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xp_logs2006-08-02 08:41 pm
x-cyclops.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2006-08-02 08:41 pm
Scott and Ororo, Wednesday night
Ororo gets a call from Harry. The day's caught up to Scott, finally.
"...I'll be right there."
'Ro set down the phone, standing and slipping her shoes on. Another minute saw her down in the garage, and a few more saw her pulling the Jeep up to the curb by Harry's. Slipping out, she headed inside and towards the booth furthest to the back, knowing what she'd find there.
"Scott."
Scott didn't even look up at her. He was huddled as far into the booth as it was humanly possible to be, right up against the wall. His head rested in one hand, and with the other, shaking only slightly, he refilled the glass in front of him from the bottle of scotch. Which was better than half-empty already. The look on his face was somehow distant and strained at the same time, and the look in the real eye was as empty as the prosthesis.
"Do you want a drink?" he asked, his voice surprisingly clear. "We can get a second glass."
"No, I do not want another drink. Thank you. I want you to come home now," Ororo said, still standing by the booth. "You have had enough for tonight, I think. Come, let's get you in the Jeep."
"Home. Right." There was something fraying beneath the surface of his voice, and Scott looked away, swallowing visibly. "I don't think I want to go back," he said, focusing on enunciating each word.
With a sigh, 'Ro slid into the seat, pulling the bottle of Scotch away from Scott towards the edge of the table. "You cannot stay here."
"Then I'll go somewhere else." He stared at the bottle of scotch, then finished what was in his glass. "Please just leave me alone," he said with a broken sort of dignity. "I don't want company. Or to go back. I don't want anything. I just want it all to be gone. Hence the scotch."
"Drinking will only make it go away for a short time. Then you will awake with a headache and the realization that nothing has changed." The words were harsh, but her tone was gentle, almost sad. "Please, Scott. Let me take you back so that you can rest."
"I can't." It was almost a moan. "She's gone, and Logan..." His voice faltered, his hands trembling violently. He couldn't put it into words. "I want it to be gone. All gone." Oh, yes. That was coherent.
"Logan?" Ororo bit back a curse... What has he done now? "What happened, Scott? Tell me, please."
Scott sank his head back into his hands. His shoulders shook once with what might have been a supressed sob. "I told them." His voice was very faint. "I told them, and now the government has them... I broke and I told them. I told them." It was the only thing that wanted to come out of his mouth. 'I told them.' The only thing that mattered.
"Oh, Scott..." In a flash, Ororo had moved to sit next to him on the booth, hesitating only a second before sliding a hand over his. "It was not your fault. No one blames you for that, you cannot continue to feel guilty for something you did not have any control over."
"You should. You all should." His voice was still very low, but the calm was only a thin veneer over the pain, finally. "Blame me. Leave me. I'm not really here. I want you to leave me, Ororo. Just pretend you never found me." He tried to convince himself that he meant just tonight. He knew better.
"No." Ororo shook her head, wishing that it was daytime and that she could drag him outside into the sun. "No, I cannot do that. If I go, you are coming with me... and if you are not, I will come and find you."
Scott closed his eyes, wrestling with distant, yet frantic desperation for control. It was like a vice was closing around his chest. He started to slide towards the end of the bench, where Ororo was sitting. "I want outside," he said disjointedly. "The fresh air." Except that it was dark. "Can you take me outside, please?"
"Yes, of course." Taking his arm, Ororo helped him to stand, then accompanied him towards the door. Harry gave her an apologetic look, swiping a rag over the counter as she pushed open the door and guided Scott onto the sidewalk. "Here we are," she said in a low, soothing voice. "Take deep breaths."
Scott was tottering a little, his breathing ragged. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, 'Ro," he said, and didn't know what he was apologizing for. A sad, wild little laugh slipped out. "Just put me in a corner and forget me. Box me up. Do not open until Christmas, or until Jean comes home..."
Ororo's grip tightened around Scott's arm, guiding him towards a nearby bench under a streetlight. "You are not useless, Scott. If we were to put you away the mansion would suffer from its loss immediately. There is nothing for you to apologize for, but I do not want to hear any more talk of forgetting you."
