Log [Alison, Scott] Won't you be my tea guinea pig?

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Sometimes they come to you of their own free will and sometimes they just stumble in your path and you take them home for tea. Alison happens across Scott wandering in the hallways and decides he's to be her first guinea pig in her attempts to make the perfect Moroccan Mint Tea.

His head hurt. Not in the dysfunctional-link sort of way - thank fuck those migraines were over and done with, even if the amount of stress in his life had tripled as a result of the 'solution' - but a steady, throbbing ache that he suspected had more to do with the tension in his neck and shoulders than anything else. Scott wandered a bit aimlessly down the halls, not really sure where he was going, but unwilling to go shut himself up in his suite just yet. Sean would push tea on him if he did that.

"Wow." Turning the corner to head for her room had ended up with a full close up view of a very aggrieved looking Scott. Almost nose to nose, Alison blinked up at him a touch bemusedly. "You look like someone just took a crowbar to Baby or something. Or was there a real goofball in her windshield?" she asked. And then sobered up at the lack of reaction. "Uh. Want a hideout? I need to practice making mint tea as a surprise for Haroun. Be my hapless victim?"

Scott hesitated for only a moment. "Consider me your willing guinea pig," he said quietly, turning to let her past him. "Lead on. I should have figured today would end in tea one way or the other."

"Ah, but this is not just any tea!" she informed him, adopting the particular cadence and lilt of Haroun's voice as she spoke. "Moroccan mint tea is involves far more than you think. One must select the right glasses," she paused and added in her normal tones, "gold and blue today, I think," and then continued on "and then make sure to prepare everything just right to do everything proper justice!"

Scott smiled a little, following her into her suite. "You're very odd, had I mentioned that lately?" He stopped, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the living room. "Pillows," he said thoughtfully. "Lots of pillows." A weary laugh slipped out before he could help it. "Damn. I'm liable to keel over and be snoring on your floor for the rest of the night."

"But it's a comforting you know it'll be there kind of odd. Admit it. And why not crash?" was the simple reply. "It is comfortable and I'm thinking that cushions are my new best friend." Grinning a bit impishly, she headed for the Tea Table, carefully withdrawing what she needed for a sweet mint tea preparation before turning towards the kitchenette. "They're perfect for throwing at people for one. Now go on, siddown. You know you want to!"

Scott sat down a bit gingerly, picking up one of the pillows and fingering the attached tassels. "Pretty pillows," he said. "Interesting embroidery on this one..." The pattern went around and around and around, rather like his mind these days. "Hey, Alison?" he asked, hearing her moving around in the kitchenette. "Do you think I've been self-involved lately?"

A blink greeted that, even as Alison put water to boil, then meticulously started to measure out proportions of sugar, green tea and fresh spearmint leaves she'd retrieved from the mini-fridge. They would have to consider getting a few plants, she decided. She'd beg Ororo to show her how not to kill them outright. "You're about the least self-involved person I know. Involved in your work? Yes. In self? Aah, no. You tend to put everyone else before yourself, really." She looked at him over her shoulder, but didn't ask what had brought that on.

"I'm just..." Scott trailed off, then shrugged. "Doesn't matter, I guess." So he couldn't be everything to everyone, or even manage to be what he should be to the people who deserved better of him. He was supposed to be accepting his limits, wasn't he? Rather than trying to shatter himself on them. He found himself hugging the oversized pillow, resting his chin on it. Very comfy, really. His gaze roamed around the altered living room. "You're happy these days. You and Haroun," he said quietly. "I'm glad. I was telling him that."

"If it matters to you, then it matters," Alison said in a sing song voice, listening for the light hissing of boiling water and not hearing it yet. Right, she had to be patient while making tea. She could that! "I am." Despite all the things that could make it otherwise, clearly cutting back and just not over-extending herself on everything and everyone anymore was working. "I've been trying to keep things more... balanced lately. I think it's working. And Haroun is a part of the making me happy, yes. Very much so," she added the last with a small smile, before looking up at Scott, the question clear in her eyes though still unspoken.

"I'm glad," he said, then reflected that he'd said that already. "And repeating myself, obviously. I just figure I don't say these things enough." Nice pillow. Scott turned his head, then winced a little as knotted muscles in his neck protested the angle. "I have a balance, too, I think," he said after a moment, almost protesting... something, he wasn't sure what. "I just run low on energy sometimes."

The water hissed at her and Alison unplugged the kettle from the wall after flicking the switch to off. "I know." Dropping a bit of the water in the tea pot she then swished it around, to warm the inside of the container properly. "I mean, I know how that feels. You know - when I say finding a balance? You still bobble to the side now and then. There isn't a perfect balance," she said, emptying out the water and then putting in the tea, sugar and spearmint leaves in carefully. "And it's hard to take the step back to give yourself a break when you need it." She grinned crookedly, then started to pour the water. "But you know that."

He could smell mint already. "I don't deserve a break," he muttered, without really thinking. "So much to do. So much to try and sort out..." He hesitated, then laughed a bit ruefully. "There I go again. Why do I always end up right back there? It's like this road I know I'm not supposed to go down. 'No, Scott! There lies nervous breakdowns and drugs in your coffee.' Only I keep trying to do it anyway."

