The X-Project

Lorna kidnaps Alison to the spa to get the story behind the glowing. Backdated.



Snickering, Alison closed her portable and pushed it aside, before falling back on the couch of her room with as big a smile as any. She was being silly. So. Very. Silly. But it felt good to be so silly and the teasing didn't bother her in the least, even if she was half worried Cain might try to get Haroun to help him paint the deck. Then again, that might not be a bad thing too, she decided, suspecting Haroun would take any occasion to wander about sans shirt, these days.

Not a bad plan at all that, even. Staring ahead with a particularly goofy smile, Alison curled up a bit more comfortably on the couch, the soft glow around her entirely escaping her notice. As did the rest of the world, as that particular instant.

Lorna gave a perfunctory knock on the door then waltzed in, calling out sunnily as she did so. "Fee, fi, fo, fum, I sense the glow of a happy woman." She made a show out of spotting Alison on the couch. "Aha! And there she is, all shiny with gossip and ready for interrogating." She flopped next to her friend on the couch and elbowed her in the ribs. "Get your coat, we're going to get mud treatments and mani-pedis. Then you will talk."

The smile actually grew, along with the glow. With a half snort of laughter, Alison ducked her head and clapped her hands to her cheeks in a completely doomed to failure attempt to still some of the mad grinning going on. "Attempting to bribe me for details on my sex life, are you?" A snicker followed this, Alison leaning against Lorna's shoulder playfully before poking her back in the ribs.

"I'm merely following a time-honored tradition of gossip following sex. I know it's time honored because I saw it on Sex and the City and Sarah Jessica would never lie to me." Lorna looked around the room, "Have I mentioned that I like what you've done with the place?

The room was, without a doubt, very different from what Alison's first room at the mansion had looked like. "I thought it was time for a change of style." The feeling of warmth and welcome was still there, but instead of modern Alison had gone with a more rustic, time worn look, which the bigger room allowed. The large windows allowed for much lighting to pour in the room as well, the landing pad outside the largest one easily visible through the open curtains. "I'm still wavering on the final color set though." The couch was still the same they'd had in their common room when they were still roommates, though, the one bought only a month or so before Lorna moved out. "I don't like Sex and the City. This is not inducing me to talk."

"You don't need inducement to talk. You're dying to talk. You're practically giddy." Lorna poked Alison in the ribs again then jumped up and dragged the other woman to her feet. "Come on, coat, pedicures, gossip and giggling and if you're really good, a home cooked meal."

"He cooked breakfast," Alison beamed, standing up to wander in the general direction of her coat. "It wasn't breakfast in bed because, well, we were out of bed by then," she rambled on pleasantly, tugging a scarf loose absently while remembering that mansion weather wasn't exactly in town weather, and slinging around her neck, "but it was a good breakfast." One had the vague doubt that cardboard would have been deemed a good breakfast, by then.

Lorna restrained the impulse to ask what they'd had only by the last hair of her self-control. Particularly since Alison had dangled the question out there like a gift. She knew her old roommate far far too well. "One should never discount the value of a man who cooks." She got up and flicked open the hall door, bowing grandly, "After you."

Utterly oblivious to Lorna's train of thoughts, Alison babbled on cheerfully, perfectly content with forgetting to pick up the spring jacket she'd hung on the back of her door. "I should stop glowing if we're going out, I guess. But then again it doesn't matter," she grinned, cheerfully. "Not like I'm out as a mutant anyway." And to put it mildly, she wasn't sure she could stop glowing, just now.

"Tell you what, you glow and I won't bother shoving all this hair under a hat." Lorna dug into her pocket and came out with jangling keys. "But I get to drive."

"Okay," was the sing song answer, Alison wandering down the stairs with a silly grin, glow included and all. Not driving meant she didn't have to concentrate on the road, which she was fairly sure she never could have achieved anyway. "No hat!"

"No hat," Lorna agreed, "We'll just be two obvious mutants out to destroy society and be pretty. Possibly not in that order." Lorna grabbed her own jacket from the hook in the garage where she'd left it and slung it over her arm. "Blue car. We're stealing a sporty vehicle this time."

