Kaiten: Devlin

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Angelo helps his new friends help their friend back home. It proves to be a very fruitful evening.



Devlin's apartment wasn't enormous by New York standards, but it was in a very upscale building, and the decor and furnishings made it very clear that the man had money, and probably quite a bit of it. Seabourn and Frost helped him to a chair, while Ash vanished into the washroom, emerging with a first aid kit.

"Fucking cops," she said vehemently, coming over to take a closer look at the gash on Devlin's forehead. "I should have fried the lot of them."

"There'll be other times", Angelo reminded her flatly. "Time enough for payback for this. Just not when someone would've shot you before you'd thrown more than one fireball."

"Hey, at least we disrupted the race traitor's speech," Rust offered a bit sheepishly, scratching his head.

Rowan went over and sank into a chair, looking utterly exhausted. "There was another telekinetic there," she said bitterly. "Strong, whoever it was."

"Yes, dear," Devlin said gently, "I saw the incident with the car."

"It had to've been one of the ones preachin' integration", Angelo said with a frown. "Just wish I could've picked out who."

"It's immaterial, really. We know that a lot of our fellow mutants have fallen victim to that sort of self-defeating thinking," Devlin said as Ash attended to the cut on his forehead. "It's sad, but, well... so long as we hold the course, the only ones they hurt doing it will be themselves." He gave Angelo a critical look before looking up at Ash. "You haven't introduced your new friend, dear."

"Dienekes," Ash said with a slightly rueful grin. "We were going to bring him to next weekend's thing. I met him teaching some flatscans why it's not good to mutant-bash."

"Near Silver", Angelo confirmed, lip curling. "Not that i'll be goin' back there. I thought it was for our kind, not theirs."

"It's a club," Ash said when Devlin looked back at her. "I've told you about it before." Her tone was almost indulgent. "Hold still," she said, as she finished cleaning the cut.

"Ah, yes." Devlin's gaze stayed on Angelo, however, assessing.

Angelo looked right back at him, eyebrows raised slightly in not-quite-challenge. He was waiting for the questions to start.

"He's fine," Ash said a bit defensively, her eyes flickering to Angelo. "I mean, he was there with us when we took out that outreach center, and today..."

Devlin looked at her, giving her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry," he soothed. "I trust your judgement, Ash. Haven't I told you that before?" She visibly brightened, tossing off a winsome smile at him as she continued patching him up.

Angelo glanced between Devlin and Ash, not missing how quickly she'd cheered up. It might just be that she wanted to please him, of course, but his attention went right back to Devlin. "Don't know how much good my powers'll be to your group. They're mostly good for hand to hand an' close-quarters stuff."

"Oh? And what are your powers?" Angelo felt a slow, but steadily building urge to be helpful, to demonstrate why he was useful. To cooperate.

He blinked, just once, recognising what was happening, but didn't otherwise react to it, and in this instance didn't fight it. Yet. "This." He raised a hand, and his fingers stretched out to grab an ornament off a shelf three feet away.

"He should have called himself Epidermis," Frost muttered.

"Well, there's no reason your mutant names need to be quite that literal," Devlin said, amiably enough. Angelo's urge to be helpful faded, if not completely. "I can think of a great many ways in which... Dienekes's talents could be useful."

Angelo looked at him with some interest on hearing that. "Really? I mean, I didn't really get much chance to work on it, this last couple years, but..."

"Oh? What's prevented you?" Be forthcoming, the urge said. We're all friends here. You want to be forthcoming.

Definitely an empath, and there was no way to tell if he could only project, or if he could read emotions too. There was nothing he could do about it either way, though, except stay calm and tell the pre-planned story. "Jail", he said bitterly. "Two years for a fuckin' muggin', an' no parole. Never can tell who's gonna decide they don't like mutants an' take the first chance to knife you."

"I see," Devlin said thoughtfully, then smiled again at Ash as she finished with the bandage. "Before you ask - no, dear, I'm not hurt anywhere else. I could use a drink, though."

"Hell, I could use a drink, too," Ash muttered, and moved unerringly to the liquor cabinet, making it very clear she'd been here numerous times before.

"Why don't we all indulge a bit? It's been a long afternoon." Devlin's smile was almost whimsical. "And boys, I might have a six-pack in the refrigerator... I knew you'd be here at some point." Rust fairly leapt in the direction of the kitchen.

"Sure, I'll have a beer if one's goin'", Angelo said with a crooked grin, ignoring the looks from Frost and Rust.

--

He hadn't had very long to work with, when he left the group on the excuse of needing to go to the bathroom. No longer than he'd reasonably be gone, obviously, and so when Angelo slipped into Devlin's study, he knew very well he'd have to make this quick.

Three minutes later, he left the room, tucking a certain gadget back into his inside pocket, and headed for the bathroom to flush the toilet and wash his hands, just to make it realistic in case anyone was paying attention.

"Dienekes?" It was Devlin, coming down the hall towards him with a friendly smile. He, unlike the others, had not been drinking much if at all. It had turned into quite the evening, hours of conversation about the mutant race and its place in the world. "Everything all right?" he asked, blocking Angelo's route back to the living room.

"Fine", Angelo assured him with a grin in return. "You? How's the cut?"

Devlin touched the bandage with a self-deprecating look. "Oh, fine. My own fault for not ducking. You're all right? I didn't think to ask."

"Bruises", he said dismissively. "An' most of those are a couple days old. I've had worse."

"Yes, so I'm gathering." Devlin's smile was a little odd. "You're an interesting fellow. Ash doesn't take quickly to most people, mutant or not. But she certainly seems to have developed a liking for you."

That got a smile in return, though accompanied with a careful look at the oddness of Devlin's smile. "I guess we just hit it off. Maybe she liked what she saw an' heard that night at the club."

"Usually Ash runs her friends past me. I suppose this classes as a first meeting." Devlin's eyes flickered back towards the living room. "I notice you're not a heavy drinker."

"Never have been", was the casual response. "'specially with people I don't know so well."

"Admirable quality, caution." Anxious. Angelo was anxious suddenly, pushed hard towards 'eager to please'. "You've had some very disillusioning experiences, I gather."

"You could say that." He leaned back against the hallway wall, hands going to his pockets. "I've got no reason to like flatscans and a dozen or so not to."

"That's understandable," Devlin said, almost gently. "But it isn't about hating them, not really. They're not worth hating. If you can't rise above that... well, there are paths that people full of hatred can take. They're not pleasant paths. Not like the ones open to those who see the whole picture." He smiled a bit wryly, and the foreign influence on Angelo's emotions faded again. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. Maybe simply because Ash likes you. I'm very fond of her. She's going to do great things."

Angelo nodded, allowing another faint smile. "She's got the right stuff from what I've seen, yeah. As for the whole picture... what whole picture's that?" The tone was less not understanding, more... wanting clarification.

"Let's just say that it's possible to have a... higher understanding of the challenges that face the mutant race." Devlin reached out and laid a hand on Angelo's arm, and the urge that hit Angelo, to sit at his figurative knee and hang on his ever word, was nearly overwhelming. "It's a very complex world, ours. If you're going to spend much more time with Ash, you might... give that some thought."

Almost overwhelming, but not quite. He could use it to his advantage, though, since it was what Devlin would be expecting. "I'll try an' learn more about it", he said, oddly earnest for the person "Miguel" was.

"That's what we do, isn't it? We learn. We adapt."

"When we can. Yeah, I guess we do."