Soap Gets In Your Claws

Chapter Seven: For No One

Xavier Insitute, Two Weeks Later, Jean and Scott’s Rooms

I: Jean

Lying in bed, alone, in the early hour following dawn, Jean couldn’t help but think about Edgat Allen Poe, and The Masque of the Red Death.

Prince Prospero and his merry band of rich, profligate aristocrats, fleeing the plague that was killing commoners by the wagonload, to go and live it up in his castle in the countryside.

That insane, profane masked ball, and the strike of midnight, when the Prince called out, “Unmask, unmask!”

And one of the guests proved to be Death itself, the Grim Reaper clothed in his red cloak of pestilence, bringing the plague to those who had sought to flee from it.

What was it they said about Death?

That Death came to kings and peasants alike?

It was the way the story had ended.

“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

Unmask! Unmask!

And the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Logan was gone, and he took his woman with him.

He packed his duffel bag, and they loaded their motorcycles onto the rack on the back of her VW Camper and rolled out, on an adventure to the Great White North.

Home to Howlett, where perhaps two fathers waited for their return.

She couldn’t blame him for going.

It wasn’t his problem. She and Scott made it his problem. Using him, in a way, as a pawn in the little chess match they were playing with each other.

Why should Logan, a man of dignity, a man of honour, a man who already had two women on his dance card already, stick around with his hat, and his dick, in his hand, waiting to see how the scratching match between her and Scott turned out?

She hoped he’d have a good vacation; she was glad he’d gotten out while the getting was good.

Unmask.

She had played her little masquerade with Eddie Blake and Tony Stark, now even that was behind her, and Scott had been playing a masquerade of his own, for many months, now.

But she had dragged Logan into it, and she knew she’d hurt him, hurt him deeply and needlessly, perhaps thoughtlessly, as well.

Time for the ball to end.

Unmask!

Unmask!

Since the meeting, with Charles, Scott had been meeting with Charles again, every morning.

Jean didn’t know what was going on, but it seemed to be helping.

He seemed happier, he wasn’t killing himself working, and his surface thoughts that she could skim now that he let down his psi blocks a little seemed to be breaking out of the logjam of his despair.

Scott was getting help, and that was good. They were spending more time together; he seemed to be coming back to his old self.

She imagined he was sleeping through most nights, but she didn’t know, because he had taken to sleeping on the couch.

Jean didn’t say anything to him.

Until she woke up at dawn, hearing that cry.

Unmask, unmask!

And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Jean didn’t bother with clothes, she got out of bed in her shorty nightie and her panties and walked into the main room.

“Good morning, Scott.” She said, casually.

So casually that you never would have thought that she had put her hand down the front of his boxers, and she had accompanied her greeting with a friendly little squeeze.

Jean walked over to the TV and shut it off.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked.

“What? Jean? Huh?”

Scott was sitting up, now, adjusting his glasses so they were no longer crooked.

“I asked you if you slept well.”

“Jean, get you hand out of my pants. We have to talk.”

Talk?

Well, that was something, at least.

She sat down beside him on the couch.

“I’ve been thinking about my conversations with Charles, and I realise I haven’t been completely honest with you. Which isn’t fair, because I’ve read your notebook, so you ended up being honest with me whether you wanted to or not. My overwork and my depression are not the only reasons that we went downhill, fast. The truth is, I got to the point where I, Jesus, this is hard to tell you, I just wasn’t attracted to you, anymore.”

That was the last thing Jean ever expected Scott to say.

Unmask, indeed.

“What? What do you mean? What?” she stammered.

“Jean, for a telepath, there are some things you know nothing about, and one of those things is what attracts a man to a woman. Like in your notebook, when you wrote how you couldn’t figure out why the Comedian turned you down, flat. Or why Tony Stark wanted Napalm, instead of you. Or what it is any man sees in Liv. I think I can explain that.”

Jean was dumbstruck, she couldn’t do anything but nod.

“There are pretty much three things that attract a man to a woman. The first one, and there’s no nice way to say this, is tits and ass. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true. The second is that she treats him like a man. And the third is that she isn’t a bitch. And one out of three isn’t good enough.”

“Scott, are you saying I’m a bitch and I don’t treat you like a man?”

“Yes.”

“What? WHAT! You rotten bastard!”

“Jean, please, hear me out. I have to tell you this.”

“You have to tell me this? Fine. Then I get to have my say.”

“That’s the way conversations work, Jean. Now, like I was saying, you don’t treat any man like a man, not just me. Because, somewhere along the line, you decided that you were The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey. To the rest of the world I might be Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, but to you, I was Oh, Scott. As in, Oh, Scott, pick up your socks, they’re everywhere; Oh, Scott, your glasses are dirty, again; Oh, Scott, do you have to watch so much TV and, my favourite, Oh, Scott, you’re just like a little boy, sometimes. It got to the point where we never talked, unless you were pontificating about some finer point of your insights into your psi abilities, or something like that. After all, you didn’t need to talk to me, you’d just poke into my mind and see how I was feeling and what I was thinking. That’s why I got Logan to teach me how to put up psi blocks. I got tired of it. I wanted to force you to have to actually communicate with me. And then, you didn’t do it. The only reason you decided you needed to talk to me was when I stopped making love with you. And even then, you never wanted to know why. You just wanted service. On demand. That’s not treating me like a man.”

