The Twain shall meet

I wrote this story primarily to establish the relationship between Scott and Logan, which will be considered as part of the canon for my following stories. At the end of this story, they haven’t quite gone intimate (yet), but the seed of their romance had been planted. Their love story will likely be a consistent subplot throughout my stories. The story happened after the X-men II movie. All canons are from the movie-verse. Comic-verse is referred to, but not followed strictly.

Rated (T) for: Minor coarse language and very very minor adult theme.
Disclaimer: Any recognizeable Characters mentioned in this story belonged to their respective owners.
Feedback: Yes, please. Author can be reached at zuraffo@yahoo.com
First Edition: 13th Apirl 2006 on Fanfiction.net
Archive: My honor. Just let me know.

The title of the novel came from “The Ballad of East and West,” a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The refrain is excerpt here:

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!


“Jean… Listen to me… Don’t do this.”

I pleaded with her, but she wouldn’t listen.

“This is the only way.”

“Goodbye”

I stared helplessly as the water overwhelmed her lone, stubborn figure; a tsunami of dread and darkness swallowed up the light of my life, in the blink of an eye. I would have staggered if I could move. I would have yelled her name have I not lost my voice.

“You know, even when Jean was a student, she was always hesitant about her powers.” The professor’s voice rang, “Always looking to others, feeling that in some way, she was left behind.”

Why have we no idea of the extend of her powers, Charles. Weren’t YOU supposed to be training and helping her? Weren’t we supposed to be her friends and her confidants? Wasn’t I supposed to know if she felt left behind? Wasn’t I? How could we have failed her?

“She made a choice.”

Yes, she chose to be left behind. She chose to leave us behind. She chose to make us left her behind. Whatever. All I know was that she chose death and left ME in anguish.

Our door clicked. I saw her figure walking out of the doors and the doors were slowly closing behind her.

“No! Jean, come back!”

I tried to rise, I couldn’t. I tried to give chase, to reach out, but I seemed to be in paralysis. I tried to call out, but no voice came out.

She was gone.

No, don’t say that!

The water rushed over me. The light extinguished. I was drowning. I gasped for breathe. Jean. The water overwhelmed me, held me, and strangled me. I couldn’t breath. I was alone. I was cold. Help.

I felt a presence. Warmth. Strength. It’s near. I grabbed. Safe.

A hand slapped my face lightly. A voice said,
“Cyke, wake up.”

I woke up in a start, drenched in sweat, panting heavily. The water was gone. I was in our room, cold and alone. Someone was cradling me awkwardly, in one arm, and my hands were gripping his shoulders. He smelled of cigar, sweat, leather and cheap wine. Wolverine. Logan.

I pushed him away, gulping for air. I couldn’t see well in the dark, but I could feel his stare.
“Are you okay?”
“What are you doing here?” I croaked.
“You were having a nightmare.”
“How did you know?”
He tapped on the side of his head with his left index finger.
“Heightened senses.”
“Right. I forgot. Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Well, anyway, thanks for waking me up.”
There was a brief spell of silence before he got up and walked towards the doors. Before he left, he half-turned and said to me,
“If you can’t sleep anymore, come join me at the danger room. I could use a ragdoll.”

Despite myself, I had to sneer at that last remark.

---

Scott Summers had always irritated me. Ever since the first day I met him. Walking around all primp and proper, with that smug little smirk on his lips, always in control, alpha hero, the ideal field leader of the X-men. The perfect boyfriend. The good guy. The Kid playing in his sandcastle, looking at the world through his rosy quartz glasses. The protected child who had no idea what the real world was like.

Smug little shit.

I liked to shove at him, pushed his button to see which one made him twitch. Getting a reaction from him got me thrilled. Especially when he’s got this dumb enraged look on his face. Ah, satisfaction.

I knew he didn’t know how to deal with me. I knew he wanted to play it cool. Well, tough luck, kid. The world ain’t the size of your precious Academy, you know.

If I were honest, I had to admit I was hitting on Jeannie strongly partly due to him. Sure, Jean was a babe; a smart and pretty babe, and a nice one at that. Every man wants that kind of girl, the perfect wife. However, I don’t usually keep coming on to a skirt after she turned me down like that. Like what Jeanie did, nice but firm. I’ve got my pride. ‘Sides, I am not big on forcing people to do what they don’t like.

