A.N.: So I realized as I was writing this, that this is the second fanfic this week that I have written about first-time meetings again…hint hint. (CHECK OUT THE STORY I MENTIONED! "The New Sexpert") But this one is in an entirely different context and I get to play on AU sliiiiightly. You will see where I'm taking it in later chapters but for now is like a prologue just to set up the history. There will be foreshadowing like SPOILERS! Thanks for reading and hope ya review!
-I-
There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom!
He so badly wanted to speak to her. She could tell that much. Why this thought occurred to her more than the multiple others that battled her head, she wasn't sure, all she knew was that it echoed louder in her mind over the noise of other peoples' thoughts. Who was this he anyway? These migraines and voices had to go away.
Still, the brown haired girl sitting by herself in the very back of her New England classroom, kept her calm like she was taught and gripped the edges of her wooden desk tightly, trying to fight the pain ringing through her ears as it felt like her head was being bombarded with a multitude of overwhelming emotions. The classroom around her began to dissolve.
She felt her eyes begin to water, but with sheer concentration on brushing this feeling off, the headache dulled and the voices seemed to be repressed.
*Gasp*
A sharp intake of breath echoed all around her as if someone had just splashed water on her face and she was just woken up, pulled out of some schizophrenic nightmare. After several deep breaths, she sat up. This wasn't right.
The floor underneath her private school's uniform skirt was cold and hard…tiled. Wait a second, she was sitting on the floor. Last she knew she was sitting in her desk at school.
By looking around with eyes adjusting to the fluorescent lights, revealing sinks and stalls, it seemed that she had somehow ended up in the girl's bathroom. Or more like on the girl's bathroom floor.
A throbbing sensation burned at her temples and she had to close her eyes and rub the exploding veins at the sides of her head. She felt like she was going to retch in the toilet.
After a few moments, the pulsing in her brain subsided again, leaving her a gradual sense of relief…if only for then.
"A-are you…okay?"
A startled voice one that was definitely not in her head, echoed meekly in the empty bathroom.
That was not right either; this was a boy's voice. Yet she was in the girl's bathroom…
Regaining her composure, breath, and sanity somewhat, the brown haired girl looked around and saw someone sprawled out on the tile floor not too far from her.
He was cautiously crouched on his school uniform khaki-covered haunches, and had a wary hand half-clenched, out towards her as if frozen in an incomplete gesture.
She would have thought him as cute, much more attractive than she found the boring and dim-witted rich boys around her pretentious school, but she had no room for that thought, and besides, he was probably one of those rich boys she couldn't stand, and also much like the majority of those boys who were the majority of the male student body, he would never give her the time of day anyway. Except for now of course, but she was getting to that.
She cleared the loose hair out of her wet face and brushed them behind her ears in a feeble effort to tidy up from her disheveled state.
What did it matter anyway, she was the plain nerdy girl whose uniform was too loose on her and not tight unlike the short and tiny miniskirts and blouses the more popular girls at her school wore. Nobody looked at her and if they did it was with ridicule or without any opinion. She had gone to an all girls' school all her life and did not know much about boys so she didn't try.
The boy across from her moved a little closer with outstretched hands wavering as if he was hesitant to approach her or touch her.
His standard white collared shirt was rumpled like it wasn't exactly starched and ironed according to the standards of the WASPy guys and girls around him.
His tie was loose and looked rumpled as if he played with the strip of fabric often and idly. He wore a dark red Snow Valley Academy sweater vest over his white shirt with the crest of their school on one side of the chest. The careless manner of his apparel and his wayward brown hair that grew haphazardly in every direction made her automatically categorize him as one of the more slacker rich boys who purposely wore vintage shirts, grew their hair out from the standard jock cuts, and tried to look like stoners.
"Yeah. I'm, okay. Why is my face wet?"
She touched her moist face again and looked up at him, making eye contact.
A little tingle tore down her body when she looked into his sincere eyes, which were the most adorable puppy-eyes and the most beautiful shade of brown she had ever seen. Her hand absent-mindedly brushed the creases out of her skirt and smoothed the rising garment down over her thighs.
Her dark electric blue irises locked with a pair of light brown eyes that were so light they seemed red in the light. Amber was a more appropriate hue to describe his gaze at her.
As if her first words to him helped him overcome his hesitation, the boy now closed the distance between them and placed warm shaking hands on her shoulders. "Are you sure you're alright? Should I get the nurse?"
She shook her head. No way was she going to see a nurse would most likely tell her parents and then ultimately, lead to her father's anger at her distractions from her expensive education.
