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WHO: Emma Frost & Scott Summers
WHEN: Friday, February 28
WHERE: Garage, Xavier Institute
WHAT: Emma and Scott sort of resolve things after she kissed him earlier in the week and before he leaves on his weekend trip.
WARNINGS: Stupidity and kissing.
With the restoration of their powers Tuesday, life has, in some ways, gone back to normal. Classes are on track again, everyone's spirits are improved, and Emma has access to everyone's minds once more. Well, mostly - Scott has been essentially sequestering her the entire week, leaving her with the mundane (Is the Danger Room booked? What's the best date to have a midterm?) but little else at the top of his mind, her usual place of rest. She could dig, but she wants to respect his boundaries. And, honestly, she doesn't want to potentially throw her entire week off by what she might find.
But by Friday she's done avoiding it, done letting Scott be cordial but aloof, letting him pretend like nothing had happened at all. In the early evening she seeks him out, noting his location in the garage and making her way there in a slow, resolute way to steel herself for this conversation. Much of her initial offense has waned, but she has a hard time believing it won't resurface.
She steps into the garage and shuts the door behind her, heels echoing a little in the space as she walks towards Scott. Dressed relatively conservatively for her, a nearly knee length white pencil skirt and a crisp, fitted white button up with only a hint of cleavage, she still looks rather out of place with the tools and rags that she comes to a stop amongst.
"Scott." Emma is still feeling horribly off balance and has to search for more words, an uncommon occurrence for her. "Shall we talk? Before you maybe head off to who knows where."
Scott notices her arrival. He keeps the exits in view whenever he works in the garage, and she wasn't trying to hide it anyway. But he doesn't look up from his motorcycle until she's right in front of him, apparently too preoccupied with scrubbing the dirt and grease from the chain.
In reality, he's reinforcing the walls in his mind—cordoning off sections, closing doors, securing padlocks—leaving only the most impersonal thoughts open to perusal. Scott is under no illusion that his psychic defenses could stand up to a skilled telepath, but they'd have to force their way in. No matter how annoyed Emma might be, she wouldn't do that to him.
"Alright," he says shortly. Of course she knows he was planning to take off this weekend. Maybe even this evening, if he finished his preparations. He could've hidden this—he hasn't said a word about it to anyone yet, not even Kurt. "Let's talk."
Scott looks at her, all pristine and white. (He knows that's white, even if it's pink in his vision.) He's in jeans and a T-shirt so old it's a dingy grey, and he's been down here long enough that there's black stains all over his arms. His glasses are identical to the ones he left behind in Emma's office. Only the set of his jaw and a wordless undercurrent of tension in his mind indicates that he's stressed.
As Scott looks up, Emma meets his eyes as much as she can, her expression calmly impassive while her insides seem fit to turn somersaults. This sort of anxiety is rather foreign to her - it's been a long time since she's questioned herself or her actions this much. And she's continually questioning them, even as she gives Scott a once over, as memories of Monday settle in her mind. If she were more unkind she could press those memories into Scott's mind as well, but she's not going to. She's mature and in control. She can handle this.
The only indication of her own distress is that she shifts on her feet a little more often and she takes considerably longer to speak than she normally would.
"I—" Emma wants to scream at herself for being so stupid. At Scott for not letting her fully into his mind. She pulls in a sharp breath. "Regardless of… anything, I want to be clear that we are fine."
Scott rarely ever looks relaxed, but it's apparent just how rigidly he was holding himself when his shoulders drop. Whatever he'd expected to hear from Emma, it wasn't that. His mind still holds back, but one thing surfaces: he thought he'd broken something.
He'd broken something? Emma supposes she shouldn't be surprised by him thinking this but still, it's almost funny that they both are grappling with similar concerns. She takes it in, but doesn't comment on it.
"There's a stool over there." He doesn't point, but mentally guides her to a stool only a few feet away, with a maroon sweatshirt thrown over it. It's the place he usually reserves for any students he spends time with, and the cleanest spot in the garage, if she doesn't mind sitting on his shirt.
