'path ought to have a look, in my opinion. But considering the security issues, we can't really ask the X geezer or even Doc Grey to help out. Haller's at least worked with us before - maybe Emma will cooperate with him more?"
Adrienne nodded thoughtfully, then grinned, feeling of helplessness disappating slightly with the prospect of having something to try. She also liked how Amanda had said 'we'. It felt really good to feel like she had help in this situation, that she didn't have to solve the problem all by herself. Having other people she could rely on to try and help Emma made her worry about her sister just a little bit a little less. "Yeah, maybe she will. We'll talk to her about it, yeah? I mean, the most she can do is say no. Well, that and be offended and kill us with her brain. I'm going to make myself a tin foil hat before we talk to her, I think," she mused, making a face. "It'll be really pretty. Can I sleep here tonight?" she asked Amanda suddenly, doing her best at making puppy-dog eyes.
Amanda couldn't help but chuckle at the sudden turnaround - Adrienne was like a hummingbird on speed sometimes."Yeah, you can crash here," she replied. "Like I'd ever say 'no'. I might wake up with nothing but stilletto heels in my wardrobe or something."
It may not be necessary but possible trigger warning as Emma is very blunt.
"Emmmmmma!" Adrienne called out in a singsong voice, pounding on her sister's apartment door. "I know you're innnnnnn theeeeeeere. Open up, Em!" She paused, waiting for a response. When none came, she went straight to her last resort. "I'm just going to sit here and sing until you let me in! I'm not going away!" Sitting down on the floor with her back against Emma's door, she broke into loud, out of tune song. "If you wannabe my lover, gotta get with my friennnnnnds! Make it last forever, yeah friendship never ennnnnnnnnnnnnds! If you wannabe my lover, you have got to giiiiiiiiiiiive! Taking is too easy yeah that's the waaay it iiiiiiiiisssss!"
~Go away, Adrienne.~ Emma’s mental voice was flat, emotionless.
Adrienne sent out a stab of sympathy towards her sister. "You know, there's something Vanessa likes to say about a boat," she called out, "and how you're not supposed to be alone on it, you're supposed to have someone there to catch you instead of letting the water take you! So I'm not going anywhere! If you want my futurrrre, forget my passsst, if you wanna get with meeeeeeeee, better make it fassssssst! Now don't go wastinnnnnnnnng my precious time, get your act together, we could be just fine!"
The telepathic stab into Adrienne’s speech centres was delicate but brutally efficient, cutting Adrienne’s singing, Adrienne’s voice, off in mid-chorus. ~Go away, Adrienne.~ Emma’s voice was even flatter this time.
The inability to use her voice might once have traumatized Adrienne, but she was now so self-assured in her knowledge that Emma wouldn't actually hurt her, despite being more than capable of it, that she just felt mildly irritated. ~Jesus fucking Christ, Emma!~ she exclaimed mentally, rapping her head back against the door to create some noise now that she couldn't sing. ~Stop being such a fucking brat! You've been alone long enough! I'm starting to get fucking worried here, okay? I'm not going away! You've had ample wallow-time, you've got to at least try to deal, yeah?~
She sent another wave of sympathy towards her sister and reined her frustration in. ~I know you just want to hide out forever until it all goes away, Em, but it's not going to until you deal. Trust me on this. Being alone isn't going to make you feel better, it's just going to make you feel lost.~ She had no idea what had caused this... this, what was the phrase Doug had used about what he was going through? Epic Failure To Cope? Something had happened that had made Emma want to hide from the world, and Adrienne had no idea what it was, but she highly doubted it was going to go away if Emma merely sat in her apartment not trying to move on from it. ~I have Courvoisier? And a pair of Jimmy Choos that would like to meet you? At least let me see you so I know you're okay,~ she tried to negotiate. She wanted to make sure Emma was eating, at least. Bathing. Not hurting herself in any way.
The silence went on so long that it almost seemed that Emma may not reply at all. Finally, however, her flat mental voice returned into Adrienne's head. ~If you see me and accept that I'm okay, will you go away?~ asked Emma.
~As long as you don't cheat and pull some mental mindcrap on me,~ Adrienne acquiesced, the assault on the door with the back of her head abating. ~You have to actually let me in so I can see you with my own eyes. And gimme my damn voice back!~
~No singing.~ Previously, that sentence would have been laced with Emma's dry humour, but this was instead a flat warning. But the telepathic suppression was taken from Adrienne's speech centres and, a few moments later, the door to Emma's apartment opened.
