Shiro & Marius, Wednesday afternoon

[x-sanfuaiyaa.livejournal.com]

Taking out frustration on inanimate objects is an Xavier's way of life, and it's no different for Shiro and Marius. The reasons for some of Shiro's recent decisions come to light via Marius' inherent obnoxiousness.


Shiro carefully let go of the cable machine lever, and gingerly got up from his seat. He cocked his head to pop his neck, cringing at the brief stab of pain. The crackling echoed through the near-empty room. He was sweating, he ached, and he was breathing heavily, but he wasn't done yet. He'd put on the glove from his uniform, and three of the eight rays of the power indicator were still illuminated. He figured that if he could just work himself into utter exhaustion, then he'd finally be able to get some rest.

He'd first tried meditating, but that resulted in a downed tree and a large swath of ashy ground. He couldn't stop replaying the infamous scene over and over, and each time he thought about it, he was that much more of a monster. It was easier to just stop thinking, and physical exertion usually was the key. When he was alone, at least. But Shiro couldn't keep his mind off or on anything with Marius around. The mere presence of the much handsomer, friendlier, and overall happier teammate was an assault. Marius was just another example of what Shiro was sure he could never be.

As for Marius, he was fully aware there was no logical explanation for why he hadn't just walked right out of the weight room the moment he'd seen the other participant. While the uncharacteristic row with Monet was definitely the primary factor in his bad mood, the seasoning provided by Jennie's creampuff gossip had pitched his mood from "black" to "sucking void of darkness" the moment he'd seen Shiro already involved in his workout. But why should Marius leave? This was his normal time, and like hell Shiro was going to put him off it just with his presence. Without a second look at the man Marius had walked in, settled into the nearest machine, and proceeded on with his routine without a word.

The silence, however, would have been much richer if Marius' leg extension exercises weren't causing progressively louder and more violent clacks thanks to energy applied with less than optimal control.

Shiro tied back his hair and sat down at the other leg press. "You can stop that now," he said, almost a growl. "We would all be better people for it."

"I highly doubt that to be a possibility," the younger boy muttered, weights falling with another inappropriate clang. At the moment he was finding the violence more attractive than doing the exercise right.

The fourth ray on Shiro's glove briefly lit up before he reined himself in and just took it out on his own weights. Although that did little to relieve him once he noticed that he was lifting fewer plates than Marius. With an angry snarl, he let his plates slam down and turned to face the other. "What the hell?"

Marius contemplated his options. He could attempt diplomacy and go with the old stand-by of "nothing," but in this mood it would be in a tone that would indicate anything but, and he'd never had the patience for veiled comments. Why bother with subtlety?

"Talked to Jen," Marius said shortly, not looking away from his exercise. From how Jennie had described the conversation he theorized those three words would convey all that needed to be said.

"I see." Shiro turned back to his machine. "And why is that an excuse to be obnoxious?" he asked hoarsely. Rhetorically, too, for that matter. The fourth ray lit up again.

Marius pushed his legs to extension, still refusing to look at the other boy. "Right, as I'm always in need of an excuse." Clank. Clank. The weight was far too little to account for the pounding in his ears; sweat on the palms of his hands was making the styrofoam grips tacky. What was he supposed to say?

What did he want to say?

. . . clank.

The weights lowered back into place, and Marius finally turned to look at Shiro.

"Did you not realize," Marius said abruptly, "or did you just not care?"

Shiro stiffened but he kept his eyes ahead, locked on the machine. "The former. But I do not have to answer or defend myself to you of all people."

Marius jerked his head impatiently. "Mind for one moment givin' the actual questions time to bear out the assumption? I'm tryin' to get this straight in my head." He raked a hand through his hair, frustrated by the sudden inefficiency of words. "Look, forget the recent bit. Why'd you start on Kick? Weren't in pain, not precisely hurtin' for power -- so why go on with it?"

'Because I could' was not a good answer, accurate and succinct as it was. So Shiro went with what he'd convinced himself was true. "I had a choice to make: use what power I had and fail, or take a chance and save countless lives. It was not a difficult choice." There was some truth to that, enough to answer Marius' question, at least.

Marius shook his head. "I did backread the team comm to see that bit. No worries with that choice so far as I can see. I mean the post-city-saving part. Why'd you keep at it?" Already groping for words, he tried to will Shiro to hear the question he couldn't seem to formulate: Why would you depend on anything unless you had no choice?

Shiro paused before replying. There was the obvious chemical reason, than he'd been hooked on the first try and simply could not give up, and was too proud or too foolish or both to seek help until it was too late. But he sensed something akin to pleading in Marius' tone - or what could pass for pleading with him - and knew that that wasn't the answer. "Do you have any idea what that kind of power feels like? I know what I am capable of myself, but with Kick I . . ." He inhaled deeply. "There was no end to what I could do."

