Jean-Paul and Scott // Jean and Scott

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

After returning home, Jean-Paul and Scott run into each other while in the midst of temporary retreat from the day's events. Later on, Jean finally makes it out of the infirmary (set before this log.


He'd needed some air. Scott settled onto a snow-free patch of the step and breathed in the cold night air, letting his head sag into his hands for a moment before he straightened, squaring his shoulders. The link was still quiet in the way that meant Jean was preoccupied, but Scott knew she'd let him know when there was news.

One way or the other, though, they were alive, all four of them. And whatever had happened, that was something.

"Fresh burdens, my captain?" The level, accented voice came from the eaves overhanging the porch. Jean-Paul swung down off of the roof, landing easily. He'd changed into jeans and sleeveless tee, his exposed arms gauzed and taped from wrist to shoulder, the dressings continuing under the shirt. His wounds were mostly superficial, but numerous enough that bloodloss had been a concern, briefly. Then the dead had shown up and he'd stopped being concerned about it.

Scott grimaced briefly and eyed Jean-Paul, prodding lightly at the sore spot on his side. The stabbing pain there every time he breathed in hadn't really been helped much by wrapping his ribs. The body armor had probably prevented it from being worse, though. "You look a little the worse for wear."

"Paper cuts." Jean-Paul shrugged. "He couldn't match me for speed, but nearly so for reflexes. Connard kept me pretty well pinned going toe-to-toe." He took a seat on the bottom step. "I'm not quite ready to relax yet, I think. Still waiting for the other shoe to drop and things to get worse."

"Well, that's an unduly pessimistic outlook," Scott said, his voice heavy with irony as well as fatigue, suddenly. The look in his real eye darkened as he looked down at Jean-Paul. "I'm sorry to have gotten you involved in this. I know this wasn't why you came back to the mansion. But no Jean and no Nathan left a big hole in our lineup of big guns. Hell," he said with a noise than might have been a laugh if there'd been more force behind it, "add no Marie, since she just got back, and no Cain... it may be easier for me to think about the tactical issues right now."

"If I gave you the impression that I'm a habitual optimist, then I apologize profusely." The speedster half-smiled. "It's just easier sometimes to keep on alert than to relax and be blindsided. I am out of practice with this, and happy to remain so, I think." Which he supposed finally answered the question of whether or not he should be fitted for leathers again. "But don't worry about it. I would do it again." Jean-Paul twisted around to look up at Scott. "How badly are you chewed up?"

"I don't think there was any chewing. Except possibly inside my head." Scott stopped, both eyebrows going up. "That didn't come out right," he said, with something approaching dignity. "Sorry."

"I heard nothing. Just feel fortunate that you don't have meat pudding between your ears." Jean-Paul snerked quietly. "Or maybe you should use that as your defense for shooting me. I will feel that in the morning, I think. Classes will be interesting."

"I'm sorry. One of those split-second things - I've got to knock off the high-risk tactical choices, I think," Scott said, but then caught himself wondering if he really should. It wasn't as if there had been many options in that split-second.

Jean-Paul reinforced the thought with a no-care, "It worked. That doesn't mean I won't bitch about it."

"Fair enough." Scott stared out at the snowy grounds, his eye unfocusing. "Jean's still got the record," he said, inanely. "Two years 'dead'."

"What kind of card works better for this kind of thing, do you think? Best wishes? Missing you? Condolences? It's a very tricky thing all around."

Scott sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I'm at a loss. Check back with me in the morning, I'll have worked out the appropriately leaderly reaction... I suspect I need some sleep first." He shook his head slowly. "Or a new job. Although that impulse will be safely suppressed, come morning..."

"Sorry." Jean-Paul sighed quietly and leaned back on his elbows. "Easier to be an ass about this kind of thing most of the time. You did good; came back with more people than you left with."

"Not my doing," Scott pointed out. "I'm not complaining, mind you." He rubbed at a scrape on his knuckles. Had there been a tear in his gloves? He hadn't noticed. "But we get to wake up tomorrow and carry on. Tend the wounded, and get ready for the next thing that comes around the corner. There's a certain charm to forward momentum." Part of Scott was listening to himself and wondering if he'd taken a blow to the head somewhere in that complex.

Jean-Paul was quiet for a long time, looking off to the side at nothing in particular. Then, softly, "You should get some rest. Go fall over someplace with less ice. Being awake won't get Wisdom and the others looked over any sooner."

"Oh, I'll rest. Need to be functional, for forward momentum. Not to mention debriefing. You know," Scott went on, pressing one hand to his side, "when it's not me who's killed people, I actually rather enjoy writing the reports for the database? Getting in down in black and white lets me take a step back. The goddamned database is my therapy. Is that twisted or what?"

"So what should you be doing? Indulging in perpetual mourning for all that we cannot halt? People are not wired so. You at least examine what happened, you write it out. You face it. It is not the least healthy thing to do."