Jean had never thought of it that way.

“So you cut me off because I was being a bitch, to snap me out of it. I can understand---“

“No, Jean, you still don’t understand. I’m not done yet. I’ll be done soon, really. The other part of treating a man like a man is in not assuming that he is an unnecessary piece of gristle useful only for ferrying around his mindless dick. You have to admit you were guilty of that.”

Jean thought about it.

“Well, you know what they say about men only wanting one thing. And I ws never that way with you! What do you care if I wanted to just use that rotten SOB Eddie Blake? And Tony, Jesus, women use him and he uses them, and they’re both happy.”

“This is the part you don’t get, Jean. If you want someone to be attracted to you, even just for the, I don’t know, twenty minutes it takes for a quickie, you have to show him that you’re attracted to him. As a man, and a human being. Not just show interest in his reproductive organs because he happens to have them. I mean, even a groupie that someone like Eddie Blake meets, I don’t know, at the Gunga Diner at closing time, she’s coming onto him because there’s something about him that turns her on. Nobody, not even a man like him wants to be Mr. You’ll Do. And me, I was Mr. You’ll Do for you for a long time.”

“I am not like that! How can you say such cold, unfeeling things to me!”

“Because you’ve become a cold, unfeeling woman! You know what this notebook is? Evidence. Evidence that you forgot how to be anything else a long time ago. You can’t seduce somebody for a quick dirty screw with nothing. If you don’t have love, you at least have to have lust. And all you’ve got here is foolish pride. I’m Jean Grey. Why wouldn’t you want me?”

“Logan did!”

“The only reason Logan took the bait is because he’s over the moon about you. He was crawling the walls when he first came here, and we all thought he wasn’t going to last and then you showed up. Jean, Logan changed his whole life for you. You made him believe that he could have a home, and a family, something I’ll bet he gave up on about fifty years before either of us were born. He’s got you on a pedestal, he thinks you really are The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey, and in his mind, he thinks about how if you were together it would be a great big love-in. Now, if you reduced him from Wolverine to Oh, Logan, and started taking him for granted and poking into his mind and telling him that you might as well get a dog, it would make less mess for you and not as much trouble, he’d cool off, fast. Which brings me to my next point. Napalm.”

“Napalm? What does she have to do with any of this?”

“Lots. You’re always writing, what is it about Liv and Mel that men like so much? Well, for starters, neither of them are an iceberg. Jean, if you were Liv or Mel, you’d be Trivelino or Melanie. You know, when I lost interest in you, I thought it was just me. That there was something wrong with me. I was sitting in the kitchen, thinking that I’m only 29 and my life as a man was over, and Napalm came in, in her men’s OD underwear, from Logan’s room, and she saw how desolate I looked, and she sat down, and talked to me. Not at me. Or around me. To me. We kidded around a little and she talked to me about my truck, and we talked shop a little, and she laughed and called me Scooter in a way that it wasn’t insulting at all. She paid attention to me, and listened to what I had to say, and cared enough to stop and say something, at all. And you know what? I started noticing how well that threadbare tank top and folded over OD boxers fit her, and I warmed up to her, and she warmed up to me, and, all of the sudden I was shifting my legs around under the table so she wouldn’t be able to see I was getting interested. I didn’t do anything about it. She went back upstairs and I realised there was nothing wrong with me that not living with an Ice Queen wouldn’t cure.”

“Scott, that woman has killed enough men to fill up a Marine battalion!”

“Yes, but she didn’t want to kill me. She treated me like a man, like a human being, she was nice, and friendly and warm, and she has T& A in spades. After years of floating around on your personal glacier, that was enough for me. There. I’ve said it.”

“Said it? Oh, you’ve said it, alright! Well, I’m so glad you think I’m an Ice Queen , and a bitch, because I think you’re a self-important, officious, boot-licking puritanical fucking jerk! You never used to be like that, either, Scott. You were always a very decent, moral, upstanding man, but you were adventurous and fun and daring. Then, when Charles made you Our Leader, you changed. You decided you had to be on a pedestal high above everybody. All of the sudden, Charles’ word was God’s word, and we had to have all the zippers on our costumes polished, and everything had to be ship-shape and yes sir. Which spilled over into our personal life, because you decided that all of the things we used to enjoy doing was “Teenage stuff” or “immature: or “undignified” and that’s when our sex life started to go downhill. If sex isn’t teenage or immature or undignified, it isn’t much fun. And I had to peek into your mind, just to see if you were still in there, somewhere.”

Whereas Scott had been able to tell Jean exactly what he thought of her in a calm, quiet way that just bordered on sarcasm, Jean started to get mad.

“So I’m an iceberg? A cold unfeeling woman? Who wouldn’t be, living with you? Don’t try to shift all the blame onto me! You never delegate your authority, but when it comes to shifting the blame, well, that’s something we’re all expected to share! What the fuck are you smiling about?”

