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Summary: Shane shows she cares about Mason in her own gruff and bitter way.
Date: Saturday, December 18, 2010.
Log Title: Don't Be Stupid
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Medical Bay
The Medical Bay contains the latest medical equipment to patch up students and X-Men with the smallest and worst injuries. Six beds line the walls for injured patients. Equipment lines the walls, medicine in the cabinets, and more serious medical supplies locked in cabinets. One this about this room it screams sterilization.
The bullet didn't go deep. Mason's extra dense bones saved his life from the bullet that planted itself in his sternum. Any normal person would have been dead. Call him blessed, or lucky, or just plain stupid, but he's alive. After spending Friday night and most of Saturday at the Genoshan Embassy, he's returned to the school, and is still on the infirmiry bed.
The blond star was recently given a treatment to speed up his healing, but until the X-men give him the okay, he's confined to the bed so that his healing will occur properly. He wears a pair of sweatpants, which embarrassingly he had to have help putting on. No shirt, which he had to have help taking off, revealing not only his chiseled muscles that so many fan girls adore, but more significantly the gauze wrap around his breast, covering the bullet wound. So how does he spend this time? Right now, he's just dozing. Life in bed is rather boring.
It's not often one hears a tread this heavy, this far down under the Mansion; not, at least, since the last time Piotr Rasputin graced Xavier's halls, and these footsteps still don't have quite *that* much presence to them. Still, when the doors slide apart and admit Shane into Medbay, they serve as a fairly decent herald to her presence, if only as counterpoint to the rustle of far too many layers of taffeta underneath a seriously stylized maid's outfit, growing louder as she approaches the pop star's bed. Headphones on, face neutral, she stands, eyes narrowed faintly at the sight of the bandages over his chest, but silent until acknowledged.
Mason's eyes open. He wasn't fully asleep, and so her entrance was noticed quite quickly. They open a little wider as he sees exactly who has come to greet him. "Shane?" he asks apprehensively. He's not sure what else to say. She isn't someone who he expected a visit from. Nor is he sure of her purpose in arriving. Gloat? Pity? The lack of understanding isn't hard to see in his eyes.
It's hard to tell what exactly her mouth does, when his lips form the shape of her name — Disgust? Guilt? Disappointment? — Shaking her head, she lets out a breath through her nose, reaching up to pull her headphones down around her neck, the music already silenced. Slowly, she circles the bed, hands clasped behind her back, lower lip chewed upon as she looks over his wounds. "…You know I don't like you anymore," she grunts. "We covered that. Nothing's changed."
Mason's eyes frown at the statement, though his mouth remains neutral. He gives a slow nod, still watching Shane. Other than that, he remains motionless, studying the girl for some sort of statement from her face or movements that could help him understand why she's here.
The fist that impacts the teen star's shoulder has a lot of force behind it; probably as much as the slight little student is able to muster, judging by the way she shakes her hand out, and grits her teeth. "I don't like you, but that doesn't mean I want you *dead.* Stupid." Turning her back, she crosses her arms over her chest, shoulders hunched slightly.
Pain shoots through Mason as the impact strikes. She only hit his shoulder, and normally, it would be of little concern, but he can feel it all the way in his bullet wound, and he recoils strongly, his opposite arm coming up to grip his injury. Mason's teeth remain clenched for a moment as he deals with the pain before he's able to respond. "Thanks," he grits out. "It's good to know you care."
"You were stupid for being there," Shane says, turning her head completely away, affording Mason only the nauseating yellow back of her head to look at. "Stupid for putting on a concert in *Mutant Town* with all the shootings. *Twice.* Stop being stupid, Mason. I don't want to lose sleep over the idea I got you killed because I hate you again."
"Shane," Mason answers, his voice confused. "This is what was wrong!" He knits his brow deeply. "You said it yourself, I'm a coward. I didn't stand up when I should have. I'm sorry," the sentiment repeated, in case he hadn't said it enough previously. "I don't want to be a coward. I don't want to let more people get hurt because I was too selfish to do anything about it." He tries to force himself to sit back up, and after a few tries, he succeeds, though it's clear that doing so causes him a great deal of pain.
The silence that stretches out as Mason makes his attempt to sit up is deafening. Finally, after he's had time to get used to his new position on the bed, she turns, frowning deeply. "Yeah. Problem is? You go from pussing out from a fight that you might've won, maybe got a little hurt in, to painting a bulls eye on your Team Jacob abs and strutting up on stage. Didn't say you were a coward. Just stupid. Coward got you hate. Stupid just got you a punch."
It's the most hopeful statement Mason's heard from Shane in some time. "It wasn't supposed to happen like that," he says. "It wasn't supposed to be like that at all." Of course, the first shooting he was dumb on his security, and unprepared. The second, he was quite prepared, but still not prepared enough. "But still, I think I'll take the punch over the hate any day."
"Not the point," Shane counters. "It *was* like that. Don't have to be either a coward or stupid. Be smart for once. And next time ask me if I want you to talk about me onstage."
Mason didn't really think Shane would be listening to his concert, but he really should have not told her story without permission, even if he was vague. "I will," he tells her, bracing himself on the edge of the bed. "Shane, I don't know how to do things smart. I'm trying." He feels rather helpless. "Please see that I'm trying." He can work a crowd, and he can write music. He can be debonair and he can look good, but that's about the limit of his talent.
A quiet snort floats up from Shane, a slow shake of the head. "Stupid," she murmurs, looking over her shoulder and arching an eyebrow. "If I didn't see it, I wouldn't've bothered coming here. Wouldn't've bothered telling you where you screwed up. Just let you lie on that bed and unrot so you'd be up and I could ignore you more. Now lay down, idiot."
The idiot lays down. It's easier than it was when he sat up, though only slightly less painful. It's so amazing how much your sternum seems connected to when it is damaged. He gives her a content smile, blue eyes watching her as if he just received the best news in his life. Shania Morgenstern knows that he's trying.
A look, answered with a roll of the eyes and a disgusted sigh, with as much of the weight of the world packed into it as only a fifteen year old girl can accomplish. "Knock it off, Mason, you look like a cow. Anyway, I just came down here to give you the punch. I'd thought you'd be able to figure the rest of it out on your own. Next time you better."
Mason turns his head to look back at the celing, and lets out a chuckle. "Okay," he says. "I'll make sure to be more careful in the future." He doesn't look back in her direction, but an amused smile stays beset upon his face.
Shane turns away from the bed, by reflex tapping her iPod before slipping on her earphones, allowing a quick burst of strangely soft, almost despairing female vocals. Erst wenn de Wolken schlafengehen, kaan man uns am Himmel sehen… Wir haben angst und sin allein… Gott weiss ich will kein Engel sein!! Mission accomplished, she strides toward the medbay doors without another word.
