Girl Talk
Note from Cora: Really, writing these is just too fun...
Set a few months before Jean and Scott finally get together. After yet another in a string of disasterous relationships, Jean and Ororo do coffee and talk. Obviously not entirely canon, owing to lack of Storm!mun.
“Do you know what your problem is, Jean?”
“Yes, I do.”
Ororo blinked. That was not what she was supposed to say. “No, no, I mean, really, do you know what your problem is?”
“Yes.”
“No. You don’t. Your problem is...”
“My problem,” Jean interrupted, “is that I have no self esteem and I date over-confident assholes.”
Ororo blinked at the other woman. “Ok, well, yes,” she finally said, “you do know. But only because you cheat and read minds. “
Normally, Jean would have looked smug at ‘Ro’s tone, but all she managed now was a weak smile before turning back to her coffee. “I,” she said, sounding dire, “suck.”
“You do not suck, sister. He sucks. And is clearly quite mad for having given you up.”
Jean’s coffee cup returned to the table with a thunk, and her head followed afterwards with something closer to a thud. “Why do I date such horrible men?” she asked, voice muffled from being addressed into the formica.
“Because you and your vague and unfocused empathy can’t help loving anybody who loves themselves, but you always go to the extreme where they love themselves more than you.” Ororo spoke with the experience that came from several conversations like this. At least this time they’d decided to go for coffee instead of to a bar. It was much less likely they’d end up in any sort of compromising situation afterwards. And while the compromising situations were fun, they didn’t actually help Jean feel better in the long run. “Next time,” she said, running straight over Jean’s muttered ‘there will be no next time, I’m swearing off men.’ “Next time, I think you should try going out with someone who is more in love with you than themselves. Possibly someone who is more in love with you than breathing. Maybe Scott.”
That got Jean’s head up. “Don’t start, ‘Ro. I can’t take it, not now.”
“I’m not teasing you, sister, I am absolutely serious. And don’t try the ‘he’s not in love with me’ line. It’s bull and you know it.”
“He’s not in love with me,” Jean protested, ignoring the warning. “He’s in love with some... some idolized woman I could never be.” It had taken a very long time for Jean to come to grips with the idea that she wanted to be the perfect woman Soctt seemed to see when he looked at her, but now she did accept that, and that she might potentially have more than a purely sisterly affection for the younger man. Which just meant that she’d moved on from thinking he’d grow out of it to dreading the day that he did.
“I don’t know where you get that,” Ororo said, although not unkindly. “He knows your far from perfect. Hell, he’s seen you fall on your ass often enough in the D.R.” And had thrown himself in the way of simulated danger for her every time she did.
“He may know it, but he doesn’t believe it,” Jean muttered darkly. “He believes I’m some sort of... goddess on earth.”
“Well, it would be good for you, I think, to be treated like a goddess instead of a doormat.”
“Sure, you recommend goddess-hood.”
Ororo grinned. “Yes, I do,” she said. “Would certain pick up your self esteem.”
“And when he figures out that I’m not?” Jean asked, arching an eyebrow. “One of these days he’s going to wake up, and the figurative rose-colored glasses will come off, and he’ll look at me and see me for the awkward, frumpy, quarter-life-crises-having nerd that I am. And then where will I be? Broken hearted and that much closer to thirty.” Unwilling to face the idea, or Ororo, Jean thumped her head back onto the table.
“Jean, if you ever suggest you are frumpy again, I will... I will... I will raid your closet for your smallest, tightest, most indecent outfit and take you dancing and make you listen to every single hormone driven mind that shuts down at your approach. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Tell it to the lab coat,” Jean moaned, referring to their on going argument about whether a lab coat could be flattering at all.
“I’m going to ask Scott and Hank if they think the idea of you in a lab coat and nothing else is sexy.”
“You do and I’m giving them your underwear. All of it. Even the leopard print. Especially the leopard print.”
“Would you please sit up and drink your coffee? People are starting to stare.” Not that Ororo cared about being stared at, but she didn’t like to see her friend in such straits.
Sitting up, Jean asked, “Will you leave the Scott thing alone?”
“I just don’t see why you think it’s such a bad idea,” Ororo said with a sigh.
“Because it is. Because he’s five years younger than me and has his whole life ahead of him. Because he’s the Professor’s star pupil and is doing fabulously at college and he doesn’t need a basket case like me making his life more complicated. Because one of these days he’s going to wake up and realize he’s been chasing a dream. Because I can’t hold onto a relationship for more than six months at a time, and they always end badly. Just because.”
“You’re selling him short, you know,” Ororo said. “I mean, of course you’re selling yourself short, as well, but you know that and we’ve had that argument several times. But I think you do him a disservice. Do you really think he’d think you make his life more complicated, or that he’d object if you did?”
“I really think it’s not going to come up. I don’t care how good of an idea you think this is, I’m not asking him out, and that’s final.”
“And if he ever gets up the nerve and asks you? If you really think it’s such a bad idea, are you going to say ‘no’?” The suggestion was a quiet one.
Jean looked away, lose hair falling forward to hide her face. She didn’t have to answer – Ororo knew as well as Jean did that she’d be his in an instant, if he just asked.
“Hey,” Ororo said, not willing to let Jean fret for long and not planning on rubbing it in now that her point had been made. “Post breakup shoe shopping? I saw some cute pumps the other day that would look fabulous on you.”
“Yeah, ok,” Jean said, looking back, a small smile edging onto her lips. “I could do with some shoe therapy, I think.”
“Excellent.” Pulling out a couple of bills, Ororo dropped them on the table and stood up. “Oh, so you know, if I run into that asshole he’s so getting barbecued.”
“No complaints from me,” Jean said, actually smiling for the first time that afternoon.