The boy did not smell of Old Spice like the boys at her school who wore the cologne like their fathers did. Now that he was closer she could smell over the antibacterial soap and sanitizer, the fabric softener from his clothes, the lingering scent of aftershave, and some sweet and salty deodorant.
She realized that she had never really smelled "boy" before. Her little sister Cordelia always sang out loud, "Boys are smelly!"
This one certainly was not, and he was certainly the closest a boy had ever physically gotten to her. The only smells from boys she knew, came from her brother Christian, who shared her older sister, Adrienne's same taste for perfume, and things that smelled like candy or flowers.
This was not important however, what was important was how she ended up on the bathroom floor.
She asked, "Wait, what are you doing in the girl's bathroom? Who are you?"
He gingerly rehashed for her, "I, um, I saw you uh you left class, and um, I-I-."
"You followed me?" She said that more incredulously than matter-of-factly as the puzzle pieces began to come together.
The boy blushed crimson at his cheeks and briefly tugged at his thick brown hair.
"Er, I suppose you could…well, anyway, you um, you went to the bathroom and I found you like this, except you were… in pain I think and I tried to talk to you but you weren't exactly responding and you kept um screaming and like punching yourself…"
"Punching myself?"
"Like, at your head. Like this." The boy slowly raised his fists next to both sides of his head and pounded at his temples in slow motions.
He continued to the bewilderment of her paled face. "So I um, I might have. Oh god I'm so sorry, I really didn't mean to hurt you, and I tried to stop you."
The boy gave her a distressed look full of guilt and made a strangled noise with his throat.
He couldn't have been more than her age, and she fully knew that he was clueless and just the bystander of her own private black out. She looked at her thin wrists which indeed felt like they had been grasped by stronger, bigger hands.
To think that he had touched her and she was not even conscious for her first physical contact with another boy! Not only that but she must have looked like an idiot hitting herself….
"Then, um, you kind of stopped hitting yourself and threw me back."
She looked up in surprise- that did not sound very plausible. Standing up, he would have been taller than her with a lean build and sculpted shoulders.
The boy went on, "I-it's okay though, it didn't really hurt, and I mean, it was weird… you just like…there was some energy and you like…exploded or something. And I kind of just flew back I guess. Then you were, um, on the floor. I thought you passed out or something so I uh splashed water on you. Er, sorry 'bout that. It woke you up though! I-I'm sorry I didn't know what to do. You m-must think I'm such a freak for…following you."
Energy? Exploded? What the hell.
The girl took it all in and figured he must have been exaggerating and had only been shocked into jumping backwards, hazy memories came back to her like she was just watching, and she recalled screaming out. She was sure that would give anybody a jump of fright. She hardly yelled, being submissive in her household to rather passive aggressive family members.
Feeling slightly dazed and also slightly comforted by this stranger, yet intimidated by the fact that he was a cute boy talking to her of all people, she shyly asked what was on her mind, "So, who are you?"
The boy grimly looked down abashedly and then just as shyly answered, "I'm um, you probably don't know me… No one really does. I'm new this semester, I just moved from-from nevermind, I uh came in last week? I'm in your class. My name's Scott."
She did not know a Scott… she did however, recall last week and she pulled the memory out after much effort. Her teacher Mr. Kendall had been introducing a new boy much to the disinterest of the boys and excitement of the girls, who were disappointed by the new kid's shy mannerisms. She vaguely remembered a blurry boy, kind of tall with brown hair. She had not worn her glasses that day so she could seem more sophisticated and attractive to Mr. Kendall. Sitting at the back came to a disadvantage at seeing the new kid being introduced. It did however have an advantage in not being noticed by the chattering girls in front of her who ignored her or snickered at the quiet smart girl who had weird habits.
The only thing that had been in focus that day was Mr. Kendall introducing the boy, and looking so mature and cute as he did it.
Brushing aside thoughts of her teacher, the girl put her hand out and shyly murmured, "I'm Emma Fr-just Emma. It's nice to meet you. Um, thank you. For stopping me from pummeling myself to death."
She cringed inwardly at her weak stab at humor or maybe flirting, and feebly laughed at the joke that was meant to brush off this whole incident. Scott smiled lopsidedly, another thing she discovered that she liked about his face. She had already come up with a bounty of things she liked about his features in the few seconds she had met him.
His smile was warm and sharing instead of condescending like she feared and anticipated from smiles that usually came her way.
With a little more confidence, amber eyes met electric blue and he took her hand and shook it firmly.