But I just couldn’t help it when it involved Slim. I had to do it. I loved the look on that pretty boy’s face when I flirted with Jeanie in his face. And I think Jeanie liked it too. I bet she got off flirting with me in front of her pet boy. So it was all good.

Then Jeanie had to die. Damn brave of her, I’d give her that. Held off the water like that, and flied Blackbird from outside, alone, and controlled the Professor’s mind. Granted, the Professor was weakened at the moment, still an impressive feat all things considered.

And pretty boy had to break down. I mean, come on, Jean was not your personal possession. She was like a daughter to the Professor, and a sister to Storm. They didn’t break down. Why should you?

C’mon, I knew it’s damn hard. But do you have to act like dead fish all day? I don’t like that.

I missed Jeanie too, you know. And I missed the Cyclops when Jeanie had been around. And I don’t like that, either.

---

Since that night, our nightly work-out/training sessions had settled into a routine. We would meet around midnight at the danger room, and then he would teach me some hand-to-hand fighting technique. And then we’ll work through some simple simulation using our bare-hand fighting skills alone, without power. It was good learning.

As much as he irritated me with his snide comments most of the time, I had to admit that guy knew what he was doing. In fact, after training with him, I always wondered how we had managed to stay alive without these fighting knowledge and skills. He said he had started training ‘Ro in the afternoon too. He was thinking to train some of the senior students like Marie and Bobby, and I told him it was a good idea and would work out their class schedule with him.

After the session we would usually grab a few beers (stashed in a hidden underground compartment in the kitchen. Logan had the biggest grin since… the incident when I showed him the compartment) and chill out in the recreation room. We would just lounge there and sip our beer quietly. He didn’t speak much, and I found that strangely comforting and relaxing. Sometime I talked, a little, not really expecting a response from him. Sometime he’d surprise me with some insightful but terse response. Sometime we fell asleep on the couch, and woke up at first light. Sometime I woke up and found myself alone, and I would have a feeling of emptiness. I didn’t like that. I also didn’t like the fact that I was feeling so.

But on the whole, our nightly excursions had been good for me. Despite getting less sleep, I felt better, somehow, more alive, revitalized. Most of the time when we were together, I managed to not think about Jean or the fact that she was gone. Especially when we had some pointed exchange, I would suddenly have a distorted sense of the past overlapping the present, when Jean had been alive and stared amusingly at us bantering.

Besides, I felt that Logan understood and shared my grief. I couldn’t share it with Charles. Jean had been like a daughter to him, and he was affected at least as bad as I had been. He was holding the school together and put up a brave front for all of us. He still had to deal with the Anti-mutants politics despite his grieving. I was sure he would gladly share my emotional burden, but… could I in all consciousness burden him further? ‘Ro had been miserable too. Jean and ‘Ro were the first two girls in this institute, and they had been close since day one. If I had gone to her with my grief, we would end up lost and trapped in our shared memories, crying our eyes out. That could only make things worse, for both of us. And as field leaders, we both knew better than to let such melodrama happened, especially when the state of affairs had been as volatile as it was.

Logan was an exception. He was never my friend, strictly speaking. He wouldn’t offer me comfort (Not in the sense like Charles or ‘Ro). He listened most of the time, but he wouldn’t indulge me in my grief. When I started wallowing into misery, he would perk me up with a nice sparring session. He wasn’t officially on the X-men team either, so I could put away all those field leader charades in front of him.

I didn’t need pity or sympathy. I needed something to distract myself. ‘Ro wouldn’t do. Charles wouldn’t do. None of the students would do. Logan was an outsider. I knew him. He knew Jean.

He would do.

---

After a while, I’ve gotten to know pretty boy better. I would admit that he’s good company. Good student too, fight hard, learn hard. Never gave up, even when the going got tough.

I liked it when he concentrated on the fighting, when he’d got this frowning look on his face. It felt like he’s alive again, back to the old days when Jean had still been around. Storm might be a smarter student, but he was more fun to play with.

