Summers in a Sea of Glory

He Who Hesitates (Summers in a Sea of Glory, 1/10)

I was going to tell Jean. There was never any question about that. Not in my mind, anyway. And there shouldn’t have been any in Logan’s, either. I’d told him – long before anything had happened between him and me – that Jean and I didn’t keep secrets from each other. I would have told her about Logan even if he and I had just been fuck buddies. Which, of course, was all we had been when this whole thing started.

Now it feels like we have – or at least had – something more than that. I’d told Logan I was in love with him and I’d meant it. I’d believed him when he told me he felt the same. My feelings haven’t changed. I don’t know if his have, although I worry that he’s cooled towards me. We haven’t spoken about it since Vermont.

We haven’t spoken much at all, Logan and I. He’s avoiding me, it’s clear. He hasn’t said a private word to me since we got back.

Well, maybe I’m avoiding him, too. Or at least I’m accepting his avoidance of me. I certainly haven’t sought him out.

I should talk to Logan. I want to talk to him. I just don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know how to explain how I feel about Jean. I’m not in love with her, that I’m sure of. Still, l feel responsible for her well-being, at least until she’s back on her feet, in all senses.

I want Logan to understand that. I want him to know that what happened with Jean doesn’t affect how I feel about him. I still want what we both said we wanted together – love and sex and facing the world as a team of two. An army of lovers can conquer the world. That’s how I had been thinking of Logan and me - a warrior/lover pair, like in the Theban Band. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was when he told me that’s what he wanted, too.

We’d thought Jean was dead at the time, thought that we’d had an imposter in our midst. Maybe that’s what it took to really open our minds to the possibility. At least I think that was what it took for me, as defended as I was against loving another man.

It’s been a long time since I’d even considered the possibility. I’d come out the first time when I was fifteen, but once Jean and I were together I’d settled into this half-closeted state. I’m not one of those fundie crazies who try to go straight, even if it looks like that on the surface – gay through my teens and then at age twenty I get involved with a woman. It wasn’t because of some religious conversion, and I didn’t think of myself as an “ex-gay man.” I mostly just didn’t think about my sexuality at all.

Jean and I had gone through so much together, shared so much. We loved each other and although we’d kind of fallen into the relationship, it felt to both of us like it was worth working on. I’d had sex with a lot of guys, but I’d never had the kind of closeness I had with Jean, and I didn’t want to risk what we had.
“That way madness lies, let me shun that.” I knew that if I had sex with a man it would damage what Jean and I had, and our relationship was very important to me. Love was something I shared with Jean, not anyone else. That’s how it was until she died. Well, until I thought she was dead.

I was so sure that this woman who showed up was someone else, someone who inexplicably looked like the woman I’d loved and lost. We’d since found out otherwise, now knew that Jean had been invaded or possessed. Whatever had taken over her body and her mind was gone now. Jean was back, really back this time.

That didn’t change anything. Not for me, not for how I felt about Logan. I’ll always care about Jean, I’m sure. We’ve been friends since we were kids and we were lovers for years. We’d planned on marriage. I feel a great warmth and fondness towards her. In some sense I’ll always love her, but I’d known for some time that I wasn’t in love with her anymore.

I knew I wasn’t going to try to live a straight life again. That’s a decision I’d made over a year ago and one I’ve never wavered on. It had taken me some time to clearly understand that the relationship Jean and I had tried to build was a mistake, but I did understand it now.

It never would have worked, I realized. I hadn’t been true to my nature. Now that I was in love with a man, I’d learned something essential that had always eluded me before. Now I understood that deep love and intense desire could have the same object, and it was a life-changing realization. It was very clear to me that there was never going to be anything but friendship between Jean and me. This was information Jean had a right to know and I was definitely going to tell her.

Still, it was something I needed to do carefully, not just blurt out. Jean was in no condition to hear news like that without some preparation. Logan should have understood that. He knew what had happened to her. Well, as much as any of us knew, which wasn’t a whole lot.

I’d called Charles as soon as I could, as soon as we were sure that thing was truly gone from Jean. As soon as we’d established that the inhabitants of the Vermont house it hadn’t killed were safe and well, as soon as I was sure the house was secure. I’d explained to Charles what had happened to Jean and told him about the deaths of the FBI agents assigned there. I don’t know what he’d told the G-Men’s superiors, but he assured me that Jean would not be arrested for their deaths. Then he and Hank joined us in Vermont, to run interference with the FBI as needed, as well as to try to get a better sense of what had gone on there and to formulate a plan for what to do next.

Two more grim-faced FBI agents showed up shortly after Hank and Charles, looking almost exactly like the ones who had died. They interviewed us all and took extensive notes. Neither of them betrayed any emotion, even when Logan and I described finding their colleagues dead, hearts pulled from their chests and placed neatly on the hall table. Logan and I exchanged glances while they muttered about Satanic cults and ritual murder, but didn’t try to correct them.

The G-Men left with the bodies of their fellow agents, and no local law enforcement showed up. I checked local newspapers as long as we were in Vermont, and nothing about two gruesome deaths interrupted the articles about school funding and ski tourism.

We stayed on for a few more days, in order to look for clues as to what it was that had taken over Jean’s body, and in order to interview our Alpha Flight reps and Cassandra, our Mutant Protection Plan resident. They were the people who had been on the spot and knew best what had happened. Logan and I had come into it too late to have the whole picture. Both Sasquatch and Cassandra had been attacked by “Jean” and we hoped we could find out more from them about the being that had invaded her.

It quickly became clear that Sasquatch would be no help to the investigation. We’d found him unconscious, but without a mark on him. He awoke a couple of hours after Jean became herself again, but with no memory of anything that had happened that day.

His memories before jibed with the rest of ours, but added nothing. He’d noticed a difference in “Jean” from when he’d first arrived in Vermont to work with her. She had seemed changed, unlike the woman he’d known for years. He and Northstar had compared notes, speculating that she might be an imposter, a shapeshifter taking Jean’s form. That she was Jean but possessed by some inhuman entity had never entered their minds.

By contrast, Cassandra’s memories were clear and complete. She was able to tell us exactly what she’d experienced. Her mutant power for predicting catastrophe had warned her that she’d be attacked by Jean. As soon as she had the vision, she’d tried to escape, planning to return to Westchester. Jean had tried to stop her and Cassandra had taken refuge in the panic room. We’d had to coax her out of there afterwards. It took some doing to convince her that Jean hadn’t really been the one who attacked her, and was no threat to her now.

After we’d learned everything we could on site, we returned to Westchester. We brought Cassandra with us, and also Ethan Leeds. Charles had asked him to take a few days off to join us. We needed his expertise and his established therapeutic relationships with both Cassandra and Jean.

Hank examined Jean carefully and did pretty much every test modern medicine had available to assess her physical and mental state. Charles examined her telepathically, and assessed her mutant powers with Cerebro. Ethan Leeds interviewed her at length, bringing his professional expertise, his experience with mutant psychology, and his long professional relationship with Jean to the table.

The three of them were a formidable team. If anyone had been able to figure out what had happened to her, it would have been that trio. Still, with all the expertise, intelligence, and mutant power brought to bear, we weren’t clear on just what had invaded her body or what that being had done to her. We were referring to the invader as “the Phoenix” – a reference to the fiery, bird-like shape that seemed to be coming out of her body when Jean became Jean again. But giving it a name wasn’t getting us any closer to figuring out who or what it was.

As far as they could tell, Jean seemed physically unaffected by more than a year of having her body and mind under Phoenix control. It also seemed that it hadn’t diminished her mutant powers at all. If anything, it seemed to have intensified them. Her telekinetic ability was exponentially stronger than it had been. And Charles said her telepathy was now so strong it was rivaling his. It wasn’t clear how that had happened. Had possession by the Phoenix had an intensifying effect on her gifts? Or was it a natural progression that had just coincidentally happened at the same time as the possession? I tended to think the latter.

Ever since we’d fought Magneto at Liberty Island Jean’s powers had seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds – growing faster than her ability to control them at first. I remembered the bed shaking while she dreamed, objects flying when she was frustrated or unhappy. She had told me nothing was wrong, but it was clear that something had changed in her. It seemed that her telekinetic gift was growing and developing almost as if she had just come into her powers. She was exhibiting the same lack of control our students often experience during that period of change. During more than a year of Phoenix possession, perhaps her telekinetic ability had continued to grow, and to stabilize, so that she was now in better control, now that she had her body back.

So, physically Jean was perfectly well, surprisingly so. And her powers were stronger than ever. Still, that didn’t mean she was emotionally healthy. It didn’t mean she was ready to take what was bound to be hard news without some preparation.

Psychologically – well, it would take time to know just how badly hurt she was, but she had clearly been traumatized by the experience. Ethan reported that she was suffering from acute anxiety – trouble sleeping, having panic attacks, nightmares when she did manage to sleep. And the way she had clung to me, shaking, when the Phoenix finally left her body didn’t leave me thinking that it was a good time to tell her I had a new lover. A man. A man she’d thought had been in love with her, thought I’d been jealous of.

Jean certainly knew something was up. In Vermont she’d been assigned a room by herself. She’d looked at me questioningly when Walter said he’d show her which room was hers, but said nothing. When we returned to Westchester, she asked Ororo where she was staying, not looking at me. ‘Ro took her to the room that she’d lived in – under Phoenix possession – for the last several months. All of her things were already there. She had no need to come back to our room, and didn’t. I wasn’t finding myself alone with her. If I’d wanted to explain about Logan and me – and I really didn’t think it was a good idea to do so yet – I’d have needed to ask to speak to her privately.

She didn’t spend much time with me, in general. I saw her at faculty meetings, in the dining hall, at team meetings. She didn’t sit with me and she didn’t look at me.

It wasn’t me to whom she turned to find out what had happened while she’d been possessed. She gave an overview of her experiences of the past year at the first team meeting after her return. Or more accurately, her non-experiences. “It feels like I fell asleep at Alkali Lake and woke up the next morning in Vermont,” she said. “I know over a year went by, but I only know it intellectually. I have some moments of memory – at Xavier’s and in Vermont – but it’s like little bits of a dream. Incomplete, hazy, only barely remembered. I’ll look to you,” she added, turning from me and towards Charles and ‘Ro, “to fill me in on what I did during the time after I came home.” She shrugged. “I hope none of you will hold me responsible for my actions.”

Everyone quickly assured her that she was in no way responsible for her Phoenix-controlled behavior. Charles added, “We’ll do our best to fill you in on what happened while you were with us, Jean. It’s also possible that Ethan and I can help you fill in some of the time before you showed up here.”

“How could you? I’ve really tried to remember. I know that may well be the key to finding the Phoenix, or at least figuring out what its intentions were. But there’s nothing there, no matter how hard I try.”

Dr. Leeds weighed in. “It’s possible there is something there, some memories, but they’re not accessible to you. Maybe the experiences were too traumatic to remember. Maybe the Phoenix has walled off the memories, hidden them from your conscious self. Maybe both are operating. I think that with a combination of hypnosis and telepathy, Charles and I may be able to help you recover them.” He paused, as if unsure whether to continue. “It wouldn’t likely be a pleasant process. Ultimately I think you’ll find that the more you know, the better off you are in the long run. Still, revisiting trauma is never easy, and can often be re-traumatizing.”

“I want to do whatever I can to get answers,” she’d replied without hesitation, “for all of our sakes.” She smiled weakly. “I’ll count on you to pick up the pieces, if necessary, Ethan.” As always, I admired her courage, persistence, and commitment to the team.

I tried to talk to Jean after the meeting, following her to her office. I began by expressing my admiration for her fortitude and telling her I wanted to do what I could to help her. I told her to let me know when she felt ready to rejoin the team, but that she shouldn’t feel under pressure to do so right away.

She didn’t say anything for a long time. When she spoke, it wasn’t in response to what I said. “It’s over, isn’t it?” she asked.

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, smiling sadly. “Nothing to be sorry about. We always knew it was a long shot.”

“Jean, I’ll always –”

“Don’t, Scott. Don’t finish that sentence. I don’t think I can take hearing that right now. Maybe some day.” She turned her head away. “I think I need to be alone now.”

How could I have told her then?

What End Waits (Summers in a Sea of Glory 2/10)

“Just fucking make up your mind.” Logan said it in a low growl.

“It’s not that simple,” Scott replied.

“Sure it is.”

“There’s a lot to consider before – ”

“Fuck that. There’s bugger all to consider.” Voice rising now as he continued. “Just one thing. One question. Do you want her or don’t you? If you do, ask her. If you don’t, stop jerking her – and the rest of us – around.”

Scott opened his mouth to reply again, but Charles stepped in before he could. “I agree with Cyclops.” Logan looked up, surprised, as if he’d forgotten that he and Scott were not the only people in the room. “This is not an easy decision and not one to be made precipitously,” the professor continued.

“You’re making this too simple,” Ethan Leeds chimed in, agreeing with the other two. “It’s often one of your strengths, Logan. You know how to unloose the Gordian knots – you manage to cut through unnecessary complexity and see the simple solutions.”

“Unnecessary bullshit, you mean.”

Ethan smiled. “That, too. But not all complexity is bullshit, and this time I think the problem is more complex than you are recognizing.”

Professor Xavier nodded. “Cassandra has powers that are potentially of great benefit to the team. On the other hand, we have other factors to consider before we offer her a place on the X-Men.”

“What other factors?”

“Morale. Unit cohesion,” Scott answered, calmly, in spite of the belligerent tone in which Logan had asked the question. “Her powers are useful to us, but they’re also unsettling to the team. I don’t know that the rest of them are going to accept a precog who only predicts catastrophes.”

“And there’s Cassandra’s emotional state to consider, as well,” Ethan Leeds weighed in. “She’s still dealing with the trauma of what happened in Vermont. Cassandra is still adjusting to the huge changes she’s undergone in the past year. She’s working on coming to terms with the loss of her livelihood and home in Washington, working on developing a new view of herself, reflected by her new name. She’s still not entirely comfortable with her mutant status altogether. Obviously I can’t go into details, but I know it’s no surprise to anyone in this meeting that she’s an emotionally fragile individual. Cassandra has been through a great deal of trauma in recent months. I can’t really vouch for whether or not she’s emotionally healthy enough to be on a team like the X-Men.”

“Fuck that. If ‘emotionally healthy’ was a requirement to join this outfit, there wouldn’t be any X-Men at all,” Logan snorted. “The Professor there would be a one-man combat team. Well, maybe Jean, too, at least before the Phoenix got into her. But aside from the two of them, the X-Men have always been a bunch of nutcases and wackos. Take a look around.”

“We asked you to join this meeting, Wolverine,” Scott emphasized Logan’s codename slightly, “because Cassandra has been training with you. We wanted you to give us a clearer picture of her combat-readiness. You were not invited here to comment on her mental health, or that of the rest of the team.” Logan didn’t respond. “If you don’t have anything productive to contribute to the meeting, you might as well leave now,” he added, coldly.

Logan stood up and began to walk out, but Charles stopped him. “No, don’t go,” he said. Logan stopped where he was, but didn’t return, didn’t sit down. He stood there looking at Charles, waiting to see what happened next.

Charles turned to Scott. “Where did that come from? How are we to come to an informed decision without Logan’s input? What is happening with you two?” He looked from Scott to Logan and back, but neither man answered. “I haven’t had to deal with this kind of conflict between you in years. I don’t want to be dealing with it now. You both have more important things to do.” He looked from one to the other. “This is an unsettling time for us all, I recognize. I look to you, Cyclops, to lead the team – not only with orders, but by example. And,” turning to Logan now, “I’m looking for your support. Whatever your differences are, settle them privately. Outside of this meeting.”

