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seriousficTitle: Five Sleeping Arrangements
Fandom: X-Men (comicverse)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6,534
Acknowledgments: Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
prozacpark
Characters/Pairings: Jean/Scott/Emma
Summary: Scott’s sure they can all live together, if they just give it time. Emma isn't so certain.
“I think, if this is going to work, we should all sleep under one roof,” Scott announced.
Jean, who’d been leaning against the wall of their kitchenette, turned to look at him, automatically holding out her carton of take-out to see if he wanted any. Emma didn’t even look up from her salad.
“It’s a mansion. We always sleep under one roof.” She paused thoughtfully to examine a crouton. “Except for that one night in the greenhouse.”
“You know what I mean. Like a family.”
“How incestuous.”
“No, Scott’s right.”
Emma rolled her eyes as Jean took Scott’s side, as per usual.
Jean sat down across from Emma in her smiling peacemaker guise. “I know it’s a little cozy in here, but we could make room for you.”
“Jean? Scott? I don’t do cozy. I will not be joining your sewing circle or your book club, I don’t want a puppy for Christmas, and although I may ruefully admit to enjoying time spent with you, the primary purpose of us sharing a bed is deviant sex.” She picked up her New York Times and checked the stocks. “End of discussion.”
Scott put his hands down heavily on the table when he leaned there. Their little arrangement was inherently instable, the conflict over who was king of the hill never stopped. Though, of course, Emma wasn’t sure any of them wanted it to. But Scott particularly didn’t take kindly to having his authority challenged. Jean was nice enough to sidle up to him, be cajoling about it. Emma didn’t have that kind of time.
“There have been more than one occasion when you’ve crashed on our couch.”
“I don’t crash--“
“And are you really going to keep hiking back to your own room when you don’t spend the night?”
Emma put the newspaper down. She hated when Scott was right. It gave him all kinds of ideas. “What are you suggesting?”
“We could build a bigger room. You could have your own space—“
“Whirlpool setting in the bathtub.”
“Done.”
They didn’t shake on it, but that was the overweening mental image in Scott’s head. Emma shook her head as Jean and Scott went off, hand in hand.
1. The hotel.
The contractors were well-practiced. They were used to rebuilding parts of the mansion in days, so building an expansion to the room Jean and Scott shared was easy. The hard part was Emma. She paid for the room out of her own pocket and insisted on everything being just so, to the eternal headache of the builders.
“Emma, do you really need a fireplace? We have one in the living room,” Scott said with worry in his voice. He held her revised blueprints like they were a death threat.
Emma kept from rolling her eyes, but it was an effort. “There are fireplaces, and then there are fireplaces. Yours is for an archaic attempt at keeping warm. Mine is for atmosphere.”
“I don’t get it.”
Emma closed her eyes and thought-cast the last few moments of conversation to Jean, who was teaching class. What have you been doing with this poor boy that he doesn’t understand the simple romanticism of a blazing fireplace?
Fortunately, Jean was an excellent multi-tasker; she could literally teach the lesson in her sleep. You know Scott. He’s just not built to think that way.
We’ll have to show him then. Where are the two of you sleeping tonight?
We thought we’d take one of the guest rooms until the construction was done.
Jean, dearest, live a little. If it takes every penny in my expense account, I’ll teach you two monks how to live decadently.
Emma’s eyes snapped opened and she returned to the leaden speed of vocal discourse. “Scott, we’re getting a hotel room tonight.”
***
The Hotel Excelsior was in New York; a bit of a drive. But Emma justified it by saying she could look up some old friends. “Who knows,” she said to the happy couple in the car, “you two might even be able to have a team-up.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing,” Scott quipped, ever the cheeseball. Jean giggled, of course. Emma suppressed a smile. Their joy was so often infectious, it probably gave them the wrong idea as to their actual hilarity.
They checked in, Scott once more disappointing Emma by carrying her bags instead of letting the bellboy take it. But she put up with it.
“How is this supposed to illustrate that you need a fireplace?” he asked in the elevator.
Emma quickly checked the urge to do things to him while his hands were full and he couldn’t resist, although she thought-cast the idea to Jean like a note passed in class. Jean blushed and smiled behind her hand, a smile Emma could see full well through telepathy.
“Scott. I put up with several indignities to be on this team. I wear that pandering superhero costume you insist upon—“
“Too modest, Frost?” Jean asked.
“I’m a telepath. I can just as easily think in a proper suit as I can in, say, a green mini-dress.”
“I rather liked the mini-dress,” Scott said, mollifying Jean’s irritation.
“Regardless, I submitted to being given the exact same room you’d give Dazzler. But as headmistress—“
“Co-headmistress,” Jean said.
“—and being presented with the option of change, I choose not to settle for anything but the best. It’s either this, or wait for a Sentinel to step on my room and then rebuild it to my specifications either way. You are aware of the strain your lifestyle has put on my style, correct? I have replicas of Monets on my walls.”
“I weep,” Scott said.
“Scott, you wouldn’t settle for the Blackbird being… I don’t know… yellow. And Jean, you want the best for the X-Men. You wouldn’t settle for less than a hundred percent from anyone. I’m like that. Only with things that are actually important.”
“Ignore her,” Scott advised Jean, who had her arms crossed angrily.
“I always do.”
Emma tossed her hair and waited for the elevator doors to open.
“How much clothes do you need for a weekend in New York?” Scott asked.
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
***
Jean felt slightly chagrinned around ‘pomp and circumstance’. It’d been comforting to reach into Scott’s mind and know he felt the same anxiety, but with Emma… Emma took to it like a fish to water. Emma walked through the luxurious penthouse like it was no more than a rest stop. Left her shoes beside the bed and cracked her neck and sat on the bed and picked up the phone. “Room service? Send up a bottle of the hotel wine. No, the ’55.” She hung up. “It’s about a certain degree of mood and splendor. It’d also help if neither of you were wearing… T-shirts. I’m having more appropriate garments sent up. We’ll dine out, then come back here for a nightcap. If you don’t understand by then, there’s no helping you.”
Scott’s eyes were glued to Emma as she stretched out on the bed. “I think I’m beginning to understand right now.”
“What’s wrong with my T-shirt?” Jean asked.
***
“There, see? I knew if I shoved enough culture in your face, you’d eventually manage to stomach it.” Emma patted Scott on the chest, just below the bowtie he’d finally managed to tie just before they’d left. “Feeling the slightest bit debonair? Charming, even?”
“Yes, it’s a little trick I call ‘not being Logan’,” Scott said.
Jean hung off his arm possessively, a bit tipsy. “I think he’s charming just the way he is.”
“But even more charming now,” Emma said.
“Oh God yes.”
“Hey!”
“Not that I don’t like it when he comes in covered with sweat and engine grease—“
“And gets it all over the bedsheets,” Emma concluded acidly.
“One time, Emma. One time.”
“It wasn’t like we weren’t going to not have to change them anyway,” Jean reasoned.
“You really cannot hold your liquor.”
“Carry me,” Jean said as she fell into Scott’s arms.
He did, Emma begrudgingly getting Jean’s shoes for her. But only because she’d picked them out and she didn’t like seeing haute couture go to waste. She got the door for them and the way Jean lovingly stroked Emma’s cheek in passing went a long way toward making it worth it.
“Set her down on the carpet.”
“You mean that polar bear skin rug I don’t remember being there before?” Scott asked.
“Yes.” Emma sat down on it and took Jean from Scott, fastidiously beginning to work off Jean’s clothes. “Jean, dear, Scott and I plan on subjecting you to obscene sexual practices. Is that alright with you?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” She smiled.
“There’s a girl. Scott, I see no reason why you should be wearing clothes. Jean, could you get my zipper?”
Jean smirked as the zipper, seemingly of its own accord, made its way down Emma’s back. Emma didn’t take off the dress, but she did let it fall from her as Jean’s did. They flowed together in an endless canvas of dishabille in front of the roaring fire, Emma decadently petting Jean’s hair.
“Now you understand why I need a fireplace?” Emma asked.
“Definitely.”
“There’s a bottle of wine in the bucket by the bed. Get it for us, would you? And some glasses? And some condoms?”
Jean giggled. “Knew there was a reason we put up with you, Frosty.”
“Quite. Don’t call me—“
“What? Frosty?” Jean poked the tip of Emma’s nose. “Frosty? Frost-eeeee.”
“Scott, shut her up before I have to.”
“I like hearing her voice,” Scott said from the other room, followed by the pop of a champagne cork.
