FM August Prompt: Reality
Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
-T.S. Eliot
*OOC -- This prompt is based on the House of M miniseries by Brian Michael Bendis, but I'm playing pretty fast and loose with canon/fanon; it's AU, of course, and doesn't reflect the views of Emma, Jean, or Logan muns, though all characters are mentioned within.
This response takes place before Scott's reunion with Jean and ensuing insanity.
"We'll all have time for nervous breakdowns later," Scott told them -- the rest of the X-men and Avengers, and the others who were about to ride into battle and change the whole world, to fight back against a reality that gave them so many of the things they had always thought they wanted. And they won the battle, in a way.
But they never did have time.
Wanda Maximoff said "No more mutants," and the world changed. Scott hadn't taken the time, hadn't had the luxury, to sit down and turn everything over in his mind, to consider what it all meant -- his role in that other world that his own desires had somehow helped to create. He didn't think about what it meant that, when Logan and the Miller girl showed up at his posh suburban home and restored his memories of reality, Scott's instinctive reaction was to vomit.
He didn't think about it, for a long time, because there was no point in thinking about it. He packed up the false memories and sent them to a far corner of his brain, to rub shoulders with everything else he couldn't afford to carry in his conscious mind.
And it worked, for a while. Things only began to change after the Professor came home and brought news from the Shi'ar empire. Your father died bravely, Scott.
That evening, Scott sat alone in the library, looking for Chris Summers's name in the footnotes of a history book. Late at night, half asleep, he had a vision of his father in a white astronaut's uniform, with a red, white, and blue patch on the sleeve. And that didn't make any sense. Chris had qualified for entry into the space program, but the fateful plane crash had happened before he could ever go into training. But more images insisted on presenting themselves, memories of his father and his mother in places and times they should never have existed: Kate Summers as a middle-aged woman, which she had never lived long enough to be. Kate and Chris, posing with green and gold streamers and a banner, "Happy 30th Anniversary." Kate in a blue dress, and Emma in white, sitting at the table of a familiar house in Anchorage, whispering over the diamond on Emma's ring finger. He couldn't understand where these scenes came from, until he strung them all together and found the common thread of color. He had seen all these things without the pervasive shading of red.
Scott had his eyes in the other world, had them in two ways: both his powers, and a means to control them. He had his parents, alive and well, and he had Emma Frost as his wife. Emma proposed to him, came to Alaska expressly for that purpose -- because, she stated frankly, she liked his genes and she liked what was in his jeans, and he wasn't that bad to look at, and if they got married the House of M would get off both their cases for squandering their hereditary gifts.
Scott knew perfectly well he didn't have to be married to do his genetic duty. He went to the clinic every few months, gave them hair and blood and semen and tried not to think about what they did with it. But Emma's reasons had their own appeal; even the blunt, unsentimental self-interest with which she stated them was its own kind of seduction. Besides, they did have fun in bed, and she was very beautiful, and he couldn't be a bush pilot forever, no matter how much he liked it. At some point, a man had to stop trying to live life on his own. He had to let go of the past, find a suitable wife, and move to Connecticut.
And then, there was another thing. A thoroughly unanticipated windfall. He loved her. Absurdly, extravagantly, and with complete honesty, Scott loved his wife, and Emma loved him in return. He would come home from his long routes as a commercial pilot, arms full of silly mementos from airport giftshops. He would come home to a few nights of elaborately prepared dinners, followed by intense, playful, imaginative sex. When he was away, she ate at restaurants with friends, or takeout, and had a close personal relationship with a vibrator -- one of the things she was good enough to describe to and, occasionally, share with him, in the course of their frequent, long-distance psychic chats.
In a few years, Scott expected a promotion to corporate headquarters in Hartford, an end to his frequent travels, and they could start having the children that House of M strongly encouraged. They had a reproductive plan filed with the district office: three girls with blonde hair and dark eyes, and the geneticist said the odds were good at least one of them would turn out to be a natural TK/TP.
