xp_logs | Nathan, Haroun and Jim, Wednesday at lunch

Backdated to Wednesday and set earlier in the day, before Haroun's unfortunate encounter with the lake. After a Danger Room session, he and Nathan head upstairs to find some lunch and run into Jim. Philosophical discussion follows. And soup.

"So tell me," Nathan said sweetly as the elevator reached the first floor. He and Haroun had agreed prior to their Danger Room session that they'd head upstairs to the kitchen for lunch afterwards; Haroun had stuck to the agreement despite the results of the session, although he appeared to be grinding his teeth at the moment. "How precisely is it that you didn't learn from Tim swatting you back and forth in Canada and just let me do precisely the same thing?"

Haroun cheerfully flipped his friend the bird. "We stipulated hand-to-hand." he said cheerfully. "And the Big Bird reaches far farther than I can, so I wind up getting birdslapped a lot." he added, playing with his ring on his finger. "Give me some grenades, and you'd be singing a different tune entirely."

Jim, just reaching the foot of the stairs, blinked as the two men stepped off the elevator. He couldn't help but smile at the shred of conversation he'd caught. "Well," he said, venturing the rest of the way around the bannister, "I guess that answers the question of whether or not Nathan was joking."

"Of course I wasn't joking," Nathan said cheerfully. "Haroun has an unhealthy affinity for explosions. I'm sure it's something he'll grow out of very soon." He stepped prudently away from Haroun as he said it. "Join us for lunch?"

Jim barely hesitated. "I was going in that direction anyway. Somehow I just can't remember to keep my own refridgerator stocked." He glanced at the two men, noticing they appeared to have showered recently, and raised an eyebrow. "Training?"

Haroun thbbbbted at Nathan. "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a grenadier kid..." he sang, then grinned at David. "Lunch sounds good. I'm so hungry I could eat a camel."

"Why is it that you can say that with apparent sincerity and yet turn your nose up at horsemeat?" Nathan asked as they headed down the hall towards the kitchen. "Highly, highly inconsistent."

"Exaggeration for comedic effect wasn't one of your core courses, was it?" he said with a laugh. Turning to Jim, he rolled his eyes. "See what I have to put up with? First he tries to get me to eat horseflesh - which wouldn't really be a problem if it was killed correctly but these things most definitely weren't and then he leaves me to die on the steppe then he conspires with my fiancee on ring-construction - I am telling you he has it in for me." he mock-whined.

Jim smiled. "Fortunately I don't think we have to choose. Though you're probably right about the killing. At least, if no one was joking about the venision." He glanced askance at Nate. "You helped Alison design a ring? Before or after abandoning her fiance on the steppes?"

"Well before," Nathan said placidly. "And Haroun, you're leaving out the fact that your fiancee gave me permission to get creative with you while we were in Kazakhstan if I saw the opportunity. She trusts me implicitly. It's a novel feeling."

"Beset at all sides!" he wailed, then laughed. "You see? At this rate I'm going to sleep with a gun under the pillow - except that that would cheese off She Who Must Be Obeyed." he grinned. "I like being able to see."

Jim tried to picture Alison angry after the giddily-luminous first encounter they'd had, then decided it was probably better for his sanity if he didn't. "Are guns allowed here?" he asked instead. "I didn't know Charles condoned forms of violence beyond the strictly biological."

"There are a few," Nathan answered. "Moira has her father's hunting rifles here under lock and key. I think Pete's maybe got a gun. I know I don't, and it's been so long since I did that the lack's stopped feeling unnatural."

"Unfortunately for me, I don't even own any firearms." Haroun said morosely. "Everyone enjoys picking on the poor defenseless Moor." he mock-grumbled. "Woe."

Jim laughed. "Well, I'm not one of those people who throw a parking garage on top of himself without getting hurt. If I run into anyone with good enough shielding, I'm a little screwed." He settled against the counter to watch Haroun inspect the refridgerator's contents with a critical eye, shrugging. "The telepathy's let me down before. I'd feel better with something to fall back on."

"Not feasible," Nathan said, heading over to one of the cupboards. He felt the bizarre urge for soup. "Not in a school full of kids. We train so that those who do not wear black leather don't need to take it upon themselves to pick up a gun and kill people."

Jim blinked over at him. "I don't mean to kill, either. And when it comes right down to it, there's not much difference between some of the mutations here and a loaded gun. Personally, I'd prefer that the kids were taught to handle both responsibly rather than find that out on their own. You can teach consequences. And restraint." Charles certainly had.

"Guns produce a false sense of power," Nathan said a bit curtly, taking a can of chicken soup out of the cupboard. "At least when it's your power, what you are and what you feel is tied up in any decision to use it."

"But for those of us who do wear black leather..." Haroun said, then let it die. He closed the fridge and opened a cabinet to continue the so-far-fruitless Quest for Food.

Jim turned to Nathan for a moment. "It's not always your decision," he said quietly. He shook his head slightly before looking away again. "I agree about the false sense of power. That's why it's important to teach consequences. It's easy to use a weapon if you don't understand what will happen. Any weapon."

Haroun almost sprained his neck nodding to that thought. "Responsibility is one of the first and best things we need to be teaching." he said. "Responsibility of thought, responsibility of action. Very, very important."

Jim nodded at him. "Yes."

