xp_logs | Nathan, Terry and Cain, Sunday (Reply)

Nathan asks Terry for a favor.

Rachel was squirming and yelping and showing every danger sign of working up to a class-A temper tantrum. The fact that her circuit-breaker had been adjusted so that there was unlikely to be a telekinetic element really wasn't all that much of a consolation, Nathan thought, his expression set and bleak as he headed into the mansion, shrieking baby on one arm and the bag of baby supplies on the other.

"Let's find you a happier mind to be around, shall we?" Shielding didn't seem to help much. She was in a mood, and determined to stay in one.

Terry heard Rachel shrieking from across the entire first floor. She didn't need her mutation for it either; Rachel had a set of lungs to make Pavarotti envious. Setting aside Patience and closing her notebook, Terry followed the sound of unhappy baby to the source, "Hey, Nathan, what's wrong? Did you pinch her again?"

Nathan tried not to glare at Terry. Because glaring at a possible source of help was not good. "No, no pinching," he said after a moment, and Rachel howled and tried to smack him in the mouth. "We're just having one of those 'it's not good for parent and child to both be telepaths' moments."

Terry stepped up to Rachel and evaded a flailing fist, "Here now, me darling, don't you be screaming and fussing. There's no need for both you and your daddy to be in moods, right?" She glanced up at Nathan, lifting her hands, "Can I?"

"Please," Nathan said with something that might have been desperation if it hadn't come out sounding so tired. Or so tight. Rachel immediately latched onto Terry like a limpet, burbling in agitation. It wasn't upset, Nathan reflected again, shifting his grip on the bag now that he had two hands free. It was anger.

Terry heard the emotions in his voice but focused on Rachel first, resting her on her hip and babbling at her in soothing, lilting Irish, almost sing-song. ~Poor baby, with tears in her eyes. Won't you smile for me, pretty baby?~ She tickled her lightly then finally gave Nathan her attention again, "What's got yeh all twisted up that yeh couldn't even keep it from her?"

Nathan smiled tightly, the strain evident in his expression. "Long story. And one that I probably shouldn't get into." Not just because it was something that shouldn't be spread around, but because he was very, very angry, and delving into that was only going to upset Ray further. "Terry, could I get you to do a huge favor for me? Could you take her for a little while?"

Terry frowned, natural curiosity making her want to prod him further but not wanting to upset Rachel anymore. "Aye, sure it's no problem." She extracted a hand to take the diaper bag from him. "Is there anything else I can do to help?"

Make the world make sense? "If you could cheer Ray up and keep her for a few hours so that I have time to-" Beat the crap out of someone or something... Nathan stopped, grimacing, and started again. "I'd appreciate it," he finally said.

Rachel gave a pathetic whine and grabbed double fistfuls of Terry's long red curls. Terry rubbed her back absently. "I meant anything other than that. But I guess it's senior team stuff then?" Okay, so she couldn't resist a little prodding.

Nathan's smile was sudden, sharp, and very, very bitter. "Actually no, Terry. It's not team stuff at all." His angry look faded into a certain guilty regret as he looked at his daughter, and he leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Sorry, sweetie. I promise I'll be much nicer to be around later."

"Oh, well." Elpis? Moira? Now Terry was dying to know. "I'm sure it'll be okay, right? Things work themselves out most of the time." No wonder Rachel was so upset. Terry was having a hard time keeping her cheer in the face of Nathan's anger and she wasn't even a telepath. "Just give me a call when you're wanting her back. I think we'll go for a bit of play in the sunroom."

"Owe you one," Nathan said, his voice still clipped as he handed her the bag and then turned away. It had been a long time since he'd gone out and blown shit up in the quarry. Sometimes it was good to rediscover old habits.

Terry watched him go then looked down at the baby on her hip concentrating wholly on shoving as much hair and fist in her mouth as was possible. "Well, my wee lass. I suppose it's just you and I. Let's go find someone to terrorize, then? How's that sound to you?"

Nathan asks Cain a rhetorical question. Then he asks Cain to come drinking with him.

The fresh air wasn't helping, just like it hadn't helped on the way from the boathouse to the mansion in the first place. At least Rachel would spend a few hours with Terry and be entirely away from him. That was a good thing, Nathan thought in detachment, crouching down in front of the rock and glaring at it, his perceptions spiraling downwards.

He didn't want to blow it up. Too easy, and he'd have to blow up more, and people would come out to see what was going on, and really, he was supposed to have moved past that.

So he imagined that the rock had a face, and what he would do to the brain behind that face. And possibly the brain behind a few other faces. The rock shuddered, cracking noises echoing from inside it, the surface rippling ominously.

"Usually I just take the big ones and throw them into bigger ones," came the deep voice from behind Nathan. Cain walked up behind the telepath, keeping a respectable distance as Nathan definitely appeared to have something serious on his mind.

