strangetrip | [Backdated April 28th] Frustrations

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[Backdated April 28th] Frustrations - OTA

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.

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Bar fights were definitely satisfying. Whoever Emma hung around, he'd have to give them credit for that.

Alec eyed the card again. Maybe the card could punch him in the face and he'd feel even with Peter. Maybe.

"Yeah, sure. As long as you don't mind if he gets his ass handed to him."

"I think my ego will survive." Having spent most of her very limited training sparring with members of Excalibur who'd been training much longer and more seriously than her, Emma was used to getting her ass handed to her, whether fighting herself or with a projection. Besides, this was about Alec working off some of the emotions that were too big to handle directly. "And projections are just very solid feeling and acting energy; you can't actually hurt him."

When it looked like they were far enough out from the buildings, she looked at the card again, white overtaking the color of her eyes as big, bearded guy appeared in front of them, without his staves. "One punching bag, as offered."

This was the second time he saw Emma use her powers and he had to admit - it was impressive. She almost look like the Teiflings walking around here, but far more beautiful in his opinions. Horns just didn't really do it for him.

When the guy appeared, Alec realized how much he missed fighting. Real fighting. He had so much pent up aggression and the best place he could expel it here was at the gym and that wasn't enough. Not even long jogs were enough.

Alec was actually a little concerned him hurting the big guy might hurt her. He moved lighting quick and elbowed the guy in the chest, only to immediately glance over at Emma to make sure she didn't seem to take the impact herself.

Nina could have blocked or dodged the first strike without any trouble. Her precog let her go head to toe sparring with JP. Emma's wasn't like that. But Nina couldn't have projected the big guy to use as a punching bag. Emma recognized the quick glance her way that followed the hit, though. "As long as he's still around, you haven't hurt me," she assured him. Hit with enough energy, kinetic, psi, or otherwise, a projection could break, and she'd get the snap back from the connection. But they'd taken physical hits from so-called bricks and demons and been okay. She felt like she'd probably be okay against Alec.

"I wouldn't have offered if I was going to get beat up out of this. I promise."

The Seven of Rods was about defense, standing your ground, and that was what Emma wanted of him here. He moved into a defensive stance, ready for Alec's next attack. She intended him to block or deflect, but not to initiate attacks. She wasn't looking to beat Alec up either. He was doing enough of that himself, from what she could see.

When it looked as if Emma wasn't hurt and not pretending about it, either, Alec focused his pent up feeling on the figure before him. He had never really let himself really express how he felt about Manticore and what had happened with Rachel. And so Alec swung punch after punch at the big bulk of a man.

This would be so much easier if she was Dani, Emma decided. On the other hand, then she'd be feeling what was driving Alec rather than watching it finally have an outlet.

The projection didn't try to dodge, taking or redirecting punch after punch instead, but the way he moved, if some part of Alec noticed despite the waves of pent up emotion, wasn't what you might expect from someone with his size. He fought the way Emma had been taught to fight, and while she was on the tall side of average for a woman, she wasn't a large person at all, and she'd learned to use that to her advantage.

"Sevens are complicated," she began, not really expecting Alec to listen, or possibly even hear, but holding space for the things he couldn't or wouldn't say. "Probably because they're tied to the Chariot, which should be about movement, but is really about stillness and balance. So you end up with this guy, the Seven of Wands, under siege and standing his ground, when the people who have been supporting him or who should be supporting him are telling him he's wrong. Attacked on all sides, and all he can do is fight."

"Why doesn't he just fight then?" The punch after that one in particular was hard. He didn't understand inaction. How Peter could have been stoic about the whole thing drove him up the wall. He should have fought harder for Rachel. He should have fought back.

The projection rocked back with the force of the punch, but didn't waver, circling instead as he waited for the attacks that would follow.