“I didn’t think you had it in you, anymore.”

“What?”

“Fire.”

“Aren’t you going to get angry at me, for what I’m saying?”

“No. Because I know it’s all true. At least I’ll admit to my mistakes.”

“Oh Christ! Here we go! Time for Scott Summers, Holy Martyr! You selfish prick, you do not get to be poor wounded Scott, the brave martyr! Walking around having everyone feel sorry for you! He’s such a saint and Jean’s such a whore, how could she do this to him. Bullshit! We are all grown-ups, here, Scott, and this is the 20th century, not the 13th! You know who the martyr is, here? Me! I’m the one who cries all night and sleeps in the gym! I tried to talk to you. Many times. You wouldn’t listen to me! You didn’t care! I’m the one who tried anything, everything to get you to notice that you’re a man and I’m a woman and we are not brother and sister, and I’m the one who got rejected, night after night until I had myself convinced I might as well turn the stove on and stick my head in it, because my life was over. I’m the wounded one here, Scott, I’m the martyr, and you’re the bad guy, you selfish, prudish, puritanical fucking asshole!”

“I’m the bad guy? Me? You seduced Logan, and I’m the bad guy? You know what, Jean? Fuck you!”

Now it was Jean’s turn to look shocked.

Scott had dropped the F-bomb.

“Scott, did you just say “fuck” ?”

Then, before her wondering eyes, Scott completely exploded in a screaming, spitting, rage, raving and pacing the floor and jabbing his finger in her face

“No, I just said fuck you! And let me say it again! Fuck you, you dirty fucking whore! If you want to go from Jean the Ice Queen to Jean the Whore of Humanity, you go right ahead, but leave me out of it! And you should have left Logan out of it, too. The poor son-of-a-bitch didn’t have a chance, did he? I can see it in his face. Maybe we weren’t best buddies but we are friends! We used to sit in the kitchen and have a beer, or watch a movie in the TV room, sometimes, but he left here because he can’t even look at me anymore! You know why? Because, unlike you, Logan’s got some decency and some honour and he’s ashamed of what he’s done! Oh I’d like to be mad at him, but the man’s memory is like a Swiss cheese, he’s just this side of being an animal and he carries a helluva torch for you. But you knew that when you took the poor bastard to the drive-in wearing your two-dollar whore outfit! Poor old Wolvie never had a chance, did he? And you, you thought you had it made, didn’t you? Then he had an attack of conscience, because of the aforementioned decency and honour, and told you to peddle it elsewhere! That poor man never had a goddamn thing in his miserable fucked-up life but pain and suffering and he found a home, here, probably the first place he really had a home since 1900 or so, and you took it from him, just so you could get some head! And now you come, crawling back to me, and I’m supposed to want you? Fat chance! Fuck you!”

Jean slapped him in the face so hard it knocked his visor off and she had to duck.

He shut his eyes, and put it back on.

“It was your fault!” she screamed.

Scott started pulling on his clothes as he continued his raging.

“My fault? My fault! Don’t you listen? Ever? It was your fault, too, you snooty free-wheeling bitch! And don’t you fucking slap me again, goddamnit! I’m a man, goddamnit! A man! And you reduced me to a snivelling, quivering nervous wreck of a pile of shit! I’m not going to let you slap me around, too! You had your fun, Miss Great and Powerful Jean Grey, and now I’m going to have mine! The next woman, the very next woman who shows any interest in me, who treats me like I am a man, who shows me a littler kindness, a little human fucking feeling, I’m going to give her what you want! I’m going to fuck her right out of her shoes, and I don’t care what you think about it! As for you, my little glacier, I wouldn’t touch you with the tip of the head of my dick if you had the last cooze on Earth!”

Scott delivered that last shot with the door open, loud enough for oh, the entire mansion to hear everything he said, then slammed the door and left.

Jean sat down on the couch.

“Unmask, indeed.”

She got dressed, and, very coolly, left their room to start the day like nothing had happened at all.

II: Scott

Scott Summers tried, and tried.

But he found he couldn’t understand Napalm.

For all he had been through in his life, Scott Summers was a calm, reasonable, well-adjusted man who couldn’t even imagine the kind of hell that was visited on a deeply disturbed and instinctually violent alcoholic genius struggling to single-handedly bring the light of justice into every foul, slimy, and hereforeto ignored corner of New York City at the same time as she limped and staggered out of a childhood and adolescence that was like a collaboration between Burroughs, Dickens, and maybe Jim Thompson or James M. Cain.

He had no idea how a man like the Comedian could make anyone’s life better, or how any woman could want to be with such a man, but Napalm was Jean’s friend, she was Logan’s friend, she was a fellow mask and over the years she had become his friend, as well.

Napalm lived every day with what Jean told him was a truly horrifying amount of emotional and physical pain, so some Wednesdays were better than others.