Professor X’s words and tone left little room for argument. Logan rejoined the others, sitting down next to Ethan, without looking at Scott. Tension had clearly not dissipated, but the meeting got back on track, with all four men weighing in on Cassandra’s suitability as a member of the team, each offering his own information and expertise. A tentative consensus emerged, a belief that the precog was potentially an X-Man, but not ready at this point to be a full-fledged team member. Her combat skills were not sufficient for the task, and there was still concern about her emotional stability and consequent ability to function in high stress situations. It was agreed that Cyclops would talk to her, explaining that they would like her to join the main team after further preparation and training (and, implying but not explicitly stating, that further therapy would be a good thing as well). In the meantime she would be asked to assist in non-combat assignments and would continue her combat training with Logan.

Logan left abruptly when the meeting was finished. Scott, in the midst of a conversation with Charles, excused himself and followed him. “Can we talk?” he asked, catching up to Logan as he entered the elevator down to the subterranean secure areas of the mansion. Scott watched as Logan silently punched in the code for the Danger Room, and added, “Come on. You haven’t spoken to me – outside of meetings – since Vermont. What’s going on? What did I do? Why are you so mad? Tell me.”

“I got nothing to say to you.”

Scott strode alongside him, anyway. “Why?” he asked, as they got out of the elevator, looking around to verify that they were alone in the Danger Room. Logan went over to the simulator console and started keying in a simulation sequence, but Scott persisted. “Why suddenly nothing to say to me? Nothing to do with me? It’s obvious to everybody. Even Charles is noticing it. Suddenly you’re just pissed off at me all the time. What’s going on? Is it because of Jean? I told you it’s over between her and me. Don’t you believe me?”

Logan turned towards him. Scott thought he was about to speak, but not a word was uttered. He just grabbed Scott by the shoulders and kissed him, roughly, pushing his tongue deep in Scott’s mouth. Logan’s hands moved from Scott’s shoulders down his back, cupping the cheeks of his ass as his tongue explored the inside of Scott’s mouth. Still saying nothing, he broke off from the kiss and pushed the younger man down to his knees with one hand, unzipping his fly with the other.

Scott thought to resist, to insist that Logan at least speak to him first, tell him what he was angry about. But he suddenly realized that he wanted Logan more than he wanted to talk to him. In fact, at that moment there was nothing he wanted more than Logan’s cock in his mouth. And it was pretty clear that that was exactly what he was going to get. Logan held his erect dick in his hand, pulling Scott’s head towards him. Scott opened his mouth.

Logan pushed in hard, holding Scott by the back of the head and thrusting in again and again, fucking his face. Scott hung on to his lover’s legs, opening his lips and his throat and letting himself be used. He sucked hard as Logan pounded into him fast and deep, pushing so hard it wasn’t clear whether he was doing this for his own sexual satisfaction or to hurt Scott. Maybe both, Scott thought. But just as that idea came to him the rhythm changed, and Logan was sliding in and out of his mouth more slowly, almost gently. No longer just a receptacle, Scott started to feel like they were doing something together now. He stroked him with his tongue, using his lips, too, hands reaching eagerly now to touch Logan’s thighs and balls. Sucking, kissing, licking and stroking – offering love and need and desire with hands and mouth. Logan’s hands became gentle, too, fingers playing with Scott’s hair instead of holding him in place.

And he was talking. Not making much sense, but speaking in a soft, fond tone Scott hadn’t heard in some time, saying his name and words of encouragement. “Ah, Scott,” he said, “You got it. Like that. So good.” Scott felt hot, warm, loving. He had a profound sense of relief to know that Logan still wanted him, maybe even loved him. He wanted nothing more at this moment than to please Logan. He wanted this feeling, this connection between them, to last forever. He kissed and licked and sucked, exhilarating in the taste and feel of Logan in his mouth, the sound of Logan in his ears. He took him in deep, then pulled back, kissing and licking the head of Logan’s cock. Then pulled him in again, controlling the movements now, sure he was giving Logan what he needed, as Logan’s breathing got harder and louder and his words fell apart into incoherent sounds.

He stayed there on the floor after Logan came, leaning against his legs, savoring the taste in his mouth and the feel of Logan’s fingers, still stroking his hair, still gentle.

Then he wasn’t gentle anymore. He pushed Scott away from him with a roughly casual motion, not as if he were trying to hurt him, but like someone pushing an object out of his way. Logan zipped up his fly and straightened up. He walked back to the simulator console he’d been working at when Scott came in.

“Logan?”

“What?” He turned on the simulator, not looking at Scott.

“Do you have to do that right now?”

Logan stopped, turned to face him. “What? You want me to do you?”

“Well, yeah. But I want you to talk to me, too.”

“I told you. I got nothing to say to you.”

“I’m going to tell her. About you and me, that is. Just not yet.”

“I don’t care what you do. None of my business – you and her.” They stood facing each other, not saying anything. After a minute, Logan said, “Do you want me to suck you?” He moved closer, began to stroke Scott through his pants, whispered in his ear. “Or I could fuck you. That always gets you off, doesn’t it?” He kissed Scott on the side of his neck, still rubbing him with his hand, unzipping him now and reaching inside his pants. “You like my big dick pushing in you, don’t you?”

Scott nodded, letting himself be pushed to the floor again. Logan was pulling at Scott’s clothes and his own with an impatience bordering on urgency. He pulled some Vaseline off a nearby shelf and slicked his cock with it, grunting happily at the sight of Scott waiting for him on hands and knees, pants pooled on the floor. And then Logan was in him, pushing hard and fast, his hand rubbing Scott as his cock stroked him inside.

Scott came hard, Logan’s cock shoved deep inside, Logan’s adamantium-laced body heavy on him. “She can’t do that for you,” he heard, right in his ear, as the orgasm overtook him. And then, in seconds, Logan was off of him and back at the console. By the time Scott had stood up and come over to Logan, he was in the midst of setting up a complicated simulation for one of his classes. Scott tried to speak to him again, get him to stop what he was doing, but this time he seemed less willing to be persuaded.

“It is your business. Of course it’s your business. I’m in love with you. I’m not with Jean anymore.” Logan continued working on the simulator controls. Scott came up behind him, pressed against Logan, put his arms around him, sliding one hand into his shirt. He held him close like that, kissed him gently on the back of the neck. Logan said nothing, but his hands dropped from the simulator and he leaned back into Scott’s embrace. “She knows it’s over,” Scott said, after a while.

Logan turned around. “How would she know that?”

“I told her. Well, I think she already figured it out. I wasn’t exactly acting towards her like she was my fiancée since she came back. She knew something was up. But I did tell her she and I are through. I haven’t told her about you, but I told her that.” Logan didn’t respond. “I’m going to tell her the rest. It’s just that it’s bound to be hard news for her – me in love with you. Hearing that I’m in love with someone else would be hard, anyway. She’s come back from the dead, in a very real sense. And the year that we lived through – well, it didn’t happen to her. You know that. She was in love with me and thought I was in love with her. I was. So, to find out that not only is it over but I’m in love with somebody else, on top of everything she’s been through. It’s too much.

“And beyond that, she’s got to have a hard time when she finds out I’m with a man, after we both thought that I was going to stay with her, that that was all over for me. I know it’s something she’d worried about for years. And then in the last year or so before she... disappeared, well we both felt more secure. I told her I could do this, marry her, stay faithful. I thought I could. So it’s got to be tough to find out that however much I meant it at the time – and I did – it was ultimately an empty promise. I couldn’t love her the way she needed to be loved, the way I need to love. But of all men – well, I think you might be the hardest for her to hear I’m with. Harder still if she hears you’re in love with me, too.” He looked down. “Only I wouldn’t say that. I don’t even know if it’s true. You said it once, but you’ve been acting like you can’t stand me mostly since.” Logan turned away from Scott again, hands going back to the simulator controls. He didn’t seem to be doing anything with them, though. Scott kept trying, put his arms around Logan again, whispered in his ear. “I love you, Logan. I want us to be a team, like we said, a team of two. You’re my best friend, my lover. Or you were. Do you still feel that way about me? I know you don’t like to talk about this stuff much, and I won’t, generally. But tell me now – do you love me? Do you even like me anymore?”

Scott didn’t get to find out if Logan was willing to break his silence and answer that question. He heard a voice, but not Logan’s. It was louder than any PA system and commanding in tone. It was in his head, not in his ears. He knew that Logan heard it, too, since Charles was addressing them both: “Cyclops, Wolverine – to my office at once. In uniform.”

Miles to Go (Summers in a Sea of Glory, 3/10)

Logan and I were in Charles’s office within minutes. We weren’t the first ones there. Ethan had arrived before us, or perhaps had never left after the meeting we’d had to discuss Cassandra’s future. Cassandra had joined Charles and Ethan since we’d left.

My first thought on seeing her was that we had been just short of insane to even consider taking Cassandra on as an X-Man. She looked like an inmate in some horror movie about an insane asylum. Her clothes were torn and dirty, her hair all over the place. Scratches on her face and forearms were fresh and bleeding. I might have thought she’d been attacked except that she continued to rip her clothing and rake her nails across her flesh as she sat there, thrashing about and wailing uncontrollably. Ethan was speaking to her in a quiet, soothing voice, trying to get her to stop the self-mutilation, it seemed. It was apparently a futile gesture. It looked as if Cassandra didn’t even know he was there. She continued ripping her skin and clothes, all the while crying and ranting loudly. Her arms were moving about in strange, almost mechanical, gestures or tics. I could make out a few words – “the kids” and “save them” was said a few times – but her voice was oddly inflected and the phrases were difficult to understand. And most of the sounds coming out of her mouth weren’t speech and didn’t even sound all that human.

“Cassandra had a vision,” Charles said in my head.

“Is this what she’s always like during one?” I sent that thought back to him, but he didn’t answer, his attention turned now to Cassandra and Ethan.

“Let me,” Charles said to Ethan. “This has to stop,” he added. Cassandra’s wailing ceased even as he said it, stopping abruptly along with the compulsive scratching and twitching and tearing of clothes. Cassandra smoothed her rumpled skirt, and sat on the couch calmly and sedately, her head turned towards Charles. Aside from the rips in her blouse and the blood on her face and arms she looked perfectly normal, a complete contrast to the wild woman she’d appeared to be just a minute ago. If I hadn’t seen other people under mind control I might not have noticed the characteristic vacant expression in her eyes.

“Are you okay, Cassandra?” Ethan asked, his voice calm and concerned, taking both of her hands in his, looking deep into her eyes.

“She can’t hear you,” I interjected. “Charles has her brain.” He took a closer look at her, then turned to Charles, questions on his face. Charles nodded. “What’s the vision?” I asked.

Ethan answered me. “We don’t know. She couldn’t calm down enough to tell us. All I’ve managed to get out of her is that it’s going to happen soon and there are children in peril.”

“Also, that she thinks the X-Men can help,” Charles added.

“Are her visions of... possibilities, then, not what’s definitely going to happen?” I asked.

“No, that’s not my impression,” Ethan replied. “I think she does see what’s going to happen. That’s a lot of what makes this gift such a difficult one for her – the feeling of powerlessness, the inability to stop disaster she knows is coming. But this time it seems it’s a little different. Whatever she’s envisioning is a scene of people in danger, not dead. She kept saying ‘They’ll die if you don’t do something’ but we couldn’t get her to tell us more.” He turned to Charles. “Can you control her enough to keep her calm but let her thoughts through, so she can tell us?”

He shook his head. “I’m trying, but she’s too panicked. If I let up even a bit, I can feel her start to spiral out of control.”

“Can you read her mind while she’s under mind control? Get at the vision that way?” Ethan asked.

Charles shook his head. “No. Usually I can do that, but not with her. I can’t seem to read her thoughts well enough to see the vision myself. Her mind is unusual, unique perhaps. Certainly not like any I’ve ever encountered. I find her hard to read even when her power is inactive. When she’s in the middle of a vision her brain is totally incomprehensible to me.” He turned towards me, to answer the question I’d asked when I came in. “No, Scott, she’s not usually like this. I’ve been with Cassandra before when her power is active. Her affect is always kind of strange during a vision and she does cry while she talks about it, but she’s been able to tell me what she sees other times, although I’ve always been unable to access the vision directly with telepathy. I think her panic is coming from the feeling that this is a situation we can and must respond to. Other visions she’s had there were no such options. She was upset, but somewhat resigned to the calamity she foretold. She wasn’t so completely out of control.”

“What do we do now? If there is something the X-Men can do to avert disaster,” I added, “we should find out what it is. But how can we find out if she can’t tell us when she’s not under your control and you can’t find out for us?”

“Let her go.” Logan spoke for the first time. “I’ll handle her.”

Charles complied immediately. I could tell as soon as he released her mind, because the noise and the movement started as if it had never stopped. Started, but not for long.

“Cassandra!” Logan said, in the commanding tone he uses with the kids when he’s directing them in drills and exercises. “Stand up!” She obeyed immediately and stood at attention facing him. She was still sobbing, but the wailing and thrashing had ceased. And the sobbing receded, too, as Logan began doing breathing and warm up exercises with her. Cassandra seemed very familiar with them – he must have taught her these when he was training with her. In less than a minute she appeared back to normal, almost.

Charles and I looked at each other. “Whatever your problem is with him,” his brain said to mine, “get over it. We need him.” I nodded my agreement.

Logan stood in front of Cassandra, eyes locked on hers, and said, “What’s going to happen?”

“An accident. A cable car. It’s dangling, going to fall. And there’s a fire, too. Somewhere nearby – maybe in the car. Children – they’ll die if you don’t get them out. There’s not much time.”

The wailing began again, but Logan took her by the shoulders, ordered her to go through the same sequence of breathing exercises, and she got herself under control again. “Can I try to find out more?” I asked Logan. He gestured his assent, eyes remaining fixed on Cassandra’s.

“Cable car? You mean like in San Francisco?”

“No!” she almost yelled it and her head shook uncontrollably for a minute, but Logan got her back on track quickly. “Not that kind,” she said. “Hanging from something – high up. Like in Switzerland, for traveling in the mountains.”

Charles had wheeled over to his desk and was doing something on his computer workstation while we were talking. He turned on the recessed projector now, and the picture he’d called up on his screen appeared on the wall opposite the couch. It was an aerial tramway – also called a cable car, as Cassandra had said – traveling up an incline, with alpine scenery in the background. “Is this what you mean?” he asked. She nodded. “How long until the accident?”

“I don’t know. Soon. Two hours, maybe.”

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know.” She was beginning to wail again, but this time all it took was a slight touch of her shoulder and she started breathing in time with Logan again, getting herself under control. “But it’s near here. It’s not in Switzerland – it’s just that kind of cable car. The vision is only this vivid if it’s close. I don’t think it’s more than twenty miles away.”

Charles shook his head. “There aren’t any cable cars like that in New York. Well, maybe up in the Catskills, but not around here.”

I stood up. “Yes, there are. Definitely less than 20 miles. The Skyfari ride at the Bronx Zoo.”

************************************************

We got there before it happened. We landed the Blackbird in a clearing among trees on the zoo grounds. I was glad that its vertical landing capabilities made that an option, allowing us to enter the zoo less conspicuously than landing our secret vehicle in the parking lot. Still, we didn’t stay inconspicuous. Running through the zoo grounds in uniform, we attracted a certain amount of attention, not all of it positive. I didn’t care. Although I’d been told that Cassandra’s visions always come true, part of me thought we could prevent the accident. And, if not, we still were going to try to prevent or minimize loss of life. To have a chance of that, we needed to be on the spot. So my concern was for speed and efficiency, not blending in.

We wouldn’t have blended in very well in uniform, anyway, but even less so considering the team I’d brought with me. In addition to Logan, I’d taken Storm, Nightcrawler, Beast and Iceman. So, two who were obviously mutants at first glance and all of us in uniform. We stood out. We ignored the looks we got and rushed through the zoo to the Skyfari East station.