Scott and Emma had a very good marriage. If he wasn't a happy man, he couldn't blame his wife. Looking back, he couldn't even blame Wanda. It was one thing to manufacture a perfect life, but all the magic in the world couldn't teach a man to be satisfied when he had never learned how.
He could look back, now, and say that he didn't like the politics of that world, that they grated on him. Trading one unjust status quo for another wasn't a satisfactory solution. Whatever the advantages of life among the power elite had been, they didn't weigh well on his conscience.
But it hadn't always been that way.
*
When Scott was eighteen, he had volunteered for SHIELD training, as a member of the elite guard. He knew they wanted him for his power; he joined for the planes. At the time, it seemed like a good tradeoff. His training officer - because Wanda apparently had a sick sense of humor - was James "Logan" Howlett, and Scott received the benefit of being singled out as a cadet of great promise, a benefit that wasn't particularly distinguishable from constant harassment and abuse. "If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger," Logan liked to say, loudly, with his face about an inch from Scott's. That took some nerve, in Scott's opinion, from a guy who apparently couldn't die. Still, that was life in the service.
And at least there was the redhead.
Jean Grey was a graduate of the New Mutant Academy, a member of the diplomatic corps, and Scott remembered every second of their interaction in painful detail. Painful, because there hadn't been very many of them. She touched his shoulder when she talked to him, leaned close to make the most inconsequential statement sound like a heart's deep secret. She knew his name, when there wasn't any reason to know his name (he was just a cadet); she called him "Mister Summers," and he had never realized that a simple name could sound like an endearment. There was no good reason for her to spend as much time around his squad as she did. It wasn't part of her duties, and yet as time went on she seemed to seize any excuse to visit their station on the helicarrier. He couldn't help wondering what it meant. . .
And then he stopped wondering, when he stepped into a hangar bay a few minutes early saw Jean pressed into Logan's arms.
"Oh, fucking hell, Melanie," Logan muttered, falling back on his habit of calling Scott whatever girl's name happened to come to mind. He stalked off, holding a fist and protruding claw behind him in Scott's general direction.
He was left facing Jean, who pushed her hair behind one ear and began to talk. "Yes, I guess. . .you saw that and. . .we're not doing anything wrong, not breaking any regs but. . . it's hard to keep things private, if you could help us stay private." And we nodded, she broke into a smile of relief. "Thank you, Mister Summers. That's a relief. And I think, maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad to have someone to talk to. I'm glad I can be honest with you now, you know, because I like having you as a friend."
And Scott said, of course, and he nodded and he listened and all the time he wondered how he had wandered into such a goddamn cliché.
But he kept up his part. He was her friend and he listened and once, only once, she came to his room at night, in tears, and lay down in his bed, and said, When he's like this, my God, I can't take it when he's like this.. And Scott put his arm around her and it would have been so easy to do more. But he just lay there with her, touching her, and let her fall asleep. In the morning, she said, "Thank you, Scott. You knew what I needed. You're so kind," and the single kiss burned into his skin, just where the tears had fallen the night before.
*
Of course, Jean Grey died young. Died younger, even, than she ever had in the real world, before she ever got to space, before she met that mythic firebird. There was a bloody logic to it. Looking back, Scott could understand. Wanda remade the world, jiggling probabilities along the lines of their dream. But her power recognized one that could rival it, did everything to keep her away.
Jean Grey died young, and in a stupid way. Sapien terrorist attack, collateral damage. For a while Scott tried to pretend it was his fault, but the truth was, he hadn't been important enough to prevent the catastrophe. But after it happened, he quit the soldiers' life, went to work on a fishing boat in the Gulf, then back to his family, and then to the Alaskan wilderness, until a woman in white rescued him and brought him to Hartford.
Scott and Emma had a good marriage. She loved him, and she knew that always, in his mind, she would have to share space with the dead, and she loved him anyway.
When Scott finally allowed himself to think about it, he saw that it hadn't been such a strange reality.
