pretty little psycho

          Emma felt terrible. She’d been on edge for the past week. Nothing she did worked: not absorbing heat from her little sister, not picking up a job to distract her mind until the time was right...nothing. She still daydreamed about kissing her victims to death and sating her need. The blonde was actually picturing it, when yet another drunk dude---the fifth in two days---started talking to her boobs. She rolled her eyes and threw a glare his way. “Ain’t in the mood, pumpkin. Now say sorry and walk away...” Something shifted within her; a glint in her eye that whitened the iris. The glass she’d been busy cleaning when he approached her, now froze in her hand. And when she talked, her voice came out deadly and smooth at the same time; like the touch of Death. 

Mick wasn’t sure what it was about him that gave off an air of ‘if you like cold stuff, or can control ice, we should be friends’, but it kept happening. And none of them were Len. But- she was still pretty attractive, so he’d let it slide. For a while. “Well- this is my gun. Don’t forget that. I’ll show, but no touching.” He said, seriously. “That’s pretty- uh. You been able to do that long?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, that’s a ‘nice and glorified’ way of saying we very much don’t want to lock you up- though understanding your powers will come with time, and observation is a large part of the mentor-ship program.” J’onn sighed softly. He’d met aliens, metahumans- plain old humans, even- with chips on their shoulders. It never ended well, and almost always ended in the deaths of all involved. “We’ll pair you with someone who’s proved themselves, and as soon as you’re in that same position, you get everything that comes with it. Responsibilities. A decent paycheck- not that you won’t be… supported, as a mentee, you will. Enough that you won’t want to steal for your drinks, at least.”

          Emma arched her eyebrows and folded her arms over her chest as she listened to the points the man made. Her lips had twitched into her sardonic smirk, like always, as she studied him closely. Her mind ran with all the ways she could take advantage of a situation like this, but the faults of it as well. They couldn’t find her file in the records because she doesn’t exist in this timeline yet. They can’t track her from the future because those files haven’t been created yet. But could she slide in the organization, collect information about her father the man who tortured her and her sister, and keep a close eye on him? “I’m not gonna lie, Odd Man. I’ve heard of worse scenarios. But I’ve a feelin’ you’re savin’ best for last. How’d you see me provin’ myself exactly?”

          leah knew her outlook on life was not one that the majority of the population would hold, but to survive the things that she and her sister did it was the only way she could think of doing so. life was hard and extremely dark, what harm could a little light do? though, she was finding it hard to maintain that line of thought when the world was crashing down around her. thankfully, she was not alone. she was never alone, and the fact that emma had found her during this disaster only confirmed this.

          “emma,” leah practically yelled in response as she buried her head among the curve of her sister’s neck, her good hand already gripping onto the back of her shirt as if her life depended on it. “i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry,” she sobbed over and over again, refusing to remove herself from her sister’s body. “i just – i couldn’t – i wanted – i tried…” fractured sentences were the least of their worries as a beam cracked on the ceiling near them. they needed to move. pulling back just enough to see her sister’s face, a blood covered hand cradled the older’s cheek. leah then rested her forehead where her hand was moments before, her body already absorbing some of emma’s energy to restore her own. “i didn’t mean for this to happen. i’m so sorry, emmy.”

           leah had only wanted to do the right thing. what was the point in having these powers – outwith her deranged father’s end goal, that is – if they couldn’t do some good with them? weren’t the enhanced supposed to save and protect those that couldn’t protect themselves? she had grown up with stories about heroes and legends and maybe, just maybe, she once thought that she could do the same. now she had the ability to do so and – and the dead still fell. “o – okay,” she nodded slowly, biting her lip as she attempted to prove that mind over matter was stronger when it came to pain. “but - but emma, we’re not alone in here. there – there are more, and i – we – can’t leave them. what are we going to do?”

          Fire, and ice. The ying, and the yang---that was the epitome of the two sisters. What was going on in that moment was ironic and, like everything else about them, completely reverse: While Leah was sobbing in her arms about all those people she couldn’t save, Emma’s skin itched with the desire to steal them herself before those explosions could. She craved to feel that heat of the human body as it faded against hers. Her body bumped, livid and needy, to kill. Kill. Kill. Teeth greeted tightly, huffing out long breaths as she tried to push away those thoughts and focus on the cure her very soulmate was willingly sharing.

