"Aren't you freezing?" Jubilee's head whipped around to see Jean awkwardly clambering across the roof titles to try and get close to Jubilee. The girl in question stifled a giggle as the ginger finally finally pull herself up into a sitting position beside her, legs flinging off the edge. Jubilee nudged her foot against Jean's, smiling bashfully as Jean began to tap her own back. "You didn't answer my question." Jubilee shrugged. "I'm fine," she replied, pulling something out of her pocket. "This will make it better though."
Jean watched wearily as Jubilee flicked the lighter, the end of the cigarette burning brightly in the dark night sky. "Since when do you smoke?" She sniffed, glancing the other way slightly to avoid inhaling another of the smoke. Of course it was impossible to do so in such short range, but the least she could do was try. "Warren taught me, Scott caught him smoking the other day and he taught us all how to. It's not that hard, but we were all hacking to begin with." She giggled slightly at the memory. "You should have joined us." Jean snorted. "And risk getting lung cancer? I'm good, thanks." Jubilee shrugged. "If you wanna spend your teenage years with a stick up your ass be my guest, but I'm sure as hell not."
Silence enveloped the pair for a few moments before Jubilee handed another cigarette to Jean. "Just try it, I'll teach you." She grinned.
XX~•~•XX
If the creaking of the floorboards below her feet could be any louder, Jubilee was sure that Satan would rise from Hell just to tell her to shut up. It wasn't her fault that Charles decided to make a school out of a building older than the fucking dinosaurs.
It wasn't that far away now, just a few more steps, a few more creaks, a few more shuffling of bed sheets coming from every door she passed. Maybe she should have take Charles up on the offer to change rooms to the one next to Jean, but Jubilee had been too much of a fan of her woodland view, and besides, it was too late now, Lorna had it.
The mansion was huge, huge enough for every individual mutant to have their own bedroom. Sure, not one single room was the same size, Jubilee had heard enough complaining from Scott that Peter's room was far bigger than his, but it wasn't like it was favouritism or anything, Charles just had a fair system: every room that already contained residents had the residents name on a plaque attached to the door, so every time a new student came, they just chose a blank door. They weren't allowed to look in, they just had choose from the doors. Since most of the rooms were unequal, Charles had decided that was the fairest way. Sometimes students got to move, if maybe they're friends had just joined the school, they had special needs, if they decided they wanted to share with someone else, but they mostly just stuck to the first rooms they chose. Jubilee quite liked the idea, but then again maybe it was because her room was the largest out of her friends' and she had a great view - her opinion would probably be different if she'd gotten Scott's room.
"Jean?" Jubilee tapped on the door lightly with her knuckle. "Jean? Please be awake." She knocked a little harder, but still as quietly as possible, as she didn't want to wake the other students and nobody wanted to deal with a grouchy Lorna. She was about to tap again before she heard exhausted shuffling on the other side of the door. A few moments and Jean appeared in the doorway, hair matted from sleep and black circles under her eyes from where she'd clearly forgotten to take off her mascara. "This is the third night..." Jean grumbled, rubbing her fist against her eye, smudging the mascara worse than it already was. She was still fully dressed, so Jubilee guessed that she'd probably fallen asleep studying. "I know, I know, and I'm sorry, but I can't sleep for the life of me and the sky looks really pretty out." She grinned at Jean hopefully, grabbing onto her hand and pulling it to her chest. "Jeanie..." The ginger rolled her eyes but smiled back, pulling her hand out of Jubilee's grasp. "Let me get some shoes on, and an umbrella, 'cause there's no way I'm trusting you if you say there's clear skies." Jubilee giggled slightly. "Why not? I'm totally reliable." Jean grinned, shrugging before hurrying back into her room to grab shoes. "You're about as reliable as Peter is mature."
XX~•~•XX
"What star sign are you?" Jean asked in a hushed voice, her bright hair splayed out on the grass as she and Jubilee lay side by side behind the mansion. None of the bedrooms faced out this way, only classrooms, so there was no chance of people seeing them. Sure, Charles wouldn't do much, maybe urge them in their heads that it would be within good taste to attempt to go back to sleep in bed, but that was about all. It was one of Jean's favourite things about Charles: he didn't force himself onto anyone. If students wanted to stay up all night, then so be it, it was them who would fail their classes. The only rule was to be quiet after nine.
"Scorpio, come on Jean, you should know this." Jubilee giggled, fiddling with her hands over her chest. "I just wanted to make sure." Jean said before lifting her finger and pointing to the stars. "Right there, just above that tree? That's the Scorpius. See that star? And the two either side of it? Well, if you go down from the middle star..." Jubilee turned her head to watch Jean in awe as she explained the constellation, finger moving to each star she pointed out. By the end of it, her head shifted to see Jubilee starring at her. "What? My dad taught me about astrology when I was younger, he had a telescope and everything." Jubilee smiled, her heart beginning to pick up pace. "I've never known much about constellations, but I am very much a zodiac kind of girl." She grinned. "The horoscope in the newspaper today said that my sense of adventure of adventure is in full swing. Clearly wandering around the school grounds in the middle of the night is an adventure." Jean let out a shy laugh, grinning widely. "But its one now, surely the horoscope will be different?" Jubilee shrugged. "Well, I did decide to come knocking on your door before twelve, close, but before, so basically it counts."
