Summary:Jean heads out camping with Logan, but things turn sour when other issues come up. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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There are steps that have to be taken before anyone can bring someone to the school, including Jean. But in the meantime, there's no need to let someone who's clearly in some sort of crisis continue to suffer alone. So she invited Logan out to Storm King Park for a camping trip. Something told her that camping was more his speed than the city anyhow.
Admittedly, it takes a certain sort of bravery to volunteer to go out into the woods alone with the scary murder hobo amnesiac stranger, but Jean has a few aces up her sleeve anyhow.
Once they've made it to a good camping spot, she's ready to start setting things up, putting down her packpack and rolling up her sleeves.
An invite for a camping trip was unexpected. Logan had ribbed her about it, telling her that she was moving fast. Not that he was complaining. And so on. But, of course, it was a friendly sort of teasing. He was certainly game to go.
Logan looked to be in his element camping. He had his own sleeping bag! Sure, it was his bed, in actuality, but there was no need to let on that particular detail.
He was dressed in jeans and a threadbare t-shirt that proclaimed, in a cracked silkscreen, WHERE'S THE BEEF? He was, of course, content to serve as such. Despite the fact that she could move objects with her mind, he insisted on schlepping the lion's share - the tent, food supplies, tools. He likewise fell into an easy pattern of readying their chosen campsite after their arrival.
He glances up from his task of fastening tentpoles to ask, "So… what made you choose campin', Red?" He lofts a brow, somewhere between amused and curious.
"I kind of had a feeling it'd be up your alley," Jean chuckles, content to let him take the lion's share of the setup work. She knows how to do it - survival was always part of the training at the school - but it's not exactly her strong suit. "You always seem a little bit…out of place in the city. Like a tiger in a cage."
While he works on the tent, she starts to gather up some firewood, clearing out a safe spot for the fire. "Besides, sometimes it's nice to just…get out of the chaos for a little bit. Get away from all the background noise, clear your head. Might help when it's time to go digging around in there."
Logan offers a wolfish grin, making short work of setting up the tent. The poles are snapped into place, one section at a time. The nylon of the enclosure is hooked in place and, before long, he's driving tent stakes into the ground. He certainly seems to be in a good mood out here in nature, moving with a light step and a practiced ease from one element of the task to the next. "So this is a clinical exercise for ya, is it, doc?" he asks, finishing the setup of the tent before making his way a little nearer to her. He glances over the wood she's gathered. "Want a hand with that? I can chop if we need."
"Less clinical, more personal," Jean smirks, shaking her head. "I think that's just a people thing. If you want to find things inside yourself, then you should go where you're comfortable. Either that, or where you're about to die, but I wasn't really up to risking your life this weekend, so. Camping it is," she teases, settling back on her heels when he offers to help.
"Sure, you can if you want," she gestures to the skeleton of the fire. "I get the feeling you're better at all of this than I am, but I'm not very good at letting other people do all the work if there's something I can help with."
"I, uh…" Logan pauses for a moment. He bends to seize a fallen tree trunk. His fingers dig into the bark hard enough to make it crumble slightly, until his fingers reach the healthy wood beneath. He lifts the small tree upward with that hand, displaying strength that cannot be natural (though is likely not that impressive for one accustomed to superhumans). "I don't do it a lot. I feel comfortable with it, though. I musta done it a lot… before the amnesia."
He flexes his other hand and, with a speed that is hard for the eye to follow, three foot-long claws spring from the back of his hand. Smooth and metallic, they are slightly curved and cruelly pointed. He swipes across his body and the blades pass through six inches of solid wood as though it were hot butter. One longer length of trunk thuds to the ground and two discs of wood as well.
He casually adds, "And I don't mean to take over. You're doin' just fine. Wouldn't be much of a date if I didn't take care of certain things." He glances up toward her, lips spreading into a toothy grin. "Not that you ain't capable. 'Course," he adds.
Jean doesn't look particularly surprised when he lifts the trunk, but the appearance of claws and the way in which he so casually slices through it does raise her brows. "That's…" She tilts her head, trying to get a slightly closer look. "Well, I would imagine that whatever put those in was probably not a great time. Those don't look like a natural mutation."
