xp_logs | Nathan and Logan, Wednesday

Nathan and Logan get to experience a particularly fine example of Scott's innate sadism in the Danger Room. Nathan has some difficulty. Logan and Cain aren't the only ones who get overtaken by memories sometimes.

Logan wasn't too sure about the parameters of this run - by the looks of it, someone up in Ops was fucking with him. Blindfolded run? Shouldn't prove that difficult. He leaned against one wall of the Danger Room, lit cigar clenched between his teeth in a very blatant contradiction of the No Smoking policy. He didn't know who they were going to give him as an opponent for this run, but he was hoping it was someone who could give him a challenge. He was in a mood to work hard - with the horde of parents and the kids being kids his patience levels were wearing thin.

The doors slid open. "I don't know how you smoke those things given the enhanced sense of smell," Nathan said as he walked into the Danger Room. He was wearing his leathers, and had his psimitar in one hand and a blindfold in the other. "The stink makes my sinuses burn."

Logan just grinned. "Then you already know why." he pointed out, grinding out the cigar against the palm of his hand and tucking the remainder inside his uniform jacket. His own blindfold was loosely tied around his neck. He eyed Nate's psimitar with amusement - it made a nice crutch and let the old man push his power levels even higher, but it was a risky strategem. Equipment had a nasty habit of breaking. "Been a while. Surprised you remembered where the room is." he chuckled roughly.

"Scott must have decided that he disliked you when he was programming this last batch before he left," Nathan retorted with a little smile. "Flirt with Jean or something?" he asked as he tied his blindfold.

Logan just laughed at that. "Coffee. Just coffee." he said, raising up his own blindfold and securing it tightly. As he adjusted the knot he inhaled deeply, sorting out the scents in the room. There was Nate, Nate's gear, a weird tang from the psimitar itself, cigar smoke, and, as always, himself and his own gear. He quirked an eyebrow as he caught a wisp of scent at the edges of his perception - seems that one of the women - Marie, he thought - had used the room before them.

With the blindfold on, Logan was a dull, hazy presence on the telepathic level, difficult to pin down and impossible to read. He had a strange mind even for a feral, Nathan reflected, not for the first time, and extended his telekinesis outwards in the usual sonar field, pushing power through the psimitar so that he could 'map' the entire room in his mind's eye.

Logan got up on the balls of his feet, ready to move at a moment's notice. All he was waiting for was the go command from the Danger Room itself. Seems that he had to make his way over to the far wall, grab the scrap of mylar loosely tied to it, and then make his way back in one piece. Nathan would be trying to do the same thing, but in his case he was aiming for the flag behind him.

Piece of cake.

Scott had, however, programmed the scenario himself. And before the go command was given, the Room began to shift, modules swapping places, pieces of the wall folding outwards, finding new positions as pillars erupted from the floor and pits started to open up.

Nathan felt the Room change around him and shook his head. "You've got to admire the bastard," he said, or started to say, when Frank Sinatra sped up to Chipmunk-speed began to blare through the speakers. He was laughing when the go command finally came. It was not, however, entirely happy laughter. The whole set-up was making him edgy already - blind, I hate being blind - and the noise only added to that.

Logan almost howled as the Sinatra came on all sped-up. He had to give Slim credit - he was fucking with both Nate and himself, judging by the number of stress-pheremones the other man just released. But the go was given and he was off like a shot, relying on his hearing and what stray air movement brought smells to his nose. Even his eyesight - not something he advertised - couldn't see through the dense fibers of the blindfold. First point went to the room as the section of floor Logan was standing on erupted into the air, taking him with it.

Nathan reversed the psimitar in a quick, practiced flip and propelled himself upwards, heading for the ceiling - or intending to. Scott had apparently foreseen that, too, and he had to change course rapidly, leading to an awkward richochet, when the ceiling unfolded into a series of rippling peaks that gave him no safe perch.

Logan, once he landed back onto the floor, slowed himself down and took his approach one step at a time. The Sinatra was irritating, but now that he'd heard enough of it he was getting the hang of blocking it out, not letting it register on his senses. A useful trick that it'd taken him a great deal of Iron Butterfly and Doors LPs to master. To this day he still couldn't hear Inna Gadda Da Vidda without thinking of Heather and Mac. The room took another shot at him via cables that snaked from the walls to bind his limbs, but a quick slash with his claws stymied that plan and scrapped the cables.

