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Chapter Five: One Eyed Jacks are Wild
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Clueless Leader.
How he wished that were true. Or rather, how he might have once wished that. It didn't matter now. He pretended not to hear the whispers and ignored the sly glances with a stoicism not unlike that of the Wolverine's. Scott's jaw tightened.
Logan.
He was the worst of all. He thought he had everyone fooled. Maybe he did. Everyone but him, but then again, he'd always seen everything far too clearly.
They all thought Logan was devoid of emotion, that he felt nothing, that he fought and killed and fucked in some kind of emotional black hole. It was laughable. Poor pathetic naive Scott and poor unfeeling uncaring Logan. Their thoughts whispered through his mind, mocking him. It was bad enough they all thought of Logan as an emotional cripple, but it was their opinion of him as the clueless leader that was the most laughable.
They never once stopped to consider they had it all wrong. Not one of them had ever bothered to look beyond the surface, not even those that possessed the 'gifts' to do so. Neither of them were what they seemed. Logan's problem wasn't that he felt nothing; it was that he felt too much. He was a man fighting to keep from being consumed by emotion.
How could they not see it?
At the most primitive elemental level, Logan was driven by what he felt. Things like anger, lust, rage, fear, passion. Ironically, Logan was the one that felt too deeply, while he, Scott, felt nothing. He supposed in some warped way it made perfect sense. It has to. His rational mind struggled with it, looking for some twisted logic that might explain it. Both of them fought futilely against it. Logan fought to feel nothing, while Scott fought to feel something, anything at all.
It hadn't always been this way. He'd cared once, but this place, it changed a man. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and sometimes it was just a change. Not better or worse, just - different.
He'd been so sure of himself, so cocky in the beginning. So sure this place wouldn't do to him what he'd seen it do to others. How wrong he was. So very, very wrong. How he missed that naive boy that he'd once been. The boy who'd loved to tinker with the professor's automobile collection and who'd relished stolen moments of youthful passion with Jean.
Now he barely remembered what it felt like to be so consumed with emotion and desire that his hands shook when he touched her. Even dimmer still, were his memories of passion. Real passion. Back when her first curious touches had the power to reduce him to ashes, when he wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her and just - feel.
There had been so much to feel back then, nervousness at being caught, fear he wouldn't be able to please her, giddiness for finally having the courage to touch her the way he'd always dreamed of, elation that she'd wanted him as desperately as he'd wanted her. Love and lust tangled up in the newness of discovering each other. A time when it was easy to get caught up in the wild rush of desire and easier still, to get lost in those incredible heart stopping moments before he followed her into ecstasy. Afterwards, breathless and trembling, they'd collapsed against each other in a sweaty tangled heap.
He strained to recall those days of reckless abandon, when his biggest worry was whether or not Charles might catch them trysting in some secluded spot on the school grounds or making love frantically in her shower before classes. He remembered the elation they'd shared when she had finally been able to control her 'gift' and later, how they'd fine-tuned that control behind closed doors.
That memory still brought a smile to his lips, even after all this time. Amidst laughter and kisses, they'd hurriedly stripped in an effort to explore exactly what things Jean was able to move with her mind. He remembered eagerly offering himself as a test subject and jumping for the bed with a suggestive smirk, lying back, unashamed of his response to her naked body. "See if you can move that, Jean," he'd teased, pointing to himself. She had, and they'd spent all afternoon experimenting with Jean's 'gift' and the pleasure it could bring them.
God, how young and free we were then.
As they'd matured, so had their relationship. He'd never stopped wanting her, but he'd also learned to appreciate the quiet pleasure he found in the simple every day things. He used to feel amazed by her beauty, just watching the sunlight play across her skin or the wind tease her hair. There was a time he felt humbled by the bond they shared.
But even that intimacy with Jean wasn't invulnerable, it was just the last thing to be touched by the darkness. That bond was the only thing he had left, and now even it was tainted. Soon enough, it too, would be swallowed up.
