xp_logs | Jay & Terry, early Monday afternoon

Because there hasn't been enough drama lately. Terry and Jay meet up in the music room and argue about Tommy. He's offended, she's hurt. And then he makes her cry. What a nice friend.

The unmistakable sounds of Jay's singing emanated through the open doorway of the music room into the hallway. He was singing something he was just starting to work on, and there were numerous pauses as he bent over the sheet of lyrics to scratch something out and replace it with better words. One might have expected to find a choir in the room given how many voices could be heard, but it was just Jay, his mutation-enhanced vocal chords enchanting the room with his almost angelic voices.

Until he growled and started swearing. Stupid writer's block.

Terry bounced in to the room and hit a high note, her flexible voice reaching to the upper range without even warm up. She grinned at her best friend and nodded, "Yeh should go up. Throw in a harmony." Her mood was still excellent from her meeting with Alison this morning.

Jay looked up and bit back a sigh. Terry wasn't someone he was particularly in the mood to speak with at the moment. "Ah reckon Ah will once Ah actually, y'know, have a song ta sing." He crumpled up the sheet and tossed it in the garbage. "You're lookin' mighty fit this mornin'. Bobby have a new trick up his sleeve?" he asked teasingly, although his voice held little of its usual humor.

For a moment, Terry looked unbearably smug, "Maybe. But that's not what's putting a smile on my face." She fished the crumpled out from garbage and glanced it over, humming it to herself. "I'm just having a good day is all. Yeh need to help me, by the by. I've a song to choose and I'm not sure what I'll pick. Something traditional."

"Song for what? Goin' to serenade us on Christmas mornin'? And don't look at that," he said, pointing to the paper, "It's rubbish."

"Only if you ask nicely," Terry responded with a headshake. "No, it's for something else. A project I'm doing." She was reluctant to tell anyone about her idea. She wrinkled her nose at the song and dropped it back in the trash. "Pretty melody. That lyrics are crap."

But if she was going to say she had a project, then Jay would push until she told him about it. Because that's what friends do. "What sorta project?" he asked.

"Just an idea I had," she said noncommittally, then grinned, "Guess what? I'm going to be working part time at Alison's studio. Just entry level stuff but I'll get to see how everything works. It's going to be so great."

Oh, so she was going to be like that, huh? Which meant it was something big. But she seemed excited enough about it, so he'd figure it out eventually. "Alison's studio, huh? Goin' ta be mah manager someday, then?"

Terry flipped her hair at him and smirked, "Maybe after I've had my own career. You'll need all the friends in high places you can get, what with that unfortunate face of yours. Selling you is going to be a trick and a half."

Jay made a face at her. "Naw, Ah don't need no favors. Ah can get by on pure talent, thankyouverymuch. Once Ah write a song that doesn't have such awful words, at least."

"Don't blame the words. It's just the order you put them in that's the problem." She hummed to herself, typical of Terry thinking, like hold music. "What is it you're wanting to write?"

Now he sighed. "Oh, Ah dunno. Been in a wonky mood lately, so Ah reckon it's along the lines of 'you say you're mah friend so fuckin' act like it, you son of a bitch.'" Not that he had anyone in mind about that. Oh no.

Terry paused in the act of reaching for her guitar--froze really. She turned wide blue eyes on him, face pale. "Ah…that's not your usual sound," she managed, her voice shaking ever so slightly. She was dreading talking to him about Tommy, especially considering their fight over him a couple months back.

"Yeah, well, people ain't actin' like they ought to much any more," he said back. He looked up at her pointedly. "Know what Ah mean?"

She lifted her chin, nothing if not extremely stubborn. "No, I don't since I don't know what you think they ought to be acting like. I imagine people are just acting the way they think is best all around." 'Come out and say it', she thought at him like he was a telepath and could hear her, 'Accuse me of something.'

"Well, they ought to rethink what they think is best." He shrugged. "Like, take Mr. Wisdom. People are all 'yay he's back and not evil,' but they're forgettin' the fact that he was with the freakin' Hellfire Club. After how much he scared all of us, we're supposed ta just forget about it?"

"Or Miss Dane? She was with Magneto. She kidnapped Forge." Terry countered. "Or Forge himself who tried to blow up his school. Or Marie, she killed people. Or Jono. Or me. I grew up making crime pay. Depending on how far back yeh want to go, there's something wrong with just about all of us."

"How much of that was their fault? Jono blew up 'cuz of his powers, right? Miss Dane was kidnapped herself. You were a kid and you've grown up. Forge admitted he fucked up." Jay crossed his arms over his chest defensively, but tried to cover that up by shivering as if he were cold.

