The Count of Monte Cristo (Nathan, Jim, Saul)

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

Nathan and Jim are in the city taking in some culture when Saul shows up unexpectedly. (Yes, Nathan will be getting scanned for a microchip as soon as they get back to the mansion.) Surprisingly, Saul's there with the best of intentions. Really. Unfortunately, that doesn't actually help. Nate and Jim both get a little frayed around the edges in their own unique ways, and Jim gets to do something that a large portion of the mansion has probably been wanting to do for the better part of a year. Go Jim!


"If I can't go to Bhutan," Nathan said with satisfaction as he and Jim wandered slowly through the gallery, "at least I can ogle pictures." And these were lovely, showing off the natural beauty of the tiny Himalayan country as well as its Buddhist architecture and people. He'd come across the advertisment for the exhibit and decided that an afternoon out wouldn't hurt.

"I'm sure you'll get around to it eventually," Jim smiled from his inspection of an enormous full-color display of a thangka. #Join the X-Men, see the world,# he added telepathically. He made mental note of the plaque that explained the symbolism; photography wasn't normally his area of interest when it came to art, but religious iconography had always fascinated him.

Nathan studied the picture, fascinated. "A real-life Shangri-La," he said a bit dreamily. "With mountains to climb." The pictures of the mountains had been driving him very quietly insane. He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed it, these last couple of years.

Jim's inspection moved now to the representation of the white and gold structure of the Punakha Dzong, outlined by an unbelievably blue sky. "I begin to see the appeal," he said. "It looks like a nice place to pursue both inner tranquility and rappelling. Potentially both at once."

"I love climbing. I don't know why, necessarily... I just feel more calm hanging off a rock face than I do most other places." Nathan chuckled, remembering. "I took one of the students ice climbing last winter, I remember... that's fun too."

"Maybe hanging on by your fingernails is your natural state at this point," Jim grinned. "You took the students? Did anything explode or attack?"

"One student. And no. She did very well, actually." He wondered suddenly if Jubilee might not be adverse to getting away and doing some climbing some weekend that she was home. Maybe she missed it. "I used to be quite good with them, you know," he said with a wry little smile. "The students, and not making them explode..."

Jim laughed. "I don't think Marius counts. Why do you say 'used to'? You seem to do all right with them, from what I've seen."

"I don't know," Nathan said with a shrug, the smile dropping off his face. "It just... doesn't work the way it used to. You have no idea how nervous I've been, taking Jean's classes... okay, maybe you do."

The younger man gave him a sympathetic smile. "It's natural that you feel a little uncomfortable easing back into things. I was off for, what, a solid month when I came back? I know you've had a lot to deal with the last few months, but maybe this will be good for you now that things have settled down. You did say you missed it. What's the problem, exactly?"

Nathan shrugged again, part of him recognizing it for the defensive gesture it was. "I don't trust myself, I suppose. Wary of engaging with them too closely... it doesn't work, so I don't really want to do it." Okay, now that just sounded flat-out irrational.

"How does it not work?" Jim raised an eyebrow. "I think you're thinking about it too hard. Second-guessing yourself does more harm than good after a certain point. If it's your predisposition to get close to the kids . . . well, if the kids choose to reciprocate I can't see a way to argue with the situation."

"Yeah, well, maybe I shouldn't have the predisposition," Nathan said, his eyes flickering over a picture of a pair of grinning children playing in a field of flowers, the ever-present mountains in the background. "I get too close and lose my perspective, and I do them more harm than good."

"It depends on the perspective." Jim followed his eyes to the photograph. "The kids need someone to see things from theirs, every now and then. If you're worried about your judgement, well, that's what the rest of the staff is for. We're not operating in a void."

"I'm rusty," Nathan groused, knowing that now, his argument really was getting weak. "And I don't know whether or not my instincts can lead me anywhere but astray anymore. It's just that-" The words froze on his tongue as he turned, his face going gray at the sight of the man standing on the other side of the room, attention seemingly fixed on one of the photographs.

