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Winning is a Habit. Unfortunately, So is Losing; (Scott, Jean and Corsair)
Topic Started: Mar 16 2014, 09:08 AM (172 Views)
Cyclops
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Punches from the Punch Dimension
January 22nd
Night


"It's not much, but we don't entertain too often," Corsair said, handing a bottle to Scott, passing one to Jean as well. "Considering our longest guest has been in a coma since what August?" He took a seat, on the deck of his ship, which had surfaced. He kicked his booted feet up on a conveniently placed nodule, and looked up at the stars. "You been in to see him, yet?"

"Not yet," Scott admitted. "I don't know that that's something I'm all that comfortable with. I mean... I don't remember when I was in my coma as a kid, but, I don't think I heard anyone talking to me. I'd feel stupid, I guess, talking to the air."

Corsair looked over at his oldest son, as they discussed the youngest, "Maybe if someone talked to you, you might've woken up earlier."

Taking a sip of the unfamiliar alcohol, Scott said, "Maybe."


Jean crossed one leg over the other and brought the cold bottle up to her lips. It was a strong brand. Running a comforting hand down Scott’s arm, she felt the sense of unease with the topic vibrate through him. “I never heard the details of how things ended with him. How he was finally stopped. He was as bad as any of them,” she said, “and the Phoenix didn’t do his mental stability any good. Any indication what he’ll be like when he wakes up?”


"He wanted to be taken down," Corsair said, glancing over at Jean, "He was fighting it, fighting what he was doing to him. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Scott felt Jean's hand on his arm, and he caught her hand, pulling her into him like this was a pleasure cruise, just a late night sail on his father's boat. He didn't want to get into the Phoenix and the fact that it was now residing inside his wife. He didn't want to think about what it could possibly be doing to her. "It amazes me that that ass Namor didn't kill him."

"He wanted to," the older Summers shrugged, "But you shouldn't disparage our benefactor like that. The New StarJammer was a gift from him, you know."

Scott shot his eyes to his father from behind his red lensed glasses, "He also tormented me with the lie that he'd killed you, Corsair, so I'm not really in the mood to hear about what a great guy he is."


Jean glanced down at the hull beneath her feet and managed not to pull a face at the thought it was from Namor. “It’s a shame that his desire to make amends for his actions doesn’t extend to anything other than giving gifts. That smacks too close to buying his way out of jail. But what really concerns me is that he’s a sociopath; he has no conscience and no sense of shame or guilt for the wrongs he’s done, and seems genuinely puzzled that other people don’t share his skewed reasoning. Namor is right. Always right and it is the duty of others to change and conform to his whim.,” she paraphrase some gems from the Sea Prince. “That’s not the thinking of a rational being, it’s that of a toddler soon in need of a nap.”


Chris listened to the venom in his daughter in law's voice, and though his expression didn't change, inwardly he was pleased to hear it. Not because he agreed with it, of course, but because he knew that a great deal of that acid was because Namor had hurt her man. Scott was well protected by this powerful lady, and that was something that gave him a great deal of comfort.

In the end, all he said on the matter was, "Namor is a king... or was... and he's also a very old man. Both of those creatures are used to getting their own way out of habit and the force of their will. There's no point in blaming a scorpion for stinging you, is there? Besides, what does it matter what he told you? Clearly it wasn't true."

"It matters because there was no point in it except sadism," Scott snapped, "What did he achieve by that?"

As he looked up at the stars and sipped his beer, Corsair gave him another one of those laconic shoulder hitches, "Something you should ask Namor."

"No thank you," Scott muttered, "I'm not all that interested."


