The X-Project

Scott and Kylun run into each other while attempting to vent their frustrations via exercise, and bond over convergent insecurities. Each of them has some good advice for the other, and they might actually have found a way for Scott to remember to take time to relax.



Kylun entered the gym with a purposeful stride, heading immediately over toward the floor mat he generally used for practice. He had fallen behind during his stay in Scotland, and though he hardly begrudged the lost time, he had not been at his peak when they went to retrieve Kyle, and it had showed. Extra sessions were in order until he regained his edge.

His focus was such that it took him a moment to notice that he was not alone in the gym; someone was working the heavy bag, with a speed and force that spoke more to frustration than exercise. Kylun looked over, curious as to who it might be.

Scott didn't notice Kylun walk in. He was hammering away at the bag, focused on it and it alone, and even the knowledge in the back of his brain that his hands were going to hate him once he finished didn't stop him. The bag was evil. The bag needed to die. Maybe he should envision various faces on the bag.

"That bag is not filled with rice, is it?" Kylun called over. "At the monastery, we had a rule that anyone who broke a bag had to eat the rice that spilled. There were days I grew very tired of the taste of stale rice."

"Sand," Scott muttered, and didn't let up for an instant on the bag. "And I'm not going to break it," he said, breathing hard. "Did that once already this year. We have a quota. One bag a year."

"A wise policy," Kylun said as he began his stretches. "Though perhaps not quite . . . satisfying; once you've used up your yearly bag."

Scott could feel his muscles starting to point out that it might be a very nice thing to stop. Soon. He ignored them, landing another quick combination of punches, and adding a solid kick. "Better than beating on people," he said. Or myself. "The heavy bag is my friend. Even when it's evil and needs to die."

Kylun smiled at that, straightening from his stretches and began the first of his forms, his movements unhurried and deliberate. His nose wrinkled slightly--even at this pace he was just a hair off, a bare instant out of time. He stopped, focused for a second, and began again. Better. His voice drifted calmly out of the whirl of motion he had become: "You've enough to be frustrated over, certainly. Things seem to have been . . . eventful, while I was away."

"That would be putting it mildly." Scott finally stopped hammering on the bag, wincing as he flexed his hands. He'd wrapped them, but... well, crap. Blood on the wrappings. He'd possibly overdone it just a bit. "Have you caught up on the gossip?" he asked, walking over to sit down on one of the benches so that he could assess the damage.

"Only what has been posted to the team, staff, and general boards. The personal journals are a mountain I am saving for another day." Kylun flowed from position to position smoothly, and there was a pause before his next words. "There seemed to be . . . rather a lot between the lines of the few posts regarding Jean."

"That," Scott said heavily as he unwound the wrappings on his hands, "would be putting it mildly. It's strange, you know," he went on more quietly, glancing up at Kylun as the other man continued to move through his exercise. "There are bad days, and there are good days... I get whiplash at times."

"I seem to have a talent for putting things mildly. But the whiplash does not sound strange to me." Kylun smiled faintly. "I thought never to have good days again, after my wife died, and the monastery with her. I thought my parents were dead." He paused, balanced easily on one foot, then began running the sequence in reverse. "'The tide of events' is perhaps a pithy phrase, but one gains a new appreciation for it when the tide drags you under."

Scott summoned up a faint smile as he examined his knuckles. "I keep telling myself to keep my sense of perspective. Sometimes it helps. A lot of the time, it doesn't." He took a deep breath, then let it out. "I'm glad things went so well with your parents," he said.

Kylun's smile was a quick flash of teeth as he spun in place. "So am I, though it was . . . more of an adjustment, for all of us, than even I had imagined. There were times after the first shock subsided that I wished I were back here. But in the end, I am glad I stayed until we achieved . . . something more stable. They are good people."

"Nice to see one of these reunions turning out well," Scott murmured, then shook his head. "Listen to me. As if it hasn't been a positive experience for Alex and I to know our grandparents again."

"I was about to say," Kylun replied wryly. "Especially since I much envied your reunion for a time--a common culture, obvious shared interests . . . someone else braving the unfamiliarity with you, and who could dilute the attention when it grew overwhelming."

"I think the suprise supervillain relatives tend to lead to a certain loss of perspective," Scott quipped. "Funny how that works..." He was going to need ice on his hands. Dammit.

Kylun laughed. "I like Nathan, but this one of several areas in which his is not an example best emulated." He came to rest, tilting his head curiously as he glanced at Scott. "Are your hands all right? I am remarkably distracted today; my apologies."

"I overdid it a little," Scott confessed. He knew why Kylun was distracted, and felt a certain pang of guilt for having mentioned in him that post, especially since it had involved lumping him in with the others when there really hadn't been a problem with anything he'd done that night. He knew something about holding one's self to high standards, though. That I do...

