Issue 1 Downtime

Coming out of the direction of the dorms Sara finds a quiet place near a tree to sit under, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples and appearing a little stressed in general.

Will, having followed her out after the Brawl in the Hall, sits down beside her.

"You doing alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Mostly anyway, just a little stressed. I guess... that just now was a bit too much after an exhausting day."

"Yeah, all this crazyness on top of the training...I'm going to be sore for weeks. Wolverine gave me a nasty bruise...

How did yours go?"

"Okay for a first 'real' mission, although I did get roughed up a bit. The rest of the training I thought I'd just fall over dead any moment." She leans back against the tree. "I don't want to know how sore I'll be tomorrow."

"Heh, yeah. We're going to be a pile of ache in the morning, I'm sure. The price of being X-Men, I suppose."

Will moved around so he was behind Sara, and started rubbing her shoulders.

"The thing to do in these situations, I've noticed, is to work the muscles out. Relax them and everything..."he says, as he begins a small massage.

"Mmm! That's perfect..." Sara closes her eyes and relaxes at Will's massage.

"Oh dear, now I've done it. Now I've gotta give you the whole course." Will said, continuing to dig in.

"...strange happenings today. It wont be a day I'll soon forget, for sure."

"Yes, yes you do." Sara smiles and zones out a little. "How did your danger room session go? Did you guys get the burning industrial complex too?"

"Hrm? Fire? No, fire bad. We had some hostages in a war-zone--had to go in through a hospital, top-down.

Got to jump on some Skrulls, which might explain the bruise actually. You guys had fire? We didn't get any fire."

"Yeah, fire and skrulls. The fire wasn't too bad for me, but one of the skrulls roughed me up a little in what can only be described as the world's most awkward grappling and stabbing."

Will continued to massage a little lower on the back.

"Can you even be burned by fire when you're doing the whole stone thing?"

Not... ooh... not really. I'm not sure, but I guess if it was hot enough it could get dangerous."

"Heh, well, the last thing we need is for you to become magma or something, right? Solids are good. I'm a fan."

Working on a particularly tough bunch of muscles, Will continued. "Well, at least you can't REALLY get hurt in the danger room. It's other things you have to look out for--like, apparently, crazy roommates."

"She's not crazy. She was just pissed, and for good reason, and lost control. She didn't mean to do it."
She notably tenses up as she turns her head to look over her shoulder back at Will.

"No, no, no, I understand. It's a bit of an overreaction, but I can't say I wouldn't have gone over there and slugged Cal had the situations been reversed. I'm just worried, that's all." Will sighed.

"It's just....it's just that it's something new for her--a new shift. I remember when I first started, I would sometimes shift uncontrollably, like when I was sleeping, unconsciously. It happened until I had a firm grip over my shifting--until I had plenty of experience with it. She doesn't have that yet. And if she's losing control, of something that dangerous..."

Will shook his head. "Maybe I'm just being overprotective, but I don't like it. I don't like it one bit."

"You're worried she might hurt me on accident? From all the possibly dangerous things that could happen you pick that one to worry about?" She can't help herself and chuckles, but soon stops as she sees the look of worry in Will's eyes.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at your concerns. But she's not really entirely new to shifting and it only happened when she was seriously pissed. It's not like it just happened, she had a reason to flip out. Not like that, but still..."

"...I just don't want you to get hurt, Sara. That's all. I think your blood looks better on the inside. Against Skrulls or elves or whatever, you can just punch them at will, but...bah, I'm being overprotective. Sorry."

Will leans down and kisses Sara on the top of her head, and then holds her.

Sara leans back against Will and smiles. "It's nice to be cared about, so I think I can live with it."

"You're just saying that 'cause I give good massages."

"Of course. Why else would I?" she teases Will, craning her neck back to look up at him with a smirk.

"Oh, my own girlfriend is just using me for my hands. Woe is me," Will said, with a mock sigh.

"Well, maybe not just your hands..." She smiles and leans up to give Will a kiss.

"Oh, I left myself wide open for that one." Will smiled, leaned down and returned the kiss before continuing the massage.

"Changing the subject entirely, I was talking to Con out here on the quad the other day. We were jamming and he mentioned something that got me thinking. Did you know the XUB allows concerts? Maybe I should do something..."

"Ooh, that's a great idea. I bet people'd love a live band playing in there!"

"Yeah--Con even talked about maybe doing a gig together, but he's kind of death metal", and here Will mimes playing a heavy metal guitar, "while I'm kinda old-school poppy stuff. I mean, can you picture me plaing some...I dunno...heavy death Slayer type stuff and looking all frightening?"

"Actually, I can, but that's mostly because you could look the part if you wanted to." She chuckles. "I'd rather you wouldn't though. But I'm sure there are others who'd be interested in playing less... abrasive music."

"Hehe, I suppose I could. 'Deeeeath to eeeev'ryyonnnnnnne' while looking like a creepy demon. No thanks, I'm already embarrassing myself enough with my shifting in that silly movie. Plus, my singing training comes from freakin' showtunes and the like--not exactly a lot of crossover with Dragonbloodslayerdeathforce, or whatever they're called."

"I'm not sure that'd count as singing anyway. I mean, everyone can scream into a mic."

Will laughs. "Well, I'm sure there's more to it than that. But, yeah, a little more melodic would be up my street. Something classic, like the Kinks or the Who or something..."

"Much better, yes. Maybe you could put the idea up on your XUnet page. Or send out a mail asking for people who might be interested. Although people might have had enough of mass-mails for a while."

"I dunno, maybe me singing could scar as many people as Cal's camerawork..."

"I doubt that many people where scarred by it. A huge bunch of them propably even liked it."

Will shrugs. "I suppose. I'm not going to sit here critiquing it, that's for sure.

One thing is also for sure--I will NOT be using this to get back at teasing Jess. I think I'll let it slide..."

She lets out a mock sigh. "No Will, you're supposed to say 'No idea, I didn't watch it'. And yeah, better not talk to Jess about it at all. She'll be having a hard time because of it already."

"Right. I will find less sensative ways to needle her, like saying how cute she's being with Nina.

And watch something like that? Me?" Will added, giving Sara some puppy-dog eyes, increasing them in size to boot.

"Yeah, that one's propably much more effective too!", she grins.
Smiling softly at Will's impression of cute-incarnate she goes on, jokingly, "And come on, don't pretend you didn't at least look a little."

"...weellllll...., like, a minute or two, just to see if it was real. I may have also posted a snarky comment on the site, not knowing how much it would set Jess off. I hope, now, she didn't read it.

Anyway, it's not the strangest thing I've seen on the internets or anything. And watching two or three other people..." Will shrugs. "Meh."

"I don't think she did. She was a little pre-occupied with going nuts. And I really don't want to ask about other strange things on the internet, do I?" She looks a little confused about what'd make Will only go 'Meh' at a three-way.