Emma had always had an approach to power dressing that had nothing in common with what people normally thought of as power dressing. Snow-white corset and underwear, white stockings beneath spike-heeled boots that came over her knees and a film-thin, whisper-thin negligee would have left most people feeling vulnerable. To Emma Frost, it was the equivalent of armour.
"Satisfied?" said Emma, raising an eyebrow at her sister, the epitome of the White Queen disturbed at home.
Except not quite the White Queen. The Ice Queen. Perfect and brittle and ready to shatter if someone hit her hard enough.
Adrienne's face fell when she saw Emma, awash in sympathy once again. The former model felt she had a pretty good understanding of why people chose the clothing they wore. Emma was wearing clothes that made her feel powerful, in control, meant to throw people off balance... while hiding out in her apartment alone. Sheesh. Emma was definitely not in a good place emotionally. "Oh, sweetie," she murmured sympathetically. She longed to reach out and hug her sister, but wasn't sure if touching Emma would trigger whatever she was trying to hide from, knowing all too well that touch was one of her own triggers. Instead, she slipped into the apartment and closed the door. "No, I'm not satisfied," she muttered, shaking her head. "I won't be satisfied until you talk to me about this."
Taking the bottle of cognac and the pair of shoes out of the bag she'd brought, Adrienne set the shoes on Emma's coffee table. "Sit, try on the shoes," she said quietly, and headed to the kitchenette to grab two glasses for the alcohol. "What happened, Em?" she asked when she returned, pouring the cognac and helping herself to a seat.
Emma was the most subtle of telepaths, proud of her ability to read even the most heavily shielded mind without leaving a trace. That made the obvious strength of her probe into Adrienne’s mind even more shocking, a quick and careless rustle through Adrienne’s latest memories. “You know what happened,” said Emma, even as she drew her mind out of Adrienne’s. “Doug and Amanda told you the truth. Glorian made us all sixteen again.” She made no attempt to move from her position at the door, only turning to face Adrienne. “Happy happy fun times.” Emma made no attempt to hide the bitterness in her words.
Adrienne recoiled at the feeling of Emma probing her mind, making a face and taking a gulp of the cognac. "Ow, Em!" she muttered indignantly. "What the hell? You could have just asked me!" With a sigh of a typical annoyed sibling, she rose from her seat and brought Emma's cognac over to the entrance of the apartment where Emma was still standing. "Em, I know you were made to think you were sixteen, but I have no idea what that means. I was thirteen when you were sixteen," she said in a tone that was nearly apologetic. "Daddy Dearest didn't tell me anything. I knew you were in the asylum, and then you weren't. He didn't even tell me the circumstances of your leaving. Is that what... what's upsetting you? How you left the asylum? Did you have to... do something to leave?" Had she bribed an orderly with sex to have a window left open or something? But why would that have affected the White Queen so much?
When she was done here, no matter what happened, Adrienne decided she would find out everything she could about this asylum, including whether she could get access to it and use her powers to find out what had happened there and whether that was what was causing her sister this kind of... distress.
"Oh, Adrienne, dear heart," said Emma but there was no affection in her words. "Do you really want to hate me that much?"
"Uhh... what?" Adrienne was confused suddenly. "Why would you talking to me about this make me hate you? I'm not going to hate you, Em, no matter what you said or did back then."
"Really?" said Emma, raising an eyebrow. "You shouldn't make promises you won't be able to keep. Not," Emma waved a hand dismissively, "that your approval matters to me in this case." Emma shrugged and took the cognac, inhaling the smallest amount across her tongue. "Excellent choice," she noted absently. "It took me rather a long time to gain control of my telepathy," she said, the change in subject made even more abrupt by the fact Emma was still using the same flat tone. "The joys of early adoption. No guidance, no idea what was happening to me, no shields, no control and a truly stupendous amount of psychoactive drugs to top it all off nicely. I didn't even know what I was. Not really. Mutation was only the whisper of a rumour when I manifested. I was a myth. A dream. A legend. I barely knew I was real. None of it," Emma took another sip of her cognac, "assisted by the fact that I had a head full of mad people to deal with. The staff found me useful: they always knew that someone was having a psychotic episode when I started screaming." She looked down at her drink for a moment, and then back at Adrienne. "The staff found me useful in a number of ways. Do you know the very first thing I did when I finally worked it all out? When I finally had my power under control?"
