Haller (Jack), Nathan, and Jean-Paul

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

So three mutants walk into a bar...




"...and I'm not saying that my students are unintelligent." Jean-Paul lined up a shot. Though the outcome of the game was a foregone conclusion, at least he was losing by smaller margins these days. " My students are brilliant and I expect them to show that in their work."

The evening was wearing on, with the crowd not so much dispersing as simply settling down after the earlier rush. Jean-Paul managed to sink his shot, but the next ball bounced harmlessly off the side of the table.

His pool partner shook his head slightly. "I see why Scott repeatedly beats the pants off you," Nathan observed mildly. "Poor focus, Beaubier."

"Not everyone's up to your level of experience. Wave around that psimitar for that long, I should hope you can handle a pool cue."

The voice came from a far corner, where a long-legged man had settled with a beer in his hand and a stack of darts at his elbow. As he took a drink one of the darts lifted of its own accord, hovered for an instant, and then hurtled across the room to drive itself deep into the board.

"You'd better not have taken out any patrons so far this evening," Nathan said, his eyes flickering in Haller's direction. Jack, he identified, and then wondered just how, or if, he should explain this to Jean-Paul. "Xavier's student counselors," he said to the other man, by way of explanation. "This sort of thing happens."

"I don't recall going down to the bar and taking out other patrons when I held the position, but I was not here for very long that time. Perhaps I did not get the full effect." Jean-Paul nodded politely. "It is good to see you again, Haller."

Jack's grey eyes flicked over to Jean-Paul. "Yeah," he said noncommitally, though the word had a trace of amusement. He leaned back in his seat, pushing up the brim of his cowboy hat before continuing. "As for the mayhem, I myself am selective about the where and when. And, these days, the who."

His beer bottle clinked against the tabletop, and six darts shot directly at Nathan's head.

They froze in mid-air, Nathan's head turning only slightly towards them. "Manners," he said mildly, and they re-stacked themselves neatly at Jack's elbow. "If you want a picture of me for the dartboard for some reason, I can probably oblige. Although I must admit your aim is getting better."

The alter raised his beer in an ironic toast. "Crawling up that learning curve one inch at a time. What can I say, it got me a better answer than a 'how are you,' and if you failed and got darts in your head, well, you'd have darts in your head, and either way I count it as a win."

Jean-Paul had hesitated, caught on a moment's indecision as to whether he should intercept the darts or clock Haller, and then Nate had things in hand. Nathan was a powerful telekinetic, quite capable of taking care of himself, and seemingly unbothered by the attack. He was also Jean-Paul's friend and had been put through hell recently, so the speedster's reaction was perhaps less sanguine than it might have been otherwise.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" His eyes roved over Haller, seeking an answer to his own question. The body language was different. Less reserved and not in the sloppy manner than would come with inebriation. More confident.

Behind Jack, watching from his place in the waiting room behind their eyes, Jim winced. Normally he didn't begrudge the alters the occasional turn in charge, but he wished it wasn't happening in front of a new co-worker. There wasn't much he could do about it. This was Jack's time, and since there were no students around to witness this he wasn't technically violating the terms of their arrangement. Moreover, he was supposed to be learning to trust himself to handle these things. This was easier with some selves than others.

Perversely, Jack was displaying no signs of agitation whatsoever. As someone at home with anger, it was always reassuring to see evidence of its presence in other. He picked up a bottlecap and rolled it between his knuckles, that hint of amusement resurfacing in his voice and gentling his reply to Jean-Paul. "Relax. Don't often get the opportunity to flex my muscles, and the day Dayspring can't handle someone at my level a few darts to the head is the least of our problems. This is just how Haller's sublimated hostility says 'I love you.'"

"It's all right," Nathan told Jean-Paul quietly, moving to take his place at the pool table. A faint smile tugged at his lips as he leaned over to take his shot. "Although if he'd tried that a few weeks ago I probably would have wound up with at least a couple of darts in the head. And then Moira would have killed him with her bare hands, so it would have all been good."