At the last, a faint smile flickers, one brow rising higher. "Oh, are we on a date? Is that what we're doing here?"
He looks up and looks around. His clawed hand lifts and turns with a shrug. "Figure. I mean… camping trip, you kinda supercharged it. This is like three." He shuffles his hand down the bark, lifting again and slicing another length of firewood with casual ease. "And I got natural claws underneath, I'm told. The metal… it's all over me. So, yeah, it's a modification. I'm sure it wasn't comfy, though." He looks up toward her then, canting his head to the side slightly, gauging her reaction to the news.
"Well, that seems like the sort of thing that would cause enough trauma to cause amnesia," Jean muses, going quiet for a moment as she works through the implications of the process. "Also expensive, highly illegal…which at least limits the likely culprits." The matter of whether or not this is a date is apparently the more complicated one though.
"It wasn't meant to be a date, you know," she smiles faintly, a little sheepish. "You know. Just so you don't go getting any…ideas."
Logan nods once, bending to cut through the tree again. He steps forward and does so again, and again. True to his word, in seconds he's able to cut a fallen tree into firewood in a fraction of the time it owuld take most anyone else. He straightens, opening his fist and allowing the claws to snap back inward with a mechanical scrape. "I was military. Black ops kind of shit, back in World War 2," he explains. "At least that's what I hear. So… I may have volunteered." He lofts a brow and gives her a steady look. "And the kind of man who volunteers for that? I might be real dangerous, Red. Just in case you want to call it here. Wouldn't blame ya."
"Real dangerous, huh?" Jean's smile flickers as she raises a hand and ever so gently uses her mind to lift him a couple of feet off the ground, holding him there. "Here's the thing, though. I've been dealing with real dangerous since before I was a teenager. And it turns out I've got a few tricks up my sleeve as well. You could almost certainly sneak up on me and end me. I believe that. But if I get absolutely any sense of you and those intentions - and I can read minds - I will not be the one in trouble."
Logan feels the familiar press of ground against his feet end. He looks down, drifting upward, helpless in the air, though he hardly seems horrified. He grins across at Jean, flashing those long canines once more. "Fair enough, Red. Just wanted to give you fair warnin'. I don't know what kind of guy I am, or was… but it may not be pretty." He watches her expectantly then, waiting to be put back down.
Jean sets him back down gently enough, shrugging. "I promised to help you. And who you were isn't who you are now. Who you'll choose to be in the future. Whatever you and I find out about you, you're going to be the same person and you're going to have the same choices ahead of you about what you'll do in the future."
Logan seems slightly relieved as he's set back on the ground. If Jean can get a sense from mentally lifting, he's *heavy*. As someone would be if their skeleton was covered in metal. He watches her for a moment and then nods once. "All right," he answers, as though not entirely convinced. "You're a nice girl. Wouldn't want you gettin' in blind is all. Some people may not deserve the help, you know? Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. I guess you 'n me are gonna find out. Bu that's like… date three kinda shit." Back comes that toothy grin, with the more comfortable topic.
"I will keep that in mind," Jean chuckles, taking one of the larger lumps of trunk and rolling it over toward the fire to make a stool for herself. "And it wouldn't be the first time I went into something blind either. I kind of like to think the best of people, so…I get into things. So far it's worked out all right."
Logan bends to likewise move a piece of log over toward the burned-out fire circle that will be host to a fire to come. He bends to begin stacking kindling and logs, easily readying the site for a fire. He looks up toward her as he remains there on bent knee. He offers a toothy grin once more. "Well. Here's hopin'. You take many out to the woods? Stargazin' and firelight?" He waggles his brows at that.
* Insert wobbly harp music of time passing **
Friday night was camping, Saturday morning and early afternoon was hiking, and then later Saturday afternoon Jean went into town to pick up some supplies for cooking out dinner. Nothing too fancy - hot dogs, beans, potatoes - but enough to fill some tummies. And there might also be some s'mores supplies in the bag she's carrying as she approaches the campsite.
