Nathan and Victor, Tuesday afternoon

[x-victor.livejournal.com]

Vic, suffering from his summer cold, meets Nathan, and the two get to know each other while they recuperate on the dock.



Vic's head hurt. He was over the joint aching and nose running, but it had been replaced with a head full of snot. He'd blown his nose about a bazillion times but it didn't seem to help--it just left his nose raw and his head feeling heavy. "This sucks," he muttered, setting his book down. There was a dock down by the lake, right? Maybe sunshine and fresh air would help. He packed up his book, a bottle of water and a box of Kleenex and headed down that way, planning to stretch out on the planks and possibly fall asleep somewhere where his snot could drain into the lake.

Except that there was a lawn chair with a lot of pillows and an adult in it on the end of the dock. Vic stopped just before the planks started, not sure if he should see if the stranger was interested in sharing or find somewhere else to try not to die.

Nathan cracked an eye open, turning his head carefully to the right. Boy. New boy. Green boy. Ahah, must be Victor. "Come on up," he called. "Plenty of room for both of us."

"Thanks," he said thickly, dragging himself down the length of the dock. He stood awkwardly next to Nathan's chair and gave a short, self-conscious wave. "Hi. I'm Victor." It came out more like I'b Bictoe. "I'd shake your hand but I don't wanna get you sick."

"I'm Nathan. And yes, please don't," the older man said wryly. "The idea of coughing and sneezing with these ribs - or these lungs - is kind of terror-inducing." He looked back over his shoulder, however, and one of the other chairs floated gently towards this end of the dock, coming to a soft landing not too far away.

"Oh, yeah. You're Mr. Beaubier's friend who's not supposed to be broken anymore." Since his hands were full, Vic instead clapped his book over his mouth, utterly mortified. "I mean. That didn't come out right."

"Oh, how I am going to miss the jokes when I am happily retired and no longer breaking myself in the name of Good," Nathan murmured, more amused than anything else. He lifted his drink, sipping at it, and offered Victor a cheerful smile. "By 'miss' I mean 'will be glad never to hear them again'. Although Jean-Paul gets a pass, because he does it with love, not because he thinks he's clever."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. Can I use floating chairs and a head full of snot as my excuse?" Vic asked pathetically as he took the seat offered him.

"You weren't rude. I'm amazed anyone remembers anything from their journal intro threads," Nathan said with a perfectly straight face. "They tend to get a little insane."

"I might've gone back and looked at it once or twice," the boy admitted, setting his Kleenex and book at his feet and sprawling in the chair. "There are a lot of people here."

"Lots of good people, though." Nathan shifted very carefully on the lounge chair, if not quite carefully enough. The stabbing ache in his side increased, and he sighed, letting his head sag back against the pillows for a moment.

"Are you...Can I do anything?" Vic asked carefully, watching the older man with a look of consternation on his face.

"Oh, I'm fine," Nathan said with a more wan than usual smile. "If I stop breathing you can run back to the house shouting for help, although I think that's unlikely to happen. One collapsed lung is my limit for the month... kidding, Victor, really."

"Oh." Vic looked at the book in his hand then, because clearly the look on his face was giving him away. "Well, if you do decide to stop breathing, you'd better warn me so I can get a good head start--it's hard to run when my head's all stuffed up like this," he joked weakly.

"Deal." Nathan reached out for the bottle of pills beside his drink, opening it and shaking two out into his hand, after a check of his watch to make sure he was the requisite four hours since the last time he'd done this. "Summer colds are the worst, aren't they?" he asked after taking the pills with a sip of his lemonade. "I advise eating something with lots of cayenne."

"They are. I blame Johnny for this one," Vic said, although there was clear affection in his tone. "And yeah, my mom always goes out and gets Chinese food with hot mustard when she gets stuffed up. But I don't really like spicy stuff." His tongue flicked against his teeth as if to emphasize his point.

"Garlic?" Nathan hazarded after a moment. "It's supposed to be good for the immune system..."

The green kid nodded at that, taking a drink of his water. "We should've put some in the meatloaf. Oh, there's leftover meatloaf in Mr. Beaubier's fridge if you want any. It turned out pretty good, even with all the faces he tried not to make while we were making it."