Jack gave an amiable nod. "Reduced to a smear on the wall. Never rile a Scotswoman."

The pieces finally clicked and Jean-Paul lounged against his pool cue, looking tired. "So what triggered you?" DID, possession, general insanity...these were actually more comfortable places to start at.

An eyebrow raised. "Good catch. And nothing. It's just my turn." Jack was mildly pleased to see someone had gotten the memo, thus saving them all time. Beer in hand, he rose and made his way over to the pool table, watching the tip of Nathan's cue. "We all got jobs. Lately, what we handle is decompression. The kid doesn't do it on his own. He may be the only person on earth who needs reminding to schedule his own relaxation time." His eyes rose from the cue long enough to give Nathan a meaningful look. "See how I said that with a straight face, with you standing right there?"

"I have no issues scheduling my own relaxation time," Nathan said, eyes flickering warningly towards Jack for a moment before he took his shot. It was an easy one; no cheating with TK required. "Taking it is another matter."

"Right." Jack shifted his attention to Jean-Paul. "See, right here we have one of the unsung advantages of voices in your head. Gives you a built-in minder."

"And a host of interpersonal conflicts to deal with when the next personality is rotated back into the driver's seat." It took a firm nudge from Nathan before the speedster remembered the game. He leaned in for his shot, missed, and straightened up again. His focus truly was shot now. "How many total?"

Jack smirked at the remark about interpersonal conflicts. "Think we're agreed on four. You're not likely to see the squirt. Or likely to mistake Cyndi and me. You ever see Haller actually using his powers, it's one of us." The alter settled against the wall to watch the two men circle the table. He pressed the hand still holding the bottle-cap against the wall. It balanced on its rim and began to roll up the wall towards the ceiling of its own accord. "And you," he continued, "you got any voices up there? Dead people? Maybe an elder god?"

"Only a mind-link, and it's been dead for some years. My main experience comes dealing with my sister's DID." He should have easily been able to tune out the faint rattle of metal along the wall, but it was grating on his nerves. There was a blur of motion, then the bottlecap was tucked in the pocket of Jean-Paul's jeans. "Fortunately for me, it doesn't run in the family." Or so he hoped.

Normally, Jack might have used his telekinesis to retrieve the bottlecap without any regard for the cloth between it and its older. This additional bit of information proved to be a small mercy for Jean-Paul's jeans."

"Your sister? Figures why you knew the term. Mutant, too?" The alter momentarily exchanged glances with Nathan, and the other man could see blue and brown flickering back into the grey -- just for a moment. This had Jim's attention, too.

Nathan gave his head a quizzical little shake. Of all the things I'd totally forgotten these two could potentially bond over... He moved around the table to take another shot.

"Twins, even to the power-set. For a while, anyway." Jean-Paul considered elaborating on the last, then continued. "She had a very stupid smart man as a boyfriend and convinced him to alter her powers. I don't know how he managed it, but it worked. Her voices stayed, but the link blacked out."

"Ha. Save us from the good intentions of the stupid smart men." Jack interrupted the twist in his mouth with another drink of beer. "What link?"

"The mental link I mentioned before." It had been a painfully unpleasant experience in a time already full of them. Another shot, another miss. "And I am not so sure of the intentions of a man who'd experiment on his mentally unbalanced lover at her whim."

"Love can make even smart men into idiots," Nathan said, wondering if he ought to give Jean-Paul a little 'help' on his next shot. If he did it really discreetly, his friend probably wouldn't even notice.

Jack actually got his mouth open before he felt Jim catch their tongue before it could form the words Yeah, you would know what smart men can do for "love". No amount of fairness in time-sharing was going to let Jim excuse a cheap shot at Nathan's family. Not after these last few weeks, anyway. The alter bristled instinctively, then conceded the point. He relented by reasoning that if Nathan hadn't already raised the issue of Saul and Gideon with Jean-Paul, he sure as
hell didn't want to be the one to start it. He wanted to make it back to the mansion before 2 am.

