xp_logs | LOG: [Marie, Haller] Insomniacs (Reply)

As it turns out, conversation is slightly awkward when one party has set the other on fire. Haller and Marie try their best.

Marie abruptly sat up in bed and looked at the clock. Two am. Well, that was better than some nights. Her dreams had been less troubled of late, but sleep had still been fairly elusive. She let out a sigh as she swung her feet over the edge of the bed and put on her bunny slippers. No one else was probably wandering the halls at this ungodly hour, but it was better to be safe so she added a pair of gloves and tossed a light summer robe over her pajamas.

She padded out of the suite quietly, not wanting to wake her roommate or anyone with sensitive hearing. Walking briskly, she headed towards the kitchen to see about making a pot of hot chocolate or even just some warm milk. She was almost there when she saw him walking down the hall. A panicked squeak came out of her mouth as she froze, watching him get closer. Clutching her robe around her tightly, she began analyzing the hallway for an escape route that wouldn't be as obvious as say, spinning around and running as fast as she could.

Jim rubbed his temples with both hands, aware he wasn't quite as with-it as he should have been. After Nathan's visit he'd finally allowed himself to take the Clonopin. It was calming him, but not enough to restore balance. He should've known better than to expect it would in the state of mind he was in right now. Somehow the drug was making him drowsy, yet when he lay down sleep refused to come. Support he'd barely been aware of for years had ebbed away, leaving him stranded. Stranded in the infirmary without the coping skills he'd become reliant on. Suddenly he was choking on the same four walls, same bed and white sheets, same fluorescent lights and sterile smell, and he wanted out. Just to clear his head. That was all. . . . And maybe a cigarette. So, so badly. For the past three weeks straight.

Which was all he was thinking about until a barely-suppressed squeak focused his attention.

"Marie," Jim said in a voice not quite strangled. Oh shit oh shit. Pay attention, dumbass! Oh Christ, Cyndi set her on fire. What do you say to that? He took in her robe, her disheveled hair and the fluffy, oversized bunnyslippers, and offered the only response he could think of. "Hi."

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod. "Hi." Her eyes widened as she continued to stare at the man who had set her on fire, her eyes drawn to a tuft of a hair sticking in the opposite direction as the rest. Her hand shot up to run through her short hair as she broke eye contact and looked down at her feet. "Um…so…Ah guess you're better," she said awkwardly, her gaze firmly rooted on a piece of fuzz on the head of one of her slippers.

"I'm . . . getting there," was the most reassuring answer Jim could manage. The only good thing about his current state of imbalance was that he was not immediately subjected to Jack's blatant disdain. He felt painfully exposed under the dim half-light of the hallway. I should've not tried to sleep in my clothes. Or shaved at some point since the Fourth of July. Yeah, looking real sane right now.

He needed to say something. "I, uh . . . I'm sorry. About the beach. I was . . ." He didn't think he could handle this right now. He'd never been good with people. Jim could feel the alters' steady gaze on the back of his neck, but from the one quarter he needed -- nothing. Nothing overt, at least, which might as well have been the same thing. Stranded. Marie was doing a very thorough job of inspecting her slipper. The careful lack of attention was almost as bad as if she'd been staring at him. For a moment a muscle worked in Jim's jaw, struggling against the silence, then brown eyes lowered to the rug. He muttered, "There was a memo."

Sorry? How 'bout an explanation? But did she really want one? Want to know what could have caused her teammate to lash out? She twisted her hands together, eyeing the hall beyond Haller longingly. "A memo?" Marie racked her brain. Scott had posted something about Haller to the main journal list, but that couldn't be considered a memo by any stretch of the imagination.

"Back when I first got here. I, uh. I've got MPD. They call it dissociative identity disorder now, but same thing." And Jim knew, in retrospect, that this was a detail he should have been clearer on at the time. The COs had been given his dossier when he'd insisted he be allowed to accompany the team to search for Nathan months ago, just in case, but he hadn't made the effort to clarify it for the rest of the team. Or to inform the newer additions to the staff. Selfish. So fucking selfish. Unconsciously, Jim's hand traveled to rub at the back of his head in one of David's fidgets.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," he said weakly. "I wouldn't have come if I knew. We were functional. I was . . ." The words ran out, and the hand dropped to his side, defeated.

We. Well then. It's a good thing Ah didn't try to bring him down with a touch. She suppressed a shudder at the idea of taking in such a fractured psyche…she had gotten better at filtering things, that was true, but she didn't have enough faith in her abilities to deal with that. So that was the explanation. The stress on the beach had caused Haller to lose control over the different parts of himself. One part of Marie wanted to point out that they wouldn't have been able to stop the wave without him. But another part didn't want to offer comfort to the man before her, no matter his explanation for his actions. She settled for something more along the lines of middle ground. "Hindsight is always twenty twenty."

Jim smiled bitterly. "Yeah, funny thing. You'd think choking on that for half your life would turn you on to foresight at some point, huh?"

He could distinctly feel Cyndi roll her eyes. Fantastic, pity-party for everyone. You wanna go curl up in the corner for a while? I can drive. A faint spasm crossed the telepath's face as Jim's jaw clenched again, briefly, then smoothed.

