Alison & Scott

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Saturday morning. No matter how much you try to vent, something always comes along to put you right back in your original frame of mind...

Nah. I'm supposed to be cutting back on the masochism, right?

Not happy. Not happy one bit. That pretty much resumed Alison's mood as she slammed a very solid elbow strike into the punching bag, not even feeling the hit before she pulled back again. Breathing was off and she paused a bare moment to concentrate on that, a grim expression on her face. And started again, alternating with the occasional kick, venting her very bad mood in the safest way possible.

It was an unmistakable sound, the sound of someone whaling on the punching bag, but Scott, as he came into the gym, hadn't expected to find that it was Alison. He paused, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses as he saw the focused anger behind her movements.

The muttered words were largely unintelligible unless one was very close, but the tone of them was unmistakable. As Scott neared her though, some of the mutterings because more distinct.

"Like a god damn cockroach..." A neat hit to the punching bag covered the rest of the sentence, followed by a knee strike. "Keeps coming back and-" Reversing her momentum she lashed out with the back of her forearm. And pulled back, pausing as she finally realized Scott was there. "Hey."

"I gather you read the Professor's announcement," Scott said as dryly as he could, moving to hold the bag for her.

"Oh!" There was a particularly satisfying sound to hearing the punching creak in protest every time she hit it. "Whatever could possibly make you think that?" Each emphasized word was punctuated by the sound of a punch landing on the bag. Hard.

"Your hands are going to hate you," Scott said quietly, holding the bag.

"No music class until later in the week," she answered shortly. And general practice on her own would survive skipping a day or two. Power up from the ground up, through the hip to the shoulder and right into the arm, the entire body moving into that one hit.

"Ah." He let her hammer away at the punching bag in silence for a few more moments before he spoke. "We seem to be gathering quite the collection of ex-government killers."

"Gnn." Ok, that one had hurt. At least she'd managed to pull some of the strength from it at the last moment. "Yes. Yes, we do seem to be doing that." She centered herself and then settled on a almost soothing pattern, alternating leg and arm strikes.

"Logan and Nathan, and now LeBeau..." Scott watched her, wondering if he should offer to let her beat on him instead. Might be more satisfying. "They say things come in threes."

She stopped or a moment, just looking at him. "Logan? I could handle that. Nathan is going to find out soon that I'm asking him to stand third in line for custody of Miles if anything happens to me. Hush on that by the way, I need to talk to Moira first." She looked back the bag, and decided that hitting it some more was a good idea. "Don't want to talk about LeBeau."

"You and half the school. The faces people were making in the hallways were... well, never mind," Scott said with a sigh, rocking backwards a bit as she slammed a very respectable kick into the bag. "Charles' decision. His house. And really, the situation is too similar to Logan or Nathan's."

"I know." Which was part of what rankled so much of course, and she figured Scott would be just fine with her adding that much more to her punches. The were only girl punches after all. Yep, she was going for a general irked at the world kinda mood. The thought was almost soothing really, though she didn't let down anyway.

"Then why are you so angry?"

He was going to spoil her mood. Damn it. She pulled back entirely, taking a few steps to the side - she wasn't going to take a swipe at the punching bag while saying this. "He's at the boathouse." Taking a deep breath, she flexed her hands carefully. If it had only been about her own dislike for the man... "Miles goes there a lot. To see Cain."

"Then suggest to Cain to start making a habit of meeting Miles halfway or something," Scott suggested, just as quietly. "I can't see him having trouble with the idea."

"I'll email him," she sighed, then walked over to lean on the punching bag, the room resoundingly silent all of a sudden now that she was actually paying attention to something else than what was going on inside. "He'll probably suggest it himself but I will if he doesn't."

"Then you've done what you can." And here he was, presuming to give advice on knowing how far to take things. Funny.

She pondered that for a moment, before taking a step, moving around the punching back enough hat she could actually look at him. "It's still very frustrating."

