xp_logs | Kurt and Clarice in the gym, backdated (Reply)

After getting back from the mission, Kurt goes to relieve his frustration on the heavy bag, and Clarice plays counselor.

Kurt had hidden his anger in silence all the way home, assuming his teammates would take it as just his usual quiet since nobody was really talking much. Once they were back, though, he had slipped down to the gym and begun taking it out on an inanimate target - the heavy bag.

Stopping to shower, Clarice headed down to the gym just to stretch and work the kinks out. Being a grad student meant she didn't go on as many missions and despite staying in shape and training, sometimes she got sore or stiff. And sometimes, she needed a quiet space to think. Spying Kurt by the heavy bag, she headed over, "No shower?" She asked him.

"I would only have to take another one when I am done here", he said with a shrug. "It seemed a waste of time."

Plopping down on a mat and toeing her shoes off, Clarice looked up at him, concerned. "You have to look for the positive. In this sort of thing, you always win some and lose some," there was never a clear winner or victor.

"I suppose." He sighed and stopped pummeling it for a moment, turning to look at her. "We did achieve what we went there for, mostly - the bombs destroyed, and Garrison and Adrienne safe... but they escaped. Again. I had her."

"And then what?" She asked logically, chest touching the mat between her spread legs. "What would you do?" There was no need to ask who 'she' was.

"The X-Man in me says drag her onto the jet by force and turn her in."  He smiled crookedly. "Another part says I should have snapped her neck where we stood before Abyss could take her back."

It was times like these that Clarice liked her family not being a part of her x-life. At least he didn't have any delusions about rehabilitation. "And then what?" She asked. "If she's dead then you killed your mother and if she's in jail by your hand then she's pursed and wants revenge. Not saying that letting her be free is great, but...anyways. X-Men don't kill."

"I know." He dropped abruptly to sit on the mat next to her.  "But it feels as though stopping her is my responsibility. Mine, personally, because she is my mother and because I let her go."

Kurt was really good at taking all the blame and none of the credit. "If anything, I think everyone would understand if you couldn't do that given your relationship," or lack thereof, "It's hard with parents, trying to live up or down to them. Wanting your own life, but wanting to make them proud too. For what it's worth, I think you do the best you can all the time. Sometimes though, the best we can do is break even, which we did this time."

"I loved her once", he said quietly. "Or I thought I did.  I even trusted her to want the best for me, but... one betrayal too many."

Reaching over, Clarice wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "The thing with good and evil is that one can't exist without the other.  And no one is all good or all bad, life isn't so cut and dry. You can love her and still be betrayed. A difference in ideology doesn't negate her being your mother..." Clarice trailed off for a moment. "I sound like my textbooks. Sorry. Just...it's okay to hurt."

Kurt offered a sad smile. "Your textbooks say that because they are right, although most do not understand why there is any conflict at all. She did not raise me, all there is between us is blood and I did have loving family growing up, but... always never quite one of them. A different surname, a very different face..."

"Still your mom," she pointed out. "I dunno if it's conditioned or biology, but mothers are mothers even if they didn't raise us...even if we don't get along. And none of this makes you less of a Sefton or less part of your other family. Just makes it more interesting," and more complicated, but he knew that.

"Ha. Interesting would certainly be one way to put it, as in 'interesting times'." He glanced over at her.  "But you did not come in here to give a counselling session."

"No, but that's okay. It's what friends and teammates do," Clarice smiled and grabbed her toes, "I just came to stretch. I can totally listen and stretch, no problem."

"Very well, then." He smiled back. "Talking has never come very easily to me, except in crisis, but they tell me bottling is bad so I should try to make a habit of not doing so."

"They're right, whomever 'they' are," Clarice moved into a series of yoga poses, something she'd picked up in college, "Things have this habit of rattling around our brains growing bigger and bigger until they're overwhelming. When you tell someone and get it out of your head, things tend to look smaller."

"Which explains the several times I have done something foolish concerning my mother", Kurt said wryly. "You would think I would have learned by now."

Out of kindness, Clarice refrained from mentioning one of the definitions of insanity. "Better later than never. But if you want something stupid to do, go to grad school. That batshittery will kill you," she graduated in a few months. "You're okay though, dude. Really. And door, open. All that jazz. Even if it's 3am and I'm studying up on poisons or other quality reading."

"Grad school would require having been an undergraduate", he pointed out. "I have a GED. But I suppose I could look into college... why are you reading about poisons?"

"Details," Clarice waved them away. She knew how hard it was to go to college as an obvious mutant like they were. It had to be even harder being older like Kurt was. He wasn't the average age of a college student anymore. "I'm specializing in emergency medicine, so..." She shrugged, "you never know. I've got more emergency experience than some ER doctors."

"That you certainly do", he agreed. "A shame you cannot explain to them how you really got it."

It was fine. She knew at least a few people she worked with suspected and she was possibly the least inconspicuous person ever with her purple skin, but no one asked and she certainly wouldn't tell. "I work here. It's not like I won't have plenty to do," it was the need actually that influenced her decision to become a PA instead of a full doctor. "Anyways, it's all good. Once an X-Man, always an X-Man."

Kurt snorted. "So it seems. I have to wonder if some of us will ever quite manage to retire, or still be doing this into old age." Assuming they lived to see it, but he wasn't going to say that.  Too gloomy and too much like tempting fate.

"Go eat and shower before you turn into a gloomy Gus," Clarice encouraged. "I've got reading to do, but movie or something later?"

"Shower, then eating", he agreed. "And yes, I think I would like that. The rec room, if the students have not taken it over?"

"See you there in an hour?" Clarice agreed, getting up. She felt better now that she'd stretched.

"An hour it is. And I will even let you pick the movie."