TITLE: Confessions
AUTHOR: Diana
EMAIL: dee@viscerate.com
RATING: Surprisingly PG-ish, but still not for the kids
SUMMARY: Min's Scott-smut challenge.  Scott admits to impure thoughts.
ARCHIVE: Whoever wants it can have it.  Especially, if you've got work of
mine already.  Just email me and tell, so I can get a warm fuzzy.
DISCLAIMER: This is all Marvel's *fault*, since if they hadn't produced the
damn comics I never would have had the fiendish ideas for which I'm sweating
blood and not getting paid a cent.  Bastards.
NOTES: A "Pure and Simple" series interlude, at the end of comic #10.  In
that 'world', because I like it there. :-)  (It might help understand
underlying themes and concepts if you've read at least "Pure and Simple".)
It's not really very smutty at all.  I tried, but the Scott-muse proved
surprisingly resistant to the concept.  In other words: there is no point,
there is only Zool.  (It's 2am, give me a break.)

Min, this isn't quite what I set out to write, but it's still for you.

WORDCOUNT: A bare 1300

=====

Let's be rational.  I'm a teenage male, I'm in an intense, life-threatening
situation, it's not that sensational that I've got sexual fantasies playing
out in my head.

Anyone looking at my position would probably have to agree, since I have a
gorgeous redhead, previously seeking comfort in my arms, curled up next to
me in beautifully innocent sleep, her hair just brushing my thigh.

But I confess, I'm not thinking about Jean.

There's a lot of things I'm not thinking about.  Steadfastly not thinking
about.  I'm not thinking about the fact that I came within a sneeze of dying
painfully today.  I'm not thinking about the fact that Jean killed to save
me.  I'm not thinking about the fact that the Wolverine's in here with us
now, and much as I hate to admit it, I was relying on his outside
intervention to make my escape plans viable.

And there's a lot of reasons I shouldn't be thinking about Ororo, a lot of
reasons why I can't have her.  But it's easy to blame the big ones, the ones
I hate anyway - Sabretooth, Wraith, Weapon X, the whole frigging system that
put us here.  Easy to ignore the small reason that is Hank.

Sure, he's blue, but what does that have against the fact that she's his?
In a different time and place, he drew her close in the kitchen, arms around
her waist and head on her shoulder, and she didn't even break her
conversation with Peter.  Casual, public, just like that.

The memory's still like a punch in the gut.  She was never mine like that.
Never mine at all, really.  But in my head, it can all be different.

* * * * *

At the end of a long, hard day - in the space between ending the afternoon's
work and dinner - I retreated to my shower.  One of the perks of living here
longer was having a room with an ensuite, and it was my saviour.  Wonderful,
therapeutic, feeling the tension drummed out with the beat of water against
my shoulders, face, eyelids.  Washed away in a sudsing gurgle around my
feet.

As I shut off the water, I thought I heard a noise from the outside room,
something wooden, like a knock at the door.  I waited, dripping, to see if
it repeated.  I certainly wasn't going to call out, or investigate, as I
was: naked, blind and in no fit state (or mood) to deal with visitors.
There was no further noise anyway.  My imagination, obviously.

I dried off by routine, found my glasses in their spot on the counter.
Towel wrapped around my waist - yes, even in my own room - I headed out of
the bathroom.

And stopped dead.  Late afternoon sunlight splayed over my room, splashing
everything in warm golden tones.  It turned her chocolate skin almost
russet, sitting there on my bed.  Her glorious hair was laced with fire, and
the eyes she turned my way were white.

In afternoon sun, as opposed to the slithering late-night shadows of our
usual 'arrangement', she looked almost unbearably real.  As if she wasn't a
dream that would vanish before morning, slipping through my fingers.

While my brain was gaping, my mouth was running away.  "Ororo!  What are you
doing here?"

Shit, no, wrong, and I saw it in her face in an instant.  You've fucked it
now, Cyclops; move!

Three steps across the room.  She fumbled the doorknob, had the door barely
two inches open when my open palm hit it, slamming it shut again.  I pressed
my other hand against the wall on the other side, hemming her in.  Afraid
she might run, afraid I might fall if I didn't hold myself up.

I stood there, with her huddled inside the braced space of my arms,
wondering what the hell I could say.  Her hair - never fully restrained -
was tickling my bare chest.  I leaned forward just enough to feel the
strands against my face, the delicate perfume of her shampoo insinuating
itself.  And underneath, the faint trace of a scent that was pure /her/.  If
I moved forward further, around near to her ear, the shampoo smell faded
away.

Down the side of her neck, not touching, not quite.  Following the sight of
her skin, lingering gold from the heavy colour in the air, as the sun burned
ignored in the window behind me.  Her collarbone was shadowed, marred only
by the tiny strap of the blue sundress she's wearing.  Beside that
obstruction I touched her, finally, lips grazing the faint rise of the bone.

She was trembling, ever-so-slightly.  Or maybe that was me.  Or maybe both.
Her hands were raised to the door, fingers splayed on the wood.

"Ororo," I exhaled, inhaled against her skin.  A shiver passed through her,
and she leaned back against me, the faintest, most blindingly excrutiating
pressure.

Her breath was losing regularity; my own mimicked it.  When my name left her
lips it was barely a whisper, but it thundered through my blood.  She arched
backwards, her head touching my shoulder, and her pulse was jumping in her
throat.  I pressed my lips to it, felt the beat against my skin.  I didn't
need both hands on the wall any more; slid one over her hip, gathered the
fabric of her dress in my fist, bunched it up.

"You're here," I stated unnecessarily.  Vitally.

"I'm here," she confirmed.

Ororo twisted, time twisted, space twisted and she was in my arms, wrapped
around me, her lips and tongue, and skin under my hands.  Her dress hit the
floor shortly after my towel, and I pulled her, naked, down onto the bed,
kissed and was kissed as I ran hands over skin I never expected - never
dreamed - would be coloured by the sun.

Her hands tangled in my hair, ran over my back, traced the muscles of my
chest, smoothed over my face to take my glasses.  I closed my eyes as she
tugged them off.  Fingers so intimate on my face, whispering over my closed
eyelids, and I still saw her in my mind.

"Make love to me, Scott," she said simply.  "Love me."

And with all my heart, my soul, my mind and body, I did.


When I woke, the last embers of the dying sun were painting the ceiling with
blood.  My glasses were gone, my eyes shut, but I didn't need sight.  There
was weight and warmth in my arms, breath against my cheek.

"We've missed dinner," Ororo murmured in my ear.

"I'm not really hungry anyway."  I strove for nonchalance, but my arms
betrayed me by drawing her closer.  I couldn't let her go, couldn't let her
leave.

She merely snuggled against me.  "Me neither."

"Stay," I blurted, and prayed, clutched her against me, but she didn't
vanish, didn't slip away.  Her fingers trailed down my cheek, feather-light
and solid as reality.

"Of course I will, Scott."

* * * * *

"Scott..."

It takes me a minute to realise it's here and now, Ororo saying my name from
across the corridor, one cell down.

I lean forward, twist and peer.  But I can't see around corners, can't see
her.

"Ororo?"

There's a faint intake of breath, or maybe I'm imagining things.  Maybe it's
Jean snoring.

"Oh, I just... ah... nothing."

Seconds of silence, of the faint hum of the energy fields and Kurt muttering
almost inaudibly in German.

Seconds that stretch into minutes, and I whisper into them, fainter than
thought: "I love you."

My imagination again, or maybe I really did hear the faintest of echoes.