“It’s okay that you like it,” Jean said. “I mean, everyone likes it. Scott likes it, I like it…”
“What are you babbling about now?”
“Being with people. You don’t have to pretend this was all some elaborate… scheme. You liked taking us to do things you liked, and we liked going with you. Just as much as the sex.”
“Quit reading too much into things, Grey. You and Scott are the lovebirds, I’m just the odd man out. That’s how it works.”
“Scott loves you. I love you. Don’t know why you’d rather be our whore than our lover.”
“Oh, you don’t?” Emma’s finger traced Jean’s lips like it was a razor’s edge. “You were in my head without permission. Don’t you remember any of it?”
“We’ve all done bad, but we’ve also forgiven each other for it. S’okay if you forgive yourself.”
Scott came back in, jacket off and shirt unbuttoned, to pour them drinks. Emma took hers and the bottle.
“I have a sudden headache. Scott, please help yourself to the redhead. I’ll be in bed.”
She left, head held high.
Scott scratched his head. “What was that all about?”
“Emma being Emma, as usual.” Jean began making a snow angel in the fur rug. “C’mon, Scott, what’re you doing all the way up there? She’ll feel better in the morning, but you can make me feel better right now…”
***
When she was drunk, Jean’s shields slipped. Always had. Sloppy of her. It was a cold comfort, as Emma reduced the bottle down to nothing, but a comfort nonetheless. She fell asleep as the fire dwindled, finally growing so cold that Jean and Scott had to wrap themselves in the rug for warmth. Emma wrapped her bedsheets tighter around her and thought about what idiots they were, that they couldn’t even come in from the cold.
2. Xanadu
In its infancy, the mansion had possessed an Old World elegance that had been worn away by years of rebuilding, replacement, and lowest bidders. It was probably weird that seeing Emma’s bachelorette pad reminded Scott of his childhood. It was just classy. Not functional, not defensible, but comfortable. It was hard to believe it existed under the same roof as the Danger Room.
“Wow, it’s…” he touched the brickwork of the fireplace. “Very you.”
“I call it Xanadu,” Emma said proudly.
“I’m sticking to ‘Emma’s bachelorette pad,” Jean said. She tapped on a wall. “No psychic imprints. Doesn’t feel like home.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Emma replied archly. “In lieu of misplaced nostalgia, I could actually see myself not hating living here.”
Jean put her arms around both Emma and Scott. “What say we christen it?” she whispered into Scott’s ear, hungrily eyeing the four-poster bed.
Emma slipped Jean’s arm off her. “I think not. This bed is for my comfort, not being tainted with musk and sweat and… what’s wrong with using your bed for that?”
“Look at this!” Scott flopped down on the bed to Emma’s horror. “Silk sheets, big pillows… is that a mirror up there?”
“I didn’t say we would never use it… if I were going to change the sheets anyway…”
Jean shook her head in disbelief and shoved Emma down with Scott. Emma squealed, then punished everyone else for the undignified outburst by thrusting her knees at Scott. But Scott had prepared for that. He rolled on top of her and held her down.
“Now what?” she snarled. “Will you hit me with a pillow? Dip my hand in warm water?”
“Lighten up, Emma. You’re being crazier than usual.”
“You’ve literally built a wall between us,” Jean said in her intolerable oh Emma voice.
“Not you, tempting though the idea might be, just myself and morning breath, tossing and turning… besides, this way, if yet another alternate future ax maniac tries to breed the two of you, I might sleep soundly through it.”
Jean pressed against Emma’s side. Her fingernail scratched in the spaces between the fingers Scott had squeezing Emma’s arms. “I think you’re scared that this is more than sex.”
“It’s not about sex, it’s about compromise. You can’t get into Scott’s head, not anymore, but I can’t command your brand of loyalty. So we mash all these half-formed relationships together in the hope it’ll equal what Mr. and Mrs. Summers used to have.”
Scott let go of her, rolled onto the opposite side as Jean. “I think that’s a little harsh. Unfair,” he said, jaw tight.
“No, we were desperate,” Jean recalled. Her voice bore a resemblance to the blank monotone of the Phoenix. “We had to be, to try this. But it worked. Aren’t we happy?”
“I’m content,” Emma said. “If bewildered by your constant viewing of this arrangement as more than convenient orgasms.”
“Because it is more. You wouldn’t be panicking so hard if it weren’t.” Jean sighed. She pulled herself up onto the headboard, Scott following suit. Emma stayed, disgruntled, on the mattress until Scott pulled her up to let her use his arm as a cushion. “Scott, you’re awfully quiet.”
“I love both of you.”
Emma cackled.
“Didn’t peg you for such a big believer in monogamy,” Scott half-snapped.
“Fine, we’re all one big happy orgy. Not that I can see the difference between that and this being a sustained affair of no-strings-sex, but why don’t we make this academic discussion… academic.” She slunk over Jean’s body, holding Scott’s hand, and began dragging the married couple toward the door into their room. “Come on, don’t make me diamond.”
She’s distracting us with sex, Jean sent to Scott.
Should we let her?
Absolutely.
3. Scott and Jean’s room.
Emma often kept the door to her room locked. She would leave it open during the day. But at night, especially after some fun with Scott and Jean, it would slap shut and not open til morning.
While Scott and Jean were going through their morning ritual, Emma slunk into their shared bathroom. Jean had come in late and fallen asleep with her costume still on; now she was ridding herself of a night’s worth of spandex sweat by way of a long soak. Emma, with quiet thoughtfulness, turned on the jacuzzi jets. Jean knew Emma wouldn’t appreciate thanks, so she let Scott say ‘thank you’ for her.
He dipped his razor in the sink and looked over to Emma. “Babe, it is just unfair that you can look that good this early in the morning.”
She doesn’t really look like that, she’s making us think that. Jean explained as Emma stepped into the shower.
Scott finished shaving with a splash of water across the face, then sat on the tub’s edge for Jean’s perusal. She ran her hand up and down his cheeks, putting a promising finger to his lips. Scott grabbed a washcloth and began rubbing her back. She let loose the moan that had been building since Emma started the jets.
“I had a weird dream last night,” Scott said.
“Oh?”
Emma, eavesdropping, smirked under her soap suds. If you fake interest that well, it’s a wonder he decided to cheat on you.
Jean didn’t take the bait. Emma had been dropping more barbs since the abortive tryst in her room. Like you wouldn’t be his conversational bitch if he were washing your back.
“The Professor was dead,” Scott said. “We were at his funeral and I was giving the eulogy.”
Ask him what I was wearing, Emma thought-cast to Jean.
“I was giving the eulogy and it was very objective. The good and the bad. And the other X-Men were yelling at me to stop, but it was so important that I said everything. If I left anything out, it would be disastrous.”
“Huh. That is weird.” Jean lifted her leg out of the water for Scott to clean, and for Emma to see as she stepped out of the shadows. “To be honest, any time there’s a funeral and I’m not the main attraction, that works for me.”
“It was because you feel betrayed by Charles.” Emma was toweling herself off as if disdainful of the water.
“Yeah, so I figured.”
“But you still believe in the dream even though you’ve lost faith in the man. Hence the conflict. You want to reconcile this even while you don’t want to reopen old wounds. You should take a cue from me. I don’t believe in dreams, I deal in facts. When someone wrongs me, I revenge myself. No muss, no fuss.”
“You don’t believe we’ll ever co-exist with humans?”
“When they die out, possibly.” Emma grabbed her bathrobe, white in contrast to Scott’s blue. Jean’s was pink, because someone had to ruin the color scheme. “Don’t take it personally, I don’t even believe we can make it a year before you two lovebirds show me out. So, what are we doing for breakfast?”
4. Xanadu without Emma
Scott had Jean on speaker phone while he graded papers, which helped keep him sane while he read that WW2 had been ended by the Treaty of Versace. Perhaps having the X-Men both defend a world that hated and feared them, and teach was a bad idea. Jubilee was definitely not faculty material.
“So, is it just me or is Emma being more… Emma lately?”
“Do you mean a raging bitch? Because yeah.”
“I don’t get it. It’s been six months, everything’s been great.”
“You heard her. She’s getting bored of waiting for the hammer to drop.”
“The hammer’s not going to drop,” Scott said irritatedly. “And this Jenkins kid has the worst spelling. I’m not even sure he’s literate…”
“Maybe she wants the hammer to drop,” Jean said slowly.
