Angelo and Haller, Sunday afternoon

[x-skin.livejournal.com]

Jim catches up with Angelo while he walks Joyita. The resulting talk is really quite productive.



It was as he'd told Laurie - he might be "hermitting", as she'd put it, but that didn't mean he was about to neglect his dog. In fact, he was taking her out for runs perhaps even more than she needed.

"You shouldn't let the kids get to you so much on the journals. Not while you're still teaching them self-defense, anyway."

Jim hadn't intended his appearance to be unexpected, but the distraction of Joyita's energetic tear across the ground had given it the effect. It was probably just as well. If Angelo had seen him coming, after the last few days Jim wouldn't have been surprised if the younger man had decided to simply walk away. Taking a drag from his cigarette, the telepath added, "Sorry. I had to make the mandatory 'don't snap at the students' reminder. I know it's been rough lately."

"Yeah, that's one way to put it." He let out some slack on the leash, watching the oversized puppy that she was race off after a nearby squirrel. "I'm thinkin' of givin' up the job, anyway. Lorna can handle it, an' there's Garrison if she can't."

Jim nodded slightly, eyes still fixed on the horizon. "Busy with other things, or is this the personal crisis talking?"

"Maybe it's both. I've got school to worry about, an' Elpis. People keep tellin' me I don't have enough spare time."

"Use your own judgement. Either way, a hiatus isn't a bad idea. But I suggest leaving the permanent decisions for after you've got your head straightened out -- post-trauma logic isn't generally something you want life choices founded on." Jim tapped a shower of ash onto the path. "What's actually bothering you? Is it just Miguel and Alejandra being hurt, or the casualties?"

"I don't give a shit about the casualties", Angelo said flatly. "Except the ones they took down off the crosses. It bothers me how easy it was."

Jim raised an eyebrow. "What, to decimate a bunch of human religious fanatics?" he asked. Personal experience made him far from surprised by Angelo's total lack of remorse. Being in the mood for neither hypocrisy nor expressing what he knew to be one of his many less-than-healthy personal views, the telepath felt it was better to let it pass unremarked upon.

"Yeah. I don't mean powers against unpowered, not that kind of easy, I mean... it's been years. Haven't touched a gun since the last time I was in LA, much less... done anythin' without one." He glanced up at Jim. "I didn't shoot anyone to kill in the tunnels."

"So it's your capacity for violence that's worrying you," Jim said, the cigarette still held close to his lips. It was still cold enough that his breath fogged like smoke. "I've never seen the difference between wielding an offensive power and a gun. You can argue that a gun is meant to be lethal, or at least cause serious damage, and mutant powers can usually be mitigated depending on the situation, sure. Still, when you get down to it what matters is the intent. Not the weapon."

"I don't think I killed any of them with my powers, either", Angelo said almost dispassionately but with just a touch of bleakness. "But it was all kind of fuzzy by then. I don't really remember for sure."

"Adrenaline tends to do that." Jim took another drag and exhaled slowly. "So -- you're worried about the predisposition towards violence, but you also didn't intentionally aim to kill anyone, which means that even though you were put in that situation you stayed in control. So what's the problem?"

"I never said I didn't intentionally aim to kill anyone." He really wanted a cigarette, about now, and fumbled in his pocket for his emergency few. "I took a jump right into the middle of them an' broke the guy's neck who shot Miguel."

"I assumed that if you'd really wanted to kill anyone, it wouldn't have been that difficult. The fact you didn't mow people down in the tunnels was a clue. Was the neck-breaking intentional?" As Angelo came up with a cigarette Jim extracted the lighter from his pocket and snapped it open, offering a flame.

"Thanks." He paused to take a first drag. "I jumped on him feet first. Yeah, it pretty much was."

Jim slipped the lighter back inside his coat, affect completely unchanged. "You tell Scott and Ororo?"

"They know what I did, yeah. So does Nate. Nobody else that wasn't there."

Jim nodded. "That's good. Feel bad about it?"

"I'm not exactly gonna mourn any of the bastards", Angelo said, voice low. "But, like I said... it was too easy. To drop back into it."

"Yeah. I can see that." Jim was silent for a moment, taking another pull from his cigarette. The end burned orange, strangely washed-out in the cold greyness of the day.

"Okay," the telepath said at last, "I don't want you to think this is the professor's take on it. It's just my opinion, and it's a little bleak, but oh well." He took another drag, exhaled. "Some of us aren't naturally what would be considered good people. Nature, nurture, whatever, doesn't really matter why. As nice as it would be, there's no way to make ourselves care about what we don't, and to be honest, no matter how sick you feel like you are, trying to become someone you're not is a short drive to suicidal depression. What you feel isn't something you can help." Jim held the cigarette to the side and flicked the butt with his finger, showering more ash. "What we can do is choose how much of what's inside of us to make it to the outside. You can't change your nature. That doesn't mean it controls you."

Jim gave Angelo a sidelong look, his mouth quirked with a hint of sardonic awareness over the length of the speech. "Basically, don't waste time agonizing about how easy things are, because your inclinations don't matter as much as whether or not you let yourself go along with them. That's what you got to decide."

Angelo was silent for almost the length again of Jim's speech, thinking it over. "The people here... I think I'd do anythin' for them", he said slowly. "Even the ones I don't like that much, 'cause they're here. But anythin'... that means stuff they wouldn't want, too, I know some of them wouldn't. But if they need it, ever... I don't know that I wouldn't go along with it."

The older man shook his head. "Unfortunately, that's the kind of thing you probably won't find out until it happens. But keep two things in mind. First, that X-Men don't kill, and you agreed to that when you joined. And second, if the application of lethal force does come up, there's a difference between defense and attrition. First one you could debate, maybe, but if you really can't see life without the second as an option . . ." Jim rubbed the back of his head, cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. "A couple people would probably disagree, but personally I don't think being willing to kill automatically means you can't do good. We accept casualties in war, for one. But being willing does mean you have to make a decision as to where you belong, and X-Men aren't soldiers. Which one you want to be is up to you."

Angelo smiled humourlessly. "So the choice is fight without takin' it as far as I might want to for the rest of my life... or leave behind the people I'd go furthest for."

Jim nodded as he took the cigarette from his lips to twist it between his fingertips. "You'll always have to make a sacrifice. It just depends on which one you decide you can live with." He gave the younger man another sidelong glance. "I know. I'm such an optimist."

"Sounds like realism to me", was the wry response. "An' far be it from me to argue with that. Guess I'll just have to choose." And that would take some thinking.

"Choices are important." Jim gave him a half-smile as he dropped his cigarette and ground it beneath his heel. "If nothing else, you should at least be proud you still care enough to make one."