No One's Symbol

-> Michael looks down from her comment, his heart aches from her comment. “You care that much for me?” Michael asks, softly. Finally getting the courage to look up at Jean, his eyes were tearing up. He never imagines anyone could possibly care that much for him. “What are you going to do, Jean?”

“Between the two of us I’m sure we can…regulate the temperature of your…our room,” David offered with a smirk. It would hardly be the hardest thing either of them managed to do. It was a slightly daunting proposition, though. Shared nightmares wasn’t as sexy in practice than in theory, he suspected.

“It’s settled. And as an extra bonus gift to me, we can either not tell anyone and just let it happen or you can tell Charles,” He laughed, but he was very serious. He was not having this conversation with his father. Not that it probably mattered. If he did tell him, he’d probably immediately want to talk Jean out of it. She was the one slumming it, he suspected, in his father’s eyes.

“Drinks, dinner, whole nine yards. We’ll make it official,” There was perhaps the tiniest bit of his mind suspecting this might not make it through a few days to no fault of Jean’s. Might as well celebrate now. 

“This is a slightly weird question, but does…Have you ever had Charles put you to sleep? I just mean, I can do that now if I’m going to be there. Not saying we have to preemptively eliminate your nightmares, but my mind and yours are pretty intertwined most of the time.” 

Jean laughed again and shot him a sideways glance. She had almost gotten used to the pace at which their conversation went from suggestive and flirty to a conversation about the man more like a father to her than to him. “Oh what a kind offer. I look forward to that conversation; not a lecture at all,” she sighed. Charles certainly seemed to expect her to lose interest at some point. He would be disappointed by this development. The things girls do for love.

She frowned. “I don’t know why that sounds less than enthusiastic when I’m serious,” she teased. She pecked a kiss to his cheek and ran her hand across his back in circles. Her nose crinkled at his question and she wondered how he knew about that.

@evcrburning​

“Hey you’re that mutant everyone’s talking about, Jean Grey right? Oh yeah, a lot of people are talking about you in the Silver City. I thought it was pretty funny how you spilled whiskey on Lucifer’s shirt. He had it coming. You and Michael seem like a cute kind of power couple. You being a mutant and him being Michael.”

-> Michael grunts at her comment. “Yeah,” Michael confirms. Though come to think of it, Jean understood what feeling out of control was like, with her powers. Taking a deep breath, Michael meets her gaze again. “What do you do when you feel a lack of control in your life, Jean?”

Michael glances down at her hand, breath hitching for a second. “You really think so?” Michael asks. He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it up again. “Do I even deserve to have these wings back? I did some pretty bad things in my past,” Michael says. Timidly he reaches up to grab her hand that rests on his arm to give a little squeeze.

She smiled, surprised at his acknowledgment of her own issues with control. He had learned how to connect with others without even really realizing it. “It’s flattering that you think I know what to do in those moments. I guess I try to meditate, focus on the positive. And then I come back here,” she hummed, looking around the room with a peaceful glance.

@evcrburning​ | verse; untitled | title; goodbyes (Mason & Jean)

     He appreciated that she realized it—it saved them precious minutes. Mason had never been one to dance around sensitive topics. Direct, to-the-point, perhaps even a bit unsympathetic. That was his nature. Curbing that instinct when it came to Jean and this particular goodbye had crossed his mind, but wasting time on sentiments? He didn’t think he could even make an exception.

     His face showed no emotion. He’d had more than a century and a half of practice in hiding what he felt. Despite his inner turmoil, it didn’t even touch his eyes as he peered into hers.

     “I never intended to stay so long.” Was it an explanation or an excuse? Even he wasn’t quite sure.

Jean smiled softly. She didn’t deceive herself into believing there was a future here with Mason. As much as she enjoyed the time they’d spent together, all she learned from him about power, control, and responsibility. “I understand,” she hummed.

