xp_logs | Nathan and Ororo, Tuesday night

After returning from Israel, Nathan follows the mansion's time-honored not-coping mechanism. Ororo is the one who goes down to Harry's to retrieve him.

"The fucking urn is as ugly as sin," Nathan said as Ororo appeared in front of his table. His and Mac's table, rather, because Mac's urn was sitting where the plate would have been if Mac had actually been sitting beside him and eating dinner. There was no dinner on the table, of course. Just a nice bottle of Harry's best tequila and a little tower of shot glasses.

"I do not think there is much variety when it comes to the design of such things." Ororo didn't really know, of course, but it was a rather homely-looking urn. "How long have you been here, Nate?"

"Why?" he asked a bit defensively, reclaiming and refilling one of the shot glasses. "Ray and Moira are on Muir. The sun is over the yardarm. I can get drunk if I want to get drunk." Besides, there was the small problem that he didn't know what time it was, so he couldn't answer her question. "What time do you think it is?" he asked, hit by inspiration.

"I think it is time you slowed down," the silver-haired woman replied, reaching out to slide the bottle to the other side of the table before taking a seat. "That is an impressive number of glasses. Even more impressive if you have been recycling them. Perhaps you should have some water, instead." She folded the familiar-looking leather jacket she had found next to the door and placed it next to her - she had a feeling someone would be wanting that back when they got to the mansion.

"I'm drinking to the urn. The ugly-ass urn and the old rat bastard's ashes." His throat closed, and he gave her a tight smile instead. "Do you ever get tired of looking after people? I do."

"It can be wearing." Ororo didn't point out that that was exactly what she was doing right then - making sure Nate didn't drink until his liver revolted. "But the alternative isn't any better, you know. I would say not caring is worse. For everyone involved."

"I can be very, very wearing," Nathan said, somewhat heedless of psionic-ethical niceties. "Tedious and wearing. That would be why people go and get themselves killed, to get away from me." He tapped the black granite urn reprovingly. "I always thought you were contrary enough not to do that, Mac. How fucking inconsistent of you. And yes, the world does revolve around me." He looked sideways at Ororo, speculatively. "You look like you agree with him. He liked you, you know. Thought you were a tough cookie."

"He was pretty tough himself." Hesitating a moment, Ororo reached for a glass and poured herself a small shot, tipping her head to the urn before drinking. It went down warm, and she blinked. "And I hardly think he was trying to get away from you. Contrary though he might have been."

"I'm hard on fathers. And father figures. They try to kill me, I try to kill them, we stab each other in the heart lots, and then they die. It's a sordid story. Sordid and repetitive." Nathan eyed the tequila, pondering distances and angles. Which all seemed a little off, tonight. Or maybe that was just his eyes. "I was overdue," he said brusquely. "To bury someone again. I wonder if Cain would let me scatter the ashes on the lake."

"Of course he would." And if he wouldn't, there would be stern Words. Many of them.

"Dust on the wind," Nathan said, flicking his fingers. "He wanted to be cremated, you know. Said that he'd been responsible for too many dead children getting tossed in the incinerator at Mistra to deserve a grave. I was tempted to ignore that," he said, almost rambling, "and put up the biggest headstone in existence. Write down all his flaws and his crimes and his annoying characteristics on it."

"I think this is a bit more portable. And besides... that is not how you want to remember him, is it?" Ororo asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Like that? No." Nathan's voice was light, brittle-sounding. "But in all his complexity, yes. Someone has to be able to share him with the next generation, and at this rate, there's not going to be anyone else to do it." Nathan's expression crumpled, and he blinked rapidly for a moment before resting his head in his hands. "I'm getting a complex. Could I get a ride home, instead?"

"Of course. And we will try to stave off any complexes" -and alcohol poisoning- "while we are at it. I would like to hear the story about the time you two were in Shanghai..." Ororo stood, offering Nate a hand. "I remember it was quite an adventure."

Mac's contact had asked him what he wanted the favor for. His face when Mac had confessed he now worked for an NGO had been terribly amusing. In the good way. Nathan retrieved the urn, took Ororo's hand, and found himself relying on her support a little too much as they headed out (he'd long since paid for the tequila).

"There's no Fifth Amendment when it comes to stories from the field, right?" At her headshake, he tsked. "Nuts."