April FM prompt response: Hotel Key
(Inspired by this photo, by a comment ice_emma made in RP, by that New X-men annual issue where they're in Hong Kong, and by the movie Lost in Translation.)
Scott wonders, sometimes, how his life would be different if he had just slept with Emma that night in Hong Kong.
If he had slept with her, Jean would have found out, and soon. If Emma hadn't announced it herself -- and he wouldn't put it past her, honestly -- then he knows he would have confessed. Jean had asked him directly, after all, and he knows he couldn't have added lying to cheating. His wife would have found out and something would have happened. Maybe it would have been the excuse she was looking for -- he was looking for? -- to end things. But, probably (he thinks now), it wouldn't have been. Jean would have yelled, and he would have cried, and gotten on his knees and said he was God God God so sorry but she was just there and I thought you were mad at me and I didn't know what to do. Then she would have cried, and finally, would have given him a chance. Emma would have been assigned to another team, and Scott would have tried, for Jean, to be on his very best behavior, and things would have gone along until something else happened. . . or until, somehow, it got better. Either way, he is reasonably sure, that would have been the end of Scott and Emma.
He wonders if Emma knows that. He asked her about it, not long ago: That night in Hong Kong, did you really think I'd say yes? Emma responded, I don't know what I thought, but I know what I wanted. The answer might have been disingenuous -- or it might not; Scott knows what it is like to remember what you did but not why you did it -- but even if it was honest, it didn't actually answer the question he had asked. Scott wasn't asking whether she had really wanted to sleep with him. He does wonder, sometimes,what a woman like her could really be getting from a man like him. Everybody looks at her; she could have anybody; how could he not wonder? But most of the time, actually going to bed with her puts a rest to those doubts; he has seen her play-acting often enough that he thinks he has a pretty good idea when she isn't.
But back in Hong Kong, things were different. Scott was a married man -- though the marriage was, to put it mildly, on thin ice -- and he and Emma didn't know each other at all, really. Emma had no qualms to keep her from needling him on the tenuous status of his relationship with Jean, and he honestly didn't know whether she knew certain things from reading his mind, or whether it really was that blindingly obvious. The latter, probably, with a little hint of the former. In any case, he and Emma seemed to work together well enough as a team, and he was just giving Jean a mission report, by their psychic link, when Emma walked in to the room with a devilish smile and a bottle of champagne.
It seemed pretty damn obvious what she wanted, at least at the time. But he wondered, later, whether she really thought he was going to sleep with her. She had been so damn obvious, in a way, that it was easier to say 'no.' That had been a rough time for Scott; he was still recovering from his possession by Apocalypse, and he wasn't so sure what kind of man he was anymore. But. He knew he wasn't the kind of man who went to bed with a woman who walked into his hotel room, falling out of her dress, and tried to get him drunk. He knew that much, at least.
And so, what ifs and might-haves and could-haves and should-haves, in the end, mean nothing. Scott did what he did, being the man that he was. Emma came into his room in her slinky dress, and sat on his bed, and he never touched her, but they had stayed there all night talking about everything. Nothing. The hassles of getting the school up and running, the unpredictable quality of the maid service at Asian hotels (that one was all Emma), the dissonance of having a new language running through his head (Emma had given him Cantonese), and what the hell Domino and Logan were getting up to in the next room (Emma was actively curious; Scott really really and -- he could not emphasize this enough -- really did not want to know). They didn't talk about Jean, not the way they would later. She was only there as an absence, a hole in the conversation, a precipice they sometimes skirted close to, but always veered away.
Months later, when Jean was dead and he still wasn't speaking to Emma again, Scott caught part of a movie on television. It was the one about a young ingenue and an aging actor -- Bill Murray of all people -- who find each other in a hotel in Japan. This was the kind of thing Hank enjoyed, but that Scott usually found either baffling or dull. But he stayed on the channel, recognizing something in those two people, trapped and alienated and painfully alone, reaching out for any kind of human connection. He watched the end of the movie, then sat through as the channel played it again. Even after he had seen the whole thing, it wasn't clear to him whether the couple were having sex or even whether they were supposed to be attracted to each other, which should have been important, but somehow wasn't. He didn't know why he kept watching it, and it was only later that he realized it made him think of that night in the room with Emma.
Seeing the film, he wondered again what she had been up to that night. You didn't really think I'd say yes. . . It seemed strange at the time, but now he wondered if she knew him better than he realized. Maybe she got what she wanted, after all.
