December 06, 2017:
(Scene Backdated to 2014) Alex is interrupted in the kitchen by an emotionally unstable Lorna. The Fridge Incident occurs
Characters
NPCs: None.
Mentions:
Plot:
Mood Music: [*\# None.]
Fade In…
*
Alex has been pressing. Changing his major to Geology added at LEAST another couple semesters to his graduation timeline, and although there's really nobody who'd call him out on it, an innate Summers self-destructive diligence has driven him to take a borderline inappropriate course load.
He's seated at a table in the oversized kitchen, with a half-dozen books arranged in chaotic pile format before him. He's working on eating the second blueberry pop tart, uncooked, from the package as he studies.
*
Lorna had just returned from the Savage Lands. Just figured out that her parents were not in fact, her parents, more over that her real mother was dead, died in a plane crash. And on top of that? On top of that - Her father, Mr. Dane? Wasn't even her father. The fact that her mother had had an affair with with the Master of Magnetism, the mutant terrorist and leader of the Brotherhood was still fresh in her mind.
That he'd left her. Abandoned her. Left her to be raised by strangers and unaware of who or what she was.
Never mind the whole ordeal with Zala Dane having stolen her powers, and then in return, Lorna's murder of the woman by flinging a mountain on top of her.
The green haired girl was a mess. And she couldn't sleep. Hadn't been able to sleep. Her nightmares had been terrible. She kept waking up in the middle of the night in horror, gasping and sweating in fear.
Tonight was no different. She came into the kitchen, having given up trying to sleep for the night, and figured just to get something to eat. Like cereal. That sounded good. The lights flickered in distress above, her powers so loosely held in her thin emotional state that she missed it. As her gaze settled on Alex bent over the table. Her brows furrowed and her bare feet padded against the tile floor. "Alex?"
*
Alex, blissfully unaware of ANY of the preceding drama OR the drama to come, looks up and offers a large goofy grin, "Hey, you!" His perkiness is a bit forced, as he's been reading about rock formations for the better part of three hours, but it's definitely important to properly boyfriend.
Noticing Lorna's state, his brow furrows a bit, "You alright? No sleep?"
*
Lorna was cranky. Sleepy. Upset. Manic. Whatever words you wanted to put it. She exhaled a shaking breath, her hands curling at her sides and the lights went out above her. She winced, and clapped her hands against her temples. "Gee, I dunno, I can't sleep, I can't function Alex and I want to scream. I'm just soooo great. Thanks." She snapped and exhaled a breath as she went to the fridge.
She yanked out the milk, and it slipped from her grip, some kid had likely drank from the lip or left it out. Either way it was damp and splashed to the floor in one terrible thump, milk splashing over her pj bottoms and bare feet.
Which apparently was the last straw for the green haired mutant. She made a muffled scream at the back of her throat and slammed the door. The metal of the door frame echoed her sound with a scream of its own as it crunched beneath her palm.
*
The Summers instincts kick in and Alex … pretty much fails to react. He continues chewing thoughtfully on raw pop tart, blinking at the likely demise of the student refrigerator. Ok. Think, Alex, think. His own mind failing to come up with an appropriate phrase to fix whatever ails Lorna, he looks about the table in front of him for a moment before holding up the remaining midnight snack. "Pop tart?" He offers.
*
Lorna whirled, anger, and a desperate feeling as if everything was spinning out of control, as if her world was coming apart at the seams. Everything she knew was wrong. Wrong. Wrong. A whimper escaped her as tears stung her eyes. Why her? Why now? She was supposed to be happy. She'd graduated high school. She'd been part of the X-men for all of a few short months. She had a boyfriend for the first time in her life and now what as was she supposed to do?
He'd hate her. Everyone would hate her. Fear her.
The knot in her stomach twisted sickeningly and her powers continued to flucuate enough that the student fridge was now missing a door more or less.
And then Alex spoke. He was really just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Too out of the loop to know just how badly Lorna was handling things. It wasn't his fault..
And yet? The pop tart comment really was just too much. She whirled. "No, I do not want a fucking pop tart Alex! What the hell? I'm having one of the worst days of my life and you're sitting here eating a damn pop tart and a-and- - " Her hands clenched at her sides and she stood there, her head throbbing with the strength of her emotions, her voice rising up in volume the more upset she got.
*
It's possible that someone without severe inadequacy issues would clue in that some deeper issue might be at play, here. Unfortunately, Alex Summers is not that someone, so naturally takes Lorna's outburst personally.
She hates me. You knew this was too good to be true, just a matter of time before she realized what an idiot you were, Summers. Especially trying to hang out with the REAL heroes. Loser.
"What the fuck?" He says, instead. What kind of whiny jerk actually SAYS any of that out loud? "I'm sorry! Jeez." Not seeming particularly sorry so much as angry, he throws the offending pop tart across the room and starts collecting his pile of books. Alex has an overdeveloped sense of when he's not wanted.
*
Lorna stood there, staring and breathing hard. All she wanted was someone to hold her and tell her that everything would be okay. To let down her guard that had been up since the Savage Lands. The nightmares.. sleepless nights and the hounding fear of what would happen if word got out about who she was- -what she had done? It scared her. She knew the X-men didn't approve of killing. What had she done her first major mission out alone? Killed the woman that might possibly have been her sister. Maybe.
Fear and exhaustion warred with the shocked hurt that scraped at her insides at Alex's own return of anger. She couldn't fathom why he didn't understand. Only knew that he most definitely wasn't sorry and wasn't taking her seriously. That hurt. More over it only made her anger spike again.
