Fractals

Fractals Chapter Forty One (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *sends cough drops * InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. ProPhile: Satisfied? ;) Morgan: *poke * Readers/Reviewers: Okay, this weekend, updates on all the ficlets then Monday, more Fractals! Wheeee.


He did not have to open his eyes to know that she was there. It was like a void that had existed for ages was suddenly filled. He could smell her, hear her breath, feel her very presence… “Jean,” he said quietly in the dark of the pre-dawn hours.
“Who’s Sandra?” she asked in a measured tone. “I mean… out of curiosity. Is she someone from the garage? Someone from school?” She hated herself for sounding needy. She hated that she could not be calm and rational and hated that she had the urge to invade his thoughts, peel back layers of mundane thoughts to find the tiny kernel of truth, half wanting and half dreading him to say the mystery woman was someone he had become involved with. _If he has, _ she reasoned, _sneaking around was justified. If he isn’t… I’m just a nosy bitch. _
Scott reached for his glasses on the bedside table only to find himself patting empty wood. “Damn it…”
“I have them,” she said a shade sadly. “Answer my question.”
Scott frowned and leaned back against the headboard. He knew that tone of voice. She would not listen to anything he had to say until he answered her. “Sandra is someone at work. She’s the manager’s sister. She runs the cash register.”
Jean nodded and moved closer to the bed. Scott kept his hands folded across his stomach and did not show any sign that he knew she was near, but she knew better. She knew that he could sense her in ways most could not, that he could tell her, if she asked, exactly how far away she was just based on the sound of her voice, the proximity of her body heat. “Did you fuck her?”
He visibly recoiled. “What?”
“Did you fuck her?” She sat down on the edge of the bed, the words falling from her lips unbidden. She did not want to know, not really, but it was a morbid fascination. The days they had been apart, the weeks and now months, all of her imperious attitude, his bitterness… It would make sense, she thought, for him to seek companionship elsewhere. “Did you have sex with her? Did you invite her back here?”
Scott wished he could glare at her without causing severe damage. “Jean, what the Hell kind of thing is that to accuse me of?” He was beyond hurt. He had no word to describe how he felt, though hollow came close. Hollow and cold and sick.
“I’m not accusing, I’m asking.” It had been so long since they had shared a bed. _And for what? _ she asked herself. _Because some professor told me I was too distracted, because someone else told me I wasn’t realizing my full potential. _ “Did you kiss her?” She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his, wincing when he tensed at her touch. “Did you touch her?” She set his glasses down on the bed beside him and trailed her fingers from his throat down his chest. “Did you whisper to her the same things you told me when we first started dating?”
Scott’s expression darkened considerably. He grabbed Jean’s wrist and pushed her hand away, snapping, “Did you wake me up to call me a cheater or to seduce me? Pick one.”
Jean stood, glaring down at him. “Why was Sandra’s phone number in your jacket pocket?”
“Why were you looking?” he shot back. Belatedly, he remembered the clunky, goggle-like glasses he had worn before getting the glasses and that he still kept in the bedside table for emergencies. He fumbled briefly with the drawer and finally retrieved them, putting them on as he continued his line of questioning. “Why have you been doing anything this past few months? You never bothered trying to talk to me, did you? You demanded, you snapped, you snarled, you accused and then you flounced off to the main house. You didn’t give a damn about our life together, did you? Your own life, apart from me, from us, was more important!”
Jean stared, almost horrified. She was at a loss for words, one of the rare occasions in her life when she had ever been speechless. “It wasn’t like that, Scott,” she began, only to have him cut her off with a bleak ‘ha’. “Scott, you don’t understand…”
“Because you never bothered to tell me! You gave me some half assed explanation about needing time to study, needing to concentrate and then you skittered off and ignored me, acting like it was my fault you got a low grade when you…” He stopped himself, turning away from her and counting to ten. “You closed yourself off from me, Jean. You closed yourself off from us.”
She bit her lip and closed her eyes. She could feel the anger and hurt rolling off of him in waves, washing over her and drowning her in bitterness. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Scott.” She slowly sat back down on the edge of the bed, but made no move to touch him. He still would not look at her and was so tense it made her neck ache to look at him. “I never stopped loving you. I never wanted to split up, really. I just…” She could not help the tiny choking noise that rose in her throat then. She sniffed hard and shook her head. “I’ll go. I’m sorry for waking you up.”