Bracing himself against the wall, Nathan took a deep breath and refocused on the room. There was Logan, walking down there on the floor with deliberate slowness. The shifting was still going on - but there was his flag, the one he'd kept a lock on despite the not-entirely-unexpected unexpected twist to the program.

Nate was ... somewhere up high. He couldn't tell precisely where as Scott had added another wrinkle - a fan blowing the air around, denying him an easy fix on the scents in the room. But Logan had a solution to that problem as well - backtracking to the severed cables, he whirled it over his head to build momentum then launched it at the fan. Grinning, he grabbed another one and did the same thing - but it went towards Nate.

Nathan sensed something coming lashing out at him and batted it away telekinetically before launching himself off the wall and in the direction of his flag. A wall shot upwards from the floor, blocking his way. If he hadn't had the blindfold, he'd have been able to alter course just slightly and run up and over the top of it. It was a move he'd pulled off in countless previous sessions. But he did have the blindfold on, and it cost him the fraction of a second he needed.

He managed to blunt the worst of the impact, but he still hit the wall hard, shoulder-first, and even as it automatically folded from a ninety-degree angle to something closer to forty-five, he was too stunned to do anything but slid all the way to the floor, landing in a crumpled heap.

Logan made up for lost time - he heard Nate hit something, and his first projectile had done the job of messing up the fan enough. Now he just needed the air currents to settle a bit so he could get a better read on the room. Maybe twenty or so feet to go until he got to flag, but that was an eternity in Danger Room terms. It may as well have been on the Moon. Throwing caution to the winds, he broke into a flat-out run heading for the flag.

Nathan hauled himself back to his feet, telling himself to shake it off. Funny, but he didn't seem to be listening. His heart was triphammering in his chest, and the psimitar was the only thing holding him up right at the moment. Damn it... His back was not liking him at all - he'd fallen badly, there.

Later. Focus now, he thought, his stomach churning and his head still spinning. He concentrated on the feel of Logan running towards the flag on the other wall. Well, that won't do... he thought with an edge of what might have been amusement if it hadn't been quite so wild. He'd done enough programming himself to be very familiar with the Danger Room's schematics. There was a release for a pit right... there. He hit it, and the floor dropped out from under Logan.

Logan wasn't as agile as someone like Kurt or even Kyle, but he was no slouch. Plus, he always had his own climbing pitons. He jammed his claws into the wall of the pit to stop his fall and then slowly, laboriously climbed his way out. Ten feet to go. He threw himself at the flag, wanting to get that half of the exercise over and done with.

Persistent, wasn't he? Nathan's hands clenched and unclenched around the psimitar, and he started to move again himself. He concentrated on making his own movements unpredictable - random patterns, nothing direct - as he headed towards his flag. The Room would have less luck throwing up obstacles, even if it took him longer. Get the flag, get out of here... The inner trembling was just getting worse.

Logan ripped the flag out of the wall and tied it around his arm. Now he had to make it back across, and that wasn't going to be easy. Plus, Nate was hot on his trail. Well, he could fix that. Grinning, he threw himself into a jagged run, claws out, headed right for Nate.

Nathan yanked his own flag from the wall and turned just in time to sense Logan running towards him. And... yeah, claws out. Shit! Nathan's face went flat and he swatted Logan with a fair amount of abandon, sending him tumbling a good ten feet to the left.

Logan used the momentum from the swat to swing himself wide of Nathan's approach and to advance upon his new goal. But ... crap. Nate had his flag. He heard the mylar crinkle as he ran. That just would not do. Logan changed course again, using the pillars that extended up from the floor for cover and as a launch-point for a flying body-check.

The floor rippled beneath him, nearly knocking him down before it flattened back out. Nathan choked back a curse, staggering, his jaw clenching at the pain that jolted up and down his back. His equilibrium was not coming back like it should. Get to the wall, get this done...

Logan sheathed his claws at the last second - let Nate misunderstand his intentions - and struck quickly for Nate's large torso - quick sledgehammer-strikes, designed to hurt and throw him off-balance without doing permanent damage. So long as it hurt like hell, Logan was happy.

Fists coming at his ribs. Blows he couldn't see, just like... Like hell. The psimitar blazed, visible even through the blindfold, and sent Logan flying.

Logan picked himself up off the ground - twenty-five feet away. Fine. The carebear wanted to play rough? He could deal with that. No more Mister Nice Logan. He threw himself back at Nate, but just before he got into Nate's physical attack range he feinted for the body again then went for the psimitar.