Still standing opposite Emma in the entryway, Adrienne took a sip of her own cognac as she let all of Emma's words sink in and create feelings in herself, something that happened much more easily when her sister talked to her than it did when most other people told her awful stories. With this one, she took what she already felt in regards to her own childhood, reminded herself of how she'd felt through much of her marriage, and her struggles with control of her own powers, and then multiplied those feelings exponentially to incorporate the particular details Emma had just revealed to her, or hadn't revealed, but had alluded to.
She then extrapolated those feelings in herself with what she knew of her sister's methods and forged a hypothesis to answer her question. "You... killed someone on staff?" she murmured quietly, hand shaking as she raised the cognac glass to her lips in an attempt to steady herself. "I hope I'm right. I hope you killed them all." Of course, she may have been off base with that hypothesis, because Emma seemed rather sure that whatever had happened would cause Adrienne to hate her, and if her sister had indeed killed the person or persons who 'found her useful in a number of ways', Adrienne was more inclined to throw her a parade than hate her.
"Ten points and a gold star to the brunette," said Emma, dryly. "Yes, Adrienne, I murdered someone on the staff. Or built a trap inside his head to make him kill himself. Comme ci comme ca, I guess, as to whether you want to call it murder but no-one was going to believe the mad little girl and her stories of what he did to her at night, no matter how rich daddy was. Do you know - I don't even know if he died? Maybe I didn't murder someone at all, though I did very much want to. In the end it just seemed more important to walk out into the night than make sure he'd made the cuts go deep enough." The corner of Emma's lip twitched in the closest approximation to a smile she had managed during the conversation. "Freedom is a wonderful thing, is it not?"
"It is," Adrienne answered without hesitation. She nearly held up her glass to Emma's in a toast, but figured the situation didn't really warrant it at this point in time. "And you're right, no one would have believed you if you'd tried to go through... proper channels." She gave Emma a wry smile. "You could have been a rising star in the business world, well educated and very successful for your age, and chances are they still wouldn't have believed you. Even with bruises to prove it. So what can you do? We do what we have to do to survive, to be free," she shrugged. "I'm sure if you wanted to kill him, he'd be dead. I've never known you to fail at doing anything you wanted to do, Em," she added in the same wry tone. So this was why Emma was hiding out? Because she'd remembered what this guard had done to her?
“No,” said Emma and her tone was icy again. “I don’t fail. I don’t break. No matter what they do to me. Because surviving is all that matters.” Emma wasn’t talking to Adrienne any more, that much was clear, but to something inside her own head. “I don’t ever let them break me.”
"Damn right," Adrienne nodded without a hint of humour, matching Emma's cold tone as she went to pour herself another glass of cognac. "So maybe there can be something good you can take out of being sixteen again... being able to reaffirm that to yourself. That you were strong enough to survive back then, and you're even stronger now. Strong enough to get through this." She nearly added 'I believe in you', but that seemed to be laying it on a bit thick, and Adrienne didn't want this to turn into some sort of sappy Disney moment.
“Do you remember what it felt like?” asked Emma. “Wanting daddy dearest’s approval? Do you remember craving it? Doing anything you could to get it? How you’d do anything he asked, even when what he asked for was... wrong?” Emma’s eyes were firmly fixed on her glass, on a memory that only she could see. “I got to see inside his head, Adrienne. No shields, no concealment, when he had me there in front of him and was doing his worst. Lucky me, I got to dive straight into the slime and muck and the things he thought about when he was looking at his own daughter. His daughters. What he wanted to do to us. I saw all of that. Like they were my own thoughts – I didn’t have any way of separating my thoughts from his. I just knew, right then, right there, what a monster he was. What it felt like to be that monster and enjoy it.” She looked up from the glass and fixed Adrienne’s gaze with her own. “He couldn’t be satisfied, you know. He would never be able to approve of us, because no matter what we did to please him, he could always think of something worse. And all I could think, before I fell down the rabbit hole, was how much it hurt because I would never, ever be good enough for him.” Emma took a sip of her drink again, iron control asserted over her own need to drain the glass. “There aren’t words for how fucked up we were back then, Adrienne. Any of us. All of us. How long it took to stop being that person. Or do what Christian did and take the easy way out.” Another sip, controlled and steady. “There is not a single good thing in this world that I can take out of being sixteen again.”
