sally blevins (ontheskids) wrote in age_of_miracles, @ 2008-02-10 21:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | nightcrawler, skids |
Log: Nightcrawler and Skids
Who: Sally Blevins and Kurt Wagner
When: February 10th, 2008; evening
Where: the school’s kitchen
What: Sally bitches, Kurt even bitches, there’s a whole lot of bitching going on. Mostly because Kurt’s crazy about Christianity and Sally’s just plain crazy.
Sally always ended up grouchy after there had been some sort of anti-Magneto bitchfight, either in person or through the journaling system. For all of her rabble-rousing, she actually wasn’t much of a fighter and was more inclined to the take the more peaceful stance on things. But she just couldn’t stand people putting down the new regime, especially when the old one had been so much worse… well, unless you were a sapien. In which case, you could do nothing but reminiscence about the “good old days.”
Fuck that.
Sally was banging pots and pans around the kitchen. She usually stayed out of the kitchen, because she tended to break too many plates and bowls when she was in it, but it was late and she was hungry after skipping dinner, and if she broke a plate because she was forced to bash it over someone’s head then so be it.
Kurt didn't appreciate the noise. He came into the kitchen for something to eat, not a drum solo. Covering his ears, he crept into the kitchen and skulked around to the refrigerator like he was trying not to incur Sally's wrath. Reaching for the chocolate milk, he pulled it out and clutched it protectively to his chest before he went for a glass.
"Excuse me, Sally----I just----" He reached around her, trying to get to the cupboard. "Excuse me----" When he finally got a glass, he stepped back to pour the chocolate milk. It was a long silence before he mumbled, "I don't think it was fair, what you said to Mary Jane."
Sally dropped the plate she was holding with a clatter and turned to look at Kurt with a blink. “Excuse me?” Some of the people in this place couldn’t be for real. They seriously couldn’t. There was a sapien running around, calling superpowered people freaks, and complaining that no one could understand her woes, but giving Sally crap for calling her on it. Not okay. “Which part wasn’t fair, Kurt? Really. I’m dying to know.”
Kurt capped the milk and went to put it back in the refrigerator. "She is scared, Sally. You did not have to be so rude to her, that is all. Maybe she did not say the right things, but... let's not take out tar and feathers just yet."
“And she didn’t need to be so rude either. All of us are scared. Not all of us run off our mouths about how mutants can’t possibly understand her fear in a mutant school and expect people to read it without saying something.” Gritting her teeth. “She was out of line, Kurt.”
Kurt took a sip of chocolate milk and raised an eyebrow. "You did take it on yourself to put her in her place." And he didn't sound pleased about that. "And you are not scared, Sally." He flashed his teeth in what was almost a bitter smile and climbed up to perch on the island in the middle of the kitchen. "You are enjoying all this."
“Someone needed to. I’m sick of watching the kids who don’t necessarily think that Magneto being in charge is the worst thing ever being put down by people in this school perched on their high horses. I’ve kept my mouth shut about this sort of thing for years and I’m tired of it.”
Sally glared back down at the salad she was preparing, hacking into a tomato. “You think I’m not scared? Are you crazy? The Friends of Humanity is running around burning people alive and kidnapping people. You think that doesn’t freak me out just a little? And besides that ---- you know what really freaks me out? That you people are going to ruin what could potentially be a good thing and make everything even worse than it was before.”
Kurt frowned, setting down his glass and leaning forward slightly. He was incredulous. "You don't think it's a good idea to take down Magneto. You don't think it's a good idea to end this? Sally, it is chaos----"
“It’s not chaos anymore than it was before. If you’d all stop complaining about it and throw your support behind Magneto… you could help him get things more under control. Stop the Friends of Humanity from running rampant. But instead you’re fighting it and people are dying in the middle of it. Mutants are getting hurt, because you’d rather live in a world where sapiens are branding us and experimenting on us,” Sally said with a scowl, refusing to look up from what she was doing. There was barely contained anger there; clearly, Sally’s beliefs ran deep, even if she never discussed how, where or when they’d started.
"I did not say that----there has to be balance somewhere," said Kurt, his tail thrashing angrily. "This is no good. It was no good before. You know Magneto and there will be no better. He wants everyone who does not agree with him dead. Deep down you have to know this..."
“Don’t you get it?” Sally snapped, finally looking up and nearly slicing off her finger in the process. “Fuck---” she muttered, grabbing a rag and wrapping it around her finger. Squeezing the rag, she shook her head. “That’s not the way the world works. You want this happy utopia. And that’s not going to happen. So, yeah, I’d rather support the guy who’s going to take care of mutants. So sue me. I’d like to live.”
"You won't live," Kurt said, surprisingly angry. He didn't get very angry until recently. "Whether you like it or not we are so outnumbered-----and the Friends of Humanity are angry and coming after mutants more than ever before----"
“And if you’d work with Magneto maybe they wouldn’t get very far!” Sally retorted, flushing and looking like she wanted to smack something. “They made mutants militant, Kurt. They did it. They try to act like they had to pass laws like the MRA to protect themselves, but mutants never would have resorted to terrorism if they hadn’t been oppressed first. And now they don’t like that we’ve fought back and won. So stop twiddling your thumbs and acting like you think you can pray on your rosary and God’s going to come down from the heavens and smack us all with some sort of peaceful solution. There isn’t one. If we don’t fight, we’ll end up in concentration camps. And if we do we might end up dead… but it’s better than the alternative.”