Nathan froze him in mid-strike, and raised a hand to tear the blindfold off. To hell with the scenario, he thought, shaking badly. The Room powered down as Nathan slammed the console in the observation booth with a telekinetic fist.

Logan pulled himself out of Nate's telekinetic grip then looked at him. "The hell?" he asked, as succinct as ever. "You hurt?"

Nathan grimaced. "Didn't want you breaking my psimitar," he muttered a bit feebly, but now that he had stopped and the adrenalin was fading, the answer to that question was 'not really, but'. He forced himself to straighten, despite the pain throbbing between his shoulderblade. His shoulder hurt too, but the pain was more dull. Just bruises.

Logan snorted. "Could have. Wasn't going to." he said. "Now cut the shit. What's really wrong?"

"I hit the wall harder than I thought," Nathan said tightly, unable to keep the pain out of his voice as he tried to square his shoulders. His hands went white-knuckled on the psimitar again. Logan was too close. He needed to step away. "Didn't fall well."

Logan looked Nate over with a practiced eye. "You gonna call an op if that happens out in the field? Say "Sorry, I took a fall wrong and I can't continue. Guess we'll turn around and go home." he said with a searing contempt.

Nathan gave him a look that was briefly scorching as he started to turn away. "No, but I'm not going to reinjure my goddamned back pushing through a Danger Room scenario just to prove which of us is more macho," he said - and stumbled. Attack of the clumsies, courtesy of overcorrecting for the fact that moving hurt, Nathan told himself, leaning hard on the psimitar and squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Breathe.

"As in here, out there." Logan said, jerking a thumb towards the door. "Bad habit, treatin' it any different." He offered a shoulder for Nate to lean on. "Come on, let's get you down to Medical, get you looked at."

"Don't lecture me," Nathan said, but did accept the offered shoulder. His hands were shaking. Just bruises, he told himself. He was still walking, if a little unsteadily. At the worst he'd twisted it, and this wouldn't be the first time that had happened. And this was probably worse than it felt because he'd been spending too much time behind a desk lately. Out of shape. That was it.

But his hands wouldn't stop shaking. And he didn't feel right. At all.

Logan spotted the shaking but wisely didn't say anything. Man had a problem and needed help. As they came to the exit door, Logan leaned over and slapped the Medical button. "Wolverine to Medical. Got an injury down here. Need a medevac." he said, then thumbed the system off. Voght would arrive soon enough and take the porcelain man down to put his pieces back together again.

Whatever it was, it had Nate spooked but good. Maybe it was time for him to hang up his leathers, pack it in and do his work in the halls of power instead of on the battlefield.

Nathan leaned against the cool metal of the wall for a moment, breathing deeply, then propped his psimitar against the wall and started to pull off his jacket. He needed it off. Too heavy, with the kevlar. Unconsciously, he was still projecting waves of TK, shivering through the air and filling the hall.

"Knock it off." Logan growled at the teek battered ineffectually at him. "You're projecting. Pull yourself in and suck it up. Medical's on its way."

Nathan snatched at the psimitar abruptly at the growl, and the waves grew more intense. He held it in front of him in an unmistakable guard position, his eyes locked on Logan but strangely unfocused. The light was too bright out here, just like it had been there, and the noise was gone. Just like it had been there.

Logan had a couple of options. The one he thought of first was to cut the psimitar in half, deny Nate his weapon. But he discarded that one in favor of a simple disarm ... but no, that'd just provoke the not-entirely-stable Nathan. Time for Option Three - an fist to the head? Go for the knockout, put him down? Too risky - if he didn't get it, Nate would undoubtedly go ballistic. Option Four consisted of Logan pulling out the remnants of his cigar and lighting it with a cheap lighter while he waited for Medical - apparently they were busy, they were taking forever to show the fuck up.

Nathan proceeded to provide him with an option five. As Logan didn't move towards him, he started to shake his head - only slightly at first, then more doggedly. The psimitar lowered and he took a step back, against the wall. His breathing, which had sped up to something far too rapid, started to slow.

"Did I blank out?" he finally asked, his voice hoarse but steady. There was still no sign of anyone from medical.

Logan stared at Nathan. "You checked out." he said roughly. "Thought you might make a move."