“No. Once she sees we love her…”
“Maybe she doesn’t love us.”
“She loves me.”
“Don’t confuse love with lust. Maybe she’s worried we’re going too fast and going to end up… loveless again. I don’t know, she’s not here… we should put this on hold.”
“But if she did want to end things, it wouldn’t be the worst,” Scott finished her thought.
“Emma’s probably just having a bad month.”
A long moment passed with Jean saying nothing.
“Jean? You still there?”
“Still here, lover. Emma just thought-cast to me. She won’t be in tonight, don’t wait up, and I couldn’t detect any heartfelt adoration of us, but I’m sure it was intended.”
“Huh. Mansion all to ourselves. Think we should dine out?”
“Ha!”
“C’mon. Big burgers, dripping with grease, maybe a pizza…”
“We can eat anything you like, so long as it’s while watching a movie of at least marginal romance.”
“Ouch.” Scott put his feet up, figuring grades could hold. “Any other tortures you’re going to inflict on me while I’m at your mercy?”
“There may be snuggling.”
“I’ll wear that cologne you like.”
“I’ll buy myself something scandalous to wear. Do you know where Emma buys her uniforms?”
“I’m sure they’re hand-tailored.”
“Joke, hon. Although you might want to check that she hasn’t turned the preschool into a sweatshop.”
Scott glanced at the memo Emma had sent him that morning. “So that’s what her proposal is about.”
“I would’ve thought it’d be more modest.”
They settled on a DVD swiped from the common room, an old musical in the vein of South Pacific. The tunes were hummable enough, and even when they weren’t, so long as Jean was lying against him, Scott could watch goats being slaughtered.
***
Jean came out from her shower in Emma’s robes, the hem indecently high on her long legs, a towel turban containing her hair. Scott liked the view, but didn’t really focus on her until she took off the turban. “How do you like me as a blonde?”
Through the ruby-quartz, it was just another red gradient, so Jean sent the view through her eyes: Him, the mirror. He could see her nearly white hair as well as his own stunned expression. Through her own eyes, Jean usually looked less beautiful than Scott knew she was, but not now.
“I liked you better red,” he said truthfully.
“It’s only hair dye. It’ll wash out by morning.” He was still radiating unease, so Jean sent him a friendly beacon of her true self, an empathic wink. “Did you think Emma was the only one with a naughty side? What a short memory…”
“It’s just you’re…”
“What? Pure?” Jean sent a knife straight through the pleasure center of his brain, neatly coinciding with the sight of the bathrobe following off her. The lingerie beneath was white, but definitely not virginal. “I’ve been a lot of things, Scott, but I’ve never been especially pure. And it’s uncomfortable up on your pedestal. I know you have desires. But Emma’s not the only one who can do something about it.”
That pinged Scott’s interpersonal mine detector as something Jean would never say if Emma were present. But then some amount of jealousy was to be expected. God knows he’d been pissed off at Logan enough times.
“Point taken,” he said, thinking very hard about what he’d like to do to Jean.
She stopped him with her hand outstretched to his chest, warm even through his tee. “Not here.”
One eyebrow rose. “The lake?” Nostalgia stiffened him. There was a reason they’d declared the lake off-limits to students back when they’d been newlyweds.
She laughed. It was a vibrant laugh, powerful. Like her. “God, Scott, that’s a make-out point now! The kids smoke joints there. No, I’m talking about someplace taboo.”
Unbidden, the image of Emma’s door floated through Scott’s mind. Jean’s doing. “Jean!”
“What? Would it be wrong?” She kissed his neck slowly, a prolonged mixture of teeth and suckling. “Good.”
Jean waved a hand and the door to Emma’s room flew open. She maneuvered him through it in a dance that was somewhat sultry and somewhat giddy, but all her. He wondered if she could be breaking character when the point was that this was in her character. She let him go with a whoop and Scott’s back hit the fireplace lightly. Jean finished a little twirl and came out looking at him with a very Emma expression of bored supremacy. “Scott, dear, be a doll and light my fire. By which I mean the fireplace, of course. You might not’ve realized that because I’m so very witty and I’m always talking like I’ve said a double entrende.”
“Ha!”
Jean walked with exaggerated poise to the bed while Scott started the fire. Its glow darkened Jean’s tan much more appealingly than it would do with Emma’s paleness, and the flickering shadows suggested Jean’s natural hair color, but somehow that just made it funnier as Jean crawled atop the sheets.
“I’ve been a very bad White Queen. You may have to spank me,” she said with forced pouty lips. Her English accent was atrocious, more Cockney than anything else. “Or whip me. Or slap me. Or put my nipples in clamps. Or say hurtful things about bands I like. Because I’m kinky like that.”
Scott was wiping tears from his eyes. “Stop it! You’re killing me!”
“Redeem me, Scott. Redeem me hard.” Jean dropped her top. “Make me a good girl with your big fat cock. Make me your good girl, I don’t wanna be your bad girl anymore.” She’d dropped the accent on his way to her. “Make me good.” She shook her head and her hair flew to red. “Make love to me, Scott. Like it’s only the two of us here.”
He did, feeling the warmth of her against his body, her heat touching his mind. The embers of the Phoenix, still glowing after the fire had died. It was something they had to live with.
“You’re the best of us,” he told her after, “and not because you have to be. You always have been.”
“No, I haven’t. So much has gone wrong because I wasn’t good enough. But I’m good now, right? Aren’t I?”
“Course you are. Course you are.”
She was crying anyway. “I won’t ask if you love her more, if you even love one of us more. But do you love me?”
“Look.” She didn’t take his meaning, so he thought it as he said it, drawing her hands to his face. “Look.”
He felt the beginnings of a serious mind-probe. It felt like it was at an axis to the feel of being penetrated, which she’d shared with him once at the lake. “It could hurt,” she warned, her eyes diffusing the light from the fireplace. “The Phoenix…”
“I’m not afraid.” He opened himself up and received Her.
It was the feel of a fire warming your hands, both warmth and slight pain, but Emma had taught him to appreciate the duality. He watched her bright eyes as she scoured him, neither roughly nor gently. Even he didn’t know what she’d find, but he had faith that he wasn’t as stupid as to see the perfect woman and not be madly in love with her. Then she smiled as only Jean could and fell on him with renewed passion. “I love you too.”
5. Under one roof
The Danger Room control center was full of rambunctious X-Men touches that Emma considered undignified, but then that was par for the course. There were blow-ups of famous moments caught on the recorders, like Kurt teleporting into She-Hulk’s lap during a joint training exercise, or Colossus throwing a phasing Kitty to disable three Sentinels. There were sticky notes on the NASA-surplus console, explaining weak points that could be exploited on individual X-Men (Scott’s neat handwriting had it as weaknesses to be worked on, while Logan’s scrawl had them as hijinx waiting to ensue). All in all, the control room was more family TV room than mission control.
Jean and Emma were doing their shifts as DR overseers, an important position since the DR had gone crazy and tried to kill them. Emma watched how smoothly the next generation worked together, the ease with which they surmounted overwhelming odds, and she reached for the difficulty dial.
“Oh, let them build up a little self-confidence before you shatter their dreams,” Jean chided, scooting Emma back, chair and all, with telekinesis.
“Misplaced self-confidence is arrogance.”
“You don’t say,” Jean noted with eyes pinched. “And you wouldn’t want anyone being prideful.”
“It does tend to go before a fall.” Emma stood up and walked back to the console. She leaned over it before doing any fiddling, slightly ingratiating herself to Jean’s eyes.
“You could hurt them,” Jean persisted.
Emma toyed with the dial, rotating it back and forth but not enough to change the difficulty level. “Pain is a good teacher. That I’ve learned. And my arrogance is well-placed.”
“Ah, the subtle distinction of the world according to Emma.” Jean straddled her chair as Emma settled into hers, legs crossed and cape gathered neatly around her like a shawl.
They watched the X-kids’ momentum grind to a halt, powers flashing out in chaotic asynchrony. It was no longer the measured, tactical dispersion of abilities, but a fight for survival. Emma nodded in satisfaction. They would have to do better now.
Jean leaned forward and pressed the switch on the headset board, the one with “Armor” above it from a label maker. “Hisako, you’re doing great, keep it up and watch that crossfire.”
Emma, slyly amused, toed open a line to Hellion. “You can do better. Oblige me.”
The tide started to turn again. Emma reached for the dial once more and Jean slapped her hand away. “They’re just kids, Emma.”
