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Everyone, for the most part, thinks it’s funny. There’s some hideous double standard in there—that if it were Rogue, or Ororo, or even Kurt—there might be some offense, some outrage veiled within the sentiment.
But the thing is: you chose the exact subject to inspire nothing less of raucous interest. Raucous, dedicated interest that will not stop conversation from happening.
“Think you were a little generous with a few things, darlin’,” Logan says as he claps you on the shoulder. This only makes you want to simmer into a gelatinous, amoebic sludge.
“I don’t know if he’d be quite so, ah,” Hank pirouettes his hand through the air, searching for adequate vocabulary, “Bold in his posing.”
“Just didn’t know that you saw him like that,” Rogue confides to you behind the heel of her palm, desperately trying to smother her laughter. This is extremely unhelpful as well, considering how she fell off the counter in hysterics when it traded enough hands to her.
“Think you should retire from the team, amie,” Remy informs to you in sidelong confidence, a roguish smirk on his face, “You held back stayin’ with us.”
“Ew,” Jubilee tells you. It is quite clear in the mien of her face that she has lost whatever respect she once had for you.
You’re certain that plenty of that is going around. Most of all from the person who was the rather detailed (and apparently, over-endowed)—subject of your most recent sketch. A sketch that was meant to be a private endeavor, except for the fact that you had been disturbed by the mission alert.
You had, actually, possessed enough foresight to close it on the tablecorner. But you were, unfortunately, not the first to arrive back to the dining room. And, in the midst of this interloper’s curiosity, they chose to open the book to peruse through it.
No one will confess, though a few furtive glances have made direction towards Remy and Kurt.
That would have been indignity enough. But what made it worse was that before it made it to the final person in your harried search across the estate, somewhere in the trading of goods: Scott had seen it.
“You never seen fearless leader like that, minou,” Remy informed you across the marble table as you clutched your fingers into the flesh of your face.
It would have hurt less, you assumed, to have sloughed the meat from your bones. Remy continued to verbally assail you. “He never turn so red before.”
“What—”—You manually heaved a breath through your body before continuing—“—What did he say?”
Ororo had been more helpful in answering as it was clear Remy was too busy herniating a lung to really answer. At least she still seemed to have the wherewithal to stare you in the eyes.
“He did not say anything.” Ororo said. “He merely gave the book back, and walked away.”
This, perhaps, seemed worst of all, and the plummet of your stomach into the ground only supplemented this.
And so, in your infinite wisdom, you had taken the coward’s way out. And you had chosen instead, rather than pursue restorative measure, opted for avoidant instead.
To your relief, there had been no earth-shattering emergency, no necessity of danger room practices. Someone had decided to grant you a modicum of peacetime that boiled you from the inside-out.
Although this forced the necessity of you needing to look over your shoulder every time that you walked into a new room, darted down another hall.
But you know that the dam will break. Eventually, you will be forced back into proximity with him, and he will either stomach the task of working with you. Or he will not acknowledge you at all.
And you don’t know which will be worse. To pretend as though nothing has happened when you have careened a missle through your above-average-functional relationship, or to ruin it all in one fell swoop.
By the third day of watching your back, you finally crack, having allowed the guilt and the terror to subsume you. And you know that to force you both into the same space, or to require him to come to you is untenable.
So you put on your big boy pants, and assert yourself to make a decision. It’s time to find your fearless leader and explain why you drew him naked and sprawled out on the campus lawn.
You open the door, steeling yourself for the inevitable—and find yourself staring at the plateau of a chest clothed in civvie clothes that you so rarely see him in. Look up with dawning comprehension, crescendoing terror, you see the unyielding diameter of a familiar pair of lenses.
“Scott,” Is all that you can muster out past the soft palate of your tongue, which feels heavy and suffocating. Stifling all breath from you. You stare at him.
Fearless leader looks back down at you, clears his throat with a balled fist pressed to the purse of his lips. Lets it lower down to the waistband of the jeans that he wears—did he just get back from riding one of his motorcycles?
“Think it’s about time we,” He pauses, his head angling to search the ground for proper conclusion of sentence, “Had a talk.”
“Oh—”—You feel as though the breath is expelled from you as you say this.
This is indeed the task you were searching him out for. But you had felt that the journey from your room to his would help summon the courage, steel the nerves, hone the wit essential for this interaction.
