Smile
By Loki
WARNING: Dark, troubling fiction ahead, involves child abuse, drug consume and other dark and disturbing themes. Consider yourselves warned!
Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money off it so really no reason to sue;
-brief mentioning of song which I also do not own;
World: Movie (somewhere between 2 and 3) but doesn't respect the action/ characters that much so I guess I could say Movie crossed with AU;
Pairings: Hint of Scott/Jean, Logan/Jean;
Summary: When every smile you show to anyone in your life is a lie.
Dedicated to: Everyone in my life who I ever smile to 'fond smile'
Written from Scott's POV
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What a stupid question to be asking, Professor. I'd half expected something better this morning.
"What are you smiling about?"- what kind of a question is that?
Well, for once, I'm smiling at the thought of you troubling yourself over my condition when I deflect every single wave of comforting empathic thought waves which you so constantly throw my way trying to envelop me in them as you once enveloped me with your arms in your warm embrace when I was but a weak child still afraid of the dark. I wonder just how much does it bother you that every single effort you make to try and get through to me I deflect to the nearest wall. I wonder just how worried you are for my sanity and health since Jean died and I go to bed alone at night. Your useless tries to get through to me are proof of your turmoil and, well, I guess I can fake a smile for that.
Truth is that when Jean died you were the only one in the world who could have made her give up her actions. Didn't you hear my silent scream to your mind in which I begged on all fours for you to use all your power to stop her? Didn't you feel me raking at your mind's door as a dog does when it's raining outside?
It was just like that song of that band, 'Theatre of Tragedy': "Come in out of the rain thou sayest / But thou never stepst aside…"
You ignored me surrendering to you completely and instead acted as a speaker for Jean. And whom did you call out with her voice? Logan! The one being who kills me just by being alive!
It was right then that you mutilated me, Professor. It was then that I was left alone and my mind made the connections easily: if the two persons whom I held more dear than anything I valued had chosen to leave me alone in a place where every light is gone and every sound is deafening then my path was clearly given to me by forces superior to me, the forces of fate. And my path will be that of loneliness, guided by the single universal truth of survival: if you're strong you live, if you're weak you die.
I was amazed myself at how easily I've come to accept this concept of loneliness, probably aided by the fact that nothing and no one had really been mine to begin with. And I'm not talking about the 'lone wolf' bravado shit that Logan takes so much delight in. That's bull shit just like Logan is, because he never knew what it's like to really be left alone. When he needed answers there were always the Professor or Ororo there to provide him with them. And of course Jean, who was there for him in all the ways that she could – hell, even I never knew she could be that flexible. A cold laughter sweeps through me when I remember those images she was unknowingly projecting into my head.
So, dear Logan, your lone wolf attitude is bull shit. You may love tackling adversaries on your own, but when it comes to really being alone, here referring to your mind and soul, you're just a kid like everyone else- you desperately need a mommy's dress to hide behind. My friend –for people who share the best things in their lives, in my case Jean, are called 'friends', are they not?- you know exactly shit about what being alone truly means. It rips a man to pieces and we don't heal as you do, Logan. I guess I can fake a smile for that too, enjoy it, friend and know this: the real loneliness isn't in the world of flesh and blood, it's in the world of thought and feeling and that's the only world that truly matters.
But concepts like these must be evading you as instead of ever concerning yourself to use other parts of your body other than your fists or dick and using your brain to think of such concepts you were much more preoccupied with seducing my fiancée. I've seen your eyes and felt your sent even before you walked in through the door that cursed day when you returned. In an instant I felt something in Jean break and I felt I'd lost something which meant everything to me. Even then I kept my cool and acted towards her as normally as ever.
I can clearly remember the first night that she sneaked out of my bead and into yours. She tried to close the link as thoroughly as she could but I had grown up next to a telepath and was going to marry one so I knew enough for me to access the link without her letting me. One thing which you always knew about me dear Jean, but never remembered was that I am just like a machine: I gather data about anything and analyze its possibilities to the extreme. You were everything to me, how could you not figure out that I knew everything about you? That night when you slept with Logan I saw it all through your eyes and it drove me to madness and back. It was the first time I experienced such madness. I ended up mutilating my left arm… using my own teeth. But I was still efficient enough to shut it all down and stop myself from making you a scene and blasting Logan to kingdom come. Instead I convinced myself that a direct approach would only serve to aggravate things, so I chose to ignore your mischief and try and show you all the ways through which I can be better than Logan. I acted even nicer and more romantic towards you than ever, in hopes that you would notice, in hopes that you would see that I am willing to do anything and everything for you. But despite that you continued the cheating and I continued to blame myself thinking that I was not good enough for you and trying to be. I ran myself down in the dirt and shoved myself in there so deep I couldn't even breathe, but it was divine because it was for you. You never noticed that I was always aware of when you cheated on me with Logan, but Jean, baby, my one true love, did you never ask yourself why the hell did I stop telling you 'I love you' after the first time the cheating began? Did you never, not once wondered why those three little words which were yours from me any and every time we talked never left my mouth and heart after the first time you cheated on me? Well, if you did, you sure never acted upon it and now you're dead and with you so is my love, for you were my one true love, the only I could ever have. The one who always left me behind and never wondered why. Fine, I guess I can fake a smile for you.