“So were you, Jean. And there are a disturbing number of naughty people with big guns who would like to ensure they never become adults. And in the real world, you won’t be there to turn down the difficulty.”
Emma felt the red fire of the Phoenix’s skeleton enter her mind, hold her stricken. “That doesn’t change the fact that they’re still just kids.”
Emma hardened, like coal turned to diamond by heat and pressure. She’d always liked the metaphor—hardship just making her harder and yet more beautiful. But faced with the flame that was even now stirring Jean’s hair (or was that the AC turning on?), she suddenly wondered if diamonds could melt. “Did you enjoy fucking Scott in my bed?”
Jean was only taken aback for a moment, but her hair still landed limp between her shoulder blades. “I don’t know why you even care, we changed the sheets…”
“As if that’s what this is about. Don’t insult both our intelligences.”
“We’re not doing this. We’re not fighting over a man. It’s stupid, it’s archaic, and it’s beneath us. We’re mutants. We deal with this sort of thing in a better way.”
“I’m not the one who wants Scott all to myself.”
“Read my mind; that’s not true.”
“You’re the bloody Phoenix, Grey! You could show me nothing but bloody Sesame Street and I’d think that was your life!”
Jean twirled her finger and her office chair spun lazily. “Scott loves you.”
“Not as much as you.”
“It isn’t a contest, these things aren’t even quantifiable…”
“When he thinks of love, he thinks of you.”
“When he thinks of home, he thinks of us.” Jean ran a finger across Emma’s crystal hair, causing a windchime effect. “Be flesh again, Emma. I want to talk to you.”
Emma wanted to, wanted to dearly, but she wanted to be a diamond more. “Turn the difficulty up.”
Without hesitation, Jean twisted the dial to the right. Wouldn’t want them getting cocky. Emma’s skin turned to flesh like ice melted. Jean touched her bare shoulder, surprised as always to find it dry and cold instead of sweaty. “What’s wrong? When you’re with us, you act like you want to push us away, then you get angry at us for doing things without you. I’m a telepath and even I don’t understand you.”
Emma bit back a rejoinder about not wanting to be understood and instead said, “Maybe it’s that even when Scott isn’t around, you two are still an ‘us’ and I’m just… Emma.”
Jean sighed and let herself be heard in Emma’s mind. Her mental voice was perfect, though her false voice was already beautiful. That’s why I dislike verbal communication. It’s so imprecise. Now give me a real reason, not semantics.
Or what? You’ll rip the answer out of my head?
You’d do the same for me, Jean sent wryly, and Emma was depressed to admit that she’d have far less patience with Jean if their positions were reversed.
She shut the DR off and grabbed the microphone. “You’ve performed satisfactorily. Class dismissed.”
The workings of the machinery below them quieted to the hum of automatic repair. Emma kicked off her shoes and laid down on the couch. What am I, in the great roadmap of your life? The life you and Scott have built. Am I a detour? A rest stop? I want to be a destination. And I know that makes no sense and I know you and Scott love me, but as long as we’re together I’ll be wondering when you’ll tire of me. And it makes me so tired and so angry, I want you to just get it over with. And I want to beg you not to leave me. And I want you to stay out of my fucking room.
***
Scott found Emma napping in back of the Blackbird. He couldn’t blame her. The engines’ bone-deep hum was very restful—he always slept like a baby after a flight. He climbed into the bunk opposite Emma and waited.
Jean looked innocent when she slept, like she hadn’t aged a day since he’d met her. Emma looked like exactly what she was – a predator, ready to rouse and kill or mate at a moment’s notice. Still, he thought as he curled a bang around his finger to leave across her forehead, no one had ever said predators couldn’t be cute.
“I heard that,” Emma said, eyes closed, and yawned. She casually worked herself higher onto the pillow, letting the bedsheet fall a ways down her body. She was wearing her costume, minus only cape, gloves, and boots, but the peek still made Scott’s cheeks go red.
He laid there, head perched on his arm, watching her stretch awake. “So you like watching me sleep. Is there anything else you like watching me do?”
“That’s not why I came back here.”
“Heartsick for Jean? You know I can cure that.”
“Actually, I was thinking about breaking up.”
The plane shifted a little under the weight of Emma’s diamond form. “If that’s a sense of humor, Scott, I can see why you keep it repressed.”
“I am serious. You obviously don’t want to put in the effort to make this relationship work, so why not end on a high note? We can get Jean, have a nice romantic dinner, some sex, maybe breakfast, then we go our separate ways.”
“Did Jean put you up to this?”
“No. She loves you too much to do this to you. But I figure if we get… nostalgic… well, it’s not like you have a moral opposition to casual sex.”
Emma’s jaw was working in soundless fury.
“You can even keep the room. It’s not like we’ve been sharing it…”
“You’ve made your point!” Emma snapped.
“Have I?”
“You think this should be easy for me because I’m a whore. It’s not. I’m supposed to be a wife, a leader, but I still feel like a whore!” Scott started to say something, but Emma overrode him with an onslaught of psychic force. She’d left behind her diamond armor to reveal a fallen angel of sweat and anger. It’s because I am one! I’m not like you, I’m not like Jean, I’m not like any of the real X-Men! Don’t deny it! You know what I dream at night?
As abruptly as one of Nightcrawler’s teleports, Scott found himself in a graveyard, so real he could feel the bitter Autumn cold. Among the dead leaves was a tombstone, old but cleaned, scoured so that it was like new. Jean’s name was inlaid with gold. And sitting on top of the headstone, huddled together but not for warmth, were Scott and Emma.
And I accused her of wanting you all to herself. Emma’s voice boomed with dark amusement.
“We all have our dark sides. But you’re better than this, I’ve seen the good in you! It’s why I love you!”
Really? Emma seemed to take a masochistic pleasure in denigrating herself. What’s this then? And the graveyard was suddenly full of Emmas, dancing on top of Jean’s thousand graves. Naked, costumed; pleasured, pained; his, another’s.
“You should’ve seen what I thought of Jean the first time I saw her naked. But it wasn’t just sex that appealed to me. If it were, I’d be with… Psylocke!”
Maybe you just don’t have an Asian fetish. I don’t see Geisha Emma anywhere.
“I love you. Jean loves you. What more can you need?”
Jean loves everyone.
“Stop making excuses!”
THEN STOP LOVING ME! Emma roared so loud that the dream momentarily went red. Then Scott was back in the graveyard, the plots once more graves instead of sex shows. It was the dead of winter, snow smothering the world, and the X-Men were filing past Scott. Their dark winter clothes made the snow all the more white. It was exactly like Scott’s dream of the Professor, only Emma was in the casket, diamond, more beautiful in death than she’d been in life.
Jean was giving the eulogy: “She was a true hero… the best of us… she will be missed…”
“Stop it, Emma!” Scott yelled, drawing sharp looks from the mourners. He recognized Emma’s family, father and sister too.
What? I can’t want to be the good girl? Emma’s humor was positively black.
“Not like this! You’re a Frost, goddamnit! You never give in!”
I just want to be alone. Emma’s omnipotent voice shrunk, along with the world, until all had collapsed into the woman across from Scott. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”
“Because I love you.”
“I…” Emma flickered between flesh and diamond. “I believe you.”
They were back in the Blackbird’s hold. Emma pulled the covers up to her neck. Then she opened them as Scott slid into the bunk with her.
“Does this mean we can’t have that nice romantic dinner?”
“I’ll radio Jean and tell her to start cooking.”
“That will be amusing.”
***
Sleeping with Scott and Jean that night was the worst yet. They were all knees and elbows, and long red hair getting in her mouth. She was about to bring it up over breakfast when Scott and Jean sat down opposite her.
“Emma, there’s no easy way to say this,” Jean began, then nudged Scott.
“You snore,” he said.
“So you want us to sleep in separate beds?”
“Can we keep the love and companionship and all that twaddle?”
Scott smiled as he nodded and Jean sent a caress down her neocortex.
“Good.” Emma got up. “Then I suppose I’ll see you at lunch. And I… you know the rest.” She didn’t lock her bedroom door when she left.
Scott rubbed his chin. “You know, if I had my own bedroom, I’d have room for engine mods without monopolizing the kitchen.”
Jean grinned ruefully and kissed his forehead.
“And we could have a waterbed!”
Fandom: X-Men (comicverse)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6,534
Acknowledgments: Betaed by
prozacparkCharacters/Pairings: Jean/Scott/Emma
Summary: Scott’s sure they can all live together, if they just give it time. Emma isn't so certain.
