A shoulder to flop on
I don't think Scott Summers gets drunk very often.
Well, he apparently strives to excel at everything else in his life, so he can probably find a way to climb this mountain, too. Better get him some pitons and a rope. A harness. Safety net.
Poor kid. What kind of God is messing around with him these days?
8/25/2005
Logfile from Leah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bay Horse
A mixture of a modern bar and the pub environment present back in England, in the corner of the large room is a small stage with the PA system already set up and a lone mic standing there, ready for the jam nights, as well as the nights there are bands playing. There's also a fireplace with a mantle with a couple of horsehoes like most English pubs have. The seating also stems back to typical English pubs, older looking wooden tables with wooden seats surrounding them, no particular pattern and a few don't even look like they are the same sort of table. Back to the stage, you made notice the fair sized gap near the stage where there is room to dance if anyone felt like it. Finally we have the bar, a long bar at that which stretches accross an entire wall, behind it is many wierd and wonderful bottles of spirits and mixers and even some real ale, whoever runs this place has dome their research. Theres also a door behind the bar that says employees only and another opposite the entrance that says 'beer garden.
--
He arrived here by subway and will return by taxi and there is no motorcycle in sight. Reason is simple. Scott is well and thoroughly drunk, and did indeed feel a prick for getting well and thoroughly drunk with every half ounce of alcohol. He still feels guilty. Foolish Scott, for he is indeed a broody drunk, not a cheery one. Whoever could have guessed. He sits in a table near the back, side of head supported on right hand, left hand settled around beer of some number. There are three napkins in his vicinity, all scribbled on.
She also arrived here by subway and will return by subway because she has a MetroCard and isn't afraid to use it. And Leah is sober, if somewhat baffled, as she swings into the bar around the closing door, pauses to look around, and then make for the right table. Doesn't show her confusion, her intrigue, however, by the time she gets there: the face that Scott gets, should he choose to look at it, is all blank and pleasant. She rests her hands on the back of the chair opposite, lightly, as if ready to pull it out or pull away. One never knows. "Hey."
Scott's primary focus is the opposite edge of the table (not very tactical of him), and it takes him too long to recognize that beyond the edge of the table is a chair and beyond that is someone. Person of some sort. He looks up, or, rather, presses his face side and upwards against his palm. Slower and more slack jawed motion, that. "Hi," he says, recognition there, but vague.
Oh, dear. Leah's face does reveal that much. Maybe he won't see it. Maybe he will. Maybe she won't care. Her fingers dig a stronger hold out of the chair back as she leans forward. "Hi," she returns amiably. "So, you got started without me?"
Oh, the wheels are always churning, however slowly. Recognition gets more pronounced, weightier, interpretable. But expressions are too faint a nuance to mean much yet. Scott releases the glass to run a finger down the side of it. "I think I'm almost finished," he states dully.
"'Kay." Light and breezy Leah: she practically wafts into the chair, seating herself, after all. "Need any help from me? Not that you don't seem to have done a great job..." She picks with idle curiosity at one of the scribbly napkins. Hello. What are you?
"No reason to drink from the same glass. Disease can spread that way. Something. Spreads." Scott continues to run that finger on down, his gaze shifting from Leah to his fingernail. Scribbly napkins are all equation and angle and ... steadily less comprehensible. For even Scott's handwriting grows imprecise at some point.
Leah studies it nonetheless: the Rosetta Stone to Cyclopean mood, since her flickering eyes are scanning his face, sipping like little glancing flies, and not coming up with much, to judge by her frown. Well. Much beyond "broody," obviously. "I'll have my own glass," she agrees and has one fetched or poured or however it might be best procured. That done, she sips and studies him s'more, the napkin forgotten. "So. I'm going to go out on a limb, Scott, and say that you've had a shitty week, too."
"Yeah. Few days at least. Yesterday. And the day before. Or just yesterday." The hand supporting Scott's head turns its fingers into his cheekbone, almost scratching. It is a day for fingers. "Do we count cause and effect or just effect? Is getting drunk part of the crap or just the heangover."
"Sucks," is Leah's succinct, and sympathetic, summary. She has another sip, then shrugs. "It's all a piece, in my experience. When you're getting kicked around by life, everything counts. Everything sucks." Bitterly she says it, and hey, let's have more beer. A private toast to suckiness. "...You wanna talk about it?"
"Yeah ... " Scott agrees, then corrects himself. "No. Don't want to talk about it. But I think." He lifts his hand off the side of his face, stills that other hand, and puts them both on the table, imperfectly splayed, "I might have to. I ... don't know what to think about anything."
Leah shifts in her chair, bringing elbows into propping play on the table. One hand provides a pedestal for her cheek; the other one remains wrapped around her beer. "It's not necessary," she says, quiet in it. "I mean, if you want to sit and drink, hey, that's cool. We can do that. But if you're wanting to sort out what's in your head..." Gravely she focuses on his glasses (or perhaps his nose) and concludes, "I will sit and listen and make supportive noises about how much the bad people in your life are very, very bad, and screw them, man, and you deserve better. Whatever you want. Not goin' anywhere."
A dry laugh, thickly dry, all right, perhaps soused dry. Scott gives his head an unsteady tilt, as if performing some impromptu stretch before saying low and with clumsy sarcasm, "No, no. Don't have it quite right. See. I'm the only bad person in my life and also easy to screw, apparently."
Her frown swooping back to settle on her face, Leah shifts forward a bit. "I haven't found that to be the case." Carefully she emphasizes then, "The first part, anyway. No comment on the second part."
"Have you ..." Scott pauses, judging something blearily no longer necessary. "You don't know me well enough yet. You'll see. Apparently can't keep my true nature hidden for long. Something."
