asongwithin | Duplicity Inbox

I'm in 1A. Door's unlocked.

And here I was hoping to brush up on my lock picking skills.

[ It's not long before that door is creaking open. She swapped most of her uniform for a green sweater and black pants, but she's kept the trench coat. Leather is warm, okay? ]

Scott?

[ Scott's done a similar thing - changed into jeans and a t-shirt, with a very beaten up leather motorcycle jacket hanging by the door. ]

No, Kurt.

[ He rolls his eyes behind his glasses but he immediately just hugs her. Got a little lost in their initial (with Jean drugged) meeting. Wasn't able to be what it should be which is just - a tight, warm, hug.

He missed her.

A lot.

Fuck his awkwardness its Jean. ]

Hilarious.

[ She's rolling her eyes, too, even as she fiercely returns that embrace.

Funny how much she's missed him when she isn't the one living with years of absence. Even when her arms relax, she doesn't pull away, just rests her head on his shoulder.

It feels incomplete, without a deeper connection. She doesn't mention it. ]

Are you eating all right?

[ She knows it takes time, to build yourself back up after being imprisoned in those conditions. She doesn't know if Scott's prioritising that or not. ]

[ It doesn't just feel incomplete to Scott. It feels familiar in bad ways - times they were together, both alive and not just in the same place but the same bed and still missing each other.

That's eventually going to win out - the need for more intimacy and to be closer to Jean in particular - over his discomfort with the idea of sharing his mind with her (and Phoenix) again. It probably won't even take all that long.

for now he runs his fingers through her hair, slowly, separating strands that might want to catch.

He laughs, softly at the question. ]

I am eating an obscene amount of food and hitting the beach and Logan's gym. Have you eaten recently?

Edited 2022-01-26 16:49 (UTC)

[ It's a relief, hearing that he's taking care of himself at least physically. Granted, she's sure that the moment he's able he'll be running himself ragged at that gym -

Or maybe not. Maybe not here, not yet. ]

I've been grabbing my three squares.

[ Not enthusiastically - she's still feeling a bit too wrung out for that, truth be told - but she won't let her health suffer for it. For the exact same reasons as Scott, probably.

They've been trained too well. ]

What's the gym like?

[ The source of why they're doing it may not be the greatest thing in the world, but it's better than it not being done.

And he does recognize what 'three squares' being eaten means. That'stay in fighting shape/return to that state' ingrained in them.]

Good, then we can ignore that entire line of distraction and managing.

[ Dry because some part of them might be glad for the straight forward leverage. He lets her go and nudges her toward the sofa. Just so they can sit. ]

It's a gym. It's clearly owned by Logan. The hours are terrible. Probably because of the hours Dick and Jason seem to keep.

Until we find another one.

[ Just as wry. She's still smiling as she sits, sinking back into the couch. Slowly - far more slowly than normal, actually - her boots begin to untie themselves. ]

Let's be honest, our hours will end up terrible too. [ They're so used to having lives bursting with activity, juggling the school and the X-Men and at least three distinct threats on a regular basis. It won't be long until they're finding new exciting ways to fill that absence.

Like prison. ]

I met Dick. He's very sweet.

I think it's probably more likely that we'll just stop sleeping than turn nocturnal.

[ Not that the other is impossible, given how much easier it is to get into trouble that will land them in prison at night, but. Nocturnal does imply they're... getting sleep.

He has his doubts.

He settles down beside her, head tilted to the side and shelves discussion about Dick for now. ]

Is your TK not working well because of Phoenix' clipped wings, or is something else going on?

[ That gets a laugh, and a slight nod. Even now, trying to acclimate herself before diving into anything, she's not exactly getting an overabundance of sleep. ]

There's still a lot of raw power there. Being delicate with it, that feels harder. I don't think that part's Duplicity, at least not directly.

[ She falls silent, for a few moments. When she speaks again, more to her boots than to Scott, her voice is soft. ]

Did Logan ever talk about what happened, on the station?

