Choose Your Own X-Venture update (Patreon)

Jean’s office was a little shocking; subconsciously, Scott had been expecting something along the lines of Emma’s office, which unsurprisingly occupied the same room in his universe. Emma kinkily combined Old World grandeur with whitely fetishized iconoclasm; a space halfway between Stanley Kubrick and David Bowie to serve as both therapist’s office and humble-brag.

Jean’s was cozier. There wasn’t a hint of the X-Men’s paramilitary activities, just leavings of her headmistress work coupled with her rich personal life. Plenty of pictures of her friends, paintings from students, unadorned crayon drawings side by sides with halfway masterpieces. It gave the office a cozy air, as did the coupling of keenly feminine taste in furnishings with the ever-controlled chaos of managing a school. The filing system could best be described as archaeological. Scott could only imagine what ‘Scottie’s’ reaction was to Jean’s laisse-faire separation of business and pleasure.

“Have a seat,” Jean said, gesturing him to a couch with one cushion dominated by file folders. He sat, careful not to disturb the pile.

Jean was as gorgeous as ever, aging like fine wine, without even the forceful exuberance of Emma’s high fashion and aggressive make-up. Instead, there was a comfortable grace to Jean’s simple look, her relaxed after-hours clothing, and it made Scott feel as if he’d been invited into something private, intimate. Like he’d been brought up to her apartment on a date, rather than visited her office for work.

Scott forced his mind onto business. “I had kind of thought Emma and Irma’s mindlink settled all question of us being the genuine article.”

“If you’re anything like Scottie, then you know—check, then double-check, then triple-check.” Jean unbuttoned her blouse. “This won’t take long…”

“What are you doing?” Scott asked.

“My own method of scanning you. There’ll be physical contact as well as mental.” She smiled at him. “Relax. It won’t be too intimate. It will just help us establish a connection.”

She opened her blouse, shrugged it off her shoulders, stepped out of her pants. Her underwear was simple and white, conservative, its virginal color ironically reminding him of Emma. Jean was more slender than her, even her generous helping of cleavage less ample than Emma’s—slightly taller, with long, sleek legs where Emma’s thighs were magnificently rounded and ankles dainty. Instead of Emma’s hourglass figure, Jean was lean and athletic. The all-encompassing lines of her underwear furthered the disconnect, her breasts totally encased in her bra, her panties practically boxer shorts.

She walked to Scott, her body a supple symphony of clenching and releasing musculature, and then splayed herself on his lap. Scott let out an almost involuntary groan.

“Now close your eyes,” Jean said.

“Why?”

“I need to take off your glasses.”

“And what if I need them?”

Jean seemed as charmed by his seriousness as the other her had ever been. “Fine,” she laughed. “You take them off.”

Keeping his eyes tightly closed, Scott removed his glasses, keeping them coiled in his hand, ready to put back on at a moment’s notice. He almost did, feeling Jean’s touch, but she was only massaging at the ever-present tension behind his eyes, along his temples.

“Relax,” Jean insisted. “For this to work, I’ll have to scan your deepest memories… the innermost facets of your personality… the rawest, oh!”

“What, what is it?”

“Nothing, I just… you can feel it, can’t you?”

Scott could. The familiar tingle, the easy understanding as two minds became one. It was just like a mindlink with his Jean.

“You just let me right in,” Jean breathed—the other Jean. “I wouldn’t think you’d be so… open. You’re not, not verbally… even Scottie isn’t so willing…”

“I guess you just remind me of her so much.”

“It takes more than having the same face.”

“That’s right. You feel like her… so much like her…”

He put his hands on her waist, hard enough to feel her ribs under the lithe flesh, could feel the minute expansion and contraction in her body as she breathed. Her breaths were deep and thorough. He knew he was breathing at the same rate, the same depth, and he didn’t 7care.

Her hands moved over his face, fingers into his hair. “I can feel how you cherished her—the echoes of your desire for her—how you, oh!, how you felt about her…”

Jeannie fished the bar of soap out of the water and brought it to Scott’s cock, rubbing along its erect length to build up a lather. Scott jerked clumsily in her hand, even as she held him in place to keep him steady, and she worried he would shoot before he was clean…

“Worried I’m not disciplined enough, Jeannie?” Scott asked, his moderate voice still a terse growl. “You wound me.”

“Wanna slap me with that thing and pay me back?” Jean asked mischievously.

“Jesus!” Scott replied, his cock giving a jerk. Jean could feel him holding back from coming. It was so hard for him, but he did it for her.