Generally you’d get Napalm in the wee hours as Tuesday passed into Wednesday, a little drunk, a little tired, a little worse for wear, but generally sunny and unharmed and happy to be in her sanctuary, beaming her thousand-watt grin at anyone who could see it.

For all her well-deserved reputation as a violent, brutal, wildly degenerate alcoholic with a wickedly sardonic sense of humor and hair-trigger temper, Napalm’s good side was as good as gold; a sunny red-haired tomboy in Levis and Keds, with two very long ponytails on either side of her head.

Invariably, Napalm always came in through the kitchen door, and, invariably, Scott was at the kitchen table at three in the morning; he frequently suffered from insomnia.

Sometimes she’d come downstairs in the middle of the night in her underwear, fresh out of Logan’s bed, looking to have a beer or a snack and there Scott would be.

That was the worst.

For one thing, the undershirts she wore weren’t sized for a woman; she always looked like she was ready to burst out of them.

For another, when she reached up to get something from the cabinet or to stretch the tank top rode up and he could see where she had the OD boxers folded down around her hips, and she was also practically hanging out of the bottom, as well.

It wasn’t even Wednesday, it was Thursday, Liv was staying over because her car wouldn’t start, and she figured she’d just fix it in the morning.

She slept in Logan’s room, but came down for a midnight snack.

“Hiya, Cyke. Gettin’ cold out there.”

It was cold in the kitchen.

Not only were her breasts huge, so were her nipples; when they got hard they looked like gumdrops, poking through the ribbing of her often worn, old undershirts.

“Sure is. But it’s only April, yet.”

“Yeah, but this is pretty cold for April. I mean there’s some flakes in the air. Mind if I sit down?”

Actually, Scott did mind.

Napalm made him nervous.

There was something overwhelmingly and elementally female and seductive about her, even as she sat there in her men’s military underwear, with motor oil under her blunt-cut fingernails.

Liv had a way of talking to every man she met in this staccato direct way, and if she liked you, whether or not she intended to do anything about it, she hung herself over the chairs she sat in as if to say, don’t mind my being in drag, my man, I wouldn’t mind fucking your brains out and you know I could.

He’d come down to the kitchen one night as Tuesday became early Wednesday morning and walked in on Logan doing it to her on the kitchen table.

Right on the table.

He had just his pants on but she was naked, naked and wrapped around him, but still mostly covered by her long, red Lady Godiva hair.

It was an image burned onto Scott’s retinas.

Jean had gone to college and had other boyfriends, but Scott never left the Institute; he’d never been with any girl other than Jean.

The very idea of touching Napalm horrified him and fascinated him at the same time.

She was just the kind of chick that was mad, bad and dangerous to know that a man like him would never want, and that was where the fascination lay.

He’d never been with a bad girl.

“Go ahead. I could use the company.”

“Jesus, you look like hell, there, Scooter pie. You have a rough day?”

“I’ve had a rough couple of months. And these past few days, they’ve been Hell on Earth.”

“Well, seein’ as how Logan got in the wind in a hurry, I imagine somethin’; real bad has happened. Maybe I can help.”

Napalm pulled her knapsack out from under the table , and pulled out a little plastic box, in which there were what looked like a bunch of homemade teabags and envelopes, in separate sections.

She took a few of the teabags out and handed them to Scott.

“Here. Try this. It’s herbal tea. An old family recipe from my old Irish granny, and her old Irish granny, in perpetuity. I grow the herbs in my herb garden an’ make it myself. Bruce drinks it when he can’t sleep, and if it works on him, it’ll work on anybody.”

“What’s in it?” Scott asked.

“Chamomile, valerian, liquorice root, a little ginger, and some lemongrass and spearmint, just for taste. Try it. It won’t solve your problems, but it might make you feel a little better so you can at leats get some sleep. If it works, I’ll whip up a batch for you. Lemme go put the kettle on. We’ll have a cuppa tea.”

It was good tea, relaxing, and before Scott knew it he was spilling his guts.

“Jean had an an affair with Logan.”

Liv looked surprised.

“Whoa there, man. Affair, that’s a big word. A little screwing between friends does not constitute an affair.”

“I know that. But ‘affair’ sounds a lot better than ‘Jean set out, methodically and in cold blood to find some poor fool to service her, and Logan took the bait, poor bastard.’ I can’t forgive her. She set out to seduce him. I know it takes two to tango, but she knew how he carried a torch for her, and she took advantage of that, and made me look like an idiot, and broke his heart. She even had a go at your partner. He didn’t take the bait, though, good for all of us. By this time I must be the laughingstock of the whole superhero community. How could she do this to me?”

“Hey, Cyke, don’t take it so hard. Just because she did the dirty deed with another man, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. Lemme level with youse, Scott. I never expected I’d fall in love with a man, and I sure as fuck never expected a man to fall in love with me. Logan and I are friends, and it’s blood between us, and that was more than I ever thought I’d have. But I love Eddie, the Devil take me for it, but I do, and I can tell you right now, I ain’t never gonna feel that way about nobody else. And he loves me and don’t you think he doesn’t. But, he has Wednesdays with Sophie and I have Wednesdays with Logan, and when he sneaks off to LA to go see Sally, I sneak off to spend a little quality time with Tony Stark. And neither of us is willing to give up screwing mask groupies, here and there. It was just one of those things. Ships that pass in the night. You know, big fella, Jean doesn’t sleep much, either.”

