Safe With Me

Posted on Tue Nov 14th, 2023 @ 11:06pm by Scott Summers & Aurora Summers

Mission: Episode 3: X-Tra Ecclesiam
Location: X-Mansion | Gym
Timeline: August 16th, 1990

[Warning: Mild Adult Content - Reader Discretion is Advised]

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Making her way from Cerebro to see Scott, Aurora stifled yet another yawn. She wasn’t sure if it was working with Cerebro that was sapping her energy, or if it was her body providing energy to the life now growing inside her. As she arrived at the training area she could see Scott busy working out, she couldn’t help but stand and watch him for a few moments.

Scott had moved to the squats where he was doing a full set. After the last lift, he stood up and placed the bar back on the rack and grabbed a towel to wipe his face. Only then did he notice Aurora.

"Hi," he said. They were alone in an area where people were less likely to roam, but he still tried to guard his expression. "You looking for a workout?"

“No thank you” Aurora offered a tired smile. “Cerebro has given me all the workout I need for now. Actually I wanted to talk to you, about the Morlocks.”

"Why do you want to talk about them?" He wrapped the white towel around his neck and took a swig from his water bottle. Dressed in black gym shorts and a navy blue sleeveless tank top, the gesture made his bicep flex. "Not much good to tell."

Aurora couldn’t help but smile at the site of Scott flexing his bicep, what she wouldn’t give to be having this conversation whilst lying in Scott’s arms. “The Professor told me that you barely got out alive, that can’t have been easy. I’d like to hear more about it, if you’re willing to talk about it that is.”

Whatever look was in Scott's eyes were veiled by his Cyclops visor. He never wore his sunglasses for a workout. It had was nice talking to Aurora. The connection between them only grew stronger after their night of passion. Talking about pleasant things would encourage things that he wasn't sure should be encouraged. Talking about depressing things... Well, there was no winning. Still, he couldn't deny her company was like a warm fire on a cold night.

"We left a communicator with the Morlocks awhile back," Scott said. "They'd kidnapped me and Jean in some kind of plan to recruit mutants who ... can pass above. We struck a truce and left on good terms." The look on his face shifted from neutral to haunted. "By the time they called for help earlier this year, the massacre was already finished. We got there as the Marauders...what we came to call them...were mopping up, going from tunnel to tunnel slaughtering anything that moved." Scott had looked away from Aurora and just stared as he became lost in thought. "It wasn't an attack. It was an extermination."

Aurora moved to sit down on the edge of the workout mat. “But why? Why would these marauders want to exterminate the Morlocks? What threat were they to anyone?”

"I don't know, Aurora." There was a touch of sadness in his voice as he laid down on the bench press and shimmied under the bar. Four 45lb plates were set on the bar, two on each side, which along with the weight of the bar made for 225lbs—well over Scott's own bodyweight. He eased the bar down and touched it to his chest before raising it back up. One.

"If they wanted something the Morlocks had..." He took a breath, let the bar come down, and breathed out as it went up. Two. "... they didn't look too hard." The bar went down and up again. Three. "Not sure who they offended. I hope they didn't try another kidnapping." Down and up. Four. "Doing that to the wrong person could have been it. Except..." Down and up. Five. "... didn't feel like a rescue gone wrong. It felt downright sinister." Down, up. Down, up. Down up, down, up. Down up. Bar returned. Scott caught his breath before sitting up on the bench. "Toss me the water?"

Aurora was transfixed by Scott’s bench pressing, she had to shake inappropriate thoughts from her mind as he asked her for water. “Water...err yes, of course” She smiled as she reached over for it and passed it to him. “You mentioned a kidnapping? Has there been more mutants kidnapped? I don’t even know why I was.”

Catching the water, Scott took a chug before splashing his face. As he worked himself over with the towel again, Scott said, "There are kidnappings every day. Too many to track. We had to take drastic measures to break up the operation for the people who took you, but that was a major ring being run by an illegal arm of a national government. When it's small scale, there's less to go on. Most kidnappings go unsolved. When Jean and I were taken by the Morlocks, we had the benefit of Professor Xavier and Cerebro to help our friends locate us. Most people don't have that." He rolled the towel, hung it around his shoulders, and cracked his neck with a slight grimace of pain.

