alex (FREAKING) summers. (solarforce) wrote in mutanthaven, @ 2009-10-01 21:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | alex summers, plot: power outage, scott summers |
log: scott and alex
summary: Temporarily able to see without his glasses, Scott calls his brother into Warren's office to get a good look at him. They actually almost have a real family moment until Scott ruins it, as usual. Backdated to October 1st.
SCOTT: After speaking with Jean, Scott sent out three messages, one to Warren, one to Emma, and one to Alex. He wasn't typically what others would classify as a sentimental person. He didn't have keepsakes, he didn't hold onto memories that he shared with others, he didn't tend to ascribe special value to places and things that had been present at different events in his life. It was hard to, really, when one grew up the way that he had, without much control over where you were or what things you were allowed to take with you. Even memories weren't safe, not really. Time changed those, made them fade, made them leave. Scott could barely remember what his parents looked like; he couldn't remember more than blonde hair and blue eyes for Alex, until he'd seen him again. He'd forced himself to not care, until it became something that felt natural. One more way of shutting himself off, closing a door on a part of him that otherwise would've been functioning and normal. That didn't mean that on rare occasions he lacked those reactions and urges, though. When something was big enough, when he knew it was likely never going to happen again, he grabbed at it as quickly as possible. This was one of those times. He didn't know how long the inhibitor would be keeping people's powers shut down, and he needed to take advantage before it went back offline. He knew what the people around him looked like, now. He wasn't blind anymore, didn't have to keep his eyes shut at all times thanks to the sunglasses that had been created to block his powers. But he saw the world in a strong wash of reds and blacks -- other colors simply didn't come through. It had been so long since he'd actually seen other colors, that he'd started to lose the simple concepts of them. It wasn't something he really thought about too much -- it simply was what it was. But now that he had the chance to see things as they were meant to be seen? He wanted to. He wanted to see the people that were closest to him and that he actually cared about, wanted to know what they really looked like. He knew those memories would fade as well, but he wanted them while he could have them. So he messaged three others besides Jean, to let them know that he needed to see them (and yes, he was fully aware of the pun) as soon as possible. He was in Warren's office still, waiting for Alex to show. His glasses were on, just in case. It was uncomfortable to have them off, to be honest. But that was only until his brother came in.
ALEX: Alex had been worried. It was hard to make him leave his brother in the office, even in Jean's capable hands, but he wasn't going to be useful just standing there and Jean had kicked him out for pacing too much. He felt responsible for what had happened to his brother. It wasn't his fault, not really, but he'd been there and he somehow hadn't been able to prevent Scott from getting hurt. What a lot of use he was. On top of his guilt, there was plenty of irrational fear. Jean had said that Scott was going to be perfectly fine, and he knew that he should trust her judgment, but Alex had lost both of his parents and been separated from his brother once before. He couldn't help but feel like the worst could happen at any moment, and he wasn't prepared for that. Having Lorna for support had made it a little bit easier to wait, at least. Most people didn't think of her as being the most sensitive or comforting person, but she understood what Alex was going through a lot more than just about anyone else he could think of. So she kept him company outside of the hotel, and he had tried not to lose his cool about the stressful events of the past few hours, and the time had passed. Slowly. He was hugely relieved when the handheld device in his pocket vibrated to alert him that he had a message from Scott. Getting back to the hotel hadn't taken very long. Part of him almost wanted to bring Lorna in with him, because as much as he wanted to make sure that Scott was okay face-to-face, he didn't know why Scott needed to see him, and he was pretty sure that the meeting wasn't going to end in brotherly hugging. But Lorna wasn't a Summers, and Scott wasn't much for an audience. If he really had something important on his mind, Alex didn't want to endanger his chances of actually hearing what Scott had to say to him. Moments like this came rarely. Alex wasn't even sure if he could remember an instance when his brother had asked him to come meet him somewhere. He'd never been in Warren's office, either. As he approached the door, he was relieved to see that Logan wasn't at his guard post at the door; Jean must have left, which most likely meant that Scott was perfectly fine. Jean wouldn't have left if she had any concerns at all, he felt pretty sure, and as an added bonus, he didn't have to try to get around the hairy Canuck. He raised his hand to knock, first, then realized that he felt a little silly -- this wasn't Scott's room, nor was it a formal meeting. Instead, Alex simply twisted the knob and opened the door, peering inside for a moment to make sure he wasn't interrupting anything (just in case) before he stepped inside. "Hey," he said, a friendly grin rising to his mouth as he realized Scott was upright. "You look better. Why the shades, though?" As far as he could tell, he wasn't absorbing any energy, personally. Scott didn't have his powers back, did he?