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
-T.S. Eliot
*OOC -- This prompt is based on the House of M miniseries by Brian Michael Bendis, but I'm playing pretty fast and loose with canon/fanon; it's AU, of course, and doesn't reflect the views of Emma, Jean, or Logan muns, though all characters are mentioned within.
This response takes place before Scott's reunion with Jean and ensuing insanity.
"We'll all have time for nervous breakdowns later," Scott told them -- the rest of the X-men and Avengers, and the others who were about to ride into battle and change the whole world, to fight back against a reality that gave them so many of the things they had always thought they wanted. And they won the battle, in a way.
But they never did have time.
Wanda Maximoff said "No more mutants," and the world changed. Scott hadn't taken the time, hadn't had the luxury, to sit down and turn everything over in his mind, to consider what it all meant -- his role in that other world that his own desires had somehow helped to create. He didn't think about what it meant that, when Logan and the Miller girl showed up at his posh suburban home and restored his memories of reality, Scott's instinctive reaction was to vomit.
He didn't think about it, for a long time, because there was no point in thinking about it. He packed up the false memories and sent them to a far corner of his brain, to rub shoulders with everything else he couldn't afford to carry in his conscious mind.
And it worked, for a while. Things only began to change after the Professor came home and brought news from the Shi'ar empire. Your father died bravely, Scott.
That evening, Scott sat alone in the library, looking for Chris Summers's name in the footnotes of a history book. Late at night, half asleep, he had a vision of his father in a white astronaut's uniform, with a red, white, and blue patch on the sleeve. And that didn't make any sense. Chris had qualified for entry into the space program, but the fateful plane crash had happened before he could ever go into training. But more images insisted on presenting themselves, memories of his father and his mother in places and times they should never have existed: Kate Summers as a middle-aged woman, which she had never lived long enough to be. Kate and Chris, posing with green and gold streamers and a banner, "Happy 30th Anniversary." Kate in a blue dress, and Emma in white, sitting at the table of a familiar house in Anchorage, whispering over the diamond on Emma's ring finger. He couldn't understand where these scenes came from, until he strung them all together and found the common thread of color. He had seen all these things without the pervasive shading of red.
Scott had his eyes in the other world, had them in two ways: both his powers, and a means to control them. He had his parents, alive and well, and he had Emma Frost as his wife. Emma proposed to him, came to Alaska expressly for that purpose -- because, she stated frankly, she liked his genes and she liked what was in his jeans, and he wasn't that bad to look at, and if they got married the House of M would get off both their cases for squandering their hereditary gifts.
Scott knew perfectly well he didn't have to be married to do his genetic duty. He went to the clinic every few months, gave them hair and blood and semen and tried not to think about what they did with it. But Emma's reasons had their own appeal; even the blunt, unsentimental self-interest with which she stated them was its own kind of seduction. Besides, they did have fun in bed, and she was very beautiful, and he couldn't be a bush pilot forever, no matter how much he liked it. At some point, a man had to stop trying to live life on his own. He had to let go of the past, find a suitable wife, and move to Connecticut.
And then, there was another thing. A thoroughly unanticipated windfall. He loved her. Absurdly, extravagantly, and with complete honesty, Scott loved his wife, and Emma loved him in return. He would come home from his long routes as a commercial pilot, arms full of silly mementos from airport giftshops. He would come home to a few nights of elaborately prepared dinners, followed by intense, playful, imaginative sex. When he was away, she ate at restaurants with friends, or takeout, and had a close personal relationship with a vibrator -- one of the things she was good enough to describe to and, occasionally, share with him, in the course of their frequent, long-distance psychic chats.
In a few years, Scott expected a promotion to corporate headquarters in Hartford, an end to his frequent travels, and they could start having the children that House of M strongly encouraged. They had a reproductive plan filed with the district office: three girls with blonde hair and dark eyes, and the geneticist said the odds were good at least one of them would turn out to be a natural TK/TP.