Kurt looked away, scraping the spade of his tail against the counter. "This is just the kind of thinking I can't stand," he said, glancing back up at her. "There are so many people in this world and they are not only... only sapien and mutant. There is no them and there is no us! We act as if we are all one thing or all another but we are not! We are all people, we are all children of God, and people refuse to see that. Herr Professor wants to help the world know that. With Magneto there will always be them and there will always be us, and there will never be peace until there is so much death that no one is left to fight."
“Kurt --- they made this ‘them’ and ‘us’. We didn’t. They separated us out, branded us, locked us up, took away our jobs, told our parents we were evil. We have no choice but to fight.” She turned the water on in the sink, intending to clean out the wound on her finger --- her damn powers never seemed to switch on when she wanted them to. “It’s all nice and well and good to support pacifism, but it’s gotten to the point where that’s only going to get us killed. If we don’t fight, they’re going to slaughter us. It’s that simple. They’re not going to put down their swords and flaming pitchforks, not even if we all sit down, start singing Kum-ba-ya and tell them that we refuse to fight.”
"I know, but fighting for mutant superiority is not going to change anything," Kurt snapped. "There----it..." It felt impossible. He knew that. And he didn't have a good argument that she was going to accept----that much was hopeless and he knew it. "Why do you hate humans so much, Sally?"
“None of your business,” she snapped back. She wasn’t going to give him the sob story of her life. Being abused by her step-father, running away from home, being wrapped up in the bubble of her own mutation for years, losing Rusty to the government of all things… and then seeing him blown to thousands of uneasy to reassemble pieces on national television. That had really capped it all off, even if she hadn’t dealt with being a freak her whole life. But that really wasn’t Kurt’s business, and she didn’t want to be one of those people who tried to justify her behavior with her past. “Why are you so convinced that they deserve to be saved --- other than any religious argument about us all being God’s creatures that you’re going to give me.”
Kurt shifted to sit, hugging his knees in to his chest. "Because all people deserve to be saved," he said honestly. "Because all people deserve to live. My mother abandoned me and left me for dead and someone was kind enough to take me, regardless of how I look, and give me the chance to live. If a human can show me so much kindness I can offer that kindness, too. I can believe in the good in people." He was quiet, but vehement. "It is not about God."
“Then consider yourself lucky,” Sally said, the food she’d bee preparing abandoned. “Because every sapien I’ve ever met as been a bastard.”
"Really. Every one? Every one?"
“Every one,” Sally said flatly. Clearly. There was a reason that she had such a low opinion of humans, other than the obvious stuff.
"Then I feel sorry for you," said Kurt quietly, frowning. "There are some humans out there who have never met a good mutant... but there are good mutants and you know that. There are good humans, too. Sally----Mary Jane is a good human."
“Yeah, who thinks we’re freaks. Who thinks she’s in some sort of special bubble that makes her somehow more persecuted.” Sally snorted. “Please.”
"Sally." Kurt frowned. "She feels how you felt. She feels how you feel."
“No, she doesn’t, Kurt. She feels like her experiences are something beyond the understanding of us mere mutants.” Glaring at the things she’d been preparing ten minutes before, Sally started cleaning up, no longer in the mood to eat anything. “But I’ve got to tell you, I’m glad she’s finally getting a dose of what it’s like to live in fear. It’s about time the sapiens know what it’s like.”
"She feels how you feel," said Kurt, finishing off his milk. "You think that humans don't understand you, she feels that mutants do not understand her. You think you are so much better. Please. I am not saying she is right but I am saying you may be more alike than you think that you are."
“I’m pretty sure sapiens understand us now. Or that they’re going to,” Sally said, tossing things into the garbage and slamming plates back where they belonged. “And that? That’s thanks to Magneto.”
Kurt sighed heavily and hopped off the counter to put his glass in the dishwasher. "Maybe," he said. "But you and Mary Jane have felt the same fear and the same anger, whether you feel happy about it or not. You are both still chil----you are both still people."
“Don’t patronize me, Kurt,” Sally said with an irritated sigh. “If you want to sell me on the virtues of sapiens, you’re going to have to try to do it with one that doesn’t get mouthy about things are so terrible for her.”
"I'm not trying to sell you anything," said Kurt, leaning against the counter. He scratched the side of his scarred face with a deformed hand and shrugged. "I just think ... that you are not doing yourself any favors in holding so much hate. It tears people apart.... it... I see what it does to Tommy and feel what anger does to me, and ... it can't be healthy."
“Maybe if I wasn’t surrounded by people who can’t deal with the fact that not everyone is going to have the same opinions, I’d wouldn’t be forced into such ‘hateful’ situations.” Sally banged a drawer shut. “You’re all hypocrites, you know that, right? You get a sapien in here calling mutants freaks, or a mutant telling the kids that they couldn’t possibly know anything and that their opinions are wrong, but I’m the bad guy. It’s a long, hard fall from that pedestal you’re all sitting on,” she said with a disgusted snort. “I’m done. Enjoy your night, Kurt. Go give Mary Jane a pat on the back and tell her what a wonderful, strong trooper she is for dealing with all of this.”
Kurt grimaced and buried his face in his hands. His tail flicked irritably. If Sally didn't want to listen... fine. If Sally wanted to be stubborn and angry, that was her prerogative. And Kurt... hm. Maybe he didn't understand, maybe he was being unfair to her. But he hated being called a hypocrite. "Enjoy your night as well," he said. "And God bless."
Whether it just slipped out of habit or he said it to stick it to her, it wasn't clear.
The corner of Sally’s mouth quirked up and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m sure your God isn’t blessing me,” she said with a huff, leaving the conversation at that and all but flouncing out of the kitchen.
Oh well, there was probably something in the teacher’s lounge to eat if she found she couldn’t wait until morning.