[Backdated April 28th] Frustrations - OTA

[st_x5_494]

Alec found himself walking down the hall tense and unable to really form a coherent thought except a lot of swearing directed toward Peter. He hadn't expected to punch the kid - to really punch the kid. Even when they fought in the parking lot, Alec had held back. That punch - he had meant to hurt Peter. And then after, when he had he was pissed off that Peter hadn't defended himself.

In his walking as he dwelled on the events that just transpired, Alec saw the vending machine. That damn vending machine.

He closed the distance between him and it and then Alec began to punch it. Not the glass - that would be too easy - Alec punched the metal. The metal dented with each hit, his knuckles getting raw and bloody quickly from it.

Comments

Alec & Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

This time when Alec came at the vending machine, Corbie was expecting the crash of it. She didn't jump, she didn't scream. She just watched and waited while the worst of the tantrum worked its way out of his system.

When he'd slowed down a little, she spoke up, "So, what'd it do this time?"

Re: Alec & Corbie

[st_x5_494]

He had been so in his head - a tactical mistake if he had been back in training - that he didn't hear or notice Corbie until she spoke. He turned his head, surprise registering there, and then suddenly he realized he felt the heated sting behind his eyes and they began to water as he just dumbly stood there.

Re: Alec & Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Oh.

Oh, shit.

Without a word or any thought, Corbie came in to close the space between them and reached up to touch his face. It was--the touch aside--the sort of thing she'd often done with Felix, simultaneously closing ranks to offer the support of her presence and creating a shield to hide this humiliation. She tipped her head to one side, an unspoken question. What's wrong?

Re: Alec & Corbie

[st_x5_494]

Alec stared at her. The muscles in his jaw worked overtime as he tried to rein in everything, but when she touched him he felt his chest tighten. There was just the faintest of quivers on his lip and then he lowered his head to rest his forehead on her shoulder and for the first time in a long time Alec silently wept.

Re: Alec & Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Oh, shit.

But Corbie didn't hesitate. When Alec lowered his head and she felt the shake of his body and the tears wetting her shoulder, her arms went up around him and she quietly combed her fingers through his hair, murmuring close to his ear. "Shh... I've got you."

[st_illfleshandblood]

That was the kid Bo had called trouble, and the way he was laying into that machine, Jackson could see why. Chances were the kid would need a doctor after this - unless he was another magical type - so Jackson leaned against a wall, crossed his arms, and waited it out.

Once he was done - or there was, at least, a pause in the punching - he asked, "What did that machine ever do to you?"

[st_x5_494]

Alec was only vaguely aware of someone nearby as he slowed down and turned his head when Jackson spoke. His shoulders tensed for a moment, then relaxed as he straightened. "Except be a piece of shit half the time, nothing. Innocent bystander."

[st_illfleshandblood]

Being a piece of shit half the time was the way of a lot of people, so it was probably a good thing the kid was taking it out on a machine, rather than a person. Jackson pushed off the wall, only taking a couple of steps closer, not more. "You gonna need medical attention for that?" he asked, nodding in the direction of the very bloody knuckles.

Only in this place could that be an actual question, rather than a statement.

[st_x5_494]

He looked down at the raw, bloody knuckles. It was only then did the stinging register as if only now did the exposure to the air begin. "They'll heal on their own eventually." He had accelerated healing, but it wasn't magic. Still, he wouldn't worry about it necessarily.

[st_illfleshandblood]

"Most things do," Jackson replied easily. "Come on, give me a break. We never have a thing to do around here. Let me clean it up, at least." He nodded in the direction of the clinic.

Alec and Dean

[st_illfighting]

Even if they weren't brothers with another mother, Dean would recognize the beat the shit out pf something because the bottled emotions finally explode that was Alec at the moment.

He watched him continue to hit the machine for a good five more minutes before he said, "crowbar works better and you don't hurt your knuckles that way."

Re: Alec and Dean

[st_x5_494]

Alec gave the vending machine a good knee up for good measure before he turned to see the very-familiar face of Dean. "I forgot to pack one on my way out of the room today."

Re: Alec and Dean

[st_illfighting]

"That's when you go to a maintenance supply closet and grab one." Dean shrugged. "Then get a bottle of whiskey and let it burn all the way down to your gut."

Or you know that's what you did if you were Dean, Bobby or his dad.

"Ready for part two and the whiskey? Or do you want to grab a crowbar and really hit the shit out of it." He then got serious, "Or is feeling the pain part of it?" Because he knew what it was like to want to feel something... anything to dull the voices and faces in his memories.

Re: Alec and Dean

[st_x5_494]

Feeling the pain might be part of it, but the damage to the vending machine only happened because it reminded Alec of Peter.

"I call dibs on a bottle for myself." He'd need it if he planned on getting numb at all. Manticore really should have given him an on/off button so he could actually get drunk once and a while.