Scott laughed a bit hollowly. "Oh? Here I thought these things were supposed to be simple to resolve."

"Don't remember every saying that," she replied. They weren't talking about LeBeau anymore. "Just that once you've done all you can you can't let it eat away at you until you pop a gasket." Which was what the having a go at the punching bag had been, in her case. She flexed her fingers again, starting to feel a bit peeved with herself for actually using her hands to hit with.

"All you can is never all you should," Scott said with a faint smile. "That's the kicker." He stepped back from the bag, eyeing her assessingly. She seemed calmer. Although her hands were definitely going to hate her.

"It's annoying when you make sense like that and I know I want to be able to tell you otherwise," she replied, trying not to smile herself. And failing, no doubt. "And here I was all good and peeved too," she remarked calmly. Yep, the anger had faded. The worries were still there, but not the 'go hit something now' feelings.

"Venting is good," Scott said dryly. "Internalizing stuff like this is just darned unhealthy." He took another step back from the bag, his eyes drifting around the gym. Why had he come down here again?

Why did people insist on saying things that made her want to throw stuff at them, she wondered, a touch amused and a touch exasperated. "You've got that 'why am I here again' look on your face." It was fun to point out and if he was going to throw lines like that at her. "I'll hold the punching bag for you, if you like."

"Nah," Scott murmured, though he gave it a briefly wistful look. "I'm supposed to be cutting back on the masochism, right?" He gave Alison another one of those flickering smiles.

"Tape up your hands. I'll let out a squawk before you hit the masochist point of the exercise... sounds fair?" It was the whole punching the thing until your hands bled that didn't really work out that well.

Scott shrugged, then went over rather passively to do so. "Charles did call me in first, you know," he said quietly. "After he got Remy settled. To let me know."

"Of course he would," she replied, unsurprised. Scott was one of the team leaders, how could he not be informed first, after all? She just watched as he taped up hands, keeping any other thought she might have had to herself.

Scott came back over to the bag, landing a couple of quick punches as Alison stepped up to hold it for him. "I was surprised. I thought the general consensus was that I wasn't handling things well lately."

"No, the general consensus was that you were handling too much, I think." At least, that's how she remembered it. If Scott was going to keep being this way about it though, she wasn't sure there was much of anything else she could do about it. "You're a team leader. Of course he'll tell you things like that first. He spoke to Ororo as well, I assume?"

"Yeah. Called the two of us in first thing this morning." He couldn't quite find the same sort of force Alison had been using on the punching bag. Tired and restless didn't equal angry. "I don't think we need to worry about LeBeau. Charles was pretty convinced he could be trusted to behave."

Alison carefully braced the punching bag, noting that it seemed more of a simple exercise for Scott rather than outright venting, as it had been for her. "I keep telling myself that. Helps that you think so too - but I can't really help it, I guess. Didn't like him the first time he was here. That's one thing. But I'm not really reasonable where Miles is concerned." She didn't really feel bad about it, either.

"No one expects you to be." Slow, he was too slow today. He tried to pick up the speed, but he didn't have the energy. "I don't think many people were fond of him the first time he was here. And I don't know what the hell's with him and Sarah..." He stopped, sighing. "I don't even think I want to find out."

Oh yes, Sarah. Brilliant that, commenting about regretting not killing someone in public. Miles would be asking her about that later on, probably. "I just have to explain it to Miles," she answered bitterly, "and it's damn hard to try and do that when you know that the person your son likes very much meant every single word of it the first time around and probably means it again this time." She took a deep breath, and sighed. "Sorry. I hate having to try to find a way to do that which won't crush Miles in the process and still be true."

Scott grimaced, managing a couple of punches with a little more force behind it. "I'm sorry," he said tightly. "I just--" A flash of anger, and he landed a solid kick to the bag. "So fucking complicated all of it..."

