Scott and Jean, Tuesday afternoon

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Scott heads down to Jean's office to talk her into lunch. He's a very bad convalescent, as if we didn't know this already.


The look being directed at her from around the doorframe of her office door was woeful. "I walked into the wall," Scott informed her.

Jean looked up from her notes spread across her desk and furrowed her brow at him. "Come in, come in. You walked into a wall?" she asked, standing up and coming around the desk.

"I keep misjudging corners. Sort of half-into a wall," Scott said with a sigh, coming in. "This lack of depth perception business is not sitting well with me at all."

Jean slid her arms around him, hugging him. "It's getting better, though," she said. "It may not seem like it to you, but it is. You haven't been nearly so dizzy..."

"Yeah, I know." He couldn't manage to sound quite as enthusiastic about his progress as she did, but he did give her a hug. "And I've probably been trying to get around too fast, really. You don't run before you walk. Not," he amended hastily, "that I was running. Just walking more briskly than I maybe should have been."

Jean didn't frown, but there was a vague sense of 'you know better' to her look. "You're pushing yourself too hard," she said. "I understand why, and I'm not going to stop you, but you are pushing too hard."

Scott leaned back against the edge of her desk, repressing a sigh. "I suppose if I didn't push quite so hard I wouldn't be sleeping quite so much," he said a bit wryly. "Which is really beginning to bother me."

"It's possible," she agreed, "although I make no promises. We've had discussions before about your unreasonable expectations for recovery time." Jean smiled slightly. "This is rather worse than a cold, and that takes a week to get over..."

"I just don't know what to do with myself," Scott said, and knew he was whining, just a little. "I can't concentrate for long enough to do any significant paperwork except for the precise midpoint between doses of pain medication. And Alison and Ororo hiss at me if they see me anywhere near the subbasement." Well, all right, so it had been a raised eyebrow on Ali's part and 'Ro had just inquired, in a very dignified fashion, if there was something she could help him with, but still.

"Yes, well, they have more sense than you do, sometimes, love. I know you're at loose ends, but I'm not sure what to offer you. If you can't concentrate on the paperwork, anything you could do downstairs would be, well, there wouldn't be anything to do down there. If you're feeling up to it you could speak with Moira about powers training, but I think it's too soon."

"I can't disagree with that," Scott murmured. He'd spent most of the evening after the conversation with Cain out at the woodpile wanting to claw the side of his face off. Moira had doubled his pain medication and scolded him for experimenting.

Jean nodded, arms tightening around him at the remembered pain. "I know it leaves you with not much you can do to feel productive, but I don't really have a better option. Reading for fun won't take as much concentration as the paperwork, but I know you don't feel useful if that's all your doing." She considered him for a moment. "Have you thought about offering to help Shan, perhaps? Or asked Charles if there's anything you could do? Something non-strenuous that would still be useful..."

"I suppose that's worth a try," he said, then offered a half-smile. "Charles does tend to be very inventive about occupying idle hands, doesn't he?"

"It is something of a skill for him, yes." Jean leaned forward to get a proper kiss. "So, other than walking into the wall, how are you doing today?"

"Not bad, I guess," Scott said when she leaned back. "Less dizzy, and much as I might grumble at sleeping for twelve hours, I think it probably did me good."

"Probably, yes," Jean agreed with a smile. "And less dizzy is good. Have you eaten anything?"

"That was actually why I came down here," Scott said. She had suggested that he try to schedule meals as far away from painkiller doses as possible, because the medication was still unsettling his stomach, and he was just about at the aforementioned midpoint. "Have you had anything yet?"

Jean glanced over at the clock. "No, was going to do lunch when I finished with this set," she said, waving idly at the desk. "But now is good."

"Then why don't we head kitchenward and you can keep me from walking into any more walls?" Scott slid an arm around her waist as they headed out of the office. "I think one of the kids was snickering at me from around the corner this time."

"I think I can do that, yes. And shall I find out who it was and give them detention for a month, or should I just work on making lunch?"