xp_logs | Angelo and Scott, Thursday afternoon

Scott seeks out Angelo, on what's really just a pretext, and they talk about how the younger man is handling - or not handling - things.

He was possibly going to be sorry that he was doing this, Scott reflected, but it made for a good excuse to have this conversation. Which probably did need to be had sooner, rather than later. He wasn't planning to push Angelo into anything, but they needed to get the source of the problem out in the open. If his own experience had taught him anything...

"Angelo," he greeted the younger man as he stepped out onto the porch, watching him watch his dog as Joyita rolled happily in the grass.

Angelo didn't turn, just raised a hand in a quick half-wave to the man behind him. He'd actually been wondering when this would happen. "Hey, Scott."

"Not to nag," Scott said, keeping his voice light as he leaned against the railing, "but I noticed you didn't add anything in the way of a report to the team database." He paused; Angelo said nothing. "I know you said you wanted some time off," he went on, more softly. "If you need someone to do it for you, that's all right, but that means one of us needs to debrief you properly." Which Angelo had also avoided doing.

"...so in other words", was the eventual flat response, "I'm not gettin' away with not goin' through the hijack one way or another. Even if there's not much to tell."

All right. Not unexpected, in terms of a response. Scott was silent, regarding Angelo for a long moment. "We do need to know everything that happened," he murmured. "At some point. If you need more time before you're ready to talk about it, that's okay."

"So if I tell you yeah, I do need more time, you'll drop it until whenever?" Angelo asked, staring out across the grass. "What if I just don't want to?"

Carefully. "I'm... maybe a little concerned about whether or not you overheard or saw something that might be best for us to know sooner... but I trust your judgement. If you don't think that's the case, I will drop it for a while." Scott hesitated, but then went on. "And in terms of not wanting to - I did offer to debrief you. That might be easier."

"Comes to the same thing. Debriefin' just means I'm not the one puttin' it in formal for the report. An' it depends what kind of things you'd need to know right away. All I've got is how they did it an' who they were, an' you know the second one already."

Maybe he needed to be just a little less careful. Scott straightened. "I can live with a hole in the database," he said, his voice still low, not even a hint of challenge to it. "And I'm fully in support of the idea of you taking some time off. But you can't pretend this didn't happen." However much you maybe wish you could.

Angelo stiffened visibly, the first sign of emotion he'd shown since Scott arrived on the porch. "Oh, I know it happened. Trust me, I'm not gonna forget that."

"Have you talked to anyone about it?"

"Depends what you mean. Talked to Nate, some. A little bit to Amanda, when she wasn't asleep."

"Neither of them actually count, Angelo," Scott sighed. "I was thinking more along the lines of Jack Leary. Or Charles. Someone who could help you process what happened to you."

Angelo laughed faintly at that, sudden and humourless. "Y'know, I was tryin' to get Nate to stop avoidin' Jack's calls, week before last. Funny, isn't it." That was an answer, more or less.

"So that's a no." Scott shook his head slightly, risked pushing. He'd always been straightforward with Angelo; he knew the younger man respected that, and maybe beating around the bush was actually counterproductive here. "You just haven't had a chance yet and you're planning to rectify that when you do? Or are we looking at actual avoidance?"

Angelo shrugged. "'s only been a few days. I'll make an appointment."

Scott rubbed at his temples for a moment. Gently, he told himself. "Did you say that because you want to get help getting through this, or because I pushed you on the subject?"

Silence. The answer was somewhere between the two options, but that was more than Angelo felt like thinking about hard enough to put into words, just yet.

Scott was trying to put his finger on why he wanted to walk down the steps and shake the younger man. Given that no one had done that to him, back during the summer or fall, it seemed a little uncharitable. People don't just snap out of it, Summers, you know that.

"When you emailed me, you said you didn't feel you deserved to be on the team. Why not?" Might as well come right to it. If this was just a facade of apathy, time to put a crack or two in it - people had done that for him, and it had been necessary. If it was actual apathy... well, in that case he was out of his depth.

The silence continued for a few minutes. Finally, "'cause I had jobs to do an' I failed. Look after the kids, get them back to the mansion safe - an' yeah, I know they did, but they got themselves back."

Scott took a deep breath and let it out. "Welcome to the realities of the life we're living," he said, almost under his breath, but shook his head before Angelo could respond. "You're feeling guilty."

The answer was obviously a yes, so he didn't bother. Just half-shrugged and nodded slightly.

"Do you have a particular hankering for an ulcer? Or a drinking problem?" Scott asked, still gently, but firmly. "Because that's where that line of thinking leads. Trust me, I was neck-deep in it for a number of years."

Angelo didn't say anything. Scott went on in that same calm voice, willing his words to at least penetrate. "I suppose that makes me a bit of a hypocrite, saying all this. But you have the chance to learn from the mistakes of those of us who came before you, Angelo. We do our best - we always do our best, but we have to accept that just because we're mutants doesn't mean we're superhuman. Holding yourself to the impossible standard... it drives you crazy, in the end. It starts crippling what you can do, and that's not fair, either to yourself or to the people you're trying to help. Maybe I'm telling you all of this too soon," Scott conceded, a flash of weariness in his eye, "but it's a lot easier to start changing the course of your thinking on this now than it will be a month from now. Or a year"

Angelo considered this, then nodded slowly. "Guess I've got some stuff to think about, then. Changes to make." If not necessarily the changes Scott was hoping for. He'd been disillusioned, badly, and... there were decisions to make. But not yet.

"You're going to take that time off, right?" Scott said, trying to sound encouraging. "Maybe some time away? Some space'll be good for thinking..."

"Definitely time off", Angelo agreed. "Time away... maybe. We'll see how it goes. Probably should."

Scott looked around at the mansion grounds. "Sometimes you've got to get out of here, before you start seeing here clearly," he said.

Another snort of wry laughter. "You might be on to somethin' there. But how often do you get out?"

"As I just got finished saying, Angelo," Scott said dryly, turning back towards the door, "you don't want to take me as a model. I got to my present state of relative sanity the hard way. Learn from my example - don't follow it." He paused, looking back over his shoulder. "And if you need to talk more," he said more quietly, "you know where to find me."

Angelo nodded again. "Yeah, I know. An'... thanks."