He doesn't move away from his bike. It's easier to have something else to focus on. Somewhere to direct his eyes other than Emma. "I'm not upset with you." Scott fiddles with the red-handled grunge brush in his hand. "I never was."
There are more quiet clicks as Emma makes her way to the stool with a deceptively steady gait, gently smoothing out Scott's sweatshirt before sitting down and crossing her legs. Though he won't look at her, her eyes have yet to leave him. Her mind, too, is focused intently on him, settled in, attempting to be less intrusive than usual but still very much a continuing presence. Watching him gives her no respite, though. It just makes her heart pound.
"I didn't think you were upset with me, per se. Just…" She brushes back some of her hair, willing herself to be honest even as she stalls for a moment more. "I don't think a man has ever made me feel so undesirable and I just… don't understand." It sounds vain, she knows. It is a little. But other things play under the surface, about who she is as a person. About how she compares to Jean. How can stupid Scott Summers make her feel so oddly insecure?
"Emma," he sighs, and there's something in his voice that might've been a laugh, if Scott was the laughing type. He bows his head, and seems to be bracing himself before he turns to face her.
There's a quiet moment as he really looks at her, noting the primness of her outfit, the placement of her hands, the expression on her face. Since the first day he met her, Emma has been in total control, every element of her appearance calibrated for effect. She must know how astonishingly beautiful she is. He's never heard her sound so vulnerable before. Her jaw sets at the inkling of vulnerable in his thoughts. He's correct, and she loathes it.
"I'm sorry." He hates that he made her doubt herself. Stupidly, Scott didn't think he—or anyone—was capable of doing that. "It's no reflection on how desirable you are. Ninety-nine percent of men would be overjoyed if you kissed them, I'm sure."
And Scott, of course, is the other percent. Emma feels some of her hurt and discomfort twist into annoyance at herself and at him. A welcome change. It's egotistical of her to be as irritated about this as she is, but she doesn't care - she is clawing back her reason. She knows Scott admires her, thinks she's beautiful and talented, cares about her. Even the way he's so hesitant to look at her now suggests something, even if her traitor feelings try to twist it up into proof that she is the problem here, that she is simply unwanted. A small part of her is tempted to reach out to Manny, to beg him to smother her emotions so she can be more logical about the facts she has, but she refuses. She's going to handle this herself, like she always does.
Emma stands and moves towards Scott, unafraid of all the surrounding threats to her pristine wardrobe but still a little afraid of what her next move will result in. "And how did you feel? Let me see." Even though the phrasing is a demand, her tone makes clear that it is a request.
"No." Scott takes on the steely calm which shows itself whenever they enter the battlefield, wiping away his usual overwhelming doubts. His walls hold fast. He hasn't ignored her this week, nor has he totally forbidden her from his mind. But he will not be letting Emma in like he has before. If she doesn't like it, she shouldn't have trained him so well.
He sets down his tools and rises to stand. "What do you want from me, Emma?"
This squaring of himself, his even tone and even mind (the bits of it she can see, anyway) are familiar to Emma. So they're on a battlefield. She can work with that. As Scott stands she takes a single, small step closer, a challenge for him - to push her away or pull her in, she's not sure, but she can hold her ground as well as him. Her jaw remains as set as his, chin lifted just a little - in her heels he's not that much taller than her. Her presence remains in his mind, in the small space he has carved out for her.
Even with all this bravado, Emma's heart is pounding and she feels a little dizzy, though it would be impossible to tell from the outside. She is calculating her words. Scott needs directness. She can do that.
"I'm interested in you, Scott. And I'm curious if that's reciprocated in any capacity."
Whatever he thinks about that is concealed behind reflective red lenses. He's looking at her—he hasn't once looked away from her—and one might easily assume the hardness of his expression is annoyance, or anger, or just a warning signal, akin to a threatened predator. But his silence stretches for seconds, and the room he's made for Emma in his mind is unnaturally still.
Scott is aware of the distance between their bodies down to the millimeter. He doesn't move.
"We have to work together." His voice is quiet but firm. "This isn't possible."