Scott got a call as she was on her way back, to tell him there was a potential mission she wanted to talk to him about, and could he meet her out at the campsite they all used that one time when the deer trampled all their tents and they had to make tents out of their ponchos.
Scott Summers has had a few days of relative peace and quiet. Jean has been… apparently camping. Zee is out on tour, despite just being recently possessed by some Demon of the Fifth Dimension or some such nonsense. Which means he hasn't had his heart rate being cranked up to 200 mph due to being pulled in two different directions all the time.
That's been nice.
But now, here's Jean with a message about a mission. Curious that. Why drag him out to that old campsite? That seems a strange place to meet up. But, he does come. The soft crunching of season old dead leaves crunching under hiking boots heralds the arrival of the bespectacled mutant. He looks rather unassuming. Leather jacket. Flannel and t-shirt combo underneath. Worn old khaki colored baseball cap bearing the circled X symbol of the Institute. Jeans. A real everyman look. Other than those shades at night, at least.
"Jean… why are we meeting out here?" He calls out. "If there's some sort of mission you want to take part in, we should probably talk at home, where we can plan and discuss it with the others."
Logan had remained at the campsite. He had tidied things up, kept them ship-shape. There was a large tent deployed neatly, a well-formed campfire ring with a grill and other cooking tools resting nearby. The food bag was a short distance from camp, tied up into a tree. There was a bag with potable water hung from one tree - it looked comfortable enough, if camping is your thing, and there isn't a flaw to be picked upon by any outdoorsman/woman worth his/her salt.
Logan is at the campground, dressed in a t-shirt (WHERE'S THE BEEF?) and a pair of jeans. He has a pair of running shoes on, that look a bit threadbare and as though they had seen better days. The sound of Scott's approach causes him to look over, well in advance of any greeting. Jean, of course, had been elsewhere at that point, but by the time Scott calls out, Logan glances over to her, lofting a brow. "Bring your friend to the campsite day?" he asks with a lobsided quirk of a grin.
Jean wasn't too far off, just stepped away long enough to wash her hands off, and comes back in time to catch Scott arriving. "Hey," she greets, raising a hand with a small, crooked smile. "Sorry, it was…" She pauses, wiping her hands on her pants. "Scott, this is Logan. I was telling you about him the other day. Logan, this is Scott. He's…" Boy, that's a lot to unpack there. "He's another of the X-Men. And my best friend."
"I ran into someone while I was in town. There's kind of a backstory, though, so I figured…" Her smile quirks again as she shrugs. "So. Come on down, take a seat."
When Scott comes into the campsite proper, from the trail, he finally looks up and sees Logan. He stops dead in his tracks, and his expression becomes somewhere between stern and shocked. Jaw clenched. Lips a thin, tight line. Head slightly tilted to one side. Brows knitted together over the frames of his reflective ruby-lensed glasses. Shoulders lifting, squaring off and tense. He certainly wasn't expecting this.
"Oh," he says, when Logan comments about bringing friends to the campsite. "Apparently it's also surprise friends with total strangers day, too."
With that, Scott's attention shifts, moving to Jean with a bit more of an inquisitive expression. When she answers the question of Logan's presence, Scott just gives an upnod of recognition, before stepping forward. "Oh. The old man that you were mentioning at the bar? The one that I suggested you be careful around? That guy?"
Taking a look around, Scott gives a scoffing huff, and shrugs his shoulders, giving his head a half shake with a sidelong smirk as he says, "I can see by how cozy this campsite is that you really heard what I was saying."
Best friend. There's a sting there. It just makes Scott seem more terse, as he slides his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and remains standing where he is, rather than taking the seat offered. "I'm good right here. So what's the deal, then?"
Logan straightens, lifting his chin slightly as he gives Scott a quick, appraising once-over as he detects the significance omitted from the introduction. "Hey," he greets. His lips curl in a slow-spreading smile when Scott peppers his greeting with comments about an 'old man' and to be careful around him.
The smile displays canine teeth that are too long, too sharp to be entirely 'normal'. He folds his thick forearms across his chest and glances from Scott to Jean and back again. "So what's his superpower? Bein' a jealous dick?" he asks with that same grin.
