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Alex shoved himself up from the ground and slammed a shoulder into Erik's chest. As far as showing any kind of finesse, it didn't, but then again, it wasn't that kind of fight. The hit didn't put Erik on the ground, but it did knock him backwards a couple steps, so Alex gave himself a point.
When they'd switched from directed teaching to real sparring, he'd tried to return Erik's courtesy and avoid landing any hard punches anywhere really nasty, but all it had gotten him was a blunt order to fight properly. Well, that and an open-handed slap to the back of his head hard enough to make his ears ring. He was pretty sure that Erik could have hit quite a bit harder if he'd wanted, but he didn't really want to find out, and since it hadn't been like he a prayer anyway, he'd done as he was told. As expected, he was still losing miserably, but at least Erik was getting muddy now too.
Alex had never been one of the bigger guys on the playground—or in the yard—and he'd learned a long time ago that there were only a couple good options for a shorter, lighter fighter. Well, short of incinerating someone, anyway. He could either dart in and out of range and use speed to land blows that a larger, in-theory slower opponent couldn't return, or get in close where an opponent's longer limbs were more a hindrance than a help. Option A really didn't work so great with Erik; taller and heavier he might be, but he moved like a damn snake on speed. And when it came to option B…well, as far as Alex could tell Erik had absolutely no compunction about taking a few punches, however nasty, if it meant the opportunity to drag his opponent to the ground. And once they were on the ground, it turned it into a grappling match where the weight difference alone pretty much guaranteed that Alex ended up eating mud. Alex had managed to turn the tables on him a few times, but a few times versus about a thousand times just didn't work out. Erik had promised to teach Alex some grappling tricks next time, but…well, this time was this time.
A weight he couldn't sustain came down across his left shoulder in his moment of distraction—Erik was also perfectly willing to fall on the ground if it meant taking Alex down with him—and Alex let himself go, scooping up a handful of mud to fling in Erik's face. A tried and true dirty-fighting trick, even if it was one that Erik had already proven that he knew as well as Alex did. Except that this time when he rolled around, he managed to land pretty much the whole mess in Erik's mouth.
Erik had him in a headlock before 'oh, shit' even made it fully through his consciousness, and he certainly didn't have time to do anything useful like run. And then no amount of scrabbling and squirming was enough to keep Erik from pinning him down in the worst of the muck and rubbing half the rest of the mud from the surrounding area into his hair. At least. In fact, Alex wasn't quite sure if it ended because he finally managed to get out an understandable, 'Sorry, sorry, I give!' or because the mud ran out.
He scrambled to his feet as soon as the grip on his neck released, trying to put some distance between he and Erik. Unfortunately, because the universe hated him, he lost his footing in the mud in his haste and ended up back on the ground with a 'splat.' With Erik looming over him. "Man, life sucks."
Rather than knocking him around any more, Erik actually chuckled—Alex hadn't even known that he could make that sound; the non-shark smiles were still strange enough—and then he spit again and held out a hand. "Come. I think that is enough for today."
Alex was a little wary about accepting the hand up, although he definitely agreed with the sentiment. If Charles saw him looking like this, he probably wouldn't even let him back in the house. Hell, he wasn't even sure how he was going to get upstairs to get changed without leaving a giant trail of mud behind him that would get him kicked out.
There was even mud down in his shoes, Alex realized as Erik tugged him into a standing position and they started the jog back to the house. Talk about gross.
Screams became audible as they approached the mansion, and Erik signaled for him to follow as they made their way around to the other side of the building rather going directly to the front door. When they came around the corner, they found Charles, Moira, and Sean, standing in front of the remains of some kind of wire window, most of the panes of which had already been blown out. No surprise there, given what they'd just heard. Charles and Moira were both wearing ear protection, but apparently, the sound waves hadn't caused any problems for Sean. It made sense, Alex figured. After all, his plasma blasts never hurt him.