Jim noticed the abrupt absence of movement and started to turn. #Nathan?#

Saul looked around slowly, his expression calm, utterly unsurprised - yet faintly troubled, too, as he met Nathan's eyes. Nathan took a step back as if his father had hit him, his breath coming raggedly and the color staying stubbornly gone from his face. His head was spinning, the memory of that night in the restaurant rushing back to mind.

Saul wouldn't. Not in a public place like this, out in the open...

#Nate!# Jim sent as the other man stumbled back, bringing his hands sharply around Nathan's shoulders. The flow of Nathan's thoughts was chaotic, but images swirled on the surface -- scenes and memories that featured the big, bearded man across the room. His . . . father? That's his father?

"Out," Nathan finally managed to croak, his voice barely audible. Jim's hands on his shoulders jarred him back to some awareness of where they were and what they needed to do, and he straightened, trying to stop shaking. #We need to get out. Away from people.# Large numbers of innocent people, and he wasn't going to chance that Gideon wasn't here, not this time...

Jim nodded, keeping one hand on Nathan's back as they headed for the exit. He hadn't heard much about Nathan's father, but what he had had been enough. For once, his thoughts were calm. Calm, and full of a cold, brittle anger that he felt only rarely these days. Jim kept his mouth shut and his mind quiet as they stepped back into the daylight, his only concession a low-level psychic presence in the other man's mind.

Nathan's breathing was growing more rapid, not less, even as they got out into the bright sunlight. "Damn it," he muttered unevenly. "He should not be able to do this... how does he find me?" Scott's comments about a microchip really probably ought to be investigated.

"He's not a telepath, is he?" Jim asked. Reaching out to a strange mind wasn't his first inclination, and given Nathan's history with the man Jim wasn't eager to take the chance.

Nathan shook his head as they started down the street. "No, but I suppose that doesn't mean he doesn't have one on staff. Or something. There has to be something." He looked back over his shoulder and swallowed as he saw Saul come out the front door of the gallery and turn to follow them. "Shit."

#If you want to try a repeat of the stunt with Cthon, just say the word.# Jim was fairly certain Charles would hear him if he shouted, limited range or not, but what could he do? Saul hadn't shown any sign of initiating trouble, and by the time anyone else arrived it would probably be too late. Even if not, the presence of interlopers would likely only serve to escalate the situation.

Nathan stopped and took a deep, almost gulping breath, his gaze shifting to the small park across the stream. "Come on," he said, and took advantage of the break in traffic to cross. "To hell with this," he said raggedly, and sat down hard on the closest bench. "I'm not running away from him. I'm not," he went on almost feverishly as Saul crossed the street to follow them. "And if he pulls out that gadget of his again I'm going to give him a stroke."

"I'll help," Jim said flatly. He reached into his pocket and lit a cigarette as he took a seat beside Nathan, waiting for the man to approach. I don't need telepathy to beat the shit out of him.

Saul joined them, moving unhurriedly, as if out for an afternoon stroll. His expression was just as calm as it had been back in the gallery, save for the tightness around his eyes as he focused on Nathan, as if Jim wasn't even sitting there.

Nathan returned the gaze with one full of flat hatred. Because that was what he was feeling, all at once - hatred, that the man standing in front of them could still make him feel so small. "What do you want?"

"Just to talk, Nathan."

"And if I don't want to talk? Going to psionically electrocute me again?"

Jim listened in silence, opening his psychic defenses just enough to be aware of the mind in front of him. The idea was to detect any abrupt action that was about to occur, but Saul's mind was . . . everywhere. The man swarmed with mental activity, a dull psychic roar as incomprehensible as the buzzing of a hive of bees. Impossible to read, impossible to target. Jim took another drag, withdrawing again. Fists were fine with him.

Saul just gazed at Nathan for a long, long moment. Finally, when the silence had stretched to an almost unbearable tension, he broke it.

"Do you have anything to do," he said quietly, "with certain difficulties that your uncle finds himself facing of late?"

Nathan twitched violently, again as if Saul had struck him. It seemed to be all the answer his father needed. His expression went grave, something that could almost be real worry reflected in his eyes.