"Well, I guess so." Leah concedes the point, but carefully still. And still frowning, although it's directed less at him than herself. Or the tabletop. Puzzling tabletop. She pokes at a napkin as if for answers. "I don't know your true nature. Can't say anyone knows anyone else's, unless they're a tele--" Mmm. She has a quick drink to drown the rest of that word.
That dry laugh again. Dryer, only. "I date telepaths with fair frequence," notes Scott darkly.
Leah grimaces. So much for diplomacy, so she throws the rest of tact to the wind: "Tell me another one didn't screw you over. Not after that ghost thing."
"No, no, nothing that easy. Old flame," Scott explicates, removing one hand off the table to gesture with it. "Got screwed over by ghost thing, went to apologize, ended up in bed with her."
Leah sorts through that explanation and comes up with, "And that was a bad thing."
"Yes, in fact," Scott, sensing through clog-ged senses that this does not in fact horrify Leah, proceeds to try a little harder. "It meant nothing to her, we hop, and she treats me like some enterprising butler. Well weren't you cute. Then I walk out and an old best friend of mine who's dating her now ... is out there having breakfast with her in the kitchen and there you go."
Far from horrified, but Leah does refrain from, say, prying for all the gory details. She is being a Good Friend. An Awkwardly Good Friend, but still! "Holy shit," she says, dutiful. "She used you and then dumped you out to face her current himbo? What a bitch, man. Kick her ass."
"Can't do that. I used /her/ for months, you see. Or something, I'm not sure. She seems to think so, probably right, since there was that ghost thing." Scott's hand flails briefly nervous for the glass. Finds it. "I feel awful about the whole thing. Did soon as I woke up, you know."
"Of course you did. 'Cause you're a nice guy." Leah puts that out there firmly. "And you are /not/ to blame for what you did with the ghost in your head. If she doesn't get that, well, screw her. Figuratively, I mean."
Scott raises the glass and peers into it. "Maybe I am to blame. I don't know what I did and what the ghost did and I promise, really, you only think I'm nice because you don't know."
Leah points out, "You assaulted me in a public park in front of your child. Don't completely write me off as some noble saint, here, Scotty-boy."
"Weeeelll, that was different. Still. Can't make what isn't in me. Part of me is violent and sexual like that, but not usually like that." Scott tilts the glass back for a swallow. Lowers it. "But I really don't /know/ is the thing, what is real." Ah, comprehension, where have you flown?
Leah shifts in her chair again. Discomfort. Uncertainty. She drops her gaze from his face to his napkin, but doesn't get anywhere with it this time, either, so sighs and drinks and drifts strained pale eyes back to his ... glasses. Right. "Things are real," she measures out, "if you think they are. Feel they are. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. Honest. You have some dark shit in you? Well, welcome to the rest of the human race, but it doesn't /define/ you. Just something in you, along with nobility and tactics and sacrifice and looking after asshole cops who call you 'poodle.'"
Scott's brow furrows, a somewhat lopsided attempt at expressional unity. The glass clinks back on the table. "I can't have any of it," he says to the table top, tone quite obviously miserable. "I have duties, a child, watch over children, need focus to do anything more than explain engine schematics. Lose the glasses and property damage, injury, death, can't afford darkness. Was just something I thought sometimes, be one thing, but it never stays there."
"Just 'cause you can't afford it doesn't mean it's going to go /away./ Jesus wept," Leah mutters and drains her beer vengefully. Gotta get the boy to understand-- "You got a lot on your shoulders. 'Kay. That's fair. But you're allowed to be human. Got that darkness. Dark side. You embrace it, acknowledge it, and make it a little less scary than if you keep turning away from it, you know?"
"I /can't./" Scott blows this out his nose. "Every time ... I mess up, or show anything that might be a little angry, a little unhappy, it's unfortunate, it's not right -- you have to understand, I have all kinds of insecure everythings and no one wants to see it. Get disgusted, impatient, any of that."
Leah says calmly, and calmly folds her hands on the table, "Then forget them. It takes a strong person to show insecurity, and if they're not letting you do that? They're keeping you stuffed into the role /they/ want you to play, Scott, which probably has nothing to do with who you really are. /All/ of you. They want the do-gooder, the nice guy, the perfect hero? Jesus wept," she repeats deliberately and twists her mouth down in disgusted dismissal. "You come talk to me. You can be insecure all you want. Or get some better damn friends, huh?"
Scott shakes his head. It's a somewhat flimsy motion. "I can't. Too deep. Could talk for hours and hours and hours and never get it out and then I go and screw up again and can't tell anyone. Can already hear outrage, disappointment, resignation, no good." Scott's left hand clenches weakly on the table. "And I need the control, at least to pretend."
Baffled, stymied, Leah throws out a bit desperately, "Write about it in a diary, at least? So it isn't just sitting in your head and making you sick?"
"I try. Don't even like telling a diary or you, but I don't know why 'm telling you actually." Scott lets his own bafflement at /that/ go out in another sigh. Mild shoulder hunch. "Shouldn't."
"Why not?" Leah pours another beer and regards him steadily over the actions of hands and glass and frothy sudsness. "Shit, Scott, I can handle myself. I don't want to hear it, I tell you, right? I'm a big girl."
"I /can't./ Can't even tell some page what it is, I can't tell a person, no matter how big or handled. Don't even know what it is. But had it for years. Try to fix, but." Scott's nostrils flare. "Can't."
Leah threatens, "If you say 'can't' again, I'll..." But doesn't sustain it. Finish it. She mutters a bit into her glass, sure, but that's it. After a swallow, she puts on a determined mask. "Okay. Let's try a little thought experiment here, you and me. Just tell me this: what would happen if you /did/ tell someone? The very worst thing. All of it, everything you can imagine. Spill it."
Scott is not sure how to respond. Thus, he looks up at the ceiling. "I don't know."
Leah is totally sure how to prod, though: "You lose your job, people laugh at you, you end up living like a bum in the gutter somewhere in Alphabet City? You know, that kinda thing. The absolute worst things that could happen to you if you show vulnerability to people."
