Beyond Flirting

-X-
Formation: Cyclops

Wishes and Shooting Stars

Beyond Flirting

Long Distance

Through Death and Through Life

Fearless Letters

Exile

-XX-

Beyond Flirting
A look at the Scott-Jean-Logan love triangle from Scott’s perspective.

-X-

Xavier Institute.

    It had been one of those days. Nothing out of the ordinary, just running nonstop. By the time everything got done that needed to get done, it was late. I was beyond tired, and all I wanted out of life at the moment was a hot shower and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. I saw Jean in the common room and I headed toward her to tell her I was going up to bed. Then I saw her talking to Logan.
    Normally my first instinct in this situation is to interject myself. Not that I don’t trust Jean, and not that I don’t know she can handle herself without my intervention... but it’s always good to remind Logan I still exist and I’m still willing to fight to the last breath to be the man in Jean’s life, because left to his own devices I know he’d prefer to forget those two things entirely. Only today I wasn’t feeling it. Already bone weary, I didn’t have the energy to play ego games with Logan.
    I stood there for a minute watching the two of them do what they do: harmless flirting. Normally it doesn’t bother me. Even at a weird moment like this, Jean is in my head and I am in her head. That’s what happens when you share a psychic rapport with someone. You don’t get to pick and choose which thoughts and emotions you have access to. Everything is always on the table. Normally I love that, even at weird moments like this.
    To the average person watching, it probably looks like Jean is shamelessly flirting with Logan. But I can feel the difference. I know what it feels like when she’s attracted to me; I know the way that feeling lights up her whole world. It’s the same way my whole world lights up every time she walks into the room... and that’s not what she feels with Logan.
    This is playful, but detached. She’s not flirting with him because she wants something more from him; she’s just speaking playfully with him because that’s how they communicate. She likes getting Logan to take down his guard. Aside from a few of the students, and maybe Kurt, that’s something no one else but Jean has successfully managed from Logan. She thinks it’s good for him. Between them, this is an innocent conversation that just happens to look to the rest of the world like... flirting.
    She knew I was there. Another one of those things; it’s really hard to sneak up on a telepath, especially when you’ve already given her an all-access pass to your head. She turned and gave me that little smile I love. Normally that’s more than enough to remind me that all is right in my world. Today my silly frustrations got the better of me. I turned and walked away.

-x-

    “You okay, babe?”
    Jean was getting ready for bed by the time I got out of the shower.
    I didn’t say anything, just nodded and got into bed. I wasn’t trying to give her the silent treatment or anything. Sometimes I just don’t have words, at least not the right words. I knew if I tried to talk things through right now I was only going to wind up saying the wrong things, and I didn’t want to have a stupid fight with her. I just wanted to sleep.
    She didn’t pry. Even with the psychic rapport, it is possible for us to give each other privacy when we want to. So Jean humored me, gave me my mental space, and let me sleep off my unspoken frustrations.

-x-

    Only the next morning I didn’t feel much better. Last night’s frustrations were still needling at me, leaving me tired and annoyed. I got up early and hoped my morning run would help clear my head. When I came back to our room Jean was watching me curiously as she got ready for the day. I smiled, and kissed her cheek, and told her good morning, but she knew something was still off with me.
    She wrapped her arms around me. “You gonna tell me what’s up with you?”
    A moment earlier I wasn’t sure I even knew, but once she asked me the question words came tumbling out, with more frustration than I really wanted to express over something that I knew shouldn’t matter that much in the first place. But she listened, and let me vent until I’d spent all my pent up frustration. Then I shook my head, again at a loss for words. “Why do you have to humor him?!” I finally asked her.
    She placed a soft hand to my face and kissed my lips as softly. “I humor him because the bluff is all he has,” she told me quietly. Then she smiled, that smile so bright I swear it could eclipse the sun. “You have me. And you always will.”
    I released a breath and slipped my arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. Just that simply, all my frustrations had vanished. I was the man in Jean’s life, and that made me the luckiest man in the world.
    “I love you,” I whispered against her ear.
    She held me tight. “I love you too, Scott, with all my heart. Every last corner of it is yours.”
    I smiled, just happy. Purely happy. I didn’t have words and she understood that. She hugged me back, affectionately stroking her fingertips along the nape of my neck. No words were needed.
    That’s what happens when you share a psychic rapport with someone. And that’s what happens when that person loves you beyond words. Beyond thought. Beyond any trace of logic or reason. She knows when to humor me, and she knows when I needed her dig deeper and look beyond all my silly hang ups and insecurities. It makes no sense to me at all, the way she loves me... and it’s the only thing in this world that has ever made perfect sense to me. I don’t have to understand it. I can look beyond that, beyond myself, and just feel it. Just know that she feels the same for me.
    Everything is on the table. All the love she never knew she could feel, and wondered if she would ever be given in return. All the lingering confusion and self-doubt of a thousand completely human insecurities. All of it somehow made okay by trust and the willingness to abandon yourself. A raw need that’s soothed by this feeling of coming home to what truly matters. A feeling of wholeness and strength. A feeling of being understood, for all your strengths and all of your weakness, by someone who will always love you without condition.
    We’re way beyond humor. Beyond doubt. And way, way beyond flirting.

-X-

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