“I think, if this is going to work, we should all sleep under one roof,” Scott announced.
Jean, who’d been leaning against the wall of their kitchenette, turned to look at him, automatically holding out her carton of take-out to see if he wanted any. Emma didn’t even look up from her salad.
“It’s a mansion. We always sleep under one roof.” She paused thoughtfully to examine a crouton. “Except for that one night in the greenhouse.”
“You know what I mean. Like a family.”
“How incestuous.”
“No, Scott’s right.”
Emma rolled her eyes as Jean took Scott’s side, as per usual.
Jean sat down across from Emma in her smiling peacemaker guise. “I know it’s a little cozy in here, but we could make room for you.”
“Jean? Scott? I don’t do cozy. I will not be joining your sewing circle or your book club, I don’t want a puppy for Christmas, and although I may ruefully admit to enjoying time spent with you, the primary purpose of us sharing a bed is deviant sex.” She picked up her New York Times and checked the stocks. “End of discussion.”
Scott put his hands down heavily on the table when he leaned there. Their little arrangement was inherently instable, the conflict over who was king of the hill never stopped. Though, of course, Emma wasn’t sure any of them wanted it to. But Scott particularly didn’t take kindly to having his authority challenged. Jean was nice enough to sidle up to him, be cajoling about it. Emma didn’t have that kind of time.
“There have been more than one occasion when you’ve crashed on our couch.”
“I don’t crash--“
“And are you really going to keep hiking back to your own room when you don’t spend the night?”
Emma put the newspaper down. She hated when Scott was right. It gave him all kinds of ideas. “What are you suggesting?”
“We could build a bigger room. You could have your own space—“
“Whirlpool setting in the bathtub.”
“Done.”
They didn’t shake on it, but that was the overweening mental image in Scott’s head. Emma shook her head as Jean and Scott went off, hand in hand.
1. The hotel.
The contractors were well-practiced. They were used to rebuilding parts of the mansion in days, so building an expansion to the room Jean and Scott shared was easy. The hard part was Emma. She paid for the room out of her own pocket and insisted on everything being just so, to the eternal headache of the builders.
“Emma, do you really need a fireplace? We have one in the living room,” Scott said with worry in his voice. He held her revised blueprints like they were a death threat.
Emma kept from rolling her eyes, but it was an effort. “There are fireplaces, and then there are fireplaces. Yours is for an archaic attempt at keeping warm. Mine is for atmosphere.”
“I don’t get it.”
Emma closed her eyes and thought-cast the last few moments of conversation to Jean, who was teaching class. What have you been doing with this poor boy that he doesn’t understand the simple romanticism of a blazing fireplace?
Fortunately, Jean was an excellent multi-tasker; she could literally teach the lesson in her sleep. You know Scott. He’s just not built to think that way.
We’ll have to show him then. Where are the two of you sleeping tonight?
We thought we’d take one of the guest rooms until the construction was done.
Jean, dearest, live a little. If it takes every penny in my expense account, I’ll teach you two monks how to live decadently.
Emma’s eyes snapped opened and she returned to the leaden speed of vocal discourse. “Scott, we’re getting a hotel room tonight.”
***
The Hotel Excelsior was in New York; a bit of a drive. But Emma justified it by saying she could look up some old friends. “Who knows,” she said to the happy couple in the car, “you two might even be able to have a team-up.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing,” Scott quipped, ever the cheeseball. Jean giggled, of course. Emma suppressed a smile. Their joy was so often infectious, it probably gave them the wrong idea as to their actual hilarity.
They checked in, Scott once more disappointing Emma by carrying her bags instead of letting the bellboy take it. But she put up with it.
“How is this supposed to illustrate that you need a fireplace?” he asked in the elevator.
Emma quickly checked the urge to do things to him while his hands were full and he couldn’t resist, although she thought-cast the idea to Jean like a note passed in class. Jean blushed and smiled behind her hand, a smile Emma could see full well through telepathy.
“Scott. I put up with several indignities to be on this team. I wear that pandering superhero costume you insist upon—“
“Too modest, Frost?” Jean asked.
“I’m a telepath. I can just as easily think in a proper suit as I can in, say, a green mini-dress.”
“I rather liked the mini-dress,” Scott said, mollifying Jean’s irritation.
“Regardless, I submitted to being given the exact same room you’d give Dazzler. But as headmistress—“
“Co-headmistress,” Jean said.
“—and being presented with the option of change, I choose not to settle for anything but the best. It’s either this, or wait for a Sentinel to step on my room and then rebuild it to my specifications either way. You are aware of the strain your lifestyle has put on my style, correct? I have replicas of Monets on my walls.”
“I weep,” Scott said.
“Scott, you wouldn’t settle for the Blackbird being… I don’t know… yellow. And Jean, you want the best for the X-Men. You wouldn’t settle for less than a hundred percent from anyone. I’m like that. Only with things that are actually important.”
“Ignore her,” Scott advised Jean, who had her arms crossed angrily.
“I always do.”
Emma tossed her hair and waited for the elevator doors to open.
“How much clothes do you need for a weekend in New York?” Scott asked.
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
***
Jean felt slightly chagrinned around ‘pomp and circumstance’. It’d been comforting to reach into Scott’s mind and know he felt the same anxiety, but with Emma… Emma took to it like a fish to water. Emma walked through the luxurious penthouse like it was no more than a rest stop. Left her shoes beside the bed and cracked her neck and sat on the bed and picked up the phone. “Room service? Send up a bottle of the hotel wine. No, the ’55.” She hung up. “It’s about a certain degree of mood and splendor. It’d also help if neither of you were wearing… T-shirts. I’m having more appropriate garments sent up. We’ll dine out, then come back here for a nightcap. If you don’t understand by then, there’s no helping you.”
Scott’s eyes were glued to Emma as she stretched out on the bed. “I think I’m beginning to understand right now.”
“What’s wrong with my T-shirt?” Jean asked.
***
“There, see? I knew if I shoved enough culture in your face, you’d eventually manage to stomach it.” Emma patted Scott on the chest, just below the bowtie he’d finally managed to tie just before they’d left. “Feeling the slightest bit debonair? Charming, even?”
“Yes, it’s a little trick I call ‘not being Logan’,” Scott said.
Jean hung off his arm possessively, a bit tipsy. “I think he’s charming just the way he is.”
“But even more charming now,” Emma said.
“Oh God yes.”
“Hey!”
“Not that I don’t like it when he comes in covered with sweat and engine grease—“
“And gets it all over the bedsheets,” Emma concluded acidly.
“One time, Emma. One time.”
“It wasn’t like we weren’t going to not have to change them anyway,” Jean reasoned.
“You really cannot hold your liquor.”
“Carry me,” Jean said as she fell into Scott’s arms.
He did, Emma begrudgingly getting Jean’s shoes for her. But only because she’d picked them out and she didn’t like seeing haute couture go to waste. She got the door for them and the way Jean lovingly stroked Emma’s cheek in passing went a long way toward making it worth it.
“Set her down on the carpet.”
“You mean that polar bear skin rug I don’t remember being there before?” Scott asked.
“Yes.” Emma sat down on it and took Jean from Scott, fastidiously beginning to work off Jean’s clothes. “Jean, dear, Scott and I plan on subjecting you to obscene sexual practices. Is that alright with you?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” She smiled.
“There’s a girl. Scott, I see no reason why you should be wearing clothes. Jean, could you get my zipper?”
Jean smirked as the zipper, seemingly of its own accord, made its way down Emma’s back. Emma didn’t take off the dress, but she did let it fall from her as Jean’s did. They flowed together in an endless canvas of dishabille in front of the roaring fire, Emma decadently petting Jean’s hair.
“Now you understand why I need a fireplace?” Emma asked.
“Definitely.”
“There’s a bottle of wine in the bucket by the bed. Get it for us, would you? And some glasses? And some condoms?”
Jean giggled. “Knew there was a reason we put up with you, Frosty.”
“Quite. Don’t call me—“
“What? Frosty?” Jean poked the tip of Emma’s nose. “Frosty? Frost-eeeee.”
“Scott, shut her up before I have to.”
“I like hearing her voice,” Scott said from the other room, followed by the pop of a champagne cork.
“It’s okay that you like it,” Jean said. “I mean, everyone likes it. Scott likes it, I like it…”
“What are you babbling about now?”
