Constant Craving

CONSTANT CRAVING CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply


A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Ted, the dolphin, Lucas and Kristen are going to need a commune of their own, soon....those kids need room to run! But she still rocks for beta'ing so well, and for not hexing me into next year for swamping her with emails! InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are fanfreakingtastic for archiving. Go to their sites and worship them properly. Vampyre: damned radon-now not only is it buzzing-it's glowing! Readers/Reviewers: The ducks request and require that you BYOB to the show. In fact, I personally recommend it. Ever hear a duck sing the part of Buttercup in The Mikado? ((shudder)) You'll need a drink to get through it

Scott chewed his lip in deep thought. The television was on but he could not tell what was on, so lost was he in his own thoughts. He felt as if he was coming back to himself after being ill, but he could not quite shake the sickness entirely. _I don't hate Remy, Lance and Todd but I don't want them around...well, not so much Remy. I just want him backnormnormal. Back to the Remy LeBeau he was a week ago. We were a team, all of us...then Lance and Todd come in and it's like pour oil on water. They won't settle, they won't mix. We need cohesion, we need solidarity. _
"Scott?" Jean's voice broke his reverie. She stood in the doorway of his room, looking at him with mild concern. "I've been trying to get your attention for about five minutes."
"Really? I'm sorry..." Scott rose and held out a hand in a "come in" gesture. "Something wrong? You look like you've been upset."
Jean looked steadily at him, like she was seeing through layers of artifice to find what was underneath, what was true. "You love me."
"Um...yeah." Scott sat back on the bed and looked askance at her. "Were you concerned?"
"No, but I'm just having a moment..." she sighed and sat next to him. "Very bad things this morning."
"Want to talk about it?" Scott slid an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. Jean tensed momentarily, then sighed and melted against him. "Would you rather just show me?"
"Okay..." Jean closed her eyes and breathed out slowly through her nose, releasing interior tension. Her mind opened to Scott and she felt him tighten as the images seeped into his mind. She showed him all she knew, all she heard, and then felt understanding come over him as the images fit into place. "Now do you see why I've been so anxious for you to make nice with Lance and Todd? Things like this will keep happening, the tension will keep building..."
Scott shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebbed feeling of intrusive thoughts. "It won't get that bad with me, Jean. Besides," he said in an attempt at levity, "who would you mess around with? Remy?"
Jean snorted and pulled away to look at him in consternation. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"
"Jean!" he said in exasperation, "Don't start that! I'm kidding...I'm sure plenty of people would mess around with you if you wanted to...you don't want to, do you?"
"Of course not." She snuggled back against him. "I'm just worried about Kurt and Kitty...she was so upset. And he was like an animal, just fighting Lance like he wanted to tear him apart."
"Kurt and Kitty will be fine in the end. I'm sure of it."
"Oh? Can see the future, can we?" she teased halfheartedly. "They have too much going for them to throw it all away..."
"Jean, Kitty is like a sister to me. I know her. I can say with great certainty that she isn't going to ditch Kurt over this. She'll be mad as Hell for a while, but she'll forgive him. Hell, in time, she may even see it as romantic. A story to tell their blue, pointy-eared kids as they phase in and out of the furniture and bite their dad's tail."
Jean snickered at the image. "I can see that...a little disturbing!"
"So long as we don't have to babysit."
There was a long pause and Scott was about to ask what was wrong when Jean said in a strangled voice "We?"
"What?" _Oh shit. _
"You said we...assuming we'd be together then."
"Jean...I was just saying it..." _Shit. _
Jean shook her head. "No, you think we'll be together in the future."
Scott sighed roughly. "Is there something wrong with that? I'm sure I'm not the only guy in the world who entertains thoughts of marrying his girlfriend."
Jean colored slightly and pulled away. "No, I'm sure you're not. But we're too young..."
"Sweetie, in case you hadn't notice, I didn't pro."
."
"Not this time," she said softly. "But you have before."
Scott growled involuntarily. "Jean, that was almost a year ago. I'm not saying it was a mistake but it was...a bad time to do that." He got to his feet and began pacing. "It's no secret how I feel about you...but what gets me is that you seem to run hot and cold."
