xp_logs | Nathan and Marie, backdated to February 20th

Backdated to February 20th. Nathan and Marie have a less than productive discussion about his reaction to the astral plane crisis.

Nathan hadn't particularly wanted to report to the Situation Room to do cross-evaluations on some of the recent Danger Room scenarios his teammates had run, but Scott had penciled him into the schedule and he hadn't had the energy to resist. It wasn't unexpected; just because you weren't fit for active duty didn't mean there was no contribution for you to make, but Nathan had sort of been hoping for a little more time off before he had to get on with pretending the last couple of weeks hadn't happened.

You're whining. The recognition only made him crankier, however, and he quite shamelessly went about venting it in his evaluations. If the recipients didn't like it, they could grow thicker skins.

Marie walked into the Situation Room for her own assigned evaluation and watched quietly as Nathan rather furiously pounded on the keyboard in front of him. "So," she drawled, "wake up on the wrong side of the bed or did Ah knock out the gentleness cell when Ah hit ya?"

Nathan's typing, if anything, grew even more savage. Oh, Scott. So very clever. Machiavelli had nothing on you. "Do me a favor," he said, his voice incongruously even, "and please tell me that I didn't do anything appalling to you."

"Nothin' Ah couldn't handle," Marie replied with a shrug. "Ah mean, seemed like ya kinda went after me the most, which makes me think part of you knew Ah could handle the beating. At least you didn't set me on fire. It's really gonna take something for someone on the team to one up that."

"I don't know whether it's good or bad that you're used to your teammates going crazy and attacking you." Nathan paused, then deleted the sentence he'd just written. There was harsh, and then there was irrational. "I suppose sometimes getting jaded has its benefits."

"Maybe a little of both," Marie said, pulling a chair to sit beside him. "It's good not to let it rattle me, but Ah shouldn't start just expecting it, right? That'd be getting a little too complacent. Only one teammate can go crazy per 6 month period or one mass group per year. Ah don't think Ah'm jaded enough to deal with more than that."

Nathan twitched as she sat a little closer than he'd expected, and took a moment to tighten his still-ragged shields before he said anything. If they didn't get markedly better soon, he was going to have to go talk to Charles. Meditation didn't seem to be helping as much as it should.

"Expecting it's probably not a good thing, no. Then the world starts looking for ways to shake you out of your complacency." He tried to keep his voice light, but it sounded forced.

Marie sat quietly for a moment, taking in Nate's body language and tone. "And being shaken never does much for one's confidence, does it?"

He kept his eyes on the screen. "Kind of the story of our lives, no? We put all this effort into doing what we think is the right thing, and a good portion of the time, it blows up in our faces. In ways we didn't expect it to."

"And due to our very nature, when things blow up, they literally explode," she said, still watching him. "But we make it through. People are more resilient then they are often given credit for."

Now, that was an interesting choice of words. "Don't you mean 'then they give themselves credit for'?" he muttered. Hoping she didn't. It would be nice to think that at least one of his teammates wasn't chalking this up to yet another outbreak of crazy from poor unstable Nathan... damn, I am a sad, sad excuse for a man these days. The growing resentment was getting a little ridiculous. And irrational.

"You heard what I said," Marie replied. "And you know the difference. And by the way? This whole self-deprecating attitude coming off you in waves? Not attractive. Or, y' know, productive." Marie didn't know why she was being so bold with Nate. Maybe she felt closer to him after having had to knock him unconscious. Plus, she had absorbed him before and at least gotten a taste for how he processed things.

"It's not supposed to be productive. That's kind of the whole point of wallowing in self-pity." Now, did he believe that he was doing that, or was he just trying to make a joke at his own expense, to deflect the issue? Both. He knew he was wallowing, and he was trying to deflect the issue. Which was a bit more cowardly than he ought to be willing to put up with.

"So then what's the point? If anything, you should know by now that you give yourself a day to sit in pity and then you move on. How many days has it been now?" she asked, one hand resting lightly on her hip. "So what's all this? Ah mean, if you've got a good reason, tell me. But Ah thought we chalked this one up in the win category. Limited injuries. No deaths. Some broken walls. A few fried brains in the process of recovery."

His mood was definitely worsening. "You want the truth?" he asked. "If it was just my damned pride that was hurt, I could get over it. Yeah, I hate like hell that everyone's being so goddamned tolerant because apparently I cause property damage every second week or some such thing. I could probably even get over the sideways looks wondering when I'm going to do it again - it's not as if I haven't seen that before." Although it was wearing. Very, very wearing. "What I cannot 'get over' - and you and anyone else who thinks that I should need to go play in traffic - is that all the defenses I've spent three years building were worth absolutely fucking nothing when it came right down to it. So now I'm wondering just what fantasy world I've been living in all this time."

"Because you were the only one that went all psych crazy, right? And the Professor's defenses worked so well against this Shadow King craziness?" she shot back.

"I seem to have been the only one who needed to be strapped down and sedated," Nathan said curtly. "A coma is a defensive reaction. Defaulting to another personality, or selective amnesia, is a defensive reaction. And at least Betsy was lucid. I'd say that's a fairly good indication of which of us shouldn't have been there in the first place."

"Ah'm pretty sure someone else was sedated," Marie countered. "And Betsy threw a sword at a student, taking a chunk of ear for kicks. Not sure that counts as lucid. Stop being irrational." Maybe she should have been pulling her punches, but Nate's obvious sulk was triggering something in her.

"Would you shut up?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and their friends were just as determined to join them. "Fuck you, I am not being irrational! It is not irrational to not be able to handle being back to square one!"

He was out of his chair mostly because he just couldn't sit there. He didn't consciously send the chair flying backwards, it just sort of happened. The clatter and crash as it hit the wall barely registered on Nathan as he paced away, rubbing at the back of his neck and trying very hard to figure out where his composure had gone.

Marie visibly shrank into herself, physically pulling herself away from Nate's outburst. "Look at how you're acting! What else am Ah supposed to call it?" she asked, her voice soft and hurt. "You're being overly hard on yourself, that's all Ah wanted to point out." She slowly rose to her feet, wrapping her arms around herself.

Nathan quite literally went white. You didn't have the excuse of being crazy there, did you? He walked very slowly over to the wall, resting his shoulder against it. Solid, part of his mind pointed out. Not changing.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice gravelly. "I really am."

"Sure you are," Marie said, though she didn't sound like she believed it. "Ah just...y'know, Ah don't even know what Ah was trying to do. Obviously Ah'm causing more harm than good," she said, heading towards the door.

"You know that it should be enough to kick me in the ass and tell me I'm feeling sorry for myself," Nathan said, "because that usually works." He tried to smile; it didn't really work. His shields were fraying around the edges again, like their foundations had turned into sand. "I don't really know why it isn't, this time."

She paused, turning to shrug. "Me either," was all she said before walking out the door.