Scott wonders, sometimes, how his life would be different if he had just slept with Emma that night in Hong Kong.
If he had slept with her, Jean would have found out, and soon. If Emma hadn't announced it herself -- and he wouldn't put it past her, honestly -- then he knows he would have confessed. Jean had asked him directly, after all, and he knows he couldn't have added lying to cheating. His wife would have found out and something would have happened. Maybe it would have been the excuse she was looking for -- he was looking for? -- to end things. But, probably (he thinks now), it wouldn't have been. Jean would have yelled, and he would have cried, and gotten on his knees and said he was God God God so sorry but she was just there and I thought you were mad at me and I didn't know what to do. Then she would have cried, and finally, would have given him a chance. Emma would have been assigned to another team, and Scott would have tried, for Jean, to be on his very best behavior, and things would have gone along until something else happened. . . or until, somehow, it got better. Either way, he is reasonably sure, that would have been the end of Scott and Emma.
He wonders if Emma knows that. He asked her about it, not long ago: That night in Hong Kong, did you really think I'd say yes? Emma responded, I don't know what I thought, but I know what I wanted. The answer might have been disingenuous -- or it might not; Scott knows what it is like to remember what you did but not why you did it -- but even if it was honest, it didn't actually answer the question he had asked. Scott wasn't asking whether she had really wanted to sleep with him. He does wonder, sometimes,what a woman like her could really be getting from a man like him. Everybody looks at her; she could have anybody; how could he not wonder? But most of the time, actually going to bed with her puts a rest to those doubts; he has seen her play-acting often enough that he thinks he has a pretty good idea when she isn't.
But back in Hong Kong, things were different. Scott was a married man -- though the marriage was, to put it mildly, on thin ice -- and he and Emma didn't know each other at all, really. Emma had no qualms to keep her from needling him on the tenuous status of his relationship with Jean, and he honestly didn't know whether she knew certain things from reading his mind, or whether it really was that blindingly obvious. The latter, probably, with a little hint of the former. In any case, he and Emma seemed to work together well enough as a team, and he was just giving Jean a mission report, by their psychic link, when Emma walked in to the room with a devilish smile and a bottle of champagne.
It seemed pretty damn obvious what she wanted, at least at the time. But he wondered, later, whether she really thought he was going to sleep with her. She had been so damn obvious, in a way, that it was easier to say 'no.' That had been a rough time for Scott; he was still recovering from his possession by Apocalypse, and he wasn't so sure what kind of man he was anymore. But. He knew he wasn't the kind of man who went to bed with a woman who walked into his hotel room, falling out of her dress, and tried to get him drunk. He knew that much, at least.
And so, what ifs and might-haves and could-haves and should-haves, in the end, mean nothing. Scott did what he did, being the man that he was. Emma came into his room in her slinky dress, and sat on his bed, and he never touched her, but they had stayed there all night talking about everything. Nothing. The hassles of getting the school up and running, the unpredictable quality of the maid service at Asian hotels (that one was all Emma), the dissonance of having a new language running through his head (Emma had given him Cantonese), and what the hell Domino and Logan were getting up to in the next room (Emma was actively curious; Scott really really and -- he could not emphasize this enough -- really did not want to know). They didn't talk about Jean, not the way they would later. She was only there as an absence, a hole in the conversation, a precipice they sometimes skirted close to, but always veered away.
Months later, when Jean was dead and he still wasn't speaking to Emma again, Scott caught part of a movie on television. It was the one about a young ingenue and an aging actor -- Bill Murray of all people -- who find each other in a hotel in Japan. This was the kind of thing Hank enjoyed, but that Scott usually found either baffling or dull. But he stayed on the channel, recognizing something in those two people, trapped and alienated and painfully alone, reaching out for any kind of human connection. He watched the end of the movie, then sat through as the channel played it again. Even after he had seen the whole thing, it wasn't clear to him whether the couple were having sex or even whether they were supposed to be attracted to each other, which should have been important, but somehow wasn't. He didn't know why he kept watching it, and it was only later that he realized it made him think of that night in the room with Emma.
Seeing the film, he wondered again what she had been up to that night. You didn't really think I'd say yes. . . It seemed strange at the time, but now he wondered if she knew him better than he realized. Maybe she got what she wanted, after all.