“Being with people. You don’t have to pretend this was all some elaborate… scheme. You liked taking us to do things you liked, and we liked going with you. Just as much as the sex.”
“Quit reading too much into things, Grey. You and Scott are the lovebirds, I’m just the odd man out. That’s how it works.”
“Scott loves you. I love you. Don’t know why you’d rather be our whore than our lover.”
“Oh, you don’t?” Emma’s finger traced Jean’s lips like it was a razor’s edge. “You were in my head without permission. Don’t you remember any of it?”
“We’ve all done bad, but we’ve also forgiven each other for it. S’okay if you forgive yourself.”
Scott came back in, jacket off and shirt unbuttoned, to pour them drinks. Emma took hers and the bottle.
“I have a sudden headache. Scott, please help yourself to the redhead. I’ll be in bed.”
She left, head held high.
Scott scratched his head. “What was that all about?”
“Emma being Emma, as usual.” Jean began making a snow angel in the fur rug. “C’mon, Scott, what’re you doing all the way up there? She’ll feel better in the morning, but you can make me feel better right now…”
***
When she was drunk, Jean’s shields slipped. Always had. Sloppy of her. It was a cold comfort, as Emma reduced the bottle down to nothing, but a comfort nonetheless. She fell asleep as the fire dwindled, finally growing so cold that Jean and Scott had to wrap themselves in the rug for warmth. Emma wrapped her bedsheets tighter around her and thought about what idiots they were, that they couldn’t even come in from the cold.
2. Xanadu
In its infancy, the mansion had possessed an Old World elegance that had been worn away by years of rebuilding, replacement, and lowest bidders. It was probably weird that seeing Emma’s bachelorette pad reminded Scott of his childhood. It was just classy. Not functional, not defensible, but comfortable. It was hard to believe it existed under the same roof as the Danger Room.
“Wow, it’s…” he touched the brickwork of the fireplace. “Very you.”
“I call it Xanadu,” Emma said proudly.
“I’m sticking to ‘Emma’s bachelorette pad,” Jean said. She tapped on a wall. “No psychic imprints. Doesn’t feel like home.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Emma replied archly. “In lieu of misplaced nostalgia, I could actually see myself not hating living here.”
Jean put her arms around both Emma and Scott. “What say we christen it?” she whispered into Scott’s ear, hungrily eyeing the four-poster bed.
Emma slipped Jean’s arm off her. “I think not. This bed is for my comfort, not being tainted with musk and sweat and… what’s wrong with using your bed for that?”
“Look at this!” Scott flopped down on the bed to Emma’s horror. “Silk sheets, big pillows… is that a mirror up there?”
“I didn’t say we would never use it… if I were going to change the sheets anyway…”
Jean shook her head in disbelief and shoved Emma down with Scott. Emma squealed, then punished everyone else for the undignified outburst by thrusting her knees at Scott. But Scott had prepared for that. He rolled on top of her and held her down.
“Now what?” she snarled. “Will you hit me with a pillow? Dip my hand in warm water?”
“Lighten up, Emma. You’re being crazier than usual.”
“You’ve literally built a wall between us,” Jean said in her intolerable oh Emma voice.
“Not you, tempting though the idea might be, just myself and morning breath, tossing and turning… besides, this way, if yet another alternate future ax maniac tries to breed the two of you, I might sleep soundly through it.”
Jean pressed against Emma’s side. Her fingernail scratched in the spaces between the fingers Scott had squeezing Emma’s arms. “I think you’re scared that this is more than sex.”
“It’s not about sex, it’s about compromise. You can’t get into Scott’s head, not anymore, but I can’t command your brand of loyalty. So we mash all these half-formed relationships together in the hope it’ll equal what Mr. and Mrs. Summers used to have.”
Scott let go of her, rolled onto the opposite side as Jean. “I think that’s a little harsh. Unfair,” he said, jaw tight.
“No, we were desperate,” Jean recalled. Her voice bore a resemblance to the blank monotone of the Phoenix. “We had to be, to try this. But it worked. Aren’t we happy?”
“I’m content,” Emma said. “If bewildered by your constant viewing of this arrangement as more than convenient orgasms.”
“Because it is more. You wouldn’t be panicking so hard if it weren’t.” Jean sighed. She pulled herself up onto the headboard, Scott following suit. Emma stayed, disgruntled, on the mattress until Scott pulled her up to let her use his arm as a cushion. “Scott, you’re awfully quiet.”
“I love both of you.”
Emma cackled.
“Didn’t peg you for such a big believer in monogamy,” Scott half-snapped.
“Fine, we’re all one big happy orgy. Not that I can see the difference between that and this being a sustained affair of no-strings-sex, but why don’t we make this academic discussion… academic.” She slunk over Jean’s body, holding Scott’s hand, and began dragging the married couple toward the door into their room. “Come on, don’t make me diamond.”
She’s distracting us with sex, Jean sent to Scott.
Should we let her?
Absolutely.
3. Scott and Jean’s room.
Emma often kept the door to her room locked. She would leave it open during the day. But at night, especially after some fun with Scott and Jean, it would slap shut and not open til morning.
While Scott and Jean were going through their morning ritual, Emma slunk into their shared bathroom. Jean had come in late and fallen asleep with her costume still on; now she was ridding herself of a night’s worth of spandex sweat by way of a long soak. Emma, with quiet thoughtfulness, turned on the jacuzzi jets. Jean knew Emma wouldn’t appreciate thanks, so she let Scott say ‘thank you’ for her.
He dipped his razor in the sink and looked over to Emma. “Babe, it is just unfair that you can look that good this early in the morning.”
She doesn’t really look like that, she’s making us think that. Jean explained as Emma stepped into the shower.
Scott finished shaving with a splash of water across the face, then sat on the tub’s edge for Jean’s perusal. She ran her hand up and down his cheeks, putting a promising finger to his lips. Scott grabbed a washcloth and began rubbing her back. She let loose the moan that had been building since Emma started the jets.
“I had a weird dream last night,” Scott said.
“Oh?”
Emma, eavesdropping, smirked under her soap suds. If you fake interest that well, it’s a wonder he decided to cheat on you.
Jean didn’t take the bait. Emma had been dropping more barbs since the abortive tryst in her room. Like you wouldn’t be his conversational bitch if he were washing your back.
“The Professor was dead,” Scott said. “We were at his funeral and I was giving the eulogy.”
Ask him what I was wearing, Emma thought-cast to Jean.
“I was giving the eulogy and it was very objective. The good and the bad. And the other X-Men were yelling at me to stop, but it was so important that I said everything. If I left anything out, it would be disastrous.”
“Huh. That is weird.” Jean lifted her leg out of the water for Scott to clean, and for Emma to see as she stepped out of the shadows. “To be honest, any time there’s a funeral and I’m not the main attraction, that works for me.”
“It was because you feel betrayed by Charles.” Emma was toweling herself off as if disdainful of the water.
“Yeah, so I figured.”
“But you still believe in the dream even though you’ve lost faith in the man. Hence the conflict. You want to reconcile this even while you don’t want to reopen old wounds. You should take a cue from me. I don’t believe in dreams, I deal in facts. When someone wrongs me, I revenge myself. No muss, no fuss.”
“You don’t believe we’ll ever co-exist with humans?”
“When they die out, possibly.” Emma grabbed her bathrobe, white in contrast to Scott’s blue. Jean’s was pink, because someone had to ruin the color scheme. “Don’t take it personally, I don’t even believe we can make it a year before you two lovebirds show me out. So, what are we doing for breakfast?”
4. Xanadu without Emma
Scott had Jean on speaker phone while he graded papers, which helped keep him sane while he read that WW2 had been ended by the Treaty of Versace. Perhaps having the X-Men both defend a world that hated and feared them, and teach was a bad idea. Jubilee was definitely not faculty material.
“So, is it just me or is Emma being more… Emma lately?”
“Do you mean a raging bitch? Because yeah.”
“I don’t get it. It’s been six months, everything’s been great.”
“You heard her. She’s getting bored of waiting for the hammer to drop.”
“The hammer’s not going to drop,” Scott said irritatedly. “And this Jenkins kid has the worst spelling. I’m not even sure he’s literate…”
“Maybe she wants the hammer to drop,” Jean said slowly.
“No. Once she sees we love her…”
“Maybe she doesn’t love us.”
“She loves me.”
“Don’t confuse love with lust. Maybe she’s worried we’re going too fast and going to end up… loveless again. I don’t know, she’s not here… we should put this on hold.”
