log: amara and lex

[x-volcanic.livejournal.com]

After the luau, Lex joins Amara in helping to clean up. Their discussion during it brings them both talking about what brought them to the mansion, and there's a brief moment in the kitchen as Amara tries to reassure him before they deliberately change the subject and go back to the clean-up.

The luau was starting to wrap up, with people floating off to other areas of the mansion. Amara hadn't left as yet, instead moving around the area where everyone had been eating, picking up paper plates and dropping them into the garbage bag she was carrying. It was time for cleaning up, and Amara just wasn't the type of girl to leave it up to someone else.

Lex stood next to the fire, basking in the heat of the coals. He thought the luau had gone over pretty well, and was surprised to see so many people attend. He hoped the food was good enough to make people forget about him making an ass of himself. He hadn't seen Lil, true to her word, and he couldn't tell if he was glad or disappointed. He wanted to make things better, because he needed to trust every member of the team.

As he moved away from the fire he saw Amara picking up trash and decided to help her. Walking around the fire he approached slowly, picking up plates along the way so he could dump them in her trash bag. "Hey."

"Hey," she replied with a smile of her own, pausing just long enough to push some hair back out of her face with the back of her hand. "This was a really good night, Lex. Congratulations." Amara hadn't missed the rocky start the man had had to his time at the mansion, but as usual, she made a point not to get involved.

"All things considered, I'd have to agree." He chuckled, putting the plates into her bag. "You don't have to stick around to help clean up." Even as he spoke it he knew he was glad for the company. It'd been a rough week and Amara was always fun to be around.

"Don't be silly. I don't mind helping out at all." She shook the bag carefully, making sure the contents settled further down into the bag so they could fit more in. "And it will get done much quicker if there are two of us doing it."

Lex laughed, she had a very good point. Lex looked over the mess of a backyard and thought it would be better to pick it up than leave it for Kyle, especially since he hadn't gotten a chance to apologize to the kid. "Thanks for that. What did you like the most?" He was prodding for things to say, not wanting to broach the topic of Lil, ever.

It is possible Kyle would have his head if Lex left the mess behind, to be honest. "To be honest?" She said with a bit of a smile. "I think it was the pork. A good spit roast is hard to find around here." And by here she meant American, not necessarily the mansion.

"Yeah, the best I've ever had was down in Florida. My dad's best friend used to make a mean roast." He was mildly surprised that he was telling her about his childhood, but he hated being dishonest and that was where he learned to cook. "I was just glad the deer turned out alright. I half expected it to be extremely gamy."

"Most special occasions at home were celebrated with a feast such as this." She paused long enough to toss a couple of cups into the bag, her smile getting a little sad with nostalgia. Lex wasn't the only one dropping childhood moments. "It was very good! You did a good job with all of the meat."

"Thanks," he said, pushing the contents deeper into the bag. "I think this bag might be done for." He laughed, looking around for another. He realized he had no idea where they were kept. "You wanna help me find another one?" he said with a smirk.

"Only if you carry this one in with us," she replied with a little bit of a laugh, holding the bag out to him. "There should be some more in the kitchen, I think."

"Of course," he laughed. "So you said you used to celebrate with feasts like this? Where are you from?" He realized it may not have been the most tactful transition so he added, "I was just wondering because I can't place your accent."

"Oh -- Nova Roma." Feel free to not have heard of it, Lex, that is the point. She looked uncomfortable for a moment, before continuing. "It's in Brazil." Not that that really helps with explaining it, but it's the best explanation she had.

"Not what I thought, but I'm not really good at placing people's origins." He'd gotten in trouble more than once for misjudging English and Australian accents. Knowing that she was Brazilian opened up a lot of questions for him. "I don't mean to prod, but you've gotten me curious. How'd you get to the mansion?"

"Oh, it's fine, really. I imagine it's not an easy accent to place." There was a long pause after his final question, not entirely sure how to answer that. It was, pretty much, the thing she didn't want to talk about, even after the talk she'd had with Crystal. After a few stomach-churning moments she finally decided to answer honestly, even if it was missing a few details. "The X-Men brought me here, after my powers manifested. I very much needed to learn how to control them, and this is the place to do that."