"True enough. Stick around long enough, and you'll meet many." The alter eyed the pool-table. It sounded like this sister wasn't another person with a link between power and ego-state, then. Well, they never had met another multiple with Haller's particular brand of dysfunction. He shrugged to himself. "Still, most would thank him for a broken mindlink. Hooked up to a sick mind is no way to live." And then, because he still couldn't resist taking a shot at Haller's own hitchhiker, he added, "Or so I've heard."

"If someone's going to tear things out of my head, I want a say in it. Particularly if it's going to hurt." He'd suddenly lost his taste for the game. "I'm tired of dying by degrees. I concede. Name your drink, Nathan."

"Tequila," Nathan muttered, putting his cue away. "I would really like some tequila." He gave Haller a level look, daring him to say something.

Back in the observation room Jim recognized the request for tequila as a bad sign. In the driver's seat, Jack acknowledged this with the pragmatic assessment that letting Nathan get trashed was going to do infinitely less damage than Jack's version of a pep talk. He gave the larger man a smile.

"I'll buy."

------------------

"I'm glad you drove," Jean-Paul said to the bottom of Nate's shot glass. "If we'd both flown, I'd be at the point where I start wondering if I should carry you home or put a tablecloth over you until tomorrow."

"Are you suggesting I can't hold my liquor?" Nathan's voice was remarkably unslurred, but he was choosing his words with a great deal of... precision. "I'll have you know I've drunk whole bars under the table. In parts of the world where doing that is actually an accomplishment. North Americans are pussies when it comes to drinking."

"I am saying that you are holding an admirable amount of liquor and shouldn't be trusted in command of anything with wheels," Jean-Paul clarified.

Jack, who was watching the scene with his legs propped on the seat of another chair and his hands behind his head, exchanged a look with Jean-Paul. "We have to carry him, I dibs the legs. He falls on his head again I'm not taking responsibility."

"At least I'm not mixing it with antibiotics this time?" Nathan said with an entirely put-upon innocent look. "No need to drag me down to Jean and freak everyone out..."

Jean-Paul snorted quietly and spoke to Haller across Nate's drink. "See how thoughtful he is? He really is such a sensitive man, once you get to know him better."

"I'd say it's the alcohol. Final stages of liver failure include delusions of sobriety and sentimentality. Here. For the light that'll soon be calling to you." Jack removed his hat and set it on Nathan's head. As the hat's gifter had been Lorna the size of the band was accurate to the recipient's much narrower measurements, Nathan could be said to wear it only on a technicality.

"I'm telling the green-haired wench you gave away her hat. She'll be so disappointed." Nathan set the shot glass down on the table, blinking rather owlishly at it. He wiggled his fingers at the bowl of pretzels, and the contents levitated, dancing in a complicated spiral pattern.

"Disappointment's one of my functions. Hey." Jack reached out a hand and levitated the pretzel-bowl, which shook slightly under the support of inebriated telekinesis. "I say pretzels are close enough to wheels to exempt you from command. Put them back."

"Make me, Jackie boy," Nathan invited, and the tiny part of his mind that was still mostly-sober was a little horrified to know that he meant it. "Ten bucks says I can lodge the pretzels in uncomfortable places before you manage to take them away from me..."

"Children, is this truly necessary?" Jean-Paul stood and stretched. "You're both special and talented and about to get us kicked out into the cold." He confiscated Jack's hat as he spoke.

Though tempted to take Nathan up on the challenge, Jim was reasoning that if Nathan really was feeling combative than actual combat wasn't going to solve anything. Jack, for his part and through a beer-mellowed haze, weighed what he assumed to be Nathan's preference and naturally chose the opposite. He lowered the bowl, managing enough control that it rolled only a little.

