Author's Note: Princess Emma, my good good friend, convinced me to try this
"Challenge in a Can" thing. Thus, The Blue Shirt was born at far too late
(or far too early, depending on how you look at it). This story responds to
the challenge "Scott. Bitter. Shirt." I had fun writing, I hope you have
fun reading! (sorry, I babble when tired... ;-))
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I only own my thoughts and my own take on what they would be thinking and feeling. Please do not sue me, as all you will receive is a huge pile of student loans and bills. :-)
~The Blue Shirt~
I can't sleep in our room anymore. It's too hard, too... Everything. It was ransacked, of course, like the rest of the mansion, but it's not the cleaning I can't stand. I can clean, and it would only take a few hours. It's everything else. That under the shattered glass and the splinters of broken chair, I can still see her side of the bed. That her clothes are strewn about the room, mingled with mine, and that I'll have to sort them out to fix things. *hers in her closet, mine in mine, doesn't matter, does it? have to hang up her skirts, she likes that, she'll throw a fit if the shirts get wrinkled on the floor she hates to iron she's dead, Scott.* I remember something new every time I touch something of hers. I can't stand that. I can't remember, because if I start, it doesn't stop.
I step into the room, treading carefully as though I were an intruder. I almost laugh as I step around the broken glass that crunches so loudly under my feet. An intruder in my own room. It's almost funny, the way I sneak around, the way I almost laugh.
Her shirt is still slung over the bedpost, like there were no intruders, like nothing has disturbed this space we used to share. It's a blue dress shirt, neither light nor dark. She used to wear it to sleep. I liked that, because it used to be mine. She would take it, and I would take it back. It was a little war, and it went on for three months. I don't know what it was about this shirt, or why she liked it so much, but she did, so I surrendered. I liked that she liked it. *oh god, i'm thinking about her in past tense Jean isn't past, she's present and future and everything oh god...*
I'm afraid to touch the shirt, like I'm afraid to touch everything in this room. If I move things, try to put them in order, I have to do the other part too. I have to take care of her things, put them away. Not the real away. Not the shelves in the closet or the hangers or the dresser or the night table. Not the places she would put her things. I'll have to put them in boxes. Fold the clothes like she'll wear them again, and then put them in the place that proves she won't. I wonder what the grace period is on stuff like this. How long do I get to pretend before they take away the shoes she used to line up so neatly on the floor, and the clothes that would be hung so carefully in the closet? What will I do with them all? What happens to her make up now that she won't need it? How long before they say Scott, this isn't healthy, you need to move on? *how do i move on from the end of the world? what's healthy after something like that?*
I take the shirt off the bedpost, and it's as if she's here again. Of course, I know better. Scott Summers is many things, but he's not delusional. It's her smell, though. Smell is important to me. I read somewhere that smell is one of the most powerful memory triggers there are, and it's true. Coffee smells like my first two years in high school. I'd get up with my dad and he'd make coffee, and I'd sit with him and have breakfast while he drank it. That's what coffee smells like. There's a certain candle smell that takes me to the huge snow storm that knocked out power at the house for a week and a half. It was the kind of candle Mom had the most of - Winter Wonderland. That smell will always make me think of snow days and the enormous snowman I built with Alex that week. Jean's smell hits me in a wave, now, *perfume and soap and clean laundry* and I remember... She left in a hurry that day - the last day at the mansion. We both did. I followed the professor to Mount Haven, to that last chat with Erik Lehnsherr. She and Ororo had their own mission - to reach The Amazing Nightcrawler before the authorities could.
Usually, she folds up her nightshirt and tucks it away in the dresser, but there wasn't time that morning. We were both running late. She tossed it over the bedpost before dashing into the shower, and neither of us thought to take care of it. It wasn't important, then, and it's still not really important, except that she's not here *she'll never be here,* and it is. I almost laugh again. Stupid shirt. I hate it, I think. I hate it because it's a happy memory, and I can't deal with memories. I hate it because it reminds me of how little time there was that day to tell her how much I love her and that she was the most important thing in my world. I hate it because it lived longer than she did.
I don't know what happens next. I'm bitter, and I'm angry, and I hate this room, her things, my things, the broken glass. It's not fair that I don't get the luxury of pretending she's just on a trip, that she'll be coming back to find her shirts and skirts and shoes waiting for her, exactly where she left them. *I* have to clean up the mess that Stryker and his men left. Bastards. I throw the shirt aside and start kicking things around the room that's mine now, not ours. Glass flies everywhere, against the walls, the ceiling, and falling back to the floor, mingled with books, clothes, and anything else that gets in the way of my feet. The loud noises I make now are infinitely more satisfying than the crying I've done the past few nights. I hardly notice the sobs that shake my body, and the tears streaming down my face are only a minor consideration.