Nathan breathed in, then out, then in again before he answered. "Bad therapy session this week," he said. He and Jack had talked about the conversation with Angelo on the weekend, about his reaction to it, and he'd been even more tense by the end of the session. Then, over the next couple of nights, the nightmares had come back - and been worse than they'd been in months. "Bits and pieces," he said, sweating even in the cool of the hall as he looked around. "I don't get full-on flashbacks anymore, but some things still make me zone out." Keep talking. Focus.

Logan shook his head. "Where the fuck is Medical?" he growled, mashing the pickup again. "Wolverine to Medical. Getcher asses up here now." He flicked it off again then looked back to Nate. "You think you can hold it together until Medical gets here?"

"I'm okay." But even as he said it, he was tugging at the collar of his jacket with his free hand, his other hand going white-knuckled on the staff of his psimitar. "It's just the hall. Tight quarters. Too quiet, too bright." Breathing too rapidly again, he closed his eyes. "Don't move towards me. Please."

"Settle down." Logan said in very calm, nonthreatening tones. He was spared the need to try to talk down by a coalescing cloud of smoke that turned itself into Dr Voght. "About time." Logan grumped as she shot him a look. "Took a fall in the run and he's been out of it since. Maybe concussion, maybe an old complaint."

Amelia didn't bother responding to it. She gave Nathan an assessing look, then laid a hand on his arm. The two of them vanished in, quite literally, a puff of smoke.

---

No concussion, had been the verdict, although he had indeed twisted his back, according to Amelia, and had been lucky not to do worse damage. Nathan had retreated to his suite for a good soak that had actually done wonders - when paired with some of the nice blue pills that he'd long ago stopped hating - but he hadn't been able to shake the restlessness. Moving with some care, he'd headed downstairs and out to the porch.

Fresh air. Open air. The very lack of the closed-in feel was extremely welcome at the moment, although Nathan was still sitting stiffly in the chair, twitching at any noise or movement around him. And there was quite a bit - it was midafternoon on a gorgeous June day, after all. The kids who were about were leaving him scrupulously alone, at least.

Logan was already out there, knife and wood in his hand, Stetson pulled down low over his eyes, cigar in his mouth. He was out in one of the gazebos, his booted feet propped up against the railing. Kids knew better than to bother him - he was positively radiating a fuck-off vibe that even the most insensitive could feel. He made another cut into his block of wood without seeing it and stared off into nothing - or everything.

The door crashed open, a kid flying - literally out - and Nathan tried not to jump out of his skin. Calmly, he told himself, watching the girl fly out to join the group down by the lake. The painkillers should really be making him more mellow.

Logan made a couple more cuts in his figure then picked his boots up off the rail and put them on the floor before coming to his feet entirely. He kept the hat pulled down low and headed straight for Nate while folding his clasp knife and sticking it into the front pocket of his jeans. In his hand he held a carved wooden figure of some kind - his hand obscured too many of the details to make out what it was exactly. He didn't say anything as he walked, but it was obvious he was headed straight for Nate.

"Hey," Nathan greeted him, his voice subdued, as Logan came up the stairs. "Sorry about this morning. Not sure what that was all about..."

Logan waved off the apology. "Forget it. Got something for you." he said, holding out the wooden figure for Nate to take if he was so inclined. It was a rough-cut of Nate as he was down in the Danger Room - concentrating mostly on his head and upper torso, his arms holding out the psimitar in an attack stance the face vacant and devoid of any real human understanding. Logan, apparently, had some small skill at woodcarving.

The painstakingly reproduced expression gave Nathan a nasty shock. "Huh," he said after a moment, taking the figure from Logan. "I think I used to see that look in the mirror a lot..." His lips twitched briefly in something that wasn't really a smile.

"Know the feeling." he said quietly. "Fifteen years." he said, settling himself in a vacant chair next to Nate, kicking his feet up and adjusting his hat to cover most of his face.

"It's been over a year," Nathan said after a long minute or two of silence. "This doesn't happen the way it used to. It got worse again, on and off, when things were bad with my--with Gideon. Because of the connection. I don't like it when I backslide," he said, with a tight smile. "The pride thing. Don't ever think I don't understand that."

Logan nodded once, and then took a deep drag from his cigar - blowing the smoke away from Nate for once. "Wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Put metal through an innocent girl. Wrong place, wrong time. Look in the mirror and just fuckin' wonder how many."

"I don't know. I honestly don't know which is to be preferred." Nathan stared out blindly at the placid grounds. "I still remember the first person I killed. I was fifteen years old. My first field test, at Mistra. Close-up assassination. I did it and ran. Threw up all over my instructor's shoes, back at base."