“She doesn’t?”

“Nope. She tells me alla time how she never can get to sleep.”

Scott was blushing again.

“Jesus, Cyke, don’t get all sqidgy about it! It’s only natural. Take it from me, I gotta degree in evolutionary biology. From ol’ Mom Nature’s standpoint, all of us, from mice to men, are only on this planet to do a few things. We have to eat, so we can have enough energy to move around and attract a mate, and then do some fucking, and produce offspring, and then, when we get too old to eat, move and fuck, we’re to die to make room for our young to take over where we left off. And it’s worse for mutants, because they have a greater biological imperative to spread their DNA. Don’t sweat it, my friend. It’s science. Just do what comes naturally.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? You need a doctor?”

“No, I mean…well, I did…but I don’t want to. I’m furious at her!”

“Well, then, have a fight. Scream. Throw shit. Lose your cool. It’ll do ya good. Then, on the next night you got free, take Jean to the drive-in. Or go to the motel up on the interstate. Or to the city.”

“Liv, you didn’t tell her she should sleep with some other guy, did you?”

“No. Certainly not Eddie! I was pretty goddamn mad at her when she took a shot at Eddie. I told her she should get aggressive with you.”

“I wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole.”

“Yeah, I can see why. And don’;t worry about Logan. He had Jean up on a pedestal, way in the sky. Now that he sees she’s only human, just like him, well, he hadda see it sometime, yunno? He’ll be back. Don’t worry.”

“I don’t know, Liv. I just don’t know anything, anymore. All I know is, you’re a good woman, no matter what anybody says. You know how to treat a man like a man. You make me feel like a man, Liv. Let me return the favour. Make you feel like a woman.”

Liv looked at him like he had ten heads, and then, she laughed her Jack Napier laugh.

“Why, Scott Summers, you got the Devil in you tonight! Lookin’ to give the dog a bone? It just goes to show you, it’s always the quiet ones.”

“I came down here, once, and I saw you and Logan…getting it on, right on this table. I left, right away, but, some things, a man doesn’t forget.”

Now this was an opportunity.

Liv thought that it would be some kind of fun to corrupt the hell out of a nice, lily-white sheep like Cyke.

Not only that, his confidence was in the toilet, he really needed somebody to make him feel like he was a man, again.

Yeah, a selfless act of charity.

She considered her and Eddie’s rules.

Cyke did not work closely with Eddie. He was not related to Eddie. And they were not under Eddie’s roof.

Then she asked herself the usual question.

If I told Eddie I fucked this guy, would he laugh his ass off?

Most certainly.

She laughed, and it was the most evil, lustful, maniacal laugh Scott ever heard come out of a woman.

“Listen, Scooter Pie, you’d better think twice. You had better be the man you’re tellin’ me you are, because, I’ll burn your ass down, motherfucker. I mean it. If you want me, you get me. And if you can’t take it, that’s tough. I’ll fuck you right outa your shoes, I’ll fuck you right outa your mind, I’ll fuck you till I’ve drained every last drop of spunk outa your balls. I’ll grab you by your hair and hold your head down. I’ll rattle your bones, my man. You had better be ready for me.”

Scott was actually scared.

He wondered if he looked scared.

Scared, but god damn, was he horny.

He got up from behind the table, no, he pushed the table away, he kicked his chair over.

“Suits me, baby. I’ll fuck you like Superman.”

Did I really say that?

Yes, I did.

“You will, huh?”

“You bet your sweet ass.”

Napalm was torn.

On one hand, she knew that this was the absolute 100 per cent wrong thing to do, and that it would fuck her up with Jean, and maybe with Logan, and certainly Scooter Pie would feel guilty as sin about three seconds after he shot his wad.

Scooter Pie.

He did look pretty good, just then, on the other hand, this promised to be some kind of hot, dirty, nasty kind of action, and at this hour of the night, that was always what Napalm was looking for.

Just about any man who was interested looked good to her on a cold night at three in the morning when she couldn’t sleep and was horny as a junkyard dog under a full moon.

But Scooter, in this his first moment in his long life of being a good boy of finally being bad?

That was some hot shit.

She wished she was still a habitual drunk; she could always have blamed it on the booze.

But wait a minute?

What if he got hung up on her.

That wouldn’t be good.

And if he was just about to have the dirtiest, nastiest, porno movie hubba-hubba hump-a-thon moment of his whole boring, do it on Sunday with my socks on life, then she shouldn’t be the one he shared it with.

“Hey there, Scooter Pie, I’d love to say yes to you, but, there’s too may ways that could go wrong. All wrong. I think, you know, I think I’m gonna go out to the car, put my coveralls on, see if I can’t get it started, again. It’s parked under a light pole, I can see well enough. Why don’t you so see if your old lady is still awake? Better yet, wake her up”

Liv got up and zoomed out into the cold, before she could think better of it.

