xp_logs | Nathan and Kevin, Tuesday afternoon

Kevin stops down by the boathouse to say hello to Nathan. Who recruits him - sort of.

Detoxing from the overpopulated house he'd been in last week finally seemed to have worked. He wasn't sure if it was easier or harder with Jay around, who made him both tense and relaxed at the same time. It may have, Kevin realized, made him a bit more okay with proximity and freaking out. Maybe. He wasn't sure. Maybe it was just with Jay. Partly for experimenting toward this purpose and partly just because, Kevin found himself wandering the few minutes down toward the lake to say hi to Mr. Dayspring. He figured at the very least he could reassure the man Jay hadn't tried to cook or flush Eddie just yet. Besides, he'd started to forget what anything but the machine shop and his suite looked like for the most part and that wasn't really optimal.

Coming to a stop in front of the door, Kevin pressed the bell at the door and waiting, suddenly feeling more awkward about this than he had on the way or when the thought had occurred to him.

"Door's open, Kevin!" he heard Nathan's voice from inside. And in fact the door was open - and opening onto an office that, while not moving at its usual pace, was still more active than it had been last week. Nathan was facing off with Juliette, who was smiling benignly up at him. "Juliette, I want my mail."

"It's all taken care of, Nathan."

"When?"

"When you were sleeping off whatever it was you were doing last week."

Kevin quirked an eyebrow up. Right, telepath. That was never going to get less creepy, was it? He wandered through the door, closing it behind him, only to see the show down. Somehow Kevin was not going to bet that Mr. Dayspring was coming out on top of that one. He decided waiting quietly until they declared war or a truce was probably the best option.

Nathan's jaw set in a mutinous line. "I don't like you reading my mail."

"You pay me to read your mail when you're incapacitated."

"Do not."

"Do so. Joel wrote it into my contract."

Nathan grinned quickly - and almost involuntarily - at that, then threw up his hands and turned away. It was basically an admission of defeat, but well, you couldn't win them all. "Hi Kevin."

"Uh, hey, Mister Dayspring. Bad time?" His eyes flicked between Nathan and the woman quickly, as if deciding if he should flee while he still could. The woman was looking rather confidently smug, which seemed great for her but maybe not great for Mr. Dayspring, even if the man was grinning. Actually, grinning could be a sign of evil intent. Plotting. Scheming. That sort of thing. He wondered if the woman's head might be exploded any time soon.

"Oh, no. Juliette is just being overly efficient again. I think she's bucking for another raise." It got a raised eyebrow and a slight smile from the woman in question, and Nathan repressed another grin as he moved away from her desk. "What's up? I think this is the first time you'd made it down here to the boathouse..."

Kevin shrugged and had a fleeting thought about how novel it was for someone to try to earn a raise through over efficiency rather than sleeping their way to the top. A glance in Juliette's direction made him blush for the thought before he wiped it from his mind. "Nothin' actually. Ah'm attemptin' this whole 'normal' thing, y'know? Figure now Ah'm not abou' ta jump through tha ceilin' whenever someone's within three feet o' me Ah'd try purposefully goin' where there's people. But, ya know, less people than tha mansion. So Ah figure Ah'd come say hi ta ya. Tha's all. Reassure ya that Jay hasn't tried ta cook Eddie yet. Or flush 'im down tha toilet. 'Mazin'ly 'nough."

"What is this issue your roommate has with your crab?" Nathan said idly, and gestured at Kevin to follow him through the door that led out of the offices and into the 'family' side of the house. "Want something to drink?"

"'E's crazy?" The answer came with a bit less resolute assurance than it normally would, Kevin noticed. Sure, now he was going soft. He couldn't have that. "Hones'ly? Not really sure." He followed Nathan out of the offices, trying to remember if there was ever an actual reason given. He couldn't think of one. "Nah, thanks, Ah'm fine. Ah think it was tha smell er somethin'. Ah moved 'im inta mah room, but, well, tha's not really effictive no more." The last was mumbled slightly.

Nathan looked back over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow, before he continued on to the fridge to get himself something to drink, even if Kevin wasn't having anything. "I probably should have checked with Mr. Guthrie before I moved a third occupant into your room, but I wanted it to be a surprise for you," he said wryly. "I didn't foresee any issues. I forget I'm not a precog anymore."