Logan snorted, but whether out of amusement or disagreement was ... unclear. "I'm still pissed at Creed for the fucking tree." he said.

"Do you get sensory-memory?" Nathan asked after another moment. "I ask because most of the ferals I've known do. Ian... one of the survivors from Youra. We talked once about our first field tests. I remember the face of my target, more vividly than anything else. He remembers the perfume his was wearing."

Logan thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. Scents, mostly." he admitted. "It's what killed Langkowski's project. Too much of the stuff in my head he and his machines and drugs could get to is sensory-based."

"And you can't even rely on the scent-memory to trigger visual memory, because of all the fucking around that's been done with your mind." Nathan was pensively silent for another moment or two, wondering... "Are they blocks, or gaps?" he asked. "I had blocks over gaps, and fabrications where the blocks didn't reach... I was only a kid at the time, though. And I know the feral brain's wired differently."

Logan just shrugged. This was far from his favorite topic, and dwelling on it too much only served to piss him off. "If it's possible, it's been done. Wipe, grafts, blocks, holes, you name it."

Nathan wasn't incapable of picking up on what wasn't being said. "Memory," he muttered. "Can't live with it, wish to hell you could, upon occasion... " He shook his head, then reached out and pulled up the sleeve of the shirt he was wearing. The claw scars from Youra, reaching from his shoulder nearly down to his wrist, had faded somewhat over the last year, but they were still ugly as hell. Between them and the burn scars from his little tete-a-tete with Pete, he'd been avoiding short-sleeved shirts, even as the weather got warmer. "I know you weren't actually trying to give me a matching set," he said, "but I think that's when I really started to slip."

Logan glanced over at the scarring. He took a drag off his cigar while he studied it, then leaned back to exhale away from Nate. "Nice." he said after a few moments.

Nathan let his sleeve fall, staring somewhat blankly out at the grounds again. "This doesn't happen often anymore," he said, realizing he was repeating himself, "but I've had a few reminders lately."

Logan nodded to that and let himself stare off into oblivion for a few moments longer. "Sometimes I think it'd be easier if I could carry a mark. At least then I'd have something." he said.

"The scars are overrated. You should see the way some of the kids look at me when I have the gall to use the outdoor pool in mixed company." Nathan shook his head a little. "I suppose they're reminders, too."

"Fuck 'em." he said, then grinned. "We're out there getting scarred, beaten, tortured, mutilated, whatever so they can sit back and sneer."

Nathan cracked a smile in return. "They don't all sneer," he said more softly. "I remember Kyle coming down to see me, after Youra and trying not to cry when I told him how many kids we'd gotten out."

Logan nodded to that. "Got no patience for people who want to weaponize kids." he said in a low, dangerous tone of voice.

"I know you know Kyle. You should meet Talia if you haven't yet. Our other little rescuee..." He hadn't seen nearly enough of Talia lately. He ought to rectify that. "In fact, you probably will. I guess she's gung-ho to continue with self-defense in the fall. You'd think being kidnapped, then nearly killed in a helicopter crash during the first attempt at rescue, then getting caught in the middle of a full-blown battle made her want to be able to look after herself or something."

Logan cracked a smile at that. "Met one of the new kids the other day. Dancer, may pick up some self-defense. Dunno if she's got what it takes."

"This Crystal girl," Nathan guessed. "Haven't met her yet." He turned the little figurine over in his hands. "You up for a beer a little later?" he asked abruptly. "I ought to go do some work, but if I sit too long in the office I'll stiffen up again." He gave a brief smile. "I hear you're good at pool."

Logan grinned like a shark that smelled blood in the water. "I get by." he said modestly. "And yeah. Beer sounds good."

Nathan pulled himself to his feet with a grunt, moving quite stiffly already. "I'll wander down to Harry's once business hours are over, then," he said. "And whatever you may hear in the interim about me and pool, it's all a bunch of filthy lies. One pool ball goes at a ninety-degree angle once and suddenly you're a dirty cheater."

Logan just quirked an eyebrow. "Bring your wallet." he suggested, standing up himself fluidly and effortlessly. "Oh, and Nate? Be a damned shame if you were to augment your skills at pool with a little bit of teek. Could get ... messy." he warned with a glint in his eye.

"Give me credit for a little subtlety," was Nathan's vaguely amused reply back over his shoulder as he went back inside.