"Excuse me?" she said sharply, levitating and turning to face him, bringing herself to eyelevel and glaring. "Hot and cold?"
"One day you're all over me, the next you're telling me you won't make love so long as I dislike Lance and Todd..."
"Wait just a second, buster! I never said that...all I want is for you to stop being a baby about them being here!"
Scott took a deep breath. He tried to remember what the Professor had told him to do and could only remember being advised to repeat a calming phrase. Like a bright light, the words came to him. "I love you, Jean."
"Huh?" She got mental whiplash from the change of topic and tone.
"I love you, Jean," he said clearly, all the feelings he held for her coming through in his voice. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Scott."
"But I don't love the Brotherhood."
"Um...."
"I feel better..." he mumbled.
"Anyone home?" Evan knocked on the doorframe and popped his head in. "You guys wanna come see Todd?"
"Why?" Scott snapped, his calm nearly vanishing.
Evan lifted one shoulder and let it drop. "He and Rogue had some sort of an incident...he's all kinds of drained and she's not feeling well herself."
Jean was already moving when she asked "What happened? Was it...um...personal?" _I don't think I want to know if this is sex-related... _
Evan led the way down the hall, Scott and Jean following side by side. "From what we can gather from Rogue, he just ed oed out at her, grabbed her arm with his tongue."
"For no reason?" Scott asked tightly.
"None that she said...She's with Logan in the infirmary. Beast has Toad isolate. He's all...twitchy."
"Twitchy?" Jean asked as they swung as a unit into the hall leading to the infirmary.
"He keeps mumbling, shouts every once in a while, jerking around..." Evan shook his head. "Man, it's kind of disturbing..."
The doors to the infirmary loomed large and silver before them and they paused. Scott asked "Is Rogue okay?"
"She's just upset...I carried Todd down here and she came with. She was fine until she sat down...she started shaking and crying. I've never seen Rogue cry! It's freaky!"
Jean nudged between them and pushed the doors open. "Well, no use standing here yakking...come on." She strode into the medical area and was assaulted by overwhelming feelings of panic and sickness, sheer terror mingling with guilt. "God!" she choked out and fell to her knees.
"What is it?" Scott demanded, catching her under the arms and steadying her as she knelt there.
"Too much..." she gasped. "I need a minute..." Scott and Evan looked at each other over her head and, at Scott's nod, the other boy darted off to find Beast. "I'll be fine," she murmured.
"Let me help you to a chair..." She let him pull her to her feet and stumbled only a little as he led her to one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs next to Beast's desk. "Want some water?"
"I'll be fine..." she insisted.
Beast's voice rumbled, "Let he have a moment. She just needs to adjust." With a kindly smile at Jean, he continued, "She must be worried-usually, Jean can prepare herself before coming in here."
Jean smiled weakly. "I wasn't thinking straight..."
"Would you like to see Rogue?" Beast asked kindly.
Scott nodded. "Is she okay?"
"Yes, yes...just a bit upset." Beast thought it was best to keep Rogue's confidence and not tell the other mutants about her odd incident yesterday. He led Scott around the corner as Evan returned to sit with Jean. "She's right in here..." He pushed aside a curtain and Scott entered the small area, Rogue's form hunched and dark ne cne corner.
"Rogue," he said uncertainly.
"Hey, Scott...what'd you want?"
"Just seeing if you're okay."
She looked at him then, her pale face streaked with red from crying, her eyes like coals in snow, so dark were they against her complexion. "Do I look okay?"
He say next to her then, Fearless Leader mode kicking into overdrive. "Want to tell me what happened?"
"No."
There was a long, uncomfortable pause before he asked "Why not?"
"None of your business."
"You're my friend, Rogue. I want to help...if Toad attacked you..."
She rocketed to her feet and slapped him with one hand. A moment of panic cleared Scott's eyes to show him she had put on a pair of latex exam gloves at some point since coming down to the infirmary, a belated effort to protect herself. "How dare you assume that?"
"Rogue!" Scott rubbed the stinging slap mark in shock. "Evan said..."
"Fuck what Evan said. The only people who know what happened are me and Todd! You can't respect my feelings for him, you think he'd hurt me, after what you saw yesterday?" Rogue took a deep breath, stemming further outburst. "Don't talk to me, Scott." She pushed past him and disappeared on the other side of the curtain. Scott stared after her in shock, feeling like he had been punched in the stomach.