Scott grunted as she pulled his cock to her breasts, the huge orbs falling to either side of her body, not able to break from their pert firmness much, but separating enough to leave a canyon between them. Enough room for his prick. Like they were made to go together.

Jean gasped. Her breathing hastened, so Scott’s breathing hastened. Even with all the potent physicality that had come of her polygamous relationship, the inclusion of Irma and Madelyne and Lola in her relationship with Scottie, she was unused to such shocking intimacy on the mental realm. Her own internal shields were falling open—perhaps because Scott’s thoughts were so akin to Scottie’s, or perhaps because the lust Scott felt for her was so strong that she couldn’t deny it.

But she could feel the memories of the other Jean, shared with Scott over their mindlink… she could feel how he had pleased her… Scott’s very isolation and repression had made the mental connection to his Jean all the stronger, and now the same connection was trying to form between them. It nearly overwhelmed her.

“You’re so like her,” Scott gritted out. “So like her…”

“I’m not her,” Jean insisted, fearing if she forgot that, the weight of his expectations would flood the link… that she would become his, just to be a part of that shared world between them. She wanted to. God, she wanted to… the sudden intimacy was intoxicating, overpowering. She had taken virtual strangers to her bed before, but none of them could possibly give her pleasure like this, love like this…

Scott could feel it too—she could feel Scott feeling it—it was almost taboo, arousingly so, how she was his but not. The intimacy they’d shared had been built on mutual trust, respect, affection, attraction, and those were all still there, seeds just waiting to be watered. She could find her own values in Scott’s mind, his in hers. Then there were the subtle differences, the changes between her and his remembered her.

Jean realized now that there was an innocence to her. She’d never faced the Dark Phoenix as his Jean had, never seen the kind of discrimination he’d been forced to contend with. Whereas he had been nearly blinded to the goodness in people, it was glaringly obvious to her. And, as their minds became one, he saw her perspective. He gained Jean’s insight on his recent memories… sympathized, even with Emma… felt a grudging respect for the Avengers. Most of all, he saw how much he needed her.

She was his other half, his better self, and as much as he loved Emma, whose pragmatism doubled his and kept him alive, in that moment, it felt like Jean was a paragon, an ideal to strive for. He needed her. He needed to kiss her. As his lips brushed against hers, he felt Jean’s answering need for him, sudden and almost violent…

Jean sat in Scott’s lap, wiggling around until she knew for sure her ass was touching his stiffly rising prick. She pretended not to know what was wrong. “Scott? What’s that?”

Scott could barely speak, but she could hear his thoughts: Know what it is.

Jean feigned wide-eyed innocence. “I guess I’ll just have to hold it down then. Until it goes away.”

Scott laughed weakly. “It doesn’t work like that…”

“Then how does it work, lover?”

He pulled her further on top of him, trapping his standing cock between his belly and her spread legs. Jean laughed fondly as he thrust his imprisoned cock against her crotch, and she bored hard against the thick rod of his erection. She could feel it swell and burn as he got hotter for her.

Jean groaned and yanked at her skirt until it was around her waist, leaving nothing but the ghost of her pantyhose between her wet pussy and him. It felt as though she was straddling a railroad tie. The delicious feel of such intense power against her tender sex made her forget everything, all the games and ploys, all the secretly amusing teases she flummoxed him with.

Scott thrust his hand between her legs, rubbing his fingers over the wetness that had soaked through her hose. “God,” he whispered, unable to believe the slick evidence of how he’d turned her on. “God, honey… you’re really this excited?”

“Just following your example, fearless leader,” Jean replied. Her mental voice followed, as coy as a whisper in his ear. I love following orders.

His fingers deft despite never feeling more clumsy, he pried away the elastic waistband of her pantyhose and ran his hand down the front, down her smoothly clenched belly, going lower until his fingers laced into her kinky red pubic hair.

Jean felt a swell of wildness within him as he felt it, as though he couldn’t believe he had driven someone so pure and sweet to such arousal. He peeled the hose down her thighs and separated her hot, engorged lips, running his finger along the slippery folds, not daring to stop doing what brought her so much pleasure until she moved against him and whispered panting instructions into his ear.

“Up top… where the little bud is… rub it there… easy, easy, don’t play rough… not yet, anyway… oh, yes… yes, yes, YES!”

She lay against him, her legs spread out over his knees, her bare ass squirming against the rough material of his khaki pants. His cock was sticking into her buttocks with a probing insistence that made her long to know how it would feel for it to get its wish, fuck her ass.