"Scott's just being careful," Jean says with a warning look in Logan's direction, even if she may echo the feeling just a little bit at the moment. "And he's not wrong. He just doesn't realize that I've got this covered. As I demonstrated as soon as we got out here, didn't I?" She lifts Logan just a few inches off the ground, finding herself a spot between the two of them to take a seat on a log.
"While I was in town, I ran into someone I've been helping out. I actually met him out here, running. I was running. He was stargazing. His name is Hod, he's an Asgardian, and he needs some help."
"What's yours?" Scott asks Logan, putting on a sardonic sneer. "Not getting arrested for creeping around high schools trying to pick up chicks with your bitchin' Camaro? Or is it just that you can completely ignore the passing of time to think that rockin' that whole 70's Tom Selleck chest hair look is still cool?"
When Jean starts talking about why she called him out here, Scott goes silent, and listens. Hands leave his pockets, and instead cross over his chest. The situation doesn't exactly have Scott feeling any better about anything at all, though. Asgardians. They're gods. Literal Gods. What use would they have for mere mortals, mutant or not? And even still, when there is still so much that needs to be done to advance the cause of mutants, why should they devote their time to helping Asgardians? But, for now, Scott is content to keep these reservations to himself.
"Alright," He says at long last, still wearing a frown to steep that the corners of his lips near his chin. "So, your buddy the Norse God got himself into a jam, but what on earth could we do to help this cat out? He's a frickin' God. What are we even compared to that? And, furthermore, how do Old Spice here and myself factor into all this?"
Logan looks unimpressed when he finds himself floating up off the ground by a few inches, at least for a few moments. He glances toward Jean with an impatient look. Whether he finds himself put back on the ground or not, he just quirks a brow in response to Scott's sneering retorts. He glances over toward Jean and - sacrificing trading insults in favour of tactically trying to make Scott seem the worst for it - remarks, "You got a real interesting choice in friends, Red." As for Hod, Logan doesn't answer anything. He just looks from Scott, who Logan gives a contemptuous look, to Jean, who gets a far more neutral, expectant look.
"Things have been a little complicated lately," Jean says quietly with a long look in Scott's direction. There's nothing for Logan to hear, but Scott will hear her loud and clear. « Plese don't, Scott. You and me and everything else is between us, not them. » After a moment, she takes a breath, looking between the pair.
"Someone attacked the Asgardian embassy and Baldur with some sort of darkness that seemed to be intended to imply Hod was behind the attack. So far, it seems like Thoth is behind it. Hod needs help because he's been here on Earth for a long time. He's not exactly full power and he's not really in good with the Asgardians thanks to a prophecy about him and his brother and the end of the world. Nothing in his control," she adds with a pointed look at Scott. "I helped him get some information from some…mage-type people, and it leads back to Thoth. He needs people to go with him to make sure he doesn't get…well, killed. Which would be bad regardless, because the relationship gods have with reality is also a complicated one."
With Logan diverting the conversation back to Jean, Scott just gives a crooked smirk, and does likewise, content to just leave it be for now. As Jean implores him in his mind, she'll hear some old Gin Blossoms song playing in his mind for but a fraction of a second, before the stream of his thoughts is dammed up. Closed off mentally as much as his body language reflects with his tense shoulders and folded arms.
Instead, he just listens to the scenario laid out before him. A tale of Gods and magic and a whole slew of other stuff. And it just makes him seem all the more perturbed. After she's finished, Scott just lifts one hand from out of the crook of his elbow, and speaks.
"Jean… I… I'm just a guy who shoots beams out of his eyes. You're talking about all this magic stuff, and Gods and prophecies. That's… It's above my pay grade, don't you think?"
He lowers his face, shifting his weight on his feet and even kicking with his toe at some thin root that's sticking out of the earth. "You saw it the other night. With Zee when she got possessed by that thing. I was…"
He pauses.
"I was about as useful as a broken alarm clock. I don't know what you would really expect me to do."