“But if she did want to end things, it wouldn’t be the worst,” Scott finished her thought.
“Emma’s probably just having a bad month.”
A long moment passed with Jean saying nothing.
“Jean? You still there?”
“Still here, lover. Emma just thought-cast to me. She won’t be in tonight, don’t wait up, and I couldn’t detect any heartfelt adoration of us, but I’m sure it was intended.”
“Huh. Mansion all to ourselves. Think we should dine out?”
“Ha!”
“C’mon. Big burgers, dripping with grease, maybe a pizza…”
“We can eat anything you like, so long as it’s while watching a movie of at least marginal romance.”
“Ouch.” Scott put his feet up, figuring grades could hold. “Any other tortures you’re going to inflict on me while I’m at your mercy?”
“There may be snuggling.”
“I’ll wear that cologne you like.”
“I’ll buy myself something scandalous to wear. Do you know where Emma buys her uniforms?”
“I’m sure they’re hand-tailored.”
“Joke, hon. Although you might want to check that she hasn’t turned the preschool into a sweatshop.”
Scott glanced at the memo Emma had sent him that morning. “So that’s what her proposal is about.”
“I would’ve thought it’d be more modest.”
They settled on a DVD swiped from the common room, an old musical in the vein of South Pacific. The tunes were hummable enough, and even when they weren’t, so long as Jean was lying against him, Scott could watch goats being slaughtered.
***
Jean came out from her shower in Emma’s robes, the hem indecently high on her long legs, a towel turban containing her hair. Scott liked the view, but didn’t really focus on her until she took off the turban. “How do you like me as a blonde?”
Through the ruby-quartz, it was just another red gradient, so Jean sent the view through her eyes: Him, the mirror. He could see her nearly white hair as well as his own stunned expression. Through her own eyes, Jean usually looked less beautiful than Scott knew she was, but not now.
“I liked you better red,” he said truthfully.
“It’s only hair dye. It’ll wash out by morning.” He was still radiating unease, so Jean sent him a friendly beacon of her true self, an empathic wink. “Did you think Emma was the only one with a naughty side? What a short memory…”
“It’s just you’re…”
“What? Pure?” Jean sent a knife straight through the pleasure center of his brain, neatly coinciding with the sight of the bathrobe following off her. The lingerie beneath was white, but definitely not virginal. “I’ve been a lot of things, Scott, but I’ve never been especially pure. And it’s uncomfortable up on your pedestal. I know you have desires. But Emma’s not the only one who can do something about it.”
That pinged Scott’s interpersonal mine detector as something Jean would never say if Emma were present. But then some amount of jealousy was to be expected. God knows he’d been pissed off at Logan enough times.
“Point taken,” he said, thinking very hard about what he’d like to do to Jean.
She stopped him with her hand outstretched to his chest, warm even through his tee. “Not here.”
One eyebrow rose. “The lake?” Nostalgia stiffened him. There was a reason they’d declared the lake off-limits to students back when they’d been newlyweds.
She laughed. It was a vibrant laugh, powerful. Like her. “God, Scott, that’s a make-out point now! The kids smoke joints there. No, I’m talking about someplace taboo.”
Unbidden, the image of Emma’s door floated through Scott’s mind. Jean’s doing. “Jean!”
“What? Would it be wrong?” She kissed his neck slowly, a prolonged mixture of teeth and suckling. “Good.”
Jean waved a hand and the door to Emma’s room flew open. She maneuvered him through it in a dance that was somewhat sultry and somewhat giddy, but all her. He wondered if she could be breaking character when the point was that this was in her character. She let him go with a whoop and Scott’s back hit the fireplace lightly. Jean finished a little twirl and came out looking at him with a very Emma expression of bored supremacy. “Scott, dear, be a doll and light my fire. By which I mean the fireplace, of course. You might not’ve realized that because I’m so very witty and I’m always talking like I’ve said a double entrende.”
“Ha!”
Jean walked with exaggerated poise to the bed while Scott started the fire. Its glow darkened Jean’s tan much more appealingly than it would do with Emma’s paleness, and the flickering shadows suggested Jean’s natural hair color, but somehow that just made it funnier as Jean crawled atop the sheets.
“I’ve been a very bad White Queen. You may have to spank me,” she said with forced pouty lips. Her English accent was atrocious, more Cockney than anything else. “Or whip me. Or slap me. Or put my nipples in clamps. Or say hurtful things about bands I like. Because I’m kinky like that.”
Scott was wiping tears from his eyes. “Stop it! You’re killing me!”
“Redeem me, Scott. Redeem me hard.” Jean dropped her top. “Make me a good girl with your big fat cock. Make me your good girl, I don’t wanna be your bad girl anymore.” She’d dropped the accent on his way to her. “Make me good.” She shook her head and her hair flew to red. “Make love to me, Scott. Like it’s only the two of us here.”
He did, feeling the warmth of her against his body, her heat touching his mind. The embers of the Phoenix, still glowing after the fire had died. It was something they had to live with.
“You’re the best of us,” he told her after, “and not because you have to be. You always have been.”
“No, I haven’t. So much has gone wrong because I wasn’t good enough. But I’m good now, right? Aren’t I?”
“Course you are. Course you are.”
She was crying anyway. “I won’t ask if you love her more, if you even love one of us more. But do you love me?”
“Look.” She didn’t take his meaning, so he thought it as he said it, drawing her hands to his face. “Look.”
He felt the beginnings of a serious mind-probe. It felt like it was at an axis to the feel of being penetrated, which she’d shared with him once at the lake. “It could hurt,” she warned, her eyes diffusing the light from the fireplace. “The Phoenix…”
“I’m not afraid.” He opened himself up and received Her.
It was the feel of a fire warming your hands, both warmth and slight pain, but Emma had taught him to appreciate the duality. He watched her bright eyes as she scoured him, neither roughly nor gently. Even he didn’t know what she’d find, but he had faith that he wasn’t as stupid as to see the perfect woman and not be madly in love with her. Then she smiled as only Jean could and fell on him with renewed passion. “I love you too.”
5. Under one roof
The Danger Room control center was full of rambunctious X-Men touches that Emma considered undignified, but then that was par for the course. There were blow-ups of famous moments caught on the recorders, like Kurt teleporting into She-Hulk’s lap during a joint training exercise, or Colossus throwing a phasing Kitty to disable three Sentinels. There were sticky notes on the NASA-surplus console, explaining weak points that could be exploited on individual X-Men (Scott’s neat handwriting had it as weaknesses to be worked on, while Logan’s scrawl had them as hijinx waiting to ensue). All in all, the control room was more family TV room than mission control.
Jean and Emma were doing their shifts as DR overseers, an important position since the DR had gone crazy and tried to kill them. Emma watched how smoothly the next generation worked together, the ease with which they surmounted overwhelming odds, and she reached for the difficulty dial.
“Oh, let them build up a little self-confidence before you shatter their dreams,” Jean chided, scooting Emma back, chair and all, with telekinesis.
“Misplaced self-confidence is arrogance.”
“You don’t say,” Jean noted with eyes pinched. “And you wouldn’t want anyone being prideful.”
“It does tend to go before a fall.” Emma stood up and walked back to the console. She leaned over it before doing any fiddling, slightly ingratiating herself to Jean’s eyes.
“You could hurt them,” Jean persisted.
Emma toyed with the dial, rotating it back and forth but not enough to change the difficulty level. “Pain is a good teacher. That I’ve learned. And my arrogance is well-placed.”
“Ah, the subtle distinction of the world according to Emma.” Jean straddled her chair as Emma settled into hers, legs crossed and cape gathered neatly around her like a shawl.
They watched the X-kids’ momentum grind to a halt, powers flashing out in chaotic asynchrony. It was no longer the measured, tactical dispersion of abilities, but a fight for survival. Emma nodded in satisfaction. They would have to do better now.
Jean leaned forward and pressed the switch on the headset board, the one with “Armor” above it from a label maker. “Hisako, you’re doing great, keep it up and watch that crossfire.”
Emma, slyly amused, toed open a line to Hellion. “You can do better. Oblige me.”
The tide started to turn again. Emma reached for the dial once more and Jean slapped her hand away. “They’re just kids, Emma.”
“So were you, Jean. And there are a disturbing number of naughty people with big guns who would like to ensure they never become adults. And in the real world, you won’t be there to turn down the difficulty.”
Emma felt the red fire of the Phoenix’s skeleton enter her mind, hold her stricken. “That doesn’t change the fact that they’re still just kids.”