He was wobbling more noticeably, and nearly wound up on the ground before they managed to get to the bench. Sad. He couldn't even make it back out to the car. Ororo was sitting down beside him, and he was trying to think of what to say to her. Words. Where were his words?
What came out startled and disturbed him. "Do you know my heart stopped, once?" The words were only slightly slurred, and he lowered his head into shaking hands, trying not to give into the urge to yank at his own hair. "I mean, I don't remember. I remember them standing over me, after, and one of them talking. Too much voltage. My chest hurt. I think that's how they cracked my rib, giving me CPR..."
"Shh," 'Ro said, shaking her head. "You made it through that, Scott. I cannot imagine how horrific it was for you... how can you think we would blame you? Please, you must know that... of all things."
"It hurt less than this." Something very close to a sob slipped out, and he rubbed doggedly at his eyes, then at the scars on his face. "I told them... I told them, and then she left me. Is that why? She... she told me I was too needy, back in the winter, when she left before. Truth from the alternate personality?" He gave another broken little laugh.
"Goddess, no. Scott, no, what she is doing... it is not punishment for what you have been through." Suddenly 'Ro was kneeling before him, her hand on his knee. "I cannot say I understand it, but I know... I know that Jean loves you, and that doing this must hurt her as much as it does you. She is doing it because it will be best... in the end. Even if now, it hurts."
"I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I want to do this." His jaw was trembling and he looked away from Ororo's steady gaze. "I don't care about the job anymore," he said, his voice breaking again. "I don't care about ex-expectations, or not disappointing Charles... " He sucked in a shaky breath, fighting for composure. "I want to go home," he finally whispered, humiliated by the sting of tears in his good eye. "I want to stop... I want everyone to stop pushing. It's not fair. I'm so tired, why can't they leave me alone."
"Because we love you," came the answer. "Because we will not let you go no matter how much you wish to..." Ororo felt the wet prick of tears in her own eyes at the pain and hurt in Scott's voice. "It is us that should be sorry. But we cannot let you go, because of how much we care for you. But we can stop pushing, at least so much. For a time, if that is what you need."
"I don't know what I need." What he wanted. His hands fumbling, he reached out and took Ororo's. "I'm selfish..." he muttered, his eye blurring with more tears. His head was pounding steadily, and he was fighting back nausea, even as he forced himself to go on. "I'm so selfish. I just... I just want to curl up in a corner and d-die, it hurts so much."
"No, Scott," Ororo said, squeezing his hand tightly, as if that could bring him back to his senses. "You may stay in your room, or go on a vacation, or hide in the greenhouse until next winter. But you must stay with us, because I do not know what I would do without you. And in time it will get better, it must..."
He was shaking his head at that, but not in denial - and he really needed to stop shaking his head, because it felt like it was going to fall off. "I won't leave you if you don't leave me," he muttered thickly. "You... don't need me to be anything, or do anything. You just... like having me around." It sounded so ridiculous. But he needed that so much right now.
"You are my best friend. The only thing I need for you to do is to feel better, and even that can go as slowly as you need it to." Ororo half-rose, putting her arms around him and pressing her cheek to his. "But I will never leave you, Scott."
He let out a weak laugh that was more than half-sob, again. "I'm so drunk... this was stupid. Can we go home?" But he was clinging to her as he spoke. This was so sad. Needing a hug this badly. But he would go home to an empty bed. Maybe he should take the physical contact where he could get it.
"Of course," 'Ro replied, unwilling to let him go quite yet. "The Jeep is right over there."
Scott managed to heave himself to his feet. If it hadn't been for Ororo's support, he would have landed right on his ass again. The world was definitely spinning. And getting very fuzzy. He would suspect later that he'd dozed off in the Jeep on the way back, but how she'd actually gotten him up to his room when he didn't have any memory of the garage or the stairs would forever be a mystery.
The next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back on the bed while Ororo was doing something to his shoes. Taking them off. That was it. There was a lump underneath the comforter, up by the pillows, and Scott blinked blearly as it shifted, emitting a small mew, and the black and white kitten popped out from beneath the blankets, looking rumpled and a bit put out.
