Cheat
by Thyme In Her Eyes
Author's Note: Just to forewarn everyone, this is an introspective Jean-centric piece set somewhere between X1 and X2. Contains plenty of shades of Jean/Scott and Jean/Logan (and gets a little bit dirty later on). Any feedback would make my day. Oh, and just to disclaim: I don't own the characters and am making no profit from this. Now, enjoy!
-- CHEAT --
'Is there price to burn this paradise?'
– Coheed And Cambria (Once Upon Your Dead Body).
x-x-x
It isn't as if infidelity is some kind of unspoken sin between the two of us. Not at all.
Scott and I...we talk about everything. We used to talk about everything. I've always been of the mind that the more you avoid an issue, the more power you feed it in the end, and I thought that Scott agreed with me. So why, I can't help but wonder, when everything is fine on the surface and we agree, without need for compromise, on all the important things and vital emotional subjects, has there been so much silence between us recently?
It's as much my fault as it is his. Instead of talking and acting on the things we claim to believe in, and living out our lives the way we planned to, I'm sitting in bed reading the same two sentences of a bad novel over and over again, and I'm not sure where Scott is. I know what's between us, what the obstacle is, but I don't want to think about it. I don't want to go down that road any more than I already have. I just want Scott to come to me and not notice how distracted I've been lately, to not care about what my secret thoughts might be. It's unreasonable, but I just want us to be the way we used to. I want to be able to talk to him again.
I'm not worried about him, or what he's doing. I trust Scott. More than that, I know he's in the mansion – he could be having a late talk with Charles, he could be doing his own research, preparing for his next class, or he could be training in private. All that's needed is the tiniest flex of my abilities to pinpoint his precise location and gauge his emotional state. With a harder push of my powers, I think I could read his exact thoughts as they come to him.
Of course, I refrain from doing this. My privacy means a lot to me, so I try to extend the same courtesy to everyone around me, especially the man I love. Not that he'd consider it a violation or a breach of trust, considering that something of a psychic bond has developed over the years, as well as Scott's total acceptance and encouragement of my abilities, but I still hold myself back. In this case, I'm the one who wouldn't feel comfortable. I choose not to monitor him, just as I choose not to go looking for him.
Whatever it is that Scott's up to, I know it's a distraction. I know that he does it to divert him from wondering about Logan – or more specifically, what Logan came to mean to me during his time with us. He stays away and says little when he's here and loses himself in petty tasks because he believes it'll keep him from feeling the need to storm up here and ask outright if, now that Logan's gone (maybe forever, he'll remind me), do I miss him.
I don't need telepathy to know what he wants to say to me, and I resent him for it in the sunny hours, when we put on smiles and pretend to each other that everything is just fantastic. But in the quiet night-hours, when I remember how his unspoken accusations make him doubt himself, struggle with himself, distance himself from me for my sake, and resent himself enough for the both of us, that's when I love him more than ever.
I can imagine how the conversation would go ('You barely know him and you miss him, don't you?'). Painful and awkward. Like performing a vivisection, only with every curious movement of your scalpel, a sting runs cold through you. That's why I know that Scott would do anything to avoid having this conversation.
He'd never ask me if I cheated on him, or wanted to. He'd never use the word "cheat". He tries not to use emotive terms in an argument, tries to remain mature and rational no matter what's happening, and I used to adore that, and to some degrees I would sometimes aspire to that level. But whatever he'd ask me about this, I know I wouldn't be able to explain myself or do a good enough job assuring him. I haven't done anything wrong, and Scott has no reason to feel jealous or displaced, but he has the power to make me feel guilty.
It's been a long time since Scott's ever felt seriously threatened by another man's interest in me. We're both healthy, attractive, young people and we've both had our fair share of offers to play away over the years, but it's never bothered or tempted either of us. Men that I knew were technically handsome have approached me in the past, but I was never attracted and never thought of other men in a serious way.
The latest big noise movie star? Mmm, gorgeous. Random guy across the street? Very cute. Did I ever feel any real chemistry or spark? No. Would I so much as consider doing anything that might jeopardise all I have with Scott? Goodness, no. Never.