Nathan eyed both of them. "All right. This has clearly gone beyond the whole issue of guns, and really, since I can't disagree with the whole responsibility thing, I'm not going to. But when it comes to the guns? I have been using guns and training people to use guns for about as long as both of you have been alive. And speaking from that position of experience, I would sooner beat myself into another concussion with a gun than put it into the hands of ninety-nine percent of the students and a good portion of the staff here."

Haroun thought about that for a moment, and then shook his head. "I have to disagree." he said. "I'd put a gun in some of these kids' hands. Really, they could do far more damage with a scream or a blast than they could with a 9-mil." he pointed out. "So I don't think your line about the power that comes from the barrel of a gun is really appropriate. Besides, if the little rotters start shooting themselves maybe we'll get some peace and quiet around here." he mock-grumbled. "That's a joke, Nathan. Think about your blood pressure."

Jim snorted at that, well aware his own wasn't doing much better. He took a deep breath before he attempted to speak again. "Giving them access isn't the point," he said, massaging his temples "The people you don't want holding a gun are the ones most likely to get their hands on one. The ones that don't care about rules or consequences. It's worse with mutants. Genetics are random. Not everyone is equipped to deal with the power they could have, let alone what they already do. If we don't teach them the consequences of using their powers, there's a real chance they'll have to find out for themselves the hard way."

"The kids around here do not get their hands willy-nilly on guns," Nathan said, with a certain amount of finality. "Even if they did, they would not get them in here past Lee, and I'm rather happy knowing that. You can misuse mutant powers, and I'd like to know when in this conversation I advocated not teaching them the consequences of using their powers, but guns are different. Even the consequences are different. Why do you think the phrase 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' came into existence? Because people needed to be reminded that it's far too easy to create a psychological separation between yourself and an act of violence when you're committing it with a gun." Okay, so he was sounding a little lawyerly. They'd started it. "A handgun is a tool to kill people. I've shot more people than I like to remember, and there's a reason I stuck to guns even when the trainers at Mistra gave me a hard time about it. Because when you don't have a choice about killing, the separation a gun allows you, especially when you're a telepath, is sometimes the only thing that saves your sanity."

"And that's great - if you're a telepath. But not everyone is, thank Allah." Haroun said fervently. Then he looked at the other two men. "Shit, I'm the only one here without a big brain. Outnumbered again."

"And again, we see your fixation on certain issues getting into the way of listening to me," Nathan grumbled, and glanced at the soup can. The lid peeled back, and he went over to the stove, a pot and one of the jugs of milk from the fridge joining him. "What saved me would screw them."

Jim's answering laugh was bitter. "As far as violence is concerned, all roads lead to the same destination. I wasn't always a telepath. Guns or mutancy, makes no difference -- in the end, it's all power. It's all you. The only difference is how hard you fall before you learn."

Haroun aha'ed as he finally came across something he wanted to eat - a bag of baby carrots and a bottle of Ranch dressing. "Gotta say, the new guy's got you dead-bang." he commented to Nathan. He then turned his eyes to the ceiling. "Why IS IT that I keep winding up liking the ones with the ultra-lethal genomes?" he complained, possibly to God.

Nathan shook his head. "Give it another twenty years," he said somewhat sardonically. "Or don't. Honestly, I'd rather the two of you never get to the point where distinctions like the one I just made make all the difference." Steam started rising from his soup. "As for you and your preference for those of us with lethal genomes, Haroun, let's not go there. Because if we got into that conversation again I'd have to throttle you in front of the new counselor here and I suspect he's already been traumatized enough by his first couple of weeks."

Jim smiled wryly, but let the subject drop. "Yeah, it's probably best to back away slowly and not look back. No one needs more trauma. Although I could use a good carcinogen." He straightened away from the counter, fishing his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. His smile went lopsided, softening slightly. "Unhealthy fixation with burning objects. The lethal genome cries out to be fed."

"Want some of the soup?" Nathan asked, not calling him 'Jim' by the skin of his teeth. Something Moira had said had made him think that perhaps he should reserve that for when he and Jim were alone. "I think I've managed not to burn it. I am after all the former cooking teacher in the room," he quipped.

"Sheesh." Haroun said, but agreed silently to let the whole thing drop. "Think that the hungry hordes spared me some Gatorade?" he mused out loud to no-one in particular as he went back to search the fridge once again. Inside the questionable privacy of his head, jealousy of the stronger genomes warred with a desire to just sit back, let it go, and enjoy the company. "You did a helluva good job with Big Bird, Nate." he said, changing the topic.

"I'm still amazed it's getting so easy so fast," Nathan said. "And I hope the 'Big Bird' moniker doesn't stick. I have terrible images now of walking up to the supervillain du jour, saying 'Asking is a good way of finding things out!' and then buffeting him into unconsciousness while you all stare blankly at me." He gave Jim an innocent look. "Soup?"

"Um . . ." Jim's gaze flicked uncertainly from Nathan to the cigarettes still in his hand and back again, momentarily at a loss. Then he laughed softly and repocketed the pack, shaking his head. "Yes. Please. I guess the lethal genome can wait."

Haroun crunched a carrot and looked at Jim's pack of smokes. "Nasty habit, those. Body's a temple and all that." he said with amusement. On this topic, he and Big Bird over there were in complete agreement. "Soup's a far better deal."

Jim smiled slightly. "Yeah, I know. Just can't seem to shake it." He found himself a bowl and spoon and pulled up a seat with the other men. "Do all arguments end with food or drink here? I have so much to learn."