TM 207: Control
TM 207: Control
On Jean’s last night in Paris, in the side pocket of a bag she brought from Madripoor, Jean finds a silk bandana that smells like Logan. She remembers his hands pulling the scarf from her hair. She holds it to her mouth and . . .
Jean loves the way that Logan smells. It’s a pungent, oily, wolverine scent. It gets into her clothes, her hair -- under her fingernails. For years, she's listened to people mock him, but it’s not that he doesn’t bathe (all right, it’s not only, always that he doesn’t bathe). There’s something about his chemical makeup that’s a little bit different. It’s not an unpleasant smell; it’s just not entirely, conventionally, human, and she wishes the others wouldn't make jokes.
Not that Jean has ever said anything. There’s been enough talk about them, over the years, that she doesn’t need to fuel gossip by announcing that they have compatible pheromones. It would feel strange, and intimate, like admitting she wants to do something kinky in bed. Not that she does, particularly. She’s always been a fairly vanilla kind of girl, not (she hopes) because she’s boring, but because it’s never taken very much to get her going. Besides, ever since she was a teenager, Jean was always with Scott, and she was always in love with Scott, and wasn’t that the part that was supposed to matter? Scott smelled like soap and store-brand after shave, and he was all that she wanted, all that she needed, and it was always good.
Except that there was Logan - funny, and cocky, and so very sharp in her senses, with a way of looking at her that could scramble up all of her certainties. And there had been times - hell, dozens of times; she couldn’t count the times - that she had left abruptly in the middle of talking, or training, or, honestly, flirting with Logan. She had gone to find Scott, had pressed her hands to his shoulders and her lips to his neck and said, “I’m sure what you are doing here is very important, but what I want from you is very important, and so, Cyclops, if you could spare Mr. Summers. . .”
Scott must have known. He was quiet, most of the time, but he wasn't a man who missed much. The currents of jealousy that flowed among them weren’t exactly secret, and besides, Scott was in her mind. They had been inside each other, to some degree, all of the time, and at the moments when they were closest, there just wasn't any space between them. Scott must have known, but he didn’t resist, and because Jean tried to be practical in these sorts of matters, she didn’t dig too deeply into the question - whether he didn’t resist because he thought she was doing the right thing, or whether Scott Summers would simply take however much of Jean Grey as he could get. If he could have her, maybe, he didn't really care what she was thinking about.
She did wonder -- later, often -- whether it was that much different than what Scott had done with Emma. But she decided that it was. He had taken all the secrets and intimacies of their marriage, and laid them open to someone else; Jean had taken the confusing desires she felt toward Logan and tried to work them out with her husband. As a form of impulse control, it was an imperfect compromise. But, from what she could tell, most relationships that lasted were built on them.
It is all different now. Scott has moved on and whatever imperfect compromises he is making with Emma are about the two of them, and not about Jean at all. And so everything should be simple.
But, of course, it isn’t. Logan has just come back to the mansion, Jean hasn’t even seen him yet, and already, everybody is making all kinds of assumptions about their relationship. Jean doesn’t even know if they have a relationship. They have the memory of a couple weeks, traveling around South America on an ocean-liner, then through Madripoor and Tibet. Two weeks in which they became lovers - finally - and at the end of which, they parted - mutually. But nothing was settled.
Jean loves him; she knows this. She takes it for granted that he has always loved her. But still she wonders . . . This passion has always been buried somewhere inside of her. She has no idea how she’s going to be able to wake up with these emotions every day, to weave them into the fabric of her ordinary life.
She isn’t sure whether she wants to.
Jean wraps the scarf around her hand and crawls into bed, holding the cloth against her mouth. She can smell him and taste him, and just as she drifts off to sleep, a voice echoes in the back of her mind. Honestly, child. What are you frightened of? And, as she's falling asleep, Jean answers the Phoenix out loud.
"I'm scared of losing control. I'm frightened of you."
On Jean’s last night in Paris, in the side pocket of a bag she brought from Madripoor, Jean finds a silk bandana that smells like Logan. She remembers his hands pulling the scarf from her hair. She holds it to her mouth and . . .
Jean loves the way that Logan smells. It’s a pungent, oily, wolverine scent. It gets into her clothes, her hair -- under her fingernails. For years, she's listened to people mock him, but it’s not that he doesn’t bathe (all right, it’s not only, always that he doesn’t bathe). There’s something about his chemical makeup that’s a little bit different. It’s not an unpleasant smell; it’s just not entirely, conventionally, human, and she wishes the others wouldn't make jokes.
Not that Jean has ever said anything. There’s been enough talk about them, over the years, that she doesn’t need to fuel gossip by announcing that they have compatible pheromones. It would feel strange, and intimate, like admitting she wants to do something kinky in bed. Not that she does, particularly. She’s always been a fairly vanilla kind of girl, not (she hopes) because she’s boring, but because it’s never taken very much to get her going. Besides, ever since she was a teenager, Jean was always with Scott, and she was always in love with Scott, and wasn’t that the part that was supposed to matter? Scott smelled like soap and store-brand after shave, and he was all that she wanted, all that she needed, and it was always good.
Except that there was Logan - funny, and cocky, and so very sharp in her senses, with a way of looking at her that could scramble up all of her certainties. And there had been times - hell, dozens of times; she couldn’t count the times - that she had left abruptly in the middle of talking, or training, or, honestly, flirting with Logan. She had gone to find Scott, had pressed her hands to his shoulders and her lips to his neck and said, “I’m sure what you are doing here is very important, but what I want from you is very important, and so, Cyclops, if you could spare Mr. Summers. . .”
Scott must have known. He was quiet, most of the time, but he wasn't a man who missed much. The currents of jealousy that flowed among them weren’t exactly secret, and besides, Scott was in her mind. They had been inside each other, to some degree, all of the time, and at the moments when they were closest, there just wasn't any space between them. Scott must have known, but he didn’t resist, and because Jean tried to be practical in these sorts of matters, she didn’t dig too deeply into the question - whether he didn’t resist because he thought she was doing the right thing, or whether Scott Summers would simply take however much of Jean Grey as he could get. If he could have her, maybe, he didn't really care what she was thinking about.
She did wonder -- later, often -- whether it was that much different than what Scott had done with Emma. But she decided that it was. He had taken all the secrets and intimacies of their marriage, and laid them open to someone else; Jean had taken the confusing desires she felt toward Logan and tried to work them out with her husband. As a form of impulse control, it was an imperfect compromise. But, from what she could tell, most relationships that lasted were built on them.
It is all different now. Scott has moved on and whatever imperfect compromises he is making with Emma are about the two of them, and not about Jean at all. And so everything should be simple.
But, of course, it isn’t. Logan has just come back to the mansion, Jean hasn’t even seen him yet, and already, everybody is making all kinds of assumptions about their relationship. Jean doesn’t even know if they have a relationship. They have the memory of a couple weeks, traveling around South America on an ocean-liner, then through Madripoor and Tibet. Two weeks in which they became lovers - finally - and at the end of which, they parted - mutually. But nothing was settled.
Jean loves him; she knows this. She takes it for granted that he has always loved her. But still she wonders . . . This passion has always been buried somewhere inside of her. She has no idea how she’s going to be able to wake up with these emotions every day, to weave them into the fabric of her ordinary life.
She isn’t sure whether she wants to.
Jean wraps the scarf around her hand and crawls into bed, holding the cloth against her mouth. She can smell him and taste him, and just as she drifts off to sleep, a voice echoes in the back of her mind. Honestly, child. What are you frightened of? And, as she's falling asleep, Jean answers the Phoenix out loud.
"I'm scared of losing control. I'm frightened of you."