She compensated automatically, weight shifting a bit against the punching bag to keep it steady. "Why sorry? It's not your fault Sarah won't let go of the past." She paused, then shrugged. "Or that she's a psychopath, while we're at it."

"I'm just sorry, all right?" Yeah, there was the anger. He hammered away at the back a little more enthusiastically. "Very sorry." Generally a sorry person...

Huh. Look at that, there was a growing enthusiasm to the whole concept of hitting the punching bag, all of a sudden. Alison kept silent while bracing it, counting off the strikes idly, peeking every now and then just to make sure they were landing right and he wasn't hurting himself.

"Sorry--" Punch. "--and sick--" Kick. "--and tired--" In combination, this time. "--of all of this!" He gave the bag a kick that rocked Alison back a little on her feet.

Her lips quirked though she hid the smile, because there was the venting all right, and instead wondered if Charles could be talked into packing him up in a crate and shipping him off to, oh Aruba or something. It was an amusing thought, if only a passing one. She had promised herself to not have him kidnapped anymore, after all. And of course, the fact that he felt this way at all wasn't amusing in the least, though it was something of a relief to hear him saying so finally.

"Damn it!" Scott snapped, slamming his fist into the bag one last time before he turned away, breathing hard. Get yourself under control, Summers, he told himself harshly. "I had a weird dream last night," he said tightly, beginning to pull off the tape on his hands. Enough of that.

I didn't have nightmares last night and it was kinda nice, she almost replied. But then he'd just ask about that and guilt himself over it being about the Damn Files. "Weird dream?" He'd stopped before he let go entirely, of course. Oh well - it had been a start.

"The mansion was empty. No bullet holes or dead bodies. Just empty." Scott tossed the tape at the garbage bucket. "I kept wandering the halls calling out for people, but no one answered."

"Did it last that way until you woke up?" she asked, pushing away from the punching bag and following him. Yep, her hands would be sore enough, soon, though she was ignoring that for now. 

"I heard Charles calling me. That's what woke me up," Scott muttered. "And he was calling me. Wanting to talk about LeBeau."

"Huh. That must have been one heck of a frame mind to wake up in and end up in that kind of discussion." Alison crossed her arms and gave him a sympathetic look. "How does it make you feel? That he's apparently here to stay?"

Scott shrugged. "I'm sure it'll be good for him. Look at Nathan. There's someone who bears very little resemblance to who he was when we picked him up in Lichtenstein six months ago."

"Yeah, you could say that." There really wasn't much she could say, to that, although she kept wanting to grump about Nathan bring brought in as comparison. "Well, I'm out of the hitting things mood anyway," she said a touch ruefully.

And Aurora had nabbed Miles for the day - she actually figured the woman wouldn't have many problems keeping up with him, even if he was on a hyperactive sugar induced rush. "Mmm. I hear there are Saturday cartoons on and that we have this really big TV screen..."

"Sounds like fun," Scott said with a small, tight smile. "But I really ought to go talk to Lee. Figure out how LeBeau got in last night... apparently our security is merde."

"He was already in to start with," Alison pointed out. "It's easy to say that ifyou already know the layout and how everything works from the inside." Besides, there was always someone who'd find a way to get in.

"Still means there's a hole to plug," Scott said stubbornly, running a hand through his hair. "If he'd been Gambit..." No, not going there. His jaw clenched and he shook his head. "Need to do better," he muttered, turning towards the door.

Gah. He was doing it all over again, only on something new. Why was she unsurprised? "Hey. Get him to test it when you're done," she called out after him. "Heck - he's here to stay, right? So if he thinks the security is that bad here, why not have him be the testing guinea pig?"

He waved a hand at her. "Was already planning to, Ali..." he called back to her with a humorless smile. "Only makes sense."

Don't tell him to take a break. Not now. "Yeah. I know." She sighed as he left the gym, then turned to give the punching bag a pensive look. Maybe she wasn't quite done here after all.