This feels… better, Emma thinks, even though she remains nearly short of breath. Even as the emptiness of the place she mentally sits makes her feel restless. His words are not a denial of anything, simply an argument, and she can manage an argument. A negotiation. But she's not going to beg.
"We're adults. You and I, in particular, are rational. Controlled." She's not feeling quite as controlled as she knows she's coming across, but that's irrelevant. "If the only reason you ran out of my office is that then you shouldn't have left. Because, honestly, I've already opened Pandora's box, and we're still going to have to work together. If you're going to think about kissing me, you might as well just do it."
He wants to. Scott's thoughts are too disciplined to spell it out so explicitly, but it slips out in a single tortured observation: she's so clean, and his hands are stained with grease. He can't touch her.
"Not a good idea," he says evenly. "Unless you think we can keep emotions out of it."
While the girlish flutters in her chest remain along with the unsettling feeling of vulnerability, evidenced by her slightly quickened breathing, they have quieted significantly. Emma much prefers what she's feeling now, finally, after catching that errant thought about her clothes - resolute, in control, committed. When this had all happened on Monday she might have taken his words differently, taken them as yet another slight about her. Maybe even earlier in this conversation she would have felt that way. But now she thinks she knows what he means, even without having his thoughts accessible. There's no way they can keep emotions out of it.
"You can't have nice things if you don't take risks sometimes, Scott." She doesn't actually know if this will be a nice thing. It could be a nightmare. Ultimately, though, she figures she is the one that stands to get hurt, and she's prepared to wade through the fallout with grace. Maybe she's being egotistical thinking that she can, but it doesn't really matter - those emotions he's worried about are already a twisted knot inside her regardless of how this goes. And Scott? It's not like he hasn't compartmentalized worse.
After a moment she leans down to pick up a dirtied rag from the floor, and as she stands she drags it from her knee up to her shoulder, smearing grease along her skirt and shirt.
"Don't." Alarm and concern fills Scott's head, and steps forward to grab her arm, stopping her. Emma's trained reflex is to pull away when grabbed, but she doesn't because it's Scott. He's still telling himself he can't—he won't—even as he tugs Emma closer, his head tilting down towards hers. The black streak across her clothing stands out like graffiti on rare marble. The wrongness of it makes him dizzy, and he knows Emma is listening to every thought he fails to keep behind his shield. The audacity of her, like no one else he's ever known. The rise and fall of her chest. The memory of her cool blue eyes. The red-tinged sight of them now as his other hand cups her face, smudging dirt onto her cheek.
He's not allowed this. It's the last thing in his head before Scott locks it away again. His mind holds back, but the rest of him doesn't. He kisses Emma like he's thought of nothing else since Monday.
Though she has been somewhat pliable, the moment Scott kisses her Emma's free hand grabs a fistful of his shirt, a reciprocal anchor to his hold on her wrist. The rag falls easily from her other hand. And while, normally, she'd find Scott's still relatively locked-up mind frustrating, right now she is just focused on this moment, on the physical. The only mental work she does is the equivalent of a gentle shush of his final exposed thought, of not being allowed this. That is a thing to discuss later, but she needs him to know she doesn't agree. He is good. He can have things that he wants.
She continues to kiss him, feeling almost feverish - Emma has been avoiding this for far too long for a variety of reasons and the release of tension is heavenly. She tries to pull Scott back towards a nearby wall, a space that frees them from a direct line of sight from any of the entrances. Might as well see how long he'll let her indulge.
Guided by her hands and her presence in his head, Scott moves with her, pressing her against the hard wall of the garage. He's always taken direction well. Some corner of his brain needs to deconstruct what's happening, to step back and analyze every angle and scope out the exits, but it's near-impossible to think with Emma touching him, telling him he’s good. If he had any less self-control, he could lose himself in this.
Scott breaks the kiss first. "I'm still going." He's breathless enough to sound apologetic, knowing what this looks like. Running away after kissing Emma is a mistake; doing it twice is a pattern. He begs her to read his mind to see how important she is to him, and how badly he wants to do the right thing here. "I need to refocus."
