Scott and Jean, Friday evening

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Jean has a TK accident. Just a little one. In the kitchen. Scott gets in the way of the accident, and makes the executive decision that Jean needs an impromptu shower. At some point after the first fade to black, they have a semi-serious conversation. Then there's another fade to black. Ah, the newly re-engaged.


Nathan, of course, could do eight thousand other things at once and still not burn the stir fry, but while Jean was willing to try this new assignment, she was wary of distracting herself too much with other things. With reason, actually, given that she'd figured out early on that chopping multiple veggies at once was just a few too many sharp objects flying through the kitchenette, but the scar on the countertop was small, and would be easy to fix.

Now she sat at their little table, staring fixedly into the kitchen as she worked, a small container of salad dressing shaking itself, the spices for the chicken breading coming together into a bowl, and the refridgerator standing open as she tried to find a way to get the bowl of salad to fit without getting up to go look and see what needed to be moved.

The door opened and Scott stepped in. In Institute sweats, his hair damp, he'd clearly just come from the Danger Room via the showers, and he wore a certain look of satisfaction that announced to all who knew him that yes, today's training had indeed gone quite well, thank you very much.

He smiled at Jean, and then blinked at the sight of the goings-on in the kitchen. "Oh-ho. Trying Nathan's trick?"

"Mm-hmm," Jean managed, frowning. There was definitely something getting in the way of the salad bowl, and she couldn't remember if that would be the milk or if there were still take out leftovers. Getting up to go look would definitely be cheating, though. "What's in the fridge?" she asked, idly, wondering if Scott would remember.

She was wearing that 'concentrating. concentrating VERY hard' look, and Scott tilted his head at her for a moment before heading over to the kitchenette to check. "Well, there's the leftover Thai, but the salad bowl's not got enough room because the milk's in the wrong spot..."

Oh, she hadn't meant for him to go look. That probably counted as cheating too. Maybe she just wouldn't tell Nate. "Thanks," she said, her gaze narrowing as she focused on getting a solid grip on the milk to move it.

Unfortunately, while she focused on the refridgerator she kind of sort of forgot to tell the part of her mind that was mixing the breading up that there was a new feature in the kitchen. Namely, Scott. The bowl which had just finished mixing in the necessary flour lifted up to go over to where the chicken was set out and attempted to cross the previously empty space.

Scott caught the all-too-rapid approach of the bowl out of the corner of his eye - damned lousy peripheral vision! - and instinctively flung up a defensive hand, not quite thinking of what he was doing. All he managed was to knock the bowl from its flight path, and it spun out of Jean's grasp, flour flying. Everywhere.

Automatically, Jean mentally grabbed at the lost bowl. Unfortunately, this meant that her concentration elsewhere failed and the milk, salad, and salad dressing all dropped out of the air. The milk, at least, was securely capped. The salad dressing, not so much.

Scott yelped. "Jean! Flying food!"

"Oh hell," Jean managed, eyes squeezing shut and she reverted back to the brute force method. She reached out and simply caught everything in the kitchen that wasn't bolted down, keeping it up off the floor at least and she'd be able to sort it out afterwards. Of course, everything in the kitchen included Scott.

He was floating a good six inches over the ground, liberally dusted with flour and well-splashed by salad dressing. "Jean?" he asked, somewhat meekly. "Why am I flying?"

Once she had a firm grip it was safe to open her eyes, and giggling at the sight was likely to get her in trouble later, but she couldn't quite help it. "Um... so I didn't ruin all of dinner?" she offered as the scattered (but still clean! That was the point!) salad bits reassembled themselves into the bowl which was set carefully onto the counter.

He was lowered, quite gently, back to the ground once she'd taken care of the food. "I just got out of the shower, damn it," Scott said, amused as he tried to brush off the floor, and only wound up making more of a mess. It wasn't interacting well with the salad dressing.

"I'm sorry..." she said, trying for meek but missing it by a mile when another giggle escaped. "You have, heh, flour in your hair."

"I'd actually guessed that," he said with as much dignity as he could muster, trying to brush at his hair. "There's still a haze of flour hanging in here, you know. What a mess."

