Worse than a "Dear John" letter... [Scott/Cain]

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

After getting the email about Scott trashing his room, Cain checks it out and decides to go down and give the leader of the X-Men a lecture about discipline. An unforeseen complication occurs, lots of yelling is done, and Scott lets slip what set him off.




Cain paused in the doorway, looking at the devastation. Broken bits of
furniture cracked under his feet as he stepped inside, walking across
the carpet. A few holes in the walls, and that cinched it. The marking
was the same as the first time Summers had lost control of those eye
beams of his. This time, though, it didn't look so much like an
accident to Cain. This was a tantrum.

Gritting his teeth, Cain checked the clipboard in his hand for the
guest room that Scott was currently staying in. As he stomped down the
hall, he ground his teeth and grumbled to himself various threats on
his team leader's life.

"Damn fool oughta know better..." he muttered, stopping in front of
the door and hammering his knuckles against the wood. "Summers! Open
the hell up, right goddamn now!"

He'd been losing track of whole chunks of time, since Jim had helped
him get the turtle's tank into the guest room and left him alone. He
was sitting on the bed, leaning back against the headboard, and every
time he looked at the bedside clock another hour or two had gone by.
It was like his brain kept stalling. Funny, that.

Cain's unmistakable growl and the threatening knock brought the world
back into sharp focus, and Scott sat up straight, then got to his
feet, moving like an automaton to the door, opening it.

"If you're here to read me the riot act about the suite," he said
hoarsely, before Cain could speak, "you can fuck off and die, Marko."

Not the contrite response Cain had been hoping for. Deserved the
appropriate actions, then.

With one large finger, Cain prodded Scott in the chest, stepping into
the room. "Oh, that's rich, Summers. You're telling me
where I should go shove it? I don't give a damn how long you've lived
here - hell, most of your life if I figure right." Cain punctuated
each sentence with a jab of his finger into the smaller man's chest.
"Not only am I about to read you the riot act, boss," he said
sarcastically, "but unless you come up with a damn good excuse, I'm
liable to sedate you with my goddamn fist and weld those goddamn
glasses back on your head until you remember what the word 'control'
means again!"

He only hesitated for a moment. Just a moment, when the better angels
of his nature poked their head up and pointed out that having had Jim
dispose of that tape had been the right thing, and a trend that he
probably wanted to be following.

In the next instant, he decided not to care. Why keep the secret? He
was going to have to explain the suite, his mood, why he wanted to
smash Bobby Drake's head into the nearest wall a few dozen times.

"My wife sent me a videotape," Scott said with an odd, crooked little
smile. "Of her in bed with one of our teammates. Good enough of an
excuse for you?"

Cain blinked. He'd known about Jean leaving, of course. In his
experience, this shit just happened. But there were lines, decency
that was expected...

It had been March, and his platoon had been in-country for nine
months. Corporal Marko, fresh into his second stripe, had been looking
for a week of R&R rotation. He hadn't expected a near-riot in the
canteen, especially not from that skinny city-kid Malone. The boy - a
boy, not even twenty - had opened one of many 'Dear John'
letters the soldiers received in the irregular mail deliveries.

Kid was out of his head, he'd trashed the cantonment area, and was
screaming at the top of his lungs in rage, throwing anything he could
get his hands on. Kid needed to learn some perspective, he needed some
discipline, he needed-

Cain wasn't aware of when he'd grabbed a double fistful of Scott's
shirt, lifting him off the ground and pressing him against the wall.
"You listen up and you listen goddamn good, Malone," he growled. "I
don't give a good goddamn about what your cheating whore of a girl's
doing out in the world, and you'd best believe no one else does. But
you'd better get your head in the game, because I got an entire
platoon out there that's counting on you when we get back in the shit,
marine. And so help me God, if you can't get yourself together and
unfuck yourself yesterday, I will take that whiny little crying
broken heart of yours right out of your chest with my Corps-issued
combat knife and replace it with a standard-issue grenade so at least
you can be of some use to someone, do you understand me?"

Cain's face was red, his eyes only inches away from Scott's as he
bellowed, mind temporarily unable to discern between the reality in
front of him and the suddenly vivid memory that sprung up, carrying
with it a geyser of anger that threatened to overflow at any moment.

Maybe it was the fact that he had already had a shit of a day, and
emotional highs of any variety were a little beyond him at the moment,
but Scott did not panick and let loose with an optic blast to Cain's
face at the sudden not-quite-attack. Nor did he spend more than a
moment wondering why the fuck Cain was calling him Malone.

"Juggernaut," he said, and while his voice was low, it was
unmistakably Cyclops talking. "Stop yelling, put me down, and snap the
fuck out of it. Before I assign you to six months' worth of
comm shifts."

Cain blinked, shaking his head. "Fuck that..." he said quietly, easing
Scott down to his feet. "Ain't no call for that. But... dammit,
Summers," he said, backing away and pacing across the guest room, "I
saw that mess up there in what's left of your suite. You blast that
eye of yours wrong, it'll go through how many walls? Maybe one of
these kids happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Jesus,
you know better." He looked down at his knuckles, almost
puzzled. "Y'got a big expensive jungle gym in the basement to work
shit out in, maybe y'oughta go use it for a while."

Nodding to accent his suggestion, Cain suddenly coughed, a sudden burn
like acid reflux searing up his throat, then subsiding. The room
blurred red briefly, then all was normal. "Me, I figure I got a couple
loads of trash to dispose of up there."

Scott swallowed, shame burning like bile at the back of his throat. "I
know. There's no excuse. I should've just left," he said unsteadily,
turning away. "Just couldn't face the idea of walking out that door
and running into that little son of a bitch on my way out. I don't
know how-" His throat closed and he shook his head, once, sharply.
"I'd been trying to wrap my mind around her being gone, off with
someone else... I thought I'd been doing as well as could be expected.
Then she sleeps with Bobby Drake and sends me a goddamned videotape of
it."

Now that little bit of information blew Cain's mind. He coughed
out a lungful of air, almost wheezing to inhale. "Drake?
Iceman? Kid's what, nineteen? Holy shit, that's... whoo." He tried not
to laugh, the incredulity of it was almost too much. "Hey, you feel
the need to beat the crap out of the kid, I figure you got every
right. I wasn't here, didn't see a thing if you get my drift."

The noise Scott made would have been considered a laugh, by some
standards. "I won't fuck up my team because Drake can't keep it in his
pants and my... and Jean's decided she's a vicious manipulative bitch.
I give him his admittedly well-deserved beating and I'm likely to be
out of a job and fending off outraged X-Men. Poor little
traumatized Bobby is not in my weight class, Cain."

Cain just shrugged. "Hell, if I played by those rules, I'd never get
to hit anyone." He gave a small laugh, then shook his head and stepped
for the door. "Y'get a free pass on this one, Summers. But if you
can't keep your shit together, have the common sense to lose it where
you ain't going to risk bringing this place down on everyone's head.
Hell, go blast rocks into sand out at the quarry if you've got to
break something that ain't Drake. But pull it together," Cain said,
glancing over his shoulder, "or trust me, you will fuck up your
team because of it."

"I know. I'll pull it together," Scott said wearily, turning away
again. "Just... not today." But duty would win out in the end. It
always did.

Cain nodded and quietly shut the door behind him as he walked into the
hall. Cleaning up that mess was going to be hell, he thought. But then
again...

"Oh, I'm going to be the biggest bastard of the year..." he said to
himself with a smile, heading for the stairs.