Scott's mouth pulls to the side. "Want me to show more. Vulnerability, that is. Or ... or it'd confirm things they suspected. Make them think that much less of me." Sounds oh so very petty in words, but Scott's tone is tight and wary, if wavery all the same.
Ruthless Leah. She pursues this line of thinking with bulldog tenacity, burrowing right past wariness and wavering alike. "Okay, so they think less of you. Would they be /right/ about that, or is it just in their heads?"
"Be right," Scott clarifies.
"Says who?" Leah challenges. "You? Due respect, my friend, but I'm not sure you're in a good position to judge that."
Scott lowers his head enough to raise an eyebrow. Try. Spirit is willing, flesh is weak. "Who's better?"
Leah frowns. Damn. Caught. Um. "Someone who knows you. Your strengths, your weaknesses, your flaws, and so on and so forth. But someone a little /distant,/ y'know? And not an ex, either," she has to mutter in qualification. "A sympathetic observer. D'you have one of those?"
It takes Scott a while. Then, droopy smile. Supposed to be endearingly half smile. "I might, but something of a father more than distant. But not an ex."
It does soften Leah's tenacious attack, anyway. "Well, that sounds promising. Maybe you can talk to -- Dad, or whatever. See what he thinks of you, and see if it matches up with what /you/ think of you." She drinks again, sets the glass down. Makes happy overlapping wet rings on the table. "We're always our own worst critics, but boy, oh, boy, I think you win the Olympic gold medal in that event. Where the hell did that come from? Your ... mutation? The need to control it?"
An unknowledgeable shrug, a tap on the tabletop. "Part. Part of many things. Orphan, you know. Took a while to get adopted, shy, all that, nearly blow up Prom first time you go, maybe nothing clear cut." Another of the shaky headshakes from Scott. "Spend a lot of time in your own head, maybe. Not sure."
Leah hesitates. "Um. You can hit me if this is too personal, but -- did Dr. Grey help any? Since she can be in your head, too..."
"She hears, I think. But think it makes it worse well as better, actually." Another sigh, deeper and longer. "See, with another person, when you are loving or kissing or any of that, if you are not focused enough on what is happening, they don't know. She knows. And when you're in love you want more than opportunities to fix the partner."
Leah blinks a bit. Or it might be a flinch. She focuses on making those glass-bottom rings, anyway. Focus, focus. "Yeah. Love's not about /fixing/ someone, anyway. That's not right."
"No. Never tried to fix me, her. Good. But she ... didn't feel right herself, with me. There it is." Scott waves at the ceiling.
"So?" Leah shrugs. "Not your problem. Hers."
"Mine too. Still love her, see," Scott explains. Tersely.
Leah backs off at that, nodding. "Sure. Sorry, though," she offers. "I mean, if it's causing you stress and all. Love's -- tough. Haven't really been in it myself more than a few times, and never ended it well. Well, for /him./ Me, I was always fine with it. My terms." She bares her teeth in a smile. Rawr. "We women are like that, huh?"
Scott's floppy smile re-emerges. "Yes. Always on your terms. The one I hopped into bed with made sure I knew it was for her fun, that morning. Matriarchal society."
"Didn't say I /liked/ it." Leah tosses back a swallow. Mm, beer. But maybe it's time for stronger stuff. "Might be on our terms, but sucks for you, huh? People deserve to be treated better. I'm telling you, that chick you hopped into bed with? She did that to you in the morning, she /is/ a Grade A bitch, and no doubt about it. Want me to kick her ass for you? We women are also like that."
"Kind of," Scott says -- in contrast to the ever-brood, it is almost dreamy. Then the Guilt snaps back in. "But wouldn't be worth it. Will just stay far far away from her, forever. Visit prostitute next time I want to apologize something. Just don't know /how/ I ended up in this bed."
Leah ponders. "She get you drunk?"
Scott shakes his head. "No, no, nothing like that. Just come to apologize, she's mad, then she's not, then things are easier than they have been for months, talking, love, all that, but the morning says none of that /meant/ anything."
"Well, hell." Leah frowns at him and, by proxy, La Bitch out there roaming the streets and preying on unsuspecting goody-two-shoes. "Unless she's a telepath, too, or got some kind of weird-ass seduction thing goin' on, I don't know what to say. You don't /seem/ like -- sorry, Scott -- don't /seem/ like the kind of guy to just tumble into bed with a girl all happy-whee after an apology. Kinda think your kind of apology is more of a good firm handshake." She does grin a bit, apologetically, for the typecasting.
"Well. Yes." Scott agrees to the last. And proceeds to scratch his head in bemusement. "Like handshakes. Safe." Typecast, but true. True blue boyscout. Not quite drunk enough to mention the telepath, perhaps, Emma is not outed, couldn't have it being figured out. Some elements of control are cemented. Nearly. "But she's good at what she does," he finally says, too slowly and uncertainly. Wouldn't do /that/, of course. Never has, Emma, controlled him.
Leah mutters, "Hate chicks like that. /I'm/ not like that." Grar. Jealousy! But maybe not, so much, 'cause look at what it's done to Scotty-boy. She broods into her beer. Hi, beer. Old friend. "Anyway. It's done, right? And you'll just avoid her and her guy, and you'll talk to your father-figure or whatever, and you'll ... figure it out." She owls her eyes (ah, those pale and human eyes!) at him. "Does that help?"
"No, you're not," Scott is quick to reassure. His head scratchy hand goes flopping, waving. "But done. Just have to worry about when someone inevitably find out and then doomed for Scott. But father figure will have to know anyway." Scott makes a more manful attempt at a smile. "It helps."
