xp_logs | Tuesday night: Amanda and Sarah

Amanda comes down to Sarah's room bearing cigarettes and a couple of going away presents. Sarah reminisces a bit, a destination is decided, and some plans are made to try and go out before she leaves.

Sarah's bag sitting next to the closet had filled up fairly fast with notebooks and papers, so much so that she was sorting through her clothes to see which ones she could leave behind. The black outfit Paige had "stolen" was laid out on the chair for her, next to the desk, which was empty except for a few pictures. Shinobi. Her curled up next to him on the couch in the boiler room. Fully clothed, for some strange reason. Paige in the red thing. Sarah and Paige dancing, less clothed than the picture of Sarah and Shinobi. Sarah and Amanda distracted by shot glasses. Jono and Angelo handcuffed together. A sandcastle on a sunny (but still fucking cold, she remembered) beach. Jono had the other one. She dropped another handfull of papers into her bag, and went back to going through her closet.

The open, mostly-filled bag pretty much cinched it, as did the otherwise bareness of the room. Sarah was in fact Leaving. As she'd always promised she would. Well, Amanda couldn't say she hadn't had a warning. A carton of cigarettes held behind her back, she knocked on the frame of the open door. "Got some space?" she called softly.

Sarah peeked out from inside the closet, hair pulled back with a rubber band in a messy rendition of a ponytail. "Yeah. Got plenty of that." She pushed herself up off of the floor, knees popping as she stretched. "Come on in. Oscar won't mind sharing the bed."

"Well, I'd ask yer t' pack me an' all, but I'd be a bitch t' get through Customs." Amanda came in, pulling the carton of cigarettes out from behind her back and laying them on the open bag. "Little birdy told me you were out," she offered by way of explanation. She sat on the edge of the bed, looking awkward. "So, yer off then?" she asked unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I think so." She picked up the cigarettes, and pulled two out of the pack. "Was thinking maybe I'd go surprise Shinobi." She lit the first cigarette, passing it over to Amanda, and then lit her own. "I'd take you with me, but I doubt either of your significant others would be pleased with me. That's all I need is people accusing me of kidnapping again."

"Yeah, well, don't think I'd like it much over there in Japan anyway. Like me food cooked, for a start." Amanda grinned briefly, savouring the first drag - she'd spent so much time in the medlab recently, she'd practically given up smoking. Heaven forbid.She waited for Sarah to settle herself and then asked, almost abruptly: "Remy told me he'd helped you get what you wanted most. Is that what I think it is?"

Sarah snorted, blowing smoke out in one large puff. "What the fuck does LeBeau know about what I want? Guess it helps him sleep at night, to think that he helped me." She took another drag off of her cigarette, bony fingers scratching roughly against a bone covered knee. "But that's just his ego talking. It's not over. It'll probably never be over." She shrugged. "Just because the guy who ordered the massacre is dead, doesn't mean everybody else is. In an ideal world, Remy'd be decomposing with whateverthefuck his name was."

"You ain't wrong 'bout his ego," Amanda said wryly, but her eyes were worried. "I s'pose I was hopin' yer'd finished things, an' that's why you were leavin', but yeah, yer probably right." She gave Sarah a long look. "So, what'er you plannin' t' do over there? Besides Shinobi, that is."

"I'm leaving 'cause there's nothing I can do here anymore. I've failed the Morlocks, I can't do anything for the boys, so I might as well go somewhere where I can be slightly psychotic in peace. Sounds like a good plan to me anyway. No sense hanging around here for five or six people that I actually like when the rest of the house would either rather see me gone or repent my evil ways and join the X-men." She leaned back against the wall, and rubbed the heel of her hand on her forehead. "Besides, I need to get laid."

"Don't we both?" Amanda replied. "Beth's still workin' out if she can handle the whole demon thing, an' Manny won't be fit for a good while yet." She took another puff of her cigarette, running her other hand over Oscar's sleeping back. "Yer right. No sense stayin' where you can't feel like you belong. Don't mean I won't miss you like fuck, tho'."

Sarah nodded slowly, shifting to curl her legs up underneath her. "I'm going to miss you too. You and Jono and Paige and Angelo. That's why we'll have to come back to visit." She exhaled, lips curling into a smile. "And you never know, maybe we won't stay in Japan. Maybe we'll decide we like New York better."

"Now yer just tauntin' me," the other girl said, but she was smiling as she did. "I've got somethin' for you. Well, one for you an' one for Shinobi - he left before I could get his finished." She dug in the back pocket of her jeans, pulling out a couple of smooth polished stones of some kind of dark material. Almost black, until they caught the light, and then they had a dark-red tint, almost blood coloured.

"Oh, wow." Sarah looked at them, nearly staring. "Those are cool." She took them in her hand, holding them up to the light so she could watch the colors shift. Oooooh. Grinning, she asked "So, knowing you, these don't just sit there and look cool. Do they do the laundry? Summon stupid hats to rival Dom's? Stave off the Apocalypse?"

Amanda giggled. "Depends. They're lodestones. People magnets. Or one person in particular." She coloured a little, suddenly awkward, the way she always was when giving someone a gift. "If you ever need me, for anythin', hold that in yer hand an' concentrate on me. An' say this word." She handed Sarah a piece of paper with the word "Gemile" on it. "I'll hear it, wherever you are, an' come runnin'."

The word on the paper looked familiar, but Sarah wasn't quite sure why. She smiled, leaning forward to pull the younger girl into a hug. "Thank you." She kept her hands away from Amanda, so she wouldn't cut her, but the bones covering her body could be felt through the buffering of her sweatshirt as well. This decision was obviously a little more difficult than she was letting on.

