LOG: Warren, Adrienne and Callisto

[x-highflying.livejournal.com]

Warren and Adrienne find the shelter where their missing mutant's friends stayed, and come across a familiar face. They ask for her help, which they eventually receive.

Warren and Adrienne had checked out their missing kid's room, and their best lead was to a shelter one of his new friends had been staying at. Townshend had met him here a couple of times, and Warren was hopeful the friend was still here. Or someone at the shelter knew where he was.

Of course, Adrienne's reading had shown the other boy mentioning that he was staying at a shelter in the city to the missing boy, but no helpful address. So they'd been making their way through the shelters around the city, and this was the third place they'd looked at.

"This it?" Warren asked her, moving his gaze from the building to her.

Head aching from all the reading she'd been doing today, Adrienne pushed hair away from her face and nodded, though she still didn't look too happy. "Well, yes and no," she answered with a shrug. "I saw that other boy coming in and out a few times, the ugly boy.

But he went out about a week ago and hasn't come back in since. And the Horgan kid has never been here."

Warren nodded. It was something, even if it hadn't turned out to be nice and easy and they'd find the boy here.

"Shall we go in? Maybe someone here can point us in the direction of his friend."

It hadn't escaped Warren's notice that Adrienne was starting to flag - time to switch to some old-fashioned detective work and simply ask around.

As they entered the shelter they found themselves in a rather dingy foyer that looked like nothing so much as a small waiting room - and of course on some occasions it no doubt served as just that. The area was square, with a row of battered chairs around the edge, some padded and some not. One row had a long line of little square coffee tables in front that looked as though they must have been scavanged from a handful of different places. At the back corner of the room was a corner reception desk, although it was presently empty.

The room itself, however, was not. In the other far corner sat two figures, one on a chair, and the other facing... him?... sitting on the table with their back to the newcomers. The person on the table was skinny, with a dark mess of hair and rather scruffy clothing. The figure on the chair was a child who couldn't be more than eleven or twelve, although it was hard to say for sure due to his very visible mutation, which took the form of reptilian scales across most of his face, disappearing inside the collar of his hooded sweater. He had no ears, very little in the way of a nose, but what was disturbing was the fact that the scales looked for all the world as though they'd very recently burst through his skin - they looked soft and raw, red and scabbed in places. All-in-all the child did not look happy at all. The pair seemed engaged in conversation - though they weren't talking out loud but by signing to one another in what looked like rather inexpert ASL - on both their parts - combined with improvised signs when neither could remember the correct one. A few moments after they entered, the figure on the coffee table leaned forward to give the child a reassuring pat on the shoulder, before standing and turning, revealing herself to be someone that Adrienne at least knew.

Callisto had obviously heard the two investigators enter, but her face registered surprise when she saw who it was. "Uh, hey..." she said, looking a little confused. "Can I... help you?"

"Hopefully," Warren replied with his most charming smile. "We're looking for someone. A friend of someone who stayed here for awhile, up until about a week ago." He glanced at Adrienne, letting her pick up the rest of the story. She knew more about the person they were looking for than he did.

"Umm, good going, Mister Cryptic, cuz I'm sure she can sort out exactly who you mean from 'someone, a friend of someone'," Adrienne muttered, raising an eyebrow at Warren before she turned back to the woman she knew mostly as Garrison's friend. "A kid named Townshend Horgan- yes, that really is his name, I know right?- fell in with a bad crowd of ugly kids and he took off with them, so his parents want Warren to find him, and he's using me as a human sniffer dog, except using visions to see where the kid went instead of using my nose.

"We found out that one of his ugly friends, a kid they only ever referred to as Ape-Man- and why does it seem like gang names are always so stupid?- used to hang around here sometimes. The last time he was here was, as Warren said, about a week ago, and this Townshend kid has never been here, but we were hoping maybe you knew where the Ape-Man kid hangs out or where he moved on to?" She added her best physical description of the Ape-Man kid from what she'd seen in her readings, wishing not for the first time that she could sketch faces halfway decently.

Callisto nodded slowly. "Okay, firstly," she said, her tone grim, "around here we don't call kids ugly. Secondly... I'd have to know he wasn't gonna end up in trouble with the cops 'cause of you. I'm sorry, but I can't have this shelter getting a name for turning kids in."

"We'd prefer to keep Townshend out of trouble, if we can." Warren shot Adrienne a look - usually her tendency to talk a lot was pretty endearing, but it would probably wouldn't help in this case. And he'd like to reunite the family if he could. "His parents are very worried about him. Whatever trouble his friends may have been causing..." Warren shrugged. "If we can help them as well, great."

"I'm all for helping kids, even ugly ones," Adrienne answered in a tone that said there was a big 'but' coming, "but we're just here to find Horgan. If his friends are in trouble with the law, it's no business of mine. But if Horgan's in trouble with the cops, we have to turn him in. Well, I have to turn him in. Sorry. I can't get a name for breaking the law. Not when I already have one. Besides, I thought X-Factor Investigations was all on the level," she said to Warren, trying to keep the accusatory tone out of her voice. "Are we really allowed to decide who we turn in and who we don't if it comes to that?"

"I said we'd help anyone who was in trouble," Warren said mildly, not commenting either way on Adrienne's question. "And if that trouble is legal trouble, I have a friend at Legal Aid who can help. She's also a mutant, and she's been working in New York for years. If the police do need to be involved, that is. I'm not aware at this stage that anyone is in any legal trouble." Warren looked over to Callisto, his gaze intense.

"And I'd be happy to talk to my friend about offering her help to any other kids at this shelter who are in need of a lawyer. At my expense, of course."