"What the fuck? What the fuck, Alex? I can't sleep anymore, I can't function anymore. I close my eyes and all I see is all the horrible things that have happened. And I can't get an inch of sympathy from you?" She snarled, anger was easier. Even if it didn't stop the tears from gathering in her eyes and running down her cheeks.
"Well fuck you. You can go to college on your own, on the other side of the country! Enjoy your damned pop-tarts. I'm done!"
*
Alex's emotional fragility is well-paired with his ability to keep it under wraps, if your goal is to be wildly misunderstood. The open rejection completely overrides his good sense. Alex Summers, Mr. Not Quite Good Enough.
Slamming the book in hand back down on the table, "So that's what it's about." He fails to notice the sensation of tingling pressure that usually means he needs to either go somewhere to calm down, or get away from population centers as quickly as possible.
"Lorna Dane needs a way out? You're DONE?" The hairs on his arms stand on end, another subtly bad tiding. He growls a ".. fucking knew it.." out before launching back into it, "Done? Okay, you know what, Lorna? Be done. We both know I don't belong here, anyway, right?!"
*
Lorna's teeth clenched as she glared at him, and snarled. Her hands curled into fists so tight her knuckles turned white. The lights above sparked, crackled and popped with her magnetic fields now well out of her control. "Go to hell Alex! You don't know jack shit about what I've had to deal with! I haven't been able to be who I am for weeks and to focus o-or think and you're just being an asshole!" She screamed behind her teeth.
And then his low growl of 'fucking knew it', spiked a hot line of fear and hurt down her spine. She took it of course, to mean that he knew what had happened. Knew who her father was. Knew everything. She lost it.
"Fine you know what? Yes! Yes, I am!" Everything in the kitchen that was metal, and that was the majority, flatware, cookie sheets, the rest of the fridge, and the microwave, bent in response to her anger. She stood there, staggering under the magnetic fields that gathered and drew tighter around her the more upset she became.
*
It's certainly a recipe for disaster, though the light show is pretty. Solar prominences and coronal mass ejections are pretty awesome to behind, and with an electric blue arc Alex's budding plasma emission follows along the augmented magnetic field in a pair of loops. One bisects the table in a flash, leaving the collapsed halves blackened and flickering flames.
The second, wider loop arcs toward Lorna. Alex grimaces, growls, and hunches over. Whether through force of will or a stronger magnetic field, the plasma arcs back and similarly bisects the fridge lengthwise, one blackened sparking half falling over to the side, and the other remaining leaning up against the counter. Alex's plasma recedes to a glowing, humming aura, over which he can be heard observing, "Shitshitshitshit…"
*
Lorna didn't notice Alex's struggle to control his own powers, just as surely as he had missed her own. It was luck that her powers created nice little barriers against various types of radiation. Especially given that she was still learning to create them and most of said barriers happened instinctively. As the blast from Alex blew the table in half and then a second spun out toward her, horror dawned on her features and her hands flew up protectively. Her powers drew on the electrical grid of the house- -trying the lights above and leaving the two in the darkness as the light bulbs above blew out.
Giving a nightmarish quality to the bright beam of plasma that flew around her person to explode against the fridge and carve it in two. The poor fridge was half crushed already, leaking food, drinks, ice and fluids from the back. The electrical grid sparked and a small flicker of a flame came to life on a piece of forgotten chips that had fallen from what had been the top of the fridge to the bottom.
It would seem flaming hot Doritos were now a literal thing.
Lorna was shocked out of her anger, her misery and stared in the darkness. Her own panic lancing through her as she did a similar dance backwards with a mirroed string of curses from her lips. Her bare feet splashing in the puddles that now occupied most of the floor.
*
In the darkness, Alex maintains a residual glow, pulsing in brightness with his loud, ragged breathing. He's crouched on the floor, his arms clutched tightly to his chest as if that will help to hold in the plasma emissions that his arms are perfectly capable of emitting as well. He breathes for a few more moments, more slowly…
The glow dims, and soon fades to darkness. The only remaining sounds are the drips from the destroyed fridge, and the beginnings of shouts of alarm from elsewhere in the mansion. From somewhere near the floor comes a raspy Alex voice: "That … that was pretty close. Like, everyone in the house …"
*
Lorna was shivering, the high of running the magnetic fields like she had, combined with her emotions left her cold and bone tired. Even worse, now she was feeling scared- -not just for herself but for Alex and for everyone else in the house. While Alex might be a walking bomb, she was a walking magnetic. And she had been about to pull on far more metal than the this part of the house could stand to give.
There weren't any smoke alarms at least. Though the vocal ones had her wrapping her arms around her middle and she squeezed her eyes shut. She was so going to be expelled. She couldn't stay here after this. She was going to be in so much trouble.
*
Straightening, Alex takes a deep breath and exhales heavily. He shunts emotions aside with practiced ease, focusing exclusively on the crisis at hand. Or at least on the aftermath thereof. When he's sure he isn't going to explode and disintegrate a significant chunk of the county's population, he moves a few steps closer to Lorna, keeping his voice hurried and low as a few more shouts of alarm and concern come closer. "Look. My fault. I'm… it's just a known problem I've got, already. I'm stressed out, overextending myself, I'm tired… I lost control." The darkness mostly hides his expression of horror and dismay. Almost incinerated my girlfriend over a fight over .. I don't even know. God.