I thought the reason for that was that I was too in love with Scott and just wasn't capable of being interested in anyone but him and could never want anyone else. Other men were just pretty faces who floated and bumped pointlessly through my life and then simply passed out of it. I've seen gorgeous men before without ever really seeing them and I'm confident that it was the same for Scott and other women. We were just too starry-eyed over each other to really register that other people were attractive. I suppose we both thought that that stage hadn't ended yet, and never would.
But Logan is...different. It's the only word, and that doesn't adequately explain it, or him, or our relationship, or what being in the same room as him does to me. I've never experienced anything like it before and I really thought I'd schooled myself better than this, that I could be above all this somehow. I know that Scott isn't thrilled about the situation between the three of us, but I tend to think that he has it easy. He'd never enjoy feeling this flustered against his will. My own thoughts make me nervous, and I'm hating my reactions more and more, and the lack of control they suggest. And worst of all, I can't hide it from either of them.
Logan made an impression on all of us, staff and students alike. He swept through this place like a hurricane, leaving everything about everyday life overturned and dishevelled. Leaving me...breathless. And more confused than I'd ever care to admit by light of day.
And flattered, I can't help but remind myself. Don't try to pretend that you don't like all this on some level.
I can't deny it. The attraction was swift and powerful; almost too powerful, but not quite. It wasn't overwhelming enough for me to lose all self-control (and self-respect with it), but enough to make me want to. It left me aware of temptation and my own power to leap over the edge and happily ruin everything I care for. Whatever happens or fails to happen will always be a matter of choice, and that both relieves and frightens me.
Even now, with so much on his mind, Scott still doesn't really see me in the way I'd like him to. As someone who's desirable, exciting, and who despite being his long-term partner, fiancée, the definite future mother of his children, is still a sexual person. Someone who, in spite of time, change, baggage, and the taking for granted on both sides, can still be fire in his hands. Instead, Scott seems to be as much threatened by me as by Logan, though I know he does his best to hide it.
God, it wasn't always this way. It took us years to admit our feelings for each other and we wasted so much time. I thought we'd never mince our words ever again. It was never Scott's powers that caused me to hold back what I was feeling or stopped me from taking things forward. I was never afraid of him. It was actually to do with how we had both chosen to be associated with the Institute for all our lives and to be on Charles' X-Men. Getting involved with someone so entangled in the most important aspects of my life just seemed like such a complication, such a risk. Back then, over ten years ago, my feelings for Scott had been all thrill and impossibility and don't-go-there danger. There was a definite forbidden-fruit element to it, but underneath all that he was everything I admired in a friend and leader, everything I believed I wanted in a lover.
I tried to make a go of a couple of other relationships back then, but nothing lasted. I could never get serious with another guy because, without even knowing it, Scott was always a third person in any romance I started up. I'll always regret those wasted years when we were too scared and insecure to admit how we felt for each other, and I'll always celebrate the day I realised that other relationships – no matter how good they could be – could never cure me of being in love with Scott.
But now, with so many years behind us and full knowledge of how neither of us feel right with other people, we should both be secure and mature enough not to be intimidated by anyone's interest in either of us. So how is it that it's all unravelling so fast?
Scott was never threatened back then; he had total faith in me. He was such a sweetheart – he couldn't even take a joke about cheating on me, couldn't acknowledge finding other women attractive, and couldn't be teased about either of those hang-ups without getting endearingly preachy and irritable. It was sweet, but no fun. But that was a long time ago, and I've always liked to think I've been a good influence on him, and vice versa. Over the years, he lost some inhibitions, faced emotional fears and loosened his self-restraint a little. That was easily the most passionate and addictive era of our relationship, when the puppy-love and mutual crushes evolved into something that I'll always recall as intensely serious and powerful, but also delightfully exciting. We found a kind of paradise.
Those were the long-gone days of dirty games and fantasies and a big one had been about infidelity. We'd talk, and the soft, secret things we spoke about used to make me feel boneless and desperate with anticipation. He'd tease me: What if I met a handsome young man at a conference? What if I liked the way he dressed, the way he moved? Or what if Scott was driving one night and saw a pretty woman whose car had broken down? What if he felt compelled to help her, I'd ask, arousal plain in my smile and in the sly tone of my voice. What if she wanted to reward him? What would they do?