"Mm. I know the feeling." Kylun shook his head wearily. "Sometimes it seems the only way I can keep up with the rest of you is by overdoing. You could all learn my skills, if you chose to pursue them, but I will never match your natural gifts. My power is--" He smiled. "Terry will be very wroth with me if I call it useless again, but it is not much use in the work we do."

"Kylun, you may not have raw power like some of us do, but it would take most of us a very long time to learn anything approaching your skills. Not to mention," Scott said a bit wryly, "that raw power tends to be a little hard on the person wielding it. How often has Nate blown up his brain, or Lorna turned green and headachey after a mission? You tend to be... highly reliable. I for one appreciate that."

Kylun bowed his head, acknowledging the compliment. "Nevertheless, they have the option, if all else fails, and they are willing to pay the price. If my skill does not suffice, I have no recourse."

Scott stared down at his hands for a moment. You made the time for conversations like this, he thought. "Charles told me, back when I was in the hospital in November, that it wasn't my eyes that made me special," he said slowly. "Skill or power, either are just... tools, Kylun. What makes us what we are is the will to be what we believe we should be." He smiled suddenly, an oddly desperate little smile. He hadn't said 'the will to do what needed doing'. Was that progress?

Kylun closed his eyes; his nostrils flared as he let out a breath, nodding. "I knew that, once. I used to be so sure of myself." He gave Scott a wry look. "I am, usually. This past while has been . .. very disruptive. Old demons returning. I suppose we have that in common."

"Ohh..." Scott gave a slightly ragged chuckle. "Don't get me started. I think my life is a skipping CD at times. Just playing the same music, over and over..."

"My order teaches that life moves in cycles," Kylun mused. "Mind, that is generally interpreted as a hopeful teaching, that even the bad times will not last forever." He paused for a moment. ". . . I hope you know that it was nothing you said that set me off today. I have received--and given, in my day--harsher criticism."

Scott blinked, then dropped his eyes back to his hands, rubbing at his knuckles. "You and I should talk more, you know," he said a bit vaguely. "I get the sense that you were a very good leader, back at the monastery. I don't think I'm as successful."

"Your entire team has not died on your watch," Kylun said, his voice very dry. "By that measure, you do far better than I." He shook his head. "No, that is not fair. I did well enough, I suppose, and I doubt anyone could have led us through that day." He quirked a sudden grin at Scott. "Though as you seem to have a high opinion of my leadership ability, you might take a moment to ponder why it is I follow you without hesitation."

Scott had closed his eyes at Kylun's first words. Idiot... he told himself. But then the rest sank in, and he opened his eyes again and looked up at Kylun. "I've thought about that a lot, you know. About you and Nathan and Sean and hell, even Cain. I don't think I've come to a conclusion," he said wearily, "and I think I'm not... being worthy of it lately, whatever it is."

"I know you have heard this before, but perhaps you are too hard on yourself. If anything . . ." Kylun dropped into an easy crouch, looking at Scott intently. "The best advice I ever received . . . hm. How to explain--ah. Terry gave me a book to read, in which one of the characters said that personal is not the same as important--that personal things must be put aside when matters of importance occur. That is an easy trap for a leader to fall into; one can tell one's self that one is being noble and self-sacrificing for the good of the mission." He smiled faintly. "But it is a trap. Efface yourself too often, and you can lose yourself."

Kylun shook his head. "I was given the opposite advice, long ago; that important is not the same as personal. A leader cannot afford to take the important things too personally; it can lead to a dangerous narrowing of vision--which you have avoided, I think, largely--and more insidiously, it can lead you to believe that the performance of your team directly reflects upon you as a person; that when the team fails, it is because you have failed. That is another attractive trap--that feeling can be used as a goad, to spur you to better yourself and your team and avoid failure in the future. But failure will come regardless, and after a time even the little failures begin to reflect larger and larger, until you start to wonder if you can do your job at all. It took me . . . a very long time to learn this: that the mission is what you do, not who you are."

Scott took a deep breath, then let it out again before he answered. "It seems to keep coming back to that," he said quietly. "Who I am. I think I went... astray quite a while ago, when it comes to drawing distinctions between who I am and what I do." It was good to talk to Kylun, he thought suddenly, gratefully. There wasn't an ounce of judgement in the older man's eyes.

"Well, it's hardly too late." Kylun chuckled. "From my master's vantage we were all children, but even we mortals may agree that you are still a young man. And yet . . . I am not certain my solution to the problem would be very helpful; I had both, you see, the blindness and the self-recrimination, and it took a great shock to start breaking me free of them." He laced his fingers together across one knee and leaned back. "One thing, though--what you do when you are .. . that which you simply enjoy, that . . ." He paused, searching for the word. "Hobbies. Hobbies can be very helpful. Something that you love, that you cannot rationalize as part of the job. I read--adventure stories, and the myths and legends that Zz'ria collected; and went hiking." He laughed suddenly, bright and a little sad. "It helps, also, to have people who will insist to be treated as themselves, not as they relate to the mission. Sa'tneen had a will as deep as the mountains, and even at my most destructively obsessive she never allowed me to dismiss her or push her aside. I could be the leader of warriors all I liked, but with her, I was Kylun . . . or I was not with her. And she would not let me go."

