Siege Perilous Aftermath - Jean & Kevin
Dec. 18th, 2020 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAfter the events of Siege Perilous, Jean tries to cope and goes to Kevin for help.
Jean didn't go home. At least, not right away. Instead, she went to the skating rink at Rockefeller Center, the Christmas tree glittering with rainbow colored lights as families, friends, and lovers skated along the ice. She watched them for a while. It was easy to think their lives were carefree. She knew they weren't but she liked to pretend they were, wholesome like apple pie. It reminded her of the time spent with her parents every Christmas, shopping in New York, watching the tree lighting ceremony.
She wondered if her other lives were the same. Did their families spend Christmas like she did? Or was there some butterfly effect that led one down the wrong path or another?
It was only when a police officer came to check on her did Jean realize how much time had passed. All the skaters had gone.
The next thing she knew she had found her way back to the mansion. She had called a cab, and spent an hour listening to the driver talking JFK conspiracies that she nodded and noncommittally listened to while staring out the window.
She got out of the cab, paid the driver, and looked up at the mansion sitting at the top of a small hill behind the iron-wrought gate. It was after 1 am so there weren't too many lights on. Keying in her pass code, she opened the door beside the gate, making the long walk up the driveway.
Before she knew it, she was walking through the front door, up the stairs, and down a hallway lined with doors. She stopped at one particular, standing there. She could hear the tick of the grandfather clock at the end of the hallway, like the beating of a heart. Steady, unyielding, alive. Alive, alive, alive. Everyone was alive here.
Well, generally. As alive as they had been that morning. Including him. Not blown to red mist and splattered against a wall.
And yet so much had changed.
She looked away from the clock, remembering why she was there. Reaching up, she gave the door a light knock.
The door opened after a moment, revealing Kevin standing barefoot in his suit pants and an undershirt. A glass of whiskey was in one day, a book with a tattered cover in his other hand.
"Jeanie?" To be honest, he wasn't sure how people were reacting to the incident they'd all just experienced. Despite the realism of the alternate universe, he'd felt detached about his memories of it, like it had been a film he'd watched where he'd also been in. The distance had been experienced by several other members of the team he'd talked to, but despite his death, Jean had it worse than most of them.
After an awkward moment, he stepped to one side. "Do you want to come in for a drink?"
Jean stared at his room for a moment before walking inside without saying a word. She stood in the middle of the room, still in her green coat, then finally glanced at him.
"What did it feel like?"
"What did what feel like?" He built a second drink, adding a little extra ice for her and passed it over.
She could hear the clinking of the ice in the glass, the sharp smell of the whiskey. It made her look up. She took the drink, taking a moment to meet his eyes and holding his gaze before looking down.
"Dying. Any of the times."
Kevin took a sip from his own glass, using the time to arrange his thoughts.
"I suppose this is the time I should talk about seeing a light or a light or something. But really-" He shrugged. "Just a flash of pain and nothing. Nothing at all."
Jean's face quickly flickered between concern, sadness, relief, and sadness again. She took a long drink of the whiskey, feeling it burn its way down her throat but not caring, almost enjoying it. Because it was something to feel other than a crushing weight on her chest.
"I saw something. More than Roma. I saw the end of the world. Not ours, but someone else's. Theirs."
"Are you talking about this... other dimension that the rest of them have been talking about? Is it something to do with your telepathy?"
Jean looked down, swirling the ice around in the glass. "It had everything to do with it," she said quietly, then finished off the drink. Swallowing, she put the glass down, folding her arms.
"I---I didn't know where else to go."
"Your suite is just down the hall-" He stopped with the look she gave him. "Or you're welcome to stay here if you want to talk about it or... I don't know. Kill a bottle or two is also an option."
"I...think I like that option," Jean said. She glanced up at him.
"I was wondering if I could sleep in your bed tonight?"
Even though it felt like it was someone else's life, right now it was the steadiest thread she could hold onto.
"Uh, sure-" Kevin could have made a long list of things he might expect Jean to have said and this would have never been on it. "Yeah, of course. I can just doss on the couch here."
"You don't have to," Jean said, running her fingers through her hair. "I just...don't want to be alone."
Kevin nodded. He thought about protesting, but frankly, he'd been through enough trauma or experienced it second hand from people to recognize someone grasping for something to help; to make some kind of sense of what they went through. He wasn't sure why it had hit Jean as hard as it did. When he'd spoken to Emma, another telepath, she didn't seem terribly affected by it. But some things could wait for an explanation.