Like randy teenagers, we'd point out people in restaurants. Him, with the tattoo? Her, with the backless dress? In a hot tub? On a desk? In the back of a car? On the floor, or up against the wall? We'd spin out scenarios at the end of a date and then go home, retire to bed, and make love all night.
Amazing how long it's been since we last had those kinky little talks late at night in bed, or whispered secretly on the way to somewhere, or communicated via telepathy at scandalously inappropriate times just to keep the fires burning.
We never acted on those fantasies, of course. The thrill was in that it would never really happen, that we were messing around with the forbidden and could make a taboo work for the two of us. It was always just something to spice love with, that's all. And somehow, like a pair of novelty handcuffs, corsets, spiked heels and a bottle of strawberry-flavoured massage-oil, the fantasies were misplaced, forgotten and abandoned; left haphazardly somewhere between various insecurities, lesson plans, mutant politics, pregnancy scares, family problems, training sessions, and the big decision to go for a long engagement and wait until the bulk of our problems are out of the way and the world is a better place to start a family.
God, I'd completely forgotten about that old game; that's how distant a memory it is. And the thought of playing it now doesn't turn me on at all.
It's not exactly worry or jealousy that I sense from Scott these days, but I know that he's by no means alright with Logan's interest in me. His fault, or mine? What is it that makes Logan so different, that cools things between Scott and I rather than heating them up?
I'd never betray Scott, and I'm certain that Scott knows this, even if he sometimes forgets. But that hasn't stopped me from wondering, from entertaining guilty thoughts...from wanting, even if I resent myself for it. Maybe that's why this is making a rift between the two of us; because I'm having fantasies that don't involve Scott, and that I could never share with him. Maybe it's all because we could never play out our old little game this time and could never make this into something sexy and fun. There are lines we'd never cross back in days past too – for example, Ororo's name never came up – but this is a different kind of boundary. In this case, Scott could never lean in close and whisper in my ear "What would you do if...?"
That's the essence of it, really – it would be too close to home. I hate admitting it, and I don't think I could ever say the words to Scott, but the attraction between Logan and I was very real, and an extreme shock to the system. Worst of all, I'd be a liar if I said that I don't like what it does to me. It makes me reconsider things I thought were so familiar to me, and rethink so many things I believed I wanted. Logan tempted me, and that's never happened before. And I've been trying to spare my own dignity by refusing to acknowledge it, but it forced a reaction. And if I ever see Logan again, the temptation will force a response too, and just the idea of it makes me throb with mixed, confused feelings.
I guess Scott would argue that I don't really know Logan at all, no matter how much I may feel like I do. But however little I may truly know him, I know that he isn't like Scott, and would never feel threatened by me and my emotions. He'd never hide from me in the middle of the night. Logan was always direct...especially with me. But at the same time, he hides so much. He can deflect and deny and run like the best of them. So I suppose I can't call him a strong opposite to Scott's weakness. That would be just as much a fantasy as anything else.
No, that's not it at all... Logan was a contradiction. And it's hard to say this to myself, but I think I can relate to that, and I know that Scott never could. He's not like that, but Logan and I...we are.
And worst of all, now that Logan's gone, perhaps forever (though I doubt it), I'm disappointed. And I do wish he would come back, if only to make me feel awkward and well outside of my comfort-zone, frustrated, torn, annoyed at his total lack of respect for my personal space, pushed, provoked, and generally tested to my very limit.
After so long a time with Scott in a happy and healthy relationship, there are no more surprises left. But there are no frustrations, failures and disappointments either, and I'd always thought of that as a good thing – the best practical thing, maybe, about a long-term relationship. Now I'm not so sure.
With Logan, there was hope, fear, concern, annoyance, disappointment, fire, confusion and connection. And I miss those things, more than I miss the old spark and naughty games Scott and I used to play.
Everything about me is quiet and hurt as I give up trying to read and attempting to find some peace of mind in escapism, and finally put my book down on the bedside cabinet, switch the light off, settle down, and try to sleep. I don't want to, and it wrenches me inside more than ever tonight, but as I try to drift off I listen for the sound of a motorbike pulling in, and I miss Logan.
And that makes me feel like a cheat.
-- FIN --