Stepping forward, she wrapped him into a warm embrace. She felt nothing but respect and admiration for him even as the tears flooded her throat and pressured her eyes. She sighed deeply against him and then stepped back.

-> Michael raises his eyebrows. Jean wanted to kiss him? He couldn’t believe his ears. Gulping, Michael faintly nods, his eyelids growing heavy. “Yeah, that would be alright with me… Are you sure you want to kiss me?” Michael asks. His eyes kept darting down towards her lips as he spoke. Letting out a shaky breath, Michael ran a hand through his hair, trying to fix it.

Jean smiled and nodded. She had made her feelings for him clear, or at least she thought she had when she accidentally threw herself at him. “I do, really,” she assured him. She leaned in and ran her hand up through his hair, arranging a single lock he’d missed. Their faces were mere inches apart now. She inhaled deeply, trying to will the butterflies in her stomach to steady. 

“Then…we just need to practice a bit more, before you go. Some desensitizing to a more hectic environment- though, trust me, Jean, the city may seem overwhelming but you’ve done very well here. I think you’ll be alright after living in a mansion with countless other mutant kids and teens.”

It wasn’t sugarcoated, it was just the truth. He had faith in her, this would be good for her. “And if it is too much, like you said— you know you’ll always have a place here. We’ll be here to welcome you home just the same be it for a weekend or longer.”

Jean sighed deeply. Being alone among so many strangers felt so different, so immense, in comparison to the comfortable upbringing she had in the mansion. But if Charles believed she could handle it, that belief helped a little. She had gone into New York fairly regularly for undergraduate--how different could living there be? “Alright, more practice. That would really reassure me,” she admitted to him.

-> Michael gasps a little as Jean hugs him again. She was such a good hugger. Michael never thought he would like hugs, but Jean’s was different. He wraps his arms around her lightly, resting his cheek on the top of her head. A huge smile grows on his face at her comment. “You really think so, Jean? Are you sure it’s not the alcohol talking?” Michael asks, teasingly, rocking her slightly during the hug.

Letting her go, Michael nods. “I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep,” Michael reassures her. 

Jean could enjoy the embrace in the bathroom without any prying eyes or curious onlookers. She didn’t want him to release her and she hummed gently against him as her eyes fluttered closed. “No, it’s not the alcohol. It’s all the kindness and support you’ve shown me since I bumped into you at that coffee house. It’s the way that you’ve only known cruelty but you want to do better. It’s the way you wanted me to drink water and go to sleep tonight,” she insisted. She felt certain Lucifer wouldn’t have taken the high road in this situation and she respected Michael for it, even if she ached to know whether he wanted to act on the suggestion.

‘You wouldn’t know, until it’s too late, though, would you?” He jerked his chin in the direction of the baby, even as she still looked. “I would just advise that you be careful in who you trust. And to know yourself, first, which is the hardest thing to do. But, considering my history of bad decisions, I don’t that’s really why you came here. So.” He crossed his arms. “What is it, Jean?” 

“As cool as that would be, I don’t think there’d be many members,” Jasmine said with a giggle.

It would just be the X-Men and the Fantastic Four and three of them were taken.  Two of them were dating each other.  Though a trip to the mall sounded like fun.

“Sure, I wouldn’t mind a change of scenery,” Jasmine said, sounding a little excited.  “Beats being cooped up at the mansion all day.”

Even though the mansion was rather huge and had a large and beautiful yard.  Any building could become a prison if you were cooped up in it too long.  It was like the saying went, a golden cage is still a cage.

Jean laughed at the girl’s observation. She had a point. “True but at least we’d all be safe,” she observed. She was tired of worrying about revealing her abilities to the average person, anticipating their judgement.

Jean hopped up out of her seat and grinned. “Agreed. I love it here but we don’t get out often enough.” Jean went to grab her purse and met Jasmine back in the foyer to head to the mall. She wanted to get some new skirts and maybe flirt with the cute guy who worked at the smoothie shop.