"Bedroom is through there. There's some t-shirts in the dresser if you want something to sleep in." Kevin's suite was almost hotel levels of spartan for personal effects until you reached his wardrobe. Mind you, the Jean from the universe they'd been together in had been like him, preferring to sleep in nothing at all. "I'll build us some drinks to slip more comfortably in to."
Jean glanced away, nodding back. "Thanks," she said, finally remembering to take off her coat and gloves. She sat down while he worked, listening to the sounds of the ice hitting the glass, the drink being poured, the crack of the ice as the warmer liquid hit the frozen water. It was better to focus on that than what went through her head.
"Do you think I'm a good person?"
"One of the best I've ever met. And I'm extremely old, so that means even more." Kevin didn't hesitate as he replied.
Jean laughed reflexively, then let out a breath, "Emma seems to think highly of me too. It just...doesn't feel that way when in the grand scheme of things."
She sunk down in a chair, pulling her knees together as she ran her fingers through her hair. "I didn't expect to get sucker punched today."
"Who ever does?" He handed her the drink. "Look, Jean, In that... world, look at what you went through. Years of sadistic torture against an enemy who had killed children in your care and dear friends. And yet, at the end of the day, instead of using your powers for revenge or to disappear into a life of luxury, you joined the fight to stop them. You put yourself on the line and risked everything to do the right thing. Sure, your methods and moral limits were different, but you still put everything on the line to try and help people."
Taking the drink, Jean was silent for a moment or two. "Maybe. But Roma engineered that world. She fed off of it. But what I saw was....a lot worse than that. And a lot better."
"Sorry Red, but I don't think I follow."
Jean rubbed her forehead. "I...I don't know how to explain it. I can barely understand it all myself. It all sounds insane. And I saw it," she said.
"Name me anything in the last day and a half that doesn't sound insane. Tell me what you think and I'll try and keep up."
Jean laughed, not at him but the situation. He was taking it pretty well, which helped her feel a little more grounded.
"Okay," she said, folding her arms. "So apparently...there are way more alternate dimensions out there. And an alternate universe version of me wound up killing other versions of myself and millions of people as she tried to destroy reality using a bird made of fire. But another older version of myself stopped her and nearly every reality was torn apart and pieced back together by what appeared to be a guy with a sun in his head. But it was fragile and some of the people who knew the older version of me in the other reality knew what happened but they couldn't say anything to anyone from our reality otherwise the world would end until today, when I used the evil parasite woman's built up energy to heal the cracks and now everyone can talk about it."
She put her head in her hands. "On a level of 1 to a million in terms of insanity, that's pretty high up there," she muttered.
"It is." Kevin had taken the news about the alternate universes quite well when Emma had first explained it to him. After all, it wasn't as if the CIA hadn't had dedicated programs over the years researching into it, and after plenty of first hand experience with mutants and magic, he wasn't going to dismiss anything. On the other hand, there was a bird of fire involved and Jean had literally healed the world.
"So, I'm going to take a stab in the dark here. Because you destroyed the universe, or attempted to, you're concerned you're ultimately a bad person. That about right?"
Jean rolled her eyes. "No. But I have the potential to be. You saw me back in Roma's world torturing that man for information. The other me liked it. I've also been possessed twice. And I was really good at being evil, bending the rules. It came naturally. I don't know what happened to the other me to set her off but...what if she used to be like me? What if she was one of the best people someone had ever known too? And then something happened and she blew up the universe," she said.
She sighed. "I don't want to always be perfect. I don't want to always be sweetness and light. But now I feel like I need to become a nun or something."
"I'm not going to pretend to understand anything about multiple realities that doesn't come from sci-fi novels. But I know people, and I know that everyone has the potential to be evil. Hell, originally good people are the ones that become the worst monsters. Maybe there's a world where instead of growing up in a semi-affluent loving family, you were a poor kid from a broken home that finds Magneto instead of Charles. Or one where instead of wanting to help people, your powers made you despise them for every nasty, selfish thought and secret you got to witness." Kevin couldn't relate to her specific experience, but a crisis of faith was something many intelligence operators faced.
"Everyone has the potential to be evil. Everyone can be broken or corrupted or just pushed to the point that they break from who they really are and become something unrecognizable. But I'm willing to bet on the infinite number of universes that may be out there, the evil Jeans are a strong minority."
Jean eyed him. "You and Emma seem pretty optimistic," she said, finally managing a faint smile. Letting out a breath, she leaned back in her chair.
"And maybe you're right. But it's just...a lot."