***

Her car was dead as a doornail, so she put on some clothes she kept in it, and pressed the green button on the bracelet Dr. Manhattan had given her when they started working together.

It was just a remote that activated a buzzer, one in his lab and one in his apartment, letting him know she wanted to be teleported to work.

Jon had told her it was so she could miss the traffic, but she figured it was more like in case of emergency, and when she first started working for Jon, it was every day an emergency.

She pushed the button again, and again, and again.

“C’mon, Jon, c’mon, c’mon, I’m freezin’ my ass off!”

And then, in a whoooooooshhhh!!!! and a flash of blue light, she was in the living room of Jon’s nice, warm apartment in New York.

He looked flustered.

She knew him well enough to know what flustered looked like.

“Were you busy?” Liv asked.

“Yes, we were!” Laurie yelled, from the bedroom.

“Sorry, man. But my car died out there in the snow.”

“It’s OK. And it’s late. You can come in late, tomorrow.”

Jon went back to bed, and Naplam took the subway, and came out a block from Eddie’s building.

It was precisely three-thirty when she got into bed beside him.

“I thought you was stayin’ in Westchester.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Awww, Scooter made a pass at me. And I wanted to do the right thing, so I split and left him and his big ideas to Jean.”

Eddie laughed.

He laughed until he was wheezing, and the whole bed was shaking.

Liv put the light on.

“What the fuck is so fuckin’ funny, you rotten old bastard?”

“The idea of you with fuckin’ Scooter! Fuckin’ Scooter, Jesus Christ! Kid, you woulda killed him! Fuckin’ murdered the poor bastard! You an’ Scooter. Shit, I can’t breathe!”

“Yeah, well, fuckin’ yuk it up. I’m gonna try and get some sleep.”

“Fuck you, you are. You didn’t come here to get some sleep. You coulda gone home and got some sleep.”

“Eddie, you’re the greatest.”

“Yeah, kid. You ain’t so bad yourself. But you’re frozen stiff. C’mere, lemme thaw yer ass out.”

Briefly, the Comedian was furious at Scooter, because of him she ended up turned out into what was probably the last cold night of the year, but he had more important things to attend to.

“Oooo, Eddie, oooo, oooo…”

Yeah, fuck you, Scooter.

You woulda burned alive.

***

Scott sat down, he finished his tea, and then, a look of wickedness that seemed odd an alien across his face overspread his features, and he went upstairs.

***

Jean woke up when Scott turned the lights on in the main room, at least she assumed it was Scott.

It was him, alright, but he had the strangest look on his face.

“Scott? What the hell is going on? Do you know what time it is?”

He snapped the TV off.

“Yeah. I do. It’s time for me to take you down a peg or two.”

“What? Are you drunk again, or something?”

“No. No, I’m stone cold sober. I just had some tea with Liv, and that was all I had, and it suddenly came to me, what you’ve been looking for. Somebody to take you down a peg or two. Knock you off that pedestal you’re stranded on. And what would be better, than to dress like a cheap, dirty whore, and get fucked like one by some anonymous mask who hardly knows you and doesn’t care if you live or die? That should do the trick.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about getting down, Jean. Down and dirty, like they say. That’s what both of us need. I need to stop being the Fearless Leader, and you need to stop being The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey, and I can only think of one way we can do that. Birds do it. Bees do it. It’s just biology, baby. Let’s go with it.”

Scott unzipped his jeans, and pulled his dick, which was like a rock, out of his shorts, and wagged it at her.

“Well? It’s not gonna suck itself?”

***

On his way back to his own rooms, Kurt passed by Scott and Jean’s rooms, and, through the half open door, he caught a glimpse of them, on the floor, not even the bedroom floor, on the floor, not even on the carpet, but on the floor, naked and all wrapped around each other, and Fearless Leader was quite obviously nailing Miss Jean Grey to said floor.

And the dialogue wasn’t suitable for the kinds of movies he liked to watch.

In fact, he was quite surprised that Scott even said those kinds of words.

Kurt averted his eyes, immediately, and ever so quietly, he closed their door.

“Mein Gott.” He chuckled to himself.

“I did not see zat. I did not see zat at all.” he decided, and continued on his way to bed.

***

Scott rolled over onto his back on the floor, panting.

Under his glasses, his eyes were burning from the sweat that had fallen into them, and his ears were burning from the steady stream of cursing, dirty talk, and generally foul and filthy language that poured from his mouth as he, well, screwed the shit out of Jean on the floor.

Unbelivable.

The way she got down on her knees for him; like she’d just been waiting for him to make her do it.

Well, he’d never had to make her do it.

He chewed on his lower lip; he could still taste her on it, and just thinking about that made him wish he could do it all, do everything, all over again.

Jean rolled over and put her head on his chest.

“Oh, Scott, that was so amazing. I didn’t know you had it in you.” She said.

He put his arms around her.

She wasn’t cold, now.

That was it? That was the whole problem? They almost destroyed each other, almost destroyed their love, shook the foundations of Xavier’s dreams because of a little head and some dirty talk?