Here he was, not yet thirty, and he felt old beyond his years, resigned to the life that stretched out before him, a life of discipline and responsibilities. He was still a young man, but one whose youth was long gone, sacrificed for the cause.
The sad part was he didn't even wish he could change it, because that meant someone else would be here, in his shoes. Someone else would be old before their time, too numb inside to feel, too weighed down by responsibility to live.
He didn't live. He served. He survived, and he did his damnedest to make sure everyone around him survived too. It was a thankless, relentless job he wouldn't wish on anyone.
Charles had seen it in him from the beginning. Seen that he was not only capable of leadership, but that he wouldn't falter under the heavy yoke of responsibility. That he would be unable to step aside, because of what it would mean for someone else, and so he'd been groomed for this position from the start.
The cold dead stillness inside of him hadn't appeared overnight. It grew slowly, silently, steadily. Each time he'd made a command decision that put someone he cared about in danger, it took a little more from him. It was the only way he'd been able to cope.
Divorce yourself from your feelings. They are not your friends; they are tools, soldiers to use for the greater good. Some will fall. It is inevitable. Calculated loss is acceptable because the cause is just. His mantra replayed in his head, like it had a thousand times before.
And fall they had. Men, women, friends... innocents and enemies alike. Each time he chose which ones would go, the darkness grew and the next time the choice became that much easier. He led and fought and sent people to their deaths over some line Charles and Magneto had drawn in the sand. Sometimes, he wondered what would have happened if Magneto had found him first.
It was a harsh reality to live with. People died because of him. Choices he made had direct consequences, some good, some bad, but all of them serious. It wasn't a game or a book he could just snap shut and walk away from. There was no way out, save death, and after all he'd seen, he wasn't even sure that would be a blessing. So he'd pushed himself harder, feeling more and more of himself slip away, as the body count on both sides rose.
He was a good leader, a fair leader. He never asked them for more than he was willing to give. Hadn't he already given himself for the cause? Wasn't he just another calculated loss?
The lives of the many are worth more than the lives of the few, or the one. Christ, put that way it sounds so clear-cut. So easy. Yet in the heat of battle when 'the few or the one' was someone he cared about, it wasn't quite so easy to make that choice.
There were men that made great leaders, men like him. Men with minds built to think like his did. Tacticians, who could take one look at the board and foresee the outcome. Men whose hearts closed themselves off, so they would be better able to serve the cause. And then there were men like Logan. Men who were natural leaders. Men who were not made weaker by feelings and emotions, but made stronger, made more lethal.
Having Jean at his side was a liability. It made him weaker, distracted him from his goal. From Charles's goal. He breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. He knew with certainty, if Logan had Jean at his side, he would be able to add her formidable strength to his own. It wouldn't make him weaker, but stronger. Some men were meant to lead alone, and others were meant to share the burden of leadership.
Logan claimed he only wanted one thing from Jean. The same thing he professed to want from all attractive women. Cretin. Asshole. Liar. With the clear insight the numbness afforded him, it was obvious what Logan really wanted. Oh, he fought against it, fought against feeling anything, but Scott recognized possessiveness when he saw it, and it was there whenever Logan looked at Jean.
It wasn't that he was exempt from jealousy, but his position as leader superceded the wants and desires of the man - what few wants and desires he had left anyway. He knew it would make the team stronger in the end as long as the transition was gradual enough for the others to accept.
Scott had no doubt that once he let her go, she and Logan would be intimate. Intimate? That's far too tame a word to use to describe what's going to happen. Both Logan and Jean had a wildness inside of them. Fighting for the cause only heightened it, made it more pronounced.
He still had doubts whether Logan would be able to let himself feel enough to give Jean the kind of relationship she wanted -needed. A dark smile played at the corners of his mouth. In some macabre way, he knew he was going to enjoy watching Logan twist himself into knots, as he fought against feeling.
A philosopher at heart, Scott often wondered why fate had put Jean in his path instead of Logan's.