"We're stealing Scott's car?" Alison beamed as she said this, the first sporty blue car to come to mind being Baby, of course. "Only it's not really stealing, since I have permission to make off with it. Only you don't, so maybe it is stealing." Her grin grew, and she shook her head cheerfully. "I'm so being silly, aren't I?"

"Grade A silly. Straight from the Silly farms. But I'll give you a pass for having a good excuse." Lorna unlocked the car and slid inside with a reverent sigh. She glanced over at Alison as she bounced in after her. "And it's not stealing. It's borrowing without asking first. It's not like the keys weren't right there."

Nodding pleasantly, Alison buckled up. And did not giggle or bounce further, somehow, though she was doing that 'if I could, I would curl up in a pretzel I'm so pleased with myself' thing easily enough. "He likes my toes." The deceleration was made with grave solemnity, Alison nodded wisely. "I think a pedi is very much in order."

"He likes your toes?" Lorna glanced over as she zipped out of the garage, eyebrows raised. "As a singled out part of you? I don't get people but you're right, pedis are definitely in order if he likes them." The little car purred and she petted the steering wheel affectionately. "Have I mentioned that I love this car?"

"Legs too." Going down a list of what Haroun had declared he liked would probably take too long. Alison hummed cheerfully, not caring in the least that the glow was back, brighter than ever before. "And yes, you have. Well, I think that the incoherent screaming the last time we took the car meant that, anyway."

"No, the incoherent screaming was me not wanting to die if you scratched the paint job doing your traffic dance." Lorna zipped around a slower moving car. "We need music. Maestro?"

"I would never scratch this car!" The declaration was accompanied by a pout, even as Alison reached for the glove compartment. "I have a mix CD in here somewhere," she muttered, flicking through the case, still humming to herself. "Hey. Look at this." Blinking, Alison lifted out the CD, and then grinned. "Soundtrack it is."

"Its is horribly wrong of me, on this joyous celebration of hot boyfriends that we adore, to say, mmm, Johnny?" Lorna grinned back and increased her speed just a little. The trip into town wasn't really that far and she wanted to get her time's worth out of the car.

"Hey, I'm supposedly married to him or something, if you listen to the gossips," Alison rolled her eyes, then wrinkled her nose. "Nope thanks, back to the sea with you Johnny. I'm perfectly content with my man." The intonation on the last few words was unbearably fond.

"You really are a goner, throwing over Johnny for Haroun. Not that your boyfriend's not hot but...Johnny!" It went without saying that in the same situation, Lorna's response would have been precisely the same.

The seat of the car was leaned back and Alison sprawled comfortably. "Gooone!" A soft giggle followed though soon afterwards Alison sobered up a little. "It was about time too. It's not like either of us didn't want this to happen, but I was starting to wonder if the world was set against us on this or something."

"Oh you only think that because your life has been a series of mishaps and misfortunes recently indicating that you were cursed by unfriendly deities." Lorna tapped her fingers along with the music. "So how did you manage to appease them anyway? You just kinda vanished yesterday. I didn't even know you were gone until I heard Terry complaining about her voice lesson being cancelled."

Alison's glow faded for a moment, as she considered Loki. There were ways to make even gods suffer, she had no doubt, if need be. And then some. She shook her head, deciding to focus on other things. "I promised her a double vocal to make up for it," Alison grinned a little at hearing about the complaining. It was, truly and infinitely wonderful to have someone that enthusiastic about learning to that extent, regardless of the inherent power requirements. Terry already had voice lessons every day and apparently even that wasn't enough to hear her talk about it.

Lorna grinned, "I gathered it was more about a day without your sparkling presence. Seriously, the girl's got a total girl-crush. You're like her hero or something. None of my brats look up to me that way. What are you using to drug her?"

Alison blinked at that, peering curiously at Lorna for a moment. Hero worship? Terry? She was as grounded as any kid was, though perhaps not on the scale Jamie managed, she had to admit. But still... "Hero? Huh?" A light whap on the shoulder of the driver, and Alison settled back lazily. "I'm not drugging her. I've been making her work like a slave over her vocal training, lately. Is being a tyrant hero-worship material?" she asked, grinning in amusement. It was true, though, that Terry had been responding very well to the additional work, though. Hrm.