So Leah pats his hand because, well, manliness deserves its rewards. But so does admitting to weakness, so she reminds him, "Don't worry about what people think. Worry about what /you/ think. What you feel. People will sort out themselves, and not like you can make 'em change their minds, even if you wanted to, right? So. You just be the best Scott Summers you can be, and t'hell with anyone who tries to stuff you into a safe little box to make themselves feel better."
Scott makes a still floppy attempt at returning the pat on Leah's wrist or some such. How does these things move without running into each other, hands? "I will try. I will probably fail very badly and look stupid but I promise to try and to try not to think about all the ... rest." Scott uses his spare hand to rub at his eyebrows. "Damn, I'm tired."
Leah's fingers catch his firmly. /There./ Stay. Good hand. "Man, we all look stupid sometimes. And look, we're still here. You don't /even/ want to hear about mine...." Her mouth twitches. She squeezes the grip a bit. "Talk for another time, maybe, 'cause right now, I think I should pour you into a cab."
The hand is like a fish, but it stays. Caught. Scott eyes it thoughtfully. "Yours?" he asks. It might even be about the hand. Does this appendage belong to you dear lady. Oh. Cab. "Yes, should take a cab, very important to have designated driver."
"And I just took the train. I /could/ take you back with me, tuck you in on my couch, but..." Again Leah trails off, and she hasn't had nearly enough alcohol not to be sharp-eyed consideration on the other side of the table, of the grasp. "But you've had enough with women handling you," she decides at last, "even if I /would/ be very nice to you in the morning. I'm not a bitch. Not really. And not like that. So. Wanna go get a cab? Will you be okay to find your way home from there?"
"Need to find position of strength to attack issue with. Father figure and etc. might see one night stand as symptom instead of exception if sleep with you, even if very nice." Scott acknowledges this with a nod. "Cabs are good. Just tell them to go to those giant gates in Weschester and I'm good."
Leah tugs at his hand, and does not let too much irritation spice her voice. "Hey, I wasn't offering to /sleep/ with you, just stick you on my couch until you're coherent again. Whatever that ghost found in your head for me, it's not sex, I think. Good thing, too. Public sex in the park -- not good." Tug, tug: get up now. Standing. She does it. Waits for him, to see if he needs propping. And she's watching with bemusement, a little tired, and a little, queerly, fond.
"Oh, sorry, my mistake, completely my mistake and completely fueled by ..." Scott stops. Another smile attempt. "I have /no/ idea what I'm saying." And at that, he sticks his knuckles against the table and /heaves/. And stands. Unsteady, but not dangerously so. "Nate would have been very upset," he adds, belatedly, as he starts a careful walk.
After she drops money on the table to pay, a couple quick steps brings Leah up to his side: not touching, not guiding, not herding (exactly), but there. Just in case. What commander doesn't need a good wingman? "Yes," she agrees, "very upset. So would I, for that matter. If I'm going to have sex with you, it isn't going to be in broad daylight in a city park. No offense. You're best off on your lonesome for a while, anyway. Get your head straightened out. Have some 'me' time."
"Noooo more relationships, damnit," Scott agrees, weaving slightly, but all clear. Landing looks successful at some point. "Not in the park, not on the sidewalk, not in the school in the hallway. Although you are very nice, no offense to the no relationships," Scott apologizes as he shoulders the door open.
"You don't want me," Leah says simply on her way out to the street. "Don't worry about it. I shall pine from a distance, longing for your touch and the sound of your voice and all that crap," and she snorts away the whimsy like so much choking exhaust fumes. Um. New York City: hi, there. She edges out to the curb to crane a look for one of the endless supply of yellow taxis. "...You're /sure/ you'll be okay?" she throws back to the ramble, a bit worried now.
Scott's eyebrows go shakily up. "You will? You shouldn't, really, smart people don't want to date me, except when they do, were you serious?" Scott runs that all together a little more rapidly. Scratches his head. "Damn it," he decides, and approaches Leah's curb. "I'll be fine."
Leah grabs his arm for a little shake. "/Scott./ No, I wasn't serious. Joking." She lets him go and snorts again. "Remind me not to joke when you're out of your poor noble head with the evil drink. --Oh, here we go." A cab! A cab! She flags it down and goes for the back door. Before she opens it, though, she regards him steadily, soberly (two beers in her? Pfft, that's nothing). "Be fine," she instructs him. "Remember /that,/ even if you forget the rest of this."
"Oh. Right. Joking." What is this jok-- "The bottle," Scott says, sticking up a finger, "is the devil's poison. Hell." Scott pauses on that word and repeats it, as if he were some small boy testing out swear words in the safe privacy of his room. But there is the cab and there is Leah all steadily. He tries to regard her back. "I promise. Will be fine. Do I get in the cab?"
So Leah goes back to the curb to fetch him, while the driver leans on an arm over the seat back to watch with unabashed enjoyment. She steers Scott to the back door, opens it, and steps out of his way. There. "There," she even says, in case it isn't obvious. "All ready to go. --Take him to the school in Westchester. The big gates. And get your damn eyes off him before I rip them out of your skull." She wrinkles a hand's blunt-nailed fingers at the driver, and a nice smile with them. He turns around fast. "--Now, you ride in the back here, and you pay him at the end. You've got money, right? Prepared, like a Boy Scout."
Scott flumps, than recovers himself to drag-sit on the seat, bracing his arm on the back to keep himself more or less upright. A final attempt at smile. It succeeds. "Will pay, have money. Carry my wallet everywhere. Hell, how I got outed. Evening, thanks." He closes the door. After two aborted flails for that handle.
"Good." Leah steps back to the curb's safety and loosely folds her arms, hands cupping biceps against the coming of night or just ... 'cause. "Have a good night," she offers and then nods to the driver's wary sidelong glance. Get him going; get him home.
"Night," calls a Scott half muffled from the window. He raises his hand as the driver keys up and pulls out. Away to Weschester and away to an ... awkward time at the gates, surily.