Storm and I had been to the Bronx Zoo just a couple of weeks before, on a school field trip. The class we took was Hank’s, a biology one, but on that occasion we had been trying to be inconspicuous, so we’d traveled there by school minivan, and it had been just her and me. The kids were studying adaptations of nocturnal animals and we’d taken them primarily for the World of Darkness exhibit. I’d quoted Blake to them: “Nature in darkness groans” and Jubilee had complained that they shouldn’t have to hear poetry on a biology field trip.

We’d used the aerial tramway – called the Skyfari – to get from one side of the zoo to the other. It was, as Cassandra had alluded, a cable car – a miniature version of the ones that were used in Switzerland to travel up and down the Alps. Four people per car, it rose above the zoo and took passengers from quite near the World of Darkness exhibit across to the Dancing Crane Café, where we’d given the kids lunch.

When we arrived at the Skyfari station, everything looked normal except for us. There was a long line waiting for the tramway and we could see a couple of the cable cars high in the air. No sign of a fire, an accident in the sky, or anyone in distress. We ran up to the station, ignoring the objections of people patiently waiting in line to board. Well, we all ignored them except for Logan, who extended his middle claw as we ran past, when he heard someone loudly complaining about “line cutters.” He didn’t break his stride to do it, though.

As soon as we got there, though, it was clear something was amiss. Passengers board the Skyfari tram in a small enclosure, with the assistance of attendants who manage the doors and the line. As we approached the enclosure we suddenly saw fire. There were large flames surrounding the cable car on the landing and boarding platform. We couldn’t see where the fire was coming from, or even what was on fire. It must have just begun, or just gotten large enough to cause panic, because the calm line of a minute ago was transformed. People were screaming. Some were running away; some seemed frozen in place.

I could barely see the people inside the cable car. They must have been about to get out. One of the attendants had been holding the door for them to exit. She had had the presence of mind to slam the door before the flames reached the passengers inside. The cable, which moved continuously, had stopped, presumably due to some safety feature. We could see other cars high above the zoo, stopped in mid-air.

The attendants – all of whom looked to be in their late teens – were doing their best, but seemed bordering on panic themselves. They were trying to get away from the fire as they yelled at the passengers in line to back off, as well. One of the kids working there pulled a red emergency phone off the wall as she backed away from the fire, calling for assistance.

Well, we were already there and I didn’t know how long it would take the security people to arrive. “Stand back!” I told the attendants, who seemed grateful to see someone take charge of the situation. I motioned to Bobby to come forward. “Iceman – take care of this.”

He gestured towards the flames around the cable car and it was instantly encased in ice, the flames disappearing as quickly as they came. “Storm! Melt it,” I called. Her pupils disappeared as her eyes turned white, causing gasps from the crowd. We could all feel a warm wind, just enough to melt the ice and open the door to let the passengers out. I figured once we did that, we could deal with the cars that were still in the air.

Only it didn’t work the way I planned. Storm couldn’t open the door. The ice was gone, but it wouldn’t open. “It’s stuck,” she said. “Like it’s fused together or something.”

“Magneto!” Hank and I said it at the same time. We looked around, but wherever he was, he wasn’t visible. Anyway, we needed to deal with the current crisis before we looked for him. Logan stepped forward to try to force the door open, but I waved him back. Opening my visor very slightly, I blasted a fine line along the edge of the door and then pulled it open. The passengers tumbled out and I sent Storm as their escort, to get them out of the enclosure.

“Beast and Iceman – go look for Magneto. Nightcrawler and Wolverine – I need you to deal with the people still up there,” pointing at the two cable cars stopped high about the zoo. I was very aware of Cassandra’s vision of a cable car dangling and perhaps falling, but it wasn’t what I was seeing. The two cars were stationary, but they were suspended on the cable, right where they belonged. Logan and Kurt followed me out of the enclosure, looking up at the trams above us.

And then it happened. There was a sudden sound like a loud snap and then the tram nearer to us was dangling from the broken cable, swinging in the air, just like Cassandra’s vision. The two cars were on a continuous cable, but some safety mechanism must have kicked in, causing the rest of the cable to stay in place and the farther one to stay upright. I didn’t know how long it would stay that way, though. We needed to get the people out of both of them.

“Nightcrawler!” I called and he didn’t need any additional orders. Kurt waited a few seconds, his head swaying a bit as he tracked the dangling tram, making sure he could predict the movements of the swinging car. Then he teleported into it, coming back with two small boys, dressed identically in Bronx Zoo t-shirts and cargo shorts. One more teleportation trip brought their mother, and they ran into her arms.

Kurt was about to return for the last passenger when the suspended car was suddenly engulfed in flames, just as the one on the boarding/landing platform had been. He hesitated for a minute, but went back once more into the now burning car, returning with the children’s father. Both the passenger and Kurt seemed unsinged. Logan looked at something in the distance, and then ran off before I could say anything. I sent Kurt to rescue the people still high above the zoo, in the cable car that hadn’t fallen, then looked to see where Logan had gone.

He was back in a minute, but he wasn’t alone. Kicking and fighting him all the way was one of our former students, Johnny Allerdyce, also known as Pyro. The unexplained fire was no longer inexplicable. “Shut up or I’ll shut you up!” Logan growled, extending his claws. Pyro shut up. Logan handed me Pyro’s lighter. Johnny’s power is very specific – he can manipulate fire but not create it. Logan had effectively disarmed him.

“Where’s Magneto?” I yelled at Pyro and he smirked back at me.

“Doing what we came here for,” he answered. He shook his head. “This was just the diversion.”

That Judgment Cannot Cure (Summers in a Sea of Glory, 4/10)

I wasn’t so mad at him after that day. The day when we had the mission at the zoo. I’m not sure why. I sure as fuck had been mad at him before. But then a lot happened on that day and things changed somehow.

Scott and me hadn’t talked, hadn’t fucked, hadn’t done much of anything together since Vermont, and I’d just been getting madder and madder. Keeping it to myself, but it was there all the time. I wasn’t even sure what I was mad about, but I couldn’t look at him without feeling this rage or something. And shame, too. Feeling like I’d been tricked, betrayed, like I’d fallen for a pack of lies. Hating him for telling me all that stuff, hating myself for believing him. Feeling like things had been just fine with him and me before he started getting this love stuff in his head. Why’d he have to go ruining everything? Only I didn’t say anything about it. Didn’t know what to say. And then it just came out in the meeting about Cassandra. Maybe that’s what I needed – just yell at him, even if it wasn’t about what I really was mad for. Relieve some of the tension.

Or maybe fucking helped. It usually puts me in a better mood. Like I said, we hadn’t done it since before Jeannie got back to being herself. I hadn’t done it with anybody else, neither. Doing without always makes me pretty surly, I know. I was real mad at him when he followed me down to the Danger Room that day. Mad, but not just mad. Feeling other stuff, too. Wanting him, even if I didn’t want to think about that. And not wanting to talk about anything.

Only he keeps going on and on and trying to get me to tell him what’s on my mind. “Talk to me, Logan.” “Why are you so angry at me all the time, Logan?” I was wishing he’d just shut up. I didn’t know whether to tell him to get the fuck out, punch him in the face, or stick my dick in his mouth. I wasn’t planning on kissing him, wasn’t planning on anything. But then I did, and one thing led to another, and it all felt really good. Started off as angry sex, but it felt good. After a while I started wanting him to feel good, too. I felt kind of close to him after. Not so mad anymore, anyway.

Or maybe it was the fighting that made the difference – fighting on the same side. We still didn’t know what Magneto was up to – not that day, anyway. So we couldn’t call the mission an entire success. There was still stuff to do – find out what that metal guy was there for and, when we did, we had to figure out how to stop him. But that was still a day or two away. That day, after we got back from the zoo, we were feeling pretty good. Hey, we did manage to save those people, and we brought back Pyro and turned him over to the Professor. Who wanted to “rehabilitate” him, which seems like a real stupid idea to me, but who cares?

Yeah, we accomplished the mission, at least that first part, and it made me feel good. Good about being an X-Man. Felt good about Scott, too, at least some of the time.

Seeing Scott in action, working together like that, it did something to me. I don’t know what exactly. It reminded me of what we’re good at together, made all this other stuff seem not so important or something.

Other stuff. Like whether he really wants to be with me or get married to Jean. Well, he sure seemed like he wanted to be with me when he had a mouthful of my dick. He sucks me like it’s all he ever wanted to do in this life. And then after, when I was fucking him, and I could feel his dick moving in my hand while I pushed into him again and again. The sounds he was making, the things he was saying. When I’m doing it with him, it’s hard to believe he wants anything – anyone – but me, hard to believe he’d give up what we’ve got for anything. But there’s more than sex involved here. Well, more than sex for him and Jean anyway. And I used to think there was more for him and me, too, but now I’m thinking maybe not. Not much point thinking about it, anyway.

Lots of other stuff to think about. What Magneto was looking for at the zoo when he and Pyro started that distraction became clear real quick. An animal had been stolen from the zoo infirmary while we were busy rescuing the people trapped in the cable cars. Metal doors had mysteriously opened and a baby gorilla there had been taken. A baby gorilla they’d taken out of the gorilla exhibit two weeks before.

This animal that was snatched had been really strange. That’s why they took it off the display. It seemed to be spooking all the other ones. Its own mother was rejecting it, and the rest of the gorilla group was suddenly doing all this crazy gorilla shit. Well, even more crazy than usual gorilla shit, I guess – attacking each other, self-mutilating. So, they took the weird one out and right away they all calmed down. And the vets there were observing it, trying to figure out what was wrong with this one. Only I guess Magneto must have known what was wrong with it. He must know he could use that animal for something, too. We didn’t know what yet but we knew whatever it was it couldn’t be good. And I was fine working with Scott and them to try to figure it out, try to get the gorilla back. Mostly I wasn’t even thinking about the other stuff, just working.

Sometimes I thought about him, though. I mean, not thought about him as the field leader, but thought about him and me. I don’t know if I believe him or not that he’s not getting back together with Jean. I don’t know if he even knows, really. If he wanted something big with me, something long term and real like he says he does, well then he’d tell her about us, that much I’m sure of. So I think he probably doesn’t, not really. Maybe that’s just the way he likes to talk, the way he likes to think. Pretending, but then he could’ve sort of forgotten it was pretend.

Yeah, I think that’s it. He kind of got carried away there for a while when he thought she was dead. Scott was really depressed for a while there. They were all worried about him here. Then he was getting better and at the same time him and me were spending so much time together. And the sex was real good and maybe for a little while there he just thought it was something more than that. Carried away, like I said.

Well, maybe I got carried away, too. But not anymore. I know who I am and I know what I am. An army of lovers could conquer the world? Nice story, but it’s not for real. I don’t even want that with him, anyway. It was a stupid idea. I’m not cut out for that kind of thing. I don’t know why I said the stuff I did – just kind of caught up in the moment, I guess. But now that Jean’s really back and he doesn’t want to tell her about him and me, well it’s making me realize that this love bullshit just isn’t for me, either.

None of my business what he and Jeannie do. Sure, I’d miss fucking him if they do get back together. But I don’t need to think about that, not yet anyway. We’re sort of back to normal, back to the way it was, with him and me getting together late at night. The sex is good – rough and hot and none of that love talk. I’d miss it if he got back together with her. But damned if I’d do it with him if he’s getting married. I got no need to be sneaking around; I can find somebody else. Plenty of somebody elses.

Yeah, he can do what he wants with her, or anybody else for that matter. And if they’re not getting married, well no reason Scott and me can’t just keep on going like we have been. Sex sometimes, hanging out together sometimes. Doing whatever we want with anybody else, too.

I don’t know if he was doing it with anyone else, though. Maybe Jeannie. He says he isn’t, but who knows? I’d see them together sometimes. Maybe they were working, maybe doing something else. He says he’s not even interested in women.

Don’t know if I believe that. Well, I sure know he likes dick. I was getting a good demonstration of how much he likes it most nights – him on his knees gobbling me up while I shoved it deep. Still, he was with her for years before she disappeared. He must have gotten something out of it. Something besides looking good to the kids and the professor.

Maybe he was doing it with some other guy, too. Could be. Northstar got sent to Westchester to work with us on the Magneto thing and I’d see him and Scott together sometimes. Maybe talking business, maybe something else. None of my business, anyway. He can do what he wants.

And like I said, so can I. I started going out at night, especially nights he was busy with Northstar. Or with Jean. Not with any plan in mind, really, just wanting to be somewhere else for a while.

This one night I went to this place in town – beer and burger joint. I’d been there with Scott once, a long time ago, right after we left Jeannie at Alkali Lake. It was that time when he was kind of falling apart and I figured I’d take him somewhere to get away from the school for a while.

Shit. I was coming out here for a change of scene – no time to be thinking about him.

So, I start thinking about the cute barmaid instead. I’d noticed her before. Long red hair tied back in a ponytail, but a few wisps kept falling in her face and she’d blow them away. Great mouth on her. Great ass, too, which I’d get a nice look at every time she turned around to get another bottle from behind there. Tight short skirt showed it off real good. Seeing her bending over like that made me want to bend her over, me right behind her and pulling the skirt up and her panties down. She caught me looking, and I smiled and she smiled back. I was going to ask her when she gets off work, but before I could she says, “So how’s your friend?”

“What friend?”

“The one with the problem with his eyes. You brought him here once.”

“Oh him. He’s okay.”

“What’s his name?”

“Scott.”

“Did the surgery work?”

I almost said “What surgery?” but then I remembered Scott had told her he had to wear the dark glasses because of an operation he’d had, that his eyes were sensitive to light. o I told her no, that it didn’t work and he still has to wear glasses all the time.

“Well, tell him I’m real sorry about that. And say ‘hi’ for me – tell him Maddie says hi. And that he should stop in here some time. Okay? Tell him that for me.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Didn’t seem much point in trying to get anywhere with her after that. I stayed a little longer, looking around, but the only other women in the place were either there with their boyfriends or pretty close to falling down drunk. I finished my beer and went back to the school.

I passed on the message all right. Later that night. With him sitting on my lap, my cock pushed all the way up his ass. He was panting and moaning while I rubbed his dick harder and faster. I licked him on the side of the neck then whispered it right in his ear. “Maddie – barmaid at that place in town – wants you to stop in,” I told him. He grabbed onto my thighs, saying “Oh Logan” and kind of sighing or something as he came on my hand. Then I pushed him on to the floor on his hands and knees and shoved it into him again. Fucked him hard and fast, lying full on his back. So good like that, doing it with someone strong enough to take the weight of the adamantium in me. He pushed back, holding me up while I moved in him, harder and faster. And he licked the cum off of my fingers while I was fucking him. One finger at a time, real slow, making it last until I was ready to shoot. He didn’t say nothing about Maddie.

Which Doth Mock the Meat It Feeds On (Summers in a Sea of Glory, 5/10)

I felt like Logan softened towards me after the day of the zoo mission. I can’t say we got back to where we had been before we knew that the Phoenix had possessed Jean, but things were better between us. He no longer seemed to have this hot core of anger in him every time he looked at me. And he wasn’t avoiding me any longer. When he’d kissed me in the Danger Room, pushed me to my knees to suck him, I’d had a panicky instant of wondering if that would be the last time I’d ever touch him. But it wasn’t, not by a long shot.

I was seeing him almost every night lately. He’d show up in my room late, or we’d meet in the Danger Room or at the pool. For sex, for companionship. For love? No, I don’t think so. Not on his part, anyway. He made that clear. I tried once more to tell him that I loved him but he stopped me. “I don’t want to hear that shit,” he said. “That’s not what me and you are about.” He set the boundaries, and I followed them, at least with my actions, if not with my thoughts or my feelings. I wanted what I could have with him. For now, anyway, this was it.