As their lips part Emma's grip on Scott's shirt releases, already having loosened when her back had met the wall. She's certain she looks insane, at least for herself - flushed, grime on her face and clothes, lipstick a mess, expression far softer and less controlled than usual. It doesn't particularly matter, she supposes, even though there's a slight tinge of discomfort at being disheveled. She's had quite enough of vulnerability this past week.
Pulling in a slow breath to try to even out her breathing, she slowly lifts her hand to Scott's face, wiping away the transferred lipstick with her thumb in one firm, smooth motion. She knows him well enough that his tone, mental reassurances, and the fact that he's being communicative can at least dull her reactive offense to him leaving. Of course he needs to refocus. Honestly, she probably does too. This is far from her most brilliant idea, but she's having a hard time regretting it at all.
"At the very least stay in something quaint, like a bed and breakfast or a cabin. A roadside motel would just be depressing."
Scott smiles. It's a very Emma response to reassert control by telling him what to do. It doesn't matter to him where he rests tonight, but he likes that it matters to her. He can fulfill this small request.
He reluctantly removes his hand from her face. "I'm sorry." For the grease and motor oil, mostly, but also for how screwed up he is in the head. No sane person would ever walk away from Emma, especially not while she looks like this. Soft. Radiant. Unexpectedly wild. He wants to kiss her again, and for longer, but if he does, he might never leave.
Scott forces himself to take two steps back, no longer touching her. "Sorry," he repeats.
Emma filters gentle reassurance into his mind as he steps away, a dismissal of his apologies. She wants to drag him back to her, but she's trying to be kind; this all feels a little delicate, so she needs to behave for now. It's difficult, though, with how he's thinking about her.
Pressing her palms against the cool wall behind her to ground herself, she manages to look much calmer than she's actually feeling, her eyes remaining locked on Scott. "You can make it up to me later. For now I should let you get back to your preparations."
"Right." Scott takes a deep breath, calling on his training to center himself. Locking doors, reviewing protocols, clearing his mind of distractions. It pushes Emma outside of his mind again, which can only be a relief to them both. The last impression she gets of his thoughts is an image of her smudged lipstick, then his cool professionalism slides back into place. "I'll be back on Monday."
WHEN: Friday, February 28
WHERE: Garage, Xavier Institute
WHAT: Emma and Scott sort of resolve things after she kissed him earlier in the week and before he leaves on his weekend trip.
WARNINGS: Stupidity and kissing.
With the restoration of their powers Tuesday, life has, in some ways, gone back to normal. Classes are on track again, everyone's spirits are improved, and Emma has access to everyone's minds once more. Well, mostly - Scott has been essentially sequestering her the entire week, leaving her with the mundane (Is the Danger Room booked? What's the best date to have a midterm?) but little else at the top of his mind, her usual place of rest. She could dig, but she wants to respect his boundaries. And, honestly, she doesn't want to potentially throw her entire week off by what she might find.
But by Friday she's done avoiding it, done letting Scott be cordial but aloof, letting him pretend like nothing had happened at all. In the early evening she seeks him out, noting his location in the garage and making her way there in a slow, resolute way to steel herself for this conversation. Much of her initial offense has waned, but she has a hard time believing it won't resurface.
She steps into the garage and shuts the door behind her, heels echoing a little in the space as she walks towards Scott. Dressed relatively conservatively for her, a nearly knee length white pencil skirt and a crisp, fitted white button up with only a hint of cleavage, she still looks rather out of place with the tools and rags that she comes to a stop amongst.
"Scott." Emma is still feeling horribly off balance and has to search for more words, an uncommon occurrence for her. "Shall we talk? Before you maybe head off to who knows where."
Scott notices her arrival. He keeps the exits in view whenever he works in the garage, and she wasn't trying to hide it anyway. But he doesn't look up from his motorcycle until she's right in front of him, apparently too preoccupied with scrubbing the dirt and grease from the chain.
In reality, he's reinforcing the walls in his mind—cordoning off sections, closing doors, securing padlocks—leaving only the most impersonal thoughts open to perusal. Scott is under no illusion that his psychic defenses could stand up to a skilled telepath, but they'd have to force their way in. No matter how annoyed Emma might be, she wouldn't do that to him.
