st_ackeddeck (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
st_ackeddeck) wrote2019-04-03 04:05 pm
st_ackeddeck) wrote2019-04-03 04:05 pm
Entry tags:
[powers swap] Fire Deep Inside Me (Jag)
Feelings were hard. Feelings were even harder when they flared up as bright, hot, and volatile as the fireballs Emma could have at her fingertips. And that was nothing compared to how hard they were when you felt Everyfuckingthing around you, the way Jag could.
There was only so long Jag could go without a shower, or a change of clothes. He hadn't slept well, plagued by nightmares and dreams that weren't quite his, even out in the stables, and he smelled like manure and sweat, at this stage. But he didn't want to feel what Emma felt about him, especially not right now, when she had fire of her own to keep her warm, to make her heart twist.
He could feel her in her upstairs bedroom when he neared their suite, but he didn't let that stop him. He could be quiet. He opened the door silently and moved straight for his room, and the bathroom on the other side of it.
He didn't exactly focus on her through his shower, but he was aware of her all the same. She had no idea he was here, of course, and he couldn't keep her out of his mind, but he could keep her in the background, feeling the shape of her but more than anything in detail.
It was a shape he loved so much.
He pulled on clean trousers and a t-shirt, then hesitated. His bed was so tempting, especially with the feel of her upstairs. He ended up climbing on it and curling up around a pillow, focusing on his breathing, with her presence like a nightlight, until he fell asleep. Just a quick nap, he promised himself. Just a quick nap, and his dreams were filled with her.
The Askani meditation patterns wouldn't form in Emma's mind, as they wouldn't, if she wasn't currently a psi, wasn't a mutant even. But she'd tried anyway. Regina had helped her understand the magic some, but she was still caught between the magic that happened almost instinctively whether she really wanted it to or not, and not being able to do anything useful when she tried. So for a while, she read, curled up in a nest of blankets and pillows on her bed - escaping into the world and lives of people genetically engineered with arms in place of legs and otherwise better equipped for life in space.
She fell so deeply into the book, it wasn't until she got to the end she realized she needed to go to the bathroom. Down the stairs, across the living area, and she was two steps into Jag's room before she noticed him asleep on his bed. She hadn't expected him to be there, feeling like he was avoiding her as much as she was him, and wisely too. But there he was, and he looked so... worn, even asleep. Her chest got all tight, just looking at him there, and she paused. Bit her lip. Considered sneaking back out again.
Dreams filled Jag's mind, dreams of her, so when he felt her so uncertain, he made a low humming sound in his throat, then unwound one arm from around the pillow to hold his hand out towards Emma. He was still mostly asleep, eyes closed, and his voice was sleep-thick and the words barely shaped as he said, "Come to bed." It came out closer to c'm to be', but it wasn't as if he noticed.
The words may have been muffled by sleep, but Jag's meaning was clear. With the way he reached for her, Emma was moving toward the bed before she could think better of it. Because she wanted to. Wanted to curl up with him and pretend everything was okay. Wanted to comfort and protect him when his mind was raw and open as a wound. Wanted to... she just wanted.
Compromise. She sat on the edge of the bed, one foot tucked under her, the other firmly on the floor, and smoothed a hand over his hair. Lump in her throat and barely able to breath for the bands around her chest.
Something was wrong. Uncertainty had shifted firmly into unease, slid further into anxiety. The brush of fingers was right, but everything else was wrong, so wrong. The safety of Jag's dreams etched away from him, and there was a frown on his brow and pain in his eyes when they finally opened, and he looked up at Emma.
Not a dream. Not a nightmare, either. He held her gaze, a plea in his.
Oh.
One thing Emma had learned about Jag the first time they talked – other than the night they arrived and found each other in the suite, which didn't count as conversation – was that, like Pyro, everything he felt showed in his eyes. And when his eyes opened and found hers, the plea in them hit her almost like she was the empath, but for what, she had no idea.
"It's okay," she said softly. It wasn't okay. Almost nothing was with everyone at the inn topsy-turvy. Almost nothing was, with the tangle of concern, uncertainty, love, helplessness, and more she couldn't know wrapping tight around her heart and leaden in her gut, and knowing there was little she could do to keep it from him. "It's okay," she repeated. Non-psis could shield, but it wasn't as easy when her own mind didn't work the way was meant to, but she had to try, not wanting to overwhelm Jag. "Sleep."