"I think it's drugs and you can't convince me otherwise." Lorna nodded sharply, "but if you won't share your secrets I guess we'll just drop it and go back to dishing about the big night. So seriously, how'd you get out of here?"

"I say it's my wonderful personality and charm," was the haughty reply, before Alison dissolved in giggles. And glowed. "Flew out. I was still wearing the spring stuff I dug out too, and no shoes. Man, was the hotel clerk working on that straight face after we got shown in the main hall of the building."

"You're joking? You actually had him fly you to a hotel? Gee, Lois, what's it like to date the man of steel?" Lorna whipped the little car into a spot barely ten feet from the door of the spa and flicked off the engine.

"We weren't taking any risks!" Alison protested at that, arms waving a bit as they stepped out of the car. "I swear! Take the car, it'd have blown up or something. Or we'd been run over by a truck. Or, or, a mad car taking over mutant would have attacked us and tried to liberate the poor enslaved car or something!" she paused. "Well, it could have happened! Would have, if we'd tried to drive over!"

"Uh, huh." Lorna held the door to the spa open and gestured Alison in before her. "But you flew to the hotel in spring clothes, which I happen to know are what I would consider summer clothes. I reserve the right to look at you like the crazy-desperate person you are." She beamed at the desk clerk, "Under Dane? Two."

Blink. "Did she reserve yesterday?" Alison asked the clerk, looking at him suspiciously. "Hey! Wait, he hasn't answered!" Alison was dragged off by a laughing Lorna, the clerk not answered - likely having something to do with the glow and the green hair and the way all of his higher brain functions ceased at once and left him babbling pleasantly to the next customer.

"So had you!" Lorna snickered. "I called Lily directly this morning. She bumped like half her client list for the promise of excellent gossip." She glanced over her shoulder at the clerk, fumbling with his appointment book and sneaking looks back at them despite the woman standing in front of him, tapping her foot. "Me or you, you think?"

"Both." Alison waved a hand cheerfully back at the clerk, an after trail of light gleaming in the air for a moment, then winked and tilted her head towards Lorna. The clearly delighted and infatuated grin seemed to be directed to both of them indeed. The client waiting slowly rested her forehead against her hand, shoulders shaking in laughter. "Wheee! Got somewhere with boyfriend! Whee!" The hum was low enough for only Lorna to share, and the glee unmistakable.

Lorna dissolved into giggles and Alison had to be the one to drag them off to the private room where Lily was waiting. "It's a damn good thing you can't actually walk on the air because you so would right now."

"I'm giving it my best shot," Alison replied in a sing song voice ignoring the stares and a few raised eyebrows with oblivious ease. "Lily! Hi!" She was willing to glow and do the whole gossip thing with Lorna, but poor Lily would have to be drawing her own conclusions, at that from whatever Lorna said.

The statuesque beauty--she topped both women by several inches even without the benefit of her killer heels--raised a raven eyebrow at them. The first time they'd met, Lorna had observed that Lily looked like some kind of Greek goddess. "Alison! You look gorgeous, sugar! I won't be able to do a thing to improve that skin! Lorna, pumpkin, what's all this about an emergency?" Of course, goddess like comparisons lasted only until she opened her mouth. Lily was from the deep south and not a drop of her accent had faded.

Lorna shrugged, "It was. Emergency debriefing."

Alison proffered a beaming smile to support that statement, looking for all the world as though she might indeed float away had Lorna not been holding on to her. "I'm glowing. I can't stop. Oops?" It was as close as Alison would ever get to offering an apology should any client take offense to a mutant on the premises - she'd been a client long enough to know that Lily and most spa employees would simply suggest that said offended client go be offended elsewhere. Highly politely of course.

Lily laughed, a deep belly laugh totally at odds with her wand-slim sophisticate frame. "Don't worry, darling. A woman in love is entitled to show it." She reached forward and pulled them both into her workroom. "In with you. I already have everything ready."