[ He truly doesn't understand how, after all this time, he can feel so... comfortable with her, in so many ways. Even the distance, the not wanting her in his mind, the way they ended, missing Emma (and he misses Emma)--

That fucking question--

It's not perfect but it's still Jean and he still loves her and she still feels like home.

It's why, though there's a pause, he answers the question. ]

Logan and I don't talk. [ He sounds frustrated by that, a little. ] We fight and growl and snarl and push. We use each other as battering rams and punching bags. Sometimes we have A Moment where we acknowledge we can stand each other, but we don't really talk.

[ Ask a stupid question.

She huffs something like a laugh, and her shoelaces still, quivering in the air like charmed snakes, as she tilts her head up again. ]

Maybe you should start trying.

[ They get there eventually, it seems. Maybe she just yanked them both into her head and wouldn't let them out until they made an effort.

For now...for now she just looks into his eyes and tells him the truth. ]

One of the last things he said to me, before we crashed into the sun, was that you still loved me.

[ They probably should, but fuck if he knows how. Maybe he relies too much on telepathy. Maybe if he wants to convey anything of meaning even to Jean he should get willing to let her into his head, too, instead of shutting down the best line of communication he has.

Meanwhile - he probably should, he doesn't know how or even what to say.

So he focuses on the... not at all easier but at least more know aspect of things.

While watching her bootlaces.]

He's not stupid. I never stopped loving you. Neither did he.

[ The fact that it was even a question really speaks to how thoroughly they'd fallen apart. ]

You know, I was angrier at Emma than I was at you. [ It seems like a steep conversational swerve, but give it a minute. ] There were a few reasons for that, but one of them -

[ She's back at staring at her shoelaces, too. ]

A few days after Cassandra Nova outted the school, I took a hike into the woods and poured my heart out to Logan. All the things I wouldn't say to you because I didn't know how.

And we kissed, and I don't...I don't know if it would have stopped there if he hadn't walked away. If he hadn't believed in us, in you and me, more than I did.

[ The good news, Scott supposes, is that this conversation is so long overdue on his end....

Overdue and something he has sincerely regretted not being able to have with her before she was gone. Not just unable because she was gone but just straight unable. Maybe he needed all those years to get there.

That's not flattering, but maybe.

His voice changes, gets warmer and... gruffer at the same time. Sad but not in some broken way. He tilts his head to look around and down at her, and moves her hair out of his way so he can do it.]

Jean? [ Look up here, sweetheart, goes unsaid and unprojected, but it's in there. ]

[ She blinks a few times, first, and lets the laces drop.

When she looks up, her expression is acutely vulnerable in ways she resisted and avoided for so long. Maybe she thought that if he kept pretending - pretending that she felt confident, felt whole, felt strong - it would just be true.

Maybe she never really put herself back together after Scott's death ripped her heart out. Maybe that's why getting him back didn't feel quite real. ]

[ Well, now that he's gotten her attention he has to figure out how to use words to convey what he wants to say.

It would be easier with telepathy at least backing it up, but that's... not going to happen right now and maybe in some ways that makes this... more of whatever it is that it needs to be. ]

We didn't need faith in us. We needed permission to stop being a Barbie and Ken wedding cake topper.

[ They need to work harder.

Besides, if Scott wasn't scrambling to Use His Words, she wouldn't have gotten this and burst out laughing.

Then, warmly and breathlessly: ]

Well that's one heck of an image.

[ She'll share it, once they're ready. Once they've done the work.

Then, still wildly amused but more intent: ]

And you're not wrong.

[ It's always been part of what drew her to Logan, isn't it? And part of what drew him to Emma. Acting outside their designated roles. Reaching for something else. ]

I thought...I thought it would be easy, once I'd gotten you back. That everything would go back to normal. But normal wasn't as perfect as I thought. As I wanted it to be.

Edited 2022-02-05 23:00 (UTC)

[ Strange, isn't it? How talking can somehow be more intimate than telepathy. More of a... trust fall in a way.

Goes with being more work, probably.