[Log ends.]
Well, he apparently strives to excel at everything else in his life, so he can probably find a way to climb this mountain, too. Better get him some pitons and a rope. A harness. Safety net.
Poor kid. What kind of God is messing around with him these days?
8/25/2005
Logfile from Leah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bay Horse
A mixture of a modern bar and the pub environment present back in England, in the corner of the large room is a small stage with the PA system already set up and a lone mic standing there, ready for the jam nights, as well as the nights there are bands playing. There's also a fireplace with a mantle with a couple of horsehoes like most English pubs have. The seating also stems back to typical English pubs, older looking wooden tables with wooden seats surrounding them, no particular pattern and a few don't even look like they are the same sort of table. Back to the stage, you made notice the fair sized gap near the stage where there is room to dance if anyone felt like it. Finally we have the bar, a long bar at that which stretches accross an entire wall, behind it is many wierd and wonderful bottles of spirits and mixers and even some real ale, whoever runs this place has dome their research. Theres also a door behind the bar that says employees only and another opposite the entrance that says 'beer garden.
--
He arrived here by subway and will return by taxi and there is no motorcycle in sight. Reason is simple. Scott is well and thoroughly drunk, and did indeed feel a prick for getting well and thoroughly drunk with every half ounce of alcohol. He still feels guilty. Foolish Scott, for he is indeed a broody drunk, not a cheery one. Whoever could have guessed. He sits in a table near the back, side of head supported on right hand, left hand settled around beer of some number. There are three napkins in his vicinity, all scribbled on.
She also arrived here by subway and will return by subway because she has a MetroCard and isn't afraid to use it. And Leah is sober, if somewhat baffled, as she swings into the bar around the closing door, pauses to look around, and then make for the right table. Doesn't show her confusion, her intrigue, however, by the time she gets there: the face that Scott gets, should he choose to look at it, is all blank and pleasant. She rests her hands on the back of the chair opposite, lightly, as if ready to pull it out or pull away. One never knows. "Hey."
Scott's primary focus is the opposite edge of the table (not very tactical of him), and it takes him too long to recognize that beyond the edge of the table is a chair and beyond that is someone. Person of some sort. He looks up, or, rather, presses his face side and upwards against his palm. Slower and more slack jawed motion, that. "Hi," he says, recognition there, but vague.
Oh, dear. Leah's face does reveal that much. Maybe he won't see it. Maybe he will. Maybe she won't care. Her fingers dig a stronger hold out of the chair back as she leans forward. "Hi," she returns amiably. "So, you got started without me?"
Oh, the wheels are always churning, however slowly. Recognition gets more pronounced, weightier, interpretable. But expressions are too faint a nuance to mean much yet. Scott releases the glass to run a finger down the side of it. "I think I'm almost finished," he states dully.
"'Kay." Light and breezy Leah: she practically wafts into the chair, seating herself, after all. "Need any help from me? Not that you don't seem to have done a great job..." She picks with idle curiosity at one of the scribbly napkins. Hello. What are you?
"No reason to drink from the same glass. Disease can spread that way. Something. Spreads." Scott continues to run that finger on down, his gaze shifting from Leah to his fingernail. Scribbly napkins are all equation and angle and ... steadily less comprehensible. For even Scott's handwriting grows imprecise at some point.
Leah studies it nonetheless: the Rosetta Stone to Cyclopean mood, since her flickering eyes are scanning his face, sipping like little glancing flies, and not coming up with much, to judge by her frown. Well. Much beyond "broody," obviously. "I'll have my own glass," she agrees and has one fetched or poured or however it might be best procured. That done, she sips and studies him s'more, the napkin forgotten. "So. I'm going to go out on a limb, Scott, and say that you've had a shitty week, too."
"Yeah. Few days at least. Yesterday. And the day before. Or just yesterday." The hand supporting Scott's head turns its fingers into his cheekbone, almost scratching. It is a day for fingers. "Do we count cause and effect or just effect? Is getting drunk part of the crap or just the heangover."
"Sucks," is Leah's succinct, and sympathetic, summary. She has another sip, then shrugs. "It's all a piece, in my experience. When you're getting kicked around by life, everything counts. Everything sucks." Bitterly she says it, and hey, let's have more beer. A private toast to suckiness. "...You wanna talk about it?"
"Yeah ... " Scott agrees, then corrects himself. "No. Don't want to talk about it. But I think." He lifts his hand off the side of his face, stills that other hand, and puts them both on the table, imperfectly splayed, "I might have to. I ... don't know what to think about anything."
Leah shifts in her chair, bringing elbows into propping play on the table. One hand provides a pedestal for her cheek; the other one remains wrapped around her beer. "It's not necessary," she says, quiet in it. "I mean, if you want to sit and drink, hey, that's cool. We can do that. But if you're wanting to sort out what's in your head..." Gravely she focuses on his glasses (or perhaps his nose) and concludes, "I will sit and listen and make supportive noises about how much the bad people in your life are very, very bad, and screw them, man, and you deserve better. Whatever you want. Not goin' anywhere."
A dry laugh, thickly dry, all right, perhaps soused dry. Scott gives his head an unsteady tilt, as if performing some impromptu stretch before saying low and with clumsy sarcasm, "No, no. Don't have it quite right. See. I'm the only bad person in my life and also easy to screw, apparently."
Her frown swooping back to settle on her face, Leah shifts forward a bit. "I haven't found that to be the case." Carefully she emphasizes then, "The first part, anyway. No comment on the second part."
"Have you ..." Scott pauses, judging something blearily no longer necessary. "You don't know me well enough yet. You'll see. Apparently can't keep my true nature hidden for long. Something."
"Well, I guess so." Leah concedes the point, but carefully still. And still frowning, although it's directed less at him than herself. Or the tabletop. Puzzling tabletop. She pokes at a napkin as if for answers. "I don't know your true nature. Can't say anyone knows anyone else's, unless they're a tele--" Mmm. She has a quick drink to drown the rest of that word.