Her feelings cut through him, as he had known they would. Her thoughts rushed through his brain, and he wished he could give her the privacy she deserved. Almost nothing was okay, ran in a loop through his brain, and he wasn't sure how he could sleep, other than he wanted her to never stop touching him. "With you?" he asked, pleaded, whispered, prayed for.
"Okay," she heard her heart answer, before she could overthink and talk herself out of it. "But first I need to..." Emma tipped her head toward the bathroom, and gave him a small smile as she stood. It was why she'd gone into his room to begin with. "I'll be right back."
They'd been here before. She'd been selfish then, and she was being selfish now, she realized as she shut the door between them. And with Jag's mind open to everything, was it really him asking her to lie down with him, or her wanting to? Was the kiss playing over in her mind memory or hope? The guilt, she knew, was all hers. She tried to firm up her mental shields as she washed her hands after, and she'd only been gone a couple of minutes when she opened the door again, arm wrapping around her waist as she tried to draw further into herself.
When she came back out, Jag was sitting with his back to the headboard, the pillow he'd been curled up around now clutched to his chest. Tears glistened in his eyes, and he didn't know what to tell her. Too much, and he didn't know where she ended and he began. He wanted to tell her, I wanted this before, too, and, You don't have to, but in the end, all that came out was, in a tiny voice, "Can't we both be selfish?"
Emma wasn't sure they could right now, and she thought of psi bonds, of wounded minds and hearts. But she also couldn't look in those tear-sheened eyes and tell him no. She went around to the other side of the bed and toed off her shoes before climbing in beside him. "I'm sorry," she said, words muted around the lump in her throat.
"We don't have to," he said immediately, shifting away when she sat, because it was right there inside her, her fears, her worries, all the reasons why she didn't want to do this, and they were bigger than the right reasons to do it. "I shouldn't have - I'm sorry." He wiped at his eyes, looking at the duvet rather than at her.
We don't have to. He'd said that the last time too, hadn't he? Or something like it. And the way he drew away pulled at her heart, faint tug of hurt mixed with longing, and knowing she was hurting him by trying not to hurt him. Again. The decision was going to be up to her, she realized, and while sword blades of logic in the back of her mind said it was the wrong decision, the overflowing cups of her heart were answering.
"Don't. Please," she said, so softly, as she settled more comfortably on the bed. She held her arm up, open for him. "Come here."
"You don't - I can't -" He looked up at her again, eyes filled with tears and her doubts and the way they fed his, and, "It is just like -" the last time, "but it isn't," because he could feel it all, and he wasn't sure what was her and what was him and, "I love you." It wasn't what he'd meant to say, but it was strong with each beat of his heart, and he was so, so sorry, and he wasn't even sure that was all him.
What? How? But. Anything else Emma might have said just dissolved before she could even think it, and her arm dropped to curl around her waist. The breath left her lungs in a quiet, "Jag." It was too much. She didn't know what to feel. She didn't know what she did feel. But she knew, really, truly knew, she couldn't bear to hurt him. Not his heart, that felt so much even when he wasn't feeling everyone else, that was so open and true and so dear to her.
"I know," he said pleadingly. It was too much for him, too, fire licking at his insides and burning him all away. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he wiped them as he moved off the bed, hands trembling, reaching for socks and his boots. He would go. This was wrong. So wrong. He wasn't her responsibility, and he shouldn't be, and he wanted to laugh until he cried, until he threw up, until he passed out, except, wait, he was already crying, and was that him, or was that her? He hoped, so much, that it was him.
Tears might not be falling yet, but Emma could feel them gathering as Jag pushed away, obviously meaning to go. She got up too, biting her lip and not meeting his eyes, knowing they would say everything. She reached out, hand hovering above his shoulder before dropping again without touch. "I'm sorry," around the hot, heavy lump in her throat, and then she slipped out of his room and up to hers, shoes forgotten under the edge of his bed.
Her emotions were scorching their way through him, and Jag couldn't stick around. Why had he - he was such a pillock. Time and time again. Wasn't that the definition of madness? Her guilt meshed with and magnified his, and he all but ran out of the suite, rushing out to the relative quiet of the stables.
The thud of the door behind him knocked loose the first of her tears, and Emma tried to hold on, hold back as long as she could, for Jag's sake. She was hurting him enough already. But it spiraled into one of those ugly cries where you couldn't stop and the only end was exhausting yourself.
Or, as it turned out, fireballing the hell out of her loft bedroom, because it was the closest safe target for the maelstrom of feelings.
