xp_logs | LOG: [Remy, Haller] Renovations

Haller signs on for renovation-duty on a whim and encounters one of the occupants of the townhouse.

Jim sat back on his heels and wiped his forehead. It was unfortunate that "on your hands and knees with a scraper the width of your hand" was the only way to chisel off linoleum glue that quite possibly predated the entirety of the surrounding neighborhood, but he was making progress. Exhausting as it was, Jim was enjoying the work. It reminded him of Uncle Andrew.

The telepath wiped some of the grime off on his jeans and sought out the watch in his pocket. Another half an hour and he'd have to head back for the day. He'd begged off today's morning meeting with Charles in favor of helping out, but he needed to have at least a few hours in his office. Between finals, prom and Parent's Day coming up Jim didn't underestimate the potential for student crises. He rose to his feet, stretching. He'd forgotten how hard an honest day's work was on the back.

"Leaving already, homme?" Remy voice came almost beside his ear. Despite being on a cane, the man was wraith silent when he wanted to be, and his bizarre mental patterns tended to blend into the background if you weren't looking for him. Remy walked past and turned carefully, settling himself on the cane.

"Not yet," Jim replied, blinking at the abruptness of the man's appearance but not giving it too much thought. He may have been more sensitive than he'd been five months ago, but it had never been the natural thing for him. Six years and he was still learning what it was like not to be functionally headblind.

"Remy, right?" he asked, extending a hand to the one not gripping the cane. "I'm David. Cain was talking about you."

Remy looked at the hand for a moment, and then back up at Haller. His disconcerting mismatched red-on-black stare was exacting, catching everything. "Dat sounds like Cain. I'm sure dat everything he said was a lie."

LeBeau watched the hand retract slowly, half of his mind sizing up where in his operational profiles to fit Haller, and the other half working out his triggers. He didn't move right. There were tiny hesitations in his gestures that were so minute, Remy was willing to bet no one ever saw. But even crippled, his spatial sense could feel them, like tiny pings. "Who ended up tricking you into volunteering?"

"That would be Cain again. He's been doing a lot of moving and renovation work lately. I guess it must be the season." No shaking, then. All right. Not quite hostility, Jim thought, but the other man was definitely on his guard. There was no menacing or posturing involved, but the steady regard held a sort of promise -- the kind Jim had the uneasy feeling he recognized. He supposed it was normal. There was a stranger standing in the middle of the man's hall, after all.

"I started at the school in January," Jim said, feeling something more was required of him. "I'm the new counselor. Newest, anyway. I just thought I'd lend a hand."

"You de new counselor?" Remy smiled slightly. "If dat's de case, what's fucked up wit' you?"

Considering Xavier had used Betsy as a counselor during her Kwannon days, Wisdom, and Jake Gavin as counselors at various points, Lebeau had naturally assumed being basically unbalanced was the chief criteria Charles used when looking for someone to fill the position.

Now that I've been on the job for a few months I understand why everyone asks me that question. "Bad manifestation experience," Jim said, opting for the simplest explanation. "The professor used to treat me for psychic trauma. Fortunately it's been years since I last saw a mental institution from the inside. I'm told it was good preparation for Xavier's."

"Drugs, restraints, a lack of reality. Oui, dat sounds 'bout right." Remy nodded, already narrowing down Haller's profile. The tall gawky bastard had the right twitches to be a psychic. If that trauma was what accounted for the tiny flickers, it fit a larger pattern. Remy had stopped feeling guilty for automatically figuring out how to take advantage of weaknesses in the people he met. Some things you just couldn't unlearn.

"So, from madhouse to madhouse to spook house. You not getting what we'd call a healthy balance of influences dere, homme."

A smile twitched Jim's mouth. "So I've been told. But we do okay. As madhouses go I'll take Xavier's any day. The trauma's much more colorful. I've become pretty discriminating." He pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and shook one out. "What about you? Teacher or student?" Jim recalled he had been Cain's roommate once upon a time. The fact that Remy wasn't apparently much older than Jim himself meant nothing -- neither was Cain. Wordlessly, Jim stuck the cigarette into his mouth and held the pack out to the other man in a gesture of invitation.