"It's nice to meet you Emma, I have a feeling that this won't be the last I see of you."
She thought that was a strange thing to say, and sensed that he said it out of instinct, not exactly knowing what he meant by that, but knowing that he meant that he had a feeling about her right then that could go so many ways… Anyways, she would ponder and analyze that later.
Then an epiphany came over her and she looked at the boy differently, more intimately because she had felt his thoughts in that classroom. His voice was the same as the boy voice in her head earlier. She realized that it had stood out more to her because it was directed towards her.
Emma could not believe it. Here was this cute new boy whom she had not known the existence of until now and he had been thinking about her? Should it not have been the other way around? Why on Earth would this perfectly seemingly normal boy want anything to do with her?
Scott stood up and reached down to help her up. Emma accepted his hand and stood up as well.
They awkward stood facing each other in the girl's bathroom and Scott stated, "I guess I should get out of the girl's bathroom then" Emma giggled a little, the first time she had in a while, "Yeah, you should get back to class. I don't really feel like going back, so I think I might just stay here for a little bit."
He looked at her strangely with expressive brown eyes and then shrugged, "I know you must already think I'm weird but…would it be weird if I asked if…well if you want company?"
Now it was Emma's turn to look at him strangely, she blurted out, "Why would you want to spend time with me?"t
Scott blushed cutely at the cheeks again and mumbled, "I don't really feel like being in class either. School's never really been my thing and right now seems like the perfect opportunity to maybe get to know you a little better?" He sheepishly added, "I don't know anyone here and I don't have friends really, and if you'd like, well, I feel like I'd have a better time with you than in class."
Emma's posture relaxed and she shrugged in turn, "I-I know I certainly don't care, but here? In the girl's bathroom? You really want to be here. With me?"
"I mean, we can move unless you want to stay here. I don't really care. Maybe you'll beat yourself up again, I could come in handy."
Emma was appalled and the humiliation and mortification swept her up until she looked up at Scott's smiling eyes and knew then that he was only joking and making light of her panic attack.
The rest of the school day was spent on the tiled floor of the girl's restroom, talking to a new potential friend about nothing which was blissful to Emma whose every dialogue was mainly between her and her parents who surmounted pressure on her with every conversation they had.
Emma did not say this outright to her new peer, but she did not have friends either, she was a loner like him, and she really hoped he would stay.
As all real and good things in her life though, she would find out that they would all be taken away too soon and thus in order to adapt to it, Emma would become a Frost. Frosty and icy, the teenage Emma would someday become Emma Frost. She only hoped with all her heart though that this would never happen since she hated being a Frost, and she hoped that Scott would never know her as one.
Lucky for her, Emma would sustain her wishes as this brief encounter with this new kid would become part of a forgotten adolescence and life, one that she would not consider important in the future.
Years later after many changes, denied inheritances, emancipating herself from her family, losing Ian Kendall, and finally finding ground upon becoming a dancer for a gentleman's club, she would not think back to these times at all of a former and forgotten Emma. If she did think to the past, it would only be of the scorn and criticism from the people of her past life as she unsurely teetered on super high heeled stilettos with velvet curtains framing her face as she looked out at menacing audience members with the same scornful looks on their faces.
Maybe she reflected on the few rare, but more significant friendly faces and the smiles a forgotten boy had given her, but that would only be momentarily as she would nervously scan the spiteful crowds in the dim nightclub and lock eyes with the glimmer of brown or maybe they were red eyes, but all of that would diminish as the lights dimmed on the audience and her music cued, spotlight on her, and a catwalk for her to work became her priority.
All of that was far away and now, as she sat on the girl's bathroom floor with a fellow loner boy talking to escape her confines, the imminent future seemed like a far away and mythical time and the epitome of Emma Frost in the future as defined by herself and others, was unfathomable and the young Emma Frost did not even suspect that such fates belied her.
Stocks, family scandals, drugs, secrets, lies, back-stabbing, manipulation, exotic dancing, and power if mentioned to her now, were unimaginable things, but how much longer they would be unfamiliar subjects was only something time could tell her.
A.U.: Okay, so no surprise it's Emma Frost. I was very fascinated by her past and what made her become who she is and stuff, so I re-reviewed old comics about her life before notoriety hit her, and would like to develop more about her family life and such. I am trying to stick to the original storyline of her life but with a few twists of my own and a way to put in people that aren't there until later. So let me know what you think! If anyone's got pointers feel free to let me know! I tend to get carried away…Thanks and happy FF reading!