"Either way, I'm obviously off the team," he continued, his voice a little closer to level. "Chalk it up to 'unsuitable due to reason of mental defect or disease.'"

Marie couldn't help flinching when Haller's face spasmed. She felt skittish around him and couldn't let her guard down. People were not supposed to change that easily, from kind and caring to lashing out with no consideration for others. Then again, wasn't that sort of what happened to her when she took on other's personality traits at times? Something that wasn't entirely within her control?

"Well…you aren't the first off the team for that reason," she said haltingly. And probably won't be the last. "Um, Ah was headed to the kitchen for a cup of cocoa…you want to…" she trailed off as she made a small gesture towards the kitchen, wondering why she had just invited Haller to join her.

The smart reaction would be to refuse. Marie was uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable. It was extremely unlikely cocoa was going to change this, and the attempt at communication had gone so well with Nathan. But . . .

There you go, pop another pill and run back to all your mad little scribbles and self-help books. A padded room is so much easier than a life you can't hack.

Jim's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Fuck you, Jack.

"I probably should drink something. Water at least, so I'll sit for a little bit. Then I'll take a walk." He managed a small smile at Marie. "I promise I won't try to help boil anything."

Marie just nodded at him, not even attempting to smile back, a slightly dubious look in her eyes. She was not ready for jokes about boiling from Haller, not with the image of his gleeful face as he set her on fire in her mind. At least it was you and not someone else. You walked away with nothing more than a new hairstyle.

She walked briskly to the kitchen and pulled out a pot. After she poured in some milk, she set it on the burner and noticeably shifted to keep her eyes on Haller as she turned on the stove. Better safe than sorry. "How long have you had DID?" she asked, not worrying about her blunt tone and question. She felt she had earned some answers.

Jim noticed her guarded posture as he slid into a chair at the table, but made no comment. It was nothing he wasn't used to. Or didn't deserve. "Since I was ten," the man replied, the answer coming automatically. This was old territory. A far cry from comfortable, but familiar, at least. Familiar was manageable. Lecture-mode.

"My manifestation was . . . pretty bad. Charles figured I'd been using mild dissociation for at least three years by that point, so when I manifested I just shattered along preexisting faults." He lay his hands flat on the table before them, studying the grain of the wood. "David wasn't ready to kill anyone, or be in their minds while he did, so I broke me up into parts that could handle it. I did the same with my powers." Jim picked at a hardened patch of something on the tabletop. "I've never been able to use telekinesis after that first time. But the ones that came out in San Diego . . . that's what they've always been. That power tied to those parts. At least until I had to ask Charles to lock the power away." A thought murmured, from somewhere in the dark, And cripple them.

Against her will, Marie felt pity for Haller. A bad manifestation was something she could relate to all too well. Though from the sounds of it, Haller's has been worse than her own. She hadn't killed anyone, even if Cody may as well be dead for all the living he was doing. At a loss for what to say, she busied herself taking out two mugs, measuring cocoa powder and pouring the now steaming milk into them. Handing one to Haller, she set hers on the counter and dug through a couple drawers until she found a bag of mini marshmallows. "That must have been very painful," she heard herself say.

Jim carefully lined up the base of his mug with a ring of dried coffee. There were too many responses to that: sarcasm, rage, pathos. And always, always, like shards of glass scattered beneath tissue paper, waiting for the minutest pressure to split the skin of it, loathing.

Faced with all these choices, Jim only clasped the warmth of his mug with both hands and settled for, "It happens."

Sprinkling a generous handful of marshmallows in her cup, she set the bag down and pushed it towards Haller. "It does," she agreed. She mulled over what he had said, that each of his powers was tied to a fragmented part of himself. "So which part of you set me on fire?" Marie was surprised that she spoke the question out loud and fairly calmly. The only sign of her anxiety was a tremor in her hands and she quickly set her mug down before she spilled the hot liquid.

"Uh, that'd be . . . Cyndi." Jim held himself still over the urge to find a very small hole to crawl into. His face was burning. If he left Jack unnamed due to the childish belief that labelling him would draw the alter out, leaving Cyndi and Davey anonymous was pure pride. No one ever looked at him the same way again after discovering two of his primary defenses against reality were a sixteen year old girl and a ten year old boy. He wouldn't. But then, he thought as he stared into the surface of the cocoa, pride wasn't something he could afford anymore. Not after two of his dirty little secrets had attacked the team. He'd lost that right.

"Cyndi's the pyrokinetic," Jim continued, lifting the mug. The sensation of the cup brushing against the stubble of his top lip was vaguely unsettling. "She's kind of . . . id. Not much impulse control. To her and Jack this place meant being locked up again. They didn't want to go back, so Cyndi went after people we knew were invulnerable. Just to scare you into leaving her alone. She's not violent. Not intentionally. It won't happen again." Jim's gaze settled on Marie's hair, and he winced, realizing fully for the first time why she'd have made such a dramatic change. "We didn't know about your . . ." He groped for a minute, and then just settled for the all-purpose "Sorry."