Alec took a step back from the machine and planned to follow Dean to the bar, if that's where he intended to go.

Re: Alec and Dean

[st_illfighting]

Dean gave a sharp nod of agreement and turned to head toward the bar. "I'm sure they can spare two bottles." Not that Dean needed a full bottle but he'd never turn one down.

"So, what got your panties in a wad?" He asked as he pushed open the door to the bar and gave Molly a nod in greeting. Dean held up two fingers to indicate his usual, plus one more.

Emma & Alec

[st_ackeddeck]

It was the sound of something hitting metal that caught Emma's attention first, and she was reaching into her pocket for a card as she headed around the corner toward the sound. When she'd become the kind of person to go toward trouble, she wasn't sure.

"Alec. Stop." Sharp words, out before she could think about them, when she saw him using the vending machine as a punching bag.

Then more calmly, "If you feel like punching something, there are better options." If this had been Duninnean, Dani or somebody would've dragged him down to the Bag O'Nails to start a fight. But this wasn't Duninnean, and Emma wasn't Dani. Punching things wasn't her usual reaction to stress or hurt, but she knew enough people who did, she sort of understood it. A little.

Re: Emma & Alec

[st_x5_494]

The sound of Emma's voice cut through the punching and he stopped, fist still against the metal. He knew it was Emma from the sound of her voice, but he paused and looked at the indent on the machine for a moment before he turned and lowered his arms and looked at her.

"...sorry. I didn't mean to -" Well, she knew.

Re: Emma & Alec

[st_ackeddeck]

Emma exhaled slowly, not quite a sigh. "I don't care about the vending machine." Machines were easier to fix than people, especially when the inn reset itself within a day regardless of what people did to it.

"Come on." She jerked her head in the other direction. Whatever he did or didn't 'mean to,' being somewhere else would probably be a good idea. "And you can tell me whether I'm giving you something else to punch or taking a look at your hands."

Re: Emma & Alec

[st_x5_494]

"The hands will heal..." He meant faster than a regular human, but he didn't actually elaborate. Alec did, however, follow her, wherever she was going.

"What else do you have to hit?" He wasn't about to hit her.

Re: Emma & Alec

[st_ackeddeck]

Of course the hands would heal, and with his metabolism faster than her own would have if she'd been in his place. That didn't mean she wanted to ignore the damage he'd done. But if they were okay for now – or if he wanted the pain of them as a reminder, another thing she didn't really understand, beyond knowing some people did – then she could save that concern for later. That decided she led him outside, wanting to get away from the main traffic areas where just anybody could come across them when he was obviously upset, and not dealing.

She had a card between her fingers, but hadn't pulled it from her pocket once she had seen the cause of the noise that drew her in the first place. Looking at it then, she smiled. Unsurprisingly appropriate, although she might wait a bit to explain why to Alec. For the moment, she flipped it between her fingers with a flourish to show him a Seven of Wands with a big burly Viking of a guy surrounded by and wielding a staff. "I was thinking this guy."

Kitty & Alec

[st_alksthroughwalls]

It was the sound that drew Kitty to the vending machine. You didn't grow up X without knowing the of fists crunching against metal. She'd know the sound of teen anguish anywhere. What she didn't know, when she phased through the wall and pushed hands through the vending machine to block the punches, was whose anguish she'd be running into.

Would she still have done it if she'd known the bleeding fists she'd be grasping were Alec's? Probably. But she might not have let him see so much naked empathy in her eyes. It left her with no room for quips, especially dumb ones about what the vending machine ever did to him. So she said nothing, instead, and just stepped through the machine into the small, starkly lit room.

Re: Kitty & Alec

[st_x5_494]

It surprised him for a moment, but it wasn't that hard to immediately figure out who the hands were considering there weren't many people he knew could phase through a wall. In fact, he knew only one.

When Kitty appeared, he tensed at her expression. He'd much prefer angry and lecturing than what he perceived as pity.

"Machine took my money."

Re: Kitty & Alec

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"Obviously, boo." Why she called him 'boo', she had no idea. It just seemed appropriate in the moment. "Well, since I'm in here, what do you want?"

What passed for banter gave her a chance to rein in the shared "ow" of the kind of angst that led to punching soda machines.

Re: Kitty & Alec

[st_x5_494]

He looked at Kitty. Had she tried to scare him be saying boo?

"Snickers." He didn't even want one right now, but that was his usual go to.

Alec paused. "You always walk through vending machines?"

Re: Kitty & Alec

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty reached behind her for a Snickers bar and grabbed a Three Musketeers for herself. She didn't eat a lot of vending machine candy but she remembered she'd always liked those.

She handed him the candy bar as she stepped the rest of the way through and then shrugged, a gesture that looked habitual, more like shaking dust off herself than a true shrug.

"Only when I hear someone punching them," she replied. "Growing up X, you learn to recognize the sound of fist on metal pretty quick."