Nauseous, Adrienne leaned her head back against the wall until the stars cleared from her vision and the bile disappated in her throat. Her stomach was still clenching queasily but at least she no longer felt like she was going to throw up. Hopefully that would provide enough of an answer to Emma's first batch of questions because she couldn't seem to get her mouth to work yet.
With her head still against the wall she watched Emma sip her drink and did the same, willing herself to match her sister's lead and take a single sip with a steady hand. The alcohol burned the back of her throat but the shock of it broke her inability to speak. "You can't change it now, Em," she said quietly, all teasing and false bravado and cheerfulness gone. She sounded defeated, like she knew now that there was nothing she could do to make Emma feel better, despite how much she wanted to help her sister. She wanted to make Emma stop hurting but didn't know how, and that in turn made her feel guilty. "There's nothing you can do to change it. All there is is to move on. Just keep going. And wait for it to get better." Adrienne really wanted a hug after what Emma had stirred up within herself, and that made her realize just how much she had stopped being the person she was.
"And there's nothing you can do to help," replied Emma. "No matter how much you might want to. I learned a lot of things in that place, Adrienne. I learned that I don't need anyone else to approve of what I do. And I learned that I can never rely on anyone else to help me." She closed her eyes wearily for a moment. "Especially my family." Her telepathic probe was like a finger on Adrienne's lips, stopping any protest. "I know that things have changed. I know now is not then. I know how much you want to help me and why you want to help me. But," Emma opened her eyes again, "right now, all I can see is what you were when I was sixteen. All of it. Christian. Hazel. Daddy dearest. Everything that was fucked up and wrong and broken about being a Frost, and being in that asylum and knowing that no-one, no-one, cared a damn that I was there." Emma shut down her telepathy and took another sip of her cognac. "Go away, Adrienne," she said again, very quietly.
"Okay," Adrienne replied with a defeated finality now that she could speak again. Really, what more was there to say? Emma had said it all. Things had changed, she regretted who she'd been back then and did want to help Emma now. But if Emma was having trouble seeing past how things had been twenty-some years ago, it wasn't doing any good to stay. She didn't want to be around Emma if that was how she thought of Adrienne. Mostly, she didn't want to screw up what they'd built in the past couple years. What Emma had said to her on the sidewalk in front of Eulid Pharm back in the fall had meant a lot to Adrienne, and she wouldn't see that destroyed now. If seeing Adrienne reminded Emma of that nightmare period of time, then the younger Frost would gladly take herself out of Emma's sight.
The brunette drained the rest of her cognac, lamenting the fact that she was too buzzed to drive and was going to have to crash with someone in the city or cab all the way back to the mansion, and set the glass on the coffee table. Without looking at Emma, she opened the door and departed without another word. There were no more assurances that things would get better, no promises of finding someone who could help her (even though Adrienne was certainly going to talk to some people about this), no hopeful, positive comments about how different things were now. She just left. And managed to make it all the way downstairs- which she took as a victory as her eyes were becoming clouded with moisture- before lashing out at the garbage can outside the building, kicking the crap out of it while she only half strangled a scream.
After the encounter, Adrienne heads over to the Brownstone for help and Doug and Amanda make some suggestions on who could help Emma.
Hailing a cab outside Emma's building, Adrienne dug around in her pockets for some crumpled bills and ended up having to walk eight blocks to the Brownstone when she didn't have enough to pay the cabby for the entire journey. And her cell phone was dead again. Needless to say, her mood hadn't improved since leaving Emma's when she pounded on Amanda's apartment door. "Hey Zeus! You in there? I need to talk to you! Emma's fucking messed up, I need you, and I need Doug. Doug!" She realized that yelling might not be the best idea since it was getting late and the building was filled with people who could kill her in the blink of an eye so while she waited for Amanda to answer Adrienne pounded on Doug's door. "Doug! Are you there? I need to talk to you! It's about Emma!"
Amanda's door opened, the witch poking her head out, looking confused. "Adri? What the bloody hell's all the noise about?"
Doug had heard the commotion as well and popped his head out of his
own doorway. It was Adrienne, and she'd said it was about Emma, so
naturally he was...well, maybe not quite concerned, but certainly on
his way there. "Seconded," he said, walking down the hall to Amanda's
door so he didn't have to yell and wake someone potentially more
cranky up.