He almost wanted to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Us, Jean. We are.”

***

The summer passed slowly and lazily, and, things were much better between Scott and Jean.

He divided himself fairly between his work and his girlfriend, he overcame his despair and became a better leader for it.

As for their love life, Scott was happy to have one, again. Maybe he wasn’t at it every night, and he really wasn’t the dirty type, but it was like it had been, years ago, between him and Jean. They were together again, and they were happy.

Both of them.

Somewhere in the beginning of August, Logan and Mel returned.

Good news all around.

It turned out Mel’s father was alive and well, and they had been happily reunited, and Old Black Tom, he was alive, well, mean as a cobra with a toothache and had moved a woman into his old cabin with him, a French-Canadian mutant who was 35 years old to his 214.

Runs in the family.

Scott didn’t talk to Logan about the incident that precipitated his departure, and things went back to normal between them.

Logan was glad to be home, everyone was glad to see him.

Things were going well with Jean.

God was in his Heaven, and all was right with Cyclops’ world.

II: Jean

Jean knew she was in trouble even before Logan got back, because she had to face some hard, cold facts.

That night that she and Scott spent getting after it on their living room floor was hands down the best she ever had.

The kind of thing that Napalm referred to as hot, dirty, nasty action, which she averred was the best kind.

After that night, she and Scott resumed their friendship, their love, and their sex life, and it wasn’t that Scott wasn’t a good lover.

He was tender and gentle in the beginning and he had more than enough stamina to get to the end, and be powerful and masculine, and they took a renewed delight in each other after so long a dry spell.

Scott loosened up, and they were having the best possible love life they could.

It was satisfying.

Very satisfying.

So why was she still craving hot, dirty, nasty action?

Jean came to the realisation that she loved Scott, very deeply, as a friend, as a man, and as a lover, but there was something she needed that he couldn’t give her.

It was what he loved about her that, even in his most passionate moments, he didn’t have.

Fire.

Jean re-read her notebook, and knew it for the crock of shit it was. She didn’t go after any man. She went after men who had fire.

You could ask a whole gaggle of well-ravished women if the great Tony Stark had fire. He may have known how to control it like a laser beam, but you could see the sparks in his devilish, twinkling eye and his in like Flynn grin.

As for Eddie Blake, he was made of fire, hellfire, just like Napalm was. The man boiled and fulminated with his barely concealed rage, and when he let it out, he erupted in calculated brutality, but he was what he was, a fiery Irishman with a blazing temper, and every woman who lay down with him got up smiling from the flames.

And then, there was Logan.

Fire?

Logan burned with the heat of a thousand dying suns in supernova.

Not just for her; that was just the way he was.

They had a conversation, two conversations at the same time, shortly after he returned.

One spoken, and the other unspoken.

“Hey, Jeannie, didja have a good summer.”

Without me?

“Yes, I did. Scott and I managed to work things out, and everything’s going well for us now.”

Well, but not quite good enough.

“That’s good. It’ll make my life a lot easier, that’s for sure.”

So, you still need me?

“I’m sorry I ever dragged you into this, Logan. I made a mistake.”

I made a mistake, alright. And I want to make it again.

“That’s alright, darlin’. These things, they happen.”

Hopefully, they’ll happen again.

“I guess they do. Even in the best of families. I have some work to do, getting things ready for the start of classes, so I think I’ll go, now.”

Take me, Logan. Take me, now. Throw me on the desk , slice off my clothes, and fuck me, screw me into the floor, I need Scott, but I need you, too.

“Okay. Be seein’ you, darlin’.”

I can smell how much you want me. Jeannie, darlin’, I wanna fuck you so bad I can taste you. I got what you need and I wanna give it to you, over an’ over an’ over again.

Jean left.

No point in dragging this out.

Like Logan had said, before he left, she and Scott and Mel Reinhardt and him were all going to have to sit down together and discuss things like rational adults.

She marched right over to Scott’s office, to tell him it was about time they all had their little talk, and walked right in.

It was a bizarre tableau.

There was a white ermine cape spread out across Scott’s desk.

Spread out over that white ermine cape, still wearing her white corset and boots, albeit half unlaced and disordered, was the White Queen, Emma Frost.

Scott was standing directly behind her; he had his hands on her hips and his undershirt on, and under the desk, she could see his pants down around his ankles.

Emma’s mouth was set in a perfect “O” of shock and dismay, and Scott looked for all the world like a little boy whose mother caught him with his hands in the cookie jar.

That was close enough to the situation at hand.

“Jean, I can explain. It’s like, uh, therapy.”

“Therapy! What kind of therapy?”

“Sex therapy.” Emma said, coolly.

