Scott, Betsy, and Jean, Saturday night

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

After making this post, Scott heads for the garage and his bike. Betsy intercepts him. Jean chooses a bad moment to walk in. It sounds worse than it is. Really.


Betsy sat at her desk, staring at the computer screen. She waited as the system refreshed, her eyebrows lifting at the new staff post.

Her face stern, Betsy looked away from the screen, eyes traveling the length of the wall, and as she reached the corner of her suite, her eyes looked down to the floor. Getting up quickly, Betsy charged out the door, jacket in hand. She had to catch someone before he made it to his fast toys downstairs and disappeared.

Scott was on his way to the garage. Stomping towards the garage would probably be a better description, and the few students that saw him all but dove out of his way, but he barely noticed them and in any case, didn't want to let that stop him. He wanted his bike, and he wanted out of here - not so much out of here as away from the people, really - and that was that.

Betsy pushed passed a few bewildered looking students. By their expressions, she knew she was on the right track. There was the sound of an engine revving. When she came running through the door leading to the garage, Betsy grabbed a spare helmet off the rack, put it on, and hopped on the back before he took off.

#Going somewhere?# Betsy sent, making sure Scott didn't accidentally pull too violently on the handles. She also kept a tight hold onto Scott's midsection without managing to prevent him from breathing.

Scott froze. "Get off," he muttered harshly, trying not to grind his teeth. #Did you not see the post?# he flung at her silently. #That was directed at all of you.#

#No, I didn't.# Betsy said, unaffected by the sharp licks of anger slicing through her thoughts. #I needed to get some things and thought I'd catch a lift.#

Two, maybe three moves and he could have her off the bike and on her rear end on the floor. Maybe. The knee was still a little touchy and he was rusty. He could at least try. The thought had a vicious sort of appeal to it, and his hands clenched hard on the handles of the bike as he fought the impulse.

"Don't even think about it, Summers." Betsy said, tightening her hold around his midsection. She pulled back slightly to get a better look at him. "I'm serious, it's not funny."

He wanted out. Out in the open air, by himself, and her arm around his waist was just one more thing holding him back, yanking him back into the whole morass, and couldn't he be free of it, just for an evening? One fucking evening. When had he lost the right to have a few hours to himself?

Betsy felt her ire growing. #I'm not trying to keep you here. We can go out into the open air and you can breathe. # Betsy sent, shrugging silently at him. #I simply want to make sure you don't implode while driving. Could be a nasty accident. The bill for cleanup alone is enough to make me shudder.#

#Get OFF!#

He wasn't absolutely sure what happened next. He tried to put her bodily off the bike, but she had the advantage of position and she was not letting go. It was redundant to say that he saw red, but it was a different kind of red from the usual this time, rage swamping rational thought for a moment. The idea of dumping her on her ass was the most attractive thing in the world, suddenly.

But he lost his balance, overcorrecting, and they both wound up on the floor. With Betsy on top.

"I told you not to think about it." The knowing smirk on her face was infuriating. "It's a road that only leads to uncomfortable silences, and other rather awkward moments we'd both would've liked to avoid."

He glared up at her. "For someone who would have liked to avoid this moment, you don't seem to be getting off me."

The anger had been aparent even before Jean spotted his post to the journal system - she'd known it was there, and been fairly certain what it was directed at before she got confirmation. The rage, however, had come as a surprise, and the mental yell had told her all she really needed to know. Scott needed space and someone was stopping him and they would suffer for it. No, wait, priorities. First they would let him go and then they would suffer.

From the medical lab to the garage was not a terribly short trip, but it was largely unpopulated, so Jean had no problem racing through the hallways and she made it to the garage in record time. What she saw there pulled her up short, but the anger that was so evident down the link kept her fairly centered. "Get off him, Betsy," she said, sounding calm. "Let him go."

"Seriously, Jean," Betsy said, standing up from Scott in two quick moves. She offered her hand to him, considering his knee before his pride. "Scott's a big boy, I wasn't holding him back. Well, not entirely."