Adrienne followed Doug in to Amanda's apartment and closed the door before letting off a frustrated shriek much like what had happened outside Emma's building. "Emma's fucking messed up," she repeated, looking around the apartment for something to kick. "This 'being sixteen' garbage. She won't leave the fucking apartment, and she won't... she can't stop... remembering. She needs to just stop remembering but I can't make her!" she cried out, exasperated.
Amanda let out a sigh and headed straight for the kitchen and the kettle. Tea was definitely in order here. "I thought she'd been scarce around the office," she remarked. She glanced towards Doug. "I don't have a lot to suggest. Emma's more your area, Doug."
Doug followed Amanda toward the kitchen and leaned against the
doorjamb with one shoulder while he shrugged with the other. "I
suppose," he said dubiously. "I mean, I'm probably as close to her as
anyone can be to Emma, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know how to
handle this. And to be honest, even I've sort of bought into the
whole image of Emma as unshakeable, so this is kind of a shock for me,
too."
Drunk!Adrienne flopped into a chair while the others went into the kitchen, now struggling against the urge to throw things rather than kick. "How the fuck did this even happen?!" she extolled angrily. Maybe if she understood how this had all come about there would be some sort of key to fixing it? "What the fuck did you guys get into this time?!?"
"A telepathic arsewipe by the name of Glorian. He's an informant of ours, got himself exposed to Kick and accidentally did a number on us. And himself." Amanda summarised the event in her particular succinct way. "For once, it wasn't an actual mission."
"Telepathic? Like Emma?" Adrienne perked up a bit, climbing over the back of the chair to see into the kitchen where Doug and Amanda were. "Was this some sort of astral plane bullshit? Did he do something to her there that she's not telling me? How would we find something like that out?"
Doug shook his head. "Much more low level than Emma. But there's
something about him that just seems to create weird power
interactions. I mean, there was the thing with him and Haller." He
frowned, considering Adrienne's question. "I don't think he did
anything to Emma? I mean, not to her particularly. The effect hit
all of us..." He pursed his lips and thought. "Though I suppose we
can't discount the possibility that it hit Emma harder because she's a
telepath?"
"And she was the one who got him to un-whammy us," Amanda pointed out, bringing three cups of tea back to the coffee table. "Tho', to be honest, being shunted back into thinking she was in the nuthouse would be traumatic enough, in my book."
"I don't think it's the asylum- not entirely," Adrienne mused, taking a mug from Amanda and sipping at the tea with hopes that it would take the edge off the tipsyness she was feeling. "She spoke about the asylum easily enough with me. I mean, yeah, it wasn't fun, but she told me that, she wasn't hiding that it was bothering her. But that's why I'm so stumped," she admitted. "Because I think she's hiding something else that's bothering her. Or she doesn't even know there's something else that's keeping her from being... okay." She thought back to Doug's comment. "This arsewipe creates weird powers interactions? And he encountered Haller? But Haller's okay?" She mulled this over. Maybe Haller would know something about what this Glorian might have done to Emma?
"Hm. We could talk to him, get his perspective on things?" Doug
asked. "But would Emma be willing to talk to him if that was the
case?" He wasn't sure, himself. Emma was difficult to predict at the
best of times, which she clearly wasn't in at the moment. "Either of
you have any other ideas?"
Amanda shrugged. "It's possible there's some telepathic feedback or something going on, and that means another 'path ought to have a look, in my opinion. But considering the security issues, we can't really ask the X geezer or even Doc Grey to help out. Haller's at least worked with us before - maybe Emma will cooperate with him more?"
Adrienne nodded thoughtfully, then grinned, feeling of helplessness disappating slightly with the prospect of having something to try. She also liked how Amanda had said 'we'. It felt really good to feel like she had help in this situation, that she didn't have to solve the problem all by herself. Having other people she could rely on to try and help Emma made her worry about her sister just a little bit a little less. "Yeah, maybe she will. We'll talk to her about it, yeah? I mean, the most she can do is say no. Well, that and be offended and kill us with her brain. I'm going to make myself a tin foil hat before we talk to her, I think," she mused, making a face. "It'll be really pretty. Can I sleep here tonight?" she asked Amanda suddenly, doing her best at making puppy-dog eyes.
Amanda couldn't help but chuckle at the sudden turnaround - Adrienne was like a hummingbird on speed sometimes."Yeah, you can crash here," she replied. "Like I'd ever say 'no'. I might wake up with nothing but stilletto heels in my wardrobe or something."
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