“No, I believe it’s called, Emma you’re a fucking whore, and you’ve been taking advantage of my big, dumb Scooter Pie at a time when his mind is as malleable as mush. Which is not to say I’m leaving you off the hook, Scooter Pie. Therapy, my ass! Now, here’s what’s going to happen. I was going to be patient and delicate about it, but, fuck that noise. Scott, you and I are going to have an open relationship. I am going to feel free to see other people, well, one other person, namely Logan. It isn’t that you’re not good enough, it’s just that, well I need therapy, too. As for you, if you, for some unknown reason want to continue to stick your dick in this fucking whore who gets passed around every Superhero Summit on a Lazy Susan, you go right ahead. But don’t do it where we live, and for God’s sake, use a rubber. Now, if you’ll excuse me for interrupting, I’m going to do the decent thing, and go rent a room at the motel up on the interstate.”

“Jean—“

“Oh, save it, Scott. Welcome to the 20th century already in progress, but do yourself a favour, get a nice girl. Someone who’s never tried to kill you. I’ll see you tomorrow. Tonight, don’t wait up.”

Jean closed the door, and opened it again.

“One more thing, Emma. If you do anything, in any way, shape or form to hurt him, or if I ever even sense that you’ve been within a mile of my home, I will make your head explode like an over-ripe pumpkin. Phoenix trumps White Queen, anytime.”

“Is that all you have to say to me, Jean?” Emma Frost asked.

“Let me see. There’s whore, bitch, slut, fucking dirty whore, lousy no-good Hellfire Club murderous cunt, and may I add that you’re an awful dresser and I hope Scooter never figures out that you bought your tits. Ooops. I misspoke myself. Have a nice time, Scott.”

Jean left Scott’s office, and slammed the door.

“You mean you’re just going to let her talk to me like that, Scott?”

“Well, I…I…I…”

“You spineless worm!”

“Emma, please!”

“Don’t give me that bullshit! I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back!”

“Emma, you can’t!”

“Watch me!”

Jean left them to sort it out between the two of them, and left the school.

She got in her car, and drove up to the motel on the interstate, parked her car by room 14, and rented it until noon the next day.

She went in, sat down on the bed, put the TV on, and called Napalm’s office at NYU

“It’s your nickel.”

“Napalm? It’s Jean. Would it bother you if I was on Logan’s dance card with you? Scott and I have decided to have an open relationship.”

“Who, me? Shit, Jean, it’s blood between Logan and I, and we’re good friends, but all I got an interest in is Wednesday. Glad to hear you and Scooter have come to your senses.” Liv replied.

“Thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”

After she hung up with Liv, she called Mel Reinhardt’s room, and asked her the same question.

“I can’t say I didn’t see that comin’. You love him?”

“Not the way you do, but, yes.”

“You won’t do anything to hurt him?”

“Of course not.”

“Does this have anything to do with Emma Frost running across the lawn yelling ‘Fuck you, Scooter Pie?’”

“A lot, actually.”

Mel laughed.

“Well, I guess he brought it on himself.”

“Oh, she’ll be back. Now that she has her claws in poor dopey Scott, she won’t be letting go anytime soon.”

“So, how does Monday sound to you?”

“Why Monday?”

“Because, I got my powers completely under control, and my Gypsy, he’s a mutant, too. I’m gonna go out to Frisco to see him, and I got no classes on Mondays this semester. I figure I’ll fly out on Sunday, come home Tuesday morning for class Tuesday afternoon.”

“And Logan knows about this?”

“Well, yeah. He was the first one I talked to.”

“Is today Monday?”

“Yes.”

“Then Monday works for me.”

After Jean got off the phone with Mel, she called Logan’s office.

The line was busy.

She waited a while and called back.

“H’lo?”

“Guess who?”

“Jeannie? What the hell’s goin’ on? I just talked to Napalm, and Mel was in here, tellin’ me as how I wasn’t gonna hafta be alone on Mondays while she was in Frisco? Is this some kinda sick joke?”

“No. It isn’t. I’m thirty years old, Logan, and that may not be old for a mutant, but it’s old enough for me to decide that life is too short not to have what you want. And I want you. I’m at the motel up on the interstate, in Room 14. I have the room all night. I’m waiting for you.”

“You sure we’re square with Cyke?”

“We sure as fuck are. You gotta window in your office, don’t you.”

“Yeah. I closed the blind when he ran out after her, though, holdin’ up his pants. I’m glad the kids aren’t here. Poor Cyke, Jesus Christ.”

Silence on the line.

“Logan? Are you coming?”

“I’ll be there before you know it, darlin’.”

“Good.”

(Author’s Note: My, oh my, poor Scooter Pie! How did Emma get her hooks into him? And, once he gets his pants buttoned and he sees Logan about to head off to that rendezvous at the motel up on the Interstate, will he try to stop him? And didn’t I mention Sabretooth, before? You’ll be seeing him one fine Wednesday, and if you read Moonlight and Adamantium, you’ll know why. So, will Jean and Logan finally find bliss, or is Scott going to try and cut them off at the pass? Boy, those suds sure are flying, now. The last thing we need is Vic Creed throwing his hat into the ring. Will Logan end up with more than soap in his claws? And Eddie Blake hasn’t killed anybody in this story, yet, isn’t that unusual? And just what does the White Queen have up her satin sleeve? Find out in the next exciting chapter, same X-Time, same X-Channel!)