xp_logs | Kevin & Nate | Sunday night

Round three in the debate of whether or not Kevin packs up and leaves for Muir.

The longer he stayed there the jumpier he got. It was to the point where he wasn't even lasting the entire day at work. Sometimes he didn't show up at all. The stress of trying to keep himself together, to not use his powers, kept mounting and it was trying Kevin's will in a way he hadn't actually thought possible. First he'd been waiting on the test results from Dr. Grey-Summers. He'd gone to Nathan on Monday and informed the man he still wanted to leave for Muir. Nathan had insisted on Kevin seeing the doctor first because if the medication was working, and depending on how long it was taking to work as she said it would, really was an important point. Then Nathan had disappeared for a few days. Normally Kevin was a fairly patient person but he was approaching his limits. When he'd checked his phone and found a message from Nathan saying he wanted to see him there was a sense of relief. Finally this could be dealt with, even if it just resulted in them arguing points again.

Kevin practically ran down to the Boathouse. He knocked on the door before opening it, sure that there were possibly still Elpis people about. "Mister Dayspring?"

"Come on in, Kevin," called Nathan from the living room. He looked up at the young man, managed a faint smile. "Sorry. You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you what happened to this week."

"World almost explode?" His voice was dry, strained, his attempt at humor falling flat through the effort of keeping himself to himself. Because it wasn't necessary to sit Kevin chose to remain standing once he was a few feet from Nathan. With how much harder it was getting to resist reaching out to thing he was taking any and all help he could lately.

"Something like that." Nathan eyed Kevin for a long moment. "So," he said, almost conversationally. "Still wanting to go to Muir? Turns out it's actually much simpler to arrange than we thought."

"Huh?" The topic of Muir didn't exactly instill joy in Nathan. He wasn't even this calm about it. Normally there was this sort of sad resignation in his voice when Kevin said he wanted to go. "Simpler how?"

"A couple of phone calls, some paper-signing..." Nathan fell silent, watching him for a moment. "You may want to consider something, though. Those drugs are beginning to work, right?"

"That's it? That easy? No courts er nothin'?" Why was life suddenly filled with quick fixes for stuff that was complicated beyond his understanding before. "Huh? Ah dunno. Doctor Grey-Summers did that sorta mumbling thing doctors do when they examine you. S'all Ah know. They can't be working." It wasn't possible. It was too easy. Kevin never got to take the easy way out.

"I didn't say they are working, I said they're beginning to work. Looks like it will take a few weeks for them to kick in fully," Nathan said, leaning back slightly, "and at that point, you will be... safe to be around, even by your own standards." He gazed at Kevin levelly. "So there's a timeframe here, possibly."

"If ya start doin' somethin' you're still doin' it, aren't ya?" Clearly Kevin's argumentativeness wasn't ready to sit down. "So you want...what?" Kevin wasn't following the logic Nathan was. He was still fixating on one specific point. "They're really working?" He didn't sound like he believed it, or like he wanted to.

"From what Jean was able to discern, yes. Look," Nathan said, his voice brisk, almost business-like; he'd tried the emotional appeal before and it hadn't worked. "It's maybe worth waiting it out on Muir. They can monitor you just as easily there, and... well, if it makes you feel more secure, that's probably only going to help. But if they depress your powers as successfully as our medically inclined redheads are hoping, there's no reason you have to stay there."

"And there's no reason why Ah hafta come back here, either." What was he supposed to do with the prospect of being cured of his mutation for a limited time only? Come back here? Pretend to be normal until freakhood returned? Sometimes he wondered if playing normal was really worth it. Friends and all of it...what said Kevin even deserved to have that? If he left he didn't think he'd come back. The prison you chose was better than the prison you hadn't. "'Sides, beginning to work don't mean it'll work like it gotta. Doctor Grey-Summers said two to three weeks, right? Well, she checked me at week one, Ah'm almost at week two. Who says it working will work like they want it to? Maybe it'll just make things worse, even if they do work."

And Fred dips ever closer... "You don't think you should give yourself the chance?" Nathan asked. "See how you feel in three weeks? What if it works exactly like it should?"

"What if it does?" Kevin's tone was quietly defiant. "And then Ah'm taken off the medication. And then the mutation comes back. And what if all that repressin' just makes it stronger? What if Ah've got even less control than before 'cause Ah let myself get comfortable with bein' normal? What then?"

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "So do you want that to happen?" he asked simply.

"Which that?"

"Any of it. All of it. I'm just trying to understand why you feel the need to spin out every unpleasant possibility - is it because you don't want to believe that things could get better?"