"You think Emma and I are optimistic? Wow, we have you played." He took a seat across from her, resting his elbows on his knees, with his drink held loosely in both hands. "When the person who is both a telepath and the head of a multinational corporate and a kink infused private influence club says they think you're a good person, and the guy who used to help overthrow democratically elected governments because American fruit interests were worried their sweetheart access deals might be challenged agree with her, I think you're winning the cynical bastard vote."
Pulling her knees up to her chest, Jean laughed.. "Well, at least I have that," she said, picking up her drink to take a sip.
"I don't even know how to begin to talk to the others. It's not something you bring up at a party. Especially if your alternate version self destroyed the universe and murdered their dog or something."
"Does it? You're assuming they went through a massive dimension shift and can't figure out that you're different than the person that do this."
Jean shook her head. "I don't know what they think. And that's the point," she said, throwing her hands up. "This is all completely brand new to me. I'm making it up as I go along. It's not like I have experience with it. Every other weird thing, sure. I just---I just--I---" She swallowed, her knees and legs dropping to the floor as she rubbed her eyes, wiping away a tear.
"Jean, look-" He reached for her but pulled up partway. This wasn't Roma's strange dimension and Jean wasn't his girlfriend. "This is not going to be easy. I wish I could make it so. But you can't assume you're at fault for things outside of your control."
"I'm trying to tell myself that," Jean said quietly, her eyes flickering over him as he moved before glancing away. "It's hard to see someone with my face doing these things, good and bad, and feel nothing. I'm not a robot. Especially when they caused the others so much pain."
"Of course. But even if it was your face, it wasn't you." He tentatively moved a little closer, crouching down near her. "It wasn't you, Jean. I know that's hard to process and it's going to take time, but it wasn't you."
Jean kept her gaze down, slowly nodding. She didn't know what to say. What could you say to something like that?
"Come on. I think you could use some sleep. This will... well, likely not make any more sense in the morning, but I'll buy you breakfast. So at least there's that." Comforting wasn't high on Kevin's list of skills, but Jean didn't need hugs and fluffy feelings. She needed to come to terms with what she'd experienced and only she could make that happen. He could take care of her while she processed it, but she was the only one who could start to grapple with it.
When he mentioned 'sleep,' Jean realized just how tired she was. It was if she fully felt the reality of it all, all at once. "I can't guarantee I'll be up by noon but brunch sounds nice. Thanks," she said, managing a soft smile.
"Whatever you want, Red." .
Jean didn't go home. At least, not right away. Instead, she went to the skating rink at Rockefeller Center, the Christmas tree glittering with rainbow colored lights as families, friends, and lovers skated along the ice. She watched them for a while. It was easy to think their lives were carefree. She knew they weren't but she liked to pretend they were, wholesome like apple pie. It reminded her of the time spent with her parents every Christmas, shopping in New York, watching the tree lighting ceremony.
She wondered if her other lives were the same. Did their families spend Christmas like she did? Or was there some butterfly effect that led one down the wrong path or another?
It was only when a police officer came to check on her did Jean realize how much time had passed. All the skaters had gone.
The next thing she knew she had found her way back to the mansion. She had called a cab, and spent an hour listening to the driver talking JFK conspiracies that she nodded and noncommittally listened to while staring out the window.
She got out of the cab, paid the driver, and looked up at the mansion sitting at the top of a small hill behind the iron-wrought gate. It was after 1 am so there weren't too many lights on. Keying in her pass code, she opened the door beside the gate, making the long walk up the driveway.
Before she knew it, she was walking through the front door, up the stairs, and down a hallway lined with doors. She stopped at one particular, standing there. She could hear the tick of the grandfather clock at the end of the hallway, like the beating of a heart. Steady, unyielding, alive. Alive, alive, alive. Everyone was alive here.
Well, generally. As alive as they had been that morning. Including him. Not blown to red mist and splattered against a wall.
And yet so much had changed.
She looked away from the clock, remembering why she was there. Reaching up, she gave the door a light knock.
The door opened after a moment, revealing Kevin standing barefoot in his suit pants and an undershirt. A glass of whiskey was in one day, a book with a tattered cover in his other hand.
"Jeanie?" To be honest, he wasn't sure how people were reacting to the incident they'd all just experienced. Despite the realism of the alternate universe, he'd felt detached about his memories of it, like it had been a film he'd watched where he'd also been in. The distance had been experienced by several other members of the team he'd talked to, but despite his death, Jean had it worse than most of them.
After an awkward moment, he stepped to one side. "Do you want to come in for a drink?"
Jean stared at his room for a moment before walking inside without saying a word. She stood in the middle of the room, still in her green coat, then finally glanced at him.
