Sam took another sip of his drink, ”Everyone reacts to things differently. I for one like to hit things till they make sense. Mind and body need to be exhausted until things start to become clear.” he set his glass down then smirked, ”You want to hit some things? See if it helps?” Sam asked Aiden curiously. The icemancer could always go for hitting some things.

”You, me, and the danger room. Good ol’fashion brawl.” Sam smirked. Hoping he was going to get the answer he wanted.

Hit things. Riiiiight. Was his face showing what he thought about hitting things as a solution to stress? Probably. For someone in training for what was technically a combat-based job, he wasn't that big on the fighting part. He was there for the helping part.

"In case you forgot, hitting other people doesn't exactly reduce my stress." It hadn't even been that small of a breakdown the first time he hit Cafas in any form. Not that he liked to remember it. He'd really much rather not think about it at all.

...

On the other hand...

"I suppose knocking myself unconscious kind of counts at sleeping," he allowed, very hesitantly.

”Well, it’s settled then!” Sam laughed slammed the rest of his glass and picked up the rest of the fifth. ”You and I are going to the danger room for some sparring! I need to hit things too!” Sam said clapping his hands excitedly as he pushed himself up from the desk.

”Come ‘on it will be fun and you can get some practice in. Think of it as some sparring after death. Adrenaline should be pumping in full!” he took a pull from the bottle this time and walked to his office door waiting for Aiden. ”Unless… you want to sit here and mope. If that is the case you can mope over my paperwork.” Sam said knowing if Aiden did stick around and mope with his paperwork it would be done.

”Live a little! You got a new lease on life.” Sam said as he waved him forward and headed down to the danger room.

Regret.

That was the sensation of the moment. Also, apprehension and a very large dose of what in the world had he just agreed to no he knew what but WHY

But he had, and he had had a reason. He might as well see it through. Or more through. Sam was a very significant member of the X-Men even if he had issues. Aiden ought to be able to trust him to stop if he asked.

"It's your paperwork," Aiden muttered rather than actually protesting as he left his chair. "You do it." And, really, he had had enough of moping and floating around aimlessly, accomplishing nothing. Running was a little bit better but, really, it didn't do much. It didn't get him anywhere. And also it didn't have the opportunity to knock himself out with his powers because he didn't stay in the same area long enough to develop the snow anywhere near far enough.

"Mind throwing some snow around to start?"

”That was the plan, I never really got to see you use your powers other than from far away. Kinda curious myself as to how your powers differ from mine.” When they got to danger room Sam entered and immidetly turned his powers on running and jumping on a ice slide. Sam slid about then started firing beams of ice around until there were a bunch of pillars. Sam then started to cue the snow forming ice crystals around him and pushing it out further.

”Temperature doesn’t bother you right?” Sam asked already lowering the temperature. The god room reacted by showing the temperature as Sam caused it to drop. Ice started to from on Sam as well first coating his legs then his torso and arms.

”How much snow you want?” he asked still willing more and more to form around him. Another few beams of ice and some snow started to appear over the terrain.

"Try a whole lot less useful," Aiden called, but Sam was already sliding away. He sighed a little. Yeah, if mutant powers were put on a scale, he'd definitely be down near the bottom. Not pointless, but a bit of durability wasn't really that applicable to a lot of this stuff. Not when people could do that.

Ice flying everywhere at least made him not hot. He might as well enjoy that, and take Sam's prep time as an opportunity to stretch. Once he was physically-warmed-up-but-not-temperaturely-warmed-up, he had the Danger Room generate copies of the batons he'd been missing since Alaska. Even if he probably couldn't hit Sam if he tried, regardless of how much he'd be trying (aka not very much, because hitting people) he'd still much rather not be unarmed.

Even if it was like bringing a knife to a nuke fight. Not the same class at all.

"If it's not making me overheat, it's more that I don't notice at all than just a matter of not being bothered." Swinging the batons loosely, he tried to remind his muscles of their old training. This was not going to go well. He was way too rusty, plus what if whatever happened in Alaska happened again? He wasn't going to think about that, he was just going to exhaust himself and give himself a nice, long, unconscious break.

