Nathan and Callisto, Friday afternoon

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Callisto goes to take a closer look at the lake, and gets a look at a very angry lakeshore-dweller as well.


The path to the boathouse had been quiet enough, even in mid-afternoon. But just as Callisto emerged from the trees and the boathouse came into view, the door to the Elpis offices was flung open, so hard that it bounced back against the wall. Nathan stomped out onto the deck, snarling into his cell phone in Russian. Clearly livid, and just as clearly unaware of her presence, he paced in a circle, all the furniture on the deck rattling ominously as his telekinesis spilled over involuntarily. The ripples in the water emanating outwards from the dock were barely noticeable at first, but within a minute had grown to miniature whitecaps. Still, Nathan continued his tirade until the trees at the waterline started to sway and creak.

Cutting himself off in mid-sentence, Nathan sucked in a breath, realizing what he was doing. He snapped one last profanity that would have made Angelo blanch, then hit the disconnect button vengefully. His surroundings grew still again as he wrestled himself under control, but he was still glaring at the cell phone as if seriously considering throwing it in the water.

Callisto glanced behind herself, briefly considering just turning right around and walking back to the mansion. She'd been in the garage since around six that morning, having woken after only two or three hours' sleep and been unable to drift back off. Her conversation with Clarice had reminded her how she'd ended up here, why she'd come out of the woodwork in the first place. Sarah hadn't been around the mansion at all since she'd left following the Gene Nation incident, and she'd heard nothing about her. Not that there's any reason why I would have, I mean, who do I speak to?

All in all, her mind had been too busy for her to go back to sleep and she'd found herself taking Forge's advice on distraction methods and making her way over to the garage to potter with the vehicles. The upshot of which being that she'd now run out of things to do. Test riding the dirt bikes being an option she'd already explored to her detriment, she decided this time to take a look around the grounds, and so here she was. About to be decapitated with a cellphone.

She stuck her hands in her pockets, her automatic gesture when she wanted to avoid folding her arms defensively, and continued down the path towards the small jetty by the boathouse.

Once the red haze of rage had passed, the presence of an unfamiliar psi-pattern was perfectly obvious. Nathan looked around at the woman approaching the dock, eyes narrowing. New staff member, he told himself. "Sorry," he said brusquely as she approached. He gestured at the dock, then sank into one of the chairs. "Don't mind me. I'm going to sit over here and ponder the logistics of hopping on a plane to St. Petersburg and shooting someone in the head." It did not come out sounding like a joke.

Callisto raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips. "Logistically I'd suggest that you might have calmed down too much to go through with it by the time you got there. Plane rides are a bitch like that, plenty of time to cool off." Not that Callisto had ever actually been on a plane.

"I don't know. I'm good at holding onto grudges, and I hate planes. So it's entirely feasible that I could seethe the whole way over." Nathan made a face, glowered at the cell phone again, and then set it on the arm of the chair. The electronics were innocent, after all. "Callisto, right?" he asked after a moment.

"I see my reputation precedes me. Or maybe just my name." Callisto hopped up onto the deck, walking past Nathan along the jetty, boots thudding in a satisfying manner on the dark wood. "You must be Nathan."

Nathan grunted. "Has mine, then? All I know of you is 'Callisto, new staff member, mysterious circumstances.' And that's with me being the unintentionally eavesdropping telepath."

Callisto shook her head, though she was still facing out across the lake. "Bumped into... Angelo? In the garage. He mentioned you gave him his shiny red penis extension, and that you ran an NGO from the boathouse. And that is all I know." She turned. "And I'm not sure I'd call my circumstances 'mysterious' as such."

This time, Nathan snorted, mostly at Callisto's choice of words. "I spoiled him, with that car... but it was kind of a kick to be able to do it. Living the ideal 'happy twenty-first birthday, young man' moment vicariously through him. I think I spent my twenty-first birthday planning the assassination of an arms dealer."

"I don't remember mine. I imagine I was in a sewer somewhere," Callisto replied with a shrug and a smirk.