Scott wanted to let her go, show her he could be as cold as she had been, but he found himself on his feet and between her and the door before he realized he was moving. “No.”
“Scott,” she sighed wearily. “Please. I was dumb to come up here in the middle of the night, even more so to wake you up and try and hash this out now…”
“Why did you?” he asked quietly, stepping towards her and causing her to step back. “Couldn’t sleep?” He brushed an errant strand of red hair from her face and noticed she looked tired. “Is it school?”
She laughed humorlessly. “No, it’s not school. It hasn’t been because of school for a long time.” She found herself standing at the edge of the bed again, not sure how she had gotten there without noticing. Scott was standing mere inches away, not touching her but so close he might as well have been.
“What is it then?” he asked quietly. He wanted to be angry, he wanted to be able to yell, to rant and rave and maybe even throw something but he could not. “Is it because of work?”
She shook her head, her eyes closing again. She could still feel him, the bitterness twisting with something else, something bright and thick, something that made it a little hard to breathe and seemed to seep into her skin, her veins, her very bones. “No,” she whispered. “Not work.”
“What then?” he breathed. He gave in to the urge to touch her then, his fingers skimming over the curve of her jaw to her neck, then down her arm to her hand, twining their fingers together. “What’s wrong?”
She opened her eyes and stared up at him, quiet for a very long moment. “You.”
“Me?” He felt her tug against his hand and pull him down with her as she sat on the bed again. “Why?”
“I…” She took a breath and seemed to be gathering courage before she spoke. “I miss you. Some nights, even when I’m so tired I can barely think straight, I can’t sleep because I miss you so much. I miss you and I hate myself for doing this to us but I can’t stop being like this because if I do, it means I’m weak and I’ll never succeed if I’m weak.”
Scott felt his heart lurch before resuming a normal, if a bit rapid, pace. “Jean…” He did not get the chance to finish the sentence, though. She was kissing him hungrily, her hands clutching at his shoulders, her body pressing against him before he knew what to do next. It was happening so fast but he did not really care. It felt good to be with her again, even if part of him was screaming to stop, telling him it was all an act of desperation on her part, wanting him because she thought she had lost him. He gasped for breath when she pushed him back on the bed, tugging his pajama bottoms off swiftly even as her hands touched his face, his chest, his neck. He fumbled with the buttons on her pajama top but soon enough had her skin bare to his eyes and hands. He found himself wishing, not for the first time since he had met her, that he could see her without the red tint, see each freckle and tiny scar and subtle shade of her flesh, see her eyes truly for the first time… The melancholy that threatened was swept away as her mouth and hands moved over him, her knees on either side of his hips as she kissed a path down his torso, moving lower.
Jean gasped in surprise as Scott took her by her arms and moved so she was beneath him, his mouth on her throat, kissing and licking and biting as his fingers found her folds and rubbed at the burgeoning pearl of her desire. She moaned softly, the sound becoming decidedly louder as his fingers were replaced with his arousal. She buried her face against the side of his neck as he filled her, her body adjusting and seeming to fairly hum with energy at this remembered pleasure. Jean heard him hiss as her nails lightly scored his back but she did not pay it much mind as she felt as if she were drowning and burning at once. She moved against him, returning each caress and thrust with her own. She felt her body respond quickly to his, months of longing and need flooding into a starburst of release, her body arching and clutching at his. She felt weak but pleasantly so as he gasped against her breast, his body tensing and then his own release filling her. She did not move for what felt like ages as they laid in a tangled, sweaty knot of limbs and breath, neither speaking for a long while. Finally, when he had to, Scott shifted to lay beside her. They stared up at the ceiling and Jean felt her breath slowly return to normal. “You want to know something funny?”
“Sure,” he breathed, his hand finding hers in the dark.
“I came over here to tell you there’s something wrong. All of the adults are gone except us and Forge. I saw Jubilee sneaking out… But when I got here, all I could think of was that woman’s phone number in your jacket pocket.”
“How is that funny?” he asked after a moment.
“Hm. I guess it’s not. More of a cause for concern than funny,” she admitted.
He sighed. “I guess this means pants.”
She stretched and sat up after he did. “At least for now.”