"Nathan... you don't want to be challenging him directly like this."

Nathan came off the bench in one smooth motion that should have, by all rights, ended somewhere in the vicinity of his father's throat. It didn't, and he wasn't sure why. Public place? Oh, right.

"I want him ruined," he hissed at his father, almost contemptuously.

#Careful,# Jim sent, rising in a more sedate but no less inevitable motion. #Though if you want I can try to shield us from the street. At least until you can get him into a dark alley.#

"You've taken on too much." There was no edge to Saul's voice, no challenge. He hadn't backed off for a moment, not even when Nathan had erupted up off the bench at him. "You can't fight him like this and win..."

"I almost won in Africa!" Nathan flung at him. "Until you shot me in the back-"

They were a ways from the street, and the park was relatively deserted, but Jim decided screening wouldn't be such a bad idea anyway. Nathan's body-language wasn't precisely subtle, and the last thing they needed to deal with was police report by a concerned citizen. Jim slipped his mind outward to erase their presence from the perception of anyone within their eyeline. Manipulating outside minds was still a little invasive for his tastes, but it was at least something he had experience with. As he did so he lay a steadying psychic hand at Nathan's back. #Calm down. Don't let him draw you out like this.#

Nathan took another unsteady breath and then turned away, shuddering. "If things are starting to happen," he said, "he's earned that. Ten times over. I only wish it was possible to do the same to you."

Saul drew himself upwards, just a little, but instead of answering gave Jim a long look. "I don't know you," he said, sounding almost surprised.

"Je-- David Haller," Jim said, barely missing a beat at the slip. He was angry, and now distracted as well -- it was skewing his responses, and the normal answers weren't coming as naturally as they usually did. Jim flicked ash from the end of his cigarette and met the man's gaze coldly. "I'm new."

"Mmm," Saul said, looking from him to Nathan and then back again. "A new staff member, I'm-"

"Don't DO THAT!" Nathan snapped, whirling on his father. "Pretending you're being reasonable, but you're really gathering intel for him... don't think I don't know what you're doing!"

"You do not and never have understood what I'm doing!" It came out in a growl that heightened the resemblance between father and son to an eerie level. "And right now, I'm trying to prevent you from making a dangerous mistake, Nathan Christopher."

"What?" Nathan demanded contemptuously. The bench behind him rattled with the overflow of TK. "What will he do, Dad? Try and kill my family again, to keep me in line?"

That reminder of past crimes brought another rush of fury, but some of Jim's internal checks were beginning to function again. As much as he would have liked to watch Nathan beat his father to death, part of him recognized the consequences that might follow. Consequences that might involve Moira and Rachel. Jim lay a restraining hand on Nathan's arm, hard brown eyes still fixed on Saul. "Didn't your plan factor in the possibility he would fight back?" Jim asked. "Not very realistic."

Saul's gray eyes were cool again as he turned his attention to Jim. "Perhaps I should be speaking to you, since my son, as usual, is refusing to listen to me." Nathan was breathing hard, but didn't retort or pull away from Jim. "My plan," Saul went on, something close to bitterness in his voice for a moment, "did not include watching him make foolish choices about how he would fight back. If what's been happening thus far is an indication of what's to come, the consequences are going to be unpredictable and disastrous." Saul's eyes went back to Nathan. "You cannot," he said, enunciating each word clearly, "beat him. Not right now, and not in this way. What sort of reaction do you believe you'll provoke, Nathan?"

"It can hardly be worse than what he's done so far," Nathan hissed.

Saul's expression was flat. "How many friends do you have, son?" His voice was almost soft. "How many people do you care about, whom you would rather not lose? The only one who's absolutely safe from your uncle is Rachel. I think you know that."

There was, in that moment, very nearly a large crater where the park was. But Nathan swallowed the horror and anger, just like he forced the power back down as he turned away, tottering on his feet and barely making it back to the bench before his knees gave out on him.

