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Post by emmafrost on Sept 12, 2006 10:35:34 GMT -5
A knock sounded on John's door, and as she did each time she arrived for another hour or two of working on John's mind, Emma Frost announced herself. "Pyro? It's Emma."
But through the ever-present confidence in her voice was a note of urgency that he had rarely heard. She didn't even wait for his invitation to enter, but turned the doorknob and pushed open the door. She walked into the room, giving the door a light push to close behind her as her eyes found John.
"I just received a very unexpected visitor to the headquarters of my company," she said, crossing her arms elegantly. When she spoke next, it wasn't in a haughty, 'I know more than you' sort of way, but in the sense that she was the bird whistling in the man's ear, because she knew that he should know the information.
"Dead Man is alive. He's on his way back."
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Post by Pyro on Sept 12, 2006 11:06:02 GMT -5
"He's alive?"
John had woken that morning feeling a little less bouncy and enthusiastic than he had been during Emma's sessions. Whilst his nightmares were nowhere near the intensity they had been before his breakdown, he still experienced sleepless nights. Last night had been one of those; he'd lain awake, sorting through the chaos that was still his thoughts and memories.
"That's fantastic," he said, carrying on the subject. "How the hell did he surv...actually, no. No, I really don't need to know. The dude creeps me out enough as is." He gave Emma an almost embarrassed grin. "But hey! Great news."
He ran a hand over his now noticeably stubbled jaw. He hadn't shaved in days.
"So when will he be back? How's he getting here? Python's off-island for a few days."
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Post by emmafrost on Sept 12, 2006 13:54:38 GMT -5
Emma was glad again that John wasn't as cold and unpleasant as the rest of The Brotherhood had been to her since she had left with Mystique--since the beginning, really, but especially since then. She didn't need their approval for her own gratification, but it was a welcome change for the woman who was doing everything she could to stitch their leader's mind back together.
"I don't know how he survived, as a matter of fact, and I'm glad I don't," she said plainly, with a shadow of a wry smile. "But he just left my office, and I've lent him my jet to come here."
'And so help me, if it smells even the faintest bit like rotting flesh when I get it back...'
"I was under the impression that he was going to go straight to my estate," Emma said even as she thought about how much work it would be to jut the entire plane and replace every inch of upholstery. Her mind could always focus on many things at once, and never miss a beat.
"But to be quite frank with you, I wouldn't touch his mind with a ten foot pole," she added, her smile acknowledging this weakness--on anyone less confident it would have seemed like a sheepish gesture. But Emma left no room in her person for such shortcomings.
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Post by Pyro on Sept 12, 2006 14:33:36 GMT -5
"You've not had such misgivings about my mind, I notice," he said affably, offering the coffee pot to her and, on her nod, poured her a mug out and pushed it across the desk to her. He flopped down in his chair and immediately put his feet up on the desk. "Are you going to sit down with me at sometime and actually start cataloguing all my various neuroses and psychoses, or are you just going to lock them all up?"
His tone was light, but his words were serious. "I'm aware, you know," he said, conversationally. "When you're prodding about in there. There's something you can't find. Something you seem to be looking for. What is it?"
It was the first time he'd suggested that he was even aware of her forays through his tangled jungle of a mind.
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Post by emmafrost on Sept 12, 2006 15:14:21 GMT -5
Emma knew that while he could feel her presence in his mind (though not at the moment; she stayed respectfully out of his mind outside of their sessions), and the intensity of her concentration at different times, there was much she was doing that he didn't realize. She had chosen to leave him somewhat in the dark because she didn't want to risk anything that might trouble him further.
She was silent for a moment. She considered telling him what it was that was proving difficult for her, but in the end decided against it. She didn't tell him about the part of his mind that was impenetrable somehow to her searching, despite all of her skills and attempts to crack it open. Didn't tell him because she didn't want him to think about it for the time being. She would weigh the possible outcomes of telling him, and if she came to the conclusion that it would do him more good than harm, she would tell him at a later point.
"Your mind is past anything that can be locked up," she informed him as her fingers slid into the handle of the mug he set in front of her. She, too, spoke lightly, but equally as plainly as he did. "As I've said, I see no point in putting up sandbags to battle a tsunami. I've done more than bury your problems, John. If you want to know what exactly, I can tell you, in Layman's terms. I don't want you to think that I'm doing anything for a reason other than to improve you."