Charles turned to them as they approached, his smile disappeared almost instantly when he caught sight of them. "My word! What happened to you? Was there an accident?"
"His fault," Alex declared.
Charles frowned and then pulled off the ear protection. "I beg your pardon?"
"He fell," Erik said, before Alex could repeat himself.
"Yes, well, you don't look a great deal better." Charles shook his head. "Whatever happened, you should both go inside and get changed before you fall ill. You're simply soaked in mud." He paused. "But perhaps…hose off…first. There should be a spigot just around the side of the house. You must have run right past it."
Twenty minutes later, and Alex thought that he'd done a pretty good job of washing up. Or at least the mud had stopped running off him in rivers when he'd ducked under the spigot Charles had directed them to, which had been a definite improvement. More like he'd been dropped in a pond than a pigpen. The double take that Hank gave him when they passed each other in the hall made him wonder, though, even as he settled for a scowl and hurrying past.
"You know, I'm sure that Charles would talk to Erik for you if you asked," Hank said.
Alex turned back towards him. "What?"
Hank shifted awkwardly. "I just mean…well, you've ended up looking a little…rough…after Erik's training sessions. I know there have only been two, but…." He waved a hand vaguely in Alex's direction. "I'm sure that Charles could convince him to back off. Just a little. I mean, if you wanted him to."
"He's not that bad," Alex found himself defending. "I can handle it." Hank didn't look convinced, but then again, he didn't even have a spine to speak of, so Alex decided that it wasn't worth arguing about. "Forget about it, okay? I'm fine. Just…wet."
"Your hair is brown. And you aren't wearing any shoes or socks."
"Wet and muddy." Despite best efforts. "And I left my shoes by the side door." Even fast-running water hadn't been quite enough to rinse all the mud off them, and he really hadn't wanted to mess up Charles' fancy rugs. But considering that muddying him up was about as minor as anything Erik could have inflicted short of ignoring what Alex had done, he still didn't see why Hank was worrying. "Excuse me."
His hair was blond again by dinner—he made sure of that when he got out of the shower—and Sean apparently had cooking duty tonight because when Alex wandered down to the kitchen there were two skillets on the stove with something bubbling inside them and Sean was standing over the kitchen sink gargling something. Another of Hank's potions, if the half-full glass of cloudy something in his hand was anything to go by.
"Are you all right?" Alex asked.
Sean spit a mouthful of liquid into the sink. "Overstressed my vocal cords," he croaked. "Again. But it's not as bad this time, and hey, I was hitting the right panel by the end. Of course, I was still hitting most of the others too, but…." He shrugged, setting the glass down and turning to mix up whatever was in the two skillets. "What happened to you? I figured Erik must have dragged you off to train again, but you came back looking like you'd been dropped in a swamp or something. I didn't even know there were any swamps around here."
Alex shrugged, moving up to look past Sean's shoulder at whatever was cooking. Ground beef and…beans? Whatever; his cooking abilities didn't extend much past scrambled eggs so he wasn't going to comment. "Yeah, we were training, and it was actually going pretty well at first. I think I remembered more of the throws than he expected, and then he showed me a couple more, plus counters for some of the others. But then I sort of made him eat mud—literally, even if it was an accident—and..." He shrugged.
"And you're not in the hospital?" Sean put the spatula down and turned back towards him. "Are you sure that you shouldn't be? I mean, you don't have any busted ribs or anything?"
"What? No. I'm fine. I just got muddy." Seriously, between Sean and Hank…it wasn't like Erik was that bad. Not someone that you messed with, obviously, but he had yet to beat anyone here bloody. Not even him, with whom Erik could legitimately call it training.
"Better you than me, I guess," Sean said after a minute, shaking his head. "Anyway, it's tacos tonight if you haven't guessed, so do you mind shredding some lettuce for me? You can just put it in that bowl over there. I'll get the tomatoes chopped, and I think Raven said there was still some shredded cheese left in one of the bins."