I reach down and grab fistfuls of clothing, barely registering the glass as it cuts into my palms. This is what they want, right? It's what they all expect. I'm the leader of the X-Men, Scott Summers. I have to be responsible, I have to move on, and the first step for that is cleaning up, cleaning Jean out of my room. I glance down to see what I'm holding. Two sweaters and a shirt, both feminine. I won't need these anymore. I hurl them at the door, and the glass trapped in the cloth makes an appropriate noise as it connects with the wood. Don't need her brush anymore. *Throw.* This horribly impractical shoe she liked so much won't fit me, nor will its mate three feet away. *Throw. Throw.* Don't need two clocks anymore. *Throw.* The objects all crash against the door before falling into a pile together. Jean's rubble.
Something glints on the floor, and I stop. It's too... shiny, too regular to be broken glass. I drop to my knees for a close look at this thing that stopped me in my frenzied... cleaning. It's a ring. Not a wedding or engagement ring. Nothing formal. Just a thin silver band with tiny bits of hematite across the top, and a small heart-shaped red stone dangling from the center. It's pretty, nothing more.
Jean told me, once, that she was tired of other men treating her like a single woman when we went out together. *it's because they look at this, she waves a bare left hand, and they think no ring equals single.* I laughed at the time, but I knew she was at least partly serious. So I gave her a ring. A promise ring. I wanted her to know that I was hers, that I would love her until I died and after. It was my promise. She really is *(was)* my everything. *oh god, Jean...*
I'm crying again, crying like I've been crying. It's so hard, knowing I've got to sleep without her, wake up without her, and just... *be* without her. I pick up the ring, so carefully, as if it were her. I want to keep crying, but I can't. I'm Scott Summers, I'm responsible, and I'm the leader of the X-Men. I have things to do. I can't keep sleeping in the den - it scares the children. I need to sleep in here again. I need to clean the glass and broken furniture out of my room. I need to put away all of the clothes that got yanked out of the closets while Stryker's men looked for our kids. I need to take care of my dead girlfriend's things. If that means hanging them in her closet, or folding them into drawers again until I'm ready to sort through them... fine. But they need to be away somewhere.
The blue shirt that was mine, then Jean's landed on the floor when I threw it, somehow managing to avoid my kicking and throwing frenzy. I pick it up carefully, with the hand that doesn't hold the ring. I don't want to get any blood on it as I shake a bit of stray glass from the folds. I return it to the bedpost, dropping the ring in the breast pocket. Yes, I have to clean up in here, make this room more mine than Jean's, but I'm not ready to give her up yet.
The blue shirt oversees my progress as I clean up the mess Stryker and I made. It's funny. If I don't look closely, it's as if she's standing there, waiting for me to be done so we can go to bed. I need that. I need to feel like she's still here. *i love you...*
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I only own my thoughts and my own take on what they would be thinking and feeling. Please do not sue me, as all you will receive is a huge pile of student loans and bills. :-)
~The Blue Shirt~
I can't sleep in our room anymore. It's too hard, too... Everything. It was ransacked, of course, like the rest of the mansion, but it's not the cleaning I can't stand. I can clean, and it would only take a few hours. It's everything else. That under the shattered glass and the splinters of broken chair, I can still see her side of the bed. That her clothes are strewn about the room, mingled with mine, and that I'll have to sort them out to fix things. *hers in her closet, mine in mine, doesn't matter, does it? have to hang up her skirts, she likes that, she'll throw a fit if the shirts get wrinkled on the floor she hates to iron she's dead, Scott.* I remember something new every time I touch something of hers. I can't stand that. I can't remember, because if I start, it doesn't stop.
I step into the room, treading carefully as though I were an intruder. I almost laugh as I step around the broken glass that crunches so loudly under my feet. An intruder in my own room. It's almost funny, the way I sneak around, the way I almost laugh.
Her shirt is still slung over the bedpost, like there were no intruders, like nothing has disturbed this space we used to share. It's a blue dress shirt, neither light nor dark. She used to wear it to sleep. I liked that, because it used to be mine. She would take it, and I would take it back. It was a little war, and it went on for three months. I don't know what it was about this shirt, or why she liked it so much, but she did, so I surrendered. I liked that she liked it. *oh god, i'm thinking about her in past tense Jean isn't past, she's present and future and everything oh god...*
I'm afraid to touch the shirt, like I'm afraid to touch everything in this room. If I move things, try to put them in order, I have to do the other part too. I have to take care of her things, put them away. Not the real away. Not the shelves in the closet or the hangers or the dresser or the night table. Not the places she would put her things. I'll have to put them in boxes. Fold the clothes like she'll wear them again, and then put them in the place that proves she won't. I wonder what the grace period is on stuff like this. How long do I get to pretend before they take away the shoes she used to line up so neatly on the floor, and the clothes that would be hung so carefully in the closet? What will I do with them all? What happens to her make up now that she won't need it? How long before they say Scott, this isn't healthy, you need to move on? *how do i move on from the end of the world? what's healthy after something like that?*
I take the shirt off the bedpost, and it's as if she's here again. Of course, I know better. Scott Summers is many things, but he's not delusional. It's her smell, though. Smell is important to me. I read somewhere that smell is one of the most powerful memory triggers there are, and it's true. Coffee smells like my first two years in high school. I'd get up with my dad and he'd make coffee, and I'd sit with him and have breakfast while he drank it. That's what coffee smells like. There's a certain candle smell that takes me to the huge snow storm that knocked out power at the house for a week and a half. It was the kind of candle Mom had the most of - Winter Wonderland. That smell will always make me think of snow days and the enormous snowman I built with Alex that week. Jean's smell hits me in a wave, now, *perfume and soap and clean laundry* and I remember... She left in a hurry that day - the last day at the mansion. We both did. I followed the professor to Mount Haven, to that last chat with Erik Lehnsherr. She and Ororo had their own mission - to reach The Amazing Nightcrawler before the authorities could.