The younger boy thought about this for what felt like a long time, his yellow eyes on Shiro.

"Right," Marius said at last, the word pared of his earlier sharpness. "Suppose in the end it makes no difference whether it's power to stay alive or power for power's sake." His fists, until then just short of white-knuckled around their scars, now lay slack against his legs. Exhaling, he added quietly, "An' maybe in that end one perhaps loses the ability to distinguish between the two."

"Ultimately, that was not a choice I had." Shiro finally looked up, his expression emotionless. "When I started I thought that there was so much good to be done. That I could ma . . . make people proud," he finally admitted. "But Kick is still a drug, and I could not fight it."

Marius snorted without humour, because even with his mind wandering different pastures on the former, at least, he had an opinion.

"Makin' people proud," he repeated. "Much the same as personally possessing it, except what goeth before the fall is, more often than not, yourself." The anger was gone, but now his mood had found some kind of barren plateau. Marius raked his hand through his hair again, the curls snarling between his fingers.

"I do not believe in that Christian proverb nonsense." It was a defensive, near-automatic reply. Shiro sighed and got up from the leg press so he could stretch his legs and pace. "I know that Kick was a mistake. More than that. But I had thought that I had defeated it. I felt good for so long and it was just recently that . . . anou, that I realized that I had not."

Marius leaned back on the exercise chair, letting one leg slide over the edge and set against the floor. "So this thing with Alex, with you not knowin'," he ventured, "think it's somethin' Kick did, or just . . . what your powers are?”

"I do not know," Shiro admitted. "I do not like either alternative. Maybe it was both. Maybe one fed into the other. I do not know." He held up his right hand and stared into the three glowing rays, bathing his face in soft red light. "My mutation requires external energy, and I suppose that I had become accustomed to latching onto the nearest source, ne?"

"Well. Would be rather a blatant lie to say neither the act nor the ignorance strike me as alarmin', but I'm the last bloke entitled to intolerance on the subject, aren't I?" Marius' hands flexed unconsciously as he watched the shorter boy examine the glove. "Circumstances seem too easy to be believed, law of averages dictates this is so, an' you should know better. Though one hopes that after sufficiently hideous mistakes one becomes rather more sensitive to the warning signs." He snorted and rose from the exercise machine. "Though given my own track record for observational skills, I'd be just as happy never to find another situation where this is put to the test."

"One would hope. But I think I have demonstrated that I am not the most psychologically self-aware person you will meet." Shiro dropped his hands and snorted derisively. One of the rays darkened. "The only addicts I have met before are Sefton and the person who gave me Kick. Not the best role models."

Marius raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Yes, well. Perhaps you'd do better lookin' for answers in your own head rather than someone else's. For starters, it's a shorter commute."

"And as we have all seen, that failed spectacularly. Why do you care, anyway? We are not friends. I barely even know you." Shiro slumped against the wall, tired.

"Honestly?" Marius cocked his head. "I've not the slightest idea. Because a little care costs me nothing, I suppose. For somethin' to say." He hesitated, then shrugged. "Or perhaps I just selfishly prefer to believe I inhabit a world where, upon reachin' the bottom, one needn't remain there, and seek evidence to perpetuate the delusion. Really couldn't say. There's never been a time when I regarded the human mind anything short of a mystery, least of all my own."

"You can keep your opinions to yourself, if you do not mind." The conversation had been more draining than any workout, and all Shiro wanted to do was collapse and pass out for three days. "Whether I am a bottom . . . I mean, at the bottom, is not your concern." Or possibly longer, so he wouldn't have to face that Freudian slip.

Although it took considerable effort, Marius decided it would be uncharitable to mock an ESL teammate for what could possibly have been a legitimate linguistic error regardless of how remote the possibility of truth. Fortunately, under the circumstances the threatening smirk wasn't easy to banish.

"Ah, my opinions are poor currency at any rate," the younger boy said, chin tilting upwards in acknowledgment of the fact. He looked at the leg extension machine, and decided to give up on a lost cause. "No worries. I'm just as happy to keep to my own business of mortifying the decent and true. However, I believe I'm off for a run." There was again the slightest beat, and then Marius added, "As the great outdoors are masterless, I suppose you're welcome to join me if you are so inclined."

"Thank you for the offer, but I think I will pass." And possibly commit seppuku.

Marius nodded. By no stretch of the imagination had anything about Shiro screamed 'Yes, more socialization today,' and additional the conversation had actually left Marius with something of a headache, but as he'd said, he lost nothing for the asking.

"Later, then," Marius said. He gave Shiro a brief salute, and left.