The new sensations were undeniable now; he’d jerked down his zipper and now his cock rubbed over the crack that separated her buoyant hills. She felt the rough, tickling material of his boxers against the tight rim of her asshole. That virgin hole fluttered with excitement, a maddening itch of yearning that she had not known was possible. Would he do it, or would it be too much for his conservative sensibilities?

But of course, just thinking the thing meant that Scott knew, and she felt waves of love and trust flow over their link, bombarding the idea that she could drive him away with any desire, any fetish. As they kissed even more passionately to assuage the doubt that had momentarily cropped up, she felt his index finger circling her anus…

Jean’s head tilted back, her lips gently parted, her breath coming in rasping fits, the soft exhales breaking across Steve’s brow as they regarded each other, both knowing just how aroused the other way. Scott put his glasses back on, but left them skewed, unable to correct their slant.

Reaching behind her back, Jean undid her bra. The straps fell, leaving the cups dangling from her voluptuous breasts, a sudden swath of bronze flesh exposed nearly to the nipple. He could see her areolas behind the cloth like a dawning light.

“Take me,” Jean said. “Have me. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.”

***

Sofia Mantega wasn’t a chore to look at. Her dusky skin was clear and smooth, her light brown hair like cinnamon glazing it, falling in wind-swept locks over her face and down to her bare shoulders, constantly being brushed back or aside by jittery sweeps of her hands. But it was her energy that really made her gorgeous. She had a steady smile, a constant cheer, and she seemed endlessly delighted by Chris’s confusion with her history book.

“This is kooky,” Chris said, turning the pages right and left as if to find some mistake. “Your Wanda never went crazy?”

“If having two infant twins couldn’t do it, I don’t think anything can,” Sofia joshed.

“In my world, she lost control of her powers and ripped apart the Avengers. Then she depowered most of the mutants on Earth.” Chris scratched the back of his head. “It’s crazy… you always think of alternate universes where everything’s gone horribly wrong or a good guy is evil, but you never think that your universe might be a dystopia.”

“Oh, it can’t be that bad!” Sofia said, sunny as always. “After all, you seem almost well-adjusted. And you must have a lot of friends back there, family…”

“All my friends are here,” Chris said, glancing at her. “I mean, they came across the dimension… thing. And I’m not overburdened with family.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Me neither.”

“Guess it’s my fault for being born a mutant,” Chris said, grinning wryly.

Sofia shook her head. “I don’t understand how people can act that way. I mean, I know it used to be bad, but now people understand that we’re not all mutant supremacists like Magneto…”

“Yeah, what’s with that guy?” Chris asked. “Here, the biggest problem you have is getting a mutant actor on Law & Order. And also Law & Order hasn’t been canceled.”

“I can’t believe they canceled it in your dimension. It’s a tentpole. A tentpole!” Sofia shrugged. “I guess some people just aren’t satisfied with equality. They want superiority. You don’t have people like that on your Earth?”

“No, not really. Well, Anita Sarkeesian. Hey, Sofia? Could I ask you something?”

“Probably.”

Chris got up and stretched, suddenly uncomfortable. “What is it with this place and sex?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know… this whole universe just seems obsessed with it.”

Sofia laughed. “That’s funny. I was just thinking that all you guys seem obsessed with food.”

“What? Food?”

“Yeah—you take pictures of it, watch shows about it, trade techniques for it… I guess I get it, it’s something everyone enjoys and is interested in and can do. Why would you be ashamed of it?”

“I guess. It just seems like all anyone here ever talks about.”

“That’s not so!” Sofia protested. “We just had a long conversation about history and I never mentioned my pussy once!”

“Oh, uh—good point.”

“It’s just that we on this side talk about it more than you’re used to. You’ll acclimate to it. It really is an interesting subject, once you get past your apparent taboo. But right now, it must be like a bulimic watching your Food Network.”

“I wouldn’t call myself a sex-bulimic.”

“Of course not. Want a handy?”

“A… a handy?”

Sofia smiled. “I’m just kidding. We really have to get this work done. Big test tomorrow. So maybe if I get a B, then I’ll give you a handy.”

“What if you get an A?” Chris couldn’t help but ask.

“Then you get an A,” Sofia replied.

***

Chris left Sofia’s room with his brain fried. Too much studying, too much caffeine, not enough Sofia. He rubbed at his bleary eyes, feeling tired, but still too keyed up to sleep. He’d absorbed some of Sofia’s pre-test jitters by osmosis. He cracked his neck and went to find a water fountain for his cottony mouth.