Usually, she folds up her nightshirt and tucks it away in the dresser, but there wasn't time that morning. We were both running late. She tossed it over the bedpost before dashing into the shower, and neither of us thought to take care of it. It wasn't important, then, and it's still not really important, except that she's not here *she'll never be here,* and it is. I almost laugh again. Stupid shirt. I hate it, I think. I hate it because it's a happy memory, and I can't deal with memories. I hate it because it reminds me of how little time there was that day to tell her how much I love her and that she was the most important thing in my world. I hate it because it lived longer than she did.
I don't know what happens next. I'm bitter, and I'm angry, and I hate this room, her things, my things, the broken glass. It's not fair that I don't get the luxury of pretending she's just on a trip, that she'll be coming back to find her shirts and skirts and shoes waiting for her, exactly where she left them. *I* have to clean up the mess that Stryker and his men left. Bastards. I throw the shirt aside and start kicking things around the room that's mine now, not ours. Glass flies everywhere, against the walls, the ceiling, and falling back to the floor, mingled with books, clothes, and anything else that gets in the way of my feet. The loud noises I make now are infinitely more satisfying than the crying I've done the past few nights. I hardly notice the sobs that shake my body, and the tears streaming down my face are only a minor consideration.
I reach down and grab fistfuls of clothing, barely registering the glass as it cuts into my palms. This is what they want, right? It's what they all expect. I'm the leader of the X-Men, Scott Summers. I have to be responsible, I have to move on, and the first step for that is cleaning up, cleaning Jean out of my room. I glance down to see what I'm holding. Two sweaters and a shirt, both feminine. I won't need these anymore. I hurl them at the door, and the glass trapped in the cloth makes an appropriate noise as it connects with the wood. Don't need her brush anymore. *Throw.* This horribly impractical shoe she liked so much won't fit me, nor will its mate three feet away. *Throw. Throw.* Don't need two clocks anymore. *Throw.* The objects all crash against the door before falling into a pile together. Jean's rubble.
Something glints on the floor, and I stop. It's too... shiny, too regular to be broken glass. I drop to my knees for a close look at this thing that stopped me in my frenzied... cleaning. It's a ring. Not a wedding or engagement ring. Nothing formal. Just a thin silver band with tiny bits of hematite across the top, and a small heart-shaped red stone dangling from the center. It's pretty, nothing more.
Jean told me, once, that she was tired of other men treating her like a single woman when we went out together. *it's because they look at this, she waves a bare left hand, and they think no ring equals single.* I laughed at the time, but I knew she was at least partly serious. So I gave her a ring. A promise ring. I wanted her to know that I was hers, that I would love her until I died and after. It was my promise. She really is *(was)* my everything. *oh god, Jean...*
I'm crying again, crying like I've been crying. It's so hard, knowing I've got to sleep without her, wake up without her, and just... *be* without her. I pick up the ring, so carefully, as if it were her. I want to keep crying, but I can't. I'm Scott Summers, I'm responsible, and I'm the leader of the X-Men. I have things to do. I can't keep sleeping in the den - it scares the children. I need to sleep in here again. I need to clean the glass and broken furniture out of my room. I need to put away all of the clothes that got yanked out of the closets while Stryker's men looked for our kids. I need to take care of my dead girlfriend's things. If that means hanging them in her closet, or folding them into drawers again until I'm ready to sort through them... fine. But they need to be away somewhere.
The blue shirt that was mine, then Jean's landed on the floor when I threw it, somehow managing to avoid my kicking and throwing frenzy. I pick it up carefully, with the hand that doesn't hold the ring. I don't want to get any blood on it as I shake a bit of stray glass from the folds. I return it to the bedpost, dropping the ring in the breast pocket. Yes, I have to clean up in here, make this room more mine than Jean's, but I'm not ready to give her up yet.
The blue shirt oversees my progress as I clean up the mess Stryker and I made. It's funny. If I don't look closely, it's as if she's standing there, waiting for me to be done so we can go to bed. I need that. I need to feel like she's still here. *i love you...*