xp_logs | Nathan and Pietro, Wednesday evening

Nathan should be heading out to play Angelo's guardian angel for the evening, but someone's been pretending that he's Charles Xavier and his brain is not thanking him for it. Fortunately, Pietro's had a certain amount of experience at remaining unobtrusive.

This was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. The headache had built steadily over the course of the day, but over the last hour or so had gotten so bad that he'd barely made it all the way in from the boathouse - his equilibrium seemed to be deserting him at regular intervals. It was vaguely reminiscent of other times he'd overstrained his powers - but that made no sense, Nathan thought crankily, swaying a bit. All he'd been doing was keeping a telepathic 'tag' on Angelo. Okay, so he'd been doing it waking and sleeping, but still...

Pietro was on his way out the door, but stopped, puzzled, when he passed Nathan in the hall. "Late for a hangover, but early for getting drunk, I should think," he quipped. "That is, unless you're my sister circa age twenty, but I really think I would have noticed. What's going on, Dayspring?"

"I need to talk to Ororo." The words even came out sounding slurred, and Nathan tried to shake his head - then paused, wincing. Not a great idea. "Supposed to be doing the check-in with Angelo, but I think my head's about to explode." It struck him that wasn't the best image ever, given Scott's current situation, but oh, well...

"You look it. Have you--" Pietro's eyebrows shot up. "You haven't been keeping constant tabs on the boy all this time, have you? My goodness, Professor, aren't you ambulatory today. And I can hardly tell that's a toupee."

Nathan mustered up a scowl. "Smartass," he muttered. "He's just in New York, and it's just a... tag."

"Uh huh," Pietro replied dryly. "And the fact that you can't walk a straight line or speak clearly must be a totally unrelated matter. I thought you wanted to live down that reputation of yours."

Nathan sighed and leaned against the wall. Nice, handy wall. He rubbed at his temples, then eyed Pietro. "You're used to making contact with people and being discreet about it," he said.

"Why, yes, Dayspring, now that I come to think about it I am." A faint smile played around the corners of Pietro's mouth. "Wouldn't have been much good as a double agent otherwise."

Another sigh. "Would you check on Angelo for me? He's in the middle of all of this, and he needs to know we're watching out for him..." And he was in no state to be wandering around rooftops tonight.

Pietro allowed the question to hang in the air for a moment, but quickly relented. "Let me know where to find him, and I'll take over the watch while you rest. He won't be out there alone."

"Thank you." Nathan closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating, following the thread-thin link that was fraying more and more by the minute. He offered Pietro the images, a sequential stream of them. The effort snapped the link, and he slumped back against the wall, rubbing harder at his temples. "Creepy little fanatics, these ones he's with..."

"Go find me a fanatic who isn't at least a little bit creepy," Pietro replied absently, his gaze abstracted as he processed the thought-stream. "All right, I know that area. I'll just poke my head in and let Munroe know I'm covering for you before I leave, shall I? You go . . . sit down, or something. Find yourself a nice friendly painkiller."

"To think I ever feared the little blue pills. The little blue pills are my friends..." He really did sound drunk. "Thank you. Wait, I said that already. Gah." Nathan realized he was holding his head as if worried it was going to fall off. "I'll just be tottering back out to the boathouse now. Tell him..." Gray eyes that were more than a little unfocused met Pietro's blearily. "Tell him something encouraging and pretend I said it?"

Pietro chuckled. "I'll think of something suitable. Go rest, Dayspring. You've earned it."