"You've been doing that longer than any of us." Setting the teapot on the tray was done in silence, and if there was a slight nudge of Something Else used to ensure that, Alison didn't say so. Tea cups, glasses of brilliant blue and gold were then added to it and Alison brought it to the low table carefully. After that, the screen was pulled wide open, serving to hide the kitchenette from view, adding another dash of subtle color to the room as well. "See, the thing is? Instead of hiding out to do it now you wandered out and then let me heist you away to mint tea-dom." She tugged a few cushions free of a nearby pile, hugging on close to herself. And then eyed the tea, willing it to steep faster.

"Work's not the refuge it used to be." Youra, and Pete, and the horde'o'trainees and all his worries about them... "There are things I can do, and things I can't," Scott said somewhat doggedly. "I can juggle it all, but I can't smile when I'm doing it. That's fair, isn't it?" He sighed heavily, closing his eyes and inhaling the scent of the tea. "I think I've been hit in the head too often this spring. Maybe that's the problem."

"Naw. You're just starting to poke at stuff that needs poking at, and working it out. It's a headache to do it, but you will." Simple confidence radiated through at that, and Alison resisted the impulse the pry the lid of the tea pot open, practically hearing Haroun's voice warning her to stay away from the tea until it was ready. Work wasn't meant to be a refuge all the time, after all. Just sometimes.

"Persistence," Scott said. "Persistence is my watchword and all that..." He was relaxing a little, though. Between the smell of the tea, and the quiet in the room, and Alison's undemanding presence... "So glad I'm not doing this on my own anymore, you know," he murmured. "Although I suppose I never really was..." It was just easier to lean, now, as if having two co-team leaders meant that it was all right. That he didn't have to juggle it all himself.

It didn't smell quite as it usually did when Haroun made it, but the time was right, at least by her internal clock. Carefully, not at all reaching the extravagant heights Haroun did when pouring the stuff, Alison prepared Scott's glass, the tea foaming slightly in the process. "Not doing stuff alone when you don't have to is good," she concurred quietly and uncritically, pausing to inhale. The warm sweetness of the tea was heavenly, she decided. How had she done without before? "Here. Tea. It's not perfect, but I think it's safe. It smells safe," she added gravely.

"It smells wonderful," Scott said, taking it. "And don't worry. I'm not afraid you'll poison me." He sipped at it. It tasted as good as it smelled. Not like coffee at all. He took another sip, staring a bit blankly at the opposite wall. "I've been having these dreams. I wake up and things aren't so complicated. Then I wake up and realize they're just dreams. It's kind of disappointing, really."

"Mmm. Maybe you're just trying to tell yourself that simple is okay?" The tea wasn't bad. It wasn't nearly close to how Haroun made it, but it wasn't bad. She was ruined for any mint tea not made by Haroun, clearly. "We can't plan to make our lives easier in general. Fate just loves to trump us there. But who says the day to day can't be orchestrated that way just bit?" she added pensively. It was working for her so far. Not always easy to stick to, but it was working. And she didn't feel so ragged by everyone around her anymore - a touch cynical over certain things at time, but it wasn't getting the best of her. Kept in balance. Which was how it should be.

"Except the simple way out is only going to..." Scott bit his lip, then looked up at Alison. "I don't want to think about it right now," he confessed with a helpless little laugh, then sipped at his tea again. "In the morning. I'll do something productive about the whole mess in the morning... sound fair?"

"Absolutely. No thinking at all for you, not until tomorrow. Which goes just fine with the way the cushion there seems to have decided to glue itself to you," she murmured, noting the definite tilt which had been increasing in the past minute or so. Solemnly, she selected another cushion and handed it to him over the table. "There. That'll help with the tilting." It'd also help with the not getting up just yet, but she figured it would work out well.

Two pillows. What was he supposed to do with two great big pillows? He wound up setting on one of the floor and kind of leaning on it with one elbow. The other, in front of him, was at the perfect level for setting his tea on when he wasn't sipping at it. "I'm so going to sleep on your floor," he murmured, taking another sip of his tea and trying to ignore the heaviness of his eyes. "Nice, safe floor..."

He was nearly done with the tea too, she noted, which meant she'd have ample time to snag the glass in case it rolled, the minute he finally gave up and keeled over. "It's a nice, safe and comfy floor," she agreed, pitching her voice low. It was easy to agree, the rug being indeed just enough to take the edge off the hard floor. Combined with the cushions, he was pretty much doomed.

As was shown by the small sigh and the slumping of shoulders that heralded sleep winning over and then some, sound subtly leached away the instant after as the nearly empty glass started to tip to one side. Reaching over the table in a careful, measured move to not wake Scott up, Alison snagged the glass and placed it on the table before getting up. Still in utter silence, she picked up the tray and rose to her feet to start clearing things up.

And once the tea things had been washed and put away, she would have to go out and find Haroun to warn him of the sleeping Scott in their living room area.