But sometimes, just once in a while, he’d say my name in a way that seemed to mean something. Once in a while he’d come into the classroom during one of my classes and sit there and listen, as if he just wanted to be near me. Sometimes when he’d stroke my hair while I was sucking him his touch would feel loaded with intent. Those were the times I’d think there was more to this than just sex. Once in a while I’d think he really needed me. But then I’d talk myself out of that, realize I was most likely projecting my own feelings on him.

It was so much better than it had been, anyway. It was a relief to have broken the tension between us, to feel like we were together - as effective teammates, friends, and occasional bedmates – if not truly as lovers.

Charles noticed the difference. He didn’t ask what had happened and I don’t think he’d read my mind, but he assumed I’d brokered the peace between us and he thanked me for it. “We really do need Logan,” he’d said to me when he and I were alone after a team meeting. “I realize he’s not the easiest man to get along with. It looks like you worked things out. I’m glad.”

“I’m glad to be his friend again,” I’d replied.

Ironically, it was after Logan and I had achieved some sort of détente that Cassandra warned me about him. She’d been hesitant to say anything, it was clear. She’d made an appointment to speak with me privately but avoided talking about what was on her mind, going on at length about the school and the team and her plans for the future. I waited it out, knowing she’d speak when she was ready. “I’ve had a vision,” she said finally. “I think you need to know.” She looked away and continued. “It’s blurry. That means it won’t happen for a while. Days, weeks – I don’t know. But you’re in it, and you’re in danger. You need to know,” she said again.

“Yes. Tell me.”

“You’re with a woman. I can’t see who she is – you’re in the way so I can’t see her face. Your arms are around her, though. Kissing her. And then he comes in – Logan.” She had this faraway look in her eyes, as if she were seeing what she was describing. “I can’t see his face – too blurry – but it’s him. Claws extended. He’s in a rage, angry in a way I’ve never seen. I can tell by how he’s moving and he’s... like roaring. These noises – more like an animal than a man. And then...” She trailed off.

“What?”

“He stabs you in the back.”

--------------------------------------------

I’m not saying hearing that from Cassandra didn’t give me pause. And had it happened before the zoo mission, I would have been really worried. But things had changed between us and I just couldn’t believe that Logan would ever use his claws on me. Plus, I couldn’t see any circumstances where I’d be with a woman like that. I didn’t know what it could mean that she saw Logan attacking me. I’d heard Charles and Ethan say her visions always came true; I’d heard her describe the vision of the cable car and then seen it happen, just as she foretold. Still, it didn’t seem possible that this vision was prophetic.

I don’t even know what made the difference for Logan, but his attitude towards me had pretty thoroughly changed. Changed enough that I knew that Cassandra’s vision must have been wrong. Maybe working together helped, even if the mission wasn’t a complete success. Maybe having sex helped. Maybe he believed me when I told him it was over between Jean and me. It’s hard to say. He wasn’t telling me what he’s feeling and I wasn’t even really sure of why he’d been mad at me in the first place. I’d thought he’d been jealous, worried that Jean and I would get back together, but it might not have been anything like that.

He’s hard to read a lot of the time. He doesn’t talk much, but we’d been spending a lot of time together up until Vermont. Logan had shared more with me, I think, than he has with anyone else, talked to me like he didn’t with anyone else. He wasn’t talking to me now the way he used to, but I’d learned to understand a lot more than the words he says. Most of the time, anyway. So, when he said, “Do what you want – I got no claim on you” I knew that it meant something more, something he didn’t say: “And you’ve got none on me.”

I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one he was fucking. He went out a lot at night, into town. There was a barmaid at this dive he used to go to, Maddie. He talked about her at odd times, once even when we were having sex. I’d spent enough time with him that I had learned to read between the lines. When he said “Maddie said to say ‘hi’ to you” while I’m sitting on his cock, well it was pretty clear what he meant: “I’m doing this with her when I’m not with you.”

It hurt to realize he was doing it with someone else, but I tried to accept that. I had to accept it. It wasn’t up to me what he did; I really did have no claim on him. I likely never would.

I wasn’t going to ask for some sort of exclusive relationship with him. I knew full well that if I did ask, he’d turn me down. It wasn’t like him to be with only one person. And I’m not even sure it’s a reasonable thing to ask of someone like him. He’s not like me. He’d told me pretty clearly when we’d first started having sex that he has always been more attracted to women than to men. How could I expect him to give that up when I hadn’t been able to turn off my attraction to men?

So, maybe it wasn’t what I really wanted with him, but I was determined to take what I could get. To be grateful for what we did have. I needed him in a lot of ways, and not just sexual. I’d come to rely on Logan as a teammate, and more. My sounding board, advisor, consultant. And there was a lot to consult about.

We didn’t know what Magneto was up to with the baby gorilla he’d snatched. And we didn’t know where he’d gone with it, either. Finding Lehnsherr had to be the first step to finding what was going on. Charles thought Pyro was the key to that, but I wasn’t so sure. John had fought ferociously when we captured him, with his mutant powers and with fists once he was disarmed. Logan overpowered him easily, but Pyro certainly seemed clear that he considered himself our enemy.

Then we brought him back and Charles said he’d take over, that he felt John could be rehabilitated with understanding and care, now that he was away from Magneto. And, indeed, he did seem to win John over very quickly. Too quickly, as far as I was concerned. How could he be a loyal member of the Brotherhood that day at the zoo and mere weeks later be helping us to locate Magneto? Charles was quite certain that John was back on our side, but it seemed too fast for me. I wanted to talk about it with someone other than Charles, someone I could trust with my doubts, someone I could trust to give me his honest opinion without worrying how I’d receive it. I was glad to have Logan back in my life.

“It’s too fast with Pyro,” I told him, lying in my bed next to him, spent and sweaty. “I’m worried. It’s like one minute he’s with us, the next with Magneto, now he’s back. Adolescents are changeable, but they’re not that changeable.”

He pulled me closer. “Do you think he’s faking it?”

“How could he be? Charles has read his mind. He’d know.”

“What does the professor say about Pyro’s brain? About his time with Magneto? What’s his take on what happened?”

“That Magneto made promises about a grand life, told him he’d be a ‘god among insects.’ And then Johnny found out that being a bad guy wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Logan chuckled at that and I continued. “Mostly boring, apparently. Magneto’s cruel to them when things don’t go his way, and the gang fights among themselves. Squalid quarters – they’ve been moving around a lot and staying in cheap motels. Johnny always did like his creature comforts. And no kids his age there – Charles says he was lonely and homesick and once it was clear that nobody was going to hold his time with Magneto against him, he was glad to be back. Plus, he’s an X-Man now – that’s part of what he thought he was getting with Magneto, being treated like an adult, like one of the team. Well, it didn’t work out that way – he was more of a gofer.”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it? Unless you think he could be hiding his real thoughts? Using mental shields? You and me keep stuff from the telepaths around here. Why not him?”

I turned over, throwing an arm over Logan’s chest. “No, he couldn’t keep anything from Charles that Charles wants to know. Neither could you or I, by the way. Charles can penetrate mental shields. He doesn’t generally; he’s very respectful of my privacy and I’m sure of yours, too, but he’s very powerful – more powerful than any shields. He wouldn’t hesitate to penetrate Pyro’s shields, if he had any.”

“Can Jean do that?”

“Penetrate mental shields? I don’t know. She couldn’t, not before the Phoenix. She’s nowhere near as powerful a telepath as Charles. But lately…” I wondered why he was asking about Jean’s telepathic ability and felt a twinge of guilt that I still had not told her about Logan and me. I shoved the feeling to the back of my mind and got back to the subject at hand. “No, I’m not worried that Pyro is managing to fool Charles. Just the capriciousness, the unpredictability. If he was won over by Magneto, then by Charles, well why not Magneto again? Lehnsherr can be pretty damn persuasive when he wants to. And the double agent thing? It looks like that’s where we’re headed with him and I don’t like it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know he gave us what he thought was Magneto’s location. Like I said, they’ve been moving around a lot, but this one seemed like it might be for the long term. We sent Northstar up there. I’m glad Mac Hudson is willing to lend him to us for all this time. Who else can get in and out so quickly? Magneto was long gone by the time Jean-Paul got there. So, John’s given us a few other possibilities, and Northstar’s tried them all, and reported back. No luck.”

“Oh, is that what he’s been doing with you? Reporting in?” I could feel Logan’s body tense up.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I see you and him together sometimes.”

“Well, he’s been trying all the leads we’ve got. Charles is sure that John’s telling the truth, trying his best to help us locate Magneto, but he’s two steps ahead of us. This isn’t getting us anywhere. Charles thinks if we sent John to find him, make him look like he’d escaped and was still loyal to Magneto, well then he’d let himself be found.”

“And you don’t like the idea?”

“It makes me uneasy. What if Pyro finds Magneto and gets won over again? You know, with his magnetic personality.” Logan feigned punching me in the mouth over the stupid pun. I took his hand, sucked on his thumb for a minute, then continued. “If that happens, we’re dealing with a triple agent. Plus, even if he doesn’t switch over again, I don’t like the idea of him doing this. I don’t want to send someone his age on a dangerous mission, particularly by himself. It’s all well and good for Charles to say he’s ready to be an X-Man. I know it was key to winning him over, but I don’t like it. Johnny just turned 17. He shouldn’t be sent into harm’s way.”

“You were in a lot of ‘harm’s way’ when you were 17, right?”

“Yeah. We don’t do that anymore.”

“They’re lucky to have you, Cyclops.” I felt warmed by his approval. “So, maybe he doesn’t go alone,” he added.

“What do you mean?”

“You send someone with him. I’ll go. That way you’ve got a good explanation for his escape – someone helped him get out – and you’ve got someone to watch his back. Make sure he doesn’t flip, keep him out of trouble.”

It was a good idea, and I said so. “But not you.”

“Why not?”

“Magneto won’t believe it. He saw you at Alkali Lake. And he knows you’ve been with us all this time. He’s not going to accept you’re defecting to his side.” I thought about it some more. “Plus, you’re too vulnerable to him.” He bristled a bit at that, but I forged on. “Come on, you know it’s true. You’re full of metal. You’re the best fighter I’ve got, Logan, but not against Magneto. It’s a great idea, but not you.”

********************************

Jean-Paul was the obvious choice. Magneto knew nothing about him, so there wouldn’t be the disbelief at his defection that he’d have with someone he knew to be loyal to our team. Northstar wasn’t even an X-Man, and his current absence from Alpha Flight could be explained as quitting that team rather than being on loan to us. Mac Hudson would go along with that, if Magneto sent out reconnaissance. It was easy to paint a picture of a disaffected Alpha Flight operative who quits, joins the X-Men, and decides this isn’t what he wants, either, that cooperation with homo sapiens isn’t his vision of a mutant future.

I brought the idea up at the next cabinet meeting. Just Charles and Hank and me, since ‘Ro was away and Jean was not back to full duty.

“I like it,” Charles said. “I had some unease about sending John alone. This is a good way to make sure he stays loyal.”

“And keep him safe,” I added. “I wish we could keep in touch while they’re gone, though.”

“I think we should,” Hank weighed in.

“Calling in is too dangerous,” I countered. “They get found out and that’s the end of the mission, and maybe the end of them.”

“Let me figure something out,” Hank had said. “If not to keep in touch, at least to keep track of where they are. Some sort of positioning system, a homing device. Maybe with a kind of panic button, so we can go in and get them if necessary.”

“A great idea, except that Magneto’s bound to know they’ve got it,” I pointed out. “How will they explain it?”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be made of metal.” He got that brooding look he has when he’s working on a thorny technical problem. “Hard not to have any metal. Could I do it totally out of plastic? I’m not sure. Let me work on it for a day or two.”

Charles stepped in. “Scott, you talk to Jean-Paul and give him his assignment. Let’s keep it quiet – no one but Jean-Paul, Pyro, and the three of us in on the plan. And Hank, I need you to figure out the homing device issue right away. A day or two is fine, but no more. This mission needs to move ahead. We’ve lost too much time already. Whatever Magneto’s planning may well be under way by now.”

***********************************

It turned out plastic wasn’t the answer, as I found out that evening. I’d spoken to Jean-Paul right after the cabinet meeting and he’d eagerly agreed. I’d impressed upon him the fact that we were keeping the mission secret, so I wasn’t surprised when he showed up in my room that night to give me an update.

“Hank solved the homing device problem,” was the first thing he said.

“He managed to make it out of plastic?”

Jean-Paul shook his head. “No way, copain. Electronics like that – even with our blue genius – it can’t be done. You need some metal.”

“But if it’s metal, how do we stop Magneto from knowing it’s there?”

“He’ll know it’s there, bien sur. He just won’t know what it is.” He pulled his shirt off and I could see a shining silver ring in his right nipple.

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “Amazing, hein? All that complicated machinery in this little thing.” He took my hand. “Here, touch it. You’ll see – there’s no way to know it’s anything other than what it seems.”

He put my hand to his chest. I fingered the ring. It did feel just like jewelry, like there was nothing to it but what it appeared to be.

We looked at each other and I felt suddenly uncomfortable, realizing that touching the chest of a half-naked man wasn’t my usual way of doing a pre-mission briefing. Jean-Paul smiled at me. He looked like he wasn’t at all discomfited by the unorthodox situation we were in.

And then it happened. The door opened and Logan walked in. The look on his face made me feel like Cassandra’s warning wasn’t all that far-fetched after all.

Truest Friend and Noblest Foe (Summers in a Sea of Glory, 6/10)

When something’s hard to talk about, it only gets harder the longer you put it off. That’s a lesson I should have learned long before this.

Logan was right and I was wrong. I should have told Jean at the outset that he and I were lovers. I realized that now, but the realization had come too late. Waiting had only made it harder to say anything. I’d let ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ and it hadn’t worked any better for me than for the poor cat in the adage. It had only consolidated the distance between us, only left me feeling like I was deceiving her.

I’d told Logan I was putting it off for her sake, but I think now it was for my own. I didn’t want to disappoint her more than I already had; I didn’t want to have to face her sadness. I didn’t want her to feel like I’d betrayed her. Maybe I didn’t want to face the fact that I had betrayed her. After all, as I’d said to Logan, it would be harder news for her to hear I was involved with him than it would have been had it been anyone else.

It would have been harder news, I mean. It wasn’t news at all. It was a moot point now. There was no reason to tell Jean about Logan and me, since there was no Logan and me, not any longer. Logan wasn’t willing to have anything to do with me. I’d tried to tell him that he’d misinterpreted what was happening with Jean-Paul, but he wouldn’t listen. “Logan!” I’d said as soon as we were alone, “It wasn’t what you think.”

“How do you know what I think?”

“Oh, come on. You were looking daggers at me and Jean-Paul.”

“It’s nothing to me what you do with him. Or anybody else.”

“I’m not doing anything with him. He was showing me the transmitter Hank made him.”

“He’d’ve been showing you a lot more than that if I hadn’t interrupted.”

“Believe me, Logan. I’m telling you the truth: nothing was happening.” I tried to put my arms around him, but he stalked off.

And that was pretty much that. Northstar and Pyro left the next day, off looking for Magneto. Their part of the mission was to find him and infiltrate, convincing him they were joining the Brotherhood and finding out what his plans were and why he needed that gorilla.

We were continuing the investigation on this end, too. Logan was in on all the team meetings and spoke to me as necessary when we needed to talk about a mission. But that was all. I tried to get through to him for a few days before I gave up. I looked for him every chance I could to speak to him alone – following him to the Danger Room, to his bedroom. I found him at the pool at night. It didn’t matter where he was – he wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t touch me, wouldn’t listen to me. When I tried to make him listen, he left. Logan made clear that outside of team business he was going to have nothing to do with me. I don’t know who he was spending his time with, but he was out a lot, particularly at night. I didn’t ask where he went. As he’d said, we had no claim on each other.