Which required getting fully into snowmode, ideally sooner rather than later so that it could collect everything. He moved a bit closer to Sam, and the drifting flakes started casually drifting over to him like it was totally normal for snowflakes to do that. Bit by bit, they clung to his skin, his clothes, his hair, and stained everything snow-white.

When the last bit of colour had vanished, Aiden rolled his shoulders one last time. "This is enough to keep me going, although I heal faster if there's more around." That just made it sound like he wanted Sam to hit him. Which... was convolutedly true, but not masochistically. He just wanted to be out of it for a while. Was that so bad?

Sam skated around a bit more watching Aiden stretch, then the batons were noticed next then the white skin. Almost like he was absorbing all the snow around him. Sam wondered what exactly Aiden capable of. He knew his power set was snow, however Sam never really bothered to get that hands on with seeing what he could do. It was something that kind of got ignored because he was so confident in his own abilities. It wasn’t fair to Aiden though and after he marched into his office Sam decided to see what the snow man is capable of.

”So… frosty the snowman heals?” he asked with a smirk trying to feel for Aiden. His body temperature was far lower than he was used to reading in fact there were moments if Sam closed his eye he wouldn’t know that Aiden was there. So he was capable of masking his body temperature? But to what extent?

”Do you feel pain? Please say no” Sam asked as he charged Aiden and went for a roundhouse kick to the snowman’s thigh followed with a quick punch to the chest. They were a little bit slower but if he wasn’t used to fighting he would have gotten hit by both attacks.

Oh please no.

"Please don't call me that," Aiden muttered, turning to keep an eye on Sam even though they hadn't really started yet. He had a feeling that there wasn't going to be any sort of formal start, though, so he didn't let his focus fall completely on finding his balance and adjusting to the familiar-forgotten weight of the batons. "You're more of a Frosty anyway. Have you looked in a mirror?" All glittery with ice on his skin.

...not that Aiden could really say anything about glittering. Snow sparkled way more than ice. Ice was just shiny.

"If I didn't heal, I never would have survived long enough to enroll here in the first place." Sam was way more mobile than he was. And faster, and more experienced, and more practiced with a vastly more powerful mutation. If this were a real mission, and Sam were an actual opponent, Aiden would be ----ed.

So very, very much.

Pain? Wait, there was his move. Aiden moved a little more onto the balls of his feet, regular runners more familiar but less flexible than his original uniform's footwear, and pivoted clear of the first kick. Fresh snowflakes spun and danced in his path, kicked into both motion and existence by the fluid motion -

And then made their oh-so-casual way over when he turned right into a second attack. A fist might have less force than a foot, and the snow might wash away the pain almost immediately, but still -"...ow" Aiden muttered, quickly stepping backwards and rubbing his elbow against where Sam had hit him. "Healing means damage goes away, not that I don't get hurt," he grumbled. "But I guess it hurts less because it doesn't stick around."

Now that they had so clearly begun, Aiden kept moving, still not as practiced at maintaining his snow generation as he could be but at least conscious of what indirect control he had. "Just please don't cut anything off or anything."

...Less because of how it would leave him unconscious for quite a while and more because the regenerated tissue would be kind of permanently white.

Sam smirked when Aiden gave an explanation of his healing. ”Pain is good though. It makes you learn. Even if it is just for a second.” Sam said as he charged forward and threw another round of punches. Three this time. Kidney and ribs were easy targets and if hit right they leave more pain. Sam wanted to see how much pain Aiden could take. This was a way of reminding the snow dancer that he was indeed alive and well. Pain was a good reminder of that, which was why Sam enjoyed fighting so much now, it was a constant reminder that he too was alive.

”You just going to get hit or you gonna try to fight back. I can always get a few constructs form the danger room if you aren’t going to make this hard for me.” Sam taunted, ”Or is dancing all you can do?” Sam asked and slammed the ground causing ice to spread out under them as he charged Aiden once again and tried to sweep the dancers leg.

Why

Had

He

Agreed

To

This? Aiden sidestepped the grouped punches as best he could, catching the edge of the last on a rib and wincing. "I'm still just aiming for a decent nap," he muttered, and quick-stepped back a bit. Seriously, why had he agreed to this? Other than the sleep. This ought to give him a couple of minutes so far. How much did he want to go for?