"Mrow?"
Ororo had faced down insane supervillians intent on world domination, and just last month had helped obliterate a tidal wave hurtling towards a major coastal city, but it seemed one thing that could still startle her was... a kitten?
"How did that get in here?" she wondered aloud, watching as the kitten made its unsteady way across the comforter to sit on Scott's chest. "Scott... did you leave your door open today?"
"She grew on a tree?" Scott muttered. The kitten turned around and around on his chest, kneading her tiny paws, and then settled down, regarding him with keen gray-blue eyes. "Hi," Scott said, his voice wobbling. She reached out a little paw and patted his cheek gently, purring.
"Well. As long as she's welcome," Ororo said, raising her eyebrows. "Is she a permanent resident, or just a guest?"
"I brought her home. Yesterday. Rahne is evil like all redheads and let her sit on my shoe. And she was all alone..." Scott reached up with an unsteady hand, stroking the kitten's head. She purred and turned over on her side, her eyes sleepy again as she regarded him. Her weight was so slight that he could barely tell she was there, or rather wouldn't have been able to if she hadn't been vibrating with the force of her purring.
"She seems to like you very much." 'Ro reached up to lightly pet the kitten, which earned her a very cross look from the little cat before she lay her head back down on Scott's chest. "And me, not so much. I suppose it is lucky you accompanied Rahne, not I."
"Came home with a cat and a saxophone..." His words were increasingly slurred, but with encroaching exhaustion rather than from the alcohol. He hurt, just ached all over, and his mind was more than willing to opt for unconsciousness as a remedy. "She's much softer than the sax..."
As Scott's eyelids fluttered shut, the kitten yawned, stretched - and then looked up at Ororo with a slit-eyed look that could only be described as 'get the hell away from my person, he and I are sleeping'.
"Well." Pushing herself up, Ororo neatly arranged Scott's shoes at the end of the bed and straightened the blankets on the bed. She walked softly towards the door, turning back to find the kitten still staring at her, eyes glinting in the moonlight. 'Ro rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she flipped off the light. "Hmph. You may be his new best friend, but I'd like to see you get him up the stairs..."
"...I'll be right there."
'Ro set down the phone, standing and slipping her shoes on. Another minute saw her down in the garage, and a few more saw her pulling the Jeep up to the curb by Harry's. Slipping out, she headed inside and towards the booth furthest to the back, knowing what she'd find there.
"Scott."
Scott didn't even look up at her. He was huddled as far into the booth as it was humanly possible to be, right up against the wall. His head rested in one hand, and with the other, shaking only slightly, he refilled the glass in front of him from the bottle of scotch. Which was better than half-empty already. The look on his face was somehow distant and strained at the same time, and the look in the real eye was as empty as the prosthesis.
"Do you want a drink?" he asked, his voice surprisingly clear. "We can get a second glass."
"No, I do not want another drink. Thank you. I want you to come home now," Ororo said, still standing by the booth. "You have had enough for tonight, I think. Come, let's get you in the Jeep."
"Home. Right." There was something fraying beneath the surface of his voice, and Scott looked away, swallowing visibly. "I don't think I want to go back," he said, focusing on enunciating each word.
With a sigh, 'Ro slid into the seat, pulling the bottle of Scotch away from Scott towards the edge of the table. "You cannot stay here."
"Then I'll go somewhere else." He stared at the bottle of scotch, then finished what was in his glass. "Please just leave me alone," he said with a broken sort of dignity. "I don't want company. Or to go back. I don't want anything. I just want it all to be gone. Hence the scotch."
"Drinking will only make it go away for a short time. Then you will awake with a headache and the realization that nothing has changed." The words were harsh, but her tone was gentle, almost sad. "Please, Scott. Let me take you back so that you can rest."
"I can't." It was almost a moan. "She's gone, and Logan..." His voice faltered, his hands trembling violently. He couldn't put it into words. "I want it to be gone. All gone." Oh, yes. That was coherent.
"Logan?" Ororo bit back a curse... What has he done now? "What happened, Scott? Tell me, please."
