xp_logs | log: Pete and Jake at Harry´s

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"Oi! Gavin! Get your coat, I need a drink!"

Pete hammered on the shapeshifters door.

"If I'm stuck here much longer, something very unfortunate is going to happen to one of the students, and then I'm going to have to explain the ground-in stains to Marko, and it'll be a lot bleeding safer for
me if I just blame you. So we're going to the pub before I do something you'll regret."

The door opened slowly, and Jake hurried to put a foot between the gap before the door could close. He was pulling a coat on hurriedly, held a bag of marshmallows with his teeth and putting his left
shoe on by kicking the foot hard against the doorstop. Seconds later, he held the marshmallow bag in his hand and was looking impatiently at Pete.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Betsy said she´d meet us later, so let's get out of here. Quickly. To the Pete-mobile."

"The Pete-mobile? Has the festive cheer gone to your head, or something? Personally, I just borrow whatever car happens to be lying around, cab it home, and fetch the car the following day. There's
a couple of spares in the garage - at least I think they're spares. I've never bothered to check where they keep the keys, so I don't know for sure..."

A short walk to the garage, and a short drive to the pub later...

Pete nodded to the man behind the bar as they walked in the door. "Evening, Harry. I'll have me usual, and Jake here'll have...?"

"Guinness me," Jake said, looking around. "Classy, Wisdom. Very classy." He grinned, already feeling more relaxed, and less inclined to poison the orange juice at the mansion. Living at the mansion was a
little like he'd heard being in wars was described; Long stretches of boredom, and brief incidents of deadly terrifying excitement.

The fact that most of the incidents of deadly terrifying excitement involved teenagers who didn't _mean_ to blow things up, really didn't help.

Pete grinned in response, as Harry set a pint of Guinness and a scotch in front of them.
"Found Harry's about halfway through the first week I was here, and I've run into some of the staff down here a couple of times. I live in the hope that I'll catch a student down here at some point, even though I
come down here to get away from half of them."

He led the way over to his usual table.

"So, how're you finding Xavier's, then? Suitably traumatic?"

"I don't go in for being traumaticed, you know. But yes. There are children," and Jake's voice became urgent, needing to get his point through. "and teenagers. Everywhere. And they angst. Then they post
about angsting. And then I trip over them everywhere, and, do they ever shut up?"

Jake chugged down half the pint of Guinness, before continuing, "Also, mother shut down my expence account. So, yes, plenty of trauma. But enough about me (though I could go on), what the black hells are
you doing here?"

"Ah. That, old son, is a much less exciting story than it ought to be. About a year or so back, the British governement developed an interest in Xavier's school, partly, I think because the US was looking at them as a threat, but I got the idea there was more to it than that. I'd been making noises about some of the jobs I'd been doing, so as a sop to me, and because I'd met the man a couple of times on business, they assigned me as a liason and analyst - mostly deskwork and diplomacy."

Wisdom sipped his drink.

"But there was a bit of a change in extra-normal ops structure shortly thereafter, and I wound up back doing some really hairy fieldwork again, as well as finding the nature of my Xavier's assignment changed a bit - I wound up spending more and more time here. While I was here on psych leave, my bosses shut down MacTaggart's facility at Muir, so I went home, and kicked up a stink, and got fired."

He lit up, and offered Jake the packet.

"So I came back here - I thought Britain might be a bit hot for a while, but I was through there looking for Emma, and it all seems fine, so I reckon they've decided not to hold a grudge. The counsellor thing was Blaire's idea - I had a bit of a row with her around the time you got
here, so this is her revenge. I don't mind - it at least gives me an excuse to be here while I get on with things, and I can try and make sure the kids don't all grow up to use stupid codenames and wear pervert suits in me spare time."

Jake shook the cigarette packet absently until a cigarette fell out. "Speaking of, is that why people refer to me as Courier? Because it's a little. Bizarre. I mean, yes, I am a courier, and a very good one, I might add, but it's a little like calling you Ex-British Government, isn't it?" He lit up, inhaled, exhaled and shook his head. "Fucking weird place."

"They've given you a stupid codename? You're doomed. Your shopping trip with Emma was probably just an excuse to get your measurements for the leatherwear."

Pete caught Harry's eye, and gestured for another round.