"Yes, teacher," he sing-songed, giving Nathan a look that not so politely inquired what he was going to do about this cooperation.

"You see why I choose my teaching relationships carefully?" Nathan asked Jean-Paul. "One of him is the equivalent of... I don't know, half a dozen Julians." He raised his empty shotglass. "To Julian. And to all the teeks I used to know."

"Toasts work better when there's something in the glass. Allow me." Jack made an ominous movement in the direction of the nearly-empty bottle of tequila Harry had finally abandoned.

The bottle seemed to appear in Jean-Paul's hand as Jack's hat settled onto the younger teek's head again.

"And now, I am kicking us out into the cold. I don't intend to haul furniture in the company of a telekinetic still suffering from a hangover."

"I'll have you know I am not a grumpy hangover... hungover person," Nathan said, but got up obediently. "I once spent a solid six weeks hungover. It was an experiment."

Jack readjusted the hat. "Get his wife to ship over some of her coffee. Keeps well enough, in that there are few conditions under which it could be made worse." He rose, then gave Nathan's chairleg an absent kick. "Dayspring. Forgetting something?" He gestured to the area around the older man's head.

Nathan eyed the pretzels rotating around his head. "I kind of like them," he said. "They're like accessories. Or a halo."

Jean-Paul shook his head. "If it protects against further head trauma, then I'm all for it."

Jack snorted. "Unlikely. Once we tried to suggest a helmet as a mandatory part of his uniform. Designs, materials breakdowns, a prototype. Vetoed. The 'This End Up' label wasn't meant as compulsory."

"You lie. You lie through your teeth, Jack. Hyperbole," Nathan said, gesturing grandly and knocking several of the pretzels flying. He didn't seem to notice. "You know, I could always fly back to the mansion..."

"I doubt anyone wants to wake up to Dayspring-shaped holes in the wall." Jean-Paul swatted the last of the flying snacks out of their orbit. "If you're so determined to live dangerously, I'll drive as if I don't have a passenger."

Jack made a gripping motion with one hand. The scattering pretzels froze, though his hold was too careless to prevent some of them from cracking. Out of respect for Harry and his lenient stance on damages, he deposited them back into the bowl. Most of them made it. "I say let him go. You got your super-reflexes, I get better at TK the faster something's coming at me. He manages to take out anyone else, we pass it off as an emergency drill." The younger man glanced at Jean-Paul, scratching his chin. "Hey. You fly? Too many powers around these days to keep straight."

Beaubier nodded once, keeping most of his attention on Nathan.

"Speed, flight, and cold resistance. Standard speedster package plus options."

Nathan giggled. It was a profoundly disturbing sound. "Now I'm imagining what the options might be. Cruise control? On-board entertainment system?"

"See what I put up with?" the put-upon speedster lamented. "Everyone thinks I'm trying to convert him, but he's the one who always steers us down the path of innuendo." That said, Jean-Paul began none-too-subtly steering Nate toward the door.

"Mean you're not trying to turn him? Thought I heard you guys were already picking out furniture. You ain't already trying, you're passing up one hell of an opportunity." Jack tossed a few wadded bills onto the table and followed them out. He breathed deep as he stepped outside, and as his breath billowed in the cold his face split in a smile many of Haller's past minders had come to dread.

"Though you know," he said, "side from Dayspring's questionable accessorizing, I'm starting to think he had one good idea. It's irresponsible to drive under the influence. Think we should consider the rest of the road."

Nathan gave Jean-Paul a conspiratorial look. "If he insists on flying home, we need to make sure he doesn't impale himself on a tree somewhere," he confided. "He's not very good at flying."

Jack grinned nastily. "Like I said, the faster things come at me, better I get. Now, not flaming-chicken-better, granted . . ."

Thanks to Haller, Jean-Paul could see that his options for damage control were rapidly shrinking. "You are both out of your minds," he sighed. "I take no responsibility for any of this."