Jean took another sip of beer in an effort to wash away the bitter taste of the topic. “Whatever he is now… or thinks he is, the fact is that he isn’t important,” she said, putting her gaze on Chris as he looked at the twinkling stars. Stroking Scott’s arm around her, she let the phantom of Namor blow away before going back to the topic that had started it all. “I know this isn’t something you want to hear, but Gabriel was bad… broken for a very long time with hate that ran deep. If he woke up, it would be easy for him to slip back into life-long patterns and forget a last minute change of heart,” she pointed out


"Very true," Corsair said, "So, I should dump him overboard? Let him drown in his sleep? I should give him to the beast beneath us and let her have some dry land meat for a change?" He took out his pipe, the one that Hepzibah never let him smoke beneath the deck, and lit it before he said, "Do you know how long I was broken beneath D'Ken? How much hell I caused in his name, because he promised me more drugs, or more freedoms? Because I was shattered at his please and rebuilt into a monster? Long enough to know that there was very little left of who I was when I came out of it."

"That's a different thing though, isn't it?" Scott asked, "You didn't want to do those things."

"How do you know Gabriel did?" Corsair asked, pointedly, "It was all he knew. All he was ever allowed to know. How many people did you kill or hurt beneath the Hand's influence. Do you really think that just because you were manipulated over a short period that it invalidates those who were manipulated over their whole lives? How is that at all a fair thought?"


Jean leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, dangling her beer bottle by the neck between them and stared down at the deck. “I know what Gabriel was thinking. How much choice he had. He’s not you, Corsair,” she said, not looking at him. It was hard being the person who could knock away a man’s hopes. “He’s your child, I wouldn’t expect you to do anything less than give every drop of blood in you to fix him and keep him safe.” There was another option that was available, but she didn’t voice, afraid of what it sounded like.


Scott looked over at Jean, hearing the filter of her thoughts that she dared not speak. He squeezed her hand a little and said, "I guess we'll see what happens when he if he wakes up."

"When," Corsair said.

"When," Scott echoed, in an empty monotone.

They sat in silence for a few moments, watching the stars. There must've been a meteor shower than night, because several times shooting stars crossed overhead before Scott spoke again.

"Sixteen thousand, four hundred and ninety two," he said.

"Hmmm?" his father frowned.

"How many people I hurt or killed beneath the hand," Scott said, "That's counting everyone forcibly mutated. Most of that number, thank God, has been reverted back to normal, but not all of them." He didn't look away from the streaks of fire in the sky, to see if his wife knew that he had memorized that number. It was Jean, of course she knew.


She knew and was saddened that he’d counted. But, it was Scott, of course he obsessed and counted. “That’s not on you,” she told him, so often that she’d lost count. “That’s on the ones who were controlling you. Nothing of that was your idea, not really, even if it felt like it at the time. Or now.”

“You tell him,” she told Corsair, “he won’t listen to me or anyone else, so far. Can you teach your son how to forgive himself? Forgive faults? Forgive his decisions that ended badly?”


"If someone teaches me first," Corsair smiled, gently, at the woman, "I have a feeling that this is a family trait that you might not be able to change. Not a day goes by that I don't think of Kathy Ann and how I failed her." He sipped his drink and said, "He doesn't lose very often, does he?"

"I lose all the time," Scott said, a bit snappishly, "If I didn't the world wouldn't be in the state it is."

"No, Scott," Chris said, "you may not be as triumphant as you wish to be, but if you lost these battles, this world would be entirely lost."

"I haven't saved the world," Scott said, "not alone, not ever. I can't take credit for wins that aren't my own."

"How many times would you say he's lost, Jean?" Chris asked, "Honestly."
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Jean
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Telepathy, Telekinesis
“Lost?” Jean repeated to herself, really considering the question and honestly thinking over all of Scott’s decisions and actions. Finally, she said, “Never,” then went on before Scott could protest that he had and she was just being biased. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, you’ve made some bad decisions that were real whoppers – like exposing the school to the rest of the world without/i] giving anyone else the chance to agree or disagree, you forcibly mutated people, kids, and killed some in the process, and the way you handled Emma… we don’t need to go into that again. You decide on a course of action you believe at the time to be right and damn the consequences. A strategy that works in combat, when there’s no time to poll opinions, but a lousy course of action any time else. So, yes, you’ve made your fair share of boneheaded blunders, and yes, we’ve been defeated in the past… outnumbered… ambushed… but lost happens when you’ve given up, lain down, and just accepted it, and you haven’t done that before.” She turned her head to look at him, “Temporarily disheartened, maybe… but there’s time to change that.”

