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[x-mactaggart.livejournal.com]

Moira offers Cain a smile as she settles herself into one of the plush guest chairs. She supposed she could have taken the seat behind the desk but, since it's not her's, it feel way too impersonal. "'ello, Cain."

Cain leaned back into the sofa, crossing his legs at the ankles. "Shouldn't I be laying down on this or something?" he asked offhandedly.

She laughs, shaking her head. "Only if ye want. I find it slightly odd talkin' ta a prone person, meself." She gives him a quick once over but he's hard to read. "So, how're ye?"

Cain let out a long breath. "Like I said last week, it's weird to be back here. I mean, I left here when I was eighteen," he paused, looking Moira over, "shit, you were probably barely out of diapers. Just taking it all in still, I guess."

Moira tilts her head, doing a bit of mental math. "Few years shy o'bein' born," she responds. "I can only image, really. Me own family home has changed quite a bit since I was a wee lass but it's been me doin' tha' changed it."

"No kidding." Cain leaned forward, elbows touching his knees as he looked around the study. "Chuck's put a lot of work into this. Not just the house, the whole mutant... thing."

"Aye, tha' he has. I'm honestly curious, though...how are ye reactin' to tha'? Th' mutant thin'?"

Cain shrugged. "Chuck's always been that way. Back before he went to college, even then he was all into civil rights, integration, all of that stuff. This," Cain motioned around him to indicate the entire mansion, "this ain't any different. It's Chuck and his dream. Course, back then he didn't try and round up all the local colored kids and form his own militia."

Her nose wrinkle's slightly in response. "Aye, tha' I remember." She doesn't comment on the militia comment, reserving her own opinions on it. "Jus' a question 'fore we really get started. I know why ye're here, in this room wit' me, but do -ye- really want ta be here?"

Cain barked out a quick laugh. "Of course, it's my damn house." He laughed for a while, then sobered up and sat in silence. Finally, he raised his head and looked at Moira. "I ain't got anywhere else to go, Doc. Might as well be here. But if you mean right here right now, talking to you?" he shrugged his massive shoulders again, "I ain't got nothing else pressing on my social calendar."

"Aye, tha' it is. It's obvious ye want ta keep it in good condition." She pauses. "Sorry 'bout th' floor, by th' way. An' I jus' asked...it's easier if'n th' person tha' I'm talkin' ta wants ta be here. Means there's not a...power struggle so ta speak." She folds her hands in her lab and shrugs. "This is ta feel each other out. A therapist doesna always fit th' person seekin' help. We start where ye want ta start an' go at yer pace. As ye said, we have time."

Cain cracked his knuckles slowly. "You know, that shrink Harmon back at the Air Force base tried to be all friendly, telling me that he was only concerned with my mental health." Cain glared across the room at Moira. "I don't need any handouts, and I don't need anyone looking after me. I just came here to be myself again. Chuck tells me you can help me get over..." the behemoth's voice caught in his throat as he jerked his head to look away from the doctor. "You can help me get back to the way I used to be."

In response, Moira's quirk an eyebrow at him. "Let us get somethin' straight, Mr. Marko. I coddle no one because, in th' lon' wron', it is not a way for anyone ta grow. I am nice t' ye because tha's me nature but I will treat ye wit' kid gloves because ye, an' I, dinnae deserve tha'. I -am- interested in yer mental healt' an' I'll do me best ta get ye back t' th' way ye used ta be. Ye dinnae hav' ta believe tha' but it's true." She tucks her legs under her and shakes her head. "Me last
statement is still standin', Cain...we start where ye want ta start."

Cain nodded slowly, then cocked his head in the direction of the desk. "Chuck sitting behind my father's desk, that's a start. Last time I saw him, it was at the funeral. He was walking then, too. Didn't say anything to him. Just walked to the bus station and headed off to Paris Island." Cain smirked slightly, dragging up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the Marine Corps tattoo, faded on his bicep.

She peers at the tattoo and mentally tucks away a note that the ink is...fading. "I bet seein' him behind it was a wee bit o' a start, alon' wit' th' wheelchair."

"No shit." Cain replied."Chuck, though? You can tell it doesn't matter a lick to him. Walking, not walking. Nah, he wheels around here like he was born to that chair. Heh. Even crippling him doesn't stop him."

"It's amazin' what a person can overcome...though I hear yer arrival nearly had 'im runnin' into a wall..." She only allows a little bit of a smile but there's definatly laughter in her eyes. She did feel, somewhat, bad about laughing at him when he had told her.