Jim moved to place himself slightly in front of Nathan, one hand now on the other man's shoulder. He could feel the turmoil in Nathan's mind, and it was making him even angrier. "Then how's he supposed to fight?" Jim asked softly. "You're so concerned, you tell us. It's pretty fucking childish to push someone and then bitch when they don't push back the way you want."

"If you back someone into a corner, they'll fight like they're in a corner," Saul said, whether to Jim or Nathan it wasn't clear. "Gideon has resources that would be difficult to match, and he has no scruples about using them to preserve himself and his position. " He took a step closer - Nathan flinched away, almost automatically.

Jim's hand snapped up instinctively. "I wouldn't," he grated, spitting the cigarette onto the path. Nathan's response to Saul, the circumstances behind it -- this scene was beginning to pull an entirely different kind of anger. Something older, and far more dangerous. Jim felt it swelling like the rising tide against a seawall, the thoughts pouring in: Oh, just try it, you son of a bitch. No one fucking hurts a kid around me. No one.

Nathan's head jerked up as he felt the shift in Jim's thoughts. #I'm fine,# he sent back somewhat disjointedly. #Don't...# He didn't know what he was telling Jim not to do, oddly enough.

"If you force him to it, he'll start with the most accessible again. Domino, perhaps, or one of the others. Then perhaps one of the children, out enjoying themselves in town some Saturday afternoon. Random or planned. Whatever would hurt you most. To make you back down... to punish you. Think of this as a dominance struggle - Mistra taught you to think in those terms."

Breathe. He had to breathe. The spots in front of his eyes were not a good sign. "If I take away everything he has to fight with-"

"You won't." Saul's voice was cool, resolute - yet if you listened carefully enough, you could hear the hint of desperation.

The children one of the children the "You want to leave," Jim breathed even as he felt his mouth beginning to twist into a snarl. "Now."

"If you continue on this course," Saul said to Nathan, "you will bring it on yourself." He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly, and said something - in Greek. The effect on Nathan was immediate; his shoulders hunched, his face going even paler, and his mouth worked silently for a moment before he looked away from Saul, his whole body rigid where he sat on the bench. Saul nodded once, as if satisfied that the point had been made. "I'll be in touch, Nathan," he said, and turned away.

And that, for Jim, was finally too much.

The blow caught Saul across the side of the face, and it was physical, only physical, goddamn fucking Xavier where was his fucking power--

Nathan was up off the bench like a shot, grabbing Jim's wrist. "Settle down," he said hoarsely, a layer of control and calm that looked unbreachable from the outside suddenly smothering the pain and fear and confusion that had been there a moment before. Saul straightened, shaking off the blow with surprisingly speed for a man his age, and Nathan swallowed, meeting those eyes that were so similar to his.

"Don't make threats," he said, and it came out almost levelly. "Don't try and scare me into backing down. And don't think that if anything happens, I won't hold you responsible as well."

Saul shook his head slowly, and finished turning away. "This is foolish, Nathan," he said over his shoulder as he walked away. "Foolish and dangerous. You have no idea what you're doing."

what you're doing what what are we doing what am I The physical contact jerked him back, and as Saul turned to depart Jim found himself stumbling, collapsing onto the bench Nathan had vacated. He raised one shaking hand to his face, and the sudden terror he felt had nothing to do with the man who had just left them.

"Nathan?" His tongue felt like wood. Focus. He had to focus. Jim squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed the hand locked around his wrist, seizing desperately on the physical anchor. "Nathan," he repeated, stronger this time, but with an edge of hysteria. "We -- I-I, I --"

Nathan sank down beside him, feeling utterly exhausted all of a sudden. "It's me. Jim," he said a bit more forcefully. He cracked a faint, unsteady smile. "You hit my father. It was actually rather entertaining to watch."

"I hi . . ." process you need to process "I hit. Your father." The grip on Nathan's arm didn't relax. His whole body was shaking now, and Jim narrowly managed to abort the instinctive retreat from reality. One lapse had been bad enough; he couldn't bear the thought of another. Jim blinked up at Nathan with mismatched eyes and said distantly, "I had an episode."