SCOTT: Scott was no longer worrying about himself, if he ever had been. His hands hurt, of course. The burns on them had been deep, and despite Jean's extremely proficient dressing of the wounds, they were still there in all their glory. He hadn't had a chance yet to go back to the hotel for his own pills, opting instead for some mild painkillers from the hotel which did next to nothing for him. This was more important though, and had shoved thoughts of that right out of his mind. Pain was put onto the backburner, something that he was sadly very good at. As much as it hurt, the strength of his migraines when his powers had first been emerging was even worse -- incapacitating, debilitating, blinding in more ways than one. He was glad that too was something Alex hadn't needed to witness. It was probably sad when most of your life was a story you didn't want your own flesh and blood to know, but that was just how it was. Really, he wished that Alex didn't have to come in and see his hands wrapped up like they were, didn't have to notice how Scott could barely use them, but it was more important to be able to see him at all. He could just pretend the injuries weren't there until his younger brother left. He looked up when he heard the doorknob turn, watching it and mentally relaxing a bit when he saw Alex come through. He didn't want to waste his time on people like Logan looking for something to argue about. Naturally there was no outward smile at the sight of Alex, but he did stand up. Why the shades? "No one knows when our powers are going to come back. It'd be bad if they caught me by surprise." The hotel had just been rebuilt, he didn't want to blow it all up because he'd decided to keep his glasses off for the duration. There was another part of him that was keeping them on simply because he didn't want to get too used to their being off, but he'd never admit it. He wasn't going to accept that this might be permanent -- that kind of idea was just ludicrous. He shook his head a bit, reorienting himself to the purpose of calling Alex in here; he needed these meetings to be quick, just in case his powers did come back soon. "I wanted to see you. ..I mean -- " Well, he meant what he'd said. It just sounded strange. Another shake of his head and a damaged hand went up to his glasses, hiding a wince from it. He pulled them away from his eyes, blinking a bit at the change in colors. He still wasn't used to it, despite his encounter with Jean. It was odd and bright and disconcerting and made his eyes want to water a bit. A few blinks and then his brown eyes were focusing on Alex. The gaze turned intense, almost uncomfortably so, as he studied his brother's face, committing every aspect of it to memory.
ALEX: Yeah, of course he didn't get a smile. Somehow, whenever Alex walked up to Scott and did the most natural, second-nature, completely human things, like grin and pat his brother on the arm and make small talk, he ended up feeling like an alien. Scott could be the only person in the room not smiling and Alex still felt like he was the one doing something wrong. For once, however, Alex didn't have plenty of time during the awkward silences to brood about the strangeness of their relationship. There was an important sort of tension in the air. This meeting wasn't about cursory checking in on each other, or possibly some kind of forced brotherly moment as orchestrated kindly by Jean, which had been his third guess. Scott had called him in here with an actual purpose in mind, it seemed. It was impossible for him not to notice the bandages, though. He'd been there to see the burns, and as soon as he'd registered that Scott was upright and functional and still wearing his sunglasses, that was where his eyes went next. It had to be hurting him. Those burns were no joke. As he'd held onto his brother in those moments after the violent shock, he'd started flashing on worst-case scenarios in the back of his mind. Nerve damage. Infection. Crippling pain. Scott never using his hands again. And yet here Scott was, acting like he'd accidentally put his palms on a hot pipe for a millisecond or two. His strength somehow managed to even make Alex feel guilty for having worried about the worst. If anyone could handle this, it was Scott, with Jean's expert help, and he felt like he should have known that somehow. Had faith in Scott's ability to never even flinch. As he closed the door behind him and moved further into the room, he listened to Scott's explanation and nodded. It made sense. Keep the glasses on, just in case. So then why was he taking them off, if...? Pausing in his tracks, Alex stopped where he was, barely halfway across the room. There was quite a lot of space between them still. He knew he should come forward, but he didn't know what was going on here exactly, and he didn't want to move into personal area territory just yet. Then Scott's glasses actually came away, and it slowly dawned on him what was happening. He'd never seen Scott's eyes. Not since they were little, at least, not the way they looked now -- because Scott always had them hidden under those ruby-lensed glasses, the red tint permanently washing his vision in crimson. This was a twisted sort of gift, this opportunity. Alex didn't want to start thanking anyone yet but he knew that unsteady feeling in the pit of his stomach well. He came closer then, expression curious, wanting to see the unfamiliar dark hues of Scott's eyes clearly. Strange. "I always thought you'd have blue eyes, too," he said at last, absently.