That dry laugh again. Dryer, only. "I date telepaths with fair frequence," notes Scott darkly.
Leah grimaces. So much for diplomacy, so she throws the rest of tact to the wind: "Tell me another one didn't screw you over. Not after that ghost thing."
"No, no, nothing that easy. Old flame," Scott explicates, removing one hand off the table to gesture with it. "Got screwed over by ghost thing, went to apologize, ended up in bed with her."
Leah sorts through that explanation and comes up with, "And that was a bad thing."
"Yes, in fact," Scott, sensing through clog-ged senses that this does not in fact horrify Leah, proceeds to try a little harder. "It meant nothing to her, we hop, and she treats me like some enterprising butler. Well weren't you cute. Then I walk out and an old best friend of mine who's dating her now ... is out there having breakfast with her in the kitchen and there you go."
Far from horrified, but Leah does refrain from, say, prying for all the gory details. She is being a Good Friend. An Awkwardly Good Friend, but still! "Holy shit," she says, dutiful. "She used you and then dumped you out to face her current himbo? What a bitch, man. Kick her ass."
"Can't do that. I used /her/ for months, you see. Or something, I'm not sure. She seems to think so, probably right, since there was that ghost thing." Scott's hand flails briefly nervous for the glass. Finds it. "I feel awful about the whole thing. Did soon as I woke up, you know."
"Of course you did. 'Cause you're a nice guy." Leah puts that out there firmly. "And you are /not/ to blame for what you did with the ghost in your head. If she doesn't get that, well, screw her. Figuratively, I mean."
Scott raises the glass and peers into it. "Maybe I am to blame. I don't know what I did and what the ghost did and I promise, really, you only think I'm nice because you don't know."
Leah points out, "You assaulted me in a public park in front of your child. Don't completely write me off as some noble saint, here, Scotty-boy."
"Weeeelll, that was different. Still. Can't make what isn't in me. Part of me is violent and sexual like that, but not usually like that." Scott tilts the glass back for a swallow. Lowers it. "But I really don't /know/ is the thing, what is real." Ah, comprehension, where have you flown?
Leah shifts in her chair again. Discomfort. Uncertainty. She drops her gaze from his face to his napkin, but doesn't get anywhere with it this time, either, so sighs and drinks and drifts strained pale eyes back to his ... glasses. Right. "Things are real," she measures out, "if you think they are. Feel they are. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. Honest. You have some dark shit in you? Well, welcome to the rest of the human race, but it doesn't /define/ you. Just something in you, along with nobility and tactics and sacrifice and looking after asshole cops who call you 'poodle.'"
Scott's brow furrows, a somewhat lopsided attempt at expressional unity. The glass clinks back on the table. "I can't have any of it," he says to the table top, tone quite obviously miserable. "I have duties, a child, watch over children, need focus to do anything more than explain engine schematics. Lose the glasses and property damage, injury, death, can't afford darkness. Was just something I thought sometimes, be one thing, but it never stays there."
"Just 'cause you can't afford it doesn't mean it's going to go /away./ Jesus wept," Leah mutters and drains her beer vengefully. Gotta get the boy to understand-- "You got a lot on your shoulders. 'Kay. That's fair. But you're allowed to be human. Got that darkness. Dark side. You embrace it, acknowledge it, and make it a little less scary than if you keep turning away from it, you know?"
"I /can't./" Scott blows this out his nose. "Every time ... I mess up, or show anything that might be a little angry, a little unhappy, it's unfortunate, it's not right -- you have to understand, I have all kinds of insecure everythings and no one wants to see it. Get disgusted, impatient, any of that."
Leah says calmly, and calmly folds her hands on the table, "Then forget them. It takes a strong person to show insecurity, and if they're not letting you do that? They're keeping you stuffed into the role /they/ want you to play, Scott, which probably has nothing to do with who you really are. /All/ of you. They want the do-gooder, the nice guy, the perfect hero? Jesus wept," she repeats deliberately and twists her mouth down in disgusted dismissal. "You come talk to me. You can be insecure all you want. Or get some better damn friends, huh?"
Scott shakes his head. It's a somewhat flimsy motion. "I can't. Too deep. Could talk for hours and hours and hours and never get it out and then I go and screw up again and can't tell anyone. Can already hear outrage, disappointment, resignation, no good." Scott's left hand clenches weakly on the table. "And I need the control, at least to pretend."
Baffled, stymied, Leah throws out a bit desperately, "Write about it in a diary, at least? So it isn't just sitting in your head and making you sick?"
"I try. Don't even like telling a diary or you, but I don't know why 'm telling you actually." Scott lets his own bafflement at /that/ go out in another sigh. Mild shoulder hunch. "Shouldn't."
"Why not?" Leah pours another beer and regards him steadily over the actions of hands and glass and frothy sudsness. "Shit, Scott, I can handle myself. I don't want to hear it, I tell you, right? I'm a big girl."
"I /can't./ Can't even tell some page what it is, I can't tell a person, no matter how big or handled. Don't even know what it is. But had it for years. Try to fix, but." Scott's nostrils flare. "Can't."
Leah threatens, "If you say 'can't' again, I'll..." But doesn't sustain it. Finish it. She mutters a bit into her glass, sure, but that's it. After a swallow, she puts on a determined mask. "Okay. Let's try a little thought experiment here, you and me. Just tell me this: what would happen if you /did/ tell someone? The very worst thing. All of it, everything you can imagine. Spill it."
Scott is not sure how to respond. Thus, he looks up at the ceiling. "I don't know."
Leah is totally sure how to prod, though: "You lose your job, people laugh at you, you end up living like a bum in the gutter somewhere in Alphabet City? You know, that kinda thing. The absolute worst things that could happen to you if you show vulnerability to people."