"Do you know my star sign?" Jubilee grinned at her. "You're a Scorpio too, so I basically took us both on our adventure today." Jean sat up suddenly, leaning back on her elbows. Jubilee followed the suit. "What sort of person is a Scorpio?" Jean asked. Jubilee was almost certain that Jean didn't actually care, it wasn't really a Jean-thing, horoscopes and all that. She was down to earth and scientific, shooting down all conspiracies, believing in only what she can see and can be proven, and not having an issue sharing her views either. But this? This was the least Jean-thing Jubilee had ever managed to get her to partake in, so she certainly wasn't going to waste the opportunity.
"They tend to be deep and emotional, yet have this intensity about them. They're leaders, naturally, and can be very serious. I can see the traits in you, whether you believe them to be true or not. You're a leader, sure, Scott's our actual leader, but you're a leader too, in your own way, Scott's second, but most of the time he'll listen to you, too. And you're serious as fuck about basically everything, I swear getting you to enjoy something is the real challenge." They both burst into little fits of giggles, still staring upwards at the enchanting night sky. "You can be emotional too, sometimes, when it comes to people and things you care about. You may not show it, but I can tell. You get upset, you have those nightmares, and you try to brush it off like everything's okay when its not. You're not okay, Jean, but that's fine. You don't have to be, not many of us here are okay. You can come and talk, you know, not everything has to be a lone wolf situation. You're allowed to get upset, and sometimes I just wish you would shout or cry just for the hell of it, because all these pent up emotions aren't healthy, and sometimes a little shout or scream can do a world of difference." Jean's expression shifting briefly, a frown coming onto her face before she changed back to a passive, almost ignorant expression. "Is that something a Scorpio would say?" Jubilee shrugged. "It's something I would say."
XX~•~•XX
"We just had to do it on my birthday, didn't we?" Jean teased as Scott pulled into the Outhouse Orchards car park, nudging her best friend's shoulder. "You keep bumping me like that whilst I'm parking you won't live to see your next birthday." Scott retorted. "Not that I'm totally against this whole dying thing, but I'm fairly certain I want to see Christmas this year, so Scott please just park up so we can get out." Ororo grumbled from the boot seat. Scott and Jean had immediately gone for the drivers seat and passengers seat respectively as soon as they'd walked into the schools car garage, so Kurt and Peter had taken the backseats and Jubilee and Ororo had squeezed into the boot seats, leaving the middle seat between Peter and Kurt for the pumpkins they were intending to buy.
"It's a shame Warren couldn't make it, to bad Mr. McCoy won't let him reschedule his detention." Kurt sighed as the group began to search through the many pumpkins. "If you just got to pick and choose when you had your detentions then it wouldn't be much of a punishment, would it?" Ororo replied, sizing the one next to her up. "I suppose not." Kurt glanced around, almost shyly, despite the fact that nobody was staring at him like he thought they would - thank God Hank had managed to alter his medication in order to make Kurt look more human for their trips outside of school. Sure, not many people around Westchester County were bothered, they did live in the same area as the only mutant-friendly school on the globe, but sometimes it was better to be safe than sorry, especially in a place that non-Westchester County residents visited; Outhouse Orchards had great pumpkins, after all.
"He said as long as we got him one he wouldn't care, besides, this isn't exactly the most Warren-scene." Peter shouted from another area in the fields. Him and Scott were stood by some of the largest that Orchards had to offer, and immediately launched themselves into a competition to see who could find the largest.
"I don't see what the deal is to get the biggest pumpkin, it's a lot more effort and takes longer to carve." Jean said to Jubilee, watching Scott and Peter out of the corner of her eye. "Besides, the small ones are so cute! I'm going to give mine a smiley face." Jubilee grinned, holding a miniature pumpkin up to her eyes, inspecting it delicately. "I'm thinking it needs a friend..." She hummed, glancing around. "How about I get her friend, that way you don't have to buy two and I'm not expecting to spend hours digging my hands through pumpkin guts." Jean laughed, picking up another miniature pumpkin from where Jubilee had found hers. Jubilee gasped. "They can be best friends! We have to name them!"
XX~•~•XX
Jubilee's hands were caked in pumpkin guts by the time Jean had returned from her own bedroom with plastic gloves. "You could have just waited, you know." She chuckled, still throwing a pair to Jubilee despite the mess that had already been made. "And waste valuable carving time? I think the fuck not!" Jubilee laughed, using some tissues to wipe the orange fruit flesh off her fingers.
"I've come up with a name by the way," Jubilee said as Jean cut the top of her pumpkin off. "Oh really? What is it?" Jubilee put her marker pen down after drawing a cute smiley face on her pumpkin before turning her head to Jean. "Beverly Marsh. From IT. I got the book last Christmas and I finally finished it a couple weeks back - it was friggin' brilliant!" Jean laughed. "It took you nearly a year to read the book?" She said between huffs and wheezes, cheeks grinning widely. "Give me a break, I needed to finish Carrie first - Stephen King is a literary genius and I will happily give my life up for him." Jean's laughter didn't long subdue after the last few comments and the pair continued to work in silence for a few moments.
