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Published:
2019-09-18
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2021-02-25
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8/?
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The White Hot Room

Summary:

A collection of unconnected drabbles and ficlets revolving around Jean Grey.

Chapter 1: Logan

Notes:

Written for dansemacabre.

Prompt: Jean Grey/Logan, ghosts from the past

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Logan

 

When she comes back (and there's a good chance she will), he wonders if she'll wear her old uniform and which one. He wonders if her hair will be different, if it'll be long or short, and if it still smells the same. He wonders if she'll stay and for how long, or if she'll be another woman who leaves.

When she comes back (and he thinks she will), he wonders if she'll come back as someone's wife. He wonders if there will be a talk; if someone will promise to never again and she'll promise to try harder. After all the bridges have been burned, he wonders if Mrs. Summers is what will rise from the ashes.

When she comes back (and he's positive she will), he wonders if she'll see how nervous he is, how having her back makes him shake and sweat. He wonders if she'll remember his dreams were always of her, that he loves her, and not all gentlemen prefer blondes.

Because he's not a gentleman. He's just a man who wonders at every chance he gets; who hopes that when she comes back from wherever she is (she will), she's been wondering about him.

 

Notes:

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Chapter 2: Jean

Notes:

Written for sevarem.

Prompt: Jean makes a choice

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Jean

 

She says, "Yes."

Because life is a choice, isn't it? And Jean knows all about choices, and the living and dying thereafter. She chose life once, then slept through the dying of an entire race. She chose life once, then woke up to the aftermath of two Jeans having lived her happiness. She knows.

She says, "Yes."

Because she also knows about love (and the living and dying thereafter). She gave it a choice once—twice. Me or her she said, and twice he said I don't know and ran. Both times, she felt like dying. The second time—the last time—she did.

But life is a choice, isn't it? And since she knows all about it, this time she chooses love. This time, a different man.

She says, "Yes. Logan, you," and plans this time to live.

 

Notes:

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Chapter 3: Lady Grey

Notes:

Written for ricemouse.

Prompt: Jean Grey/Logan, Dark Phoenix

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Lady Grey

 

A bed, candles, sheets that slither. His legs, rough between her white lily thighs. His body, heavy and prickly with hair and sweat. He's weight and sex. She's repulsed and enthralled. She pushes him away, then sucks him back. She's confused.

Scott?

No. Whiskers against her palms. She fills her hands with them, one on each side of his face, like they're something she must hold onto. What's left is a man in a frame of fingers, a man her mind tells her she's now free to love. She's free. The hidden parts of her rejoice and she holds tighter, laughing.

She can taste the ashy sweetness of old cigars in his mouth; she must remember this taste. She can hear him humming her name; she must remember the way it sounds. She must remember the hands and the tired slide of feet, and the crush of a crush becoming more, must remember the way she basks—all of this, because she can't go back to pleated skirts, not after black leather, and one day she might need a home.

Logan, she smiles. It's a new day.

"No, it's Jason," he says.

 

Notes:

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Chapter 4: Madelyne

Notes:

Written for bofoddity.

Prompt: Madelyne-gen, empowerment

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Madelyne

 

Scott had told her once that choosing code names was the worst part of heroing. She had laughed then—his sense of humor was one of the reasons she married him.

She had been Madelyne Summers then—wife, mother, teammate, apple of someone's eye—but that was then. That was before. Now, she was alone, abandoned, and no longer Scott's or anyone else's favorite redhead. Kicked from the garden like rotten fruit for being the uglier parts of Jean Grey, but already she was rising.

The Goblin Queen. Madelyne's soul curled to wear it.

She was glad she wasn't a hero.

 

Notes:

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Chapter 5: Emma

Notes:

This has been sitting half-finished in my drafts for...years, probably. I don’t remember if it was written for anyone other than myself. And of course it’s got some Jean/Logan because that’s how I roll.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Emma

 

So this was how Madelyne felt, before the insanity. Before the tacky dress and worse jewelry, Madelyne felt like a house fire who wanted to burn more than just the house. Madelyne wanted the screaming and the dying. Emma knows this now. 

They treat her like she's the Second Coming—but, hell, even Jesus had the decency to only rise once. Jean. Jean. It's the most unremarkable name Emma's ever heard. A bank teller's name. A lunch lady's name. A name so colorless Grey is her actual fucking last name! Certainly not a name Emma should be worried about.

And she isn’t. She's passed by a certain room at night often enough to know who Jean's come back for, and Emma's happy. For Logan, at least. God only knew why Jean was the one who lit his torch, but she did, does, and now that it’s burning he won’t be letting it, or her, die without a fight. And Emma’s happy for that, for Logan.  

No, Jean’s not the name she’s worried about—Emma knows this now. As she watches Scott watch someone else, she thinks to herself, so this is how Madelyne felt. 

 

Notes:

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Chapter 6: Kate

Notes:

I discovered just this morning the Earth-18119-verse, and it is everything I have ever wanted. Everything. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Kate

 

“This little piggy went to market.”

He marvels at his luck, and how it had never done right by him until the day she said yes, softly, in the quiet of the lake house—then again, joyfully, as he trembled on one knee—then a third time, solemnly, surrounded by people closer than friends.

“This little piggy stayed home.”

