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Summary: Heather and Mason find each other working off Thanksgiving dinner in the weight room.
Date: Thursday, November 25, 2010. 10:45pm. Thanksgiving Day.
Log Title: Working off the Turkey
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Weight Room
All the weight machines are powered by hydraulics, you set the weight you want and your bench-pressing that many pounds, or even tons in some super strong students' cases. Punching bags, stair machines, bicycles, treadmills, weights, and anything found in your standard gym can be found here.
Thursday night, and more importantly, Thanksgiving night, has fallen at the Xavier Mansion. Mason was gone for most of the day. He had Dinner with his mother and grandparents at noon, and a performance in the afternoon for somebody else's Thanksgiving dinner. But he finally has made it back to the school, and still isn't tired.
So here he is, he's decided to work off some of that extra food he took in earlier, and is in the weight room. No shirt and a red gym shorts, his hard and tone physique flexes as he works on the machine weights, bench pressing what appears to be a good deal more than someone his size should be able to. Not superhuman, but unexpectedly strong.
There is a quick tapping that emerges from the hallway, getting faster and faster, but if there is any suspicions to be had, they should be quelled once Heather arrives at the entrance of the weight room. Normally, she does weight training, but after eating a ludicrous amount of food in a previous wake cycle, even more than her usual binges, she decides that cardio may be the best route. As she arrives at the treadmill, though, she turns to examine if there's anyone else in the room. Since she normally comes at unusual hours, it's usually empty, but she stops and tilts her head slightly, eyeing Mason and drawing her fingers through her more messy than before but still within range of normal hair and then looking up to the weights. She reaches for her tape recorder and plays, "You look very strong."
Mason doesn't look up as Heather enters, he's focused on his reps. Good breathing and a steady pace brings him to finish his set, before letting the weights rest again. Once he's done, his head turns to spot Heather. "Thanks," he says with that same bright smile that usually is on his face. "I try hard." He sits up, still looking at Heather. "I hope your Thanksgiving was nice," he says to her, picking his water bottle off of the ground.
"Thanksgiving was alright," plays Heather, tilting her head slightly as she looks down at the recorder, "It was the first I've celebrated. It was nice to have a nice, large meal made for me." She rests her machine on the treadmill and starts fiddling with some of the settings, but before she starts it up she adds, "I'm pretty strong, too. I work out a lot. But I doubt as strong as you."
Mason takes a drink from his water bottle, and some of the water drips down his chin. He wipes it with his forearm, and gets up, moving to the chin-up bar at the side of the room. "Well, you have a lot going for you besides just strength," he says. "You seem to move really fast. How fast can you run?" he asks. He drops the water bottle next to him, and jumps up, grabbing the bar. He pulls himself up. One. Two…
Shrugging, Heather gets onto the track of the treadmill and starts up both the exercise machine and the tape. "Pretty fast," the tape answers, which becomes pretty clear as the piece of Xavier's equipment speeds to a speedster's page, her shoes tapping rapidly against the floor of it like a machine gun. The tape continues, "And yes, I do. My main strength is my gaming abilities."
Mason does a few more pull ups as he listens to the recording, and listens to Heather's feet speed up. He pauses, pulled up on the chin bar, and turns his head to look at Heather. He blinks a few times. "Wow," he responds. "That's fast. What do you mean your gaming abilities?" he asks. "What kind of games?"
The pace is kept up, but Heather picks up the machine and seems to contemplate it for a moment before she puts it back down where it was before. "As fast as I look to slow-worlder, slow-worlders look that slow to me," explains Heather, "And the games I play are various. Often strategy games. But the Danger Room trials, even when we find ourselves in a strange and different world. It's all a game for me. And I do well."
Mason gather's that he's a slow-worlder. "That's pretty cool. I guess you have more time to think about the moves you are going to make," he observes. "Since you're all superspeed and everything." He drops from the bar, sweating more than he was a moment ago. "I can see how being faster could be good and bad," the terraformer says. "I mean, some things I'd wish would slow down so I can enjoy them longer. Do you like being faster?" He tries to speak quickly, though he knows that it still will seem slow to her.
Heather glances over for just a moment towards Mason, her feet still tapping rapidly against the track at the same rhythm. "It's not the speed that gives me an edge in games. I was good even before I manifested. "The extra time helps, but my decisions are made as rapidly from my perspective as someone else from their own." Her eyes go forward and she picks up the recorder again and puts it down in the same manner as previously. "I feel alone when there aren't others who can understand me. People don't understand that time is not the same for me. They assume things they shouldn't. That I'm like them."
Mason suddenly feels much more appreciative of his own power. He can avoid being known as a mutant, and his power has done little to impact his life. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to understand," he tells. "All of this is still a little new to me." He puts his hands on his hips, taking a moment to catch his breath now that he's done with the chin ups. He pace to the side, watching Heather run. "If I start to assume things I shouldn't let me know." He walks to the bench, and grabs his towel to wipe the sweat off of his chest and face.
"I know you're trying to understand. And I am fine with my power. If it makes me more like the person I am, then that's fine. Eventually, I will be even more intelligent and knowledgeable than now. It will help my growth. But it can be painful. And I want to help people understand. I can't attend classes. Five hours in one place listening to nasty green droning. Every four hours for you, I sleep for one. It creates a twenty five hour schedule," plays Heather, listing off anything that Mason might need to know in order to understand her.