“It sounds like you could do with a massage” Aurora smiled before turning back to the matter at hand. “Is there nothing we can do to find out whose behind these kidnappings? Do those who are kidnapped ever turn up again? Have there been any witnesses?”

A massage would absolutely hit the spot. That would be okay, right? He wouldn't be crossing anymore lines. "That would actually be really great. I'm still a little sweaty though." He set the towel down on the bench next to him. "There are as many kidnappers as there are kidnapping victims. The only way to beat them isn't to go after the kidnappers but the society that breeds them. Lower the demand and the kidnappers get other jobs."

Aurora nodded. “Then let’s hope we can bring society around to the way Professor Xavier thinks.” She gave the massage idea some thought. “If you want to get a shower, I can wait then give you a massage.”

"I don't blame you there." Scott cracked a grin and chuckled. "Might need to cut my workout short then. No sense hurting myself." He got up from the bench. "What made you ask about the Morlocks? Did you know any of them from... before?"

“No, I’d heard of them. Actually Professor Xavier mentioned it, he suggested I ask you about it.” Aurora smiled. “Plus it gives me a chance to get to know you better.”

Scott pursed his lips. This situation was what it was and there wasn't any changing it. Was the Professor actually pushing them together along with seemingly every other force in this world?

"Well, you should know I get clammy after a workout." He got up from the bench and walked toward the showers. Pausing at the entrance, he said, "In or out." And then he disappeared through the doorway.

Aurora paused for a moment, was she ready to risk another encounter or could she trust herself not to go too far. Entering the showers she soon joined Scott inside. “I don’t know whether I should be in here with you right now or not.”

"Team showers are coed," Scott called out from inside one of the stalls. The water was already running. His gym clothes were left left on the floor. "So is the medical area. We respect each other's privacy but down here isn't like the dormitory wings upstairs." He splashed his face. "If you're uncomfortable, though, we can catch up later."

“It’s not that I’m uncomfortable” Aurora stood biting her lip. “I want to be in there with you, Scott, but I know I shouldn’t.”

Scott was silent for a moment. "We shouldn't be a lot of things," he said. "I'm sorry for the position I've placed you."

The door to his shower opened as an undressed Aurora walked in with him. “You didn’t put me in this position, I put myself in it.” She gently ran her fingers over his skin touching his muscles . “I didn’t have to enter your dreams, I let my guard down and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Gooseflesh rippled across Scott's neck and arms at her touch. He should never have let her into his bedroom just as he should not have let her into his shower stall. But they were already connected in pretty much every way a man and woman could be. The memory of her in his dreams swept him away, as did the memory of every second they spent with their minds joined. So much of his misery was taken away and flushed out by the fiery light of her passion.

But had he exchanged one form of guilt for another? Survivor's guilty for breaking trust. Clearly she wasn't the only one who had let her guard down.

"Another time, another life," he whispered, facing the wall, not looking at her while fingertips traced circuits along the contours of his neck and shoulders. "Another life, maybe things could have been different. Another time, I could have resisted." He spun around, took her by the shoulders, and stared at her through his waterproof visor. "All I know is with you the pain goes away. I don't want to hurt anymore."

Aurora smiled as she let caution go, she kissed Scott with all the passion she’d been holding back. She let it linger as her body pressed up against his. “To hell with caution, I want to be with you, Scott.”

The kiss struck him like lightning. Scott's arms wrapped around Aurora like he was worried she'd get blown away. Their lips tangled like cables, sparking energy between them that electrified the moment. Water flowed between them, washing away their inhibitions and enclosing them in a steamy bubble of seclusion.

Aurora held onto Scott as the water ran over their bodies, her mind opened to his allowing Scott to feel her love, and her need to be with him. She had lost the only person who’d come to close to her before, she didn’t want to lose Scott as well.