"It's not about legal aid," Callisto said with her trademark scowl, though it was still mostly directed at Adrienne, having appeared at her repetition of the word 'ugly'. "It's about us being... y'know... neutral? - as long as kids keep their shit together while they're here and no cops actually knock the door looking for 'em, we leave 'em be. It's a... y'know." The skinny woman frowned as she hunted for the word. "Code. Thing. Look," she said, "I can maybe help you find this kid but if I cause trouble for these kids and they don't feel safe here any more, I might as well just shut up shop today."

"Which is perfectly understandable," Warren replied. "And we don't want to cause trouble for anyone either. We were hired to find Townshend, not to cause any further trouble for him or his friends. His parents want to know that he's okay, and want him to come home." He shot a glance at Adrienne, warning her to stay out of it for the moment.

Adrienne had never stayed out of anything in her entire life, so she blew off Warren's glance. She was exhausted and her patience was on its last straw, but she tried to keep herself calm. "Like the Flyboy says, we were hired by the kid's parents to find him. If he's not in trouble with the cops, it's a moot point anyway. Besides," she added, lightening her tone, "the kid we're looking for's never been here, so your respecting the other kids' safety shouldn't be an issue. The kid who did stay here isn't the one we're on the books to find, so if he's in trouble with cops I've got no interest in any of it." Which was her way of saying she didn't want to make trouble for anyone, either.

Callisto was either oblivious to Adrienne's waning good temper, or didn't care. "Look, I can help you find this kid, but try and see it my way - why should I just take your word for it that he'd be better off back home? Why should I believe that you're not gonna just wade in and cause more damage for these kids? Who are you? If you don't even know already whether he's wanted by the pigs what kind of PIs are you?" She ran a hand over her face, obviously conflicted. "It's not about whether he's been by this place, or if his friend has or whatever. It's not even about who I am, and if you had a fuckin' clue, really knew, you'd know why I can't just turn some kid over, even a kid I'm not responsible for..." She paused at this, running out of steam a bit as she came to her point, the cogs in her brain clearly whirring at a higher speed than they were used to.

"Thing is," she said at last, "you can't just charge in and pull these kids home or to a cop-shop by the ear and expect them to just stick around and clean up their act. That is not how it works. You are not the fuckin' cavalry, and just 'cause you mean well that doesn't mean everything you touch won't turn to shit."

Adrienne shrugged in response to Callisto's statements and questions- the woman had some very good points as far as she was concerned! "That all makes a lot of sense," she replied. "I'd be seeing it the same way if I were you- hell, I'm seeing it the same way and I'm just being me." She wasn't so far removed from the memories of her own home life that she had blinders on to what Callisto was telling her.

"For the record, though, we're just talking about the one kid. Not all of them. We're not charging in to mess with all of their lives or do the police's bidding. And also, we're not really PIs, we're just helping out while Vanessa's business is... needing help." Her voice broke at that, the weight of the situation finally hitting her. All she wanted to do was help Vanessa's business continue to function until she was found, but Adrienne had no clue what she was doing.

"But you're right," she conceded. "How are we supposed to know he'd be better off back home? All I can tell you is that from what I saw using my powers on his room, his parents aren't monsters. They're decent people. And as someone who grew up with monsters for parents and might have chosen a homeless shelter rather than living with them if she hadn't had other options, I like to think I have a barometer on the subject. His parents are hurt and confused and worried that Horgan took off the way he did, so they asked Warren to find some answers for them. Right?" she asked Warren, hoping he could intercede.

"I know who you are," Warren replied, finally placing Callisto's face. It had taken him awhile, but it had clicked. She'd worked with the X-Men when the students had gone missing, helped find them in the tunnels. He glanced around to see if people were paying attention to them, but strangely the area had completely emptied.

"Callisto, Adrienne's a teacher at Xavier's. I'm an X-Man. I went to school at Xavier's. We're helping out Bishop while Vanessa's missing. Neither of us want to do anything to make life more difficult for anyone, and if I thought returning the kid to his parents was going to make things worse for him, then I'd talk to everyone and make other arrangements. But they're honestly worried about him, and from I can tell, the difficulties that drove him to leave home had nothing to do with him being a mutant, it was the trouble he'd been getting into with his new friends. Kids fall in with the wrong crowd all the time, but how often do their parents hire private investigators to find them when they run away?"

Callisto still looked decidedly uncertain, that thoughtful (or 'trying-to-think') frown still in place, brow furrowed, lips pursed. "There are maybe a few alleys I can look into."

The distinct impression was that Callisto was not being metaphorical in this instance.

"But you're gonna have to back off and gimme some space to that, 'kay? I'll come to you when I've got something."

Adrienne's eyes widened hopefully at Callisto's remarks. "While Callisto looks into stuff can I go home and have a nap and a bath to try and force my brain to stop leaking out of my ears?" she asked Warren, in much the same tone as a child asking for a pony for Christmas. "And by home, I mean Vanessa's place?"

Callisto's eyes widened slightly from this. "Vanessa? As in, Vanessa who was Morgan?" As the others' look confirmed this, her expression settled slightly back into that thoughtful pout. "...Huh. Uh. Okay."

Warren nodded at that. "Yes, that Vanessa." Warren didn't comment much further - he was doing his best not to think about her too much while he was trying to work. "I'll give you my number, you can call me any time. Or just drop into the XFI office, I'm there most of the time."

He pulled out his wallet, fishing out an old business card from when he worked for his father. He scribbled out his numbers on there, writing down his cell number, the office number and the office address before handing it to Callisto.

"Thank you for your help. I truly appreciate it." He turned to look at Adrienne, a grin starting to form.

"And yes, we can go home now. I'll even make sure there is food and booze of your choice waiting for you when you're done with the bath."