Cain laughs quietly. "He never did run away when we were kids, no matter how much I'd torment him. He'd sit there, and I'd pin him down and just... so yeah, no surprise he became the mutant Gandhi." Cain's eyes glazed over as he stood up, looking closely at the framed photographs, noticing the dust on the higher ones. The ones Charles wouldn't be able to reach.

"Well, he stills 'as 'is faults..." Her voice trailed off as she followed his gaze. "Cain?"

"Chuck graduated from Bard in two years. Fucking Masters', even. Of course, my father was right there, proud as punch. That was him, always proud of his boy."

"An' ye?" She doesn't hesitate but the question is soft, she knows she's heading into territory that's not going to be pretty.

Cain laid his hands flat against the wall, chin on his chest, breathing deeply. "My old man, heh. I made All-State lineman, but he was busy splitting atoms with 'Charles'. I told him I'd got my scholarship to ESU, civil engineering. Of course, 'Charles' was magna cum fucking laude, biology. Just like my old man."

Cain's hands began to tremble, as his voice deepened. "I came back from college back in '59, Chuck had some foreign exchange guy home with him. The three of them spent Christmas in the basement lab - I figured, screw 'em, more goose for me." Cain's hands clenched, and cracking sounds could be heard from the wood paneling. "I drank myself fucking silly on my father's bourbon until I heard them come up from the basement, and my stepbrother heads off to bed and says 'I love you, Dad'."

Moira winces but doesn't say anything, just nods. It was better, sometimes, to let them talk and then interject.

Cain took the photograph of Charles Xavier and Kurt Marko from the wall, speaking to the flat glass instead of Moira. "And he said, 'I love you, son'. So yeah, Chuck was smarter. The brighter son, the good son, the better son." Cain's hands clenched, as the glass cracked in his grip.

She's standing before she realizes it. "Cain..." She has a sudden flashback to Kevin. Would it have been like this had there been another son?

"Charles never had to ask for anything. Nothing in the world." Cain spun around, hurling the photograph into the corner to explode into splinters of cherry wood and glass. "Even my own GODDAMN FATHER!" Turning around, Cain's fists came down on the nearest end table, reducing the finished oak to toothpicks as he dropped to a knee, head buried in his arms.

Moira thanks whoever's watching that she's still pretty fit as she leaps backwards to avoid pieces of desk and glass. She feels some cuts on her hands where she put them up to protect herself and that brings her back from being shocked.

"CAIN MARKO!" she snaps, stepping back up to him and planting her hands on her hips. Realizing that she -still- can't look in his eyes she quickly hops on some broken pieces to continue glaring. "I understand where ye're comin' from but not in this house! Ye want ta 'ave a tantrum, tha's fine, but ye take it outside where ye're not likely ta 'urt someone or end up makin' 'ours o' work fer yerself! I willna tolerate this, do ye understand me?! An', fer the record, I dinnae care if'n this is yer house, I'll kick yer ass out onto th' lawn so fast it'll make tha' red hair o' yers SPIN!" She's breathing hard, balancing very carefully on the furniture, but, for the first time in a long while, there's -fire- in her eyes.

Cain hunched down over the diminutive Scots woman, rage in his eyes. "YOU AND WHAT..." he began, then paused, looking from Moira to the wrecked end table and back again. A smirk crossed Cain's face. "You are one tough-as-nails bitch, Doc. I mean that."

"Well, I would bloody well 'ope so," she huffs, trying to gain some kind of decorum back. Considering she's still balanced on the broken desk, that's not going so well. " Shaking her head, she begins to come back down.

Cain looked around, not even attempting to look embarassed. "Well, shit," he mumbled, "I always hated that damn table." He brushed wood dust and glass splinters off of his shirt and stepped over the mess towards the door. "I'm heading to the quarry if anyone's looking." Cain announced, hand reaching for the doorknob.

Moira sneezes as the dust finally begins to settle. "Cain." Her voice is tired, but friendly and warm. "Me door is always open. Let's jus'...make it somewhere else, shall we?" She kneels and starts to pick up the broken pieces of glass, hiding the tops of her hands from Cain. They're more cut up than she realized.

"Yeah," Cain looked around the study and snorted derisively, "I never could fucking stand this place." With that, he strode out the door.

She straightens and places her hands on her knees. "Bloody fuckin' hell!" she exclaims loudly, after waiting a minute. "Charles, yer goin' ta give me grey hair!" She sighed and started to clean up the mess.