Nathan's lips twitched. "Anyway. So I'm a big marshmallow at heart and gave him a car. It was fun. My wife's forbidden me to give our daughter a pony, though."

Callisto raised her eyebrows. It was a little surprising that this man, who appeared to be a cross between a thug and a businessman (although she was basing the latter on that being the only kind of person she ever saw yelling into an expensive cellphone in a foreign language), had a family of any kind, let alone a wife and child. Indeed, she'd never thought about any of the people at the mansion having families or relationships - they were mutants, and in her experience, mutants just didn't. But then, Callisto was starting to realise how limited her experience of mutants was.

"If you met Angelo and he told you about me, he probably told you about Rachel," Nathan said, responding to her unspoken thoughts without being overt about it. His shields were fluttering again, although that was due to the temper tantrum more than anything else. "Telepathic, telekinetic, and not quite three years old. She flies. Don't be all that surprised if you see her flying - she makes Houdini look like an amateur, and still likes making a break for it when she sees the opportunity."

"Ahh, the flying redhead," Calliso said with a nod. "Cute."

"I think so. But I'm horribly biased." Nathan rubbed at his jaw, staring out at the lake. "What do you think of the place so far?" he asked after a moment, not quite idly.

"Big," came the immediate answer. Callisto pursed her lips and looked around herself, as if her current surroundings might inform her opinion further. "Tidy," she continued, her thoughts casting to the mess the foray with the bike had caused. "Quiet," she finished. "Although I'm guessing that's not always the case."

"Oh no. Jets coming out of the basketball court. Powers accidents or just plain old brawls in the halls. Invasions by forces, of this earth and not. X-Men coming back on stretchers on a regular basis. People blowing themselves up, occasionally." Nathan's smile was verging on the unamused. He really was in a crappy mood. "Then there are the idyllic moments. The ones where you sit out on the dock and pinch yourself, because it is possible that places like this actually exist? But the one pays for the other."

"Guess I'll find out, in good time." Although you won't, really, will you? Because you're staying well out of the action this time. And that's what you wanted.

"I'll hope for your sake you can sit back and watch," Nathan said. "Events have a way of catching you up in the mess whether you want to be there or not."

Callisto blinked. He did not just... No, no, he probably did just. Mental note: don't think about anything suspect or embarrassing around this guy. Very aware that her mind was almost certainly about to run to just that, she spoke instead. "I think I've had my share of mess for a lifetime already."

Nathan had his eyes closed and his head resting sideways in his hand right at that moment as he painstakingly strengthened his shields. Hence he missed the blink, but the start of surprise was hard not to pick up on. Here's betting she didn't say the bit about staying out of the action aloud. His jaw clenched, his eyes opening again. "Sorry," he said. "I know it's not socially acceptable to lose the thread of the actual conversation like that. Ordinarily I have better manners."

Callisto shrugged. "I don't. Never had much use for manners, or for social acceptability. Don't worry about it. I'm bound to do something just as offensive to you at some point and I'm unlikely to apologise for it."

Nathan smiled, almost despite himself. "Okay then." He looked back over the lake, then gestured at the surrounding woods. "There are all kinds of trails and stuff, out there. It's not a bad place to go to get away from the noise, if you ever need it. Except if you get as far as the quarry. Occasionally those of us with more explosive powers go out there to blow off steam."

"Good to know." The idea of getting lost in the woods appealed to Callisto, when she thought about it. Dark, sheltered, shadowy, filled with trails all identical and at once each subtly different. Home from home, really. "Probably keep myself busy as much as possible though. Find something new to fix. Maybe branch out a bit, take a look at the plumbing or something."

"There's always stuff that needs doing in the mansion," Nathan said. "You should talk to Cain. Big man. Very big man. Furniture rattles when he walks big."

"I'll keep an eye out."

Nathan rose abruptly, picking up the cell phone and sliding it into his pocket. "Anyway. I should go inside and kick a few imaginary puppies," he said with a crooked smile. "In lieu of shooting the asshole in St. Petersburg. Enjoy," he said, gesturing at the lake again as he turned for the door. "If nothing else, it is a great view."