"'E jus' cranky's all." The words wrote Jay off entirely in that one sentence and Kevin was a little happier that he wasn't so smitten he'd come to overlook this glaring fact of personality. "'E gets over it, an' then he's on 'bout Eddie again. He jus' wants ta be a headache er somethin'. Maybe he's jealous tha' Eddie's prettier 'an him."

Nathan reemerged from the kitchen with a glass of water, smiling slightly. "Well, I suppose there are worse things roommates could argue about." He leaned against the corner of the wall, studying Kevin as he took a sip of the water. "How was the week away?" he asked, almost casually.

Kevin instantly growled and sank into a chair. His elbows perched on his knees and his head fell into his hands. "Ah've been avoidin' people e'er since so Ah don' jump through a window er somethin'. Mister Jones was real nice, don' get me wrong. An' Missus Espinosa is a very sweet lady an' let me an' Yvette hide out at her house so we didn' go more insane. But there was a lot o' people there at Mister Jones' an' it was too many people ta deal with an' stay sane."

"I'm sorry it was hard on you," Nathan said, and it didn't sound like a platitude; he sounded honestly regretful, and a little concerned as he sized up Kevin's body language. "And Yvette. I should have realized..." He shook his head, making a face. "Well. I am sorry."

Kevin shrugged as he shifted his head so his chin sat between his hands which cupped around his jaw. "Not yer fault, Mister Dayspring. They tol' us ta git so we got. Ah'm glad Yvette an' Ah wen' ta tha same place though. Easier with kindred sorta. An' Jay made it easier, too. Well, fer me. Bu' Yvette seemed ta like helpin' me with tha metal stuff Ah do. We made her a weepin' willow sculpture. An' we made it through alrigh'. Jus' 'cause it's hard don' mean nothin', really." He gave Nathan a smile, albeit a weak one, to let him know it was really alright.

Nathan sank into one of the other armchairs, rotating his still-wrapped wrist absently as he did. It was still bothering him; more of a sprain than he'd thought, he supposed. And his ribs still ached, even a week later. It really sucked, being old. "Well, we're all back where we belong now... this place didn't feel right, so empty. Not that any of us had much time to reflect on it."

Kevin nodded, then noticed the attention being paid to Nathan's wrist. "Ya hurt much? Ah don' know what y'all were doin', an' Ah don' need ta, bu' seems like jus' 'bout everyone needed some serious pain killers when y'all finished whatever y'alls was doin'."

Nathan smiled again. "I got off lightly. Sprained wrist, bruised ribs, just generally banged up. I wouldn't be feeling it still this week if I wasn't old and decrepit - I used to be able to bounce back from minor crap like this the next day." There was a twinkle of real amusement in his gray eyes. "Back in the days when rain in the morning didn't mean I didn't want to move."

Kevin first snickered and then actually laughed quietly. "Ol' an' decrepit, huh? Ah thought ya were lookin' a bit moldy 'round them edges, but Ah was tryin' not ta say nothing. Ya know, it's rude if yer not aware jus' yet." He gave Nathan a sarcastic sort of grin, eyes full of mischief.

"Oh, fully aware of it, trust me." Nathan gave a shrug, still smiling, but his tone was more serious when he went on. "I broke my back a couple of years ago, so the joke about feeling sore on rainy mornings isn't, really. There are days when Angelo comes in from work and the first thing he does is put a bottle of aspirin on my desk."

Just imagining breaking his back made Kevin cringe and recoil. "How'd ya break it?" Kevin, of course, had lots of colorful scenarios running through his mind, including both jumping off and being thrown off a fourteen story high roof.

"In a fight," Nathan said, almost lightly. "It could have been a lot worse. As you can see, I'm walking around just fine." He swished the water around in his glass idly. "Hazards of the whole X-Man thing, sometimes."

"Riiiigh'," Kevin nodded and looked entirely unconvinced. Not that there was any convincing going on really. "So why's it y'all sign up fer it again?"

Nathan paused, considering the right words. Kevin wasn't the type to like facile answers. "Well, you can make a lot of direct difference in people's lives. It makes a point, too - too many people hear 'mutant' and think of people like Magneto."

