xp_logs | Kurt and Scott (Reply)

Kurt goes to see how Scott's doing, and they talk about the brothers Summers' upcoming trip to Hawaii and Scott's ways of relaxing or otherwise.

Really, really aggravating. Scott closed the last of the so-called 'reports' and sat there glaring at his computer screen. Marking would be preferable to this. I'm going to yell at Ororo, he decided suddenly. Yes, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go up to the attic, find Ororo, and yell at her.

Kurt, possibly ill-advisedly, chose that moment to come looking for him - and not to kidnap him, for once. He knocked twice before putting his head tentatively around the half-open door.

Scott glared at him. "You stay over by the door," he said fitfully. "I'm not being kidnapped again."

Kurt smiled faintly. "You need not worry about that today - I have only come to see how you are. And nobody sent me, before you ask."

Don't snap at Kurt, his conscience said. Oddly, he wasn't in the mood to listen to it, at least not entirely. "I'm fine," he said, curtly this time. "Plenty of stuff I can be doing for classes. Just fine."

Kurt nodded quietly, not pushing that subject any further. "I am glad to hear it. I hope I did not interrupt?"

"I was just finishing something," Scott muttered with another dark look at the computer screen.

Kurt followed his gaze, taking a guess at what had earned that glare. Ah. "I see", he answered neutrally.

Scott looked back at him. "I was looking at the reports everyone's been sending me on what they're doing," he said, an edge of sarcasm in his voice. "They're lacking detail. Almost completely."

Kurt shrugged. "I would imagine you were told the essentials", he offered.

"More like the bare minimum," Scott said restlessly. "I wonder if this is some way to punish me for keeping so much of what I was doing to myself." To punish him for those files.

"No one is out to punish you, Scott", Kurt told him firmly. "Please believe that."

"It doesn't particularly feel like that right now, Kurt," Scott said, managing a slightly more level voice and a forced smile. "But then, we've already established that my judgement ran off to somewhere sunny and warm, so don't listen to me."

Kurt nodded, thinking, then suggested quietly, "Perhaps you should follow it, for a week or two? When was the last time you took a real vacation, Scott?"

"I'm going to Hawaii for a few days with Alex. To look at colleges," Scott said. "Hopefully, that will satisfy everyone who keeps asking me that question."

"It is a start", Kurt agreed equably. "I am sure Alex will do his best to make you relax. Perhaps you could go surfing." And there was no mischief in his voice at all just then, nooo.

"Surfing," Scott muttered. "There's an appalling thought. I'd probably make an idiot out of myself."

"As I understand it, everyone does when they first try. It seems to be part of the fun."

"I'd have to wear my sleeping goggles or something," Scott said with a sigh. The more he thought about it, the more he suspected that Alex was going to insist that he try surfing. "Can't afford to lose my glasses to a wave."

Kurt nodded. "When are you going? If you have time, perhaps you could have swimming goggles made..."

"I'm not sure." He needed to stop beating around the bush and make some actual plans with Alex, like he'd been promising. Distractions were always going to keep happening. "The sleeping goggles would probably work anyway," he said more quietly, the tension beginning to ebb from his voice.

Another nod, as Kurt noted the - relaxation? not quite, but something close - growing in Scott's tone. "Yes, most probably."

"Kurt..." Scott paused, made a helpless gesture. "I'm sorry," he said with a sigh. "I seem to be making a habit of snarling at you this week."

Kurt shrugged lightly, metaphorically waving off the necessity for an apology. "I took no offence. If you needed to snarl, you needed to snarl."

"No one ever needs to snarl," Scott said heavily. And he ought to have better self-control than that. He managed a more-than-slightly strained smile. "People are going to start thinking I'm a grouch. Wait, they already thought that..."

"Speaking for myself", Kurt answered honestly, "I do not see a grouch. I see a man who is under a great deal of stress, and has perhaps been taking more on his shoulders than he must."

"I wish people would stop saying that," Scott said, his voice almost pained. "Makes me all too aware of the fact that I really have no excuse... I mean, what's happened to me lately that gives me the excuse to have gotten so stressed that you all had to do this?"

"A lot has happened lately, as if you needed reminding. But I think this is not a recent development. Is it? Things have not reached this stage in a month or two."

"But none of it's happened to me," Scott muttered, but then focused on the rest of what Kurt had said. "Oh," he said with a twisted little smile. "You belong to the school of 'Scott's been falling apart since Alkali Lake and has just been trying not to show it'?"

"I think you have held up remarkably well, actually", Kurt answered levelly. "And perhaps that is part of the problem."

Scott sighed, closing his eyes and resting his head in his hands for a moment. "I know I started it, but could we not analyze me? It gets to be an awfully circular process after a while." Leading back to the same dead end.

Kurt nodded quietly - it wasn't really his place, after all. "Very well. What are your plans for this afternoon?"

"I've got stuff to do for classes, like I said," Scott said. "Should be enough to keep me busy."

"Could I tempt you with another trip to Harry's - not today, necessarily, but soon?"

Scott looked up at him. His smile, this time, was much briefer, but almost much less forced. "Sure," he said, then chuckled softly, a chuckle with a touch of irony in it. "Social life. One of the things I was supposed to be working on, no?"

Kurt smiled back, equally briefly but sincerely. "It tends to be a good thing, yes. I was glad when you went out voluntarily - I think some of us would have preferred you to come back a little less bruised, but we all relax in our own ways."

"Well, I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon," Scott said, real humor in his voice this time. "We have enough masochists in this house. I don't need to be adding myself to their ranks."