Mason doesn't really understand all that Heather's telling him. He listens intently, though. "Well, I understand not wanting to sit in one place for five hours listening to people droning on." He grins again. "I can't imagine if I had to listen to it in slow motion." He moves to the machine weights again and starts to set up the leg press. "So if you have a twenty-five hour cycle, does that change how you will age?" he asks. "Are you gonna get old fast like in the that Robin Williams movie?"
"My future self claimed to be over three hundred, but by all reports she looked to be the same age as myself," replies Heather, getting off the treadmill and pacing, her breaths in the background of this message evident, "I don't think aging will be a problem unless I look to be thirty seven." She reaches up to touch her face, as if to ensure that she's still young, "Twenty five hours is the normal circadian rythm for humans, though. So while I feel less need for sleep, in total, I probably get better quality sleep than most."
"Thirty-seven?" Mason echoes. "Yeah, you're pretty hot for an old lady," the blond teases. "So, you got to meet your future self?" he asks. "Did your future self figure out how to time travel? That's so wicked! Did she tell you any winning lottery numbers or anything? If not, then she totally should the next time she visits." Mason sits back on the weight bench, and starts pressing the leg weights. "I would love to get to find out some stuff about the future. It'd sure take the worry out of not knowing."
"My future self was being mind controlled by a supervillain, but it all set everything right and us off course from that world. She motivated me to fight against her and help defeat her without ever even meeting her," explains Heather, raising her brow at that, "A game I played against a self with more experience and somehow won at the sacrifice of my own mind. And as the link through time broke, I gained some of her memories, which I've stored in my journals. Now, I remember them like dreams." She stops pacing and then turns towards Mason, "The way that time travel works, it's very delicate. I don't know how to do it yet, but I know /how/ to do it. You can set up stable time loops, but it's dangerous to rend causality. Sometimes, knowing the future is just knowing what's inevitable."
"That's fascinating," Mason grunts as his abs tighten. His legs push up on the weights, thighs flexing to force them off their stack. He clenches his teeth, and lifts again. "So, you think it's all fate? We're predestined to whatever happens in our lives? But you changed the future, so now it'll be different, right?"
"But her future will never be different. She's better now, though, her mind repaired from what I did to it," plays Heather, watching as Mason pushes the weights with a slightly raised brow. "Our future, however, is ours. But when you're the one travelling through time, you have to make sure not to break it. Complete loops and elegant needlework are key." She brushes some of her hair aside and crosses her arms, "Why do you keep telling me I am attractive? Are you trying to make me feel good about myself?"
Mason pauses in mid lift as Heather challenges him on his flirting. "I…" he starts, taken a little off guard. "Because it's true," he offers, after measuring his reaction. "Does it bother you?" he asks. He places his hands on his knees. "I don't mean to offend you."
Heather shakes her head quickly and fidgets with her tape recorder for a few moments before actually playing it, "Nobody's ever said anything like that to me. Not honestly. I'm not offended, just confused. You're a person from the television, I'm not. The people on the television are much more attractive than I am, but they're part of your world. I just don't understand what would make you think I'm particularly attractive when that's your setting."
"Well," Mason says, pushing up a couple more reps. "Maybe they should." He offers another warm smile before finishing his reps. "I've known a lot of girls who are pretty on the outside," he says. "And I have to admit, I like when girls are pretty on the outside. But I can't be happy if that's the only way they are pretty. I don't know you really well, Heather, but I think you're pretty on the outside, and I hope to find that you're pretty on the inside, too." He lets the hydraulics come to rest, and he gets up and walks to the treadmill, leaning on it. "I may seem like some pretty boy from TV, but you don't have to be picture perfect to be in my world."
"I don't know what it's like to be pretty on the inside. I'm not really sure I even know what it means," says Heather, climbing back onto the treadmill, but she doesn't start running on it, only leaning against a rail. "Most people just think I'm crazy. According to some standards they might be right. I'm diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but I disagree with the diagnosis. I don't think I'm crazy. I think I am beautiful on the inside, in a way, but only some eyes can see it. Maybe only mine."
"I think that's a good place to start," Mason answers, leaning against the opposite rail. "Be true to yourself, and be true to your friends. If you can do that, then you can be beautiful on the inside." For a moment, Mason seems lost on his own statement, but then regains himself. "I think I am gonna go sleep off the rest of Thanksgiving dinner," he says, pushing off from the treadmill.
Mason returns to the bench where his towel and shirt are. After wiping the sweat off one more time, he pulls the Xavier's sweatshirt over his head, his blond mop popping out the top before his arms come out the sides. The teen idol stops by the chin up bar to grab his water bottle before heading for the door. "I think it's part of growing up," he states, pausing by the exit. "We learn to think about others instead of just ourselves. I'm still working on it, too. I hope I'll be beautiful on the inside as well."
Heather gives a subtle shrug, almost invisible because of the quickness of her motions, but gets on the treadmill again. "Goodnight." While Heather does think of others, she thinks of them as being a certain way. Mere figments of her imagination, an imagination consumed by thoughts of illusions, puzzles and games. But she's learned long enough ago saying that out loud can get her labeled as being ugly on the inside.