Remy almost laughed, taking the cigarette and lighting it with the tip of his finger. "Obviously you out of de rumour mill a bit, homme. Remy's time at de school tended not to involve academic issues dat much." He blew out a smoke ring.

"De CIA seeded me into de school in case dey needed everyone killed at some point. When dat didn't work out, I ran de Intel after Wisdom did his 'defection' to de Hellfire Club. Den Lorna dropped a building on me, and here I am." He spread his hands.

Jim raised an eyebrow at the use of powers. It wasn't pyrokinesis, but the gesture was familiar enough to give him pause. He flicked his lighter open and lit his own cigarette, though the steady column of smoke he exhaled was far less impressive than Remy's ring.

"Funny," Jim said, "under any other circumstances I'd take a story like that as evidence for a schizophrenic diagnosis of grandiose delusion. Strange how association with Xavier's presupposes a certain baseline level of insanity. There are times we really do wonder about the sort of nurturing environment Charles is providing for the students." He took a thoughtful drag. "It's good to hear you've moved past the potential slaughter of a school full of innocents. Cain seems to like you. Lorna, too. It would be unfortunate if I had to kill you with my brain."

"You wouldn't. Remy no longer a killer, and if I still was, you wouldn't have de time to think 'bout it." Remy said matter of factly. "I'm sure dere's still a file on me in de school. Hell, talk to Nate 'bout it. He once shot me in de bad old days."

Jim grinned. "If I asked about everyone Nathan has attacked or been attacked by neither of us would get any work done. But asking for directions to the footnotes probably isn't a bad idea. Being a trainee seems to entail spending 70% of your time backreading on missions and personnel. I think a pointed attack is the only way to make a dent in the stacks. The school has far too much cumulative trauma." The key to dealing with Remy, Jim suspected, was not to blink. There was a directness about the man that demanded nothing less -- the lazy kind of competence that came of total confidence in the personal ability to take another human being apart, and said If you can't make the deconstruction sufficiently challenging, stop wasting my time. It was an attitude he could understand. It was Jack's.

"So dey got you into de leathers as well. Dat's good. More unstable people for de X-Men. Can't wait to see what you blow up next." Remy smirked and hoisted his cane. He pushed off the wall and balanced himself slowly. "Still, if you got all dese mental powers, how come you scraping away wit' you hands? Can't you just rip all dis up wit' you mind or something?"

Jim only shrugged. "If you didn't actually want a floor anymore, sure. The part of me that uses telekinesis was more interested in destroying the furniture and beating things to death than fine detail-work. Besides, I spend most days reasoning through other people's mental health concerns. It's good to do something by hand for a change." He gestured at Remy with the hand holding his cigarette. "I take it you're not the scraping type."

"Can't really bend right wit' my leg. I've been sticking to things dat I can do without making me scream in pain." Remy replied. "Besides, I'm about dis close to just calling up some decorating agency and sending de bill to Frost."

The telepath smiled slightly. "I can't really argue against the screaming. My sanity may only pass muster if you tilt your head to the side and squint your eyes just right, but I never understood masochism. Besides, cheap manual labor is what friends are for, right? Or so I've heard. It'll get done."

Jim dropped the remains of his cigarette on a section of loose linoleum and ground it extinguished with his heel, then raised his mismatched gaze to Remy's own. "Now, however, I'm going to have to ditch out. The professor pays me very well for my work with the students, so I should probably go do some. It was nice to meet you, Remy. I'll probably see you again. Now that I've had some time alone with it I'm having bizarrely proprietary feelings about this dried cement Cain claims is linoleum glue."

"Remy walk you out." He nodded towards the door and limped along beside him as they headed out. "You be sure you keep an eye on dem kids. Likely go all kinds of crazy in de five hours you been away."

"At least it'll be good training if any of them ever want to join the staff," Jim grinned. As they paused in front of the door Jim extended his hand again, one eyebrow raised in faint amusement. "Shake now, or do you prefer to keep contact with an impending psychological collapse to a minimum?"

Remy considered for a moment and shook his head. "Non, Remy good for now. Salut, Haller. Sure we going to see you again." Remy said with a thin smile as he closed the door on Haller and walked away.

Jim let his hand drop, smiling wryly at the closed door. All things considered, that really could have gone worse.