On the team, though, he was still a full participant. I don’t know if anyone noticed the tension between us, but I did my best not to let it show and I think he did, too. Charles had no reason to warn me again that we needed Logan, so I’d best not alienate him. He was fully an X-Man.

Jean was working up to being fully on the team, too. She wasn’t yet involved in combat missions, but she was in on team meetings and taking on some assignments. She volunteered to go to the zoo and talk to the veterinarians and zookeepers in order to find out what we could about the animal Magneto had snatched. Her medical background and ability to pass for normal made her the obvious choice. I didn’t want her going alone, though. She said she’d be fine, but I couldn’t be sure. I insisted that Logan accompany her, for protection. He had no objections. When it came to X-Men missions, he was listening to me.

I took Jean aside after the meeting where it was decided that she and Logan would continue the investigation by going to the zoo. I’d decided that I needed to make up for my silence, as much as I could at this point. “Can we talk?” I asked. She nodded but said nothing.

We walked to the enclosed garden. I felt it was time, past time, to tell Jean some of what I’d gone through, to make clear to her the changes I’d undergone, to apologize for disappointing her. There was no relationship to disclose, no involvement with Logan, but I felt like there was still much more to say to her than just “It’s over” and “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know how to begin,” I told her, sitting next to her on a bench, “but I feel like I have to tell you some of what went on when you were...gone.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear about it. At least not all of it.” She turned away.

“Fair enough. I’ll try not to over-share.” I took a deep breath. “I... I never lied to you, Jean. You knew I was gay from the start. I wasn’t hiding anything. I thought I could marry you, live that kind of life. I hoped I could, anyway. I tried for so long. I loved you so much I thought I could do it.” She didn’t say anything. I continued. “When you were... gone, when I thought you were lost to us, I was devastated. You can ask anyone. I totally fell apart. In the middle of a class, even.”

That got a response. “Hard to imagine Scott Summers out of control,” she said, half a smile on her face.

“It happened. I thought my life was over. Well, it was. The life we planned together was over. But over time, well, I knew my whole life wasn’t over. You were gone, but I was still here. And I had to think more about what I wanted to do with the rest of my time. So much of my energy had gone for so long into denying who I am, into hiding from who I am. I don’t think I realized just how much effort I’d put into that until some of the weight of grief and loss started to lift. It took a long time, but I came to feel like what we did – what we tried to do – it was a mistake.” I looked at her. Her face was turned away still, but I could see a tear on her cheek. I stopped talking, but she gestured to me to continue. “An honest mistake, a sincere mistake, a loving mistake.” I remembered describing my relationship with Jean to Logan, using almost those exact words. “But still a mistake.”

And now she was looking at me, tears in her eyes. “I believed you could do it,” she said.
“I believed you could do anything.”

And then I let her in. The mental shields I’d kept in place since she came back – first under Phoenix control, then as herself – came down and I let Jean into my brain for the first time since Alkali Lake. I let her feel all my sadness at hurting her, but all my resolve to be myself – my own queer self – as well.

She smiled a bit through the tears. “You really did try,” she said. “I know it. I guess there are some things that even you can’t control.”

“Can we be friends again?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Maybe someday. I’m not ready for that yet.” She started crying again as she got up and left the garden.

***********************************************************

Jean and Logan went to the zoo the next day. Between interviewing the staff and Jean surreptitiously examining some of them telepathically, we found out a lot. There was no doubt that the gorilla Magneto had taken was a mutant. Mutant animals were rare, but had been identified a few times – always primates. The X-gene on this gorilla seemed to just be beginning to activate. It wasn’t clear yet what its powers were, but it seemed to be something that frightened the other gorillas. None of the other animals would go near it. The veterinary and zookeeper staff were being very cautious. None of them had touched the animal without protective gloves. But the baby gorilla had touched one of the attendants on the face while he’d been feeding it. They found him unconscious on the floor.

“None of his colleagues had seen it happen,” Jean told us at a team meeting after she and Logan got back. “Their working hypothesis is that the animal has super-human strength. Or super-gorilla strength, I suppose,” she’d added, to chuckles from all assembled. “But he doesn’t remember being hit by the gorilla.”

“And there’s not a mark on him,” Logan had added. “He doesn’t look like a guy who’d been in a fight with a gorilla, even a baby one.

“Rogue’s powers.” I was the one who said it but the whole team had come to the same conclusion.

Charles added, “And we know what Erik used Rogue for before – to power his mutagenic machine. Could he be trying to build a new one?”

“Maybe,” I’d replied. “Maybe he figured out what was faulty about it, why it killed Senator Kelly. Maybe he’s ready to try again, that he’s perfected it so it doesn’t kill the mutants it makes.”

“Or maybe he doesn’t care if it kills them,” was Logan’s contribution.

I paused. “We should tell Northstar and Pyro, let them know what they’re looking for.”

But we couldn’t. Jean-Paul had contacted us a few times, with brief messages saying that their attempts to find Magneto and the Brotherhood hadn’t borne fruit. And then once, the day before Jean and Logan had gone to the zoo, saying that they thought they’d found him. He’d warned then that he might not be able to contact us for a while, but I’d hoped we’d hear from him.

Days stretched into a couple of weeks, though, without any contact. If Magneto was planning a new assault on the non-mutant population, trying to use that mutant gorilla to power his device, we didn’t know where he was planning to launch it from or how. I hoped Jean-Paul and Johnny had successfully infiltrated and were gaining the intelligence we didn’t have, but the longer we heard nothing from them the more worried I was. “Should we activate the homing device?” I asked Charles, two weeks after the last contact we’d had.

“Not yet,” he answered. “I’m worried, too, Scott,” he’d added, “but I don’t know if using it would endanger Jean-Paul. He can activate it himself if he needs us. If we do, there’s a good chance Magneto will realize what’s going on.”

Jean pulled me aside after the meeting, but it wasn’t to talk about Jean-Paul. I didn’t know what she wanted but I was just glad that Jean seemed to want to spend time with me. When she asked if I were free to go for a walk after dinner, I said “yes” immediately and then cleared my schedule to make it true.

Things had been better lately. I do think talking to her that time in the garden had helped, even if it felt like it was just making things worse right when it happened. I hadn’t seen much of her since that day, but when I did she didn’t seem unhappy in my presence. In fact, she seemed much more engaged both with me and with the rest of the team, more involved with the others. I’d see her on the grounds or at meals, with Logan or Storm, speaking animatedly and much more like her old self. Although still not back to combat duty, Jean was very actively participating in team meetings and using her knowledge, skill, and mutant powers in our efforts to find and thwart Magneto.

Jean was pleasant to me in meetings, engaged in conversations that included me at meals, and generally seemed to be treating me like a colleague, and maybe a friend. But this was the first time she sought me out to speak privately since that day in the garden. It gave me some hope that we could begin healing the rift between us.

We strode around the grounds a bit, just talking about school and team business. “I’m going to teach summer term,” she said. “Hank wants to just work on his research and I figure – with half the school going home for the holidays – it’s a good way to ease back in.”

“It’s a great idea,” I replied. “There are plenty of courses in the fall to keep both you and Hank busy. If you decide you want to keep teaching, that is.”

“I do. I’m sure I do. I want to get back to normal, back to work. I’ve spoken to Brad Langer in Yonkers about going back to the clinic, too. And I’ll be ready to be back on the team soon, too – completely – including combat missions. I’m sure of it.”

“I don’t want to rush you.”

“I know. You’ve been great. It’s helped – I’ve felt like everyone has really been so understanding. It’s made a difference. I’ve felt welcomed, wanted, but not pushed. They’ve all followed your lead, Scott.”

“I know how hard this has all been for you.” Looking at her expression, I added, “Well, I guess not really. I don’t suppose any of us can. But I appreciate that it has been extremely traumatic. I want to help. I don’t want to make things worse.”

“I know. I mean it – you’ve been great. And I really do want us to, well, to be friends again. I thought we should talk a bit, clear the air. I know I wasn’t so receptive to it when you tried, but I’ve been thinking about what you said a lot. I want us to try to find a way to kind of move on, you know?”

I nodded. “I appreciate that. Really.” Neither of us said anything for a minute. “Jean,” I said, finally. “I didn’t want to hurt you. But I did; I know that. I want to take responsibility for it, do what I can. But... well, I didn’t know how not to hurt you, if that makes any sense.”

She nodded. “Yeah, it makes sense. Look, I’ve thought a lot about it, about what we were trying to do. Some of the time I’ve felt really mad, felt like you were just using me to play straight, like I was just your beard. That’s the term, right?”

I nodded. “It wasn’t like that, really. I’m not saying that that wasn’t part of it – wanting to be respectable, acceptable, living a straight life. But a whole lot of it was loving you. You have to believe that.”

“I do. I don’t think I ever really doubted it. It’s just – well, realizing it was over and thinking you’re probably going on to some happy life with some guy and I’m just on my own... I got a little bitter sometimes. But I’m over that, I think. I know what we had was something real – not just a sham so you could look straight. We shared so much, had so much going for us. Love, respect, common experiences. Shared purpose and vision. It was easy to lose sight of why it couldn’t work.” I started to speak, but she continued. “And if your motives were mixed, well so were mine. I’d been hurt too many times by guys who didn’t really care about me. You – you were my friend. I knew you cared; I knew you’d take care of me. I may have been the safe choice for you, but you were the safe choice for me. We both should have known better than to play it safe.”

I laughed. “Hey, maybe we just needed to have some safe zone in our lives, what with Charles sending us out to almost get killed all the time.”

She laughed, too. It felt good – sitting, talking, laughing together. I said so.

“Me, too,” she said. “When all’s said and done; when it’s all over – well, all the stuff we liked about each other is still there, isn’t it? We were friends long before we were lovers. I want to be your friend again, Scott.”

“Nothing would make me happier.”

And I felt happy. Relaxed, comfortable with her. Until she asked me, “Are you... well, involved with anyone?”

I shook my head. “No, not really. I was, or at least I thought we were going to be... whatever. It didn’t work out, I guess. At least that’s how it looks now.”

“I’m sorry, Scott.” She hesitated, as if not sure whether to say more. “I think I know a little of what went on. Not everything, but I know who it was. I saw you together sometimes. Plus, I read his mind, so I knew he was interested in you.” I was surprised to hear this – I know Charles had taught Logan how to use mental shields, and my impression had been that he was careful not to allow telepaths in his mind without his permission.

Jean continued. “I didn’t mean to – he broadcasts something awful when he’s around you. Someone should teach him about mental shields.”

“Jean, I don’t know what to – ”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk to me about it. And no, Jean-Paul hasn’t said anything, either. Just blushed when I asked him – right before he left with Johnny.” She looked down. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out. And now, with him off on a mission, well... I hope you didn’t part badly.”

“Jean – “

“No, I mean it. I know, he and I always kind of clashed, but that doesn’t mean I wish him ill. And I want you to be happy. So, if it’s what you want, being with him...”

“It’s not. You’ve got it all wrong.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought him up.” I didn’t know what to say. She continued before I had a chance to figure that out and answer. “I’ve been seeing someone myself.”

“Great!” I said, perhaps a little too heartily. “I’m glad to hear it. I had no idea.”

“Well, it’s kind of new. And I’m trying to keep a low profile. You know how this place can be such a fishbowl. But I didn’t want you finding out from someone else.”

“I appreciate that. Umm, is it serious?”

She paused in thought. “I don’t know. No, not yet. It’s too early to say it is. But I kind of hope it will be. He’s... different. Special. But maybe not cut out for a serious relationship. Still, maybe he could, if he really wanted to. I just know I love being with him.” She touched my arm and looked right at me. “Don’t tell anyone, please. Don’t even let him know that you know.”

“He’s someone I know.”

“Yes. Logan.”

Faults That Are Not (Summers in a Sea of Glory, 7/10)

This was turning out to be one big, fucking mess. Mostly a mess I’d made, too. Not that I wanted to think about that part. It was true, though, and I found I kept thinking about it, even though I tried not to. So maybe it was time to stop trying not to think about this mess, which was just getting bigger and messier with not thinking about it. Maybe it was time to try and figure out what to do about it.

First part to figuring out what to do about it was being honest – at least with myself – that it was my own doing. I’d been trying my best to blame Scott. For getting mixed up with Northstar and lying to me about it. For not breaking it off with Jean, not completely. And for talking all that warrior lovers stuff and giving me ideas about shit that has nothing to do with the real world. It was all a pack of lies and I fell for it – the love shit, the story about what he wasn’t doing with Northstar, the shit about how he broke up with Jeannie, telling her it was over for good – all of it. Hook, line and sinker. I felt like a real dumbass when I found out it was just lies.

Only maybe it wasn’t lies. I mean, I thought it was a pack of lies and that’s when I got so mad at him. But then I found out some of it was true, so I don’t know about the rest. It turned out he did break up with Jeannie, after all. I hadn’t believed him, since he wouldn’t tell her about him and me, but then I found out he told me the truth. The truth about what he had said and what he hadn’t. Hadn’t told her about him and me, but then there wasn’t any him and me anymore now so what have I got to be mad at about that? And he did tell her it was over, told her as clear as can be, just like he’d said he’d done. So how am I supposed to stay mad at him for lying and saying he’d told her? Mad about it now I find out he’d been telling me the truth the whole time? Not that the truth was helping any. Well, it helped make this mess but that’s my fault more than Scott’s.

If he hadn’t told her it was over between him and her, that they were finished and done for good, then none of the rest of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have come to me, looking for sympathy, telling me the whole sad story of how she’d fallen in love with Scott years ago, knowing he was gay but thinking he’d get over it. Not knowing I already knew all about it, knew it from Scott, who’d told me when he thought she was dead. Scott, who’d told me he’d never go back to living like that. Scott, who likes dick and knows it. Scott, who told Jean no when she wanted to get back together, when he thought she was an imposter, who told me true he wasn’t in love with her anymore even if she could come back for real. Scott, who wouldn’t do it with her when the Phoenix tried to seduce him through Jean. I did it with her that one time, but he didn’t. I said yes when he said no.

I didn’t tell Jean any of that and she didn’t know what I knew. I don’t think she even knew I fucked her when she was under Phoenix control – she can’t remember nothing from then. I didn’t tell her anything. But she told me. She told me that she’d hoped he’d stop being gay, that loving her would turn him. Only now she knew it wasn’t going to happen like that because he’d told her it was over. She said he told her he’d always want to be her friend, but he just couldn’t love a woman, not the way she needed to be loved. She said he hadn’t said anything about anyone else, but she thought he was doing it with some guy now. I didn’t tell her I’d been the one. If there’d only been one, which I wasn’t so sure about.

Well, I wasn’t the one, or even one of them, not anymore. I hadn’t fucked him, hadn’t so much as touched him since that day I found him with Northstar.

I still wanted him, not that I’d tell him that. Wanted him so much I couldn’t stand it sometimes. Jerked off thinking about him almost every night, remembering stuff we’d done. Hand round my cock, I’d think of being in his mouth, or his ass. Think about stroking him, too. Thinking of the way he says my name when he’s coming. Shit, I can get hard just from remembering the sound of his voice.

I was getting distracted when him and me were working together, too. I found myself looking at his mouth when he was talking in a meeting, and thinking about pushing my tongue in between those lips, or my cock. Hard to concentrate on team business. When I was supposed to be covering his back on a mission, I found myself watching his ass, instead.