Warmth. True warmth cloaked her surroundings. It was in Leah’s cells as she absorbed her cool to heal and on Emma’s shirt as her little sister’s hot tears pooled on it. The blonde felt that familiar warmth rush through her, reach her heart, making it beat just a little faster, like always. In her arms, lied the one person on the entire planet who had the power of making her feel empathy. Not for anybody else, but for her. The feeling was so strong, so apparent, that it managed to distract her mind from what her body requested. At least for now. “Sshh, shh.. It’s alright. I know, little star,” she whispered into her hair as her free hand caressed it gently. “Don’t you cry, yeah? It’ll all be alright.” 

“so, how does it feel? tell me, how does it feel— to get your ass kicked royally in pool? like, i was at least hoping for a challenge.”

          “Sorry Doll, I’m too busy tryin’ to heal my kicked ass to respond to that.”

       “ I don’t think I want to know what a DILF is.” unsettled by what some young woman had just called him 

          "It stands for Daddy I’d Like To Fuck,” Emma stated plainly after blinking, puzzled. How the hell were there still people who didn’t know this? “---Oops, ya didn’t want to know, huh? I guess now ya do.”

          leah knew the importance of the timeline and how they should just let events happen no matter how much she or anyone wanted them to change, but that didn’t mean she was okay with it. back in 2050, the younger crawford had read about the explosions and the disaster that followed yet she didn’t think she would come face to face with the destruction it left in it’s wake; more so, she didn’t think she would ever see someone die right in front of her. “i couldn’t – i couldn’t save him,” the young girl sobbed as she cowered in a corner, cradling a broken wrist to her chest, a painful reminder of the first explosion. “i c-c-couldn’t –” her sentence went unfinished as another boom rocked the very ground they were on, causing leah to curl up tighter. “i want to go home.”

          “---Shit, Leah!“ The shout had left Emma’s lungs a moment too late. She’d barely caught the figure of her sister running towards a man who was standing too close to the meta who spontaneously combusted. And she’d barely managed to jump behind her and pull her away. Breathless pants full of anger and despair rushed through her tight lips. Glares filled with fury, targeted towards the destruction in front of them, that softened despite her feelings of frustration as she looked beside her to the one person she actually cared about in the midst of chaos. She didn’t exactly have a blast at the thought of innocent kids being killed, but the both of them knew that this would happen. They knew they weren’t supposed to engage and alter those events in any way. 

The deep breath she took was meant to refill her lungs with the oxygen that was kicked out in the midst of the blast, but instead all she sensed was fume poisoning her veins. Cough after cough, she struggled to let it out. But upon seeing an injured Leah to the side, the blonde forgot all about her watery eyes and her difficulty in breathing. She steeled her palms to the concrete in order to push herself up and stumble by her side. Naturally, her hand went to her sister’s wrist but she stopped herself to spare her pain. At the sight, she let out another grunt of annoyance and pain---because seeing her sister hurt like that pained her to the bone---as she blurred out “What were you thinkin’?! We ain’t supposed to fuckin’ engage, Leah! We can’t risk that!” And that meant something, coming from her. She could never tell her sister that, but it took all of her willpower and then some, not to give in and take meaningless lives from left and right ever since they traveled back in time. But she’d done it, so that they reassured nothing changed. Now Leah could’ve potentially ruined everything...and all because of the gigantic heart she so admired and sometimes envied about her. 

Emma’s posture relaxed. She slid closer to her sister and wrapped an arm around her shoulder to pull her into a hug from her side, hiding her away from the sight of the dead body laying in the middle of the pavement. “C’mere... It’s gonna be alright, yeah?” she murmured into her hair whilst caressing it soothingly. “Bein’ powerless sucks, I know it does. But there’s a reason we’re here, my little star. Don’t you forget that. I need you to be strong ‘n’ patient for both our sakes, alright?”

          “this – how do you – open please… please open – why aren’t you opening? how do i – oh shi - crap, i mean…” leah stared at the phone in hand. while technology wasn’t entirely different between now and the time she came from, there were some differences that often stunted the blonde. this time it being that her phone wouldn’t open by the sound of her voice. why wasn’t it opening for her? she couldn’t figure it out. “i think it’s broken…”

           Emma didn’t really have any interest about how the generation prior to theirs worked. The only reason she ended up giving a shit was so that she could help her sister adjust in their new reality. After some online searching back home and a bit of flirt-fishing of some guidance from the tech guy, she’d managed to get a hold of the way phones and other tech worked back in 2018. Unlike Leah, who was searching for a voice scanner on the phone and looking adorably confused. “For fuck’s sake, L. Ever thought of askin’ about it at the store? No?” she mused with one eyebrow arched, as the corners of her mouth twitched into a bemused smirk. “---Here,” she said before taking the phone from her hands and swiping it to open. “There ya go. You should set a password btw, just in case.”