"What did it feel like?"
"What did what feel like?" He built a second drink, adding a little extra ice for her and passed it over.
She could hear the clinking of the ice in the glass, the sharp smell of the whiskey. It made her look up. She took the drink, taking a moment to meet his eyes and holding his gaze before looking down.
"Dying. Any of the times."
Kevin took a sip from his own glass, using the time to arrange his thoughts.
"I suppose this is the time I should talk about seeing a light or a light or something. But really-" He shrugged. "Just a flash of pain and nothing. Nothing at all."
Jean's face quickly flickered between concern, sadness, relief, and sadness again. She took a long drink of the whiskey, feeling it burn its way down her throat but not caring, almost enjoying it. Because it was something to feel other than a crushing weight on her chest.
"I saw something. More than Roma. I saw the end of the world. Not ours, but someone else's. Theirs."
"Are you talking about this... other dimension that the rest of them have been talking about? Is it something to do with your telepathy?"
Jean looked down, swirling the ice around in the glass. "It had everything to do with it," she said quietly, then finished off the drink. Swallowing, she put the glass down, folding her arms.
"I---I didn't know where else to go."
"Your suite is just down the hall-" He stopped with the look she gave him. "Or you're welcome to stay here if you want to talk about it or... I don't know. Kill a bottle or two is also an option."
"I...think I like that option," Jean said. She glanced up at him.
"I was wondering if I could sleep in your bed tonight?"
Even though it felt like it was someone else's life, right now it was the steadiest thread she could hold onto.
"Uh, sure-" Kevin could have made a long list of things he might expect Jean to have said and this would have never been on it. "Yeah, of course. I can just doss on the couch here."
"You don't have to," Jean said, running her fingers through her hair. "I just...don't want to be alone."
Kevin nodded. He thought about protesting, but frankly, he'd been through enough trauma or experienced it second hand from people to recognize someone grasping for something to help; to make some kind of sense of what they went through. He wasn't sure why it had hit Jean as hard as it did. When he'd spoken to Emma, another telepath, she didn't seem terribly affected by it. But some things could wait for an explanation.
"Bedroom is through there. There's some t-shirts in the dresser if you want something to sleep in." Kevin's suite was almost hotel levels of spartan for personal effects until you reached his wardrobe. Mind you, the Jean from the universe they'd been together in had been like him, preferring to sleep in nothing at all. "I'll build us some drinks to slip more comfortably in to."
Jean glanced away, nodding back. "Thanks," she said, finally remembering to take off her coat and gloves. She sat down while he worked, listening to the sounds of the ice hitting the glass, the drink being poured, the crack of the ice as the warmer liquid hit the frozen water. It was better to focus on that than what went through her head.
"Do you think I'm a good person?"
"One of the best I've ever met. And I'm extremely old, so that means even more." Kevin didn't hesitate as he replied.
Jean laughed reflexively, then let out a breath, "Emma seems to think highly of me too. It just...doesn't feel that way when in the grand scheme of things."
She sunk down in a chair, pulling her knees together as she ran her fingers through her hair. "I didn't expect to get sucker punched today."
"Who ever does?" He handed her the drink. "Look, Jean, In that... world, look at what you went through. Years of sadistic torture against an enemy who had killed children in your care and dear friends. And yet, at the end of the day, instead of using your powers for revenge or to disappear into a life of luxury, you joined the fight to stop them. You put yourself on the line and risked everything to do the right thing. Sure, your methods and moral limits were different, but you still put everything on the line to try and help people."
Taking the drink, Jean was silent for a moment or two. "Maybe. But Roma engineered that world. She fed off of it. But what I saw was....a lot worse than that. And a lot better."
"Sorry Red, but I don't think I follow."
Jean rubbed her forehead. "I...I don't know how to explain it. I can barely understand it all myself. It all sounds insane. And I saw it," she said.
"Name me anything in the last day and a half that doesn't sound insane. Tell me what you think and I'll try and keep up."
Jean laughed, not at him but the situation. He was taking it pretty well, which helped her feel a little more grounded.
"Okay," she said, folding her arms. "So apparently...there are way more alternate dimensions out there. And an alternate universe version of me wound up killing other versions of myself and millions of people as she tried to destroy reality using a bird made of fire. But another older version of myself stopped her and nearly every reality was torn apart and pieced back together by what appeared to be a guy with a sun in his head. But it was fragile and some of the people who knew the older version of me in the other reality knew what happened but they couldn't say anything to anyone from our reality otherwise the world would end until today, when I used the evil parasite woman's built up energy to heal the cracks and now everyone can talk about it."
