Title: Eyes Wide Shut.

Author: Wallace (wal_lace@hotmail.com)

Rating: R, for the first time ever.

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts contained and referenced within are the property of Marvel Entertainment and Mutant Enemy. No infringement is intended.

Note: Some explanation is needed. This is set in the same world as my ongoing story 'Lifestyle Changes', sometime in the not-too-distant future. I don't yet know if it will happen, but it might.

Scott doesn't speak while he's fucking her.

Faith isn't really sure what she expected from him. She half expected him to call her Jean – she's heard the story, a little from Kurt, and a little from Jubilee, and the least from Logan, though it's what he told her that counts the most – but he doesn't say a word. Doesn't make a sound until the end, when he whimpers like a child as he comes.

Anyone else, that'd make her feel contempt. Scott, she just tries to hold him close, and doesn't speak. Whatever she says won't be what he needs to hear.

Another thing Faith isn't sure about is why she's here, how they came to be lying in his bed together, Scott naked above her, his eyes tight shut behind those fucking red shades he wears all the time. His hands – long and powerful and oh-so-careful – are clumsy on her body at first, finding his way by touch over the unfamiliar curves of muscle and flesh, but after the first fumbling movements he loses his hesitation.

He's precise. Careful. Faith's had a lot of men in her life – a few good, some bad, most indifferent – and she knows a trained technique when she feels one. Scott's always careful, always plans ahead, and she thinks for a moment that if she were smarter, if she had known him longer, she could have second-guessed his movements, known where his hands were going to go next.

But she doesn't, and perhaps the pleasure is increased by the oh-so-logical surprise. Her orgasm comes suddenly, catching her almost unawares, and it's strange to think that techniques designed for a dead woman are now bringing her to climax.

Strange to think that the last person to lie where she is, beneath him in this bed, is dead at the bottom of a lake.

The bed hasn't been slept in for a while before they came here. She's not sure why he chose to bring her to the room he no longer uses – whether it's alcohol, or nostalgia, or a desperate attempt at catharsis. She knows she wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Jean – that much is obvious – and that Faith and Scott is actually about Scott and Jean – but just how the three of them fit together in this space, in this room, in this bed, is anybody's guess.

And Scott won't let her hold him. He slumps against her, and her arms go round him – slightly awkward, because cuddling is never something she's done much of – and for a moment he almost lets them stay there, but then he pulls away.

He finds his clothes by touch, not opening his eyes until he's dressed and at the door, Faith sitting up in bed, looking after him in confusion.

He pauses at the door, but does not look back.

'I'm sorry.' He says, but he sounds angry – with himself, with her, with Jean, with the whole world.

The door closes behind him.

'I'm sorry.' Faith replies to the empty room that belongs to a dead woman.