"You're probably right, eye-beams," Logan adds. "You'd probably be useless. Again. Just like with Zee." He grins wolfishly at that, once more flashing those sharp canines. He's content to give the proverbial knife a twist before he looks back over to Jean. "But anyway, this seems like a spandex problem. So I'll leave you two spandexes to sort it out." And then he's making to turn in the direction of the tent.
For just a fraction of a second when Scott closes off his mind, he might get the sense of a flicker of flame in Jean's eye and mind before they're doused instead by a hurt expression. Even that doesn't last long though before she composes herself, though the way her fingers curl against her thighs suggests she's not entirely over it.
Before she can say anything, though, Logan opens his mouth. And whatever problems there are between her and Scott right now, he's still, as she said, her best friend. She pushes up off the log, spinning and throwing out a hand in a gesture that pushes Logan against a tree, eyes truly blazing. "Don't you dare talk to him like that," she warns, jaw tensing. "I want to help you. I like you. But you don't get to treat my friends like that."
Still holding Logan in place, she looks back to Scott. "Now. Like you said, they're gods. And if I was going to go up against gods, Scott, you're the first person I'd want next to me," she answers in a carefully measured voice. "You don't go after a god on their ground. And Thoth is apparently one of the gods of knowledge and magic. So being great at magic is about as useful as going up against Michael Jordan saying hey, I was first string on my high school basketball team. Doesn't mean a whole lot."
Her nostrils flare briefly, the a muscle in her jaw twitching against higher emotions. "I want you to watch my back. I want you to read the room. I want-" So much more than that. "I want my partner, Scott. You don't have to. It's fine. I just…You were the first person I thought of."
Only then does she loosen her telekinetic grip on Logan, voice softening ever so slightly as she looks back to him. "Apologize. Please."
"Hey, listen, man," Scott says as Wolverine turns his back. Scott's fists clench tight, knuckles blanching to the color of polished bone, and fingernails digging in to the palms of his hands, "I don't know what you're doing out here right now, but I'm sure some Ron Jeremy look-alike contest is missing their joke midget entry, so why don't you go fu—"
He's cut short by Jean's outburst, which even has Scott freezing in place, though he reaches out one hand as if he may try to actually stop Jean. Instead, he just holds his hand there, extended, palm facing her as if to signal her down. His voice dips, both in volume and in tone, to become something soft and soothing and deep, "Jean, it's cool. Let him go. He doesn't know what he's even talking about. He's just trying to make a hollow jab."
Moving forward, Scott places his hand on Jean's shoulder. His fingers dig in to the flesh and the muscle underneath, reassuring and firm. "We're cool, Jean."
A glance to Logan, and he lifts one brow. "We're cool, right?"
With Jean relaxing her mental Kung Fu grip, Scott eases considerably, and lets his hand trail off of her shoulder, only to be shuffled back into the pocket of his jacket. He looks down at the ground under his feet again as he mulls over what she said, and why she wanted him there. It's not like he could say no. He knows it. She knows it. He knows that she knows it. So, he just nods his head.
"Alright, Jeanie," He says, drawing in an audible breath as he pinches the bridge of his nose. Releasing a heavy, soul weary sigh, he lifts his somber face and gives a singular nod of affirmation. "Alright. I'm in."
The force that slams Logan against the tree and keeps him pinned there is intense. It has to be, to hold someone of his makeup there. His lip curls in a snarl as he finds himself immobilized, at least for a moment. But then, his hands angle behind him and clench into fists. Six foot-long adamentium blades spring out from his hands and, in an instant, slice through the solid tree trunk like a katana through butter. It's a bit of overkill.
The force is still being applied though, while Jean makes her speech to Scott. The result is suddenly the tree and Logan are blown away from Jean and Scott, until of course Jean realizes what's happened and stops pushing. But by then, that incredible power has thrown him far. It is an exit lacking in dignity but it is an effective one. Logan does not intend to return to them. Though, thanks to his hearing, he's able to hear Scott's attempts to soothe things over, whether he and Logan are, in fact, cool is something that goes unanswered.