When me and Scott were together this didn’t used to happen to me – when we were working, we were working. After the mission we’d fuck each other’s brains out, but I didn’t even think about sex when it was X-Men business. Now I was thinking about it all the time. Sex with Scott and only Scott. Pissed me off, too, how much I thought about him, how I couldn’t manage to think about anybody else. I’d put my hand round my cock, close my eyes, think of some woman with big tits and tight, round ass, but she’d turn into him in my head by the time I was half-hard. I’d go out and wander a bit, think about picking somebody up – man or woman – but I never did. I was horny almost all the time, thinking about doing it day and night, but I couldn’t get myself to do it with anyone else. I had it bad alright.

There were times – late at night, particularly – when I wanted to just go to him, tell him I’m sorry, see if it could be like it used to be with him and me. I’d feel like I’d give anything for the chance to feel him under me again, to be pushing hard in his ass, hearing those moans and sighs and soft words coming out of his mouth while I fucked him. And then I’d think of walking in on him and Jean-Paul that time and I’d change my mind about going to him.

Yeah, Scott and Jean-Paul. That was some sight to see, coming into Scott’s room. I’d been horny as hell and hoping he was feeling the same. And what do I find? Northstar and Scott together. Northstar with his clothes off, or at least no shirt. Scott fingering his nipple ring. I know what those fingers feel like. Pretty obvious Jean-Paul liked what he was doing to him.

Well, there was something I could still be mad at him for. Or could I? All those times I told him it didn’t matter to me what he did, he could do it with whoever he wanted. Well, if it didn’t matter, then why did I feel like killing somebody when I saw them together? It was all I could do to keep the claws in. I don’t even know which of them I’d have killed, neither. Maybe both.

I was mad as hell at Scott for cheating on me, and fucking furious at Northstar for moving in on him like that. Okay, so I’m not sure Scott was cheating, but there was no doubt that was what Jean-Paul was doing. He was trying. For all that Scott said he was just showing him the transmitter, I know he wanted in Scott’s pants. I can smell lust and Northstar reeked of it. Every time he was anywhere near Scott.

I’d known that from the start. Only back then I didn’t care. It was back when Jean was possessed and we thought she was an imposter. That’s when I was first working with Jean-Paul and when I first realized what he wanted. Who cared if Northstar wanted Scott? I knew whose dick Scott was sucking every night. Mine, not that other guy’s. Let Northstar want, that’s what I thought. What do I care? He can want but I’ve got. That’s how I looked at it then. I wasn’t even mad at Jean-Paul. Not then. If anything, I felt sorry for him. It’s no picnic wanting someone you can’t have. I’ve been there.

So what changed? Jean changed from being the Phoenix, but what did that have to do with Northstar? I didn’t know but I thought I should figure it out. It made my head hurt to think about it, but I thought about it anyway. Fuck, if I’m going to be mad all the time, I should at least know why. Okay, so when Jeannie got back to being herself, well it just changed everything for me and Scott. I saw how she looked at him; I heard her tell him “As long as I’ve got you I’ll be okay” and it got me wondering and thinking. And then when he wouldn’t tell her the real deal about him and me, well I was wondering some more. Wondering if there’s anything with her and him. Only there isn’t and I know that now.

And Northstar? Was Scott really cheating on me with him? No. I don’t know if he was doing it with him or not, but if he was, he still wasn’t cheating. Hey, if we got no claim on each other, it ain’t cheating, and that’s what I kept telling him. I wish I could believe it myself, though. But anyway, it’s what I’d been saying.

And since it is what I’d been saying, Scott had no cause to lie to me. If he was doing it with Northstar or anybody else, he could’ve just thrown my own words back at me. He’s never lied to me yet, Scott, not so far as I know. And if I’m honest with myself, I have to say I really would know. He’s not the type to play one against the other. He couldn’t do it. He’d told me the truth about Jean, told me they’d broke up for good. He was telling me the truth about Northstar, too. I knew it, if I really thought about it.

So what the fuck was I so mad about? And what the fuck was I doing with Jeannie? I like Jeannie. I used to think I wanted to fuck her, but it’s not like that for me anymore. Not since Scott and me, not since she’d come back. I’d done it that one time with her when the Phoenix had charge of her – curiosity mostly. That turned out to be a big mistake. So why was I making the same mistake again, now that she was back to being herself?

Partly from being mad at Scott, I guess. Partly from wanting to know what was going on with her and him – which turned out to be nothing, like I said. But mostly it just kind of happened.

There she was telling me her troubles and I was trying to be sympathetic and listen. I didn’t tell her about Scott and me ‘cause I figured it wasn’t my story to tell. Plus, by that point there wasn’t any Scott and me anymore, so what was there to say? But I was listening to how betrayed she felt, and thinking that it’s too bad she’s so sad, but it also means Scott told me the truth.

There I am feeling a little bad that I thought he was lying and a little good to know that he wasn’t and that he told her no fucking way he’d ever get back together with her. And then she’s saying that she really does know it’s for the best, and that she needs to be with a woman-loving man, someone who can really want her and need her, and that it had been a mistake to get involved with Scott from the start. “He was such a good guy, I lost perspective,” she told me.

So I didn’t know what to say and I just said, “There’s lots of good guys out there. Lots would be glad to be with a woman like you.”

And then she’s reminding me how I told her once I could be a good guy for her. And she’s talking about how happy she’s been to see me on the team and teaching and really settling in to be an X-Man. “How long have you been here now, Logan?” she asked. “More than two years, isn’t it?” I tell her that’s right and she asks me if I ever stayed any one place that long.

“Nah. Well, not that I can remember. I’ve still got these holes in my memory, but everything I do know about is just moving from place to place. It felt really weird to be here at first. I kept thinking I’d leave any day.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. First, I think it was just not having anywhere particular to go to yet. Then, after the shit hit the fan and we thought we’d lost you, well I thought I could kind of help pick up the pieces around here for a while.”

“That was kind of a good guy thing to do, don’t you think?”

I shrugged. “Then lately I started feeling like I wanted to stay, wanted to be part of this.”

“Do you have...feelings for anyone, Logan? Feelings that make you want to stay here?”

I was gonna tell her right then. I should’ve told her. If things weren’t so fucked between me and Scott, I would’ve. But between feeling too mad at him to talk about any feelings I had for him other than wanting to kick his ass and feeling like deep down maybe I did want to get back with him like it used to be and worrying that he wouldn’t want me talking to Jean about him and me anyway, I didn’t know what to say. I just nodded and didn’t say anything. Then before I knew it she was kissing me. It caught me by surprise. It just happened. Without thinking about it, I was kissing her back.

So, now it looks like Scott was never lying to me after all. He wasn’t cheating on me because there was nothing to cheat about. He wasn’t doing it with Jeannie. He wasn’t doing it with Northstar. He said he still wants me and I think he meant it. Maybe he even meant it about loving me. I know I want to fuck him so bad I can hardly stand it. And I want to be with him, want to be his friend. And yeah, his lover. But this mess with Jeannie makes that pretty much out of the question. And the worst part is that the whole fucking thing is my own damn fault.

Once More Unto the Breach (Summers in a Sea of Glory, 8/10)

“Cabinet meeting in my office – immediately.” The voice was Charles Xavier’s. The words landed directly in Scott’s brain, with no need for telephones, or ears for that matter. It was the most efficient way to do it. Given that Charles was calling a meeting with no notice at 2:00 a.m., it was clear that he thought efficiency was important. Charles’s tone in Scott’s brain felt slightly apologetic under the urgency, though. Cyclops took the apologetic grace notes to be an acknowledgement of the fact that it had been a full day of classes followed by a mission he had only returned from an hour before. Scott had barely fallen asleep when the voice in his brain woke him again.

“I shouldn’t have bothered to get undressed,” Scott thought to himself, pulling on a uniform and grabbing his visor. Charles hadn’t said what the meeting was about, but he knew chances were better than even that a cabinet meeting called in the middle of the night would lead to a mission before the night was over.

Hank had beat him to the meeting, Scott saw when he’d sprinted to Charles’s office a couple of minutes later. The two men were seated by the fireplace, tea set out on the end table in front of them. Hank was sitting on the couch, blue fur blending into blue upholstery. Charles was in his accustomed place by the end table – the carpet slightly worn on the path where his chair had rolled from behind the desk to that spot over the years.

Hank’s bedroom was nearer to Charles’s suite, so it was no surprise he was the first to arrive. Or maybe Charles and Hank had already been together, drinking tea, when whatever event happened that had prompted the meeting. They were dressed as they had been when he’d last seen them here, when Scott had done a brief post-mortem on the night’s successful mission, before heading off to what he thought would be an uninterrupted night, not that he ever counted on that. “What’s up?” he asked as he sat down on the couch next to Hank.

“Let’s wait a minute so we don’t have to do this twice,” Charles replied.

“Oh, is ‘Ro back from Washington?” Scott asked.

“No, Storm and Nightcrawler are not expected back until Wednesday.”

As Charles said it the door to the office opened again and Jean walked in, in uniform, pulling her long red hair back in a ponytail as she sat down in the armchair facing Charles. “Welcome back to the cabinet, Jean,” he said, smiling at her.

“Thank you.”

“We were just having tea. Would you like some? Scott?” he turned to Cyclops as he included him in the invitation.

“None for me,” Scott replied, but the china closet opening and a cup and saucer floating over to Jean’s waiting hand indicated her acceptance of the offer.

Xavier’s smile vanished and his face and voice were all business as he turned to the reason he’d called the meeting. “Northstar has activated the homing device,” he said.

“Where are they?” Jean asked it first.

“Vermont. Peru, in fact.”

Scott looked surprised. “Near our house there?”

“In our house, as far as we can tell,” Charles answered. “We can’t pinpoint quite as precisely as that, but it seems most likely.”

“No one’s there now, right?” Scott asked. “I know none of our people are, but not any Alpha Flight operatives, either?”

Hank spoke for the first time. “That is correct. The auxiliary X-Men venue in northern New England has been closed and padlocked since we departed. Given the unfortunate eventualities ensuing as a consequence of the occupation of your corporeal being, my dear,” he inclined his head slightly at Jean in a courtly bow, “and how central the Vermont domicile was to that whole episode, we haven’t been inclined to employ those premises lately.”

”And the whole Mutant Protection Plan has been on hold since then,” Charles added. “So there has been no need for anyone from either the X-Men or Alpha Flight to be there. I’ve already called Mac Hudson to make sure he doesn’t send anyone to Peru until further notice.”

Scott nodded his approval. “Okay, we’re in a good position. We know Magneto’s there, and I think we can presume he doesn’t know we know it. And no one is going to show up unexpectedly. Except us. He has no way to know about the tunnel from the clearing we dug, so we have a way to take him by surprise, too.” He paused. “Good thinking on Jean-Paul’s part to steer Magneto there. Or did you instruct him to do that?” he asked, turning to Xavier.

The professor shook his head. “No, I didn’t, and I’m not sure that it was Jean-Paul’s idea, either.”

“Then how?” Jean asked.

“Erik knows about the Vermont house. It’s a good hideout and a good place to work on rebuilding his mutagenic machine, if that is the plan. I agree that it’s fortunate for us that we know where he is and we have an access point that we can use unannounced. That’s why I called this meeting – so we can figure out how best to use that advantage. I’m sorry to get you out of your beds, but I think we will probably need to act quickly.”

Of course,” Scott said. “What does Magneto know about the house, and how?”

“Yes, it’s important you have that information to plan and lead the mission. I was remiss in not telling you earlier, but it never occurred to me he’d use the house in Peru. I’d forgotten he knew about it, actually.” The professor took a sip of his tea. “It was a long time ago.” The somewhat faraway look in Xavier’s eyes signaled Scott to let down his mental shields. He assumed the other two had done the same as a picture of a much younger Erik Lehnsherr entered his brain, driving up the dirt road approaching Xavier’s ski house in a convertible looking like it dated from the 1950s.

Scott was seeing the scene from Charles Xavier’s viewpoint. It wasn’t a new experience for him. Charles had often used telepathy to recount some event he wanted his field leader to know about, as it was both a thorough method and an efficient one. This time, though, there was something different about the mental picture and Scott wasn’t sure what. It was nagging at him a little, distracting him from the scene he was experiencing, wondering what felt “off” about it. He couldn’t quite figure out why everything looked so different from the way the world usually looked when he was seeing out of Charles’s eyes. It all became clear to Scott, though, when Lehnsherr parked the car, leapt out of it, and ran up to him/Charles. As he felt young Magneto’s arm clasp him/Charles around the shoulders and heard a greeting in his/Charles’s ear, Scott realized the angle was different. They were both standing.

“Yes,” Charles said, responding to Scott’s realization. “It was before my accident.” He looked down at his legs, then continued. “Erik and I built the first prototype of Cerebro at the Peru house. Here,” he added, and the other three saw through his eyes again.

The young Erik Lehnsherr ran into the house, Charles Xavier following. “Where is it?” Lehnsherr asked excitedly.

Charles showed him a door off of the kitchen and Lehnsherr opened it and ran down the stairs to the basement, Xavier following him. Scott tried not to be distracted by the thought of a mobile Charles Xavier and paid attention to his surroundings. A large room was set up as a workroom – electronic equipment on benches along one wall, building materials in the center, what looked like a chemical lab along another side.

“I had no intelligence about this subterranean laboratory,” Hank said, almost accusingly.

“I didn’t even know there was a basement,” Jean added.

“It’s big,” Scott weighed in. “A whole extra floor downstairs. It’s nothing like that, though,” he added, referring to the image that Charles had just placed in all of their brains. “I’ve only been in the basement a couple of times. We’d considered having the tunnel come up there, but Logan decided against it. He had me blast a small hole in the basement floor as a test, and water seeped in.” Scott felt strange talking about the time he and Logan had been in Vermont together, particularly with Jean there. It felt like an oddly intimate recollection, although he was only talking about the mission they’d accomplished there together. His shields down to let Charles in made Scott feel slightly vulnerable, as if his thoughts and emotions were on display more than he would have wanted in this company.

“What does the basement look like now?” Charles asked. “Is it suitable for Magneto to work there? I haven’t been down there since... well, since I could walk down the stairs,” he added.

“It’s mostly empty. There are some things stacked by the walls – furniture, boxes of stuff. I didn’t open any of them when we were down there. Maybe old equipment. The floor’s dry – it was only when I blasted it that water came in. The lights didn’t work, but we put new bulbs in and they did. Yeah, I’d say he could make a workroom out of it for his mutagenic machine. If that’s indeed what he’s doing. If we don’t stop him first.”

“We will. And I think it very likely that is his plan. Why else would he need a gorilla with Rogue’s powers? I suppose I should applaud his decision to sacrifice an animal rather than a human this time.”

“Given the knowledge we’ve amassed of Magneto’s character,” Hank interjected, “the choice of a non-human primate as subject to expire as a result of the execution of this endeavor was most likely a decision borne of expedience rather than a newly emerging value placed on the lives of mutant humans. An assault upon the zoological gardens was undoubtedly easier to plan and more likely to result in the preferred outcome than one upon our own premises.”

“Yes, Hank’s right, I’m afraid,” Scott said to Charles. “Magneto knows how well defended we are here. Anyway, no point speculating now. We need to get moving on this mission. We can’t know whether we’re right about Magneto’s plan or not, but we need to plan the mission without that information. A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite point in the future.”

“Right you – and Patton – are. And the difference between a good naval officer and a poor one is about ten seconds,” Charles quoted back at him. “A principle that applies equally to X-Men Field Leaders. Now, whom will you take on this mission?”

“Beast.” Scott turned to Hank. “You’re best able to evaluate how far he’s gotten with the rebuilding of the mutagenic machine.” Hank nodded his agreement and Scott turned to Jean. “Do you feel up to it? I can use your powers. We don’t know who Magneto’s got with him, or even how many. I need a telepath. Unless you want to come, Charles?”

Xavier shook his head. “I think it’s better if I do not. Erik Lehnsherr knows me too well. He has used that knowledge to our disadvantage before.” He turned towards Jean. “Do you feel ready for a combat mission?”

