After Midnight

AFTER MIDNIGHT CHAPTER THREE (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, more slash! Whooo! And mille grazie for betaing! J Readers/Reviewers: More slash! More fluffy than the last, but slash
nonetheless! Well, more like fore-slash…um…yeah…

 

 

 

Scott was
uneasy, to say the least. He had not
meant to snoop, but it just sort of happened.
Jamie had let him use the computer in his room to type up a term paper
and accidentally left his email program running. The tinny sound through muted speakers indicating a message had
been enough of a distraction to temp Scott, clicking on the small envelope icon
with a guilty conscience. It’s
probably just a message from one of the guys downstairs too lazy to come up and
get something from their own rooms or something. Jamie doesn’t talk to anyone outside the Institute anyway… Scott leaned back and peeked at the door,
just to make sure it was shut firmly, before opening the email. Within seconds, his cheeks were flaming red. A few seconds later, he was painfully self
conscious and knew more about Jamie than he ever desired to know. Holy fucking shit! The email was long, thanking Jamie for
the “lovely time” the other night and going into grand detail about the other
things the sender would have enjoyed had they had the time and facilities. “I meant what I said,” the letter went on, “whoever
he is, he isn’t worth it. You’ve got a
lot to offer the right guy and you shouldn’t beat yourself up because someone
is ignoring you or whatever. That said,
I’m more than happy to be rebound-guy.”
Scott stared at the missive with growing shock. Jamie picked up a stranger…and did that
with them? And who’s this guy he’s torn
up over? Scott hastily closed the
letter when he heard the knob rattle in the door, typing furiously in an
attempt to look innocent as Jamie entered his own room.

“Hey, how’s
it coming?” Sound normal. Good. You don’t sound at all like you’ve just been
thinking horribly indecent thoughts about your friend while you watched
hockey. You don’t sound like your heart
is about to explode because he’s in your room and this is how so many fantasies
have started.

“Oh…uh…fine. Good.
Great. Oh, look, I’m done!” I’ll
get Jean to let me use her computer later…Get out now…mental pictures…gah!

Jamie
nodded and offered a smile as Scott closed his document and pulled his disk out
of the drive. “Hey, before you run off…I
just wanted to say I’m sorry for snapping at you the other night.”

“You
snapped?” Scott asked benignly, trying to look as if he had no idea what Jamie
was talking about.

“Scott, don’t
play dumb. I just…I’d had a bad night
and I was tired. I just wanted to ask
one thing of you,” he said, coming a little too close to Scott for the older mutant’s
comfort.

“What’s
that?” Scott said, cringing as his voice broke.

Jamie
snorted softly in depressed amusement. “I
just wanted to ask you to keep it a secret.
No one knows…well, Bobby and St John, but no one else. Please? Just between us for now?” Don’t lick my lips, don’t lick my lips…damn
it, I licked my lips. Is he going to go
all homophobic and think that was a come on now?

Oh, God,
Scott thought, is that a come on?
“Jamie, I won’t tell a soul. I
promise. I’ll even keep Jean from
reading it, if it makes you feel better.”

Jamie
groaned inwardly. He was fairly certain now that the Professor had an idea that
one of his students was bisexual, but he knew the man would never mention it
unless approached directly by the student in question. “That would be great,” he said finally. “Thanks a lot, man.”

Scott
smiled tightly and sidled past Jamie to leave, but stopped and turned, his face
flushing pink with guilt. “Jamie, I did
something not specifically good.”

“What?”

“I kind of…I
read…I know about what you did Friday night,” he finally blurted. Jamie’s face drained of all color and he sat
down hard on his footlocker, stationed at the end of his bed. Scott babbled on, “The email just popped up
and I’m sorry I read it and I won’t blame you if you want to kick my ass or
something…Hell, I’d even encourage it, the way I’m feeling right now. I just…I don’t know! I guess I wanted to try and understand why…” He shrugged helplessly. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can’t
do that to you. You’re my friend, even
if I’m not treating you like much of one lately.”

Jamie was
too startled and numb to feel anger. Does
he know? Oh, God…could he have read
anything that would make him know I have such feelings for him? Haltingly, he said, “Go. Leave please. Get out of my room.” He
closed his eyes until he heard the click of the door shutting behind
Scott. Could my life get any worse?

 

Bobby
hardly looked up as Scott collapsed on the couch in the rec room with a heavy
sigh. “What’s the deal, Mopey?”

“I fucked
up royally.”

“I’ve been
telling you for months that shirt is awful,” Bobby said in an intentionally
queeny voice.

“Shut up,
Bob. I fucked up with Jamie.”

That got
Bobby’s attention. He snapped his book
closed and leaned forward. “Jamie, you
say? Since when have you been
interested in the more interesting side of the sheets?”

“Huh? Oh…Not that!” Scott looked comically horrified and Bobby would have laughed had
the expression not been honest. “I sort
of…snooped in his email and found out some stuff.”

Bobby sat
back in the recliner, assessing Scott with keen eyes. St John had told him what he thought had happened in the men’s
room with Jamie and the cute guy from the bar, but Jamie himself had not said a
word to either of them other than thanking them for the good time and
apologizing for leaving early. After
Jamie had left, the guy he had been with came up to the booth and asked Bobby
and St John both if Jamie was seeing anyone and gave them his email address to
give to their friend. This has to be
about…what’s his name? Brad, Brandon…Brian! This has to be about Brian… “What kind of stuff would that be, exactly?”