After, drained and worn thin, with a room that was uninhabitable until the inn's magic restored it, she climbed back into Jag's bed, curled around the same pillow she'd found him curled around earlier, and slipped into a fitful sleep.
There was only so long Jag could go without a shower, or a change of clothes. He hadn't slept well, plagued by nightmares and dreams that weren't quite his, even out in the stables, and he smelled like manure and sweat, at this stage. But he didn't want to feel what Emma felt about him, especially not right now, when she had fire of her own to keep her warm, to make her heart twist.
He could feel her in her upstairs bedroom when he neared their suite, but he didn't let that stop him. He could be quiet. He opened the door silently and moved straight for his room, and the bathroom on the other side of it.
He didn't exactly focus on her through his shower, but he was aware of her all the same. She had no idea he was here, of course, and he couldn't keep her out of his mind, but he could keep her in the background, feeling the shape of her but more than anything in detail.
It was a shape he loved so much.
He pulled on clean trousers and a t-shirt, then hesitated. His bed was so tempting, especially with the feel of her upstairs. He ended up climbing on it and curling up around a pillow, focusing on his breathing, with her presence like a nightlight, until he fell asleep. Just a quick nap, he promised himself. Just a quick nap, and his dreams were filled with her.
The Askani meditation patterns wouldn't form in Emma's mind, as they wouldn't, if she wasn't currently a psi, wasn't a mutant even. But she'd tried anyway. Regina had helped her understand the magic some, but she was still caught between the magic that happened almost instinctively whether she really wanted it to or not, and not being able to do anything useful when she tried. So for a while, she read, curled up in a nest of blankets and pillows on her bed - escaping into the world and lives of people genetically engineered with arms in place of legs and otherwise better equipped for life in space.
She fell so deeply into the book, it wasn't until she got to the end she realized she needed to go to the bathroom. Down the stairs, across the living area, and she was two steps into Jag's room before she noticed him asleep on his bed. She hadn't expected him to be there, feeling like he was avoiding her as much as she was him, and wisely too. But there he was, and he looked so... worn, even asleep. Her chest got all tight, just looking at him there, and she paused. Bit her lip. Considered sneaking back out again.
Dreams filled Jag's mind, dreams of her, so when he felt her so uncertain, he made a low humming sound in his throat, then unwound one arm from around the pillow to hold his hand out towards Emma. He was still mostly asleep, eyes closed, and his voice was sleep-thick and the words barely shaped as he said, "Come to bed." It came out closer to c'm to be', but it wasn't as if he noticed.
The words may have been muffled by sleep, but Jag's meaning was clear. With the way he reached for her, Emma was moving toward the bed before she could think better of it. Because she wanted to. Wanted to curl up with him and pretend everything was okay. Wanted to comfort and protect him when his mind was raw and open as a wound. Wanted to... she just wanted.
Compromise. She sat on the edge of the bed, one foot tucked under her, the other firmly on the floor, and smoothed a hand over his hair. Lump in her throat and barely able to breath for the bands around her chest.
Something was wrong. Uncertainty had shifted firmly into unease, slid further into anxiety. The brush of fingers was right, but everything else was wrong, so wrong. The safety of Jag's dreams etched away from him, and there was a frown on his brow and pain in his eyes when they finally opened, and he looked up at Emma.
Not a dream. Not a nightmare, either. He held her gaze, a plea in his.
Oh.
One thing Emma had learned about Jag the first time they talked – other than the night they arrived and found each other in the suite, which didn't count as conversation – was that, like Pyro, everything he felt showed in his eyes. And when his eyes opened and found hers, the plea in them hit her almost like she was the empath, but for what, she had no idea.
"It's okay," she said softly. It wasn't okay. Almost nothing was with everyone at the inn topsy-turvy. Almost nothing was, with the tangle of concern, uncertainty, love, helplessness, and more she couldn't know wrapping tight around her heart and leaden in her gut, and knowing there was little she could do to keep it from him. "It's okay," she repeated. Non-psis could shield, but it wasn't as easy when her own mind didn't work the way was meant to, but she had to try, not wanting to overwhelm Jag. "Sleep."
Her feelings cut through him, as he had known they would. Her thoughts rushed through his brain, and he wished he could give her the privacy she deserved. Almost nothing was okay, ran in a loop through his brain, and he wasn't sure how he could sleep, other than he wanted her to never stop touching him. "With you?" he asked, pleaded, whispered, prayed for.