"I've got some ideas, about the hobbies," Scott said uncertainly. "The rest of it... I don't know, Kylun. I promised Jean... she's got so much work to do of her own, to put her life back together." He flexed his hands, wincing again. "I want to help her do that. I promised... I made a number of promises," he said heavily. "Some of which I'm not doing such a good job keeping."

"I would say . . . you have given those promises to her, so give them to her; that is to say, they are hers now, and if she does not think you have broken them, it would be as rude to gainsay her as it would be to take back any other gift. You do neither of you any favor in making of your promises a scourge for your back." Kylun smiled gently. "But I was not necessarily speaking of Jean--I brought Sa'tneen up only because she is never far from my thoughts, and of everyone I knew she was the most insistent that I be myself. I meant. . . that you need people who see you first as Scott Summers, and in whose presence you are comfortable enough to be Scott Summers, and in so being, discover who he is. I hope that Jean is one of those people--or that she will be again, when she is more secure in herself--but she is not, I think, your only choice."

"No?" Scott asked a bit tiredly. "Who else knows Scott around here? Ororo and Charles, but they need me to be Cyclops and Headmaster Summers, too." That was unfair, his conscience informed him, and his expression tightened in guilt. "I shouldn't say that. Charles told me..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "It's me, who can't be comfortable enough. You're right. I got it into my head at some point that the job... both jobs... were more important, and now I hardly know who I am."

"And again, it is not too late to find out. Might your grandparents help? Or your brother? Or if it comes to that, there exists also a whole world outside this campus, full of people who know neither Scott, nor the Headmaster, nor Cyclops, and to whom you are free to introduce yourself as you please." Kylun snorted softly, his eyebrows going up in a guileless expression. "I have it on the very best authority that these people really do exist, and perhaps one day I will find out for myself."

"Spend time off-campus? Out where there are people who worry about paying off credit card bills instead of when Magneto might come knocking on the door? What a terrifying thought." Scott rubbed the scars on his face for a moment, more reflectively than nervously.

"Horrifying, indeed. You see why I spend all my time here," Kylun replied, deadpan. "Well, that," he added cheerfully, "and it is no longer my responsibility to lead from the front. I can confidently leave such dangerous exploration in the capable hands of my superiors."

"I did well at off-campus. Once upon a time..." Back in college, and even for a few years afterwards. Before the team had taken up so much of his attention, before he'd become headmaster... he'd had outside friends. He still had a few, although they were used to intermittent phone calls and Christmas cards, at this point. "I just don't know when it started feeling like running away." He offered Kylun a somewhat wan smile.

Kylun blinked at him. "Is when truly important? You recognize the problem now, and you know that you need to do something about it now; when it started is a curiosity at best. As for the running away . . . would it feel like running away if it were simply another part of your schedule? If it were arranged such that you were not neglecting your duties, but still found, perhaps, at least an hour or two each week to spend time with a friend somewhere other than here?"

Scott gave that some serious thought. "I suppose I am overanalyzing, aren't I?" Pointlessly, when finding the answer wasn't going to make much in the way of difference to any solution. He really wasn't thinking clearly. He gave a little shake of his head, then went on. "It's not a bad idea. I know Ororo does it..."

Kylun nodded. "And I do not think it would be prohibitively difficult to find the time. Perhaps one day a week, you could shorten your office hours. Or even add ten minutes of work to each day for four days; on the fifth, you have nearly three-quarters of an hour saved up." He grinned. "The trick is to keep yourself from using that time to do more work, but if you are expected somewhere . . ."

"I don't really schedule my time that tightly," Scott protested, but then caught the way Kylun was looking at him. "Okay, so I do. Sometimes." Most of the time. "On the other hand," he said a bit dryly, "maybe I'd better think of giving that a try. I'm possibly more likely to stick to it if I do work it into the schedule."

"As I thought," Kylun said comfortably. "Make relaxation and time for yourself one of your responsibilities, perhaps?" He grinned mischievously. "Then you will feel guilty if you neglect it. My master was always a great believer in making virtues of one's weaknesses."

"I'll take a look at my little black book and see what I can do," Scott said, mustering up a wry smile as he rose. "Right now, though, I think I'll leave you to your workout and go find some ice. My hands are going to remind me in the morning of why we approach the heavy bag with moderation."

"Catharsis is sometimes worth a little pain, and even moderation should be approached with moderation," Kylun replied philosophically as he rose himself. "Be well."