TITLE: Scar Tissue
FANDOM: X-Men: Evolution
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. This, however, is not for a lack of trying. (Don't ask.)
DEDICATION: For the Countess, who puts up with shitloads from me.
CHARACTERS: Jean, Scott.
RATING: A mild teen…ish.
SUMMARY: Don't make threats you can't follow through on, Scooter.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: A long time ago, the Countess and I agreed to exchange a few oneshots as Christmas presents. One of the pieces that I agreed to write was to surround a snarky Scott and a not-so-perfect Jean, with the prompt 'what nobody else sees'.
Yes, it's been a while, but when the bunnies hit me, they hit me hard. And perhaps not so much snarky Scott as . . . well, you'll see.
Here you go, Amber. Enjoy.
xXx
She is running. Her feet are moving, her lungs are aching, and her head and heart are pounding with the excess of adrenaline streaming through her system, so she knows this is true.
She's also not going anywhere. Her feet move in place, in the darkness, and in the same way she knows herself to be running, she knows that she's making no progress.
There's a malevolent presence in front of her. Behind her. Beside her. In her. Everywhere. It's smiling as it watches her futile escape attempt.
"Why can't you just leave me alone!" She screams. It sounds childish, like a temper tantrum. "Why won't you just go away!"
There's a rippling, heavy laughter that's far too big for the darkness that echoes through her head and her bones and her soul.
You're a very silly little girl, Jean Grey. I'm you. I can't go away.
And she falls to her knees, sobbing, because she knows this is true too.
---
"Jean?" A voice asks softly, drawing her up and out of her dream. "Jean? You okay?"
Her body falls back on something like instinct, and she watches, detached, from the back of her own mind as her body goes through motions that she protests with every fibre of her being. She watches as her eyes literally blaze with all the glory of the cosmos and her hands reach for the neck of the one who disturbs her slumber. She watches as she begins to strangle with her hands and her mind, knowing that her victim's throat is closing over at both her own mental command and beneath the pressure of her fingers. She watches as a voice that resonates with a power she could never hope to match on her own seethes a warning.
You would dare to lay a hand upon me.
"Jean!"
The sound of this voice snaps something in her and she's suddenly no longer watching. She's doing, and she gasps in horror as she both psychically and physically releases the throat in her grasp.
There's a gasping from next to her in the bed for a few moments as the throat she had been attempting to close sucks back precious oxygen in copious amounts.
"Scott?" She finally ventures once the breathing, as well as her own hammering pulse, has steadied some.
She places a hand upon his shoulder, and tries to ignore the wince she feels from him. The shoulder she is touching is scarred, a soft pink and white of marred tissue long since healed. It is the result of serious burns. The result of her.
---
It's a dark night, cold and raining. She stands there, on the green that has become a battlefield, a smirk of darker purposes in place. Her hands are crossed over her chest as she juts out her chin in challenge, and even the way her hips cant slightly to the left speaks entirely of Jean.
The rest of the X-Men stand in a straight line, facing her straight on in an unconscious mockery of an old-west showdown. All that's missing is the tumbleweed.
Scott steps forward, jaw set. The rain pours down harder.
Hello Scott.
His hand moves to his visor in what's supposed to be a warning. Her smile grows sweet, more Jean-like, as her tone grows more and more like the Phoenix.
Don't make threats you can't follow through on, Scooter.
She walks forward to meet him (her walk is Jean's, completely, down to the slight turnout to her feet), and she places a hand to his shoulder. He doesn't scream. His jaw is set. It's only once she's burning with the fury of existence, of life and death itself, when his flesh is beginning to cook, that he makes a sound.
It's a battle cry released as he blasts the thing that's so much like Jean to hell.
---
She removes her hand, hanging her head in a poor show of reticence.
As much as Scott might love Jean, there's little softness in his heart for the Phoenix.
Jean doesn't blame him. She doesn't much care for the Phoenix either.
Neither do certain families of former X-Men, but that's a thought she'd rather not dwell on right now.
She hugs herself, the flimsy nightgown she's wearing doing little to assuage the burning that's all shame, and somehow rivals the purifying and destroying flames of Phoenix fire.
Even now, even when the Phoenix is barely a manifestation in her mind, it manages to ruin everything.
I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.
"Nightmare, huh?" He says.
She nods, not trusting her own voice right now. He breathes in deeply, stretching out the exhale. With that, he reaches for her, and she collapses in to his waiting arms in what could only be described as relief. It takes all of her willpower to prevent herself from sobbing.
"It was the Phoenix again."
"I'd guessed." He replies dryly, but the warm hand rubbing at her upper arm takes the edge off of his almost glib comment.
She presses a chaste kiss in to his shoulder, in to the skin, in to the symbol and effect of her crime, and though it's not the first time she has done so, she's very much aware that it isn't the last time either.