He just sighed at Sam's attempts to taunt him. He didn't like hitting people, especially people he knew. Even Sam hadn't been annoying enough to make Aiden want to hurt him. Yet.

He was getting annoying enough to make Aiden want to show him up a little bit, though. No, dancing wasn't all he could do - but it certainly had its uses, like allowing him to dive sideways over Sam's leg, rolling a bit and landing on one of his batons: he twisted it to dig the handguard into the fresh ice and kicked off it to launch himself back at Sam.

At which point he did not attempt to land a blow, but instead just 'danced' past.

Because Sam was not quite annoying enough yet.

The ice mancer smirked at the snow-dancer as he avoided one attack after another. It was clear that dancing did allow Aiden to be far more nimble than the typical thugs he was used to beating up. Aiden could give Private Dancer a run for his money on dodging attacks. Sam smirked, ”So you can move, that’s good. How are you an X-Man again though?” Sam said as he turned and launched himself forward again towards the dancer.

Sam waved his hand on the ground then threw on hand up then the other trying to send a few shards of ice towards the side of the dancer. Sam then followed up with a front kick snapping his leg back as fast as it was out making it far more difficult. If Aiden was good at dodging Sam was going to make it hard for him. The shards weren’t just there to clip the dancer they were there to slow him down if he didn’t get caught meaning the kick that he had sent out would have a better chance of connecting.

”How did you manage to die?” Sam asked taunting the mutant, ”Dance into a bullet?”

"If everyone else is busy throwing punches and visiting Doc Prof, maybe it's time for at least one person who doesn't make everything a biohazard with spilled blood." It was kind of a random retort, but then Aiden was distracted, short on sleep, and increasingly annoyed. There might also be something to be said for having his first bit of alcohol floating around.

Inhibitions aside, though, Aiden was still having little trouble floating around the Danger Room. He was moving enough to generate a fair amount of his own snow now, and expected it to make it harder for Sam to track his movement. He couldn't expect it to make him invisible, especially with what the senior X-Man had said about his temperature sense, but every little bit of camouflage ought to help.

He also needed to remember that it impacted his sight as well. The ice shards glinted differently than the snow, and certainly moved differently, but they didn't have as much contrast as Sam did. Aiden saw them too late to dodge entirely, but did see a leg that wasn't made of frozen water. He let himself fall backwards, breath sucking in as two of the ice shards bit into his chest.

Aiden rolled backwards, snow spiralling in to repaint his flesh white where red had briefly shown, but needed a moment to regain his feet and fluidity.

"The car to the face or the mystery mountain?" he muttered, rubbing at the ice shards' tracks. They were shallow and almost healed, but the faint shape of the ragged tears in his shirt were still present. His old shirts didn't fit and he hadn't had an opportunity to really go shopping yet. And he actually had to go out in person at least once because he didn't freaking know what size shirt he was anymore, so he couldn't just buy everything online.

It probably wasn't very visible, given the white-on-white of Aiden's snow form, but there was a bit of an eye twitch there.

”We give the old man job security.” Sam responded even quicker by throwing a large snowball followed by a kick to the chest. Sam hopped back and watched as the wounds got coated with snow the way ice sealed his wounds. The only difference was that when Sam coated his wounds with ice it usually was just a time delay before he needed to see a healer. Aiden didn’t have to do that. Maybe that was why he was giving Sam flack about having to go to the healer. Clearly the man didn’t enjoy the old man’s company.

”Misty Mountain?” Sam asked as he did a little spin to mock Aiden’s fluid movements. The icemancer could dance and he always prided himself on his movements but he was far less graceful than Aiden. ”No time for the Hobbit, but we can talk about the movie later!” Sam said as he slid in towards Aiden jumping and trying to land a kick at the snowman’s chest once again.

When his feet hit the ground Sam turned his fist quickly to find the white figure hoping to make more contact. This was supposed to be more for Aiden but the longer this was going the more and more Sam started to feel good. Probably not something an X-man and a teacher of the subject should admit.