"Yes, I know. Am hoping I've got enough of the flour I won't actually have to mop. A bit of a disaster on this one, I think. And I really don't think I can do Nathan's trick and just strip the flour off you. It would probably go badly."

"Ummm... really, I'm okay with a second shower," Scott said with a barely repressed grin. "I don't want to, uh, push you too far. Entertaining as some of the possible accidents might be..."

She grinned at him. "Well, taking your clothes off would be the fastest way to start the deflouring process..." And oh, that was a -terrible- thing to have said.

Scott nearly choked. "And let's just be very glad you said that here in a nicely private context rather than in front of anyone," he said, pulling his flour and salad-dressing-splattered shirt over his head. "You used to get teased enough for cradlerobbing as it was..."

Jean giggled, leaning her elbows on the table to admire the view. "You know, the flour look works for you. Very... domestic." Oh, she was going to be in trouble...

Scott raised an eyebrow at her. "You," he said severely, "are asking for it."

The grin actually brightened. "No, really. Am not suggesting you should sport it all the time, or anything..."

"Uh-huh. Just making a joke at my expense. After you cover me with flour and salad dressing." He advanced on her, after a quick look back over his shoulder to make sure that all the food was indeed back where it should be or at least on solid ground on the counter. "I think there needs to be revenge."

"No, no, really..." Jean was on her feet in an instant, backing away, although not that fast. "Not joking. It looks good. Very..." Another giggle escaped. "Very nineteenth century powdered wig..."

"Second shower," Scott said with fierce good humor and continued to advance on her. "Definitely. And if you're really nice I might let you get undressed first."

"Hey, hey, I'm clean," she protested, well aware that he was herding her towards the bathroom and not doing a single thing to attempt to get out of the way.

"You floured me," Scott said darkly, "and I smell like ranch dressing. Payback time, Red."

"At least it's homemade dressing. I care enough to give you the very best..." Jean's eyes sparkled as she backed into the closed door to the bathroom. Pinned. Oh dear, whatever would she do...

"Well, let's see," Scott said, grinning as he reached around her to open the door. "Do I throw you over my shoulder? That has some appeal..."

She wrinkled her nose at him in mock outrage. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Oh, now, that's just like inviting me to do it..." Throwing Jean over one's shoulder was not the simple thing it might have been with someone less Amazonian, but he had managed it once or twice, and he managed it fairly well this time.

"Eeep!" Jean squeaked as her feet left the ground for an entirely different reason than usual. "Scott!" And giggling now would be a bad idea...

--

"The kitchen is probably still a mess, you know," Scott said, beginning to carefully rewrap his hand where he was sprawled across the bed watching Jean get into dry clothes. He had not, as a matter of fact, allowed her the chance to get out of her previous clothes before depositing her in the shower, but hey, they'd taken care of that pretty quickly thereafter.

"Unless Charles has gotten us a robotic maid and not told said anything, I think there's a pretty good chance, yes." Jean grinned at him before going back to the search for a shirt. Not that she didn't know where the shirt she wanted was, but she could tell he was watching.

Scott bit his lip and tried flexing his wrist, just a little, while there was only one layer of bandage on it. It was not, he quickly discovered, a good idea. "... augh."

"Scott!" Jean spun around, giving him a Look. "Don't do that." She crossed the room to join him on the bed, taking the bandages away from him and quickly immobilizing his hand again.

"It's been a whole... uh, week and a half," Scott protested weakly, trying to ignore the fact that his eyes were watering. "Damn it, I'm such a wimp these days..."

"Multiple fractures still don't heal that fast, sorry to say." She softly brushed away the pain tears that slipped below his glasses, looking concerned. "And where is this conviction of wimphood coming from, anyway, love? I don't understand it."

"Uh..." He looked up at her a bit sheepishly. "Do you know how many times I've been knocked out, injured, or otherwise incapacitated in the last year? Nate gets all the limelight but really, I've been just about as damage-prone."

Jean nodded. "Yes, I've seen your medical record. And being battered and broken regularly makes you a wimp, how exactly? Rightfully sore and cranky about being a punching bag I can see, but wimp? Not so much."