He was tired, weary right down to his soul. Tired of being the rock they broke themselves against. Tired of always having to be in control every moment of every day to keep them safe from his 'gift'. Tired of seeing the world in shades of red.
No rest for the weary.
Even here in his own room he had to maintain his carefully constructed facade. With the others he projected an image of strength. To them he was the 'fearless leader'. His dry wit and biting sarcasm was but one more facet of the mask he wore. Even his air of naivety served a purpose.
He wanted to rest, but still, in his own space, he wasn't completely free. Here, he pretended not to notice the way Jean reacted to Logan. He knew when she attacked him, wet and wanting, that she wasn't thinking of him, she was thinking of Logan. He was the reason she kept her eyes closed, now. But what she didn't know was that behind that ruby quartz, his eyes were closed too.
No, he wasn't thinking of someone else. He was thinking about the past, desperately wishing he could feel things the way he'd felt them then. The fire inside him had grown dim. It wasn't completely extinguished. Not yet, but soon.
Soon.
Jean thought he was holding back, that he wasn't willing or able set aside his rigid control and let her touch the man he was inside. She'd never understood he was sharing everything he had left with her. She'd seen the man he was inside and it wasn't enough.
He wished he could be upset by that, but oddly enough he wasn't. He'd long ago realized Jean was lost to him. He'd heard the way she shouted Logan's name with such anguish that night in the Statue of Liberty. He'd heard the desperation in her voice as she called out to him when he cut through his own body to free himself. If that wasn't enough, he'd seen the look that passed between the two of them as Logan prepared for Storm lift his body to the top of the torch.
That was yet another decision, another chance for the darkness to take a bit more of him. Let Logan try. If it didn't work, I can still blast it. In the end he'd been forced to take the shot anyway, and that decision had cost him dearly. He'd gone ahead and taken the shot, even though Jean had been pleading with him to wait. It was that moment he'd realized Jean was lost to him.
He accepted it the way all great leaders accepted the inevitable. He knew the players. He knew the game. His mind knew the outcome before the first move had ever been made. Sometimes he wished he could just skip right to the end. He already knew what was going to happen. Why wait? But he knew the others needed to play the game, needed to experience it move by move for them to understand and accept the outcome.
That was the most frustrating part for him. Scott ran a hand through his hair tiredly. So here he was. Lying in his bed, pretending to sleep. Pretending to gloat in front of Logan when he and Jean went upstairs. Pretending he didn't smell the cigar smoke on Jean when she came back tonight. Pretending he didn't know she was crying in the shower as she washed the smell of Logan off her skin. If he guessed correctly, and he almost always did when it came to her, she was most likely trying to wash his scent off her skin as well.
He knew they hadn't slept together yet. She'd gone downstairs smelling of him and sex and he knew there was no way in hell Logan would ever touch her smelling like that. He was far too animalistic, too territorial, for that. He knew whatever happened between them hadn't been pleasant. Jean was a strong woman. It took a hell of a lot to make her cry, and there was no mistaking her wet watery eyes when she'd returned to their room.
A part of him wanted to end her suffering, wanted to tell her that life was too short and unpredictable for her to go on the way she had been. He wasn't trying to hold on to her. He was ready to let her go, but he wasn't ready to let himself go. Wasn't ready to give himself over to the darkness just yet, and that's what stopped him.
He kept hoping that maybe the next time they were together he might feel a little of what that naive boy had felt so long ago.
From somewhere in his consciousness words came unbidden to his mind.Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
He was beyond rage. He only wanted to feel that light one last time before he let it go and let the numbing darkness take him completely, and so he would pretend a little longer. The spark would be gone soon enough on its own.
Oh yes, this place changed a man. It wasn't question of 'if' just a question of 'how'. It was different for everyone. It robbed some of their innocence, and gave others strength. It made men like him numb inside and forced men like Logan to feel. But worse still, it made you hope, and for some that was the most dangerous change of all.