Unsure if Alec meant why her projection wasn't pressing an attack against him here or just in general or if he really meant someone else entirely. Himself maybe? Acting like he meant the first was probably safest – talking to Alec could sometimes be like talking with Pyro, or maybe she was making assumptions and letting that drive her approach.

"This guy isn't attacking because I'm not going to beat you up." It wasn't until she said it that she wondered. She stepped closer, just out of kicking range, her arms crossed under her chest. "Is that what you want, Alec? Somebody to hit you, punish you for whatever you've done?"

His head turned to look at her and for the briefest of moments it might have been clear she had hit some truth there.

"I just want people to stand up for themselves. Stand up for what they want and not just like down and take it."

Projecting a little, he might be.

He did. He wanted somebody to punish him for... something, Emma realized. Not for beating up the vending machine, she was sure, but what, she didn't know. She still wasn't going to beat him up.

It was mine! Pyro's voice in her head, tearing through her heart, and as the vision that had drawn her to that fight back in Duninnean replayed from memory as crystal clear as the first time she'd seen it, her projection wavered, losing substance for a moment until she focused again, forcing memories aside for when she was alone and could grieve.

Quiet and gentle now, heart still aching, she asked, "Who needs to stand up and fight, Alec?"

He got where she was coming from. He knew she meant him. "It's too late for me." The punch had all gone out of Alec. His arms lowered and he exhaled almost tiredly. "...but Peter needs to or he might lose things he's not willing to lose."

It's too late for me. So they weren't really talking about Peter, or in general. What Emma was supposed to do with that information, she didn't know yet.

She moved the projection a couple of steps away, but didn't drop it yet. Did it make it easier or harder to talk to her, when her eyes were empty white, she wondered.

"You can't fight Peter's battles for him, or convince him he needs to fight if he's not ready. Even when you hurt watching him not deal with things the way you wish you could."

That made more sense than maybe Alec was ready for. He stared at her in tensed silence for a moment, his shoulders stiff, before even his shoulders seemed to relax a little.

"Yeah. Yeah I know." Alec just wasn't sure what he'd do if Peter's life came crashing down around him and the kid was changed like he was. Peter didn't deserve for that to happen.

Emma considered, the viking fading and color returning to her eyes as she let the projection go. "That fast metabolism of yours, is it high enough to make drinking a waste of good alcohol?"

She shook her head before she even heard his answer. He didn't really need to get drunk right now. "Come on to the kitchen. Cooking's better for working through stuff anyway. There's a first aid kit for your hands, and then you can help."

"I've been told I'm good at chopping and dicing." Skills that Emma had taught him. He even offered her a small smirk as he started to follow her. "The answer, by the way, is that if I drink enough, I can get drunk for a bit. Usually a half hour at a time." And a bottle or more of the good stuff.

Too bad the only Rasputins here were Illyana and Piotr. Mikhail's vodka might have helped him with the getting drunk thing. Not that it qualified as good booze, but it packed a serious punch.

"Chopping and dicing is a good first step. Dani used to say 'chop vegetables, boil water' as a way to work through feelings, everything from grief to frustration to being overwhelmed. Of all her coping strategies, it's the one I understand the best and use the most." As much as Emma cooked here, she still found herself in the kitchen when she was upset.

"It's meditative, and when you're done, there's food. Dani would also say even an idiot white boy can learn to make soup. So there's hope for you yet."

When they got to the kitchen, she went for the first aid kit to start. He wasn't going to be chopping anything with his knuckles all busted up, although a quick glance showed they were already starting to heal.

"Who's Dani?" He listened to Emma explain everything. It was clear Dani was important in her life somehow. And he was okay with being called an idiot. It reminded him of Max.

"I can do that myself." He meant the first aid kit. He had enough training in it, after all.

Who's Dani? sounded like a simple question, but the answer was anything but. Dani was much better experienced than explained.

