xp_logs | Jean and Madelyn talk about Remy

x-jeangrey.livejournal.com posting in

Also featuring the world's worst meta-pun, because it had to be done.

It was a risk, coming down to medlab when Le Beau was supposedly due there, but Madelyn found herself going any way. She told herself it was so she could be entertained by the bitching, maybe figure out a better way of dealing with the man. It wasn't a test to see if the insanity had gone away, no, not at all. And of course it had - it was a stress reaction, brought on by Youra, that was all. All that death... of course there was going to be a physiological reaction. The fact it was Le Beau... well, that could be explained in terms of completely inappropriate people with no chance of ties forming.

There, easy.

There was no-one around in the staff area, so Madelyn sat herself down in the first chair available. It was only after she'd sat that she noticed the cup of tea sitting on the coffee table in front of it, steaming gently.

Jean's nose was firmly buried in the paperwork she'd meant to pick up and take back to the staff area, so it took a few moments for the presence of another person in the medlab to register. Along with the realization that Madelyn had come down came the memory of the cup of tea she'd already brewed for herself and the comfortable chair she'd meant to take these files back to. She picked up the papers and headed back into the staff area, pausing at the doorway.

"No stealing the comfy chair. I was here first, Madelyn. Prior claim." Jean smiled. "Come down to get some work done?"

"I'm sorry, I sat down without looking, and I was just..." Flustered, Madelyn got up and moved to the next most comfortable chair. "Um, no, not work. I just thought I'd come down and see..." Not see if this insane attraction's still there, no way' "See if you needed a hand with anything." And that was such a bad way of putting it - she'd nicely implied Jean wasn't capable of a basic physical.

... insane attraction... wasn't capable... Jean blinked, too startled by the flustered thoughts fluttering about in Madelyn's mind to really make heads or tails of them. "Woah, woah, calm down, Madelyn. I didn't mean it about the chair, not really. And Le Beau isn't here; I'm going to go talk to him tomorrow morning."

"Who said anything about Le Beau?" Madelyn replied a little too quickly. 'Crap, is it that obvious? Oh my God does everyone know? I'll never be able to show my face again ever... Stay calm, Maddie, there's no reason to panic here. Jean doesn't know anything she'd have to be a mind re... Oh fuck.' "Oh God, you know, don't you?" she almost whispered. "What's been going on? I swear, I don't even _like_ the man, I just can't help..." At that point her mind helpfully supplied images of just what it was she couldn't help doing, reminding her once again of just how good a kisser the Cajun was.

Jean really wished she could close her mental eyes. She hated prying and the thing with sex was that it always looked so silly to anyone who wasn't involved. Besides which, it had been quite a while since she had gotten any. "Um..." she managed, which wasn't terribly coherent, and "please calm down," which was better.

Belatedly, Madelyn remembered her basic psi training with Charles and managed a somewhat-shaky shield. "God, I'm so sorry," she said, looking striken. "That was... well, 'rude' doesn't even begin to cover it. It's just..." She spread her hands helplessly. "I can't even begin to explain it, and that's part of the problem. Not being in control."

The shield helped cut the noise, and working on putting it up had given Madelyn other things to think about, which also helped. "I think I am currently the poster child for not being in control, and it was hardly your fault as far as being rude goes. I'm stuck in the awkward position of being a perpetual eavesdropper." Jean crossed to the vacated chair and sat down rather quickly. "Want to talk about it?"

Madelyn's immediate reaction was to say no, as loudly and forcefully as she could, but she realised that there were no such things as accidents, especially with telepaths. "You know, I really think I do," she said, perhaps a little pitifully. "Another perspective on the whole situation just might help convince me I'm not insane. Or that I am - that's the only explanation that let's me keep any semblence of pride in this whole mess."

"I'd be glad to help, if I can," Jean told her, wondering briefly what this whole situation would mean as far as Hank and his feelings for Madelyn went.

"It's insane, it really is. I loathe the man - he's rude, he's annoying, he thinks he's so damn great and we're all totally clueless. I hate everything about him and what he stands for. But..." And here Madelyn's voice turned plaintive. "We were arguing about something, nothing important, the usual crap, and suddenly all I wanted to do was kiss him, so I did. I swore it wouldn't happen again, but..." She shook her head. "I don't understand this at all. I don't love him, I don't even _like_ him. But we can't keep our hands off each other. It's downright disturbing."

"Yes, but liking someone and being attracted to them aren't necessarily the same thing," Jean said. "Neither are being attracted to someone and actually wanting to be with them."

"I was hoping it was just a stress thing, after Youra," Madelyn admitted. "I'm not the masochistic type, and only a masochist would want to do those sorts of things with someone who has no respect whatsoever for them." Shoulders slumping, she covered her face with her hands. "I feel so ashamed of myself."

"Oh, no, Maddie, don't." Jean sighed, sitting forward. "There are a lot of things this could be... Have you thought about talking with Dr. Samson about it?"

"I did, after the first time. When it happened again, I couldn't face telling him what I'd done, and then I went away on vacation." Madelyn's hands stayed where they were, her voice a little muffled. "I don't want this, I really don't. And if anyone else found out..." She didn't finish the thought - it was too awful to contemplate, losing the respect of her friends.