"Now, Rogue," Beast said soothingly, "I'm just going to ask you a few questions."
"Whatever," she drawled. She had stormed into his small office after leaving Scott, her face set in a seemingly permanent scowl.
Beast cleared his throat and tapped his clipboard. "Are you going to cooperate?"
"It's the least I can do," she mumbled. _Todd hurt himself to make me come down here...I'm obligated, aren't I? If he wasn't still out of it, I'd slap him senseless for doing this to me, to himself... _
"Fine, then...How old are you?"
"Sixteen."1
"Where were you born?"
Rogue sighed. "Waycross, Georgia."
"Home or hospital?"
"Hospital, I think...I'm not sure."
"Mmmm. Okay then...When did you first show signs of your mutation?"
Rogue snorted. "Don't you already have this stuff on file somewhere? You asked me all this when I first came here."
"Moving on," Beast sighed. "Do you have any diagnosed medical conditions?"
"Other than being a mutant?"
'That's not medical..."
"I think I have an ulcer..."
"We can check that later. No allergies, hay fever, rashes of unknown origin..."
"No, no and no." Rogue shifted. "Anything else?"
"I'm going to have to ask some personal questions, Rogue..."
"Fine. Whatever."
"When was your first menses?"
"Excuse me?" Rogue flushed deeply. "I'm not gonna answer that!"
"Rogue, I'm a doctor. I did a rotation through the OB/GYN ward. I am familiar with the female reproductive cycle. Don't be embarrassed in front of me..."
Rogue, her Southern sensibilities2 offended, said haughtily, "If you must know, about three months ago."
Beast looked up sharply. "Really?"
"Well, mostly...I had a, um, period when I was twelve, but then I didn't have another one until three months ago...and then it was really short."
"How short?"
"Two days..." She remembered it vividly. She had bled during class and Kitty had loaned her a sweater to cover the stain on the back of her skirt, the one day she had worn green instead of black.
"Were the following two longer? And did they occur at the same time of the month?"
"Um...the second one lasted eight days and came about a week and a half after the first...the third one was about a three weeks ago and lasted four days."
"Cramps?"
Rogue was ignoring her embarrassment, feeling that Beast was onto something by the look on his face as he scribbled madly on his clipboard. "The first time, when I was twelve...they were bad. I thought I had appendicitis..."
"Since then?"
"Only this last time." She shook her head at the memory. "It hurt like hell."
"Did you take anyg fog for it?"
"Nothing helped." She sank lower in her seat. "Is this something important?"
"Maybe," he muttered. "Tell me...and this is going to be tremendously embarrassing, did you have any of the following symptoms: acnes, increased sexual desire, yeast infections, or increased vaginal discharge around the times of your periods?"
"Oh my God!" she snapped. "I can't tell you that!"
Beast sighed. "I'm more embarrassed than you are, you know...here. Tell you what. Place a check mark by the ones that you had. You don't have to say them out loud." Beast wrote something and handed her the clipboard. Rogue scowled and replied to the questions, shoving the clipboard back at him. "Well," he said after reviewing her responses. "I'm going to need some blood samples from you and I may need a urine test, but I'm done with questions..."
"Thank God!" she mumbled. She stood, about to leave, when a shrill alarm sounded from the panel near Beast's desk. He was on his feet and leaping through the door before she could ask what it was, the red light flashing wildly. She stared hard at it for a moment, a realization hitting her like a train. The label on the panel read "Bed Three, Hospital Unit, Cardiac Monitor." _Todd... _ Rogue was moving before she knew it, pelting after Beast as fast as she could.

1 I think she may be 17 in the cartoon, but for this I want her to be 16. If it bugs you, pretend I said 17.
2 Stereotypically, us Southern women are supposed to be embarrassed about that sort of thing. snort