Author: Calex
Title: Betrayal
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing, the X-Men belong to Marvel comics, though this is more according to the movie.
Notes: Sequel to "Tears". Read that if you want to have a better idea of what's going on. This might be a series of vignettes, but the next one might take some time in the making.
Betrayal
She quirked up her head, her body completely and utterly still. Then she started running. He didn't question her, knew what she knew in his heart and he felt suddenly desolate. He wouldn't be allowed his time with her, not anymore. Not that he was back. He wouldn't allow it, and he would monopolise her thoughts. Him. He had stolen his other love as well. Jean…. Jean had fallen in love with that man, the coarse, uncouth man that was now being enveloped in a tight hug by the very woman he had wanted for so long, by the very woman he had wished would do the very same to him with the same lack of thought. He stood somewhat in the shadows and watched as she babbled incoherently to him, watched as tears ran down those smooth cheeks of hers, watched as the first smile in months bloomed on her face. But Logan, for that was his name, didn't smile. He kissed her on the part of her temple covered by her hair and asked for the professor. He saw her face fall and pretended that he could hear her heart breaking. His fists tightened at his sides as he watched him leave her behind.
He stepped towards her and she didn't even turn to acknowledge him, merely watched his back disappearing around the corner. Then she turned to him and her eyes were filled with tears and questions. Why? Why come back, why the cool greeting? Why didn't he love her? Good questions, questions he didn't have the answers to. He merely opened his arms and let her cry on his shoulder. Cry about the man that she loved, the very man who had stolen the hearts of two of the women that he loved. And the really painful thing was that he didn't even love her. this one, the one he was completely, utterly, irrevocably mad about. He kissed the top of her head and wished that the other man would leave, for once, and give him something. Just…something.
She looked up at him, her sobs finally dried up. He wiped away a few drops of tears from her cheek with his thumb and tried not to wince as her skin sapped at his life force. Her eyes widened, locked on his. He shook his head, rested his forehead at the top of her head. Took a shaky breath.
She stepped away from him, looked at him from hooded eyes. He looked at her and for once let the walls he built drop, let all pretences drop and he watched as her eyes widened, watched as realisation hit her. She stared at him for a moment, then she ran. He held out a hand to where she had gone, eyes distraught. Then he let his hand fist and drop to his side. He walked towards his classroom and gave excuses for her not being there. He taught the lesson at hand as normal, but nothing was normal. She'd run away from him, run away from what he had offered her. And that was more painful than any blow she could bestow upon him.
She ran through the corridors, tears blurring her sight. She ran through the twist and turns that had become as familiar to her as the back of her hand. Finally, she reached the destination looked for and she flung the door open and closed it with a resounding click. Her heart was shattered, yet it was beating in a wild tattoo against her chest. She flung off her gloves and sat herself down by her harp. She position her hands on the strings and… and found she couldn't play. With a heartbroken cry, she pushed herself away and back pedalled away from the harp until her back hit the wall. Her body shook from the heart wrenching sobs that tore through her slender frame. Her world had just turned upside down. Her love had returned… and walked away from her. and…and the man she had grown to respect, to like, to trust… he had shown her something that she just wished didn't exist in his eyes when he looked at her. He had opened up his soul to her. It felt like a betrayal, a strange, bitter betrayal. He wasn't supposed to be like that, wasn't supposed to feel like that, not after her.
God, why? Why was she put through this torture day by day, hour by hour? The torture of the knowledge that Logan didn't care, the torture of the knowledge that her love for him was not reciprocated, the torture of the knowledge that he merely saw her as a… a thing. These past few months, the pain of loss had brought her deep into the darkest pits of despair and she had only one moment of solace in her days. This, this her music. And now… now she didn't even have that. She looked up at the ornately plastered ceiling, her eyes brimming with the tears she refused to let go of, she had cried far too much. She shook her head and took deep breaths, trying to calm them, but they stung her eyes, lived a life of their own as they slid down her cheeks in an endless river.