“Definitely.” Her voice was clear and confident. “Any more?”

“Yes, I think one more. Not more than that. We want a small team, since we need to take them by surprise. And we’ve got Jean-Paul on the spot.”

Pyro, too,” Hank interjected.

“I hope so, but I’m not counting on him. I’m not saying he’s gone over to Magneto again,” he added, seeing Charles’s expression, “although I wouldn’t totally rule that out. Still, he doesn’t have the combat experience or even the experience under my command to leave me feeling like I can count on him. And – like I said – I don’t know how many Magneto’s got there. I want to be sure we can take him, whoever he’s got with him. I’m taking Wolverine, too.”

“Is that wise?” Charles asked. “Maybe you’re better off with someone else. The metal skeleton makes him particularly vulnerable.”

“No, I want Logan with me.” Jean was looking at Scott as he said it, but he didn’t meet her glance. “You’re right, Charles, that he can’t take Magneto, but I’ll handle him myself. I need a team that can take on Magneto’s henchmen. Logan knows that house better than anyone but you – he not only was foreman when we built the tunnel, but supervised all the security enhancements. He’s best able to get us in without setting off alarms, so we can take them by surprise. Besides, Logan’s the best fighter I’ve got. I need him for this one.”

Xavier nodded, closing his eyes briefly. “Wolverine’s in the Danger Room. I’ve told him there’s a mission. He’ll meet you at the Blackbird.”

Jean stood up, saying, “I’ll go now and brief Logan on the mission. Meet you at the hangar in a few minutes.”

Hank stood as well. “I’ll don appropriate clothing for this mission and be prepared to depart in five minutes.”

Scott stood up to leave after them, but Charles stopped him. “Just a minute,” he said.

“Additional instructions?”

“I didn’t want to say this in front of the others.” He hesitated a minute. “Scott, I don’t know all that is going on between you and Logan, but... your feelings are strong. That was clear when your shields were down. I know there are unresolved issues. This is a dangerous mission. Are you sure you want him along? You could take Colossus, Iceman...”

Scott shook his head. “I need him for this one. He’s the man for the mission. I don’t let personal feelings interfere with a mission – my feelings or anyone else’s. You know that, Charles. I wouldn’t have stayed alive this long – or kept the rest of them alive – if I did.”

Or My Heart Wake Any More (Summers in a Sea of Glory, 9/10)

I’d assured both Scott and Charles that I was ready for combat missions. I’d been feeling for a while like it was time. I’d seen various team members going off on missions, been in on some of the debriefings. I found myself itching to be among them and wanting to use my powers and my abilities for the X-Men.

I’m not saying the prospect of going into combat wasn’t frightening to me. Truth be told, it always had been. I’d never totally gotten used to the fact that, at age sixteen, I’d gone off to boarding school one day and found myself the first female soldier in a small private army the next. Still, over the years, being an X-Man had become so much a part of who I am. It’s at least as central to my identity as being a doctor and a teacher.

I needed that part of me back. I worried, too, that if I didn’t act soon, I’d lose my nerve and never really rejoin the team. So, I’d told Scott and Charles both that it was time to take me off the Disabled List. Now, though, I wasn’t so sure I hadn’t acted too hastily. En route to Vermont with the team Scott had assembled, I was having doubts. Rather too late to change my mind.

Scott and I had spoken a few days before this mission had arisen. I’d told him then that I wanted to be fully on the team again. He had asked me “Are you sure?” at the time, but I hadn’t felt that he was doubting me. Rather he seemed to want to ensure that I wasn’t feeling pressured to resume my full responsibilities before I was ready.

With Charles it had been a different story. His worry about me wasn’t just in his words, but in waves of telepathic concern that kept washing over me. I opened my mind to him almost completely, let him feel just how I was doing. I let him know that I was still working on getting over Scott and still recovering from the knowledge that I’d lost a year the rest of them had experienced. Beyond that, though, I let him feel all the healing I had been doing. Time and work and Ethan’s support were leaving me feeling more like my old self, enough like my old self to resume all my activities, including functioning as a full-fledged X-Man. I kept very little back, wanting Charles to be reassured, to really understand that I was ready. I only walled off the part of me that was thinking about Logan, not ready to let Charles in on my hopes for a new relationship.

So, I tried to keep my mind off of Logan when I was with Charles, but I’m not sure I was successful. Selective telepathic communication isn’t an exact science, and Charles knows me so well that I’m never quite sure that I’m effective in keeping something from him. I could feel a telepathic emanation from him that wasn’t a clear thought. More of a sense of a thought forming. Some worry about me and Logan. And Scott. So, perhaps I let more through than I had intended to.

Still, he had told me he felt reassured that I was ready, and had shown his confidence in me by calling me for the cabinet meeting and by supporting Scott’s decision to include me in this crucial mission. I wanted to live up to the confidence that the two men I’ve loved the most showed me.

I was sitting in the Blackbird next to Scott, with Hank and Logan behind us, as Scott reviewed the battle plan. We were going in with incomplete information, of course. We didn’t know how many of his Brotherhood Magneto had with him. We didn’t know how far they’d gotten in the development of the reconfigured mutagenic machine. We didn’t know what weapons they might have brought or built. Hank had suggested we wait for the mission, take time to learn some more, but Scott had said no, quoting Patton again.

I was listening to the plan and trying to focus, but my mind was jumping all over the place. I was very aware of Logan’s presence behind me, but I couldn’t feel his mind at all. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on his thoughts, but his mind is usually so active, so agitated, so strong that some thoughts come to me unbidden. At least that’s the Logan I remembered from when we first knew each other. He was different now. He had mental shields up almost all the time lately, it seemed.

That scared me a bit, when I thought about the possibility of what Logan and I had begun turning serious. My continuing grief over the loss of the relationship with Scott made me wonder whether this was the right time to embark on a new one. And Logan was so different from Scott, I worried that I might be choosing someone in reaction rather than in a positive way. Still, there was no denying that I found him extraordinarily appealing, and had since he’d first showed up. That animal side of him was never far from the surface, and there was something both frightening and compelling about his semi-feral personality. And his strong physicality was something that attracted me and always had.

Beyond general attraction, I had some feeling that in spite of our surface differences we could really be emotionally compatible. Logan didn’t talk much, but he had said something to me that really touched me: “I know what it’s like to be missing part of your life history.” I felt like he could understand what I was going through in a way the others couldn’t. I wasn’t sure how he felt about me; he seemed very defended against emotional entanglements.

Even though his mental shields seemed always to be up lately, something leaked through. Strong feeling – longing, desire, a kind of aching loneliness. Maybe he wanted to love and be loved but was afraid to. Maybe we were both afraid, but could assuage each other’s fears.

I desperately wanted to know what he was thinking. I worried that his use of mental shields against me was not a good sign for a potential relationship between us. Or maybe it was. I know Scott and I could not have been together as long as we were if he hadn’t been able to have some privacy in his own brain.

Hank wasn’t shielded at all. Without even trying, I could feel his worry about whether I was up to the mission. I felt the warmth of his friendship and concern, and appreciated it. Still, it was intensifying my doubts, making me wonder if I could do it, too. I was more distracted by Hank’s thoughts since I couldn’t hear anything from Logan or Scott. Was that why they were both shielded? Was this all about the mission? Did they doubt me? Were they afraid to let me know that?

The last battle I’d been in had been at the same house we were going to. I’d killed two people, then – people on our side. Two FBI agents seconded to the Mutant Protection Plan project. I’d pulled their hearts out with telekinesis and left them dead on the floor in that ski house. I’ve seen their pictures; I insisted on it. They looked completely unfamiliar to me. I murdered two innocent men in cold blood and I can’t even recognize them. I remember none of what I did then, and that’s even harder to accept than the fact that I did it.

I found myself thinking back over battles I do remember. I’ve been a member of a mutant combat team since I was sixteen years old. I’ve been in hundreds of battles. I’ve come close to dying a few times, had a few missions I believed were going to be my last. I’ve killed twice and sobbed in Scott’s arms afterwards, although I knew there had been no other choice – kill or be killed. Scott himself had only killed once and that was the only time I’ve ever seen him cry. He took his glasses off, tears leaking out of tightly closed eyes.

On four occasions I failed to save someone from dying when that was my mission. I felt those deaths more acutely than the ones that were at my hands. The last time – a child I thought I’d reached in time – was over five years ago and I don’t think I’m quite over his loss even now. I bring flowers to his grave every year on the anniversary of his death. I always meet his parents at the graveside, even though I vary the time I come purposely, in order to avoid them. They never fail to thank me for trying, and I never fail to feel worse when they do. What did they think last year when I wasn’t there?

Possession by the Phoenix – whatever it was – has left my confidence shaken in a way that having to kill enemies or failing to save victims couldn’t. Was I really the same person I’d been before Alkali Lake? Could the Phoenix come back? The latter idea terrified me. It’s one I’d talked about endlessly with Ethan, and I thought I’d mostly been able to come to terms with my fear. My powers – both telekinetic and telepathic – were greater than ever and seemed to be continuing to grow over time. I wasn’t drowning now, as I had been when my body had been invaded, the weakness as I succumbed to the water letting the Phoenix in. I was in peak condition physically and much recovered emotionally. I had come to feel that even if that being returned, I’d be able to resist it, fight it off. Now, though, as we approached the place where it had left my body, I wasn’t so sure.

Scott’s voice pulled me out of contemplation. “We’re almost there,” he was saying. “Jean, can you tell yet who’s in the house? Or at least how many?”

I shook my head. “No, not yet. When we land, let me try again.” I forced myself to focus on the mission for the next few minutes, and then we were landing in the clearing. Scott turned to me and I nodded. “Magneto – he’s in the basement workroom. Johnny’s there with him.

“What’re they thinking about?” Logan asked.

“Magneto’s concentrating on the task at hand. We were right – it’s the mutagenic machine. Johnny’s nervous – waiting for us.”

“Who else is there?”

“Jean-Paul. He’s upstairs, in one of the bedrooms. Three – no four – more. I can’t tell who they are. One might be Mystique. I’m not sure – I only had access to her brain briefly and a long time ago. None of them are minds I really know. And I can’t tell their powers, not unless they think about them.”

“No time to wait for that. We’re going in.” Scott gave out the assignments. “Logan – you start upstairs. Stay out of the basement until we’ve got Magneto knocked out. Hank, you join Logan upstairs. Jean, you and I will handle Magneto, as we discussed.”

I pulled out the hypodermic with the sedative I intended to use on Magneto. Scott nodded and I put it back. “I think I can take him alone. I’ve got Pyro for backup.”

He shook his head. “I’m not counting on him. And I’m not counting on you getting that needle in him before he realizes what you’re up to and stops it. I hope we can do it that way, but we need to take him out one way or another.” He spoke to all three of us then. “No deadly force unless necessary, but don’t hesitate if it is.” Those were the marching orders I’d heard often before. They’d only given me goose bumps three times before, and all three of those missions had ended with an adversary dead. If goose bumps were my physical symptom of predicting the future, this would be the fourth. I wondered who it would be.

It was Magneto. I didn’t want him to die, for Charles’s sake. I didn’t want Scott to have killed him, for Scott’s sake. I tried to save him, for both of them, but it all happened too fast.

We’d surprised him as we’d wanted to, stealing silently down to the basement workroom as Logan and Hank went upstairs to join Jean-Paul in battling the rest of the assembled Brotherhood. His back was to the stairs and he didn’t know we were there. The gorilla was in a cage right next to him. I had the hypodermic ready and would have gotten it into him if I’d been quicker. But Johnny gasped when he saw us and Magneto realized something was up.

He spun around quickly, saw the needle flying at him before it could pierce his flesh. He sent it back at me, but Scott blasted it before it could get me. And then everything was chaos, as it so often is in battle. Magneto was throwing everything he could at Scott and me. There were some heavy objects made of metal. Scott was blasting them and I was stopping them telekinetically but even with two of us against one of him we were having trouble keeping up.

Pyro had seemed paralyzed when we first arrived. Magneto was yelling at him to join in, not realizing on which side he’d be fighting. Suddenly Johnny seemed to get himself under control and lobbed a fireball at his putative boss. Some sort of machinery – maybe a component of the mutagenic machine – rose into the air, intercepting the fire and moving quickly towards Pyro, threatening to crush him. Scott blasted it in pieces, just in time to save him. He didn’t know that one of those pieces would ricochet into Magneto. He went down.

I’ve seen head wounds like that before. I knew there was no chance. I tried anyway. Scott and Johnny went off to join the others. From the sound of the battle upstairs, there were more of Magneto’s minions in the house than I’d been able to pick up telepathically. I stayed. I knew it was hopeless, but I kept trying as long as he had a pulse.

-------------------------------------------------------------

When I’d assured myself he was dead, I looked to the animal in the cage. Still, silent. It too had been hit by flying metal. I’m no vet, but I certainly could tell it was dead.

There was nothing more to do in the basement. I joined the rest of the team. The battle was raging throughout the house. Yes, there were more of Magneto’s men than we’d thought. A whole lot of them looked exactly alike. Logan was fighting four identical men at a time and Jean-Paul was next to him, taking on two more. It wasn’t until Logan’s claws went through the belly of one of them that I realized what was going on. The wounded man seemed to disappear before my eyes, his body kind of dissolving and being absorbed into one of his twins. Yet another one emerged to take his place, just springing forth fully formed and fighting. I joined the battle and one by one they went down, one by one they disappeared into what must have been the original of these multiple men. At first he kept creating – or releasing, who knows? – more alter egos, but as the battle wore on the ur-fighter seemed to tire and the numbers went down. Four men were actively fighting, then three. “We’ll handle it from here,” Logan called. “Go help Scott.”

I found him in the kitchen. He wasn’t fighting. By the time I got there, there was no one left to fight. He looked shaken. “Are you okay?” I asked. He didn’t answer.

I walked over to him and he held out his arms. “I love you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. It won’t happen again.”

It felt almost like a dream. I couldn’t believe it. But there he was, looking to me in time of distress, like he used to. Hurting at what he’d done to Magneto, dreading having to tell Charles, but that wasn’t all. Loving me. Maybe it was a momentary thing; maybe he’d been right to leave me; maybe he really did need to be with a man. But maybe not. Maybe our love was enough. At that moment I felt like it was. I fell into his arms.

Logan burst into the kitchen, claws out, and ran to us. Before I could say anything, do anything, he was on Scott. He stabbed him in the back.

I threw Logan’s adamantium-filled body across the room with stronger telekinetic force than I knew I possessed, without even thinking about what I was doing, just wanting to save Scott. I heard the *thunk* sound as he hit the far wall. But as I heard it, I was falling, with Scott collapsing on me, the weight of him catching me off balance. Only his weight lessened as we went down. And his body was shrinking, his clothes disappearing, his skin changing color. By the time we hit the kitchen floor, it was Mystique I rolled off of me.

Logan was standing up now, the wounds from the impact healing as he walked towards me and Mystique. “She would have attacked you,” he said. And then, “Did I kill her?”

I moved from warrior mode to physician mode, checking her wounds and her vital signs. “No,” I told him, “she’ll live.” I wondered what he was thinking, but he was still keeping me out.

But By Degrees (Summers in a Sea of Glory 10/10)

I spent a lot of time with Charles over the next few days. It was what he wanted – to talk, to listen, to just spend time together by ourselves. He would call me to his office telepathically or come and find me pretty much any time I wasn’t occupied with leading the team or teaching or in advisement sessions. The rest of the team backed off and just left Charles and me alone.

was surprised he turned to me. I’d prepared myself for just the opposite – Charles avoiding me.

