I run my hands over her soft skin, fingers tracing the curves. Her body is warm to the touch, quivering ever so slightly. I hover over her, eyes closed, feeling my way around. I haven't done this in a long time. I don't remember the last occasion. It all seems so familiar, yet so alien.
I commit my mind to the physical map beneath me. The dimensions have been altered slightly, but everything is roughly in place where it should be. Blindly, I sieve my fingers through her hair, behind her ear and down her jaw line. I press my lips against hers and trail kisses down her neck to the dip of her collarbone. She whimpers and writhes as I pin her down firmly and whisper gentle sweet nothings into her shoulder.
Eyes still closed my hands slide down the sides of her upper body to her waist as my mouth finds the swell of her breast. She lifts her legs to wrap them over my lower back, locking her heels behind me. Grabbing fistfuls of my hair, she arches her back and lifts her hips and rams her groin against mine. Aroused, I let out a low grunt. My breathing gets heavier just as she starts to pant. I pause for a second on all fours. Abruptly, she throws her arms over my neck and latches herself onto me. She nibbles my earlobe and moans, "I want you now."
There is an electrical tingle down my spine to the tip of my cock, which hardens right on cue. I oblige, a little reluctantly, faintly recalling she was never really in it for foreplay. I position myself, penetrating deep into her wetness slowly. She throws her head backwards and screams my name. I bend over awkwardly to swallow her cry in a hard kiss. The last thing we needed to do was to wake the whole school up in the middle of the night.
We lapse into a regular rhythm. I'm supporting her weight with one hand pressed behind her back, and both our weights with both knees and the other hand on the bed. Not the most comfortable position but that's hardly on my mind right now. She tightens her death grip on me (both thighs and arms) and nearly bites my tongue off. In between thrusts, I feel this great surge in adrenaline. I'm ecstatically giddy, light-headed, while my trembling body signals that I'm about to come.
She breaks the kiss and lets her head fall back. I grit my teeth, eyes still squeezed shut. A drop of sweat dangles precariously at the tip of my nose. My muscles are loosing their tautness as I feel them weaken. Unable to suppress myself any longer, I release my hot seed within her and promptly collapse on top of her, but taking care not to crush her body under my own weight. I cry her name into her neck.
"Jean!"
I blink twice before opening my eyes. I'm wearing my visor of course. I have a mouthful of her hair. I whisper to her, "That was wild". Then I take myself off the top of her. A few moments after, I start to explore her once again. We lie there looking into each other's eyes. We explore each other, and soon, we slowly drift off to sleep.
***
Everyone on the team knows him as the "Fearless Leader". But Cyclops is just a façade, a mask he puts on in front of everyone else when duty calls. In truth, Scott has fears and insecurities, as well as emotions mind you, just as everyone else. He's afraid of being lost, and losing, be it a fight or someone he loves.
People always assume too much, and fail to look past beyond the superficial. It's as if no one could be in a worse off predicament then they are or were in. Scott's fought his fair share of death-defying battles, and probably lost more than he ever gained.
Scott's lost his parents and Alex in a plane crash at eight. He lost his childhood being shuffled around orphanages and being used to the advantage of Sinister and Jack Winters. When his powers manifested, he found out he had absolutely no control over his optic beams as a result of a head injury sustained in the crash. Being disillusioned as a child can do horrible things to your self-esteem.
Down the line, he's lost his first and ex-wife, as well as his first born son in two separate occasions, to the day he still blames himself for what should not have happened. And to top off the list, he lost me not once, but twice, in almost the same manner.
When he lost me the first time, I'm fully aware that a large part of him died with me. I doubt he ever did fully recovered from the first blow, and when I rose from the dead to grace the earth once more, deep down inside of him, he had been waiting for this very moment of déjà vu when the other shoe would drop. If the first blow was fatal, and the second blow no less, would the third kill him?
That would be a little of an understatement, considering Scott did die before. That was the day when he lost himself. Could anyone lose anything more? When Nathan and I rescued him from the depths of darkness, Scott returned half the man he used to be, maybe less. Maybe when the first half of him died with the Phoenix on the blue side of the moon, the other half died trying to save Nate Grey (and the earth). He returned a totally changed man. Mentally tainted with a different swagger. Ruthless. Cold. Unfeeling.
That scared me a lot, it really did. And it was at that point in time I felt I had completely lost the man I loved...love. Right now I watch over his sleeping form silently. His breathing is shallow and short, his body tense; Scott is troubled. He's on his side in a hunched position dangerously over the edge of the bed. I snake my arms around his frame and press one side of my cheek against the nape of his neck. As tough as he is on the exterior, he just loves to be cuddled like the big teddy bear he really is.
"Jean?"
"Hmm?"
Scott's talking in his sleep. "Jean, don't leave me..."
"'I'm not going anywhere, hon." I raise myself on one elbow, tuck an errand stand of hair behind my ear and lean over to caress his cheek. Scott's extremely paranoid of being abandoned. He needs to constantly be assured and reassured that he is loved and adored by someone who loves him. He never really grew out of his childhood fears.
Scott turns to lie on his back, with me propped above him. I reach out to tenderly stroke his messed-up hair. He catches my hand and brings it down to the side of his face, rubbing the back of my hand against it. His smile is soft. I smile back.
"I had this weirdest dream...that you died again...and when I woke up in my dream...someone else was in your place on this very same bed..."
"Shh...it's okay, it was all just a bad dream...I'm here for you now and always will be. I love you now and forever. You know that Scott, you've known it even before the day we took our matrimonial vows."
Scott just held on tighter. "Don't leave me again Jean, don't..." he whispered to the wind. In the darkness, I could see he was crying.
***