"Ah, well, I suppose it is at that, though I haven't done any formal training of mine yet." He thought about it, he didn't even know who would be able to teach him. He'd talked to Forge about tech stuff often, but never really thought about asking who could help him learn to control the other side of it. Opening up the door to the kitchen Lex put the first bag down and started looking for another one. "I take it your manifestation wasn't pleasant."

"I'm sure it will happen soon enough. Especially since you're a trainee now." Amara had the advantage of having attended school here, she was trained in the control of her powers before she started her X-Men training. "Ah -- yes. The volcano we lived by was..." She paused, not sure how to explain it. "Well, it was not dormant that evening."

"Oh," he said, embarrassed, he hadn't meant to make her uncomfortable as she clearly seemed to be. "I, uh, you... Hmmm, I take it you made it erupt." He was actually quite glad no one had been injured when he manifested, well no one but himself.

"Yes," she replied simply, moving to busy herself with searching for garbage bags, looking through some drawers. "What about you?" She asked eventually. "What brought you to the mansion?"

Lex felt really bad for making her uncomfortable and decided that he'd be honest with her as a way of making amends. "Well, I hijacked a military helicopter, using my powers, in order to stop an overzealous officer from killing a lot of innocent civilians to get one lone gunman." He sighed, then came the fun part. "They through me in a specialized detention facility when I came out of coma and I was eventually released into Charles' custody, though I went through an odd debriefing with a particularly sadistic blue female before hand."

"-- oh!" Amara's eyes went wide at that - she hadn't expected that level of honesty, nor the story itself. Somewhat thankfully she had a moment or two to cover her reaction as she pulled out a garbage bag from the drawer she'd been looking through, and then she straightened. "That was very brave of you."

Lex shook his head, "Thanks, but I'm not worthy of the praise. It was purely instinctual. The Green Beret motto is to 'liberate the oppressed' not gun them down, I'm sure if any of my platoon had seen what I saw they would have done the same." He looked at her with honest pain in his face, "It should be a prerequisite for officers to have combat experience before being allowed on the front line. It would save lives on every side."

Amara shook her head in return. "Nova Roma does not keep an army of it's own, so I may be oversimplifying things. But I think the fact that you were even there in the first place is brave." She shrugged slightly, stopping by his side and resting a careful hand on his arm. "You are probably right, I can not imagine why they would send an officer to the front line without experience. But I am sure you did everything you could to salvage the situation that does not sound easy to salvage."

"Not really," he didn't want to admit what happened to the pilot, but he'd already opened the door. "I blacked out after a few minutes and the chopper crashed, severely injuring a lot of the people aboard." He smiled at her, not withdrawing from the contact but not overtly encouraging it either. He didn't want another Lil to happen.

"Were you able to save the civilians?" She asked softly. The hand on the arm was honestly not meant as a come-on at all, she was simply trying to reassure Lex.

"Sorta, I was too late to save the first few... they were taken down by the gunner while I was trying to talk sense into the CO." He looked at her, his eyes filled with sorrow. He hated the fact that he'd not been able to protect everyone, but he knew that was war. Turning back to survey the decimated yard, he laughed. "We still have a long ways to go before we're done out there." It was a poor attempt to change the subject, but the truth of the statement might hold enough humor to bring them out of dark territory.

"Not everyone can be saved," she said softly, her own pain flashing in her eyes before Lex changed the subject. Which was fine with her, she'd rather not delve into her own issues with that right now. "And if we don't start up again now, we'll still be going at dawn." She took a deep breath and flashed Lex a bright smile, following his lead in attempting to lighten the mood.

"You're right about that," he said, taking the bag from her in a playful manner, "Let's get this done so we can relax and have a beer. What do you say?"

"That sounds like a good idea," she said with a little bit of a laugh as she headed for the door. "But just the one beer. I think I've been drunk around you enough." Amara had only been drunk three times in her life, which was really more times than she thought was necessary. She was just very bad at saying no to her suitemate.