Scott sank his head back into his hands. His shoulders shook once with what might have been a supressed sob. "I told them." His voice was very faint. "I told them, and now the government has them... I broke and I told them. I told them." It was the only thing that wanted to come out of his mouth. 'I told them.' The only thing that mattered.
"Oh, Scott..." In a flash, Ororo had moved to sit next to him on the booth, hesitating only a second before sliding a hand over his. "It was not your fault. No one blames you for that, you cannot continue to feel guilty for something you did not have any control over."
"You should. You all should." His voice was still very low, but the calm was only a thin veneer over the pain, finally. "Blame me. Leave me. I'm not really here. I want you to leave me, Ororo. Just pretend you never found me." He tried to convince himself that he meant just tonight. He knew better.
"No." Ororo shook her head, wishing that it was daytime and that she could drag him outside into the sun. "No, I cannot do that. If I go, you are coming with me... and if you are not, I will come and find you."
Scott closed his eyes, wrestling with distant, yet frantic desperation for control. It was like a vice was closing around his chest. He started to slide towards the end of the bench, where Ororo was sitting. "I want outside," he said disjointedly. "The fresh air." Except that it was dark. "Can you take me outside, please?"
"Yes, of course." Taking his arm, Ororo helped him to stand, then accompanied him towards the door. Harry gave her an apologetic look, swiping a rag over the counter as she pushed open the door and guided Scott onto the sidewalk. "Here we are," she said in a low, soothing voice. "Take deep breaths."
Scott was tottering a little, his breathing ragged. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, 'Ro," he said, and didn't know what he was apologizing for. A sad, wild little laugh slipped out. "Just put me in a corner and forget me. Box me up. Do not open until Christmas, or until Jean comes home..."
Ororo's grip tightened around Scott's arm, guiding him towards a nearby bench under a streetlight. "You are not useless, Scott. If we were to put you away the mansion would suffer from its loss immediately. There is nothing for you to apologize for, but I do not want to hear any more talk of forgetting you."
He was wobbling more noticeably, and nearly wound up on the ground before they managed to get to the bench. Sad. He couldn't even make it back out to the car. Ororo was sitting down beside him, and he was trying to think of what to say to her. Words. Where were his words?
What came out startled and disturbed him. "Do you know my heart stopped, once?" The words were only slightly slurred, and he lowered his head into shaking hands, trying not to give into the urge to yank at his own hair. "I mean, I don't remember. I remember them standing over me, after, and one of them talking. Too much voltage. My chest hurt. I think that's how they cracked my rib, giving me CPR..."
"Shh," 'Ro said, shaking her head. "You made it through that, Scott. I cannot imagine how horrific it was for you... how can you think we would blame you? Please, you must know that... of all things."
"It hurt less than this." Something very close to a sob slipped out, and he rubbed doggedly at his eyes, then at the scars on his face. "I told them... I told them, and then she left me. Is that why? She... she told me I was too needy, back in the winter, when she left before. Truth from the alternate personality?" He gave another broken little laugh.
"Goddess, no. Scott, no, what she is doing... it is not punishment for what you have been through." Suddenly 'Ro was kneeling before him, her hand on his knee. "I cannot say I understand it, but I know... I know that Jean loves you, and that doing this must hurt her as much as it does you. She is doing it because it will be best... in the end. Even if now, it hurts."
"I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I want to do this." His jaw was trembling and he looked away from Ororo's steady gaze. "I don't care about the job anymore," he said, his voice breaking again. "I don't care about ex-expectations, or not disappointing Charles... " He sucked in a shaky breath, fighting for composure. "I want to go home," he finally whispered, humiliated by the sting of tears in his good eye. "I want to stop... I want everyone to stop pushing. It's not fair. I'm so tired, why can't they leave me alone."
"Because we love you," came the answer. "Because we will not let you go no matter how much you wish to..." Ororo felt the wet prick of tears in her own eyes at the pain and hurt in Scott's voice. "It is us that should be sorry. But we cannot let you go, because of how much we care for you. But we can stop pushing, at least so much. For a time, if that is what you need."