“And besides taken more privileges to make decisions than you really should, if you had another fault, I’d say that it was that you should ‘this is how I am’ as a crutch too often. I know how you are Scott Summers, the good and the bad, and for the record, there’s a lot more good than bad, but you are hide-bound, stiff-necked, and reluctant to change… And saying, ‘this is who I am’ is an excuse, and perhaps an explanation, but you’re also a man capable of growth, of change; you aren’t a statue or an insect trapped in amber. You can change… but only if you want to. So you have to decide, do you want to?”

Corsair chuckled softly at the look of shock on his son's face as Jean launched into him. He hissed a little through his teeth and muttered, "Ouch, she doesn't handle you with kid gloves, does she?"

Scott's face was forced back into stoic blankness, and he said, steadily, "No, sir, she does not."

There was silence for a while and then Corsair, finishing his bottle and opening another said, "She right? That who you are? That the decision you have to make?"

"She'd know better than I who I am," Scott said, quietly, regretting this whole conversation already, "I've never been very good at figuring that out."

"That's not what she said," his father said, "She said, you have decided who you are and aren't willing to change. Seems to me that you have a pretty set idea of who you are."

"Apparantly I was wrong though," Scott said, "Since it's all an excuse."

Corsair looked at Jean and said, "Now, he's sulking."

“His pride means a lot to him,” she explained. “As it should for anyone. If you don’t have pride in yourself, you have nothing. If you have too much pride, you’re rooted in place and inflexible, and most importantly, you can’t grow, you can’t heal the scars.”

"She's saying I'm arrogant and close minded," Scott told his father, cracking open another bottle for himself, "Now the truth comes out." He looked at the bottle, "What's in this drink, sodium penothal?"

"Truth serum doesn't exist," Corsair shrugged, "Not in the way the movies show, but stop pouting, and posturing and suck it up. This woman loves you. Not everyone's so willing to point out your faults."

"Lucky me," Scott muttered.

Corsair leaned over and smacked his son on the back of his head, "You're behaving like a brat, stop it."

Scott, flinching away from the surprise swat, rubbed his head, angrily, "Don't do that. You knock of my glasses and--"

"And, you'll close your eyes so your powers don't hurt anyone," Corsair said, "possibly even before the glasses fall. No matter what else you are, I know you're not a man who wants to hurt others."

Scott looked away, staring out at the black ocean, "Oh yeah? You should have seen me last year. I sure seemed to want it." He didn't bother to look at Jean, expecting that she would protest, "And, yes, I know I was brainwashed. Doesn't help me not feel dirty and tainted."

“No, it doesn’t help,” she agreed. “It was someone else pulling the strings but you’re the one stuck with the bill; and you’re a man who pays his debts, even ones he didn’t agree to. It would make even a saint angry, and you’re no saint, but you’re also a man who doesn’t allow himself to be out of control, not ever. But those feelings, that anger, it doesn’t just dry up and blow away. Until you do something with the anger, it’s going to act like a dam and block you from really dealing with the rest of it too. Mission of redemption or no.”

"When I get angry, I lose control," Scott said, his voice tight, "People get hurt. You've seen what happens... you've seen me lose it, Jean. How am I supposed to release all this anger if I can't... " He broke off what he was saying and got up, untangling himself from her. Crossing the deck with his typical long legged stride, he went to the rail, knowing that he was acting like a child but unable to stop himself. He didn't want this. He didn't like to talk about himself, especially his weaknesses.

Corsair put out a hand and rested it on Jean's arm, "I don't know him, Jean, not like you do. I wasn't much of a father even before the crash, and after... But if he's anything like me, being broken is almost impossible to come back from. I was broken for years and years before I was able to be a man again. I don't want that for him." He looked at his son's distant form, just at the edge of the dim lights they sat under, "How do we help him?"
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