Nathan swallowed. "I'm sorry," he said. Part of him wanted nothing more right now than to fall apart and do his best impression of a fetal ball under the park bench until the memory of all of this, of what Saul had flung at him there at the end, was gone. But he couldn't. Not with Jim... "Is there anything I can do? Get you back to the mansion?"

"Get us back," Jim repeated vaguely. "I . . ." He took a deep breath and pulled himself together. "I'll be okay. Just give us a minute to -- to come back." He managed to disengage the deathgrip on the other man's arm and leaned forward, hands braced against the bench. It's okay. It's okay. It was only for a second. It happens. We're okay. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"What for? Hitting Saul? Trust me, there are a large number of people who are going to feel terribly envious that you got the chance and they didn't." Humor as coping mechanism. It was a marvelous thing. Let him ignore the possibility that maybe Saul had been giving that warning in good faith.

"No, I . . ." It wasn't bad this time. Jack was just doing what he's supposed to do. "It's not supposed to be like that. I can get angry on my own now. I don't need him anymore." Jim took a deep breath and shook his head. "It was the kids. I couldn't -- when he brought up the kids it triggered . . ." He couldn't bring himself to say the name. If he named him Nathan would -- know.

Jim swallowed hard and tried to concentrate instead on what had triggered the reaction. It wasn't just Saul's mention of the children that had done it, it had been Nathan's behavior -- erratic, almost cringing. Like an abused child. Saul did something to Nathan, which had in turn touched something visceral in David.

Analysis helped. Understanding why, helped. "What did he do to you?" Jim asked, looking back up at the other man. He hadn't sensed any psionic influence acting on Nathan, but clearly something had been going on. That had not been normal behavior for him, and whatever Saul had said to him as he departed seemed to have left something in him . . . demolished.

Nathan opened his mouth - and then closed it again, faltering. "There are... things," he said finally, his voice shaking a little, "from Mistra. There's no conditioning anymore, to trigger, but there were words, phrases... bits and pieces of Greek poetry, even, sometimes. What he said... ten years ago, it would have triggered my obedience imperatives and I would have walked willingly off to punitive measures, and not been able to do a damned thing to stop myself, even-" He stopped, swallowing. The words had been coming out a little too quickly there. "Bringing it on myself. That's the sense of it, just like what Saul was saying..."

"It's not ten years ago," Jim said quietly. Ten years ago I wouldn't have been able to stop. "You're in control now. Good or bad, it's your life. Your choice. As long as you remember that, they can't take that away from you."

"It is a very, very hard mindset to shake. There are times, these days, that I can almost forget I ever was what I was." The color was gone from Nathan's face again all at once, but his voice was almost calm. "But the one thing he and Gideon have always been able to do is rip away that distance."

Jim nodded. "Because you never came to terms with them. Not really. You were given to Mistra when you were a child, weren't you? You never got a chance to fight back." And by corrupting your memories your uncle took away the chance to deal even with that.

"Not quite a child. I was fourteen... I think," Nathan corrected painfully, something very lost in his voice suddenly. "I don't know anymore, not for sure. I don't know what's real, and what's not, and whether I did ever live on the streets in San Francisco before I was picked up and sent to Mistra... I think I did, but then, I've thought a lot of things."

"It was prolonged abuse. Fourteen is young enough." Jim sighed, staring at his hands. "Never being able to fight back against the thing that hurt you the most is . . . terrible. Especially if you have to spend the rest of your life living with the consequences." Staring back at you in the mirror, every day.

"What is it that binds you?" the younger man murmured. "You are not bound by any chains now. Is it just the thought that you are bound that binds you? Mental chains can only be broken by mental effort."

"I'm fighting," was Nathan's response to the quote he couldn't identify. "I have a chance to fight, I know that, I'm just..." He gave a slightly shaky sigh. "I get tired. And frightened. He's... they've taken even more from me, just in the last few months. I'm not ready to give up but there are times it seems almost impossible to stand up straight, it's all so heavy."