"I don't know what I need." What he wanted. His hands fumbling, he reached out and took Ororo's. "I'm selfish..." he muttered, his eye blurring with more tears. His head was pounding steadily, and he was fighting back nausea, even as he forced himself to go on. "I'm so selfish. I just... I just want to curl up in a corner and d-die, it hurts so much."
"No, Scott," Ororo said, squeezing his hand tightly, as if that could bring him back to his senses. "You may stay in your room, or go on a vacation, or hide in the greenhouse until next winter. But you must stay with us, because I do not know what I would do without you. And in time it will get better, it must..."
He was shaking his head at that, but not in denial - and he really needed to stop shaking his head, because it felt like it was going to fall off. "I won't leave you if you don't leave me," he muttered thickly. "You... don't need me to be anything, or do anything. You just... like having me around." It sounded so ridiculous. But he needed that so much right now.
"You are my best friend. The only thing I need for you to do is to feel better, and even that can go as slowly as you need it to." Ororo half-rose, putting her arms around him and pressing her cheek to his. "But I will never leave you, Scott."
He let out a weak laugh that was more than half-sob, again. "I'm so drunk... this was stupid. Can we go home?" But he was clinging to her as he spoke. This was so sad. Needing a hug this badly. But he would go home to an empty bed. Maybe he should take the physical contact where he could get it.
"Of course," 'Ro replied, unwilling to let him go quite yet. "The Jeep is right over there."
Scott managed to heave himself to his feet. If it hadn't been for Ororo's support, he would have landed right on his ass again. The world was definitely spinning. And getting very fuzzy. He would suspect later that he'd dozed off in the Jeep on the way back, but how she'd actually gotten him up to his room when he didn't have any memory of the garage or the stairs would forever be a mystery.
The next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back on the bed while Ororo was doing something to his shoes. Taking them off. That was it. There was a lump underneath the comforter, up by the pillows, and Scott blinked blearly as it shifted, emitting a small mew, and the black and white kitten popped out from beneath the blankets, looking rumpled and a bit put out.
"Mrow?"
Ororo had faced down insane supervillians intent on world domination, and just last month had helped obliterate a tidal wave hurtling towards a major coastal city, but it seemed one thing that could still startle her was... a kitten?
"How did that get in here?" she wondered aloud, watching as the kitten made its unsteady way across the comforter to sit on Scott's chest. "Scott... did you leave your door open today?"
"She grew on a tree?" Scott muttered. The kitten turned around and around on his chest, kneading her tiny paws, and then settled down, regarding him with keen gray-blue eyes. "Hi," Scott said, his voice wobbling. She reached out a little paw and patted his cheek gently, purring.
"Well. As long as she's welcome," Ororo said, raising her eyebrows. "Is she a permanent resident, or just a guest?"
"I brought her home. Yesterday. Rahne is evil like all redheads and let her sit on my shoe. And she was all alone..." Scott reached up with an unsteady hand, stroking the kitten's head. She purred and turned over on her side, her eyes sleepy again as she regarded him. Her weight was so slight that he could barely tell she was there, or rather wouldn't have been able to if she hadn't been vibrating with the force of her purring.
"She seems to like you very much." 'Ro reached up to lightly pet the kitten, which earned her a very cross look from the little cat before she lay her head back down on Scott's chest. "And me, not so much. I suppose it is lucky you accompanied Rahne, not I."
"Came home with a cat and a saxophone..." His words were increasingly slurred, but with encroaching exhaustion rather than from the alcohol. He hurt, just ached all over, and his mind was more than willing to opt for unconsciousness as a remedy. "She's much softer than the sax..."
As Scott's eyelids fluttered shut, the kitten yawned, stretched - and then looked up at Ororo with a slit-eyed look that could only be described as 'get the hell away from my person, he and I are sleeping'.
"Well." Pushing herself up, Ororo neatly arranged Scott's shoes at the end of the bed and straightened the blankets on the bed. She walked softly towards the door, turning back to find the kitten still staring at her, eyes glinting in the moonlight. 'Ro rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she flipped off the light. "Hmph. You may be his new best friend, but I'd like to see you get him up the stairs..."