She put her head in her hands. "On a level of 1 to a million in terms of insanity, that's pretty high up there," she muttered.
"It is." Kevin had taken the news about the alternate universes quite well when Emma had first explained it to him. After all, it wasn't as if the CIA hadn't had dedicated programs over the years researching into it, and after plenty of first hand experience with mutants and magic, he wasn't going to dismiss anything. On the other hand, there was a bird of fire involved and Jean had literally healed the world.
"So, I'm going to take a stab in the dark here. Because you destroyed the universe, or attempted to, you're concerned you're ultimately a bad person. That about right?"
Jean rolled her eyes. "No. But I have the potential to be. You saw me back in Roma's world torturing that man for information. The other me liked it. I've also been possessed twice. And I was really good at being evil, bending the rules. It came naturally. I don't know what happened to the other me to set her off but...what if she used to be like me? What if she was one of the best people someone had ever known too? And then something happened and she blew up the universe," she said.
She sighed. "I don't want to always be perfect. I don't want to always be sweetness and light. But now I feel like I need to become a nun or something."
"I'm not going to pretend to understand anything about multiple realities that doesn't come from sci-fi novels. But I know people, and I know that everyone has the potential to be evil. Hell, originally good people are the ones that become the worst monsters. Maybe there's a world where instead of growing up in a semi-affluent loving family, you were a poor kid from a broken home that finds Magneto instead of Charles. Or one where instead of wanting to help people, your powers made you despise them for every nasty, selfish thought and secret you got to witness." Kevin couldn't relate to her specific experience, but a crisis of faith was something many intelligence operators faced.
"Everyone has the potential to be evil. Everyone can be broken or corrupted or just pushed to the point that they break from who they really are and become something unrecognizable. But I'm willing to bet on the infinite number of universes that may be out there, the evil Jeans are a strong minority."
Jean eyed him. "You and Emma seem pretty optimistic," she said, finally managing a faint smile. Letting out a breath, she leaned back in her chair.
"And maybe you're right. But it's just...a lot."
"You think Emma and I are optimistic? Wow, we have you played." He took a seat across from her, resting his elbows on his knees, with his drink held loosely in both hands. "When the person who is both a telepath and the head of a multinational corporate and a kink infused private influence club says they think you're a good person, and the guy who used to help overthrow democratically elected governments because American fruit interests were worried their sweetheart access deals might be challenged agree with her, I think you're winning the cynical bastard vote."
Pulling her knees up to her chest, Jean laughed.. "Well, at least I have that," she said, picking up her drink to take a sip.
"I don't even know how to begin to talk to the others. It's not something you bring up at a party. Especially if your alternate version self destroyed the universe and murdered their dog or something."
"Does it? You're assuming they went through a massive dimension shift and can't figure out that you're different than the person that do this."
Jean shook her head. "I don't know what they think. And that's the point," she said, throwing her hands up. "This is all completely brand new to me. I'm making it up as I go along. It's not like I have experience with it. Every other weird thing, sure. I just---I just--I---" She swallowed, her knees and legs dropping to the floor as she rubbed her eyes, wiping away a tear.
"Jean, look-" He reached for her but pulled up partway. This wasn't Roma's strange dimension and Jean wasn't his girlfriend. "This is not going to be easy. I wish I could make it so. But you can't assume you're at fault for things outside of your control."
"I'm trying to tell myself that," Jean said quietly, her eyes flickering over him as he moved before glancing away. "It's hard to see someone with my face doing these things, good and bad, and feel nothing. I'm not a robot. Especially when they caused the others so much pain."
"Of course. But even if it was your face, it wasn't you." He tentatively moved a little closer, crouching down near her. "It wasn't you, Jean. I know that's hard to process and it's going to take time, but it wasn't you."
Jean kept her gaze down, slowly nodding. She didn't know what to say. What could you say to something like that?
"Come on. I think you could use some sleep. This will... well, likely not make any more sense in the morning, but I'll buy you breakfast. So at least there's that." Comforting wasn't high on Kevin's list of skills, but Jean didn't need hugs and fluffy feelings. She needed to come to terms with what she'd experienced and only she could make that happen. He could take care of her while she processed it, but she was the only one who could start to grapple with it.
When he mentioned 'sleep,' Jean realized just how tired she was. It was if she fully felt the reality of it all, all at once. "I can't guarantee I'll be up by noon but brunch sounds nice. Thanks," she said, managing a soft smile.
"Whatever you want, Red." .
