8578/Dark Inside

Dark Inside
Date of Scene:	29 July 2019
Location:	Wanda's Room - Avenger's Mansion
Synopsis:	Scarlet Witch and Elixir come home to let Elixir recover from his last mission. They experience something together that defies description.
Cast of Characters:	Elixir, Scarlet Witch

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Elixir has posed:
Josh told Wanda earlier that day he had a mission with the X-Men. It was supposed to be a straight forward snatch and grab of the man who gave the cyborgs information about a bus full of mutant kids they could attack. Whoever the cyborgs were. So Josh had gone to the X-Men Base early that day for training and stayed over there. It was hours later when Wanda felt something truly unusual through the bond she shared with the younger mutant. Shock. Terror. Revulsion. Panic. Then it dimmed as if her lover regained some control of himself before her sense of him faded to low ebb. As when she wakes in the night and he is sleeping. Before there was even much time to react, the strong feelings flashed through again. Fear. Disgust. Confusion. And Josh felt different somehow, almost as if something in him had darkened a shade.

When Wanda arrived, she found Josh on the ground in the gravel on a rooftop with Jubilee shielding him and staring at thin air. Josh was trying hard to control the shaking in his hands. Jubilee quickly explained Josh had healed the unconscious man with them on the rooftop and Magik left them there. With Wanda's senses, it was not hard to detect the taint of a Limbo creature in the pile of ash and dust beside the unconscious man.

From there it was a short hop to drop the unconscious man on the steps of a police precinct with Jubilee's promise he would be taken care of, to Xavier's and finally home. Josh was quiet the entire time, avoiding much more than given Wanda's hand a brief squeeze, like he felt some dam would break if he spoke. Once home he was on a mission to get out of his X-Men uniform, scrub his hands and get in the shower with the door closed behind him. To good ears, there is the muffled sound of strangled sob. It is a while before Josh re-emerges, in clean clothes, looking and feeling calmer. He comes straight to Wanda now to embrace her.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Teleporting was more difficult with her emotions fraught with what was going on. Wanda had to try twice to get the chaos magic to work, but then she was there on the rooftop. She did her best to show calm though her concern for Josh was writ clear whether on her face or through the bond they share.

She stayed quiet, not asking of what happened beyond the information given, but instead focused on getting them away, and finally back to the Avengers Mansion. Once Josh moved into the shower, Wanda went about the room, turning the lights down and lighting a few candles and some incense. Creating a soothing ambience rather than a romantic one, she waited for him to emerge from the bathroom.

The sound of the sob near to broke her heart, but she could sense something from, that he needed the moments to himself. Though as he steps out and towards her, Wanda's arms go up and around the man she loves, hugging him tightly to her body. "Josh," she whispers softly, nestling her lips and nose into his hair gently. Her arms stay tight about him as if not planning to let him go anytime soon.

Elixir has posed:
Josh inhales deeply and holds Wanda close to him, just feeling her with him.

"I'm okay, I'll be okay," he says quietly after a long time and sniffs a bit. He leans back and brings a hand near Wanda's cheek. It seems to take more concentration than usual, but the gold of his powers radiates from it soon.

"Can I? I just need to feel you," Josh asks, hand close to Wanda's cheek.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
For all of the potions, circles, spells and talismans that Wanda has studied, nothing can compare to the magic felt when holding this man in her arms, and being held in return. The feeling of her love and concern for him could be almost tangible. An energy that flows between them, restoring and nurturing. A magic that never need be taught, nor learned, but that just flows from the heart.

Wanda's green eyes flit to his hand and she nods. "Of course," she tells him softly. She looks into his eyes as his powers and sense Wanda's hale health. As fit as she's been at any point in her life.

Wanda reaches a hand to rest atop Josh's heart, and the other moves to bring her palm to the back of his hand. As he senses her health, a soft red light gathers about both of Wanda's hands. Her magic adds to his power, even as she helps strengthen his ability to guide that magic she offers him. The chance to sense not just her health, but her spirit and her essence. There is a phenomenal depth of being to her, and Wanda closes her eyes and opens it up to him. Letting him know her as no one, even Pietro, has before.

Elixir has posed:
Josh gently touches Wanda's cheek and his sense of her expands vastly. From her being healthy, to her exact movements and right down to her very cells and the X-gene that has marked her destiny in so many ways. When Wanda's own power is joined to to his there is a feedback. This awareness of body and lifeforce encompasses Josh as well, and then deeper still. Josh perceives the woman who has come to be the center of world in whole. In pieces, or perhaps steps, the Transian woman can feel Josh's barriers come down. Some fall away, some are put down. Others are pulled off with effort and a spiritual pain, like pulling off a scab protecting something raw and tender underneath.

But then Josh is naked to Wanda, and she to him, in a way that defies explanation. And it makes nearly visible the tie between them that was born by accident and treasured since.

"My god you're beautiful," Josh says with tears rolling down his cheeks. Wanda can feel everything he does, almost hear his thoughts. Hope, awe, gratitude, wonder, doubt, fear, anger, grief, his complete adoration for Wanda; all the things that make up the young man before her.