A gasp shot from Scott's lips as he felt Aurora's mind both open to him and envelop him. His own heart leapt into his throat. Was this love? Somehow it felt less and more at the same time. He ran his kisses down her jaw onto her neck. The hot water merged the taste and smell of her hair and body into a steamy and sultry combination that set his senses on fire. Every part of his being began to ache for her.

Aurora encouraged him her fingers pressing into his skin as she guided them both to the shower wall, she gasped as the momentary cold of the wall met her back. She looked into his visor-covered eyes before nodding her willingness to go as far as Scott wanted to go. Aurora held onto Scott, kissing his lips, his neck, stifling her moans and cries by resting her face against his body. She wanted him and she wasn’t afraid to let Scott know it, her passion filled his mind via their connection as she quietly spoke his name.

"I feel you," Scott whispered in her ear. "I feel you, Aurora, inside and out." In taking her body, Scott felt a plunging effect on his soul. Hardened grief and pain broke free and flowed from him body and soul and down the drain with the rest of his grime. There was no awareness because he had already released his conscious mind to their union. He just said her name over and over like a chant.

Aurora was lost in the blend of herself and Scott, she was slowly losing her will to be anywhere else but in this moment with Scott. She never wanted them to be apart and she let that flow their connection, images of them marrying, and not just them with one child but a whole family. A happy family together just as she’d always dreamt a perfect family to look like. She cried his name as her own climax had followed his, with no sign of wanting to stop.

The life already inside her made Scott fully let go. There was no way he'd make her even more pregnant. Her moaning and calling his name, her desire for him that was both inside and out, made Scott lose sight of himself. The out of body experience came back where he felt nothing but passion intertwined with ecstasy.

Aurora called Scott’s name over and over again before exhaustion from holding open their connection started to take over. She slowly yet unwillingly withdrew from his mind, holding onto Scott for support feeling drained yet high from their lovemaking. “Scott...marry me!”

With the withdrawal of their minds from the joining back into their separate bodies, Scott couldn't believe how spent he felt. The workout hadn't left him exhausted since he'd cut it short. But now he felt like he had just ran a marathon and attended a wedding and funeral all at once. His pulse throbbed in his ears as he came down from the transcendental rush that was making love to Aurora.

"Marry?" Scott doubted his own ears. "Aurora...that's a big step. You've only known me for a couple weeks."

“I know.” Aurora sat down to dry herself off and getting dressed. “All I know is what I feel when I’m with you, Scott, you make me feel like I’m special, like we’re meant to be together. I’m having our baby Scott, a baby that I want to grow up safe in the knowledge that he, or she has a family. Plus I...love you.”

Those words both stung and elated him. Scott didn't know how to feel. "That sounds wonderful," he said. "Let's build each day at a time so we can be sure of what we have." Even toweled off, she was stunning. "You make me feel those things too."

Aurora nodded. “I’m sorry, I must sound pretty damn naive. I know how I feel for you, and I want to be a good mother to our baby. I just worry what kind of life our child will have with so many mutant hating people out there, yes he or she could live as a normal human until his or her abilities manifest. I just want a good life.”

"I can't promise you a life," Scott said as he toweled off as well. "But I can promise you tomorrow. We'll see how far that takes us."

Aurora nodded, albeit a little sadly, but she knew that Scott had a right to his life the way he needed it to be. “I don’t know about you but I really need something to eat and some sleep.”

"There are some bunks on the other side from the gym," Scott said. "Might be some rations in the supply closet. But if you're up for it, I could take you into town."

“Town? Really?” Aurora nodded a sparkle in her eyes at the mention of more time with Scott. “I’d like that.”

Scott smirked. "Yeah. I made a promise to a friend. You can come with...but it will be another secret."

“I’m good at secrets.” Aurora smiled. “It’s a secret that’s safe with me.”

"Good enough," Scott said. "I'll meet you by the gates in 15 minutes."

Aurora nodded. “15 minutes it is, I’ll see you there.” With that she headed for her room to get her coat.