January prompt: Taking advantage
Have you ever taken advantage of someone? Talk about why you did it.
Takes place after this RP
Logan --
So here I am writing to you. I'm awake and I'm writing to you. I guess that's two self-evident statements in one. Three if you count "here." Here is Bobby's cabin. I'm here, and it's winter, and I'm writing to you.
It's winter and it's cold outside and you're outside. You left me in bed this morning. I think you kissed me. I didn't ask where you were going. The sun was still down. Maybe I was still asleep.
Now I'm awake. It's still early but the sun is rising. I'm sitting in Bobby's living room with my feet in socks up on Bobby's ottoman, imagining you out in the woods, doing whatever the hell you're doing. Communing with wolves, hunting with your bare hands. I can't decide if I think it's funny or I think it's kind of hot, or if I just think it's you. Anyway, the sun is up and pretty soon you'll walk in the door and we won't talk about it, won't talk about anything that's happened in the past few days. I'm getting up now, I'm going to make us some coffee.
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Coffee is hot, coffee is good. I've drawn little X-signs across the page, and you haven't come back from wherever you are. You'd almost think I'm trying to put off writing this letter. Which is funny. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to write because I'm not going to give it to you. Not now, maybe not for a long time. Maybe never. Maybe by the time I'm ready to give it to you, I will have realized that none of this applies. Maybe we'll have a laugh.
Maybe it won't matter.
But now. . .
Now is winter, and we came up here to Bobby's cabin. Maybe you'll think back and go, "Oh, that weekend, I remember the one." But there might have been a lot of them by now. So I'll just say it was the first time, when we came up here, the time that I just barely managed to give you a blow job without flipping out. Then we went in the yard, and shot arrows, and you told me -- well, you told me a lot of things. But the part that stuck in my head was 'what you're willing to give.' That you didn't expect more than that. And I think I gave you some wrong kind of answer, that I missed the point or was trying to miss the point. You weren't talking about time together or what we call each other or anything like that. What you want more of is me, and I can't figure out how the hell to answer that.
What you want is more emotional. . .I don't know why it's hard to say 'love.' Honestly. I don't have any problem understanding that you could love Jean, that she could love you back. I don't know why it's hard with us, and it's too easy to say because we're guys. I'm pretty sure I've loved men before, and they've loved me, too -- for the length of a long bad week. From the start to the end of a sea voyage. As long as I needed it.
And that's the thing, see? You say you'll take whatever I give, and from the way you say that, like I'm not taking anything back. But taking what people give -- that's what I do. You know that, when you can see around the edges of your crush or your love or whatever you want to call this thing you have for me. The first time you saw me, I was sizing up the new team like you guys were horses. Where were you strong, where were you weak, and how could I use you to save my friends?
That's what I've been trained to do; that's what being a team leader means. You know it as well as I do: making quick, dirty judgments about who can help the most people at the least risk. It was like that for me from the beginning. Hank was the strong one, Bobby was the fast one, Warren had wings. Jean was the one I could love.
I used her too, Logan. You should know that. You're the one she always went to when it got to be too hard.
I don't just mean that I used her as Cyclops, the guy who said, a week before the thing at Hellfire, "Well, maybe we don't know how to control her, but it's sure good to have that kind of power on our side." Even after that, there was a day in the desert. I don't know what to say about it, I don't know if I've ever talked to anyone about it, and I don't know what I would say except that somehow it turned out to be the pivot point of my life. I was there with Jean, there in the desert, and she put her hand on my eyes and at that moment I thought, "All right, Phoenix, let the whole goddamn universe melt, as long as I have this."
Some days I think I've spent the rest of my life, every minute and every hour since, trying to atone for that thought.
That's pretty arrogant, come to think of it. The idea that a man can take advantage of a god. Maybe it's just easier to think about that than the other times. Warren, who loved Jean as much as I did and probably loved me, too. I walked away from him. Lee was a nice rebound girl -- she gave me a good job and a warm bed -- and then there was Maddie, who I used like a bandage to stop the bleeding, then ripped off and threw aside and was surprised when she turned up damaged.
I could even talk to you about Emma, though you wouldn't want to hear it. How I went to her for exactly the amount of affection I was willing to accept, and how long it took me to see that it had turned into more. How much longer, after that, until I realized I was in love with her, too.
So that, my good, old friend, is the history you're up against, in terms of how much I have to give. The funny thing is, there probably isn't a single part of that you don't already know. And that, I realize as I finish this letter, is why I don't have to give it to you. I doubt I'm confessing a damn thing you haven't already figured out.
And you want me anyway.
I've been writing for an hour, and my hand is sore, and I understand you even less than I did when I started.
