St. California
By Mice
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Take place before APPLEJACK.
Part 1 - San Pedro
-Day-
Smooth surfaces divert the observer from diving deeper. Emma and Bobby were not likely friends but given their past, it would be hard for there to be no connection. At first, it was Bobby pursuing Emma for answers. Then nothing. Now, it was Emma, pursuing Bobby, with questions she wouldn't have thought of at the time.
"I have a rule never to be nearer to Los Angeles than San Francisco."
"It's a major city."
"With major pollution."
"Allergies?"
"White clothes. White casual, at that. I have to go American designer when I travel here because no self-respecting European house will make something out of cotton." Emma closed her eyes. "Michael Kors doesn't even do whites for Spring anymore. I called in a favor with a large check."
Bobby nodded his head and gestured to his outfit. "I maybe paid fifteen dollars for everything I'm wearing."
"You say that as if it were a solution to be proud of, Drake. Tight jeans and a white t-shirt are not worn, they are used, like a motel washcloth." Emma fanned her fingers over her long silk wool coat. "Something to wash with after the deed."
"I'm not afraid to be simple."
"Simple? Drake, that is an understatement considering that we're waiting for a one hundred foot neon installation to be moved here from Santa Monica – which is where I thought we were meeting - to…this."
"It's San Pedro, Emma. It's a good town."
"It's on the other side of Los Angeles. Had I known this would be the final destination, I wouldn't have bothered Kors and would have just…had a Chico's kind of day."
"The day where you shop at Chico's is the day I pick up the spandex again."
"I'm glad you brought it up first."
"What? That after years of trying to be somebody, I found a gift that has nothing to do with being a mutant and it gives me more joy and happiness than being an X-Men ever did?"
Emma shook her head. "Oh, no, this can never do for the history books, Drake. You were one of the first X-Men, young and dumb, and part of original Xavier 5 and all joined together at the –"
"Don't say anything disgusting, Emma."
Emma smiled, hiding the canary. "Why, you didn't even give me a chance! Also, I think this is the man we are waiting for."
A truck driver, dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans and used for twenty years, motioned over to Bobby. "You the guy with the neon dicks?"
"And you thought I was going to say something dirty?" Emma clucked her tongue as she signaled to the driver. "Neon dicks, ahoy!"
-Night-
It was a nameless restaurant. It was near the port, it served oysters and coffee. It was not popular with tourists who insisted on taking their pictures with large plastic fish along the docks. Just open air, next to the ocean, with cigarettes.
Emma had oysters, Bobby had coffee and cigarettes.
"I can't say for the others but Scott? I don't even think he realizes what you're doing out here, only glad that you're sober."
"Sort of."
"Well, you're not taking pills anymore."
"I'm not doing any drugs anymore. And please let whoever started the meth rumor that I have never done meth. Lots of drugs, sure, but not that."
"You heard that someone described you as "meth hot", haven't you? Not that you keep up what's going on at the mansion…"
"I keep up, I just…don't make my presence known." Bobby put his coffee cup aside and lit up a cigarette. "I don't want to be compared to who I was."
"Yes, you're a grown up now, Bobby. With your cigarettes and cocaine."
"I've been off of coke for a year, Emma." Bobby shook his head laughing. "I feel like everyone there was trying to keep me as part of a mold I had been put in for years. I've been out of there for almost just as long and people think I'll just magically snap back to the old Bobby that they are used to without asking what I want. I mean, didn't you even say that I held myself back years ago? Do you think I'm still doing that now?"
"Drake, I hope that you never get the chance to be a woman because you would blow your fucking brains out." Emma swallowed an oyster. "Do you know why I wear white?"
"Because…you're the White Queen? And you have to?"
"You think that I have to wear white clothes due to a former association that has no current resonance on my life?" Emma stared at Bobby with half lidded eyes and a disapproving frown. "Do you think men respect attractive blond white women who say that they are a CEO? I'm a telepath. I know every dirty impulse a man has when he thinks of me. And they start so different – the worst ones are from the men who need to remind themselves to behave until they have me alone. And this is before we introduce the idea of fetish wear I bring to the table."
"Yeah, why even do that part if you know what they're thinking?"
"It's a way to help control it. You lead the conversation, you take control of the situation. But white…people associate white with –"
"Virgins? Angels?"
Emma shook her head. "Doctors. And doctors are like gods to a businessman. They are always filled with anxiety and feeling like they are about to die. That's how far I have to go to get any chance of respect with someone I meet so they won't assume I'm in the conference room to freshen up the drink cart and hand out reports." Emma took another oyster, adding before eating, "I'm Emma Frost, CEO of Frost Enterprises. Nobody made me that but myself. Talk to me about molds."
-The Show-
"We didn't need to trade clothes."
"Believe me, Drake, I didn't get the good end of the deal and I'm amazed that this worked out as well as it did, but we absolutely had to trade clothes."
Bobby now wore a large white silk wool jacket over matching white pants with a low cut cashmere v-neck sweater that went to his navel. Emma was in motel rags. They sat in the rafters of a warehouse where an art show/fetish carnival had been going on for the past hour.
"I've had three people ask me if you were Debbie Harry tonight."
"My record was 317, one of them being a Ramone."
A tall woman dressed in 1940's style approached them and kissed Bobby on the mouth. "The dicks are about to be turned on!"
Bobby kissed her forehead. "Thank you for helping, Dahlia."
"I'll see you in a few!"
Emma waved watching Dahlia leave. "Bobby?"
"Yes?"
"I'm having a strange memory from your life coming at me…is that…?"
"A classmate of mine. Ran into Dahlia while I was in rehab and we reconnected."
"Andrew Draline."
Bobby nodded. "I don't know what it means, other than I'm happy."
"You don't have to say anything else."
"Can I, though?" Emma nodded and Bobby continued. "It's that mold. I can't be what that program wants me to be. The nice kid from Long Island who never had anything too bad happen to him except having too much potential. Since going through this whole rabbit hole of the benzos, rehab, coke more and rehab and knowing that I wanted no longer had anything to do with Xavier, I got to question what else I thought was normal. And you know what I found? I'm still a nice kid from Long Island with too much potential. And so is Dahlia. She has this ability to…well, you know the murder story about the Black Dahlia? That's why she named herself after her because her ability is to be able to turn herself into pieces. She can feel like she can pass because of it."
"Pass for female?"
"Pass for being someone deserving of love." Bobby motioned Emma to come closer to him so she could see. "I no longer want to be defined by who I am, Emma."
A hundred dicks lit up and began to pulse and the crowd reacted with joy and laughter.
"Not my DNA, not my sexuality…I get to define who this man is by my actions. And nothing else." Bobby kissed Emma lightly on her lips. "And that's why I need to tell you about Lorna Dane."
To be continued…