Scott's pride had been considerably dented already today. In fact, wounded pride was more or less one of the main reasons he was this angry. He ignored Betsy's hand and scrambled back to his feet. Betsy was between him and his bike, and Jean was right there, and he knew that if he left, he had no guarantees that they wouldn't...

Damn it.

Damn it!

He pulled his helmet off, glaring at both of them. "I don't suppose if I get on the bike and drive out of here that the two of you would walk out of here and not say a word to each other?" A harsh laugh slipped out before either of them could answer. "Wait, sorry. Rhetorical question."

As if Jean's headache wasn't bad enough, now he was pushing his anger at her, too. What little control she had had vanished in a puff of non-logic. "I would be more than happy to never say another word to Elisabeth, ever, but it's not much of an option, is it? But, if it will help you leave and deal with all of that anger faster, I will swear on my own grave not to say a word to her about coming in here to see her straddle you."

Betsy looked over to Scott and then to Jean, her hands going to her hips, helmet still dangling from her right hand. "Well, that was just plain catty."

Scott swore. "No," he said rapidly, angrily. "I am not doing this. I am not, and I'm not taking the responsibility for seeing that the two of you don't!"

The next words caught in his throat, but he forced them out, his voice raw with as much pain as fury. "I can find a solution where there's a solution, but there's none here, there's no way to fix it. And apparently, even when I can do that it's not enough, so to hell with it all. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, and I have had enough."

Everytime Jean tried to find a way past her own pain, she ran straight into his, and his anger, and it was pushing her into that scary range where she lost control and she was not going there. Oddly enough, Betsy's presence in the room was helping, since she was, by comparison, a calm and levelheaded person just now, and she was someone Jean was not going to lose control in front of. "It doesn't need fixing, Scott. It doesn't always need fixing. Sometimes it just needs to be coped with, and we are coping with it the best we can. We're not perfect, and you don't have to be."

#Calm down. The both of you.# Betsy sent warningly. #Before I end up in a wall or barking uncontrollably.#

It was a veritable minefield of unsaid thoughts running freely, filling up every space within the vast garage. Thankfully, Betsy quickly averted running smack into every single one. Staring at the enigma that was Scott and Jean, sensing the link flowly hotly between them. It was a bright stark fact that this combination wouldn't be good for them. Or her.

Bike. Get on the bike, drive the bike out of the garage. It was that simple. His hands were shaking as he put his helmet back on. "I'm not doing this," he said again, the words more restless and edgy than angry, now. "I'm going to hate myself for saying this in the morning, but everyone in this house can just fend for themselves for the night. I'm sick of this fucking juggling act, and I'm taking a break. Don't worry, I'll be back trying and failing to make everyone happy by morning."

Jean bit her tongue, not saying that that had been the point from the very beginning. She had known he'd need space and had wanted to give it to him, wouldn't have come anywhere near him until he was ready to deal with people again if she hadn't felt his anger on the link. Which, she thought idly, was kind of Betsy's fault, although she didn't have the energy to blame her just now. Instead of saying anything, Jean just nodded.

"And the lot of them think I need medication," Betsy said to herself. Her shoulders slumping and her resolve absolutely cracked. "It's not like it's going to help, anyway. I should know. We're all still going to be here when you get back. What are you going to do then?"

Placing the helmet back on the rack, Betsy turned her back on them and headed for the door.

Scott froze, giving Betsy's retreating back a stricken look before he turned to Jean. "I--really need to get the fuck out of here before I say anything else unpardonable," he said weakly, the anger draining away. "I'm sorry. Both of you. I don't have any business taking it out on you." He got on the bike, unable to look at either of them as he revved the engine.

So not the point, Elisabeth, Jean thought, but the other woman was gone, and that was one less unpredictable factor to deal with - if Elisabeth was anything, she was unpredictable. "Don't apologize," she told Scott, softly, the anger leaving her as it drained out of him and giving her just that much more mental clarity. "Go put some space between you and here; I know you need it."

"Strategic temporary retreat," he quipped a bit bitterly, then drove out of the garage. The fresh air hit him like a slap in the face, which was just about right.