But the moment he’d turned the corner, there was Laura Kinney. Her claws weren’t out. It was really hard to tell she if she was angry when her claws weren’t out.

“Do you try to give people heart attacks? Is it a hobby?” Chris gasped.

“You’re up late,” she said. The woman was blunt enough to segue into anything.

“I was studying. With Sofia. And hey, who asked you?”

“Scott did. He thought I’d have trouble sleeping in an unfamiliar environment. And I only need four hours of sleep a night. He thought I might keep watch.”

“So you’re watching me?”

“You’re not in your bed.” Laura kept staring at him with deadpan interest. Something very Aubrey Plaza about her at times. “You were with Sofia. Studying.”

“Yeah? What’s wrong with that?”

Laura sniffed the air absently. Everything about her screamed casual when she had her arms crossed—or maybe ‘casual’. For a woman with dog in her heritage, she was pretty hard to read. “Some people might say that we don’t know if we should trust these people. That it’d be better to circle the wagons and stick to our own until we know the score.”

“Isn’t that a bit rich, coming from a mutant? Any mutant?”

“So you trust her implicitly? Because she invited you to go study?”

“No, I just don’t distrust her for no—wait, was that a pun?”

“Is it because you think she’ll have sex with you? Is that why she interests you?”

“We didn’t have sex!”

Laura sniffed the air again. “No. You wanted to, though.”

“That’s an invasion of privacy.”

“I’m assuming. You’re a teenage boy.”

“What business is it of yours!?”

“That you’re a teenage boy?” She shrugged. “Means you don’t take as much time in the shower…”

“If I did or didn’t have sex with Sofia!”

Laura blinked. “I’m in love with you.”

“Very funny.” Chris shook his head. “First puns, now sarcasm. Have you been spending time with Emma? Like, a lot of time?”

Laura’s poker face could’ve been carved out of granite. Or something harder. “You should go to your room and get some sleep… teenage boy. You need it.”

“I’m not in the mood. I think I’ll walk around some. Go exploring.”

“That’s a bad idea.”

“What are you, my chaperone?”

“If you think you can take care of yourself, you can take care of yourself. I have other students to watch.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

Chris stalked off.

Women!

***

It was Jean. Not a shapeshifter, not a memory, not time travel, not anything else. It was like she’d stepped out of the room for a moment and not stepped back in. Two trains on two tracks. There was none of the sluttiness he would’ve expected from this universe—it was exactly how Jean would’ve approached him, the same poise and confidence, but the same undercurrent of nervousness too.

Even after all their time together, she found something about the physical act pleasingly nerve-wracking, a rush of adrenaline like a thrillseeker would get from a roller coaster. Perhaps it was that she spent so much time in the realm of the mind; as confident as she was in her body and in their care for each other, she couldn’t help but know this was more his domain than hers. That she didn’t think here so much as feel.

It killed Scott to hold himself back, knowing and thrillingly not knowing what would happen if he didn’t. “I’m leaving. I’m going home. If I’m not with you, then you’re just déjà vu. But if I am… if I have been… then I lose you all over again.”

“You don’t have to lose me at all,” Jean said, as she fully drew away her bra. Scott could feel the muscle memory in his fingers, how they would feel wrapped around her full breasts, how they would taste as he lifted them to his mouth…

“You say that every time,” he insisted, and got up, his legs weak, his knees stiff, but still walking, pulling himself step by step to the door.

Jean kept her thoughts to herself, though they raced. It wasn’t just the intimacy he felt with her, so freely offered, so easily hers if there was just one spark. It was the core of sadness she’d felt, the heaviness of his burden and the incredible need for understanding. Perhaps not from her, perhaps from Emma, but she could only think how he wanted her, needed her. It was what he was asking for, with every cell in his being. And she wanted to be the one to ease the suffering he felt. If he would only let her. If he could only let her.

She forced herself into motion, each movement a step away from the swirling turmoil of her unalleviated desires. To help him. To fuck him. To be the recipient of all the love and hunger he still had within him, searching for an outlet. She dressed, rapidly, not bothering with her bra, barely buttoning her blouse. Then she stepped out into the cool dark of the mansion at night.

Scott was nowhere in sight.

But there was someone else.

“Chris, right?” she asked. People liked it when she asked them questions. It showed she wasn’t just plucking the answers from their minds. “A little late for a stroll, isn’t it?”

“I just finished a cram session with Sofia,” Chris said. “I mean, uh, we were studying together. Studying history. And now I’m still sorta… keyed up. Thought I’d walk around a bit. Dimension lag, maybe.” He laughed nervously. “You don’t have any bodies you’re trying to hide, do you?”