There, that was her chance. "He just admitted it. When he came here, he didn't think that. He was angry and hurt and he hated all of us as much as he hated himself, maybe more because he thought he was right at least." She folded her arms in unconscious mimicry. "But we gave him a chance."

"Ah knew about it before he told everyone. Not to mention that he actively tried ta become a better person." He snorted. "And he's so damn wrapped up in his idea of redemption that he's gone way past optimistic and now's just an idiot."

Jay stood up, his arms still crossed across his chest. "Let's stop beatin' 'round the bush here, Terry. You know why Ah'm just a mite put out here."

She stayed where she was, looking up at him. "Aye. And I don't want to be hurting you over this which is why I've not said anything. I'm not choosing sides here, Jay. You're still my best friend."

Then act like it. Which is what he wanted to say. But he didn't. "He hurt you," he said instead. "Did you forget that? He hurt me. And you can still bring yourself to be in the same room as him? How can you forgive him?"

"I didn't forget. I know what he was just as well as you. And I know that he nearly died for the same crime that we committed--being a mutant. But, see, if we don't give him a chance to change, then he won't. He'll go on being just the same, still hating us and still thinking that they're right." Terry stood, dropping her arms to her sides, though she felt sick to her stomach. "I hate that he hurt you. I just have to believe that he's not all bad."

"Has he even fuckin' apologized yet?" he demanded, although he kept his voice at a reasonable level. "Does he even know what he did? He as good as told Kyle that he's proud of what he did."

"He..." She stopped, about to say that he had. But looking back, he hadn't really. He'd said he wouldn't have hurt her. He'd said that he regretted breaking up with her. But he hadn't said he was sorry. She just...assumed he was. "He knows. I don't know what he thinks about it." She'd avoided asking, had been afraid to, really.

"Why haven't you asked him?" he asked desperately. "How can you even think to give him a chance when he doesn't regret what a shit he is?" Jay seemed composed, although his wings were shaking.

"Because he's not! He's fucked up and he was taught to hate but he's not a bad person. He just has to learn better." Terry's own struggle for composure was a losing battle, not being the type of person who could easily keep her emotions in check. She blinked rapidly against tears and sniffled. "I haven't asked him because I want him to say that he's sorry. And I don't think he will right now."

Now Jay was shaking. "Ah hate these excuses! 'He was taught ta hate.' 'He never got the chance to learn better.' 'He got a taste of his own medicine and that's enough.' Is it? Forge is spoutin' off all this nonsense about how people can change, how he's already paid enough. But he hasn't paid enough to me. You know, the person he tried ta fuckin' murder." His hands were curled in such tight fists that his nails were biting into his palms, and he didn't even bother trying to see through the water in his eyes.

"You haven't seen him! You haven't talked to him. How can he pay you back? Mother of God, Jay, he's barely out of the medlab himself, when has he had the chance to make things right? He nearly died too!" Her voice broke and her control too, power wavering in every word. She stopped with a gasp and covered her mouth.

Jay flinched. He knew she hadn't meant it, that emotions were running wild and that Terry didn't want to hear what Jay had to say. But all the same, he still felt hurt that she'd nearly used her powers on him. "Ah did see him, God dammit! Ah saw him and he ran the fuck away. Forge says it's because Ah represent everythin' that he done fucked up. But'cha now what? Ah'm not gonna coddle him! Ah don't care if his life was hell. It doesn't excuse him and he doesn't fuckin' well deserve it!"

Terry sobbed for a moment, struggling for control over her voice, distraught. When she spoke it was muffled behind her hand. "Yeh don't have to forgive him. Yeh don't have to have anything to do with him. But he's not going away and I'm not going to let him be here and still hate us. I'm sorry that yeh don't like it, but I can't give up on him. I just can't!"

Jay hastily grabbed his guitar and any bits of paper he'd left lying around and angrily crossed the room to leave. Terry was making him feel sick, and even if she were to leave, then he wouldn't be able to work any more anyway. But before he left, he stopped in front of Terry and glared at her. "But he gave up on you."

"No, he didn't. He just broke up with me," she said quietly, tears streaming down her cheeks. She wiped them away, hastily. "Please, Jay, please don't hate me. I don't want to lose yeh."

"Same difference." And he left without another word. He didn't hate Terry, no, but a nasty little vindictive part of him told him that maybe if he made her think so, then she would abandon Tommy for him.

And that thought made him sick to his stomach.