13261/Do you believe in fairytales

Do you believe in fairytales
Date of Scene:	12 May 2021
Location:	Backyard - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Alex is having an existential crisis, did he cause one for Rogue or will she continue to hold on to the fairytale?
Cast of Characters:	Havok, Rogue

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Havok has posed:
     Alex has been home from vacation for awhile now, but other than when his presence was needed on missions or for pomp and circumstance surrounding a new X-Men member, he's been pretty scarce. He's actually keeping to that theme today. He's not hiding persay, but he isn't anywhere that people would be looking for him either. He's sitting out at the cliffside at the back of the property. He's found a little outcropping of rock jutting over the edge and he's taken up roost there, feet dangling over the edge.
    He's wearing a pair of purple camo cargo shorts and a white wife beater. A simple pair of flips for his feet are currently sitting next to him lest they fall off and be lost to the cliff's drop.

Rogue has posed:
Eyes on the ground may have a hard time spotting a cliff-sitting Havok, but Rogue doesn't tend to stay on the ground when she's outside. Instead, she fills her time with getting out all her pent up energy by flying around, patroling the grounds and some of the surrounding outlier areas via the skies. So when she's coming back towards the mansion, she spots Alex sitting on the cliff's edge and slowly makes her way down, only to hover an arms length away from him off the cliff. She wears a white full-body suit, black gloves, but over that she's wearing cut off shorts and a black tee shirt that reads, Bless Your Heart, and black boots. "Enjoyin' the view?"

Havok has posed:
    It was difficult to see from the air, but close up it's hard to miss. Alex's right shoulder is mottled green and yellow with what must have started as a nasty damned bruise. It's old, at least a week or so. It looks like it probably happened while he was on vacation.
    "Something like that," he replies before he brings his gaze up from looking into the depths below to Rogue.
    It's also now easy to see the bottle covered by a brown paper bag tucked between Alex's legs. Day drinking? Alex is known to be brash and moody at times and a fun loving joker at others, but he's not really known for his day drinking.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue raises a brow, glancing from Alex's shoulder, to the paper bag in his hand, back to Alex himself. Wordlessly, she shifts and sits on the ground next to Alex and looks out over the edge. She lets silence reign between them for a moment while pulling out a black box from her pocket, pulling a clove from the pack and goes through the rest of the motions to light it up.

If vices are going to be shown, might as well show hers.

Funnily enough, she never seems uncomfortable in the silence. No matter the reason. Taking a drag off that clove, the sweet smoke pluming from both the stick and the exhale she breathes away from Alex - it's then that she finally side-eyes him again.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Havok has posed:
    Alex seems perfectly content and comfortable with the silence as well. It was really fifty-fifty with him as to whether or not he would even stay. He takes a few swigs from the bottle during that silence and the stench of some serious rotgut whiskey mingles with the smell of sweet smoke. It only hangs in the open air a moment or two though.
    Typically getting a dude to talk about his feels is like pulling teeth. Typically Alex is not the exception to that rule. Today, however, is different. Kind of...
    "It's all bullshit y'know," Alex comments without any further explanation.

Rogue has posed:
Apparently today is a day for atypical mannerisms. Rogue, normally one to let people be, had come to give Alex some company. Which in turn has led Alex to be a bit atypical in sharing stuff. Sort of. So she takes another drag off her smoke, blowing it away from the two of them to keep as much smoke away from Alex as she can and at his one statement, she nods her head.

"A lot of everything is bullshit. I suppose it depends on context too...but overall, I think I can rightly agree with you. It's all bullshit." She offers with a little smirk and then looks off and away for a moment more of silence. It's like a roller coaster, they're on the downside slowly climbing up, up, up to the top of the next hill....

"Whenever you're ready to give me context, m'right here..."

Havok has posed:
    Alex chews on his bottom lip a little, takes a few more swigs, picks at a string on his shorts but says nothing further, not for a moment anyway. Then he makes a small revelation.
    "I was just outside San Diego." He must be talking about that recent vacay. "Stopped at a rest area. These truckers, eight or nine of them, they were pushing this little girl around. She musta been maybe 15? Scales, webbed fingers... obvious x-gene. By the time I gave those asshats a beat down, she was gone. I guess she ran rabbit." It seems almost as if that's the end, that's all he has to say, but nooooo... someone is long winded today! His voice is pitched low, soft, the tone distant almost as if he's talking to himself. He never looks at Rogue.
    "Then I get home and there's another mutant kid to be rescued from jackasses and then that farm. It's all the time, over and fucking over again."
    He gestures behind them toward the school. "This, it's bullshit, a pipedream, a fucking fairytale," he mutters.