It’s not that being alone together was an unusual pattern after a traumatic mission. We’ve done this before, particularly after an unsuccessful one, or a successful one with a fatality. It’s a hard time for all the team, but as their leader it hits me a little differently. The official post-mission debriefing was only the beginning of the process I’d have to go through. Charles generally was my main support and sounding board. He has been ever since I became field leader.

It’s a complicated relationship – he’s my boss, my teacher, my friend. My father, too. The only parent I have left. Not a biological tie, but a real kinship nonetheless, one born of caring and commitment and all we’ve been through together. He and I are very close – we always have been – but I still didn’t expect him to be there for me this time and was surprised he wanted me there for him, too. I didn’t know what this would do to our relationship. What do you do when your son kills your oldest friend?

“I know what you’re thinking,” Charles had said after we’d returned from Vermont, after the official debriefing, as soon as he and I were alone.

“That’s what everybody says about you,” I answered, and he laughed.

Then he turned serious. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that. Well, part of me does. I didn’t even mean to do it. I wanted to stop him, to protect Johnny and Jean. I didn’t want to – ” My voice cracked a bit at the last part and I didn’t finish the sentence.

“I know.”

“Not just because of you. That was part of it, but not all. It’s just – well, I can’t get used to it. He’s the sixth death of an adversary on a mission I was commanding. The second death at my hands – or eyes, really. Six under my command in all these years, two that I killed myself. I know them all. I know their names; I know how they died. They were all necessary deaths, I know that. It’s not even bad stats, really. I haven’t lost one X-Man – now that we have Jean back – and we’ve only had to kill six times in more than fifteen years.”

“They are remarkable statistics, Scott. Amazing, really, when I think of what you’ve been through, the missions you’ve commanded. No one else could have done as well, managed with so little loss of life. You bring them back alive, and you do it with the absolute minimum of damage, even to our enemies. I couldn’t have found a better leader for the team.”

I smiled at the compliment. “I still lie awake nights thinking about how those six deaths could have been avoided. I’ve relived each of those battles so many times, thinking that a few seconds here or a different order there and it would have come out differently.” I shook my head and said it again. “I can’t get used to it, taking human life. I should be accustomed to it by now – how long have I been leading a combat team? How many times have I made that same speech just before we go into battle, the one about using deadly force if you have to? And it’s as true as anything I’ve ever said – we only do it when we must. But I just wish to God we didn’t need to. I’ve spent half my life trying my damnedest not to kill people.” I pointed at my eyes. “I still have nightmares about doing it accidentally, at least weekly. And every night since Magneto’s death.” I stole a glance at his face when I said that. I hadn’t said it so baldly before – “Magneto’s death” – not to Charles. I wondered if he’d flinch, but he didn’t. He looked straight at me as I said it, expression open and listening. If he could look into my eyes, that’s what he’d be doing. “I’m still terrified of my power,” I continued, “terrified of my own damn eyes. I hate them, you know. I want to pull them out half the time, like Oedipus. It tears me up when I use them and somebody dies, even when it’s necessary.”

“What have I done to you, Scott?” Such sadness in his voice.

“You gave me my life back, Charles. You taught me everything in life worth knowing. That’s what you’ve done to me. And for me. Don’t think otherwise, not even for a minute.” He shook his head. “Don’t think like that,” I repeated. “I don’t really want to be someone who finds it easy to kill, you know. That’s not the man I want to be.” We sat in silence for a little while. “I don’t think I did anything wrong. I do believe I acted the way I had to, that what I did was necessary to save them. Still, I’m sorry he’s dead.”

“I’m not sure I am.” I looked up, surprised. “He tried to kill you – all of you – and it wasn’t the first time. If he’d succeeded – at the Statue or this time – if I’d lost you, well I would have killed him without hesitation, without regret. And it wouldn’t have been the easy and quick death he had.” His grim expression said he meant it. “He fought on our side against Stryker, but it was only a temporary alliance. I knew that. I know you would have captured him if you could, but I don’t know what I’d have done with him if you had. Turned him over to the authorities? I doubt they could have kept him any better this time. He would have found a way to escape.”

“Yes, he would have. That’s why we let Mystique go. And that Multiple Man, whoever he was. We didn’t think a prison could hold either of them. Well, that and not wanting to let law enforcement in on all that had been going on there.”

He nodded. “The mutagenic machine was destroyed before it was built. Its creator is... gone. The animal that could power it died, as well. Why let the normal population know they might have been forced into becoming mutants?” He sighed. “In some ways I do think Erik is better off dead. He’s not the man I once knew.” He got that faraway look in his eyes and I saw a younger Erik Lehnsherr in my brain, smiling, talking animatedly. “He was... unique, like no one else I’d ever met. He knew what he wanted; he had a vision. We had a vision, a shared one. But over the years it diverged.” The image disappeared and there was just Charles, smiling sadly. “He was the first mutant besides myself I’d ever met. You can’t imagine what it was like, Scott. I was no longer alone.”

“I don’t have to imagine it. That’s how I felt when you found me. I would have done anything for you, Charles.”

“I know. I feel like I’ve asked too much of you.”

“Don’t. This is the life I want.”

Several days with Charles left me feeling like he and I would survive this one intact. I still had unfinished business with Jean, though. After dinner one night we found ourselves in the garden again.

“Can you enjoy it at all?” she asked.

“What?”

“The garden. The flowers. ‘Ro’s color scheme is really striking, but without that...”

Yeah, it’s still beautiful.” I shrugged. “I like the patterns, the geometry of it; I like the smell of the plants. And just the quiet out here. See for yourself,” I added, and let her into my brain so she could see the garden the way I do. “How are you holding up?” I asked her after a bit. “A pretty traumatic mission for your first combat one since you’re back.” I smiled at her and added, “I wish I could have arranged a nice quiet battle where nobody gets hurt,” which made her laugh.

“I’m okay,” she said. “A little worried about you and Charles. Is it a good sign or a bad one that you’ve been basically closeted with him since we got back?”

“A good one.”

She smiled at that. “Ordinarily I’d assume it was a good thing, but this time...”

“I know. It’s different.” Neither of us said anything for a minute. “There’s something I need to tell you, something I should have said before.”

“You’re gay, right?”

I laughed and then had trouble starting. After a minute I said, “We talked before about what happened while you were gone. I didn’t tell you everything I should have. I know you thought I was involved with Jean-Paul, but I wasn’t. I was with someone, though. Logan.” I looked away from her and continued, “I loved him. Still do, if I’m going to be honest, but I’m working on getting over it. And I understand it wouldn’t have worked. I’m not saying it’s easy for me to know you and he are together, but I really do wish you the best.”

She didn’t answer for a while. When she did, she said, “That was really good. I’ve been practicing that same line, but I couldn’t manage to say it without sounding bitter, so I haven’t. You sounded really sincere.”

“What do you mean?”

“Logan and I aren’t together.” She sighed. “We never were, really. It was probably 90 percent wish fulfillment on my part and 10 percent rebound on his part, after things fell apart with you. But he’s not really interested in me. So yeah, I’ve been practicing that ‘wish you the best’ line but it always seems to be accompanied by bitter asides about how it feels to find out that the two guys you thought were fighting over you are really hot for each other. That, or world-weary comments about all the good ones being gay.”

“Logan’s not. Gay, that is.”

“No, I think you’re right. He’s not, exactly. Not like you, anyway. But he is in love with you.”

“He told you that?”

“Logan? Get real. He did talk to me about it, and I give him credit for that. But it was more along the lines of ‘Scott and me, we were fucking for a while and then we weren’t and then I was mad at him and then you were there and I always liked you and you and me, well it just kinda’... You get the picture. Anyway, he let me into his brain. And you’ve let me into yours now.” I realized with some embarrassment that I’d let on more than my feelings about the garden. “I have no idea if you two could ever make a go of it. I can’t even picture you as a couple, and I don’t think it’s just my jealousy talking. I’ve thought about you being with a man a few times over the years. Hell, I couldn’t help it. He’s not the guy I’d think of you choosing.”

“I know. It was a surprise to me, too,” I replied, and she chuckled a bit.

“Well, it’s a surprise to both of us – all three of us – but it’s real. Scott, I loved you, I really did. And I know you loved me. Being a telepath has its advantages,” she said with a smile. “Disadvantages, too. I know what you’re feeling when you think about him. I know what he feels, too. All I can say is I hope I have that with someone before I die.

Neither of us said anything for a minute. “Where do we go from here?” I asked.

“I’m leaving.”

Don’t! Jean, this is your home.”

“It is. A lot more than my mother’s house ever was. This is where I really grew up. I’ll be back. To visit, maybe eventually to live. But there are things I need to do. I can’t do them here. Not now.”

“Where will you go?”

“Burlington, Vermont. UVM is starting a Department of Mutant Medicine at their med school. Ethan hooked me up with them. There will be some teaching, some clinical work. It’s the right job for me right now.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I’m not really over you, you know. I should have known that was Mystique. If there were telepathy licenses, I’d have to turn mine in for missing that one. But I wanted it to be you, so I didn’t really pay attention.” She shrugged her shoulders. “And it’s not just you. It’s me. I need to understand what really happened to me. I need to get that year I lost back and know that I’ve got the defenses so it won’t happen again. Ethan thinks we can get there together. I want to be near enough to keep working with him.” She smiled at me. “I’ll still come on missions with you, when you need me. Once an X-Man, always an X-Man.”

----------------------------------------------------------------- I found Logan in the Danger Room. I’d had all sorts of plans about what to say to him, but when I saw him, they all disappeared from my brain. We just looked at each other in silence for a minute.

“Jean’s leaving,” I told him, finally.

“I know.”

“When you attacked Mystique, did you know it was her?”

“Yeah. She don’t smell like you.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. “Logan,” I said, finally, “I want to try again. Do you?” He nodded but didn’t speak. “Do you think we should talk about what happened?” He shook his head. “About where we’re going? About us? I love you, Logan.”

He shook his head again and took my hand, put it to his crotch. I could feel him through his pants, getting hard as I touched him. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to hear you talk. Not now. I got something better for you to do with your mouth. Suck on that, okay?”

“More than okay.”

Literature Guide and Additional Information for Summers in a Sea of Glory

In my stories, as in the X-Men movie, Scott Summers is a mutant superhero who also teaches high school. The movie doesn't specify what he teaches, but I've made him an English teacher. My version of Xavier's Academy is a small school with a large variety of classes to choose from. Consequently, each of the teachers takes on several different classes. Scott is seen in my stories teaching courses ranging from Shakespeare to Creative Writing to a poetry survey course, when he's not off on a mission. As Scott tells Logan in We’re Not What You Think, it's kind of a strange job. "Sometimes I teach English, sometimes I save the human race," he explains.

With Scott a major figure in most of my fiction, the stories tend to contain a lot of literary quotes, most of them guided by Scott's tastes in literature (which, strangely, mirror my own). It has been my practice to publish a literature guide providing references for the quotes in each series, along with URLs, where available, for those wishing to read the works quoted.

Poems

William Blake. “Night the Ninth” Scott recalls his last trip to the Bronx Zoo, with Hank’s biology class. They saw the World of Darkness exhibit, which is an ingenious display of nocturnal animals that has very bright lights all night, so the animals are fooled into thinking it’s day time and sleep, and low lighting during the day so they are active when visitors can see them. Scott says that he quoted Blake by saying “Nature in darkness groans” and Jubilee complained that they shouldn’t have to listen to literary quotes on a biology field trip. See the context at http://www.bartleby.com/66/38/7438.html

Rupert Brooke. “Song”. This is a lovely, sad poem about learning to love after heart break and then getting one’s heart broken again. It gives the title to Jean’s first person piece. Read it at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7086/brooke6.htm#P83

Robert Frost. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” This is a poem every school child in the U.S. seems to learn at one point or another. Short and simple, the poem has four stanzas of four lines each. It has an unusual and very effective rhyme scheme, where the third line of each quatrain foreshadows the rhyme in the next stanza. The poem’s narrator talks, as the title suggests, of stopping near woods while on a journey and reflects on life, with metaphors of life as a journey. The last stanza, since it has no follow on quatrain to foreshadow, merely repeats the final line, emphasizing it by making it third and fourth line:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep

I used that last repeated line to title the third story , when the mission against Magneto begins. The X-Men at the beginning of a mission often have miles to go before they sleep, both literally and figuratively. And most of the characters in this series feel the weight of promises to keep, of one kind or another.

You can read the poem and some commentary, focusing on the metaphor of sleep as death, on the Minstrels site at http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/155.html.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead” I’ve used this one before in my X1 fiction. It’s a poem that I like a lot, full of emotion without over-sentimentality. It tells the story of a young widow whose warrior husband has just died in battle. It seems to me very applicable to the X-Men, who are often in danger. It gives the title to the sixth story of this series, and can be found at http://www.bartleby.com/42/628.html

Plays

William Shakespeare. A few of Shakespeare’s plays are quoted in this series.

Henry V. One of the most popular of the histories, this play is known for its stirring speeches in battle. The line “Once more unto the breach” – title of the eighth story comes from one of them. It can be found at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/henryvscenes.html

Henry VIII. The series title comes from a speech by Cardinal Wolsey in this play, on the dangers of excessive pride. I liked the quote because of the way that pride stops both Scott and Logan from revealing what each is feeling. I also wanted to use a title with “Summers” in it, both to go with the seasonal pattern of the first two series in this saga (After the Fall, Returning Spring) and because it’s Scott’s name. Read the play at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/henryviiiscenes.html

King Lear. Scott’s line “That way madness lies. Let me shun that” comes from Lear. A play about a dying old man and the children he leaves behind, this one focuses on filial devotion, both genuine and false. You can find it at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/learscenes.html

Macbeth. Scott says that – as Lady Macbeth said of her husband – he had “let ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’”. One of Shakespeare's most popular plays, it is also considered to be very bad luck for those who perform in it. It is routinely referred to by actors as "the Scottish play" since even mentioning the title is said to bring misfortune. Read it if you dare at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbethscenes.html

Othello. A tragedy of love and jealousy and imagined infidelity. This one gets quoted a number of times. Logan’s suspicions about Scott and Jean-Paul and about Scott and Jean, in the face of Scott’s insistence that nothing it going on, echo Othello’s obsessive refusal to believe Desdemona’s telling him the truth. Quotes from the play are sprinkled throughout the series. Read the play at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/othelloscenes.html

Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Scott tells Charles that he wants to pluck his eyes out, like Oedipus. Of course, Oedipus wasn’t a mutant, and he didn’t take out his eyes because of optic blasts, but because he found that he had killed his father and married his mother. And you thought your family was dysfunctional? Read the play at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/SopOedi.html.

Miscellaneous

Plato. Symposium. There are several references to one of Plato's dialogues: Symposium. Often referred to as "Literature's most famous dinner party" it consists of a bunch of people at a party discussing the true nature of love. The "army of lovers" piece that both Logan and Scott mention comes from Phaedrus's speech in Symposium. Also, potentially of interest in Symposium is a legend that tries to explain why some people are sexually attracted to members of their own sex and others to members of the opposite sex. Like Scott, I like the Jowett translation. It can be read at http://plato.evansville.edu/texts/jowett/symposium.htm.

Patton and Burke. Scott is not just an English teacher and a mutant; he’s the leader of a combat team. As such he has studied military tactics and strategy. He and Charles quote General Patton and Admiral Burke on the importance of acting quickly even without complete information in the pre-mission meeting in Charles’s office. I thank the Army War College instructional staff for providing me with the quotes.

The Bronx Zoo. It’s a truly wonderful place, full of fascinating animals cared for with an understanding of their natural habitats. It’s a rare event when Magneto terrorizes the Skyfari. You can stay all day and just see a small amount of what’s there. It’s open 365 days a year. Go soon, if you’re near New York. If not, visit the zoo at http://www.bronxzoo.com/.

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