FM prompt - June
Place all your bets and watch me lose
The life that I got but never used.
Dream every night that one will come true
But only bad ones ever do. . .
Won't let it pass me by again
Happens after this interaction.
As soon as Logan is out of sight, Scott turns back to the boathouse. The door is locked, but it takes ten seconds with his pocketknife to fix that. This is a skill he was forced to perfect in the first month of his marriage; Jean had a remarkable ability to misplace keys, including his. Her solution -- which involved disassembling the door at a molecular level, then "repairing" it once she was inside -- proved effective, but a little unnerving, and he had managed to convince her it was overkill.
Scott steps inside. He isn't sure whether the building still has electricity. He doesn't remember having anything turned off, but it hasn't officially been in use since the post-Decimation refugees left the grounds. This is the sort of task that Emma or Hank might have taken into their own hands, thinking that Scott didn't want to deal with this place, or the memories involved in it. Which, on a normal day, would be true.
This is turning out to be a far from normal day.
He turns on the light. The bulb flickers and dies, but he doesn't need it anyway. Scott carries his light source with him, everything outlined in dull red hues. There is still a little furniture left, but nothing he recognizes. The place was cleaned out when he was supposed to be dead. Jean didn't want to live here anymore -- which was understandable -- and when Scott returned, he just moved into her room at the mansion. He doesn't remember there being any conversation about it. He doesn't remember making any choices. In those early days after getting Apocalypse out of his head, he had still been wandering around with a sort of gauze over his emotions, everything felt at a cool remove. He sees it now. He couldn't then, not when he was inside of it.
He remembers trying to sleep in Jean's new room, feeling suffocated by the walls. He remembers waking from dark, violent dreams, a beast trying to scratch its way out from behind his eyes. At first, his wife tried to soothe him; putting her hands on him, reminding him the demon was gone. He remembers how he jerked away from her touch and how later she stopped trying, only asked with a withering look whether he'd be more comfortable in a different bed. Scott shares the same room now -- or its rebuilt equivalent -- with Emma. He wonders whether he is obstinately trying to reconstruct his life along patterns that have never worked before. He's hurt and someone tries to touch him -- Jean then, Emma now -- and he shakes them off, pulls away. When touching Jean hurt too much, he had gone to Emma. And now. . .now. . .
Now his mouth tastes like Logan and his T-shirt carries a smell that isn't his own. Now he has an erection pushing against the fabric of his Levi's and he thinks, Cold shower. He walks to the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he goes. Stepping into the shower, he yanks on the faucet and prepares for a freezing blast. But the pipes hardly even sputter, and the hot water kicks in almost instantly. Somebody's been using this building; most likely, kids coming out here to have sex, then washing off the evidence. He wonders which ones -- Emma would know -- and, while he ought to be thinking of ways to lock the place down, all he can manage is a faint, Good for them. He and Jean came out here fairly often, when they were students, and right now Scott doesn't feel like becoming more of a hypocrite than he is already.
He closes his eyes, folds his glasses into the soap dish, and gives in to instinct. He puts one hand on the wall of the shower and touches himself with the other. He doesn't think about Logan, or Jean, or Emma, only concentrates on the physical sensation -- his hand, and his arousal, and the hot water on his back. It's over very quickly, and only as he's cleaning his hands in the shower-stream does he realize that Logan has probably -- almost certainly -- gone somewhere to do the same thing. They had kissed for a while, and Scott was fairly certain Logan had been into it, too. The easy answer -- this just proves Logan really is a pervert who will do anything with a pulse -- doesn't stack up with the evidence. If that was it, why did he walk away?
Dammit. Scott rests his head against the wall, hot water still hitting his back. He remembers how Jean used to barge in on his showers. Sometimes she would kiss him, sometimes back him into the plexiglass door and start doing a lot more than that. Sometimes, she would just hide his glasses and make him finish a conversation he would try to avoid in other circumstances.
This place was their first real home together. This place reminds him of all of his failures. I'm not going to let this happen again, he tells himself. Emma and I have a real chance. I'm not going to let myself fuck this up.