Kevin shrugged, though the gesture didn't amount to much with him wrapped around himself as tightly as he was. He spoke quietly, not wanting to admit to this particular bit of honesty. "Past two years got a track record o' followin' close to worst case scenario. Expect the worst an' the worst that can happen is things confirm themselves. Can't get let down anymore."

"You're not answering my question. You're telling me that you think you should expect the worst. Do you want to expect the worst?" Nathan persisted, his voice level. "Are you so completely convinced that nothing but the worst can happen that you won't even allow for the possibility that you might wake up three weeks from now on Muir and no longer be dangerous to anyone?"

"What Ah want is to not be this at all. Ah wanna wake up an' not be the great untouchable fer the rest of mah life. Ah wanna not hafta worry 'bout keepin' everyone far enough away so Ah don't hurt 'em. Ah wanna know what stuff actually feels like again. But Ah don't ever get that. Ever. So Ah deal. Ah get by. That's all the choice that's left. Even if somehow these pills do work? Don't change nothin'. Not really." In a lot of ways Kevin was looking at his new complication with his mutation as an extension of the original problem. He'd obviously done something really wrong at some point in his existence and in this life he was getting punished for it. He was dealing too well and he was starting to have a life and that stopped it from being as bad a punishment as it was. So this got added on top. Even this part got fixed something else would come up. That's how penance worked.

"And I'd like to stop having to hear people's thoughts and being regarded as something intrinsically evil because I violate the sanctity of people's minds by just existing. I'm not ever going to get that either," Nathan said, more brusquely than he'd really intended. "So let me rephrase. If these pills work, and give you a chance to deal with the mental aspect of all of this, are you still determined to do it on Muir? Because in that case, I need to ask my wife to have a little chat with you about how her hospital is not a place for you to hide from the world."

"Ah don't need to hide from the world in Muir," he grumbled. Leave it to Nathan to decide to double team him. It was true though, he could go anywhere and hide from the world. The only thing stopping him from doing it was the court that had him trapped there. "'Sides, don't need to hide when you're already trapped." Maybe when they let him go he'd go back to Georgia finally. Kevin hadn't been there since he'd initially come to Xavier's and his missed his homestate despite the bad memories.

It was a pity Kevin wasn't a student; he'd do awfully well in Kurt's dance class, what with all the capering around the subject he was doing. "Avoid, deflect, redirect," Nathan said in his best lawyer-like voice. "Let's cut to the chase. If the medication works, I want you to come back here to deal with the addiction problem. Moira and Curt Connors are damned good at what they do, but for that side of things, you have three people here who are possibly even better." Maybe it was time to just leave out the issue of what Kevin himself wanted entirely, cold as that seemed. He wasn't qualified to convince the kid that he didn't have to flagellate himself.

"That's a big if." Kevin's obvious lack of faith in the medication clearly wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. "Doctor Grey-Summers said a couple weeks until it'd work as good as it was gonna. A couple weeks. That means two. Nearly at the two week mark." This was Kevin's last ditch effort. Hopefully it'd be good enough for Nathan to take. "Ah'll stay until she checks me out at the two week mark. If them pills're doin' what she says they should as good as she wants 'em to Ah'll shut up an' stay. If they ain't then Ah go to Muir an' you stop tryin' to debate with me over what ya want me to do instead o' what Ah wanna do. Deal?"

Concession! the lawyer-ly part of Nathan's brain proclaimed gleefully. That was even better. None of that showed in his expression or his voice as he answered, however. "I think that sounds fair," he said evenly. "Probably makes sense, too - it's Jean's idea, so staying here means that she can monitor you." And Nathan himself had a lot of faith in Jean and her abilities, so when it came down to it, he honestly believed that this medication would work.

"Fine." Kevin sounded every bit the sullen teenager in that single word. He didn't want to stay and if he ran into Jay before he managed a plane to Scotland then Kevin definitely wouldn't be staying. He didn't think he'd look that good in the orange jumpsuit, though. Too bad they didn't really put you in black and white stripes anymore. It would make his prison life novel, at least. "Then Ah'll do mah weekly check up with Doctor Grey-Summers Monday mornin' an' whatever she finds'll decide." Despite his sulking, Kevin had every faith that he would end up in Muir before the end of the next week.

"Fine," Nathan said, almost conversationally. "And if you want to hibernate somewhere for the interim-" To avoid running into your idiot ex-boyfriend, for example. "-I'll consider it paid vacation days."