“… well, hi.” Mick smirked a little, walking towards her and away from the charred remains of the robbers- and most of their haul. A cute girl- maybe a little too young for him, but he wasn’t about to complain about that- complimenting his gun. Guns? Arms? Well. There’s a first time for everything. “I should probably get outta here. Want to come with? Setting things on fire always works up an awful thirst.” He checked over his gun quickly, before tucking it back in the holster. God, he loved that gun. He’d never be able to thank Len enough for getting it for him- or teaching him how to take it apart and put it back together.

He pulled a face at her comment, before nodding. “… true, yes.” J’onn watched her carefully for a long moment. He didn’t like reading the minds of people around him, without a reason- especially as he’d far too often seen things he desperately did not want to. “We know you’re a metahuman, Emma.” He said firmly as he watched her, folding his arms over his chest. “And I want to make you an offer. The DEO, while primarily invested in aliens, is often the government’s go-to regarding anything inexplicable. And I want to offer you a  place in our new metahuman mentoring project.”

          The victorious glint in her eye said it all. Life had a nasty way of providing her with the most valuable lessons, and one of the most useful ones was how love was a way to get people crazy, or killed, or both. But the truth was, she was the breathing proof that one doesn’t have to hide behind a screen to be dangerous. As the man before her tried to intimidate her, what he managed to do instead was twitch the one corner of her mouth into a lazy smirk before she bit down on her lip. “Probably ‘cause I wasn’t tryna hide it.” If he knew---if he had the tiniest clue---of what she was capable of, he would’ve put her behind bars. And she would’ve broken the rule of not messing with the future in order to save her neck. For now. “That’s a nice n’ glorified way of sayin’ you wanna lock me up and study me like a guinea pig.”

☆ - happy headcanon.

Mick was trying to be a good guy. No, honestly, he was. Okay, he’d never be the rescuing kittens from trees type, and he blanched at the thought of ever being called a ‘hero’- not that that was ever likely to happen- but he wasn’t stealing so much anymore. 

That might be down to not having Len to mastermind the operation, though. He wasn’t setting things on fire as much, either- aside from the bank robbers he’d just stopped. Though it seemed people weren’t so happy about the way he’d stopped them…

          Emma had started losing her patience---what was it with this city and spandex-dressed freaks jumping off roofs to save the day? It wasn’t like she’d attack a bank herself---she wasn’t stupid. Her plan usually revolved around waiting for those robbers to get away, so she could stop them, kill hurt them and steal what they’d stolen. Talk about killing more than two birds with one stone. However, as it turned out, the newest bank robbery was stopped by a regular dude with a badass gun that shot fire instead of bullets. The blonde’s interest was peaked in a second, and she got out of the corner with a wide smirk across her lips. Those weapons were difficult to obtain even in her era (not that she needed a weapon to get access to fire). As the crowd watching backed away from the guy, Emma started clapping slowly as she threw her head back and a playful, cunning giggle echoed past her throat. 

“The statistics are readily available. Most marriages end in divorce- some of these online relationships end in death- I don’t understand these modern relationships,” he shook his head. “Anyway. Young lady, I believe we have some things to discuss, no?”

         “Don’t some casual ones end in death, too?” she retorted indifferently. Her sparkling hues were busy taking in the room’s details instead, her mind already spinning with potential ways to escape. “...Nah, not really. Girl needs money. Girl enters alien bar. Girl...borrows said money from alien and buys herself a frosty drink.” She hadn’t just stolen money---and that wasn’t her purpose, either. But she didn’t plan on bringing up the weapon she managed to steal from an alien loner she’d seduced.

Being an alien, even after so long on earth, was tiring. Humans were… strange, to say the least, and while he was, fortunately, able to play the part just as well as any human, he didn’t understand a lot of why they did what they did.

“So, you’re telling me that people actually think they can find love… through the internet?”

          Emma wasn’t one to generally give a crap about many things, but even she had to admit that traveling back a generation peeked her interest in a way that a dull, lousy day of 2050 couldn’t. At least now she got to witness how people couldn’t fathom ideas that were a given in her generation. “Yah, it happens,” she stated plainly. “Half of them end up findin’ a hook up or the coffin in the end, but it’s a thing.”