That is, of course, a very very easy thing to say.
The life that I got but never used.
Dream every night that one will come true
But only bad ones ever do. . .
Won't let it pass me by again
Happens after this interaction.
As soon as Logan is out of sight, Scott turns back to the boathouse. The door is locked, but it takes ten seconds with his pocketknife to fix that. This is a skill he was forced to perfect in the first month of his marriage; Jean had a remarkable ability to misplace keys, including his. Her solution -- which involved disassembling the door at a molecular level, then "repairing" it once she was inside -- proved effective, but a little unnerving, and he had managed to convince her it was overkill.
Scott steps inside. He isn't sure whether the building still has electricity. He doesn't remember having anything turned off, but it hasn't officially been in use since the post-Decimation refugees left the grounds. This is the sort of task that Emma or Hank might have taken into their own hands, thinking that Scott didn't want to deal with this place, or the memories involved in it. Which, on a normal day, would be true.
This is turning out to be a far from normal day.
He turns on the light. The bulb flickers and dies, but he doesn't need it anyway. Scott carries his light source with him, everything outlined in dull red hues. There is still a little furniture left, but nothing he recognizes. The place was cleaned out when he was supposed to be dead. Jean didn't want to live here anymore -- which was understandable -- and when Scott returned, he just moved into her room at the mansion. He doesn't remember there being any conversation about it. He doesn't remember making any choices. In those early days after getting Apocalypse out of his head, he had still been wandering around with a sort of gauze over his emotions, everything felt at a cool remove. He sees it now. He couldn't then, not when he was inside of it.
He remembers trying to sleep in Jean's new room, feeling suffocated by the walls. He remembers waking from dark, violent dreams, a beast trying to scratch its way out from behind his eyes. At first, his wife tried to soothe him; putting her hands on him, reminding him the demon was gone. He remembers how he jerked away from her touch and how later she stopped trying, only asked with a withering look whether he'd be more comfortable in a different bed. Scott shares the same room now -- or its rebuilt equivalent -- with Emma. He wonders whether he is obstinately trying to reconstruct his life along patterns that have never worked before. He's hurt and someone tries to touch him -- Jean then, Emma now -- and he shakes them off, pulls away. When touching Jean hurt too much, he had gone to Emma. And now. . .now. . .
Now his mouth tastes like Logan and his T-shirt carries a smell that isn't his own. Now he has an erection pushing against the fabric of his Levi's and he thinks, Cold shower. He walks to the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he goes. Stepping into the shower, he yanks on the faucet and prepares for a freezing blast. But the pipes hardly even sputter, and the hot water kicks in almost instantly. Somebody's been using this building; most likely, kids coming out here to have sex, then washing off the evidence. He wonders which ones -- Emma would know -- and, while he ought to be thinking of ways to lock the place down, all he can manage is a faint, Good for them. He and Jean came out here fairly often, when they were students, and right now Scott doesn't feel like becoming more of a hypocrite than he is already.
He closes his eyes, folds his glasses into the soap dish, and gives in to instinct. He puts one hand on the wall of the shower and touches himself with the other. He doesn't think about Logan, or Jean, or Emma, only concentrates on the physical sensation -- his hand, and his arousal, and the hot water on his back. It's over very quickly, and only as he's cleaning his hands in the shower-stream does he realize that Logan has probably -- almost certainly -- gone somewhere to do the same thing. They had kissed for a while, and Scott was fairly certain Logan had been into it, too. The easy answer -- this just proves Logan really is a pervert who will do anything with a pulse -- doesn't stack up with the evidence. If that was it, why did he walk away?
Dammit. Scott rests his head against the wall, hot water still hitting his back. He remembers how Jean used to barge in on his showers. Sometimes she would kiss him, sometimes back him into the plexiglass door and start doing a lot more than that. Sometimes, she would just hide his glasses and make him finish a conversation he would try to avoid in other circumstances.
This place was their first real home together. This place reminds him of all of his failures. I'm not going to let this happen again, he tells himself. Emma and I have a real chance. I'm not going to let myself fuck this up.
That is, of course, a very very easy thing to say.