SCOTT: Scott thought that it was strangely apt that out of the most important people in his life currently -- Jean, Emma, Alex, and Warren -- one was a redhead and three were blondes, whose hair naturally turned red from behind his red sunglasses. Other hair colors reflected accordingly, black looking black, browns looking different muddied shades; also red, but you could tell what it was supposed to be. Everyone close to him, though, really looked like they had actual red hair from Scott's particular point of view. It'd be poetic, if he were a person predisposed to poetics, which he most decidedly was not. "Most of our coloring is different." It was said with a distracted tone rather than a critical one. He didn't know why, but it was true. Alex was all blonde hair and blue eyes and surfer-tans with a great smile. Scott's hair was a dark auburn-brown, a far cry from blonde, and his eyes were a dark brown that were practically the opposite of Alex's own colors. His skin was paler, and while they were both athletically built, Scott had several inches on his younger brother and the way that they carried themselves was different. Some of their facial features were the same, the jaw perhaps, the ears, and certain expressions were the same -- flashes of grins, or quirks of eyebrows. Beyond that though, it was hard to guess at all that they were brothers. Scott figured that was fitting, somehow. Life wanted to take his brother away, and it just kept trying in every way that it could. "Our mother's hair was blonde like yours." He didn't even know if Alex knew that, he realized, and wasn't entirely sure what had made him say it; he wasn't prone to sentimental nods to the past in that sense. That was what this had reminded him of though, an image of his mother in his mind that he hadn't even realized he'd kept until seeing Alex then. Alex may not have looked like Scott but he did look like Katherine. He fit in with the family, even if he didn't fit in with Scott necessarily.
ALEX: This really was a strange and bizarre day. First the loss of powers, which Alex was grateful for but at the same time disliked, then the incident with the inhibitor box, and now Scott was sharing. Their differences had always bothered him a little bit, to be honest. The first time he'd seen Scott again, as an adult who had grown into his features, he'd felt...disappointed that he couldn't see himself in his brother all that much. Sure, there were things he'd noticed since then, subtle similarities like that jaw and the ears and the occasional expression that he recognized, but he'd always secretly hoped that whenever he and Scott were reunited, it would be impossible to mistake them as being anything other than related. It had turned out that at best, they looked like cousins. Hearing that Scott saw their mother in Alex's face, however, made everything different. He couldn't remember her all that much -- just her smile, snatches of phrases she would use but not her voice exactly, and he wasn't sure how accurate those recollections were -- he'd been too young when they'd died to have very strong memories of his parents, and Scott hadn't exactly been forthright with his own knowledge. Now, even that tiny little bit helped. It was comforting to know that a piece of his mother lived on in him. In his face and hair and eyes. Unconsciously, his hand rose and grazed back across his scalp. "I guess you must take after dad, then." He smiled a little bit again. After all these months of being near Scott, and years of being back in contact with them, he realized that he'd never felt as close to his brother as he did right then. It was a little like their parents were in the room with them too, the whole circle of the lost Summers family finally as close to being complete as it was ever going to get. Truly reunited, if only in pieces. Alex had never especially thought of himself as being sentimental, but he most definitely was. He treasured memories. They helped remind him who he really was, where he'd really come from, and it had always been important to him to cling to those truths especially when his foster family had always wanted him to be someone else. Times had never gotten so bad for him that he couldn't find some solace in the hope that he'd be Alex Summers again one day.
SCOTT: Scott remembered things. It had been hard at first, after the accident; he had amnesia from the blow to his head, preventing him from telling the people at the hospital who he was, who his parents were, where he lived. But he had gained those memories back as his mind would let him, and although things altered and faded with time, he did in general still have memories of their parents. What they looked like, bigger events in their collective life as a family, the occasional random and tiny event that had nothing to do with anything but had stuck all the same. He knew that Alex would have been too young to really grasp onto much of what their lives had been like before he was taken away, but he'd somehow never really connected that with Alex needing to know those things. It hadn't occurred to him. Or if it had, it had been somewhere in the back of his mind, a thought that had been quickly shoved away, needing to be ignored. Sharing would just be...weird. He'd kept it all to himself for so long that it was hard to know how to, even with his own flesh and blood. He gave a distracted nod. "Yeah. Kind of, I guess." More than 'kind of', really, but hey. Needless to say, Scott did not feel their parents in the room with them at that moment. He didn't believe in ghosts or spirits or anything of that nature. He didn't even believe in an afterlife in general, although he hadn't necessarily put a lot of thought into that. Dead was dead. It was just he and Alex here, and that was good enough for Scott. He'd never really thought on how it must be for Alex; as far as Scott was concerned, they were both orphans, people without parents, kids alone. But Scott still had the name, and the memories. He was part of the family, even if he chose not to acknowledge them. Alex had the former taken from him, and the latter wasn't really a possibility. His eyes locked on Alex's suddenly, likely intense more because he was studying the color than because of the question he was asking, but. "What do you remember about them?" It was almost a demand, but without real heat to it. Still, it wasn't sentimental or loving. Scientific, maybe -- he was genuinely wondering at the moment what exactly Alex could call to mind about their family as it had been years and years ago.