This fake smile I learnt from the Cyclops within me which I've had since birth, I think, only to be named when I arrived at Professor X's School for the Gifted. When I was a blind child of the streets and Jack abused me and the other kids I thought for sure I would die. I was lonely then too but not completely alone. I had Matt Murdock with me, the other blind kid and he and I were each other's salvation. Jack would beat on us daily, and if we cried it just aggravated him and his friends more. If we smiled even after he'd beaten on us they'd get sick of us and leave us alone. I can remember how often we'd succeed in stealing some leftovers from jack's table and we would run in the back of the alley and have a genuine feast from that. I wonder what the passer-byes thought of the two dirty children who touched each other faces searching for each others mouth to feed each other in a childish game where I'd feed him and he'd feed me and that way his life was mine and mine was his. Sometimes, just sometimes, we'd steal ourselves some crack from the packages jack had us deliver through the streets. And then we hid in the same alley and I drugged Matt and he drugged me and we each offered the other moments of happiness. That life was weird, painful, grotesque, I know, but at least I wasn't alone… All that stopped when Jack killed Matt right in front of my eyes –though I was blind in that split second when I heard his neck break from the force of Jack's blow and when I heard Matt's fading voice calling out my name felt like I saw him, for the briefest of moments. Jack had beaten on me until I couldn't stand up and was dragging across the floor –still with the same smile on my face- when Matt abandoned his smile for tears and jumped Jack screaming for him to stop beating on me. It was then that Jack O'Diamonds mutant power first surfaced when his hand turned to a diamond like hand when he struck Matt breaking his neck from the moment of the impact. But I wasn't going to learn that until some eight years later. When the horrid moment occurred Jack ran away and that room was left with a blind and bloodied kid dragging himself along the floor looking for his former best friend who was now just a pile of meat going cold. God damn it Matt, the smile saved me, you should have kept it and we'd both have walked out of there. Poor Matt got killed trying to save me. I guess I can fake a smile for him.
Storm put a hand on my shoulder the other day saying that love has a way of finding everyone and that no matter how thorn and tattered two persons are, when they find each other they melt together and shine like gold again. I looked into her big brown eyes and smiled. Oh, my dear Storm, what you say is so true for those people who still have hope in their heart, for those people who are not mutilated by pain and ever-flowing streams of tears which dry up on heated cheeks. You have no idea of the shattered world of one who chose loneliness as his only and faithful companion. You have no idea of how it feels like to not care about anything anymore. You do not know that when someone reaches the point where, in their head, they throw themselves under the wheels of every car, bus or train that passes them that person is scarred for all life. You cannot understand how love and light and hope are things which do not exist for he who kills himself a hundred time each passing day. But every time he does so it's with a big smile on their lips. That uncontrollable urge which rises from within heeding you to jump from that balcony or use that knife to cut something else than bread is so powerful that even you don't know if you'll give into it or not until the moment passes and you take in one more breath. For someone who can die a hundred times a day there is no hope or love. But I guess I can fake a smile for that.
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Professor X raised his gaze from the pages of the morning paper as he felt Scott approaching the kitchen. He was very pleased when the gaze he held upon the open door fell upon the radiant smile on Scott's face as his protégé stopped in the doorway for a second to take in the scenery of everyone sitting around the table, before walking in.
"Good morning, Scott," Xavier smiled, vastly pleased at Scott's obviously happy mood that morning. "And what are you smiling about?" the Professor asked as he reached for his cup of tea.
"Oh, nothing, Sir," Scott replied with the same friendly smile on his face.
And it was very true that Scott Summers, leader of the X-Men and student at Xavier's School for the Gifted really had no reason to smile. Not even one.
Fin