"Dammit!" For all her anger, seeing the tree and Logan both go flying takes the wind right out of Jean's sails, a flash of horror crossing her features as her fists clench and her hands fly up to her chest. "Dammit! I'm sorry, I-" She takes a deep breath, eyes closing tightly, and just screams out her frustration. The trees and the leaves rustle with the echo of the pent-up force inside of her, debris circling in tiny cyclones even after she stops.
Jean sinks to the ground, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes to try to hold back the tears. "I didn't mean to," she says quietly, too afraid to even reach out with her mind to see if Logan is still there.
Well.
That was… unexpected.
Scott is left blinking his eyes behind rose tinted glasses as Logan more or less is thrown out into the distance somewhere.
"I… I'm sure we're cool. He's good. Did you see him? He's like a Dwarf from Dee-n-Dee. They're short, but stupid tough," Scott says to Jean in a quiet, assertive voice, trying to assuage her fears that she may have genuinely killed someone. He feels his own heart in his throat, because he thinks it could be a distinct possibility, himself. Any fear that he might have of Jean's display of uncontrolled power through her hysteria is shoved down deep into the pit of his stomach. He just has to calm her and be the strong one right now.
"It's okay," Scott says as he sinks down beside Jean and slips his arms around her from behind. "It's all okay. Why don't you get your things together, and I'll go…"
Scott lifts his head, peering in the direction that Logan was sent off to disappear in the underbrush.
"I'll go find him and make sure that he didn't break his hip or something. Maybe he has Life Alert?"
Levity is one way that Scott tries to deal with things. He's just not very good at it.
The tree and Logan cut a path of ruination through the forest. As the tree impacted other trees, it splintered and shattered. The same fate happened to the trees on the receiving end. It was only a couple of hundred feet until wood was reduced to a dangerous hail of splinters and stakes.
Should anyone make good on the threat to investigate, they find a tree limb wedged against the ground, a pointed tip protruding and coated in blood. There is a heavy spatter of blood on the ground about the area. But no body. There is a trail of gore leaving the area, spatters of crimson on leaves and moss. The trail rapidly grows fainter and, after it ends, there is no sign of him. Logan is an expert at avoiding mundane detection in just such conditions and, Jean might discover, is extremely resistant to telepathy, meaning that locating him that way is likely to take a world-class telepath with full use of his or her abilities. The Weapon X program prepared for exactly such a scenario, after all; their prized creations seeking to evade search parties that include telepaths.
Jean coughs a weak laugh through her tears as Scott tries to make a joke, though she's still shaken. She didn't mean to send anything flying, and with her attention on Scott, she didn't even see that Logan cut the tree. So far as she knows, she was so out of control that she sent him and the tree flying without even meaning to.
She pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and pressing her brow to the top as she tries to focus herself and bring everything back under control.
"I'll be right back," Scott says, ensuring his death in the event that Jason Vorhees decided to migrate from Crystal Lake to this neck of the woods. Rising up from his squating position, the towering figure of Cyclops goes wandering off in search of a man. Or a body.
Finding nothing but the evidence of a mortal injury, but then… nothing, Scott is left perplexed. But ultimately, unable to do much about it. Logan has made his getaway, and for his part, Scott feels relief. He can assure Jean that she absolutely did not kill someone. She doesn't need to know that he saw a trail of viscera or anything like that. He can confidently say that Logan walked off. And, that's an added bonus. Logan walked off.
Screw that guy.
It's not long at all before Scott comes wandering back into the campsite to deliver the news.
"He bolted. I think maybe you hurt his pride more than anything else. Big tough guy like that being overpowered by a girl?"
He gives a small affected wince and shrugs.
"Let's just say that he doesn't seem like the sort to subscribe to modern feminist ideology or anything like that."
"It's not his fault I can't control myself," Jean says quietly, despite her relief to hear there's not a body there. She may not know about his healing factor, but she does know he survived having all that metla grafted to his bones. Which…also tends to work in favor of surviving. "You should go. I'll clean up here."
Standing up, she moves to start checking on the campsite - more like she's going to stay than packing up. That, and the path of destruction from the tree could use some tidying. "I'm sorry. You don't have to- I shouldn't have asked, I should have just given you space. It's fine. I'll handle the whole Hod thing on my own. Good thing about gods: chances are you're not going to accidentally destroy them. So, probably better if you're not there."
