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There was a thunderstorm that night, and he came in the door shaking out drops of water from his hair, and when he saw the woman at the end of the bar his face lit up and cinched tight the smile-lines around his eyes and mouth. “Hey, Em,” he said, and he took the seat next to her and he ordered two whiskeys and he wrapped her in a loose one-armed hug. She felt cold. “What’ve ye been up to?”
When she smiled it was tight and fake. “Protecting a world that hates and fears me,” she said, mocking, and sipped at the drink she’d already ordered herself. “You?”
Sean shrugged. “Bit o’ this, bit o’ that. Same old, same old.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Neither was yuirs.”
The bartender brought over the whiskey then; the glasses sat untouched in front of them. “Thank you for coming out here to meet me,” she said, and it was much too formal.
“Well, I was in town anyway, you said you wanted to chat.” He brought his drink to his lips, took the smallest sip. “Didn’t think ‘chat’ was code for ‘clam up,’ but…” She elbowed him in the ribs, hard, and it was almost, almost, like it used to be. “What’s wrong, Emma?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m… I am practically perfect in every way,” she said, running a nervous finger around the rim of her glass. “It’s—I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fucking Scott Summers.” She grabbed at her whiskey and downed about half of it. “I’m fine.”
For a few long seconds, Sean kept opening his mouth like he was going to say something and then snapping it shut. He drank, and he scratched his chin. Then—“Cyclops?”
“No, the other Scott Summers.”
“Ye called me to brag about the affair ye’re having?” He saw it then, the way her eyes widened, the sliver of actual emotion she let peek through her icy defensiveness. “That’s not why you called me,” he said after a long pause. “What’s wrong, Emma?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, trying to brush it all off. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not even real, really, it’s just this telepathic thing. It doesn’t count. So I shouldn’t-” She cut herself off by finishing her whiskey, completely neglecting whatever she’d had before.
“Shouldn’t what?”
“Shouldn’t have…” She gestured noncommittally in the general direction of her chest.
Of her heart, he realized, and he almost, almost laughed. “Feelings?”
Emma glared at him but didn’t make any correction. “It isn’t fair,” she said. “I don’t know what happened. All I wanted to do was some harmless home-wrecking. I didn’t want… this.”
“You’re unbelievable,” he told her, his voice colder than she would have expected. “And ye need to stop doin’ this.”
“Alright, look, I’m not the only bad guy here, and if you’re trying to make me feel bad about darling little Jean Grey-”
“I don’t care about Jean,” he said, and it wasn’t completely true but it was true enough. “I care about ye. And I don’t like t’see ye destroying yourself.”
“I’m not-”
“You are. You do that.” The whiskey hung forgotten in his left hand; he turned to look her square in the face. “This is what you do, Em, ev’ry time. You get too invested and then you get scared, and then ye start tryin’ to find a way to make everyone hate you as much as you hate yourself. And you convince yourself that you’re a bad person who does bad things for bad reasons, when the truth is you’re just like ev’rybody else.”
They’ve argued before. Thousands and thousands of times, screaming matches and feuds and really spectacular month-long vendettas. Emma always fought back.
Emma didn’t fight back.
“You want to know what happened?” Sean said, and he was honest-to-God angry with her. Angry with the way she refused to forgive, refused to move on and be happy. “You fell in love with the guy. And that terrified ye. So ye shoved it down and pretended like ye were doin’ this just to piss everybody off. Because the evil husband-stealin’ White Queen is a hell of a lot easier t’deal with than the person ye actually are.”
“And who’s that?” she said, right as lightning lit up the sky outside.
Thunder struck. “You’re Emma Frost. You love expensive clothes and you love your students, and you love making people think you don’t love a damn thing in the world. But most of all ye love things ye can’t have. So much so that you’d probably convince yourself you couldn’t have something even if ye really could. Even if ye deserved it.” He took another sip of his whiskey. “Em, you’re a good person. Who does bad things. For good reasons.”
“Enlightening,” she said, and drank to hide the fact that she was hurting, and to hide the fact that she might be the least bit happy that someone in the world knew her and knew her well.
“Look,” he said, softer, like he’d said everything he needed to say and needed now to repair the damage. “Ye didn’t call me here to lecture ye.”
“You’re right, I didn’t,” she said, and then softly, softly, “but thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“I knew, you know,” said Emma, leaning against the bar. “About the making-people-hate-me thing. It’s my secondary mutation.” She grinned, but her eyes didn’t change.
“Thought your secondary mutation was turning into a big diamond.”
“That’s more of a party trick.”
They drank and talked and acted like she hadn’t poured her heart out (or, more accurately, had her heart poured out by him). The storm raged on outside and the drinks kept coming, and Emma told funny stories about her students and Sean didn’t mention Scott or Genosha.
When he finally got up to leave, the rain had lessened only slightly. Emma grabbed him by the wrist and looked up at him with those not-quite-shielded eyes, scrutinized him. “Do you hate me?” she asked.
Her hand on his arm was cold, but her voice, for once, was warm. “Yeah,” he said. “Almost as much as I love ye.” The rain falling in sheets outside was almost as cold as her fingers.