Jim laughed, thinking of the thangka he'd been looking at less than half an hour ago. "The problem is, we love our chains. Even the painful ones. The weight's -- familiar. Who knows what'll happen if we throw them off, and suddenly there's nothing holding us back?" He gave Nathan a lopsided smile. "It terrifies me. Not dwelling on the past, or the future -- but the past will drag you back, and the future will yank you forward, and if you try to do both at once you only end up standing still. Sometimes the only time you can move is when you convince yourself to let go."

Nathan managed to limit the reaction to a blink as images swarmed up behind his eyes, very obviously triggered by Jim's words. "For a Spartan," he finally said, slowly, "I've had a remarkable amount of success with the whole concept of strategic surrender."

"Going back isn't always the same as going backwards." Something flickered in his mind, and Jim gave the other man a searching look. "Is your precognition acting up again?"

Nathan didn't answer for a moment, his inner eye caught in the flood of imagery. He was lying amid rubble, struggling to stay conscious... no, looking out the window of a small plane at the statue atop Corcovado. And he was sitting upright, but he hurt, and the restraints on his wrists didn't need to be there... why not?

"Uh... not acting up, per se. You make it sound like acne."

"I was trying for a euphemistic way of asking whether or not you'd be avoiding stairs and heavy machinery for the next half hour," Jim smiled. It was strange how not strange noticing Nathan's mental state had become. Then again, I guess patterning to someone's mind while fighting an elder god would lend itself to a certain degree of familiarity. "You're not having a seizure, so that seems promising."

Nathan breathed in and out, flinching at the flash of light that filled one of the images suddenly. It hurt a little, but at least after that the rest of it was gone. He raised a hand to his temple, wincing a bit. "What a shitty turn to what was such a promising afternoon," he said somewhat dimly. "And there I am like the Count of Monte Cristo..."

And I had a psychotic break. Yeah, this really makes me want to go out more often. "Was it the same event you saw in my office?" Jim asked.

"I think I'm trying to be too clever. Because I'm coming off definitely the worse for wear..." Nathan sank his head into his hands for a moment or two, concentrating on breathing.

Jim lay a hand on Nathan's back, carefully soothing the residual tension caused by the visions in a way that had now become almost habitual. "I know this can't be easy for you," he said, not meaning the headache.

"Everything I see... it's all focused on that, now. It terrifies me, that it's all about that..." He swallowed, rubbing his hands over his face. "But," he said, his voice stronger, "if Saul's right, and he may very well be, it might be the only thing to do."

"What might? If you stop putting pressure on your uncle?"

Nathan's eyes flickered to Jim for a moment, and absurdly, he smiled. Very faintly, but there was a flash of something resembling real humor behind it. "Oh, no. Never that."

"Good," Jim said, feeling a flash of vindictiveness -- But it's mine. It's not Jack's. It's mine. Part of him still didn't like feeling those things, but now the familiar anger was almost a relief. Jim straightened up, eyeing the other man warily. "What are you planning, then?"

"Plan is probably too strong a word," Nathan said. Cagily. It wasn't that he didn't trust Jim, he was just... still sorting things out in his head. That was it. "But I think there are patterns emerging that I could possibly exploit."

Jim raised an eyebrow. "Playing the players, huh?" he asked, fishing out another cigarette. He needed the comfort of the habit right now. "Just be careful. Gideon obviously has an idea of how the game's supposed to go, and I don't think that idea includes you coming out as the winner."

"That much I think I've always known." Nathan took a deep breath and rose, slowly. "How about you and I head back to the mansion where it's safe and my father is unlikely to knock on the door, even if he can inexplicably follow me."

"Yeah, lets," Jim agreed. He regarded the unlit cigarette mournfully. "Guess I shouldn't smoke in the car, huh. Can't be good for your lungs."

"Yes, please, let's spare my lungs anymore stress... I'd like to keep them in some semblance of working order in the long-term."

Jim sighed and reinserted the cigarette into the pack. He was running through them at an alarming rate. "Well, since the brain is obviously a lost cause I guess at least one part of us should remain functional . . ."