"Alright," he says shortly. Of course she knows he was planning to take off this weekend. Maybe even this evening, if he finished his preparations. He could've hidden this—he hasn't said a word about it to anyone yet, not even Kurt. "Let's talk."
Scott looks at her, all pristine and white. (He knows that's white, even if it's pink in his vision.) He's in jeans and a T-shirt so old it's a dingy grey, and he's been down here long enough that there's black stains all over his arms. His glasses are identical to the ones he left behind in Emma's office. Only the set of his jaw and a wordless undercurrent of tension in his mind indicates that he's stressed.
As Scott looks up, Emma meets his eyes as much as she can, her expression calmly impassive while her insides seem fit to turn somersaults. This sort of anxiety is rather foreign to her - it's been a long time since she's questioned herself or her actions this much. And she's continually questioning them, even as she gives Scott a once over, as memories of Monday settle in her mind. If she were more unkind she could press those memories into Scott's mind as well, but she's not going to. She's mature and in control. She can handle this.
The only indication of her own distress is that she shifts on her feet a little more often and she takes considerably longer to speak than she normally would.
"I—" Emma wants to scream at herself for being so stupid. At Scott for not letting her fully into his mind. She pulls in a sharp breath. "Regardless of… anything, I want to be clear that we are fine."
Scott rarely ever looks relaxed, but it's apparent just how rigidly he was holding himself when his shoulders drop. Whatever he'd expected to hear from Emma, it wasn't that. His mind still holds back, but one thing surfaces: he thought he'd broken something.
He'd broken something? Emma supposes she shouldn't be surprised by him thinking this but still, it's almost funny that they both are grappling with similar concerns. She takes it in, but doesn't comment on it.
"There's a stool over there." He doesn't point, but mentally guides her to a stool only a few feet away, with a maroon sweatshirt thrown over it. It's the place he usually reserves for any students he spends time with, and the cleanest spot in the garage, if she doesn't mind sitting on his shirt.
He doesn't move away from his bike. It's easier to have something else to focus on. Somewhere to direct his eyes other than Emma. "I'm not upset with you." Scott fiddles with the red-handled grunge brush in his hand. "I never was."
There are more quiet clicks as Emma makes her way to the stool with a deceptively steady gait, gently smoothing out Scott's sweatshirt before sitting down and crossing her legs. Though he won't look at her, her eyes have yet to leave him. Her mind, too, is focused intently on him, settled in, attempting to be less intrusive than usual but still very much a continuing presence. Watching him gives her no respite, though. It just makes her heart pound.
"I didn't think you were upset with me, per se. Just…" She brushes back some of her hair, willing herself to be honest even as she stalls for a moment more. "I don't think a man has ever made me feel so undesirable and I just… don't understand." It sounds vain, she knows. It is a little. But other things play under the surface, about who she is as a person. About how she compares to Jean. How can stupid Scott Summers make her feel so oddly insecure?
"Emma," he sighs, and there's something in his voice that might've been a laugh, if Scott was the laughing type. He bows his head, and seems to be bracing himself before he turns to face her.
There's a quiet moment as he really looks at her, noting the primness of her outfit, the placement of her hands, the expression on her face. Since the first day he met her, Emma has been in total control, every element of her appearance calibrated for effect. She must know how astonishingly beautiful she is. He's never heard her sound so vulnerable before. Her jaw sets at the inkling of vulnerable in his thoughts. He's correct, and she loathes it.
"I'm sorry." He hates that he made her doubt herself. Stupidly, Scott didn't think he—or anyone—was capable of doing that. "It's no reflection on how desirable you are. Ninety-nine percent of men would be overjoyed if you kissed them, I'm sure."
And Scott, of course, is the other percent. Emma feels some of her hurt and discomfort twist into annoyance at herself and at him. A welcome change. It's egotistical of her to be as irritated about this as she is, but she doesn't care - she is clawing back her reason. She knows Scott admires her, thinks she's beautiful and talented, cares about her. Even the way he's so hesitant to look at her now suggests something, even if her traitor feelings try to twist it up into proof that she is the problem here, that she is simply unwanted. A small part of her is tempted to reach out to Manny, to beg him to smother her emotions so she can be more logical about the facts she has, but she refuses. She's going to handle this herself, like she always does.