"I'm sorry," She whispers to the wound and to the man as tears start to well. "I'm sorry."
"You're not the Phoenix." He reminds her, wiping the salty residue out of the corner of her eyes with his thumb. The implication that she isn't responsible for this, that it wasn't her who hurt him and killed others, only forces the tears to fall as she shakes her head. The Phoenix's words from her dream burn themselves across her consciousness with a sneer.
You're a very silly little girl, Jean Grey. I'm you. I can't go away.
Jean swallows, nesting herself into the crook of Scott's elbow.
Jean doesn't much like the Phoenix.
Jean doesn't much like herself lately.
"I hate sharing my head with it." She whispers.
---
It is the height of summer, and by all appearances a gorgeous day. Bright, golden sunshine pours through bay windows in to the Professor's office. Xavier is seated as his desk with fingers steepled as he looks over his desk and across the room to the redheaded girl seated on a small sofa before him.
"Things are . . . more complicated that we first anticipated, Jean." He pauses, tilting his head to the side as though gauging her reaction. Jean's face remains stoic.
"At the present time, it appears that the best outcome we can currently hope for is to have the Phoenix entity contained."
The way he ends the sentence sends the air right out of the room.
"Contained." The word is separated in to its base syllables. Dissected. Interrogated.
Her voice cracks as she responds.
"It'll never be gone, will it?"
The Professor's hands are lowered to his lap.
"I'm sorry Jean. Desperately so."
Sitting next to Jean is Scott, her hand held firmly in his own. As her face falls at the Professor's prediction, as her hope falls and shatters on the floor like crystal, his grip tightens.
---
"You're not the Phoenix." He repeats.
She wants to believe him so badly, but these dreams have been coming at her more and more frequently as of late, and it's getting harder and harder to ignore the Phoenix's reminders of their interconnectedness.
She burrows a little deeper in to him, needing reassurance. She doesn't know what for. She simply needs it.
"It talks to me."
He obliges her, tightening his hold on her like she might fly away.
"What does it tell you?"
"Lies. I hope."
She can feel him frown at this.
Scott shifts her about in his arms ever so carefully, forcing her to face him.
"What does it say?"
Even through the visor he wears to sleep every night, his stare is penetrating. Jean looks down towards her curled up knees in order to avoid meeting it. She doesn't want to talk to him about this. Not now, not with the nightmare fresh in her mind and the Phoenix fresh in her head.
She doesn't have to say anything. She can feel him reaching across their bond, that strange and tenuous thread that ties the two of them together for good or for ill. He nudges, he tugs, he presses. He worms his way along it, and it is with some hesitance that she meets him halfway. She lets him see, lets him hear.
I am you are me are we are you are I am you . .
Jean shows him everything. She shows him the Phoenix's cutting words, the consuming laughter that shakes her to her core, the fear that she might actually be the monster that lives in her head.
He slips away, releasing the connection for the time being, and the two of them sit there, dumb. There is the momentary fear that she may have overwhelmed him, that he is just as afraid as she is.
It is then that his voice cuts across the small space between them.
"Do you believe it?"
She tells the truth.
"Sometimes."
He takes her hands in his, turning the palms towards him. Slowly, deliberately, he presses a kiss in to each of them.
He breathes out a single word.
"Don't."
---
It is springtime now, though there are no windows to show this. There is only the sanitized whiteness of the medlab and a disheveled Jean seated upon one of the beds.
Her hair is untamed, her uniform shredded, and her entire self so utterly disorganized and chaotic that it hardly seems like her at all.
There are footsteps, and she turns to see who has come.
Scott enters, and she curls a little more in to herself as she balls her hands in to fists.
He approaches without a word, stopping only once he's in front of her. His eyes go straight to her hands, now clumsily hidden behind her back. It is with some force that he takes her wrists and turns her hands palm up before him for observation.
There is still a large gauze bandage on his shoulder, peeking out from under the collar of his shirt.
"I'm sorry." She croaks out.
He runs his thumbs over her hands and his expression softens. He accepts this small offering.
It is the first of many apologies she will make. But it is a start.
---
"Now get some sleep." He orders, though not unkindly.
Jean opens her mouth to protest but he pulls her back down to the bed. There's also an arm around her now that not only makes it hard to argue, but makes her feel a little bit safer too. She gives in, remaining prone but shifting about just so she can look at him. Her eyes remain fixed on him long enough to fully adjust to the dark, and to note by the softening of his eyebrows that his own are closed.
His breathing is even and regular, and she places her hand on his scarred shoulder.
Her hand.
Hers.
There is no accompanying wince.
"I'm not going anywhere." He murmurs.
"Good." She replies. "Good."
And with that her own eyes manage to flutter closed.
-FIN-