She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I'll stay here. That way if he comes back, I can apologize. And- and it's probably better if I'm not around people anyhow."
The cut-through stump lingers, with its clean-cut top, evidence of Logan's involvement in his flight, waiting to be discovered. But he doesn't return.
Scott stops in his tracks, scowling at Jean as she speaks. He shakes his head vigorously, and points to the stump. "You didn't do it, Jean. You were controlling yourself. He… grew sword hands and cut the tree. That's what sent him… off. This… isn't really… This isn't your fault. It's not."
Sliding his hands out of the jacket pockets, Scott sighs and moves closer, looking around for a moment. He notes that she's not making as if to leave, and this makes him stare at her out of the side of his glasses for a long moment. Hearing her relent, offering him an out on his offer to help, he feels his heart sink in to his stomach. His shoulders droop, and he shuffles on his feet in place.
"You know… I didn't ask for space," he says quietly, keeping his face downcast at the ground. "I asked for time. To… work things out. I like Zatanna. I like her more every day. But I've loved you for…"
He shrugs his shoulders helplessly.
"Jean, I just need to figure out if I only love you because you were the only girl I was around with any sort of regularity, or if I love you because I just love you. Or something. But I don't need space. I want you close to me. I want to be close to you. That's why you… running off with old men, and leaving the school behind, and all of this other stuff… that hurts me because I feel like I can't be near you."
He shakes his head and looks up at the sky overhead, with its darkened purple appearance like a bruise, speckled with pinpricks of twinkling light. "I'm in for your Hod business. I want to. Because even if I don't know the other stuff, I do know that I always want to be by your side, Jean. Always."
He looks around at the campsite once again, and…
"Jean, I followed his trail as far as I could, but… then it disappeared. He didn't want to be found. He's not coming back. But, if you don't want to be around people…"
Scott just slings off his coat and rolls it into a ball before he settles down on the ground and uses the jacket as a pillow propped between his head and a log. Breathing in deep, Scott sighs wearily and says, "I guess we can stay here for the night."
"I just want you to be happy, Scott." Jean wipes the back of her hand across her eyes again, looking away. "I'm afraid that if I don't give you space, you'll choose me just because- because I'm what you're used to. Because you thought it's what you wanted. But you'll always wonder if maybe there was someone else, or maybe you settled. Because in your mind, I'll always be linked to the school, and the X-Men, and the things you're afraid of about yourself. That you'll see me as the only thing that makes you worth something, and I want you to know that you're worth so much more than just what you mean to me. I want you to be everything you can be, even if that means you have to be with someone else."
Jean finally turns back to him, lowering herself to the ground next to him and fitting herself into the curve of his arm. "I really hate being mad at you," she admits, following it up with a jab of her elbow at his ribs. "And I hate it when you shut me out. Jerk."
"Time. Not space," He simply reiterates after she's expanded upon her stance. The tone of his voice is resolute. Firm. "Everything else, I can deal with on my own. Though a lot of what you just said is total nonsense. If… If I choose you, Jean, it'll be because, after I've done a lot of self-reflection, you are what I come back to. It's not like I'm discounting everything else. If that was going to happen I'd have cut things off with Zee altogether. But, I can make that decision on my own."
As she slips into the curve of his arm, he shifts to draw her in closer to his side, and letting his arm wrap around her and draw her head to his chest in such a way that his craned neck presses his lips against her scalp. The jab to his ribs is rewarded with a wheezing expulsion of air from his lungs, but he smirks and shrugs the shoulder he's not got her laying on.
"I hate you camping out here alone with creepy grandpas with their loose skin and old…"
He just trails off and shudders.
"Yeah, just wait 'til you meet Hod. You guys can bond over glasses. It'll be great." Jean snickers a bit, wrapping her arm around his waist and resting her cheek against his chest.
"What can I say? I've got a weak spot for the older men. Good thing for you, too, creeper." But the balance, delicate as it is, is restored, at least for the moment. There are hot dogs, and s'mores, and memories of past camping trips, adventures, and misadventures. For at least one night, the world can wait.