It better not happen again. But… "Cyndi. Right. Ok then." Marie hadn't even fathomed that one of Haller's alters could be female. She picked up her mug and took a sip, swallowing the too hot liquid quickly. "Ah didn't know about my hair either. Also didn't exactly remember Ah was invulnerable." She bit her lip, wondering if her next question was out of line, but needing to ask it. "Are any of your alters violent?" She wasn't quite sure she believed what Haller had told her about Cyndi, but if she was going to live in the same house as this man, she needed a better understanding of who he was. All of him.

"Not . . . to you. Or the kids." Jim dragged his eyes up to meet Marie's. Looking people in the eye was something he needed to get used to again. If he could do it about Jack, he could do it about anything. Time to start acting like a man again. As close as we can get, anyway.

That was too specific. So he is still dangerous. "Why not?" Her eyes begged him to give her an answer she'd believe. If he wasn't in control, how could he be sure of what the other parts of him would do? "And who still needs to be careful around you?"

"Jack's a defender-personality. That's his job. Especially with kids. And to him kids're . . ." He hesitated, lips twisting slightly in a frown. He didn't think Marie was going to like this response, but Jack saw things how he saw things -- and in this case, at least, it was to their benefit. "Kids are basically anyone younger than David. Trainees are safe, too."

Hearing the man in front of her talk about himself in the third person was more than a little odd, but made sense given his condition. She thought about what he'd said as she took another sip of her hot chocolate. If she hadn't been so used to Logan calling her kid, she probably would have been more offended. As it was, she couldn't be upset about something that kept her relatively safe from…Jack. She filed that name away, wondering how she was ever going to keep them all straight. Jack…Cyndi… "So how many are there? And who am Ah talkin' to now?"

It was obvious, of course. It was so obvious, especially at times like this. David was shy and earnest and apologetic, and he was . . . not. Terry's comment from their conversation months ago came back to him: "You said David like he was someone else. So who are you?"

Jim knew he shouldn't balk at this. Marie had been on the beach -- she might even have heard Scott and Lorna calling for him. "No more hiding," Jack had said . . . but that had been Jack's decision, not his. Hadn't he admitted to enough?

"There are three personalities," Jim said. "Davey's not a problem. Doesn't come out in front of people much. Not exactly dangerous if you take away the permanent markers. You're . . . you're still talking to David. Kind of uneven sometimes, but I'm still him." He muttered into his cocoa, "I've been David for years."

Marie frowned at that. There was something that didn't ring quite true in Haller's words, but she didn't think she wanted to push it. And hadn't both Lorna and Scott called him Jim? She took a sip of her hot chocolate to give her more time to think, finally settling on letting the subject drop, in a manner of speaking. "Being more than one person is hard." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yeah. It . . . shouldn't take this much work to keep yourself straight." Even through the haze of self-pity and sharp roils of anger at the statement that had been a half-truth at best, Jim still recognized that Marie understood -- probably better than anyone else at the school. He gave her a faint, wry smile. "Guess I should do another memo. That way at least people'll be able to keep score."

She was able to smile back, equally wryly, and merely shrugged her shoulders in response. After a few moments of silence, she sat down and tapped her head. "At least you know the score. Though it'll be easier on folks if they know it too."

"Yeah. People like to know who they're living with." Not that you'll be telling them. Jim thought, Just shut up. He rubbed his face, pulling his hand across the growth of beard. "Okay. I'll -- do a post or something. It'll be faster. And let people know I'm not dead. Should probably have done that a little earlier, but the crazy . . . kind of time-consuming."

Marie wrapped both hands around her empty mug, staring down into it as if some answer lay at the bottom. "It is indeed," she said thinking back on her time in Canada. It had taken years for her to regain what sanity she had now. "Scott let everyone know you were…indisposed, though he didn't give the reason."

"I asked. Didn't want to . . . bother anyone. Lots going on after San Diego, and then Scott and . . ." Jim paused, then smirked slightly at his own discomfort. "Explaining's awkward. Like this."

Finally looking up from her cup, Marie smiled faintly. "It always is. Maybe there should be a seminar. Going crazy – How to tell your friends, colleagues and family."

"Yeah, it's not like there's a Hallmark card for 'Sorry I went psychotic and stabbed you in the leg,' or 'Sorry one of my other personalities tried to set you on fire'. Figures there's never a shortcut for the things you really need." Jim's fingers flexed around the now-empty mug, and he smiled again. "Okay. We're out of stuff to drink. I think I better take that walk now. There's only so many ways you can torture a conversation."

Relief flashed briefly across Marie's face. This conversation had begun making her feel slightly more comfortable around Haller, but she wasn't ready for more than a short visit yet and his mention of setting her on fire brought to mind the thoughts she had finally been able to push to the back. It didn't matter that she logically understood that a different man stood in front of her; he was in too many ways still the one who had ignited the air around her.

"Enjoy your walk," she said as rinsed her mug and stuck it in the dishwasher. She watched Haller leave and then very carefully picked the other direction in which to continue her roaming. She had no desire for the dreams she knew were awaiting her.