Josh possesses nothing of the depth and power of spirit of Wanda. His is is a more turbulent being in many ways, energetic and flowing ahead. But the young mutant is so alive. The lifeforce in him is like a star, a bottomless pit of surging energy that infuses him and all but wears his physical body as a shell. Something to be channeled through to give and take and mold life. The scale of it is enormous, and while in Josh's hands so far it has always been a golden warmth of health and healing, at its core it is raw and vital, like nature itself, beauty and horror all mixed up.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda Maximoff closes her eyes and leans her head to rest against Josh's as the feelings and awareness grow through them both. Wanda's heart sings for what Josh feels for her, and it weeps as she feels the marks left on by the hurts he has taken over the course of his life.

"Josh," she whispers, lost in the beauty of his being. His desire to help others, and the pain that his good deeds have sometimes brought. Yet undiminished is his inclination to help and to heal.

As Josh's barriers come down, so do Wanda's. Her deep love for her brother, and a growing love for her sister. Fears for her father's fanaticism. The feeling of home that the Avengers have become, but not as treasured as this connection that she has forged with Josh.

Somewhere inside there is something else. A subtle sense that is gone before it can be fully grasped. A sense of something? No, of everything? A connection to the world around her but on a scale that could not be comprehended before the sensation faded.

Her love for him covers up that fleeting sensation, and then she is becoming aware of that near-stellar force within him. Intrigued by it, and the sense of wonder at discovering this about him. For a moment her magic flows deeper, to give just the lightest touch to that golden warmth before fading again.

Elixir has posed:
Wanda can feel the faint shudder and willful push back as Josh both treasures and fears this kind of unbelievable raw intimacy. But he craves with Wanda in a way that runs through him and the openess remains. Without the skill or deftness of Wanda, Josh is barely even able to form the sensation curiousity at the singularity or totality that is Wanda.

Josh drifts with Wanda to the wellspring of lifeforce at his center. The golden warmth is a veneer, something Josh has unconsciously placed around it and draws on the lifeforce through. Though she can feel there are black regions to it now, small, but there. But just touching the veneer is enough to pass through to the actual source beneath. It is primal and vital, a true force of nature. Broader and deeper than the process of healing or growth, it encompasses all of life. It is the cell and the organism, DNA and creature, the energy that animates them all. It is the half-life of the virus, the mindless growth of the bacteria, the pruning of evolution. It is the affirmation of procreation and sustaining from consuming other life. She can feel it is tied into the basic nature of his being, written into him by his X-gene which she can actually sense through him.

When Wanda takes her focus from the lifeforce, its presence is no longer overwhelming awareness returns to the wholeness of each other together. She can feel the power of the experience is starting to wear on the young man, who has no spiritual or psychological context for what has just happened between them, which hits him with the power of a true religious experience.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Though her experiences help her in understanding and coping with the incredible sensations they have shared, they also strike Wanda and have her catching her breath by the time they have faced. While Josh is still reeling a little bit, Wanda guides him over to the nearby couch, and down to a seating position upon it.

She reaches up and softly brushes her finger along the edges of his hair. Giving him time for the sensations to fade and his thoughts to take back over. "That was... a very spiritual moment," she tells him softly.

Wanda's hand moves back to rest atop his heart. "You have something so very special inside of you. Not that it surprises me, but it is not what I was expecting, either," she whispers to him. She continues the gentle caress, giving him time. Her thoughts drift to the dark spots she sensed, and she recalls the emotions that came through the bond earlier, but she doesn't say anything about them yet, just letting him come back from the experience at his own pace.

Elixir has posed:
Josh exhales and is at a loss for words for a while.

"Me neither," Josh says. His mind is reeling at all of it.

"I thought it was something totally different. I thought /people/ were something different, I didn't even dream that... God I love you so much, Wanda. Even more now, I can't even hide how bad I've got it for you," he says lightly. "Every part of you. Even if I don't get how far that goes. I just... I'm for you. All of me."

Josh takes Wanda's hand, draws it his lips to kiss and then pulls her close so he can kiss her as well, slowly and gently.

"You're gorgeous, Wanda. Right through."

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda had set out candles and incense, mainly to soothe Josh after something that was upsetting. They weren't meant to be romantic ambience. But as they start kissing, they likely serve the same purpose.

Whatever Josh encountered, the matter can be forgotten for awhile. The pair exploring their feelings and their needs and desires, in ways that much later, merely a glance to the other will be enough to cause either to break out in warm grins.

Sweet, sensual, vigorous, tender. So many words could describe what they experience together, sharing themselves fully. Finally they end up back in the shower, emerging clean again as they move to relax up on the bed.

Wanda purrs and moves to rest her head on Josh's chest. Her hand rests there too, slowly moving back and forth atop his heart. "So remarkable," she whispers to him, her eyes lifting to gaze up into his own. Wanda gives a soft, warm sigh. "I love," she whispers to him, the words unable to match those emotions he sensed she has for him.

Elixir has posed:
Josh lays there with one hand behind his head and the other around Wanda. He smiles and meets her eyes when she looks up to him.

"I know, me too," he says simply. It is not much compared to what they feel for one another and from each other. But it is enough.