I liked wiping the floor with his ass during the training. He wouldn’t give up, and would keep coming at me until he’s exhausted. Of course, I would always win. I liked defeating him when he was serious. It made me feel good.

I liked him talking too. Sometimes when we chilled out he’d talk about Jean. Like one night, he was asking me,
“What do you think of her doing it?”
“I think I would like it.”
He grinned and punched me on the shoulder, and then turned serious and said:
“Sometime I hate her for doing that, leaving us behind like that. I mean, how could she decide for me? How could she leave me like that and expect me to deal with it? Sometimes I would prefer to have died along with her.”
He stared at the bottle of beer in his hand.
“And sometime I feel ashamed thinking about it.”

I tilted my head and looked at him. At that moment, I didn’t see Cyclops, field leader of the X-men, ideal superhero and perfect role-model, I saw Scott Summers, a boy scared and heartbroken for losing one of the most precious thing in his life for the first time. Vulnerable. Tired. Lost.

Since we were sitting side by side, I nudged his thigh with mine.
“Hey, kid, I bet you would have done the same.”
“Yeah… I think so. It’s just that, I had always thought I would be the first to die. I never thought I would be dealing with it, you know, enduring the aftermath”
“Heh,” I snorted. Why would anyone want to die first was beyond me.
Pretty boy continued,
“You know, we are… were very close, Jean and I. We were the earliest X-men. We were both orphaned. We both believed strongly in the Professor’s vision. We grew up together. She understood me in a way no other people could…”
“Are you trying to make me jealous?”
It’s funny to see him trying to grin through a shitty face.
“Does that matter now?”
I looked at him. There was it again: the hurt and vulnerable expression.
“The truth is, I am not so sure anymore. At least, I am not so sure I knew her all that well anymore. I guess, I just kind of assumed I knew her, based on all the things we shared, you know. I mean, I knew her, to some extend, but it wasn’t good enough to know she would walk down the plane and… do that...”
His voice broke at the last sentence.
I put my hand on his shoulder, and gripped tightly.
“Bub. Kid, listen to me. None of this is your fault. She made the decision. That’s what she wanted to do.”
“I should have known. I should have stopped her before she got a chance to leave the plane. I should have kept an eye on her.” I can smell a suspiciously unique salty scent of tears.
“How would you know?”
“I should, I am her boyfriend, and we’ve been together for most of our lives.”
“Bub, being her boyfriend means you get to fuck her every once in a while. It doesn’t mean you own her or know her inside out.”
He glared at me, apparently appalled.
“Looked, if she hadn’t done that, we could all be dead by now.”
“Maybe I would like that better.”
“Well, maybe she wouldn’t, and maybe that’s why she did that?”
He fell silent. After a while, he said,

“Maybe I just couldn’t accept the fact that she was powerful enough to do that, and we didn’t even know it.”

I bet there’re a lot of things you don’t know about her, Cyclops. But I didn’t say it out loud. I only put my arm around his shoulders. He leaned in.

---

“Time heals all wound.”

It’s a cliché precisely it’s so true.

It’s been nearly four months since the Alkali Lake accident, and life had returned to some sort of normalcy. Thanks to the nightly work-out with Logan, the nightmares hadn’t been returning. Sometime when I thought of what happened to Jean, instead of a sharp pang, all I felt was just a dull ache, as if it had been so long ago.

The anti-mutant sentiments were getting stronger and more vocal, but the White House, under the leadership of the president, had been stalling the anti-mutant lobbyist. The professor was working very closely with the White House to buy us time, but eventually, a contingency plan must be devised. What had us worried were not primarily the vocal components of the anti-mutant sentiments, but general public whose pervasive yet silent fear and subtle yet very real bigotry were given voices to by those vocal components.

There was an increase in the frequency of extraction missions. ‘Ro and I had been kept fairly occupied. The influx of new mutants meant that training and lesson plans needed to be rescheduled and revised. On top of that, among the existing X-men, we had to come up with contingency mission plans for different emergency scenarios. Perimeter security defenses for the school had to be stepped up, in light of the recent breached by Stryker’s special force. Fortunately, Hank and Warren had returned to the Team. Hank had taken over the medical department, and Warren had taken over handling presses who had become more and more ferocious and insistent on the mutant issues.