Scott's mouth pulls to the side. "Want me to show more. Vulnerability, that is. Or ... or it'd confirm things they suspected. Make them think that much less of me." Sounds oh so very petty in words, but Scott's tone is tight and wary, if wavery all the same.
Ruthless Leah. She pursues this line of thinking with bulldog tenacity, burrowing right past wariness and wavering alike. "Okay, so they think less of you. Would they be /right/ about that, or is it just in their heads?"
"Be right," Scott clarifies.
"Says who?" Leah challenges. "You? Due respect, my friend, but I'm not sure you're in a good position to judge that."
Scott lowers his head enough to raise an eyebrow. Try. Spirit is willing, flesh is weak. "Who's better?"
Leah frowns. Damn. Caught. Um. "Someone who knows you. Your strengths, your weaknesses, your flaws, and so on and so forth. But someone a little /distant,/ y'know? And not an ex, either," she has to mutter in qualification. "A sympathetic observer. D'you have one of those?"
It takes Scott a while. Then, droopy smile. Supposed to be endearingly half smile. "I might, but something of a father more than distant. But not an ex."
It does soften Leah's tenacious attack, anyway. "Well, that sounds promising. Maybe you can talk to -- Dad, or whatever. See what he thinks of you, and see if it matches up with what /you/ think of you." She drinks again, sets the glass down. Makes happy overlapping wet rings on the table. "We're always our own worst critics, but boy, oh, boy, I think you win the Olympic gold medal in that event. Where the hell did that come from? Your ... mutation? The need to control it?"
An unknowledgeable shrug, a tap on the tabletop. "Part. Part of many things. Orphan, you know. Took a while to get adopted, shy, all that, nearly blow up Prom first time you go, maybe nothing clear cut." Another of the shaky headshakes from Scott. "Spend a lot of time in your own head, maybe. Not sure."
Leah hesitates. "Um. You can hit me if this is too personal, but -- did Dr. Grey help any? Since she can be in your head, too..."
"She hears, I think. But think it makes it worse well as better, actually." Another sigh, deeper and longer. "See, with another person, when you are loving or kissing or any of that, if you are not focused enough on what is happening, they don't know. She knows. And when you're in love you want more than opportunities to fix the partner."
Leah blinks a bit. Or it might be a flinch. She focuses on making those glass-bottom rings, anyway. Focus, focus. "Yeah. Love's not about /fixing/ someone, anyway. That's not right."
"No. Never tried to fix me, her. Good. But she ... didn't feel right herself, with me. There it is." Scott waves at the ceiling.
"So?" Leah shrugs. "Not your problem. Hers."
"Mine too. Still love her, see," Scott explains. Tersely.
Leah backs off at that, nodding. "Sure. Sorry, though," she offers. "I mean, if it's causing you stress and all. Love's -- tough. Haven't really been in it myself more than a few times, and never ended it well. Well, for /him./ Me, I was always fine with it. My terms." She bares her teeth in a smile. Rawr. "We women are like that, huh?"
Scott's floppy smile re-emerges. "Yes. Always on your terms. The one I hopped into bed with made sure I knew it was for her fun, that morning. Matriarchal society."
"Didn't say I /liked/ it." Leah tosses back a swallow. Mm, beer. But maybe it's time for stronger stuff. "Might be on our terms, but sucks for you, huh? People deserve to be treated better. I'm telling you, that chick you hopped into bed with? She did that to you in the morning, she /is/ a Grade A bitch, and no doubt about it. Want me to kick her ass for you? We women are also like that."
"Kind of," Scott says -- in contrast to the ever-brood, it is almost dreamy. Then the Guilt snaps back in. "But wouldn't be worth it. Will just stay far far away from her, forever. Visit prostitute next time I want to apologize something. Just don't know /how/ I ended up in this bed."
Leah ponders. "She get you drunk?"
Scott shakes his head. "No, no, nothing like that. Just come to apologize, she's mad, then she's not, then things are easier than they have been for months, talking, love, all that, but the morning says none of that /meant/ anything."
"Well, hell." Leah frowns at him and, by proxy, La Bitch out there roaming the streets and preying on unsuspecting goody-two-shoes. "Unless she's a telepath, too, or got some kind of weird-ass seduction thing goin' on, I don't know what to say. You don't /seem/ like -- sorry, Scott -- don't /seem/ like the kind of guy to just tumble into bed with a girl all happy-whee after an apology. Kinda think your kind of apology is more of a good firm handshake." She does grin a bit, apologetically, for the typecasting.
"Well. Yes." Scott agrees to the last. And proceeds to scratch his head in bemusement. "Like handshakes. Safe." Typecast, but true. True blue boyscout. Not quite drunk enough to mention the telepath, perhaps, Emma is not outed, couldn't have it being figured out. Some elements of control are cemented. Nearly. "But she's good at what she does," he finally says, too slowly and uncertainly. Wouldn't do /that/, of course. Never has, Emma, controlled him.
Leah mutters, "Hate chicks like that. /I'm/ not like that." Grar. Jealousy! But maybe not, so much, 'cause look at what it's done to Scotty-boy. She broods into her beer. Hi, beer. Old friend. "Anyway. It's done, right? And you'll just avoid her and her guy, and you'll talk to your father-figure or whatever, and you'll ... figure it out." She owls her eyes (ah, those pale and human eyes!) at him. "Does that help?"
"No, you're not," Scott is quick to reassure. His head scratchy hand goes flopping, waving. "But done. Just have to worry about when someone inevitably find out and then doomed for Scott. But father figure will have to know anyway." Scott makes a more manful attempt at a smile. "It helps."