"They hear 'mutant' an' think of people like Kurt, too. An' people like me. People tha' look like freaks an' people who're dangerous t'a fatal degree. They got a point. Not sayin' it's right, but they do." Kevin was cynical, he knew this and while he should probably not be embracing it he couldn't really help it. "Ain't there a chance ya migh' be reaffirmin' their perception? Run off, save tha day. Ah'm 'ssuming there's some destruction involved if all y'all are so beat up."

"This time? Surprisingly little. At least where your average Joe would notice." Nathan shrugged, but went on good-humoredly. "I think we're all constantly asking ourselves whether what we're doing is worth it, or useful beyond the immediate situation. You stop assessing, when you're doing something like this, and you ought to just stop altogether." He gestured at the Elpis offices as he took another sip of his water. "I have a couple of ways to try and make that proverbial difference."

"Suppose optimism an' Ah don't sit well together, maybe." Kevin made a face, mostly at himself. "Ah ain't sayin' ya shouldn't go off an' do good things an' help or anythin'. Jus' weighin' tha scales bes' Ah can, Ah guess."

Nathan's eyes narrowed slightly as he regarded the young man. "You ought to spend a couple of afternoons down here, see the sort of work we do," he said. "I always have reading or research that needs done. You might find it interesting. I mean, you've seen the US, and Scotland... that's certainly not the sum total of what it's like to be a mutant in this world."

The narrowing of the eyes caused Kevin to sit up straight and stay alert lest he end up on the receiving end of some verbal whiplash. "Wha' kinda research an' readin' ya talkin' 'bout. 'xactly?" It could be interesting, Mr. Dayspring was right there. It could also be so boring his eyes bled.

"Well, let me think... what were we looking at before the unintentional week off..." Nathan tilted his head. "We were following up a long-term project looking into mutant trafficking in Central Asia. Reviewing potential sites and staff members for a new shelter in Nicaragua... I've been looking into the feasibility of having a medical support team in the Sudan, too, which means a lot of research."

Kevin's eyebrows crept upward with each new thing Nathan listed off. "Ah can't decide if that soun's like somethin' interestin' or really, really borin' ta tha poin' o' torture." He did give Nathan a small smile as to say he didn't mean outright offense intentionally.

"It's not for everyone, no. We do go to these places sometimes, but usually that's when we need to know something we can't find out via research, or when we're about to put a project in place. Forge has been known to call it 'saving the world through tourism'," Nathan said. "But you should come down for an afternoon and see whether it's interesting or torture. Yvette volunteers down here too, actually. Her and Sooraya both."

An entirely new expression came to his arched eyebrows. His unofficially adopted little sister and the cute girl he tripped all over himself in front of. Oh God! Cute girl that makes him awkward...maybe not the situation he should be putting himself in. Technically, nothing wrong with it. Technically he knew better, too. That was okay. It'd be fine, right? She was cute, not someone he'd asked on a date or anything. "Ah could do tha'. Betcha it's torture." Kevin grinned at Nathan, clearly kidding.

He and John are going to get along like a house on fire. Possibly literally, Nathan thought, amused. "Great. I'm short one loyal research assistant these days, since Angelo's recuperating - even an afternoon's worth of help would be great."

"Ah could come down tomorrow, probably. Not like Ah got much else ta do other than go talk abou' mah feelin's all tha time." Kevin rolled his eyes, clearly not pleased with that situation. "Or, ya know, hide from people 'til Ah stop twitchin'. Ah think mos' o' tha twitchin's over, though."

"It's usually pretty quiet down here. Except when I scream at people on the phone," Nathan said helpfully. "And that's apparently entertaining."

"'Ccordin' ta who?" Okay, Kevin could see the potential entertainment value so long as he wasn't on the receiving end of things. However, he also could see Mister Dayspring turning out to be rather terrifying when angered.

"Well, most of my staff tends to snicker behind their hands at me," Nathan said. "Either I'm entertaining, or they all have very wacky senses of humor."

"Ah'ma bet on tha second one." He gave Nathan a look suggesting there was clearly no way on earth Nathan could ever be entertaining or funny. He was, of course, kidding.