Adrienne and Lex | Wednesday Afternoon

[x-lexington.livejournal.com]

Adrienne reads Lex's copy of I and Thou and sees something she never wanted to know.


"Do you mind if I turn the television on?" Adrienne asked as she stepped into the rec room. Lex was reading a book on one of the couches, and she didn't want to disturb him, but couldn't he do that in his room? There was a baseball game on, and it was too early to go to Harry's. Maybe it was time to get that digital cable for her suite...

Lex looked up from his book, and smiled. "Go ahead, I can concentrate with background noise. I was a soldier, remember?" He turned back to his book, and realized he'd lost his place. Not wanting to reread another section of Buber's dense prose, he decided to put the book down for the time being. "So, what are you gonna watch?"

"There's a ball game on," she grinned, flopping down onto the couch beside Lex. "What are you reading?"

"A very dry philosophy text," Lex said with a sigh, he read the book as much out of habit as out of an actual desire to get anything out of it. His father had told him to read it a few years after finding out he was a mutant, and since then Lex had been trying to figure out why. Now, as he held it in his hands, he thought about how torn up it looked. Putting it down on the end table he said, "It's more a memento than anything else."

Adrienne studied the book out of the corner of her eye as she turned on the television and flipped channels to the Chicago sports feed. "Oh yeah? From family? An old girlfriend?"

"My father gave it to me after he found out I was a mutant. He said it would help me be at peace with the world." He looked towards it. It never seemed to help. Turning back to Adrienne he cocked his head to the side in a mildly suspicious gesture, "Why, what's your interest in it?"

Shrugging casually, she turned her attention to the baseball game. "It looked old, is all. I've never heard of it before so I thought it might be an antique or something. Old books are interesting to read with my powers, sometimes. Does it help you be at peace with the world?"

"It has once or twice, but most of the time it serves as a reminder for where I came from and how not to think of myself as the center of the world." He turned towards the baseball game for a moment, the more he watched the more he hated it. Men should not get paid large amounts of money to stand on a green field. "Do you want to read it?"

Adrienne turned away from the game to focus on Lex. "Well... not particularly, right at this moment, no..." She was watching the Sox! "But hey, maybe I could use it as an exercise in powers control," she smiled. "I've been trying to get myself to the point with my powers where I can touch something and only read it if I want to, so this can be good practice. I haven't had much luck with it before, but maybe all I need is the motivation that if I fail I'll be reading your book instead of watching my ball game."

"Sure, do you want to wait till there's a long commercial break, or try it before the game starts?" He asked, picking up the book and holding towards her. He didn't really understand how her powers worked, but he was willing to let her read it if she thought it would help.

"Might as well try it now," she shrugged, wiping one of her hands clean. Before touching the book he was holding, she took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to bring herself into a meditative state. She'd started working on it with Nathan and Emma, but hadn't had any success yet in using meditation techniques to turn her powers on and off when she touched something. She was convinced it worked in theory, however, and was determined to keep trying. Hopefully the incentive of getting the experiment to work so she wouldn't miss any of the ball game was a better motivator than anything she used with her teachers.

"Here goes," she muttered, reaching out to touch the book.

A man sits in a dark room, the only light coming from a lamp beside his head. He is holding the book, pouring over it with a vivid intensity. The radio plays in the background though he seems completely oblivious to it. Turning the page, the man looks up briefly and sighs. There is something in his eyes, a look that is completely unexplainable. He continues reading and a woman appears on a bed. She is sleeping peacefully, with her hands on her pregnant belly. Her mouth is quirked up in a gentle smile, and her chest rises and falls in a peaceful manner.

Cursing her failure, Adrienne noticed the facial features on the man as being similar to Lex's and assumed that the couple was his parents, and she moved ahead on the timeline to avoid reading any more of that stage of the book's past. Domestic bliss didn't particularly interest her. Only getting out of the reading so she could try her control experiment again interested her.

Lex runs through a dark room, occasionally lit by a brilliant flash. He is yelling and pointing towards the windows, and men are tilting their beds against them. He runs towards the end of the room where a young man, not more than twenty years old lies bleeding. "Sarge. I'm... I can't feel... anything." The man is severely wounded, a large chunk of metal sticking out of his torso as though it had been lodged their by an explosion.

Lex puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's alright Paul. You're gonna be just fine." He tries to smile but it comes out as a horrific grimace. He turns towards the other men, "Medic!"

Nobody comes, and Lex continues shouting.

Minutes later Paul is quivering and almost completely unresponsive. Lex looks around for the medic but nobody has come, the rest of the men are fighting a pitched battle with the enemy outside and he is left to take care of this dying soldier. "Sarge. Can you give me last rights?"

Lex shakes his head, "I'm not a priest."

Paul's eyes are wet with tears. "Please."

Looking around, Lex cannot find a bible. He feels a book in his pocket and draws it out. It's not the bible, but Lex holds it close the dying man's body anyway. He speaks over it and then closes the man's eyes. "Amen."

The psychometrist wrenched herself away from the image and from the book, returning to the present, letting out an involuntary "ick," as she regained her composure.

"What did you see," Lex asked. He could tell from the look on her face that it had not been pleasant. Did she see his father, or maybe one of the several times he'd had to kill someone while he carried the book inside his vest. He tried to think of everything he could remember, but every time he thought of something more came right behind it. He clenched his hands as he waited for her to speak.

Adrienne huffed out a stressed-out breath, more than a little disappointed that she hadn't been able to end the reading by turning off her powers the way she had with Kurt. "Your parents, before you were born. That wasn't the ick," she added with a weak smile. "Last rites?"

Last rites, for a moment Lex couldn't remember, and he gave Adrienne a puzzled look. Then it dawned on him, not one of his better moments. "Be glad that's all you saw," he said sincerely. He hoped she wouldn't ever have to see the time the book saved his life. There were some things that a man has to do to survive on the battlefield that could not be explained, or forgiven.

"Oh, I am glad," she assured him. "Why would you take a book into a battle?" she inquired. "Wouldn't it weigh you down or slow you down or something?"

Lex smiled weakly, "Not really. It's there for emotional support. Some people pray, others have lucky charms... I never want to forget where I came from, and why I fight. So I keep this book near me whenever I can afford to. Hell, I'll be taking it on missions so long as the team leaders don't have a problem with it." He shrugged as he spoke. Nothing worked quite like nostalgia to solidify the spirit amidst battle. "Besides, it's saved my life at least once."

"I didn't see that part," Adrienne muttered. "How does a book save your life?"

"A kid stabbed me with a kitchen knife. It went straight through my Kevlar but got caught in the book long enough for me to get a shot off." He paused, remembering the kids face frozen in anger as the bullet tore it apart. "If you look at the back you can see where the hole is."

"No offense, but you couldn't pay me to touch that book again," Adrienne said vehemently, backing away from the book rather than looking at the back of it. "Especially if it was around when you shot a kid!"

"I'm sorry for asking you to in the first place." He spoke softly, "There are some things I try not to remember, as they are too dark. Even so, they come back unbidden at times." He forced a smile onto his face and then turned towards the television. Delving too deeply into his time as a soldier would probably not be good for either of

Adrienne followed suit and stared at the television. "Well, I didn't have to read it when you asked me. It's not like you made me. I could have said no. And this was another fun lesson in 'get your powers to work properly or see traumatizing shit', so there's always that. I'll have to try it again the next time I get the urge to test my control, now that I have a better idea of what the consequences are for slipping up.."

"If you ever want to try again, it'll always be near me." He, put the book back on the end table. "For now I think some baseball is in order."