Emma stands and moves towards Scott, unafraid of all the surrounding threats to her pristine wardrobe but still a little afraid of what her next move will result in. "And how did you feel? Let me see." Even though the phrasing is a demand, her tone makes clear that it is a request.
"No." Scott takes on the steely calm which shows itself whenever they enter the battlefield, wiping away his usual overwhelming doubts. His walls hold fast. He hasn't ignored her this week, nor has he totally forbidden her from his mind. But he will not be letting Emma in like he has before. If she doesn't like it, she shouldn't have trained him so well.
He sets down his tools and rises to stand. "What do you want from me, Emma?"
This squaring of himself, his even tone and even mind (the bits of it she can see, anyway) are familiar to Emma. So they're on a battlefield. She can work with that. As Scott stands she takes a single, small step closer, a challenge for him - to push her away or pull her in, she's not sure, but she can hold her ground as well as him. Her jaw remains as set as his, chin lifted just a little - in her heels he's not that much taller than her. Her presence remains in his mind, in the small space he has carved out for her.
Even with all this bravado, Emma's heart is pounding and she feels a little dizzy, though it would be impossible to tell from the outside. She is calculating her words. Scott needs directness. She can do that.
"I'm interested in you, Scott. And I'm curious if that's reciprocated in any capacity."
Whatever he thinks about that is concealed behind reflective red lenses. He's looking at her—he hasn't once looked away from her—and one might easily assume the hardness of his expression is annoyance, or anger, or just a warning signal, akin to a threatened predator. But his silence stretches for seconds, and the room he's made for Emma in his mind is unnaturally still.
Scott is aware of the distance between their bodies down to the millimeter. He doesn't move.
"We have to work together." His voice is quiet but firm. "This isn't possible."
This feels… better, Emma thinks, even though she remains nearly short of breath. Even as the emptiness of the place she mentally sits makes her feel restless. His words are not a denial of anything, simply an argument, and she can manage an argument. A negotiation. But she's not going to beg.
"We're adults. You and I, in particular, are rational. Controlled." She's not feeling quite as controlled as she knows she's coming across, but that's irrelevant. "If the only reason you ran out of my office is that then you shouldn't have left. Because, honestly, I've already opened Pandora's box, and we're still going to have to work together. If you're going to think about kissing me, you might as well just do it."
He wants to. Scott's thoughts are too disciplined to spell it out so explicitly, but it slips out in a single tortured observation: she's so clean, and his hands are stained with grease. He can't touch her.
"Not a good idea," he says evenly. "Unless you think we can keep emotions out of it."
While the girlish flutters in her chest remain along with the unsettling feeling of vulnerability, evidenced by her slightly quickened breathing, they have quieted significantly. Emma much prefers what she's feeling now, finally, after catching that errant thought about her clothes - resolute, in control, committed. When this had all happened on Monday she might have taken his words differently, taken them as yet another slight about her. Maybe even earlier in this conversation she would have felt that way. But now she thinks she knows what he means, even without having his thoughts accessible. There's no way they can keep emotions out of it.
"You can't have nice things if you don't take risks sometimes, Scott." She doesn't actually know if this will be a nice thing. It could be a nightmare. Ultimately, though, she figures she is the one that stands to get hurt, and she's prepared to wade through the fallout with grace. Maybe she's being egotistical thinking that she can, but it doesn't really matter - those emotions he's worried about are already a twisted knot inside her regardless of how this goes. And Scott? It's not like he hasn't compartmentalized worse.
After a moment she leans down to pick up a dirtied rag from the floor, and as she stands she drags it from her knee up to her shoulder, smearing grease along her skirt and shirt.
