CANDY CANES by MooncatX
There was little about the winter holiday season to make Emma Frost merry. She'd grown up dreading those days, with that stomach souring worry over what new way her father could poison even the small joys that other children seemed to take for granted in even the poorest homes. Because they were Frosts, with an image to maintain, Winston Frost would allow his wife to donate to the right charities at the right time, but those gestures were purely mercenary in intent, to further the family social standing and make the right contacts among the notable persons who often chaired in those helpful committees that brought toys to children whose families could not afford the luxury of presents, and food to the tables that would otherwise be bare.
During one of those gestures, Emma had the chance to hand out gifts at a communal home for woman with children who were escaping abusive situations. The pure joy a few inexpensive toys and sweets could bring other children had been an eye opening experience. At the time, it had made the young Emma Grace Frost feel almost sick with jealousy even though she'd smiled with practiced politeness. At home would be very costly gifts that would bring cool looks of disdain from Winston Frost as each was carefully opened. Caustic remarks often accompanied each "gift", so that Christmas was a strangely painful experience. Her sister Adrienne had gotten an expensive riding habit that bright holiday season, which unfortunately had been after the newly adolescent girl had hit a growth spurt.
Emma could still remember how the blood had drained from her older sibling's face as their father had condemned Adrienne for over indulging in sweets and being little better than one of the 'common cows' that couldn't endure self discipline. Adrienne spent the next two months starving herself, until she could fit into the riding habit, winning a rare wintery smile from Winston Frost. He kept the smile even while he told Adrienne how unattractively gaunt she was looking, and that she had best look to her eating habits as he couldn't abide women who catered to popular vanity to the point it made them look like ridiculous bags of bones. He'd then suggested Adrienne should give the outfit to Emma, because it was now clear to him that it was more suited to a more girlish, naturally slender frame. Adrienne had smiled a tight, grimace of teeth, that had frightened Emma, but in a surprisingly calm tone agreed with her father. Later Emma was not terribly surprised to come upon the ragged shreds of cloth left on her bed.
Later holidays had done little to win Emma over. After leaving home, Emma had spent her next few winter holidays alone. There was a relief in not dealing with her family, but there was also a sterile coldness to those Christmas days when all the shops were closed except for the few restaurants that catered to families seeking a holiday feast outside their home. One try at having dinner out among the boisterous press at one over priced and over crowded buffet put Emma off the experience entirely. Better alone with a cheap bottle of vodka to give her that rush of liquid warmth that accomplished what the company of humans did not.
When she first joined the Hellfire Club, Emma was required to attend the sybaritic holiday parties, and her relative low rank had made those festivities of early years their own particular trials. No longer could she enjoy simple seclusion during holidays, not that she'd really enjoyed it as endured it better alone than with company. If Emma wished to rise in rank, she had to mingle, and holiday parties provided valuable opportunities that she grasped to their fullest... and to take the edge off, well aged whiskey took the place of vodka. Leland had introduced her to the appreciation of fine French brandy, Sebastian to single malt scotch and cigars.
Emma had only taken a glass of wine the New Year's Eve night a Sentinel attacked her in Shaw's private upstate home. She'd been telepathically in contact with Shaw, who was with Lourdes and Tessa at the Hellfire Club gala that year, which probably the only reason she and Leland survived. Alone, they'd have been no match for the mutant hunting robot. But Lourdes had bought herself, Shaw and Tessa to the rescue.
Ah.. Lourdes...
Leland and Emma had lived through the attack, Lourdes had not been so lucky. The young teleporter had stretched her power at Shaw's insistence, and then beyond for the sake of a man who had valued her power, but until her sacrifice, had been blind to the loving devotion behind her obedience. Emma had gentled the gravely wounded young woman's dying agony, letting her have a few last precious with Sebastian without pain. Then before Lourdes body had begun to chill, gone with Sebastian and Tessa to the New York Hellfire Club, and with them took down each of the former Council of the Chosen in bloody retribution.
Tessa provided the stategy. An plan elegant in it's ruthless simplicity. Shaw took out the telepathic dampeners set through out the club. Without them it was easy for Emma to take over the White King. She'd used Ned Buckman's body, telepathically possessing him just long enough to shoot down Paris, his White Queen, and all his clandestine supporters. Those who'd sent the Sentinels to attack the Hellfire Club's mutants fell instead, dying in the stutter of gunfire. Sebastian had delivered the coup de grace, breaking Ned's craven neck, after first allowing his one time friend and betrayer the full measure of knowledge that the mutants the Council had planned to destroy would now rule the Hellfire Club. The Inner Circle was born that night, birthed in the blood of one fragile mutant girl and baptized in vengeance.
Later, when the bodies were carted away, Shaw had taken her with a rough, almost brutal urgency, and she found that hard, animal sex could keep her mind as free from the need to think as alcohol. She mourned Lourdes with each panted gasp as Sebastian sought his own absolution with punishing thrusts and his teeth set to mark the creamy pale skin of her shoulder, her nails clawing at his back. Lust and grief and the darker threads of triumph wed together for her that night, with the relief that she was alive. Each movement of Sebastian's hardness rocking inside reminded her that she was alive, the pain and the pleasure of it building up till she could scream. Sebastian could make her scream, and for that if nothing else she loved him, as she loved so very few.
He'd left her before dawn, and that New Year found her alone on sweat tangled white sheets. She couldn't tell if the few tell tale smears of crimson on samite were his blood, or her own. The exhaustion of sex settled languidly on her and she'd thought of candy canes, with their sticky peppermint sweetness and the swirl of blood red stripes on white.
fini