Rogue has posed:
Oh boy. Rogue listens as Alex explains something he witnessed while gone, and then further expands to the recent happenings where they've had to go rescue people - kids - from various circumstances. She flicks ashes off her smoke before taking another drag, mulling over his words a moment in the silence that once again reigns between them. Though it doesn't take her too long to offer her thoughts.

"I can see where someone might think that. Until the world believes that mutants and humans can live together in actual peaceful harmony, it's going to seem like a fairytale." She begins, and then she glances over at him. "Though, if this didn't exist. If *we* didn't come together to be the ones to try and fight for that, and to help those in need...then where would those kids be? Where would we all be?" A pause. "I'd probably still be stuck in the Brotherhood...those kids would still be lost. There'd be no one to save them."

She reaches then, a very gloved hand resting on Alex's closer arm if he'll let her. "The unfortunate thing is there will always be fucking jackasses and groups of people to save our kind from. The fortunate thing is we're here to be there when we can. If we stop believing in the fairytale, where does that leave the others?"

Havok has posed:
    Alex doesn't flinch away, he allows the contact. For the first time since he started talking, he turns his attention to Rogue directly. "I'm so fucking sick of seeing humans do the horrendous things they do to us only to be told... 'don't kill them or maim them, they're ONLY humans." The words are ground out between gritted teeth. "They're ONLY humans so we should let them collar us, cage us, experiment on us, murder us and NOT kill them?" He snorts. "Ever think maybe the Brotherhood's got it right?" He polishes off what's left in that bottle and actually tosses the empty over the cliff to watch it plummet and shatter below.
    "When is enough, enough?" Alex asks after the bottle shatters. "When do we actually start fighting BACK." Really this line of thinking from the younger Summers shouldn't be much of a surprise, he's always flown a little loose with the whole 'Brotherhood, Bad - Magneto, Enemy' line of thinking.

Rogue has posed:
There's a sort of flinch as Alex tosses the now empty bottle over the cliff to let it crash below. Rogue then takes a breath, as he mentions the Brotherhood, and gives a slight scoff just after. "You wanna know what I really think? I think this..." She gestures behind them, "is too much on the side of trying to toe the line, walk on eggshells. On the other hand, the Brotherhood is too extreme in their thinking too. But neither want to middle ground it. To let humans be as humans will and go after the ones who think mutants, and alien beings, and anyone who *isn't* the human definition of perfect and worthy be...manipulated, used, or otherwise shaken off this mortal coil.."

She says this and then she shrugs. "Believe me, I'd love to find out who's behind all of these things, every single one of them, and bash an asshole in the face. Sometimes you can't play the mercy card...but there are those here who believe we should. Who think that if we don't...then we're no better than those who are trying to capture and use our kind. Honestly, fuck that noise." She pauses. "Just don't tell Scott I said that. I really don't need the lecture."

Havok has posed:
    "If it has to be one way or another, I don't think believing in fairytales is the way to go. Those are like hope, they breed eternal misery." Someone is JADED today! Alex pushes himself to his feet and stares down to where that bottle shattered. "How's it ever going to stop, Rogue? How will it ever stop if we keep ALLOWING it to happen."
    Alex's blue eyes drift back to Rogue again. "I spent a week of my vacation in jail because the cops came and one of those asshats at the rest area pressed charges," he explains further. "...a week in lock-up and who the fuck knows where I would have landed after if the public defender I ended up with wasn't a pitbull with a bone that managed to dig up enough dirt on my 'victim' to cause him to back off on it. Even after that they STILL didn't want to let me go." He shakes his head. "No... just. I mean, I love Scott and I don't..." ...want to break his heart is what he's trying to say, but the words go unspoken. "...so I stay here and I take the Goddamned orders and I swallow it down and we make no difference, it's still happening. I want to make a difference." It's with that announcement that he just steps off the side of the cliff, using blasts from his hands to slow his descent before he splats at the bottom. Looks like maybe he's done talking?

Rogue has posed:
Rogue listens, because she wants to, letting Alex vent and get his thoughts out while he's of the mind to do so. Though when he's done, before she can really say much of anything, he's 'jumping' off the cliff, likely done with his venting and not really wanting to speak on it much more. She gets it, she really does, but she's seen both sides of a coin and neither of them work well. Being with the Brotherhood ended with her making a couple costly mistakes, and being here....just doesn't seem to fully satisfy the southern belle rebel.

"...Just dunno what to /do/ about it...is the issue." She says it aloud, but likely to no one, cause she doesn't yell it to where Alex can hear. Afterwards, she stands since they seem to be done, and crushes her finised clove to dusted remains. All of it. So nothing is left behind and Jean can't yell at her for littering. A glance back to the school one last time, she'll finally decide to jump down the cliff as well, a bit behind Alex. Keeping her distance but making sure the other half of the pew-pew boys doesn't wind up in a mess of trouble.