Smile Back: Part One

by Minisinoo

FAR FROM HOME Storm:

"Are you sure you're okay, man?" Scott is speaking to Peter as we take our seats on the Blackbird and prepare to leave Tokyo behind. "You still look peaked." Peter has transformed back into his fleshly form, and his pallid complexion is even more noticeable than it was a minute ago.

"I told you, I'm fine." Peter's frowning, whether from irritation at being babied, or for some other reason.

"Whatever you say," Scott replies. "Strap in, people." And almost before we have a chance to do so, he's sent the plane up at a forty-five degree swoop. Flashy, Cyclops. I clench my jaw to keep my stomach where it belongs and watch him pilot, instead.

I've never been a woman who believed much in the romantic drivel of uncontrollable passion, or had patience for girlfriends who did stupid things in the name of love. I've done plenty of stupid things, to be sure, but not because of men.

Now, I stare at the back of Scott's neck, hypnotized by a fine line of hairs running down his nape, shaved close. I want to bend forward in my seat, reach across the back of his pilot's chair and slide a finger down that line of hairs. I want to watch his muscles bunch and his body shiver. I think that if even my fingertip came into contact with his skin, maybe I could alchemize enough of his essence to sustain me for a while. Erotic osmosis. I breathe his strength like air, and cut off from him, I would suffocate. I can't bear this physical madness, and haven't slept much since the banquet. Couldn't. The thoughts in my mind tumble over one another like a scattery of jacks, but I can find no order by which to pick them up. All I can think about is touching Scott again.

I grip my hands together in my lap.

I really, really need to see Henry.

I shouldn't feel like this, I shouldn't feel like this. It's a hundred times worse than in Nashville. Then, it was just a white, shocked cloud of new infatuation, blown away by an abrupt explosion of doubt -- a puff of dandelion-seed sentiment scattered by Xavier's manipulations. I'm so used to distrusting what I feel. Feelings are dangerous. Caring is dangerous. Flippant Ororo had learned to insulate herself so well, to hide away in a private tower of studied sarcasm and scathing disinterest. Until Scott.

     A demon's day in madness kissed I swear I never had it like this Forbidden yet I cannot resist . . . .

The last few days in Japan have destroyed all my careful illusions. I'm wholly, catastrophically seduced -- and Scott wasn't even trying. I just respond to his presence without sense or volition, out of some primitive, bone-deep drive that I'm not foolish enough to call love, but which is far more than lust. Lust would be easy to handle. But this? It's beyond me. I've never felt like this before and the inexorable tide of it has sucked me out into an emotional sea.

I'm obsessed with Cyclops.

Yet I'm dating Henry McCoy. And I do care for Hank. God help me, I've come to love him for his gentleness. He's a good man and deserves better than to be the victim of this mad, magnetic drag between Scott and myself. It's wrong, wrong, wrong. Yet I find it impossible to be indifferent to Scott Summers.

     Shocked in silent trances, our eyes search just to know What makes flesh and body hunger for another burning soul? Conscience quiet pleading in the corner of my eyes But seeing is believing, all consequences fly . . . .

I grip my fingers tighter and grind my teeth, pretending that there is no prickle of pain in my chest and no flash of heat between my legs as I stare at those hairs on the nape of Scott's neck.

He glances over his shoulder, briefly, as if he'd felt my eyes. For an instant, our gazes lock, even with the visor in the way.

Then he turns back. His hand fumbles a little on the throttle.

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