But I feel okay about it.
I guess that's something.
-Scott
Takes place after this RP
Logan --
So here I am writing to you. I'm awake and I'm writing to you. I guess that's two self-evident statements in one. Three if you count "here." Here is Bobby's cabin. I'm here, and it's winter, and I'm writing to you.
It's winter and it's cold outside and you're outside. You left me in bed this morning. I think you kissed me. I didn't ask where you were going. The sun was still down. Maybe I was still asleep.
Now I'm awake. It's still early but the sun is rising. I'm sitting in Bobby's living room with my feet in socks up on Bobby's ottoman, imagining you out in the woods, doing whatever the hell you're doing. Communing with wolves, hunting with your bare hands. I can't decide if I think it's funny or I think it's kind of hot, or if I just think it's you. Anyway, the sun is up and pretty soon you'll walk in the door and we won't talk about it, won't talk about anything that's happened in the past few days. I'm getting up now, I'm going to make us some coffee.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Coffee is hot, coffee is good. I've drawn little X-signs across the page, and you haven't come back from wherever you are. You'd almost think I'm trying to put off writing this letter. Which is funny. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to write because I'm not going to give it to you. Not now, maybe not for a long time. Maybe never. Maybe by the time I'm ready to give it to you, I will have realized that none of this applies. Maybe we'll have a laugh.
Maybe it won't matter.
But now. . .
Now is winter, and we came up here to Bobby's cabin. Maybe you'll think back and go, "Oh, that weekend, I remember the one." But there might have been a lot of them by now. So I'll just say it was the first time, when we came up here, the time that I just barely managed to give you a blow job without flipping out. Then we went in the yard, and shot arrows, and you told me -- well, you told me a lot of things. But the part that stuck in my head was 'what you're willing to give.' That you didn't expect more than that. And I think I gave you some wrong kind of answer, that I missed the point or was trying to miss the point. You weren't talking about time together or what we call each other or anything like that. What you want more of is me, and I can't figure out how the hell to answer that.
What you want is more emotional. . .I don't know why it's hard to say 'love.' Honestly. I don't have any problem understanding that you could love Jean, that she could love you back. I don't know why it's hard with us, and it's too easy to say because we're guys. I'm pretty sure I've loved men before, and they've loved me, too -- for the length of a long bad week. From the start to the end of a sea voyage. As long as I needed it.
And that's the thing, see? You say you'll take whatever I give, and from the way you say that, like I'm not taking anything back. But taking what people give -- that's what I do. You know that, when you can see around the edges of your crush or your love or whatever you want to call this thing you have for me. The first time you saw me, I was sizing up the new team like you guys were horses. Where were you strong, where were you weak, and how could I use you to save my friends?
That's what I've been trained to do; that's what being a team leader means. You know it as well as I do: making quick, dirty judgments about who can help the most people at the least risk. It was like that for me from the beginning. Hank was the strong one, Bobby was the fast one, Warren had wings. Jean was the one I could love.
I used her too, Logan. You should know that. You're the one she always went to when it got to be too hard.
I don't just mean that I used her as Cyclops, the guy who said, a week before the thing at Hellfire, "Well, maybe we don't know how to control her, but it's sure good to have that kind of power on our side." Even after that, there was a day in the desert. I don't know what to say about it, I don't know if I've ever talked to anyone about it, and I don't know what I would say except that somehow it turned out to be the pivot point of my life. I was there with Jean, there in the desert, and she put her hand on my eyes and at that moment I thought, "All right, Phoenix, let the whole goddamn universe melt, as long as I have this."
Some days I think I've spent the rest of my life, every minute and every hour since, trying to atone for that thought.
That's pretty arrogant, come to think of it. The idea that a man can take advantage of a god. Maybe it's just easier to think about that than the other times. Warren, who loved Jean as much as I did and probably loved me, too. I walked away from him. Lee was a nice rebound girl -- she gave me a good job and a warm bed -- and then there was Maddie, who I used like a bandage to stop the bleeding, then ripped off and threw aside and was surprised when she turned up damaged.
I could even talk to you about Emma, though you wouldn't want to hear it. How I went to her for exactly the amount of affection I was willing to accept, and how long it took me to see that it had turned into more. How much longer, after that, until I realized I was in love with her, too.
So that, my good, old friend, is the history you're up against, in terms of how much I have to give. The funny thing is, there probably isn't a single part of that you don't already know. And that, I realize as I finish this letter, is why I don't have to give it to you. I doubt I'm confessing a damn thing you haven't already figured out.
And you want me anyway.
I've been writing for an hour, and my hand is sore, and I understand you even less than I did when I started.
But I feel okay about it.
I guess that's something.
-Scott