"Mmm, I think I'll take a pass on the meatloaf. Although that's ironic," Nathan said, "because I do like things like haggis. So I'm not necessarily against doing odd things with meat." Also, clearly he had no problem with babbling today.

"Ewwwww. I can't believe you just compared meatloaf to haggis," Vic said, wrinkling his nose--and then hastily reaching for a Kleenex to swipe at the drip this induced. "Gross. There's nothing wrong with meatloaf. I don't know why you and Mr. Beaubier think it's so weird."

"Have you ever had haggis, Victor?" Nathan asked, very severely. The twinkle in his eyes was a dead giveaway, though. "Don't knock it until you've tried it. Of course, it needs to be proper Scottish haggis. None of this New World knockoff crap."

"I haven't," Vic replied with equal gravitas. "You can't find haggis out on the Illinois prairie anymore. It doesn't roam free like it once did, before the white man came. Or the green man," he said with a self-referential shrug.

The smile slipped out before Nathan could stop it, not that he tried very hard. "My daughter embarasses her Scottish mother completely by loving the kitschy stuffed haggis one of her less responsible uncles bought her."

Vic laughed at that. "I knew they made stuffed germs. I didn't know they made stuffed haggis. Although I suppose all haggis is technically 'stuffed,' right?"

Nathan suppressed a chuckle. "Too true. And this is a cute little stuffed haggis, with big googly eyes." He liked this kid, he thought. A quick wit, but with nothing mean about it.

"Niiiiice," Vic drawled. He fell quiet for a moment, save the occasional snotty snuffle, looking around at the lake with an appraising glance. "So does this thing freeze over in the winter?"

"It has," Nathan said thoughtfully. "Doesn't always. Either way, it's beautiful out here in the winter... last winter there were a few nights I sat out with Rachel until my wife chased us both inside for hot chocolate."

"So it's probably not good for skating, then." Vic shrugged, settling back in his chair. "So who's Rachel?"

"The daughter with the stuffed haggis," Nathan said with a fond smile. "She just turned four. If you see a tiny redhead floating around, that would be here. My little telekinetic."

"If she's anything like I'm told I was at that age, she's probably a lot of fun for you guys," Vic grinned. "Apparently mothers get nervous when their toddlers are crawling on the ceiling."

Nathan paused, then grinned. "You and she would actually get along really well. I need to introduce you when she's home from Muir - she spends part of her time with her mother. Moira commutes back and forth between the mansion and her Muir Island facility." Nathan shrugged with one shoulder. "One of the costs of being married to one of the world's foremost experts on mutation."

Green eyes looked at him curiously. "So why not just live there? And...where is that, anyway?"

"Muir Island? North of Scotland. The semi-Arctic wastes," Nathan joked. "As for why the commuting... well, I do my share, too." At least, when he was not-broken. "But Moira's got committments there, and committments here, and I need to be here - I run a mutant-related NGO out of the boathouse back there." He waved a hand at the boathouse. "Being handy to the UN is sort of a must."

"Oh, that's..." Vic's brow furrowed. "What's an NGO?"

"Non-governmental organization," Nathan said easily. "We look into mutant issues in the developing world. Got a number of programs on the go right now."

"Oh." Vic took a long drink of water while he digested that. "There are a lot of things that I didn't really expect to find here."

Nathan actually laughed. "I can guarantee you that no one expects to find an international NGO in the boathouse," he teased. "But yes, I take your point. I remember walking around in utter wonder the first few weeks I was here, years ago."

"Oh good," the boy said with obvious relief. "It's not just me. I was starting to get worried there. I do have a question, though," he said, peering sidelong at Nathan. "Is there really an airplane under the basketball court?"

"There most certainly is. And it is rather awesome-looking, if I do say so myself." The comment brought to mind just how much looking at it from outside he'd be doing now, and Nathan's smile turned pensive. "It's interrupted more than a few basketball games."

Vic's reply was to blow his nose very, very loudly. "Sorry," he mumbled sheepishly. "Like I said, I blame Typhoid Johnny. I hope there's some warning on the basketball court."

"Nice timely 'all-clear' alarm, yes. We haven't lost a student yet. Well, there was the Czech kid who went missing three years ago, but I always attributed that to the giant squid..." Woo, the pills are kicking in.

Vic smirked at that. "The one in the lake or the one in the swimming pool?"

"Oh God, they're multiplying?"