"Which of his books have you read?" Jean asked, almost too politely, the sort of thing you'd say to someone you didn't know, or didn't regularly talk to. She wasn't sure why she was talking that way, she'd known Jubilee for years, but for the past few... "Only Carrie, IT, Pet Sematary, and 'Salem's Lot." Jubilee replied, digging her small carving around where she'd drawn the perfectly circular eyes. Jubilee just had this artistic talent, the sort where you could paint without going out of the lines automatically, or draw a perfect circle without a compass. "Oh, I loved 'Salem's Lot! The Shining it amazing though, and The Dead Zone." Jean grinned. "You know, Stephen King was on cocaine when writing IT and The Pet Sematary." Jubilee looked up suddenly. "Oh my god, no wonder IT is the way it is, I didn't really need to read the child orgy scene." She shuddered slightly. "That man is insane. A beautiful kind of insane where he writes brilliantly, but some things... just need to be kept in your own head."
XX~•~•XX
"I still don't get what's wrong with the windowsills. People can see our pumpkins there at least!" Jean grumbled as she wobbled on the roof tiles. Jubilee, already a natural from the countless times she had decided it was a bloody brilliant idea to fucking scale the roof, had sat down on a flat ledge not too far from where Jean was standing, Beverly Marsh the pumpkin placed beside her. "People will see them," she said almost thoughtfully, her mind already gone with the wind. "Yeah, Warren and Ororo maybe, nobody else." Jean muttered before finally collapsing beside Jubilee.
Jubilee threw an arm around Jean's shoulders and leaned into her friend, pretty much fully placing all her body weight onto Jean's one side. "Have you named your pumpkin yet?" Jean shrugged. "I did a little bit of thinking, but I think for the moment I'll keep that name to myself." She smirked at Jubilee's pout. "But I told you mine!" Jean laughed. "Yeah, and then told me about a child orgy that I really didn't need to hear about." Jubilee giggled slightly. "But it did actually happen in the book." Jean pushed Jubilee off slightly to shuffle around, get more comfortable on the edge of roof. "And I have no doubt it did, but thank you very much for putting me off ever wanting to read what I'm sure is a great Stephen King masterpiece."
The air turned slightly colder as the day went on, the two simply talking quietly every now and then, watching the other students and teachers doing their own things across the yard. Scott at one point tried playing basketball with Peter (an obvious fail), and Kurt and Warren decided to try and find out who could go higher into the sky (Kurt won all four of those times), and Hank went to water a growing oak tree planted in Alex's memory (Jean and Jubilee would never tell anyone they saw Hank cry), and even Raven had come outside to do some mini training exercises with the younger students unable to control their powers in the yard. It was nice to see, nice to just sit there and watch, not everything was about being in the moment.
"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we weren't the way we were, if the X-gene wasn't a thing, but then I realise that would be like wondering if dimples didn't exist. Sure, dimples don't explode fire or make you blue, but they're just as much of a mutation as anything else anybody can do." Jubilee spoke her thoughts aloud later on, when the majority of the students had trekked back inside the mansion. "People were never scared of people with dimples though," Jean pointed out quietly. "Well, what about gingers? Like yourself? In Ancient Egypt you would have been considered a vampire, and during the witch trials you would have been accused. Also biblically, red hair is a sign of betrayal. People got over that, they'll eventually get over this too. We may not be alive to see it, but I'm sure they will. There's no way they won't. Like there's no way they can ignore the coming out of homosexuality. That's been there for years, and finally people are brave enough, or are becoming brave enough, to say it. I bet in ten, maybe twenty, possibly even thirty, it will be as common as left-handed people. Not everyone, but not a small amount either." Jean looked ahead, almost ghost-like. Jubilee wasn't exactly known for being serious, to spill facts like that, not when she jinxed game machines and played pranks with Scott and Peter, but every so often, mostly when it got later at night, when she was less conscious of her surroundings and what she was saying, she would say exactly what she wanted to say, what she wanted people to hear, without all the thoughts of 'perhaps I shouldn't' that plague her in the daytime. Jean loved being around for those moments.
Jean loved being around.
Jean loved... her.
If Jubilee wasn't properly aware of everything, maybe she wouldn't be properly aware of this... Jean knew she was only kidding herself, it wasn't like Jubilee was drunk or high, and it wasn't too late into the night, she would definitely remember. Jean thought that maybe she'd want her to.
She leant forward, watching Jubilee's eyes widen slightly before doing what she'd wanted to do for the past couple of years. She'd known since Cairo, in the back of her mind, fretting over Jubilee and what might have happened whilst they were in an entire other continent. She'd repressed it, but she didn't want to do that anymore.
She kissed her. Jubilee kissed back.
"So what was your pumpkin called?
"Ben Hanscom."
"Cheeky bitch."