The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Chapter Fifty Seven (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply


A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… I dub thee Princess of Chopsticks! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are sparkled and loverly for archiving/hosting! :) ProPhile: Your time shall come soon… *eg* Morgan: *GLOMP * Readers/Reviewers: I want to thank everyone who’s taken time to email or post reviews and feedback! *GLOMP * And even if you haven’t, I adore you forever for reading this stuff!!!!



“Okay, this is it,” Scott announced over his shoulder. Forge nodded and began his check of his equipment.1 “Jean, make sure Jono’s awake back there…”
_*Just because I don’t feel the need to fill every moment with idiot chatter does not mean I am asleep. *_ He glanced at Tabby. _*She, however, is. *_
“How can she sleep at a time like this?” Scott muttered, banking sharply left.
“She’s got a toddler at home, working two jobs AND studying… she takes it where she finds it,” Jean replied tartly. “Final approach,” she announced to the rest of the passengers.
“And I never got my kosher meal,” Forge mourned comically. “What is the airline industry coming to these days?”
Scott frowned but did not respond himself. strastrained levity that had been inherent in the trip was giving way to pure dark humor and he did not like it. It felt defeatist and made his raw emotional wounds ache. “Okay, people,” he snapped in his best Fearless Leader tone, “we don’t know what we’re going to be facing down there so pay attention now. We move in from the sides, Tabby and Jono taking right flank, Jean and I on the left.”
Forge cleared his throat gently and Jean rolled her eyes again. “Scott, why don’t you team us up so the abilities compliment each other rather than just trying to make sure you and I are on the same group?”
Scott pressed his lips together in a thin line and counted to ten before gritting out “Forge, you will go with Jono and Tabby.”
Tabby snorted awake. “Huh? I don’t wanna go to school…Oh, crap.” She rubbed sleep from her eyes and shook herself awake. “We there yet?”
“You are going with Jono and Forge,” Jean informed her, gripping her seat restraints tightly as the plane descended. She always hated this part. It was a little too close to losing contfor for her. She did not mind taking off; she almost enjoyed it. It was the return, that controlled plunge towards the earth, that she could not force her logical mind to accept as safe. She was so wrapped in her silent mantra of “it’s going to be fine, it’s going to be fine,” that she did not hear Tabby the first time she tried to get her attention.
“JEAN!”
“WHAT?” She jumped, her heart racing in her chestshe she leaned to glare at the blonde. “You should be going through the checks…”
Tabby shook her head impatiently. “Jean, look outside.”
Jean looked from Tabby, who appeared merely surprised, to Forge, who looked frankly stunned and obviously envious, to Scott who was looking grim. Slowly, she shifted to peer out of the small window next to her seat. “Jesus,” she breathed.
“Somehow, I don’t think that’s the Messiah,” Tabby informed her dryly. “But then again, I’m not the best person to make that decision.”
Jean tried to open her mind to the world below but there was too much panic, too much energy swirling in a miasma of psychic turmoil that she could not pick out one single thread of though and her head began to ache within seconds. “They didn’t look so big on television,” she muttered finally.
Forge snorted. “I bet you say that to all the freakishly large robots most likely bent on murder and mayhem.”
“If they’re robots and don’t have a conscience, is it really murder?” Tabby asked prosaically as they jolted to a halt in the field abutting Emma’s property.
“I’m really glad you’re getting along okay in school,” Scott said tersely, “but could you leave your philosophy class out of this for about, oh, the next three hours or so?”
“Why three hours?” she asked, spitting her gum into the grass as she slid from the plane behind Forge.
“I figure, by then we’ll either all be dead or you’ll forget what you were talking about.” Scott did not look back as he set off at a fast walk towards the mansion itself.
“Scott, wait!” Jean sprinted to catch up, closing the distance in seconds. “We don’t know what’s going on in there. Let me try to find them inside first!”
He stopped, his lips pressed together in a thin line. “Fine. Hurry up.”
Jean narrowed her eyes but refused to be baited. She knew he was hurt…so was she. And she knew that he had yet to understand her reasons and probably never would if he insisted on going on like this. She inhaled deeply, pushing it aside. She could not afford to let it distract her now. Time was too precious and things too uncertain to allow personal lives to interfere.
“She find anyone yet?” Tabby muttered as she and Jono trailed up beside them.
Jono elbowed her in the ribs for silence but did not speak. Forge gazed towards the Sentinels intently, as if he were planning how to dismantle them bit by bit, or worse. Jean’s eyes opened and she frowned. “I feel them but I can’t contact them. It’s like there’s static or something.”
“Well, you’ve always been a stronger telekinetic,” Scott sniped unnecessarily.
“Oh, that does it,” Jean snarled. She grabbed his shoulder and spun him to face her, swinging her fist. Scott cried out at the impact, not hard enough to knock him out but definitely hard enough to hurt. “You want to be the leader? Fucking act like one!” she spat. “Tabby, you’re with me now. Jono, Forge, you go with Scott. If I have to listen to his insults for one more minute, I’m going to move his liver out through his nose!”
Tabby stared after her as she stormed towards the mansion. “Well… this just keeps getting more and more fun, don’t it?”

1 Not as dirty as it sounds. Trust me.