Emma hardened, like coal turned to diamond by heat and pressure. She’d always liked the metaphor—hardship just making her harder and yet more beautiful. But faced with the flame that was even now stirring Jean’s hair (or was that the AC turning on?), she suddenly wondered if diamonds could melt. “Did you enjoy fucking Scott in my bed?”
Jean was only taken aback for a moment, but her hair still landed limp between her shoulder blades. “I don’t know why you even care, we changed the sheets…”
“As if that’s what this is about. Don’t insult both our intelligences.”
“We’re not doing this. We’re not fighting over a man. It’s stupid, it’s archaic, and it’s beneath us. We’re mutants. We deal with this sort of thing in a better way.”
“I’m not the one who wants Scott all to myself.”
“Read my mind; that’s not true.”
“You’re the bloody Phoenix, Grey! You could show me nothing but bloody Sesame Street and I’d think that was your life!”
Jean twirled her finger and her office chair spun lazily. “Scott loves you.”
“Not as much as you.”
“It isn’t a contest, these things aren’t even quantifiable…”
“When he thinks of love, he thinks of you.”
“When he thinks of home, he thinks of us.” Jean ran a finger across Emma’s crystal hair, causing a windchime effect. “Be flesh again, Emma. I want to talk to you.”
Emma wanted to, wanted to dearly, but she wanted to be a diamond more. “Turn the difficulty up.”
Without hesitation, Jean twisted the dial to the right. Wouldn’t want them getting cocky. Emma’s skin turned to flesh like ice melted. Jean touched her bare shoulder, surprised as always to find it dry and cold instead of sweaty. “What’s wrong? When you’re with us, you act like you want to push us away, then you get angry at us for doing things without you. I’m a telepath and even I don’t understand you.”
Emma bit back a rejoinder about not wanting to be understood and instead said, “Maybe it’s that even when Scott isn’t around, you two are still an ‘us’ and I’m just… Emma.”
Jean sighed and let herself be heard in Emma’s mind. Her mental voice was perfect, though her false voice was already beautiful. That’s why I dislike verbal communication. It’s so imprecise. Now give me a real reason, not semantics.
Or what? You’ll rip the answer out of my head?
You’d do the same for me, Jean sent wryly, and Emma was depressed to admit that she’d have far less patience with Jean if their positions were reversed.
She shut the DR off and grabbed the microphone. “You’ve performed satisfactorily. Class dismissed.”
The workings of the machinery below them quieted to the hum of automatic repair. Emma kicked off her shoes and laid down on the couch. What am I, in the great roadmap of your life? The life you and Scott have built. Am I a detour? A rest stop? I want to be a destination. And I know that makes no sense and I know you and Scott love me, but as long as we’re together I’ll be wondering when you’ll tire of me. And it makes me so tired and so angry, I want you to just get it over with. And I want to beg you not to leave me. And I want you to stay out of my fucking room.
***
Scott found Emma napping in back of the Blackbird. He couldn’t blame her. The engines’ bone-deep hum was very restful—he always slept like a baby after a flight. He climbed into the bunk opposite Emma and waited.
Jean looked innocent when she slept, like she hadn’t aged a day since he’d met her. Emma looked like exactly what she was – a predator, ready to rouse and kill or mate at a moment’s notice. Still, he thought as he curled a bang around his finger to leave across her forehead, no one had ever said predators couldn’t be cute.
“I heard that,” Emma said, eyes closed, and yawned. She casually worked herself higher onto the pillow, letting the bedsheet fall a ways down her body. She was wearing her costume, minus only cape, gloves, and boots, but the peek still made Scott’s cheeks go red.
He laid there, head perched on his arm, watching her stretch awake. “So you like watching me sleep. Is there anything else you like watching me do?”
“That’s not why I came back here.”
“Heartsick for Jean? You know I can cure that.”
“Actually, I was thinking about breaking up.”
The plane shifted a little under the weight of Emma’s diamond form. “If that’s a sense of humor, Scott, I can see why you keep it repressed.”
“I am serious. You obviously don’t want to put in the effort to make this relationship work, so why not end on a high note? We can get Jean, have a nice romantic dinner, some sex, maybe breakfast, then we go our separate ways.”
“Did Jean put you up to this?”
“No. She loves you too much to do this to you. But I figure if we get… nostalgic… well, it’s not like you have a moral opposition to casual sex.”
Emma’s jaw was working in soundless fury.
“You can even keep the room. It’s not like we’ve been sharing it…”
“You’ve made your point!” Emma snapped.
“Have I?”
“You think this should be easy for me because I’m a whore. It’s not. I’m supposed to be a wife, a leader, but I still feel like a whore!” Scott started to say something, but Emma overrode him with an onslaught of psychic force. She’d left behind her diamond armor to reveal a fallen angel of sweat and anger. It’s because I am one! I’m not like you, I’m not like Jean, I’m not like any of the real X-Men! Don’t deny it! You know what I dream at night?
As abruptly as one of Nightcrawler’s teleports, Scott found himself in a graveyard, so real he could feel the bitter Autumn cold. Among the dead leaves was a tombstone, old but cleaned, scoured so that it was like new. Jean’s name was inlaid with gold. And sitting on top of the headstone, huddled together but not for warmth, were Scott and Emma.
And I accused her of wanting you all to herself. Emma’s voice boomed with dark amusement.
“We all have our dark sides. But you’re better than this, I’ve seen the good in you! It’s why I love you!”
Really? Emma seemed to take a masochistic pleasure in denigrating herself. What’s this then? And the graveyard was suddenly full of Emmas, dancing on top of Jean’s thousand graves. Naked, costumed; pleasured, pained; his, another’s.
“You should’ve seen what I thought of Jean the first time I saw her naked. But it wasn’t just sex that appealed to me. If it were, I’d be with… Psylocke!”
Maybe you just don’t have an Asian fetish. I don’t see Geisha Emma anywhere.
“I love you. Jean loves you. What more can you need?”
Jean loves everyone.
“Stop making excuses!”
THEN STOP LOVING ME! Emma roared so loud that the dream momentarily went red. Then Scott was back in the graveyard, the plots once more graves instead of sex shows. It was the dead of winter, snow smothering the world, and the X-Men were filing past Scott. Their dark winter clothes made the snow all the more white. It was exactly like Scott’s dream of the Professor, only Emma was in the casket, diamond, more beautiful in death than she’d been in life.
Jean was giving the eulogy: “She was a true hero… the best of us… she will be missed…”
“Stop it, Emma!” Scott yelled, drawing sharp looks from the mourners. He recognized Emma’s family, father and sister too.
What? I can’t want to be the good girl? Emma’s humor was positively black.
“Not like this! You’re a Frost, goddamnit! You never give in!”
I just want to be alone. Emma’s omnipotent voice shrunk, along with the world, until all had collapsed into the woman across from Scott. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”
“Because I love you.”
“I…” Emma flickered between flesh and diamond. “I believe you.”
They were back in the Blackbird’s hold. Emma pulled the covers up to her neck. Then she opened them as Scott slid into the bunk with her.
“Does this mean we can’t have that nice romantic dinner?”
“I’ll radio Jean and tell her to start cooking.”
“That will be amusing.”
***
Sleeping with Scott and Jean that night was the worst yet. They were all knees and elbows, and long red hair getting in her mouth. She was about to bring it up over breakfast when Scott and Jean sat down opposite her.
“Emma, there’s no easy way to say this,” Jean began, then nudged Scott.
“You snore,” he said.
“So you want us to sleep in separate beds?”
“Can we keep the love and companionship and all that twaddle?”
Scott smiled as he nodded and Jean sent a caress down her neocortex.
“Good.” Emma got up. “Then I suppose I’ll see you at lunch. And I… you know the rest.” She didn’t lock her bedroom door when she left.
Scott rubbed his chin. “You know, if I had my own bedroom, I’d have room for engine mods without monopolizing the kitchen.”
Jean grinned ruefully and kissed his forehead.
“And we could have a waterbed!”
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 07:54 pm (UTC)One minor thing though--Jean couldn't have washed blond out of her hair. She'd have had to bleach it to get it blond. :P
Just kidding. It was fantastic to read. Put a stupid grin on my face all day during a boring lecture on maternal-child feeding in India.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 10:12 am (UTC)Спасибо за статью
Date: 2012-02-08 04:35 am (UTC)Познавательный блог
Date: 2012-02-19 10:52 pm (UTC)