"Okay," she heard her heart answer, before she could overthink and talk herself out of it. "But first I need to..." Emma tipped her head toward the bathroom, and gave him a small smile as she stood. It was why she'd gone into his room to begin with. "I'll be right back."
They'd been here before. She'd been selfish then, and she was being selfish now, she realized as she shut the door between them. And with Jag's mind open to everything, was it really him asking her to lie down with him, or her wanting to? Was the kiss playing over in her mind memory or hope? The guilt, she knew, was all hers. She tried to firm up her mental shields as she washed her hands after, and she'd only been gone a couple of minutes when she opened the door again, arm wrapping around her waist as she tried to draw further into herself.
When she came back out, Jag was sitting with his back to the headboard, the pillow he'd been curled up around now clutched to his chest. Tears glistened in his eyes, and he didn't know what to tell her. Too much, and he didn't know where she ended and he began. He wanted to tell her, I wanted this before, too, and, You don't have to, but in the end, all that came out was, in a tiny voice, "Can't we both be selfish?"
Emma wasn't sure they could right now, and she thought of psi bonds, of wounded minds and hearts. But she also couldn't look in those tear-sheened eyes and tell him no. She went around to the other side of the bed and toed off her shoes before climbing in beside him. "I'm sorry," she said, words muted around the lump in her throat.
"We don't have to," he said immediately, shifting away when she sat, because it was right there inside her, her fears, her worries, all the reasons why she didn't want to do this, and they were bigger than the right reasons to do it. "I shouldn't have - I'm sorry." He wiped at his eyes, looking at the duvet rather than at her.
We don't have to. He'd said that the last time too, hadn't he? Or something like it. And the way he drew away pulled at her heart, faint tug of hurt mixed with longing, and knowing she was hurting him by trying not to hurt him. Again. The decision was going to be up to her, she realized, and while sword blades of logic in the back of her mind said it was the wrong decision, the overflowing cups of her heart were answering.
"Don't. Please," she said, so softly, as she settled more comfortably on the bed. She held her arm up, open for him. "Come here."
"You don't - I can't -" He looked up at her again, eyes filled with tears and her doubts and the way they fed his, and, "It is just like -" the last time, "but it isn't," because he could feel it all, and he wasn't sure what was her and what was him and, "I love you." It wasn't what he'd meant to say, but it was strong with each beat of his heart, and he was so, so sorry, and he wasn't even sure that was all him.
What? How? But. Anything else Emma might have said just dissolved before she could even think it, and her arm dropped to curl around her waist. The breath left her lungs in a quiet, "Jag." It was too much. She didn't know what to feel. She didn't know what she did feel. But she knew, really, truly knew, she couldn't bear to hurt him. Not his heart, that felt so much even when he wasn't feeling everyone else, that was so open and true and so dear to her.
"I know," he said pleadingly. It was too much for him, too, fire licking at his insides and burning him all away. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he wiped them as he moved off the bed, hands trembling, reaching for socks and his boots. He would go. This was wrong. So wrong. He wasn't her responsibility, and he shouldn't be, and he wanted to laugh until he cried, until he threw up, until he passed out, except, wait, he was already crying, and was that him, or was that her? He hoped, so much, that it was him.
Tears might not be falling yet, but Emma could feel them gathering as Jag pushed away, obviously meaning to go. She got up too, biting her lip and not meeting his eyes, knowing they would say everything. She reached out, hand hovering above his shoulder before dropping again without touch. "I'm sorry," around the hot, heavy lump in her throat, and then she slipped out of his room and up to hers, shoes forgotten under the edge of his bed.
Her emotions were scorching their way through him, and Jag couldn't stick around. Why had he - he was such a pillock. Time and time again. Wasn't that the definition of madness? Her guilt meshed with and magnified his, and he all but ran out of the suite, rushing out to the relative quiet of the stables.
The thud of the door behind him knocked loose the first of her tears, and Emma tried to hold on, hold back as long as she could, for Jag's sake. She was hurting him enough already. But it spiraled into one of those ugly cries where you couldn't stop and the only end was exhausting yourself.
Or, as it turned out, fireballing the hell out of her loft bedroom, because it was the closest safe target for the maelstrom of feelings.
After, drained and worn thin, with a room that was uninhabitable until the inn's magic restored it, she climbed back into Jag's bed, curled around the same pillow she'd found him curled around earlier, and slipped into a fitful sleep.