We were planning to graduate Marie and Bobby into the team soon. Both of them had been eager to “join the action” so to speak. I had my misgivings, but we needed the manpower. I would have preferred them to have at least one more year of proper training, but we were not in the best of times.

In these four months, we have been training with Logan in close-quarter combat, especially ‘Ro, Marie and Bobby. Logan spent a lot of time training them. I had my training in the night, and frankly, I had come to enjoy the private lesson.

One night, I walked into the danger room and found that he was not there. The emptiness of the room echoed right into my heart. There was a moment of disorientation as my mind assimilated the fact that he wasn’t there. And then a voice spoke, “Scott.” That was the first time he called me by my first name. Not “Bub”, not “Kid”, not “Cyke”, not “Cyclop”, just “Scott”.

I spun around, and saw him leaning against the door in his dark brown leather jacket, a duffle bag slung across his shoulder. I couldn’t see his expression as he was standing against the light, but I knew he was staring at me. For some reasons, I always had no trouble sensing his stares; it was a quaint sensation, since I couldn’t always see his eyes. After a moment of silence, he jerked his head towards the direction of the Garage. “Come with me.”

I followed him to the garage.

“Are you leaving?” I asked, and surprised at the hoarseness of my voice.
“The professor helped me to recover some of my memories. I gotta go sniff around Alkali Lake again. ‘Sides, figure I’d pay Jean a visit.” He said with a wry smile, and then he turned serious.
“Stryker was not the big boss behind weapon-X, Scott. He’s just a puppet. I need to find out who is behind it.”
“Logan, we need you here. Can you not go?”
“I want to, bub. ‘Sides, the Professor wanted to know who’s behind weapon-X too.”
I fell silent.
“Scott.”
I looked at him. We were standing way into each other’s personal space and he was staring at me intently. The air was filled with something like undercurrent, intangible, yet intimately felt.
“Take care of Marie for me, will ye?”
I nodded once, and kept my head down.
“I’ll be back.”
And before I knew it, he leaned in and kissed me on the lips. It was really more like a brush, and it was over before I had realized it. But it was electrifying; I could feel the heat coursing through my body. He pulled back before I could react. I looked at him, my mind a vortex of emotions. It felt so right and yet so wrong at the same time. Part of me wanted to grab him and kiss him fiercely, but part of me wanted to give him a punch on that face. One voice in my head said, “Stay, Logan, I need you.” Another said, “Get the fuck out of here, Logan.” As a result, I stood paralyzed, speechless, and blinked dumbly.

He must have found my expression funny, because the corner of his lips curled up. He said, in a low and husky voice I found incredibly sensational,
“Hell, if I have known what it can do to you, I might have done it sooner.”

He turned around, took my bike, and rode off into the night. The thought to protest never came across my mind until he disappeared from my view, and it was too late.

Despite everything, I felt the corner of my mouth quirked and found myself muttering,
“Yes, Logan, and I’ll be waiting.”

---

I didn’t know why I kissed him. Maybe I wanted to see how he would respond.

No. Although his reaction was quite funny, I didn’t kiss him for that silly expression. It must be some kind of attraction, and truth be told, it scared the hell out of me.

Don’t get me wrong, I had my share of boy meat over the years. The places I have been, sometime boys were all I could get. But those boys were strictly for fucking. Scott was different. It’s something more deep and serious. And it’s got nothing to do with whether he was a boy or a girl. I wanted to like it, but I really wasn’t sure if I did.

I think everything sort of changed the first time he clung on me and cried on my shoulder. Yeah, after the Alkali Lake incident. Before that, I mainly got kick out of provoking him. Part amusement, part irritation. He had gotten my attention then, but I was happy to keep it a friendly rivalry kind of relationship. After Jeannie had gone, well, I sorta felt sorry for him, and I understood what he was going through and what he needed. And then I got to know the Scott Summers beneath the fanfare of Cyclops, and there was no going back to our old relationship.

Yeah, he’ll do. He’s after all, Cyclops, the leader of X-men. He won’t fall apart when I was not around like some broad. He will always be there.

Someone to return to.

I am still not sure I’ll like it, but it’s something, alright.

Yeah, he’ll do.