"I swear I won't tell, Madelyn," Jean promised, "but, I have to ask, if you don't want this, what do you want? Repressed desires can find very strange outlets..."

"I wish I knew," Madelyn said with a sigh, rubbing her face tiredly. "Work, my personal life, everything's all jumbled up, and I'm trying to sort it out, find what my place is. Le Beau's just a symptom of it, I think - an easy way out of thinking." Slumping back in her chair, she looked at Jean, realising who she was talking to for the first time. "It feels like I'm nothing but a wanna-be, sometimes. Too human to be an X-Man, too much of an action junkie to be a school doctor, too weak to be a proper FBI agent. I was so intimidated, when you came back - it felt like you were taking my place."

"I'm sorry for that," Jean said. "If it helps, I keep feeling like everyone has already taken my place. And I do understand needing to try and sort things out and... well, and not feeling like you can."

"I've been offered a job with the Bureau again," Madelyn said with a sigh. "But I don't want to take it, even though it's everything I've ever wanted. There's so much I can do here... and there's people I don't want to leave."

"Even if you don't know what you want, knowing what you don't want is a good first step. We'd be sorry to lose you, you know."

"So people keep telling me," Madelyn replied with a hint of a wry grin. Talking about it... did make her feel better. Especially when Jean hadn't reacted with the revulsion and disappointment she knew her friends would have had. "I'm working on a compromise that should benefit all concerned, and the team as well. I just wish I could sort out the rest of my life. Everything's so uncertain." And by that she meant this alleged thing with Hank and Kurt. People kept saying there was something there, but if they didn't _say_, how could she know?

... if they didn't say... Jean nodded, in reply to both the thought and the speech, although that Kurt was also a possibly suitor was news. And now she really was prying. She refocused and said, "I know it doesn't help to hear it but, well, give it some more time. The holiday will have helped some."

"Well, it's not happening again. Le Beau, I mean," Madelyn said decisively, even though the previous times had been just as decisive. "I'm lonely, that much is obvious - I never noticed it much working in the Bureau, but around here, with all the couples? It's hard." Something Jean would probably understand too. "It's been five years since I last dated anyone even half-seriously, and that ended badly."

"I'm sorry to hear that. And yes, I know, it's... difficult." Jean sighed. "You see them all being happy just being together..." ... and you miss it, was the unfinished thought.

"And you feel like such a bitch, since you're resenting their happiness and wishing they'd go do it somewhere else," Madelyn chimed in with an actual wry smile this time. "It doesn't help everyone's been asking about my steamy holiday romance. Which is very non-existent, mind you."

Jean smiled back just as wryly. "Yes, I would say that just about covers the emotional response. And I won't say 'that's too bad' unless you wanted there to be steamy holiday romancing. In which case, consider it said."

"Right now, the last thing I wanted was another complication." Madelyn snorted slightly. "Although it's probably not half as complicated as I seem to think it is, given the lack of anything except friendship from certain areas. I'd hazard a guess and say people are just reading things into perfectly innocent situations."

Jean bit her tongue, her promise to Hank not to say anything to Madelyn foremost in her mind. Luckily, Jean was the telepath, not the other way around. "So you came down here because you did want to see LeBeau or because you didn't?" Jean asked, diverting the conversational train

"Both?" Madelyn suggested. "I wanted to see if it was still there, the attraction, I mean. But if it is, then that's just another complication. Although with someone else around, at least things couldn't get out of hand. And the worst part is I _know_ he's going to use this against me somehow. Tell someone at the worst possible time."

"Well, if he truly isn't fond of you, either, I doubt he'd really be talking it up that much," Jean said, although she didn't know the Cajun at all, so there was a lack of certainty in her voice.

"He's got less to lose by admitting it," Madelyn said. "That whole sex god thing of his... people will just chalk it up to him being him. Me, on the other hand..." She shuddered slightly. "And it would be so like him to bring it up to get something out of me. Or to just make me look bad. That's the sort of calculating bastard he is."

"Well, you know him better than I..." Jean said, then winced. "Ok, I didn't mean that like that."

"It's all right, I know you didn't." Madelyn ran her hand through her mane of thick reddish curls. "Ugh, this is such a mess. Maybe I could talk to him, like a reasonable person?" With a snort, she shook her head. "And pigs might fly - every time I talk to him, he ends up making me lose my temper. He knows my buttons far too well." Realising what she'd said, she blushed bright-red. "Um, not like that."

Jean smiled. "I know. Well, if talking face to face gets you in trouble, there's always email."

"That's just as bad - the last time we had an email conversation it ended with him calling me a cheap Jean Grey knock-off." Madelyn gave Jean an apologetic smile. "Apparently my initial reaction to you being back wasn't as subtle as I'd thought. Then again, he is trained to pick up that sort of thing."

Jean blinked, her eyebrows raising. "Ah... Yes, I can see how that would be... unsettling."

"I'll think of something. I need to settle this, one way or another." She gave the other woman a grateful smile. "And it's helped, actually talking about it."

"Well that I am most definitely glad to hear. If you need to talk again you know where to find me," Jean said with a smile.