"Wherever you are," Amanda repeated, words muffled by Sarah's shoulder. She was doing a fairly good imitation of clinging despite the sharp edges of bone digging into her through both sets of clothes. "I've got the money t' buy meself a ticket an' come find you. Or I'll have that teleportin' spell down eventually. Can't let you terrorize the clubs of Japan without me, eh?" There was a slight wobble to her words, and she kept her face buried against Sarah's sweatshirt so the other girl wouldn't see her getting teary.

"Same goes for you, you know. If you just need somebody to unload on, who isn't one of the good kids, you've got the cell number. I'd fly out, but you'd spend more time appeasing me with cigarettes than would probably be useful. And you can come visit. You know neither of us will tell you no."

She tentively tightened the hug, and shifted as a bone pushed out at her hip. It hit the wall with a thud as she tossed it aside without breaking the hug. "You take care of yourself, Trouble. Don't go doing anything I would do."

"Ooh, violence and mayhem. An' poetry," Amanda said with a shaky laugh as she lifted her face from Sarah's shoulder. There was a faint, reddish mark on her cheek where one bony protruberance had been pressing. "I'll keep an' eye on Sparky for you, best I can. We all will."

"That's what I'm good for," Sarah nodded, roughly wiping the blood on her fingers on her sweatshirt. A flash of pain washed over her. It still wasn't getting any easier to think about leaving him behind. She shrugged helplessly. "We came in on the same day. Sometimes I thought he actually got it, you know? The monsters in the basement. I guess I always figured I'd leave and he'd come with me or something."

"Not just that..." Amanda caught the flicker of pain in Sarah's face, and hugged her the tighter, even though she was risking a few cuts at this rate. It didn't matter - she'd gotten used to giving the magic blood on demand, she could do no less for her friends. "I know. An' 'm sure once he sorts out this fallin' apart thing, he'll be on yer doorstep 'fore you can blink. Maybe sooner. But in the meantime... I'll let you know how he's doin', all right? Keep an eye out, like I said."

"Good. I've been fighting for him too long to lose him because his mutation doesn't like his body." She sighed quietly, looking at the wall for a while. "Did I ever tell you about the time Haroun and I beat the hell out of each other? I was sticking up for Jono then. And no more demons coming after you, right?"

"Haroun? No way..." Amanda grinned briefly at the thought - that failed assignment still rankled. "Bet you gave him what for, too. An' no, no more demons. Only had the one with any kind of claim, an'it wasn't like it had a proper one any way. An' Rack's dead an' buried twice over."

"Yeah. He was a real jackass about Jono not being able to control his powers. Like Jono needed any help feeling bad about nearly blowing Paige up. Then he started mouthing off to me about how much Jono and I paid for each other's services. He ended up with a bone in his shoulder before Blaire broke up the fight." She made a face, taking one last drag off of her cigarette before leaning over to put it out. "I hear it got infected. Serves the fucker right."

"Git," Amanda agreed. She cocked her head at Sarah. "That was why he left, wasn't it? Fightin' with a student?"

"Got asked to leave, yeah. And I got grounded. The first of many." Another shrug, and she scratched her shoulder with a finger. "Must not've been too serious though, because, what, a year later he's already back and doing fuck-knows-what with our very own washed up pop star."

"You know this place - open door policy on all an' sundry. Sometimes I reckon if Magneto showed up on the doorstep missin' his memory an' needin' sanctuary, the X geezer would welcome him in with open arms." Amanda grinned humourlessly. "So, when're you goin' exactly? Need help gettin' t' the airport? Pete'd drive us, if I asked him. Hell, if you asked him, even."

"He probably wouldn't need a fucking permission slip to see Leech either," she growled bitterly, finally shaking her head with a sigh. "I was thinking Friday. But if I can't get you all out for one last night of getting wasted before then, maybe I'll get a ticket for Saturday afternoon. Fuck. I'm going to miss Pete too. I hadn't even thought of that." She was silent for a moment, and then she grinned. "You think if I made eyes at Shinobi, he'd spar with me? Not that we'd ever actually get to the end of it without ending up naked on the mats, but still."

"I'll talk t' Pete - maybe he can scam a way of us gettin' out of here without needin' babysittin'. Or hell, he'd probably join us if we asked nicely." Amanda grinned. "Poor bastard needs the break as well. An' you know Shinobi'd do anythin' for you if you asked. 'Specially if it included endin' up naked."

"I don't know, it's hard to tell. Most people don't react well to 'try and hit me'. He never sparred with me, even in Boston." There had been that one time, but it hadn't been as much sparring as really involved foreplay. And it wasn't really for sharing either. "So you're not going to hate me when I leave? You're not secretly calling me a stupid bitch and cursing the day you wandered into the basement with cigarettes?"

"Would it change anythin' if I did?" Amanda shook her head. "I don't like it, an' I'm gunna miss you, but I can't hate you. Guess 'm gettin' used t' the fact people have t' do their own thing. Even if it means pissin' off t' the other side of the world where they eat raw fish an' watch those weird cartoons." She attempted another grin, but much less successfully. "An' if you keep this up I'll be bawlin' on you again, so let's leave it at 'love ya, mate, look after yerself', eh?"

Sarah smiled. "Works for me. And you look after yourself. And my Nightlight. And the boys." She paused, and shook her head. "You get the picture."

"Yeah, I do." Amanda reached out, touched Sarah's cheek lightly before standing and shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. "I'd better go. Medlab calls an' all that."

"Go," Sarah waved her off, scooting over to curl up beside Oscar. "I'll still be here for the rest of the week at least. You go enjoy the medlab." She grinned, and Oscar shifted, throwing a paw over her arm.

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Yeah, watchin' Betsy sleep. It's a laugh a minute." Giving Oscar another quick pat, she got up and headed for the door. "You need anythin' for the flight, let me know, yeah?" she said, and then was gone.