“—I—”—You pause, looking up at him with unmoored manner—“—I was coming over to find you.”
His face remains implacable in deciphering, motionless—you continue to dig your own grave. “I think that we should talk. You’re right. I was—”
You are blithering like an idiot. It seems fortuitous to shut up, so you decide to do so, audibly clamping your mouth shut so that your teeth click painfully.
Scott’s jaw works; you curse his ability for marring you of skill to decipher his eyes.
When he speaks, his voice is a more subdued note. “Can I come in?”
“Ah—”—You sidestep the doorframe so that Scott can walk in with that confident stride that he always bears—“—Do you—”
Scott turns from the inspection of your room’s interior, plastered with the testament to your artistic skills. Portraits documented in careful charcoal strokes, figure studies in rough-hewn pencils, occasional dollop of color with painted canvas that you have devoted additional time to.
“Yes?” He asks, and there is something stilted, almost awkward in the way that he asks—as though you’ve caught him out on something.
“Do you want me to close the door?” You ask, your hand resting over the doorknob. The question seems to take second for him to comprehend, before he nods at you curtly.
“Yes, I think you should.” He says, face directed to you. “That would be best.”
You obey, trying to hide the thick swallow that you make as your stomach takes nauseating flip. And the door shuts with such oiled, sleek ease as you become accomplice to your own doom.
It feels a small eternity as you release your hand from the doorknob and then turn with demeanor appropriate for walking the gallows.
“So—”—Scott begins. It is begun with such terrible assertion, that you find the dam breaking with greater imposition than you had expected it to.
Even though it may be unwise in the long run, you interrupt him. What devolves from the wordvomit you produce is borne of addle-minded panic.
“Scott,” You take a step forward, holding your hands up and palm-out to indicate your good will, “I should never have drawn that of you. I am so, so sorry—”
“Um,” Scott says, clearly not expecting the cavalcade of emotion to be unleashed so quickly. He falters for a second as he watches you; this allows you to continue the attack.
“—And it was such a violation for me to do that.” You gesticulate wildly as though this will help make your apology any more tangible, make your actions any more forgivable. “It embarrassed you terribly, when I have nothing but respect for you.”
You take a wide breath to allow you to eject the rest of your preamble before he can get a word in. “When I have nothing but, uh, affection for you. I mean, I like you—”
He says your name, taking a step towards you. You continue to blather, unable to stop the train that is careening down the tracks.
“—And I should have said that over objectifying you.” You let your hands fall to your sides as he allows another consumptive stride that eats up distance between he and you. Another nail that is hammered into the depths of your coffin. “I can’t tell you how sick I am and how sorry I am for what I did to you—”
Your name is repeated with an undertone incomprehensible to you, his hands extending in manner you assume to throttle the life out of you. You continue to dig deeper.
“—And if you never want to have anything to do with me ever again—”—Your voice is clabbered by emotion that restricts your ability to breathe, that threatens the familiar prickling sting at the corners of your eyes—“—I understand—
When he says your name for a third time, it is calm, affirmative, and coupled with the gentle yet unyielding grasp of his hand over your wrist.
The effect in halting the stream of consciousness issuing from traitorous lips is instantaneous: your mouth snaps shut once more.
“—I only came here to say one thing.” He says, and then searches the linoleum of your bedroom once more to search for steadfast ability. “Two things, technically.”
“What.” You offer flatly before you remember the lilt that a question carries with it. “What’s that?”
Scott clears his throat into the ball of a fist, his other hand still remaining shoal of heat upon your own. You glance down to it, the divots of knuckles spread in perfect fit over your own. The only thing that distracts you from the sight is his own voice, continuing to hurtle you through this terrible roller-coaster.
“I wasn’t expecting you to draw that picture of me—”—There is a blush that prospers healthily over his face, reaching the tips of his ears as he speaks—“—And I’ll admit, it took me for a loop.”
You remember the hangman’s noose that settles over the hollow of your neck, the sickening terror enveloping you once more.
“I—I mean of course it would—” You feel that same claustrophobic terror suffocate you, but his free hand rises to stall you. The other one squeezes in such comforting, tender manner that it slows you in your tracks.
“—And—”—He purses his lips, shoring up the words—“—If you wanted to draw something more accurate, all you had to do was ask.”
