Jean and Scott

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Much later, Jean makes her tipsy way home.



Jean was still fuzzy, and more than, when Logan woke her up and set her down to walk herself to her door, but she wasn't dumb enough not to put two and two together and come up with "having Logan here when I get home, drunk and sleepy = BAD". He was less than impressed with her assurance that she could walk the hallway on her own, and not pleased when she was more specific and asked him to go back to his room before Scott saw him, but he went.

Jean's pride, she had decided, was worth far less than her marriage, so she was alone as she slipped into the suite, not at all sure if Scott was still awake or not, since she was still a little too fuzzy to keep her mental walls up without also damping the link.

Scott wasn't asleep, of course. He watched her come in - she seemed to be having some difficulty with the door, despite the fact that he'd of course left it unlocked. Pushing the cat off his lap and ignoring her protest, he rose stiffly. "Coordination looks like a dicey proposition at the moment." His voice was low, in deference to the hour, and somehow managed to be neutral without being cold.

Jean turned around, swaying slightly, and smiled a little, sleepy smile. Her good mood was holding, and that was good. "Li'll bit," she said, matching him for volume, although there was far too much 'pleased with the world' in her manner for it to be neutral.

"... wow, you're going to be hung over in the morning." He came over and took her arm, not meeting her eyes as he steered her in the direction of the bedroom. "I promise not to mock."

The not meeting eyes thing would probably have worried her, which was why Jean was decidedly not noticing. "See, that's why you're a good man. You're kind to me, even when I fully deserve mocking. But!" How she managed to exclaim without actually raising her voice she wasn't sure, but she decided to do it again, just because she could. "But! I go into this, knowing it is my choice. I embrace the hangover, as just reward for having fun. Because no fun goes unpunished." And she was definitely too drunk to realize just how sad that sounded, particularly when delivered so cheerfully.

"That's kind of a perverse way to look at things." How had the cat gotten into the bedroom this quickly? Scott rolled his eye, seeing her sitting quite deliberately on Jean's pillow. "Off, Des."

"I'm good at perverse," Jean informed him then, without warning, darted out of his grip and scooped up the cat. "Aw, you can stay, Des. You're cuddly, and I approve of cuddly right now. Mind, claw me and I'm punting you through the window." She was very much addressing the cat as though she could understand Jean, and possibly she could because, miraculously, she didn't claw her.

Scott just sort of stood there, a little uncertainly, before he moved over to the bed and turned back the covers. He'd done this on another night, not too long ago, he remembered. When Jean had come home after the explosion at the other federal facility. "Do you want a glass of water?" he asked a bit vaguely. "Water's good, for minimizing the hangover..."

"Yes, please," she said, not looking up from where she was scratching the very confused (but not displeased) cat between the ears. He vanished into the bathroom and she continued once he was clearly out of sight (because, somehow, it was easier when she couldn't see him), "You can yell at me, too, if you want. Only fair, given how often I've done it to you." Still not looking up from the cat.

"Why would I yell?" His voice was audible, if just, over the sound of running water. "It's not like various things around here haven't driven me to drink from time to time."

"Don't know." She briefly stopped petting the cat to consider, but an imperious 'mew' put her back into motion. "Just, y'know, putting the option out there. You can yell at me, or not, or kiss me, or whatever. Well," she amended, "I'd prefer you not hit me again. There's been enough of that, I think. Also dying. No more dying. For either of us."

"Not about to hit you again," Scott said as he emerged from the bathroom, glass of water in hand. She had moved to sit on the bed, the cat on her lap. He handed her the glass of water - and then leaned over, pressing a kiss briefly to her temple before he straightened again. "I'm just going to shut the lights off in the other room," he said, and went to do that.

She closed her eyes when he kissed her, and it took a few moments to get them open again - she really was sleepy. The water Jean killed in a gulp and then she carefully displaced Des who, seemingly unnerved by the nice treatment from Jean, vanished into the other room. She puttered about the bedroom, shedding clothes and generally getting ready for bed but without any real focus. "Will you take me out?" she asked when he eventually came back. "Drinks or dancing or pool or just... something simple and fun. Simple and fun is better with you."

