xp_logs | Scott & John | Tuesday Morning

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"You can’t talk your way out of what you’ve behaved yourself into." -Stephen R. Covey-

Scott stopped in front of the suite door, tilting his head at its very definitely closed state. There was something almost pointed about it. Smiling slightly, he knocked. There was no answer. Scott's smile tugged upwards a little further, and he knocked again.

"John? Are you dead?"

The digital clock on the bedside table read 09:45 AM. He had set the alarm for sometime after midnight. John shifted, grimacing slightly as he did so. He tugged the covers over his head.

"John, ordinarily I'd take some kind of grunt as a sign that you are indeed still among the living," Scott went on, still smiling, "but this is a special occasion, and I need more. Also," he added, glancing down at the tray he was balancing on his other hand, "I brought you breakfast."

Jesus fucking christ. "...door's unlocked," he answered, loud enough to be heard. It took a considerable amount of effort to push himself up to a sitting position. Four days without any proper sleep whatsoever and he'd gotten himself a miserable twelve hours of it; it wasn't enough.

Scott tried it. "... so it is," he said, stepping in and closing the door behind him. He set the tray - a light breakfast, because multiple druggings in one weekend did not make for settled stomachs - down on the kitchenette table and wandered over to the open door of John's bedroom, sticking his head in. "Are you all right?" he asked him.

"...if you're here because I charred a few humans," John started as he got himself out of bed. "I've got a pretty decent explanation for that."

"Well," Scott confessed, leaning against the doorframe, "I was a little concerned about that, yes. But I didn't come up here to get on your case about that," he went on more quietly. "Wish you hadn't done it, but I also wish you hadn't wound up in the situation in the first place."

John quirked an eyebrow. Truth was, he'd gotten a kick out of utilizing his powers and there wasn't much about Vegas he could think to complain about. He drew in a deep breath.

"...everyone else okay?"

"More or less. You all need some rest, food, and a sustained lack of trauma." Scott's mouth quirked in an ironic smile. "Here's hoping, huh?"

John cracked a wry smile in return. He'd half-expected to be reprimanded -- that would have been a lot easier to deal with. If Scott was expecting some kind of talk about the trip, well, he wasn't in the business of sharing and caring. He fiddled with his lighter for a moment and then well, he faked a yawn.

Scott raised an eyebrow. "Did you want me to go away and leave you to breakfast?" he asked lightly. He wondered if he should point out to John that he had basically two choices here; a conversation with him, or a conversation over tea with Charles later. They needed to see how he was, one way or the other.

John let out a brief chuckle. "Look, uh, I appreciate you coming in here to check on me but it's really not necessary." John was no longer a student at the school and he wasn't part of the staff either. "I'm not your responsibility so..."

There were a lot of things he could have said to that. Instead, Scott went over and sat down at the kitchen table, stealing a piece of toast off the tray. "I could give you the saintly-and-utterly-fake answer I would have given you a year ago and tell you that everyone under this roof is my responsibility."

"Right -- so don't give me that." John removed two glasses from the cupboard and poured them each a full glass of orange juice. He took a seat at the other end of the table.

"Wasn't planning to. I will say, however, that from what I've heard, Murderworld was..." Scott didn't fake the slight shudder. He had no idea how all of them had gotten out alive. It was a hell of a testament to how well they'd all learned how to weather danger.

"...yeah, well--" John rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "--guess we were lucky to have escaped." He glanced over at Scott. "What the fuck was that all about anyways?"

Scott sighed, and gave John an edited version. All of the ins and outs didn't need to be covered, but he deserved to know the basics. "...and that takes us to Monday night," he said, with a wry, still somewhat tired quirk of his lips.

"I see that today's got you delivering breakfast trays to people." John managed a smirk. "What next?"

"Phone calls to parents," Scott said, his voice dry. "Plus I still need to debrief a couple of people..." He gave John a curious look. "Apart from the, uh, use of lethal force... anything you want to tell me about what happened?"

John's brow furrowed slightly at that. "What do you mean?" He had been hoping to stir the conversation away from him. There wasn't much to discuss or rather, there wasn't much that he wanted to discuss.

"Well, basically you were a temporary X-Man," Scott pointed out. "You fought with the team. Not really something you'd done before..." John had fought to protect himself, fought on behalf of Magneto... but not with the X-Men.

He snorted. "It wasn't like I had a choice," John started out by saying; funny how he was feeling the need to defend himself, his actions. "And I didn't do much. I was trapped under a collapsed wall right after burning a few of the men down."

"You could have left with the others," Scott pointed out, almost idly. "I think it's interesting that you didn't." Telling, in a way.

John wasn't sure where the conversation was going but his already bruised ego managed to take a second beating from Scott's argument and he didn't like it. His upper lip curled into a smirk. "Could've done it for the killing."

So stubborn. "Did you?" Scott inquired, not smiling.

He wasn't sure of the answer to that but too tired to start a diatribe; John responded with a mere shrug. He hadn't given it a lot of thought.

"I'd think about it," Scott advised lightly, rising. He didn't want to push too hard. "Call it having had too much therapy over the last year, but understanding why you make some of these decisions can be...interesting."

"I'm not a big fan of dwelling on past mistakes," John said in return. "But I'll try to keep that in mind."