Perhaps in your journey to see Mr. Summers, you tumbled down the stairs head-first. Perhaps what is happening right now is a dying dream that your fading consciousness has conjured up for you. A mere facade to help you shuffle to the afterlife on somewhat agreeable terms.
“What?” You offer, ever the orator. Scott seems to be growing steadily redder by the second, in a way only the non-melanated can.
“Maybe,” He provides, trying to maintain composure when both of you are in a situation that calls for a lack of it, “We both had a failure to communicate.”
His other hand takes support on your elbow, you feel the drag of your eyes move in instant draw to it, flit back to him. Try to awaken yourself from the dream.
He continues, making a self-deprecating tsk through his teeth before he continues again. “But I’m not a person to ignore an opportunity when I see one—”
You think it wise to confront the bull head-first. “Opportunity? Opportunity for what?”
“Opportunity to, ah, tell you, that I’m not offended by the drawing—”—Scott’s hands are the only thing that seem to buoy you in this uncertain moment, the ruffled diction of his voice the true litmus test—“—Flattered, honestly.”
Now you are on proverbial edge of your seat. He settles a hollow, brittle exhale, as though mustering the fortitude to say this next part.
“And, um, that I like you too.” Scott articulates this part most stiffly, most woodenly of all. As though this causes the most chagrin for him of all.
When he concludes, it is with a regretful airs. “For a long while now.”
You make shaky circulation of air. His hands, which are so damnably of perfect accommodation of you, have begun self-soothing circle by the work of his thumbs. This is what helps motivate you to ask your question; to ask anything, really.
“Is. Is this a test?” You plead for clemency, for truth, for transparency. Scott continues to look down at you with that unreadable, implacable gaze.
“I—”—You duck your head with the shame that seems to have wreathed itself round the crown of your head for a near week now. “—I really don’t think I could handle that right now.
“No test. No tricks, I promise.” His voice is of a consoling, authoritative tone one would use to speak to cornered, frightened animals. Then—he huffs out a quiet, self-critical chuckle that summons the slant of your eyes up to him.
His shoulders seem to droop in a defeat that he is ready to accept.
“It—”—He considers the wisdom of what he will say, and then decides against it—“—I wouldn’t lie about something like this.”
His hands begin to depart from the harbor they have made on the slope of your arms, making honorable retreat. Another awkward, uncomfortable chuff escapes him, an effort to ensure no hard feelings.
“It, uh, wasn’t easy coming here.” He admits, the cadence of his sincerity so raw that it is opened like exposed nerve before you both. “But if you don’t want to do anything after this, I understand—”
You pull Scott down to you with such force that your teeth click together. But from the way that he groans against your mouth, the way his hands are searching to clutch you against him, let his fingers roam acreage of your body for more: it’s obvious he doesn’t care.
He’s a messy, flustered kisser; his tongue laps at the seam of your lips so that he can inch it in slow, staggered rasp up your own, his hands searching under your shirt for your body. Seeking out the heat that your curves offer and produce such unmoored, breathless noises that keep him searching for more.
Your hands seize around the collar of his shirt and tug tighter, the seams ripping with the force that you apply—even if this is panic-induced hallucination, you want to commemorate it as best as you can.
But this only makes a deep-seated, broken noise press into you, mark Scott Summers as a different flavor of lover altogether.
And from the way that he gives in to the physical request you have made, the tenting of his starched jeans that you feel pressing against your thigh. How clearly he enjoys the display of force.
You catch your bottom lip between the sink of your teeth, producing another delectable noise from him. Only then do you release him so that you can both enjoy the task of supplying oxygen to the brain.
He stares down at you, his shoulders jumping as his hands seek lower and lower, protective and perverse in their discovery. You welcome both.
“So, uh,” He says with rather boyish charm, “Does that mean I get to be your next model?”
You’re so surprised at the joke, by the way that his smile turns pleased at it, you can’t help but let a little laugh escape you. But you choose to answer by tugging that pressed shirt from where it’s tucked beneath the waistband, under the trim diameter of that belt buckle.
He sucks a taut, steady inhale through his nose as you expose the shelf of muscle that you expected him to possess, run the pads of your fingers down the ridge of his stomach.
“Only if you prefer the hands-on approach,” You inform him with a smirk, urging the shirt further up so that you may see more of your next subject.
From the suffused chuckle he gives through beaming grin: it’s clear that he does.