So Leah pats his hand because, well, manliness deserves its rewards. But so does admitting to weakness, so she reminds him, "Don't worry about what people think. Worry about what /you/ think. What you feel. People will sort out themselves, and not like you can make 'em change their minds, even if you wanted to, right? So. You just be the best Scott Summers you can be, and t'hell with anyone who tries to stuff you into a safe little box to make themselves feel better."
Scott makes a still floppy attempt at returning the pat on Leah's wrist or some such. How does these things move without running into each other, hands? "I will try. I will probably fail very badly and look stupid but I promise to try and to try not to think about all the ... rest." Scott uses his spare hand to rub at his eyebrows. "Damn, I'm tired."
Leah's fingers catch his firmly. /There./ Stay. Good hand. "Man, we all look stupid sometimes. And look, we're still here. You don't /even/ want to hear about mine...." Her mouth twitches. She squeezes the grip a bit. "Talk for another time, maybe, 'cause right now, I think I should pour you into a cab."
The hand is like a fish, but it stays. Caught. Scott eyes it thoughtfully. "Yours?" he asks. It might even be about the hand. Does this appendage belong to you dear lady. Oh. Cab. "Yes, should take a cab, very important to have designated driver."
"And I just took the train. I /could/ take you back with me, tuck you in on my couch, but..." Again Leah trails off, and she hasn't had nearly enough alcohol not to be sharp-eyed consideration on the other side of the table, of the grasp. "But you've had enough with women handling you," she decides at last, "even if I /would/ be very nice to you in the morning. I'm not a bitch. Not really. And not like that. So. Wanna go get a cab? Will you be okay to find your way home from there?"
"Need to find position of strength to attack issue with. Father figure and etc. might see one night stand as symptom instead of exception if sleep with you, even if very nice." Scott acknowledges this with a nod. "Cabs are good. Just tell them to go to those giant gates in Weschester and I'm good."
Leah tugs at his hand, and does not let too much irritation spice her voice. "Hey, I wasn't offering to /sleep/ with you, just stick you on my couch until you're coherent again. Whatever that ghost found in your head for me, it's not sex, I think. Good thing, too. Public sex in the park -- not good." Tug, tug: get up now. Standing. She does it. Waits for him, to see if he needs propping. And she's watching with bemusement, a little tired, and a little, queerly, fond.
"Oh, sorry, my mistake, completely my mistake and completely fueled by ..." Scott stops. Another smile attempt. "I have /no/ idea what I'm saying." And at that, he sticks his knuckles against the table and /heaves/. And stands. Unsteady, but not dangerously so. "Nate would have been very upset," he adds, belatedly, as he starts a careful walk.
After she drops money on the table to pay, a couple quick steps brings Leah up to his side: not touching, not guiding, not herding (exactly), but there. Just in case. What commander doesn't need a good wingman? "Yes," she agrees, "very upset. So would I, for that matter. If I'm going to have sex with you, it isn't going to be in broad daylight in a city park. No offense. You're best off on your lonesome for a while, anyway. Get your head straightened out. Have some 'me' time."
"Noooo more relationships, damnit," Scott agrees, weaving slightly, but all clear. Landing looks successful at some point. "Not in the park, not on the sidewalk, not in the school in the hallway. Although you are very nice, no offense to the no relationships," Scott apologizes as he shoulders the door open.
"You don't want me," Leah says simply on her way out to the street. "Don't worry about it. I shall pine from a distance, longing for your touch and the sound of your voice and all that crap," and she snorts away the whimsy like so much choking exhaust fumes. Um. New York City: hi, there. She edges out to the curb to crane a look for one of the endless supply of yellow taxis. "...You're /sure/ you'll be okay?" she throws back to the ramble, a bit worried now.
Scott's eyebrows go shakily up. "You will? You shouldn't, really, smart people don't want to date me, except when they do, were you serious?" Scott runs that all together a little more rapidly. Scratches his head. "Damn it," he decides, and approaches Leah's curb. "I'll be fine."
Leah grabs his arm for a little shake. "/Scott./ No, I wasn't serious. Joking." She lets him go and snorts again. "Remind me not to joke when you're out of your poor noble head with the evil drink. --Oh, here we go." A cab! A cab! She flags it down and goes for the back door. Before she opens it, though, she regards him steadily, soberly (two beers in her? Pfft, that's nothing). "Be fine," she instructs him. "Remember /that,/ even if you forget the rest of this."
"Oh. Right. Joking." What is this jok-- "The bottle," Scott says, sticking up a finger, "is the devil's poison. Hell." Scott pauses on that word and repeats it, as if he were some small boy testing out swear words in the safe privacy of his room. But there is the cab and there is Leah all steadily. He tries to regard her back. "I promise. Will be fine. Do I get in the cab?"
So Leah goes back to the curb to fetch him, while the driver leans on an arm over the seat back to watch with unabashed enjoyment. She steers Scott to the back door, opens it, and steps out of his way. There. "There," she even says, in case it isn't obvious. "All ready to go. --Take him to the school in Westchester. The big gates. And get your damn eyes off him before I rip them out of your skull." She wrinkles a hand's blunt-nailed fingers at the driver, and a nice smile with them. He turns around fast. "--Now, you ride in the back here, and you pay him at the end. You've got money, right? Prepared, like a Boy Scout."
Scott flumps, than recovers himself to drag-sit on the seat, bracing his arm on the back to keep himself more or less upright. A final attempt at smile. It succeeds. "Will pay, have money. Carry my wallet everywhere. Hell, how I got outed. Evening, thanks." He closes the door. After two aborted flails for that handle.
"Good." Leah steps back to the curb's safety and loosely folds her arms, hands cupping biceps against the coming of night or just ... 'cause. "Have a good night," she offers and then nods to the driver's wary sidelong glance. Get him going; get him home.
"Night," calls a Scott half muffled from the window. He raises his hand as the driver keys up and pulls out. Away to Weschester and away to an ... awkward time at the gates, surily.
[Log ends.]