Scott… why had he done that? Why? He was the only one that she had expected not to… the hurt of his betrayal was bitter and sharp, like a thousand small knives painting her skin with small cuts and her blood, turning her statue into something of ivory and crimson. Her depression hung about her like a dark cloud and her tears releasing a mild torrent of the rain that clung deep to that cloud. It wasn't the release she needed, not even close, but she didn't know how to change that, did not know how to release that other emotion. Maybe it was impossible for her, now. Impossible for her to ever have her release. Maybe she was doomed to live her half-life, doomed to live with bitter betrayal in her mouth and emptiness where her heart was. With that in mind, she felt a certain sense of… false calm enshroud her and she stood up, ignored the harp and went to the cello. Sat herself on the chair behind in, drew the instrument between her body and rested the fingers of her left hand on the strings, the bow lying limply in her right hand. She took a deep breath, then leaned her head down and began to coax haunting music from the instrument. Haunting…. The only type of music she ever played, anymore.
He saw her wherever he went. He tried to block her away, tried to fight the unholy madness that was his attraction to her, fought it with everything that he was, but it was a losing battle and he knew that with a sinking heart. The mad need to feel her, taste her, see her, consume her was still there, still under the surface, snapping at him as though it were an invisible beast. But as he avoided her, she avoided him much better than he could ever allow himself to, as where he was weak and his need to see her sometimes overpowered him and his good intentions, she was strong in her need not to see him. Her usual companions were full of questions, for she was gone far more than she used to be. Far, far more. She walked with no one, talked with no one. Ate only when she had to, talked only when she had to. She did her work, she kept up that much of a pretence, but otherwise she lived the life of a spiritless thing, of a phantom that haunted the halls of the school, making the very walls drip in her melancholy.
He remembered what it had felt like, to touch her skin. That electric pull of her skin as it took in himself, a little of himself. Too short a time was it for her to take in anything of importance except, perhaps, for his feelings for her. Those dark feelings, the unholy passions. Maybe she had captured some dark thought in his mind as well, his dark fantasies of running his guilt ridden hands over her sin-reeked skin, of his mouth drinking in the cold despair of hers, of his body fusing itself with hers in dark, despondent moments, of their souls entwining in their heady melancholy, their bitter sorrows. Maybe he scared her with the dark intensity of his thoughts, as he scared himself, sometimes. Maybe.
He walked to the music room, again having weakened and wanting to see her once again. He heard the crash of notes on the piano, a graceless sound and frowned. She would never make such a sound, never intentionally… but maybe in her deepest moment of despair she might lash out. Would she? He pushed open the door and what he saw made him want to cry out with the heat of the fury he felt. Heat, when so long he had only felt ice. Heat because of a renewing pain. His hands were on her. He was running those big hands of his over her silken skin roughly, crudely. His mouth was on hers in what seemed to be passion, but he knew the signs, he could read them as well as he could read the numbness in his eyes. He was using her. And she was letting him. He closed his eyes behind his sunglasses and took several deep breaths, his hands clenching at his sides. He had left, that first time, letting her have her private moment of her despair, letting her have her tears. Now he made himself turn resolutely away, made himself turn away from the sight that had made his heart break once more, he turned away from the sight of her letting herself be used. He feared he would never be rid of the sight of her pale, slender body against that of his. Would never get rid of the image of those slender legs of hers wrapped around his waist, and of her clawing his back as he tried to get the experience over and done with as fast as he could, in order not to get hurt. Oh, he knew why he was doing it, that flash of adrenalin, the question whether he would survive or be hurt. The thrill that he might get, that might just coax a little bit of life from his numb existence. And as he looked at them, she had lifted her head, gasping, and her eyes had opened and locked on his. And in the depths of hers he saw her numbness as well, and knew that she had let herself be used because it was him that was using her. Another reason for her avoidance. That cut a more bitter betrayal than anything else that she had done. That had cut a deeper hurt than anything else. That had made him turn on his heel and wish that he could get rid of the memory of the images as easily as he could get rid of the images themselves. He left them to their ice, to their emptiness, to their search of something that was close to the heat that he had felt upon finding them, the heat of his anger. In that one action that she had done, she had given him life again, another way. She gave him heat where once ice resided. He supposed he should thank her for that, although he felt, at that moment, he would rather be burnt in ice once more.