The laughs nice, though and gets a smile out of him, lightens up what he says (and doesn't) some.]

Define normal....

[ He has doubts. ]

Actually, define back.

Edited 2022-02-05 23:24 (UTC)

[ She opens her mouth, and then closes it. Both of those are good questions.

As she thinks, her shoelaces start unweaving again, but she doesn't look away this time.

By the time she speaks, she's onto the other boot. ]

I don't think I ever really understood what it was like. You thinking I was dead, and having to live with that. Having to move on with your life, to...redefine what that meant. [ She reaches up, slowly, to trace the line of his jaw. ] It was like someone had ripped my heart out and I had to just...just keep going without it, somehow.

[ She managed, more or less; took six months to herself, learning to breathe through it, before rejoining the X-Men because of course she did. But she never quite felt whole; not as Jean, not as Phoenix. ]

I thought having you back would mean...knowing how to be happy again. Like when were kids, and we had the whole world in front of us. Like when we got married, because we believed in a future we could share together.

[ Jean and Scott, Cyclops and Phoenix, heart of the X-Men. ]

But then - there you were, right next to me, and I still couldn't reach you.

[ He shifts his weight - folds one leg under him, turns toward her on the sofa to make it easier for her to touch him, and him to see her. Good position for him to idly twirl the ends of her hair around his fingers, too, while he reaches for words.]

There was...

I don't want it to sound like I'm making excuses. [ I take full responsibility. More appropriate here, though.] I don't think who you were reaching for was even there Jean. Not just the kids we were but the man who died.

[ Hear me, X-Men! No longer am I the woman you knew!

Looking back, she wonders how the hell she missed it. Not that the experience had changed him - of course it had - but how deep it went, how lost he was.

Quietly, a bit teasingly - ]

Please. You've never made an excuse in your life.

[ Her hand fingers trace upwards again, lingering next to his glasses. To the reason he's spent the vast majority of his life so terrified of losing control. ]

You should have tried harder to tell me, and I should have tried harder to listen.

[ He actively relaxes at the touch, all the way up to the edges of his glasses and even then he just sort of frowns in a 'what are you doing' mildly uncomfortable expression.

...One other person in existence who wouldn't get a really nasty response to that, and they're not in Duplicity. ]

I should have - and it should probably have been the end of our marriage. Or, I guess based on what the future seems to hold opened it. Which might have given us enough space to save it.

[ He doesn't sound... terribly upset, actually, which is saying something. In truth, he's not - about any of it. He loves her. He will always love her. He felt guilty as fuck about a lot of things involving Emma.

But he doesn't for one second regret her.

Hell, he has more regrets about things he didn't do - and Jean didn't do than what they did.

He is also pointedly, carefully, not thinking much about what came before that. Not beyond 'not the same'. It's been a long time. He will still lose his shit if that's pushed too hard. ]

Open it to Emma?

[ Not so long ago, that would have sounded bitter, scornful, confused. There's still a pained edged to it, and echo of that betrayed fury, but mostly she sounds wistfully tender. ]

I never got a chance to tell you - when I put her back together, I could feel it, feel all of it.

[ Her hand is drifting up, now, to tangle gently in his hair. ]

She loves you so damn much.

[ So much of her anger had come from the assumption that Emma was taking advantage, playing with his feelings. Causing trouble just because she could. ]

I actually meant both of them - or neither of them.

[ But he's -- he's laughing, not at her but at the gentle tangle of fingers in her hair and that last statement, because. Just because it's funny in a very strange way. One he recognizes that he should need reassuring but on that... he just doesn't. He leans into her hand and tugs gently on the ends of her hair. ]

Probably not right now, but I know. [ Always, always, always. ] She was not happy about that for a while.

[ He loves her. He can't not. Then the laughter and smile fade. ]

I still haven't actually managed to say what I should have said years ago. [ And he still doesnt want to. So listen because he won't manage this twice. ]

Edited 2022-02-06 01:00 (UTC)

Duplicity Inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

...I will never stop editing.

it's a metaphor for life

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)