She finished wrapping his hand, fastening the ends of the bandage carefully. Scott watched her. "I don't know," he said a bit evasively, not really sure why she was trying to pin him down on this just now. "Just, I'm feeling a little ineffective from time to time, I guess."

The shirt she'd been looking for earlier floated out of the closet to land on the bed, but Jean ignored it for the moment. "I can understand that, yes. I don't agree, but I can understand that. I just don't know what that translates into... well, into you somehow feeling like it makes you weaker than you are. As though you didn't have the right to be in pain." It was hard to put into words what she'd sensed from him, but she'd been feeling it for a while and it worried her.

Scott didn't answer her, as he was somewhat floundering for an answer. "It's complicated," he temporized, knowing he sounded uncertain. "Maybe I don't... think I do. It's never... major stuff. Always stuff that'll heal. Not like..." He trailed off, shaking his head a little. "And it always seems to be my carelessness, or chance, or... something." Oh, yeah. That had made a whole lot of sense.

"Hmmm..." Jean leaned over to kiss him softly. "I don't like seeing anybody beat you up, not even you. Especially not for things which aren't you're fault." And this feeling that he was blaming himself for not being hurt enough was definitely not one she approved of.

"It just seems... trivial sometimes," Scott said, but smiled a little at the kiss. "Like I ought to shake it off and get back to work..." He gave her a wry little smile. "So many people around here with bigger problems than being the designated punching bag."

"Don't do the comparison thing, Scott. It never goes well."

"You want to hear a secret," Scott said with a little laugh as she moved to put on the shirt her TK had retrieved. "I think there's part of me that's still convinced that the team got reorganized in the fall because I proved I couldn't handle the status quo. How self-centered is that?" He mustered a smile. "And I miss my plane," he said a bit wistfully.

Jean knew that, intellectually, he knew why the team had been reorganized, but knowing things never stopped people from feeling otherwise. "You should talk to Charles," she said. "Maybe he'll get you a second plan that can be all yours..." she added with a smile.

"Noooo," Scott said, striving for and getting the humorous tone he was after. "He can give Haroun a new plane. A little plane. I want mine back." He sighed a bit ruefully and leaned back against the pillow, moving the fingers of the broken hand as much as he could - which wasn't much, given how effectively Jean had immobilized it. "Pay no attention to me. Haroun's doing a great job with the 'Bird, and really, with everything, if I was still solely in charge of it my head would have exploded long ago."

Stretching out next to him, Jean propped her head up on a hand. "But I like paying attention to you," she protested. "One of my favorite pastimes. Seriously, though, I know it's hard to let go. I at least got to skip over the bit where Charles would have decided we needed more doctors."

"I can't believe we're actually to the point where we don't need someone on duty in the medlab at all times," Scott said humorously. "Now, that is definitely progress." He reached out - with the good hand - and tucked the still-damp red hair behind her ear. "It never seemed right, with you not in it," he said. "Medlab, I mean. You probably..." There was a brief pang that he pushed away, firmly. "I used to go down there just to remember you. Took me... well, probably about a year before I stopped expecting to walk in and find you working away..."

She smiled softly at him. "Oh, so is that why you've been getting beaten up? So you can come see me?" The teasing in her tone was gentle as she turned into his touch.

"You've got me." He stopped playing with her hair and traced a hand along the side of her face in a gentle caress. "Best way to make sure you're real, when you're poking and prodding me..."

"Surely that's not the best way..."

"More socially acceptable around here?" Scott ventured. "Something we can actually do in public?" He shifted closer to her. "Although no, it's not as much fun as the stuff we can do behind closed doors, that I must admit..."

"The doors are closed," Jean said as though he might not already know that, "and I've already fairly thoroughly ruined dinner. Which, come to think of it, is also pretty good proof that I'm here." It wasn't that she was a bad cook, not in the least. She just tended to get distracted, and some of the results of her distraction had been spectacularly bad.

"We fail at normal life," Scott said almost cheerfully. "But we still have to fill up the hours somehow, don't we?"

"Well, we usually come up with something to do. I'm sure tonight will be no exception. And we've got the left over Thai if we get hungry. I'll clean up in the morning."

"Good TK practice," Scott pointed out, then gave up on conversation. Better things to be doing, really.