“As you may have noticed, the last thing we do around here is hide our bodies.” Jean smiled at him. It made her feel better to interact with a student. Offering guidance, being compassionate, it always centered her. Their positive emotions flowed back to her like instant karma. “If you’re looking for a nice walk, perhaps you’d join me. The garden is lovely this time of night. And I can make sure you don’t get lost in the bush.”

“That’d be great. Walking, I mean, not getting lost in the… yeah, lead the way.”

“Certainly,” Jean said, and felt her hips swing as she walked ahead of Chris.

***

The mansion outside was beautiful at night. The gardens at back even lovelier. Chris was more amazed by it than by Jean, as enticing as it was. Of course, this mansion was much the same as what he could somewhat inaccurately describe as his mansion, but there was an aura of calm to this place, a serenity, a peacefulness. It took time to build up, to settle into the bones of a house, and it had settled here. Nothing blowing up, nothing on fire, no riots, no protest mobs, no giant robots or alien infestations—at least not for a while. The mansion had had time to be, the garden to grow, and it radiated the peacefulness that had been poured into it.

“You’re thinking about your world, aren’t you?” Jean asked as they wandered the hedge maze. Chris just followed her. She seemed to know her way around, or be confident enough in guessing that he wouldn’t try to do better.

“I guess it’s hard not to compare here to there. This place reminds me of when I was a kid. Before M-Day. After the Legacy Virus. There were bad times, yeah—Genosha and all—but everything seemed to be settling down. Like we were finally getting somewhere instead of going in circles.”

“And how do we compare?” Jean pressed, turning a corner, disappearing from view for a moment, all but a wisp of hair like fire-lit smoke.

“It feels wrong, but… I think I like this place better. Which just makes me think the other shoe is going to drop. No offense.”

“None taken. We worry about that too. The Fury, for instance.”

“I heard about that. Some rogue artificial intelligence, right? Programmed to wipe out all life?”

“Not just an AI, but an AI wedded to the ultimate killing machine—the most advanced cybiote body imaginable. Once it breaches a universe, there’s no stopping it. Entire realms are quarantined. So it adapts to subtler methods. Letting some escape in exchange for letting it into new dimensions. It’s why we’re very careful about trans-dimensional travel.”

“Makes sense,” Chris said. He turned another corner behind Jean and was nearly bowled over as she doubled back, going the other way in the fork in the road. He followed behind her, noticing how she seemed lost in thought. “Of course, for all we know, this is all some really complicated Murder-World.”

“Yes. It’s funny how those who have the most to gain from trusting each other are the slowest to actually trust. Tell me, Chris, would you like to stay here?”

“I suppose… I mean, I wouldn’t want to abandon my friends. They say Cyclops needs every mutant he can get, and I believe in the cause.”

“But what are you fighting for?” Jean asked. “Just to prove a point, or to end the fight? To go home?”

“We don’t have a home.”

“What if you did?”

Just then, Chris heard a sharp noise break through the haze of night noises, silencing crickets, shutting out the wind. He looked up for the source of the booming cacophony and was abruptly aware of a shining point of light streaking across the sky. Far too high to make out, but he could discern an orange-red light, a tail of smoke, and almost a shape in the pale moonlight, before the object passed out of the limited range of view afforded by the tall hedges. Whatever it was, it was now over the woods that enclosed the mansion, and the whistling sound of its descent had soon dwindled to nothing. Chris strained his ears, listening for a crash, but if there was one, it had passed beyond earshot.

“What was that?” he asked, somewhat unnecessarily.

Jean pressed her fingers to her brow. “I’m not picking anything up… but it was spotted and given a threat designation. Night Watch will be checking into it.”

“Maybe we should check it out,” Chris said. “You’re, like, the X-Man, right? And how long will it take for this ‘Night Watch’ to mobilize?”

“Chris, please. These things happen all the time. It was probably just a shooting star. And honestly, you’ve been up past curfew long enough. Why don’t we go inside and see if we can calm you down some? Maybe a little hot chocolate?”

“But what if it was an attack?”

Jean smiled wearily, sighing as if she should’ve expected this. It made Chris feel like he was being irrational, when he knew this could very well be that other shoe.

Apparently, she’d read either his face or his mind, because she shrugged her shoulders down. “Very well. If you insist, we can go indulge your paranoia. Or you can show a little trust and let my people handle this. Get some hot chocolate in you… or something into someone… and enjoy a good night’s rest. I know which I’d rather do, at this time of night, but I’ll let you decide.”