Emma sat back, bringing her coffee to her lips. Whether Pyro noted it or not, the fact that she was willing to tell him what she wouldn't tell him before was because she was confident that he was able to handle it at the present time. And such wasn't just her opinion; she knew exactly the state of John's mind--except for the small, padlocked chest that remained a mystery--and she knew that he could handle knowing.
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Post by Pyro on Sept 12, 2006 15:44:09 GMT -5
"Oh, I don't doubt for one second that your intentions are totally honourable," he said, in that same easy tone. He was, she had long reckoned, a dangerous man when he was fully in control of his faculties. He was intelligent, articulate, smart and perceptive. Despite his youth, she could see what Mystique had seen in him.
"I need to know how to move forward," he said, shifting position slightly and sipping at his coffee. "There's things still keeping me awake at night. Can you help me get past them, or am I gonna have to confront them in my own way somehow?"
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Post by emmafrost on Sept 12, 2006 19:57:45 GMT -5
Emma found a way as best she could--which was considerably better than most would be able to--to tell him that there was a part of his mind that was blocked off from her, without making it seem alarming. "I can't get rid of everything. Everyone needs nightmares, fears, guilt. Without these things, men would quickly become proud and arrogant."
Emma set down her mug, shifting to lean forward and cross her legs. The forward shift gave an easy look down her low-cut blouse, which she realized but made no move to cover up. She had never purposefully used her seductive wiles on John, nor any member of The Brotherhood, but the sexuality that she eminated did not go away.
"However, you should be able to sleep most nights; if you can't then something more needs to be done. It will be the first thing I address when I return in a few days." Emma paused, giving John a second look, giving him the option to request that she work on it sooner rather than later. "Unless it's more serious than I think?"
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Post by Pyro on Sept 13, 2006 1:39:17 GMT -5
A gentle brush against John's mind, or even the barest of awareness of perception would have revealed to Emma that her 'seductive wiles' had precisely zero effect on the young man.
Which was most peculiar.
"I don't think it's serious," he said, after some thought. "It's irritating as all hell to have been sleeping OK and then suddenly start waking in the middle of the night again, but hey, you're the head shrinker here, not me. If you're not worried about it, then neither am I." He rubbed his nose thoughtfully.
"Is it normal, I mean, y'know. For someone like me to get so caught up in this outpouring of memory that at times it feels...almost real?" He seemed faintly awkward asking the question and it was evident that something had happened that he hadn't yet built up to telling her about.
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Post by emmafrost on Sept 15, 2006 10:24:54 GMT -5
Though John Allerdyce had been put in a leadership position, the keystone of The Brotherhood, and had time and time again stepped up and proved that he was able, he was of course still only a human with human thoughts and fears. The unease in his question was clear.
“I think that for someone of your age, life events, and your formerly severely unstable mental state…That you are experiencing what is to be expected.”
In her mind, she saw that she really wasn’t saying anything. It was the cause that was the root of the problem in his case, not the effects. Yes, the effects were right considering the cause. But his cause—his mental turmoil-was so far beyond that of others, that the effects were equally as intense.
That said, Emma did not believe in undermining problems. Not only did it leave people feeling foolish, but it left room for error. Emma Frost detested error.
“Those effects should fade within the next…two, maybe three days. If they don’t become substantially smaller within two days, and the same with your nightmares at night, please call me.” Yet another tone that none save Mystique and Pyro had heard from Emma’s throat—caring. It was a reserved version of it, but it was there. She may not have formed a friendship with him, but through her searching of his mind, the two had undeniably formed a bond of an inexplicable sort. Emma intended to see her task through to the end, and was no longer doing it as a favor to a friend. Once she had witnessed the extent of the destruction, she had made it her personal duty to do everything that she could to mend the young man’s mind.
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Post by Pyro on Sept 15, 2006 13:47:34 GMT -5
"I've been sleepwalking," he told her, his cheeks flushing a little pinkly. "I know that doesn't sound like much, but I never used to do it. I - ah - I woke up this morning hiding under my own desk. I'd been dreaming about...Green Meadows and hiding from saudners and his bullies and I woke up in my office, under the desk. That's kinda freaked me out."
He seemed far more embarrassed by this revelation than he had been at any time during their other sessions. It was possibly the fact that he'd been clad only in the jogging pants that he slept in and had had to pass Gill AND Python in the hallway going back to his room to dress. The slight grin on Python's face had really made him cringe.
Now he came to tell someone about it, it sounded faintly comical to him and he gave Emma one of his rare grins. "It freaked me out," he admitted. "Big time."
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