"Cyclops faces it. And uses it. Scott... gets lost somewhere along the way." He shook his head, a slight, rueful smile playing on his lips. "And do I sound like a telepath reached inside my head tonight and twisted or what?"

"I can't imagine why." Jean-Paul sighed. "Nathan had better get in touch soon. He'll want to know about this."

"I hope someone's called Domino." Scott considered that for a moment, then rose. "I think I'll see if Angelo did."

"I think I'll keep hiding on the roof until I'm ready to play at being human again." Jean-Paul watched as Scott headed for the door, feeling that he should say something else, but simply too drained to think of it.

--

Triage was an important thing. There were steps. You did the important thing first, dealt with the critical, got them stabilized, then you moved on. Down the levels of severity, with frequent checks back on the criticals. That was how it worked. There was no subverting. And everything had to be stable before you stopped, and even then it wasn't so much stopping as pausing to breathe and sleep and eat if you could, but mostly just the little rest, because you had to start again.

It was, unsurprisingly, fairly late when Jean finally got the chance to go see her husband. Well, see him properly. She'd actually done the bandaging on his ribs, but it had been in the middle of half a dozen other problems and she hadn't had time to do much more than ascertain that he was still alive and, thank God, not in the critical category. But now she had time, and Amelia had claimed the night shift observing the patients who'd be staying, at least for a bit, sending Jean off to find her dinner, husband and bed in that order.

When she got to the suite, Scott was stretched out on their bed, still fully clothed. One arm was tucked against his side protectively, the other dangling off the bed. It was a posture that suggested sleep, but he was staring up at the ceiling, clearly still awake. He didn't look around at her when she came in, though.

Jean didn't even bother with niceties, simply kicked off her shoes and crawled onto the bed next to him. "Hi."

"Hey." He sounded tired, and after a moment, his head turned on the pillow. "I may not have mentioned the telepath having at my brain. Would you check and make sure he didn't leave anything there that doesn't belong?"

Jean propped herself up on her elbow, and the look she was giving him edged on being a Look, but they were both too tired and his rib was cracked, so she let it slide. This time. "You might not have mentioned..." was all she said, with a little snort, and then she closed her eyes and slipped down the link as easily as breathing, all but falling into his mind.

There was a distinct smell of oily smoke, in the mirror-image of the hangar that presented itself to Jean as a mindscape. Scott was standing in the middle of the floor, looking around a little blearily at the familiar surroundings. "I think there are scorch marks on my walls," he said to Jean.

Jean turned a slow circle, seemingly looking at everything closely but really reaching out with all of her senses, feeling out the deeper corners of his mind that the mindscape represented. "Yeeees," she said contemplatively as she made it all the way back around to him, "there are, but you've been pretty well battered. They're a reflection." She concentrated, and the harsh lighting of the hanger seemed to soften, shifting away from the bright glare as a few of the scorches faded. "Some of this will just take time to get back to rights."

"Bumps and bruises, then." The tension in the Scott-image's face had eased a little as the lights dimmed, but he still looked disoriented. "You'd think that one of these days I could wind up with more representative scars. I'm not supposed to be the one watching other people hurt."

"Hey," Jean said, moving across to Scott and sliding her arms around him, glad for the freedom of motion in the hand which was still in it's cast out in the real world.. "You're not supposed to be being hurt, either. That's definitely in my Rules for Appropriate Husbandly Behavior, I'm sure."

Scott's body seemed to grow more solid in her arms. "Sorry," he said, sounding less detached as his arms went around her in return. "I put the martyr safely away, but sometimes he reappears. It's easier to be wounded than to heal."

"Well, it's not like I can really fault you for your crazy, not when my own is so rampant." The tone was flip, but her eyes were serious as she considered him. "Just because breaking is easier doesn't mean I want you to do it."

"I've been broken. It was tedious for all involved. And I hate to be dull." His eyes were both real, on the mindscape, and they were soft and contemplative as they met hers. "This won't last, you know. One of these days, it'll be for real. The universe is taunting us, taking people away and then giving them back, over and over..."

"I know," Jean said with a sigh, leaning into him. "We've lost friends, even ex-students, but never anyone who was really one of ours. But it every time the universe turns around and says 'made you look!' it feels like some real doom is coming closer."

"It will be real, one of these days. Maybe..." His smile was humorless. "Almost certainly. Maybe the fake-outs are our chance to learn how to handle it."

"Somehow I don't think, if... when it happens, that any of us will have learned to handle it well. Which is probably sane - not really something one ought to handle well."

"Handling and handling well are two very different things," Scott said, as the mindscape started to fade around them. On the bed, he shifted slightly, trying not to jar his ribs, and reached out for her hand, bringing it to his lips for a brief kiss. "We go on," he said quietly. "One way or the other."

"Hey, look at that. Healthful coping." Jean snuggled down into the bed. "When did we get around to healthy emotional states of being? Or, well, you. I don't know that I really can claim that one..."

"Nonsense. You don't give yourself nearly enough credit."