“Stuff…sex
stuff…”

“Sex stuff,”
Bobby repeated, feeling his brows creep upwards. “Like…?”

“Like he
got a blow job from some stranger in a bar Friday night!” Scott snapped, the
words stinging his throat as he said them.
“What the Hell did he do that for?
Jamie’s smarter than that! There’s
risks involved, even in oral sex and…”

“Please,
spare me the safe sex lecture. We all know about condoms and dental dams…” Bobby sighed and leaned forward again,
debating the wisdom of what he was about to do. “Scott, Jamie was depressed.
He probably still is. Depressed people do strange things sometimes,
especially when there is no way to change what is making them sad. He wanted to be wanted, he wanted some sort
of comfort and he probably feels bad about it now, but what’s done is
done. I suggest not pushing the issue
with him.” Wait for it…

Scott
frowned. “What on Earth could have made him so depressed that he would do
something like that?”

And here
it is. Scott is nothing if not predictable. “He’s got quite the crush on someone,
someone so straight an arrow would be jealous.
Someone who he doesn’t want to have feelings for but does.”

“He said he’s
bisexual…is the crush on one of the girls?” he asked hopefully. I could so wrap my mind around this if it’s
a girl.

Bobby
smiled ruefully. “Not this time. It’s a guy.
Which makes it so much worse, in his mind. You know, everyone says that bis need to decide or are just bi
because they can’t commit to being gay or some bullshit… Jamie isn’t a gay man playing with girls to
look more acceptable. He’s attracted to
both genders and I think that’d make it twice as hard as being just gay or just
straight. Look at it this way…he’s got
twice as much chance of being rejected as someone of a single orientation.”[1]

Scott
blinked at Bobby in mild confusion, trying to process this sudden spurt of
information. “Why are you telling me
this?”

“Because I
want you to try and understand Jamie a little better before I tell you this… Scott, Jamie has a crush on you. A huge one.
Has for some years now. He’d
never tell you because he knows you’re afraid of that sort of thing.”

“I’m in
love with Jean!” Scott said, putting as much force into the words as he could,
as if that could stave off Jamie’s crush.

“And he
knows that,” Bobby said gently. “Scott,
listen to me. Don’t blame yourself from
Jamie being depressed—I know you’re going to anyway but I feel that I have to
say that. Don’t go running off to tell
him that you’re sorry, that you know…
Just let him be. He’ll calm down
in a while and go back to pretending he doesn’t want to do all sorts of
interesting things to your naked body involving mass quantities of KY and
feathers.”

Scott’s
mouth fell wide open. “Bobby!”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.” He smirked and picked his book back up. “Go have sex with your girlfriend so you don’t question your own
sexuality anymore.”

“What’s
that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve seen
that expression on your face before. When
I would fancy a straight guy and he found out, he’d get that look. That ‘Do I send off a gay vibe?’ look. Usually, they’d go fuck their girlfriends or
some willing female and feel loads better afterwards because they didn’t think
of a penis other than their own for the duration.”

“That
worked every time?” Scott said faintly, hoping Bobby would think he was joking
when he really was not.

“Well, not
every time…” he said, smiling fondly.

“Oh?”

“How do you
think I ended up with St John?”

 

Jamie had
locked himself in his room, feeling silly for acting like a maudlin teenaged
girl but needing to be alone in the worst way.
He accepted Kitty’s second invitation, shouted through the door, to go
to the movies that coming weekend with Kurt, Rahne and her, then ignored Kurt’s
entreaties to come out and play paint ball with the older students. When an hour has passed with no one knocking
on his door or otherwise seeking his attention, Jamie breathed a little easier. What I need to do is stop dwelling on
Scott so much. It’s a crush, pure and
simple. I’ve had them before and I’ll
have them again. It’s just exacerbated by thinking about it so much. If I ignore it, it’ll go away. A date with Rahne will be just the thing to
get him off my mind. He sighed and
tried not to think about the hopeful looks she kept tossing his way, the quick,
furtive touches she brush against his skin as they passed in the hall. I can be happy with her, if I let
myself. It’s not like I have to marry
her or anything. We’re just eighteen. We’ll
date for a while, she’ll get tired of me and move on to someone who isn’t
lusting after guys on the side… Jamie rolled onto his stomach and buried
his face in his pillow, willing away the usual image that came with that
position, of Scott beneath him, their legs intertwined as they lay sweaty and
sated in damp sheets, their breath hard and ragged… Be good, Jamie…don’t think nice thoughts about him. What I need, he thought suddenly,
changing the drift of his mind only slightly, is a girl who doesn’t mind
being part of a three way relationship.
And a guy who’s the same way. We
don’t all three have to sleep together…just be together. I can love them both and we’ll all love each
other… He groaned. Fat chance. You always have to pick one or the other, don’t you? No matter how you really feel… A knock on the door interrupted his self
pity. “What?”

“Jamie, it’s
me…”

Not
him..,no no no no no! “Yeah?”

“Can I come
in? We need to talk…”

 

A/N Next chapter…finally!
Smut! WHOOOO! SMUT GALORE! *ahem * Okay. I’m better now. Thank you.



[1] That’s from,
I think, Fairy Butch on www.planetout.com
Fairy Butch writes articles and answers questions for the site as well as runs
a site on their own. I’m pretty sure
that line about twice as much chance of being rejected came from them.