"Don't." Alarm and concern fills Scott's head, and steps forward to grab her arm, stopping her. Emma's trained reflex is to pull away when grabbed, but she doesn't because it's Scott. He's still telling himself he can't—he won't—even as he tugs Emma closer, his head tilting down towards hers. The black streak across her clothing stands out like graffiti on rare marble. The wrongness of it makes him dizzy, and he knows Emma is listening to every thought he fails to keep behind his shield. The audacity of her, like no one else he's ever known. The rise and fall of her chest. The memory of her cool blue eyes. The red-tinged sight of them now as his other hand cups her face, smudging dirt onto her cheek.
He's not allowed this. It's the last thing in his head before Scott locks it away again. His mind holds back, but the rest of him doesn't. He kisses Emma like he's thought of nothing else since Monday.
Though she has been somewhat pliable, the moment Scott kisses her Emma's free hand grabs a fistful of his shirt, a reciprocal anchor to his hold on her wrist. The rag falls easily from her other hand. And while, normally, she'd find Scott's still relatively locked-up mind frustrating, right now she is just focused on this moment, on the physical. The only mental work she does is the equivalent of a gentle shush of his final exposed thought, of not being allowed this. That is a thing to discuss later, but she needs him to know she doesn't agree. He is good. He can have things that he wants.
She continues to kiss him, feeling almost feverish - Emma has been avoiding this for far too long for a variety of reasons and the release of tension is heavenly. She tries to pull Scott back towards a nearby wall, a space that frees them from a direct line of sight from any of the entrances. Might as well see how long he'll let her indulge.
Guided by her hands and her presence in his head, Scott moves with her, pressing her against the hard wall of the garage. He's always taken direction well. Some corner of his brain needs to deconstruct what's happening, to step back and analyze every angle and scope out the exits, but it's near-impossible to think with Emma touching him, telling him he’s good. If he had any less self-control, he could lose himself in this.
Scott breaks the kiss first. "I'm still going." He's breathless enough to sound apologetic, knowing what this looks like. Running away after kissing Emma is a mistake; doing it twice is a pattern. He begs her to read his mind to see how important she is to him, and how badly he wants to do the right thing here. "I need to refocus."
As their lips part Emma's grip on Scott's shirt releases, already having loosened when her back had met the wall. She's certain she looks insane, at least for herself - flushed, grime on her face and clothes, lipstick a mess, expression far softer and less controlled than usual. It doesn't particularly matter, she supposes, even though there's a slight tinge of discomfort at being disheveled. She's had quite enough of vulnerability this past week.
Pulling in a slow breath to try to even out her breathing, she slowly lifts her hand to Scott's face, wiping away the transferred lipstick with her thumb in one firm, smooth motion. She knows him well enough that his tone, mental reassurances, and the fact that he's being communicative can at least dull her reactive offense to him leaving. Of course he needs to refocus. Honestly, she probably does too. This is far from her most brilliant idea, but she's having a hard time regretting it at all.
"At the very least stay in something quaint, like a bed and breakfast or a cabin. A roadside motel would just be depressing."
Scott smiles. It's a very Emma response to reassert control by telling him what to do. It doesn't matter to him where he rests tonight, but he likes that it matters to her. He can fulfill this small request.
He reluctantly removes his hand from her face. "I'm sorry." For the grease and motor oil, mostly, but also for how screwed up he is in the head. No sane person would ever walk away from Emma, especially not while she looks like this. Soft. Radiant. Unexpectedly wild. He wants to kiss her again, and for longer, but if he does, he might never leave.
Scott forces himself to take two steps back, no longer touching her. "Sorry," he repeats.
Emma filters gentle reassurance into his mind as he steps away, a dismissal of his apologies. She wants to drag him back to her, but she's trying to be kind; this all feels a little delicate, so she needs to behave for now. It's difficult, though, with how he's thinking about her.
Pressing her palms against the cool wall behind her to ground herself, she manages to look much calmer than she's actually feeling, her eyes remaining locked on Scott. "You can make it up to me later. For now I should let you get back to your preparations."
"Right." Scott takes a deep breath, calling on his training to center himself. Locking doors, reviewing protocols, clearing his mind of distractions. It pushes Emma outside of his mind again, which can only be a relief to them both. The last impression she gets of his thoughts is an image of her smudged lipstick, then his cool professionalism slides back into place. "I'll be back on Monday."