Scott and Emma had a very good marriage. If he wasn't a happy man, he couldn't blame his wife. Looking back, he couldn't even blame Wanda. It was one thing to manufacture a perfect life, but all the magic in the world couldn't teach a man to be satisfied when he had never learned how.
He could look back, now, and say that he didn't like the politics of that world, that they grated on him. Trading one unjust status quo for another wasn't a satisfactory solution. Whatever the advantages of life among the power elite had been, they didn't weigh well on his conscience.
But it hadn't always been that way.
*
When Scott was eighteen, he had volunteered for SHIELD training, as a member of the elite guard. He knew they wanted him for his power; he joined for the planes. At the time, it seemed like a good tradeoff. His training officer - because Wanda apparently had a sick sense of humor - was James "Logan" Howlett, and Scott received the benefit of being singled out as a cadet of great promise, a benefit that wasn't particularly distinguishable from constant harassment and abuse. "If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger," Logan liked to say, loudly, with his face about an inch from Scott's. That took some nerve, in Scott's opinion, from a guy who apparently couldn't die. Still, that was life in the service.
And at least there was the redhead.
Jean Grey was a graduate of the New Mutant Academy, a member of the diplomatic corps, and Scott remembered every second of their interaction in painful detail. Painful, because there hadn't been very many of them. She touched his shoulder when she talked to him, leaned close to make the most inconsequential statement sound like a heart's deep secret. She knew his name, when there wasn't any reason to know his name (he was just a cadet); she called him "Mister Summers," and he had never realized that a simple name could sound like an endearment. There was no good reason for her to spend as much time around his squad as she did. It wasn't part of her duties, and yet as time went on she seemed to seize any excuse to visit their station on the helicarrier. He couldn't help wondering what it meant. . .
And then he stopped wondering, when he stepped into a hangar bay a few minutes early saw Jean pressed into Logan's arms.
"Oh, fucking hell, Melanie," Logan muttered, falling back on his habit of calling Scott whatever girl's name happened to come to mind. He stalked off, holding a fist and protruding claw behind him in Scott's general direction.
He was left facing Jean, who pushed her hair behind one ear and began to talk. "Yes, I guess. . .you saw that and. . .we're not doing anything wrong, not breaking any regs but. . . it's hard to keep things private, if you could help us stay private." And we nodded, she broke into a smile of relief. "Thank you, Mister Summers. That's a relief. And I think, maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad to have someone to talk to. I'm glad I can be honest with you now, you know, because I like having you as a friend."
And Scott said, of course, and he nodded and he listened and all the time he wondered how he had wandered into such a goddamn cliché.
But he kept up his part. He was her friend and he listened and once, only once, she came to his room at night, in tears, and lay down in his bed, and said, When he's like this, my God, I can't take it when he's like this.. And Scott put his arm around her and it would have been so easy to do more. But he just lay there with her, touching her, and let her fall asleep. In the morning, she said, "Thank you, Scott. You knew what I needed. You're so kind," and the single kiss burned into his skin, just where the tears had fallen the night before.
*
Of course, Jean Grey died young. Died younger, even, than she ever had in the real world, before she ever got to space, before she met that mythic firebird. There was a bloody logic to it. Looking back, Scott could understand. Wanda remade the world, jiggling probabilities along the lines of their dream. But her power recognized one that could rival it, did everything to keep her away.
Jean Grey died young, and in a stupid way. Sapien terrorist attack, collateral damage. For a while Scott tried to pretend it was his fault, but the truth was, he hadn't been important enough to prevent the catastrophe. But after it happened, he quit the soldiers' life, went to work on a fishing boat in the Gulf, then back to his family, and then to the Alaskan wilderness, until a woman in white rescued him and brought him to Hartford.
Scott and Emma had a good marriage. She loved him, and she knew that always, in his mind, she would have to share space with the dead, and she loved him anyway.
When Scott finally allowed himself to think about it, he saw that it hadn't been such a strange reality.