"Yeah. We can do that." He changed, much more quickly and efficiently than Jean did. The shirt he was wearing was replaced by the shirt he slept in so quickly that the scars on his back and chest were visible only for an instant. "When you're a little more clear-headed we can talk about what might be fun. I mean, we've done pool to death, at this point..."

"Ended up watching the stars tonight," Jean said, sitting cross-legged on the bed with a hairbrush. "Made me miss Alaska. But that's not really simple."

"No. But maybe we can talk about not-simple for spring break or something." Scott sat down on his side of the bed, looking over at her. "That's not all that far away."

"Are you upset with me and hiding it, or not upset? I'm not focusing well enough to tell." As non-sequiturs went, it was a good one. There was a definite lack of break between brain and mouth. "And, if you're not upset, are you just not upset, or are you only not upset because I have been assuming you already knew that I was out drinking with Logan and haven't told you? Er, hadn't." Jean looked up and blinked at him.

"I already knew. You've had a few moments tonight where you haven't been keeping me out quite so rigorously." Scott shrugged, a slight crooked smile surfacing briefly on his features before it was gone again. "As for being upset, it would be kind of... churlish."

"I do not follow your logic," she told him then added, somewhat loftily, "your logic is not Earth logic. But you're allowed, is what I'm saying. Sometimes. Sometimes it's what I'm saying, when I can follow the thought through to the end of the train track." Jean shook her head and then, when this didn't help her focus, she shook her hairbrush at him.

"I just prefer not to think much about you and Logan, as drinking buddies or as anything else." Scott pushed back the covers farther on his side, swinging his legs up and around. He was still sore. It was better, but he suspected it would take a while to go away entirely. "I trust you - I always have. So the rest of it doesn't really matter."

"I don't want you to be upset with me," she clarified, although she wasn't sure which of them needed to be told, "but... I'm confused. Also spiny. There is a quantity of spiny going on, for which I apologize. And getting drunk was easier, particularly after I threatened to rip his arm off."

Scott paused. "Prickly?" he ventured. "Prickly, you mean?" Because he wasn't coming up with an explanation for 'spiny'.

"Mmmm," Jean considered the new word, rolling it over in her head (which she actually visualized in this weird amalgamation of telepathy and liquor that lead to her imagining being pricked in the psy-scape with a porcupine. Thank God she wasn't broadcasting, she thought), then nodded a little too vigorously. "Yes, that. Have been being prickly. Spiny. Prone to poking and also yelling. Which you deserve some, but some of it is displacement. Or something."

"Lie down, Jean," was his only retort to that at first. Not until they were both properly horizontal did he speak up again. "I don't really care, if it's displacement. It's allowed, too."

"Yeah, maybe," Jean said, turning on her side to look at Scott, "but I'm still sorry. Run with it while it lasts. As you've pointed out, hangover of doom in the morning, so who knows if the good mood will last."

The comforter was soft, very different from the institutional sheets and blankets that had been on the cot in the federal facility. The bed itself was much more comfortable, too. "In sickness and in health, hangover and sobriety," he quipped, almost inaudibly.

Jean curled up, facing him. "No 'till death'," she mumbled, reaching out to sleepily clutch at his hand. "No partin' at all."

"Really not much to say to that," Scott muttered a bit distractedly, squeezing her hand as he settled back against the pillows. "Orpheus and Eurydice, huh?"

"I think that makes the mansion hell," she said. "I mean, it's where you brought me back. Or at least my brain."

"... let's not go any further down that particular road, shall we?" He reached out with his free hand, pulling the blankets over her. "Go to sleep, Jean," he said softly.

"'kay."

A moment later, an additional weight landed on his pillow. Des promptly yawned in his face, walked around in a little circle, and then settled down, staring at them.

"You too."