He marvels at his family, and how he never thought he’d have one, until the day one woman shared her news and the other woman refused the word “half.”

“This little piggy had roast beef.”

He marvels at how the birth certificate will look: how it will say “Katherine Jean Howlett,” and how below it will be the words “Mother’s Maiden Name: Jean Elaine Grey” and “Father’s Name: James Logan Howlett.”

“This little piggy had none.”

He marvels at the infant in his arms, at the smell of milk and newness, at the thin red wisps clinging to the top of her head, and at the way the tip of his finger is more than twice the width of any of her toes.

“This little piggy cried—“

Wee, wee, wee, all the way…

Logan turns then, marvels at the woman lying in their bed, tired and strong and amused, and smiles.

“Home,” he finishes.

 

 

Notes:

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Chapter 7: Scott

Notes:

Written for a prompt Lisa Rentahl left on my LJ an embarrassingly long time ago: "Jean Grey/Logan, life in the mansion as an official couple with some Scott/Emma in the mix." (Set in the 18119-verse, so no Emma. Sorry!)

I'm probably going to end up using this place to sort out a headcanon for the Jean/Logan multichap I'm hoping will come to fruition next year. You guys don't mind, right?

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text


Scott


He sees her as he taxies the Blackbird into the hangar. She's standing with Forge at one of the workbenches along the wall of the hangar. Their conversation looks relaxed, friendly, like two old friends having a chat about the weather or the midterms grades that were just released. A telekinetic shield keeps the drafts stirred up by the turbines away from the two of them and the wiggly baby in her arms.

He navigates the Blackbird to its parking spot like he's done hundreds of times and hits the lever that drops the ramp for his teammates to disembark. It's been a week since they left. Everyone is tired and bruised—except for Wolverine and X-23—and happy to be home. He busies himself with powering down the overhead controls, but his attention keeps wandering back to Jean, snagging on the way she peers in the direction of the Blackbird's ramp, waiting.

Scott has seen this before—the familiarity of it makes his heart ache. Her hair is gathered up in a ponytail, which means she didn't shower that morning. The sweater she's wearing is her favorite—it has a small hole in the armpit from a fight with the washing machine—and the leggings she has on are for weekends only. Any minute now, she'll raise her eyes to the cockpit, then her arm, and there will be a wave and a smile aimed at him through the ruby-tinted glass.

But they never come. She's interrupted by Peter, who has halted his march to the locker room to make faces at the baby. Bobby joins them, and does something with a snowball that elicits bubbly giggling from mother and daughter alike. Laura is next, and it surprises Scott, surprises all the men present, when she takes the baby from Jean and hoists her into the air before smooshing a row of noisy kisses into the rosy cheeks.

The smile on Scott's face fades when Logan drifts into view. He watches as Logan approaches Laura at the back of the group. He frowns as Logan says something to Jean and Jean says something back. Forge makes a comment, and Bobby chimes in, gesturing to indicate the height of whatever it is they're discussing. Logan corrects Bobby's estimate and then holds out his hands to the squirming baby in Laura's arms. A laugh escapes him when she makes a reckless lunge toward his grasp. He kisses one of the cheeks that had been smothered by Laura minutes before, nuzzles the baby's neck, and holds her tightly to his chest.

Peter says something and motions in the direction of the mansion, and as a group, they begin to make their way out of the hangar. Jean pauses near the exit. She looks back, and Scott recognizes the expectancy in her posture, the tilt in her head, the lean in her body. It jolts him from his seat. He's half out of the cockpit before he catches himself. Slowly, he turns and forces himself to remember what he still tries to forget.

It's Logan she's waiting for. It's his shoulders she puts her arm around, his hair she brushes back with a hand, his private joke she laughs at, and his smile she leans down to kiss. It's Logan's name on her lips, Logan's hand on her back and Logan's ring on her finger.

Scott lowers himself back into the pilot's seat and waits for them to leave with their daughter. Soon, he's the only one left in the hangar. He flips the switches and pushes the buttons that will put the rest of the cockpit to sleep, like he's done hundreds of times. As the lights in the Blackbird fade, he sits in the dark with his regrets, as he often does. The familiarity of it makes his heart ache.

 

 

Notes:

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Chapter 8: Victor

Notes:

Written for Bofoddity and originally posted on my now-defunct LJ.

PROMPT: Jean/Dr. Doom crack (because I can’t turn down a dare apparently), “Phenomenal.”

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Victor

 

Later, she might blame it on her state, and the fact that she'd been dead until a month ago, and the Phoenix was still rising on newborn colt legs in her head. Later, she might regret all the time spent in the east wing, in a shrine to a former lover—someone else's former lover, even—soaking up a fellow dead woman's memory like it was something she had a right to.

She might see it as a mistake later, might see it in the way her fingers trembled around the stem of her glass, might hear it in the way her voice commanded him to shut up, Victor, I will never be her, might feel it in the way the warmth from the fireplace and the eyes behind the mask set her bared nipples to puckering.

"Choose me, Victor," she said. "Jean, not Valeria."

He might see it as a mistake later, too, might not remember the starvation and yearning as he groaned "Phenomenal" over and over her skin, might not recall the way his need sent the dinner table into disarray, might not accept why she couldn't be the woman he once loved.

But for now, they both understood.

 

Notes:

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