"Yeah, well, I'm in the mood to blow up the whole fucking quarry at the moment," Nathan gritted, not looking around, "so I figured I'd try and focus. We like the landscape where it is, generally." The rock was definitely changing shape, and there was steam rising from one of the cracks. "I could pull a Jean and try and boil away the lake?"

"Drop the lake on your own head, more likely, if you're following her example," Cain mused, watching the boulder deform and begin to shake loose of where it was rooted into the quarry face. "Noticed you dropped the rugrat off with the kids for babysitting, so I'm guessing you don't want to share your sour mood with the folks what can't exactly help sharing it, am I right?"

"Yeah. It's one of those sour moods where there's not a whole lot to be done about it, so... I'm taking it out on a rock." Nathan's voice was clipped, frustrated, the fury underlying it barely creeping through. "I'm going to kill the rock instead of someone."

Cain laughed at that. "That's the trouble around here, I've noticed. You try and get some distance to keep your problems your own, and folks just seem to follow you and demand to help out." He shook his head, remembering the determined looks of Sam, Wanda, and Marie-Ange standing in that hangar.

Nathan's hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, white-knuckled. Focus on the conversation, he thought. "You still feeling all right? After everything..."

"All right?" Cain laughed. "Man, I feel great. It's like you said before I left. What you felt after Youra, that sense of freedom. If it was worth it."

He folded his arms across his chest. "Every moment. It's damn worth it."

"That's good." The rock was... well, there it went. It hit the ground with a thud, definitely deformed. Nathan glared at it and it imploded. Didn't help, he thought bleakly, staying in his crouch, one hand rising to rub at the back of his neck.

"I feel like it's eighteen months ago," he said abruptly. "Like I want to find a corner and just send anyone who comes near me through a wall." He should have found Clarice or Illyana and asked for a quick teleport over to Muir for himself and Rachel. Why hadn't he thought to do that? "I am not used to having this much trouble with my temper these days."

Cain reached up with one hand, fingers gouging into the rock face as he hauled himself up to a small outcropping. "Man's got that kind of temper, means someone's taken a shot as his nearest and dearest. Believe me, I know from temper. And for you - that pretty much narrows it down to family. And unless you've had some new relative show up and try and make your life hell, it's to do with Moira and the kid, ain't it?"

"They're both okay. That's what matters, right?" The muscles in Nathan's jaw twitched, putting the lie to his words. "Why doesn't anything ever stay dead and buried?" he asked tightly.

Cain cracked his knuckles as he thought on that. "Ain't got an answer," he finally admitted. "Best I know how to do is try and hit a problem 'til it ain't a problem no more. And if someone's screwing with you and yours, then that's my only real suggestion. Find 'em and do whatever you gotta do to keep yours safe."

Cain remembered the look on Doug's face when the two of them had confronted that college student who'd messed around with Marie-Ange's head. The normally-bookish and reserved Doug had almost turned into a wild man there. Even the meek had that kind of drive when it came to protecting the people they loved, Cain knew.

"This something going to be a bigger problem than just busting up a few rocks?" he ventured cautiously.

"I... don't know." For a moment, the anger on Nathan's face faded and was replaced by something cold and flat and calculating, as if he was weighing possibilities in his mind. "... I doubt it," he said. "From what I understand, it's being... addressed." There was a flash of something scorchingly, venomously bitter in his gray eyes for a moment, but it was gone again in the next, and he rose slowly.

"Did I tell you," he said, almost casually, "that Angelo's trying to talk me into leaving the team?"

"Do you think you ought to?" Cain asked right back. "I mean, ain't no questioning you're a part of the team. Even if Jean's got the same amount of power, she ain't got the experience you do. You bring a lot to the table. But," he looked down at Nathan with a serious gaze. "You also got a family to come home to. Same way Alison did. I gave her the speech already, and she told me how it was going to be. She made the decision to put on the leathers to make a better world for her son. Even I ain't fool enough to get in the way of something like that. We got our reasons, all of us. If what's important to you says stay on the team, you do it. If it says hang it up, there ain't no shame in it."

"Let's just say that any doubts I was wrestling with yesterday are gone the way of the dodo." Nathan's eyes were hot as he looked up at Cain, and if the air around him was a little brighter than it should be, they were out in the quarry. If he slipped, he wasn't going to hurt anything. "At this point, I'm thinking they'll get me out of leathers when I'm dead." It came out sounding a little melodramatic, which only made him angrier. "Elpis is... what it is," he gritted, "but so's the team." And none of the rest of it made the slightest fucking bit of sense. He forced a tight smile. "I think I could do with a drink," he said, the casual tone a little brittle. "You feel like a drink?"

Cain smiled, crushing a handful of small rocks into powder almost absentmindedly. "Damn straight. I guarantee you the tv at Harry's ain't showing any of that silly soccer crap the kids are all jumping like fools about."

"I have this craving for tequila. And don't knock soccer," Nathan said. "I mean, hockey's much to be preferred..." He could go down to Harry's and banter with Cain, and maybe things would reorient themselves a little by the time he got back. It couldn't hurt to try.