xp_logs | Scott and "Paige", sometime during the night on Thursday

x-cyclops.livejournal.com posting in

Reaching the very end of his endurance, Scott has another visitation. Paige doesn't bring her giant gag sunglasses this time, but maybe that's all right.

His legs wouldn't hold him. He heard the door open, the dull clang of metal against concrete, and then they were pushing him in, and his knees buckled as soon as they let go of him. Scott managed to twist as he fell, so that he didn't hit the floor face-first. The restraint covering his eyes kept his skull from hitting concrete, but it hurt, the metal digging into the side of his face. Scott laid there for a moment, breathing raggedly, and as he heard the door close behind him, started to shake.

He couldn't move. A strangled noise of pain slipped out as he tried again, and his muscles, screaming with pain, refused to obey him. I can't... I can't do that again... he thought disjointedly. But a perverse part of his mind pointed out he probably wasn't going to have much choice in the matter, and another moan escaped. I want out... Charles, where are you? Why is it taking so long... The shakes turned into more usual shivering as he laid there, the cold seeping up from the concrete floor and through his body.

His wandering thoughts of just how much cold he could take were interrupted by the sudden realization that his palm, pressed to the ground, was starting to warm. In fact, when he concentrated, he really wasn't that cold at all; it was like a small furnace had turned on across the room. Turning his head, Scott found himself suddenly blinded, squinting against a brilliant light.

"Silly Captain, what're you doing lying on the floor?" came her voice, with its constant edge of amusement. "It can't be too comfortable."

Warm. The light was warm. Scott whimpered and let his head sag back against the ground. "Paige," he mumbled brokenly, shame tearing through him as he thought about her seeing him like this. Not her Captain. Lying on the floor, blubbering...

"Last time I checked, yes," she answered, moving forward, the light, heat, intensifying. "Now what in the world are you doing? You haven't been pushing yourself already, have you? Just back from vacation, in case you forgot." There was a sigh, and the light moved to and fro as she shook her head and bent down to him; there was something under her breath that sounded distinctively like 'boys'.

It was possible to not have the energy to sob, even if you hurt so much that you wanted to. "I can't... I can't..." Hysteria in the broken whisper, and he tried to reach into the light with his bound hands. "Paige... help?"

Making gentle, soothing noises, a soft hand, so soft it could only be hers, brushed away his hair as she kneeled down. "It's okay, Captain. You're alright. Just took a little tumble I suspect," she murmured, cupping his cheek a moment as her thumb wiped at the tearstains. "Someone's coming. I'll stay and wait with you."

He expected, in the next moment, to hear her ask him what they wanted. Because that was what happened at moments like this. When the voices got softer, reassuring, it was always so that they could ask. Tell us, and we'll take you out of here. Tell us and it will stop.

Despair hit him like a punch to the gut, and a choked moan came from low in his chest. She wasn't there, it was them. He knew it was them. Trying to trick him, turning on the lights. Pretending to be Paige so that he'd think he was back at the mansion and everything was the way it should be...

"Nonono, chickpea. It's just me. I've never wanted anything from you, have I?" Paige asked, glow around her dimming slightly, yet not cooling. "Only wanted to be your Kayleegirl. That’s all. I'm here, you’re okay."

Leaning down she kissed his forehead gently, his eyelashes, whisper innocent and leaving behind the faint scent of apples and fresh grass and a dull, sugar sweetness, like caramel. "I'm your Kaylee, your protégé, and. Remember the big sunglasses I wore when I came to see you in the infirmary? How would they know that. It's me."

Her face, mock-serious beneath the enormous sunglasses, peeking around the door of his infirmary room. The image was overwhelming, color and light and remembered
amusement, and Scott sucked in a shaky breath, fighting past the stabbing pain in his side. They'd cracked a rib, he thought.

"Not a t-trick?" he pleaded brokenly.

"I’d kill them if they dared try," she replied, in her deadly serious tone. A piece of hair dropped out from behind her ear, falling down to tickle his cheek. "Come here. Rest on me. You can ease that rib while we wait, close your eyes. I promise not to sing, even."

A laugh turned into a sob as arms went around him, holding him gently but somehow firmly at the same time. "I can't..." he murmured brokenly, again. "They'll come..." They wouldn't let him rest. They'd drag him back out of here and it would start all over again and he couldn't do it. He couldn't. He wouldn't be able to hold on. Utter shame and anguished fear twisting in the pit of his stomach, he turned his face towards the light. But part of him was listening not to Paige but to the noises in the distance, expecting to hear them coming. They would.

Paige rested her cheek on the crown of his head, turning slightly to kiss his hair, over and over. "I'm here, Scott, it's okay. I'm here. I'll protect you, I won't leave you. Even if you can't see me, I'm right here, okay? I'll protect you, just be brave. They're coming."