"Dani is... She's like family. A friend. And a mentor or teacher. When my powers got amped up," some bitterness there, at the thought of Cortez and what he'd done to her and Sabine, and others, although she loved her projections now, "and we moved to Scotland, she was there and was the one who helped me figure out how to use them.

"You would probably really like her. Assuming you could avoid getting punched for being," an idiot white boy, but Emma's already said that, and Alec doesn't know Dani to hear the nuances involved, "well, you."

He paused as if seeming to consider the idea of being punched for being him and then nodded as if to say 'that's fair'. Alec knew he was annoying and a pain-in-the-ass most of the time. "I like most of you X-gene freaks." Said with complete affection even if he tried to mask it with something more surely. It was true. There were few mutants here he didn't get along with.

Alec looked toward her after finishing cleaning his wounds. "Maybe one day I'll meet her here."

"I hope not." She didn't know what being pulled to another reality would do to psi bonds, but she was positive Pyro wouldn't survive losing Dani on top of Bobby and Emma. And she wasn't sure about Nathan either.

"Too many people need her back home. Besides," she said, looking around, "I'm not sure the inn is ready for Dani."

Starting for the fridge, she paused, realizing she didn't have any idea what she wanted to cook. "But I will borrow another idea from her. Chopped: Redhead. You pick out four ingredients, and I'll figure out something we can make with them.

He got that. He didn't exactly want to wish this place on Max and the others, but then, at the same time, maybe he did. Maybe they could just hang out here and not have to worry about all the bullshit back home. With people like Pike around, he wondered if Logan could be cured completely. Because of that simple fact, Alec was sure Max and Logan would never arrive - people didn't get to be happy like that.

"Alright." Alec walked over to the fridge. "You know I suck at this, right?" He knew field cooking, but actual cooking was a Logan thing.

He opened the door and looked inside. He picked out carrots, potatoes, eggplant and what looked like freshly killed and prepped rabbit from one of the people who liked to hunt at the inn. He put them on the table. "... this okay?"

Emma smiled, "That's great," and wondered if Alec's need to do a good job overrode any tendency to troll, or if he was just being nicer at a game he almost certainly wasn't familiar with than some people would be.

Coniglio alla messinese would be easy, and they could roast the carrots and potatoes at the same time. She grabbed a colander. "You start by dicing the eggplant, and put it in here with some salt." Eying the amount of eggplant, she cupped one hand and used fingers of the other to show the diameter of about how much salt should be right, "About this much.

"I'll start on the rabbit." It had been dressed, but not butchered, and it would cook faster in pieces. From the past times he'd helped out in the kitchen she knew Alec could and probably would watch her doing that while dicing the eggplant, adding one more technique to his skill set.

Alec got to work pretty quickly - doing things like this definitely helped with keeping his mind off of other things that were far less pleasant. Maybe it was one of the reasons he still did some of the training back in Manticore. It helped him not to think.

"Is there anything you don't know how to cook?"

All Alec saw on the table before them was four separate foods. How they could be turned into one, he didn't know.

"There are an infinite number of dishes I don't know how to cook." Cutting up the rabbit took little time at all, and then Emma started grabbing additional ingredients and setting up her mise en place.

"Carrots and potatoes in bite size pieces," she instructed, before getting back to answering his probably hyperbolic observation. "It's more knowing food, and how it can work together."

She tried to think of what she knew about Alec, that could help with examples. She so often thought in analogies, she usually fell back on them to explain things. "Okay, crazy example, but say you and I were trapped in an office building for some reason and I was hurt. No first aid kit around. You would be able to look around, find things that would work, right? Because you know what sorts of things need to be done, and what the 'real' supplies are meant to do. Cooking is kind of like that. Except usually without the being trapped or injured."

He got the analogy. It was a good one and she was right about him being able to do something like that. He continued to cut up the food.

"There's this guy back home who loves to cook. Women seem to like that kind of thing." If you liked former millionares who read poetry and cooked gourmet food, that is.

[Backdated April 28th] Frustrations - OTA

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