ALEX: This was, in fact, possibly the longest conversation they had carried on so far about their parents or their family. As far as he'd gathered so far, Scott had always seemed like he would've been happy to pretend that they'd never had a life before this, before ending up here at the hotel. Whenever he'd asked questions, Scott had simply stopped replying to his emails, like the correspondence had suddenly gotten to be less important in the grand scheme of things going on in Scott's busy existence. His silence had always felt like a punishment or a reprimand for pushing too hard. Warning: do not cross that line. Never once had Scott asked to go there. Or asked him much of anything at all about his memories, his childhood, what his life had been like after the accident and their separation. It was always one-sided share time in their conversations, to the point where sometimes Alex had to force himself to shut up or change the topic because the level of discomfort was so intense. This was really different, and he wasn't sure where it was coming from, or why now. Not having his powers didn't change Scott's personality, right? Because...if it had, somehow, he hoped their powers never came back. Rubbing his bicep thoughtfully, Alex leaned against the edge of Warren's desk, half-seated so that he was still facing his brother. What did he remember about his parents? Christ. "Not much," he admitted quietly. "I mean. I remember the house a little bit. I remember..." His voice trailed off for a moment as he really thought about it. Trying to put the pictures into words wasn't easy. "I remember mom used to smile a lot, and I remember she used to call me Alexander when she was mad. I remember dad came home late a lot. He had that...hat, with the earflaps. And his uniform, I remember the metal bits, his stripes and badges I guess. I remember the snow, too." He fell silent again. There was more, he knew he could remember more, but the details were escaping him. The way they always did when he thought about it too hard. Sometimes the scenes played out better in his dreams, when he left them alone. "I don't know." Alex shrugged. "That's it, I guess. Sometimes I think I remember more, then I'm not sure if I'm just making it up or if it was after the Blandings got me and I'm just blurring the times."
SCOTT: This really was an almost perfect moment. Two long-lost brothers finally (finally) making some headway on reconnecting. Talking about their parents, their memories (or, well, Alex's memories, again), actually sharing a bit. Bonding. Which, naturally, meant that the next moment Scott felt warning signs going off in his head, telling him to back out, back out now. Cut off, shove away, stay back. Not to proceed further into that territory that had the potential for actually carving up old scars to see just what might be underneath the surface. It was too risky. He didn't know what he was risking, or how he could think Alex might be someone who would destroy something internal of his, but the feeling was there, and too strong to ignore. His fingers twitched just slightly, wanting to put his glasses back on. To hide behind them. He didn't, though -- he owed Alex that much, at least. He kept watching him, although it was fairly obvious that something in his eyes had closed off from the conversation. "Yeah." Apparently...that was all he was going to say. He was torn between the impulse to leave (or ask Alex to leave), and to stay there. He wanted to see him. He was just acutely aware that this was going to be yet another ruined moment for Alex. "Can we just...hold this, for a second." This moment, while he...well, stared. Then they could get back to Alex being disappointed in his life as it was with his brother.
ALEX: Something had changed and Alex wasn't sure why. Had he said something wrong? What had he done? Scott's eyes were still focused on him intently, but he didn't seem so pressing, suddenly. More like this was the moment before the end and Scott was just finishing up his appraisal before pulling away again. His instinct was to reach out somehow, to catch Scott's arm or say just the right thing to pull him back into that sense of comfort that came along with being part of their family, but he didn't know what to say and he was afraid that physically bridging the gap between them would only make Scott recoil even further, so he stayed helplessly where he was, hands clenched tight on the edge of Warren's desk and wearing a small, puzzled frown. He wished he knew why Scott kept doing this. What had happened to him that made it so hard for him to let Alex in? They were brothers. Anything that Scott had experienced or had done, Alex was sure he could accept. He just needed to know about it. Otherwise Scott was like this eternal mystery, an enigma wrapped in distrust, like he didn't expect Alex should know anything about him. Or maybe he thought Alex couldn't handle it. Was he supposed to prove himself first or something? What did he have to do to earn Scott's trust? Sighing internally, he shrugged in response to Scott's request and let his own gaze drop to study his brother's knees or something equally noninvasive. When this was over, maybe he could talk to Jean. Or Lorna. One of them had to have some insights on why this had happened, but more importantly, both of them would listen to him. He had to tell someone how this one step forward, three steps backwards relationship with his brother made him feel, or he just might explode again.