"But yes, it's deeply bloody weird, and that's half the reason I'm hanging about. Xavier's one of the best men I know, but he's too willing to trust people, and the idea that things will work out all right in
the end. And that's bloody lovely, and given a straight choice between him and Erik, I'm with Charlie, but in anything but the nicest interpretation, you've got a man with a brain so powerful that he's capable of controlling the thoughts of everyone around him, possibly without knowing he's doing it, running a place that's a cross between a cult of personality and a milita training camp."

He took a long swallow of his whisky, rolling the taste round his mouth.

"And that wouldn't bother me so much, except for the fact that there are so bloody many kids here, and far too few staff who I'd trust to keep them safe if we suddenly had a Waco type situation on our hands."

Jake winced at the thought. "That'd be bad, yeah." He clicked his nails thoughtfully against his glass. "I've been keeping track of the mutant abilities I've seen in use and what not at the mansion, and if the
kids could actually use their abilities, without them backfiring, you'd have a kickass guerilla going on. Could scare the hell out of a lot of people, if they stopped to think about it."

He waved his hand to stop Pete from talking. "I know, I know. You've got people snooping around and being jittery already, but most of them accept that there are kids involved and that the place is mostly a
school. Some even like the place for gathering mutants. They know where they are, then. No one's seriously attempted to take it out yet." He frowned down at his Guinness. "...Yet... Do you know..." He
shook his head. "No, it's not possible. It can't be..."

Pete blinked.

"I'm damn sure you didn't miss the ruck there was last summer - the blinding headaches that the entire planet had, y'know, the ones that almost got me killed, and turned you into a big girl? What d'you think that was, if not an attempt to take the place out?"

He ground his cigarette out.

"But what is it that can't be possible, then? You're not wondering if they're letting the place fill up so they can knock down as many mutants as they can at one go, are you?"

"I am _now_," Jake said wryly, arching an eyebrow at Pete. "And, please, if they wanted to take the place down, they would have blown it to smithereens. Subtlety has never struck me as a speciality of
theirs. No, I what I was thinking about was... You know the kid we picked up during New Years?" he hesitated, drinking before he continued on. "Does he... I don't know, look familiar to you?"

"I've had a bit on my mind over Christmas, to be honest, so I've been filing the new arrivals under 'be horrible to them later'. Why, is there something about this geezer I should know?"

Jake shook his head. "I don't know. I mean, I think he's... But he _can't_ be. He's much too young." He finished his Guinness and signalled for another round. "Never mind me, I'm rambling. What did you do during Christmas, anyway?"

"Stopped in on me sister. Wouldn't have bothered but she gave me a bell wanting me to do her a favour, and it was an excuse to get out of here for the worst of the teenage excitement."

Pete lit up again.

"But come on, sunshine, don't leave me hanging here. If you're having a paranoid fit about something, I wanna know about it. If it's nothing, it's nothing, and I can laugh at you for being the only person around here to make me look innocent and trusting, but all you've done right now is make me want to shake some poor bastard down, so out with the rest of it..."

Jake ground his cigarette out, and tilted his head to look at Pete, hair falling into his eyes. "Yeah, all right, then. Do you remember -- I don't know, several years ago, now -- there was an assassin named Remy LeBeau, he worked... Pretty much all over I think. But this Remy can't possibly be..."

"Do what? Remy LeBeau? He'd be what, my age? A bit older, even, not this kid you picked up? Yeah, I heard the stories about the evil little fuck, yeah. Never did find out exactly who he worked for."

Pete took a long drag on his cigarette, thinking. "Let's put the age thing to one side for a minute, because if there's even a slim chance a living shit like that is under the same roof as the kids, I'll do him myself, and take my chances with the moral outrage crew later."

He paused for a second.

"Right then. What do we know about the old LeBeau?"

"Well, I think he was CIA..." Jake frowned. "I haven't had the chance to go through my files yet, but I'm sure he's government."

Pete sighed and knocked back his drink.

"Right then. You check your files, and I'll have a word with some of me old friends. I'm not completely sold on the idea that it's the same guy, but let's see if we can't run up this spook, and see where
he's supposed to be these days."

Jake nodded.

They sat in complete silence, finishing up their drinks, staring preoccupied into the air as Betsy arrived.